Guild Wars 2

Just a PSA, DO NOT BUY DEEPLY DISCOUNTED FRACTAL KEYES. SELL YOUR BOXES. I do 40 fractal farms and can not believe most people buy keys and open their boxes and getting on average maybe a 10s profit per box when they can sell it straight up in the TP for as much as 30s. My guess is most people don’t take into consideration that each key also costs 20s so u have to subtract that amount from the profit you make per box. So if you got a 30s junk item, you didn’t make 30s off that box, you made 10s. Just wanted to spread this around because of the false information I’ve been seeing.

The only time you should ever open ur boxes is when you get the free keys from your fractal dailys, otherwise sell it.

I only do T4 Fractal dailies and find that I always get enough keys to open all the boxes I get during those runs. Sometimes I even have 1 or 2 keys left. Before the spring patch I always had to buy extra keys, but even then a full run of Fractal dailies, after subtracting the cost of extra keys, always earned me between 10 and 15G per day. So I don’t really see the problem here.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

always earned me between 10 and 15G per day. So I don’t really see the problem here.

Pretty much the same experience.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

I only do T4 Fractal dailies and find that I always get enough keys to open all the boxes I get during those runs. Sometimes I even have 1 or 2 keys left. Before the spring patch I always had to buy extra keys, but even then a full run of Fractal dailies, after subtracting the cost of extra keys, always earned me between 10 and 15G per day. So I don’t really see the problem here.

He clearly stated fractal 40 farming, I assure you that you do not get te keys to open the hundreds of boxes you’ll have from doing that. With that said, he is sure to tank the price if people follow his advice anyway.

Dinks.2478:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

I only do T4 Fractal dailies and find that I always get enough keys to open all the boxes I get during those runs. Sometimes I even have 1 or 2 keys left. Before the spring patch I always had to buy extra keys, but even then a full run of Fractal dailies, after subtracting the cost of extra keys, always earned me between 10 and 15G per day. So I don’t really see the problem here.

He clearly stated fractal 40 farming, I assure you that you do not get te keys to open the hundreds of boxes you’ll have from doing that. With that said, he is sure to tank the price if people follow his advice anyway.

So he should’ve stated that this only applies to farming 1 specific level. He said he does lvl 40 farms, but he doesn’t say that his “PSA” only applies to that. Besides, the majority of people do not farm lvl 40 ad infinitum (judging from the LFG, where lvl 40 farms are far from the majority of posts in the list at any time of the day or night). The thread title could also have been much more specific. In fact, the thread title is about as general as it gets (only a thread title like “Fractals” would be even more general). On top of that, he treats it as if buying even one single key is a waste of money (saying you should only open them when you get keys from your daily chests).

Also, you don’t have to buy keys with gold. For people swimming in stabilizing matrices who do not need them for anything, it’s a perfect way to get rid of those. I assume OP knows for a fact that these people he’s talking about buy their keys with gold instead of matrices.

The OP is really more of an opinion than a PSA. I’m averaging about 50s per encryption (individual results may vary) for the junk items. That’s still 30s profit per box if I buy keys and that doesn’t include for the mats or other stuff I get. Plus I’m still working on the collection for the junk items.

You always get a junk item worth at least 20s so worst case you break even, again not counting the mats or other items you get. Each individual can decide for them self if they are better off buying a key or selling the box. For some people it might not be just about the profit.

Does the fractal level really matter? They all stack together so they would be the same no matter what level you get them from.

I can’t help but wonder if the OP is just trying to get the price down so they can buy cheaper.

I don’t think level matters per se on this, except that the point may be irrelevant (not false, but irrelevant) at higher fractal levels because you don’t need to buy keys with silver anyway.

I believe that the claim is that the money returns on an encryption minus the cost of a key (when purchased with silver) is less than what you can get by selling an encryption on the TP.

If you have keys, then you can count the keys as free, so that calculation doesn’t apply. If you have stabilizing matrices, then you want to compare the return from a key vs selling the matrices on the TP.

So, to summarize, you want to look at:

• If you have a key, return from box vs selling box on TP.
• If you have extra stabilizing matrices, selling matrices vs return from box-selling box on TP.
• If you have neither, return from box – price of key (w/ silver) vs selling box on TP.

Finally, I will point out that boxes are that price because someone is buying them at that price. That might be because they have enough keys that it is profitable to buy, or because they are hunting for fractal skins or other rare drops.

kitten.4078:

The OP is really more of an opinion than a PSA. I’m averaging about 50s per encryption (individual results may vary) for the junk items.
Does the fractal level really matter? They all stack together so they would be the same no matter what level you get them from.

Based on data I’ve collected from redditors, 50s/cracked is pretty close to average and about 85-90% of that value is from the ‘junk’, which isn’t reduced by TP fees. The OP is trying to compare that number (which yes, can sometimes be below 30s for a single box) to the TP’s lowest sale offer, currently around 30s — that number is always reduced by ~15% (varying a bit, depending on how aggressive you are in choosing a sale price).

Overall, you’re guaranteed — in the long run — of making more total money from buying highly-discounted keys to open encryptions you collect (rather than buy). However, the difference is small. So my advice is:

• If you want the most coin for the least effort, sell the encryptions for the most you can get.
• If you want the most absolute coin and a tiny, tiny chance for an aetherized skin (and you don’t mind a little trouble), buy highly-discounted keys.

kitten.4078:

I can’t help but wonder if the OP is just trying to get the price down so they can buy cheaper.

Eh, just because someone offers misguided or misleading advice doesn’t mean their motivations need to be suspect. People certainly use posts to influence the market, but it’s also likely that people are genuinely interested in helping others… and just skipped a step in the math or the logic that lead them to an unhelpful conclusion.

Consequently, I don’t think the OP’s motivations really matter: if their advice is accurate, then great — people should take it anyhow. If their advice is inaccurate, than it’s easy enough to demonstrate that and most people will respond accordingly.

The chief advantage in this interpretation is that it allows the OP to change their mind, rather than feel the need to go on the defensive. The first allows for more interesting discussions; the second generally leads to tedious arguments about whether 1+1 = 2 or 1+1 = 10 (base 2, of course) or 1+1 = 11.

I buy ordered 250 to open @ 28s or so, lost like 10g heh.

It feels like it’s better to open if you farm it yourself (due to TP fees) but worse to open if you’re buying it which seems to make sense. Obviously if you have no mastery best to sell it on TP

I’ve taken to only opening them with keys I get as drops and selling the rest on the TP. That’s only 4 or 5 a day, but it saves me the trouble of going back into the Observatory to buy more keys and, more importantly, I end up with less of the atrocious drops to get rid of. If I never see an ascended breather recipe again, it will be too soon.

I will tell you how it is for me on daily basis. I do 2 daily fractals + 3 T4 daily fractals. After I’m done I have already gotten some keys but I always buy them the same amount as I have the Inscriptions – I buy the deeply discounted ones for 20s. Every day when I sell everything as a junk to NPC I get at least good 10g.

My personal fractal lvl is 90+ if that has anything to do with it, but honestly doing daily fractals is currently the least time consuming and rewarding – beside normal daily for 2g. WTF are dungeons heh?

I dunno, people spend money and gold on gems to get keys for a chance at claim tickets to get skins. Seems playing the lottery with the worst outcome being to break even with encryptions sounds like the way to go for me. Not to mention, I’m still not complete on the collections and need that dropped materials too.