Guild Wars 2

The bling merchant got my hopes up when I noticed it offered 28 journal pages for completed journals. Unfortunately, there’s nothing worth spending those pages on.

ascendent armor and weapons

daw.4923:

ascendent armor and weapons

…have you seen the non-page part of the price? At least vendoring journals gets you some coins, instead of being a total loss, as in this case.

its only like 10-20g more than crafting and doesnt require having 500 crafts so… whatever. its not like fractal goers cant afford the gold cost. especially since you can choose. there should be a nominal cost for the ability to choose (vs rng), and crafting isnt obsoleted.

it looks like it was balanced with maybe a target price of ~30s for matrices and whatever the current ascended mats price is, and demand is high right now cuz matrices are the new shiny (again) so the prices are a bit off from what crafting would be.

Just 10-20 gold? A Zojja’s Breastplate costs close to double at the new merchant. The needed matrices alone are worth about 100g. I can craft 2 ascended coats for the price of buying a single one at Bling-9009.

On topic: How about a chest which you can open with a key that costs regular fractal relics? Similar to the chest in the Silverwastes, you can spam it as long as you have keys. That should provide an infinite fractal relic sink.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Just 10-20 gold? A Zojja’s Breastplate costs close to double at the new merchant. The needed matrices alone are worth about 100g. I can craft 2 ascended coats for the price of buying a single one at Bling-9009.

I was thinking the same.

I like the new stuff addiction but I think they need a little balance to reflect the actual economy.

Raids and crafting armor/weapons are really more affordables.

Well, they did admit already that they introduced this only because of people complaining they don’t like to craft, but they never intended anyone to actually use that option. It was never meant to be anything beyond a fig leaf.
So, completely useless.

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Compare the prices of stats that cost most to craft then… It’s still the same… (and that’s even when ignoring that you can craft the cheapest version and stat-change in forge nowadays).

Astralporing.1957:

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Compare the prices of stats that cost most to craft then… It’s still the same… (and that’s even when ignoring that you can craft the cheapest version and stat-change in forge nowadays).

It’s meant to be more expensive. Your paying for not having to carft, timegate, pool of stats, not using T6. It’s just more options and like you say, you can just craft if you really want to

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

I don’t really understand what you mean by this. You can’t change stats on the fly, you have to pick one in order to use the armor, which makes it no better than crafting. Also, it only takes about 10g to change stats either way. Are you buying/crafting before you know what stat of armor you want or something?

Fluffy.1932:

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

I don’t really understand what you mean by this. You can’t change stats on the fly, you have to pick one in order to use the armor, which makes it no better than crafting. Also, it only takes about 10g to change stats either way. Are you buying/crafting before you know what stat of armor you want or something?

Yea nah, fair point.

Sarahfull.4930:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Compare the prices of stats that cost most to craft then… It’s still the same… (and that’s even when ignoring that you can craft the cheapest version and stat-change in forge nowadays).

It’s meant to be more expensive. Your paying for not having to carft, timegate, pool of stats, not using T6. It’s just more options and like you say, you can just craft if you really want to

Pool of stats is the same – as fluffy said, that you can choose stats at a slightly different stage doesn’t really matter. And the fractal option is timegated too (as it requires pages). Except you can skip timegate on crafting by buying those mats from TP.
Also, i don’t understand what kind of advantage “not using T6” is compared to say, “not using matrices”. Yeah, it uses different materials, but you will most likely end up buying those anyway.

Astralporing.1957:

Sarahfull.4930:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Compare the prices of stats that cost most to craft then… It’s still the same… (and that’s even when ignoring that you can craft the cheapest version and stat-change in forge nowadays).

It’s meant to be more expensive. Your paying for not having to carft, timegate, pool of stats, not using T6. It’s just more options and like you say, you can just craft if you really want to

Pool of stats is the same – as fluffy said, that you can choose stats at a slightly different stage doesn’t really matter. And the fractal option is timegated too (as it requires pages). Except you can skip timegate on crafting by buying those mats from TP.
Also, i don’t understand what kind of advantage “not using T6” is compared to say, “not using matrices”. Yeah, it uses different materials, but you will most likely end up buying those anyway.

Different stage yea, slightly I don’t think so. Haha I forgot about the pages, I was still doing the recommended so I have enough to not look at that =) good point with that, that would sloow down much more than the crafting. In terms of T6 some people might want to keep them for legendaries and/or other things that use T6 blood etc

Sarahfull.4930:

Astralporing.1957:

Sarahfull.4930:

You do realise that you can choose the stats from a pool. With crafting your going all in on one stat. Like you can choose from all stats with powet major etc.. That’s also included in the costs..

Compare the prices of stats that cost most to craft then… It’s still the same… (and that’s even when ignoring that you can craft the cheapest version and stat-change in forge nowadays).

It’s meant to be more expensive. Your paying for not having to carft, timegate, pool of stats, not using T6. It’s just more options and like you say, you can just craft if you really want to

Depending on the stat you may still have to craft.

For example the most expensive armor piece to craft is a Pahua’s Doublet which cost 111g.

To get that from the fractal vendor it is 70g + 90gworth of matrices + another 31g to craft the exotic trailblazer insignia which requires a lv400 crafter. So it is still time gated due to the pages, requires crafting and t6 due to the insignia.

as if journal pages are not timegated… they attached an absolutely ridiculous gold cost to the journal-bought asc pieces, as if forgetting that just accruing hundreds of pages takes many weeks

To me, I don’t see it as a bad thing, or that it’s over cost. To others though, it is. And no matter what I say people will pick it apart.

Like it or not, it’s a viable alternative.

For those that don’t care to craft, or are veteran runners (with excess pages/matrices/relics/etc. and due to bad rng, a lack of chests) it’s a viable alternative.

Nothing wrong with having options

Mourningcry.9428:

Like it or not, it’s a viable alternative.

For those that don’t care to craft, or are veteran runners (with excess pages/matrices/relics/etc. and due to bad rng, a lack of chests) it’s a viable alternative.

Nothing wrong with having options

It’s not exactly viable when you could sell the mats needed to buy a box from the NPC and go craft the piece in question from that money alone, ignoring the other costs.
It’s a choice and you may do it, but comparing to crafting it definitely isn’t viable.

Viable – yes. Optimal – no.

Mourningcry.9428:

Viable – yes. Optimal – no.

It is a viable option in the meaning that yes, it does exist. Because it obviously does. It’s not viable in any meaning beyond that however.

You know, it’s like picking the worst possible weapon, skill, trait and stat combination for your class. It’s a viable combination, but calling it an alternative to any of the good builds is definitely stretching the meaning of that word.

I think the current Fractal ascended costs are ridiculous because I have tons of relics/pristines, and this current system actively discourages me from spending any of them just because I already have L500 crafting for every discipline already. What gives?

Make ascended gear cost an extreme amount of relics so that even if it’s cheaper than crafting in gold you have to invest a huge amount of time to get the relics. Most people will still craft because it can be done with no time investment (just buy everything on TP). Heck, just the idea of time gating the ascended gear with fractal journal pages will discourage people from grinding fractals for it instead of crafting. Buying ascended from Fractals should be a reasonable thing for veteran players to do, not a total waste of gold.

Maybe they could make it so you can only buy one ascended item from the vendor per week – that way it would work in effect more like the raid vendor does where its just a slow small drip of ascendeds that can supplement crafting (or, replace crafting if you are very patient). Relics need a long term sink beyond the one off purchases of the infinite pots, and a daily/weekly gated vendor could provide that without fractal vets totally crashing the market.

I’d pay gold, laurels, badges of honour or any other suitable currency available through wvw or open world pve in order to buy fractal relics from other players for the ability to infuse rings/back item.

Astralporing.1957:

Mourningcry.9428:

Viable – yes. Optimal – no.

It is a viable option in the meaning that yes, it does exist. Because it obviously does. It’s not viable in any meaning beyond that however.

You know, it’s like picking the worst possible weapon, skill, trait and stat combination for your class. It’s a viable combination, but calling it an alternative to any of the good builds is definitely stretching the meaning of that word.

Viability is not equivalent to, or a substitute for efficiency – which is what you’re alluding to, and to which I never did.

I thought no matter what number of relics anet makes, anyone can " just " do stuff like the level40 farm untill they have enough and that is why we have a high gold cost.

The idea of once a week though, I’m coming up blank with a counter to that. Seems like that could work well

Sarahfull.4930:

I thought no matter what number of relics anet makes, anyone can " just " do stuff like the level40 farm untill they have enough and that is why we have a high gold cost.

This doesn’t work if you also have journal page and/or pristine fractal relics as part of the cost.

Sarahfull.4930:

The idea of once a week though, I’m coming up blank with a counter to that. Seems like that could work well

I don’t know how many players would buy into an artificial time gate like that. I’d much rather they use pristine fractal relics, which are limited in number per day, to prevent people from speed farming ascended gear. This wouldn’t impede the 10000+ pristine relic veterans by design.

rfdarko.4639:

Maybe they could make it so you can only buy one ascended item from the vendor per week – that way it would work in effect more like the raid vendor does where its just a slow small drip of ascendeds that can supplement crafting (or, replace crafting if you are very patient). Relics need a long term sink beyond the one off purchases of the infinite pots, and a daily/weekly gated vendor could provide that without fractal vets totally crashing the market.

Don’t the time gated journal pages basically already do that? Though It’s more than a week for most pieces isn’t (stupid censor) it?

Rising Dusk.2408:

Sarahfull.4930:

I thought no matter what number of relics anet makes, anyone can " just " do stuff like the level40 farm untill they have enough and that is why we have a high gold cost.

This doesn’t work if you also have journal page and/or pristine fractal relics as part of the cost.

Sarahfull.4930:

The idea of once a week though, I’m coming up blank with a counter to that. Seems like that could work well

I don’t know how many players would buy into an artificial time gate like that. I’d much rather they use pristine fractal relics, which are limited in number per day, to prevent people from speed farming ascended gear. This wouldn’t impede the 10000+ pristine relic veterans by design.

True, pristine are gated as well. That could work. If a completely new person goes for ascendent gear, they need a months worth of laurels. Would it be a months worth of pristine too?

Sarahfull.4930:

True, pristine are gated as well. That could work. If a completely new person goes for ascendent gear, they need a months worth of laurels. Would it be a months worth of pristine too?

If it cost a much lower amount of gold akin to raid costs, I’d easily fork out 100+ pristines for a piece of ascended armor.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

rfdarko.4639:

Maybe they could make it so you can only buy one ascended item from the vendor per week – that way it would work in effect more like the raid vendor does where its just a slow small drip of ascendeds that can supplement crafting (or, replace crafting if you are very patient). Relics need a long term sink beyond the one off purchases of the infinite pots, and a daily/weekly gated vendor could provide that without fractal vets totally crashing the market.

Don’t the time gated journal pages basically already do that? Though It’s more than a week for most pieces isn’t (stupid censor) it?

The problem is there are people who have saved up the pages since they came out nearly a year ago, so it would be a time gate for people just starting but vets could just dump their savings. Having an artificial time gate solves the problem of the vendor being implemented with an already existing token system. The same goes for pristines. In terms of impeding veterans, you kind of have to if you want the currencies to have any value at all. I had nearly 3k relics saved prepatch and even I don’t want a system where i could dump all of them day one and get mass amounts of ascended gear instantly. I also don’t want the pristine cost to be so high, just to compensate for people like me, that in alienates people just starting. I’d rather have the chance to slowly over the course of months offload my relic savings in a way that doesn’t hurt the market or the value of ascendeds, rather than continue to let them pile up because anet can’t balance a token system that people have been saving from for nearly 4 years.

Pages are a good limiter. Even though they appeared nearly a year ago, they accumulate really slowly so there isn’t anyone with really massive number of them (~700 would be max at the moment, right? And that’s for people that raided daily, did the numbered dailies always, and didn’t progress the legendary collection). A journal worth of pages for a single box would be a good compromise, in my opinion.

rfdarko.4639:

The problem is there are people who have saved up the pages since they came out nearly a year ago, so it would be a time gate for people just starting but vets could just dump their savings. Having an artificial time gate solves the problem of the vendor being implemented with an already existing token system. The same goes for pristines. In terms of impeding veterans, you kind of have to if you want the currencies to have any value at all.

Pristine fractal relics currently cannot impact the economy in any appreciable way. Regardless of that, the only people who have inordinate amounts of the currency already have invested in other means to getting ascended gear in order to get to the point where they can easily get so much of the currency in the first place. It would be very different if you could sell ascended gear on the TP, but you can’t. As a result, allowing veteran fractal players to spend 20g + 100 pristine + 1 fractal journal per ascended armor piece wouldn’t be a problem at all, and would actually add value to an otherwise dead currency.

Rising Dusk.2408:

rfdarko.4639:

The problem is there are people who have saved up the pages since they came out nearly a year ago, so it would be a time gate for people just starting but vets could just dump their savings. Having an artificial time gate solves the problem of the vendor being implemented with an already existing token system. The same goes for pristines. In terms of impeding veterans, you kind of have to if you want the currencies to have any value at all.

Pristine fractal relics currently cannot impact the economy in any appreciable way. Regardless of that, the only people who have inordinate amounts of the currency already have invested in other means to getting ascended gear in order to get to the point where they can easily get so much of the currency in the first place. It would be very different if you could sell ascended gear on the TP, but you can’t. As a result, allowing veteran fractal players to spend 20g + 100 pristine + 1 fractal journal per ascended armor piece wouldn’t be a problem at all, and would actually add value to an otherwise dead currency.

That’s two weeks of grind. If you have all the fractal masteries, you would easily make that coin in that time and you would have left over Pristine relics..
I take it 20g is how mich the raids ask for?

If you HAD to replace that coin cost with X amount of integrated matrix or whatever it’s called, how much would you um.. Think is fair? Again, if you HAD to have them instead of gold.

Well, it’s hard to know what the Integrated Fractal Matrix number should/would be because it depends heavily on the value of a stabilizing matrix. Currently each integrated matrix is worth ~5g, so if you did something like 10 Integrated Matrices + 50 Pristine Fractal Relics + 1 Fractal Journal it would probably be pretty fair. I’m sure a proper economist could come up with something a bit more ideal, but something in that ballpark would lure me to actually spend my currencies on ascended gear from Fractals (which is really the point).

And again, the point isn’t that you could do it faster via other means. Crafting is—by design—intended to be the fastest approach. I can throw 80g+ at the TP and build an ascended anything in ten minutes if I want to. The idea is you’re trading the gold cost for some time spent in Fractals using Fractals currencies/trophies, which actually rewards players for playing the content. Right now no veteran Fractal player is using any of their currencies at the current prices, which is a real shame and missed opportunity for ANet.

P.S. You can see raid ascended gear costs here. They’re actually lower than what I’m proposing for Fractals, but that’s OK as long as its not too high.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I can throw 80g+ at the TP and build an ascended anything in ten minutes if I want to.

Wish I could say the same, kitten Dragonite.

“if the primary cost was a token instead of gold, we wouldn’t be able to use either Pristines or Research Pages as players have had to long time to stockpile those already” – Anet_Sean on reddit. . I’m playing devil’s advocate here because obviously they consider it an issue, and I think even if you disagree that it is an issue it doesn’t need to be make or break. You’d still get to spend your pristines, and as you said if you have a mass stockpile your probably sitting on a bunch of ascendeds anyway and don’t “need” a bunch more.

Definitely an artificial gate would be tedious but I think they are worried about devaluing ascended gear in an abstract sense even if it doesn’t directly effect the gold market. I guess my thought is, if the timegate would make 100 pristine option more palpable to anet, would it really be so bad?