Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to raise a topic that’s been on my mind for a while that I think should get fixed as it kind of defeats some of the purposes of that system existing in the first place.

Before I go on the issues I just thought to mention that the idea of ascended boxes is a good one, because you will still need to craft an ascended set to get into fractals in the first place so it doesn’t take away from crafting, and helps you get multiple characters geared and ready to go so you can build different compositions and be a better asset to any party.

With that in mind, there are some issues. First of all, the fractal ascended box vendor. I don’t know who came up with these prices, but last time I checked you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages. It should be drastically reduced. My suggestion: Have two options, matrices + pages or gold + pages. This will do best to preserve the value of matrices. If you don’t have a gold option matrices will spike, as they will provide a cheaper way to get ascended gear, and vice versa if you don’t have a matrix option.

Secondly, I don’t know if everyone has this, but it’s getting pretty frustrating. I get many many many boots or shoulders ascended chests and nothing else. All it does is stack up chests in my bank with no way for me to actually complete a set. It just devalues my excitement from getting ascended chests because “aw its boots again. great.” My suggestion here is like in raids, where you can salvage them to get Magnetite shards to buy the piece you’re missing eventually, something similar should be added where you can trade excess chests for pages, relics, matrices or a combination of the three.

Lastly, Considering it has been stated by the devs themselves that fractals are meant to help you step into the raiding environment, I don’t see a reason to limit stats from fractal chests to not include HoT stats such as viper’s or commander’s that are integral for some builds to work, forcing you to play sub-optimally till you’re an adept raider that can get these from magnetite shards. While the new maps kind of help with this issue, I still find this an issue that devalues fractal rewards in a way that it shouldn’t.

With that said, fractal rewards are better than ever but with these changes they will be even better.

BeLZedaR.4790:

you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages. It should be drastically reduced.

This is intentional — the vendor offers an alternative for those unwilling to craft; it’s not meant to be a substitute path for the rest of us.

BeLZedaR.4790:

I get many many many boots or shoulders ascended chests and nothing else. All it does is stack up chests in my bank with no way for me to actually complete a set.

This is consistent with drop rates for the rest of the game. I find it amusing more than frustrating. Still, it would be nice if you could turn in e.g. 3 boots for one set of leggings or something like that.

In the meantime, I tend to outfit other toons with the boot/shoulder/gloves, since some ascended is better than none.

BeLZedaR.4790:

I don’t see a reason to limit stats from fractal chests to not include HoT stats such as viper’s or commander’s that are integral for some builds to work, forcing you to play sub-optimally till you’re an adept raider that can get these from magnetite shards.

Raids are only available to HoT owners, while Fractals can be managed by anyone. With the recent changes to infusions, there are no longer any important barriers to someone reaching AR150.

For better or worse, it remains ANet’s intention to limit HoT stats to HoT owners. Since owners can easily convert any ascended gear to HoT stats, this doesn’t seem like much of an inconvenience.

tl;dr it would be nice if it were easier to acquire torso & leg pieces; I think we can live without it for now.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

BeLZedaR.4790:

you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages. It should be drastically reduced.

This is intentional — the vendor offers an alternative for those unwilling to craft; it’s not meant to be a substitute path for the rest of us.

BeLZedaR.4790:

I get many many many boots or shoulders ascended chests and nothing else. All it does is stack up chests in my bank with no way for me to actually complete a set.

This is consistent with drop rates for the rest of the game. I find it amusing more than frustrating. Still, it would be nice if you could turn in e.g. 3 boots for one set of leggings or something like that.

In the meantime, I tend to outfit other toons with the boot/shoulder/gloves, since some ascended is better than none.

BeLZedaR.4790:

I don’t see a reason to limit stats from fractal chests to not include HoT stats such as viper’s or commander’s that are integral for some builds to work, forcing you to play sub-optimally till you’re an adept raider that can get these from magnetite shards.

Raids are only available to HoT owners, while Fractals can be managed by anyone. With the recent changes to infusions, there are no longer any important barriers to someone reaching AR150.

For better or worse, it remains ANet’s intention to limit HoT stats to HoT owners. Since owners can easily convert any ascended gear to HoT stats, this doesn’t seem like much of an inconvenience.

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tl;dr it would be nice if it were easier to acquire torso & leg pieces; I think we can live without it for now.

i would like to note that anet said they were looking into making hot stats available through fractals but only to HOT owners. sadly thats not a easy thing to do.

BeLZedaR.4790:

Secondly, I don’t know if everyone has this, but it’s getting pretty frustrating. I get many many many boots or shoulders ascended chests and nothing else. All it does is stack up chests in my bank with no way for me to actually complete a set.

Since 19/04 patch, I keep track of ascended boxes drop quality.

I’ve done 225 complete dailies for 2 700 dailies chests in total (T1+T2+T3+T4).

Weapons : 16
Armors : 30

Among armors :
Gloves : 5
Helmets : 5
Legs : 3
Boots : 5
Shoulders : 11
Chests : 1

1 complete set since 19/04 patch from fractals.

You are right. The prices are ridiculous. Especially compared to the other means of buying ascended gear in raids and pvp (since season 5).

Cheapest pieces compared:

Fractals: 50g + 180 stabilizing matrizies (59g) + 270 relics + 20 Research Pages (max. 21 per week)

Raids: 5g + 150 magnetite shards (max. 150 per week)

I agree the prices should be balanced and i would aslo go as far as to say that there need to be diff pricing for tiers that dont require you to have a full asc set and tiers that do (asc stuff cost less in t4 and you buy with some gold and tickets you get for clearing t4 only or even tier 3 for those who want to make more sets ) just because pve makes gold that doesnt mean that gold sits there only for asc stuff and that doesnt mean because ppl make gold in fractals they need t pay stupid amounds of gold for armor/weapons. Hell in pvp yo get the asc the easiest and cheapest and you dont even need it in pvp and theres no excuse for it to be this easy and fast to get if they are that easy and cheap to get in pvp that should be the case in pve too (kind of to balanced lvls ofc but not as overpriced as they are now)

BeLZedaR.4790:

With that in mind, there are some issues. First of all, the fractal ascended box vendor. I don’t know who came up with these prices, but last time I checked you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages. It should be drastically reduced. My suggestion: Have two options, matrices + pages or gold + pages. This will do best to preserve the value of matrices. If you don’t have a gold option matrices will spike, as they will provide a cheaper way to get ascended gear, and vice versa if you don’t have a matrix option.

For the price of the boxes, ANet said that they wanted it to be more expensive than crafting the ascended pieces, so this is intentional. However, they also said that they would be following the price of matrices and if the price of boxes got too high relative to the price of crafting that they might step in and modify the price of the boxes somehow (though they weren’t overly clear on if this meant reducing the liquid gold cost or increasing access to matrices AFAIK).

BeLZedaR.4790:

Secondly, I don’t know if everyone has this, but it’s getting pretty frustrating. I get many many many boots or shoulders ascended chests and nothing else. All it does is stack up chests in my bank with no way for me to actually complete a set. It just devalues my excitement from getting ascended chests because “aw its boots again. great.” My suggestion here is like in raids, where you can salvage them to get Magnetite shards to buy the piece you’re missing eventually, something similar should be added where you can trade excess chests for pages, relics, matrices or a combination of the three.

Well as long as you have extras you might as well suit up every toon you have with boots and shoulders at least. Being able to salvage Ascended gear for some fractal related mats would be nice considering that fractals are the only place that require ascended gear in the first place. I think though that if salvaging them gave anything worthwhile that the drop rate of boxes would be adjusted to compensate, so not sure that this would be the best change.

BeLZedaR.4790:

Lastly, Considering it has been stated by the devs themselves that fractals are meant to help you step into the raiding environment, I don’t see a reason to limit stats from fractal chests to not include HoT stats such as viper’s or commander’s that are integral for some builds to work, forcing you to play sub-optimally till you’re an adept raider that can get these from magnetite shards. While the new maps kind of help with this issue, I still find this an issue that devalues fractal rewards in a way that it shouldn’t.

With that said, fractal rewards are better than ever but with these changes they will be even better.

Fractals are open to all players, HoT stats are not available to people who don’t own HoT. I imagine its more work than its worth to make it so that only HoT owners can get HoT stats on ascended gear from fractal boxes.

BeLZedaR.4790:

With that in mind, there are some issues. First of all, the fractal ascended box vendor. I don’t know who came up with these prices, but last time I checked you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages.

Did you include the cost of levelling a crafting profession to grandmaster? Leatherworking, for example, costs over 110g to get from 0 to 500. gw2crafts.net has regularly updated pricing. Regardless, you’re paying the upcharge of convenience. No time gates

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

BeLZedaR.4790:

With that in mind, there are some issues. First of all, the fractal ascended box vendor. I don’t know who came up with these prices, but last time I checked you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages.

Did you include the cost of levelling a crafting profession to grandmaster? Leatherworking, for example, costs over 110g to get from 0 to 500. gw2crafts.net has regularly updated pricing. Regardless, you’re paying the upcharge of convenience. No time gates

Part of the price is journal pages, which is also a timegate.

(and yes, if you include the price of raising crafting proficiency to 500, crafting is still cheaper).

Astralporing.1957:

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

BeLZedaR.4790:

With that in mind, there are some issues. First of all, the fractal ascended box vendor. I don’t know who came up with these prices, but last time I checked you pay 2x the cost to actually craft the item in addition to the daily gated pages.

Did you include the cost of levelling a crafting profession to grandmaster? Leatherworking, for example, costs over 110g to get from 0 to 500. gw2crafts.net has regularly updated pricing. Regardless, you’re paying the upcharge of convenience. No time gates

Part of the price is journal pages, which is also a timegate.

(and yes, if you include the price of raising crafting proficiency to 500, crafting is still cheaper).

Last time I did the math, crafting was cheaper if you make as few as two items. (For one item, it might be a push.)