Questions about legendary sigil swapping
I’m not sure why it matters what players think. The point made by the developers was that they, too, thought it was easy to add this until they looked at the implications in detail. There’s something significant that we are missing and it’s likely that the devs aren’t going to describe what it is until they can resolve it (lest they affect the market prematurely).
Answers to the OP’s specific questions:
- Sigils are different because typically people use only 4 per active set and often not the same ones. Runes are used 6 (or 7) at a time, usually identically. People also own legendary weapons now; no one owned legendary armor before last week.
- Yes, some people buy lots of sigils and swap them for content. Probably not Bursting & Force.
- Some people do acquire secondary exotics. However, if you’re the kind of person who swaps for each encounter: it’s easier to stack sigils than weapons, you care deeply about a few % DPS (which doesn’t matter to the likelihood of success; it only matters for speed).
- Of course far more people use exotics and ascended and nearly everyone uses them for some situations. But legendary weapons are relatively easy to acquire and if there’s a major change to them, the numbers of people who want them might change. Put another way, it’s not that the fraction of people with legendaries is high; it’s that it’s a lot of actual weapons out there.
- With the overwriting of sigils, it’s probably not important “how often” as much as what the impact of that is on the demand and distribution.
- The last question is a bit naive. I don’t overwrite now; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth to me. But if I could buy once and swap easily, I’d do it all the time. And on top of that, I’d be more likely to make a legendary to fill a common niche.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I grant that Anet is privy to hidden data we are not aware of. That info might be the main issue. But I think it is possible to make some educated guess based on what we players know.
it’s easier to stack sigils than weapons
How so? A sigil takes up 1 bag slot. A weapon (with the sigil in it) takes up 1 bag slot.
- With the overwriting of sigils, it’s probably not important “how often” as much as what the impact of that is on the demand and distribution.
Doesn’t “how often” directly impact demand? The more often players overwrite sigils, the more often they need new sigils. Theoretically if “how often” is a low number, then a swapping feature would have minimal impact.
- The last question is a bit naive. I don’t overwrite now; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth to me. But if I could buy once and swap easily, I’d do it all the time. And on top of that, I’d be more likely to make a legendary to fill a common niche.
My point with that question is to point out there is no consequential difference to the economy either way.
- Either you never swap because you have your sigils and it’s too expensive to overwrite them.
- Or you swap all the time because you (again) have your sigils, but can swap them without destroying them.
What I’m positing here is that people don’t just recklessly overwrite expensive sigils regardless of the cost. If they don’t overwrite, then what purpose do they have for buying more sigils?
The answer to that question is they have to buy the sigils they don’t already have, which would still be the case even with legendary swapping.
So basically from what you are telling me is the best reason this would harm the economy is by pushing more people into making more legendaries in order to take advantage of the feature. That would push demand for all the crafting materials of legendaries up, which would drive the prices up. Maybe this is what would ruin the economy? I really don’t think people buy that many extra sigils and overwrite. I think they buy what they need and that’s it. If people only buy what they need, how is that any different from buying the sigils they need to swap into their legendary?
You’re probably right about some of your points. I just don’t know. I’m trying to figure out why exactly this feature would be so deadly to the economy and Anet has only hinted they are worried about it, but haven’t given details.
it’s easier to stack sigils than weapons
How so? A sigil takes up 1 bag slot. A weapon (with the sigil in it) takes up 1 bag slot.
If people were only swapping a single sigil, that would be true. But people swap all sorts of sigils. So let me rephrase, “it’s easier to stack several sigils to use over all weapon sets than to keep a separate weapon for each type of encounter.”
A common min-max scenario is to swap in a slaying sigil appropriate to each encounter, e.g. “of justice” against a slew of foes and so on. Min-maxers tend to have a weapon that slots in cheap sigils and another for “of night” and another for non-nighttime encounters.
On the face of it, I can’t see why this matters either, but that’s my point — I don’t think anyone at ANet did either, until they dug deeper in ways that simply aren’t available to us.
- With the overwriting of sigils, it’s probably not important “how often” as much as what the impact of that is on the demand and distribution.
Doesn’t “how often” directly impact demand? The more often players overwrite sigils, the more often they need new sigils. Theoretically if “how often” is a low number, then a swapping feature would have minimal impact.
Sure. My point is that “how often” isn’t the only consideration. It could be that ANet is comparing how often people swap stats on legendaries + sigils to just stats to what people do when they don’t have a legendary for that niche.
- The last question is a bit naive. I don’t overwrite now; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth to me. But if I could buy once and swap easily, I’d do it all the time. And on top of that, I’d be more likely to make a legendary to fill a common niche.
My point with that question is to point out there is no consequential difference to the economy either way.
OF course there is. If it’s easier to swap after a mechanic change, more people will do that more often.
The problem with the questions that you’re asking is that they are only financial in nature, and that’s unlikely to be the only consideration. What is going on has to be more complicated than what we can guess, because if we’ve had plenty of time to speculate as to why there’s been a delay in this feature — the community has been suggesting ways to improve the QoL for upgrades since 2013, not just since we learned of the specific solution that ANet has introduced for runes.
I’m actually more concerned that ANet hasn’t told us why they are using the simplest possible solution for runes. In effect, what they’ve given us is an unlimited upgrade salvage tool that works only on legendary armor. That leaves the upgrade system alone, along with all its myriad of QoL and gameplay issues.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
- Why are sigils so different from runes economically?
The major difference I see is in the number of owners of legendary armor vs weapons. The armor is harder to get, hence ANet expect a much smaller number of players and therefore a much smaller impact on the economy.
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I have actually learned quite a bit from this lol. Thanks. I hope Anet provides some details on whichever decision they come to…