Guild Wars 2

How to make the game ‘more’ fun and less grindy..

Currently it is extremely expensive to test new builds in WvW/PVE content due to high costs of runes/sigils.

This is a major barrier to having ‘fun’ and testing stuff until you get things that would work for you in a PVE/WvW.

Some runes are very expensive to get (Strength/Scholar/Leadership/Thorn) resulting in players being reluctant to replace runes as it destroys the current set or requiring another ascended armor set for a character.

I suggest the following to help fix this:

Ascended Armor:
Add an ability to ‘save’ which rune you have unlocked per piece of ascended armor.

Why?
Currently it is expensive to swap a rune set on ascended armor for specific purposes – e.g. Raiding/Dungeons/WvW/Open World
This would also make groups able to change rune sets for content more easily and optimise a group as needed for the activity being played.

What would the effect be on the economy?
Runes:
Short-Term: Increase in niche/standard runes so they are unlocked on ascended armor.
Long-Term: Stability in the market across more runes as players unlock niche runes on armor. This would also encourage players to get some of the HoT Runes for unlocking on an ascended armor set (Leadership/Thorn etc).
This would ensure that individuals who want multiple armor sets/toons would be unlocking runes on each character. By requiring a rune unlock on each armor set this does not have the effect of destroying the current economy and still allow people to swap armor between characters.

Armor:
Reduces the need for multiple ascended armor sets with Scholar, Strength, Chrono with the same armor stats.

Ascended Weapons:
Add an ability to ‘save’ which sigil you have unlocked per weapon.
The same logic applies for the ascended armor.

This has the added effect of players requiring less ascended weapons for content and makes the game more accessible for content.

Requirements:
We would require a ‘select sigil/rune’ and would open a window showing what runes/sigils you have available for that weapon/armor.

This would have added benefits of encouraging people to gear towards ascended armor/weapons as a long term goal with unlocked runes/sigils knowing they can swap these at any time for the set they have unlocked on that piece.

The changes above would also be applied to legendary weapons/armor (when released).

That’s why ANet has extractors in the gem store. What you are asking for will spike prices for a short amount of time, be fore everything will become worthless dew to demand drying up. This suggestion has been put out there for about a year now, with the sane arguments for, and against. Not to mention the work ANet will have to do. When it comes to code, nothing is simple. Nit to mention this would kind of make ascended mandatory. As it is now, it optional. You don’t need ascended to do anything but high level fractals, but then that’s not strictly true as infused ascended rings ect can be used to a point.

It’s a big change.
It would likely be much easier to justify dev time when it would benefit far more players than just those with legendaries ( as the rune/sigil unlock for legendaries only is not a new idea).

The flexibility this would add to raids wvw even open world (thinking solo vs zerg as the most obvious difference) would be nice.

Those who are fiercely against a meta would benefit from this just as much as those who want to min/max their squad.
Easier experimentation.
Which doesn’t feel like a punishment for wanting to try a different rune set (Losing the previous rune set having to replace that rune set afterwards.. yuck.)

Then there is the fact it would potentially bump up the price of niche runes. Cause people will inevitably want to unlock different runes for different content.
This also raises the value of a lot of exotic items ( who wants to get an exotic drop then find its only worth 50s? kinda disappointing..)

I do think that build templates would be HIGHLY desirable with this. But that isn’t a bad thing imo.

BrotherBelial.3094:

That’s why ANet has extractors in the gem store. What you are asking for will spike prices for a short amount of time, be fore everything will become worthless dew to demand drying up. This suggestion has been put out there for about a year now, with the sane arguments for, and against. Not to mention the work ANet will have to do. When it comes to code, nothing is simple.

The extractors are 250G/Use – there are very few runes that are worth that.
Right now the extractors may as well not exist – I’m sure the sales of extractors are very low – removing them from the gem-store would not be the end of the world.

you can try most of the runes out for free on spvp.

TPMN.1483:

BrotherBelial.3094:

That’s why ANet has extractors in the gem store. What you are asking for will spike prices for a short amount of time, be fore everything will become worthless dew to demand drying up. This suggestion has been put out there for about a year now, with the sane arguments for, and against. Not to mention the work ANet will have to do. When it comes to code, nothing is simple.

The extractors are 250G/Use – there are very few runes that are worth that.
Right now the extractors may as well not exist – I’m sure the sales of extractors are very low – removing them from the gem-store would not be the end of the world.

Well, the choice is there, if you want to keep your runes and not buy new ones. But then I really don’t think people play with builds as much as some people make out. When people go on about stat swapping on legendary weapons, mine where set to zurker and have never been changed. I know many people who have legendary weapons and didn’t know there stats could be changed after they first set them, and after they knew, they still have never changed them.

And you could always use math.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Well, the choice is there, if you want to keep your runes and not buy new ones.

And you could always use math.

So 51g per extractor is an “option”?

ok.
I’ll let you take your own advice.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Well, the choice is there, if you want to keep your runes and not buy new ones.

And you could always use math.

So 51g per extractor is an “option”?

ok.
I’ll let you take your own advice.

It is, I never said it was a good one.

And this would be a better option than the upgrade extractor.

Honestly, this would have to be added if build templates were to be added. Approval.

DrEckers.2039:

And this would be a better option than the upgrade extractor.

Honestly, this would have to be added if build templates were to be added. Approval.

And sigil and rune prices would fall through the floor, well the ones that are worth anything.

BrotherBelial.3094:

DrEckers.2039:

And this would be a better option than the upgrade extractor.

Honestly, this would have to be added if build templates were to be added. Approval.

And sigil and rune prices would fall through the floor, well the ones that are worth anything.

This. Unless they really nerfed how often you get them.

Anyone remember how common it was to get Unidentified Dyes when you could only unlock them on one character vs how rare it is to get them now that they are unlocked for all characters on the account?

This would have to happen to all runes and sigils out there in order to not tank the rune/sigil market. The drop rate they currently have would have to be lowered very significantly.

BrotherBelial.3094:

DrEckers.2039:

And this would be a better option than the upgrade extractor.

Honestly, this would have to be added if build templates were to be added. Approval.

And sigil and rune prices would fall through the floor, well the ones that are worth anything.

Based on what assumptions?

That people change sigils & runes all the time?

All evidence I’ve seen is to the contrary – that people change sigils/runes as infrequently as possible. Many preferring to craft another asc armor set of the same stats to avoid having to swap runes all the time.

Having to get the sigil/rune for each piece of gear is pretty much the situation we have now. However niche sigil/rune prices would skyrocket – due to being able to effectively apply more than one upgrade to a piece of gear, people wanting to experiment, have them as options, or simply because of completionists wanting every rune possible – I know a few who would do this too.

If the demand for runes/sigils does drop off ( unlikely until every player in the game has every stat gear* with every rune/sigil* on it for every char/class) then there is always tweaking of drop rates.

*desirable and/or useful for current and all future possible metas in all game formats.

Seera.5916:

BrotherBelial.3094:

DrEckers.2039:

And this would be a better option than the upgrade extractor.

Honestly, this would have to be added if build templates were to be added. Approval.

And sigil and rune prices would fall through the floor, well the ones that are worth anything.

This. Unless they really nerfed how often you get them.

Anyone remember how common it was to get Unidentified Dyes when you could only unlock them on one character vs how rare it is to get them now that they are unlocked for all characters on the account?

This would have to happen to all runes and sigils out there in order to not tank the rune/sigil market. The drop rate they currently have would have to be lowered very significantly.

I think we came to the same thought about drop rates and I like your example. I doubt it would need to be altered to quite the extreme that dye was, bearing in mind the suggestion is still requiring unlock PER PIECE of gear ( not per char or per account).

What you think would happen”

What would the effect be on the economy?
Runes:
Short-Term: Increase in niche/standard runes so they are unlocked on ascended armor.
Long-Term: Stability in the market across more runes as players unlock niche runes on armor. This would also encourage players to get some of the HoT Runes for unlocking on an ascended armor set (Leadership/Thorn etc).

This would ensure that individuals who want multiple armor sets/toons would be unlocking runes on each character. By requiring a rune unlock on each armor set this does not have the effect of destroying the current economy and still allow people to swap armor between characters.

Economically speaking what will happen is the direct opposite. Literally the direct opposite. In the Short-Run people will buy up runes, even common ones, to completely deplete the pool of resources. It will not play out as a community pool but almost the direct opposite where prices skyrocket for all runes and sigils and then stay high long-term resulting in a decrease in highly valuable or difficult to attain rune sets and sigils.

To illustrate Mithril went up in price. Now Mithral is more abundant than the air you breathe in that game; it is the primary metal on level 80 equipment so it’s salvaged far more than other metals are since equipment is for player level, it is easy to mine, it has many nodes, and really there would be no way for their to be a shortage. So why did the price rise?

Utility. More stuff needs it and that stuff has amazing utility and permanence, so in your logic the price should have decreased, that is people would relinquish their hold on the resource more easily because there’s simply no reason to hold and hoard the resource but the opposite occurs; the more valuable the resource, esp. when considering one-off behavior, the more it costs!

Demand for Sigils and Runes under this system goes way up, too far up actually, because even with the introduction of more options now you still require six of each one, they have no “resale” value meaning a player buys it once and is done, and they have incredible utility.

Market prices are specifically driven down by marginal utility. When there’s no marginal utility market prices almost always just go up. Obviously there’s nothing marginal to a complete collection of effects to choose from on the fly. In the real world commodities and necessities like food versus furniture work this way; you can’t charge a lot for a banana because it has limited utility; you eat it and it is gone and you will need another one, but you can charge an incredible amount for a sofa despite the sofa costing far less to produce dollar per dollar than the banana because of its long-term utility. One is an investment and one is a sunk cost.

TLDR; Sigils and Runes must never experience this system. It would be an economic catastrophe.

Then what is point of allowing people to swap runes/sigils so easily if player hardly do it?

DGraves.3720:

What you think would happen”

What would the effect be on the economy?
Runes:
Short-Term: Increase in niche/standard runes so they are unlocked on ascended armor.
Long-Term: Stability in the market across more runes as players unlock niche runes on armor. This would also encourage players to get some of the HoT Runes for unlocking on an ascended armor set (Leadership/Thorn etc).

This would ensure that individuals who want multiple armor sets/toons would be unlocking runes on each character. By requiring a rune unlock on each armor set this does not have the effect of destroying the current economy and still allow people to swap armor between characters.

Economically speaking what will happen is the direct opposite. Literally the direct opposite. In the Short-Run people will buy up runes, even common ones, to completely deplete the pool of resources. It will not play out as a community pool but almost the direct opposite where prices skyrocket for all runes and sigils and then stay high long-term resulting in a decrease in highly valuable or difficult to attain rune sets and sigils.

To illustrate Mithril went up in price. Now Mithral is more abundant than the air you breathe in that game; it is the primary metal on level 80 equipment so it’s salvaged far more than other metals are since equipment is for player level, it is easy to mine, it has many nodes, and really there would be no way for their to be a shortage. So why did the price rise?

Utility. More stuff needs it and that stuff has amazing utility and permanence, so in your logic the price should have decreased, that is people would relinquish their hold on the resource more easily because there’s simply no reason to hold and hoard the resource but the opposite occurs; the more valuable the resource, esp. when considering one-off behavior, the more it costs!

Demand for Sigils and Runes under this system goes way up, too far up actually, because even with the introduction of more options now you still require six of each one, they have no “resale” value meaning a player buys it once and is done, and they have incredible utility.

Market prices are specifically driven down by marginal utility. When there’s no marginal utility market prices almost always just go up. Obviously there’s nothing marginal to a complete collection of effects to choose from on the fly. In the real world commodities and necessities like food versus furniture work this way; you can’t charge a lot for a banana because it has limited utility; you eat it and it is gone and you will need another one, but you can charge an incredible amount for a sofa despite the sofa costing far less to produce dollar per dollar than the banana because of its long-term utility. One is an investment and one is a sunk cost.

TLDR; Sigils and Runes must never experience this system. It would be an economic catastrophe.

Going to break up your post to reply – there is several points here.

Mithril – salvage rates got nerfed. Meaning supply went down.
Demand went way up ( guild halls using a few thousand ingots each for example).
More people using things like sharpening stones for raids.
New Legendary collections use this material.

Price went up? No sherlock, really? ( paraphrased due to forum kitties).
Not to sound abusive, but you really shouldn’t have been surprised mithril went up either. it was next to worthless.

Demand for runes/sigils going up – lots are at minimum vendor price. Explain how demand going up for these is a bad thing please?

The final point: you’re talking as if a sigil/rune would be unlocked on a character or account not a single piece of gear. Who’s to say you don’t lose ALL runes on a piece when its forged to get another stat? Then there is wanting new weapons and armor sets for different stats or alts.
Coupled with that many refuse to change the runes they use due to the negative feedback of “overwriting” existing upgrades. The consumption of sigils/runes for those that are currently meta won’t change particularly. The niche runes move off vendor price and those crummy worthless exotics people complain about getting very rarely? They might not be so worthless anymore. Which sounds like a good thing to me ( yay my rare loot is worth more than a 5min ac p1).

flog.3485:

Then what is point of allowing people to swap runes/sigils so easily if player hardly do it?

Indeed. I’m willing to bet most people don’t even change the stats on there legendary weapons.

BrotherBelial.3094:

flog.3485:

Then what is point of allowing people to swap runes/sigils so easily if player hardly do it?

Indeed. I’m willing to bet most people don’t even change the stats on there legendary weapons.

Because people don’t do it largely due to:
1) cost
2)inconvenience ( build templates are on the to-do list so that is largely moot)
3) I do swap stats on legendaries, but not being able to swap sigils vastly limits the use of that. I know plenty who have the exact same complaint about stat swapping.

BrotherBelial.3094:

flog.3485:

Then what is point of allowing people to swap runes/sigils so easily if player hardly do it?

Indeed. I’m willing to bet most people don’t even change the stats on there legendary weapons.

Without being able to swap sigils, too, I don’t know why I’d ever worry about swapping stats.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

BrotherBelial.3094:

flog.3485:

Then what is point of allowing people to swap runes/sigils so easily if player hardly do it?

Indeed. I’m willing to bet most people don’t even change the stats on there legendary weapons.

Because people don’t do it largely due to:
1) cost
2)inconvenience ( build templates are on the to-do list so that is largely moot)
3) I do swap stats on legendaries, but not being able to swap sigils vastly limits the use of that. I know plenty who have the exact same complaint about stat swapping.

I did say most. Sigils don’t cost that much. And lets face it, this game is zurker for the vast majority of it, outside of a few instances..

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Going to break up your post to reply – there is several points here.

Mithril – salvage rates got nerfed. Meaning supply went down.
Demand went way up ( guild halls using a few thousand ingots each for example).
More people using things like sharpening stones for raids.
New Legendary collections use this material.

Price went up? No sherlock, really? ( paraphrased due to forum kitties).
Not to sound abusive, but you really shouldn’t have been surprised mithril went up either. it was next to worthless.

Demand for runes/sigils going up – lots are at minimum vendor price. Explain how demand going up for these is a bad thing please?

The final point: you’re talking as if a sigil/rune would be unlocked on a character or account not a single piece of gear. Who’s to say you don’t lose ALL runes on a piece when its forged to get another stat? Then there is wanting new weapons and armor sets for different stats or alts.
Coupled with that many refuse to change the runes they use due to the negative feedback of “overwriting” existing upgrades. The consumption of sigils/runes for those that are currently meta won’t change particularly. The niche runes move off vendor price and those crummy worthless exotics people complain about getting very rarely? They might not be so worthless anymore. Which sounds like a good thing to me ( yay my rare loot is worth more than a 5min ac p1).

I wrote out a huge response to this but it got long and complicated and there was math. Knowing how much people don’t like the math rather than writing proofs of my point I’ll keep it down to 5 keypoints:

1. Mithril is an inexhaustible resource that is self-produced so supplemental behavior ( that is, supply and demand ) doesn’t really explain why Mithril went up. What does explain it is increased utility, but marginal utility that never decreases, such as permanent installments or abilities or armors, naturally fades so the value will spike and then slowly descend until it has no value again. But there is no shortage of Mithril so demand’s going up wouldn’t be sufficient to explain buying every piece of Mithril from it’s base of 52c to the new base of 1s. This is especially true of guilds which are just community resource pools anyway.

2. Having low prices for sigils is equivalent to what the OP is asking. If you want to explore the value of a sigil in your build if all sigils were 10s this thread wouldn’t exist. The lower the cost the better for all players overall. Higher prices hurt both buyers and sellers because sellers have a harder time offloading and buyers have a harder time acquiring. This also means that players will explore less because if it were not so this thread wouldn’t exist; prohibitive pricing reduces the interest in exploration.

3. Inflated prices for sigils and runes, if tied to one piece of equipment, would lead to economic drought. Changing your mind now is “bad” but changing your mind when it costs additional resources (the insignia/inscription + Mystic Forge costs) only to lose the now more expensive “unlocked” sigil/rune is just a lose all the way across the board. This is worse for characters with multiple weapon sets or dual wielders. It is even worse if you main two characters instead of just one or are exploring the possibility of a profession and it’s many weapons since each weapon set is now it’s own burden.

4. The problem of rarity and acquisition is compounded. Some runes like the Runes of Exuberance are very expensive, more than say Rune of the Berserker, but are not anywhere near as useful. I am sure someone uses them but the rune’s price comes not from it’s utility. Those prices alongside the ones that you are referring to at the bottom will rise as well. So sigils that were prohibitive before only become more prohibitively priced and runes that are just harder to get or rarer only become more expensive regardless of utility.

5. It’s just a really bad idea.

Looking at the rune sets which you can purchase:
https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/tp/search?name=Superior%20rune&ipg=25&sort=buy

Right now the high price for Strength runes it is 6 Gold a piece: 6×6G=36 Gold for one armour set.

If you need a scholar set of runes for a piece of content: 6×3G=18 Gold

If you need a holbrek set for WvW (or pact runes): 6×2G=12 Gold

What if I want a HoT exclusive map currency rune? 600+ of that map currency and 2Gold=12 Gold and map currency grinding (several hours at least).

If you want to swap between WvW to PVE you have two choices:
1) Make another ascended armor set – approx 500-600Gold / set. Even if it was lower at 50-100Gold/set : you would have to then store multiple armours for that rune choice.
2) Replace your runes on your armor (daily ??)-incurring high costs before you can fully enjoy your content.

Neither of the above is that helpful for players who want to swap between content.

I don’t know of many players that are rolling in gold that can easily swap runes on armour and will often stick with 2nd best.

Even if your chosen runes were 50 silver/pop – Its still 3 Gold.
Most players are averaging 3-10G/Hour.

The question is how much gold do you want to be spending each time just to swap some runes about and how low is the right price?

I have no problem keeping the unlocks on armour even if you stat swap (or not). There is still a cost involved in stat swapping ascended armour and this is fine. Either option works as most people will stat swap the armour before equipping it to PVT, Cele or Zerk as needed first. Many people will still get multiple sets for multiple toons.

Even if you look then at weapons and sigils:
https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/tp/search?name=Superior%20sigil&ipg=25&sort=buy

There are 10 sigils > 5 Gold a piece.
The same argument applies for WvW, PVE:
I may want water sigils for WvW, Force sigil for PVE…
Right now I have to craft two ascended weapons, store them, remember to equip the right one (even though they are the same base stat).
So there goes 40-80Gold/weapon just to enjoy content ?

I have no problem with many crappy sigils/runes going up from vendor price of 4silver. We can always forge more from the minor/rare variety show that drop like water right now.

The costs of the expensive sigils/runes are unlikely to drop by much at all under this system as proposed.

The cost of gearing and re-gearing a toon (and alts) drops under the system that is being proposed.

Right now – the cost of sigils/runes changes dramatically if they shift the meta.
This is likely to occur every 3 months under ANETs new system – this would help offset costs of re-gearing to new runes/sigils every 3 months as you have already absorbed the cost as a one-off on a particular weapon or armor piece.

I think the discussion about ‘mithril’ prices is off-topic and is not relevant to this discussion.

But this makes absolutely no sense. First, most players who own two ascended sets and are running around aren’t the average dirt-poor citizen. They aren’t playing “average” content. They aren’t on “average” making only 3~10 gold an hour. They aren’t “average” farmers who “averagely” plot their randomized routes. That’s not who we’re talking about. Turns out we’re also not talking about the average sigils or runes; there are only 10 sigils over 5 gold. That’s it. These are the sigils that the high-end players are buying in droves and the only sigils that are actually effected by this. It turns out the runes have the same reality and fewer of the runes over 5g are actually used, for example, Exuberance or Torment!

That is why it is a bad idea. It is catering to a distinct minority who is painting themselves as some form of suffering majority element. Worse: It isn’t actually anyone forcing or enforcing these prices; it’s not some S&D element here (which was the point of the Mithril) but essentially people trying to follow a meta and buyers failing to realize that they control the market.

If everyone refused to pay more than 3g for a Sigil of Force guess how much a Sigil of Force would sell for? 3g. It is a perfectly competitive market. The buyer’s are impatient and so they are willing to pay anything to get their hands on it, it has nothing to do with some implied meta element, and even if it did if the meta changes every 3 months and you make 3g a day even if the runes and sigils were 20g a piece you could afford it. Evidence? 160g, which is (6 runes + 2 sigils) multiplied by 20 gold a piece divided by 90 days is only 1g 77s 78c a day averaged. At 10g an hour that’s 16 hours of gameplay in 90 days. It is nothing.

But if you’re flipping sigils and runes everyday and it’s too expensive … stop doing that. That’s the solution. Stop being indecisive. The reason why you’re more than willing for the “lower items” go to up in price is because you won’t buy them anyway but you fail to realize that all the sigils and runes will go up in price. It has the direct opposite effect of what you want, because the economy compensates for your decisions somewhere every time.

11g for a sigil of force would become 33g or whatever it takes to equate the average value of swaps because the sellers aren’t going to lose money and the buyers will pay anything.

The problem is, any amount of unlocking that is done for sigils and runes will cause the prices of the most expensive ones to drop.

Because players who do swap between content will now only have to get it once per character if it’s character unlocked or once per account if it’s account unlocked.

The problem of character unlocked is what do you do about account bound items that aren’t soulbound when you attach sigils and runes to them? Like legendary weapons and ascended gear.

Do you undo the change on ascended armor that made it where it wasn’t soulbound on use? So that players don’t just buy enough of each sigil/rune type to cover all weapons and armor classes that they use and then play swap around on their characters. Then you’re back to the players with a large number of alts crying foul since they don’t swap runes/sigils often or at all and now they have to make ascended armor for them.

The only option that leaves them is to make it account unlocked and that would likely have disastrously long term effects on the sigil/rune economy without drop rate adjustments. And who knows how rare they would have to be to offset this change.

It could make all runes and sigils cost a lot of money and not just the useful ones. Removing the cheaper alternatives players have until they can afford the full set of the ones in the meta.

We are not talking about once per toon – we are talking once per equipment piece.l and it’s bound to that equipment.

If you have the following for example:
Zerker Armor Headpiece (a)- Light class
PVT Armor Headpiece (b)- Light class

If you wanted strength and holbrek runes as swappable:
To have both available on each armor you would need 2 runes of strength, 2 runes of holebrek. You would unlock each rune on each armor piece.

What this means is your zerker armor you can now swap between one light class with allowing different runes.

If you don’t want to spend all your time swapping armor between toons- you make multiple sets of zerker armor.

The same applies to weapons- it unlocks to that weapon itself.

I believe for the casual player this will make content more accessible – there are plenty of times that you may want to swap from a highly dmg orientated rune set (eg scholar) to something more defensive (mercy runes or runes with toughness).

This helps numerous players by encouraging them to have at least one set of armor allowing runes to provide a big flexibility to there build/content at a much lower cost than we have right now.

If you look at the high end players right now – your costs for meta is wrong …it’s a lot higher. Many meta players at the extreme end will have all professions geared / weapons and your costs need to be x9.

The prices of items such as ‘sigil of force’ will always be whatever people will pay. If content requires this before people will allow entry (eg Raids)- this is a cost people are forced to absorb regardless of the price.

The mithril price has many other factors why it is still rising – and I could go on about this with 2000 words to explain why the price has risen.

I believe for the casual player this will make content more accessible – there are plenty of times that you may want to swap from a highly dmg orientated rune set (eg scholar) to something more defensive (mercy runes or runes with toughness).

You are aware that mercy runes are dirt cheap? The scholar is the expensive one. The scholar is the one that goes to the higher-end players. Most generic players aren’t running around in runes of the scholar even if they are making 3g an hour, which is one rune, which is only 6 hrs. of gameplay. If they did manage to buy 18g worth of runes they aren’t going to try and buff up with 175 toughness. I also hope they don’t plan to revive their way to victory.

This isn’t a realistic representation of player choices. You must think very, very little of other players.

If you look at the high end players right now – your costs for meta is wrong …it’s a lot higher. Many meta players at the extreme end will have all professions geared / weapons and your costs need to be x9.

You’d have me believe that instead of taking the ascended drops they get from high-end content and efficient farming and just using the Mystic Forge to convert them to what they need they build every set with love? Mastering all 9 classes, that is equivalent to be able to say that you “main” all 9 classes and know them inside and out, is probably not common no matter where you look. They know how to play, inside and out, how to theorycraft, and what they want so they aren’t blowing gold “testing” things and even if they are they work together and pool their earnings for the testing so they aren’t broke jokes.

The prices of items such as ‘sigil of force’ will always be whatever people will pay. If content requires this before people will allow entry (eg Raids)- this is a cost people are forced to absorb regardless of the price.

And finally this. Yeah, no. The price of these things are not based on what you are willing to pay but your impatience. If you were truly basing it on willingness to pay … this thread wouldn’t exist! When a thread exists because you don’t want to pay 53s for a Sigil of Accuracy I’ll buy into it.

Reality: Few sigils and runes are truly expensive, but you want them, so you want an entire system built to allow you to have your cake and eat it to at the expense of everyone else. Of course you’re willing to see runes that you will never use go up in price. How … convenient?

I would understand if we were talking about Legendary Armor. I’d be right with you. If we were discussing Legendary Weapons, right behind you. But we’re not. We’re talking junk weapons and armor that shouldn’t even exist that the playerbase demanded because they just had to add eggs to the cake mix!*

The only people who benefit are the disenfranchised “middle class” players who aren’t the forefront leaders in innovations nor are they the poor and resourceful who couldn’t care less.

*http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp

As far as sigils go, while experimenting I’ll use a major instead of superior. Major sigil of force is around 2 silver while superior goes for 10+ gold. As stated before, the superior is only that expensive because there are enough players willing to pay through the nose to have that tiny advantage RIGHT NOW.

Good, Fast, Cheap – choose any two.

/blingblong

So.. I see two sides of an argument: that sigil prices will sky rocket – AND that they will plummet.. But neither side of the argument is very compelling.

I see baseless assumptions about what “the majority” are using.
I see self contradictions in posts.

All in an economy anet directly has control over, via craft recipes and drop rates.

It’s almost like the arguments are a veil for “QQ someone might make money off shifting prices”

This is my point of its 6 hrs of gameplay of there abouts ….and you want to swap between pact runes (for WvW) and scholar (for PVE)- why should you be spending all your gold for rune swapping ?

Don’t players have other things they want to spend gold on like:
WvW Siege, Food, Putting towards there first legendary?

It seems to me that you want to punish players who want to do multiple modes of gameplay.

What are you so scared of?
The prices of high end runes/sigils won’t suddenly go down. This is why I have stated it is ‘per armor piece’ and ‘per weapon’.

So if I have two great swords:
Ascended Greatsword – from Necro Specilisation
Ascended Sunless Greatsword – from Tequatl

If I put a superior sigil of force on the Teq Greatsword it is not unlocked on my Necro Specilisation Greatsword. If I choose to ‘unlock’ every sigil on my Teq weapon – I can change game modes in PVE, WvW, test stuff out without incurring extra costs, react to a future meta shift quickly.
The only sigil unlocked on my Necro ascended weapon is the starter one- if I want access to more I have to unlock them.
Most players will then either (a) swap weapons via bank of (b) start to unlock runes on 2nd Greatsword for ease of use. I know many will prefer to also unlock on there 2nd weapon.

You would be surprised what the majority of players have – those with HoT have accessibility to ascended weapons via HoT.
ANET have also given out several pieces of ascended armor via collections.

From years of dungeon running – I can confirm that there is a large player base who run expensive sigils / runes regularly. The advantage it gives is not a placebo and was worth it. With raids players are even more insistent on being geared correctly before even allowing you to step inside.

TPMN.1483:

This is my point of its 6 hrs of gameplay of there abouts ….and you want to swap between pact runes (for WvW) and scholar (for PVE)- why should you be spending all your gold for rune swapping ?

Don’t players have other things they want to spend gold on like:
WvW Siege, Food, Putting towards there first legendary?

It seems to me that you want to punish players who want to do multiple modes of gameplay.

What are you so scared of?
The prices of high end runes/sigils won’t suddenly go down. This is why I have stated it is ‘per armor piece’ and ‘per weapon’.

So if I have two great swords:
Ascended Greatsword – from Necro Specilisation
Ascended Sunless Greatsword – from Tequatl

If I put a superior sigil of force on the Teq Greatsword it is not unlocked on my Necro Specilisation Greatsword. If I choose to ‘unlock’ every sigil on my Teq weapon – I can change game modes in PVE, WvW, test stuff out without incurring extra costs, react to a future meta shift quickly.
The only sigil unlocked on my Necro ascended weapon is the starter one- if I want access to more I have to unlock them.
Most players will then either (a) swap weapons via bank of (b) start to unlock runes on 2nd Greatsword for ease of use. I know many will prefer to also unlock on there 2nd weapon.

You would be surprised what the majority of players have – those with HoT have accessibility to ascended weapons via HoT.
ANET have also given out several pieces of ascended armor via collections.

From years of dungeon running – I can confirm that there is a large player base who run expensive sigils / runes regularly. The advantage it gives is not a placebo and was worth it. With raids players are even more insistent on being geared correctly before even allowing you to step inside.

But if you stat swap the ascended weapon you lose everything. that includes runes and infusions. Now I think if this could be stopped ANet would have done it, it clearly is not something that is easy to do. what we need to know is, if this is something that could be easy to do. Which the ability to tie it to weapons might be doable, but then if you change the stats on said weapons because of a meta change, you will have to start over. Having them tied to a weapon is a good way to balance things out, but having them to character, that might be harder to do again, as it would involve changing how sigils worth with weapons.

Why is this extended to ‘ascended’ and not just legendarys?

Ascended armor / weapons are expensive if you have been lucky to get a free drop – congrats. Right now a full set of ascended armor is around 500Gold. A ascended weapon is around 80G.

These are not ‘junk’ items – whites/blues/greens are junk items.
For many players getting there first set of ascended is a very long slog.
If ascended is junk to you and you are bored of getting ascended boxs – you are lucky and definitely not part of the majority.

Even if legendary armor comes out:
It is unlikely that it will be accessible to equip multiple toons on release.
The costs for the armor will be astronomical compared to ascended armor.

Legendary weapons:
These are around 800(for the precursor) and cost up to 3000 G for the completed item.
Most players are lucky to have one of these. They are not accessible enough – hence why the new legendary weapons got cancelled (indefinitely postponed).

To dual wield weapons – with stat swapping ability would be prohobitivly expensive and cater for <1% of the player base.
Extending this to ascended gives players who get have multiple duplicates of weapons much more flexibility.

I don’t see why people are insisting if they did allow this it is only extended to players who have ‘legendary’ this or that (the 1%) rather than players who have ascended (which is much larger player base).

BrotherBelial.3094:

TPMN.1483:

This is my point of its 6 hrs of gameplay of there abouts ….and you want to swap between pact runes (for WvW) and scholar (for PVE)- why should you be spending all your gold for rune swapping ?

Don’t players have other things they want to spend gold on like:
WvW Siege, Food, Putting towards there first legendary?

It seems to me that you want to punish players who want to do multiple modes of gameplay.

What are you so scared of?
The prices of high end runes/sigils won’t suddenly go down. This is why I have stated it is ‘per armor piece’ and ‘per weapon’.

So if I have two great swords:
Ascended Greatsword – from Necro Specilisation
Ascended Sunless Greatsword – from Tequatl

If I put a superior sigil of force on the Teq Greatsword it is not unlocked on my Necro Specilisation Greatsword. If I choose to ‘unlock’ every sigil on my Teq weapon – I can change game modes in PVE, WvW, test stuff out without incurring extra costs, react to a future meta shift quickly.
The only sigil unlocked on my Necro ascended weapon is the starter one- if I want access to more I have to unlock them.
Most players will then either (a) swap weapons via bank of (b) start to unlock runes on 2nd Greatsword for ease of use. I know many will prefer to also unlock on there 2nd weapon.

You would be surprised what the majority of players have – those with HoT have accessibility to ascended weapons via HoT.
ANET have also given out several pieces of ascended armor via collections.

From years of dungeon running – I can confirm that there is a large player base who run expensive sigils / runes regularly. The advantage it gives is not a placebo and was worth it. With raids players are even more insistent on being geared correctly before even allowing you to step inside.

But if you stat swap the ascended weapon you lose everything. that includes runes and infusions. Now I think if this could be stopped ANet would have done it, it clearly is not something that is easy to do. what we need to know is, if this is something that could be easy to do. Which the ability to tie it to weapons might be doable, but then if you change the stats on said weapons because of a meta change, you will have to start over. Having them tied to a weapon is a good way to balance things out, but having them to character, that might be harder to do again, as it would involve changing how sigils worth with weapons.

So we’re back to:
“I don’t want to lose all my sigils/runes when i stat swap in the forge”

Well.. thats how it is now.
I fail to see why being able to select from a range of runes/sigils has to make that change.

I’d like to see superior runes and sigils become forgeable like minor/major ones, instead of not working in the mystic toilet because…. reasons?

That would go a long way to standardizing the price of them (like it does for the lower tiers, where even the terrible ones are worth something), so 90% of them aren’t literally worthless anymore.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I’d like to see superior runes and sigils become forgeable like minor/major ones, instead of not working in the mystic toilet because…. reasons?

That would go a long way to standardizing the price of them (like it does for the lower tiers, where even the terrible ones are worth something), so 90% of them aren’t literally worthless anymore.

Completely off topic, but that wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
This probably wants its own thread suggesting it ;-)

Lets not derail the thread from being able to"unlock" upgrades on a piece of gear.

So.
I want to try a few different sigils on condi engi,
Such as bursting Vs earth vs geomancy vs malice ( since i am too cheap to run toxic crystals all the time in raids).

Only I don’t want to make another asc viper pistol..
And I don’t want to spend 10g /pop on the bursting sigil I’d have to replace.

So this raid dps trials thing makes me want sigil swapping even more!!
But I can’t try things out without spending a huge amount of gold.
:(

Artemis Thuras.8795:

So.
I want to try a few different sigils on condi engi,
Such as bursting Vs earth vs geomancy vs malice ( since i am too cheap to run toxic crystals all the time in raids).

Only I don’t want to make another asc viper pistol..
And I don’t want to spend 10g /pop on the bursting sigil I’d have to replace.

So this raid dps trials thing makes me want sigil swapping even more!!
But I can’t try things out without spending a huge amount of gold.
:(

Or the dps trials could have a pvp-like system where you can try out different runes/sigils for free.

I say unlock runes and sigils per account once obtained, and then let any armor/weapon select them, assuming level requirements are met. Using a rune to unlock destroys the rune, removing it from the economy. Sure, it’ll impact the economy, but we’ll get over it. Even the whiners who paid XXgold for their runes and so demand refunds will get over it.

I don’t overwrite runes or sigils on exotics+ but would if I could do so without penalty.