Guild Wars 2

A lot of people have noted that certain types of armor are not salvageable.

Anything you purchase from karma vendors or WvW vendors cannot be salvaged. I’m not going to suggest that these items can be salvaged normally.

Instead, I’m suggesting that players should either be able to salvage or sell back items they bought with karma… for karma.

Often, when a player starts playing the game they may be directed towards Temple merchants who offer armor-for-karma (as well as trinkets). These purchases cost quite a bit of karma each – 42,000 karma.

For early players of the game, karma was easy to come by. You could pop boosters and then use all your karma potions. Many early players had millions of karma without really trying.

Nowadays, karma has to be farmed through the misuse of content (such as Edge of the Mists). Of course, it’s possible to gain karma through regular playing, at a much slower rate. But certain items in the game require huge amounts of karma – I’m talking about legendary weapons. Around 1 million karma is required for the obsidian shards you need to make one weapon.

Imagine if, instead of grinding content that was intended for other purposes, we could just salvage or sell gear we bought with karma and have no further use for? Perhaps at a 75% rate of the original price. I’m sure many players would be happy to forgo their karma trinkets and buy new ones from the TP, or use ascended trinkets shared across characters.

I know that most of the people I’ve spoken to regret spending lots of karma on exotic items when they decide to pursue a legendary. They simply purchased the trinkets because they didn’t know any better, and because back then gold was harder to come by (and there were fewer exotic trinkets on the TP, and no shareable ascended trinkets).

My proposed changes would not harm the economy or have any negative impact that I can see to the game – the karma train in Edge of the Mists may slightly decrease, but that can only be a good thing. In the interests of completion, perhaps WvW armor could be salvaged or sold back for badges too?

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

The only way i acquire obsidian shards is with fractal relics since i always use my karma for wool/cotton/linen. 15 relics per shard isnt bad at all esp if you do daily tiers everyday like i do.

NNYinsanenature.5684:

The only way i acquire obsidian shards is with fractal relics since i always use my karma for wool/cotton/linen. 15 relics per shard isnt bad at all esp if you do daily tiers everyday like i do.

I forgot fractals, as I don’t do them (nor does anyone else I know). I’ve heard it’s far slower to acquire them through fractals than through the karma train in Edge of the Mists, though.

it is definately slower but i only use them for making t6 mats and rares are in great abundance in fractals as well so i get my ectos and shards then get to gamble afterwards.

Karma
Bandit crests (SW) and the chests in SW too.
Fractals
Laureals ( although this one is pretty bad)

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks Since zone release I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Is this post-nerf? My friends got around 500 shards in one day I believe, before the chest farm was nerfed.

I’ve heard you can’t get anything near that now though.

warduke.1780:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Is this post-nerf? My friends got around 500 shards in one day I believe, before the chest farm was nerfed.

I’ve heard you can’t get anything near that now though.

Around 1k of those were after the nerf. You don’t even need that many for a legendary,
only around 500.

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Is this post-nerf? My friends got around 500 shards in one day I believe, before the chest farm was nerfed.

I’ve heard you can’t get anything near that now though.

Around 1k of those were after the nerf. You don’t even need that many for a legendary,
only around 500.

Nope… But you need em for the ascended mats that come with…

Dasenthal.6520:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Is this post-nerf? My friends got around 500 shards in one day I believe, before the chest farm was nerfed.

I’ve heard you can’t get anything near that now though.

Around 1k of those were after the nerf. You don’t even need that many for a legendary,
only around 500.

Nope… But you need em for the ascended mats that come with…

‘Nope’ what? Example : 250 shards for Gift of Mastery and ~241 for clovers +- a few depending on your luck.

Crovax.7854:

Dasenthal.6520:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Crovax.7854:

warduke.1780:

Olvendred.3027:

I disagree. The problem with karma at present is that there’s already far too much of it about. This makes it difficult to introduce good karma sinks that don’t break other parts of the economy. You want to remove one of the only existing karma sinks.

Yeah, I get that legendaries cost a lot of karma, but most (all?) of that is in obsidian shards, which can be acquired in a variety of other ways. I think Anet’s done enough to reduce the burden of farming karma for a legendary for newer players.

The usual concern about karma gear being unsalvagable is that it makes it impossible to recover upgrades (runes, sigils, etc) without an excessively expensive gem store item.

In which other ways can you reliably accumulate obsidian shards? There’s PvP which gives a few… 20 for an entire track, if I recall correctly. Then we have Silverwastes – before the chestfarm, that was a decent way to acquire shards. I haven’t been there since but I gather it’s not even worth it now. Then there’s laurels, which are almost always going to be spent on more important stuff.

Finally you have the other methods related to seasonal events etc. like SAB, WvW tournaments… not reliable, as they are not present all year round.

Silver Wastes nets you an insane amount of shards. In the last 2 weeks I accumulated around 1500 shards just from casually playing and opening the chests I come across.

Is this post-nerf? My friends got around 500 shards in one day I believe, before the chest farm was nerfed.

I’ve heard you can’t get anything near that now though.

Around 1k of those were after the nerf. You don’t even need that many for a legendary,
only around 500.

Nope… But you need em for the ascended mats that come with…

‘Nope’ what? Example : 250 shards for Gift of Mastery and ~241 for clovers +- a few depending on your luck.

Didn’t mean “No you’re wrong” meant “No, but you still them for X”
(The meaning as I interpreted what you said was that they had no use outside of legendarys)
My bad

We’ve gone way off topic here guys. Point is, this is something Anet could implement that wouldn’t hurt the economy in any way (as opposed to allowing us to salvage for mats, which could impact the economy and would damage sales of their upgrade extractor).