Guild Wars 2

Thing is, foods, especially the ones that are practical, are generally expensive (in my opinions). Foods that are viable cost like 50 silvers to 1g for 30min buffs or even more. This makes it so [or so I think] that most people dont use them often enough.

I understand that foods supply need to retain drop chance to maintain selling value, but with current state, foods MOSTLY maintain value because of scarcity NOT because they are consumed. And in this process, their usefulness is underutilized. This is also because their usefulness is time-bound.

I think food supplies should be increased so that people have more access to them and use them more often and that value would be maintained MORE by frequency of consumption instead.

Of course, this is assuming that…
1) by increasing supply and lowering food price at the right level, people will use them more and the macro-economic value of foods will remain the same overall.
2) most players have a capped expectation of spending on foods and wont spend more than they are currently doing/willing [unproven but likely – you barely see people use foods most of the time in game]
3) Anet doesnt intend foods to be only for special situations

My point is to not make foods cheaper, but make them more utilized.
For illustration…
food A cost 1g and lasts 30 mins. Supposed that I only have a budget of 1g of foods per 1 hour of gameplay. The food utilization rate is 1g:30min. Now if I increase supply so that food A only costs 50 silvers. With the same budget, I can now buy 2 of them and the rate is now 1g:60mins. At the same time, sellers will be able to make 2 food A while still using the same amount of time/investment due to increased supply. In the end, seller still makes the same money, buyer still spends the same but food A is now fully utilized over an hour.

Also, Im not talking in the perspective of rich players with 50g ready to waste daily. Im talking about average players who rather not bother spending money on foods for general contents of the game because the price is not worth 30min buff

In conclusion, I think [good] foods can extend and add more flavor to gameplay/builds but with scarcity, their utilization is limited.

Maybe. But if prices of the ingredients of the best foods are decreased so that more people can use them, won’t more people use them so that supply is used up and prices go back up?

If some ingredients were a bit more widely available, some people would switch to producing their food directly, instead of buying it. Seaweed farm getting introduced helped here a bit, but there’s still a scarcity of spores for Toxic food, for example.

Also, there are people that would use food if they could produce it in satisfying qualities, but would never think of buying that food from TP (either because of that mistaken belief that things you can make from mats in your storage are “free”, or due to some people just liking doing things themselves).

I think a big chunk of the population doens’t use food because its impractical. You have to constantly check your bar if the buff is still there, then open your inventar, find the food and click it again.
Thats why i have real trouble using my food-stacks, even if the food in question is beneficial and really cheap. If Anet ever makes it so that you can auto-use food, we will probably see much more use of it.

Personally i use cheap food when im leveling an alt, the 25% exp from kills is pretty handy and it does add up.

Tho i dont actually use such food when im simply out there exploring and doing hearts.

The more expensive foods i only use if its really needed for my build such as 20% boon duration, 20% condi duration , or when im playing in fractals/dungeons/raids where top performance is required.

Also, food prices are usually tied to the prices of the materials needed to craft the food.

That or, if they cant be crafted, the price of the “container” or vendor where it comes from.

Another influence on price is if the food has a “duplicate” of it self such as having 2 foods that offer 100 power, but one lasts for 15min, and the other 30min.

and then theres also simply the demand and supply part

I think that those more expensive foods and consumables just need to be nerfed already. Some of them are way too strong for a supplementary part of your build

10% damage reduction, 20% boon/condi duration, 10% damage reduction + 15% boon duration, 10% bonus damage are just insanely powerful for a buff from food.

There are budget variations of every food with a high TP price (in mats or for the item itself). If people aren’t using food, it isn’t because of the cost.

No food is particularly expensive atm.

Plate of mussels gnashblade is 35s to craft.
The 4%/6% utility consumables are cheap to buy off tp aswell.

It’s when you start looking at stuff like +10% condition duration and boon duration utility consumables that the prices are prohibitively expensive. That’s not a bad thing.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There are budget variations of every food with a high TP price (in mats or for the item itself). If people aren’t using food, it isn’t because of the cost.

Yep, I use https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scoop_of_Mintberry_Swirl_Ice_Cream (bought like 2000 of these things) for general open world or wvw use, and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hardened_Sharpening_Stone

And yes it does matter a little, a bit more in WvW. For PvE, pumpkin oil isn’t a bad choice.

It’s less than the cost of 2-3 wps.

In more serious bzness situations, I use https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Potent_Superior_Sharpening_Stone which is more because it lasts 1 hour rather the stats.

I would use food more consistently if there was a spot for them in the UI so that I didnt have to open and close my inventory to use it.

Like Ashen.2907, I would use food more often if it was part of my UI in some way. I tend to use it for (at least at the start of) a dungeon or fractal.

I would make more food if it was worth making. Usually, it’s more cost effective to sell the ingredients.

Meh … I usually do not bother using food if it is for something where I can’t even make back the cost plus some profits. Something that unrewarding doesn’t deserve that much attention. Otherwise it is just MF food+utility and those are cheap from Halloween. MF might not help much but it shouldn’t hurt at least.