Guild Wars 2

Well, that’s the problem; no one has any good suggestions. The product needs to be very unique, most systems in this game are either covered in uniqueness or suffering somewhere but off-limits. I mean unless you traded them in for materials for crafting or something that are difficult to build or could use them as substitutes in something you’re just not going to be able to produce something unique enough for ToK to become a currency.

Tomes of Knowledge already have the feature of being turned into a currency: Spirit Shards. What is needed is more sinks for Spirit Shards.

We know this. That was covered hours ago. The actual reality though is that if you’re monetizing spirit shards you may as well bypass the conversions meaning you’re in fact monetizing ToK. It’s kind of like how Karma can now buy ascended trinkets by turning karma into winterberries and then buying them with the winterberries.

I’m purposefully leaving out the intermediary.

How about things you can buy such as (just throwing ideas out)

Temporary auras or a sparkle when you move your hands
Temporary mini pets
The ability to have another race’s dance or one of Guild Wars 1 dances for X minutes
One time use waypoints where you can port to any selected spot on a map you’ve already uncovered.
The ability to actually fly in PvE for X minutes (but not in areas where gliding is turned off). (Can have a cool down).
One time use sigil/rune extractor

Why is it ok to have added Karma sinks, but not Spirit Shard sinks? I’m confused on how that hurts the economy.

Why do people always get up in arms about ToK not having any use for them personally? Just treat it like any other junk item. If you can’t be bothered to double click them for spirit shards, then just wait till you get a stack and throw it out. Not every item in this game has to be useful for every player at all times.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Why is it ok to have added Karma sinks, but not Spirit Shard sinks? I’m confused on how that hurts the economy.

The more competing currencies you have the less every currency is worth which in turn means the less anything bought with those currencies is worth. If Ascended Trinkets could be sold every time there was a new way to get them they would drastically drop in price. This is the effect having multiple currencies and channels for acquisition especially when considering the volume the playerbase has.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

How about things you can buy such as (just throwing ideas out)

Temporary auras or a sparkle when you move your hands
Temporary mini pets
The ability to have another race’s dance or one of Guild Wars 1 dances for X minutes
One time use waypoints where you can port to any selected spot on a map you’ve already uncovered.
The ability to actually fly in PvE for X minutes (but not in areas where gliding is turned off). (Can have a cool down).
One time use sigil/rune extractor

Well these are definitely more unique. I know for a fact the sigil/rune extractor wouldn’t be accepted since it’s a gem store exclusive and used to funnel some gold out of the economy but otherwise it’s not as if having access to a temporary ability, perhaps a large sum of tomes / shards cashed in for a permanent pet or aura or effect, or minor convenience items that aren’t particularly lucrative (that’s for Anet to decide; I just don’t imagine the “warp to a friend” to be lucrative but I don’t have sales numbers) and have limited use with even more limited utility are probably all good candidates.

I say permanent on the pet / aura simply because making a large sum the goal means you have to support offloading a lot less from a seller’s vantage point. It’s highly efficient as it makes people actually want more of the crap they don’t want and then feel more rewarded when they trade it in. In real life it is why certain brands of cars can sell for millions of dollars even if they still can only go 40 mph down the road.

I’d be fine with just removing account bound, so we can give them to others that want them, guildies and friends etc. Or just sell them on the TP.

I sure wouldn’t mind being able to buy Leather for it though…

DGraves.3720:

Well, that’s the problem; no one has any good suggestions. The product needs to be very unique, most systems in this game are either covered in uniqueness or suffering somewhere but off-limits. I mean unless you traded them in for materials for crafting or something that are difficult to build or could use them as substitutes in something you’re just not going to be able to produce something unique enough for ToK to become a currency.

What about Guild Decorations?

There’s one particular decoration, the Tyrian Globe, which I’m loathed to make as it uses one Gift of Exploration and given how long it can take to get them and that they’re used in Tyrian Legendaries; I’d happily chuck 80-100 tomes just to replace this part of the recipe. Same goes for the bookcases; I wouldn’t mind another one like the Priory ones or other cultural ‘librariums’ to be made using these.

As for spirit shards; I once suggested they could be made convertable to various old LS1/2 currencies like Festival tokens, Mordrem Blooms, etc. Meaning those older rewards that still have a vendor would always be available. Anet could decide on the conversion ratio for each one.

I’m still confused. You can’t buy Ascended Trinkets with Gold, anyway. Nor any of the new Karma sink items.

Spirit Shards, and by way of conversion, Tomes of Knowledge are already a currency. I think many would appreciate having something to spend said currency on.

Tyger.1637:

DGraves.3720:

Well, that’s the problem; no one has any good suggestions. The product needs to be very unique, most systems in this game are either covered in uniqueness or suffering somewhere but off-limits. I mean unless you traded them in for materials for crafting or something that are difficult to build or could use them as substitutes in something you’re just not going to be able to produce something unique enough for ToK to become a currency.

What about Guild Decorations?

There’s one particular decoration, the Tyrian Globe, which I’m loathed to make as it uses one Gift of Exploration and given how long it can take to get them and that they’re used in Tyrian Legendaries; I’d happily chuck 80-100 tomes just to replace this part of the recipe. Same goes for the bookcases; I wouldn’t mind another one like the Priory ones or other cultural ‘librariums’ to be made using these.

As for spirit shards; I once suggested they could be made convertable to various old LS1/2 currencies like Festival tokens, Mordrem Blooms, etc. Meaning those older rewards that still have a vendor would always be available. Anet could decide on the conversion ratio for each one.

Maybe a full stack of tomes. 80-100 is way too cheap to replace GoE, and even 250 feels like too few as well. That globe is meant to take effort to get, but tomes are handed out practically for free, so throwing tomes at it doesn’t show any effort.

tomes of knowledges are already powerfull enough to lvl alts. People who got hundreads of them already use them as they are intended to be used (on alts),and those who hoard hundreads of tok just already have tons of alts.

Plenty of spirit shards sinks ,people are just not interested in spending money on other components to craft such items/weapons/skins.

Using tok on a lvl 80 character in order to unlock a RANDOM waypoint is also pointless.
Firslty its random and you wont even know which one it is unless you get a animation where it zooms you in the location of the newly unlocked WP.
Secondly at lvl 80 ,with any class its pretty easy to run in any direction across all zones.

I actually tried this on a engineer, it took me maybe 1 afternoon to explore ALL waypoints in the core tyria with a newly created lvl 70 engie (i lvled up by exploring lower lvl zones/waypoints first)

ToK are awesome for people who are always making/remaking alts. (Just throwing that out there.) Not so much if you aren’t an altaholic/have all the classes/races anyway and/or don’t want more.

Like several people have already said, I think the problem is again (not all) people feel that there are not enough “worthwhile” things to spend spirit shards on. I wouldn’t be surprised if ANet has pretty much abandoned spirit shards at this point. The existing recipes help to fill the cosmetic niche to some (albeit small) degree, but there are quite a few people who have never leveled their crafts high enough to bother. Adding more worthwhile things to the spirit shard list would help fix this issue:

Consumables
- Food
- Karma drops
- High level salvage and harvesting tools
- Temporary toys would eat up some of those shards I’m sure.

Cosmetic
- A hand full of dyes shouldn’t hurt
- Another cultural costume tier purchasable via spirit shards
- Transumation charges … seriously, vets have a ton of these anyway, they won’t hurt anything.

Actual Hero Progress
- If you can buy Heroic points in WvW why can’t you exchange multiple shards for hero points in PvE? Its still grinding! If you are worried about the ease of PvE grinding then for goodness sake increase the cost.
- Why can’t you exchange spirit shards for other preexisting currencies in the game? (I shudder to think of adding more currencies, I have been in several MMOs where that got out of hand.)

In closing:
Originally I thought spirit shards were a way to progress my characters development, and accepted the fact the game was “balanced” around keeping everything level 80. Spirit shards right now feel like a “why bother if you aren’t a crafter” sort of thing which is a shame.

Anyway, that’s my two bits. I’m sure no one cares and none of my comments matter, so I’ll leave you all to it. I just wanted to get that out. Good vibes and much love to you all.

- Transumation charges …

Sold!