Guild Wars 2

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have this problem. At some point in time you bought armor/weapons with wvw badges, then put a semi expensive rune/sigil on it (perplexity, tormenting, traveler, ect). I know that we have the upgrade extractor available in the gem store, and while that removes all upgrades including infusions, for WvW badge armor/weapons the only thing worth using an upgrade extractor on is generosity sigils, for almost anything else your spending many many times the items value to recover the upgrade from the gear.
Now, I can understand that wvw gear may not be salvageable because you might not want people buying exotics with badges and throwing them into the forge or salvaging them for ectos, however, I would request that players be able to salvage upgrades off of gear bought with wvw badges. Surely I’m not the only one who has old armor sets on characters that were bought with wvw badges that have semi expensive runes/sigils on them that they are unable to recover reasonably.

This has been brought up before. No developer response so we can assume it is working as intended. Beware of karma armor as well.

I cast my vote in support of this . The WvW badges gear is very very limiting as it can’t be mystic forged and can’t be salvaged. Makes a poor choice to use for real builds as the upgrades are lost. Please allow us to salvage it or some way to get the upgrades back from it.

This is long overdue for change, its not like karma/wvw gear is ascended we should at least be able salvage to remove upgrades. I don’t personally care about getting materials back I just want to be able to get upgrades. In fact the entire salvaging system in this game needs to be changed, why is there no way other then the ridiculously overpriced one time use upgrade extractor to remove upgrades without destroying the gear kitten … hell even gw1 had this feature its not like its so difficult.

It may be for economic reasons.

It’s almost certainly for economic reasons, how many people would dump badges into exotic gear and salvage it if they could?
Or try to forge precursers with it, etc.

But still, this is a huge problem, there’s no warning that upgrades are unrecoverable without that asininely expensive upgrade extractor (which yes, I understand it’s that expensive because upgrades are supposed to be consumables more or less, they didn’t intend them to be recyclable/recoverable without destroying the armor/weapon.)

I’m looking at picking up a set of badge armor because it lets me save some mats and comes in the skin I want saving me a couple mute charges.
But I’m looking at a set of runes at 12g each, that’s 72g (84g if I include a 7th for underwater headgear) down the drain.
It’s supposed to be a sink, but that’s egregious.

Well, I don’t know, but it’s heavily outdated. Karma armor can at least be forged.

Certain stat combos you can get for less gold on the TP, for no badges, and is salvageable.

I think it’d be nice to provide ascended gear with badges too; in those cases I wouldn’t worry about being salvageable.

Of course the ultimate problem comes in two forms:

Upgrade Extractor where the thing is usually more expensive than the runes
Badges being too common and thus of questionable value as a currency.

Id be completely fine if we got no materials for salvaging the armor, as long as we got our upgrades back without spending 5x the price of the average upgrade on an extractor.
EDIT: you can also salvage dungeon gear. Why not badge gear in that situation.

It works as intended and it is like that since game launch.
But I also agree that the WvW armor should be salvagable, at very least the exotic ones.

I always thought this a long time problem, and one reason why I hardly use badges for gear (at least not for my main build set). If I put something on it, it’s there, no salvaging, no changing, lost or set depending how you look at it.
Honestly thought this would have come up sooner and figured if it had, it was placed on a back burner or told ’that’s how it is’. Completely support this thread and ask that a dev to relook at it again as a possible change.

Just make it so you’re able to get upgrades out.
I’ve got a couple sets in my bank just rotting away.

As a newer player I asked how to get armor for cheap. WvW badges was one thing I was told (as I joined a WvW guild), but to be careful what I put on it because I can’t get it back easily with my lack of gold and time to farm gold. It did seem weird since I can salvage just about anything else, even some accountbound items. The person above who brought up the Karma comparison is correct; those can’t be salvaged, but they can at least be forged. I haven’t tried forging the badge armor, but it sounded like that can’t be done either? It is a problem, or rather seemed like it was an after thought and never finished in the idea of how WvW badge items work compared to what you can do with other items, including karma.

I created two threads about it one year ago, not a single response from Anet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Recover-upgrades-from-Karma-WvW-gear/first#post3673568
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/ETA-on-salvage-WvW-gear/first#post4642663

WvW gear is useless, there’s no point trying new builds because if you decide to slot some good runes/sigils, say goodbye when you change stats. I have over 6k BoH, and everytime I want to try a new build I need to craft or buy from the dungeon vendor.

The WvW items are there only to fool new players. The worst part is that after 3 years they haven’t added a description to the gear saying that you cannot salvage or use on the mystic forge.

I bought WvW gear ONCE. I learned my lesson; if you are gonna buy this stuff at least put a rune/sigil in it worth very little.

Nowadays I just use GW2SKILLS.NET and make or buy what I want off the TP. This way if I decide to change my build I can at least get my runes/sigils back (black lion salvage).

Honestly, if we cannot extract items for the rune/sigil AT LEAST give us a warning when we try to slot something!

The purpose of WvW exotic gear is to have a cheap set of exotics to start with once you hit 80, which is a really good thing. 1g a piece is pocket change compared to the 7g or so you pay for each berserker armor piece, for example. Same with weapons.

Only slot major runes and sigils, not superiors, as it cannot be salvaged or Mystic forged.

As wonderful as the intended WvW gear is, the developers do NOT make any mention of this. This is a really lazy oversight that they cant be bothered to ever correct that really hurts new players, and after all these years makes me question why they cant add a description. Dumb move, Anet.

i think that salvage kits should work as they did in gw1, ie giving the option to remove an upgrade rather than retrieving materials. If used this way, the chance to preserve the armor is twice what the chance to preserve the upgrade would be now, so using a masters/mystic kit or better ensures that the armor is not destroyed.

from an economic POV, the balancing factor to this would be that if you’re concerned with preserving the upgrade, you use up charges twice as fast when salvaging gear for materials. depending on what you’re salvaging, this might not be cost-effective.

all existing upgrade extractors should be turned into a permanent one, and everyone who has bought and consumed upgrade extractors should receive the permanent one in the mail. if the number you’ve bought exceeds the gem store cost of the new permanent upgrade extractor (which essentially just pulls out upgrades at no cost or risk), then there should be some kind of compensation/refund proportional to what was spent.

Little anecdote, on wvw badge equipment:-
We used to be able to throw wvw badge equipment into the mystic toilet , forge. That then allegedly became broken, in which we could no longer do so. A dev posted on the forums they would look into it for a fix.
That was over two years ago, and seriously doubt there will ever be a fix now, as to do so would create a glut of precursors on the open market. Oh the horror!

So be prepared to be very, very patient!

PS, if anet is worried that making wvw badge exotic/ rare equipment salvageable would crash the market, a simple (is anything simple in a game this complex?) work around would be to make the runes/ sigils salvageable at the same rate of existing exotics/ rares, but not the materials the wvw badge equipment are made from:- in essence making the armour/weapon invisible to the salvage kit but the runes / sigils visable.

Blades Of Fatalis.1279:

the only thing worth using an upgrade extractor on is generosity sigils, for almost anything else your spending many many times the items value to recover the upgrade from the gear.

I can’t stand this.

What is the friggen point of those extractors if they cost more than buying a new sigil?! Is it just a scam to get not-so-knowledgeable people spending money to buy gems? This is ridiculous.

Isnt’ this, why ANet added “Upgrade Extractors” in gem store?

But yea, it’s quite a low blow tho.

Narrrz.7532:

i think that salvage kits should work as they did in gw1, ie giving the option to remove an upgrade rather than retrieving materials. If used this way, the chance to preserve the armor is twice what the chance to preserve the upgrade would be now, so using a masters/mystic kit or better ensures that the armor is not destroyed.

from an economic POV, the balancing factor to this would be that if you’re concerned with preserving the upgrade, you use up charges twice as fast when salvaging gear for materials. depending on what you’re salvaging, this might not be cost-effective.

all existing upgrade extractors should be turned into a permanent one, and everyone who has bought and consumed upgrade extractors should receive the permanent one in the mail. if the number you’ve bought exceeds the gem store cost of the new permanent upgrade extractor (which essentially just pulls out upgrades at no cost or risk), then there should be some kind of compensation/refund proportional to what was spent.

So how will exotic upgrade components be consumed in the future if you can reuse them indefinately? Or we just wait until they flood the market and all of them are at vendor value.

Then we go back to the forums and complain that the unlimited upgrade extractor, which we paid 1000 gems for, is basically worthless because its cheaper to buy the upgrade components at vendor price from the tp.

I totally agree with being able to extract runes/sigils from wvw armors/weapons.
I don’t think anyone cares if they can be used in mystic forge or not.And if anet thinks this will hurt the economy then keep it as it is today where they can’t be m.forged.

But let’s be honest,the extraction of upgrades DOES NOT hurt any economy.Anet you should at least give an answer to those thoughts.

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

Fingolfin.7451:

But let’s be honest,the extraction of upgrades DOES NOT hurt any economy.Anet you should at least give an answer to those thoughts.

Except the upgrade market itself. Even the expensive runes and sigils will keep being generated by the forge and salvaged from random exotic gear drops until there is more supply than demand.
The runes and sigils that are only available via crafting will also lose value, as none are destroyed, so there goes demand for the mats that are used to craft them, which are quite alot.

This would terminate alot of material sinks which is harmful to any economy.

Rare runes and sigil would go back to vendor value, exotic armor drops will ALL go towards their salvage value of ectos and insignias, the price of exotic weapons will only be determined by the value of the corresponding precursor, so say goodby to exotic gear drops that will net you more than 5g, unless its a rare skin.

The only thing ANet did wrong was allowing us to keep 1 upgrade with the old transmutation system, which we now think should be the status quo but that was never working as intended.

John Smith already stated that the upgrade component market needs a mayor overhaul and thats more complicated than most of you think.

And any suggestions that have been made, be it cheaper upgrade extractors, salvageable karma or wvw gear or else, are mostly counterproductive in a macro economic way.

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

Anet simply underestimated the new supply of upgrade components from the start and overestimated the demand for them.
Thats why, shortly after launch, they disabled the function to throw 4 exotic upgrades into the forge and get a new one, to cut supply of in demand sigils and runes.
However, that also cut a mayor sink for undesired runes and sigils, which all sit at vendor value now. And that didnt adress the demand side either as most people kept their expensive UC´s via the old transmutation system.
The old transmutation system took a bit longer to fix but just because they waited 1.5 years for it doesnt mean that the ability to retrieve upgrade components in the process was an intended feature.

Wanze.8410:

Narrrz.7532:

i think that salvage kits should work as they did in gw1, ie giving the option to remove an upgrade rather than retrieving materials. If used this way, the chance to preserve the armor is twice what the chance to preserve the upgrade would be now, so using a masters/mystic kit or better ensures that the armor is not destroyed.

from an economic POV, the balancing factor to this would be that if you’re concerned with preserving the upgrade, you use up charges twice as fast when salvaging gear for materials. depending on what you’re salvaging, this might not be cost-effective.

all existing upgrade extractors should be turned into a permanent one, and everyone who has bought and consumed upgrade extractors should receive the permanent one in the mail. if the number you’ve bought exceeds the gem store cost of the new permanent upgrade extractor (which essentially just pulls out upgrades at no cost or risk), then there should be some kind of compensation/refund proportional to what was spent.

So how will exotic upgrade components be consumed in the future if you can reuse them indefinately? Or we just wait until they flood the market and all of them are at vendor value.

Then we go back to the forums and complain that the unlimited upgrade extractor, which we paid 1000 gems for, is basically worthless because its cheaper to buy the upgrade components at vendor price from the tp.

mmm… you have a point.

perhaps, then, allow a use of the salvage kit to attempt to remove an upgrade at the salvage kit’s return rate but with no risk to the parent item. If you fail to remove the upgrade, it is destroyed.

So you can still burn a black lion salvage kit charge to guarantee an extraction, or take the 50/50 risk of using a mystic/masters (which, while it would be devastating to destroy an upgrade with a failure, would still at least give you the possibility of returning the upgrade)

As a possible fringe benefit, this would potentially chew through a great many of the huge number of black lion kits already out there (i know i for one have one on every character and another one for each of them in my bank; i’ve likely used at least that many in my time since i started playing)

Narrrz.7532:

Wanze.8410:

Narrrz.7532:

i think that salvage kits should work as they did in gw1, ie giving the option to remove an upgrade rather than retrieving materials. If used this way, the chance to preserve the armor is twice what the chance to preserve the upgrade would be now, so using a masters/mystic kit or better ensures that the armor is not destroyed.

from an economic POV, the balancing factor to this would be that if you’re concerned with preserving the upgrade, you use up charges twice as fast when salvaging gear for materials. depending on what you’re salvaging, this might not be cost-effective.

all existing upgrade extractors should be turned into a permanent one, and everyone who has bought and consumed upgrade extractors should receive the permanent one in the mail. if the number you’ve bought exceeds the gem store cost of the new permanent upgrade extractor (which essentially just pulls out upgrades at no cost or risk), then there should be some kind of compensation/refund proportional to what was spent.

So how will exotic upgrade components be consumed in the future if you can reuse them indefinately? Or we just wait until they flood the market and all of them are at vendor value.

Then we go back to the forums and complain that the unlimited upgrade extractor, which we paid 1000 gems for, is basically worthless because its cheaper to buy the upgrade components at vendor price from the tp.

mmm… you have a point.

perhaps, then, allow a use of the salvage kit to attempt to remove an upgrade at the salvage kit’s return rate but with no risk to the parent item. If you fail to remove the upgrade, it is destroyed.

So you can still burn a black lion salvage kit charge to guarantee an extraction, or take the 50/50 risk of using a mystic/masters (which, while it would be devastating to destroy an upgrade with a failure, would still at least give you the possibility of returning the upgrade)

As a possible fringe benefit, this would potentially chew through a great many of the huge number of black lion kits already out there (i know i for one have one on every character and another one for each of them in my bank; i’ve likely used at least that many in my time since i started playing)

Actually, I think BL Salvage kits and their 100% chance to recover upgrades are one of the main reasons the upgrade component market is messed up and I wouldnt mind, if they take them out of the game, along with the upgrade extractor.

Because it made us think about upgrade components as permanently retrievable and reusable and not as a consumable, like it should be.

OK, the BL Kits were introduced to generate gem sales but as you stated, most of the players generate enough of those for their use through drops and login rewards, so i doubt that people actually pay real money for gems to buy them.

In my opinion upgrade components should work like consumables or crafting materials, once you put them on gear, there shouldnt be a 100% chance to retrieve them again.

I even think that the 80% chance of master kits is too high.

ArchonWing.9480:

Well, I don’t know, but it’s heavily outdated. Karma armor can at least be forged.

Certain stat combos you can get for less gold on the TP, for no badges, and is salvageable.

I think it’d be nice to provide ascended gear with badges too; in those cases I wouldn’t worry about being salvageable.

Of course the ultimate problem comes in two forms:

Upgrade Extractor where the thing is usually more expensive than the runes
Badges being too common and thus of questionable value as a currency.

It’s really easy to get a full set of exotic with the badges though. Like, really, really easy. And fast. Karma takes quite a bit of time and crafting takes lots of dosh or time for materials. If the requirements for the armour were pushed up (2k badges per bit?) I’d be more inclined to agree, but I suspect people already have lots stacked up.

Wanze.8410:

Actually, I think BL Salvage kits and their 100% chance to recover upgrades are one of the main reasons the upgrade component market is messed up and I wouldnt mind, if they take them out of the game, along with the upgrade extractor.

Because it made us think about upgrade components as permanently retrievable and reusable and not as a consumable, like it should be.

OK, the BL Kits were introduced to generate gem sales but as you stated, most of the players generate enough of those for their use through drops and login rewards, so i doubt that people actually pay real money for gems to buy them.

In my opinion upgrade components should work like consumables or crafting materials, once you put them on gear, there shouldnt be a 100% chance to retrieve them again.

I even think that the 80% chance of master kits is too high.

The problem there is that upgrades then become the province of the rich & elite. Strength runes are 15g apiece as is; tell me that wouldn’t double, triple or more if people couldn’t retrieve them from armour.

Actually, on that note… those runes would become unable to be found except through mystic forging, which would artificially inflate the price of upgrades across the board. I doubt there’d be anything more lucrative than crafting major or even minor upgrades to sell.

Wanze.8410:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

Anet simply underestimated the new supply of upgrade components from the start and overestimated the demand for them.
Thats why, shortly after launch, they disabled the function to throw 4 exotic upgrades into the forge and get a new one, to cut supply of in demand sigils and runes.
However, that also cut a mayor sink for undesired runes and sigils, which all sit at vendor value now. And that didnt adress the demand side either as most people kept their expensive UC´s via the old transmutation system.
The old transmutation system took a bit longer to fix but just because they waited 1.5 years for it doesnt mean that the ability to retrieve upgrade components in the process was an intended feature.

With the current system if, let’s say, Scholar Runes aren’t the best for your current build but Strength runes are, very few players (only those who care absolutely the most about efficiency) will make the change if their old runes will be lost in the process, for example swapping runes on Ascended gear or karma/badge gear.

However if players were allowed to swap their runes more freely then players would invest on multiple rune sets instead of one set effectively increasing their demand. Now if there was also a way to craft legendary (or ascended runes) that work like other runes only can change their stats (like legendary weapons) but require the base exotic runes in the crafting process, then the rune market might see another boost.

Narrrz.7532:

Wanze.8410:

Actually, I think BL Salvage kits and their 100% chance to recover upgrades are one of the main reasons the upgrade component market is messed up and I wouldnt mind, if they take them out of the game, along with the upgrade extractor.

Because it made us think about upgrade components as permanently retrievable and reusable and not as a consumable, like it should be.

OK, the BL Kits were introduced to generate gem sales but as you stated, most of the players generate enough of those for their use through drops and login rewards, so i doubt that people actually pay real money for gems to buy them.

In my opinion upgrade components should work like consumables or crafting materials, once you put them on gear, there shouldnt be a 100% chance to retrieve them again.

I even think that the 80% chance of master kits is too high.

The problem there is that upgrades then become the province of the rich & elite. Strength runes are 15g apiece as is; tell me that wouldn’t double, triple or more if people couldn’t retrieve them from armour.

Actually, on that note… those runes would become unable to be found except through mystic forging, which would artificially inflate the price of upgrades across the board. I doubt there’d be anything more lucrative than crafting major or even minor upgrades to sell.

You are right, strength runes would become more expensive, just like any other popular UC that isnt craftable. Thats part of the problem and indicates, how messed up the UC market is at the moment, as i stated before.

A viable solution to this isnt making karma or batch armor salvageable, as it only addresses one part of the problem. In general, i dont have a problem with people having to pay a good chunk more for meta builds because in some way, it promotes build diversity as some might opt to go for a cheaper, alternative build but the price range is a bit high with UCs where the range for a full set of runes/sigils can range from a couple of silver to 100g for the most popular builds.

Zerker gear for example, which is about 30% more expensive than most other builds, is in a good place in terms of pricing for meta builds, i think.

Sentinel armor and weapons are on the edge of being too expensive, sent trinkets are too expensive and Keeper/zealot gear is simply rediculous, considering you need 500 sprockets per piece.

For upgrade components, i would draw the line at 10g per piece for the most popular ones.

But as I mentioned, the possibility to recover UCs via salvage kits makes it really hard to balance their demand and therefore their supply as well. The only possibility of expensive UCs to be destroyed is to put them on unsalvageable gear and even then, they still fill their purpose, so the owner wont become a buyer anytime soon.

In general, a low volume market, like UCs, is way harder to balance compared to high volume markets.
If we have 10k players using a strength rune set thats already 60k runes in use and there are only about 500 on the tp. Maybe there is demand for another 1000 runes per day and on a regular day, that can be covered by regular supply. But once big changes come to the game, like the last balance patch, its hard to cover the additional demand because there isnt elastic supply.

In order to rework the UC market, a great deal of additional sinks and more elastic supply has to be created, we cant only address high value UCs but also have to consider the bulk of undesired UCs and how ethey can be used up or put a higher value on.

The best choice to do that, is to introduce some kind of UC library, where you unlock UCs to use and can choose your active one while OOC. Personally, i firmly believe that they intend to introduce such a system in the future but it will have a big impact on the economy, just like the wardrobe or dye changes or the recent change to switchable stats on ascended gear or the added functionality to legendary weapons. And I am not so sure, if it is in the works for HoT, my tip would be a release date with a feature/balance patch next year at the earliest.

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

What if you don’t get mats for salvaging them? WvW items only give back the upgrade slot on them, karma gives you the rune with the Account Bound text.

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

Zerker inscriptions and insignias arent salvageable from any zerker gear.

Ausfer.1853:

What is the friggen point of those extractors if they cost more than buying a new sigil?! Is it just a scam to get not-so-knowledgeable people spending money to buy gems? This is ridiculous.

They’re for things like infusions in ascended gear.

Wanze.8410:

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

Zerker inscriptions and insignias arent salvageable from any zerker gear.

Oh yeah. Well then guess it’d fall on the other ones like soldiers and rabid which have some value.

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

The topic is about recovering updates from karma/badge gear the same way you could before the wardrobe system was implemented. If they don’t want a direct karma/badge → gold conversion they can simply make karma/badge gear not salvageable and just give players a way to get the upgrades and only them. Honestly I don’t think this has any kind of effect on the economy other than make karma/badge gear useless.

The only people who buy karma/badge gear now are those who don’t know you can’t get upgrades from them then come on the forum and post about it. Allowing upgrades to be retained from karma/badge gear will have a minimal (if any) effect on the rune/sigil economy because players that know they aren’t salvageable don’t use this type of gear anyway.

On the other hand it might make badges and even karma more valuable and important than something to gather.

FLiP.7680:

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

What if you don’t get mats for salvaging them? WvW items only give back the upgrade slot on them, karma gives you the rune with the Account Bound text.

That would change the function of existing salvage kits. What you really want is for Anet to provide the upgrade extractor in game (for a cheaper price) rather than through the gem store. This was have implications.

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

maddoctor.2738:

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be for economic reasons.

If it was for economic reasons they wouldn’t allow us to recover upgrades easily with the old transmute system. The problem with badge/karma armor started with the wardrobe update, there was no problem before it so it can’t be for anything related to the economy.

What happens when people with excess badges and karma can salvage armor bought with them directly? How many more mats will enter the market? Inscription/insignia prices, such as for berserker, would fall dramatically.

The topic is about recovering updates from karma/badge gear the same way you could before the wardrobe system was implemented. If they don’t want a direct karma/badge -> gold conversion they can simply make karma/badge gear not salvageable and just give players a way to get the upgrades and only them. Honestly I don’t think this has any kind of effect on the economy other than make karma/badge gear useless.

The only people who buy karma/badge gear now are those who don’t know you can’t get upgrades from them then come on the forum and post about it. Allowing upgrades to be retained from karma/badge gear will have a minimal (if any) effect on the rune/sigil economy because players that know they aren’t salvageable don’t use this type of gear anyway.

On the other hand it might make badges and even karma more valuable and important than something to gather.

A lot of these discussions have turned towards salvage kits being used in the past. Since salvage kits are not specific on what you remove, unlike GW1, using them would net the player mats, insignia/inscription, and UC. I addressed the first two as I had seen Wanze already posted about UC’s.

Honestly, I wouldn’t care much if a cheaper way to get back UC’s existed so long as it doesn’t cost less that 5G per UC removed.

I just did some research and from 58 tradeable exotic runes, 8 can be considered expensive with a buy price over 2g.

4 of those expensive runes (perplexity, tormenting, exuberance and scholar) are expensive because they can only be crafted and need expensive mats (250 sprockets, charged lodes), the other 4 (strength, hoelbrak, traveler and pack) are expensive because they are meta runes and cant be crafted, so their supply isnt as elastic as crafted runes as they can only be salvaged from dropped exotic gear or forged via lucky drops from 4 rare runes.

Its the same picture for exotic sigils. Out of 65 tradeable sigils, 13 can be considered expensive with a price of over 2g.
2 of them (karka slaying and generosity) are expensive because they dont drop anymore. 6 (bursting, torment, renewal, malice, momentum, strength) are expensive because they are crafted and need expensive mats (sprockets, toxic spores, lodes, mist essence) and 5 are popular sigils that only drop from the forge or are salvaged from exotic weapon drops (energy, fire, air, force, bloodlust).

If we disregard sigils of karka slaying and generosity, which dont drop anymore, we have 19 UC´s that are expensive, 10 are crafted and 9 are obtained through rng, either via drops of exotic gear or through the forge.

From the 10 crafted ones, 6 account their value towards the price of watchwork sprockets, which you need 250 of, and a good crafters profit because the ability to craft them is limited to those that obtained the recipes during the queens jubilee nearly 2 years ago. A requirement of 250 sprockets was during the event because sprockets were abundant and only cost a couple of copper but after the event, supply dried up and sprockets are hovering around 3s for over a year now. So the price of 6/19 expensive UC´s can be fixed by simply introducing new sprocket faucets to bring the price down and reintroduce the recipes to bring the crafters profit down.
Another one (sigil of torment) has a high price due to the price of toxic spore samples, which you need 100 of per sigil, which comes down to 10g. While the recipe is tradeable, it goes for over 100g, so there is a good profit margin for crafters as well. But bringing down the price of toxic spore samples should suffice here.
The other 3 crafted ones are due to lodestone prices, as they either need 1 charged or 2 onyx lodes. Lodestones are a rare drop and i think their prices are fine. Those 3 crafted UCs are also in the 2-5g range, so still acceptable for me.

I think its also noteworthy that some of those crafted UCs arent considered meta or popular UCs, their price is just high because of their crafting cost.

This leaves us with 9 expensive UC´s that are only produced via rng (salvaged from exotic drops or through forging).

There are simple ways to buff their droprate, either introduce more exotic drops that carry those UCs or put some on the loot table of possible outcomes in the forge.

Ayrilana.1396:

Honestly, I wouldn’t care much if a cheaper way to get back UC’s existed so long as it doesn’t cost less that 5G per UC removed.

From the gem store you can get 5 charges for 150 gems (30 per charge), 10 charges for 270 gems (27 per charge) and 25 for 600 (24 per charge)

100 gems is ~20g now, so 6g if you get the 5 charge version, 5.4g for the 10 charge version and 4.8g for the 25 charge version

So 4.8g – 6g is the equal price you had to pay with the old system to transmute items and save your UCs. Of course the big difference is that you can get transmutation charges for free and you are not forced to pay and use the gem store.

I’d like the same functionality to come back and allow players to keep their UC if they use transmutation charges on their badge/karma/ascended gear

Continued:

I want to further explain why i think making karma armor or wvw salvageable is a bad choice in an economic sense:

The bottom line is that it will remove the one and only sink (apart from ascended gear) of the UCs. Lets face it, if you could remove a runeset of strength from any gear until you apply them to end game gear (Ascended), 1 set is all you will buy, maybe 12 or 18, depending how much armor classes you play, as ascended gear stays account bound after use.

If that was the case, runes of strength would slowly become oversupplied as well, diminishing in value, just like all other meta UCs (mostly related to dps). That would mean that mayor runes and sigils wouldnt be worth putting into the forge anymore, removing their main sink and they would go to vendor value, just like minor UCs.
We can stop forging superior UCs, but we cant really avoid getting drops of those expensive UCs via gear drops, so supply will keep coming in.

I will try to put some fictional numbers behind my theory with runes of strength for an example:

Right now every day 1000 runes of strength are generated per day, 500 on random exotic armor drops and 500 from the forge, and there is demand for 1000, 500 from new players who obtain their first set of runes or players who wish to put a rune set on a secondary armor set and 500 from players who need a 2nd set because they put their first set on unsalvageable gear.

By removing the inability to salvage UCs form karma armor or wvw gear, which many people ask for, you also terminate at least 50% of the general demand, which is a big chunk of the supply/demand equation.

Thats why, in an economic sense, its easier to adjust faucets, not sinks. Cutting the demand for expensive UCs by 50% will have a huge impact, not only towards the prices of the UCs itself but it would also impact many crafting and forging mats.

If demand for an item is higher than its supply, its more reasonable to adjust supply slightly (by either buffing droprate by a couple % or introducing temporary faucets via festivals or temporary content) rather than nerfing demand by a huge amount, like 50%.

Silk scraps are a good example of this practice. Ever since ascended armorcrafting got introduced in dec 13, people complained about the price of it and asked anet to reverse the change of using 3 scraps per bolt to 2, or nerf the requirements for a bolt of damask from 100 bolts of silk to 50. Both changes would either mean a demand drop of 33% or 50% or 66%, if both changes were implemented. Anet did nothing for half a year but with season 2, introduced alot of new silk faucets for silk, DT and SW as permanent content and Halloween/Wintersday as temporary content. That way they only buffed the faucets by maybe 10 or 20%, allowing the price of silk to slowly adjust, rather than slashing the demand side by 33, 50 or 66%, which were popular demands from the player base.

TL/DR: If demand exceeds supply by a margin, adjust supply, not demand.

Wanze.8410:

The bottom line is that it will remove the one and only sink (apart from ascended gear) of the UCs. Lets face it, if you could remove a runeset of strength from any gear until you apply them to end game gear (Ascended), 1 set is all you will buy, maybe 12 or 18, depending how much armor classes you play, as ascended gear stays account bound after use.

I don’t think there is a reliable sink for UCs now. The only people who will use their expensive UCs on karma or badge gear are those who don’t know they can’t salvage it and then come on the forums to complain.

I remember when players were collecting their karma to get their temple armor, now temple armor isn’t used as much. I don’t think players are buying more than 1 set of runes / sigils, unless they play multiple characters. Just wait until you get the “proper” gear and leave badges and karma to collect dust.

Right now every day 1000 runes of strength are generated per day, 500 on random exotic armor drops and 500 from the forge, and there is demand for 1000, 500 from new players who obtain their first set of runes or players who wish to put a rune set on a secondary armor set and 500 from players who need a 2nd set because they put their first set on unsalvageable gear.

As more and more players are reading forums or are asking their guild for gearing advice that number of 500 players who need a second set because they put their first set on unsalvageable gear will soon be 100 or even 10. Do you honestly believe so many players would buy karma/badge gear if they knew it was unsalvagable?

Ascended gear is different because it’s account bound. That’s a different issue

maddoctor.2738:

Wanze.8410:

The bottom line is that it will remove the one and only sink (apart from ascended gear) of the UCs. Lets face it, if you could remove a runeset of strength from any gear until you apply them to end game gear (Ascended), 1 set is all you will buy, maybe 12 or 18, depending how much armor classes you play, as ascended gear stays account bound after use.

I don’t think there is a reliable sink for UCs now. The only people who will use their expensive UCs on karma or badge gear are those who don’t know they can’t salvage it and then come on the forums to complain.

I remember when players were collecting their karma to get their temple armor, now temple armor isn’t used as much. I don’t think players are buying more than 1 set of runes / sigils, unless they play multiple characters. Just wait until you get the “proper” gear and leave badges and karma to collect dust.

Right now every day 1000 runes of strength are generated per day, 500 on random exotic armor drops and 500 from the forge, and there is demand for 1000, 500 from new players who obtain their first set of runes or players who wish to put a rune set on a secondary armor set and 500 from players who need a 2nd set because they put their first set on unsalvageable gear.

As more and more players are reading forums or are asking their guild for gearing advice that number of 500 players who need a second set because they put their first set on unsalvageable gear will soon be 100 or even 10. Do you honestly believe so many players would buy karma/badge gear if they knew it was unsalvagable?

Ascended gear is different because it’s account bound. That’s a different issue

In many ways, i agree with you but i dont see where your problem is, if you claim that the amount of people putting expensive runes/sigils on unsalvageable gear is diminishing from 500 to 100 or even 10. That can be remedied by simply putting a warning on that gear, which is a simple change (they did it for ascended gear that was transmuted, when you try to put it into the forge) with the last balance patch, a fix that i wouldnt have a problem with and would be more or less a viable solution to OPs problem.
However, the reason why the UC market is borked is not the price of expenisve UCs but mostly the fact that most of the undesirable UCs are available at vendor value or far below crafting value. Its something not many players realize because they dont bother with inexpensive UCs, complaints about loot in general focus on rare drops rather than undesirable drops.
But if making a rare drop more accessible means putting more items into vendor value range, i would argue that it isnt a good change for the mayority of the player base or the game in general.
And half of the expensive UCs are related to their crafting mats anyways, so any change towards their demand would affect thise markets.

Right now, it would be ill advice anyways to tell anybody to purchase light or medium armor via badges, as you still pay 5.5g for a full set to the vendor, plus 950 badges. Crafted light or medium armor is available for roughly 6g on buy order on the tp. IT looks a bit different for heavy armor due to the high price of ori compared to hard leather and gossamer but i am sure there are better ways to turn your badges into gold than trying to save on the acquisition costs of an exotic set.
The same goes for all the weapons, excewpt maybe, gs, sw, dagger and staves.

Not so sure about temple armor, as I dont use my karma to make gold, but i would be surprised if turning your karma into linen wouldnt give you more profit than buying a set of exotic gear for ~180k karma would save you 6-10g on purchase costs.
The only upside, in my opinion, was the ability to purchase exotic temple gear with melandru runes, which you could transmute but that was disabled since the wardrobe change.

At this time, i wouldnt recommend to anybody to use their karma or badges to purchase a set of exotic gear, as i think the gold value of a set of exotic gear is far less than the amount of badges or karma you will need to purchase one and the your badges and karma will make you more profit in a different way.

Ausfer.1853:

Blades Of Fatalis.1279:

the only thing worth using an upgrade extractor on is generosity sigils, for almost anything else your spending many many times the items value to recover the upgrade from the gear.

I can’t stand this.

What is the friggen point of those extractors if they cost more than buying a new sigil?! Is it just a scam to get not-so-knowledgeable people spending money to buy gems? This is ridiculous.

Yes, because you can compare your dirt cheap 10g rune or sigil to an infusion I spent 100g+ on.

They should make a karma/badge salvage kit:
0% chance to recover any materials, 100% to recover rune/sigil but makes it account bound.

borgs.6103:

They should make a karma/badge salvage kit:
0% chance to recover any materials, 100% to recover rune/sigil but makes it account bound.

y’no, i could defs get behind that.

Narrrz.7532:

borgs.6103:

They should make a karma/badge salvage kit:
0% chance to recover any materials, 100% to recover rune/sigil but makes it account bound.

y’no, i could defs get behind that.

ditto, I just want to be able to get the upgrades, I dont care about anything else personally

All they really have to do is make extractors of different types. As the ones in the gem store are for asc/leg they should make one that has 6 (7?) charges for the same price and is only for exotic.

Deedrick.4372:

All they really have to do is make extractors of different types. As the ones in the gem store are for asc/leg they should make one that has 6 (7?) charges for the same price and is only for exotic.

The gem store extractor is not limited to Ascended/Legendary items…you can use it on anything, though why you would is beyond me…except for getting those UC you want out of armor/weapons.

I completely disagree with everyone…if you want the UC bad enough from your Karma/Badge armor…then get the 25 use Extractor, otherwise I think this entire argument is hollow.

I know it works on any thing, but removing infusions means it was designed for leg/asc gear...

paying that much per charge means it’s only worth it to rip out +10 agonys, and maybe not even then.

One of the more laughably absurd gem items really