Guild Wars 2

We have gobblers for ascended material (a few different ones), and if I recall there’s one for karma?

My idea is this: A Universal Gobbler that is coded on Anet’s side to allow them to easily change what the thing eats. Still outputs an item like other gobblers that double-clicks into a piece of armor/weapon, a crafting mat, and a junk item.

Why/how it would be useful: This would allow Anet to do soft-balancing on certain materials where there may be so many on the market that they are practically vendor value, or items that are account bound that pile up (Airship Maintenance Oil anyone?)

An example would be: Tuesday hits and users log into find out that the universal gobbler is interested in consuming Barbed Thorns (currently at around 18c with a supply of 3million+). Players could then put 4 or 5 stacks of Barbed Thorns into their inventory, and the gobbler would consume them and spit out a bag of some sort.

A stack of thorns is currently 38.25silver, and, at least in my experience, the output of the gobbler bags is usually around 5 to 8 silver worth of material, with the occasional surprise.

Let’s say that a week later, Barbed Thorns are around a silver a piece, because so many have been eaten. Anet could then switch the gobblers desires to something like Airship Maintenance Oil, or Tiny Totems, or whatever they determine could use some supply reduction. It could include the entire range. Crafting mats, essence of luck, account bound items, and so on, but only one item type consumed.

I’m no lore person, so this is probably completely wrong, but a backstory idea for it might be something like “hey boss! remember that chak organ? It doesn’t just consume magic!”… and let it go from there.

This would remove the potential rewards that they can copy and paste to reward us for completing achievements.

I like it. I would like a variable gobbler that eats low value, high supply junque that everyone has so much of it’s not even worth selling as well as account bound items that have very small sinks that I have stacks of.

Ah kitten , when I saw the title I thought you were going to propose a gobbler that combined the effects of all gobblers you have unlocked on your account. You would probably right click to select which mat to “gobble”, and could cycle through each one you’ve unlocked.

But I also like this idea a lot. Would be an easy way for Anet to softly balance the economy in shorter phases, used primarily just to drain excess mats.

I like this as a material/trading post sink. Hopefully it also includes a sink for all the stuff we get by the bucket yet are account bound (ie, the specifically mentioned airship oil). It’d be nice if those access items could be returned in exchange for currencies (airship oil for parts) or keys (oil for crowbars), or just to give a small other reward for boosts or rares/exotics.

It would be a relatively low-pain way of addressing the inventory bloat. Especially if said eater also consumes junk runes/sigils~

Ayrilana.1396:

This would remove the potential rewards that they can copy and paste to reward us for completing achievements.

Not necessarily. You’re limited with this gobbler to what ANet wants it to gobble. Other gobblers would be able to gobble items on demand.

And the universal one I would say would be for items that aren’t generated quickly, but the supply has greatly exceeded the demand for them. Not necessarily items that players would constantly get too many too quickly for.

I like the idea but many wont as it give Anet a direct and visible way of controlling the market, which is against their (anets) design (they always mention the player driven market as a selling point)

from a players stand point it destroys the market investment (why invest in an item when anet could break your profit at any point).

As a more acceptable option set the gobbler on a rotation like the pact supplies etc (all materials in the bank can be on the list for varying amounts)

This gives anet a direct way of removing the excess mats while not ruining the player driven market.

Nebast.7631:

I like the idea but many wont as it give Anet a direct and visible way of controlling the market, which is against their (anets) design (they always mention the player driven market as a selling point)

Players still drive the market, even with the gobbler. Using it is a gamble anyway. The standard return would be, in the barbed thorns example, 35 to 40silver input, with only 5s or so return. Players still have control in that they can choose not to use the gobbler for that time period.

Nebast.7631:

from a players stand point it destroys the market investment (why invest in an item when anet could break your profit at any point).

I think you got that backwards. This would encourage people to invest in low cost items. If you invested in 1000 barbed thorns right now at 18c, and then anet introduced this gobbler and had it set to barbed thorns, the price on the TP is going to go up, not down.

This item affects the “player driven market” no more than any other similar sink (have you ever gambled ectoplasm? no different than this). The long term benefit is, as others have stated, “soft” balancing. Anet has needed a bit more finesse in their balancing act as it is (see: leather).