Guild Wars 2

The rarity of several former LWS1 event materials has been becoming more and more of an issue for a while now. The main sources of these haven’t been in game for a while (since LWS1 in fact) leaving the only way to get them being extremely unlikely RNG, a few isolated nodes in dry top for Quartz, a jumping puzzle and fractals for Blade Shards (low drop rate), or the home instance node Watchwork Sprockets. This is driving the costs of items that use them, particularly Glow Lamps which are in demand for forging Mawdrey, and Blade Shards, which are in demand for forging Spinal Blades, through the roof. Charged Quartz, already time gated hard by the 1/day limit, are even harder throttled by being only available in any quantity in the Queen Skritt event.

We need new sources to be put into the game to bring things more in line with the drop rates that these materials, and the recipes they go into, were intended for. Either that, or we need new or alternative recipes for the items they build into. Otherwise it will take months to get usable quantities, and the items that are based off of these materials will become unattainable. Unless and until LWS1 is once again available, these materials are simply too rare.

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

My point exactly. These materials were meant to be extremely common, dropping by the bucket load during LWS1. But when that content went away nearly every source of them went with it. For example, Watchwork Sprockets, once occurring in such quantities that people would delete piles because they were worthless, are now basically only available in quantities of 6-12 PER DAY from the home instance node. This means the difficulty of forging anything that needs them (including Blade Shards, which have an even lower drop rate currently) is far far higher than was intended, and thus the price of those items is itself rapidly reaching insane levels as the remaining supplies in the hands of LWS1 players begin to dry up.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

Apparently they do, because the Assault Knight power cores still sell. And actually should be a bigger concern than the blade shards because there is no way to get more of them and hasn’t been for over 2 years. When the ones currently in circulation are gone (or the people holding them stop playing/simply refuse to sell) there is no way for anyone to get more.

The same is true of the blueprints, but the supply of those seems to be much higher.

Danikat.8537:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

Apparently they do, because the Assault Knight power cores still sell. And actually should be a bigger concern than the blade shards because there is no way to get more of them and hasn’t been for over 2 years. When the ones currently in circulation are gone (or the people holding them stop playing/simply refuse to sell) there is no way for anyone to get more.

The same is true of the blueprints, but the supply of those seems to be much higher.

I didn’t even know that material existed, since I have never seen it. Certifiably anything that has 0 sources is an even more pressing concern than those that are simply on extremely restricted sources.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

My point exactly. These materials were meant to be extremely common, dropping by the bucket load during LWS1. But when that content went away nearly every source of them went with it. For example, Watchwork Sprockets, once occurring in such quantities that people would delete piles because they were worthless, are now basically only available in quantities of 6-12 PER DAY from the home instance node. This means the difficulty of forging anything that needs them (including Blade Shards, which have an even lower drop rate currently) is far far higher than was intended, and thus the price of those items is itself rapidly reaching insane levels as the remaining supplies in the hands of LWS1 players begin to dry up.

Really? Because I get hundreds of sprockets per day from gathering… Yay watchwork pick! That one time expense has certainly paid off for all of the above, including extra coin when needed. Might not be the preferred method, but they are certainly not hard to come by or reaching insane levels in price.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

My point exactly. These materials were meant to be extremely common, dropping by the bucket load during LWS1. But when that content went away nearly every source of them went with it. For example, Watchwork Sprockets, once occurring in such quantities that people would delete piles because they were worthless, are now basically only available in quantities of 6-12 PER DAY from the home instance node. This means the difficulty of forging anything that needs them (including Blade Shards, which have an even lower drop rate currently) is far far higher than was intended, and thus the price of those items is itself rapidly reaching insane levels as the remaining supplies in the hands of LWS1 players begin to dry up.

I don’t disagree that more sources for these things could be beneficial (and I say that as someone with both the Quartz and Sprocket home instance nodes and a Watchwork mining pick who makes a fair bit of gold selling them).

But I’ve got to call your bluff on the ridiculous hyperbole in this post. The price on those items is not “rapidly reaching insane levels as the remaining supplies begin to dry up”.

In fact the price on Watchwork Sprocket’s has dropped since last year and remained relatively stable throughout this year. Quartz has been gradually increasing this year but has yet to reach it’s peak, which was at the end of 2015. It seems to be included as a Wintersday item, so the price crashes each December and then climbs again until the next year.

Sprokets: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/44941
Quartz: http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/43773

Blade shards are account bound so it’s not possible to track supply, demand and value for them but an easy fix there would be to make then tradable. I have to delete the ones I get from the Sprocket node and I assume many other people who have it do the same.

Even the Power Cores, which as I said previously actually are unavailable now, have only been rising gradually and their price has actually dropped slightly in recent days.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Bah, I have stacks and stacks of them. Perhaps, I should part with them more often.

Do players still create Tempered Spinal Backpieces? Maybe just for the skins, I suppose.

My point exactly. These materials were meant to be extremely common, dropping by the bucket load during LWS1. But when that content went away nearly every source of them went with it. For example, Watchwork Sprockets, once occurring in such quantities that people would delete piles because they were worthless, are now basically only available in quantities of 6-12 PER DAY from the home instance node. This means the difficulty of forging anything that needs them (including Blade Shards, which have an even lower drop rate currently) is far far higher than was intended, and thus the price of those items is itself rapidly reaching insane levels as the remaining supplies in the hands of LWS1 players begin to dry up.

What is your source on how ‘extremely common’ Watchwork Sprockets, Blade Shards, or Crystals should be? I’m curious.

I think you are mistaken in how many Watchwork Sprockets are created each day. I accumulate an awful lot each day from all the mining I do. Blade Shards do drop less frequently, of course, but Sprockets not so much.

You might consider investing in sources while waiting for ArenaNet to implement your suggestion(s).

Good luck.

Most players don’t have Gem store mining tools. While it may be true that you get a lot of some materials from these, it is not reasonable to constrain general supply and require people to put in Gems in order to acquire materials. Even worse because the item in question is not always available either.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Most players don’t have Gem store mining tools. While it may be true that you get a lot of some materials from these, it is not reasonable to constrain general supply and require people to put in Gems in order to acquire materials. Even worse because the item in question is not always available either.

Both quartz and sprockets are also available as Map Bonuses.

I think it took about 2 months (playing about 2 hours a day on average and only mining nodes as I came across them) for my Watchwork mining pick to pay for itself. I bought gems with real money, got the pick, and then used the gold I got from selling Sprockets to buy back the gems.

I didn’t want to spend real money on the pick because I already had the Molten one and hated the animation, but it seemed like a waste of money to change it. My original plan was to save up the gold and then buy the pick but once I settled on the Watchwork one as having a relatively low-key animation I realised it would make more sense to use the extra profit to pay it back.

However as a way of getting more sprockets into the economy that system falls prey to a serious case of diminishing returns. The pick is only so profitable because sprockets are valuable. If lots of people had it and there were more sprockets and less demand then the price would fall and late adopters wouldn’t be able to use the same system (or rather it would take them much longer).

Sprockets are cheaper than ever on the TP, because of the source (mostly from watchwork picks) keeps increasing, while the demand never varies much. Conclusion: no need for ANet to intervene.

The price of making your own blade shards (the only way to acquire them quickly) is also at a low point. I wouldn’t mind if ANet changed the recipe, but again, there’s no fundamental problem with obtaining enough, if one is in a rush.

Quartz is pricier than in the past, but it’s leveled off for the past couple of months. That suggests that the current supply sources to the TP are adequately matching the current demand on the TP. In other words: no need for ANet to intervene.

Power Cores… well. I confess I don’t understand why those aren’t available at Pact Vendors or for commendations or laurels, even if they are account bound. On the other hand, coloring your This Back is Spinal Blades was always a luxury — it just happens to be an incredibly expensive luxury today, so again I don’t think ANet needs to intervene.

Disclaimer: I’m not opposed to ANet increasing faucets or decreasing sinks on these items; I just don’t think that there’s any reason that they need to do so any time soon.

To be fair, the spinal blade backpieces are more likely the “I was there” type thing. And you do realize blade shards DO drop from aetherblade enemies still? I can think of 2 places where you can find that category of enemies still.

Aidan Savage.2078:

To be fair, the spinal blade backpieces are more likely the “I was there” type thing. And you do realize blade shards DO drop from aetherblade enemies still? I can think of 2 places where you can find that category of enemies still.

As well as Blades being able to be promoted in the Mystic Forge; thus, not so incredibly scarce.

I wish there were more sources for some of the other LW story things as well. I wasn’t around when the Modrem attacks were going on, and now we have no way to obtain items that require Modrem Blooms.

Roam.5208:

I wish there were more sources for some of the other LW story things as well. I wasn’t around when the Modrem attacks were going on, and now we have no way to obtain items that require Modrem Blooms.

Even if you were around you may not have been able to obtain them. Those events were horribly bugged so many people who did participate missed out and others were unable to actually join in.

I think relatively few of the items available from it were ones that couldn’t be obtained anywhere else. I remember a lot of people being disappointed that items they’d hoped for weren’t included and instead we got another temporary source for ones that were still available, if only on the TP.

But if we’re getting into making skins and other items from Season 1 obtainable then the best approach would be to go the whole way and bring back the entire season. Unfortunately that’s a lot of work so it’s not something we’re likely to see any time soon (if ever) but I keep hoping it will happen.

Unfortunately the item I want isn’the available from anywhere else I hope they take the Laurel Vendor approach with such items, as I’very seen suggested before.

It’s been like two years since I played LoL, but I still think last whisper when I see LW

and I was not aware that charged quartz had anything to do with LW. It was available by the bucketload during last wintersday.

I agree with OP, there needs to be more ways to obtain LWS1 reward Yes there is a promotion recipe for blade shards, and there is a gem store item that rewards you with bucketloads of watchwork sprockets. But there is no reliable way to farm them yourself without using gems for the mining pick. The home instance node gives you a relatively low amount. And quartz/charged quartz is another matter entirely…..

But more generally we need more ways to acquire LWS1 rewards, not just these materials. I have no problem working hard for the rewards if I have to, and I expect to have to work hard since I missed the actual events. But for the rewards that are even still obtainable, its 25+ laurels each, which is kittening ridiculous. It cost me an entire month’s worth of laurels just to get the quartz and watchwork nodes, both of which will require excessive amounts of daily farming just to get a good supply going (even more so since charged quartz is used for a lot of things not just LWS1 rewards, and it requires 25 quartz which is more than can be farmed in a single day if you hit every source in the game iirc) in order to craft what I want to craft. Yet in LWS1 you could get them for free as an achievement gift. Same thing with the other rewards. We need other ways to actually work for and earn them. 25+ laurels each is an absurd price for them. It will take years to be able to afford even part of the rewards

Technically, quartz isnt even a LW material, as it was introduced during the bazaar of the 4 winds, which is classified as a special event and wasnt part of LW season 1. It got reintroduced 10 months later during the festival of the 4 winds and since then, charged quartz was put onto the loot tables during halloween and wintersday.