Guild Wars 2

Costs way too much to make.

Bowl of Lemongrass Mussel Pasta (30m)
+10% damage reduction, +70 toughness
1 Pasta Noodles = ~2 silver
15 Mussels = ~9 silver
5 Lemongrass = ~35 silver
Total price = ~ 46 silver

And it’s because of the 5 lemongrass. Why such a ridiculous amount?
This is how much the vitality counterpart costs to make:

Bowl of Mussel Soup (30m)
+10% damage reduction, +70 vitality
24 Mussels = ~16 silver
Bowl of Cream Soup Base = ~10 silver
Total price = ~26 silver

The toughness variant is 20 silver more.

My suggestion? Lower the lemongrass required for Bowl of Lemongrass Mussel Pasta (30m) from 5 lemongrass to 2 lemongrass. This makes both of these recipes cost the same amount. Alternatively, increase the nourishment duration from 30m to 60m. However, you would need to do that to its similar foods as well for consistency which would make those foods much cheaper to use.

Why does this bother me anyway? Because on my warrior with the Armored Attack trait my toughness gets converted into power. The toughness from the food will give me more power (barely any, but still) so I have no need for the vitality variant. However, I must use the vitality variant because it is actually affordable.

Another argument is that although something might have an ingredient requirement which, in theory, creates demand for that item, if that something never gets made because it costs too much then there is no demand for that item. If the item becomes affordable then there will be demand for that item. For example: Since Bowl of Lemongrass Mussel Pasta costs way too much to make, I will not be making 50 of them like I wanted to which means I will not be buying 350 lemongrass.

oh, lemongrass isnt 15-20s any more?

Why should two foods have roughly the same cost because they have the same primary benefit?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why should two foods have roughly the same cost because they have the same primary benefit?

Why should 1 food cost almost double the price for what (realistically) is no more benefit than the other?

Zefrost.3425:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why should two foods have roughly the same cost because they have the same primary benefit?

Why should 1 food cost almost double the price for what (realistically) is no more benefit than the other?

Because the price of crafting depends on the cost of the ingredients, not the benefits. And the cost of the ingredients depends on how players value their time relative to the drop rates.

ANet shouldn’t change recipes based on the cost of items on the Trading Post. This is because the TP is a player market and prices can change yearly, monthly, daily or possibly hourly.

They did this with silk, and look what happened there.

If the issue is the drop rate, that is something ANet can change. If the issue is simply players don’t go out of their way to farm lemongrass and thus less players sell it then ANet definitely shouldn’t change the recipe.

Why not go farm some lemon grass, craft half and sell the rest to cover the cost of the pasta?

Zefrost.3425:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why should two foods have roughly the same cost because they have the same primary benefit?

Why should 1 food cost almost double the price for what (realistically) is no more benefit than the other?

Because the issue of costs for making anything do not boil down to any two items. Anet may make changes to trim back some of the serious imbalances, but to do so for every possible comparison point would be more effort than it’s worth. Such considerations are not just about your preferences in one aspect of crafting.

Toughness is like damage reduction and can reduce a lot of damage during an encounter. Vitality is a boost to your hitpoints that mitigates a specific amount of damage in an encounter (assuming no healing). Perhaps whoever designed the foods considers toughness to be worth more than vitality on a one-to-one basis?

I think the issue is the scarcity of lemongrass in general, I think there is like only 5 nodes in straights of devastation that are actually reliable spots to get it, even then unless you have multiple alts capable of farming the nodes you might only just get enough to make 1 food buff a day.

The alternative is of course doing what they did with so many other food ingredients and make them karma purchases, potentially as an alternative. Or just reduce the actual node cool down so you can farm it more than once every 12hrs.

AFAIK all similar foods, ie where the effect is the same with toughness or vitality the toughness food is more expensive so toughness is regarded as the greater asset.

Lemongrass is also not very abundant and can only be found in Straits of Devastation and they’re in clusters so there is about a 30% chance you’ll get one. The most I’ve seen is 5 nodes.

Edit: There’s also a rare chance from the nodes in WvW now.