Guild Wars 2

Just picked up the stream where Rubi remarked on Anet’s agreement that, now that the economy has settled, that scribing is too expensive, and that you’re planning on addressing it.

As a L388 scribe, I’m wondering if there are any plans to compensate those of us that early adopted the system under the old costs, or if we just get to be proud that we were there first.

Personally, I’m fine with either, but if the cost is significantly reduced, making a 120 gold item cost like 10 gold, that’s a massive change. There are good arguments for going either way. On the one hand, when crafting changes were made in the past to reduce costs on things there wasn’t any compensation. On the other hand, I can see the possibility that scribing may be cut more drastically than anything ever has been, easily halved or more in cost. That may be significant enough that it merits something to even the field given the small number of individuals, the large cost, and the number of people that contributed to their guild scribes.

Personally, I’d be fine with some stacks of soulbound materials, a title, or even an economy-friendly big stack of resonance, and I’d understand if we got nothing as well.

I’m wondering how scribes, non-scribes, and the folks at Anet see the issue.

I think what compensation would be appropriate depends on what costs are cut where. For instance, if they lower the cost of a Simple Table by 2/3, and you have made 6 Simple Tables for your GH, maybe they add enough more Simple Tables to the GH (here, if my math is correct, that’s 12 more?) to make up the cost difference. Which could of course flood guilds with more things than necessary.

If they convert to my preferred wardrobe system where you only need to make one and then can rubberstamp it out as desired, then guilds will be left with a tremendous investment in now superfluous items. Restoring mat values could really hurt the economy; perhaps the extra decorations could be made tradeable so that smaller guilds without the resources to create a scribe could then buy decorations. ANet would have the information to determine how well this would work. Would there be enough smaller guilds buying things to keep the value of each decoration up high enough for guilds to feel like selling? Also, how do we allow for TP sales of guild-bound items, when the TP needs individuals to list things?

I’m sure that economy concerns are one reason they said on the stream this would be tricky and not coming in tomorrow’s patch. There are a lot of factors to consider before they can begin to implement this level of change and keep the impact fair.

Oh, for the record, I’m pretty much a non-scribe. I’m level 42 at it or so and stalled out until I can run missions for mats; I’ve not sunk notable amounts of resources into it other than sand farming for the sandpaper needed for our decorations merchant. Only about 900 coarse sand to go ><

I think the rubber stamp system is detrimental to the long term health of scribe as a profession TBH. I agree that decorating should be an investment, and i agree that it should require a skilled craftsman, but a wardrobe system would make it extremely flat and one dimensional, and kill a large part of the sense of accomplishment that comes with decorating your hall.

It’s entirely cosmetic, and as such I think its perfectly fine to have to build individual items to place them. I’m even okay with certain epic level decorations being extremely expensive.

I also agree that schematics should be tradable, which would allow guilds to forgo scribing if they want, or allow young guilds to invest in some nice decorations before they get their upgrades.

I think there’s a scale at work here, and that the basic bones of the system (scribing, the aetheric assembly, and the concept of upgrading basic deco in to fancier deco) are solid, and that the cost reduction needs to hit the primary cost inflator: the scribing kits and sandpaper.

Scribing would be in a great place if they just removed a zero from all the pigments and sand costs, making the primary limiter being resonating shards, which are acquired from guild activity, and thus spent on the guild’s scribed decorations and consumables.

I also really like the idea of putting the 0-100 tier of decorations on the random table for the guild trader. This would allow non-scribes with decorating rights a much wider array of possible items, and create an interesting, if random cost reduction on scribing as well as further enhance the value of the trader so she feels like less of an arbitrary limitation to get wood glue and more like a cool merchant that gives you cool stuff when upgraded.

It’s highly unlikely you will get any compensation for it, for a start, I think it was pretty obvious that changes would come to scribing, so anyone that decided not to wait for changes did so at their own cost. High level scribes have also had the opportunity to sell rather expensive sigils and sheets of paper, so that has also to be taken into consideration.