Guild Wars 2

ProxyDamage.9826:

[…]

When you have content in a game it’s safe to say that it is expected that people will want to attain that content. When the only way to attain that content is either through very low odds random chance and/or through attaining a gigantic laundry list of rare items, you’re forced to grind the game – regardless of how you do it. When you also have other mechanics in the game that actively impede that, that is bad game design. No "if"s, "and"s or "but"s. That’s like having you run a marathon then forcing you to wear lead and stone shoes.

Additionally you shouldn’t tell people how they play the game. Some people can only play a little every day. Others can only play a lot on select days. Forcing one method of playing the game in detriment of all the others is, again, bad design.

Thus far, no one has been able to debunk the bolded quote. Because it’s impossble. It IS schizophrenic game design, even for casuals. Especially for casuals, actually.

Back on topic.

Yesterday, for science, I bought a truckload of heavy bags of each type (moldy, miner, supply etc). The usual suspects only dropped about 1 t6 dust in 80 bags. Used to be higher, no?

We don’t know if the rich coffers will 100% reliably drop a ticket. We just know that they can. From the website:

“Dragon’s Jade Weapon Skins

Show your Dragon Bash spirit with these cool new weapon skins with a distinctly draconic look. You can find weapon tickets inside Rich Dragon Coffers and (rarely) in Dragon Coffers, and exchange them for weapon skins from Black Lion Weapon Specialists in every major city!"

To quote another poster:

Rouven.7409:

I would wait. It only says you “can” find weapon tickets and further tells you that you also “can” find them in the other coffers that drop in the world, but of course that chance is way slimmer.

If the chance would be 100% there would be no need for a “can” – it would say:
You find weapon tickets inside Rich Dragon Coffers and (rarely) in Dragon Coffers.

Well, that’s my take on it. I’ll wait for the biased reports here on the forum so I can make my biased decision.

edit: my bid on the lover was filled tonight for 520g. Yai! I have the dreamer now Good luck to the OP on getting his. Waiting it out without aggressively bidding saved me 90g.

I never believed legendaries could be controlled either. Until I started placing bids on the Lover, where this whole discussion started. Now, don’t get me wrong, I could buy that bow twice if I wanted to, but I’m not willing to pay more than a certain amount.

What I saw from bidding on that bow over the last 5 days is that this market is (i) indeed appears to be heavily affected by player “control” (this control includes, but is not limited to, individual buyers being taken on a “leash” to the top, after which the leash is quickly dropped) and (ii) the droprate is insanely low. You can see this clearly when, during primetime evenings such as Saturday (in which everyone is farming crazy hours with 300 to 400 percent magic find), a bid which is practically 10g from the lowest seller (around 600g) is simply not filled.

Anyway, I’ve waited long enough with buying this bow, I can wait a while longer still. But I would highly encourage that the droprate of this bow be increased, or, at the very least, looked into.

I asked this question as well (but received no answer). Finally, I found the info in the “community news” section:

“In addition to the rewards from boss fights, all creatures in Southsun Cove will have a chance to drop these new rewards from May 28 through June 11:

Mini Reef Rider
Settler’s Amulet, Keepsake, and Ring"

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/community-news/a-guide-to-last-stand-at-southsun-cove/

In other words, these accessories no longer drop after 11 June.

Do settler trinkets drop until 11 June?

They just hotfixed this. The animation is perfect now! Please don’t change it anymore, I really like it. Harvest time is good, too.

Wait, was it just 2 questions? And wouldn’t it be nice to differentiate between cash shop RNG and dropped-loot RNG?

~ continued.

To be clear, I always take people seriously when they take the time to write a response. The form in which you write it defines the level of seriousness though. "Semi-faulty, “backhanded”, “sweeping” and “disingenuous” are adjectives I’d stay away from, for starters. Questioning my source of knowledge (see Aion-google example, or “if you legitimately […]”, another) is not very respectful, either.

@Hawkian. Significant contributions have already been made by Belier. I’ll add some points not (yet) touched upon by Belier.

First, I played Aion for 3 years. I consistently beat everyone in the arena, 1vs1 and 10vs10. Don’t tell me you actually believe google will help you on this issue. It appears you want to “win” at any cost, and you are utterly disrespectful of any opinion I hold in this respect. But I’ll answer nonetheless. Manastones in Aion, at least when I played it (I left about 2 years ago), made the difference between winning or losing. I could stack one stat so high I became invulnerable to most attacks (magic resist). Manastones had to be slotted, about 6 or 7 per armor piece (6 armor pieces in total I believe), and per weapon. Most people had at least two sets of weapons and 2 sets of armor. Slotting a manastone was painstaking, because failing inserting a manastone meant all slotted manastones would be destroyed. Per armor piece, this could run in the hundreds of manastones. Now, the tricky part was when the manastones started dropping less frequently, and the failrate of slotting them was increased significantly. And then, when the market reaches a crisis, poof! An item appeared in the shop which allowed you to slot one manastone without failure. At 5 euros a pop. And that was just the beginning. But I’ll stop there. Google, come on man.

1. Dealt with by Belier.
2. Dealt with by Belier. The mystic forge comparison would work if it concerned creating items that can only be made for a short period of time (ie no way to “save up”), and if it concerned enticing people who don’t have the strength to resist gambling, to pull out their wallet and gamble.
3. Dealt with by Belier. If people are considered responsible beings that require no protection from addiction, we wouldn’t need gambling laws in the first place. Or drug laws, for that matter. I wish it would be that easy. And don’t shy away from gaming addiction when speaking of GW2. I wouldn’t particularly consider it healthy for people to spend 8 hours a day in CoF, but scores of people seem to do it. Lastly, I’d like to add the qualifier “eventually”; I did’t say they would “rather” quit, i said people would eventually quit, some of them after having spent considerable amounts of cash on gambling. This is what the words “umpteenth time” referred to.
4. Dealt with by Belier. I did not argue RNG boxes were always around. I said it appears to become the new standard. Fused, sclerite, jade. Three consecutive weapon skin lines. I add that fused weapon skins appear to be more popular than some legendaries.
5. Dealt with by Belier. When I see people, that shouldn’t yet have to deal with these issues, being drawn and funneled into virtual gambling, the word scam is a mild word. I use it in order to avoid stronger words to describe the same which will be (rightfully) deleted by the moderators.
6. Dealt with by Belier. Money can be made in different ways. This one is morally unacceptable for the reasons stated above (and addressed excellently in the thread “on lottery (RNG) boxes”), and which additionally has the great potential of resulting in the picture I painted. I read this forum and others when I can, and as a result am aware where this new RNG box model is leading. When people leave MMO’s, they leave in waves. Once the first wave hits, I’ve never seen a company that was able to reverse the tide. I want to avoid the first wave, but there’s a big one forming itself if you take the time to look around you. Reddit is a good place to start.
7. See above. And “evidence”, come on man. If I had such a thing everyone would have it, and ncsoft’s stock would temporarily plummet as a result. All I can do is look around me and build on my experience. What i see is an ever increasing discontent with these boxes, which is becoming aggressive and bitter. Thus far, I’ve correctly identified the key moments and decisions that led to the downfall of the MMO’s I played. I hope I’m not correct this time – I always hope that – but I sincerely doubt it.
8. Dealt with by Belier. The community spoke clearly when it preferred some fused skins over legendaries. Yes, it’s subjective. But I prefer to stay away from personal comparisons. The fact that I have 800g in the bank (earned on TP), all the weapons i want (including vulcanus and such). that I have foostivoo, 3 fused skins and whatnot simply because I was dirt lucky (and earn a fat salary so I didn’t have to care about money spent on a few keys) has nothing to do with the content of the debate. For the same reasons, it’s irrelevant whether you personally do or do not like a skin. I don’t like the sclerite skins either, but it’s the concept of these boxes that is the problem, for the reasons above, as well as those already stated by Belier. Maybe these are ugly, but what about the jade weapons, or the “insert random cool future name” weapons?

@hawkian: thank you for your elaborate response. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say in reply, but I’ll reply tomorrow when I’m fresh (just came back from a long day at work). All I can say for now is that your post is dripping with guile and misguided cynicism, which result in borderline, if not full-fledged, personal attacks. I am not a fan of such a writing style. You’ve simply replaced my “sweeping conclusions” with your own sweeping personalized attacks. An argument is not won by superiority, it’s won by superior arguments; please try to refrain from poisonous adjectives if you’re actually interested in a response. Anyway, that’s just briefly on the form, I’ll address the content tomorrow.

Erasculio.2914:

LordByron.8369:

Frankly would be the third if not fourth “accidental” nerf discovered by players….

Nope. It would be the tenth time players stand on their soap box to complain about a nerf that doesn’t exist, due to lack of knowledge about statistics. This community loves lying through their teeth about drop rates. Most do it out of sheer ignorance, a few do it to artificially increase the price of items they are selling in the TP.

Mind sharing on what your conclusion is based? Because as far as I can remember, the loot nerf that players had reported for months, and which was initially denied by Anet’s staff for months, was eventually confirmed to by Anet to be true. It was caused by a “bug” which ignored people’s contribution to a mob kill to be registered. As a result, they didn’t get any loot.

Don’t presume people enjoy coming on this forum to “complain” about stuff like this. The OP obviously spent hours doing this stuff, and noticed a huge change. His assumption was a reasonable one, especially considering Anet’s track record on this issue.

There’s more stuff going on by the way, ecto return rate has been cut in half since the last update (see ecto return rate thread). John Smith is looking into this right now, so let’s see what comes out of it. Maybe these issues are even related.

Vayne.8563:

Greed’s a lot harder to prove.

When a company turns its game into a virtual casino, I’d say “proof” is not the biggest problem. The problem is: how do you force the company to change its course? Voting with your wallet, I saw someone say. Yes, this is indeed the best way. It doesn’t work in practice though, because people like to gamble. It’s the very thing casino’s thrive on; gambling is addictive. Combine this with a gaming addiction, and you get a very explosive combination. Now tweak the game mechanics (droprate) here and there, and it’s big bucks. Bonus: contrary to casinos, you don’t have to pay out. The bank doesn’t just mostly win, it always wins.

Casinos, for good reasons, have age limits and, in some cases, attentive staff to protect people who cannot (yet) handle the responsibility to gamble. I worked in a casino, I know about addiction; heck, half the regulars at my table were addicts. They were rich addicts, but addicts nonetheless; glazy eyes, no joy when winning, short-tempered, all the signs you’re supposed to look out for, and more. It was a very sad sight.
But who is looking out for the players at the GW2 roulette table? The company whose investors require it to make a profit? Or you and me?

The sad thing is, I don’t have an answer to this problem. People will simply quit as a result, as with all the other MMO’s I saw die these last years as a result of poor choices by the company running it. And yes, players will rather quit than not buy RNG boxes – either because:

(i) they didn’t get the skin they wanted for the umpteenth time (and constantly see others running around with those skins),
(ii) they’re fed up with seeing some of the nicest skins in the game in temporary RNG lockboxes, or
(iii) they realize they’re being scammed.

Either way, decisions such as these by a gaming company will cause the players to doubt the company’s true motives on every decision it makes, now and in the future. Usually, the next thing that happens is that the community will harden (“yea yea yea, we’ve heard the ‘gambling’ argument already, like we care”), causing even more players to leave. Mostly, those players that leave first will be the players previously defended the game and its creators to the teeth, providing them with a moral compass and ensuring a civil atmosphere on the forums and in map chat.
It’s the same downward spiral, every time.

Anet can turn this around by removing RNG lockboxes and sell its skins in the store. The game could run for years, and remain successful until Guild Wars 3 comes out. I doubt that the company will change its current RNG course, but it’s possible. People will inevitably jump ship if it won’t. And that’s not just Anet’s problem; it will become mine and yours, too.

Vayne.8563:

If they were really greedy then, they’d allow people to buy ascended gear in the cash shop, something that so far has not materialized.

That’s like saying someone cannot be a thief because he isn’t a murderer, either.

Now replace the words "thief with “greedy”, and replace “murderer” with “pay to win supporter”.

There are different ways to obtain profit from a game. The most profitable way is probably the one that doesn’t stare you directly in the face when playing it.

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Nobody ever said you HAD to get a legendary…. Besides my main, all my alts are doing perfectly fine without legendaries.

I wasn’t advocating that you had to get a legendary, or that you could not do without one. I’m saying that legendary weapons were designed to be a very important goal in this game; a big fat medal in your start-up screen is meant to remind you of this every time you log in.

I then said that the low droprate of precursors seamlessly fits into the business model of RNG boxes containing weapon skins. You can refuse to believe this because you cannot imagine a company doing something as morally reprehensible as that. But RNG boxes are so morally reprehensible in and of itself, that the thought of adjusting droprates is not such a big leap as some make it out to be. It merely complements the current business model. Investors would call it “a means to enhance profit”, even if it only generates substantially more profit in the short run. Milk ‘m while your product is hot, right? These days, people switch MMO’s very rapidly anyway, so no harm done, right? “Outrage!” or “tin foil hat conspiracies!” you may say. But if you consider that over the last 9 months nearly half of the forum was filled with the gripes of acquiring a precursor, and that no meaningful sustainable solution has been implemented to date – except for the introduction of RNG boxes that conveniently fill the void of exclusive weapon skins – I’d say it’s not that far fetched at all.

Raestloz.7134:

Lisa.6102:

and so because of the weak the rest of us have to suffer? I have ample money and gems to buy the crates if I CHOOSE to , I would hate to see that choice taken away from me just because a the a few that have no self control.

I don’t understand. So you explicitly want the $1 each crates, which has an extremely low chance of getting a particular skin (that’s being generous, not exaggerating) even if that exact same skin exists for direct purchase at the cost of $10?

I… I… I am perplexed. This is the first time I see what gambling can do to people

I fixed it for you.

Curtoky, You might want to check the posts made by the people before you. Some people buy rares by the thousands, and then salvage them.

I’m counting on John. Last time he did a test he salvaged 1 million rares. Yes. One million.

Hawkian.6580:

Never have I so immediately disagreed with the entire thesis of a thread. :P

I invite you to articulate your criticism. I did not create this thread in order to receive a pat on the back, I created it to hear your opinion. Having said that, man, this thread has been cleaned out professionally of opinions by the moderators. It was twice as long this afternoon.

Same here. I’m somewhat of a professional salvager, if there is such a thing. Ecto salvage results have been cut in half. Rare kits used, as always.

Mystic.5934:

I just tried it out and am reporting some facts:
1) you can NEVER be interrupted. you can’t cancel in the middle, even with stun breaks such as blink. I just confirmed: An enemy’s kb can cancel it.
2) on land, it takes 3 times as long to gather as any other sickle. you get the food in the same time, but then you have to re-sow the node?
3) underwater harvesting takes the same length of time as other sickles, but the graphics are no different than any other sickle.

Try weaponswap. It should cancel the animation.

Other than that, yeah, this animation does not belong on a sickle, it’s beyond silly. The sound is even copied from the mining pick.

It’s getting really sickening.

In the meantime, I advise you’all to interrupt the lenghty animation by swapping weapons. After you got your precious veggie of course.

kokocabana.8153:

Osi.3504:

kokocabana.8153:

Every time you buy a key to open a BL chest, you do get something. It’s called boosters and service items. You are always guaranteed to get these items and that is exactly what you are paying for. These items are worth something even if you do not care about them. Just because you open a chest and consider it empty if it doesn’t have a skin in it doesn’t mean that you were cheated.

While you are right, you receive your gems worth of items typically… you are not considering the fact people DONT care about them and are only after desired item in the chest, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it in the first place… so techincally to that person the chest IS EMPTY. If it was to be fair, put those skins on the TP seperate.

The boosters and service items are the main purpose of the black lion chests. It’s in the item description. The rare shinies are just a bonus. It’s like when a baby gets a new toy and they ignore it because they are more interested in playing with the cardboard box and bubblewrap than the toy itself.

Another example: I could spend all my money buying fortune cookies until I get the fortune I want. I don’t bother eating the cookies. If I don’t get it then I blame the cookie maker for his RNG. You’d say, “Why would you spend all that money on something worthless?”. Worthless to you but it has value to me and I’ll keep buying them until I get the one I want.

If you think lockboxes are unethical, then vote with your wallet and stop participating in unethical actions. If you stop buying them, then ANet will offer alternatives.

I’m sorry, but this comparison is so completely off, I had to respond. In your comparison, it’s more like you sell fortune cookies and you say that there’s a rare chance that one of them contains a huge friggin diamond. Or the key to a new ferrari.

This is skinwars. Skins are everything. The very epitome of this game, the “highest” goal for many is, in fact, the acquiring of a skin dubbed “legendary weapon”. Some of the most appealing skins and most wanted items (permanent hair stylist, eternal tonics, permanent contracts) are deliberately put in boxes and chests that require you to gamble. I say “require” because, unless you are dirt-rich in game (which the majority, by definition, is not), you cannot buy enough of these boxes or keys to get your skin ticket. It’s as simple as that. And it’s not like you can save forever for these skins, oh noooooo; these skins are “temporary”. So flip out your credit card, or grind yourself into oblivion. It’s very wrong, and on so many levels. Some of them have been mentioned above; it incites gambling and it preys on weakness.

Wow, after opening these chests I can verify they are even more underwhelming as people initially expected. I mean, with Anet’s track record on precursors, expectations were low – but this, pffff. Why am I even surprised.

Plus the new sickle animation lasts 300% longer.

I’m worried by the 300% longer animation. Go to a potato farm and harvest for 5 minutes? I dunno.

Is it me or did they pretty much copy and paste most of the lion cub’s animation to the the kitten animation?

That’s just wrong. You don’t hack at a precious plant like that. And you certainly shouldn’t be hearing the sound of METAL.

Maybe it’s a class thing. As a ranger, I found that for single mob fights (eg karka), I could drop mobs much faster with cond/prec/tough gear + corruption sigil + traits, than full zerker gear + bloodlust sigil + traits. For events, zerker wins every time of course.

I’m sorry, but there are SO many posts out there how to make coin, the latest being (on reddit) how to make 7g an hour, I find this thread is purely complaining without having taken a minute on google to research the options. There’s even a “players helping players” section; I have no sympathy. Dill sprigs and rosemary leaves, for example, sell for 10 to 15 silver alone, the OP’s claim of 80s is simply ridiculous. Go out there and take some time to watch videos people have compiled for your sake. I’m quasi casual as well but I’m sitting on 700g (and weapons crafted worth more than that). Go figure.

The player that used keybinds. If both use keybinds, the ranger that is less drunk than the other. If both are sober… Naaaaa.

You’ll still be selling those at a fat profit regardless.

Yeah I dumped mine. Bought them for 70 copper each last week I think.

These chests have a chance to contain precursors, right? I believe ecto and other exotic goodies as well but I may be wrong. Now consider the following:

DevonCarver.5370:

Ascii.9726:

Question: Will these reward chests for ranks be given for people who already have Ranks? For example will a Rank 60 player receive 60 chests?

There will be a system for rewarding players who have already gained ranks. The way it will work is you will have a backlog of 60 chests, if you were at rank 61, and for each rank you achieve after that you will get 2 chests, instead of 1, until you’ve received all 60 of your backlog. These bonus chests should be available for every player who has gained rank prior to the build.

This means the precursor market will in the weeks following 28 May slowly but surely explode (read: tank) a bit, no?

Vecanski if you want to post something, post something new. Black regent wrote an elaborate response to the position you stated. At least reply to that if you firmly wish to defend the oversimplified “everyone is responsible for their own actions” view. Not a wrong view per se, but you’re cutting way too many corners in the process.

Some people in this thread are simply rehashing what they said in other threads… without reading the point of the OP.

The OP is not discussing the legality of this business concept, but challenging it’s morality. I, for one, strongly agree with the OP. These lockboxes incite gambling and exploit weakness. And don’t get me started on the legal definition of gambling; I purposefully won’t elaborate on this in this thread – because it is irrelevant to it.

I’d like to add when Anet said they would provide an alternative, namely, lockboxes as drops from monsters – that their attempt was not genuine. I have, just for the sake of seeing whether this alternative was genuine, farmed for five hours or so spread over 3 evenings to see whether any box would drop. None have dropped thus far. Yes I had magic find, and yes mobs drop like flies because i know what i’m doing. And no, that shouldn’t even matter, at least 1 box should have dropped during that time. The “alternative” offered is, therefore, not genuine. Moreover, you get hit with DR pretty quickly so the whole concept is self defeating.

Another observation: people always think that anyone who posts about the immorality of this concept got “burned”, like the first poster said. I have 3 fused skins, foostivoo, you name it, I have it all. I was always “lucky”. Does that matter for this discussion? Not one bit.

You have some very dodgy connections Meg.

Why would it not be? All I see is a guy showing off his wealth.

Stop it with the monetary value already. Recent case law points out that virtual items can indeed represent monetary value, and that you can have ownership over said items, even if Anet has ultimate ownership (the supreme court in the netherlands used the example of a passport, which, strictly speaking, is owned by the state; yet you can excersise ownership over it, it can be stolen and does represent value).

Is it gambling? Yes. Does it meet the minimum threshold for gambling? Depends on the country. The problem is that no country will enforce it even if it does meet the threshold. If Anet continues on this path, however, I could see people going to court with this on a no cure no pay basis.

My main gripe with this business concept is that it is morally corrupt as kitten. It exploits weakness and incites gambling.

To clarify the point made above: even if you had received a weapon ticket it would have been a scam. I have 3 fused skins from 80 boxes; while it’s way better results than others, it remains just that. A scam. It incites gambling and exploits weakness. The problem is the company expects people like myself to say “the odds are fine, I received 3 skins!” But we’re all starting to realize now that this way of doing business is very, very shady, and should be put to a halt.

Yes. Even if it sucked.

Confusion. Confusion. Confusion. To both the pet and the ranger.

Bumping. For great justice!

C’mon this is not ok for such an expensive and (intentionally) hard to acquire skin.

And I heard the chance for a weapon ticket is 1%. But it doesn’t matter either way, whether it’s 1 or 30 percent. There shouldn’t be keys/lockboxes involved in the first place. This guy explains why:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/On-Lottery-RNG-Boxes/first

One of the best posts I ever read on this forum since, well, it’s very creation.

Tken.1986:

This is what I think that’s going on:
Frist, using the Wintersday by putting items directly on gem store. They found out that the profit is lower than the RNG chests.

But if that was the case. They are stupid, and I hope not. Even though they sold it directly, but if I recall, they are not exactly attractive. I guess only a few actually bought it. I too was happy to know that they were available until I saw the actual thing.

Another possibility is that this is the 2nd test:
So they can compare it with the Wintersday patch. Though I don’t think they should be compare to each other. I mean, come on…………
Winter weapons vs. Fused weapons, really?

Future plans:
I have a feeling that they will likely be continued as RNG chest only items. Yes, awesome stuffs and skin are only available in BL chest. But to please those wanting to do direct purchase through gem store, they will put on two or three useless town cloth/minis once awhile. This is all too familiar with the Nexon MMO’s I’m playing. This is perhaps a trend in online gaming industry.

I have 3 fused skins. I also have wintersday skins. You know what? I actually like the wintersday (direct purchase) weapons better. One of the reasons is their subtle beauty. The other, more important reason: I almost feel dirty using the fused skins. I feel having been suckered into a trap, regardless of the fact that I managed to get them by using far less keys than others. Keys shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place. The OP hits it straight home with his post.

This guy hits the thoughts expressed here straight home:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/On-Lottery-RNG-Boxes

Never seen a better write up on the issue than there.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if the skin is so-so, or if there’s only mats in the box. There shouldn’t be a box at all.

Mind you, I have 3 fused skins. Foostivoo the merry. You name it. I’m fortunate enough to have money to spare, and was pretty “lucky” as well with those fused skins (80 chests or so for all 3). But you know what? I’m actually still more happy with my Wintersday skins. Not only do they look very good, I don’t feel dirty when wearing them.

I experience extreme clipping when equipping my new fused dagger skin. Of course I’m very happy with the skin, but not with the fact that it’s constantly inside my knee. It’s not cool, and the skin was pretty hard to obtain. Could you please implement a fix for this?

Xar.6185:

@Buttercup,

I totally agree about the conveinence factor.

My problem, issue or concern whatever you want to call it lies in exactly what you pointed out with the TP. Recipes should not be introduced based on cost of ingredients on the TP. The TP can flux then the whole balance is out of whack.

Are they going to keep adding recipes everytime the pricing on the TP shifts?

This is just my opinion, and it might be right or wrong or somewhere in the middle, but the ingredients should be based on gathering the items and what can be directly purchased from NPC vendors.

Right now you spend 9 extra silver. Would that still be ok if the TP shifts and you are spending 19, 29 or 39 extra silver?

Anyway I agree that there should be a bit of a conveinence tax for the double duration I just think that in the case of these new Flame & Frost recipes that it is too high.

Not that it matters anyway… I think at this point I am mostly talking to myself about this…

Oh and thank you for the WvW perspective. I was basing my opinion mostly of dungeons, fractal and general PvE. Always good to round out the information.

You’re welcome

Regarding the cost factor: if it becomes too expensive to make this particular food (mushroom loaf), people simply won’t by it. That’s the beauty of market forces. If, for example, the Rosemary sprig market goes out of control, people won’t make mushroom loaf, which means people won’t buy rosemary sprigs, which means that the cost of rosemary sprigs should come down until it’s at an acceptable level again. Same with orrian steak frites: if those hooked on mushroom loaf cannot afford it anymore, they will turn to orrian steak frites, which will spike the price of lotus roots (amongst others) which will lead to an increased price of orrian steak frites.

In other words: you may or may not be right; but let’s first have the market do its job, and see what happens. On a sidenote, let’s not forget that for the last 12 days people have probably invested (light/medium/heavy) in certain items based on the presumption that the recipes will stay as they are.