Guild Wars 2

Agony originally was added as a gating mechanic for fractals. The theory was that only people with experience would have enough AR to participate at top tier fractals. In practice, that’s no longer true: anyone with enough gold can get 150 AR (through a variety of methods).

I think it would be foolish for ANet to consider spreading agony resistance requirements to other game modes, including raids — it adds nothing to those game modes while alienating people who don’t have already have lots of AR.

Cloth & metal are now super cheap relative to their peak prices, with e.g. silk running below 70 copper today and below 45 copper just 6 months ago, down from peak prices of over 320 copper per scrap. Thick leather is running at 280 copper, up from its nadir of vendor +18% (i.e. under 20 copper) in Sep of 2015. It is still cheaper than its peak of 290 copper in June of 2016.

There’s nothing economically “wrong” with leather prices. People (including me) dislike leather prices, with good reason; that’s not the same as proving that there’s a “problem” that needs to be solved, let alone one that is urgent.

I can, as always, find all the leather I need on the TP. I just can’t pay the same price for leather as I do for cloth or metal.

I’m not against ANet changing the supply or the demand; I just don’t think we should use an economic argument to justify it.

If they do change it, I personally favor reducing the sections required for patches and perhaps increasing the scraps required. Currently we need 10 thicks and 4 silks per patch; that could be adjusted to e.g. 8-9 thicks + 5 silks. Prices would drop a lot for leather, but eventually stabilize at a decent price for sellers.

If you have an immediate use for gold, sell them (we can help you choose a sell price). If you don’t, there’s little risk to holding on to them. Even if ANet suddenly adds more supply (unlikely, as others have said), the price is unlikely to drop much.

FireCrescent.6512:

I keep being DCed in SAB and it is not my internet.

Might not be a problem on ANet’s either. There’s a lot of internet between your computer and their servers.

FireCrescent.6512:

I keep losing progress any time I want to play Tribulation mode.

Have you considered contacting support to try and get that resolved?

FireCrescent.6512:

I thought, if I bring a friend, I won’t lose progress.

The idea behind trib mode is to force people to do the whole thing.

FireCrescent.6512:

Except you nerfed being able to join on Trib because of some stupid exploit.

The exploit involved being able to recover from DC, something you couldn’t do in platform games, upon which SAB and especially trib mode are modeled.

FireCrescent.6512:

Why should I even bother playing anymore if you won’t fix anything

In fact, they fix lots of things, including the exploit you mentioned, which allowed people to complete trib mode without, you know, completing trib mode.

FireCrescent.6512:

and punish me making me lose hours of my kittening life and not let me play with my friends on an MMO.

No one is making you lose hours of your life. And you can play with your friends in normal mode. You just can’t reconnect to your same spot in trib mode, as was originally intended.

FireCrescent.6512:

I hate that you aren’t going to do anything about this.

Fair enough.

There’s a reason, but not one that ANet has shared with us.

Last time they discussed it, they said something about it being more complicated than we thought, but mentioned few specifics.

To be fair, what does ‘loading a build’ mean? Does it include only skills? skills + traits? weapons or trinkets or armor? infusions? wardrobe choices? runes? sigils?

Unless restricted to “skills + traits”, there are obvious economic and storage implications.

So my best guess is that ANet has been attempting to retool the gear system to make it easier to load gear, before giving us a way to save builds.

My preference, though, is that they stop worrying about a perfect build loading interface and give us something now (or you know, 5 years ago during BETA when we first requested it). And then worry about the perfect system as part of a future expansion.

Ardid.7203:

What is multi-boxing?

Running more than one account at the same time. Like a lot of things, there’s a way to do it that is within the Terms of Service and one that is not.

You have to actively be playing each account. You can do this via alt-tabbing or using multiple machines. You can’t be using the same keyboard inputs for each account.

Blek Lynx.8695:

I respect this game and its rules, but tell me, what is the point of the game, if instead of achievements and rewards you are given a disconect? A couple of times I endure but when it became farther it’s already started to enrage.

You apparently aren’t respecting Trib mode’s rules. The point is to manage to succeed despite the platform being designed to punish you for each and every small mistake (including mistakes outside your control, e.g. disconnects).

Here’s how I enjoy tribulation mode: by not playing it (and congratulating those who are able to suffer through it long enough to unlock a bauble infusion).

In other words, if you aren’t enjoying trib mode, just stop playing it; it wasn’t designed for the likes of you or I.

thefinnster.6904:

As i understand it Anet has a seperate devoted design team for raids so no you wouldent lose any resource there and as far as fractals are concenred id rather see more SAB

Where are the resources coming from to “see more SAB”? They’d have to come from someplace. And, as you can see, there are plenty of folks that would prefer to see those resources dedicated anywhere else other than SAB.

There are so many assumptions in your question that it’s hard to give a response that will help you see what’s going on.

WvW is, as you say, a big beast. There are dozens of posts and reddit threads that make it clear that those passionate about the game mode can’t even agree about what the mode is, never mind what needs to be fixed, let alone what would be a good way to address them.

Comparing anything about fractals to WvW is like comparing Apple Computers to Oranges: fractals are small-group, instanced content. Most changes have zero impact on other game modes, adding a new fractal has no impact on anyone’s enjoyment of any other fractal, and so on.

I love Ben’s level of communication, but it’s a horrid model for WvW — first, he does it on his own time, not ANet’s. Second, his communication is reactive, i.e. he responds to specific issues of concern to us, but he rarely offers any insight to the overall direction. Thirdly, there’s very little discussion: we post, he tells us what he thinks is going on. Only when the fractal team can’t decide does he ask what we think. That wouldn’t fly at all for WvW fans.

Finally, it’s unfair to say that WvW has been abandoned. It gets just as little (or as much) attention these days as it ever did. Change comes slowly to a complicated game mode, as it needs to.

The biggest problem with WvW is that, like any other part of any MMO, players evolve their gameplay faster than the developers can grow the mode. We’ve been playing largely the same version of WvW for 4.5 years and the full-timers have gotten bored or disgusted with the drama (that is inevitable after playing that long with the same people) and moved on. The mode is still a lot of fun for folks who don’t play all the time or who are new; they haven’t learned to be jaded.

If it were easy to do something to please WvW fans, ANet would have done it already. It’s a hugely complicated mess.

(All that said, I think ANet could do a lot better, both with how they tackle WvW and with what & how often they share about that. I just don’t think that’s going to end up satisfying many of us.)

The GW2 numbers are from 2012 and it was a guess based on the few figures released by ANet. Those numbers are unlikely to be anything close to true today.

Daddicus.6128:

Guys, there’s no downside to creating more bank slots, bigger bags, and more inventory bag slots.

Of course there are downsides.

• The cost increases.
• This reduces incentive for ANet to manage the amount of stuff we need to keep.
• This worsens inventory management issues for hoarders. Instead of giving them an incentive to get rid of stuff, it postpones the inevitable moment when they have to learn that they can’t keep it all.

I have bought all the upgrades for banks, materials, shared inventory, and most bags. I will always buy them all. So I’ve got nothing against ANet adding more

However, let’s not pretend that solves anything at all. The fact is that a good game offers a variety of loot for a variety of good reasons (as well as some bad ones) and that enjoying the game means learning how to manage loot. (A game that offers only ‘good’ loot or drops it immediately to the bank gets dull quickly, because it feels unrewarding.)

ANet doesn’t ban anyone because of a report, regardless of whether one person reported an account or 1000 people reported — they investigate first and only suspend if they find ‘proof’. If you aren’t using botting tools (or other forms of illegal software or otherwise violating the Terms of Service), you can ignore the accusations.

Everyone seems to have trouble getting one of the specialization random drops. (For me, it was the Tiger’s Claw, which is annoying because there aren’t as many tigers as there are dust mites.) Just keep at it; it drops eventually.

PS if they increased the drop rate, it would end up being near-automatic for most people and annoyingly-less-than-automatic for a few, i.e. it wouldn’t just change the intensity of the problem; it wouldn’t prevent bad luck.

See also: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/SAB-Moto-continue-room-bugged-can-t-use-coin/6545296

Also: On reddit, someone suggested keeping a healing potion with you in case it happens. Apparently, if you die in a certain way in W2z1 (and perhaps not any other), the game gets confused about your status. If you use the heal potion after it calms down, you’ll be “alive enough” to interact with Moto.

I realize doesn’t do you much good if you’re currently stuck
I hope it’s useful to others in avoiding the issue.

Doob.5170:

Meteorlogicus III: Grawl Devotion. Event is still bugged out.

I’m sorry you’re having trouble with this step.

Which part of the event chain do you think is bugging out? It’s a long set of events, which includes some waiting time between.

Have you tried trying to get into another instance of the map? (This is easiest right after a patch or when Timberline Falls is the target for the 4-event daily.)

Other people have successfully completed the collection, so this might just be a matter of timing.

The way I phrase it is, “oh, gliding is still ‘broken’ in WvW|Fractals|[insert the location]”

(yes, I realize that technically, gliding was never meant to work in those areas)

AliamRationem.5172:

Wow. A lot of responses about how it would become boring. But isn’t that true of any content? I mean I’m pretty bored of Queensdale. How would you guys feel about making access to that map restricted to an annual 3 week festival? Raids seem pretty repetitive, too. Festival. How about PvP? Only one game mode over and over again. Festival time!

As for rewards artificially adding replay value? Show me the content that stands on its own with no rewards. Rewards are used in the exact same way across pretty much every type of content we have.

Not that any of this indicates that we MUST make SAB full-time and expand upon it. But how about letting individuals decide for themselves how fun and rewarding it is, huh?

You’ve misunderstood. Some maps have a lot of repeatability for a lot of players. Some don’t. That’s why Halloween and Wintersday are festivals and why Tequatl isn’t.

And, to the point, that’s why a lot of people no longer think the Tequatl is special at this point; they’ve done it so many times.

A good game will include permanent, annual, and temporary content. Which parts belong in which type are up to the developers, not the players — they have a better idea of the big picture.

zealex.9410:

i mean why not be able to make it justice they made justice to saul’s closure after all

I understand you would prefer that. I’m saying, I prefer the mystery.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

If they published the rates for the chests, it’s unlikely (based on, eg, real money gambling experience with the same sort of disclosure) to change the amount they earn through the chests.

Definitely unlikely to hurt sales (might even increase it). Everyone knows the house odds on roulette make it worse than playing blackjack badly, but it doesn’t stop people from parting with their paycheck at the spinning wheel.

It might even alleviate some of the specific complaints we see about loot distribution.

It’s a good idea.

I suspect the only reason we haven’t see it is that they haven’t found a good way to implement it (think of how many times folks have accidentally /kicked someone from their guild, trying to /join them in another instance). The context menu gets pretty long for certain items. (Of course, it might just be that it’s lower on the priority list than 1587 other ‘good ideas’.)

It doesn’t take a second account to make the mistake. I forget in the fractal lobby, in my Rata Sum home instance, and especially in Desert Borderlands.

I don’t think it’s realistic that we can swap orders. There are a bunch of in-game mechanics tied to the choice of order and changing it would be a lot more work than simply waving a wand and changing the toon from Whispers to Priory.

It’s not as bad as changing a character’s race, but it’s a lot more than changing a character’s name or gender.

It could be done; I just can’t imagine that it would be more important for the community as a whole, than releasing new content or fixing bugs.

TexZero.7910:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

To compare drop rates between two years, we need some actual, you know, rates. How many chests did you open? How many skins did you get? If the drop rate is 5%, we’d need data on 500-1000 chests to be able to compare across two years.

I mean in the original release when it was per character, and there wasn’t a trib mode (that was added later with back to school), i recall getting ~5 skins, from farming it on 2 characters.

Doing it during back to school release i got 0 (this was the patch that changed it to account wide)

During last years festival 2 blue skins 1 Kaiser.
During this one so far 0.

That’s still too little data to guess at drop rates (especially since it appears that you’re comparing 2-4 weeks of previous years results to less than a week from 2017, even after discounting “recollect” from keeping tracking of results).

This doesn’t mean you’re wrong; it just means that there’s no evidence to back up the claim.

Humans are demonstrably poor at estimating odds, especially when it comes to keeping track of ‘good luck’ compared to bad.

It seems plausible to me that the drop rates for the original SAB (pre-trib mode) were changed for subsequent releases. After all folks would expect “better” rewards from the more difficult version. All the same, we can’t guess at the rates without data.

Thanks for reposting.

To review the overall tips:

• Do this in infantile mode (much easier with clouds).
• Kill mobs in advance.
• Feed the cat from outside the tower, as it skips avoiding the arrow traps.
• A friend can carry the piranha for you, so you just need to get to the top of the tower on your own.

Behellagh.1468:

I disagree with your notion that rare and super-rare items drop more frequently than uncommon. The BLTC is clearly delineated and I’m put gold on it that the worse drop rate for the uncommon items is better then the best drop rate of rare. Same is true when comparing rare with super rare.

You misunderstood my notion. I’m saying in general, ANet uses the terms indiscriminately. Some things that have a rarity of ‘rare’ drop more frequently than things that are of lesser “rarity.” Some RNG containers have an identical item appearing in the preview at several levels of “drop rates”.

My point is that it’s very confusing. Without actual numbers (which are hard to come by), it’s hard to have any real intuition about what ANet means by ‘uncommon’ or ‘rare’ or ‘super rare’.

So let me rephrase my notion:

• The main value in grouping drops by ‘frequency’ is to help set expectations.
• Nothing about BLTC drop frequency is clear. There’s no sense of whether things in the ‘rare’ list are equal in drop rates or how much ‘rarer’ they are than ‘uncommon’
• As a result, stuff doesn’t drop as often as most players expect.

That’s a bad thing for ANet, since the very notion of cash shop RNG items is controversial.

My suggestion: use different jargon for “frequency” from the terms used for item rarity, salvaging, etc. Use some approximate odds or at least relative odds.

Alternatively, they can keep doing what they are doing and a lot of players will continue to be up in arms about new skins, which makes them less shiny for everyone.

To compare drop rates between two years, we need some actual, you know, rates. How many chests did you open? How many skins did you get? If the drop rate is 5%, we’d need data on 500-1000 chests to be able to compare across two years.

It’s part of the class mechanic and a fundamental way in which the class is balanced. The ultimate utility class, with a huge ramp up on the cornerstone of damage. I don’t see that changing.

I think it would be a bad thing for SAB fans to have it available all the time. Familiarity breeds contempt, especially for gamers.

As an example, there are already a couple of posts about people complaining they have nothing left to do in SAB. (Presumably they farmed all the skins, finished all the achievements.) They are insisting they need more, more, more. This minority of SAB fans would grow, the longer SAB remains open.

The problem is that while SAB fans are extremely passionate about the game mode, lots of people are indifferent or event hate it just as passionately — they aren’t jumpers or they don’t like platform games or they have no nostalgia for the 8-bit era.

Thus investing in SAB development might not be the best thing for the game and its community, despite how much the OP and others love it.

fishball.7204:

Yeah you’re right no way to tell the real odds at all.

Just using it as an example of how ‘bad luck’ can ruin it for someone.

$160 on keys and still not getting the skin sounds like one of those P2W/RNG box MMOs people love to shame but unfortunately it’s a reality right now in GW2.

Fair enough. I’m really sorry you didn’t get one and I can see how it would sour you not just on BL chest, but perhaps even on the game.

I’m no fan of the details of how they released this skin; I think they didn’t remember the hard-earned lesson from BL tickets + scraps. I kind of hope that they reach out to those who spent a lot, with… well, something.

Fivona.5061:

Cheating, Abusing Game Mechanics, Hacking, Botting “Allowed” in Guild Wars 2.

No, it’s not, so please stop saying otherwise.

Behellagh.1468:

For $20 you can buy 17 keys, for $35 you can buy 32 keys. The question for ANet is what the percentage of players purchasing X keys NOT get the seasonal exclusive uncommon item. With that they can determine the odds for that item. If they want a 50% chance on 17 keys, the overall odds should be 1 in 25, which isn’t bad for something that’s an “uncommon” drop.

And that brings us to the problem of what players think what “uncommon” means and how many tries should give a player a high confidence (95% change) of getting an item.

The other side is ANet recognizing that not all uncommon items, or ever rare and super rare, are equally desirable. That gating an exclusive event skin behind an RNG paywall (gold or cash) upsets the player base if they choose to participate and don’t get it or choose not to participate at all for reasons.

Oh sure, they use ‘uncommon’ and ‘rare’ interchangeably, with ‘rare’ items dropping more commonly than some uncommon ones. It’s impossible for anyone to intuit what it all means, without collecting a lot of data. And sure, I also agree that they aren’t being wise about limiting the risk of players who are willing to spend real life cash.

That’s why I’m not a fan of their implementation of RNG, even though I agree with the idea that it’s more fun if there are some skins I cannot acquire, some that I can get for free by chance, and even that some stuff is locked in a chest that needs a gem shop key.

Plus, they invented the BL ticket scrap system to deal with exactly this issue, so it’s hard to understand why they went ahead and brought it back. They could have offered it for a lot of tickets or even (as I’ve suggested in another thread), added a “Nostalgia Weapon Ticket” system — same as BL ticket/scraps, just applies to a narrow set of skins.

So I’m not a fan of how they released the Elemental Sword (although I’m not that bothered by it either, even though it’s a great skin and I wish I could get it). All the same, some of the criticism is overblown or, at best, misunderstands what ANet is doing.

Silent The Gray.3091:

The lack of logic behind this is appalling. Having an ACCOUNT BOUND skin in a black lion chest which you can only get by paying real money? What is the next low you guys will stoop to? This is seriously the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen from you guys so far. If you are trying to irritate your player base this is a great way to do it. If you are going to go through this effort why not just allow us to by the skin for 500 gems or something instead of low-blowing us?

First, you can get the chests without paying real money. The drop randomly for completing maps and from the personal story (as well as a few other situations). You can’t get hundreds at a time; you can certainly get enough to get the unlock, if lucky.

Second, to make the item rare, as seems to be intended, they’d have to sell it for closer to 3000-4200 gems, not just 500.

Some people don’t like it when skins are available easily to those willing to blow their paycheck. Some don’t like it if “cool” skins are too popular. Some don’t like it if stuff is too easily obtained. Some don’t like to grind. This method provides an alternative method of acquisition.

And finally, there’s a school of thought which suggests that a few skins don’t need to be offered to everyone. The idea is that we should learn we can’t get everything, so we can be more selective (and better enjoy) what we do get.

I doubt any of us would like a game where random unlocks from BL chests was the only system for distributing nostalgia skins. Fortunately, some GW1 skins are available via other methods.

I’m not asking anyone to be a fan of ANet’s choice here (I’m not, for example). I would just like people to understand what that choice was.

fishball.7204:

I mean I rolled 154 chest and got no sword so that’s less than 1% chance which is worse than most P2W/RNG box MMOs out there.

That doesn’t tell you the odds. It just means you you had bad luck.

The odds might be 50:1 and you’d have a 4% of not getting one to unlock. At 25:1, there’d be over a 1% chance you wouldn’t get any. (At 20:1, it would be a 0.3% chance, which seems low until you consider more than 1000 are going to open 100 boxes or more.)

So not only was your luck bad, it might not even have been unusually bad.

Ashantara.8731:

Actually, I had planned to but haven’t destroyed it yet (sorry, it’s very early here, ahem).

Contacted Support as you suggested. Thanks for your advice.

Cool. Let us know how it turns out.

Ashantara.8731:

Why do the prices for most packs get adjusted when you already own parts of their content unlocked, but in other cases (like with the Super Adventure Pack) they are not?

I had to pay the full 600 Gems, even though I already had the Bee Dog Mail Carrier unlocked (thus had to destroy the one given to me with this purchase).

Please fix your Gem Store policy and make it equal for all items.

Or you could have contacted support to see if they were able to refund part of the purchase.

Usually the reason stuff like this happens is that someone forgot to finish the checklist of “things to do before we release a bundle to the gem shop” (or worse, there is no checklist). Less often, someone decides to break with tradition, sometimes for good reasons (sometimes not).

The resources allocated were for marketing purposes. It was successful in promoting the product.

I can’t imagine how a lump sum given to an ESL company (for prizes and management) can be reallocated into making changes to the game. It will either be spent on other types of marketing or listed as a cost-cutting measure to please stockholders.

Thanks for the heads up (and especially for being cautious in your estimated times).

zealex.9410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I kind of hope we never learn much about it. I like having a few mysteries in the game (and would like to see even more).

I prefer mysteries like how the world was when lupicus’ were roaming free the lands to be kept secret. But this one, this i want to experience and its right in our faces AND the devs keep teasing it so why not?

I like lots of mysteries. Some people are really uncomfortable with any at all.

So why not? Because I like the mystery a lot better than any theory I’ve seen offered to explain it; I can’t imagine ANet doing it justice lo these many years later. (I won’t be angry if they do add it in.)

In other words, no need for any reason, anymore than you need one for wanting ANet to tackle this story finally.

Fremtid.5817:

But like the person upthread said basket brawl gets much less participation and just got an update.

Basket Brawl needs a lot less effort to be updated. The folks in this thread are asking for an entirely new world and would (reasonably) expect it to be as interesting as W1, if not W2, to include three levels of difficulty. I am sure you can see that changing SAB is much more involved.

Donari.5237:

Thanks all. I’ll debate the purchase a bit longer (of just one set). I’m not a mini completionist, so if I end up missing the goat, well, that’s more gems to spend on something more cool to me

Consider the possibility of going with just the forged (or just the non-forged) this year. Then you can get the other next year. (There’s a small chance we won’t see the same offerings, as ANet sometimes … makes a strange choice like that. However, this year’s options included all of last year’s.)

If someone is in the party with you they would see your health at perhaps 1%.

Not a bug, just the inability of the 8-bit design to display less than a certain fraction of health.

I kind of hope we never learn much about it. I like having a few mysteries in the game (and would like to see even more).

Rikimaru.7890:

So this time I just posted the warning on my own.

And it’s much appreciated. I prefer people to warn about spoilers “too often” than not enough.

On reddit, someone suggested keeping a healing potion with you in case it happens. Apparently, if you die in a certain way in W2z1 (and perhaps not any other), the game gets confused about your status. If you use the heal potion after it calms down, you’ll be “alive enough” to interact with Moto.

I realize doesn’t do you two much good
I hope it’s useful to others in avoiding the issue.

This is outstanding. I lost track of the number of times I exclaimed, “holy kitteny cow!” or “didn’t they surpass the 2k decoration limit 2 minutes ago?”

I’m looking forward to seeing the Dulfy guide, the TacO supporting file, and for Lawton Campbell to enable the API to count whether you’ve completed it or not.

Well done, all

Gaile Gray.6029:

You make a good point.

Some of us post often enough that we are bound to make a good one eventually, simply by accident

Gaile Gray.6029:

I guess Players Helping Players would be the best.

Thanks

Gaile Gray.6029:

I apologize for any confusion with this!

No problem.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Not everybody has the reflexes they had when they were 20,

Even between my 19th and 21st year, I didn’t have those reflexes.

Forging only unlocks armor & weapon skins for the wardrobe. It does not unlock minis or accessories for collections.

The forge exists as a fun item sink, i.e. its purpose is to remove things from the economy. Accordingly, if you can bind an item without destroying it, the forge unlocks it for the wardrobe (and if you can’t, it doesn’t).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I know people are passionate about SAB, but I think fans have overestimated the number of folks that will spend time in it, new world or not. For example, those who hate JPs seem to be just as numerous in the forums (and just as passionate).

I’m not against new worlds and I certainly think ANet should maintain the current SAB indefinitely. However, I can’t agree that adding W3 and beyond would be a good use of ANet’s limited resources.

Fremtid.5817:

If you’d been to rata sum and seen the people crowding around the npc around the clock you’d know that despite the mass amounts of people who hate jumping puzzles sab is really popular.

If you’d remember that Rata Sum is just one map, you’d know that you don’t see more than 100 people at a time. By itself, the crowds near moto (or in the SAB lobby) aren’t a valid measure of participation.

SAB inspires strong passions among its fans to be sure, but that’s not enough to make the business decision to prioritize its development over other parts of the game.

For example: I know a lot of people joining in now strictly for the achievement points — they are a bit bored with the game generally after X years. They’d be equally happy with any other content with AP accessible to them.

For example, I have one buddy who is deeply passionate about SAB. It’s their favorite thing to play, among all games in all platforms. However, they spend exactly 0 dollars on the game and only play SAB. The rest of the year, they do little more than arrive to say “hi” and “when’s SAB coming back?”

In other words, my anecdotes are equally strong (or equally weak) in suggesting that SAB isn’t that popular.

So again, sure, people are passionate about it. Until someone can provide evidence to the contrary, with, you know, actual numbers, I remain convinced that SAB is niche content that appeals to a small minority and generates amazing passion among a tiny minority.

I think the intense passion along makes it an important component of the game. I think the minority participation means it won’t get much (if any) in the way of major updates.

Here’s a more detailed analysis I did of the material requirements for the two methods.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Economic-Impact-of-New-Ascended-Recipes/6520459

If you want to skip the Wall o’ Text, you can go straight to the comparison: