The new infusion

[Danikat.8537]

As other people have already said this is how it works. An item **cannot** be both rare and valuable enough to have some sense of prestige _and_ be cheap and easy to obtain. That's an oxymoron.

 

So if players want rare, valuable items which they imagine other players may be impressed to see them using they need to accept that those items are going to be some combination of difficult, expensive, time consuming and luck-based to obtain. Without that it's just another random skin everyone can get whenever they want, which apparently devalues it.

 

Personally I'd rather have more stuff which is easier to obtain, not instant but somewhere in the middle...I'd put legendary weapons as the absolute upper limit of what should be required. But then I've never really understood the idea of prestigious items anyway, I'd rather everyone is able to obtain the stuff they like and I enjoy seeing what they do with it. An interesting combination of skins with a theme and a good colour scheme is far more interesting to me than one or more items which are only significant because I remember hearing it's expensive or hard to obtain. Of course those skins can be part of a cool theme, but on their own they're no more interesting to me than anything else.

 

But I've seen enough topics and comments on this forum about how there's no good drops, everything is trash loot and there needs to be more rare and valuable items so players have something worthwhile to go after to understand why Anet would respond to that feedback by putting expensive and difficult to obtain items into the game.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > The price is quite volatile right now but at least based on the first post it has already dropped in price by a huge chunk.

> It's down because the wiki updated the material requirements, it's still ~500 times more expensive as it should be.

 

And since the materials are easily farmed, it's going to continue to drop until the most expensive component is the ectos.

 

If Drizzlewood can maintain being popular at _least_ until Episode 5's release (which I suspect will be November given September is slated for the Fractal-centric release), then the price of the shards of jormag - the most numerous component - will drop quite a lot.

 

There's always a spike in prices for materials when a new item requires them - this is nothing new - but in time they'll level back down, as will new materials.

 

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> As other people have already said this is how it works. An item **cannot** be both rare and valuable enough to have some sense of prestige _and_ be cheap and easy to obtain. That's an oxymoron.

And so much this...

[Tails.9372]

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"Tails.9372" said:

> > > @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > > The price is quite volatile right now but at least based on the first post it has already dropped in price by a huge chunk.

> > It's down because the wiki updated the material requirements, it's still ~500 times more expensive as it should be.

>

> And since the materials are easily farmed, it's going to continue to drop until the most expensive component is the ectos.

The ecto price alone makes the thing 100 times more expensive as it should be.

 

 

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> So if players want rare, valuable items which they imagine other players may be impressed to see them using they need to accept that those items are going to be some combination of difficult, expensive, time consuming and luck-based to obtain. Without that it's just another random skin everyone can get whenever they want, which apparently devalues it.

These items should first and foremost be used to add replay value to the content, that's what most maps desperately lack and aura infusions are one of the few things which could provide said replay value. But as shown in the past having an ultra rare infusion which no one can realisticly expect to drop is not enough to add sufficient replay value to the content. Also, no one is saying that people should be guaranteed to get the infusions every time they play the meta but like I said 20 gold + a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions) should be enough.

 

 

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> But I've seen enough topics and comments on this forum about how there's no good drops, everything is trash loot and there needs to be more rare and valuable items so players have something worthwhile to go after to understand why Anet would respond to that feedback **by putting expensive and difficult to obtain items into the game.**

That is like one of the few things the game **does not** have a shortage of.

[Infusion.7149]

The ecto price is excessive but I understand the need for a shards of jormag sink.

 

25K crystallized shards of jormag is still rather high (few hundred metas at 1-2 hours each depending on if you do south meta). I get about 30-50 per meta depending on how many shard nodes I manage to pick after looting Frost Legion chests.

 

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Also, no one is saying that people should be guaranteed to get the infusions every time they play the meta but like I said 20 gold + a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions) should be enough.

 

Here is the main problem:

Your assumption that a cost less than a decent rune set is in any way rare.

 

Sorry, but at 20-30 gold grinds per hour in game. Anything worth less than 2k gold is pretty much common. There is a reason you can see legendary T1 weapons left and right as well as people reskinning them.

 

Rare means RARE. As in you don't get to see it at every corner.

 

Personally, I like the approach to offer different rarities of infusions/loot. Will I be getting myself a 7-9k infusion? Hell no, but I am happy for every player who sets this as a goal and works towards it.

 

You want an easy and accessible infusion/enrichment? The Otter one is up for grabs with not to much effort.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Also, no one is saying that people should be guaranteed to get the infusions every time they play the meta but like I said 20 gold + a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions) should be enough.

 

20g? Really? That's way too low. That makes it cheaper than completing *one* illuminated boreal weapon - those weapon require two Amalgamated Draconic Lodestones, which rest at ~20g each on the TP. You cannot possibly think that 20g is even remotely close to rare.

 

If you meant 200g, that'd be more realistic, and would mirror where Ghostly Infusion was for quite some time, though it's now resting at the 100g range like the Poly- infusions are. I think that 200g is the _bare minimum_ for something meant to be uncommon, but for something meant to be high end and rare, then the cost of a legendary is more accurate - which would be roughly 2000g.

 

20,000g is definitely too much, but it's been out for just two days and the cost is already down to 5,700g. The most expensive component remains the Shards of Jormag, and those will drop. The ecto price keeps it at a minimum of 1800g, so all things consider I imagine it'll settle around the 2,500g range. Which is legendary level pricing, and therefore fitting as the high end reward of the episode, imo.

[Tails.9372]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> Here is the main problem:

> Your assumption that a cost less than a decent rune set is in any way rare.

>

> Sorry, but at 20-30 gold grinds per hour in game. Anything worth less than 2k gold is pretty much common. There is a reason you can see legendary T1 weapons left and right as well as people reskinning them.

>

> Rare means RARE. As in you don't get to see it at every corner.

If anything I'd assume that an item with sub asc rarity is a lot easier / less expensive to get than your average legendary. You're also ignoring the "+ a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions)" part of my comment here. Also, even if you could buy the infusion for 20 gold that still makes 360 gold for the full intensity per character you want to use it on as infusion effects (unlike skins) are not part of the wardrobe system.

 

 

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> You want an easy and accessible infusion/enrichment?

No, as stated above I want them to use map related infusions to add replay value to the content. If they also want to add some leg infusions as part of a legendary journey or whatever (which I'm not opposed to) then that's another story.

 

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> 20g? Really? That's way too low. That makes it cheaper than completing *one* illuminated boreal weapon

No it's not, that's exactly where the other infusions are. You're also ignoring that skins (unlike infusions) are a one time deal so they're not really comparable here and if you want the effect at full intensity you still have to pay 360 gold per character.

 

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> If you meant 200g, that'd be more realistic, and would mirror where Ghostly Infusion was for quite some time

Ghostly Infusions have always been at 20 gold + content currency, 200 gold was just the resale value for the TP.

 

[Khisanth.2948]

and it has dropped another 5000g since yesterday ...

 

[AgentMoore.9453]

I really don't like how they've handled most of the infusions, if I'm honest.

 

You either get extremely lucky on a drop or you pour your soul into farming out mats/gold only to receive an item you have to bind to a single weapon or piece of gear. Infusions, especially if they're going to demand so much effort, should be a wardrobe unlock of some kind, and there should be a slot next to each gear piece where you can put an infusion's visuals on as many of them as you wish without having to bind it to the gear itself.

 

Either infusions should be simpler cosmetics to obtain, or they should be less awkward to use. I don't even try for them currently because of the imbalance of those two things.

[Nightcore.5621]

Right now its 10k on tradin post and its still way to much

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > Here is the main problem:

> > Your assumption that a cost less than a decent rune set is in any way rare.

> >

> > Sorry, but at 20-30 gold grinds per hour in game. Anything worth less than 2k gold is pretty much common. There is a reason you can see legendary T1 weapons left and right as well as people reskinning them.

> >

> > Rare means RARE. As in you don't get to see it at every corner.

> If anything I'd assume that an item with sub asc rarity is a lot easier / less expensive to get than your average legendary. You're also ignoring the "+ a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions)" part of my comment here. Also, even if you could buy the infusion for 20 gold that still makes 360 gold for the full intensity per character you want to use it on as infusion effects (unlike skins) are not part of the wardrobe system.

>

>

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > You want an easy and accessible infusion/enrichment?

> No, as stated above I want them to use map related infusions to add replay value to the content. If they also want to add some leg infusions as part of a legendary journey or whatever (which I'm not opposed to) then that's another story.

>

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > 20g? Really? That's way too low. That makes it cheaper than completing *one* illuminated boreal weapon

> No it's not, that's exactly where the other infusions are. You're also ignoring that skins (unlike infusions) are a one time deal so they're not really comparable here and if you want the effect at full intensity you still have to pay 360 gold per character.

>

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > If you meant 200g, that'd be more realistic, and would mirror where Ghostly Infusion was for quite some time

> Ghostly Infusions have always been at 20 gold + content currency, 200 gold was just the resale value for the TP.

 

In order to make it similar to Ghostly Infusion's vender cost, you'd need the equivalent to 1,000 Magnetite Shards, which is probably going to be at _least_ 100,000 War Supplies in the new map, I'd even argue 1,000,000 War Supplies may still be reasonable given how that currency is a god damn flood into your wallet. Even so, they instead used a new kind of map "material", the shards of Jormag, which will reduce in price as time goes on.

 

You call the TP "resale value" but that's literally how players could convert Magnetite Shards to gold, which makes it more of a currency exchange, no different than shards of jormag price on the TP that has been determining this _entire_ discussion. Even then though, it's pretty clear ANet wanted this to be a more high tier reward than Ghostly Infusion.

[Critical Lag.9075]

It's funny how Raid and CM Fractal infusions are way more reasonable and obtainable, from a content that's supposed to be for hardcore players, than any Open World infusion, a content that's supposed to be mainly for most casual players.

 

I get that they want to make Open World repeatable but it should be no more than 500-1000g or 100 days worth of doing meta daily to get main patch reward.

 

Casual players are screwed twice here. They feel Raid/fractal/strike shinies are too hard for them and at the same time some cool Open World stuff is so resource intensive that it is only reachable by hardcore TP Barons.

[Bristingr.5034]

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> The price is quite volatile right now but at least based on the first post it has already dropped in price by a huge chunk. If people continue to play in Drizzlewood the price will continue to fall since the north meta drops quite a few of the shards which is the most expensive component.

>

> > @"Solanum.6983" said:

> > I get them wanting it to be rare since it's obtainable to everyone but 20k gold worth... Yikes.

> > If you convert that gold to gems and then to dollars, that's around $650 for some shiny skin.

>

> It is not 20k. It is already down to around half that. It was 8.3k when I checked earlier. Now it is 11.4k. If you impatient enough and must have it now then sure it might cost that much.

 

Shhhh, keep that price high. I need to sell all the shards I can get before that price plummets.

[Yggranya.5201]

> @"Redfeather.6401" said:

> That's not a good way to keep players playing. Does the game want gold farmers to be it's future playerbase.

 

Considering anet ignoring all the TP bots and bots/AFKers in general, i would say: yes, that is what they want.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > Here is the main problem:

> > Your assumption that a cost less than a decent rune set is in any way rare.

> >

> > Sorry, but at 20-30 gold grinds per hour in game. Anything worth less than 2k gold is pretty much common. There is a reason you can see legendary T1 weapons left and right as well as people reskinning them.

> >

> > Rare means RARE. As in you don't get to see it at every corner.

> If anything I'd assume that an item with sub asc rarity is a lot easier / less expensive to get than your average legendary. You're also ignoring the "+ a decent amount of map currency (like how it is for some of the non OW infusions)" part of my comment here. Also, even if you could buy the infusion for 20 gold that still makes 360 gold for the full intensity per character you want to use it on as infusion effects (unlike skins) are not part of the wardrobe system.

 

Color of items has not been correlating to their value since the beginning of the game with precursors. So while I agree that this would be beneficial. It literally was never the case.

 

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > You want an easy and accessible infusion/enrichment?

> No, as stated above I want them to use map related infusions to add replay value to the content. If they also want to add some leg infusions as part of a legendary journey or whatever (which I'm not opposed to) then that's another story.

 

They are map related. 25,000 of the require materials are only from this map.

 

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > 20g? Really? That's way too low. That makes it cheaper than completing *one* illuminated boreal weapon

> No it's not, that's exactly where the other infusions are. You're also ignoring that skins (unlike infusions) are a one time deal so they're not really comparable here and if you want the effect at full intensity you still have to pay 360 gold per character.

 

There is literally not a single 20g infusion in this game which is 5/9. Not one.

 

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > If you meant 200g, that'd be more realistic, and would mirror where Ghostly Infusion was for quite some time

> Ghostly Infusions have always been at 20 gold + content currency, 200 gold was just the resale value for the TP.

>

 

The currency is part of the cost. That currency is not free. Ghostly infusions are among the cheapest infusion one can get. Followed by fractal infusions I believe.

 

Which leads me back to my original statement:

Rare items are meant to be rare. Players were complaining about the ultra rare drop rates for rare infusions. This is the alternative approach. No rng, just simple cost. The rarity is thus assured.

 

Unless you want to open the argument of "should there be rare items in this game"? To which everyone can have their own opinion, but past experiences from this very game have shown that rarity works as a motivator. Unrelated to what some forum complaining minority might feel.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> The currency is part of the cost. That currency is not free. Ghostly infusions are among the cheapest infusion one can get. Followed by fractal infusions I believe.

 

For the ones with some sort of cosmetic effect the Polyluminescent ones and Toy Shell are cheaper

 

> Which leads me back to my original statement:

> Rare items are meant to be rare. Players were complaining about the ultra rare drop rates for rare infusions. This is the alternative approach. No rng, just simple cost. The rarity is thus assured.

>

> Unless you want to open the argument of "should there be rare items in this game"? To which everyone can have their own opinion, but past experiences from this very game have shown that rarity works as a motivator. Unrelated to what some forum complaining minority might feel.

 

There is also the other question. How rare does something need to be for it to be considered rare?

 

Personally I don't care about either of those. I only care if I like it or not. If I like it and want it then I work towards it or put it on my todo. If not I ignore it.

[Vancho.8750]

The whole thing is to shift gold around and take some off the game by TP fees. Those that have the gold will buy the shards from poor little Johny Doe that has no gold, and he will get bonus of around 20g and be happy about it. The infusion is for the Rich and it is a gold farm for the rest.

Also they have been adding allot of gold sinks for this season, since they don't do legendaries anymore.

To tell you i think this one is their best try, cause everyone gets something out of it.

[Hashberry.4510]

The game desperately needs gold and material sinks. They should do more of this sort if thing

[Josiah.2967]

I am fine with the occasional expensive infusion as long as inexpensive ones are also added.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Josiah.2967" said:

> I am fine with the occasional expensive infusion as long as inexpensive ones are also added.

 

We do have the Polystaturating ones, (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Polysaturating_Reverberating_Infusion) which I personally think are the nicest ones in the game, and just wish they would introduce more colours.

[Josiah.2967]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > @"Josiah.2967" said:

> > I am fine with the occasional expensive infusion as long as inexpensive ones are also added.

>

> We do have the Polystaturating ones, (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Polysaturating_Reverberating_Infusion) which I personally think are the nicest ones in the game, and just wish they would introduce more colours.

 

My fault. I should of specified. I meant ones that you can craft which do not depend on chance.

 

On side note: I would love a White and Yellow one. :-)

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > The currency is part of the cost. That currency is not free. Ghostly infusions are among the cheapest infusion one can get. Followed by fractal infusions I believe.

>

> For the ones with some sort of cosmetic effect the Polyluminescent ones and Toy Shell are cheaper

>

 

True, but the Toyshell comes as "only" healing power and the stat change is pretty much en par with 80+ gold infusions.

 

The Polyluminescent is only cheap as exotic variant. Upgrading it to ascended infusion quality costs a + 5/9.

 

I will admit though, I had forgotten about those 2. Still even these "cheap" infusions still cost close to the 80+ gold of Ghostly Infusions. My personal estimate is that the value aim is around 100 gold for infusions. Many cosmetic ones being far more expensive as goal.

 

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > Which leads me back to my original statement:

> > Rare items are meant to be rare. Players were complaining about the ultra rare drop rates for rare infusions. This is the alternative approach. No rng, just simple cost. The rarity is thus assured.

> >

> > Unless you want to open the argument of "should there be rare items in this game"? To which everyone can have their own opinion, but past experiences from this very game have shown that rarity works as a motivator. Unrelated to what some forum complaining minority might feel.

>

> There is also the other question. How rare does something need to be for it to be considered rare?

>

> Personally I don't care about either of those. I only care if I like it or not. If I like it and want it then I work towards it or put it on my todo. If not I ignore it.

 

True, that's why I was going with a gut estimate of 2k gold. That might sound like a lot to newer or more casual players. For veterans who have some minor spending control after 7-8 years, it really is not. Not to mention veterans who actually play challenging content or have amassed years of gold worth of open world metas.

 

The issue here is:

Many players "want" things because they perceive them as valuable or nice. Very often rarity factors into that. If the same thing was not as rare, the perception would change. Case in point: there are some amazing and great weapons/armor/skins etc., but they see little use because a common 2 gold whatever is just not fancy enough.

 

The reason the developers are continuing with adding ultra rare loot is simple: it works as motivator.

[Stormcrow.7513]

So lemmie get this straight....Anet decides that a new infusion that looks like my toon with 8 winters, a celestial and grey will cost about 15K(=/-) and will ONLY be available to the super rich through crafting. WTF Anet. You were doing well recently. Oh, and put the meta for the crafting items behind a 2 hour zerg facepalm....I can see this becoming an elitist item that will not even be available when people stop(and they will) doing the map. GG Anet, if you want pointers on how to create interesting ways of obtaining rare items in a video game feel free to PM me, heck I won't even bill you.....

[Stormcrow.7513]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> As other people have already said this is how it works. An item **cannot** be both rare and valuable enough to have some sense of prestige _and_ be cheap and easy to obtain. That's an oxymoron.

>

> So if players want rare, valuable items which they imagine other players may be impressed to see them using they need to accept that those items are going to be some combination of difficult, expensive, time consuming and luck-based to obtain. Without that it's just another random skin everyone can get whenever they want, which apparently devalues it.

>

> Personally I'd rather have more stuff which is easier to obtain, not instant but somewhere in the middle...I'd put legendary weapons as the absolute upper limit of what should be required. But then I've never really understood the idea of prestigious items anyway, I'd rather everyone is able to obtain the stuff they like and I enjoy seeing what they do with it. An interesting combination of skins with a theme and a good colour scheme is far more interesting to me than one or more items which are only significant because I remember hearing it's expensive or hard to obtain. Of course those skins can be part of a cool theme, but on their own they're no more interesting to me than anything else.

>

> But I've seen enough topics and comments on this forum about how there's no good drops, everything is trash loot and there needs to be more rare and valuable items so players have something worthwhile to go after to understand why Anet would respond to that feedback by putting expensive and difficult to obtain items into the game.

 

I think that the problem is that it is only reasonably obtainable through either i) Having about 15-20k in pure gold. ii) farming a 2 hour long meta until your eyes bleed pixels iii) putting about $650 on your visa(or moms). I get that there should be rare items in the game but there are better ways to implement them.

[Khisanth.2948]

There is also a second infusion that was added ...