Wintersday Rewards Update

[Wanze.8410]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Wanze.8410" said:

> > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > > @"Wanze.8410" said:

> > > > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > > > Alexander, was it your intention to steal property from some players, but not others? Because that is exactly what you have done.

> > > >

> > > > This is were your argument fails because the snowflakes arent your property, they are Anet's property, along with your whole game account and everything else in it.

> > > >

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > > Then it shouldn't bother you or anybody else to correct this, would it?

> >

> > The excessive amount flawless snowflakes bothered Anet and thats why they corrected their relative value.

> I could understand that, if that correction affected everyone equally. It didn't.

> _That_ is a problem, not the change of value itself.

>

>

 

Every material that changes value due to updates affects every player differently depending on how much of this item they had and if they are planning on buying or selling those materials.

 

This would have only been an issue, if some players acted on inside information before the change went live but there is no indication for that.

 

Every old snowflake gained value since the patch and t6 snowflakes even gained the most gold value per stack and inventory slot.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> > I could understand that, if that correction affected everyone equally. It didn't.

 

Any time there's a market change due to a patch, it affects people differently.

 

People who unlocked cheap dyes on more toons earned more unID dyes than those that limited themselves to fewer rare dyes. Those who saved all their old gear ended up with more unlocks when the wardrobe launched than those who saved room by deleting/salvaging stuff. People who saved scraps and sections did worse than people who refined to bolts and squares when the ratios were changed. It's simply unrealistic to expect that ANet is going to ensure that each and every change is perfectly suited for everyone.

 

The goal is a healthy economy with robust and interesting markets. That means worrying more about the total amount of flakes after the patch (and for months to come) than about whether @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" should have gotten 32x for all the stored flawless rather than just 10x (and I had stored a lot).

 

What's interesting to me is that because of the specific ratios ANet used, it was possible for _everyone_ to earn value from stored flakes. The new sinks aren't all that substantial, but the price of flakes has gone up since 12 Dec. I earned a ton of without having done anything special. Sure, I would have loved to have earned 3.2x more, but that wouldn't have been possible if one flawless had converted into 32 regulars; the market would have been flooded and collapsed with too much supply too soon.

[Daddicus.6128]

This did NOT have to affect people differently, as I showed earlier. It COULD have been done with every tier of snowflake based upon it's relative cost to the other tiers. In fact, it would have been much easier, since there would be zero math to perform.

 

_Edit: "zero math" assumes they chose a power of 2 as their baseline. If they chose elsewise, there would be some math._

[Wanze.8410]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> This did NOT have to affect people differently, as I showed earlier. It COULD have been done with every tier of snowflake based upon it's relative cost to the other tiers. In fact, it would have been much easier, since there would be zero math to perform.

>

> _Edit: "zero math" assumes they chose a power of 2 as their baseline. If they chose elsewise, there would be some math._

 

And it was already mentioned several times that this conversion would have flooded the new snowflake market substantially, which would result in lower prices for them.

 

Please tell me, why you prefer to have 32 stacks of new snowflakes worth 10c each from 1 stack of flawless snowflakes compared to 10 stacks of new snowflakes worth 32c each?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Wanze.8410" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > This did NOT have to affect people differently, as I showed earlier. It COULD have been done with every tier of snowflake based upon it's relative cost to the other tiers. In fact, it would have been much easier, since there would be zero math to perform.

> >

> > _Edit: "zero math" assumes they chose a power of 2 as their baseline. If they chose elsewise, there would be some math._

>

> And it was already mentioned several times that this conversion would have flooded the new snowflake market substantially, which would result in lower prices for them.

>

> Please tell me, why you prefer to have 32 stacks of new snowflakes worth 10c each from 1 stack of flawless snowflakes compared to 10 stacks of new snowflakes worth 32c each?

 

It's likely that with 3.2x more new snowflakes that the price would have been lower than 10c. Supply/demand curves are never linear and psychological factors have big impacts on prices. When markets are flooded, people panic and try to dump their supplies, causing prices to fall. It's rather remarkable that instead, prices for the new flakes increased from late in the first day.

 

So I think the question is why would anyone prefer to have 32 stacks of new snowflakes worth 6c/flake versus 10 stacks worth 32-44c/flake. (Besides which, flawless wasn't the only mathematical adjustment.)

[Manasa Devi.7958]

If they'd had conversion rates corresponding to the old exponential upgrade rates of snowflakes, it's extremely likely we wouldn't have ended up in a situation where we'd be getting 32 new flakes per flawless flake, we'd still only have 10 per flawless flake and only 1 for every 3 tiny flakes. Because they'd obviously base the conversion rate on the type of flake that exists in the largest volume.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Wanze.8410" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > This did NOT have to affect people differently, as I showed earlier. It COULD have been done with every tier of snowflake based upon it's relative cost to the other tiers. In fact, it would have been much easier, since there would be zero math to perform.

> >

> > _Edit: "zero math" assumes they chose a power of 2 as their baseline. If they chose elsewise, there would be some math._

>

> And it was already mentioned several times that this conversion would have flooded the new snowflake market substantially, which would result in lower prices for them.

>

> Please tell me, why you prefer to have 32 stacks of new snowflakes worth 10c each from 1 stack of flawless snowflakes compared to 10 stacks of new snowflakes worth 32c each?

 

You are completely off base. It's not what I can get for the flawless flakes. It's what I SHOULD have gotten from them: their fair value.

 

Please tell me why you (generic you) should get three times as many snowflakes as I do, just because you ignored their inventory management stuff? I did what they implied I should do, and it cost me a bundle of money. Why are different people treated differently?

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Manasa Devi.7958" said:

> If they'd had conversion rates corresponding to the old exponential upgrade rates of snowflakes, it's extremely likely we wouldn't have ended up in a situation where we'd be getting 32 new flakes per flawless flake, we'd still only have 10 per flawless flake and only 1 for every 3 tiny flakes. Because they'd obviously base the conversion rate on the type of flake that exists in the largest volume.

 

Yes, and I would have no problem at all if they had done that. (However, if they had been smart about it, they would have chosen a power of 2 as the conversion factor, rather than something in the neighborhood of 3. Then all of the transactions would have been trivial to carry out.)

[Astraea.6075]

@"Daddicus.6128" To receive "3 times the value" they would have to have used 32 times the storage space.

To put it bluntly, your definition of value seems to be "how many snowflakes do I get from conversion", and you are using that to dismiss arguments that point out that the purchasing power is relatively unchanged or that the TP value has increased.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> You are completely off base. It's not what I can get for the flawless flakes. It's what I SHOULD have gotten from them: their fair value.

There is no objective definition of "fair" value. In particular, there were six types of flakes before and different sinks for each. After the patch, there's only one flake and different amounts required for the sinks. There is simply no conversion that is going to keep everything "even" after that.

 

Take a step back from insisting that there's only one way to look at this and consider all the other things that have to be balanced, including TP value, purchasing power (for decorations or recipes), supply, demand, and sure, people's impressions of whether the rate should match our expectations.

[Daddicus.6128]

> @"Astraea.6075" said:

> @"Daddicus.6128" To receive "3 times the value" they would have to have used 32 times the storage space.

> To put it bluntly, your definition of value seems to be "how many snowflakes do I get from conversion", and you are using that to dismiss arguments that point out that the purchasing power is relatively unchanged or that the TP value has increased.

 

Well, that IS what we're arguing about, isn't it? And, since there is NO OTHER measure of value for the old flakes, I guess ... yeah, that's it.

[Wanze.8410]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > @"Wanze.8410" said:

> > > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > > This did NOT have to affect people differently, as I showed earlier. It COULD have been done with every tier of snowflake based upon it's relative cost to the other tiers. In fact, it would have been much easier, since there would be zero math to perform.

> > >

> > > _Edit: "zero math" assumes they chose a power of 2 as their baseline. If they chose elsewise, there would be some math._

> >

> > And it was already mentioned several times that this conversion would have flooded the new snowflake market substantially, which would result in lower prices for them.

> >

> > Please tell me, why you prefer to have 32 stacks of new snowflakes worth 10c each from 1 stack of flawless snowflakes compared to 10 stacks of new snowflakes worth 32c each?

>

> You are completely off base. It's not what I can get for the flawless flakes. It's what I SHOULD have gotten from them: their fair value.

>

> Please tell me why you (generic you) should get three times as many snowflakes as I do, just because you ignored their inventory management stuff? I did what they implied I should do, and it cost me a bundle of money. Why are different people treated differently?

 

I got as many new snowflakes from old snowflakes as you did, so we have been treated the same. Actually, I had 100k t6 snowflakes listed on the tp (40k sold, 40k delisted and converted into snow diamonds, 20k still on the tp) but only 2.5k tiny snowflakes (which I actually bought myself, while buying out tiny snowflakes right after the patch) but you dont see me complaining that I got cheated out of 2.2 million snowflakes.

[Etienne.3049]

> @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > @"Astraea.6075" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" To receive "3 times the value" they would have to have used 32 times the storage space.

> > To put it bluntly, your definition of value seems to be "how many snowflakes do I get from conversion", and you are using that to dismiss arguments that point out that the purchasing power is relatively unchanged or that the TP value has increased.

>

> Well, that IS what we're arguing about, isn't it? And, since there is NO OTHER measure of value for the old flakes, I guess ... yeah, that's it.

 

The old snowflakes can still be traded on the TP (which should give you the only real measure of value), not a single one of them is currently selling for less then it was on 11 December (despite the stuff they're dropping from being currently active, which normally causes quite a drop).

 

The total value of all your (old) snowflakes was greater on 13 December than it was on 11 December.

 

The fact that some people may have gotten more benefit out of it than you did does not mean you got cheated.

 

The only thing I dislike from the switch is some recipes now taking 32 snowflakes, which doesn't look good in a game that normally uses base-10. I'd prefer if these were made something like 25 or 50.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Etienne.3049" said:

> The only thing I dislike from the switch is some recipes now taking 32 snowflakes, which doesn't look good in a game that normally uses base-10. I'd prefer if these were made something like 25 or 50.

 

If it makes you feel any better, you can send me 18 flakes each time you use a 32-flake recipe ;)

(Actually, it does annoy me, too; just not enough to mention it.)