Make Materials Valuable Again...

[mauried.5608]

The currency in the game , ie gold silver copper is exactly like the real world , and also in most other games with a currency, although some also have platinum.

It woudnt be hard to design the supply side to resemble the real world so that gold > silver > copper, just by making the rarity the same ingame as the real world.

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"mauried.5608" said:

> > There are some amusing absurdities though which arnt unique to this game.

> > eg copper ingots are worth twice as much as gold ingots.

> It's only odd if you think that the _value_ of mats in a game should bear that much relationship to the value of mats in the real world.

 

Yeah, far more "absurd" is the fact that a gold bar is with less than a gold coin. In fact you can get over a hundred gold ingots for a single gold coin. Given that gold coins were used because of the value of the metal itself (the coin itself is literally "worth its weight in gold") those must be some _heavy_ coins.

 

Of course, this is a game and metal isn't intrinsically worth anything; its value is purely based on the metals' uses and its scarcity and gold (the crafting material) in GW2 is both plentiful and largely useless.

[Biff.5312]

> @"icy.9250" said:

> The problem is crafting as a whole should be profitable but it is not. Look at something like RuneScape (I haven't played it in forever, but) -- nearly every mat had actual value to players, and one could spend time simply crafting and selling to save up some gold.

>

> Edit: and don't you give me the timegated garbage as an exception -- that just adds to the problem. Crafting should be encouraged and not discouraged by timegates.

 

This completely contradicts the OP. If mats were more costly, there'd be less profit in crafting, not more. The demand for crafted items won't go up just because material costs are greater, and the cost of crafting would go up.

[Tyncale.1629]

Crafting is a joke in GW2. There are no failures, there are no unique mats that are hard to come by, there are no hurdles to overcome to become a max crafter exept having some gold (not much), there is no reputation to be gained and there is no market for crafted items exept maybe to grind a few components for the the Rich and Lazy that can not be bothered to craft an Insignia themselves. Crafting is mostly something you need for yourself to get some Account bound only stuff .

[mtpelion.4562]

Crafting can only have long term value if it is the only way to obtain top end gear. Because almost all gear comes from drops which get traded on the TP, there is no way to make it "generally" profitable to convert your materials into gear that has direct competition.

 

Now, if they permitted you to sell Ascended gear, then there would potentially be a profitable market for crafting because it is much harder to get gear of that tier as a drop.

[Kunzaito.8169]

The problem as I see it isn't that mid-tier mats are more expensive than high tier, it's that commodity prices overall are depressed and getting worse. Most of the mats in the game are barely above vendor value. Ectos are at or near an all-time low, unid'd dyes hit 10s recently (maybe also a low), most of the mats from HoT and PoF that aren't sellable to the vendor are at 2c. Sorting through your "loot" at the end of anything is just annoying now because you get so much junk and it takes forever to sort and sell it (especially with the ongoing TP selling rate bug) for very little return; I've recently kinda found myself wishing there was just a way to turn off reward tracks in WvW because I'm tired of dealing with it. Even the relatively "valuable" mats only sell for 3 or 4s. There's no excitement to exo drops anymore, they're all worth 1g for weapons and 30s for armor. Aside from ultra-rare drops most players will never see, there's almost nothing that can drop for an average joe to get even a little excited about. I gotta believe this trend can't continue for the economy to remain stable, especially if, as John Smith used to say (is he even around anymore?), ectos are one of the pillars of the market.

[Rhyse.8179]

> @"Kunzaito.8169" said:

> snip for length

 

None of this is new. Honestly, prices havn't changed much since SW made farming easy. Ectos are down below 20s, but considering that 2 years ago they were 'high' at 30s that's not a big change, really. Unid dyes used to be 1-3s. Weapons that aren't lvl80 Zerker have been less then 1g for years. Honestly, this entire thread is basically summed up as "I never paid attention to market prices until last week."

[Kunzaito.8169]

> @"Rhyse.8179" said:

> None of this is new. Honestly, prices havn't changed much since SW made farming easy. Ectos are down below 20s, but considering that 2 years ago they were 'high' at 30s that's not a big change, really. Unid dyes used to be 1-3s. Weapons that aren't lvl80 Zerker have been less then 1g for years. Honestly, this entire thread is basically summed up as "I never paid attention to market prices until last week."

 

Even a slight bit of research would prove you wrong. Ectos, for example, from gw2spidy, hit a high of 50s in July 2016, and steadily declined to all-time lows around 13s throughout 2018. They're slightly higher now but not much. Unid'd dye hit a high of 92s in July 2015, and have steadily declined since to the lowest they've been since 2013, and still dropping. Zerker hasn't mattered in forever, but there used to be some market for greatswords, staves, daggers, and swords, and a handful of sigils and runes had value to salvage. SW predated guild halls, so your reasoning is so flawed as to be hilarious there. Most mats were quite valuable throughout the HoT years because of people building guild halls. I remember specifically paying 2-3s for thick leather a year and a half ago, it's now at 60c. You can name literally any mat or standard gear drop and I guarantee you will see the chart showing a clear downward trend over the past 2 years.

 

 

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Shep.4026" said:

> I'm sorry, but I can't recall any MMO where the highest tier mat wasn't among the cheapest, at least after a fair amount of time had passed after a new tier was introduced. The reasons for this have been outlined more than once here. This is a non issue.

 

I can't recall any MMO where BIS gear was crafted by the player. Different MMOs are different.

 

 

[Shep.4026]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > @"Shep.4026" said:

> > I'm sorry, but I can't recall any MMO where the highest tier mat wasn't among the cheapest, at least after a fair amount of time had passed after a new tier was introduced. The reasons for this have been outlined more than once here. This is a non issue.

>

> I can't recall any MMO where BIS gear was crafted by the player. Different MMOs are different.

>

>

 

Fair enough :)

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I never got why we don't get lower tier drops from lower tier maps. We as players get downlevelled as well.

[Warlord.9082]

I completely agree with the OP.

[Linken.6345]

> @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> I never got why we don't get lower tier drops from lower tier maps. We as players get downlevelled as well.

 

We used to get that but then players complained they dident get drops their own level.

When helping their friends or guildmates so anet caved and changed it.

Admittedly that was before ascended crafting making t2-4 more valuable then 5 and 6.

[perilisk.1874]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> > I never got why we don't get lower tier drops from lower tier maps. We as players get downlevelled as well.

>

> We used to get that but then players complained they dident get drops their own level.

> When helping their friends or guildmates so anet caved and changed it.

> Admittedly that was before ascended crafting making t2-4 more valuable then 5 and 6.

 

Yeah, it was smart design at launch, since lower-level drops were worthless to a level 80. But at this point, any tier is valuable.

[Skotlex.7580]

Maybe run a forum poll and see if players are fine with acquiring map level drops rather than player level ones.

 

I bet that would be annoying for players levelling up, but probably would be welcomed by the rest.

 

That would potentially inject new life to core Tyria maps as people farm them for lower tier materials?

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"perilisk.1874" said:

> > @"Linken.6345" said:

> > > @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> > > I never got why we don't get lower tier drops from lower tier maps. We as players get downlevelled as well.

> >

> > We used to get that but then players complained they dident get drops their own level.

> > When helping their friends or guildmates so anet caved and changed it.

> > Admittedly that was before ascended crafting making t2-4 more valuable then 5 and 6.

>

> Yeah, it was smart design at launch, since lower-level drops were worthless to a level 80. But at this point, any tier is valuable.

 

It was a smart move on both ends.

 

Max level characters can still get relevant rewards in LV 15 zones. Not everyone is full ascended, and a freshly minted LV 80 might snag a LV 80 exotic item while fighting off bandits. It was equally smart to include lower tier materials in end game crafting recipes to maintain their value throughout the game. The only reason iron and platinum are worth more than mithril is an issue of supply, not inherent value. If people were dumping iron/plat into the TP at the same rate as mithril, and it was as easy to farm/acquire as mithril, the price would be the same.

 

All anyone has to do though is create a bank toon at a level below 53 (many posts / guides exist on this topic) and use them to open champ bags, etc, to get level appropriate gear for salvage. Yes it does require you devote a character slot, but farming the gold to purchase the gems for a new character slot is cheaper in the long run than buying iron, plat, cotton, wool and linen off the TP.

 

[Ashen.2907]

This tends to reduce the sense of being rewarded in new maps (for me). Rewards are not the only, or even primary, reason to play content for me, but they are a big justification for repeating the content. So, the most fun (because steamrolling low level maps on a poorly downscaled 80 is not particularly fun for me) maps tend to be less rewarding to replay.

 

Seems odd to me.

[Daddicus.6128]

No, no, a thousand times no! I can buy stuff with the prices where they are. I wouldn't even dream of having all the ascended items I do, if the prices were higher. And, I was able to make an actual weapon of legendary rarity.

[Solvar.7953]

The one way you can sort of get lower tier materials is using harvesting tools that generate cloth or leather (you can by temporary ones for karma). On lower level maps, this will generate thin leather, cotton, etc. That's probably the main way I get my lower tier materials, as I do world completion on new characters.

 

[ProtoGunner.4953]

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"ProtoGunner.4953" said:

> > I never got why we don't get lower tier drops from lower tier maps. We as players get downlevelled as well.

>

> We used to get that but then players complained they dident get drops their own level.

> When helping their friends or guildmates so anet caved and changed it.

> Admittedly that was before ascended crafting making t2-4 more valuable then 5 and 6.

 

I usually have good memory, but I didn't remember that. Mindblown! Thanks for the info.