[Suggestion] Spirit Shards vs. Laurels

[Moradorin.6217]

> @"Kunzaito.8169" said:

> Man, the spirit shard homers are the weirdest. They're somehow unable to comprehend that every single use for shards is absolutely impractical to use at scale. They are a tiny part of some recipes for valuable things that can't be created quickly in large quantities, giving an artificially inflated "value" per shard on those sites. You need to sink large amounts of other mats, gold, and time into crafting those items. So it's utterly misleading to say that if I have 14,000 shards and they're "worth" 50s each that I have a realizable asset of 7000g. The fact is that you'll always gain shards faster than you can use them.

>

> More on topic - do I think there should be more uses for ss? Selfishly, yes, because I have truckloads of them. But practically I see why they don't. They definitely shouldn't change them to laurels, though. That's too far in the other direction.

>

> Maybe just create some sinks, like a mini zommoros and miyani for 10,000 shards each.

 

Yes to the extent that the per spirit shard "profit" for crafting say many weapons that re for the skin and take other things like mystic coins. I would say ignore those. However your numbers are WAY off. The per shard profit on those items are say 2.5 g PER SHARD. The more practical and useful recipes are things like upgrading lower tier leather, cloth, etc or converting cores into lodestones. Those have simple recipes with clear profit per shard, but its more in the range of a few silver per shard, which IMO is still worth while. If nothing else its very easy to use them to upgrade materials to make legendary armor and weapons for a large savings over buying said materials. All that said I wouldnt mind new uses too, but I wouldnt really want it if it crashes the Trophy market

[Kunzaito.8169]

> @"Moradorin.6217" said:

> Yes to the extent that the per spirit shard "profit" for crafting say many weapons that re for the skin and take other things like mystic coins. I would say ignore those. However your numbers are WAY off. The per shard profit on those items are say 2.5 g PER SHARD. The more practical and useful recipes are things like upgrading lower tier leather, cloth, etc or converting cores into lodestones. Those have simple recipes with clear profit per shard, but its more in the range of a few silver per shard, which IMO is still worth while. If nothing else its very easy to use them to upgrade materials to make legendary armor and weapons for a large savings over buying said materials. All that said I wouldnt mind new uses too, but I wouldnt really want it if it crashes the Trophy market

 

I think this is a matter of perspective, because again in my mind that value is more properly assigned to time, not shards. Converting things via the MF is SLOW, especially the cores. You have to do them one at a time, and as a gold-per-hour mechanism it pales in comparison to almost anything else. So sure, if you just want to use up your shards and don't care that it takes a long time for little (relative) profit and you enjoy it, nothing wrong with that. But I just think it's misleading to view it as the shards (a nearly unlimited resource for most players) having that value, vs. time (a much more limited resource).

 

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Kunzaito.8169" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > You have that backwards. The reason spirit shards retain such a high value is exactly BECAUSE it is so tedious to convert them. If it was as simple as 1 mouse click, everyone would do it. That does not change the fact though that spirit shards can be converted into a certain value. Lazyness or unwillingness to make use of a resource does not reduce that resources value (similar with gifts of exploration or obsidian shards), it merely devalues the resource to you personally.

>

> It's not backwards at all. That value is illusory - you have no practical way of realizing it. It's not possible. The value you see on GW2E is an inaccurate calculation not related at all to the spirit shard component of those items, but only to the fact that it is the "bucket" available for placing the premium in those items that require huge amounts of time (in the form of account-bound non-currency components that don't get assigned value in such calculations).

>

> Example: I want to make the legendary MacGuffin. It requires the following four components:

>

> 250 Widgets - tradeable on the TP for 10 gold each

> 250 Dohickeys - tradeable on the TP for 5 gold each

> 1 Gift of Whatzit - account bound, requires grinding 250 of an untradeable new drop that can be accumulated at the rate of 1 per day by doing a very tedious meta that most people don't run

> 1 Spirit Shard

>

> Let's say you can sell the final product on the TP for 5000 gold. After TP fees, that's 4250, a premium of 1000 gold over the calculated component costs. A site that is trying to calculate the gold value of an alternative currency doesn't have a way to quantify the Gift of Whatzit. It's not even trying to make that calculation. It assumes that ALL the profit of such an item is due to the component it is trying to analyze - the currency Spirit Shard. When in fact almost NONE of the true value is derived from the shard. So it will state that Spirit Shards have a value of 1000g when they really, really don't.

>

> It has NOTHING to do with "laziness or unwillingness" to do anything. It isn't possible to realize those high valuations because THEY AREN'T REAL.

 

One way to do it would be to factor in time and attribute a cost to it. How much time did it take to get that spirit shard or gift of whatzit? How much gold could you normally make in that time?

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Kunzaito.8169" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > You have that backwards. The reason spirit shards retain such a high value is exactly BECAUSE it is so tedious to convert them. If it was as simple as 1 mouse click, everyone would do it. That does not change the fact though that spirit shards can be converted into a certain value. Lazyness or unwillingness to make use of a resource does not reduce that resources value (similar with gifts of exploration or obsidian shards), it merely devalues the resource to you personally.

>

> It's not backwards at all. That value is illusory - you have no practical way of realizing it. It's not possible. The value you see on GW2E is an inaccurate calculation not related at all to the spirit shard component of those items, but only to the fact that it is the "bucket" available for placing the premium in those items that require huge amounts of time (in the form of account-bound non-currency components that don't get assigned value in such calculations).

>

> Example: I want to make the legendary MacGuffin. It requires the following four components:

>

> 250 Widgets - tradeable on the TP for 10 gold each

> 250 Dohickeys - tradeable on the TP for 5 gold each

> 1 Gift of Whatzit - account bound, requires grinding 250 of an untradeable new drop that can be accumulated at the rate of 1 per day by doing a very tedious meta that most people don't run

> 1 Spirit Shard

>

> Let's say you can sell the final product on the TP for 5000 gold. After TP fees, that's 4250, a premium of 1000 gold over the calculated component costs. A site that is trying to calculate the gold value of an alternative currency doesn't have a way to quantify the Gift of Whatzit. It's not even trying to make that calculation. It assumes that ALL the profit of such an item is due to the component it is trying to analyze - the currency Spirit Shard. When in fact almost NONE of the true value is derived from the shard. So it will state that Spirit Shards have a value of 1000g when they really, really don't.

>

> It has NOTHING to do with "laziness or unwillingness" to do anything. It isn't possible to realize those high valuations because THEY AREN'T REAL.

 

That is simply not true. Some of the richest players in GW2 (if you bothered to listen to Woodenpotatoes youtube segment on wealth about 1 month ago) are sitting on 10-20 Spirit shards. Literally players with hundreds of thousands of gold who are monetizing all the resources they have.

 

Value of something being hard to realize and illusory are not the same. Spirit Shard value is intentionally difficult to realize but not illusory.

 

> @"Kunzaito.8169" said:

> > @"Moradorin.6217" said:

> > Yes to the extent that the per spirit shard "profit" for crafting say many weapons that re for the skin and take other things like mystic coins. I would say ignore those. However your numbers are WAY off. The per shard profit on those items are say 2.5 g PER SHARD. The more practical and useful recipes are things like upgrading lower tier leather, cloth, etc or converting cores into lodestones. Those have simple recipes with clear profit per shard, but its more in the range of a few silver per shard, which IMO is still worth while. If nothing else its very easy to use them to upgrade materials to make legendary armor and weapons for a large savings over buying said materials. All that said I wouldnt mind new uses too, but I wouldnt really want it if it crashes the Trophy market

>

> I think this is a matter of perspective, because again in my mind that value is more properly assigned to time, not shards. Converting things via the MF is SLOW, especially the cores. You have to do them one at a time, and as a gold-per-hour mechanism it pales in comparison to almost anything else. So sure, if you just want to use up your shards and don't care that it takes a long time for little (relative) profit and you enjoy it, nothing wrong with that. But I just think it's misleading to view it as the shards (a nearly unlimited resource for most players) having that value, vs. time (a much more limited resource).

>

 

People who monetize their spirit shards do so while doing other things. For example: while converting resources, you can also be trading on the trading post, or cleaning up inventory, etc.

 

Many of the wealthier players craft legendarys regularly (or other weapons/items which take spirit shards), which if you have the account bound materials and gold, is a very fast process.

 

You are not wrong in that converting spirit shards costs time, time which could be spent farming. But then I ask you: how often do you farm at maximum efficiency? Or rather at the rate of gold gain you could have when using up spirit shards?

 

I'll repeat what I said: the value per shard is where its at BECAUSE most player are unwilling to make use of them due to the hassle involved.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

 

The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

[Kunzaito.8169]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

(snip)

 

We're going to have to agree to disagree because frankly, I don't care about this enough to keep debating the nuances.

 

 

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

>

> The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

 

The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

> >

> > The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

>

> The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

 

None of the in-game farms yield direct gold. All of those involve time to convert your drops into gold.

 

GW2Efficiency lists what’s currently the best items to make with shards so the time involved is like 30 seconds for a quick google search for the site and to scroll down for the MF recipe.

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

> > >

> > > The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

> >

> > The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

>

> None of the in-game farms yield direct gold. All of those involve time to convert your drops into gold.

>

> GW2Efficiency lists what’s currently the best items to make with shards so the time involved is like 30 seconds for a quick google search for the site and to scroll down for the MF recipe.

 

I tried it, it goes like this. Look at first recipe, I'm missing this component but either can't afford it or it can't be bought look at next recipe. Got most of what it takes but I'm missing this component and I either can't afford it or it can't be bought, loo at next recipe. I have everything for this one but if I craft it I won't have enough to pay the transaction fees on TP, I'll have to wait, look at next recipe. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe if you have been farming mats and gold for years it isn't an issue but for newer players it is so simple.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

> > > >

> > > > The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

> > >

> > > The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

> >

> > None of the in-game farms yield direct gold. All of those involve time to convert your drops into gold.

> >

> > GW2Efficiency lists what’s currently the best items to make with shards so the time involved is like 30 seconds for a quick google search for the site and to scroll down for the MF recipe.

>

> I tried it, it goes like this. Look at first recipe, I'm missing this component but either can't afford it or it can't be bought look at next recipe. Got most of what it takes but I'm missing this component and I either can't afford it or it can't be bought, loo at next recipe. I have everything for this one but if I craft it I won't have enough to pay the transaction fees on TP, I'll have to wait, look at next recipe. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe if you have been farming mats and gold for years it isn't an issue but for newer players it is so simple.

 

You upgrade materials to the next tier. From what I remember earlier, it was upgrading jute scraps to wool scraps at a rate of 1.15 profit per spirit shard.

[SoulGuardian.6203]

Sorry that I didn't read all the comments, so I don't know if anyone has already suggested this, but what about trading a certain amount of spirit shards for laurels?

Win/Win situation.

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

> > > > >

> > > > > The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

> > > >

> > > > The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

> > >

> > > None of the in-game farms yield direct gold. All of those involve time to convert your drops into gold.

> > >

> > > GW2Efficiency lists what’s currently the best items to make with shards so the time involved is like 30 seconds for a quick google search for the site and to scroll down for the MF recipe.

> >

> > I tried it, it goes like this. Look at first recipe, I'm missing this component but either can't afford it or it can't be bought look at next recipe. Got most of what it takes but I'm missing this component and I either can't afford it or it can't be bought, loo at next recipe. I have everything for this one but if I craft it I won't have enough to pay the transaction fees on TP, I'll have to wait, look at next recipe. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe if you have been farming mats and gold for years it isn't an issue but for newer players it is so simple.

>

> You upgrade materials to the next tier. From what I remember earlier, it was upgrading jute scraps to wool scraps at a rate of 1.15 profit per spirit shard.

 

Maybe if you are sitting on thousands of spirit shards but shards are a very limited resource. I would rather use them on something that will return me more gold per shard than a stack of wool.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > @"Bassdeff.1895" said:

> > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > > Converting spirit shards to gold yields way more gold per hour than anywhere else in the game with the exception of TP trading. Doing mystic forges doesn’t really take all that much time.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > The above is me referring to upgrading materials to the next tier.

> > > > >

> > > > > The part that takes time is researching which recipes are worth while crafting with the materials you have. Throwing things into the forge takes a minute, figuring out what you will be throwing into the forger can take hours. Especially if you aren't familiar with all the recipes.

> > > >

> > > > None of the in-game farms yield direct gold. All of those involve time to convert your drops into gold.

> > > >

> > > > GW2Efficiency lists what’s currently the best items to make with shards so the time involved is like 30 seconds for a quick google search for the site and to scroll down for the MF recipe.

> > >

> > > I tried it, it goes like this. Look at first recipe, I'm missing this component but either can't afford it or it can't be bought look at next recipe. Got most of what it takes but I'm missing this component and I either can't afford it or it can't be bought, loo at next recipe. I have everything for this one but if I craft it I won't have enough to pay the transaction fees on TP, I'll have to wait, look at next recipe. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe if you have been farming mats and gold for years it isn't an issue but for newer players it is so simple.

> >

> > You upgrade materials to the next tier. From what I remember earlier, it was upgrading jute scraps to wool scraps at a rate of 1.15 profit per spirit shard.

>

> Maybe if you are sitting on thousands of spirit shards but shards are a very limited resource. I would rather use them on something that will return me more gold per shard than a stack of wool.

 

Then that’s your choice. It has no impact on what I originally said many posts up which you started replying to.

 

You also don’t need to be sitting on thousands of spirit shards. You can get more gold from converting just one spirit shard in the time same amount of time spent farming a map. Converting spirit shards yields a higher g/hr rate.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Jarl Grey.8135" said:

> Please give Laurels instead of Spirit Shards. Spirit Shards are kitten useless.

 

Surrre. That's why I often ran out of them when I was crafting Legendaries or ascended equipment. Because they are "kitten useless." ;)

 

I wouldn't mind the option to choose, though, as these days I have often need of Laurels rather than Shards.

[Solvar.7953]

One problem with gw2efficiency on spirit shard conversion is that it assumes you can buy all the materials needed for whatever conversion at the current highest buy offer, and you can sell the finished product for the current lowest sell offer.

Both of those are big assumptions. While not converting spirit shards, more than once I've listed something for lower than the lowest current seller, and it never sold (more items continued to undercut it).

If the difference between the 2 are small, there is not much risk. But in the example of the triforge pendant (2 gp/shard), lowest sell is currently 400 GP, highest offer to buy is 177 GP. If you do a 'sell it immediately' for 177 GP, you are actually losing a considerable amount of money per shard.

But all this means it is potentially a long process to convert those spirit shards to money:

- Place orders for relevant materials just above currently highest offer.

- Wait for those orders to be fulfilled (or maybe cancel and repeat, if people are overcutting you)

- Make the item

- Place item on TP, or just under lowest sell price. Once again, you may get undercut, at which point 5% of your profit has just disappeared.

 

In an ideal world, you are probably still taking several days before you get that money. Less ideal case is it could take weeks, and you don't make as much as you expect (and now you are dealing with managing the trading post, etc).

It really depends on what you want to do with your play time.

[Linken.6345]

I had stuff sell after years its simple just dont take down you sell order.

[Bassdeff.1895]

> @"Solvar.7953" said:

> One problem with gw2efficiency on spirit shard conversion is that it assumes you can buy all the materials needed for whatever conversion at the current highest buy offer, and you can sell the finished product for the current lowest sell offer.

> Both of those are big assumptions. While not converting spirit shards, more than once I've listed something for lower than the lowest current seller, and it never sold (more items continued to undercut it).

> If the difference between the 2 are small, there is not much risk. But in the example of the triforge pendant (2 gp/shard), lowest sell is currently 400 GP, highest offer to buy is 177 GP. If you do a 'sell it immediately' for 177 GP, you are actually losing a considerable amount of money per shard.

> But all this means it is potentially a long process to convert those spirit shards to money:

> - Place orders for relevant materials just above currently highest offer.

> - Wait for those orders to be fulfilled (or maybe cancel and repeat, if people are overcutting you)

> - Make the item

> - Place item on TP, or just under lowest sell price. Once again, you may get undercut, at which point 5% of your profit has just disappeared.

>

> In an ideal world, you are probably still taking several days before you get that money. Less ideal case is it could take weeks, and you don't make as much as you expect (and now you are dealing with managing the trading post, etc).

> It really depends on what you want to do with your play time.

 

That's why you diversify. Even if it takes weeks or months for a couple of items to fulfill most will be selling relatively quick and you be making profits. Sure it sucks to have to wait but unless you really need the gold you are better off just leaving it there.

[Khaine.2064]

Im so happy to see there is so much ignorant people thinking you get nothing from spirit shards, so I can keep monetizing this ressource in a not so crowded market...

[Cuks.8241]

I just use spirit shards to convert materials to higher tier when my bank is full and off course when the price difference justifies it. I might sell some of the materials to make a little gold if I feel dry but mostly I'm just filling my bank with rarer, more expensive materials because I don't really need gold and you lose the 15 % TP fee which is actually a huge loss. When I need to craft something like a new ascended set I have enough materials on stock. I'm not really into legendaries but if I decide to make one I'll probably have enough mats to just make it.

In the end if you want to craft something expensive you need mats, gold is just a means to acquire them. Selling stuff to get gold, to then buy mats is actually a HUGE waste because of the 15 % fee on TP. If you can acquire mats directly and avoid the TP fee you are much better off. It is not about the gold in your bank it is in overall acquisition of resources to acquire your goal item.