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Path of Fire Material Storage


Gaile Gray.6029

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  • ArenaNet Staff

With the arrival of Path of Fire, many new materials and components will be added to Material Storage. But for a handful of items, we've specifically decided not to start with them in Material Storage, and instead to add them to the storage system later. Why? Well, at the launch of Heart of Thorns, we noticed a peculiar behavior: most players will deposit first when clearing their inventory, and then proceed to take actions like salvaging, opening chests, or, crucially, putting items on the Trading Post. This tended to mean that before a player will post an item on the Trading Post, they'll wait to accrue a full stack in their Material Storage. During the early period of Heart of Thorns, this significantly contributed to the early expense of flax, which was abundantly available but, for the most part, was "warehoused" in the banks of players.

In an experiment to see if we can combat the early steep price of a handful of materials, we will launch Path of Fire without those items being depositable. Once we are comfortable with the supply and price—which we believe should become apparent in weeks, not months—we will add them to material storage.

We know how important inventory space is to players, and we take seriously how much of your time is spent playing versus managing your play. Hopefully, this decision will help ensure a steady supply of materials to the market, without unduly burdening your bags.

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@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:With the arrival of Path of Fire, many new materials and components will be added to Material Storage. But for a handful of items, we've specifically decided not to start with them in Material Storage, and instead to add them to the storage system later. Why? Well, at the launch of Heart of Thorns, we noticed a peculiar behavior: most players will deposit first when clearing their inventory, and then proceed to take actions like salvaging, opening chests, or, crucially, putting items on the Trading Post. This tended to mean that before a player will post an item on the Trading Post, they'll wait to accrue a full stack in their Material Storage. During the early period of Heart of Thorns, this significantly contributed to the early expense of flax, which was abundantly available but, for the most part, was "warehoused" in the banks of players.

In an experiment to see if we can combat the early steep price of a handful of materials, we will launch Path of Fire without those items being depositable. Once we are comfortable with the supply and price—which we believe should become apparent in weeks, not months—we will add them to material storage.

We know how important inventory space is to players, and we take seriously how much of your time is spent playing versus managing your play. Hopefully, this decision will help ensure a steady supply of materials to the market, without unduly burdening your bags.


There's a reason for that (bolded). Depositing materials clears up bag space for the next step, salvaging, opening bags, etc.

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I'd honestly prefer you didn't as saving materials is natural because the recipes are often hidden away.

If you wanted to try something to curb anything have material supply be generous and recipes be visible instead of forcing players to use storage slots on this experiment because what's more likely to occur now is people will just hold the materials in storage spots/characters until they can be deposited making the entire point of this announcement a waste.

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@TexZero.7910 said:I'd honestly prefer you didn't as saving materials is natural because the recipes are often hidden away.

If you wanted to try something to curb anything have material supply be generous and recipes be visible instead of forcing players to use storage slots on this experiment because what's more likely to occur now is people will just hold the materials in storage spots/characters until they can be deposited making the entire point of this announcement a waste.

I don't know, I could see it working on players like me.

I do exactly what Gaile described - open inventory, deposit materials, then sort everything else and I know there's been times before when I've been digging through the bank for stuff to sell to raise some gold and I've been surprised by a large collection of a valuable material. It barely even registers when I pick it up (there's a good chance I'll never even see it if it's not in the first bag) and I'd never normally see what it's worth because it's not there when I open the TP.

Whereas if those materials can't be deposited they'll still be in my inventory when I open the TP, so I'll see what they're worth right away and because I have to move them manually into the bank there's a good chance I'll have at least a rough idea of how many I have. If I find I have 'a lot'* of a valuable material there's a good chance I'll decide to sell some now, on the basis that I can get more just as easily if I need it later. (Or even easier if the price drops by then.)

*'A lot' is a deliberately vague term - for cooking ingredients I tend to keep at least 50 of each ingredient but for Lodestones, Cores etc. it's 10 and for gemstones its 25.

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[skrit Voice] More bank tabs then yes yes ! [/skrit Voice]

First off, thank you for being upfront that this would occur, and a second thank you for the why. That really helps and makes more sense versus just having people confused especially after the recent extra work to expand the collections.

As far as an experiment, the issue with the players will be to get the crafting mat out of the backpack and into the bank if they run any number of alts, else the toon doing the adventuring may not be the crafting toon so I could see this as an issue. From a supply/demand/new mat/price sense it will force some people hands and make not only the early gathers profit more but I could see it also making the item appear as junk if it falls too fast which could have an inverse affect. But being warned is still much appreciated. Good gathering to you!

oh and [skrit Voice] Expanding bank tabs! Go go go! [/skrit Voice]

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How many items/inventory slots are we talking about? If it's just a few then I won't mind. I usually don't look forward to selling stuff on the TP which is why I let materials pile up (usually between 400-500) before selling.

Edit: I'd sell more often and enjoy it more if I didn't get so OCD about getting the optimal selling price for everything all the time. Maybe I'll have to work on that.

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I'd respectfully disagree with this decision. Similar to what killermanjaro said, I'll likely wait to build up a stack rather than selling small batches. While that stack is building, I'm also building frustration while it takes up space in my inventory. I know this behavior could be changed, and maybe it will. I'm just thinking that materials should be depositable - not the subject of an experiment.

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@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:During the early period of Heart of Thorns, this significantly contributed to the early expense of flax, which was abundantly available but, for the most part, was "warehoused" in the banks of players.

No. The thing that made it heavily "warehoused" is that it was a currency that was highly in demand for a great many things that people needed early on. This demand reduced over time once most players had all the things Flax was good for. Players who did put their flax on the TP would likely have regretted it when the time came that they wanted to use it for their Guild Hall or something.

All this change will do is waste more inventory space and encourage people to buy more inventory slots.

In an experiment to see if we can combat the early steep price of a handful of materials, we will launch Path of Fire without those items being depositable. Once we are comfortable with the supply and price—which we believe should become apparent in weeks, not months—we will add them to material storage.

If you want to stabilize markets, then you need to meet demand with supply. If PoF is anything like HoT, then when it launches, there will be dozens of new uses for these new materials and nobody will have any of them. It will take players weeks if not months at "stable" acquisition rates for them to acquire enough materials to make all the things they'll want to make. This means that during this period, the prices on these materials will inevitably be high. The solution to this is obvious, that since demand will be much higher than usual over the first couple months, supply should be much higher as well. Players should get short term bursts of easy access to these materials, enough to sate their immediate demands for them. Then, once most players have most of the things they'd want to spend the materials on, the initial faucets can peter out, and the more long term stable sources can carry the load.

I think the easiest way to do this, btw, is to just have massive material dumps tied into simple Achievements, the sorts of things that players are likely to clear easily enough as they normally progress through the new content. This way, they get these things once, and only once per account.

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So, for a great experience playing the patch, play it a few weeks after it launches, because before that we're going to annoy you with limited bag space because of

Economy!

Really, please don't put in-game economy above player Quality of Life, or player enjoyment.

I enjoy the game alot less when something is hard to obtain or annoying to hold for the sake of the in-game economy of an item rather than it being account bound and obtainable where it makes sense and is somewhat fun to play the game and feel rewarded... in emotional value, not gold value. I don't care about how much gold value something has on some market if it's immeasurably more fun to gather it for yourself and feel accomplished that way. I feel the economy developers don't understand that ingame item value is not only a Trading post gold value, but also emotional value.

If you're going to try and affect prices, try to make the rewards that are obtained with those materials more fun to obtain and more desirable. Try to make interesting rewards to drain the economy, don't try to change the way we are rewarded with materials.

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I certainly understand the rationale behind this and am all for running experiments, but this does indicate there's some new thing everyone will be short on.

Flax prices have been more or less stable since about a month after HoT hit.

http://www.gw2shinies.com/item/74090

I think the big factor for flax prices was the amount of linseed oil required for guild hall upgrades, not that people deposited it. Once early adopters adopted the guild halls, prices stabilized. Existing material prices always spike for a few days when new legendaries come out, and fewer people make legendaries than are in guilds. Flax prices were where they could be expected to be.

Mystic coin prices on the other hand...

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I agree with sentiment that flax prices were likely driven by the high demand to speed level scribe and guild halls rather than mistaken hoarding. Players also like to hold onto things until they know what they are best used for.

Personally, if it should be in mat storage, it needs to go there from the beginning as inventory space can be crowded enough as it is. That is why it is exists alongside collection expanders - it is inventory space for materials, not a secondary storage system that is to be used when the economy is in balance. It is difficult to judge before release having not seen the items, however Im leaving this pre-emptive feedback, since ill avoid the forums to avoid spoilers.

I also agree with the above poster that QoL and convenience of gameplay are a greater priority in this context than a virtual economy.

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@TexZero.7910 said:I'd honestly prefer you didn't as saving materials is natural because the recipes are often hidden away.

If you wanted to try something to curb anything have material supply be generous and recipes be visible instead of forcing players to use storage slots on this experiment because what's more likely to occur now is people will just hold the materials in storage spots/characters until they can be deposited making the entire point of this announcement a waste.

The supply is generous if you count all players as a whole. If the supply was generous for an individual player, there would be no need to buy them on the trading post, which would make them worthless to sell.

The problem is - as Gaile point out about flax seeds, and other devs have mentioned in the past - is that for some items, there is already plenty of supply in the game. For one reason or another some players are hoarding tons of them in their banks instead of selling them.

I get what Gaile is saying: they hope to encourage players to sell the new items in the trading post so the prices don't start and stay sky high, because eventually players will complain about the prices being too high and demanding more ways to get it and ArenaNet won't be able to do anything because a lot of supply already exists in the game.

Edit: I guess you could say I'm a bit of a hoarder myself. I do always eventually sell off all my materials I don't need. Usually when I actually need gold for something. It's easier to sell them all at once instead of selling everything the moment I get them.

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The main reason I tend to simply deposit stuff first is that it is the fastest and easiest way to clear up the bags and get on with something fun. This negates that and will cause me to spend more time doing something that I, frankly, detest (kinda like house cleaning). Bad idea for my enjoyment of the game!

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@killermanjaro.5670 said:If these will stay in our inventory for a while as not depositable then I'll most likely just let them build up to a stack each time before selling anyway, rather than listing 5-10 each time in the knowledge that I'm just going to have to do it again shortly after.

This may be the case, but many people (at least I'm in this group), have a larger Material Storage now because of the ability to buy expansion (up to 2000). So for some people this will still be of large excess. It's also more likely that some people will sell immediately in order to fully free up their space. Everyone's different though.

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As many people have already said, this is a bad idea. You chose to do something knowing full well that its not what the players want to do. Stupid. I prefer to deposit everything so that I can actually enjoy the expansion and have everything I need later once I have collected enough and have everything else that I need to do crafting. This feels necessary given the rather extreme and tedious quantity involved in the GW2 crafting system. As much as I enjoy Guild Wars 2 I will forever remember it as the MMO with the worst economy and worst inventory system. I've seen worse looting and crafting systems but they are pretty awful as well.

You're not helping.

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Gaile, with all due respect, with http://gw2timer.com and https://gw2efficiency.com offering full and complete search and location of our materials and everything else we hold in the game, this argument doesn't hold water. Better to provide players easy access to these API reading tools than to artificially create "inventory space shortages".

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