New rune/sigil crafting system. WTH, Am I missing something?

Okay, so I was as happy as anyone to learn that, instead of a bag filled with radom sigils and runes, I would get a storeable resource to craft my own runes with.Today I looked at the recipes I know and the new ones available to buy. Both buying recipes and crafting them require new Symbols.So I looked on the wiki and see that the only way to get Symbols is to...salvage runes and sigils. Which we no longer get from salvaging gear unless we use black lion kits or upgrade extractors?

After two days of playing my dailies, instead of the usual handful of minor and major sigils and runes , I have just enough lucent motes to make, um...TWO minor sigils. If I had any Symbols to make them with. Or to buy the recipes with.

Unless I am missing something, it seems like Anet's reaction to complaints that we were swimming in worthless runes and sigils is to make runes and sigils ridiculously difficult to get.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:So I looked on the wiki and see that the only way to get Symbols is to...salvage runes and sigils. Which we no longer get from salvaging gear unless we use black lion kits or upgrade extractors?That's incorrect. Motes, symbols, and charms will drop from gear, at (current data tells us) roughly the same rate as it would if you salvaged the gear, then the runes & sigils. ANet just skipped the second step, saving us 3c or 60c.

• Old system: you'd salvage 500 masterwork (with upgrades) with a copper-fed, end up with ~100 upgrades. You'd salvage those today and end up with ~200 motes and ~2 symbol|charm.
• New system: you salvage 100 masterwork (with upgrades) using copper-fed, end up with ~200 motes and ~2 symbol charms.

i.e. no difference

After two days of playing my dailies, instead of the usual handful of minor and major sigils and runes , I have just enough lucent motes to make, um...TWO minor sigils. If I had any Symbols to make them with. Or to buy the recipes with.You're only seeing the short term situation, not the long term. Previously, I'd do dailies and fractals and end up with exactly 0 sigils and runes of any use to me ever. Nearly all minors & majors were vendor trash. To get a useful scholar's rune, I'd have to sell 100s of minor, major, and superior runes. Today, sure, we don't get much in the way of something we can use right now, but that's no different from before... except

• We no longer have to manage sigils and runes, selling them one-at-a-time or storing.
• We can choose what recipes we want to spend on or buy stuff on TP, craft or not.

Unless I am missing something, it seems like Anet's reaction to complaints that we were swimming in worthless runes and sigils is to make runes and sigils ridiculously difficult to get.You're missing that it didn't get harder to get the runes & sigils we really want. It was nearly always TP or some weird "collect all these things, forge" or "collect different things and find an open Dragon's Stand" and so on.

The main thing is: the system isn't even 2 days old yet. We are still learning how things work. The markets haven't come close to adjusting, so we really don't know what's going to be pricey in the long run, what isn't.

I predict that we'll see the cost inequality of upgrades shrink: the most useful runes/sigils will no longer cost 500x more than the least popular ones. So instead of having to go after budget runes/sigils, more people can go after the good stuff to start with.(Of course, there will also be too many exceptions to this. Superior Hoelbrak, for example, requires an item that no longer drops directly from anywhere. The cost of this particular upgrade is currently way more than before. I'm sure some of that will get adjusted some way or another.)

As Illconceived Was Na.9781 said.The market and supplies are not there yet since it's still new. Most of the runes and sigils are not even worth the price of their crafting mats. Give it time and see how things goes over time. The patch just open up a way to obtain the upgrades through standardizing some of the materials, not lowering the cost of expensive runes/sigils by salvaging cheap runes/sigils purchased, which will crash the economy.

But I do think the price of upgrades will go down. As materials flood into TP from players salvaging items, legendaries no longer destroy upgrades etc. Plus drop rates can be altered. (Hoping for salvage rate for symbols/charms from items will be increased later on :wink:)

Okay, thanks, I guess I will try to avoid panicking for now. Just not sure how to keep my weekly key farmers in runes up to level 40 for a bit. Fortunately I happened to stock up on a few most-used minor runes a week or so ago, but I usually go through those really fast changing them out whenever I get a gear upgrade.

Haven't had ANY charms or symbols drop yet, and I did a Bitterfrost run last night after posting, plus salvaged some not-too-vital major runes I had lying around just to see if I could get the stuff..

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I predict that we'll see the cost inequality of upgrades shrink: the most useful runes/sigils will no longer cost 500x more than the least popular ones. So instead of having to go after budget runes/sigils, more people can go after the good stuff to start with.(Of course, there will also be too many exceptions to this. Superior Hoelbrak, for example, requires an item that no longer drops directly from anywhere. The cost of this particular upgrade is currently way more than before. I'm sure some of that will get adjusted some way or another.)

That would be the nice way to put it. The not so nice way is that everything will be more expensive. There used to be the best and most expensive option with ridiculously cheap alternatives. Now it is just best and most expensive with slightly cheaper alternative.

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I predict that we'll see the cost inequality of upgrades shrink: the most useful runes/sigils will no longer cost 500x more than the least popular ones. So instead of having to go after budget runes/sigils, more people can go after the good stuff to start with.(Of course, there will also be too many exceptions to this. Superior Hoelbrak, for example, requires an item that no longer drops directly from anywhere. The cost of this particular upgrade is currently way more than before. I'm sure some of that will get adjusted some way or another.)

Except that the old system had cheap (and often significantly worse) alternatives priced at vendor +18%, while the meta options were 2-10 gold each (depending on the era and how recently the meta might have changed). In theory, most of the costs are going to settle to similar values, since the supply bottleneck is no longer limited to a handful of items in the game, but expanded to 1/3 of all upgraded items, masterwork, rare, and superior.

everything will be more expensive.My prediction is that the most popular options will be cheaper. And additionally, that the income from unneeded items will be better. So we might be paying more for off-meta options, but we'll also end up receiving more.

Still, it's a complicated set of interactions and this could end up with, as my power-trading guildie predicts, motes|symbols|charms becoming vendor trash, lowering the price on everything. It's going to be a few months before we see the effects finish shaking out.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:Okay, thanks, I guess I will try to avoid panicking for now.

To be fair, we (as a community) seem to enjoy working ourselves into a frenzy early & often, regardless of the facts. It's hard not to panic, no matter how much we consider the big picture.

Just not sure how to keep my weekly key farmers in runes up to level 40 for a bit.I bought fine gear of appropriate level. That remains account bound after upgrading with runes.Or if you want to go for overkill, you can create ineffable gear, which is (a) exotic, (b) account bound, & © with stats 3-6 levels above the minimum required to don it. It's about 1-3 gold per piece, depending on level.

Either way, you save the 8-11 pieces of gear in your bank (more if you also use accessories) and swap in after starting the run, swap out after getting your key(s).

Haven't had ANY charms or symbols drop yet, and I did a Bitterfrost run last night after posting, plus salvaged some not-too-vital major runes I had lying around just to see if I could get the stuff..The drop rates on masterwork gear is low. It takes salvaging 1000s & 1000s to build up a decent amount. (Still, that is currently financially more rewarding than getting 19c per minor rune|sigil, not to mention that you don't have to visit a vendor all the time).

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:So I looked on the wiki and see that the only way to get Symbols is to...salvage runes and sigils. Which we no longer get from salvaging gear unless we use black lion kits or upgrade extractors?That's incorrect. Motes, symbols, and charms will drop from gear, at (current data tells us) roughly the same rate as it would if you salvaged the gear, then the runes & sigils. ANet just skipped the second step, saving us 3c or 60c.

• Old system: you'd salvage 500 masterwork (with upgrades) with a copper-fed, end up with ~100 upgrades. You'd salvage those today and end up with ~200 motes and ~2 symbol|charm.
• New system: you salvage 100 masterwork (with upgrades) using copper-fed, end up with ~200 motes and ~2 symbol charms.

After two days of playing my dailies, instead of the usual handful of minor and major sigils and runes , I have just enough lucent motes to make, um...TWO minor sigils. If I had any Symbols to make them with. Or to buy the recipes with.You're only seeing the short term situation, not the long term. Previously, I'd do dailies and fractals and end up with exactly 0 sigils and runes of any use to me ever. Nearly all minors & majors were vendor trash. To get a useful scholar's rune, I'd have to sell 100s of minor, major, and superior runes. Today, sure, we don't get much in the way of something we can use right now, but that's no different from before... except

• We no longer have to manage sigils and runes, selling them one-at-a-time or storing.
• We can choose what recipes we want to spend on or buy stuff on TP, craft or not.

Unless I am missing something, it seems like Anet's reaction to complaints that we were swimming in worthless runes and sigils is to make runes and sigils ridiculously difficult to get.You're missing that it didn't get harder to get the runes & sigils we really want. It was nearly always TP or some weird "collect all these things, forge" or "collect different things and find an open Dragon's Stand" and so on.

you sound like someone who has an answer for me..

If i has a bunch of exotic sigil and runes which i don’t want, what’s the best way to salvage or repurpose them ??

@alchemist.6851 said:If i has a bunch of exotic sigil and runes which i don’t want, what’s the best way to salvage or repurpose them ??

If you're talking about 1000s, the options are speculative

• Try to sell them at a premium to people hoping to get lucky on their symbol/charm drop rate
• Salvage them (using a cheap kit) yourself and sell the symbols/charms now.
• Hold on hoping prices go up.

Do the first if you want to take a modest risk for a bit more. Do the second for the most steady value. I don't recommend the third (I think prices will eventually be lower than they are now, as the community gets used to the system).

If you have only a dozen or so of various types... I'd just salvage. There are only three types of charms, three types of sigils, so it's ultimately easier to list on the TP (fewer decisions).