Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Astral weapons LUDICROUSLY out of cost balance


Recommended Posts

We have two Exotic weapon sets this season and involved in the Vision collections, Astral and DragonBlood. Compare prices to unlock the vision collection steps:Astral - 6 Weapons - 3000 Kralkarite ore + 3000 Powdered Rose QuartzDragonblood - 6 weapons - 360 Branded MassesThat's an 8 1/3 times larger price (in terms of map currency) for Astral vs Dragon blood. Now Kralk ore can be bought at vendors at 25/vend/day, whereas masses can be bought at 5/vend/day. Counting vendors, that's 75 kralk/day vs 20 masses/day. BUT you can get WAY MORE masses per day from Thunderhead by mining due to them being fixed nodes, and you can't get powdered quartz except from meteors, and at a much lower rate than Kralk ore, despite them being even in the recipe, which means your are gated by Powdered quartz, not kralk ore. I don't have exact values but the ratio based on my mining seems to be 4/1 kralk ore to powdered quartz. Dragonblood weapons require Exquisite Serpentine Jewels, but you need 18 total and can get about 4 per day from fixed timed events (total need time per day is only about .5-.75 hours for both meta events and the dwarf tombs), which is much less time invested than the powdered quartz.So therefore it requires a MUCH higher effort to make Astral Weapons, despite both recipes yielding exotic weapons with equivalent collection value. And due to having a much more useful stat set, one could argue the Dragonblood weapons are higher in game value, despite being easier to make.

Items with nearly identical value should have nearly identical effort to obtain. I haven't even gone into if you want to craft all the Stellar weapons, which requires a ludicrous 10000 kralk ore, compare to only 2400 masses for all the heroic dragonblood weapons, which is again ludicrously out of balance for equivalent items (ignoring the fact that you will probably need to stat-swap the stellar weapons for most characters). We need to bring the price of Astral and Stellar weapons more in line with their value. The comparative effort needed to make these is far too out of balance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Blocki.4931 said:You also get 5 times the Kralkatite Ore just from a single heart. The only thing not in line is the rose quartz, but I wouldn't call it an issue.

I did note that in the op, but when compared to the required amounts, you get less total progress toward completing a weapon from these vendor purchases (ignoring that you also need the same amount of powder) despite the numerically larger amount of ore. It thus gives the APPEARANCE of a lot of progress while actually giving less progress toward a weapon than purchase of numerically fewer masses

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The acquisition methods are hard to compare because they are so different. If you just look at hearts, Thunderhead is quicker (faster heart). If you just look at events, Istan is a lot faster. It's arbitrary to insist that all collections have to be equal effort or that each peace of a collection has to be little more than comparable.

Istan is my least favorite of the LS4 maps and yet I found it to be easy enough to build up the local materials, sometimes even easier.

Sources for branded masses are nodes (0-3, often 0), chests (0-1, often 0), hearts (5/heart-toon-day), map completion (25), meta (5 each), reward track (50), daily chests (1). Sources for kralk ore are meteor strikes ("lots"), chests (1 each), metas (15 per character from boss alone, 15-30 per account from chests), map completion (25), reward track (250), hearts (25/heart-toon-day), map rewards (1), daily chests (5).

Roughly speaking, if you participate actively in Istan events, you'll accumulate kralk ore 5-15 times more quickly than active participation in Thunderhead peak can generate masses.

I'm sorry that the OP doesn't like the system. However, I believe that they misstated the case by over-dramatizing the parts that they don't like, and ignoring many of the viable options for increasing supply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I didn't craft stellar weapons, I'd have had enough materials for astral weapons. Alas, I'm far short of crafting the 5 more astral weapons I need. I sure do wish stellar weapons counted towards the achievement since they're similar skins and cost more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I made a reasoned, quantitative argument. A few posters responded by doing the same, and while I may not agree, I can appreciate actually taking time to think about and respond to the actual argument.

The majority decided to not address the argument at all and just take umbrage that I would dare to even suggest that something might be a problem or need to be looked at, or to assume I am lazy or asking for a handout. Bravo for responding without reading or thinking at all.

to Illconceived Was Na.9781: First, I would dispute "lots" as a characterization for meteor strikes. They came about once a half hour. In terms of rate comparison, I would have to do a lot more testing to be able to definitively compare meteor acquisition vs node acquisition (as you point out, you can get 0 masses from nodes). However what is indisputable is availability. Node harvest rate is limited only by the ability to get from node to node, so on average it should be greater than a once a half hour gather rate. And I would point out again that the main limiter is not Kralkarite ore (which you justifiably point out has many sources), but Powdered quartz, which comes from meteors only (yes, as Haleydawn.3764 states, you can buy on the store, but not all players have gold to burn, so I was talking about strictly harvesting and obtaining in game).

Jayden Reese.9542 Again, the limiter is Powdered Quartz, not kralkarite, which you can't buy from the hearts. You will almost always have more Kralkarite than Quartz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Mil.3562" said:Unlikely OP and others like him, we don't have the luxury of spending hours for days in a game. But that doesn't mean we don't need the cool stuff in game or we spend less money in this game. All we ask for is to have consideration for this group of players.

I find it strange that you comment about commitments outside the game and then characterize your desire for the Skyscale as a need.You don't need the Skyscale. No one does.It's a virtual item in a virtual word played for entertainment.It's not even required by the game. Not having it is not a progression blocker.

Having less time to commit to the game doesn't preclude you from having any achievement in it. It just means it takes longer. There is no single part of the collections that is unreachable by anyone, regardless of how much time they have to spend playing GW2. People with an hour a day make legendaries. You see the reddit posts all the time.

To say:

All we ask for is to have consideration for this group of players.When there is absolutely no difference in acquisition for any group of players? When someone who has 1 hour a day to spend on the game has to take the exact same steps as someone who has 5?What kind of special consideration are you looking for?Are you asking for a flat out "purchase" option for the Skyscale for money? Because the last time I checked all factions in this community, hardcore and casual alike, were baby raging for more in-game earnables and less gemstore.

This is indeed what is happening lately in this forum community. Lots of forum participants trying very hard to paint a incomplete picture of what the true community wants.I agree that something here is being misrepresented.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Boogiepop Void.6473" said:First, I would dispute "lots" as a characterization for meteor strikes. They came about once a half hour.

It's every 15 minutes.

but Powdered quartz, which comes from meteors only (yes, as Haleydawn.3764 states, you can buy on the store, but not all players have gold to burn,

Why are they making a legendary then? I'd understand this reasoning if it was just for a regular achievement or weapon but the primary motivator behind this thread is to craft what is needed for the legendary. It's currently around 182G to get the six weapons that you need which isn't all that much compared to the rest of the cost of acquiring the legendary. That cost for the weapons will continue to drop as it's nearly 3 times cheaper than what it was a week ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Why are they making a legendary then? I'd understand this reasoning if it was just for a regular achievement or weapon but the primary motivator behind this thread is to craft what is needed for the legendary. It's currently around 182G to get the six weapons that you need which isn't all that much compared to the rest of the cost of acquiring the legendary. That cost for the weapons will continue to drop as it's nearly 3 times cheaper than what it was a week ago.

This isn't for the legendary. This is for the weapons. Are they PART of the legendary? yes. But the main imbalance is for the weapons, that HAPPEN to be part of the legendary. Things that are only for a legendary can and probably should be overpriced. Things that are separate but happen to also be part of a legendary should not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Boogiepop Void.6473 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Why are they making a legendary then? I'd understand this reasoning if it was just for a regular achievement or weapon but the primary motivator behind this thread is to craft what is needed for the legendary. It's currently around 182G to get the six weapons that you need which isn't all that much compared to the rest of the cost of acquiring the legendary. That cost for the weapons will continue to drop as it's nearly 3 times cheaper than what it was a week ago.

This isn't for the legendary. This is for the weapons. Are they PART of the legendary? yes. But the main imbalance is for the weapons, that HAPPEN to be part of the legendary. Things that are only for a legendary can and probably should be overpriced. Things that are separate but happen to also be part of a legendary should not.

Where were you nearly 1.5 years ago when they first came out? Why is it now all of a sudden an issue?

Actually, it is about the legendary as indicated in your OP:

We have two Exotic weapon sets this season and involved in the Vision collections, Astral and DragonBlood. Compare prices to unlock the vision collection steps:Astral - 6 Weapons - 3000 Kralkarite ore + 3000 Powdered Rose QuartzDragonblood - 6 weapons - 360 Branded Masses

I'll also add that I was averaging 30-50 powdered rose quartz per brandstone. Within a month, it'll be back down to around a silver each or 5G per weapon. Pretty reasonable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Etria.3642 said:In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

I was able to craft the 6 Dragonsblood weapons within 4 days, but I'm not even able to buy the recipes for the Astral weapons yet. It takes a 7 day quest just to get started. Just yesterday we talked about this in guild chat and we all agreed that in comparison, the aquisition of Astral weapons is out of line. You need 500 kralk ore, 10 times more than Branded Masses. But you only get 5 times more from Heart vendors. Ok, I got a lot from mining meteors on multiple maps. But in comparison to Dragonsbloos weapons, it's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff. In Thunderhead Peaks, I used 13 characters to do the Gorrik Heart, which takes less than one minute to complete, and buy the item to get into the dungeon on the TP, for the gems. I think there was a quest for the recipes as well, but not time gated.

For Astral weapons, I have to do a 7 day time gated quest and wait many hours for meteors. I will do this, but in comparison to the othher stuff you have to do for the collection, it's not equal. Maybe that was never the goal, but it's like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Etria.3642 said:In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

I was able to craft the 6 Dragonsblood weapons within 4 days, but I'm not even able to buy the recipes for the Astral weapons yet. It takes a 7 day quest just to get started. Just yesterday we talked about this in guild chat and we all agreed that in comparison, the aquisition of Astral weapons is out of line. You need 500 kralk ore, 10 times more than Branded Masses. But you only get 5 times more from Heart vendors. Ok, I got a lot from mining meteors on multiple maps. But in comparison to Dragonsbloos weapons, it's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff. In Thunderhead Peaks, I used 13 characters to do the Gorrik Heart, which takes less than one minute to complete, and buy the item to get into the dungeon on the TP, for the gems. I think there was a quest for the recipes as well, but not time gated.

For Astral weapons, I have to do a 7 day time gated quest and wait many hours for meteors. I will do this, but in comparison to the othher stuff you have to do for the collection, it's not equal. Maybe that was never the goal, but it's like that.

Its terrible, that game offers longterm activities. One more time, you DONT have to do it. Most of the activities are optional. So stop searching for problems, where they are not. If I may suggest search for bugs which are in some collections, much more meritorious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Krizek.5672 said:

@Etria.3642 said:In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

I was able to craft the 6 Dragonsblood weapons within 4 days, but I'm not even able to buy the recipes for the Astral weapons yet. It takes a 7 day quest just to get started. Just yesterday we talked about this in guild chat and we all agreed that in comparison, the aquisition of Astral weapons is out of line. You need 500 kralk ore, 10 times more than Branded Masses. But you only get 5 times more from Heart vendors. Ok, I got a lot from mining meteors on multiple maps. But in comparison to Dragonsbloos weapons, it's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff. In Thunderhead Peaks, I used 13 characters to do the Gorrik Heart, which takes less than one minute to complete, and buy the item to get into the dungeon on the TP, for the gems. I think there was a quest for the recipes as well, but not time gated.

For Astral weapons, I have to do a 7 day time gated quest and wait many hours for meteors. I will do this, but in comparison to the othher stuff you have to do for the collection, it's not equal. Maybe that was never the goal, but it's like that.

Its terrible, that game offers longterm activities. One more time, you DONT have to do it. Most of the activities are optional. So stop searching for problems, where they are not. If I may suggest search for bugs which are in some collections, much more meritorious.

My post was rather neutral, I don't see how you feel triggered to lecture me on how I'm supposed to play the game. I stated that the Astral weapons are more tedious to get than Dragonsblood and I said why. Do you have a different opinion on that?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Etria.3642 said:In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

I was able to craft the 6 Dragonsblood weapons within 4 days, but I'm not even able to buy the recipes for the Astral weapons yet. It takes a 7 day quest just to get started. Just yesterday we talked about this in guild chat and we all agreed that in comparison, the aquisition of Astral weapons is out of line. You need 500 kralk ore, 10 times more than Branded Masses. But you only get 5 times more from Heart vendors. Ok, I got a lot from mining meteors on multiple maps. But in comparison to Dragonsbloos weapons, it's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff. In Thunderhead Peaks, I used 13 characters to do the Gorrik Heart, which takes less than one minute to complete, and buy the item to get into the dungeon on the TP, for the gems. I think there was a quest for the recipes as well, but not time gated.

For Astral weapons, I have to do a 7 day time gated quest and wait many hours for meteors. I will do this, but in comparison to the othher stuff you have to do for the collection, it's not equal. Maybe that was never the goal, but it's like that.

Its terrible, that game offers longterm activities. One more time, you DONT have to do it. Most of the activities are optional. So stop searching for problems, where they are not. If I may suggest search for bugs which are in some collections, much more meritorious.

My post was rather neutral, I don't see how you feel triggered to lecture me on how I'm supposed to play the game. I stated that the Astral weapons are more tedious to get than Dragonsblood and I said why. Do you have a different opinion on that?

they are not difficult to getfor dragons blood weapons you need 18 exquisite jewels and you can get 3-4 per day if your lucky to get 1 from the meta so that's 5-7 daysthe astral collection requires 7 days of simple tasks per day that wont take 5 mins and 3k powder and ores, and you farm those in 3 days easily with out farming hearts if you take 2-3 hrs per day to farm with a multi map squad. so they both take around 7 days to do and even the powder you can buy it from the tp and you cant buy the exquisite jewels and the plate will rise up in price when the map dies. im sorry but you are the one that chooses to see it more tedious and difficult when it's far easier than dragons blood, it's literally going in different maps press 2 then 3 then move to the next map and repeat until u hit the cap when the dragons blood one requires 2 successful metas which by time will die and no one will do them but the powder and ores you solo farm them if you want to get more loot then 5 ppl are enough not a full squad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Etria.3642 said:In less than one hour I got 390 kralk and 465 powdered quartz. All from meteors, thanks to a multimap farm. At this rate it'll take me a week. The Dragonsblood ones took me much longer--there is no easy peasy way to get them other than hearts and events. And getting them included map comp on several characters.

I was able to craft the 6 Dragonsblood weapons within 4 days, but I'm not even able to buy the recipes for the Astral weapons yet. It takes a 7 day quest just to get started. Just yesterday we talked about this in guild chat and we all agreed that in comparison, the aquisition of Astral weapons is out of line. You need 500 kralk ore, 10 times more than Branded Masses. But you only get 5 times more from Heart vendors. Ok, I got a lot from mining meteors on multiple maps. But in comparison to Dragonsbloos weapons, it's a lot of standing around waiting for stuff. In Thunderhead Peaks, I used 13 characters to do the Gorrik Heart, which takes less than one minute to complete, and buy the item to get into the dungeon on the TP, for the gems. I think there was a quest for the recipes as well, but not time gated.

For Astral weapons, I have to do a 7 day time gated quest and wait many hours for meteors. I will do this, but in comparison to the othher stuff you have to do for the collection, it's not equal. Maybe that was never the goal, but it's like that.

Its terrible, that game offers longterm activities. One more time, you DONT have to do it. Most of the activities are optional. So stop searching for problems, where they are not. If I may suggest search for bugs which are in some collections, much more meritorious.

My post was rather neutral, I don't see how you feel triggered to lecture me on how I'm supposed to play the game. I stated that the Astral weapons are more tedious to get than Dragonsblood and I said why. Do you have a different opinion on that?

As you can see I do. We are talking about optional things. If you do them, you should accept terms. If you dont like it (too much grind in your opinion), still an option. Problem in general is, that you want it ASAP. One week or two weeks to complete those 6 weapons isnt too much time, considering that we will wait a long time until new content.

And I definitely dont tell you how to play the game since we are talking about optional things. I still stand up that, if you put your energy into complaining about bugs rather than things that are already set and where isnt any problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the subject of powdered rose quarz: It does drop in generous amounts off the home instance node. The people I know that farm their home instance fairly regularly all have an overflow of quarz in their material storage by know. I know I have about five or six stellar weapons unlocked because I've crafted one each time my 2k material storage was full of the stuff, so the quarz for more astral weapons will accumulate all by itself over time, without any farming involved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"PervMonk.4891" said:they are not difficult to get...so they both take around 7 days to do

So how does it come I'm already done with the 6 Dragonsblood weapons but don't even have the recipes to craft Astral weapons? I started the same day. It's day 5 of the Brandstorm Research achievement for me, and it looks like tomorrow I'll be stuck because I see people complaining about the quest "Defend Akili while he recalibrates mirrors around the Astralarium". It looks like the quest is bugged and she's stuck in a loop.

And who said it's difficult to get? Not me certainly.

@Krizek.5672 said:

Problem in general is, that you want it ASAP.

How do you know I want it ASAP? I think you should re-read my post carefully because you are jumping to conclusions that cannot be found in my words. Dragonsblood weapons are cheaper and can be crafted faster than Astral weapons. That's all I'm saying.

I'm not in a hurry, I crafted Bolt a day before the last episode arrived, and I don't have enough resources to craft a Mystic Tribute right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Faaris.8013 said:

@PervMonk.4891 said:they are not difficult to get...so they both take around 7 days to do

So how does it come I'm already done with the 6 Dragonsblood weapons but don't even have the recipes to craft Astral weapons?You must've gotten extremely lucky with serpentite jewel drops if you've managed to craft 6 of those weapons in less than 5 days. That is, unless you circumvented the timegate on the dragonsblood weapons by collecting the daily resources beforehand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have big worry to get that Vision, but I like this hype, and make 200+ gold from sell Rose powders on trading post.Don't see any issue if someone lazy to farm it few weeks. Always have for example way buy gems, transfer to gold, and buy my and other players rose powder

Anyway this is LEGENDARY item, and the way to get it can be year, or two years, why not?Now then I see scary "I need farm week" - this is strange.Don't want ? so don't do. Take Istan wvw track, and go play. After 12 cycle tracks go and buy from TP powder and close that collection.Relax and play. ©Fractal God

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Krizek.5672 said:

Problem in general is, that you want it ASAP.

How do you know I want it ASAP? I think you should re-read my post carefully because you are jumping to conclusions that cannot be found in my words. Dragonsblood weapons are cheaper and can be crafted faster than Astral weapons. That's all I'm saying.

I'm not in a hurry, I crafted Bolt a day before the last episode arrived, and I don't have enough resources to craft a Mystic Tribute right now.

If you dont want it ASAP, where is the problem?

You are still arguing that Astral weapons are more expensive than Dragonsblood weapons. Still dont see the problem. There are 2 sets of different weapons with different amount of required resources. It would be the same when I say that Kudzu is more expensive than Dreamer. Apples and oranges ...

If I do simple math.For one Astral weapon you need 500 ore. One heart gives you 25 ore, that means do 20x heart. Also huge aspect is meteor farm. Daily cap is between 750 - 1000 ore (I believe its 750, but some says its more, because event meteors doesnt count) + you got some events like Paladawan, Great Hall and that champion pirate (maybe even more). For opening recipes you need to do achievement which is timegated but low requirements on recources. When you finnish that one, recipe cost 10 ore, which I believe is really low price.

On the other hand for Dragonsblood weapon you need only 60 ore. One heart gives you 5, that means do12x heart. On the map you got limited ore nodes, 25 per day, which gives 0 - 3 ore (maybe I got bad luck, but lately from most of them I got 0 ore). You have two metas, which give 5 ore per event.

And there comes different aproach. If you got multiple characters, so its much easier to do Dragonsblood weapon via just doing multiple hearts, but keep in mind that there are players who dont have a lot of them. I believe you can get 5 characters without gems.

And if I go even futher. Those sets of weapons are pre-requisition for ascended ones. And there is situation much different. For one stellar weapon you need Irradiated vision crystal (500 ore, 1 rose quartz, 1 vision crystal and 10 ecto).For Heroic Dragonsblood weapon you need to buy one item which costs 50g + 100 ore and then craft it very similar as stellar weapon + achievement Chasing tales 5g + 100 ore per achievement. In total for one weapon 55g + 200 ore.

As I said before dont mix two different things into one. It is as it is, accept it or leave it.

So if you read this carefully what do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...