Gilotina.7930

I mean, I don't actually do that. There are days I would like to, but I would literally be dry after I moved through two zones, lol. I tend to sit at around 15-20 transmutation charges, meaning I'm always couple of transmutes away from being dry, which is what makes me highly reluctant to ever actually change my looks, and admittedly, has driven me to buy two of those one piece outfits (so good job ANet money people I guess) just so I don't have to spend charges on transmutation when I get gear upgrade when leveling alts or in my excruciatingly slow path towards actually having a decently statted gearset. And I don't think I've ever had more than 75 gold on me, and that was after what I felt like was particularly productive couple of weeks. This is why I actually said I am one of those perpetually broke people, because I am. And it's not because I spend so much gold, I actually barely ever spend it, just because I make barely anything. So this is the entire sum of why I don't like the transmutation charges - my playstyle is not conducive to interacting with the transmutation as much as I would like. So I guess it does come down to irreconcilable difference in approach. Ah well.

Honestly, I enjoy some of it. But the way I interact with it, I don't make much. On my average day I make like...a gold or two a day? I tend to bounce from an activity to activity as whimsy takes me, sometimes I will complete a map meta, sometimes I won't. But after this thread, I just don't think this game is built for the sort of way I interact with it? I honestly don't know. I want to like it, but so many things just don't make intuitive sense to me. And that's frustrating to me, and maybe that just means GW2 isn't a game for me.

I mean, most of the replies as I see them, have been answers to the question of 'how should I interact with this system'. The only things that approached the reason for them to exist in the first place have been PvP carrot on the stick, and way for NCSoft/ANet to make money. And I guess attention retention scheme because it makes you farm for ages? But attention retention schemes tend to be a domain of things with subscriptions... Like, I obviously don't see different answers, so either I am completely stupid and I would love to have it explained to me like I am five...or...there aren't any? The existence of the system still doesn't make sense to me as it is, when it could be so much simpler to interact with, but it isn't for...some reason. Edit: I don't know about you, but I'm finding this conversation frustrating, because either I'm not getting something, we are talking past each other, or we have irreconcilable differences in approach to this game. So in order to keep my own sanity, this is probably going to be my last interaction here.

So they are either a waste of time or money making scheme. Got it.

Okay, that does not answer the question of - what would be lost if transmutation charges were gone tomorrow and replaced with say - 5 silvers cost per transmute.

I didn't say anything about 12 pieces outfits. 600 gem charge pack contains 25 charges, which is 3 outfit changes if you're only changing 8 slots. Which you can get, according to your own math, after roughly 7 hours of chores gameplay Because I don't have enough gear templates, whole gear sets, or anything to actually do that? Like I don't know what you expect. I guess if this is your primary game, that's not an unreasonable expectation to have but like...I barely have two full exotic sets, much less enough for several saved sets of the same stats, lol. In the end, I'm left wondering - what is the actual added value of transmutation charges? Is it money for Arenanet? Is it carrot on a stick for PvP? What is it? Because it definitely does not add any value to the transmutation system itself.

At rate of ~1 actual work day for 3 outfit changes. I don't find that reasonable.

Honestly, I don't mind doing so for nice things. Not a fan of having my arm twisted into doing so by intentionally making a fundamental resource kitten to grind otherwise.

That about tracks with what I wrote. You got ~300 gems per day at just over 3 and half hours of playtime, and I wrote 600 gems would take you 7.5 hours, so I was off by about 20 minutes assuming 27 gold per hour.

I refer you to my previous post about quick and dirty look at what that would take How about instead they give PvP and WvW other rewards that make it worthwhile and don't gate fundamental resource that, again, is required to change clothes. Having better PvP rewards doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with having transmutation charges in PvE at faster than snail's pace. or removing them outright And I think players should engage with the parts of the game they wish to engage with. Have pointers to what might interest them, but forcing people into things they don't want to do is bound to cause resentment. This is part of why you get players AFK leeching whatever is the most efficient way to get resources rather than play what they want to play.

You seem to be ignoring the people who might have tried your beloved PvP and found them wanting. I am not avoiding it just out of same misguided principle. I have tried it, found out l don't find it enjoyable and decided to stay away from it as I could have fun elsewhere in the game. So, why should I be forced to engage with it? Imagine if you had to play open world, or rerun a living world chapter every few PvP matches, or pay 100 gems. Would you find that fun? Because that's basically the situation with transmutation charges. It's not just complaining for complaining sake. It's looking at a system and seeing a part that actively works against it and knowing it's unnecessary, because there are other places that implemented it without that, or some even started with a similar restriction but loosened it over time because they realised it works against the appearance system.

And you are ignoring that there are people who don't PvP for a variety of reasons. And legendary gear is yet another grind.

So I gave the idea of using gold to gem conversion to buy charges some thought. Now, I'm not particularly experienced with efficient gold farming, I am one of those perpetually broke people, but what I found is that as average player you can get maybe 15-30 gold per hour if you are purposely farming it. Being generous, say you make 27 g/h consistently. Given that conversion rate seems to float around 34 gold for 100 gems, that means you get 100 gems every 75 minutes of active farming. The most cost efficient charge pack is 25 charges for 600 gems. Which means you would have to farm gold for 450 minutes, or around 7,5 hours for this pack. And it lasts you…. About 3 full costume changes, provided you don't dual-wield on both weapon sets. Map completion isn't better. I can complete a map in an hour? A bit less? And that's one charge. And if you get even one set of charges per month with real money, you are already paying half a sub. Now let's compare. In WoW, you can currently do a single Dragon race world quest for 500, which takes 2-5 minutes, and you get 4 of them each batch. At high end, that's 20 minutes + travel, so 25 minutes for 2000 gold. Don't know about others, but l tend to pay around 500 gold for full transmog. And in ffxiv I can spend 5 minutes to grab a treasure map, sell it for 20k Gil, and grab 80-100 glamour prisms, depending on where they fall seetweren 200-250 Gil apiece. Considering XIV also has glamour dresser where you only pay prism to put piece inside but changing sets is free, this will last most people for months, if not years. So, in conclusion. Transmutation charges are a scam either a ludicrous grind, gross money making scheme, or both and any of those options actively make the transmutation system worse.

I cannot express how much I dislike PvP in any form. And saying "just do a massive time/resource sink" is kind of hilarious, when it comes to changing how clothes look. Not getting appearances for them. Just changing them. Like I get how saying to just work around it seems reasonable when you primarily or only play GW2, but after having played other, similar games...I can't say it comes across as reasonable to me.

Okay, let me put it this way. I think in this particular case, their way of monetising this feature makes the feature actively worse. There. Because this has gotten away from what I was trying to get across in my initial post.