Research Notes are antagonistic to players

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

How is it terrible now?

I cannot speak for anyone else but to me being asked to use materials to craft something so that I can destroy it to recover materials for use is just plain stupid. It is intended to waste my time doing make-work. 

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

I think the core problem is it's a "spare item" sink, that requires what you put into it be of greater value than what you get back. I am certain the reason we use the other sinks is because what we get back is at least equally useful when factoring in the time spent on the sink and what we got back.

Research notes are kinda worthless, and the more items of their ilk you've unlocked, the less useful they become. I got all the unlocks that required them, then I stopped making them because I didn't need them anymore. I only get more of them when I am forced to. So I completely FAIL to understand why arena net is trying to force these down our throats by both, breaking older more valuable systems because that might improve this broken one, while at the same time trying to destroy anything that could give a meaningful way of getting that new currency. It's like they both WANT us to have a ton of it, but want us to give up a LOT more just to have it.

I really don't understand you right now, arena net, I am not sure you do either.

It's just not going to happen. You will never succeed in forcing us to use a new, worthless system by making older ones worthless as well. All you're going to accomplish is having two worthless systems, instead of one. Want us to use it? Make it useful without having to destroy another system so it has a place. If you have to do that, then maybe you should rethink the system, entirely.

Edit: A new fresh hell has reached me, it's not just an unfair item sink, it's a time sink as you have to spent loads of time trying to find the best items to convert into research notes because the margins can be so tight with these that even a small mistake can lead to 100% losses and no return. We already spend time waiting for items to craft. At this point, crafting an item, so I can break it to craft the real item I wanted, is getting a bit kittening excessive, no a-net? I thought you respected our time...

Edited October 20, 2022 by Fan Didly Tastic.7169
Research Notes ironically getting dumber and dumber

[Sobx.1758]

28 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I cannot speak for anyone else but to me being asked to use materials to craft something so that I can destroy it to recover materials for use is just plain stupid. It is intended to waste my time doing make-work. 

But you're not recovering the same thing, so it's not like you somehow using materials to then get back the same materials. Would it somehow be better if the items were instead "fed" to another converter and it would print the results (...in the form of research notes)? Or is this not what you mean?

[ugrakarma.9416]

12 minutes ago, Fan Didly Tastic.7169 said:

I think the core problem is it's a "spare item" sink, that requires what you put into it be of greater value than what you get back. I am certain the reason we use the other sinks is because what we get back is at least equally useful when factoring in the time spent on the sink and what we got back.

Research notes are kinda worthless, and the more items of their ilk you've unlocked, the less useful they become. I got all the unlocks that required them, then I stopped making them because I didn't need them anymore. I only get more of them when I am forced to. So I completely FAIL to understand why arena net is trying to force these down our throats by both, breaking older more valuable systems because that might improve this broken one, while at the same time trying to destroy anything that could give a meaningful way of getting that new currency. It's like they both WANT us to have a ton of it, but want us to give up a LOT more just to have it.

I really don't understand you right now, arena net, I am not sure you do either.

It's just not going to happen. You will never succeed in forcing us to use a new, worthless system by making older ones worthless as well. All you're going to accomplish is having two worthless systems, instead of one. Want us to use it? Make it useful without having to destroy another system so it has a place. If you have to do that, then maybe you should rethink the system, entirely.

agreed with all.

also, all their moves is to make research notes expensive, why? they think aurene leggies is still too cheap?

Edited October 20, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Sobx.1758]

7 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

agreed with all.

also, all their moves is to make research notes expensive, why? they think aurene leggies is still too cheap?

They're probably just removing the items which would overwhelm the sink making it irrelevant. I wouldn't say they're expensive now?

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

This sums it up well, honestly. When people try to say it's justified because of its intention (and I've seen that said numerous times since its implementation), they are missing that the majority of gameplay systems work because their intentions are subtle and you have to really put on a designer hat to think about them. It's sort of like a stage play in that way. The audience isn't supposed to see the behind the scenes while the playing is going (unless that's the point of the play or something lol). They are supposed to forget they are watching a play and become immersed in the experience. Research notes are like "here's a heavy-handed item/material sink mechanism, we're just going to lug this into full view and tinker with it in front of everyone in the most transparent and disruptive way possible." Some real avant-garde stuff.

Well, they do have job postings for both a rewards game designer and an economy designer.

Maybe this is what you get when someone’s trying to fill the position until the real experts get hired?

https://boards.greenhouse.io/arenanet/jobs/4473426

[ugrakarma.9416]

7 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Well, they do have job postings for both a rewards game designer and an economy designer.

Maybe this is what you get when someone’s trying to fill the position until the real experts get hired?

https://boards.greenhouse.io/arenanet/jobs/4473426

aaaa this explain lots of things;.

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

I decided to start looking into the usefulness of research notes and to be honest I've found them wanting. I know of a few ways to get them. The fastest way has them at 1s a note, so 30g(3000 notes) for Aurene's Fang. The next fastest, which I do do, has them at about 62c a note, or around 20g, probably a little less, once again for Aurene's Fang. And finally, the slowest but most lucrative method puts my research notes at about 42c a note, or about 12.5g, Aurene's Fang. Why did I type this out? Well it's pretty simple, it's almost as if they want to FORCE us to spend 30g in value on leggies, and not 12.5g.

Basically, they're breaking all methods of easy food and some of the boons of festivals because of a 18 gold price point on legendaries. That kind of reasoning is pretty stupid if you ask me. I get not wanting them to be worth nothing but we need to keep sight of the actual things at play here? Most legendaries cost over 1000 gold to make. They're screwing up these systems and bending others over backwards, for a component of 3rd gen legendaries that is barely be even 1-3% of their total cost. I could get it if they, I dunno, LISTED THE CHANGE, AND IT'S REASONING. But alas, they left us here to guess. And while I hope they made the change as a temp fix, I doubt it. As there is no note next to invisible ones detailing the change, and how it's only temp until they mark them as non-researchable.

I am at a total loss for words.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Fan Didly Tastic.7169

[Labjax.2465]

37 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Well, they do have job postings for both a rewards game designer and an economy designer.

Maybe this is what you get when someone’s trying to fill the position until the real experts get hired?

https://boards.greenhouse.io/arenanet/jobs/4473426

Probably. 😕 I know they had a dedicated economist for a long time (apparently not anymore for some time now). Though as I understand, that economist's decisions weren't exactly well received each time. But, I think they still came with a fair amount of reasoning and frank discussion given, and the results show in their past work that the game stayed pretty stable economically, where other games with similar markets became out of control inflation. The fact no one on the team has, to my knowledge, tried to explain the reasoning behind research notes says a lot to me (tho I'm not sure what they could say that isn't already blatantly obvious to players because the implementation is so heavy handed).

It may be that 2019 did a lot of damage in expertise lost and that's not something you can get back easily. I mean, hell, set aside general expertise in design, just knowledge of the game's systems in general. This game has been around for 10 years now, if you boot someone who worked on it for like 7-8 years or whatever, it's going to take forever to get that level of experience back.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

They're probably just removing the items which would overwhelm the sink making it irrelevant. I wouldn't say they're expensive now?

So, you are saying that they do not want to use the sink for items that are in most need of it, wanting to use it for items that are already covered instead?

Great design, truly [/sarcasm]

[Mik.3401]

The system is over complicated i guess to encourage people to spend real money to buy gems and then buy legendaries with it. Just a business model 

[Luthan.5236]

I also dislike the reseach notes - cause they require additional annoying steps. Even though salvaging is not needed anymore if you craft directly and let it auto-salvage ... it is annoying.

The thing with the food items getting removed: I understand that people want them for some reason (to get them cheap ... or to have the bags still having an increased value so they can sell t hem) ... but changes happen in a MMORPG. And we got other annoying changes. (Mystic coin prices dropped which might have been annoying for people that gathered them for additional money. That as an example.)

The items are still in the game and can get used for the buff. Prices might change though. Didn't also some people talk about ArenaNet wanting to give older materials and stuff ... a value? (For new players that gather them.) Might also have been a part of their thinking. Instead of only removing research notes from the items in the bags - forcing people to craft other stuff (giving value ot the mats needed for that other stuff) ... this not also gives value to the items needed to craft those food items. (Should there be no other source - have not fully checked the wiki yet. +the stuff still on the trading post needs to be bought out first ... increasing the price.)

I actually find it ... a good idea. Somehow I always found it weird that there were recipes sold expensive .... and the only reason to get them was "for completion" (to just get everything you can get) ... with the materials being costly and the finished product at the TP just thrown at you for far less than it would cost to craft the item. (I just hope they don't account-bind some of the minis that cost 10-20 of the festival currencies - that you can buy for a few silver at the trading post. 😄 Should just remove them from the vendor there so people don't accidentally buy them tooo expensive.)

Edited October 20, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Robban.1256]

11 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think the biggest problem is the inconsistency in the intention. It's clearly a sink, but when people use it to sink unwanted items they have too much of...oh no, that's not what you're supposed to be sinking, we apparently want you to be sinking stuff that's actually valuable!

Seriously.

Just let it be a sink, and the market will sort itself out. People are using it to sink tier 1 materials? Congratulations, you've made tier 1 materials actually worth something! Don't worry, if they start being worth too much, people will find something else to research salvage and it will self-correct!

It's not actually a bad system in and of itself, but the strength of it is that it'll self-correct if it's just allowed to function. Bringing in a ton of exceptions or adjusting drop tables specifically because the system exists just compromises the whole approach.

The problem is that many food can be crafted and bought from npc. Thus its the npc who mainly set the price, good example is the Farmer Diah heart in queensdale with loaf of bread, it was previously the cheapest way to get Research notes. Cost 35 karma or 16 copper from other npcs, so no way to increase the price. Then they changed so you can't research it

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Robban.1256 said:

The problem is that many food can be crafted and bought from npc. Thus its the npc who mainly set the price, good example is the Farmer Diah heart in queensdale with loaf of bread, it was previously the cheapest way to get Research notes. Cost 35 karma or 16 copper from other npcs, so no way to increase the price. Then they changed so you can't research it

That's one side. Sure, when we're talking about stuff that can be directly bought for cheap, it's reasonable to disable salvage of those items (notice, though, that we're talking here about "disabling salvage", not "removing items from vendor"). When you find something that is cheap because it is crafted using cheap mats, or it is cheap because there's a glut of those on the TP (as opposed to NPC vendors), then trying to do something about that aims directly against the original stated (or at least assumed) purpose of the system - increasing the worth of those.

Anet, instead of trying to actually use the system to what it's (as we think) supposed to do, decided instead to use it to add additional sinks to the mats that are already highly desired. In the end, Research Notes are primarily based on cloth, leather, wood metal, fine mats and advanced crafting mats (Moltens, Chargeds, Onyxes etc). So, on stuff that is already in massive demand and needs no such artificial and hamfisted demand increase.

It's almost like they have already long forgotten about the purpose of the system, and are now only concerned in pushing the monetary cost of it up the roof.

[Gehenna.3625]

20 hours ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

I understand why such a system exists. It is a material sink. There is no subtlety in its intentions. The problems with Research Notes are that they are:

 

1. Unintuitive for regular gameplay, particularly for new players.

2. Playing whack-a-mole of constantly updating what can’t be salvaged, causing confusion.

3. Extra hoops to jump through to acquire a currency.

 

Every other salvage kit in the game is used with your inventory as you play. The player is trained to understand this as the core of inventory management. Research kits instead can’t interact with 99% of a player’s inventory. This is incredibly confusing to a new player. Particularly when new updates create a constantly decreasing list of things they can salvage. This system is now also affecting holiday bag drop tables, ruining easy food and utility access for players rather than change a flawed system.

 

This system is blunt and doesn’t mesh with regular gameplay. It has been forced upon the game to sink materials. I can’t present a better picture of how absurd this system is than the recent update to let you automatically salvage things you craft. Building something…. To immediately salvage it. What is the point here? Is there not a method here that doesn’t feel at complete odds with players?

I agree with you 100% especially on how obvious and blunt it is. 

Perhaps it's to replace ascended crafting because of the legendary armory. I dunno, but it's so obvious it stands out like a sore thumb.

I find the checkbox in the crafting UI to automatically salvage the thing your crafting with a research kit especially bizarre. I'd hate to be the first person who crafts something expensive to accidentally check that box without realizing.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Gehenna.3625

[SlayerXX.7138]

14 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

The whole thing with the research notes smells of not well thought out Dev Pet project

*Lead designer or similar Higher up. The whole concept of Research Notes smells like it came from a Person, who doesn't Implement things themselves. I can't imagine a Person going through thousand of items, not realizing there will be a numerical best choice and the rest will be untouched. In General a lot of Anet actions seem to be guided by the gut feeling of the Person in charge, instead of thought-out decisions.

[Sobx.1758]

8 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

So, you are saying that they do not want to use the sink for items that are in most need of it, wanting to use it for items that are already covered instead?

Great design, truly [/sarcasm]

No, I'm saying that sink would not work, which is why I wrote "They're probably just removing the items which would overwhelm the sink making it irrelevant". I don't know what about that was unclear.

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

pushing the monetary cost of it up the roof.

Except they aren't pushing the cost up the roof?

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, Fan Didly Tastic.7169 said:

I think the core problem is it's a "spare item" sink, that requires what you put into it be of greater value than what you get back. I am certain the reason we use the other sinks is because what we get back is at least equally useful when factoring in the time spent on the sink and what we got back.

Research notes are kinda worthless, and the more items of their ilk you've unlocked, the less useful they become. I got all the unlocks that required them, then I stopped making them because I didn't need them anymore. I only get more of them when I am forced to. So I completely FAIL to understand why arena net is trying to force these down our throats by both, breaking older more valuable systems because that might improve this broken one, while at the same time trying to destroy anything that could give a meaningful way of getting that new currency. It's like they both WANT us to have a ton of it, but want us to give up a LOT more just to have it.

I really don't understand you right now, arena net, I am not sure you do either.

It's just not going to happen. You will never succeed in forcing us to use a new, worthless system by making older ones worthless as well. All you're going to accomplish is having two worthless systems, instead of one. Want us to use it? Make it useful without having to destroy another system so it has a place. If you have to do that, then maybe you should rethink the system, entirely.

Edit: A new fresh hell has reached me, it's not just an unfair item sink, it's a time sink as you have to spent loads of time trying to find the best items to convert into research notes because the margins can be so tight with these that even a small mistake can lead to 100% losses and no return. We already spend time waiting for items to craft. At this point, crafting an item, so I can break it to craft the real item I wanted, is getting a bit kittening excessive, no a-net? I thought you respected our time...

Playing devil's advocate, I don't think research notes are supposed to be something you do to make yourself richer. It's not about getting a return, it's about getting some item (a legendary, and EoD stat set, or a skin) that you wouldn't be able to get another way.

I think it is a bit obnoxious that pretty much everything in EoD seems to require research notes, which effectively devalues a lot of the other currencies and resources in EoD, but I do think it's reasonable to say that judging research notes based on making a return is missing the point. It does seem to be more of a matter of getting the things you want, and then research notes can stop being something you care about until and unless you decide you want something else that requires them.

[Wolfb.7025]

16 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think the biggest problem is the inconsistency in the intention. It's clearly a sink, but when people use it to sink unwanted items they have too much of...oh no, that's not what you're supposed to be sinking, we apparently want you to be sinking stuff that's actually valuable!

Seriously.

Just let it be a sink, and the market will sort itself out. People are using it to sink tier 1 materials? Congratulations, you've made tier 1 materials actually worth something! Don't worry, if they start being worth too much, people will find something else to research salvage and it will self-correct!

It's not actually a bad system in and of itself, but the strength of it is that it'll self-correct if it's just allowed to function. Bringing in a ton of exceptions or adjusting drop tables specifically because the system exists just compromises the whole approach.

It's their way to make worthless items a little bit more valuable., AFAIK the only items that were able to be converted into research notes and now they aren't, are items that you can buy with NPCs, to prevent the cost of research notes to stay at a fixed value.

The main problem is that people were used to have everything basically for free, and now that their magic find items costs 2s its time to complain about the system. This systmem started badly though (having to manually consume stacks of research notes), but it has been getting a little bit better overtime, and to be fair, it was basically this, or having to burn stacks of mystic coins to make legendaries/buy cosmetics.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

No, I'm saying that sink would not work, which is why I wrote "They're probably just removing the items which would overwhelm the sink making it irrelevant". I don't know what about that was unclear.

If you think the sink would not work in this case, and that halloween food would overwhelm it to the point of making it useless, what exactly that sink is even for? Only for stuff that is high in demand? For stuff whose supply is so small there will never be a problem with them being in too big quantities on TP? I mean, compared to some of the cheapest (and most useless) mats out there halloween and wintersday food was still quite tame and restrained.

As the situation is now, it's clear that only high-demand materials qualify for being considered a research note material. Anytime something else shows up, anet either kills research note generation from it, or kills said source supply.

In your opinion, does keeping the research note cost at higher values justify removing halloween food from the game? And before you start mentioning how i am overdramatic, remember that noone is crafting that food, and noone ever will (it's way too costly for that), so the ToT bags were practically only source for that food in game. That source is now gone, so their amount in the game is from now on only going to go down. So, in practice they were removed from the game, it will just take a while for their supply to dry out completely.

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Except they aren't pushing the cost up the roof?

Fine, not through the roof, that was an exagerration. Still, by this point it's clear the only sink they care about in relation to research notes is gold. But for that the system is way too convoluted and annoying to use.

[Sobx.1758]

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If you think the sink would not work in this case, and that halloween food would overwhelm it to the point of making it useless, what exactly that sink is even for?

For the rest of the items which we saw reacting to the system (as well as ascended items which lost some of the value with introduction of armory). Did you somehow miss the impact on their price?

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Only for stuff that is high in demand? For stuff whose supply is so small there will never be a problem with them being in too big quantities on TP?

No, it's not that, we saw an increase in price of some of the previously worthless items and that price is still not going back anywhere near the 2-5 copper garbage tier it was. Are you not aware of that happening or are you intentionally focusing on edge cases just to say nothing was meaningfully impacted?

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

In your opinion, does keeping the research note cost at higher values justify removing halloween food from the game?

No, I think it would be better to simply make that food non-researchable for notes, but then again maybe the reasoning for their removal wasn't strictly related just to the notes . Mind that I'm not saying that wasn't the only reason, I'm saying that I don't know if it was and research notes might have been one of the reasons or the final straw for whatever doubts they already had about it. Or maybe it was supposed to be a temporal fix and then they either forgot about it or concluded that it's not important enough to bother with again. If you have more detailed information about it then go ahead.

34 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Fine, not through the roof, that was an exagerration. Still, by this point it's clear the only sink they care about in relation to research notes is gold. But for that the system is way too convoluted and annoying to use.

So in the end the complaint is about notes pricing? I don't know about it being convoluted, didn't seem hard to grasp from the start. I also could see it as annoying before the "research stack" and "research on craft" changes (which is why I right away went for bigger quantity, so I don't need to research every other day to get more at random times, which worked and will work perfectly fine for me), but now? It more-or-less does everything for you outside of you making the choice what items you want to use for it.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Silvia.9130]

Basically the only thing EOD brought to the whole game (outside Cantha) is having magic find nourishment prices skyrocket and the price of all materials die.

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Fine, not through the roof, that was an exagerration. Still, by this point it's clear the only sink they care about in relation to research notes is gold.

Perhaps too many are converting gold -> gems then?  And this gold sink is to encourage more cash -> gems instead?

[Astralporing.1957]

4 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Perhaps too many are converting gold -> gems then?  And this gold sink is to encourage more cash -> gems instead?

The point is that the system was clearly not designed to be a gold sink but rather a mats one. That purpose has been lost at some point however, and now it seems all that matters to Anet is making sure each research note is worth a certain minimal gold value.

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

14 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The point is that the system was clearly not designed to be a gold sink but rather a mats one. That purpose has been lost at some point however, and now it seems all that matters to Anet is making sure each research note is worth a certain minimal gold value.

(Deleted first part because I realize now I was injecting too much of my frustration over the time sink portion of the currency)

So because they didn't think about it's interactions with festivals, we have to now watch them remove items from the game in order to facilitate an item that removes items from the game, namely all of the candy from our trick and treat boxes.  And if you can't see the irony there, then you're just Arena Net.

The real reason why this currency isn't working is cuz they won't stop messing with it.  I got news for you arena net, no one wants to use a currency that is subject to rug pulling!  How are we supposed to plan anything out that incorporates these things when we don't know when they're going to shoot up in price randomly because of a stupid knee jerk dev move???

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Fan Didly Tastic.7169