Unsurprisingly, the cost of End of Dragons Legendaries and Power Cores is NOT the raw materials

[Rogue.8235]

10 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Imagine, you only way of earning currency would be to build houses and then destroy them. Wouldn't it be considered a very convoluted way of obtaining said currency? I'd definitely say so.

Set designers do this.  They build a vast, intricate movie set which is exploded for the movie.  Joss Whedon often remarks on how irresponsible it is for him to not destroy a set.

In the Marines, CLB builds stuff that we destroy for training.  In garrison, CLB's primary job is to build stuff to be destroyed for ordnance/breach/explosives training (they build permanent stuff in real world operations).

 

Anyways, I, too, find it strange that the complaint concerning research notes is really a complaint about salvaging crafted items.  Everything else has already been in the game.  Research notes are no different from Globs of Dark Matter.  They're both account bound and only obtained through salvaging.

I really don't see how research notes are any different from existing systems in the game.  This system is at least better than Charged Quartz Crystal, which is locked to one crystal a day and requires interactions with hero points rather than merely a single click (salvaging gear).

 

[Cuks.8241]

Its bad because you need to craft literary thousand of items (depends how cost effective you want to be). Not refined materials. Items! That are made of more items (usualy 2 or 3), that are made of refined materials.  

Just to make a currency which is used to buy material which is just one small part to craft a legendary. 

Its like gen 2 curios but with 3 additional steps. 

[Silent.6137]

14 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Its bad because you need to craft literary thousand of items (depends how cost effective you want to be). Not refined materials. Items! That are made of more items (usualy 2 or 3), that are made of refined materials.  

Just to make a currency which is used to buy material which is just one small part to craft a legendary. 

Its like gen 2 curios but with 3 additional steps. 

Have you actually crafted any Gen 1 or Gen 2 weapons? Go through the steps for most of them. They made Gen 3 crafting including salvaging for Reseach Notes seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Silent.6137

[Gehenna.3625]

16 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

 But there are way too many currencies

This is a popular view it seems, but I don't necessarily agree. SWTOR, for example, reduced the amount of currencies dramatically at some point...but all that did was make more content irrelevant, which ultimately means dead maps and dead content. In the meantime more currencies have been added again.

16 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

and there should be a Central Currency Exchange such as the Gem/Gold exchange. 

However, this might counter-act this... in theory. The thing is that the gem/gold exchange only has 2 currencies to consider and all the in-game currencies besides gold are not equal at all. And what about map currencies that go into your mat storage? So what I'm saying is that this idea of yours might very well be too complex to implement. I believe it to be. 

Now, for example, I do like that what they did with dungeon currencies as such, but the flipside of it is that some dungeons will be preferred over others consistently. That may or may not be a bad thing. More likely it's a mix of advantages and disadvantages. Why I like it is that we don't need specific currencies anymore to get specific dungeon gear, making it easier for me (as a veteran player). For new players it will be hard to find groups for the harder/longer dungeons. Not many people like to do Arah after all...

[Cuks.8241]

3 hours ago, Silent.6137 said:

Have you actually crafted any Gen 1 or Gen 2 weapons? Go through the steps of most of them. They made Gen 3 crafting including salvaging for Reseach Notes seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

Yeah I did, pretty much all lege types. Accumulate materials and  its usually a process that takes like 15 mins.

Curios are annoying for gen 2 weapons because they require crazy amounts of t5 mats. But usually I just craft those once my mat storage is filled up and repeat until I have enough. I dont like the curio system, its boring and annoying but its an effective and straightforward sink. 1 item, craft all, go get yourself a drink.

Research notes are a similar sink but not straightforward. You need to craft a full item. For example t5 items are usually the most cost efficient. You need 600 t5 items for 3000 notes for the weapon. This means 1800 crafts if you go with jewellery or 2400 crafts (e.g., lining, insignia, casing, final item) if you go with armour. For some reason some parts take a long time to craft like setting or lining. That is a lot of time just standing behind the bench. 

 

[Astralporing.1957]

9 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Research notes are no different from Globs of Dark Matter.  They're both account bound and only obtained through salvaging.

Globs of dark matter are far less an issue, because they are obtained incidentally as a result of normal salvaging. You don't have to give up on normal salvage results in order to get those. Eventually you would be swimming in them even if you're not interested and do not aim to get them. I'd say Balls of Dark Energy would be a better comparison, because salvaging ascended weapons and armor doesn't really give you anything of value (and ascended salvage kits aren't exactly cheap, which means salvaging weapons and armor usually results in a net loss). But if you want to compare the system to something in the past, the best comparison would be provisioner tokens. And that system has not been liked by practically anyone i know. Even after the changes that made it a bit more bearable by being able to buy tokens directly for some mats, instead of for specific weapons/armor you crafted (or bought) only for that purpose.

Research Notes is a result of Anet learning from the Provisioner Token system, and applying all the bad points of it to a new design.

[Sobx.1758]

40 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Research Notes is a result of Anet learning from the Provisioner Token system, and applying all the bad points of it to a new design.

Nope. If anything, they applied the good things from those, I find the notes far less annoying than running to npcs daily to slowly accumulate the needed currency.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Sobx.1758
I can't spell

[Rogue.8235]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Globs of dark matter are far less an issue, because they are obtained incidentally as a result of normal salvaging. You don't have to give up on normal salvage results in order to get those. Eventually you would be swimming in them even if you're not interested and do not aim to get them. I'd say Balls of Dark Energy would be a better comparison, because salvaging ascended weapons and armor doesn't really give you anything of value (and ascended salvage kits aren't exactly cheap, which means salvaging weapons and armor usually results in a net loss). But if you want to compare the system to something in the past, the best comparison would be provisioner tokens. And that system has not been liked by practically anyone i know. Even after the changes that made it a bit more bearable by being able to buy tokens directly for some mats, instead of for specific weapons/armor you crafted (or bought) only for that purpose.

Research Notes is a result of Anet learning from the Provisioner Token system, and applying all the bad points of it to a new design.

 

Definitely see your comparisons here.  I would say, however, that research notes are not time-gated like provisioner tokens, which is a plus.  

In the end, these are all methods of finding uses for existing items as a material sink for new, shinier items.  Here, it seems that ArenaNet is attempting to use crafted items as a material sink itself, because, historically, crafted items have been a poor option of making gold.  The demand never matched the material cost to craft items for profit.  Now, there's a demand for crafted items.

At least that is what I think ArenaNet's logic is.  

Also, using the same resource sinks as prior shiny items only further increases the demand for those items.  You're putting too much strain on the equilibrium of those resources, the shift of which will have negative feedback from the player base.  So, finding a new pool of items as a resource sink makes sense, assuming that the overall idea is that all items in the game should be valuable for one thing or another.  For example, all tiers of crafting materials are useful because of ascended crafting, whereas most other MMO's have useless lower-tier crafting materials because everyone's max level.  

 

So with all that in mind, I think the only problem with research notes is that players, for whatever personal reason specific to them, do not feel like they are gaining value when the salvage for research notes.  If there's a way to make it more obvious that research notes are an added value over crafted items, this would solve the issue.

 

[Khisanth.2948]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:10 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Imagine building a house. Is that convoluted, for the end result you get? I would not say so. Imagine, you only way of earning currency would be to build houses and then destroy them. Wouldn't it be considered a very convoluted way of obtaining said currency? I'd definitely say so.

That is a complete non-answer.

Is the game's crafting system unnecessarily convoluted?

21 hours ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

From what I have read I am going to be stuck with several exotic tier (or is it ascended?) Account bound profession backpacks.

They are exotic.

21 hours ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

At least research notes provides a more satisfying way to recycle those back items.

The "NoSalvage" flag would like to have some words with you.

After checking https://gw2crafts.net/ the only crafting profession that involves crafting any backpack is scribe. The backpacks were a good choice at one point but that while quite a while ago.

 

[Silent.6137]

11 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

This is a popular view it seems, but I don't necessarily agree.

I wasn't refering to most of the map currencies, which I think is needed. There are certain currencies which I think are unnecessary. Do we really need so many WvW currencies, for example: Badges of Honor, Skirmish Tickets, Proof of Heroics, Testimonies of Desert Heroics and Testimonies of Jade Heroics?  Or both Unusual coins and Canach coins?

Consolidate some of them just like what has been done for Strikes and Dungeon currencies.

The Central Currency Exchange is just for some of these. They shouldn't be all that hard to implement. Or just have it as a fixed exchange in the vein of  Eternal Ice Shards for various map currencies.

7 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Curios are annoying for gen 2 weapons because they require crazy amounts of t5 mats.

Research notes are a similar sink but not straightforward..

There are many items such as Potent Potion of Sons of Svanir Slaying that you can craft by the 1000's and have them salvaged immediately into Notes with just 1-click.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Silent.6137

[Astralporing.1957]

14 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That is a complete non-answer.

Is the game's crafting system unnecessarily convoluted?

I have already given you an answer - depends on what you use it for.

Same with building a house - it's not convoluted if you want a house. It is way too convoluted if you want to destroy that house afterward for some unrelated gain that is only arbitrarily dependant on destroying said house.

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I have already given you an answer - depends on what you use it for.

Same with building a house - it's not convoluted if you want a house. It is way too convoluted if you want to destroy that house afterward for some unrelated gain that is only arbitrarily dependant on destroying said house.

It's always hilarious when people try to equate game mechanics to rl, but only when it's convenient for their specific case. 😄

Nothing convoluted about clicking on a square. You think crafting just to get research notes is too convoluted and makes no sense? Then go ahead and buy items to turn them into notes. Apparently that should solve any issue you have here. You're no longer crafting to destroy, you're buying to research.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Khisanth.2948]

11 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

This is a popular view it seems, but I don't necessarily agree. SWTOR, for example, reduced the amount of currencies dramatically at some point...but all that did was make more content irrelevant, which ultimately means dead maps and dead content. In the meantime more currencies have been added again.

GW2 has too many currency *items*. Unfortunately that is also a lesson ANet doesn't want to learn or simply doesn't care. That is a lesson they should have learned with the dungeon tokens at launch.

11 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

For new players it will be hard to find groups for the harder/longer dungeons. Not many people like to do Arah after all...

That goes both ways.

"Can anyone help me with a Arah run?"

Before: "I could but I have no need for Arah tokens ...."

After: as long as dungeon tokens have any use at all it remains valid as an extrinsic motivator without having to rely on altruism

7 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Research notes are a similar sink but not straightforward. You need to craft a full item. For example t5 items are usually the most cost efficient. You need 600 t5 items for 3000 notes for the weapon. This means 1800 crafts if you go with jewellery or 2400 crafts (e.g., lining, insignia, casing, final item) if you go with armour. For some reason some parts take a long time to craft like setting or lining. That is a lot of time just standing behind the bench. 

That certainly is a shortcoming of the crafting system. If you have all the materials for crafting 1000 of an item then you should be able to just craft 1000 of that item without also having to deal with the components.

56 minutes ago, Rogue.8235 said:

In the end, these are all methods of finding uses for existing items as a material sink for new, shinier items.  Here, it seems that ArenaNet is attempting to use crafted items as a material sink itself, because, historically, crafted items have been a poor option of making gold.  The demand never matched the material cost to craft items for profit.  Now, there's a demand for crafted items.

That doesn't match the evidence.

The sink is for crafting materials not crafted items. That is especially true  for weapons and armor. Consumable things are slightly better because there is the salvage stack option. If they wanted to make it a sink for crafted item then they would have added "Salvage All .." options for the research kit.

It looks like they are trying to keep crafting materials relevant as a reward even as crafted items stops being relevant as a source for gear due to VB vendor, WvW rewards, PvP rewards, strike vendor, and maybe raid vendor. If they wanted  to increased demand for crafted items then they need to lower the price of crafted items to make them price competitive with those other sources. Propping up their prices would have the opposite effect. If I buy a crafted Diviner's Emblazoned Boots it would cost 10g+, why would I do instead of paying 1g and 500 airship parts?

[Rogue.8235]

29 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That doesn't match the evidence.

The sink is for crafting materials not crafted items. That is especially true  for weapons and armor. Consumable things are slightly better because there is the salvage stack option. If they wanted to make it a sink for crafted item then they would have added "Salvage All .." options for the research kit.

It looks like they are trying to keep crafting materials relevant as a reward even as crafted items stops being relevant as a source for gear due to VB vendor, WvW rewards, PvP rewards, strike vendor, and maybe raid vendor. If they wanted  to increased demand for crafted items then they need to lower the price of crafted items to make them price competitive with those other sources. Propping up their prices would have the opposite effect. If I buy a crafted Diviner's Emblazoned Boots it would cost 10g+, why would I do instead of paying 1g and 500 airship parts?

Fiar.  What I was going off of is the question, what are crafted items actually used for?  There are many alternatives for getting equipment for a build, and there is still a lot of crafted items because people need to level up crafting disciplines.  There are niche stats that are better acquired from crafting (I think), but overall, crafted items don't seem to have a large demand.

As for the relevancy of crafting materials, there are many systems in place that already require the use of crafting materials, outside of crafting items while leveling a discipline.  I was thinking more that the finished goods, not the raw materials, are lacking demand.

33 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That certainly is a shortcoming of the crafting system. If you have all the materials for crafting 1000 of an item then you should be able to just craft 1000 of that item without also having to deal with the components.

This is definitely something ArenaNet should look at.  As I stated earlier, there doesn't seem to be a feeling of value added for research notes.  One thing diminishing the feeling of added value is the time consumption to craft items to salvage for research notes.  I just think that if research notes "felt" more valuable, there wouldn't be a problem.  I'm raising this because the general sense I get from forum posters is that it seems wasteful to get research notes, rather than valuable.  

Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Zebulous.2934]

4 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

 

The "NoSalvage" flag would like to have some words with you.

 

Ah well nvm.  

[Zaraki.5784]

Interesting, I always thought the cost of End of Dragons Legendaries was mainly driven by Antique Summoning Stones' price but apparently I was wrong, it's all about Research Notes! How could I not see that?

Edited December 7, 2022 by Zaraki.5784

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Zaraki.5784 said:

Interesting, I always thought the cost of End of Dragons Legendaries was mainly driven by Antique Summoning Stones' price but apparently I was wrong, it's all about Research Notes! How could I not see that?

It changes. The impact of the Summoning Stones was greater before, because their price was much higher. As more and more of them were farmed and put on TP, their price (and so, their impact on overall legendary cost) went down. On the other hand, for now at least, the cost of obtaining Research Notes seems to be pretty stable.

[Silent.6137]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It changes. The impact of the Summoning Stones was greater before, because their price was much higher. As more and more of them were farmed and put on TP, their price (and so, their impact on overall legendary cost) went down. On the other hand, for now at least, the cost of obtaining Research Notes seems to be pretty stable.

What are you even on about? Regardless of what the price of Summoning Stones are, even if they would to drop some more, they will still be the major cost of crafting Gen 3. Assuming a very low price of 3g x 100 stones, that's still 300g. And assuming a high cost of 1s to obtain Research Notes, that's only 30g (1s x 3000).

Yes, the impact was greater before and prices do fluctuate. But 300g vs 30g are comparable? They are not even in the same Province, let alone in the same ballpark.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Silent.6137

[Gehenna.3625]

On 12/3/2022 at 11:41 PM, Silent.6137 said:

I wasn't refering to most of the map currencies, which I think is needed. There are certain currencies which I think are unnecessary. Do we really need so many WvW currencies, for example: Badges of Honor, Skirmish Tickets, Proof of Heroics, Testimonies of Desert Heroics and Testimonies of Jade Heroics?  Or both Unusual coins and Canach coins?

The WvW proofs are a great example of currencies that can be consolidated, since they are the same currency in essence. I always wondered why they kept the older ones active. It's not like you can gain them anymore and they should just be called "proofs of heroics" and be done with it. The issue that might come up is that you have speficic rewards per expansion, but I would think that the vendor tab of a given expansion should be locked until you own that expansion.

Unusual coins and Canach coins are different though. Canach coins you can only gain via his casino and there are specific rewards to get with them. The problem there is that a certain type of activity becomes obsolete, by consolidating those two.

On 12/3/2022 at 11:41 PM, Silent.6137 said:

Consolidate some of them just like what has been done for Strikes and Dungeon currencies.

Yeah as I already said. There are advantages and disadvantages to such consolidation efforts. Consolidation generally results in some specific content being favoured (usually the easiest/fastest) over the rest. And that comes with downsides.

On 12/3/2022 at 11:41 PM, Silent.6137 said:

The Central Currency Exchange is just for some of these. They shouldn't be all that hard to implement. Or just have it as a fixed exchange in the vein of  Eternal Ice Shards for various map currencies.

So which ones are you suggesting would benefit from a currency exchange then? Strikes and Dungeons have been done through consolidation. The Eternal Ice Shards that you can trade for LS4 currencies is a way of giving more people a reason to go to Bjora Marches and solving the issue of LS4 currencies that were needed for things like Vision I suppose. But I think that came into play mostly after they realised that the chili peppers from grothmar down were essentially useless after a short while.

But I've not seen a clear suggestion for a Central Currency Exchange as far as which currencies would be right for such an exchange from you. Or did I miss that? Could you perhaps give us a (short) list of the currencies that you feel need this exchange the most?

It would be much easier to judge the usefulness of such an exchange.

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:12 PM, itspomf.9523 said:

The inordinate amount of high-grade crafted items which have to be destroyed to obtain Research Notes in any suitable quantity.

On 12/3/2022 at 3:57 PM, Cuks.8241 said:

Research notes are a similar sink but not straightforward. You need to craft a full item. For example t5 items are usually the most cost efficient. You need 600 t5 items for 3000 notes for the weapon. This means 1800 crafts if you go with jewellery or 2400 crafts (e.g., lining, insignia, casing, final item) if you go with armour. For some reason some parts take a long time to craft like setting or lining. That is a lot of time just standing behind the bench.

Just stop being cheap. Make or buy stacks of potions an be done with it. People agonizing over research notes because they want to be "optimal". Since Anet came to their senses and added a salvage stack function research notes are human to acquire. Potions are less then 1 silver to make and come in stacks, which is good enough. All the gold you save is neither worth the time, nerves or used up brain power to make that process efficient.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Albi.7250

[Silent.6137]

6 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Unusual coins and Canach coins are different though. Canach coins you can only gain via his casino and there are specific rewards to get with them. The problem there is that a certain type of activity becomes obsolete, by consolidating those two.

You can gain Canach coins from Shrine Guardian puzzles, which is how I get mine. The casino games are the faster method to get them but it's not something that you'd bother to do often. It's pretty much get the achievements and almost never go there again.

6 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

So which ones are you suggesting would benefit from a currency exchange then?

Assuming no further consolidations of currencies, the Exchange can be a fixed vendor exchange allowing a limited trading along the lines of Traveling Elonian Trader at Dragonfall and of Eternal Ice Shards vendor. Can be a straight up one for one limited exchange of 5 or 10 per day for WvW, EoD, LW S3 & S4 currencies. By that, I do not meant cross exchanges but rather one type of Heroics for another. Or exchange 10 per day of  LW S3's Blood Ruby for Orrian Pearls.

Or have it in the form of a dynamic exchange like the Gem to Gold. LW S3 for LW S3, and LW S4 for LW S4 currencies, etc.

This is just an idea for getting rid of some currencies from areas that you do not frequent anymore so you can use them to purchase items from another map.

As to what should be in the Exchange, that's what this discussion is for. I do not have the answers and was hoping others might have some good suggestions.

 

[Kozumi.5816]

Research notes are so cumbersome and unfun to deal with. They are intentionally anti-qol and do not belong in a 2022 game.

[yoni.7015]

I don’t mind research notes, now finally I can salvage all the ascended gear I get from fractals into something useful. 

[Silent.6137]

9 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Research notes are so cumbersome and unfun to deal with. They are intentionally anti-qol and do not belong in a 2022 game.

How is it cumbersome compared to anything else? Need 3k Notes for a Gen 3? Craft 1k Potent Potions with just 1 click. Done.

Of course you'll need to have the mats but that applies to all craftings.

8 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

I don’t mind research notes, now finally I can salvage all the ascended gear I get from fractals into something useful. 

Absolutely. Without it, I just sell all my ascended weapons and armors to vendors (usually for 3s 30c and 2s 40c respectively - some special items do sell for 1g) or simply delete them if they can't be sold. Not worth salvaging if you do not need Vision Crystals or Balls of Dark Energy anymore.

Do a cheap stats change and salvage them for an average of 400 to 500 Notes.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Silent.6137