Dear ANET thanks for RUINING the Wintersday Karma farm for everyone except rich players

[Daniyyel.3428]

4 hours ago, Vavume.8065 said:

No one does them all themselves, they just swipe the credit card.

I did, all 80 of them.  Prepared just in case there is a soowon set   and did not use a credit card.  Of course I prepared well in advance.  I know a couple other people who earned this way as well.  If people recall there was a time when memory of aurene and jade runestones cost less than  5s-13s.  It was obvious they would go up.  Those who plan ahead can save a great deal of gold.  Just takes patience. Of course doing over 100 plus ED metas sure helped as well.  Not everyone uses a credit card to reach their goals. Some of us just have way to much game time on our hands. Not to sound like a hypocrite. I have used my credit card to buy gems to get skins I really like for skyscale, gliders, outfits ect.   I have never bought gems to convert to gold.  Your comment is borderline insulting to those of us who work/played hard to earn them but that's ok,  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.  Even when they are wrong. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Daniyyel.3428

[Tsakhi.8124]

While I feel as though the topic's title was a bit on the bombastic side, I do agree with the OP. Ever since those kitten Research Notes came out, things have just been...weird. Like, you know that you're not going to get it, but the nostalgia kicks you in the face with stilettos and you kind of find yourself wondering about how things would've been if the Research Notes were never even a thing.  I feel very strongly that this a bad direction. Speaking for myself only, I find it to be a bit convoluted; excess items for an extraneous function. Just me, though. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Tsakhi.8124
Tsakhi's brain goes brrrrrr

[Daniyyel.3428]

@Tsakhi.8124 totally agree.  I had held out hope after the Mad King debacle  they would have realized the error of their ways and put them back in. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Daniyyel.3428

[Vavume.8065]

1 hour ago, Daniyyel.3428 said:

I did, all 80 of them.  Prepared just in case there is a soowon set   and did not use a credit card.  Of course I prepared well in advance.  I know a couple other people who earned this way as well.  If people recall there was a time when memory of aurene and jade runestones cost less than  5s-13s.  It was obvious they would go up.  Those who plan ahead can save a great deal of gold.  Just takes patience. Of course doing over 100 plus ED metas sure helped as well.  Not everyone uses a credit card to reach their goals. Some of us just have way to much game time on our hands. Not to sound like a hypocrite. I have used my credit card to buy gems to get skins I really like for skyscale, gliders, outfits ect.   I have never bought gems to convert to gold.  Your comment is borderline insulting to those of us who work/played hard to earn them but that's ok,  Everyone is entitled to their opinion.  Even when they are wrong. 

You had to swipe for a skyscale skin but somehow you managed to have the gold for 80 variants.... yeah seems legit...

[Daniyyel.3428]

14 hours ago, Vavume.8065 said:

You had to swipe for a skyscale skin but somehow you managed to have the gold for 80 variants.... yeah seems legit...

That would be correct.  FYI, I didn't have to.  I chose to.  Big difference.... I don't spend gold to buy gems.  The exchange rate isn't good. I know a lot of people who do the same.   I was only pointing out the statement you made with zero evidence  was wrong because I know others who earned them all.  Since you seem to be lost about how the economy works or how to use it for your benefit.  Maybe look up the basics.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Daniyyel.3428

[williamd dj.7846]

sounds like someone has a jelly streak going on

[Westenev.5289]

10 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

Can’t you just buy the stuff with karma? 

 

The point is to farm karma for cheap.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

Erh.

It costs 1008 karma to make one gift that nets you 1500 karma.  This comes out to 492 karma profit without any boosts.

 

This can be increased with boosts, but what sort of boosts would an average player have access to?

Candy canes are one for 10%
Guild Banner for 15%
Spirit Banner for 10%
Guild Karma boost from the tavern for 10%
Any wintersday enhancement for 10%
Winter's Blessing for 10%

This comes out to +65% putting that 1500 to a nice 2475 karma.

 

But what if we maxed it out?

The above for 65% with the following:
Volunteer's Blessing for 5%
Crowd Favorite for 10%
Karma Enrichment for 15%
Karma booster for 50%

 

This comes out to a nice 145% karma or a 2.45x multiplier which sets your maximum karma to 3675.  Drop Crowd favorite and volunteer's blessing as those are kinda difficult to maintain for a more reliable 3450 karma per present.  This is 2442 karma profit or 73260 karma total per day.

Now that you have to buy toys for 504 karma (Instead of just getting the food for free from gifts), how much did you lose in total?  Well 504*30 is 15120 karma.  You lost 15k karma per day here.  That's not exactly a lot. From 88380 karma to 73260 karma. A 17.11% reduction in karma gains.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Westenev.5289 said:

 

The point is to farm karma for cheap.

The karma profit is still ridiculously huge.  Would I spend a dollar to make twenty dollars 15 minutes later?  Why wouldn't I?

You'll get far more karma back then you'll spend setting it up.  You are farming karma for cheap. Yes, you're getting a tiny bit less karma than you used to, but that's all it is.

[Cyninja.2954]

7 hours ago, Vavume.8065 said:

You don't but anyone that has "Facet of whatever" swiped at some point for either the legendarys or pre cursors.

I'm up to around 30 variants crafted atm with Jormag being done almost 10 times alone (currently saving my gold for when the memories of aurene drop again and also saving all the unlock tokens until I have EVERYTHING done) and I haven't swiped for gold, ever. I have bought cosmetics I like off the gem store occasionally yes, but not swiped to acquire gold (though one could argue the not converting gold to gems and using real $ for gems does save in game gold).

While I don't disagree that certainly some players will swipe to get gold, your over-generalization is misplaced. FYI, I also didn't swipe when crafting all 16 gen3s, though I did have over 14k gold saved up pre EoD and many players I know which are up to 9-10 gen 3s by now didn't swipe either.

Gold is really not that hard to come by for many veterans that have extensive legendary gear (or even just manage their expenses).

Edited December 14, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Narrenwinter.2637]

For what are you all farming Karma? Serious question, not trolling.

Never figured out what all the "karma trains" are about. Isn't it just a dead currency at this point?

[ugrakarma.9416]

29 minutes ago, Narrenwinter.2637 said:

For what are you all farming Karma? Serious question, not trolling.

Never figured out what all the "karma trains" are about. Isn't it just a dead currency at this point?

im not sure, but is for wintersdaty bag that give cloth.

Edited December 14, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Randulf.7614]

46 minutes ago, Narrenwinter.2637 said:

For what are you all farming Karma? Serious question, not trolling.

Never figured out what all the "karma trains" are about. Isn't it just a dead currency at this point?

Plenty of living world vendors use karma, legendaries use it and Wintersday gifts can be bought with them

[Scalacious.4139]

47 minutes ago, Narrenwinter.2637 said:

For what are you all farming Karma? Serious question, not trolling.

Never figured out what all the "karma trains" are about. Isn't it just a dead currency at this point?

You can also convert karma into crafting materials via PoF trade caches.

[Westenev.5289]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

The karma profit is still ridiculously huge.  Would I spend a dollar to make twenty dollars 15 minutes later?  Why wouldn't I?

You'll get far more karma back then you'll spend setting it up.  You are farming karma for cheap. Yes, you're getting a tiny bit less karma than you used to, but that's all it is.

 

Close to 20% reduction isn't what I'd call small, and "only 15k" adds up to 105k over a week.

 

Thing about being a capitalist is that we tend to dislike increases in production costs since it eats into the final revenue. 

[mythical.6315]

2 hours ago, Westenev.5289 said:

 

Close to 20% reduction isn't what I'd call small, and "only 15k" adds up to 105k over a week.

 

Thing about being a capitalist is that we tend to dislike increases in production costs since it eats into the final revenue. 

Their estimate of how much karma you get per day is a little low as others have reported 120K in previous years. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Silent.6137]

7 hours ago, Daniyyel.3428 said:

I did, all 80 of them.  Prepared just in case there is a soowon set   and did not use a credit card.  Of course I prepared well in advance.  I know a couple other people who earned this way as well.

 

6 hours ago, Vavume.8065 said:

You had to swipe for a skyscale skin but somehow you managed to have the gold for 80 variants.... yeah seems legit...

As I mentioned before, I have not used my CC for anything other than purchasing all the Xpacs. I only have 10 Gen 3's and all the variants for two of them in comparison but all acquired through playing the game. If you've been playing for a long time, the cost to craft in terms of gold is extremely low if you have lots of mats stored up. Which most veterans will have. The only thing I have to truly farm for to make a new Gen 3 are Gift of Cantha and Gift of Battle. Mystic clovers can be a bit of a challenge sometimes but several ways to obtain including crafting. Doing DE metas and EoD strikes almost daily helps a lots with most of the other items needed (majority of Summoning Stones, Memory of Aurene, Imperial Favors, etc.)

I'm sure there are quite a few who swiped but there are many who have lots of Legendaries who do not.

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, Mantis.6102 said:

Just let Wintersday be a fun little distraction to the regular game.

Well, making the primary reward from wintersday (gifts) pretty much worthless does eat into the fun. Most of the activities are heavily repetitious and get boring very fast if you don't get anything for doing them. I might as well do them few times for the annual, and not bother after.

The karma farm does not affect me at all, as i was already using toy weapon skins for gifts (for simplicity, since they were on th nearby vendor), but i did find some of the food and utilities valuable enough. And it's not like it's the first nerf to presents either, btw.

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

The wintersday karma grind? Did they do something to the Bell Choir? 😳

[mythical.6315]

39 minutes ago, Elricht Kaltwind.8796 said:

The wintersday karma grind? Did they do something to the Bell Choir? 😳

Bell choir was only really great when you got a bugged instance where no new people could join. 

[Khisanth.2948]

13 hours ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

I would offer you refreshments, but they are all gone, sorry.

LIES!!! They left the drinks in the gifts 😛

[Luthan.5236]

The cheapest (according to the list in the wiki) ... currently is one that needs 100 snowflakes to craft in the recipe. I wonder how far the prices will rise on the tp ... once stuff gets bought up. (The other ones probably will be cheaper then ... in the future.)

Also people might put the cheap karma skins on the tp if their prices go up (maybe). That old stuff (wool sweater, socks) ... will be interesting to watch out for. Might make it harder (though there is still enough supply I guess) to obtain certain items. One or another mini that uses them as recipe (while they are not obtainable anymore by normal means except buying from the remaining ones on the tp) might become harder to obtain. (Though that minis seem to use other minis - from the gem store or mini tickes/statuettes as recipes. Not many people might go for them.)

Using the wiki ... this is still not too expensive - check there for the currencly cheapest items. As for the general remove of the food items. I still am not that unhappy. Barely used any of those. (Here at Wintersday of course I notice it ... because of the gifts for the children where they are needed.)

I think it is good that they are staying truy to their decision. Better than always making changes and then changing (reverting) again. We still have the annoying fact that there are tons of recipes (some even expensive) ... that are basically worthless (unless you get them for "completion") cause the stuff is cheaper on the trading post because of the drops from other sources. This never should have happened in the first place. Might fix itself slowly if people need to craft once the old supplies get depleted (if this ever happens). This could also lead to purchases made in mistake - if a new player does not know that it is better to check the wiki first. (We also still have stuff for a ton of expensive festival currency ... where the mini/skin is on the trading post. They should remove them from vendors. And if the normal drop is not available anymore - include them again.)

That ... would be good for new players. The karma: I do not think they should worry about this that much. Besides: There are other means to get karma. And while Wintersday is a nice addition this should not need to be the only/main source. With slowly getting the karmic retribution on the s3/s4 maps and maybe some upgrades in the fractals ... + doing dailies and stuff - you can also get a steady slow progress. Never had problems with karma. (Then again: I never spend it in huge amounts. And if there are other options to buy something - I try to use different/or a mix of different currencies.)

Edited December 14, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Khisanth.2948]

11 hours ago, Tsakhi.8124 said:

While I feel as though the topic's title was a bit on the bombastic side, I do agree with the OP. Ever since those kitten Research Notes came out, things have just been...weird. Like, you know that you're not going to get it, but the nostalgia kicks you in the face with stilettos and you kind of find yourself wondering about how things would've been if the Research Notes were never even a thing.  I feel very strongly that this a bad direction. Speaking for myself only, I find it to be a bit convoluted; excess items for an extraneous function. Just me, though. 

Looks more like people are using Research Notes as a convenient scapegoat. The implementation of research notes is not great but that doesn't justify turning a blind eye to the other issues with these drops. Mainly that they rendered the other items that performed a same function pointless. Same goes for their recipes.

The price history of the items further supports this scapegoating. Their prices continued increasing long after they were already 200%+ more expensive than alternative sources of  research notes.

[Ashen.2907]

12 hours ago, Vavume.8065 said:

You had to swipe for a skyscale skin but somehow you managed to have the gold for 80 variants.... yeah seems legit...

Not being able to distinguish between singular and plural....yeah, seems legit.

[Vayne.8563]

9 hours ago, Westenev.5289 said:

 

Close to 20% reduction isn't what I'd call small, and "only 15k" adds up to 105k over a week.

 

Thing about being a capitalist is that we tend to dislike increases in production costs since it eats into the final revenue. 

What 20% are you talking about?  The karma cost of that food doesn't equal 20% of the total karma.