Astral Acclaim limit of 1300 in Wizard's Vault [Merged]

[Zok.4956]

I think it's absolutely player-unfriendly that you can only have a maximum of 1300 Astral Acclaim in the Wizard's Vault and everything above that expires. Because it forces you to buy things even if you don't really want/need them, if you don't want to lose further Astral Acclaim.

What do you think: Will Anet put an “astral acclaim storage expander” in the gem store at some point? Would make sense from a greedy microtransaction monetization perspective.

EDIT: You may want to jump straight to this post to continue the discussion:

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Zok.4956

[PyaKura.4895]

That's the point though, they don't want you to hoard AA indefinitely so you have to actually engage with the system and keep playing to obtain the rewards you want for any given quarter.

No offence to you specifically, and the new rewards system definitely needs to be improved upon, but I find it funny that many arguments and complaints on these forums seem to promote as much inactivity as possible instead of just playing the game.

Edited August 30, 2023 by PyaKura.4895

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

33 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

What do you think: Will Anet put an “astral acclaim storage expander” in the gem store at some point? Would make sense from a greedy microtransaction monetization perspective.

Or they just want you to actually spend the acclaim? 

[Danikat.8537]

I agree with @PyaKura.4895 - the point is likely to stop you stockpiling it.

Elder Scrolls Online has a similar system (although for different reasons) where doing daily tasks gets you a currency you can use to buy items from loot boxes without having to gamble. It takes months to save up enough points to get anything good (one day won't even get you enough for a potion) but you can hold as many as you want and they don't expire, but the rewards do have limited availability, so players like me who don't want a lot of the rewards can end up in a situation where there's no incentive to collect more because we'll be able to get the rewards we're waiting for as soon as they come back into circulation.

It seems pretty clear to me the Wizard's Vault is designed to avoid that situation, not only because of the cap on astral acclaim but also because so many of the rewards can be converted into gold (or you can just buy gold directly) so if there's nothing you want you can get something else and then sell it. Some of the items, especially 2g for 1,000aa when the first 90g costs 6aa each look like they're designed specifically for players who have run out of other things to buy. 

I think the system is fairly player-friendly, but then I'm coming at it from the perspective of someone who can't play every day (I've only been able to log in on 5 days since SotO came out) where my first thought is "what am I going to miss out on?" and at least for this first quarter it looks like the answer is I won't miss out on anything I want. I've already got the griffon skin, I'll have my first armour piece soon and should be able to get all the other items which interest me and maybe some currencies or materials as well.

On the other hand there's nothing wrong with skipping days if you can't use the reward and don't want to do the activities. Think of it like any other part of the game: if you don't want to buy anything with prophet shards and don't feel like doing a strike would you do one anyway and then complain there's nothing to buy with the currency? Or would you skip it and do something else instead? (And yes that can include doing something outside of GW2, it's not a bad thing to take breaks from a game or interspace it with other hobbies.)

According to the wiki it would cost 18,975aa to buy all the limited rewards (including a full set of sanctified weapons) and it will be possible to earn 14,760aa before the first update, so no one will be able to get everything, but that includes things like buying all 40 luck, 35 tomes of knowledge etc. and I think it's unlikely anyone wants all of them.

[Noah Salazar.5430]

Lets make it 1400, 13 is unlucy number 😢

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

Lets make it 1400, 13 is unlucy number 😢

1500 so it's nice and round 😉

[Marshall Sed.8643]

22 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

1 hour ago, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

Lets make it 1400, 13 is unlucy number 😢

1500 so it's nice and round 😉

∞ is a nice round number......

 

I'll get my coat!

[Noah Salazar.5430]

2 minutes ago, Marshall Sed.8643 said:

∞ is a nice round number......

 

I'll get my coat!

you can't round an a infinity number, baka!

[Dawdler.8521]

30 minutes ago, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

you can't round an a infinity number, baka!

But the number for infinity is two round circles?

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, PyaKura.4895 said:

That's the point though, they don't want you to hoard AA indefinitely

I know. But I don't want to hoard AA indefinitely. I just don't want to have to spend it on things that don't interest me at all. Because by actively playing the game, I complete the daily and weekly even if I don't pay attention to it.

So I think 1300 is way too low though. Especially in the combination that you can only buy many things once or a few times. Maybe with the hope that I could buy the things again next quarter and that there would be more things I would like to buy in the next quarter.

After I pretty much hit 1300 last week, I bought things I wanted (without spending anything) and this week after completing the weekly I've hit the limit again. Of the things that interest me, there aren't enough in the vault (because you can't buy them as often as you like) and everything else doesn't interest me that much. That's why I've now bought the legy starter kit, just so I don't hit the limit for a while.

 

3 hours ago, PyaKura.4895 said:

I find it funny that many arguments and complaints on these forums seem to promote as much inactivity as possible instead of just playing the game.

Please don't move the topic, because that's not my point.

 

[PyaKura.4895]

If you understand that the point is to prevent players from carrying AA over to the next shop rotation, then there should be no issues with just... spending it. I have been completing every daily and weekly challenges so far and I haven't felt like 1300 was too low - I settle on the next thing I want and buy it ASAP without ever going above 1000 AA since I bought the legendary starter kit last week.

I say prevent AA from carrying over to the next rotation but I don't remember if they wipe it out at the end of the current rotation, or allow up to 1300 to carry over... in which case having such a "low" AA cap makes sense - and even then, I feel 1300 is already a significant headstart going into the next rotation. If the total AA cost of the next rotation is similar to the current one, we're looking at a 6.85% (including unlimited skins from the current shop, 7.84% without) headstart of the total shop cost (with most of the AA value skewed towards high-value items such as the legendary kit, and losing value as you buy them).

Worst case you end up with some mats you'll have no use for but can turn into gold, or a few skins to add to your collection. And if you really aren't inclined to buy anything else from the Vault then you can simply skip doing dailies/weeklies, or go for the daily AP and overcap without regret since when you reach that point it essentially becomes dead currency.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive and derail the topic, I might have misunderstood your original point and thought you meant to hoard endlessly to buy everything in one go next quarter. Regardless, you can't "lose" as long as you buy stuff, and there is no incentive in hoarding above 1000 AA. I *do* agree that they could increase the cap slightly just in case someone didn't pay attention to their AA and complete a 500 AA weekly while sitting on, say, 900 AA. Does the game prevent you from, or warn you about claiming the AA if you're going to overcap?

Edited August 30, 2023 by PyaKura.4895
typos and clarity

[Sobx.1758]

46 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Please don't move the topic, because that's not my point.

But it is directly relevant to the thread, because what you -apparently- want is to target one specific thing and then hoard the aa. As a result what you want is play now, wait for the currency to accumulate and then buy out "that thing you want" every seasonal change, possibly without playing. That makes it an attempt to use this as new login rewards in the longer run. That's why you want to hoard currency and that's probably also EXACTLY why anet introduced that limit in the first place.

All of that comments on why you want the limit removed and why anet probably introduced in the first place. I'd say it's very much on-topic.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

10 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

But it is directly relevant to the thread, because what you -apparently- want is to target one specific thing and then hoard the aa. As a result what you want is play now, wait for the currency to accumulate and then buy out "that thing you want" every seasonal change, possibly without playing. That makes it an attempt to use this as new login rewards in the longer run. That's why you want to hoard currency and that's probably also EXACTLY why anet introduced that limit in the first place.

All of that comments on why you want the limit removed and why anet probably introduced in the first place. I'd say it's very much on-topic.

Notice, that to get acclaims you still need to play as much without the cap as with it. Nothing about it changes. In reality, cap results in actually disincentivizing play for some players. If someone has AAs close to cap/capped, but sees nothing interesting in the vault in that season, they might see no point in doing dailies/weeklies anymore, because they'd be losing those AAs anyway. If there was no cap, they might be incentivized to still do them, because they will know they will not waste the additional acclaims, and will be able to potentially spend them on something (else) in the future.

Personally, i don't really care, because i know i will be spending some of the AAs on materials/gold anyway, and the cap at least guarantees that nothing in the future will be worth more than 1300 AAs, but i can see how for some players it might be seen in negative light.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Zok.4956]

45 minutes ago, PyaKura.4895 said:

If you understand that the point is to prevent players from carrying AA over to the next shop rotation

Sure. I can imagine why Anet set up the vault and the cap. But I still think the actual cap coupled with some item caps are player unfriendly.

 

45 minutes ago, PyaKura.4895 said:

Worst case you end up with some mats you'll have no use of but can turn into gold

That would be OK, but those are capped, too.

 

45 minutes ago, PyaKura.4895 said:

you can simply skip doing dailies/weeklies

By actively playing the game, I completed the dailies and weeklies without paying attention to them. So I couldn't really "skip" them.

Should I think "crap, I already have 9 times defended, our home garri is under attack. but I don't defend, because then I would get the weekly and I want to avoid that" That's not a good design.

 

17 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

But it is directly relevant to the thread, because what you -apparently- want is to target one specific thing and then hoard the aa

No. I want to target the things I want and then buy them without hoarding aa. But the current system means that at some point (sooner or later) in the course of a quarter, the "valuable" things are no longer available.

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Zok.4956

[Astralporing.1957]

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

No. I want to target the things I want and then buy them without hoarding aa. But the current system means that at some point (sooner or later) in the course of a quarter, the "valuable" things are no longer available.

If you run out of things to buy, you can always go on spending AAs on the uncapped version of gold bags. It's less efficient, but it does offer some return. Also, remember that you can save up to 1300 AAs for the next season.

[Kassablanca.5821]

simple solution 2 diff counters 1 for current period astral 1 for carry over astral

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Kassablanca.5821

[Sobx.1758]

21 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Notice, that to get acclaims you still need to play as much without the cap as with it. Nothing about it changes. In reality, cap results in actually disincentivizing play for some players. If someone has AAs close to cap/capped, but sees nothing interesting in the vault in that season, they might see no point in doing dailies/weeklies anymore, because they'd be losing those AAs anyway. If there was no cap, they might be incentivized to still do them, because they will know they will not waste the additional acclaims, and will be able to potentially spend them on something (else) in the future.

Not exactly. Considering OP already somehow ran out of options to purchase  (did he though?), I'd say it's something with the low total AA price. As much as I'm not sure he shared what it is, I'd blindly shoot at that "optimized gold gain" which means he might be targetting 90 x 1gold for 6AA each, totalling to 540AA. He can buy more things to make gold, but I guess it's... not as optimal so he'd rather hoard? In that case he's targetting accumulation of currency, which in case of this single 76-day "season" could reach up to 14,760AA (according to wiki). That means he can play for 3 months and then go for the "log in once every 3 months to buy out the cheapest gold packs" for... 20++ "seasons"?

I'll take another blind guess that anet implemented system to incentivize regular gameplay over short spurts of it in order to accumulate enough currency to then basically have players re-invent their log-in rewards -except now they wouldn't be logging daily, but... once every 3 months- which anet deliberately removed. It's not like OP really doesn't have anything to spend on. He just wants to optimize currency to [whatever, possibly gold] exchange rate over long, long time.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Sobx.1758]

17 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

No. I want to target the things I want and then buy them without hoarding aa.

If you don't want to hoard AA and you're not interested in anything other than [whatever has that small cap per season] then why is ovecapping currency an issue for you specifically? You said you DON'T want to hoard the currency and that you just complete dailies/weeklies by default anyways, which means as long as you play, you get what you want each season anyways. So what's the issue?

To be clear, when I ask "what's the issue with the cap", I take into consideration what you said here:
-you don't want to hoard the currency
-you complete objectives anyways through your normal gameplay
-you easly buy out what you want each season anyways and aren't interested in anything else

Considering this set of "what I want and don't want", I fail to see how the currency cap gets in your way. If you don't like overcapping, just buy out seasonal skins or keep spending anything above 1000aa on additional gold with the lower gold/currency convertion rate.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Randulf.7614]

I'm a bit confused by this given players are complaining they can't get back their old rewards from dailies and login, but are also complaining they can't hoard the tokens.

The idea is not to build an indefinite supply through a season and carry into the next. Yes you are forced to buy stuff, but just treat like your logins where you actively have to get the items rather than it being automatic.

As the system progresses, more choices will open up, but since gold is on the menu, there should not be a reason to not spend tokens.

It's also the opposite to a player unfriendly system. Having a cap is a barrier against having to keep logging in or doing the tasks and constantly gain AA. This way if you hit 1000 AA you can ignore them for a bit. Or gain them at your own pace. This is a good thing

Edited August 30, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[Tiamat.8254]

Just don't bother logging in and it's not a problem 🙃

[Astralporing.1957]

12 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Not exactly. Considering OP already somehow ran out of options to purchase  (did he though?), I'd say it's something with the low total AA price. As much as I'm not sure he shared what it is, I'd blindly shoot at that "optimized gold gain" which means he might be targetting 90 x 1gold for 6AA each, totalling to 540AA. He can buy more things to make gold, but I guess it's... not as optimal so he'd rather hoard? In that case he's targetting accumulation of currency, which in case of this single 76-day "season" could reach up to 14,760AA (according to wiki). That means he can play for 3 months and then go for the "log in once every 3 months to buy out the cheapest gold packs" for... 20++ "seasons"?

Or he could do one set of weeklies per season for 20++ seasons for exactly the same result. The overall amount of play and effort put into it would remain exactly the same. So, your point was?

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Or he could do one set of weeklies per season for 20++ seasons for exactly the same result. The overall amount of play and effort put into it would remain exactly the same. So, your point was?

But then he actually plays for a week every interval. And when he starts playing for a week, there's a chance (actually pretty high, unless he simply dislikes the game altogether) there will be something he likes playing so he'll play a bit more. Meanwhile when he opts out for log in, buy out a stack of gold, log out ritual, he's not going to play at all. He'll "just get some optimalized gold in case he ever wants to go back to playing". You might think these two things are somehow the same, but they really aren't.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

6 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

But then he actually plays for a week every interval.

But in this interval he plays only for a week instead of 11 weeks he would be playing in your example.

Sidenote: it took me maybe 20 minutes to do 6/6 weekly milestone this week. Ans someone that would care about the game so much they'd be invested in getting the rewards for the next 4 years without fail would definitely play more than that in each season anyway.

Hint: in your example the player plays more now - where it matters most for Anet. And if in the future they were to stop playing, they'd probably have stopped playing anyway.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Cyninja.2954]

Food for thought:

Having the cap in place incentivises players to get rewards they might otherwise forgo or skip, especially of the repeatable kind.

Rewards like say Mystic Coins, which assures that the supply into the game does not drop to sharply.

Given that astral acclaim can be converted to materials and/or gold to an infnite extent, I don't see the issue with the cap.

The only thing the cap prevents is overstacking aa and then instant buying every high value item at a later date. Until then, get close to the cap, spend the aa on gold/materials, get back to cap, etc.

Unless you want to make an argument about how one has no more need for gold or materials, which while certainly the case for some players, would be such an infinitely small amount of players. 

[Manasa Devi.7958]

I tested what would happen if I cashed in a reward that would exceed the cap. It wouldn't let me. So, you can't lose AA that way. You get a warning, you spend some AA and then take your reward.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Manasa Devi.7958