Remove the traps from the Wizard’s Vault

[Flapjackson.1596]

The Wizard’s Vault has some fantastic value for players: Clovers, MCs, gold, ascended gear, and of course the Legendary Weapon chest. Not all choices are equal however. The Vault has some items that are undeniably scams:

- Large crafting bag for 40

- Revive orb for 95

- Vision Crystal for 150

- Lesser essence of gold for one thousand acclaim (really Anet?)

- Build storage expansion for 500 (a scam here and in the gemstore when notepad is free on all computers)

- Essence of luck (not even exotic) for 6

- Obby shard for 50 (also hilariously limited to 20)

GW2 is no stranger to purchases that are noob traps for uninformed players. Most of these traps are due to the economy shifting prices over time however. The Vault is new. Anet knows the value of every item in there. You can’t reasonably tell me they think an Obby shard is worth 50 acclaim, putting it only 10 under a Clover or 20 over a 30 cost gold. That is insane. Anet is either ignorant to the value of things they put in the Vault, or they are purposefully listing bad deals for players.
 

If many of the traps are intended to drain leftover acclaim, then they should be unlocked once a player completes the rest of the purchases. Don’t litter in terrible deals among the decent, good, and great purchases. Experienced players aren’t going to bite on them. All you are doing is setting up the eventual bad experience for newer players once they realize the game itself has scammed them.

[kharmin.7683]

Caveat emptor

[Ashantara.8731]

2 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Caveat emptor

How are newbies supposed to check the value of non-tradeable items like Obsidian Shards or Mystic Clover?

[Randulf.7614]

Please stop using the word scam. Some of those aren't great items (some of them arent as bad as you make out). Having seen people genuinely scammed in real life it is pretty appauling to see people apply that word here when it isn't appropriate or correct.

There is zero chance Anet will even read let alone acknowledge feedback when it is put forward in such a manner

[Gravitron.7982]

6 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

How are newbies supposed to check the value of non-tradeable items like Obsidian Shards or Mystic Clover?

Don't you know? Before any new player starts a game, they ALWAYS check the wiki before even downloading the free trial remember??

[Redfeather.6401]

53 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Caveat emptor

Yeah let's stick that in the bin with Vae Victis. 🥴

[ugrakarma.9416]

Soto is heavy on noob traps, i wont even mention relics itself...., i remember when i started gw2 i barely know whats is a elite skills, and very later i discovered they designed to have longer cooldowns.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Just because it looks like a trap to you, does not mean it is one for other players. For a veteran player with a decent amount of experience, those items are not very useful indeed. We either know better ways to obtain them or are using alternatives.

Why would someone with a right mind buy Obsidian Shards in the Wizard's Vault?
If you decided to google/look it up, you will find plenty of ways to obtain those. There are countless of vendors which sell them, given you have the proper currencies hoarded. They can be looted from certain chests, given you are in the right place at the right time. What all those methods share in common is, that you need additional effort to acquire those shards, compared to just exchanging them for Astral Acclaim at the Wizard's Vault.

Let us say you are an adult, which applies to a lot of players, who has a rather busy RL. Let us say you can play < 30 min per day and you just don't have the power to speedclear T4+CM dailies, because you are tired as kitten. However you realize you are short of Obsidian Shards to complete a task. Every of the methods you find on the wiki and other information-sources require both additional preparation and time investment. Both rather limited resources for you. But you have a small stack of AA and if you use that option, you can continue with your task.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of people who would go for this option if the VW also had time-gated ascended materials, crystalline ore and other time-consuming farm-items.

[ArchonWing.9480]

I don't mind the meme items as you may run out of stuff to buy eventually, but you'd think they'd not be so stingy. Like that revive orb should be a pack of 5. I really don't think a few extra revive orbs will break the game. The other thing is they should really do is  hide the 30/1 gold item until you've exhausted the 6/1 gold one.

Also an equipment template would have actually been nice.

Edited September 1, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[notebene.3190]

I fell for a few of those, but under the guise of thinking about it in terms of wanting to make sure I got at least what I used to get for the first month, then pay more attention to other things. Using this as a baseline, I made sure I got things like mystic coins (just as much as I got in 28 days before), laurels, transmutations, few other things. Went light on tomes, or maybe none, as I have plenty, and I use them for the weekly key run. Obviously no luck or other things that were throw away to me before, and one of the reasons the new vault shines.

But then I got a Vision Crystal. Because...I used to pick that option in the chest of loyalty. I wasn't working on legendaries. Didn't need 20 'more' laurels beyond what I was already getting. Seemed like making sure I had ascended mats was a good thing. So without really thinking about it, I bought it.

In hindsight, not really smart, but now that the dust has settled and there's lots of "why this is good / why this is bad" videos, I learned my lesson and won't pick them again. But yeah, they got me, I guess. 🤓

[Luthan.5236]

Not all of that stuff is a "trap". There are a lot of problematic things in the game - for newbs. Especially the non-bound festival stuff that is for like 100 currency (worth a lot if sold directly to the tp)  at festival vendors while much cheaper on the trading post.

I agree on the crafting bags. (We already have a laurel vendor also offering crafting stuff.) Luck essence also does not seem worth it. Obsidian shard seems the most hilarious since you get them from a lot of different sources super cheap. Even new players can have a lot of options. No big karma farm or festival needed. (They also drop from chests in Silverwastes.)

But ... the revive orb is a gem store item. (They sell it super expensive lol.) It's just that it is not really needed. (New players might buy it when they don't really need it.) And before the change in the daily system you could get a lot of these from login rewards. (I also got a ton of trading post expresses to fully upgrade my guild and never have to use gems for such stuff - needed for a few guild upgrades. They should add those to the vault as well.) When you need/want it ... it is worth the price though. I guess.

Similar for vision crystals. I think they are not the small (lesser) version but the normal/full one? Yeah you can get most gear without them. But some other achievements/collections might need them and if you don't have crafting leveled yet they might be an option at the vault.

The build storage is interesting - nice to max this and to get have it ingame. There are people to like to do that. Similar for build template slots. I got that stuff early from the vault. Gold essence does not seem worth it - but for maximizing and since there are no other sources? I think it should be cheaper though. It was easier to gain those from the previous system. (Much more in the same period of time.)

[Danikat.8537]

Why are revive orbs in that list? That's one of the things I might actually buy. Is it because someone's done the maths and at the time they looked it was cheaper to get gold, convert it to gems and buy them from the gem store? Or just someone thinks revive orbs aren't worth buying?

I suspect luck is only included because it was one of the login rewards, but then I think they made sure to include all the items you got from the login rewards because otherwise I'm certain someone would complain the new system is hurting some group of players who need or want that item.

In general I think it's worth remembering not all players prioritise gold over everything else so just because something doesn't give a good gold return (either by making or saving gold) doesn't mean it's automatically a bad choice for everyone. The time saved compared to other methods, or the certainty of getting it may make it worthwhile for them.
 

7 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Please stop using the word scam. Some of those aren't great items (some of them arent as bad as you make out). Having seen people genuinely scammed in real life it is pretty appauling to see people apply that word here when it isn't appropriate or correct.

There is zero chance Anet will even read let alone acknowledge feedback when it is put forward in such a manner

I agree with this. I know it's popular online to use words with specific and severe meanings for anything anyone doesn't like, but all it does it make it harder to talk about actual scams because it gets people thinking it just means being offered something you don't want to buy.

[Sobx.1758]

7 hours ago, Gravitron.7982 said:

Don't you know? Before any new player starts a game, they ALWAYS check the wiki before even downloading the free trial remember??

And why would a new player suddenly keep buying obsidian shards or mystic clovers without knowing what they are?
Asking in map chat or simply googling something is always an easy -and rather obvious- option to use. 0 pre-emptive wiki studying required for anything here.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Danikat.8537]

8 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And why would a new player suddenly keep buying obsidian shards or mystic clovers without knowing what they are?
Asking in map chat or simply googling something is always an easy -and rather obvious- option to use.

I could possibly see a new player buying mystic clovers because they've seen people in chat talking about needing them or having trouble getting them and assume they'll need them later. I've done that a few times in games (sometimes it's paid off, sometimes I've discovered I was advised to buy a "really useful" item I will never use). It seems less likely with obsidian shards, but mainly because I can't remember seeing anyone discussing them in chat.

That kind of comes to the same thing though - if they don't want to risk getting something they don't need they should find out what it is and what it's for before buying it.

But that applies to everything in the Wizard's Vault and probably most other items in the game. For example they could be told to get the griffon skin because it's only available from the Vault and most skins come from the gem store (and it'll go up in price later) so it's a good choice, then they unlock the skyscale before the griffon and find they're one of those people who never really uses the griffon. (Or they never unlock the griffon because it takes too long and they already have a flying mount.)

Also if the worst mistake you make as a result of making uninformed decisions and/or trusting random people in chat to tell you what to buy is wasting some of your AA on an item which does have a use but can be obtained elsewhere as well that's pretty good. Kind of like accidentally turning the first 100 green wood planks you slowly gathered and saved to craft with into dowels. It feels devestating at the time but it's not a big problem in the long run and it means you'll remember to be more careful with what you're crafting and hopefully won't make the same mistake with valuable and hard to get materials.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Danikat.8537