Wintersday Rewards Update

[RoseofGilead.8907]

@Hesacon.8735 said:Can we get ascended giver's gear yet?

I'm pretty sure I saw Tixx Givers Insignia/Inscription recipes on the Wintersday vendor.

[Pifil.5193]

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Knight In Shining Armor.1708" said:Question about high tier old snowflakes: at what rate do they down convert? Do we get more new snowflakes per higher tier old snowflakes? Or is it 1:1 conversion for any old snowflake?

The old high tiers give you more of the new currency. One Flawless Snowflake, for example, converts into 10 of the new Snowflake.

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"mtpelion.4562" said:

A Flawless Snowflake was equal to 32 Tiny Snowflakes. Does this mean it takes 3 Tiny Snowflakes to make one of the new Snowflakes, or will I be losing snowflakes by trading in the higher tier ones?

Tiny Snowflakes convert into the new Snowflake 1 to 1.

I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

Is it intended that we lose out when converting Pristine snowflakes to the new ones?

[Sir Auris.3476]

In my opinion the rate that Flawless Snowflake converts to the new Snoeflake ist just to low. This rate punishes anybody who used to store all Snowflakes in the highest possible quality. Before the patch hit we could just salvage the Flawless Snowflake to get 32 tiny snowflakes. Now I'm getting 10 new Snowflakes for a Flawless Snowflake. That's a loss of 68.75%. I don't think this is fair.

Theoratically I Just could have salvaged my 2,000 Flawless Snowflakes and get 64,000 Tiny Snowflakes. Now I'm just getting 20,000 of the new Snowflakes.

I can understand that converting 1 Flawless Snowflake to 32 new Snowflakes could be a market crasher. But 1:10 doesn't feel right.

[Mc Payne.7534]

So trying to complete the Winter's Presence collection. Post Wintersday game release, 3 of the 10 items still report needing flawless snowflakes in the mystic forge in their in game descriptions. I already converted my different tiers of snowflakes into Snow Diamonds before realizing this. Is the mystic forge recipe actually different now? Or do I need to waste a bunch more money on the trading post to re-aquire the old snowlakes??

[Taelac.7036]

Has anyone been to the guild hall decorations trader to see if the Piles of Snow have been updated to require the new snowflakes, or do they still use the old ones?

[Pifil.5193]

@Sir Auris.3476 said:In my opinion the rate that Flawless Snowflake converts to the new Snoeflake ist just to low. This rate punishes anybody who used to store all Snowflakes in the highest possible quality. Before the patch hit we could just salvage the Flawless Snowflake to get 32 tiny snowflakes. Now I'm getting 10 new Snowflakes for a Flawless Snowflake. That's a loss of 68.75%. I don't think this is fair.

Theoratically I Just could have salvaged my 2,000 Flawless Snowflakes and get 64,000 Tiny Snowflakes. Now I'm just getting 20,000 of the new Snowflakes.

I can understand that converting 1 Flawless Snowflake to 32 new Snowflakes could be a market crasher. But 1:10 doesn't feel right.

This is exactly it, can someone at ArenaNet address why they thought that effectively deleting over two thirds of the value of an item was OK?

I have 569 flawless Snowflakes in my bank ATM, that's apparently going to get me 5,690 new Snowflakes, not the 18,208 it should be worth.

[Alexander Youngblood II.93]

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Is it intended that we lose out when converting Pristine snowflakes to the new ones?

Following the old values, there is a conversion loss, yes. This is a consequence of moving to this new system.

@Sir Auris.3476 said:

Theoratically I Just could have salvaged my 2,000 Flawless Snowflakes and get 64,000 Tiny Snowflakes. Now I'm just getting 20,000 of the new Snowflakes.

There are often ways to theoretically have benefitted from insider knowledge about economic changes.

[ThunderRonn.7615]

How do I get an arctic fox mini?

[Bugabuga.9721]

The good feeling is gone :disappointed:

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

a) Trading post?b) Inventory?

This sounds really bad. I guess those who didn't combine them before win and those who did (because inventory crunch) get punished by 2/3rd of the snowflake value. Why? :anguished:

[crashburntoo.7431]

I didn't think about the Trading Post... early awareness exploitation is certainly possible unless all snowflake transactions were nullified and made impossible with the patch.

[Mikal Dynath.6195]

Yeah ... this is utter crap. Of course the majority of people upgraded to Pristines, they were the 'go to' currency before.

I get it, there's no way to change back Pristines now ... but that doesn't answer why the decision was made to screw over everyone with the exchange.

[DedTreeJig.3245]

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

[crashburntoo.7431]

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

But they also adjusted the market value with the new currency.

Folks, please look at the recipes and vendor uses to evaluate how far your "old" currency is still going by applying the conversion factors. Nobody is being ripped off with this economic change.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

In fact, the value of all flakes increased on the TP. The pristines just didn't increase by as much.

[Yasi.9065]

@"Mikal Dynath.6195" said:Yeah ... this is utter crap. Of course the majority of people upgraded to Pristines, they were the 'go to' currency before.

I get it, there's no way to change back Pristines now ... but that doesn't answer why the decision was made to screw over everyone with the exchange.

Because it probably was easier to look at the amount of snowflakes already in the game and go from there to find a proper conversion rate, then the other way around.

Sorry, I dont see the problem. Since you cant convert to tiny back anymore, nobody got "screwed". If you still could do that AND the conversion rates would be like that, then yes. But thats not the case. You'd rather have had other conversion rates? The result would have been "3 tiny convert to 1 new", leaving you hanging if you have 2 left.

No, this is fine as it is.

[Pifil.5193]

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Is it intended that we lose out when converting Pristine snowflakes to the new ones?

Following the old values, there is a conversion loss, yes. This is a consequence of moving to this new system.

Misleading? Really?

Sure, now it's not true. But that's because you decided to introduce a new item that drastically devalued the old ones. It was true up right until the moment you released the patch and decided to change it. It's also worth pointing out that this is not some theoretical value either, a Flawless Snowflake was worth exactly 32 Tiny Snowflakes, you could convert Tiny Snowflakes to Flawless ones and back no problems.

Also saying this was a consequence of moving to this new system seems a bit misleading to me. It sounds like an attempt to make this sound like some kind of unavoidable side effect. This was a deliberate decision that you guys made to reduce the value of peoples banked Snowflakes. You could have given people 32 snowflakes per Flawless Snowflake (what they were worth up until the moment you changed the system) but you decided not to.

[DedTreeJig.3245]

@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

But they also adjusted the market value with the new currency.

Folks, please look at the recipes and vendor uses to evaluate how far your "old" currency is still going by applying the conversion factors. Nobody is being ripped off with this economic change.

Edit: Does this mean the value of the tiny snowflake decreased to maintain balance?

[ThomasC.1056]

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Pure absolute nonsense. Given the flawless snowflakes (vs. tiny snowflakes) stock is a direct heritage from their previous conversion rate, eventhough they're not worth anything now doesn't mean that the previous conversion isn't relevant. It's still the key to their relative value. Or let me rephrase what everyone is telling : A = 32B. Everyone agrees on that one, even the devs, because it's "no longer true" (which means it used to be), and as A and B have no use now, there's no reason to say it's wrong unless it's a wintersday's miracle. Now, I summon C with the following properties : C = B and A = 10C. Which leads to 10C = 32C which is 10 = 32. Everything is fine in ANet's wonderful world.

The core thing is you're actually admitting you scrapped their relative value to less than a third of what it used to be. Just tell it like this : you snapped your fingers, and the value dropped by 68%. That way, it's not misleading. Wasn't there any way to move to the new system without the conversion loss ?

[crashburntoo.7431]

Speculative insight... They moved from a Base 2 to a Base 10 system and used a 1:1 ratio of tiny to snowflake as the reference point. There are rounding errors and the potential for unintended benefits for those that saved large quantities of lower tier snowflakes. However, those people paid a real estate price over time by storing mats in that form, so magnification of their impact now is a boon that didn't come without any cost.

The new system will work out just fine. I'm happy about the consolidation and future benefits, and I'm happy for those that may benefit from having lots of lower tier materials. There's likely very few people in that situation, and I would guess the literal number of materials is low as well.

[Bugabuga.9721]

@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

But they also adjusted the market value with the new currency.

Folks, please look at the recipes and vendor uses to evaluate how far your "old" currency is still going by applying the conversion factors. Nobody is being ripped off with this economic change.

Eh? The recipe thing basically assumes you only had tiny snowflake before. All you have to do is to compare:

• someone who has 320 tiny snowflakes -> gets 320 new snowflakes, gets to use them at vendor/recipe.
• someone who had 10 flawless snowflakes (converted those 320 tiny snowflakes) -> gets 100 new snowflakes, receives 2/3 less from new vendor/recipe.

[ThomasC.1056]

@"crashburntoo.7431" said:Speculative insight... They moved from a Base 2 to a Base 10 system and used a 1:1 ratio of tiny to snowflake as the reference point. There are rounding errors

Let me help you with the maths.

If 1 tiny snowflake = 1 new snowflake, then 32 tiny snowflakes = 32 new snowflakes. Now, as 1 flawless snowflakes = 32 tiny snowflakes, then 32 tiny snowflakes =/= 10 new snowflakes. That has nothing to do with a base. And if you think that writing "10" instead of "32" is only a rounding error, then I suggest you to think about how you're supposed to round when you're multiplying integers, in a system that manages integers without any issue.

That's only they wanted to erase them. Fair and square.

[crashburntoo.7431]

@Bugabuga.9721 said:

@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@DeadTreeJig.6714 said:

@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said:

@"Pifil.5193" said:I'm sorry, but I'm don't understand how "the old high tiers give you more of the new currency".

1 tiny Snowflake = 1 new Snowflake.1 Flawless Snowflake = 32 Tiny Snowflakes = 10 new Snowflakes. Not 32.

That is a misleading way to phrase it because it is no longer true. One Flawless snowflake no longer equals 32 Tiny Snowflakes.One Flawless Snowflake is equal to 10 Snowflakes. There is no way to acquire the old Snowflakes so their old values are not relevant when asking what a Flawless Snowflake is worth.

Semantics. The fact is Anet devalued the flawless snowflake.

But they also adjusted the market value with the new currency.

Folks, please look at the recipes and vendor uses to evaluate how far your "old" currency is still going by applying the conversion factors. Nobody is being ripped off with this economic change.

Eh? The recipe thing basically assumes you only had tiny snowflake before. All you have to do is to compare:

• someone who has 320 tiny snowflakes -> gets 320 new snowflakes, gets to use them at vendor/recipe.
• someone who had 10 flawless snowflakes (converted those 320 tiny snowflakes) -> gets 100 new snowflakes, receives 2/3 less from new vendor/recipe.

The cost of some items will be less. Therefore, the "buying power" of your previous flawless snowflakes is fine, relative to everything they could do. The buying power of the tiny snowflakes relative to what they were specifically used for should be the same story. The only situation where people recognize unintended benefits would be if they saved everything as tiny snowflakes. If they intend on using the new currency for uses that used to be for flawless snowflakes, they'll have triple the buying power. My guess is that few people are in that situation.

Overall, it's not a loss of "value", since the snowflakes are useless unless you do something with them. By adjusting the market/recipes/uses along with the currency, you can maintain the buying power. Nobody loses, and very few people are likely to gain a measurable advantage.

Where's John Smith when you need him?

[crashburntoo.7431]

@ThomasC.1056 said:

@"crashburntoo.7431" said:Speculative insight... They moved from a Base 2 to a Base 10 system and used a 1:1 ratio of tiny to snowflake as the reference point. There are rounding errors

Let me help you with the maths.

If 1 tiny snowflake = 1 new snowflake, then 32 tiny snowflakes = 32 new snowflakes. Now, as 1 flawless snowflakes = 32 tiny snowflakes, then 32 tiny snowflakes =/= 10 new snowflakes. That has nothing to do with a base. And if you think that writing "10" instead of "32" is only a rounding error, then I suggest you to think about how you're supposed to round when you're multiplying integers, in a system that manages integers without any issue.

That's only they wanted to erase them. Fair and square.

Binary and Metric don't get along perfectly. Currency conversion required compression. There was no perfect solution, so they did what they could to make it fair. See post above regarding buying power.

Don't get hung up on the numbers.

[Pifil.5193]

@"crashburntoo.7431" said:Speculative insight... They moved from a Base 2 to a Base 10 system and used a 1:1 ratio of tiny to snowflake as the reference point. There are rounding errors and the potential for unintended benefits for those that saved large quantities of lower tier snowflakes. However, those people paid a real estate price over time by storing mats in that form, so magnification of their impact now is a boon that didn't come without any cost.

No. That's not how that works, 11111111 in Binary is 777 in Octal, FF in Hexadecimal and 255 in Decimal. Converting from one radix to the other does NOT result in "rounding errors". The actual value remains 255 regardless of the radix. What they actually did was remove 2/3s of the value of Pristine Snowflakes when they introduced a new item.

[mtpelion.4562]

@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@ThomasC.1056 said:

@crashburntoo.7431 said:Speculative insight... They moved from a Base 2 to a Base 10 system and used a 1:1 ratio of tiny to snowflake as the reference point. There are rounding errors

Let me help you with the maths.

If 1 tiny snowflake = 1 new snowflake, then 32 tiny snowflakes = 32 new snowflakes. Now, as 1 flawless snowflakes = 32 tiny snowflakes, then 32 tiny snowflakes =/= 10 new snowflakes. That has nothing to do with a base. And if you think that writing "10" instead of "32" is only a rounding error, then I suggest you to think about how you're supposed to round when you're multiplying integers, in a system that manages integers without any issue.

That's only they wanted to erase them. Fair and square.

Binary and Metric don't get along perfectly. Currency conversion required compression. There was no perfect solution, so they did what they could to make it fair. See post above regarding buying power.

Don't get hung up on the numbers.

Compression was NOT required. If they felt that 1 Flawless had to equal 10 New then they simply needed to set up an exchange merchant for the equivalencies as follows:

1 Flawless = 10 New1 Pristine = 5 New2 Unique = 5 New4 Glittering = 5 New8 Delicate = 5 New16 Tiny = 5 New

No compression and only SLIGHT loss for the remainders at lower tiers.