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Wintersday Rewards Update


Gaile Gray.6029

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@Pifil.5193 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 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, 0b11111111 in Binary is 0o777 in Octal, 0xFF 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.

Your code knowledge is excellent and far superior to mine. It was meant as an example only. Ultimately, it's a currency conversion that required compression. The value loss is relative to the base only. By compressing the value in the market via recipes and vendors, they've ensured that the buying power remains.

Per @"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" , prior knowledge of the change would have led to exploitation via Tiny Snowflakes. I doubt that this was the case for anyone in any great number.

I've tried my best with several posts here, and I don't think I can explain it any other way. My post count doesn't need to climb on this subject any further... plus, I should likely do real work at work.

Enjoy Wintersday everyone! It's a great game, and I'm looking forward to playing when I get home.

Edit: No new post... :smile: @"mtpelion.4562" , I like your point. It's valid. Compression wasn't necessary; it was chosen. Your system may have been fair, but it would depend on each person's quantity of each of those tiers of snowflakes, since some are "winners" and some are "losers" (relatively). Really going back to work now...

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@crashburntoo.7431 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.

Perfect solution ? Well, just calculate how many tiny snowflakes each tier is worth, and use that very number as the value in "new snowflakes". Easy, smooth, fine and fair.

You won't make me swallow it was a matter of integer coding for such tiny numbers... The only reason it'd require compression is the inventory clutter the conversion of whole stacks of each tier would have created, and eventhough, there're diamonds which are 1000 new snowflake -> 1 diamond as the most powerful source of compression there is.

So please, don't try and use numbers to justify the fact 68% of snowflakes evaporated in a snap by the sheer will of some.

That said, I haven't checked the new prices, so maybe it has no consequences indeed, but as a symbol, it's catastrophic.

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@crashburntoo.7431 said:Ultimately, it's a currency conversion that required compression. The value loss is relative to the base only.

No, it really didn't require it. The value of snowflakes is real, measurable and obvious the value loss is real too.

As an attempt to get this across in real world terms this is basically the same as the US Government deciding to introduce New Dollars. The good news is that Old Dollar Bills will convert into New Dollars at a 1-to-1 ratio! Of course old 50s are now only worth 20 New Dollars and old 10s are only worth 5 New Dollars. How acceptable would that be?

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I converted my old snowflakes to new snowflakes and then I started converting the new ones to Snow Diamonds so as to save storage space. Then I thought to check what you could buy with the diamonds, which turns out to be almost nothing and certainly nothing I want.

Still, storage space issues make it worth doing but first I thought I'd better check that the Snow Diamonds convert back to Snowflakes. Do they? If they do I can't see how. The vendor doesn't appear to trade them back and they don't have a menu option to convert. I realize it's probably a moot point since in practise I doubt I will ever use any of them for anything but still, I'd like to know for sure before I convert the rest.

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@Pifil.5193 said:

@crashburntoo.7431 said:Ultimately, it's a currency conversion that required compression. The value loss is relative to the base only.

No, it really didn't require it. The value of snowflakes is real, measurable and obvious the value loss is real too.

As an attempt to get this across in real world terms this is basically the same as the US Government deciding to introduce New Dollars. The good news is that Old Dollar Bills will convert into New Dollars at a 1-to-1 ratio! Of course old 50s are now only worth 20 New Dollars and old 10s are only worth 5 New Dollars. How acceptable would that be?

Whatever you're saying is irrelevant and misleading, because as old dollars don't have value anymore, you can't say that a 10s is worth 10 old dollars, because it's now worth 5 new dollars.

/sarcasm

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@crashburntoo.7431 said:

@"Bugabuga.9721" said:

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?

It is a loss of value if you stored them as higher tier snowflakes (because bank limits and you didn't expect it to be nuked).If I converted my 320 tiny snowflake to store as 10 flawless snowflakes, I can't buy as many things from vendor as a guy/gal who just stored them as tiny snowflakes outright in the bank. The only difference would be how we stored our snowflakes. The outcome = you can't buy the same amount if you converted them.

Again:Person A : 320 tiny snowflakes in the bank = from today can buy 32 shinies that cost 10 new snowflakes.Person B : Had 320 tiny snowflakes, merged them into 10 flawless snowflakes in the bank = from today can buy 10 shinies that cost 10 new snowflakes.

Started with same amount of snowflakes, stored differently, get vastly different results from new system. Loss of value.

It doesn't matter what the price of item at the vendor is.

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@"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.

I think it's not that misleading at all, it's just that flawless snowflakes are (ideally speaking) 32 times a tiny snowflake. Turning flawless snowflakes in for 10 snowflakes just feels like you devalued flawless snowflakes by 1/3rd of the value.

Saying it's not relevant is not taking into consideration what people do to prepare for an anual event such as wintersday. Our guild took the notion of wintersday as a reason to gather flawless snowflakes for our guild, While we mostly had them from previous years and not just gotten them as tiny snowflakes, I'm sure we also converted tiny snowflakes into flawless snowflakes for space. basically crippling our gathering.

Though, instead of saying it's misleading and not relevant, you should point out that usages of snowflakes are also lessened.Like:1 snow pile decoration used to be 100 flawless snowflakes or 3200 tiny snowflakesand now that it only uses snowflakes that is1 snow pile decoration uses only 10 flawless snowflakes (or 320 tiny snowflakes) or 100 tiny snowflakes if you convert them.

But , you could be a bit more understanding imo. :pensive:

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@Gaile Gray.6029 said:A message from Alexander Youngblood:

Three years ago I made it my mission to make Wintersday rewards much more simple, straightforward, and fun. The objective was to remove the excessive number of items that were hard to get rid of in favor of items that were either fun to use or were actually useful in some way.

Loved the idea, sadly, it seems sigil and rune from wintersday were forgotten. One more time. Still really expensive and almost impossible to get without any good reason...

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@Pifil.5193 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.

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.

This. The players are not the ones being misleading here. Just admit you nerfed the amount of snowflakes, and don't try to make cheap excuses.

Kinda disappointed with the economic changes this patch, first snowflakes and then rose quartz. Respect your players a bit more, please.

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I just accept Anet likes to lessen the value of things because they can. Did I get ripped off? Yes. Can I do anything about it? Not really. Anet can fully ignore me calling BS on them. Compression wasn't necessary, they just wanted to lessen the value of what we got from previous years when introducing the new currency. They didn't have to nerf it, but they Wanted to nerf it. Is it a scummy move? Yes. Is it within their rights? Yes.

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@Bugabuga.9721 said:It is a loss of value if you stored them as higher tier snowflakes (because bank limits and you didn't expect it to be nuked).

On the contrary, the value of all flakes spiked today. It's a net gain in value no matter how you stored them. (If you stored tinies, the boost is the most efficient; if pristines, it's still a big boost, just not 32x as much.)

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@"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:so how the hell do people make stuff with the old snowflakes?!https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flawless_Snowflake ????

You can't anymore from the sounds of things. A dev on on page 1 pretty much said that all crafting recipes, guild decorations, etc., have been converted to use the new type of snowflake only. The only thing you can do with your old snowflakes is convert them into the new type of snowflake.

I love this idea of simplifying things. For those worried about the economy: like everything else, things will balance out over time.

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@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" 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.

Bit disappointed, it should have been a straight up conversion. Insider knowledge wouldn't have even been a factor here as there would have been no benefit to do anything before hand, however given the change it becomes relevant. I, like others, stored the highest level because we could convert freely... then the rules changed for no real good reason.

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@"Lonami.2987" said:This. The players are not the ones being misleading here. Just admit you nerfed the amount of snowflakes, and don't try to make cheap excuses.

Kinda disappointed with the economic changes this patch, first snowflakes and then rose quartz. Respect your players a bit more, please.

Taking his comment at face value is not smart though, for wintersday decorations it's a huge buff, We have 10k ish flawless snowflakes expecting to have like 100 piles of snow worth. Instead we have 1.000 piles of snow worth. You could ofcourse argue it "could have been more if we stored them as tiny snowflakes only" but in the end it's still ten percent the original cost. and really I won't be too picky between a 90% nerf and a 97% nerf of the costs.

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@crashburntoo.7431 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?

They could let us deconstruct all our snowflakes to tiny before converting to the new currency and everything would have been fine.

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@Allisa Wonderland.8192 said:

@"crashburntoo.7431" said:Where's John Smith when you need him?

He left a while back...

So much for people telling him he didn't know how to do his job.. this is what we get from the replacement. Ha! Oh I miss you Mr. Smith!!

I don't. It's not like he would have done it any better - he was well known for "economizing" at the expense of players.

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@"Alexander Youngblood II.9341" said: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.

This is such a ridiculously nonsensical thing to say that it actually hurts to read; I'm legitimately curious as to the state of mind that allows someone to post something like this without realizing how unbelievably asinine it looks.

There are plenty of systems that are fiat backed and require adjustments from time to time, oddly enough, precisely no adjustment ever has been successfully justified based on the logic of "Sinse under the new rules the value of this object is exactly equal to the value of this object, everything is completely fair and comparing it to it's old value is dishonest, because I've said it's not worth that much anymore". I'm struggling to properly describe exactly what's wrong with this situation, presumably because it's the sort of thing that's so obvious it's actually difficult to comprehend how someone could get it so wrong. So I think it'll be clearest if I tackle this as one might in a context we're we might reasonably expect to see this sort of misapprehension; obviously, I will be explaining this as one might a simple truth to a small child.

Just because someone can do something, doesn't make that thing right; you should always think for yourself, and not be afraid to find another adult if someone starts doing anything you don't feel comfortable with, alright?

Assuming I somehow had to explain this to an adult, I might point out that appeals to authority don't actually tend to mean anything; especially when the appeal is self-referentially made by authority.

My incredulity on the topic is competing with several other misapprehensions though, the condescension in particular though. Because let's be honest here, it's not very hard to write some platitude that isn't obnoxiously condescending

@"Try this"We can't guarantee the value of all items in the game, particularly when systems aren't performing as intended and adjustments have to be made; obviously, we understand and regret that this situation can affect people adversely and disproportionately, but we can't let that stop us from trying to make improvements.We've worked hard on this new system though, and we believe that it will be both more fair and rewarding to players in the long term.

or

@"Darth Vader"I've altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further.

Instead, we got something completely nonsensical and quite condescending, clearly, this was the best of both worlds.

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