Path of Fire Material Storage

[Alchofas.8243]

I don't think this will affect inventory space that much.

If we're only restricted from depositing POF materials for about a week or so, I don't really think this will affect our inventory space that much, this is only if the identification system works as we expected, that most green gears we obtain will just stack as materials does, this means our inventory won't be as clogged then as it is now. Thereby means we will also have space for the new materials to stack.

This is not saying that i agree with anet's decision. I actually don't like how they are doing this to manipulate the market, especially as the game masters. Saving our materials and selling them when it's high is a common strategy, and it is wrong for anet to restrict a feature to manipulate the market.

[That Guy.5704]

If I cant be certain I know what an item is used for, I'm certainly not going to sell it. I am definitely not going to be selling alot of any of whatever these are. So, I can tell you exactly what my behavior will be come PoF. these items will stack in the bags of my individual characters to be moved to my bank when I get the opportunity. They will then be moved from my bank to a mule when I clean my bank. Thats it. The only thing this does for me is complicate inventory wars. There are plenty of people that are going to do similarly, that will not see this post, and will just come and complain why these items arent in the material storage and ask why they need to consume a bank space.

It sounds like a clever idea to push them onto the market initially, but it will likely cause more detriment and headaches for players than its worth. You know what pushes things onto the market? High prices and reliable purposeful sources. Whatever these items are, if they are needed in quantities that you are worried about but are also actually available to be purposefully created within PoF, then a high price will move them toward being farmed to sell which will increase supply on the tp.

The reason flax was so crazy expensive was because of the sheer volume that was needed by everyone for guild halls. when people need a ton of something, they hang on to it. They werent going to go to make a vial of linseed oil every time they had enough flax, they stash it away and craft when they have what they need. This might look like aggregate hoarding to a spreadsheet tracking pent up supply, but its not a representation of reality.

If there are items like flax again, have some npcs point players in the direction of farms or something through ambient dialog or an escort event, dont complicate inventory wars. Or, and I am less a fan of this idea, If this is really anticipated to be this big an issue, have an npc nearby any farm there may be or in amnoon selling these items at a limited number per account per day at a price roughly 2-3x that of your anticipated longterm equilibrium. That would put a cap on the initial tp price and you could remove this vender or at least the vender functionality after, say, 4 weeks.

EDIT: I know this is now lost in the thread but I forgot something. While flax was in high demand due to guild halls 1)Halloween was also released along side HoT 2) Diminishing returns was finally and rightfully removed from the mad kings Lab and 3) 2015 Halloween released the Nightfury shoulders which required 6000 (thats 24 stacks) of flax seed. So, Not only was there high guild hall demand, but a portion of the population was not in HoT generating flax but was instead generating candy corn causing an otherwise lower supply of flax and Nightfury was brand new causing an increase in demand since it needed 6k for 1 person to make the shoulders. And yet, Flax seed STILL stabilized to its longterm equlibrium in about 4 weeks.

[Faeyas.2816]

The reason Flax was so horribly expensive when HoT launched was because you created a really flax expensive recipe that you didn't overtly give us the recipe for, for an item EVERYONE wanted and was ascended... AT THE SAME TIME.

So ANY flax we found was immediately put towards THAT and since we were looking for a LOT of it off the bat, it appeared more scarce than it was, since expectations were set by the recipe to make it appear as if the material should be more abundant than it was despite being plentiful.

Further it was being bought from the TP quickly for similar reasons, people needed a lot, and no one had time to collect any of it prior to needing a lot of it.

This more accurately explains the hording mentality of flax, and the feeling that it was scarce.

So long as you don't plan to release an in-demand gigantic recipe that needs a whole lot of a single new Material Day One, I don't see you having the same problem.

[Zenith.7301]

This is going to be so annoying. I've got 160 slots and already 90 of them are filled by items I cannot deposit in the storage, as well as the multiple armor sets I need to carry around.

This to me stinks of trying to force people to buy your portable black lion merchants, because that's what it going to take considering your maps have less waypoints which means I can't just pop over to a merchant to empty my bags and quickly be back in action.

[Zaklex.6308]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Charrbeque.8729 said:The problem is - as Gaile point out about flax seeds, and other devs have mentioned in the past - is that for some items, there is already plenty of supply in the game. For one reason or another some players are hoarding tons of them in their banks instead of selling them.

But the problem is, there

wasn't

plenty of supply at the launch of HoT. There was plenty of supply in the long term, but not plenty of supply

at launch.

Think of it like, say, Barbecue charcoal. Let's say that a community is on record as using exactly 1200 bags of charcoal per year to barbecue. Now, what would that amount to, 100 bags per month, right? So let's say that the local store carries exactly 100 bags at any given time. And let's say that they start doing this in June. Well the early summer holidays roll along, and they only have 100 bags in stock. People come in, demanding a total of around 400 bags, and another 300 the next month, and 200 the next. Most people that wanted it could not get it because the supply was way lower than the demand. And then there's almost no demand over the next nine months, while the same 100 bags keeps rolling in each month and piling up.

That's the situation we had with HoT, the mechanisms to deliver resources like Flax were perfectly fine over long periods of time, but they could not remotely keep up with the early demand of people who wanted to max out all the new stuff as quickly as possible.

So, to make the economy stable, the solution has nothing whatsoever to do with limiting hoarding. The solution is to greatly increase supply early on, WAY above the "healthy, stable" level that you eventually want to reach, to adequately satisfy the early, unusually high levels of demand. Then, once that demand tapers off, once people are mostly using the materials for long term projects like potions or whatever, then you can taper off supply to just sustain that long term demand. To go back to that charcoal example, you'd want to stock at least 500 supply that first June, 300 in July, 300 in August, and then 100 or so each subsequent month, so that by the next June you'd have the 1200 you'd need for the summer.

I'm going to use your charcoal example to prove how that is bad marketing and sales. So you know the community needs 1200 bags over say a 3 month period, the busiest season, but as a supplier you don't want to only have the stock on hand for a short time...so what you want to do is encourage your customers/users to not wait until the last minute to obtain their "charcoal", but instead to make small "purchases" throughout the year, knowing full well that you''ll only carry 100 bags a month means that anyone that wants "charcoal" should begin obtaining at the first of the year...and NOT RUSH to make what ever it is the item is required to make. In other words, what's the damned hurry to make stuff the very first week, this is one reason people run out of things to do so soon, because they need that instant gratification rather than just taking their time to obtain and craft.

[cap.5068]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:With the arrival of Path of Fire, many new materials and components will be added to Material Storage. But for a handful of items, we've specifically decided not to start with them in Material Storage, and instead to add them to the storage system later. Why? Well, at the launch of Heart of Thorns, we noticed a peculiar behavior: most players will deposit first when clearing their inventory, and then proceed to take actions like salvaging, opening chests, or, crucially, putting items on the Trading Post. This tended to mean that before a player will post an item on the Trading Post, they'll wait to accrue a full stack in their Material Storage. During the early period of Heart of Thorns, this significantly contributed to the early expense of flax, which was abundantly available but, for the most part, was "warehoused" in the banks of players.

In an experiment to see if we can combat the early steep price of a handful of materials, we will launch Path of Fire without those items being depositable. Once we are comfortable with the supply and price—which we believe should become apparent in weeks, not months—we will add them to material storage.

We know how important inventory space is to players, and we take seriously how much of your time is spent playing versus managing your play. Hopefully, this decision will help ensure a steady supply of materials to the market, without unduly burdening your bags.

a big reason for that was because the Guild Halls system was released and it required quite a large amount of flax. People was rushing to complete it and was not keen on selling but instead deposited for later donations towards the guild.

[Rayti.6531]

I'm just glad I have my bank, merch, etc. with me all the time (endless versions) - but I feel sorry for all players who don't have those convenience items.

First of all, don't get me wrong: I understand what you are trying to achieve, it's just that I don't think you will with the measures you have chosen (at least not to such a degree it makes much of a difference).

I for my part will always follow the following procedure: deposit (making space for salvaging, since I usually do that when my inventory is already FULL or close to full), salvage, deposit once again, repeat if necessary, sell sigils/runes/junk. If I can't deposit to material storage due to hitting the 2k cap -> I either sell ~one stack of that material (if I think I won't need over 2k) or move a few stacks to my guild bank (if I feel like I might need more of said material), and then I deposit again.

So to sum this up: The decision whether or not to sell mats is not based on whether I can deposit a material to material storage. It's based on whether or not I think I (or my guild) will need this material in the future. If I think the material is useful, I will stuff my material storage (or bank) with that material until I have enough for my own use and then I sell the excess. If I run out of inventory and bank space and you don't let me deposit new materials in the material storage, then I'm sure I will find a twink or two where I can store my mats until I feel like I have enough of them. I'm also quite sure I'm not alone with this.

All you generate by not adding new materials to the material storage is inconvenience -> and I don't think that's the best thing you can do...

[Edan.6210]

Okay, I am going to clean up 3 bank tabs to combat this annoying decision.Meanwhile I am already storing materials on alts after the 2k cap, this is not the way to stop hoarders but annoy normal players.

[Halvaard.1034]

@Zenith.7301 said:I can't just pop over to a merchant to empty my bags and quickly be back in action.

Are you part of a guild? Press [G], go to guild hall, vendor junk, use scribing station to bank undepositables.

[Zephyra.4709]

Thanks for the heads up.

Unfortunately I respectfully disagree (to an extent) with what you have planned as I think it will make little to no difference; players will simply 'hoard' these stacks of items in their banks, mule characters and even guild banks which no doubt - annoys players since that space could've been used by legitimate non-materials. For that reason, I think it's crucial for the enjoyment and benefit of players initially on launch to have the freedom of choice; ability to deposit those specific materials into storage if they wish. What we do not know is how many materials you have decided to not be 'deposit-able'. I'd like to believe less than a handful.

Either way, thank you for informing us.

[waimser.7298]

So in short... Dont play POF content until this is changed back to normal material behavior. Thanks for the warning to avoid your new content guys!

People are going to bank the stuff anyway incase they need it later. Plus, most people will most likly wait till they have a large amount of something before they sell it anyway.NOBODY wants to open the slow as heck tp interface every time they get a havlf dozen of an item, its FAR more time efficient to do it once with a full stack.THINK ABOUT THIS! Even if you sell the item on the tp, that inventory slot will fill up again the very next time you obtain the item. You gain literally nothing by spending all that time on the tp.

All this change is going to do os fill up players onventory and make the already annoying inventory management that much worse.

WHY DO PEOPLE DEPOSIT BEFORE SALVAGING?They do it to clear their inventory before opening a bunch of bags. Since bagsoften contain materials, they need tp perform this multiple times per stack of bags or quickly run out of room for all the other things tat come from the bags. This works because the bags dont always contain the same materials so the instant refilling by the same item i described erlier isnt the issue.

With the change, players will have to have the tp permanantly open, and spend ridiculous amounts of time selling individual items, just to be able to open a small stack of loot bags. The occasional 2 quick clicks is going to be rlaced with agonizing, individual selling of small amounts of items. This will very quickly add up to HOURS of lost play time.Sure, this MIGHT achieve your goal of getting some of these items on the tp sooner, but is it really worth angering the entirety of your player base?

One of the great things about mmos with tps is the enjoyment of playing twith the player driven economy. Trying to find ways to make extra money out of new items is a big part of the game for a lot of people, and you want to try and take tat away from them.

This will be a HUGE downgrade to player quality of life. Have you so quickly forgotten the outcry over the reduced quality of life when HOT released?

But hey... Gotta sell those extra inventory spaces right!

[Assic.2746]

So now players are being incentivised to actually sell new crafting materials to free inventory space.

[odrez.8409]

Thank you for telling us in advance and I am looking forward to see if it changes the eary market spikes.

But please consider that selling in smaller batches is annoying and people will still avoid that. Losing that inventory space you just freed up 5 minutes later to the same Item is a noticable frustration. You can easily compare this to magic find - even hitting consume all every few minutes gets repetetive, so I just let them stack up to consume them in bulk.

I don't think this will work out for you the way you think. More so, I am afraid not all people will read this message and stir up things about inventory management and having to buy bag slots. I would be very careful with these experiments.

I personally liked the market being a chaos in the first days of HoT. It resembled the excitement people had.

[Calsie.2501]

I was enjoying being excited for PoF. Now I'm kind of irritated. Depositing crafting materials to storage was one of those things that set GW2 apart. I recently bought bank tabs and storage expanders, and cleaned up my bank all nice and tidy for launch. And now I get to look forward to Inventory Management hassles again.

FYI ANet, I am NOT going to sell things because you think I should. I'm going to keep the things I'm going to need .... Just like I always have. I'm just going to be grumpy while I do it.

[thrag.9740]

I appreciate the straight forward communication. I don't know if it'll work, but thats why you run the experiment.

[funKShun.4136]

Make a new character, fill it with 20 slot bags and fill the bags with mats.

[Ohoni.6057]

@Samnang.1879 said:It's an inconvenience, but I don't think it's a bad idea. It seems reasonable to me in order to stabilize the price of particular items.

As I said on the first page, this is not a solution for stabilizing prices, because the problem when HoT launched was not players accidentally hoarding materials, it was players NEEDING more materials that nobody had. The solution has nothing to do with material storage, it's in temporarily flooding the market with these materials at the expansion's launch, when players are rushing to make all the things that can be made, and then once that initial rush is over the natural supply faucets can keep up with the natural demand.

@BluJasmine.2190 said:Here's the thing, folks. While you may agree/disagree with Gaile on this, she is in fact, just the messenger. If you want to get mad, get mad, but don't blame Gaile for just relaying this

I don't think anyone's "blaming Gaile," but this is the thread in which the move was announced, so this is where we are conveying our views to Arenanet on the choice that someone at the company made.

They know who they are.

@That Guy.5704 said:If I cant be certain I know what an item is used for, I'm certainly not going to sell it

This is another useful point, I NEVER sell anything unless I know exactly what it's useful for and that I will be able to get it back later at a lower price. If I am unsure of the drop rates, or unsure of the uses, then nothing will stop me hoarding it. If they want us to sell things, they need to reduce uncertainty by convincing us that we'll never actually need the things again.

@Zaklex.6308 said:

I'm going to use your charcoal example to prove how that is bad marketing and sales. So you know the community needs 1200 bags over say a 3 month period, the busiest season, but as a supplier you don't want to only have the stock on hand for a short time...so what you want to do is encourage your customers/users to not wait until the last minute to obtain their "charcoal", but instead to make small "purchases" throughout the year, knowing full well that you''ll only carry 100 bags a month means that anyone that wants "charcoal" should begin obtaining at the first of the year...and NOT RUSH to make what ever it is the item is required to make. In other words, what's the damned hurry to make stuff the very first week, this is one reason people run out of things to do so soon, because they need that instant gratification rather than just taking their time to obtain and craft.

An interesting example but completely irrelevant to the actual game. Here are the facts: 1. The expansion will be dropping in a few days. 2. When it does, there will be new recipes of varying kinds that will require new materials. 3. Nobody will have any of these materials, so supply will start at zero. 4. Many players will want these things sooner rather than later, so they will spend what they find and buy what they can't, depleting the limited surplus available.

Your proposal would work great, with perfect humans, but humans are not perfect. Build for the players you have, not the players you'd want. The players ANet, or any game really, has, are players that want to devour the new like locusts, and will be disgruntled when the systems make that inefficient. Again, demand will be extraordinarily high for the first couple months, so supply should be extraordinarily high to match that. Once the initial demand has been sated, the supply sources can fall back to a more mellow level, one capable of sustaining latecomers, patient players, and to supply new recipes that more slowly trickle in over the Living World.

[Voreo Sabrae.5416]

@Gaile Gray.6029I don't mind this idea but you guys really should give a free promo item for a bag/bank slot pack for like a couple weeks after PoF drops or at least for the weekend.Please :)

[Vorsakan.8259]

I could see this being more important for PoF than in the past, as in the demo weekend a lot of new items were flying by that actually included 'tooltip' information about their usage i.e. used in crafting x armor or y weapon set.I can see how this does suck for anyone planning to play multiple characters (without a bank express contract), but for my own style I don't mind the prompt to actually a] pay attention to materials b] see how quickly I'm gaining them c] have potential auction house profit right under my nose.

[Epphyx.5078]

Yeah, bagwars again !It took month for HoT for you to figure out that you forgot half the stuff that should have been stored (millstone e.g.) and it took you 4 years to correct mistakes made at launch (looking at you doubloons).And there you start by PURPOSEDLY delaying it.... for weeks ???How long will it take then to fix the mistakes, this time....PoF is not released yet and already I'm disappointed in it.

Pity you did not announce this decision when you launched the sale of PoF. I would have waited to buy it that you corrected this mistake and for the 1rst time since launch we would not have bought ultimate editions.Bah, I learn from my mistake. And won't next expansion.

[Seiken.3176]

I'm pretty sure majority of the player will store more and more without a deposit option as they would with it ...

[Epphyx.5078]

@Halvaard.1034 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:I can't just pop over to a merchant to empty my bags and quickly be back in action.

Are you part of a guild? Press [G], go to guild hall, vendor junk, use scribing station to bank undepositables.

Except you loose whatever map particiaption you could have acquired....

[Carighan.6758]

@TexZero.7910 said:I'd honestly prefer you didn't as saving materials is natural because the recipes are often hidden away.

Exactly this. I didn't bank flax because I was "lazy" or clicked wrong or anything. I did because, well, it's a new material, I will probably need it for some recipes very very soon.

In other words, if you didn't want us to bank things, why do we have a bank? I mean for what other purpose would a material storage exist other than to allow me to keep a warehouse of crafting materials?

[ShakyrNvar.6293]

Personally, leave our limited bag space alone. The only economy that this potentially stimulates is your gem economy (as some players will buy extra bag/bank storage) and it will leave alot of players pissed off with items taking up room, that should be in Material Storage.

If it should go in Material Storage, put it in there from Day 0.

[Voreo Sabrae.5416]

Oh i just realized also!....a use for those Golem Bankers ive had on some characters since launch.