Adorning: Converting Powders to Fragments

Would like to see a tinkered item that could be used to break these things down although I know others may not agree. Perhaps something that can be made by tinkers, used by everyone, takes 1 transmuted product and 5 of that tier's fuel and returns the downconverted products and uses up the device.

The method for doing this is irrelevant, be it a recipe or some other item created by crafters. The point is that the balance of the "lesser" adornment raws is a huge mess right now.
Adornment raws should be a pyramid, with Mana at the top (most rare) and Fragments at the bottom (most common). That's the way the adornment recipes are structured. Unfortunately, "real world" supply does not reflect the intended design.
There needs to be a downward convert function/recipe/item so that the players can even this out and bring the market into balance with intended crafting design.

I think most of the playerbase would support this change as the end result will likely be cheaper, more avialable adorns. However, there may be technical problems or limitations that need to be gotten around. For example, adorning components stack so if they use the existing transmute skill, it would have to be enabled for stacks of items. Also, adornment components are flagged "No-Value" so if there is a specific rule that transmuting all No-Value items is forbidden, this also needs to be rectified. Perhaps talking more about this and how it can be done might nudge this change along quicker - that's my hope at least.

the "down convertion" and the "up" convertion should be the exact same.


ALL trade skill exp should be REMOVED from ALL convertions so people won't level to 450 with out ever actually using any mats.


edit.

people that give more "value" to less common mats need to remember that you're using the "current" market to determine "value" and with this change that market will change. in the current state it would cost 5904.9(frag = 90 gold value, (90*9)*9)*9)/100) plat to make one T9 mana, this is not a balanced market "value" and it's do to unfair mechanics. of course *up* convertion should not be efficient but i thing 1000x it's market value is a bit much.

Davngr1 wrote:

So we can go back to spam creation as the only way to skill-up? No thanks. That's the best part about the current conversions.

+1 to the OP. I'd like to see a powder -> fragment conversion at a ratio of something like 1-3 or 1-4.

Deson wrote:

that makes no sense..

what's the so diffirent about spam creation of actual items vs. conversions? nothing it's the exact same proggress exept that if it does give tradeskill exp and a "down" conversion is implemented people will just convert up and down all the way to 450 using minimal materials. don't quite seem balanced to me, it's like being able to create and break down rares from rare form to common form over and over again untill you're a level cap. quite dumb really can't imagine why anyone would back this.

Davngr1 wrote:

Conversions don't add product to the market. When I upconvert raws, they remain usable materials that can be sold or otherwise utilized. Back when we had to spam create adornments to skill-up, it was pretty much a given that everything done was going to be a loss because everyone else had to do the exact same thing. Now, instead of having massive surpluses of raws I'll never use/sell for a loss and instead of making masses of the exact same adornments everyone else is spamming, I can make those powders into infusions for a point and then actually use it for something of value. All spam creation of actual adorments does is hurt the market. Given the raws still have to be acquired for use, there is no cheap way out. While I'm wary of down conversions at all looking at the market, as long as it's for a loss, it won't be a cheap way to get skill-ups. Of course, we could always just make the upper level adornment raws transmutable to the lower level and that dodges the down conversion skill-up concern altogether. I'd prefer all conversions stay in the purview of adorners but making them transmutable wouldn't be out of place.

Deson wrote:

well if you spam created up conversions and down conversions you're basically cutting your cost by at least 75%(depending on penalty). there has always been a sacrifice/cost of some sort when leveling up a craft and that's a good thing. if this goes live then i request that my other crafters be able to make rares from raws and then be able to break down rares into raws. if exp is not removed from conversions you will bring back the same imbalance that alch's enjoyed with the whole ink thing before the crafting revamp.

the lack of market while leveling up an adorner has less to do with the amount of the adorns and more to do with the lack of demand. when i leveld from 400 to 450 nothing was wasted yet there where many, many adorners doing the exact same thing. now because of the up conversions and the fact that dev's put minimal treasured drops fragments are selling for close to a plat.
that's why i say the make the conversions up and down equal and remove exp from the conversions since you're actually not crafting anything. it's clear that converting to level cap with out actually crafting any items is an exploit, it don't matter if thre is a penalty or not. you're still loosing just a fraction of material as you would have, if you actually had crafted something.

I would have to disagree on the downwards conversion. I dont think it would be a good idea.
Like all other transmuters I have an abundance of powders and a shortage of fragments. I have never used the fragment to powder conversion since it is a waste of resources. The powder to infusion one I use once i get way too many powders and I end up with a somewhat smaller but balanced supply again.
The problem here is that the start of the chain (treasured drops) is currently just a little to low to supply the market so the prices have gone up a lot on fragments.
There are two in my view vialble ways of fixing this.
1 increase treasured drops in SF or
2 reduce the number of fragments needed in the recipes.
Transmuting is one of the more powerful inflationcontrols on the economy. Instead of selling lootdrops straight to a vendor and get new money coming into the system we break down the items, make new items and sell them to other players for money that is already in the system. Currently there is a built in system to unbalance resources so they go to waste so to speak. We can only make the higher ingredients from a lot of smaller ones and thereby stopping even more potential vendormoney from entering the economy.
If we turn it around and suddenly starts to break down infusions down to fragments there will be a lot less lootdrops needed to supply the market and therefor the prices of adornments and transmuted ingredients will in the long run fall to the point where it is more costeffective for players to sell the lootdrops to a vendor instead of selling them to a transmuter.
Inflation is already high enough as it is without adding unnecessary boosters too it. This problem can be fixed with a small nudge instead of the mallet some people want to use.

//Earlhastan

Earlhastan wrote:

this would work too.

Davngr1 wrote:

Or leave it the way it is and it would continue to help the economy by slowing the faucets even further.

Davngr1 wrote:

It's not an exploit, it was a specifically requested for years as an alternative to spamming mass product and devaluing actual sellable adonrments and also to gicve adorners more flexibility in managing adornment raws. There is no imbalance because adorners still have to acquire raws.

Deson wrote:

Sorry man - your suggestion won't help things - it will just create more problems.
Playing up-convert, down-convert to get skillups means much much less raws are removed from the marketplace from aspiring transmuters. This drives the prices of raws down, which in turn should keep the prices of lower-tier adorns low. It also makes it less worthwhile for transmuters to actually transmute anything but since there is no other option to skill-up transmuting, raws will continue to enter the market.
It seems very wrong, fundamentally, to allow skillups without actually making something - just converting product back and forth. It would, however, allow people to level an adorner "on the cheap". I'm personally not in favor of that. I'm glad adorning has its costs associated with leveling.

Hecula wrote:

I don't know how you got that from anything I posted.I already said I'm not a fan of down conversions but the reality is unless it's at a 1:1 there's still a substantial cost associated with leveling an adorner. The costs will never be less than what vendoring treasured +gear would return and the materials to be transmuted still have to be acquired anyway.

Deson wrote:

Well, someone posted that skillups from down- and up-convert should be removed. You argued agaist that and seemed to indicate that you felt that it was healty to allow people to down-convert, up-convert ad infinitum to skill-up with basically a next-to-zero creation rate because it 1) was a good alternative to the monotony of endless adornment creation (to be replaced by the endless monotony of down- and up-converting plus yay we get to level transmuting too) and 2) it would allow the price of lower-tier adornments to rise because there were less "junk" adorns on the broker from adorners leveling up. But that's not the way it would work.
I'm a fan of allowing down-convert. But skillups doing so (and upconvert too) need to be removed. Also, the conversion should not skill-up transmuting either. Anything converting one raw material to another should have no affect whatsoever on profession skill-ups. I would think the reasons would be obvious.

Hecula wrote:

In those posts I stated I was wary of allowing down converts at all. The exchange you are referencing was based on converting giving skill-ups at all which, given the choice between skill-ups on both vs. skill-ups on neither, skill-ups on both is preferable to spammed product bottoming out the market like it was before.I never said anything about lower tier adorn prices, but from previous discussions I have said that people spamming product to level would be stupid to not pick what's cheap or what has a reasonable chance to sell. Every adorner with the exact same recipes can be expected to make the same decisions given the options meaning product will be spammed and prices depressed. It's worked this way with all tradeskills since the beginning, what would make adorning any different?
Skill-ups on conversion is no different than the old sub-combine system. Skill is still being used and unlike the old subs, there's still a large cost to even starting the process. If down-conversions are allowed at all, it almost certainly would be for a loss meaning every conversion could still be fairly expensive. Given transmuting/adorning has multiple "on-the cheap" options as well, talks of cost are only a small portion of any such discussion anyhow. To argue cost, one almost certainly has to argue that grey combines shouldn't give skill-ups as well.I would think the reasons would be obvious.
My actual suggested solution to all this was to just make all transmutes give fragments and force up-converting from there.

Deson wrote:

It's different because you can't break down a simple, non-rare product of another tradeskill into raw materians then use some or all of what you just got to make the same thing again. Mastercrafted does transmute, but you would use up a rare and would crush into a basic transmute - not components to make another of the same item. Those are used up.
I agree, grey combines should not give skill ups. I leveled 3 max adorners before I even knew that they would.
Your suggested solution would work fine for the market availability of product but there should still be no skillups given for conversion of product. Perhaps up- and down-convert could even be a transmuter skill.

Hecula wrote:

It's not differrent relative to how transmuting/adorning work. If you want to argue it is, then you also have to note that other crafts,including tinkering, get all they need to level for practically free and a lot less hassle. Adorning and transmuting require you to take items,including rares, that have substantial value and destroy them for what's hopefully a larger gain. You quoted my, "It's worked that way..." out of context however and I'd just like to point out again, that statement is entirely related to the effect spamming product with no other outlet has on the market.
You leveled three max adorners or old transmuters?
My suggestion works fine for skilling up and the economics which is why I made it. The old sub-combine system is proof and the whole reason I said both it and approve of the current system is because both ways allow adorners significant ability to respond to the market while not taking inordinate risk. If there are to be no skill-ups from conversions or greys however, I'm all for some form of writ system to keep the system as accessible as it has been since its introduction.

Deson wrote:

Yes, that's true. Just one of the many ways adorning is different - the raw materials have to come from items and are not harvested. But that's the way the tradeskill is. It's also a different skillup process than the traditional tradeskills. It doesn't mean things need to be changed to make it as easy as those others. IMO it should remain difficult and costly. Tinkering, while not costly, is somewhat tedious. But useful. So it's worth it. Same with adorning.
Yes, I leveled three max adorners. They all started at 0 adorning and 0 transmuting (or 4 or whatever) at the beginning of SF. Actually I leveled 3 max transmuters then 3 max adorners so I did it both. 3 times.
I wouldn't be a fan of a writ system if it was linked to automatic skillups. Only one that resulted in city tokens.
This has gotten very off-topic tho - this isn't about how skillups are done with adorning. It's about downconversion which I think many people agree is a good thing, even those of us that make adorns for hours every day.