Adorning: Converting Powders to Fragments

I have yet to come across a day on Kithicor when more than 150 Underfoot Fragments have been on sale for ANY PRICE. Let alone something bordering on reasonable. I've been watching this for a few weeks now.
Quadrupling drop rates of Adept spells would work, but a simple increase in the Treasured item drop rate won't work due to most of those items being marked Lore in Sentinel's Fate. However, that would put more money into the economy. Short term, prices would drop, but long term, they'd go back up.
A simple down conversion would not have that effect.
I could care less whatever is decided, I simply want the Fragment supply problem corrected. Yesterday would be good.

The ratio of fragments to powders from transmuting items is perfectly fine, the amount of fragments used in crafting adornments however is far more than it should be. Bring it down from 6 to 4 at least.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, with less words..

the ratio's of drops, raws, and crafting costs are perfectly fine.
the only problem, is the supply vs demand, on fabled adorns.
because not enough people(so far) have been wanting/using fabled adorns, the fragment market has been sucked dry, creating legendary+treasured... those same fragments, could have been used to create(server wide estimates) 3500fabled adorns, instead of 200fabled, 1000legendary and 4500treasured.

once more people are using fabled adorns instead of treasured/legendary, the fragment's will fix themselves over time.
but as long as people want to spend 5plat/15plat for treasured/legendary, instead of 60plat for fabled.. the price(and demand) of fragments will continue to go up

nikiburny wrote:

And I'll say it again in case you missed it: You are dead wrong.
Here's why: what is the bottleneck we all know and are talking about here? Fragments!
How many fragments does it take to make a Greater (Mastercrafted) adorn? 6 Fragments
How many fragments does it take to make a Superior (Fabled) adorn? 6 Fragments
Now I'm going to ask a rhetorical question: how would people making Superior (Fabled) adorns instead of Greater (Mastercrafted) adorns affect the supply of fragments if both types of adorns use EXACTLY the same number of fragments?
Answer: it wouldn't at all.
BECAUSE THEY BOTH USE THE SAME NUMBER OF FRAGMENTS
Realistically, the demand (and availability) of Superior adorns is driven by the cost (and availablility) of Distilled Manas. Some people are just not willing to shell out 80+PP per Superior adorn until they're in end-game gear (or close to it). And since SF is new and people are gearing up, there are less fabled items being crushed, hence, the supply of distilled manas remains limited.
The simple truth that most people have hit on already is that there is a big demand for adorns, period! The revamp made most people want to go out and grab new adorns - even for T8 stuff. For the wide majority of the playerbase who has a bunch of plat saved up due to it being too easy to make plat in this game, Greater adorns is the best option. They are (relatively) cheap and give you a good bang and can be replaced to deal with changing gear configs. You wouldn't really want to be switching Superior adorns all the time due to the cost.
So, we've established, lots of people like Greater adorns. Due to the price of Superior adorns, yes, more people are opting for Greater. But the price of Superior is driven by manas which won't drop for a while yet. So really, the only way to get people not to want Greater adorns is to either nerf them so they're worse, equal or only slightly better than lesser adorns or to remove them from the game altogether. Neither of these are good options.

I would love to see a powder to fragment conversion. When we run current tier zones we get more legendary junk than we do treasured junk, and by the end of a day of running instances I have 2-3x more powder than I do fragments, but I use 2-3x more fragments than I do powder per recipe.

Can a dev please sound off on this issue?

I still fail to see ANY valid reasons for a downconversion.
Like in all the differnet trades you cannot keep a full stock of every item at all times. The prices vary, the supply vary and so on. What you do is either buy at a higer cost if you can and raise you prices or wait until you can get more supplies at a better cost before you restock. For example as an alchemist it is not every day I can find enough rares to keep up with demand. I can buy at a higher cost but that would cut into my profit since there are a lot of OTHER alchemists and sages that wants the same rares as well. Why would the adorning buisness be any different?
We have been given daily writs with supplied raws to ease levelling.
We have been given the means to combine raws so we dont get a huge supply of just one raw.
The adorners now have ALL adornment recipes. Easier for the adorner but more competition since its easier to remember who makes what.
What more do you really want?
There are quite a few adorners competing on the market so there will be a lot of competition on the raws. For someone that only makes adornmets for himself its not a big problem since you dont really make that many anyway. These complaints sounds more like it is from a select few that wants to keep a full selection of all adornmets on the market. Its too hard to do it the traditional way so you want an easy mode to in their minds make a huge wad of easy cash. Well guess what. Its possible to do this already, you just have to fight the competition like in all the other markets.
Prices go up if the supply is limited. Its basic supply and demand. For some reason the same people that praise this the loudest as soon as someone make a remark on their high prices, is the same that start frothing at the mouth and screaming for an easier way as soon as their profitmargins shrink.

What do I want? I want to see a "supply" of Fragments in proportion to the "supply" of Powders, Infusions and Mana.
Every single adorning recipe takes Fragments - every single one! Yet, somehow, in Tier 9, the supply of Fragments is by far the lowest of the adorning raws. There are more Mana vials for sale than Fragments! That is just WRONG.
Everyone keeps trying to say it's alright, but it's NOT.
There are two solutions:

1. Increase the supply of Fragments by increasing drops of Treasured items. This would have a side effect of putting more money into the economy, since those Treasured drops have value and would not always be turned into Fragments.
2. Allow Adorners to down convert existing raws to create what they need.

I believe this was discussed during Sentinel's Fate beta, and I had posted that I had some concerns about the potential exploits that several people have already pointed out in this thread. My feeling was that there were already a large number of changes happening so we wouldn't rush in, and would wait to see how things look once all the changes have settled down. It's only been a few months since the entire transmuting/adorning system changed, after all. And although there is a shortage of fragments in some level ranges, there will always be a shortage of something, it's not necessarily a terrible thing.
So I haven't posted on this thread because I'm not ready to either confirm or deny the request. It might be something to look at in the future, but I also don't think it's a top priority omg urgent issue either, and there are definitely a lot of factors to consider before we jump into anything, most of which have already been raised by many thoughtful posters in this thread.

Frankly the adorning economy has calmed down, at least on the server I play on. Adornment prices have been stable for quite some time as have raw prices. Also, a shortage of the most commonly used item in the tradeskill is not a good crafting/economic model to have. The shortage should be at the most rare item (manas) which has been artificially increased due to the up-conversion introduced with SF.

DominoDev wrote:

Deny it and let's move on to more important things like figuring out the multi-classing of crafting

DominoDev wrote:

Can you perhaps tell us if Bulk transmuting is on the table anywhere? I don't so much mind aquiring the items to transmute, as the tediousness of the transmuting process.
Every fragment that exists in the game, exists because someone transmuted it. Click Transmute, Click Item, Click Yes, Wait, Click Accept, Click Transmute, Click Item, Click Yes, Wait, Click Accept, Click Transmute, Wait, Click Accept...
Want to turn 200 Adepts into a pile of materials, better have a TV show to watch while you're doing it.
Unlike regular crafting, there's very little reason for it. There's no reactives, no progress, no durability, nothing you can do to affect the pass/fail raite. Just mindless clicking. HotBar, Inventory, Dialog, Dialog.
It doesn't solve the problem being discussed here. At best, more people might transmute more things for profit, causing a slight increase in fragment supply on the brokers. But at 6 fragments per adorn (Greater/Superior), it might make the process of getting there less tedious.
How to implement it in a way that doesn't complicate things?
1. You could make it only available to max skilled transmuters. Gives em an incentive to get those last 25 skill points if they've been slacking. And removes the question of how it interacts with skillups. (I don't think anyone's fussing about transmuting skillup difficulty?)
2. Let us point the transmute spell at a bag containing things. Everything in the bag goes, and results are rewarded at once.
Eh, it's an idea. It would make me happy. So I thought I'd throw it out there.

DominoDev wrote:

Well, the relative lack of fragments vs powders is obvious. Prices from the broker from Najena last night (assuming visiting the seller's house if it's possible):
T9 adepts/treasured gear: start at 75gp
T9 powders: start at 54gp. buy a full stack and the most-expensive would be 69gp.
T9 fragments: start at 110gp. buy a full stack and the most-expensive would be 140gp.
T8 adepts/treasured gear: start at 30gp
T8 powders: start at 14gp. buy a full stack and the most-expensive would be 35gp.
T8 fragments: start at 36gp. buy a full stack and the most-expensive would be 54gp.
So... converting an item to a fragment causes it to gain value, converting it to a powder causes it to lose value. We have a way to convert 10 fragments to 1 powder, so if they were of proportional rarity/value, the fragment should cost 1/10th of the powder, right? That works for infusions and mana... T8 run about 100-110gp/10-11pp, and T9 run 5-6pp/50-60pp. (It's not quite 10-to-1 for powders-to-infusions, but 8-to-1 and 9-to-1 are closer than half-to-1).
So fragments are currently overvalued by about TWENTY-to-one.
The problem is a relative lack of fragments. Absolutely unarguable, unless you think Economics 101 is a bunch of hooey. (The magnitude of the problem is arguable, but the problem exists. Though "shortages are fine", a shortage that distorts pricing by 2000% should be addressed.)
If making a "powders to fragments" downconvert is problematic or exploitable, and increasing Treasured drop rates could break things (and wouldn't affect the ratio, anyway), why can't we just FIX THE ADORNMENT RECIPES? Cut the fragment usage down on the legendary/fabled adornments to 2 or 3 (or maybe 4, but I don't think that will be enough), instead of 6. Problem goes away, no exploitable recursive conversion or farming exploits...

...also, when the "creation rate" of T9 spell rares was off by 3-to-1 (one was on the harvest table three times, the other only once, rather than two-and-two), it was fixed quite quickly.
If a suit of plate armor took 7 brellium but chain took 140 brellium, how quickly would it be fixed?
If mage spells took 10 incense but priest spells took 200 incense, how quickly would it be fixed?
If those two answers are "right quick, of course", what makes this 20-to-1 distortion in crafting components values different?
(yes, one difference is "the previous answers are obvious, reduce to 7 brellium and 10 incense, while this one is more nebulous at "much lower than 6 fragments, but we don't know the exact number." So, try something. If it's an overcorrection, change it again in another 3 months. Waiting will not make the problem better.)

i guess, need to up the number of treasured loot, after an instance, i often see that we looted more legendary item than treasured.
finding an adept is really hard nowdays.
So up the droprate of treasured will give more fragment

A slight adjustment to use one or two less fragments prerecipe would be nice but I wont loose any sleep over it if it dont happen. I still see my glass as half full, not the other way around...
Before the change, everyone was sitting on masses of fragments and had no way of using them. When I ran out of powders I had to stop making adornments or get more somehow. Now we have an excess of powders instead. When I run out of fragments I have to stop crafting or get more, just as before. The real change is that I can make use of the excess powders now. They are by no means wortless to me.
So many people keep repeating the word shortage. I think that the proper word would be imbalance. When you have essentially 4 kinds of "rares" to use there will be an imbalance in the numbers however carefully you try to fix it. The Devs came up with the exellent idea of letting us convert the "lower rares" into "higher" ones, thus giving us a way to fix the balance in our own supply ourselves.
For someone that transmutes stuff that drops and makes adornments for personal use it works wonders. It even lets people make some extra adornments for sale and thereby getting quite a big profit.
For someone that tries to make lots of adornments for sale its easy to get frustrated when looking at the broker. When you look at the broker and see that fragments are more expensive than powders the first thing that leap into your mind should NOT be to compare prices and say that a "higher rare" should cost more than a "lower rare". This is not a productive line of thinking. As you already should have an abundance of powders anyway you dont need to buy them and if you do, be happy they are cheaper so you dont have to pay as much.
The demand dictates the prices and it will rise if the supply is short but it finds a stable point to fluctuate around after a while unless something changes the supply. This virtual market is still quite small so its easy for just one person to disrupt prices by buying raws and then try to corner the market. (This happens now and then in all the trades) or you will get undercut by a lot from someone that made a batch of adornments for quick sale from personally harvested and transmuted ingredients. In the longer run the prices dont vary that much though.
The prices of adornments have been stable for quite some time now on Antonia Bayle and even been lowered a bit. Yes, fragments costs more than powders, but so what? The final product still sells at a profit. I get lots of extra powders from adventuring...Yay, I can get dirt cheap infusions or even manas.
Dont see the obstacles, see the possibilities. This is a game after all and if you get stuck in thewrong type of mindset it will get really boring.
You all have to remember that this is a secondary tradeskill and it plays by its own rules.The NPC that introduced you to adorning warned you that it was going to cost you a lot, didnt he?

make the trade up even with the trade down but remove all crafting exp from the convertions.
the tresure drop rate is about the same as it was in tos and rok the problem is that adding a up convertion with out a down convertion. that is the imbalance it's really that simple.

Most people are getting lots of legendary drops from instances and therefore lots of powders and infusions. With an even downconversion every powder would make 10 fragments, every infusion 100 fragments and if your really lucky and get a mana, 1000 fragments. Who needs treasured drops then?
No. Its not the possible xp people could get that is a threat to unbalance things, its the downconversion itself. Even with lower rates its still lots. Even at 1 powder to 2 fragments its getting too much when people starts to convert en masse.
This problem is not gamebreaking in any way and need noone trying to fix it with a sledgehammer. I rather keep it as it is than the alternatives so far. I agree with Domino that this is not a matter that belong on the to do list of the DEVs. There are lots of other things id rather see they spend their time on.
We didnt have up or down conversions before and somehow we managed with very unbalanced supplies.
I

This is all from memory, but...
pre-SF adornment material usage (assuming 4th bar)
treasured: 0+0+1+5
legendary: 0+1+5+4
Fabled: 1+2+4+5
Current adornment material usage:
treasured: 0+0+1+3
legendary: 0+1+1+6
fabled: 1+1+2+6
So the fragmentowder ratio improved from 5:1 to 3:1 for Treasured, but worsened from 1:1 to 4:1 (!!!) for Legendary and Fabled.
What else happened at the same time? Three things: (1) everyone can make every adornment, (2) upconvert recipes, and (3) new recipes, such that every Treasured adorn has a Legendary version, and often a Fabled version.
So the only people using Treasured adorns are (1) expecting to replace the gear they're adorning, (2) cheap, (3) not thinking things through, or (4) just using up adornments they were levelling up Adorning skill with.
So the real need for fragments has increased 4x, at the same time they gave us the "fix" to fragment oversupply by letting us upconvert them. Huh? This is obviously silly, and the broker prices support that. Though it takes 100 fragments to make 1 infusion, fragments are priced at 1/5 to 1/4 the value of infusions.
For reference, I just ran a pair of (two-boxed) alts thru all of the Stonebrunt quests, including the 3 new questlines. 608 encounters in ACT (very few multi-mob pulls, since warden/brigand doesn't gain much by fighting blue-AE style), and 22 Treasured loot drops. That's maybe 18 fragments if I'm lucky, which is 3 adornments.
Since treasured drops in instances are about nil, and I'd have to split them 6 ways anyway, that means I have to farm 200+ solo mobs to make one adornment, once everyone is done blasting through the quests and transmuting the useless quest rewards.
That is gonna be FUN, I tell ya.
Please reduce fragment usage to 2 or 3 per legendary/fabled adornment.

Earlhastan wrote:

yea i was thinking about that too.

they should probly leave up convertions the way they are but at least allow down convertions from from powers to frags.

either way something must be done. having one frag cost 2 plat is just as stupid as having one mana make 500 frags.