so lets talk about Forging vs Trading

Has anyone actually did the math and figured out which is more profitable? Forging vs trading? i have alot of commons i can forge/trade......im just not sure which would actually be more beneficial. is there a cutoff point? like ok this rune is worth this much so its more profitable to trade it rather than forge it?

 

With commons I'd forge pretty much all spares unless it's not worth your time. Which it probably isn't, in general. But I doubt you'd be able to trade them for much.

Definitely worth it to sacrifice rares and exos for shards, and their trade value in PoxBox is largely determined by this ratio. Forging is convenient since you can turn shards into any exotic that is not from the latest set.

 

Unless you're trading extra commons for commons you don't have, you're better off forging. 1 nice thing about the forge system is it makes it real easy to trade runes 1:1.

 

There is also the Rune Pool.

 

I've looked at Poxbox, and it looks like (for the most part) it's pretty even, maybe a slight balance towards Poxbox in terms of value. Particularly good runes are worth more in Poxbox, and bad ones are better for the forge.

The rune pool is probably the strictly best option, but it can be limited. Trading directly player to player can be the best deal, but also the most time consuming.

 

I keep a close look at my own prices! The ratio between then highest and lowest exo in the same set are never worth forging if you can trade unless you already have a few of the very lowest and want the most expensive one. Then the IN/OUT commission is what you save

 

I made a simple script that puts all pb prices, shard decon/recon ratio and how much runes you have into a spreadsheet you can easily minmax your trading with.

Not sure if I should post it though, cause while it may be helpful for new players, it can also possibly harm them if every vet optimizes his stock.

 

just think of it like money. Its often more favourable to forge money than to trade it.

 

I wonder if there could be a scenario where it would be better to trade an exo into poxbox for forge fodder rather than forging the exo yourself.

 

I know this is off topic, but I didn't see a thread on the front page...

It's been mentioned already, but it would be GREAT if you could mass sacrifice runes.

I would love it if you could set the number yourself, or even if there was a static choice of sac 10 - 20 - 30.

It's a real pain to have to keep clicking over and over to sac those 55 commons just to get 110 shards.

I'd like to see a Green / Owl response to this question / issue.

My apologies if it's already been answered.

Thanks

 

I'm actually of the opinion that bulk sacrifice would be a bad thing ... if you want those shards so bad, figure out if it's worth your time to do the clicking. If it's not worth yours, it might be worth someone else's, so trade to them.

 

I disagree because one reason: the player already spend either time to farm for the gold, or the money to acquire the credits. There is no reason why a player should be charged with more time consuming labour if he already did that. I could settle down for a bulk sacrifice feature if said feature had a timer associated to it (sacrificing 1 of 23 runes... sacrificing 2 of 23 runes... sacrificing 3 of 23 runes... sacrificing 4 of 23 runes...), because the annoying part isn't as much as the time spend on mindless clicking, but the clicking itself. Carpal tunnel, anyone? Just lock the client or website while forging runes, add a bulk sacrifice features, and be done with this topic.

 

I dunno. It's annoying to me so I don't actually go and sacrifice my Uncommons and Commons. The player isn't charged anything - they make the decision that it is worth their time to do it.

 

I don't think doing something specifically because it annoys players (ie not allowing mass forging) is ever good game design.

 

I don't see any real value in making people harvest runes singly. Typically, when speaking on areas of indirect time sinks, its best to limit them, or at least provide the option for them to be circumnavigated.

Nid wants to single pop, great he can. Bob wants to multi pop, he should be able to, to avoid a negative customer experience from a requirement that has no upside for the business owner.

 

It's not about me wanting to single pop - I specifically DON'T want to do that, so guess what? I don't do it.

My theory is that keeping it slightly hard to get rid of commons makes it more likely for people to buy packs or donate their commons to newer players / rune pool.

 

Glad you displayed that as a theory. I look forward to your conclusion.

For my rebuttal: The group you referred to are those who consider popping tedious, no? The ones who do not see this as tedious had already repurposed their runes.

There is a wealth of consumer data/studies that show companies should avoid trying to motivate customers through negative reinforcement and also, more simply, that it just doesn't work.

I would say that this reasoning shows how your theory might not produce the desired conclusion.

I believe that people will be motivated to trade by the need of a rune, the prospect of profit or the satisfaction of trading.

Separately, people who want to help new players will do so regardless of forging options.

 

My conclusion is that I'm right. The popularity of a suggestion (which is essentially the only argument for it) does not make it a good suggestion.

This benefits most people who have lots of uncommons and commons, IE: existing players who want to turn all this junk into stuff they will use. A rune acquired by turning junk -> exotic is a rune that doesn't have to come from a pack. So now the question is whether making this change will make people like DOG so much that they buy enough packs to cover the shortfall. I doubt it. Mainly because there are so many UC and C lying around in random players accounts that if it were easy to convert them into exos, they'd do it without thinking.

My second argument was that people won't give UC and C to new players or rune pools if they can sacrifice them easily. I think this is a fair and obvious enough point that the burden of rejoinder falls on you to dispute this claim.

 

You've got nothing to support your conclusion, so your theory didn't help you arrive at a conclusion, rather an opinion - which usually doesn't require the formation of a theory. But great, I guess. /boggle

 

Oh I didn't see your edit before I posted.

The point for me is that we aren't talking about a system where there is some low number of uncommons and commons in circulation. There are probably hundreds of thousands that existed before the rune forge went live. People who buy lots of boxes end up with a ton of junk. If you want an opinion, my opinion is that people are essentially complaining about free stuff - "Ah, it's too hard to turn this mountain of commons I wasn't doing anything with anyway into exotics"

Your sentence on helping new players - I don't buy it. Yes, people like KTCAOP will always help, but lots of regular joes like me sometimes help out by giving spares. If it were easy to get bulk sacrifice, I'd just clean out all my extras, make some exos, and be done with it.