Exalted Shards and Trading : How to skip Daily Exchange Rate Discussions

I am sure this has been brought up numerous times, so once more can't hurt.

TLDR: Don't let Exalted-Shard auto-combine (like Simulacrum Splinters) and let us vendor Exalts for shards (e.g. Exalt+Chisel)

When trading, either buying or selling, we see all these fractions of Exalts. 0.6, 1.2, 2.5, 7.9 etc.

Either we list it that way, just because the Value lies in between two Integer, or just because the Tradesite would list our Chaos-price way below the equivalent .x Exalt price because of "Chaos Orb Equivalent"-Sorting which is off like always.
Or we just want to buy something and it happens to be listed for 2.7ex.
As well it keeps the value of our items "stable", unaffected by Exchangerate fluctuations.

Now comes in the daily shifting Chaos:Exalt Exchange rate, one week its 130, the next 150, the day after 170. 2 hours later 173, back to 166 etc.
Depending if you are looking to Buy or Sell, including pricefixers which won't reply to the 100. whisper, as they just want to influence the price a bit, it isn't as clear what it should really be at a specific time.

This leads to problems in the trade, which are just annoying if you trade many items every day. Getting underpaid and either having to accept a small "loss" or having to argue about the actual exchange rate.
Or, on the other side of the Tradewindow, having to do research on your own, how much you owe the seller or asking the Seller for change, which in this case, you have again to look up how much change you have to expect, since you know e.g. you should pay 1ex and 94c, but not how much you should get in return if you pay with 2ex. Language-Barriers not even considered.

Even as the Tradesite displays the Value in Exalts+Chaos and Chaos on its own, they are either not correct all the time, or just overlooked by many. And a Seller just won't check his own listing right befor it gets sold every time just to see what the buying got suggested.

Especially "casual" (whatever that means at this time and age - Non Hardmode i guess) Players happen to be astounded if you tell them their 173c are not the equivalent for 1.2ex (ex@172) like it was last weekend. Not all player, i would even assume the minority, uses trade-tools which can display the exchangerates at a few buttonpresses/clicks. And even these don't always show the real values at all times.

This all brings points of friction in the whole trade-system which could be reduced by a fair amount if:

1. Exalted-Shards would not auto-combine to Exalted-Orbs when put into the stash. Just like Simulacrum Splinters behave already.

2. Exalted-Orbs could be split into Shards e.g. by vendoring them e.g. with a Chisel.
2. would need 1. to work.

I think, since these systems are both in place (Simulacrum, Vendor recipes), it should not be a great task to implement and would bring a great improvement in the Trade-System without making it "easier", just making it less frustrating at some times.

As a side effect it would also eliminate the need to convert Exalts to chaos just so you can buy the < 0.7ex listed items, since many Seller are not able (or willing) to give this much change. Which leads back to the "pricefixers" where you have to whisper 30 people to buy their c for ex.

It could be an easy QoL feature. Thank you for your time :-)

I think they should absolutely auto-combine, BUT I love your idea of being able to break them back down into shards. Same with breaking chaos/mirrors back into shards.

There would be no problem with auto-combining if you could split, so stopping one while introducing the other makes no sense.

Regarding the current state of things: you really don't drop a whole heck of a lot of exalt shards to begin with, so monitoring them yourself to make sure they don't combine in the rare case you don't want them to should be fairly easy...

Just add simple vendor recipes:

Hammer + Exalt = ex shards
Hammer + Mirror = mirror shards

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jsuslak313 wrote:

I think they should absolutely auto-combine, BUT I love your idea of being able to break them back down into shards. Same with breaking chaos/mirrors back into shards.

There would be no problem with auto-combining if you could split, so stopping one while introducing the other makes no sense.

Regarding the current state of things: you really don't drop a whole heck of a lot of exalt shards to begin with, so monitoring them yourself to make sure they don't combine in the rare case you don't want them to should be fairly easy...

The auto-combine would make any split via vendors impossible. Even if the vendor trades you back 20 shards, as soon as they drop into your inventory they get combined. Same as if someone trades you 2 stacks of 4 chaos. You will end up with a single Stack of 8. And other methods of splitting (without vendors) screams for bugs and exploits imo. As well there is no such system in place, the others would be.

And i am not talking about the few i drop, i mean buying like 30+ of the same item with 1.2 - 1.4 ex prices. Or selling as well.

If someone doesn't quite get what i mean, i see it like 2 different Currencies, you know the exchange rate, but it can change every day. Like Dollar and Euro. But there are only 100 Dollar-Bills, smaller ones always combine to 100. You want 120 Dollar for your item. So you get paid 100 Dollar and 14 Euro. *confusion arrises* :-)

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SteakSndwich wrote:

The auto-combine would make any split via vendors impossible. Even if the vendor trades you back 20 shards, as soon as they drop into your inventory they get combined.

That's right, sorry. I was still going off the days when sim/breach/legion splinters DID NOT stack in the stash and when you withdrew them they remained full stacks of shards until you shift+click 1 away and re-add it. That has since been fixed and I forgot!

I 100% agree with your idea, it would be great for the game and would make trading easier. But I disagree with your analogy in the second post: it is NOT 2 currencies. It is all one currency, but it is constantly being hit by differing rates of inflation that are hard for the average player to track. Your solution does not fix the market or rate of change, it merely makes it easier for players to deal with. The inherent "value" of the shards will still constantly fluctuate and the .2/.4 costs will remain a problem for those who want to trade UP to exalt shards.

In essence, this is really more of a QoL feature for richer players, while the middle to lower end of the economic ladder will still have to deal in fluctuating chaos values.

As someone who struggles with this everyday trying to buy or sell items, I think this would save alot of people including casuals and non-casuals alot of time and frustration.

+1 from me Steak :p

Meanwhile, we saw posts about people rejecting exalt shards in trade.

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tilieve wrote:

Meanwhile, we saw posts about people rejecting exalt shards in trade.

People or "people"
I guess thats always possible, same as I accept it if someone puts in a divine orb or other orbs within, or rather above, the needed value when short some c, others won't accept it. Some may as well be just scared of ex shards and their 0.05ex value - need to do math and stuff. I just think if you list something at a given price, you should as well accept it. Only thing i really dislike is when i list something for e.g. 2.5ex and get paid in pure c. Which is almost always the wrong amount at the end.

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SteakSndwich wrote:

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tilieve wrote:

Meanwhile, we saw posts about people rejecting exalt shards in trade.

People or "people"?
I guess thats always possible, same as I accept it if someone puts in a divine orb or other orbs within, or rather above, the needed value when short some c, others won't accept it. Some may as well be just scared of ex shards and their 0.05ex value - need to do math and stuff. I just think if you list something at a given price, you should as well accept it. Only thing i really dislike is when i list something for e.g. 2.5ex and get paid in pure c. Which is almost always the wrong amount at the end.

I've seen it both ways this league, some people seem to get angry when offered exalt shards because they're worried about being able to combine them or something? Really makes no sense to me, I'd rather be paid in shards than chaos anyway.

It's true. I've had some people accept them instantly while others left the party and blocked me (also, overreacting much?).