Talk:Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic

complete bum deal

Equivalent standard kit is Master's Salvage Kit, with a cost per use of 61.44 versus this thing's cost per use of 1 . That's a 66% premium for convenience. Compare that to the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic's 3 per use, which is actually cheaper than the Basic Salvage Kit's 3.52 per use.

This thing is a waste of money no matter how you slice it. —Dr Ishmael 15:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

You're forgetting that it (probably) makes noises while you salvage. Dealbreaker right there. --Ventriloquist 18:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind paying an extra 50 gems to make my Copper-o-matic shut up. —Dr Ishmael 18:26, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Compare also to Mystic Salvage Kit, which is 10.496 per use if you have the Mystic Forge Stones from reward chests. 98.176.178.144 21:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

BUYER BEWARE. I just bought this, should have read the fine print. It costs more than buying the salvage kits at the merchant. Who thought this up? And to think I paid money for this. Guild Wars 2 should refund these or fix them.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 173.69.175.169 (talk • contribs) at 05:09, 1 September 2014‎ (UTC).

Updated cost

Now that this costs 60 per use, it's actually a good deal compared to the 61.44 of a Master's kit. —Dr Ishmael 17:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Still an approximate 6x more expensive than mystic salvage kit, which only requires mystic forge stones in addition to its monetary cost. -Narz 121.75.195.237 04:44, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

It's still an awful deal in my opinion: for a savings of less than 2 /use, you first need to shell out 500 gems, which is at least 75  with in-game money or 52  50  if you spend RL money for gems. To break even, I'd have to use the kit at least 350,000 times. According to Agent of Entropy, I have yet to salvage that many times across all characters using all types of kits.

I only see it as a good deal if you primarily salvage on one character and you are willing to spend 60 /use for salvaging instead of ~3  for a basic-level kit. My personal research suggests that the outputs aren't usually worth the extra costs: you will get more linen instead of cotton and more wool instead of jute salvaging applicable items, but you'll also get more silk than linen and so on.

For newish players without access to a generous supply of MF stones, I'd recommend buying the Master's Kit as needed for salvaging rares or exotics. For those willing to pay for the convenience, I'd recommend spending 800  on the copper-fed version instead. Or, for those with over 100 MF Stones, use mystic kits for all salvaging; at less than 11 /use, it's the most economical, unless you forge exotics with them. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:30, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

This information has been repeated elsewhere, but it depends on how you use Mystic Forge Stones. If stones are considered free, they still easily have a value of 1g (e.g., mixed with undesirable exotic weapons). That means at least 3g/250 uses (per Mystic Salvage Kit), so this kit pays for itself much sooner (as low as 5,000 uses) provided you use stones frequently to their maximum benefit. Since this kit was introduced, acquiring stones from converting gold to gems gives them a value over 5g, making the kit even more valuable to frequent gamblers. Although many players get them for free and never use them, it does not mean they have no value or opportunity costs. Spannu (talk) 17:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Trading Post Availability/Sales Periods

• Available 15 November 2014 for 7 days at 500 gems

Rarer Materials and 25% chance

Can anyone elaborate as to what is meant by rarer materials? I am not seeing a 25% chance on what I consider to be a rarer material. I may have to do a formal study comparing this to the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic because what I am seeing right now is only a difference in how often the two are producing runes/sigils. Unindal (talk) 03:47, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure but I think it's the chance to get the next tier up of crafting material? E.g. to get ori ore instead of mithril (good), or silk instead of linen (not what most would consider "rarer"). —Azurem 15:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I will need some assistance in presenting the raw data for everyone to see, but I have some very interesting data results on the use of the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic that I have captured in an Excel spreadsheet. I will do my best to present the data in the form of a study using a confidence interval.

• Methodology: I have recorded one thousand data points using the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic in groups of one hundred using ten different level 76-80 masterwork leather gear with runes across all six types of armor slots. Each record indicates the amount of Thick Leather Section or Hardened Leather Section quantity produced in the salvage, but the analysis will be on the percentage of events that at least one Thick Leather Section is produced versus at least one Hardened Leather Section.
• Hypothesis: The percentage of events that produce a rarer material are less than the 25% amount indicated on the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic.
• Assumptions: A rarer material for the purposes of this study will be a Thick Leather Section.
• Results: Out of the one thousand salvages:
  • 903 salvages resulted in 1,760 Thick Leather Sections
  • 97 salvages resulted in 100 Hardened Leather Sections
  • If the result of a Thick Leather Section is equivalent to a False production of a rarer material, and a Hardened Leather Section is equivalent to a True production of a rarer material, there exists a standard deviation of 0.296 across this data set.
  • Using a 99% confidence level resulting in a 2.575 confidence coefficient, a margin of error can be determined to be 2.4%.
• Conclusion: The results of the study show that with 99% confidence a rarer material will be salvaged on average between 7.3% and 12.1% of the time. This supports the hypothesis that a rarer material is produced less than the 25% of the time.

Interesting stuff!

I will wait a few days before creating a ticket to have the functionality of the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic reviewed. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. I would really like to share the raw data with the community, but I do not know how to do this.

Unindal (talk) 19:46, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

And how did these results compare to your control? I should add that I hope you used Crude Salvage Kits over the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic to avoid having to deal with the latter's innate 10% chance. G R E E N E R 20:12, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Control data was used with the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic using the exact same methodology. Wound up with a 99% confidence resulting in 9.6% plus/minus 2.4% to produce the rarer material of Hardened Leather Section. Whats more interesting, and I did not want to cloud the topic of only looking at the rarer material, but the 20% and 80% statements on recovering upgrades is completely accurate. All and all, I have two thousand data points spread out over the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic and the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic. Unindal (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. This doesn't negate some other theories I've seen over the years about how these percentages work, though. E.g. there could be a base percentage which is being increased by these percentages, so an 8% base would leave copper at 8.8% and silver at 10% (increased 10% and 25% respectively).

Take a look at other data sets that people on reddit or the forums have gathered. I have traditionally washed my hands of the world of stats, but I admit that the descriptions of some items lack clarity for the buyers, and may need to be addressed. G R E E N E R 22:14, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I do not think there is any significant difference that can be explained by a base percentage increase. We are looking at a difference of 9.6% +/- 2.4% for the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic versus a 9.7% +/- 2.4% on the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic. The difference is only 1 outcome out of 1,000 measurements. Unindal (talk) 03:57, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I have posted on the forums in the Bug sub-section and attached the raw data as text file. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Bug-Silver-Fed-Salvage-o-Matic-closer-to-10/6477764 Unindal (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2017 (UTC)