Guild Wars 2

Leamas.5803:

tolunart.2095:

The only solution is to keep getting more money until you’re the one throwing the biggest pile of money at it.

The problem is that prices are rising faster than most people can make money. Unless you buy gems (ANet’s preferred method, of course), which is bad for the economy, grind your life away, which ANet says they don’t want you to do, or play the TP, which is also bad for the economy and just another form of grind…just more boring.

Only grinding creates in game gold and contributes to inflation. The gem/gold exchange doesnt create gold, if you exchange gems for gold, that gold was earned by someone else in game. And as the gem buyer has to pay 10 gold for your 100 gems and you only get 7g back for your 100 gems, it actually counters inflation, just like the tp, which sinks gold through fees and taxes.

laokoko.7403:

The change to mystic forge might also contribute some to the precursor price. Since I think people get named weapon less often. That being said I think named weapon price went up??(Because of the wardrobe?)

Yes, and I think you’re now no longer guaranteed an 80 rare returned if you put 4×80 rares in, but I haven’t confirmed this myself. I’ve heard it’s making people more gun-shy of using the forge.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I’m not entirely sure how this is a reply to me.

“Nerfing loot” is not to blame for anything. Handing out too much loot, perhaps. But my point is that prices are completely the responsibility of the players, not Anet. The more players who grind, the more loot is generated, the higher prices climb. This is because there are a limited number of rare items (precursors, Fused skins, Grinning Shield, etc.) and a lot of people competing for them.

The entire system is driven by players. Blaming Anet is like saying “rain makes the poppies grow, drug dealers harvest the poppies and make drugs, therefore Nature is responsible for the drug problem.”

Prices are high because players want rare items. Hand every player a precursor of his choice and the majority of players will be disappointed because suddenly every third player has Twilight or Bifrost or whatever, and no one feels special.

KOPPER.1458:

Just out of curiosity: Are you saying that you think a median transaction price of 1157g for dusk is acceptable?

Yes. That is the short answer. It isn’t about being acceptable or not sadly. It’s about what players will pay. According to his charts shown here players are buying them just fine. While I don’t agree with it many apparently think it’s acceptable.

its what a small subsection of the game total will pay based on the amount generated.

If the supply is small enough, you can get even more for items. even in a perfect economic system, the 1157 price is still a reflection of their design, due to rarity, and means of obtaining it.

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I’m not entirely sure how this is a reply to me.

“Nerfing loot” is not to blame for anything. Handing out too much loot, perhaps. But my point is that prices are completely the responsibility of the players, not Anet. The more players who grind, the more loot is generated, the higher prices climb. This is because there are a limited number of rare items (precursors, Fused skins, Grinning Shield, etc.) and a lot of people competing for them.

The entire system is driven by players. Blaming Anet is like saying “rain makes the poppies grow, drug dealers harvest the poppies and make drugs, therefore Nature is responsible for the drug problem.”

Prices are high because players want rare items. Hand every player a precursor of his choice and the majority of players will be disappointed because suddenly every third player has Twilight or Bifrost or whatever, and no one feels special.

K.

I didn’t really come in here to argue. I did say it was my uneducated opinion. Thanks for educating me.

I just know my loot has gone down so I am getting much less awesome than I used to. This makes me a sad Asura. I can’t afford the chaos gun I want. That sucks.

Anyway carry on.

The demand for legendaries (and therefore precursors) skyrocketed due to the introduction (and announcement) of the wardrobe — one legendary can be used cheaply by all toons now. Because of that demand, these items don’t stay on the TP very long and all of the post April increases can be explained by this alone. (Supply might also have changed, but I suspect it actually increased with the new patch.)

In contrast, the supply of Eternity increased and its price went down, not up. (People crafting it to keep the unlocks for Twilight/Sunrise, but still get a good chunk of change in return.)

Any time a ton of new people start coveting an item that was already low in supply we’re going to see price jumps. So someone asking 2,000g for Dusk doesn’t surprise me. I’m not willing to pay that much and I would guess not many others are, so I expect that to drop soon.

Sure, it would be helpful to some people if there was a set price (in time, gold, or materials) to get a precursor, but that’s a personal preference, not a market issue. (Mind you: enough people have that personal preference that maybe ANet should address it, but I don’t think that requires intervening in the economy.)

This is just an extreme example of r > g.

Zommoros recently helped me “craft” Spark, so now I think I’ll ask him to help me with Dusk.

laokoko.7403:

I’m not a gambler so I’m not sure if what I said is correct.

I think precursor price went up or down base on the difficulty to acquire it. I think price of mithril or edler wood also went up? So now is probably not the best time to get a precursor.

I think we have pretty good reason to believe that precursor prices went up because legendaries’ value increased. And the cost of acquiring a precursor (i.e. items to throw into the forge) has gone up because more people want them — either because prices went up (i.e. to sell) or because they want to make the legendary for themselves.

laokoko.7403:

The change to mystic forge might also contribute some to the precursor price. Since I think people get named weapon less often. That being said I think named weapon price went up??(Because of the wardrobe?)

I think the change to the MF made crafted weapons less likely — I’m not sure if it made named weapons more or less likely. They said specifically that it wasn’t supposed to affect precursor drop rates.

I would bet that prices will come down; I could be wrong, of course, but this looks like a demand shock. I’m not sure we’ve reached the peak price, so it’s possible that Dusk’s range will go up to encompass the 2000g price — but even so, it seems likely to come down afterwards.

Even the person or people who flipped Dusk successfully (12xx → 16xx g gives some profit) contribute by providing liquidity for buyers and sellers. And the person who bought up all the dusks and relisted at 2000g -- who I think will lose money — contributed their opinion that Dusk has more space to rise, which will increase costs for rare and exotic GS.

If Dusk wasn’t so expensive, people wouldn’t buy rare GS > 60s/each, and I’d still be salvaging them for ectos. People buying those and throw them into the MF increase supply of Dusks… so this market doesn’t seem obviously unhealthy. It does have feedback mechanisms where players can have some influence on supply for Dusk.

OTOH, I’m not going to buy a precursor; if I get a drop, I’ll make that; otherwise I’ll wait for a non-lottery system for acquiring them. I could pay for one … but I think waiting won’t hurt.

tolunart.2095:

KOPPER.1458:

Just out of curiosity: Are you saying that you think a median transaction price of 1157g for dusk is acceptable?

Yes. That is the short answer. It isn’t about being acceptable or not sadly. It’s about what players will pay. According to his charts shown here players are buying them just fine. While I don’t agree with it many apparently think it’s acceptable.

The purpose of the TP is to allow players to trade items and gold with each other in a safe and efficient fashion. Would you rather that new players who don’t understand how valuable this “Dusk” that dropped from a random mob is get conned by players who trade them a crafted rare greatsword for it?

The other side of the coin, there were 54 unique sellers, some of them are surely “flipping” but the majority are just your average player who got a lucky drop and suddenly is over a thousand gold richer. It’s not one or two or even ten TP Barons sitting on thrones made of gold laughing as they manipulate the price for their own benefit.

i highly doubt the maority of dusks are created by accident. Based on the fact that you are talking about from what i have seen, players averaging 5k hours have gotten 1 precursor drop. then you figure that could be any precursor, so you figure 20×5k hours is how many player hours it takes to generate a random dusk or 100k player hours to generate one dusk. then you figure probably half of those people wont sell it.
200k player hours for 1 dusk to appear on the TP from random drop. lets say they have 200k people playing per day for an average of 2 hours.
that would mean only two dusks generated in this way per day, but apparently 1 sells per hour.

anyhow my numbers are rough estimates and assumptions, so ill give it a big variance, i would say i doubt more than 1/3rd of the dusks being sold each day are from random drops, if so that means 40 dusks sold by proffesional dusk sellers/creators. in which case raising the price by 100 -150 gold has gotten them 4k more gold then it would have last week. An increase of about 10% versus last week in the business of being a dusk provider.
the cost of sell listing of 2k that didnt sell is about 400 gold, for a turnaround of 4k gold in the last 60 hours alone.

if the people who made that initial move were stupid, its theoretically possible, but the dusk market as a whole has made out like a bandit for it, i tend to not think its coincidence, when someone makes a move that makes things a lot more valuable for specific group, and that person already happens to be fairly rich.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I just know my loot has gone down so I am getting much less awesome than I used to. This makes me a sad Asura. I can’t afford the chaos gun I want. That sucks.

Keep at it. Several things can happen:

You’ll save up enough money to get one.
The market will shift and the price will drop to what you have already set aside.
New precursors/Legendaries will be introduced and the old ones will drop in price due to decreased demand.
An alternate method of obtaining a precursor will be introduced, depending on the specifics you may reach that goal quickly just because you have been playing the game.
You’ll get a precursor as a random drop, and if it’s not the one you want, you can sell it to buy the chaos gun.

Dusk dropped for me randomly last year, so I know that it can happen. Personally, I don’t care at all about Legendaries, the added graphics annoy me and the skins themselves are not that impressive. And I couldn’t care less whether or not people get jealous or are impressed when I walk by them and leave glowing footprints or shoot unicorns past their heads or whatever.

So I sold it and used the gold to gear up several alts and get the things I did want. I have sixteen toons and not one of them has anything more valuable than Tier 2 cultural armor, because I only buy the gear I like. I’ve played long enough and made enough gold just by playing the game that if I concentrated on one or two toons, I could fill at least three or four weapon slots with Legendaries. But variety is more important to me so I divide my efforts among many different toons.

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

People can put up sell orders for any value they want as long as they can afford the fee, that doesn’t mean the item is suddenly trading for that price.

edit: attempting to fix data image.

which essentially means dusks are going for more than they were before by a decent margin.
because last week the sell price was like 1160 and the buy price was like 1040, right now, over an average of the last 60 hours, which includes before the gangsta dusk move was made, the average price has surpassed the maximum price for last week. Not to mention that price was already on an upward swing since the last gangsta move.

what you have shown is that overall, someone has successfully pushed the price of dusk up, which continues to be at that trend right now the highest buy order is 1200. So for a dusk supplier, or seller/syndicate overall, the push has successfully increased the value of dusk, and we currently havent seen how high it will continue to push it.

Sigh. For that “gangsta” move to be successful, the person, who bought up all 3 dusks at 1200g, he needs to sell at 1412g to break even, which is far away from the average and median price of 1150g that JS has stated.

Actually, i would interpret the low difference of 5g between average and median sell prices as a good indicator that only the 3 dusks that the gangsta bought at 1200g have sold for significantly more than 1150g.

If we assume that from those 58 dusks 55 have sold at 1150g and 3 were bought up at 1200g, guess what average sale price we get?

55×1150=63250

Plus 3600 for 3/1200 adds up to 66850, divided by 58 we get an average sale price of:

1152.58g, just like JS stated.

The median?

from 58 dusks, the lower half of 29 have sold for an average of 1150 and from the upper half, 26 have also sold for 1150 and 3 for 1200. So the upper half cost 150 more gold overall than the lower half.

150g/29 equals 5g more for the median price compared to the average price.

So the Median is 1157g instead of 1152g, just like JS stated.

So unless the gangsta waits until the average price goes up to 1412g, he will make a loss, spreading some of his wealth to the 3 sellers at 1200g (who got great value for their dusks compared to actual market prices atm).

Wanze.8410:

Leamas.5803:

tolunart.2095:

The only solution is to keep getting more money until you’re the one throwing the biggest pile of money at it.

The problem is that prices are rising faster than most people can make money. Unless you buy gems (ANet’s preferred method, of course), which is bad for the economy, grind your life away, which ANet says they don’t want you to do, or play the TP, which is also bad for the economy and just another form of grind…just more boring.

Only grinding creates in game gold and contributes to inflation. The gem/gold exchange doesnt create gold, if you exchange gems for gold, that gold was earned by someone else in game. And as the gem buyer has to pay 10 gold for your 100 gems and you only get 7g back for your 100 gems, it actually counters inflation, just like the tp, which sinks gold through fees and taxes.

this is not actually true, it could be true, but we really dont know. They said the system is not a direct system, it is a weighted algorithm, which they at time alter. Essentially they generate gold out of no where if the need arises. This was discussed when the game was new, and it was actually impossible for people to buy gold if it was truely a direct system.

So yes gems to gold creates money. Golds to gems takes it out, its possible more is going out than coming in but the opposite is also possible.

my guess is that right now, more is going out that coming in, especially with the tax they put on it. But it is actually withing the framework of the gold/gem device to create gold out of nothing

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I just know my loot has gone down so I am getting much less awesome than I used to. This makes me a sad Asura. I can’t afford the chaos gun I want. That sucks.

Keep at it. Several things can happen:

You’ll save up enough money to get one.
The market will shift and the price will drop to what you have already set aside.
New precursors/Legendaries will be introduced and the old ones will drop in price due to decreased demand.
An alternate method of obtaining a precursor will be introduced, depending on the specifics you may reach that goal quickly just because you have been playing the game.
You’ll get a precursor as a random drop, and if it’s not the one you want, you can sell it to buy the chaos gun.

Dusk dropped for me randomly last year, so I know that it can happen. Personally, I don’t care at all about Legendaries, the added graphics annoy me and the skins themselves are not that impressive. And I couldn’t care less whether or not people get jealous or are impressed when I walk by them and leave glowing footprints or shoot unicorns past their heads or whatever.

So I sold it and used the gold to gear up several alts and get the things I did want. I have sixteen toons and not one of them has anything more valuable than Tier 2 cultural armor, because I only buy the gear I like.

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything. Could be rng. But it’s like… I hit a group of mobs. I kill all 10. By myself. And I get a trophy junk item. Now I know that it’s rng and my 300% mf isn’t going to rain precursors down on me, but I don’t see any reason to believe that these prices will go down or that whatever new method they come up with for precursor acquisition will actually be less time consuming. I just.. have to let it go, you know? That’s how I feel. My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

linuxotaku.4731:

laokoko.7403:

I’m not a gambler so I’m not sure if what I said is correct.

I think precursor price went up or down base on the difficulty to acquire it. I think price of mithril or edler wood also went up? So now is probably not the best time to get a precursor.

I think we have pretty good reason to believe that precursor prices went up because legendaries’ value increased. And the cost of acquiring a precursor (i.e. items to throw into the forge) has gone up because more people want them — either because prices went up (i.e. to sell) or because they want to make the legendary for themselves.

laokoko.7403:

The change to mystic forge might also contribute some to the precursor price. Since I think people get named weapon less often. That being said I think named weapon price went up??(Because of the wardrobe?)

I think the change to the MF made crafted weapons less likely — I’m not sure if it made named weapons more or less likely. They said specifically that it wasn’t supposed to affect precursor drop rates.

I would bet that prices will come down; I could be wrong, of course, but this looks like a demand shock. I’m not sure we’ve reached the peak price, so it’s possible that Dusk’s range will go up to encompass the 2000g price — but even so, it seems likely to come down afterwards.

Even the person or people who flipped Dusk successfully (12xx -> 16xx g gives some profit) contribute by providing liquidity for buyers and sellers. And the person who bought up all the dusks and relisted at 2000g -- who I think will lose money — contributed their opinion that Dusk has more space to rise, which will increase costs for rare and exotic GS.

If Dusk wasn’t so expensive, people wouldn’t buy rare GS > 60s/each, and I’d still be salvaging them for ectos. People buying those and throw them into the MF increase supply of Dusks… so this market doesn’t seem obviously unhealthy. It does have feedback mechanisms where players can have some influence on supply for Dusk.

OTOH, I’m not going to buy a precursor; if I get a drop, I’ll make that; otherwise I’ll wait for a non-lottery system for acquiring them. I could pay for one … but I think waiting won’t hurt.

I think everyone knows the demand went up. There is probably a change in supply of mystic forge mateiral too, due to some of the change to the game.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

People can put up sell orders for any value they want as long as they can afford the fee, that doesn’t mean the item is suddenly trading for that price.

edit: attempting to fix data image.

which essentially means dusks are going for more than they were before by a decent margin.
because last week the sell price was like 1160 and the buy price was like 1040, right now, over an average of the last 60 hours, which includes before the gangsta dusk move was made, the average price has surpassed the maximum price for last week. Not to mention that price was already on an upward swing since the last gangsta move.

what you have shown is that overall, someone has successfully pushed the price of dusk up, which continues to be at that trend right now the highest buy order is 1200. So for a dusk supplier, or seller/syndicate overall, the push has successfully increased the value of dusk, and we currently havent seen how high it will continue to push it.

Sigh. For that “gangsta” move to be successful, the person, who bought up all 3 dusks at 1200g, he needs to sell at 1412g to break even, which is far away from the average and median price of 1150g that JS has stated.

Actually, i would interpret the low difference of 5g between average and median sell prices as a good indicator that only the 3 dusks that the gangsta bought at 1200g have sold for significantly more than 1150g.

If we assume that from those 58 dusks 55 have sold at 1150g and 3 were bought up at 1200g, guess what average sale price we get?

55×1150=63250

Plus 3600 for 3/1200 adds up to 66850, divided by 58 we get an average sale price of:

1152.58g, just like JS stated.

The median?

from 58 dusks, the lower half of 29 have sold for an average of 1150 and from the upper half, 26 have also sold for 1150 and 3 for 1200. So the upper half cost 150 more gold overall than the lower half.

150g/29 equals 5g more for the median price compared to the average price.

So the Median is 1157g instead of 1152g, just like JS stated.

So unless the gangsta waits until the average price goes up to 1412g, he will make a loss, spreading some of his wealth to the 3 sellers at 1200g (who got great value for their dusks compared to actual market prices atm).

here is what you are not getting, last week
the max sell order was lower than the highest buy order is right now.

also the data that john smith chose to show you includes 49 hours BEFORE THE gangsta move was made. this means it is averaging in 2/3rd of data BEFORE the move was made.

even including that. the average price has gone up at least 100 gold

if 58 items were sold at 100 gold more, that means overall the dusk market has generated 5.8k more today than it did yesterday.

the cost of listing 4 dusks at 2k, is 5% of 2k x 4 = 400 gold, that is all he actually loses in gold for them not selling

So someone/group spent 400 gold, to increase the returns on the dusk market by 5.8k

you keep thinking small time, single seller, and not as someone/group who may provide a decent portion of the dusk markets value.

if they only control 1/3rd of the market, they still spent 400 gold, to make back 100-150×20 gold more than they normally would. 2000-3000 more gold than usuall.

and based on my observations, multiple dusks have been sold at 1500-1600 to sell listings, and buy orders are climbing, which suggests buy orders arent getting filled as fast as before.

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

Anyone who has played the game long enough knows that every undocumented figure people give is exaggerated. “I’ve tried 2000 times in the toilet!” “Yeah where’s the video?” “I have over 8k hours played and now precursor drop!” “Screenshot? No? Did you try ever? No? Oh you did get one, it was just Venom? OH okay.”

It’s fine. I get it. I just want my gorram chaos gun and I want it now. But I am unwilling to buy it with real money.

phys.7689:

anyhow my numbers are rough estimates and assumptions, so ill give it a big variance, i would say i doubt more than 1/3rd of the dusks being sold each day are from random drops, if so that means 40 dusks sold by proffesional dusk sellers/creators. in which case raising the price by 100 -150 gold has gotten them 4k more gold then it would have last week. An increase of about 10% versus last week in the business of being a dusk provider.
the cost of sell listing of 2k that didnt sell is about 400 gold, for a turnaround of 4k gold in the last 60 hours alone.

if the people who made that initial move were stupid, its theoretically possible, but the dusk market as a whole has made out like a bandit for it, i tend to not think its coincidence, when someone makes a move that makes things a lot more valuable for specific group, and that person already happens to be fairly rich.

What you fail to see is that a 10% price increase simply wont pay out due to fees and taxes. Even if we consider that a group of professional traders/forgers is responsible for 40 of the 60 sales within the last 2 1/2 days. They got their 40 dusks at 1000g a week ago, either through buy order or through forging. If they sell now, they would make a 5% loss. You also totally disregard the forging costs of precursors and assume its the same as last week. Maybe the average price of the cheapest exotic or rare greatswords also bumped up by 10%. Crafted rare greatswords already jumped more tha n10% and that is only since patch day. The anticipated influx of new t5 fine mats from the pavilion didnt really materialize and the bazaar trader made mithril prices spike 50%.

What I think happens (on some precursors) is this. A combination of the following happens:

1) Smaller supply then usual (wich means below 21,6 average a day)
2) Higher demand. The weird thing is there should be no spike demands, feature patch is long time out yet. No reason for it to ‘huge spike’, longe while after, but it seems to do.
3) A fail speculator
4) Living story gets more ppl in game (although crappy one imo, JS your loot tables suck on this one, I prefer content i repeated 1000x already over pavilion drop rate crap)
5) THE REAL DEAL. People so much forget about this point. Psychological fear!!! Fail reseller/speculator? Price goes up (only 21,6 drops a day, so if it’s a spike demand day easely to fake out a 0 listings scarcity on tp. Then if you list higher, People will panic. Sure people will undercut. But as the ‘sticky 200g’ increase proofs, the speculator (or pure concidance on market velocity, but still), rose the precursor by 200g. And especially in this Dusk case i’m sure many people actually don’t find it that much worth. Why they still buy it? FEAR. Fear this price is actually true, and that it might get worse. So they buy Dusk overpriced, even though if they puzzled all info together (some people are not gifted to understand TP) they would know this is a bad call.

Nr 5 gets ignored by all the ‘this wasn’t speculation’ posts, and by MR John Smith. While JS may have the actual numbers, he’s so focussed on the totals, and not the details (wich is a shame since he got more info then us), that he overlooks details. Wich details? I watch The Legend so hard (harder then you will have ever done JS). And pressing refresh on a precursor may not be the most efficient way, but conclusions still rise. Especially with spidy open as well. You 54 per 2,5 day basically says 21,6 a day. That means it TAKES MORE THEN AN HOUR between precursors to drop/be listed on average. And what I noticed is, the ‘after NA’ ‘before EU’ primetime gap, precursors DONT MOVE, at all. Maybe really few buy orders (new listings) get sold, but the existing ones, are very sticky. In the weekend this is even worse cause scarcity/demand spike. Only primetime is where the precursor trades happen. This leaves every day a 9 hour frame around, for speculation/TP coincidances, to empty a precursor market, and raise the ‘psychological’ fear barrier, and thus +100/200g per precursor. That’s the secret about all of this and why some people say ‘the price is to high’, ‘no if some people pay the price, it means the price is correct’.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

People can put up sell orders for any value they want as long as they can afford the fee, that doesn’t mean the item is suddenly trading for that price.

edit: attempting to fix data image.

which essentially means dusks are going for more than they were before by a decent margin.
because last week the sell price was like 1160 and the buy price was like 1040, right now, over an average of the last 60 hours, which includes before the gangsta dusk move was made, the average price has surpassed the maximum price for last week. Not to mention that price was already on an upward swing since the last gangsta move.

what you have shown is that overall, someone has successfully pushed the price of dusk up, which continues to be at that trend right now the highest buy order is 1200. So for a dusk supplier, or seller/syndicate overall, the push has successfully increased the value of dusk, and we currently havent seen how high it will continue to push it.

Sigh. For that “gangsta” move to be successful, the person, who bought up all 3 dusks at 1200g, he needs to sell at 1412g to break even, which is far away from the average and median price of 1150g that JS has stated.

Actually, i would interpret the low difference of 5g between average and median sell prices as a good indicator that only the 3 dusks that the gangsta bought at 1200g have sold for significantly more than 1150g.

If we assume that from those 58 dusks 55 have sold at 1150g and 3 were bought up at 1200g, guess what average sale price we get?

55×1150=63250

Plus 3600 for 3/1200 adds up to 66850, divided by 58 we get an average sale price of:

1152.58g, just like JS stated.

The median?

from 58 dusks, the lower half of 29 have sold for an average of 1150 and from the upper half, 26 have also sold for 1150 and 3 for 1200. So the upper half cost 150 more gold overall than the lower half.

150g/29 equals 5g more for the median price compared to the average price.

So the Median is 1157g instead of 1152g, just like JS stated.

So unless the gangsta waits until the average price goes up to 1412g, he will make a loss, spreading some of his wealth to the 3 sellers at 1200g (who got great value for their dusks compared to actual market prices atm).

here is what you are not getting, last week
the max sell order was lower than the highest buy order is right now.

also the data that john smith chose to show you includes 49 hours BEFORE THE gangsta move was made. this means it is averaging in 2/3rd of data BEFORE the move was made.

even including that. the average price has gone up at least 100 gold

if 58 items were sold at 100 gold more, that means overall the dusk market has generated 5.8k more today than it did yesterday.

the cost of listing 4 dusks at 2k, is 5% of 2k x 4 = 400 gold, that is all he actually loses in gold for them not selling

So someone/group spent 400 gold, to increase the returns on the dusk market by 5.8k

you keep thinking small time, single seller, and not as someone/group who may provide a decent portion of the dusk markets value.

if they only control 1/3rd of the market, they still spent 400 gold, to make back 100-150×20 gold more than they normally would. 2000-3000 more gold than usuall.

and based on my observations, multiple dusks have been sold at 1500-1600 to sell listings, and buy orders are climbing, which suggests buy orders arent getting filled as fast as before.

They didnt spend only 400g, you keep forgetting the initial purchase of 1000g from last week, which would add up to another 40k gold. And what happened to the 168 dusks that got traded within a week? They surely cant be provided by the same group of people as they are holding on to their 40 dusks from last week, so how do they eliminate competition?

I you want to keep making up wild theories of a couple of people having any significant impact on precursor prices, go ahead. Its simply supply and demand by the average player base, which regulates prices.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

anyhow my numbers are rough estimates and assumptions, so ill give it a big variance, i would say i doubt more than 1/3rd of the dusks being sold each day are from random drops, if so that means 40 dusks sold by proffesional dusk sellers/creators. in which case raising the price by 100 -150 gold has gotten them 4k more gold then it would have last week. An increase of about 10% versus last week in the business of being a dusk provider.
the cost of sell listing of 2k that didnt sell is about 400 gold, for a turnaround of 4k gold in the last 60 hours alone.

if the people who made that initial move were stupid, its theoretically possible, but the dusk market as a whole has made out like a bandit for it, i tend to not think its coincidence, when someone makes a move that makes things a lot more valuable for specific group, and that person already happens to be fairly rich.

What you fail to see is that a 10% price increase simply wont pay out due to fees and taxes. Even if we consider that a group of professional traders/forgers is responsible for 40 of the 60 sales within the last 2 1/2 days. They got their 40 dusks at 1000g a week ago, either through buy order or through forging. If they sell now, they would make a 5% loss. You also totally disregard the forging costs of precursors and assume its the same as last week. Maybe the average price of the cheapest exotic or rare greatswords also bumped up by 10%. Crafted rare greatswords already jumped more tha n10% and that is only since patch day. The anticipated influx of new t5 fine mats from the pavilion didnt really materialize and the bazaar trader made mithril prices spike 50%.

1000/.85 is 1176. so any thing they sell over 1176 would be a profit(and at least 4 or 5 have sold in the 1500+ since the move), but i honestly doubt there are that many flippers involved, it would most likely be manufacturers, people who have a vested, and continued interest in the selling price of dusk.

As for their motivation? its possible it is cost, buuut its pretty tricky because a number of people can profit off this. For all we know its people who already profit off material sales as well.

I have a wild theory on the type of group that could get the most out of this at all levels, but its mostly wild speculation.

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG. Over time true RNG will ALWAYS balance in to a nice Gaussian bell curve. Now if you take Lilith here, with 6 precursor drops. WOW, that is truly extreme odds breaking and I’ve heard of those with even more, 12, 15, etc. Others who claim to consistently make 40g/hour in Cursed Shore or the FS train while some have problems make 1g for the same effort. Some people with 4 and 5 legendaries, though I somehow think they probably got those from TP flipping. Those getting consistently good drops vs those getting consistently bad drops. I think most people sit somewhere in the middle, but now we’re talking groups of people where the RNG is weighted for good or bad and it’s not unheard of.

Sure everyone might have lucky/unlucky streaks, but because of the nature of RNG, over time drop quality should be fairly even across everyone. That is not what we’ve seen from this game.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

People can put up sell orders for any value they want as long as they can afford the fee, that doesn’t mean the item is suddenly trading for that price.

edit: attempting to fix data image.

which essentially means dusks are going for more than they were before by a decent margin.
because last week the sell price was like 1160 and the buy price was like 1040, right now, over an average of the last 60 hours, which includes before the gangsta dusk move was made, the average price has surpassed the maximum price for last week. Not to mention that price was already on an upward swing since the last gangsta move.

what you have shown is that overall, someone has successfully pushed the price of dusk up, which continues to be at that trend right now the highest buy order is 1200. So for a dusk supplier, or seller/syndicate overall, the push has successfully increased the value of dusk, and we currently havent seen how high it will continue to push it.

Sigh. For that “gangsta” move to be successful, the person, who bought up all 3 dusks at 1200g, he needs to sell at 1412g to break even, which is far away from the average and median price of 1150g that JS has stated.

Actually, i would interpret the low difference of 5g between average and median sell prices as a good indicator that only the 3 dusks that the gangsta bought at 1200g have sold for significantly more than 1150g.

If we assume that from those 58 dusks 55 have sold at 1150g and 3 were bought up at 1200g, guess what average sale price we get?

55×1150=63250

Plus 3600 for 3/1200 adds up to 66850, divided by 58 we get an average sale price of:

1152.58g, just like JS stated.

The median?

from 58 dusks, the lower half of 29 have sold for an average of 1150 and from the upper half, 26 have also sold for 1150 and 3 for 1200. So the upper half cost 150 more gold overall than the lower half.

150g/29 equals 5g more for the median price compared to the average price.

So the Median is 1157g instead of 1152g, just like JS stated.

So unless the gangsta waits until the average price goes up to 1412g, he will make a loss, spreading some of his wealth to the 3 sellers at 1200g (who got great value for their dusks compared to actual market prices atm).

here is what you are not getting, last week
the max sell order was lower than the highest buy order is right now.

also the data that john smith chose to show you includes 49 hours BEFORE THE gangsta move was made. this means it is averaging in 2/3rd of data BEFORE the move was made.

even including that. the average price has gone up at least 100 gold

if 58 items were sold at 100 gold more, that means overall the dusk market has generated 5.8k more today than it did yesterday.

the cost of listing 4 dusks at 2k, is 5% of 2k x 4 = 400 gold, that is all he actually loses in gold for them not selling

So someone/group spent 400 gold, to increase the returns on the dusk market by 5.8k

you keep thinking small time, single seller, and not as someone/group who may provide a decent portion of the dusk markets value.

if they only control 1/3rd of the market, they still spent 400 gold, to make back 100-150×20 gold more than they normally would. 2000-3000 more gold than usuall.

and based on my observations, multiple dusks have been sold at 1500-1600 to sell listings, and buy orders are climbing, which suggests buy orders arent getting filled as fast as before.

They didnt spend only 400g, you keep forgetting the initial purchase of 1000g from last week, which would add up to another 40k gold. And what happened to the 168 dusks that got traded within a week? They surely cant be provided by the same group of people as they are holding on to their 40 dusks from last week, so how do they eliminate competition?

I you want to keep making up wild theories of a couple of people having any significant impact on precursor prices, go ahead. Its simply supply and demand by the average player base, which regulates prices.

the initial purchase is irrelevant as long as the value goes up. the fact that i spend 1000 gold is irrelevant because the value of dusk is not going down. that 1000 has been changed from a liquid gold value to a commodity value, but its still there. The only thing THEY LOSE or cost they pay is the 5% fee.

its like saying if you buy a stock at 10 dollars, you lost 10 dollars, the only thing you lose is the fees. those 4 precursors are still there, and they have in fact gone up in value while they sat there.

Leamas.5803:

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG. Over time true RNG will ALWAYS balance in to a nice Gaussian bell curve. Now if you take Lilith here, with 6 precursor drops. WOW, that is truly extreme odds breaking and I’ve heard of those with even more, 12, 15, etc. Others who claim to consistently make 40g/hour in Cursed Shore or the FS train while some have problems make 1g for the same effort. Some people with 4 and 5 legendaries, though I somehow think they probably got those from TP flipping. Those getting consistently good drops vs those getting consistently bad drops. I think most people sit somewhere in the middle, but now we’re talking groups of people where the RNG is weighted for good or bad and it’s not unheard of.

Sure everyone might have lucky/unlucky streaks, but because of the nature of RNG, over time drop quality should be fairly even across everyone. That is not what we’ve seen from this game.

I don’t think the game has been around long enough for that distribution curve to actually exist. It’s like… I had a couple lucky breaks. Very spread out. Each precursor was approximately 2 months apart. Anyway there’s also a lack of reliable data on this because almost everyone who doesn’t get their precursor will whine here. Everyone who does will not necessarily brag here (the do that in map or guild).

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Leamas.5803:

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG. Over time true RNG will ALWAYS balance in to a nice Gaussian bell curve. Now if you take Lilith here, with 6 precursor drops. WOW, that is truly extreme odds breaking and I’ve heard of those with even more, 12, 15, etc. Others who claim to consistently make 40g/hour in Cursed Shore or the FS train while some have problems make 1g for the same effort. Some people with 4 and 5 legendaries, though I somehow think they probably got those from TP flipping. Those getting consistently good drops vs those getting consistently bad drops. I think most people sit somewhere in the middle, but now we’re talking groups of people where the RNG is weighted for good or bad and it’s not unheard of.

Sure everyone might have lucky/unlucky streaks, but because of the nature of RNG, over time drop quality should be fairly even across everyone. That is not what we’ve seen from this game.

I don’t think the game has been around long enough for that distribution curve to actually exist. It’s like… I had a couple lucky breaks. Very spread out. Each precursor was approximately 2 months apart. Anyway there’s also a lack of reliable data on this because almost everyone who doesn’t get their precursor will whine here. Everyone who does will not necessarily brag here (the do that in map or guild).

The game have been out for 2 years. I dont’ think that many people got 12 precursor from drop. I got 2 myself.

I totally understand the economics in what is going on here. Someone’s willing to pay an absurd amount of gold for their precursor now, so the item is valued there. Sure, sounds great.

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it. Not even considering how this is about the least enthralling way to develop a legendary possible, the fact that there is no way to actually “make progress” on your precursor short of just grinding out gold is absurd. It is nigh time we get precursor building, and the recent up-shift in prices only makes that more pertinent. Seriously, that’s what John Smith’s takeaway from these topics should be.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I totally understand the economics in what is going on here. Someone’s willing to pay an absurd amount of gold for their precursor now, so the item is valued there. Sure, sounds great.

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it. Not even considering how this is about the least enthralling way to develop a legendary possible, the fact that there is no way to actually “make progress” on your precursor short of just grinding out gold is absurd. It is nigh time we get precursor building, and the recent up-shift in prices only makes that more pertinent. Seriously, that’s what John Smith’s takeaway from these topics should be.

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Leamas.5803:

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I know I can wait and all that. I have 2 legendaries as it is and over the course of my playtime have had 6 precursors drop. I know. The issue is that in the same amount of playtime, I’m just not getting anything… My enjoyment of the game is somewhat contingent on whether I get some loot or not. If i don’t think I’m going to get anything I might as well stay in DR RPing. Which I do.

Congrats on the drops. Random distribution via computer is as close as anything gets to being fair, the computer doesn’t have friends or enemies to reward or punish. The way our minds work, however, looks for patterns even when there is no pattern to find. So many of those arguing against random precursor drops and such do so from the assumptions that it’s not “fair,” that they are “cursed” and will never see a precursor drop, etc.

Good to see you understand this is not the case.

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG. Over time true RNG will ALWAYS balance in to a nice Gaussian bell curve. Now if you take Lilith here, with 6 precursor drops. WOW, that is truly extreme odds breaking and I’ve heard of those with even more, 12, 15, etc. Others who claim to consistently make 40g/hour in Cursed Shore or the FS train while some have problems make 1g for the same effort. Some people with 4 and 5 legendaries, though I somehow think they probably got those from TP flipping. Those getting consistently good drops vs those getting consistently bad drops. I think most people sit somewhere in the middle, but now we’re talking groups of people where the RNG is weighted for good or bad and it’s not unheard of.

Sure everyone might have lucky/unlucky streaks, but because of the nature of RNG, over time drop quality should be fairly even across everyone. That is not what we’ve seen from this game.

I don’t think the game has been around long enough for that distribution curve to actually exist. It’s like… I had a couple lucky breaks. Very spread out. Each precursor was approximately 2 months apart. Anyway there’s also a lack of reliable data on this because almost everyone who doesn’t get their precursor will whine here. Everyone who does will not necessarily brag here (the do that in map or guild).

0 from drops/chests
and i out of people i play with regularly, who kept playing from start

2/5 have got a drop

Okay maybe I’m unclear here. If you don’t actively try for precursors, you likely won’t get them. As a mob drop I received 1: Storm. The rest were random forges of random rares or random exotics. If you don’t try you won’t get it. Simple. Doesn’t matter how long the game is out nor your playtime.

laokoko.7403:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I totally understand the economics in what is going on here. Someone’s willing to pay an absurd amount of gold for their precursor now, so the item is valued there. Sure, sounds great.

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it. Not even considering how this is about the least enthralling way to develop a legendary possible, the fact that there is no way to actually “make progress” on your precursor short of just grinding out gold is absurd. It is nigh time we get precursor building, and the recent up-shift in prices only makes that more pertinent. Seriously, that’s what John Smith’s takeaway from these topics should be.

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

I noted that you could grind out the gold to buy it. Furthermore, I don’t care if it takes 1200g to make, I would rather it be 1200g in assorted materials (time-gated and otherwise) that I could ameliorate partially by going out into the world and collecting random crap than 1200g that I grind out from dungeons or flipping on the TP and then buying it from someone else. That “feels” more legendary than just grinding and buying it. I could outright buy a number of legendaries straight off the TP right now, but that is cheap and devalues the whole thing. I want to build a thing from the ground up and enjoy the journey.

For instance, when I made Incinerator, I went out and collected that stack of Ghost Peppers myself. Why? Because now I can look back on helping a bunch of randoms in Orr out and making some friends along the way and say that was a worthy investment of time. Looking back on a gold grind is nowhere near as sentimental.

Rising Dusk.2408:

laokoko.7403:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I totally understand the economics in what is going on here. Someone’s willing to pay an absurd amount of gold for their precursor now, so the item is valued there. Sure, sounds great.

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it. Not even considering how this is about the least enthralling way to develop a legendary possible, the fact that there is no way to actually “make progress” on your precursor short of just grinding out gold is absurd. It is nigh time we get precursor building, and the recent up-shift in prices only makes that more pertinent. Seriously, that’s what John Smith’s takeaway from these topics should be.

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

For instance, when I made Incinerator, I went out and collected that stack of Ghost Peppers myself. Why? Because now I can look back on helping a bunch of randoms in Orr out and making some friends along the way and say that was a worthy investment of time. Looking back on a gold grind is nowhere near as sentimental.

Maybe because you entered that gold grind with the mindset that you find it a chore?

I was predominantly a farmer, and I met many other like-minded farmers that I still talk to this day. My original guild I joined because we had other people who liked to farm shelt/pen day after day.

Experiences vary. You may find it not nearly as sentimental but I enjoy the relaxing, brain dead farming while I talk to friends about other stuff.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Okay maybe I’m unclear here. If you don’t actively try for precursors, you likely won’t get them. As a mob drop I received 1: Storm. The rest were random forges of random rares or random exotics. If you don’t try you won’t get it. Simple. Doesn’t matter how long the game is out nor your playtime.

oh i thought you were talking about random drops, yes, getting it from the forge is i believe the main way, and only way anyone attempting to get one should really consider outside of gold.

Grips about increasing prices really end up ultimately the blame of the gameplay and it’s reward mechanism. ANet has (IMO) been far too hyper-sensitive about rewarding gameplay, which is sad, since people play games to feel good about time spent in a virtual world. The entry fee for lower ticket items has increased as well. This really hurts the new players as their income potential has actually gone down (lower drop rates, less worthwhile items). I would say (speaking from a community leader perspective) the game changes have had some pretty devastating effects, both on the economy as well as it’s communities. The trend is very troubling. On any given night we would see upwards of 300 players on TS, we now get lucky to reach 60-80. This could very well be due to it being warmer, or vacations, but it’s a pretty drastic shift. New membership has plummeted as well.

There are some major things that ANet has really lost focus on in lieu of quickly developed, buggy content along with lowered earnings for time spent. This game, at least for NA/EU players isn’t aging well. I’ve spent a lot of money and time, both in the game itself and in developing it’s server community. I did that with confidence that GW2 could only improve, right now that confidence is on very shaky ground. The quickly rising prices don’t feel right to me and seem to reflect some of the problems with the game as a whole.

Leamas.5803:

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG.

Argument fails right there. At any given moment there are tens of thousands of people, at least, playing this game. “Look at these twelve people, this proves RNG is broken,” doesn’t even begin to offer enough data to do anything.

tolunart.2095:

Leamas.5803:

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG.

Argument fails right there. At any given moment there are tens of thousands of people, at least, playing this game. “Look at these twelve people, this proves RNG is broken,” doesn’t even begin to offer enough data to do anything.

This.

Because statistics, yo. I took that class I think.

laokoko.7403:

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

People are not complaining about the cost of the precursor. They are complaining about the inflation and the variance. Remove even one of these factors and 99% of the complaints will disappear.

A lot of complaints would disappear simply by making a vendor that sold precursors for 1000 gold. It could even be a variable price, say, 1500x the average cost of all rare weapons of that type sold the day/week/month before.

The precursor is a single item, either you have it or you don’t. In order to maintain a high price you need a very low drop rate, and this splits the community/playerbase. Alternatively, breaking Dusk into 1000 tradable “Fragment of Dusk” (combine 4 stacks into the mystic forge for the full Dusk) and making the drop rate of these fragments 1000x that of Dusk. You could even keep Dusk drops in game by cutting the drop rate of Dusk in half and offer a 500x drop rate on the Fragments. Alternatively, offer a 10%-25%/100% chance to get a fragment when salvaging a rare/exotic weapon of that type.

Why would this work? You don’t see people complaining about the cost of the rest of the legendary, even though the precursor is only 30-40% of the total cost at worst. People accept the cost of the T6 mats and ectos because they can get them bit by bit, converting their game progression into legendary progression without waste or fear of inflation.

Breaking down these larger pieces into smaller ones allows the larger ones to maintain their value allows people to make steady and real progression, even if it adds steps to the process. It also reduces the impact on progression when prices go up or down.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Okay maybe I’m unclear here. If you don’t actively try for precursors, you likely won’t get them. As a mob drop I received 1: Storm. The rest were random forges of random rares or random exotics. If you don’t try you won’t get it. Simple. Doesn’t matter how long the game is out nor your playtime.

I think it’s quite obvious if you keep throwing things in forge you’ll get something eventually. Some people just keep throwing and keep reselling.

People are probably talking about as random drop.

laokoko.7403:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Okay maybe I’m unclear here. If you don’t actively try for precursors, you likely won’t get them. As a mob drop I received 1: Storm. The rest were random forges of random rares or random exotics. If you don’t try you won’t get it. Simple. Doesn’t matter how long the game is out nor your playtime.

I think it’s quite obvious if you keep throwing things in forge you’ll get something eventually. Some people just keep throwing and keep reselling.

People are probably talking about as random drop.

If that’s what they’re talking about they’re sillier than I thought.

DaveGan.8065:

laokoko.7403:

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

People are not complaining about the cost of the precursor. They are complaining about the inflation and the variance. Remove even one of these factors and 99% of the complaints will disappear.

That’s the problem. What if they just make a quest which says grind 2000 gold for a precursor. People will be happy? (well people will, but I know I’m not since I actually have a brain which thinks)

I know I’m not happy with the tier 6 material price. People seemed to complain less, since they can grind a bit everyday and get hit with inflation less.

Rising Dusk.2408:

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it… grinding out gold…

3 is the new 2?

laokoko.7403:

That’s the problem. What if they just make a quest which says grind 2000 gold for a precursor. People will be happy?

How is that much/any different from now…?

On a serious note, though, it would serve as a massive gold sink to doubly counter the longer term precursor prices.

(well people will, but I know I’m not since I actually have a brain which thinks)

Passive aggression is not appreciated in a serious discussion.

I know I’m not happy with the tier 6 material price. People seemed to complain less, since they can grind a bit everyday and get hit with inflation less.

I’m not completely satisfied either, but I can live with it. People are fine with amassing 2500 gold of things to make a legendary. They are not happy when 1000 of it is one item.

DaveGan.8065:

People are not complaining about the cost of the precursor. They are complaining about the inflation and the variance. Remove even one of these factors and 99% of the complaints will disappear.

No, they are complaining because someone else has the extremely rare item that they want but don’t have. The only way to make this complaint go away is to give them the item. The irony is that if you give everyone who complains the item, it’s not rare any more and becomes far less valuable. It’s just another exotic that sells for 2g and change on the TP now. So they’ll complain that giving those other people the extremely rare item too devalued the item until there is no prestige involved in having it.

So, what they are really asking is that Anet gives me me me and only me that rare item so they can make other people as jealous as they are now. Not going to happen.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

…they’re sillier than I thought.

This is generally true. I’ve tried to underestimate the average person, but so far I’ve always failed.

DaveGan.8065:

laokoko.7403:

That’s the problem. What if they just make a quest which says grind 2000 gold for a precursor. People will be happy?

How is that much/any different from now…?

On a serious note, though, it would serve as a massive gold sink to doubly counter the longer term precursor prices.

(well people will, but I know I’m not since I actually have a brain which thinks)

Passive aggression is not appreciated in a serious discussion.

I know I’m not happy with the tier 6 material price. People seemed to complain less, since they can grind a bit everyday and get hit with inflation less.

I’m not completely satisfied either, but I can live with it. People are fine with amassing 2500 gold of things to make a legendary. They are not happy when 1000 of it is one item.

well I’m different. I’m fine with one of the item being 1200. But I rather it cost 2300 gold total instead of 2500 total for a legendary.

tolunart.2095:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

…they’re sillier than I thought.

This is generally true. I’ve tried to underestimate the average person, but so far I’ve always failed.

scratches head

I honestly didn’t know. I think I’ll go back to my home forum now. Bai.

tolunart.2095:

No, they are complaining because someone else has the extremely rare item that they want but don’t have. The only way to make this complaint go away is to give them the item. The irony is that if you give everyone who complains the item, it’s not rare any more and becomes far less valuable. It’s just another exotic that sells for 2g and change on the TP now. So they’ll complain that giving those other people the extremely rare item too devalued the item until there is no prestige involved in having it.

So, what they are really asking is that Anet gives me me me and only me that rare item so they can make other people as jealous as they are now. Not going to happen.

Clearly you didn’t read the rest of my post.

breaking Dusk into 1000 tradable “Fragment of Dusk” (combine 4 stacks into the mystic forge for the full Dusk) and making the drop rate of these fragments 1000x that of Dusk. You could even keep Dusk drops in game by cutting the drop rate of Dusk in half and offer a 500x drop rate on the Fragments. Alternatively, offer a 10%-25%/100% chance to get a fragment when salvaging a rare/exotic weapon of that type.

I said nothing about the rarity. This would not increase the number of precursors at all. The only suggestion here was that the variance needed to be reduced.

tolunart.2095:

Leamas.5803:

There is enough anecdotal evidence to show there are issues with the RNG.

Argument fails right there. At any given moment there are tens of thousands of people, at least, playing this game. “Look at these twelve people, this proves RNG is broken,” doesn’t even begin to offer enough data to do anything.

actually random samples are a method of statistics as well, when your random sample shows info not consistent with what you expect you then begin a more detailed analysis, QC of many products work like this.
Anyhow even if one can claim anectdotal evidence may be invalid, its a lot more valid than 0 data.

Vol.7601:

Rising Dusk.2408:

laokoko.7403:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I totally understand the economics in what is going on here. Someone’s willing to pay an absurd amount of gold for their precursor now, so the item is valued there. Sure, sounds great.

My contempt is with the fact that there are only two ways to get these blasted things. I RNG it from a random drop, or I RNG it from the Mystic Forge. That’s it. Not even considering how this is about the least enthralling way to develop a legendary possible, the fact that there is no way to actually “make progress” on your precursor short of just grinding out gold is absurd. It is nigh time we get precursor building, and the recent up-shift in prices only makes that more pertinent. Seriously, that’s what John Smith’s takeaway from these topics should be.

or you can just buy from the TP.

Even if they added precursor hunt, they never said it’s going to take less effort than grinding 1200 gold.

For instance, when I made Incinerator, I went out and collected that stack of Ghost Peppers myself. Why? Because now I can look back on helping a bunch of randoms in Orr out and making some friends along the way and say that was a worthy investment of time. Looking back on a gold grind is nowhere near as sentimental.

Maybe because you entered that gold grind with the mindset that you find it a chore?

I was predominantly a farmer, and I met many other like-minded farmers that I still talk to this day. My original guild I joined because we had other people who liked to farm shelt/pen day after day.

Experiences vary. You may find it not nearly as sentimental but I enjoy the relaxing, brain dead farming while I talk to friends about other stuff.

Sure, and I enjoy it sometimes too! Maybe the precursor crafting can have a 250 Icy Runestone requirement. I certainly think that’s a good idea! There should be a straight gold component to doing it, but do you honestly think farming that gold like that for 1200 gold straight is ideal? Do you think that says something about your experiences in-game? Your ability to master the game? Why can’t gold only be a single component in a grander design? Farm for some parts of it, and maybe some others require some mastery of the game elsewhere, and so forth. Furthermore, you could still farm all the gold for the components if you wanted. That’s important because it enables you to do whatever you want, but having materials like “Iron Ore” or “Ascalonian Tear” or “Laurel” give people milestones to work toward that they can obtain either with straight gold or with playing the game other ways. This gives people the choice to truly play how they want and actually get somewhere on their precursor. Of course people could also still just buy them outright on the TP too if they want!

I don’t find gold farming sentimental, and that’s true. Maybe you do, and maybe that’s why making a legendary doesn’t bother you. But coming out with precursor crafting doesn’t stop you from enjoying farming gold, farming that gold, and buying your precursor. All it does is add a new way for people who derive no or little personal enjoyment from obtaining more and more gold in a never ending chase.

tolunart.2095:

DaveGan.8065:

People are not complaining about the cost of the precursor. They are complaining about the inflation and the variance. Remove even one of these factors and 99% of the complaints will disappear.

No, they are complaining because someone else has the extremely rare item that they want but don’t have. The only way to make this complaint go away is to give them the item. The irony is that if you give everyone who complains the item, it’s not rare any more and becomes far less valuable. It’s just another exotic that sells for 2g and change on the TP now. So they’ll complain that giving those other people the extremely rare item too devalued the item until there is no prestige involved in having it.

So, what they are really asking is that Anet gives me me me and only me that rare item so they can make other people as jealous as they are now. Not going to happen.

This is utterly wrong and continually insulting. This is a piece, one item of a legendary. It could easily stand to be devalued, even if it dropped to 50g. Nothing feels legendary about buying a precursor, whether it’s 500000000g or 5c. The basic structure of that part of the legendary process is wasted on bad RNG and frustration for players that keep saving, only to have it go up in price by the time they get close. Add on top of lowering drop rates and rising demand, and you get regular threads like these. I think most people here have spoken on some pretty stable, thoughtful ground. Then someone comes along with “it’s the me complex” and thinks its a good counter argument. It’s just a stale, hallow, shell of an attempt at addressing the real issue.