Guild Wars 2

Now, im not a member or employee of A-Net, nor do i claim to understand how the economy works. But i do understand a very large amount due to constant observation and research behind current topics in GW2.
The issue id like to bring to light today is… Precursors! Yes, i am aware that there are a million plus people voicing their opinions on precursors, but that alone says something in itself. So hear me out.
Precursor prices have raised steadily from the beginning release of the game. This shouldn’t come as a surprise and nor is it abnormal. With the games changes in economy and gold being relatively easier to come across… its understandable for those who understand the method of “Strong Currency”. However, there are a few things i would like to mention. it is said that in the past A-Net has mentioned that the climbing price is a concern and they will “Continue to monitor” and claim to take action when necessary…
So my main question is, Does this superior climb and ecstatic fluctuating market worry A-Net? Did they take into account the possibility of rarity/desire (Due to massive increase in demand) with the shared Legendary and Ascended patch? Or more simply put, as a concern for many players… What would it take for A-Net to act. As we have seen very recently they have enacted an “Increased” drop rate. Do they intend to act again? But most of all, statistically speaking, is it very possible for a player to NEVER see a precursor just due to numbers put in place such as “.02%”.
To put it simply… The price is unrealistic for many players to save gold for months or spend $200 (Literally) or crossing your fingers when you log on can result in disappointment for many players.

Is this a problem worth looking at? or could it become a problem worth looking at?

Sincerely: Concerned Player

welcome to thread number 74589236 on this exact same topic…

Thats the whole point behind this Insane…

Im trying to draw attention to the voices who have mentioned the same so far.

This post is to attempt some feedback and promote others to voice their opinion as well.

I think if it is seriously a topic that people keep crying out about but might be going un-noticed, it needs to be looked at.

If its not a topic worth talking about, let it sink.

I say let the public choose

you want recognition for being uncreative? hmm… well…

John Smith

It’s working as intended.

Well… i tryed to explain that the recognition was not intended to myself but instead was intended to everyone in general… Sorry to say there isn’t much more i can say to explain it to you.

“This deserves a look…”

My first thought was “no, it really doesn’t.”

I was right.

MrObliviosity.5941:

Thats the whole point behind this Insane…

Im trying to draw attention to the voices who have mentioned the same so far.

This post is to attempt some feedback and promote others to voice their opinion as well.

I think if it is seriously a topic that people keep crying out about but might be going un-noticed, it needs to be looked at.

If its not a topic worth talking about, let it sink.

I say let the public choose

It’s not unnoticed. It’s not possible that JS reads and comments on so many threads and yet he has no idea that there are players who want precursors. That’s why they are sold on the TP, so players can get one even if they don’t drop for that player.

If Anet put precursors in the gem store for 4000 gems ($50) they’d sell hundreds of thousands of them in a week. And a month later, hundreds of thousands of players would quit the game because they are bored and have nothing to work towards.

Precursor drop rates are not a problem, last time JS posted info on the subject a Dusk sold on average once an hour on the TP. Keep working at it and eventually you will get one. The problem is the attitudes of players who don’t actually want to put in the time and effort to get there and want it handed to them. It’s just not going to happen, the Legendary creation process was designed so that it requires more effort than the average player puts into the game. If you are an average player you are not supposed to have a Legendary.

Well, i can find two flaws in your post… however i do understand where you are coming from. If it is a fairness issue you want to talk about then lets bring to light the possibility of people quitting the game due to the sense of unaccomplished hours playing in not achieving anything toward a legendary after having all of the previous required mats even.
Look, no one wants A-Net to loose players. So that’s not what im trying to promote here. Im attempting to promote the question of raising prices vs save time and play time. NOT having it just given to them. Would you agree a 800-900g Price range is more reasonable? and the whole “I knew it wasnt worth looking at” thing wasnt necessary. Dont simply word something on the opposite side of the spectrum like “HE WANTS IT FREE” and expect a positive responce.

Secondly…Bored and ran out of things to do? You do realize this game is a “LIVING WORLD” right? Your bored of the current content? Wait a week. Take a break. Check in tomorrow. Same goes for after you achieve a legendary. Do you see those people who have legionaries suddenly stop playing? No. its not realistic.

MrObliviosity.5941:

Do you see those people who have legionaries suddenly stop playing? No. its not realistic.

Yes, that does happen, because the players are extremely goal-oriented and have nothing to do once they have the “best” equipment in the game. Unfortunately you don’t see them quit, unless you talk to them outside of the game. I believe Vayne mentioned his son doing this after creating a Legendary weapon.

Quitting because you don’t get a precursor? Keep playing, collect money, and update your buy order whenever you get another 50 gold or so. If you give up so easily, then what about map completion? Or collecting magic clovers or whatever from the forge? Or hard to find items like 250 silver doubloons?

If Anet should hand out precursors to anyone who wants them, then they should hand out the gifts, too. Players might get frustrated because they need so many dungeon runs and t6 mats…

Look, if they wanted them to be available to all players, they would sell Legendary skins in the gem shop. They are the most elaborate skins in the game, imagine how much money they could make! But they didn’t do that, they set up a very long-term process to get them, and those who are very lucky or extremely dedicated to the game can do it in a month or two. Those who are less dedicated will take longer to get there. Many will never get there.

And that’s okay.

MrObliviosity.5941:

Look, no one wants A-Net to loose players. So that’s not what im trying to promote here. Im attempting to promote the question of raising prices vs save time and play time. NOT having it just given to them. Would you agree a 800-900g Price range is more reasonable? and the whole “I knew it wasnt worth looking at” thing wasnt necessary. Dont simply word something on the opposite side of the spectrum like “HE WANTS IT FREE” and expect a positive responce. .

This is nothing more than yet another “precursors cost too much! Anet make them cheaper!” rant.

Prices are determined by what people are willing to spend, not what people want to charge. Not long ago someone bought up all the Dusks and listed three at twice their former price. They didn’t sell, because you don’t just say “give me this much money,” and people do it. If the prices are too high, no one buys them.

Prices dropped back to normal soon after. Because that is what people were willing to pay. If you’re willing to pay 800 gold and someone else is willing to pay 1000 gold, guess who gets the precursor.

The market is in the hands of other players, where it belongs, and Anet does not need to step in. During the period where someone wanted 2000g for a Dusk, they didn’t sell them, but JS posted data that showed approximately 60 Dusks selling in 60 hours. Obviously, many players do not have a problem with Dusks dropping (or they wouldn’t be selling them) and other players do not have a problem paying for them (or they wouldn’t be buying them).

So what is the problem? People who don’t want to pay more than another player is willing to pay can’t get his Dusk. Because there is another player out there with more gold than him. So obviously, Anet has to step in and make the player selling Dusk sell it for less money so the poorer player doesn’t feel bad.

I’m sure JS will get right on it, now that you brought it to his attention, he must have missed those other threads, including the ones he responded to.

Precursor prices are where they are because 1) the longer players play, the more wealth they’ve accumulated and 2) since the drop rate hasn’t significantly changed, more wealth among the players means the higher the price would go.

If we had an auction system the prices would be similar. Those who want it with money would bid the price up so ends up being a fight among those with that level of money. Supply and Demand on the open market does the same thing but since it’s not as obvious players become upset over the price.

Keep in mind that it isn’t the supply that is wildly disproportionate to every other exotic in the game; it’s demand that is. If you compare the supply of, say, Sparks to Usoku’s Needles, the difference is less than a factor of four.

As people play the game longer most of the earlier rewards get exhausted; people get their exotics, and their runes; the skins they want, and ascended gear. Early on, all of those are reasonable competition with legendaries for people’s money. As we approach the game’s second birthday, a growing percentage of the population has exhausted those rewards, and are at a point where they have no qualms about throwing their entire incomes at the materials that will get them legendaries.

There just isn’t a lot of room for the price to move downward, and with all the interactions up and down the chain it’s not hard to envision scenarios where doubling the precursor drop rate would actually move prices up.

tolunart.2095:

If Anet put precursors in the gem store for 4000 gems ($50) they’d sell hundreds of thousands of them in a week. And a month later, hundreds of thousands of players would quit the game because they are bored and have nothing to work towards.

This one Im not sure I understand. There is nothing stopping you from buy a precursor with real money (through gems) today, from the tp?
You can even flat out buy a legendary, (remember you can always buy gems and transfer to gold, Anet says hi), wich makes any arguments about whos supposed to own a legendary and whos not somewhat ridiculous.
I think youre right about a lot of players quit if they got their legendary. I have given up on it, and it is one less reason to log in. Dont know if I would log in at all if I suddenly had one.
But there is also players who dont log in anymore, because the legendary was all there was left for them, and all the needed mats and the price/rng for the precursor seemed hopeless.

Hello Anet,
You probably will not read/nor respond to this topic but I have to say it anyway.

A few months ago precorsors, for example dawn cost like 600g, which I think is a fair price, and also the maximum a precorsor should cost.
During this time my goal was to get gold to buy this one, but also to have something left to start with the legendary. So I put a lot of time in dungeons to get money etc…
During this past few months the prices of pre’s increased dramatically! And I think this is not fair, and they keep even rising.
So strictly speaking I am not any further as I was a few months ago.

For example I had like 100g and few months later I have 700g, but during this months the pre went up from 600 to 1150! Isn’t this game made to get you somewhere, feel progress etc? Does this feel as progress then?
I still haven’t accomplished anything and it is starting to frustrate me! The fun for me is to save stuff and working towards something and I am OK to take a few months to get there. But after a few months I am still at the same place, do you get that?

If it keeps rising I will stop playing this game. Its not fun. You will lose a big fan as I played GW1 and now GW2 for over 2000 hours, bought gems etc!

So I am begging you, put those pre’s back to 600/700g , also for newcomers!
And don’t give excuses as, yeah its inflation, people are only doing legends now etc. There should be a limit in how expensive pre’s should be, not this weird marketing system. Its a game, and we want to accomplish something.
After a few months I am still nowhere, as prices go up as fast as I make money.

So what is ANET going to do about this?

Kind regards

What CAN they do about it though?
The price is set by players, if they suddenly start changing prices people put on the TP all hell will break loose.

Sure, they can increase the precursor drop-rate massively, but that will also make all hell break loose with those players that bought precurors or spent thousands of golds on weapons to put in the MF.

They could have made legendaries something you could also ‘work on’ and make progress with some NPC (legendary crafter Toby f/e), by actually doing like ‘legendary’ stuff. Instead of achieving ‘legendary lucky RNG kitten’. Now sure, put some of them on drops, i see no harm in that, but the way it is now, you either have luck (which seems to hit the same people, and some completely go without), or you have to farm your bum off to no avail, or buy gems to reward somebody else’s luck.

Arghore.8340:

They could have made legendaries something you could also ‘work on’ and make progress with some NPC (legendary crafter Toby f/e), by actually doing like ‘legendary’ stuff. Instead of achieving ‘legendary lucky RNG kitten’. Now sure, put some of them on drops, i see no harm in that, but the way it is now, you either have luck (which seems to hit the same people, and some completely go without), or you have to farm your bum off to no avail, or buy gems to reward somebody else’s luck.

I think it’s pretty “legendary” that I’ve hoarded 1,300 gold worth of materials without ever farming.

This should probably go in the BLTC sub-forum, by the way.

They are creators of this game. They can do anything. But they doesn’t want to because money-gems-gold-legendaries.

The reason the precursors took such a big jump is the wardrobe feature was added. Before that, it was a pretty steady increase but the wardrobe made a big jump in price. I now see it going back to a steady increase or perhaps reaching a settling point for a little bit.

Mortifer.2946:

They are creators of this game. They can do anything. But they doesn’t want to because money-gems-gold-legendaries.

Of course. The also CAN take every item from you if you decide to not login for a week.

They do however care about the game (probably much more than us forum-posters) and as such they would most likely not do something that would more or less only lead to more rage such as forcefully lowering player set prices and so on.

Dutchdevil.6902:

Hello Anet,
You probably will not read/nor respond to this topic but I have to say it anyway.

A few months ago precorsors, for example dawn cost like 600g, which I think is a fair price, and also the maximum a precorsor should cost.
During this time my goal was to get gold to buy this one, but also to have something left to start with the legendary. So I put a lot of time in dungeons to get money etc…
During this past few months the prices of pre’s increased dramatically! And I think this is not fair, and they keep even rising.
So strictly speaking I am not any further as I was a few months ago.

For example I had like 100g and few months later I have 700g, but during this months the pre went up from 600 to 1150! Isn’t this game made to get you somewhere, feel progress etc? Does this feel as progress then?
I still haven’t accomplished anything and it is starting to frustrate me! The fun for me is to save stuff and working towards something and I am OK to take a few months to get there. But after a few months I am still at the same place, do you get that?

If it keeps rising I will stop playing this game. Its not fun. You will lose a big fan as I played GW1 and now GW2 for over 2000 hours, bought gems etc!

So I am begging you, put those pre’s back to 600/700g , also for newcomers!
And don’t give excuses as, yeah its inflation, people are only doing legends now etc. There should be a limit in how expensive pre’s should be, not this weird marketing system. Its a game, and we want to accomplish something.
After a few months I am still nowhere, as prices go up as fast as I make money.

So what is ANET going to do about this?

Kind regards

You think that 600g is a fair price.
Other players think that 1150g is a fair price.

Who do you think the person with the precursor is going to sell it to?

Precursors went up in price because the cost to forge them went up. With the Wardrobe, a lot of rares and exotics doubled in price. So the cost to forge precursors doubled in price. So the cost of precursors doubled in price.
As people complete their skin library, they’ll sell more rares and exotics to the TP and prices will go down again. It’ll take a while, but it’ll happen. If you want to speed it along, you should sell all the rares and exotics you find for 30s.
Wish I had realized this would happen back when I noticed rares and exotics costing a lot more.

Mystic.5934:

If you want to speed it along, you should sell all the rares and exotics you find for 30s.

I’d rather just continue selling it at the going price, and then have money for when it goes back down. (I doubt it will though)

selling them for going rate is also fine. it’s all the salvaging that’s driving the prices up.
I think it will go back down – when everyone gets all the skins. You can see that ectos are cheaper than a lot of rares – that’s proof enough right there that rares are overpriced. and because rares are overpriced, that makes precursors overpriced.

Mystic.5934:

selling them for going rate is also fine. it’s all the salvaging that’s driving the prices up.
I think it will go back down – when everyone gets all the skins. You can see that ectos are cheaper than a lot of rares – that’s proof enough right there that rares are overpriced. and because rares are overpriced, that makes precursors overpriced.

Well I’m working on getting my legendary, and I need around 500 globs of ectoplasm. I guess I should just sell the rare and buy the ecto though.

Morsus.5106:

Mystic.5934:

selling them for going rate is also fine. it’s all the salvaging that’s driving the prices up.
I think it will go back down – when everyone gets all the skins. You can see that ectos are cheaper than a lot of rares – that’s proof enough right there that rares are overpriced. and because rares are overpriced, that makes precursors overpriced.

Well I’m working on getting my legendary, and I need around 500 globs of ectoplasm. I guess I should just sell the rare and buy the ecto though.

Depends on the rare.
If you get a rare you should do the following:
1. Look up the price of buying an Ecto (44s17c right now)
2. Multiply that amount by 1.15 to offset the salvage loss (50s80c)
3. Multiply that amount by another 1.15 to offset the TP fees (58s42c)
4. Add 61c to offset the Master Salvage Kit per use cost (59s03c)

This number is the Break Even Point.

If your rare can be sold for more than the Break Even Point, sell it. If it sells for less than the Break Even Point, salvage it.

I compute the break even point this way.

Using a master/mystic salvage kit I’ve seen an average of 0.825 ectos per salvage attempt. Of course this is level 68 rares or higher.
If the item contains an upgrade, there’s an 80% chance to recover it.

So average 24 hr ecto sell price is 43.3s and the cheapest major rune is 6s and major sigil is 4s. If you are lucky, average mats might add 1s.

So for trinkets and armor/weapons with no upgrades, using the 24hr average ecto sell price of 43.3s and 6s for major rune, 4s for major sigils and 1s for average mats

0.825 × 43.3s + 1 – 0.6 or 36.1s
add 4.8s for armor with a rune or 40.9s
add 3.2s for weapons with sigils or 39.3s

Note since the choice is either selling the mats or the original item, TP fees don’t need to be included in the calculations. However if you are buying rares to salvage you do need to multiply by 0.85 to figure out the max buying price of the “raw materials”. So buying rare armor with runes for more than 34.8s is a loss.

My 0.825 average ecto figure comes from over 1300 salavages that I’ve recorded the number of ectos from each salvage using a master/mystic kit. Also 40% of the time you get nothing but since 15% of the time you get either 2 or 3, evenly split, it raises the average from 0.6 per to 0.825 per.

Precursors should be able to get crafted (like Anet promised us back in 2013 here they said they were going to implent it before the end of 2013. yet here we are..)

People who have no problem with the current precursor prices do either buy gold rl or they flip TP whole day long.

Anet has to understand 80% can’t flip TP due lack of knowledge/boring/other reasons and there are players who farm dungeons every single day ending up having a burn-out due the fast rising prices in short time.

It is not true the longer a player plays, the more wealth he has since a lot of people make new chars/class etc and have to buy everything over again. There’s always something where we need to waste our gold on.

Either increase the pre’s drop rate by a decent amount (both MF and PvE/WvW), make it crafteable or set a max sell price on TP per wep (2handed weps higher max ofcourse).

They can do that since they already made the step to make i account bound/skin share even though alot of ppl had double legendaries. So they can do this again, no matter how much gold ppl wasted to get a precursor because the prices they ask now are close to impossible to reach if you only work hard (dungeons). That pushes ppl to buy either gold in rl/ buy the legendary with rl money/more chance in scams and what not.

They acknowledged the problem back in 2013 already yet they wait..

Terrorsquad.2349:

Precursors should be able to get crafted (like Anet promised us back in 2013 here they said they were going to implent it before the end of 2013. yet here we are..)

People who have no problem with the current precursor prices do either buy gold rl or they flip TP whole day long.

Anet has to understand 80% can’t flip TP due lack of knowledge/boring/other reasons and there are players who farm dungeons every single day ending up having a burn-out due the fast rising prices in short time.

It is not true the longer a player plays, the more wealth he has since a lot of people make new chars/class etc and have to buy everything over again. There’s always something where we need to waste our gold on.

Either increase the pre’s drop rate by a decent amount (both MF and PvE/WvW), make it crafteable or set a max sell price on TP per wep (2handed weps higher max ofcourse).

They can do that since they already made the step to make i account bound/skin share even though alot of ppl had double legendaries. So they can do this again, no matter how much gold ppl wasted to get a precursor because the prices they ask now are close to impossible to reach if you only work hard (dungeons). That pushes ppl to buy either gold in rl/ buy the legendary with rl money/more chance in scams and what not.

They acknowledged the problem back in 2013 already yet they wait..

There’s at least a dozen threads on this topic. Why did you necro this thread?

You also do not realize that there are other ways to make gold besides the TP and the horrible impact craftable precursors would have on the economy if they were easier to get than farming the gold.

Ayrilana.1396:

Terrorsquad.2349:

Precursors should be able to get crafted (like Anet promised us back in 2013 here they said they were going to implent it before the end of 2013. yet here we are..)

People who have no problem with the current precursor prices do either buy gold rl or they flip TP whole day long.

Anet has to understand 80% can’t flip TP due lack of knowledge/boring/other reasons and there are players who farm dungeons every single day ending up having a burn-out due the fast rising prices in short time.

It is not true the longer a player plays, the more wealth he has since a lot of people make new chars/class etc and have to buy everything over again. There’s always something where we need to waste our gold on.

Either increase the pre’s drop rate by a decent amount (both MF and PvE/WvW), make it crafteable or set a max sell price on TP per wep (2handed weps higher max ofcourse).

They can do that since they already made the step to make i account bound/skin share even though alot of ppl had double legendaries. So they can do this again, no matter how much gold ppl wasted to get a precursor because the prices they ask now are close to impossible to reach if you only work hard (dungeons). That pushes ppl to buy either gold in rl/ buy the legendary with rl money/more chance in scams and what not.

They acknowledged the problem back in 2013 already yet they wait..

There’s at least a dozen threads on this topic. Why did you necro this thread?

You also do not realize that there are other ways to make gold besides the TP and the horrible impact craftable precursors would have on the economy if they were easier to get than farming the gold.

They have an horrible impact already.
Other ways of making gold? Afaik, dungeon and tp flipping are the two main ways of making gold since they give the most in shortest time. MF’ing items to make gold are RnG based, lots of people don’t have the luck as others do.

And your suggestion could make things much much worse.

Node farming for ancient logs and ori ore yields about 4 gold per character and only takes about 20-30 min per run. Karka farming is about 5 gold an hour on average. There are other locations that you can farm that yield valuable items that you can sell if you know where to look.

I don’t TP flip, I just save my rares and toss them in the forge when our guild banks fill up.

It’s not as kittenome necros. Seen ones plucked from over a year ago.

Awe yes, the old “only people who can afford X are rich people and evil flippers”. There is a thread I read talking about earning 30+g a day in a few hours grinding out all the dungeon paths daily and the author of that post thinks he’s a piker in terms of earning compared to others he play with.

Believe me, ANet isn’t expecting the player base to engage in flipping to earn coin. If you think flippers are simply putting in bids, turning around and list anything they bought at a 50% markup, sit back and wait for the money to pour in are certifiable. In another thread someone suggested half of the player base is flipping. That’s crazy talk. Flipping isn’t about ratcheting prices up, it’s about finding the places where there is a significant, practical gap between low sell and high buy and work that. It means that players must be selling at the bid price and buying from the sell price at a reasonable volume level where the profit after fees is worth the time finding that niche market.

Precursors are high because their daily supply is a trickle and therefore only those with the most money who want one can get it. If we had an auction system the price would be just as high or higher.

Ayrilana.1396:

And your suggestion could make things much much worse.

Node farming for ancient logs and ori ore yields about 4 gold per character and only takes about 20-30 min per run. Karka farming is about 5 gold an hour on average. There are other locations that you can farm that yield valuable items that you can sell if you know where to look.

The node farming of 4 gold you’re talking about is actually (and I just did it myself) only 1.5g – 2g. 4gold was already too good to be true though.

Terrorsquad.2349:

Ayrilana.1396:

And your suggestion could make things much much worse.

Node farming for ancient logs and ori ore yields about 4 gold per character and only takes about 20-30 min per run. Karka farming is about 5 gold an hour on average. There are other locations that you can farm that yield valuable items that you can sell if you know where to look.

The node farming of 4 gold you’re talking about is actually (and I just did it myself) only 1.5g – 2g. 4gold was already too good to be true though.

Wrong.

42 ori ore
36 ancient logs

That’s how much you get per character at a minimum. Ori ore tops around 6 silver and ancient logs around 5 silver. That’s 4.32 gold before taxes. You’re either not doing all of the nodes and/or selling at the buy order prices.

I’m also completely ignoring the foxfire clusters which I usually get about 10-12 over six characters.

Tried to use the website and only showed me Cursed Shore and Frost..

Cursed Shore
Malchor’s Leap
Southsun Cove
Frostgorge Sound

EDIT: I just did a round of node farming on 7 characters. Here’s what I got. Mind you that I did miss an ori node with 6 of them so I’m about 18 ori ore short of what I would have gotten. I did this in 2.5 hours.

If you start in Malchor’s Leap, at or west of Pagga’s waypoint, you are relatively likely to find guild harvesting-related banners which will increase your haul. At least while foxfire frenzy lasts, you are.