Guild Wars 2

As I strolled through Lions Arch I could not help but notice the dozen or so players walking around with the precursor I desired. I wondered how it came into their possession. Having all the components needed for my legendary with the exception of the precursor it remained the last obstacle in my long journey. As I continued to walk I was passed by a player with the completed legendary. Then another. Then another. Then another…

Teeth clenched I walked into the bank. “Thats it, I am going to finish this today.” I thought to myself. I withdrew all of the gold I had accumulated over the course of the month & left over materials from my previous attempts & made my way over to the blacksmithing station where I made a few hundred weapons.

As I made my way over to the Mystic Forge fear washed over me. Recollections of my previous failures came to mind. “Not this time.” I thought. With a deep exhale “Here we go” I began placing my weapons into the forge 4 at a time.

One by one, I removed the products of my efforts. Failure. Failure. Failure. I hastened my delivery of said weapons into the forge hoping to please the almighty Zommoros. Failure. Failure. Failure. Panic swept over me. Few weapons remained. I placed the last 4 remaining weapons into the forge.

Failure.

I stood there. Silent…staring blankly into the swirling waters of the mystic forge. Several minutes passed. In a attempt to gather myself I began to rationalize my behavior. To overcome my losses. To swallow the truth. I had just lost everything. Saying things such as “Hey its not so bad, you may have no money but…”

(long pause)

I could not finish the thought.

I slowly walked away from the forge. The Mad Kings laugh echoed throughout Lions Arch as if he had watched the whole affair. I shuffled back to the bank to deposit the few leftover remaining materials. As I handed them over to the bank attendant another player stepped beside me to deposit his/her possessions as well. Precursor slung on their back.

Well, he does walk around there a lot, so he probably had been.

claps Snow on the shoulder in sympathy

Lady Luck is a cruel mistress, my friend.

Man that is sad…
I feel for you

Everyone who currently has a legendary got their precursor when it was dirt cheap. People say legendaries need to be like this so we can work really hard for them. But then how come the people who did it easy already have the legendary and the people who are working hard just get screwed?

Nah, those guys were just more skillful at throwing their weapons into the forge. That’s why they got their precursors. More skill.

Totes.

Broken Hearts Club.
GG anet
They killed the skill.
It is getting to the point of why even bother now.
I feel for ya and the stupidity of this Act is Legendary.

Keep in mind that some other weapons look like precursors. I have Usoku’s Needle as my main weapon, but it has the same model as Spark.

SteepledHat.1345:

Nah, those guys were just more skillful at throwing their weapons into the forge. That’s why they got their precursors. More skill.

Totes.

Maybe not skill per se but persistence. There is a .1% chance using rares (too low I think, maybe .5-1% is good), meaning that an average of 1/1000 tries will yield one. Also, keep in mind that some cultures are very luck oriented and actually enjoy gambling, and this is one of the Eastern/Western divides.

I have played Eastern MMOs that have had worse mechanics than the Mystic Forge, which honestly isn’t even bad apart from precursor odds. Imagine in some other game you try putting 5 ingredients into an alchemy bowl, many of which are rare, and with 5 you have no room for a drastic odds increase object as 5 slots is maximum, and could get literal garbage from the attempt at making the item whereas the Mystic Forge is guaranteed to give back an object of at least equal value. Imagine throwing in 4 rares and getting back a 1c piece of crabmeat bad, and you have other games’ systems. Though even the rarest items there had way better chance than precursors (lowest I think is maybe 10% with 90% chance of trash -_- )

The Mystic Forge is nevertheless a far better mechanic than some other games and some may even say it holds our hand for the most part.

Agemnon.4608:

Maybe not skill per se but persistence. There is a .1% chance using rares (too low I think, maybe .5-1% is good), meaning that an average of 1/1000 tries will yield one. Also, keep in mind that some cultures are very luck oriented and actually enjoy gambling, and this is one of the Eastern/Western divides.

It’s not really a cultural divide; casinos are pretty much a universal phenomenon. Hell, even rats can exhibit those kinds of behaviours.

I think it’s likely that people don’t get into the precursor gamble so much because there is only one notable type of “win”, with very low chances of ever happening. If there were many more minor victories – e.g. items worth 10g with a 5% chance of coming out – people might find it more enjoyable (or at least addictive), because they would at least have some experience of “winning”.

Hey Snow, I know how you feel. I’ve been trying this for some time now. After creating 550 weapons and just losing all my gold at the forge, I’m becoming very depressed with this whole affair. De prospect of going out and hunting down a massive amount of undead to get back up to where I was is very disheartening. All my previous time and effort was just a waste.

Every time I lift my staff there is a nagging voice in the back of my head going “why do you even bother?”.

Good luck in the future tryes .. one day youll get it

I know few players that close to having legendary and they dropped precursor from the mystic forge by themself …

Whoever says that every who has legendary bought precursor cheap or with gold is just ignorant and jelous person. Even if they bought precursor cheap doesnt mean nothing bad, in fact, they are smarter than you are, because they predicted price increase. That you didnt, is your problem
And even person who bought golds tru gems is not some kind of idiot, he just can afford it, dont see anything wrong about it, you can buy everything with your real life money … real life money > every other currency, And I think earning real life money takes 100x more effort than earning golds in any game.

Agemnon.4608:

Keep in mind that some other weapons look like precursors. I have Usoku’s Needle as my main weapon, but it has the same model as Spark.

Yes that is true. I have Imryldeen and Khryosaor the Golden Sword.
I got them because I love the skins, later I found out that they use the same models as the Legend and Dawn.
I was wondering why I got so many whispers all of a sudden. (sometimes I can be very blonde)

But that is really beside the point. The Op makes me sad because I would dearly love the Bifrost.
I can never see that happening tough- I think at this point you should only consider a legendary if you somehow magically manage to get a precursor and then only start to work on the other things you need.
Regardless of gambling culture the precursor really should be looked at- some or other skill/ rare ingredient or whatever would be much more in fitting with the idea of Legendary achievement.

I think Morrigan is right: so many guides / legendary owners / practical people advise getting your precursor last. But maybe people should start going for that part first, so they can get frustrated and quit long before they’ve spent all that extra time and effort.

Really, though, I expect precursors will be available one day to anyone with enough patience. If you can farm 100g to throw in the forge, you can farm 300g to pay off some flipper for your precursor. And if you already farmed a million karma, you should be cool with farming.

LOL. I have Khryosaor as well, had no idea it looked like a precursor. I was just throwing rares at the MF one day because mithril wasn’t worth much anymore, and it gave me the sword, so I figured it looked alright and transmuted it to berserker stats.

I guess I need to go stand by the forge now and torment people. xD

I really don’t know what to say to this. I wonder if this is what Anet had in mind when they envisioned the epic journey of creating a legendary?

This is exactly the reason I avoid the the mystic slot machine like it has the plague. I know I would end up broken and poor…

@Snow, but it was “exciting” and “rewarding” right?

Of course it was exciting and rewarding. According to the current arena-net-can-do-no-wrong crowd on this topic, it’s working as intended for some people to spend months of work for nothing whilst others spend minutes (read: first five attempts of forge) to keep the legendary weapons ‘rare’, ‘prestigious’, and so that only 5% of the population gets it.

Noodles forbid people want to put in hard work and time in a video game meant for fun to obtain a goal that realistically should be obtainable by anyone willing to put forth the effort without dropping months of gold into an RNG system that is punishing to keep the economy strong.

I honestly can’t believe there are people who can’t grasp the idea that RNG is a fine thing to have in game, but not punishing RNG. Non-punishing RNG as an example is killing monsters to obtain X item, it is a “free roll” if you will, you only spent your time to have fun and possibly get a desirable item (Also mutliple people can participate in this, while MF RNG, you are bidding against other people to gain items to throw away) . Mystic Forge RNG is punishing and bad because you could save up let’s say 3 gold to do an 4-exotic roll to only find yourself left with an exotic worth 80 silver – now you’ve wasted the 2 hours you spent getting that 3 gold. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Keep the Mystic Forge in game, add non-punishing methods to obtaining precursors while still keeping them rare. It satisfies both sides of the fence on this issue.

Oh, for the punishment part, it’d be cool if you didn’t get a precursor, you get like 4+ items in return of lesser value, then it wouldn’t feel as much of a loss.

@ArcTheFallen, yeah I agree and I think a lot of people have put forth that same idea. No one here wants a precursor for no effort, we just want some way to actually make progress towards it, instead of it being a constantly moving goal post.

Not to mention to that if the “everyone wants precursors for free” straw man brigade actually thought that, they’d also be against the current system, since it does precisely that: some people get precursors for nothing while others put in ridiculous amounts of gold and items and get nothing in return.

If any of the people claiming we all want precursors for nothing truly thought that, they’d be just as keen to get rid of the current system. Personally I think, though, that they are just being intentionally disingenuous in order to argue.

Cheer up mate. It’s just a weapon skin. Better luck in the future. When you finally do get your desired non compulsory weapon skin it will just make it more worthwhile since you put so much of you effort into getting it.

Larlik.1532:

it will just make it more worthwhile since you put so much of you effort into getting it.

But that’s the problem that people here are ignoring. It won’t be more worthwhile. When I look back at the process for getting it, all I get to remember is a thousand hours of unfun mindless grinding.

That’s a problem.

Nothing about it is interesting, challenging, or fun. It’s just grind grind grind until you have sold enough mounds of garbage items to buy what you need.

I’ve said before I’d rather have the precursor process require you to complete every non-PvP achievement in the entire game than how it currently is, because at least then the effort would be interesting (and perhaps challenging) instead of the mindless boring grind it currently is.

Right now the entire legendary process is: Grind Plinx until you have enough gold.

I’m not sure how people think that is “legendary” at all.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Larlik.1532:

it will just make it more worthwhile since you put so much of you effort into getting it.

But that’s the problem that people here are ignoring. It won’t be more worthwhile. When I look back at the process for getting it, all I get to remember is a thousand hours of unfun mindless grinding.

That’s a problem.

I spoke to my friend about the mad king clock tower. He wanted the slippers but couldn’t do the tower since he found it too hard. I asked him if he would rather simply be able to skip the tower and go right to the chest and get the slippers or would he rather persist and work towards a goal and achieve it. We were on skype and when I asked him this he paused. He knew that even though he wanted those slippers that without the challenge of the clock tower, the slippers were worthless. I stuck with him for 4 hours until he managed to beat the tower. I asked him afterwards if he was happy that he stuck with it, he replied “my fingers hurt” and I laughed my kitten off.

The same can be said for the precursors. Without the difficulty and rarity of obtaining these items, they’re worthless. You wouldn’t even be using the mystic forge to obtain them. You wouldn’t even want to obtain them. Why? because everyone would have one.

That is of course, just my opinion but my opinion is in my opinion the only opinion that matters. How many times can I say opinion?

@Snow.5269
What did you do with all the exotics you got out of the Forge? If you were putting in exotics, what did you do with the named ones you got out?

@Hippo
I resold the exotics I crafted on the TP & used the gold to purchase additional mats to create additional weapons to throw into the forge. I’ve heard many players claim they were able to break even most of the time using this method but my exotic success rate was very low.

Sorry to hear that Snow. Seen you around for a while and you’ve spent a lot of time trying to get this part. Really sucks to have a blocker like this.

@Larlik.1532 difference between this and the Mad King puzzle is that you progress and LEARN the mad king puzzle and get BETTER at it.

I spent 2.5 hours on it each run progressively getting better. I took some breaks, I laughed at Charr/Norn jokes, I conversed with people, I raged a little when people summoned their ranger spirit pets or guardian spirit weapons… but in the end it was fun; it created a memory. I want more of these tough challenges, more things like this in the game that make me feel like im on top (lolol) when I finish it. It felt like I achieved something. Guess what? It wasn’t even about the dumb slippers. It was about getting to the top. It was REALLY fun despite the camera glitches and race discrimination.

This pure RNG system? It creates what Snow just encountered. A bad memory. You don’t want a bad memory.

Legendaries should be RARE. It should be achievable by players who play a lot and are highly skilled, I would completely agree with a design that challenges players to make it rare.

They should also be DIFFICULT. However, there are many types of “difficult”. Currently the difficulty for a precursor is purely “How long can you stand grinding cash for it or throwing weapons into the forge without feeling totally bad and giving up”. The difficulty should be something like 20 mad King clock tower puzzlez, travelling all through Tyria talking to random NPCs figuring out things detective style, doing dungeon runs, and contributing to dragon kills. THAT is difficult with SOME grind. THAT is fun and creates memories that people want.

Compared to how awesome Everquest epic quests were, this is nothing but a boring grind.

The OP post is the exact reason because i just stop to waste my money and time for a precursor. I should have abuse of it when was possible, prenerf. Now, as the OP wrote, is a true waste of 100 weapons , for get just trash. 1 in a million? Amen, i’ll do something else.

Larlik.1532:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Larlik.1532:

it will just make it more worthwhile since you put so much of you effort into getting it.

But that’s the problem that people here are ignoring. It won’t be more worthwhile. When I look back at the process for getting it, all I get to remember is a thousand hours of unfun mindless grinding.

That’s a problem.

I spoke to my friend about the mad king clock tower. He wanted the slippers but couldn’t do the tower since he found it too hard. I asked him if he would rather simply be able to skip the tower and go right to the chest and get the slippers or would he rather persist and work towards a goal and achieve it. We were on skype and when I asked him this he paused. He knew that even though he wanted those slippers that without the challenge of the clock tower, the slippers were worthless. I stuck with him for 4 hours until he managed to beat the tower. I asked him afterwards if he was happy that he stuck with it, he replied “my fingers hurt” and I laughed my kitten off.

The same can be said for the precursors. Without the difficulty and rarity of obtaining these items, they’re worthless. You wouldn’t even be using the mystic forge to obtain them. You wouldn’t even want to obtain them. Why? because everyone would have one.

That is of course, just my opinion but my opinion is in my opinion the only opinion that matters. How many times can I say opinion?

LOL! I mentioned people are ignoring the real problem, and you just put forth another example of it.

As I said, the problem is that 99% of the legendary process is grinding, which is not hard. It’s boring and tedious.

You claim I want precursors to be super easy to get, but I’m actually saying the opposite. They should be harder to get, which means changing the process from being 99% gold grind, because grinding is not hard at all.

I’d rather it require getting every PvE achievement in the game (vastly harder than simply mindlessly grinding Plinx for 1000 hours) than the current ridiculous and boring gold grind that it is.

I don’t even understand how anyone can claim that grinding is “difficult” or “hard” with a straight face. It’s absurd.

Just wow ..

You say give precursor for pve achievements .. so tell me, how much money that would bring to Areanet? None .. and Areanet is company and Guild Wars 2 is product that has been created to bring them profit, not to give you free entertainment.

You are still thinking Areanet is full of dumb people and you are smarter than they are because you can come up with 10x better ideas how to make things more interesting and fun for everyone …. Well did you ever think about the reason why precursor and legendary is about money farming? Maybe its because of game economy, or because it gives areanet money when players purchase gems, etc etc

Areanet has plan, they know why and what they are doing. But you dont ..

That doesn’t even make sense. Your “argument” there is so disjointed there’s literally no substance.

Just wow.

Luck should have no say in building a Legendary weapon.

Unfortunately, their RNG system for precursors has been implemented and can not be undone or changed without getting people extremely upset. Granted, there are people upset about the system in general, but a lot of people who already used a lot of their time/gold would feel even more cheated. Even the players who legitimately got a precursor from the mystic forge would be hurt that they could have used their gold/time on any new system or change they implement. The damage has been done and Anet is going to have to stick to their guns on these weapons.

However, I see Anet slowly releasing more specific mystic forge recipes into the game with skins that are very popular even if there is a lack of particle effects. A good example of this would be Arachnophobia introduced in the Halloween event. Anet needs to increase the amount of desirable weapon and gear skins that avoid extremely low chance RNG and are obtained by more definite means.

I would also like to see Anet add a second generation of legendary weapon skins that use a lot more mats but require zero RNG from the Mystic Forge (mystic clovers are somewhat of an okay exception to this).

Well if GW2 follows the same models as about 99% of other MMOs, there will be more and more elaborate weapons/skins coming out as the game goes on. So one day legendaries will be the “old news” and a second rate particle weapon. Of course i still want one since i need to fill that darn blank spot on my character log in screen :P