Guild Wars 2

ps. I don’t have a problem with the idea of having to do everything like Tons of Karma, WvW tokens, Dungeon tokens, Map exploration. That is a great idea.

But to have the deciding factor be luck is just stupid. I know at least 3 posts I’ve read of people who have Everything accept the precursor.

Yes, they said they’d watch the price, and it hasn’t gone up significantly since then. What exactly do you think they should do at this point?

I think the problem with the Mystic Forge is that no one actually knows what we can potentially get out of it at this point. Even after 2 months. Anet really has not gone out of their way at all to talk about or even advertise the presence of the mystic forge.

When I first learned about the mystic salvage kits and told my friends about them, several of them asked me what the mystic forge was. So not even all players are aware that it exists to begin with.

If they addressed that small issue they might not need to rely on it for the RNG super fun time game to get precursors.

I’m not saying they need to give all it’s secrets away. But a trailer talking about it like they did with the legendary weapons might help a bit.

I cant really remember how many rares I’ve used but I started around 18g in my account…bought (rare) GS, staff and SBow in between 17s-20s each…I’m still reeling from shock…got this 2 within 2 nights…sold off all the exotics I’ve got to recoup back my losses in between that

Rare GS <40
Rare SBow <60
Rare Staff – about 80+?

GS precursor – 1 Dusk
SBow precursor – 1 The Lover (given to my RL friend)

I’m not trying to show off how lucky I am…just thought I could be of any help…anyway just sold my dusk yesterday for 360g, hopefully I can be lucky and get myself another GS without having to spend much and use the remaining gold for other legendary MATs…the onyx lodestone’s price is killing me man

I wonder if all the people who have been saying “RnG is Fine!” “Legendaries are legendary for a reason!” are enjoying the RnG Halloween update gambling for Halloween skins. Guarantee they are raging right now.

Ive never seen at GW1 a event where you needed real cash to fully enjoy it. Thats annoying.

Some crazy person put The Legend on TP for 510 gold. Yes he did.

Here’s an idea…

Instead of only being completely random based on a low chance per Mystic Forge attempt, also tie the precursor to game achievements. I’m sure some of the achievements would have to be changed to make this work, but basically, you have three chances to get a precursor:

1. Rare, random drop from killing veterans, champions, dragons, or bosses in WvE and Dungeons.

2. Dumb luck spinning the roulette wheel that Anet calls the Mystic Forge.

3. Complete all core GW2 achievements. So complete world exploration, killing 1,000 of every type of mob, completing all jumping puzzles, achieving specific rankings in PvP and WvWvW, having 250 of every crafting collectible, etc.

Basically, don’t change the way it already works. Just add a third, and extremely difficult and time consuming, but non-random path to achieve the precursor by completing EVERYTHING core in the game. Obviously, it would have to be only based on a certain core group of achievements, as I imagine Anet will be adding more stuff over time, and it’s not fair to make it a moving target.

I didn’t read this whole thread (too long) so maybe this has already been suggested. If so, then I agree.

600-700 rare lvl 80 GS: 0 precursors, didnt count the exotics, I just used them aswell without positive results

Linsey I know you guys have alot going on atm with Halloween etc, but can you please give us a update on this issue when you get a moment?

Too lazy to read 10 pages of practically the same stuff. ANets goal is…
1. Make Money
2. Then Make Players Happy.

Done.

We used ~3000 Rare GS. And sold the Exotics. This is our collected data so far:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjFp3hDPMLUdF9KdDNKR0dXSWxSRHotVGpUSVJpM2c

10 exotic rifles – charzooka
20 rare mace – one exotic mace
50 rare great swords – Not even an exotic
4 exotic hammers – The colossus

Wasn’t expecting to get it. I didn’t even use a hammer at that time. Best i’ve gotten since was a charzooka. I swear whenever I try to get something decent out of the forge I get nothing but when I just do it halfheartedly I end up getting 335G worth of a weapon.

If their goal was to make money they would be better off making players want to play more instead of introducing them to the brick wall known as the mystic forge RNG super fun time game.

The longer they play the more likely they are to spend money. And I’m of the opinion that people going after legendaries legitimately are not going to be spending a dime in the process.

Most people who spend real money in the game spend it on gems for extra bank and backpack slots. And then next in line is probably dyes and minis.

Despite having obtained my precursor now, I still would like the system changed.

One of the common arguments about people spending hundreds or thousands of gold to throw into the forge and still get nothing have only themselves to blame, is really missing the point. These people who spent gold to throw items into the forge, the problem is the gold is spent already throwing the items into the forge. You are now out of gold and still without precursor. What do you do next?

The problem is if you intend to get a precursor, you need to decide on either getting the gold outright to buy it, or get the gold to try and gamble for it. Once you start to spend the gold gambling on the Mystic Forge and get nothing back, that gold is just plainly lost. You can’t recover it. Yes, you may get exotics to sell for some gold to subsidize your gambling, but bad luck can still happen. Someone said that the probability of me getting 0 exotics from 457 prior attempts is something like 0.0000000something%. Yet it happened. Bad luck happens and if you believe in Murphy’s Law, bad luck will happen.

The nasty situation I see is this. The “safe” way is to just stockpile and hoard gold, to the point where you have saved enough gold to buy the precursor from the TP. This generates the problem where if everyone does that, nobody is supplying the precursor and you can very much guarantee the precursor will be very very expensive. Potentially inflating faster than you can earn gold at.

The “risky” way is to gamble at the forge. However, at what point do you cut your losses and start saving to buy it outright from the TP? At that point, you need to also realize that the cost of your precursor is not just the price you pay for the precursor, but also all the gold spent wasted gambling at the forge.

I don’t see it as a win at all. Yes I know Linsey has said that the Mystic Forge plays a huge role in cleaning up the economy. Yet no matter how I slice my bread, the situation I see today is we are artificially farming extra, crafting extra and gathering extra just to get what we want. As a result, we end up glutting the economy because we are feeding into the system that is supposed to clean it up.

Also, for a system meant to clean up the economy, not many people have many reasons to clean up the t1-4 materials in the economy at all. And we don’t have many Mystic Forge recipes using t1-4 materials either. Yet I don’t see the t1-4 materials utterly collapsing in pricing. (Butter not counted!)

Snow.5269:

I wonder if all the people who have been saying “RnG is Fine!” “Legendaries are legendary for a reason!” are enjoying the RnG Halloween update gambling for Halloween skins. Guarantee they are raging right now.

Well, I’d be in this category.

Can’t say my chest luck has been good, but I’m not that upset about it
(35 keys, 1 Halloween skin, nothing else remarkable. I want one of those perma-vendors!).

To tie this post into this topic about precursors, the secret to staying happy is the same. It’s all about spending what you set aside for it, and knowing when to stop!

I couldn’t agree with floralence’s post more. This is my situation currently. Here is some background and lots of disappointment. I work 50-55 hours a week and have 2 kids (2 1/2 and 11 month old) so I only play at night and mostly weekends. I have 560 hours in game. I have dungeon gear, 6 crafting professions at 400, and almost got my 100% map completion. I stopped because I have to farm Orr every night for hours on end only to log off disappointed. I have never thought I would be able to save up for the Legend due to prices keep spiking. So I have done the following instead.

Tossed in about 1000 rare staffs with nothing back
Tossed in close to 50 exotic staffs with nothing back.
Spent over 100g buying mats to craft more rare and exotic staffs to dump in.
Total investment not including hours of farming mats (200g)

So my problem is I have very bad luck. I have almost everything else needed for the staff besides the precursor. So I am at the point now, do I cut my losses and instead farming gold just to dump on the forge and stock it up till I can buy it on TP. My fear is by the time I have enough the prices will have jumped another 400g. Currently the staff is listed at 510g. Something needs to be done about this, not only is it redicilious, but it will force people to just quit then grind everyday for 4-6 hours for close to a few months straight.

They say the forge is a huge part of making sure items leave the game. I don’t think this was thought out very well. More people are crafting items for the sole purpose of dumping in the forge, then they are actual in game drops. So the concept of thousands of people farming mats and making rares and exotics just to dump into the forge is only hurting the economy. When nothing is done about the access of other T1 and higher mats. It just becomes an endless cycle of players repeating the same process.

I agree these precursors should be hard to obtain, but RnG is not the way to do it. I’ve spent money on the gem store, I enjoy this game and every event. I play to have fun. Now my goal is to have a legendary is a sense of accomplisent I’m sure everyone wants to achieve. Not by endless hours of the same grind for gold that will probably never be enough based on how fast prices are spiking for precursors. Making it so someone with 100 hours benefit by a pure chance of luck and hardly anytime invested or even supporting anet in ways players with much more hours have, is just insane. I won’t rage quit or stop enjoying this game. But the fact nothing is being done about the rising prices when we’re told you guys are watching the situation. Is just sad. Either give us an idea of things to come or just keep ignoring the community and watch people keep dropping. We’re simply trying to give you guys advice on how to make this game more fun and enjoyable. Please listen to the majority here. We are not happy.

BB GW2 lost 290 gold. Im greend it from pre reles…… this game for Nolifers or Donaters.

Decide a set amount to spend on gambling (if any) and once you’ve reached that amount, don’t gamble anymore and start saving money. If you’ve saved up quite a lot of money but the precursors are out of your price range, then start doing research on drop tables to calculate how much you need to gamble to get a good chance at a precursor. Do that, and no more. If you don’t get the weapon, start the process over.

This is not a positive feedback loop here. Weapon price expansion can only continue to the point that it becomes extremely likely that the money could instead net a precursor. Once that limit is reached, or actually well before that limit is reached, there will be no demand for the overpriced weapons and people who have them will be forced to eat the posting fees and lower the prices.

florence.1674:

The nasty situation I see is this. The “safe” way is to just stockpile and hoard gold, to the point where you have saved enough gold to buy the precursor from the TP. This generates the problem where if everyone does that, nobody is supplying the precursor and you can very much guarantee the precursor will be very very expensive. Potentially inflating faster than you can earn gold at.

The thing is, that won’t happen because there’s always going to be people who gamble. Some people just have a gambler’s mindset; others are willing to take the risk as long as they’ve got decent odds. Richer player or guilds will be happy to gamble en masse as long as they employ solid bankroll management and know that it will prove to be profitable in the long run. Moreover, this wouldn’t be a “monopoly” either, because there is not merely a single player who would be doing this, but multiple players/guilds that would be competing against one another.

florence.1674:

The “risky” way is to gamble at the forge. However, at what point do you cut your losses and start saving to buy it outright from the TP? At that point, you need to also realize that the cost of your precursor is not just the price you pay for the precursor, but also all the gold spent wasted gambling at the forge.

That’s a terrible line of thought; you’re making the huge mistake of allowing
sunk costs to influence your decisions. The past is the past, and nothing you do now will change it.

florence.1674:

I don’t see it as a win at all. Yes I know Linsey has said that the Mystic Forge plays a huge role in cleaning up the economy. Yet no matter how I slice my bread, the situation I see today is we are artificially farming extra, crafting extra and gathering extra just to get what we want. As a result, we end up glutting the economy because we are feeding into the system that is supposed to clean it up.

MMO economies are all about “farming extra, crafting extra and gathering extra just to get what we want.” An MMO that has zero incentives to farm is also an MMO that quite a lot of players simply aren’t going to bother to play.

Yes, ArenaNet has a number of supply-side controls that definitely help to improve the economy – DR on farming clearly has a positive effect in this regard. However, the economy can’t work without also having demand for the stuff that’s being farmed, and the Mystic Forge plays a big role in this demand.

I’m almost 100% positive that the world drop rates on precursors are now at a respectable level and the mystic forge has been beefed up a bit with better precursor award rates…

IMO they have silently fixed this ‘problem’ without letting too much information out. Please be patient guys as the prices should start falling soon. I would put money on it!

threw another 750 weapons into the forge. i think i have used about 3,000 weapons now. i can offically say i am over it lol. i do not know if i am just the most unlucky player or what. anywho i have been beaten, if i throw anymore into the mystic forge knowing full well some people have gotten it on their first try, i just might quit the game. im just going to finish farming my mats, buy precursor and call it a day. good job lindsey or whoever designed thism im having so much fun.

Threw in another batch of GS and tried some hammers as well recently.

Kind of sad, hammers cost more to make (gotta make hafts which use elder wood and are about 5c more than mithril) but their exotic counterparts are worth way, way less than a great sword exotic.

As for the guy who said precursor drop rate improved, unless you have a sample size in the thousands in the past few days, your full of crap.

lackofcheese.5617

That’s a terrible line of thought; you’re making the huge mistake of allowing
sunk costs to influence your decisions. The past is the past, and nothing you do now will change it.

If someone has not planned and dumped 500 swords into the Mystic Forge and then decides to start saving for it, yes, the 500 swords are a sunk cost.

However, for someone who is now planning on how to get his precursor, the potential 500 he might put in + the amount of gold he has to save if he chooses to cut his losses should he give up after 500 swords is his projected cost. That must be factored in his planning.

Also, no matter how, rational economic decision making is still often defeated by human psychology. Sunk costs, whether planned or projected, plays a major factor and people don’t like it in a game.

lackofcheese.5617

MMO economies are all about “farming extra, crafting extra and gathering extra just to get what we want.” An MMO that has zero incentives to farm is also an MMO that quite a lot of players simply aren’t going to bother to play.
Yes, ArenaNet has a number of supply-side controls that definitely help to improve the economy – DR on farming clearly has a positive effect in this regard. However, the economy can’t work without also having demand for the stuff that’s being farmed, and the Mystic Forge plays a big role in this demand.

I agree mostly, except I am not so sure if Arenanet’s supply controls really work. I agree DR has helped, however I can’t help but think that because of what players need to do to get their precursors, people are farming more than is necessary.

Take for example vials of powerful blood. DR was introduced, yet powerful blood continue to drop in price due to oversupply from people farming <kittens>. Yet if you look at the t1-4 fines, those prices have held stable for a very very long time, because nobody needs to farm them excessively.

I think ultimately, we both agree that the game’s economy is mostly fine, just that we disagree on the cost of obtaining a precursor and we have to agree to disagree.

after a week of hard work (grind) i decide to give a go !!

Shortbows

Rare – 500+
Exotic – 32
The Lover – 1

I got lover on my 10-15th craft of rares but i crafted at the end all of em but thats it only 1 precursor, i used evrything, u can see on SS all buffs i have, no idea is it worthy (MF) or not but at the end i came to my goal…..

Recently.1043 > If you have been paying attention to the amount of precursors that are available now you would know that I’m not ‘full of crap’ as there are much more available now after the patches. Also I have been playing with some friends who have found precursor drops so I’m pretty certain that both world drops + mystic forge rewards have been beefed up.

Also, Anet have alluded to the mystic forge being updated to more award more appropriately… see the update notes yourself if you don’t believe me.

Just because you don’t personally believe me doesn’t mean ’I’m full of crap’… we are, after all on a discussion forum. Everyone has a right to an opinion. So respect mine.

This response will probably generate lots of HATE but..leave the precursor drop rate alone! don’t change it! i don’t want to see thousands of noobs running round with legendary weapons! these items are supposed to be unique, rare and desirable! easily obtainable should not be part of that list! not to mention the cheaters out there that could go out and buy gold illegally to easily obtain a precursor if the drop rate is changed. Make them work as hard as us honest players to achieve this reward!

And before anyone says it..No i don’t have my precursor yet either but it gives me something to look forward to and work towards every time i log into the game. Dont feed the “I WANT I WANT I WANT” babies in this game Anet! make it hard! make it worthwhile!

Cheers.

Zeki.7829:

This response will probably generate lots of HATE but..leave the precursor drop rate alone! don’t change it! i don’t want to see thousands of noobs running round with legendary weapons! these items are supposed to be unique, rare and desirable! easily obtainable should not be part of that list! not to mention the cheaters out there that could go out and buy gold illegally to easily obtain a precursor if the drop rate is changed. Make them work as hard as us honest players to achieve this reward!

And before anyone says it..No i don’t have my precursor yet either but it gives me something to look forward to and work towards every time i log into the game. Dont feed the “I WANT I WANT I WANT” babies in this game Anet! make it hard! make it worthwhile!

Cheers.

To late. I already see tons of baddies running around with their precursors. No 100% world completion, no dungeon armor/weapons to speak of, yet somehow have a precursor. Meanwhile, there are those of us who have “everything” & have played for 700+ hours & destroyed every faucet of gameplay in GW2 & have to resort to gambling away at Mystic Forge or buying gold from 3rd party sites. Neither of those options define a “legendary” player. This needs to be changed immediately. Period.

Zeki.7829:

This response will probably generate lots of HATE but..leave the precursor drop rate alone! don’t change it! i don’t want to see thousands of noobs running round with legendary weapons! these items are supposed to be unique, rare and desirable! easily obtainable should not be part of that list! not to mention the cheaters out there that could go out and buy gold illegally to easily obtain a precursor if the drop rate is changed. Make them work as hard as us honest players to achieve this reward!

And before anyone says it..No i don’t have my precursor yet either but it gives me something to look forward to and work towards every time i log into the game. Dont feed the “I WANT I WANT I WANT” babies in this game Anet! make it hard! make it worthwhile!

Cheers.

So if others have them that makes them less desirable? This type of thinking really confuses me. Because – and this may come as a shock to some – a lot of people already have legendary weapons and as more time passes even more people will. If you want to remain a unique snowflake you are better off not going after a legendary at all.

Snow.5269:

To late. I already see tons of baddies running around with their precursors. No 100% world completion, no dungeon armor/weapons to speak of, yet somehow have a precursor. Meanwhile, there are those of us who have “everything” & have played for 700+ hours & destroyed every faucet of gameplay in GW2 & have to resort to gambling away at Mystic Forge or buying gold from 3rd party sites. Neither of those options define a “legendary” player. This needs to be changed immediately. Period.

So what you’re saying is people are flat out buying completed legendaries? Because that’s the only way you can have one without having 100% world completion.

“So what you’re saying is people are flat out buying completed legendaries? Because that’s the only way you can have one without having 100% world completion.”

I think you misunderstood. I have seen players with precursors running around who do not have 100% world completion, & no dungeon armor/weapons whatsoever. What is legendary about their feats? Meanwhile, we have players with 700+ hours into the game & have utterly destroyed this game, been through every path of every dungeon 10+ times, have everything for legendary but precursor but are unable to craft legendary because they aren’t “Legendary players”

Do you see what is wrong here?

I destroyed this game:

100% map-duneon master-100%jumping puzzle-WvsW 5000kill ecc ecc but i havn t the dusk.

I m farming Onyx Lodestone like a Korean GS and later i miss only only dusk for my legendary but it is impossible to take if u havn t luky or Paypal.

And when i was farmin garma at Plinx one man with 0 MF (i have like 200% in CS) dropped near me a Dusk and sold it…

It is normal? No need a fix for it?

Arena where are u?

@Zeki

You are sorely misguided if you think having a legendary is any kind of indication of a pro player. I guess you could say the first few people who got it are good because they found ways to get rich. But now there could also be gold buyers or exploiters or people who’s guilds pooled the gold to do it.

The only people who you could at least consider to be pros in the sense that they put in the time and effort by farming are currently shafted by the high TP prices and the Mystic Forge RNG. Those are the people I would consider most worthy of a legendary as it exists now, but they probably won’t have it for a while.

Snow.5269:

“So what you’re saying is people are flat out buying completed legendaries? Because that’s the only way you can have one without having 100% world completion.”

I think you misunderstood. I have seen players with precursors running around who do not have 100% world completion, & no dungeon armor/weapons whatsoever. What is legendary about their feats? Meanwhile, we have players with 700+ hours into the game & have utterly destroyed this game, been through every path of every dungeon 10+ times, have everything for legendary but precursor but are unable to craft legendary because they aren’t “Legendary players”

Do you see what is wrong here?

Ah. I totally misread your post. My bad.

I would be in that second category of people who have been all over the place yet apparently since I don’t farm cursed shore for 10 hours a day I’m not worthy of having a precursor.

fellyn.5083:

Snow.5269:

“So what you’re saying is people are flat out buying completed legendaries? Because that’s the only way you can have one without having 100% world completion.”

I think you misunderstood. I have seen players with precursors running around who do not have 100% world completion, & no dungeon armor/weapons whatsoever. What is legendary about their feats? Meanwhile, we have players with 700+ hours into the game & have utterly destroyed this game, been through every path of every dungeon 10+ times, have everything for legendary but precursor but are unable to craft legendary because they aren’t “Legendary players”

Do you see what is wrong here?

Ah. I totally misread your post. My bad.

I would be in that second category of people who have been all over the place yet apparently since I don’t farm cursed shore for 10 hours a day I’m not worthy of having a precursor.

I’m not fond of the cursed shore farming either. Pretty sure most people are not. While farming on cursed shore I often ask myself, “All the people have legendaries did this….this is silly”.

Glad to see they added karma to dungeons runs however. Finally we have another alternative.

One trend I’m noticing is precursors drop for people with 0 magic find but never for people with 100%+

Is it just coincidence? I suggest ANET double checks the drop system just to be sure…

Kain Francois.4328:

One trend I’m noticing is precursors drop for people with 0 magic find but never for people with 100%+

Is it just coincidence? I suggest ANET double checks the drop system just to be sure…

Not true, at least not in absolutes.
The Energizer dropped for me, while I was wearing full, exotic MF gear, 25 stacks of luck, with both food (30%) and an MF booster (50%).

I think people are just most FRUSTRATED when it drops for those with 0 magic find, then proceed to make posts on forums about it, and thus it seems to be more prominent.

The alternative theory is that the amount of damage you inflict is relevant to the quality of drop you obtain (players with more MF may deal less damage, assuming their gear choice otherwise would have been attacking stats and not Vit/To/Heal). This could potentially explain hampered returns for those with MF%.

However, the official wiki contradicts this. As far as we know, as long as you cross the minimum threshold, an item is generated in a weighted-random fashion from the mob’s loot table.

Archer.6485:

@Zeki

You are sorely misguided if you think having a legendary is any kind of indication of a pro player. I guess you could say the first few people who got it are good because they found ways to get rich. But now there could also be gold buyers or exploiters or people who’s guilds pooled the gold to do it.

The only people who you could at least consider to be pros in the sense that they put in the time and effort by farming are currently shafted by the high TP prices and the Mystic Forge RNG. Those are the people I would consider most worthy of a legendary as it exists now, but they probably won’t have it for a while.

Haha! nice troll attempt buddy. Nowhere did i associate the words “pro” with acquiring a precursor. Leave your ego at the door please, its not needed here.

I take no credit for this idea I just cant find the original thread I read it in so credit to whoever it was that thought of this, what would be wrong with the precursors requiring the dungeon master achievement and 500+ of all tokens and have it be account bound? Hell make it 1000, or more, not only does this make this issue immediately disappear (apart from the 10 ppl selling them but sorry the other million ppl should be more important..) but it will get everyone to start playing more dungeons and all the paths not just 1. I thought the 100g you were forced to spend for lodestones was enough of a gold sink along with all the other mats the you farm, adding a piece of garbage for 400g doesnt make it more “legendary” but having dungeon master with 8000 tokens total from all dungeons would.

EDIT: not to mention with the all this talk of an item duplicator beta going live in the next week or 2 something needs to be done immediately or I ALMOST hope that these baddies crash your market for ignoring the issue and we all get precursors for 7c…. (account bound fixes that in case you didn’t pick up on that)

Saw someone get mace precursor from a halloween event chest in labyrinth.

@Zeki

You said you didn’t want to see thousands of noobs running around with a precursor. So I guess I assumed that meant you only wanted to see pro players having them seeing as pro is the opposite of noob. That isn’t too hard to understand is it?

Anyway, if you truly are of that opinion than you should be voting to change precursors into something that takes skill to obtain rather than rng. Rng is not worthwhile and it ENCOURAGES cheaters and gold buyers rather than discourages them as your post would suggest.

LinseyMurdock.4165:

We’ve seen players discussing the topic of crafting legendary precursor weapons and claiming that we’ve made changes to make this more difficult. We’d like to be clear that we did not make any across the board changes to reduce the drop rate, nor was it our intention to significantly increase the difficulty in acquiring these precursor weapons.

We did fix a few bugged recipes that were rewarding Legendary precursors more often than they should have been. These recipes were mostly using Rares in the level 70-75 range and mostly affected the precursors for the greatswords and the dagger. This has had some effect on the drop rate when using lower level rares to attempt to get a precursor but it was never intended for that to be the best way of acquiring these weapons. The recipes for throwing in level 80 exotics have not changed at all.

We have been watching the prices climbing on Legendary precursors and share your concerns about some of them becoming too expensive. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make any adjustments we feel are necessary.

You say the your watching the prices climb and are concerned, but if the rarity from drops is extremely low, they will not set the market value. If the rarity from mystic forge is such that you can attempt many times and still fail, with a large cost of materials, then you guys are in fact setting the price that high.

So if its a 1 in 100 chance from mystic forge, the average user will need to procure, 300 +1 (because it gives you back one item) ingredient items. If the cost is 301 x (cost of lowest ingredient) which is 1.8 gold, by setting the rate at 1 in 100 you are setting the cost at 540 gold, and thats the break even point, most people need to factor in a bad luck run into the equation, and want a decent profit for that large capital required to be invested, so with a 1 in 100 chance you are probably looking at a market value of 750-1000 gold.

so if you wanted to make it say, 150 gold,

let X equal the required ratio to get a certain cost for the item

you get this formula for what the mystic forge ratio should be for any value

(3x+1) * (cost of lowest material) = projected value of item * 1- desired profit %

assuming 2 gold per material,
projected value of 150
desired profit at 33%

you get
(3x+1)2 =150 * (1-.33)
6x+2 = 150.66
6x+2 =100.5
6x=98.5
x=16.41

so if your chances arent 16.41 attempts, then there is no way it would cost less than 150.

some other things to note, the average user would need to have like 114 gold to make a serious attempt at getting an exotic even at this rate.

also with such a large likely hood of failure, many people would end up paying way more, simply because of the nature of random results.

Its also entirely possible that with such a large up front investment, and risk they may want more than 33% mark up, after all, the buy in to this gamble as a supplier is like 100 to 200 gold plus, only rich people can even attempt to be suppliers.

Point is, if you as a designer didnt want the item to cost 200 + gold, the odds of success should be fairly high, around 10 to 15 to 1 chances. if its higher than that, then it really isnt surprising its so high, and you should make changes accordingly if you want to adjust the rate.

also note, if the value of the minimal item goes up, than so does the cost of production, so, maybe you want to make exotics more obtainable. Another option is to give out other items that have a chance of producing precursors, but are not exotic weapons if you dont want to crash the exotic markets directly. You could possibly make these craftable/sellable.

of course since one of the main markets for exotics nowadays is forge fodder this would still have some effect on the prices.

1 question does the rares need to be lvl 80 or with the lvl 70’s it can work too ?

Am I the only one that thinks that this is absolutly insane?
I mean Anet really wants the “average” player to throw 1000’s of weapons in the mystic forge just for a chance at a precursor weapon for their legendary? Just seems excessive.

1. Where does all that gold come from?
2. Where do all those rare weapons come from?

I don’t think they intended every “average” player to have a legendary.

@Grezko no u must use rares 76-80

PS m going for greatswords now) 50% chanse more for precursor (dawn or dusk)

This game has been out for just over two months. And look how many of you whine and cry about not having a precursor, which really means not having a Legendary weapon. The ultimate skin in the game to show off and look impressive with. QQ some more. Quit wasting all your time madly devoted to this slavish RNG quest. There are tons of other cool things to do in this game. WVW is awesome, always moving and changing, and is a huge social adventure as you have to learn to work together to succeed. Try bringing your fully decked out toons to the battlefield and benefit your server. Your slavish devotion to this Legendary Quest makes me laugh at all the hundreds of hours of gameplay time you devote and waste to it. Cry some more Final Fantasy Legendaries took years for huge guilds 60 man teams to get for one guy on the team. Get into the battlefields and quite being obsessed over winning the GW2 lottery!

I’m only new here of like 2 days, I’ve gone over a bunch of these threads and well I don’t really see why everyone is getting all caught up in getting a stupid legendary. The game has been up for what 2 months? 2 months and people are already massing around the absolute end game gear? It’s end game gear for a reason… Cause it’s the best gear so it’s supposed to be hard to get.

Honestly I come from private servers of other games, yet even there a private server with 5000x rates, it takes longer than 2 months to get end game gear. I think people need to chill bout the difficulty of getting precursors.

The exploiters however and the general price of these things… It’s crazy bro. Like literally insane. I spent 10 bucks to get 800 gems (currently gets me like 4g) and seeing things like dusk for 310g… WTF! Would u like me to sell my little brother so I can buy enough gems for it???

Only level 15 and I still have a long way until this will all affect me, however when it does affect me, I don’t think anyone will be able to buy a precursor or anything from the tp. Something needs to be done to lower the price. Getting rid of all the exploited ones should be too hard and then banning/suspending those who did it. Also getting rid of the bot farmers. It shouldn’t be hard to find a bot. To to a well known gold farming place try talking to one of them, no response, chances are its a bot, then ban it. Would fix a lot of shiz.

Anatax.3905:

This game has been out for just over two months. And look how many of you whine and cry about not having a precursor, which really means not having a Legendary weapon. The ultimate skin in the game to show off and look impressive with. QQ some more. Quit wasting all your time madly devoted to this slavish RNG quest. There are tons of other cool things to do in this game. WVW is awesome, always moving and changing, and is a huge social adventure as you have to learn to work together to succeed. Try bringing your fully decked out toons to the battlefield and benefit your server. Your slavish devotion to this Legendary Quest makes me laugh at all the hundreds of hours of gameplay time you devote and waste to it. Cry some more Final Fantasy Legendaries took years for huge guilds 60 man teams to get for one guy on the team. Get into the battlefields and quite being obsessed over winning the GW2 lottery!

How about we do what we want in the game and you do what you want? You don’t see me coming to WvW forums and telling people how dumb they are for complaining about the issues they’re having.

You’re calling it a “slavish rng quest” and I agree. It sucks the way it is now, which is why many of us are here, saying that we want it changed. Strange concept, I know.

I also agree that everyone who wants a precursor in two months is lame. Haven’t seen a single person like that so far, but yea screw those guys.

relics in FFXI had very little range in comparison, yeah you had to get a lot of items, but if you ran dynamis you would make steady progress.

Also GW2 said that they didnt like the idea of you working hard and getting nothing for it, but right now, thats what legendary precursors are.

Some people will get it on the first try, some people will get it on the 1000th try, people dont really understand probability.

if something is 1/30 chance the odds of failure is 29/30 this means, 97% of people will fail.
people will look at this and say it means if i try 30 times you should win right? not really. the outcome of a random event with replacement is never certain. each new gamble is independent of previous attempts.

every single trial, your chances of losing are 97% whether you have tried once or a thousand times.
your chance is never 100% no matter how many trials, so how many attempts with a 1/30 chance will 90% of the people who have attempted have won?
well the answer is 75 attempts.

the reality is probability is deceptive, people think 1/30 means with 30 tries you should win, it simply isnt the case, it will never be 100% in fact it will be 75 attempts before your chance of success is 90%
in fact with the 30 attempts, 64% of people will have succeeded.

so the answer is, just buy from the people who are of normal luck, the problem is, you dont know if you are of normal luck until you try, repeatedly. Also the more you try, the more your brain says i should win soon right? no, each gamble is instaneous, which means the odds that it you will win in 75 attempts before you try is 90%, but the chances you will win at the moment in time where you have failed 74 times, is still 1/30.

Probability lesson aside, ffxi had tons of other high end goals to get besides relics, and even relics, while extremely long term, still had a fairly incremental process, and many ways to control outcomes.

If they wanted to add a random element to getting legendaries, they either neeed to increase the odds win a piece of it, (like mystic clovers) or make it so that after a certain amount of attempts you auto win.

ex. they could make there be another path to getting a precursor
Say every time you put 4 exotics of the same type in the mystic forge, if you dont like the result, you can challenge Zommoros to a fight. If you win Zommoros says 10 pardons for my behavior. each time this happens he adds 10 pardons. so the third time you beat him, he says, 30 pardons for my behavior. when he gets to 1000 he gives you the precursor, or if you actually get the precursor the pardons reset.

This type of idea would set the floor at 100 fails where you beat Zommoros. So either you are lucky, or you had to beat Zommoros’ kitten 100 times. while that would be incredibly costly if you are unlucky, (if you keep one exotic, it would take 301 exotics or 602 gold at 2 gold per exotic) at least one would always be making progress towards success, and you would still have the thrill of the lucky gamble.

essentially, what it all boils down to, is the current implementation is a lottery, and thats a poor way to obtain a legendary weapon, or show how dedicated/hardcore/how much of the game you have completed.

In relation to the previous post, I just wanted to drop by and confirm that 74 rares work just as well and are capable of producing a precursor. They’re also the best option in terms of cost efficiency – if you’re buying instead of crafting yourself.

Sell the exotics (the conversion rate for me was more like 1 in 4, which was a bit surprising) and recycle rares; you have a chance to recoup most of your losses this way.

Signed,
Owner of a Bitfrost