Guild Wars 2

This is a simple idea I had last night. What if the achievement chests at 10k or 15k achievement points held a ticket (possibly replacing some other item in the chest) that you could redeem (say, at Miyani) for an account-bund Precursor of your choice? For those who have already passed the goal, the ticket could be mailed to them. Every 10 or 15k achievement points, the chest would have another precursor ticket.

This solves a few issues:

1. It still requires a lot of work. You don’t just decide to farm that many achievement points, you have to work at it and it will take a good mount of time, even at the highest rate.

2. It lets you have a definite goal to work toward and make progress. Right now, you either never make progress (mystic forge, drops) or the goal keeps shifting (precursor prices on the TP). You never know when you will get to reach your goal, which makes it much more annoying than it has to be. Having a set-in-stone goal makes it something you can properly earn.

3. There’s little chance of flooding the market. Only about 10% of the populace has even reached 10k AP, and even fewer have reached 15k. While precursor prices would most likely drop at the time this would be implemented, they would soon stabilize and rise again.

4. It does not cheapen the experience for those who have already gotten a legendary. A lot of work goes into earning that many achievement points, and the existing methods would probably be easier or faster to accomplish.

Thoughts on this idea? I’m personally leaning toward 15k AP being the target number to keep them rarer (and I still have to reach that goal myself).

I’d rather have this idea implemented with a crafting process that incorporates all of the piles of bloodstone and dragonite we have on our mules. So, like a gift of achievement given every 10K AP, and you would mystic forge that along with say 25 or 50 vision crystals and 250 of the weapon type exotic crafting components (ie orichalcum axe blades and small ancient hafts). The crafting components would rise in price but you can acquire those through the world and naturally through normal gameplay. And the finished precursor should be account bound to minimize the impact on the economy… although T6 could rise in a related fashion.

Anyway sorry to hijack your thread. Also look up the VIP box precursor method thats in the china version of this game too.

Make it soulbound on acquire. That’s the only way I could get behind this.

Morsus.5106:

Make it soulbound on acquire. That’s the only way I could get behind this.

Account bound would make much more sense.

That would also prevent the possibility of the market being flooded, but it also leaves those who don’t want a precursor feeling cheated.

Account bound, yes.
And definitely only 10k OR 15k. Not both. And if we can get another precursor again, gotta make it a decent leap from the first one. Or maybe just keep it 1 precursor at 15k and no more?

If it’s going to be account bound, then I’d like the Precursors to be bumped up to Ascended stats and you can choose what stats it will have. I don’t really like any of the current Legendaries (save for Kudzu and Kraitkin, but I don’t use them because they don’t suit the aesthetics I have chosen for my Ranger and spellcasters), so if I got an account bound Precursor, there’s really no point in me having one.

sazberryftw.3809:

Account bound, yes.
And definitely only 10k OR 15k. Not both. And if we can get another precursor again, gotta make it a decent leap from the first one. Or maybe just keep it 1 precursor at 15k and no more?

Oh, it’s definitely a “one or the other” deal. I suggest rewarding them either every 10k OR 15k AP (preferably 15k).

Even so, I think it would be fine if they could be traded normally. The market would go haywire for a couple weeks (precursor prices drop, T6 mats and ectos jump drastically), then settle down again over a period I would guess to be about three weeks (having seen other legendary-related fluctuations). However, this would give those who get the precursor, but don’t actually want it the ability to sell it for more than vendor price.

Gift of Renown
Token that can be traded to any Laurel Merchant for…
Account-Bound Precursor of Choice, also requires Laurels and Gold based on One/Two Hand.
Laurels (100)
Black Lion Claim Tickets (5)
Gems (800)

Don’t want a precursor? Get a Black Lion Weapon.
The one you want costs too much or you don’t want one? Get some Laurels.
Don’t need any Laurels? Get some Gems.
Don’t need any Gems? Seriously, stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. You have enough choice by now, so just pick one.

Esplen.3940:

Gift of Renown
Token that can be traded to any Laurel Merchant for…
Account-Bound Precursor of Choice, also requires Laurels and Gold based on One/Two Hand.
Laurels (100)
Black Lion Claim Tickets (5)
Gems (800)

Don’t want a precursor? Get a Black Lion Weapon.
The one you want costs too much or you don’t want one? Get some Laurels.
Don’t need any Laurels? Get some Gems.
Don’t need any Gems? Seriously, stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. You have enough choice by now, so just pick one.

Actually, not a bad set of choices. Heck, just between the precursor and laurels, it’s a great choice, and the account-bound precursor would prevent the market from flooding. Prices would still drop (lower demand) and other legendary mats would rise, but not as severely.

Yeah, the Laurels give players a huge choice of what they can get. I would say to put Guild Commendations in the list, but the difference between Laurels and Guild Commendations, both lore and as a currency, is pretty significant.

I wasn’t originally thinking of adding the Black Lion Claim Tickets or Gems, but since these are all (well, almost) granting players an aesthetic item of choice, I think they’re very, very relevant.

There’s obviously a significant disparity between the rewards, but it’s also fair, in my opinion, because everyone wants something different and if they were all streamlined, then people would be getting 800+g’s worth of items (equivalent to ~4000 gems, which is also, theoretically, 1/10 of a Black Lion Ticket, meaning you’d be buying Ticket Scraps).

It’s possible to convert Laurels to money, but that’s RNG related, meaning you’d be getting over a thousand Laurels.

Yeahhh, let’s not look at the disparity…

I’m against the laurel idea. I don’t think someone who logs in fro 20 minutes a day to do dailies should be given an equal chance of obtaining a legendary as one that does that and considerably more.

Read the posts here again, you’re blatantly misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

Luckily none of those options would be implemented as it would make it way too easy to get a precursor causing prices of everything else to skyrocket. I can already imagine all t6 fine mats surpassing 1G each.

Ayrilana.1396:

Luckily none of those options would be implemented as it would make it way too easy to get a precursor causing prices of everything else to skyrocket. I can already imagine all t6 fine mats surpassing 1G each.

/cry
/fifteenquaggansdancinginaline

I don’t think Precursors are the reason why T6 prices are as “low” as they are now.

It’s not like they could..idk balance the supply of t6 if they increased precursor supply……………………oh wait…

Esplen.3940:

Read the posts here again, you’re blatantly misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

What am I blatantly misunderstanding?

nearlight.3064:

Esplen.3940:

Read the posts here again, you’re blatantly misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

What am I blatantly misunderstanding?

Laurels were never brought up as a method of obtaining a precursor. The only person who even mentioned them brought them up as an alternative reward for an account-bound precursor as a reward, since you couldn’t trade it, and not everyone wants a precursor.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

nearlight.3064:

Esplen.3940:

Read the posts here again, you’re blatantly misunderstanding what’s being discussed.

What am I blatantly misunderstanding?

Laurels were never brought up as a method of obtaining a precursor. The only person who even mentioned them brought them up as an alternative reward for an account-bound precursor as a reward, since you couldn’t trade it, and not everyone wants a precursor.

OHHHHH I see. Yeah I just read the word laurel and felt the rage sweep over me. I apologize for that!

Disagree that Precursor should be based on AP.

For instance, in the past doing daily’s counted kitten AP each. Now they are just 1 AP each.

So people who played during those times have a huge leg up in that department.

Lodius.5392:

Disagree that Precursor should be based on AP.

For instance, in the past doing daily’s counted kitten AP each. Now they are just 1 AP each.

So people who played during those times have a huge leg up in that department.

Yeah, I agree. It’s unfair that people who have been playing since the beginning of the game, when there were only 4 dailies and they all had to be completed granting a total of 10 AP, can have more AP than someone who does all the 12 dailies today and gets 12 AP a day.

Who’da thunk that people who play the game longer could have more AP than people who haven’t?

Add it to Guild commendation trader, for 150 guild commendations and 20g. Account bound precursor of choice. Participating in that many weeks of guild activity is more than reward enough. That’s a minimum 25 weeks of guild events if your guild does all of them. Some people have gone years without ever getting a precursor drop. Some grind it out of the MF so why shouldn’t it awardable from guild events? You only get 1 set of commendations per event type a week anyway so this would encourage very active guild representation. This would give players access to a minimum 2 precursors a year without breaking the bank.

There’s really no good way to do this without having a very bad effect on the market for other items unless they make it account bound for new legendaries that will not use existing items.

Put a precursor vendor right next to Milani! 500g each.

Be done with this problem altogether. They would still be relatively quite expensive, but at a stable price and you still have to get all the other things for the legendary.

Or they could add the treasure hunt…

500 gold is too cheap. It would also disrupt the market for precursors which they stated they would not do.

500g is not too cheap and people who say that it is are holding stock that they wish to sell.

You really don’t know how easy it is to get 500 gold, do you? If you put a price ceiling on precursors then all you’re going to do is redistribute the cost to the other components. You’re actually putting players in a worst off position as these components are used to craft other items.

In understand your argument that it would put upward pressure on T6 mats, as you have made it repeatedly. I think the argument is specious, however, and completely akin to one arguing against purchasing a car because it will put upward pressure on the price of gasoline. Let people obtain their precursors. 500g is plenty. Farm T5 mats instead of T6 and then roll them up to T6.

Phibes.4128:

In understand your argument that it would put upward pressure on T6 mats, as you have made it repeatedly. I think the argument is specious, however, and completely akin to one arguing against purchasing a car because it will put upward pressure on the price of gasoline. Let people obtain their precursors. 500g is plenty. Farm T5 mats instead of T6 and roll then them up to T6.

Which would then cause the price of Dust to go up, causing the price of Ectos to go up, causing the price of T5’s to go up, but barely touching T4 mats.

This would then cause the price of anything made out of T5, T6, Dust, or Ectos to rise, inflating the entire market.

The entire thing is akin to everyone getting an electric car for $100. If, say, Tesla sold any electric car for $100, everyone would get an electric car. This would ruin the gasoline [car] market entirely and ruin certain companies who rely on cars for their income. In addition to that, electric companies could then drive their prices through the roof because everyone is using a car that uses electricity. This would then cause your electric bills at home and work to cost a lot more, which would mean that you would have to be aware of your electricity usages and either use some sort of smart plug or actually unplug all of your electrics when they’re not being used (because so many of us do this to save power, right?)

Also, the power grids aren’t capable of supporting that many cars, so there might be blackouts which would then, hopefully, be fixed to rolling blackouts so each “sector” of a city would get power at any given time, meaning you only have a few hours to use your power, and you’d have to make it count. This would then bring diesel and gasoline back as a source of power, with gas generators. Because, during a rolling blackout, if you want power, you have to use gas, the price of that would be inexorbitantly high because that’s the ONLY option for power.

And no, I swear I’m not preparing for an apocalypse.

@Phibes:

Incorrect analogy. You’re also failing to see the bigger picture on what kind of impact that creating a price ceiling on precursors would have. Especially one at such a low price. This is one of the reasons that so many people have financial problems in the real world.

Esplen.3940:

Lodius.5392:

Disagree that Precursor should be based on AP.

For instance, in the past doing daily’s counted kitten AP each. Now they are just 1 AP each.

So people who played during those times have a huge leg up in that department.

Yeah, I agree. It’s unfair that people who have been playing since the beginning of the game, when there were only 4 dailies and they all had to be completed granting a total of 10 AP, can have more AP than someone who does all the 12 dailies today and gets 12 AP a day.

Who’da thunk that people who play the game longer could have more AP than people who haven’t?

Um… where does your math come from? lol… There were 5 dailies for as long as I can remember… Even if there were 4… these were still 5 AP a piece so 20-25 AP per day for PVE and there were also separate ones for PVP… so another 20-25 AP.

Now… Who’da thunk that? …

Lodius.5392:

Esplen.3940:

Lodius.5392:

Disagree that Precursor should be based on AP.

For instance, in the past doing daily’s counted kitten AP each. Now they are just 1 AP each.

So people who played during those times have a huge leg up in that department.

Yeah, I agree. It’s unfair that people who have been playing since the beginning of the game, when there were only 4 dailies and they all had to be completed granting a total of 10 AP, can have more AP than someone who does all the 12 dailies today and gets 12 AP a day.

Who’da thunk that people who play the game longer could have more AP than people who haven’t?

Um… where does your math come from? lol… There were 5 dailies for as long as I can remember… Even if there were 4… these were still 5 AP a piece so 20-25 AP per day for PVE and there were also separate ones for PVP… so another 20-25 AP.

Now… Who’da thunk that? …

They had many different systems.

At game release, there were four achievements with multiple tiers which reset every day. Achieving all four did not yield another bonus:

Daily Kill Variety (Tiers for 5, 8, 11, and 15 different enemies)
Daily Kills (Tiers for 10, 30, and 60 foes)
Daily Gatherer (Tiers for 3, 10, and 20 gatherings)
Daily Events (Tiers for 1, 3, and 5 events)

A weekly rotation for the daily achievements was introduced with the January 28th 2013 update. Every day all five available achievements have to be completed to get an additional reward.

With the February 26th 2013 update the number of available achievements per day was increased to nine, requiring players to complete five of them to get the additional reward.

With the May 1st 2013 update, a tenth choice was added, offering two WvW related achievements per day.

During the Secret of Southsun and the Last Stand at Southsun, starting with the May 14th 2013 update, a special event related achievement was added to the beginning of the list, available to be completed every day: Crab Toss Champion

Starting with May 29th 2013, an eleventh slot was added, offering now a total of three WvW achievements per day.

With the August 6th 2013 update (Queen’s Jubilee), a permanent Daily Activity Participation achievement was added to the list of available achievements per day.

With the April 2014 Feature Pack, the Daily system was completely overhauled. The previously separated PvP dailies were integrated so that there is only a single daily to complete each day, offering a set of 10 different achievements of which 5 have to be completed.

I believe the highest AP given at any point was either 10 or equal to the number of dailies, typically whichever was higher, before the April 2014 Feature Pack.

[src]

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daily/Research#History

Edit: Looks like I got beat to it while also trying to find proof of how much AP we got back then.

The bigger picture here is customer satisfaction with the product. Everything else is meaningless. I recall quitting Aion some years ago over the Miragent Pants quest in which you had to grind for ages on NPC castle guards with an impossibly low drop rate in a high-risk PvP gank zone in order to get the mats for an RNG chance at crafting the end-game armor piece. Some people got the pants on the first try. After three or four failures (which took months) I quit the game.

I stand by my assertion that anyone arguing for the status quo is on the inside looking out not on the outside looking in. If a price/scarcity problem would be exacerbated by making precursors readily available — who cares — these are just adjustments in the drop rates, loot tables and other tweaks in the economy.

Let’s say precursor prices were lowered. The prices of everything else would increase and you would not be by better off. Precursor would be cheaper but everything else would be more expensive. Also, avoid the ad hominem arguments please.

Ayrilana.1396:

Also, avoid the ad hominem arguments please.

I have not made any ad hominem remarks. The first ad hominem remark in our conversation (and a rather insulting one at that) is this one:

Ayrilana.1396:

This [my reasoning] is one of the reasons that so many people have financial problems in the real world.

made by you two posts ago.

Let’s take a step back and talk about the original point:

If Anet doesn’t want to release the treasure hunt or other “effort-intense” method of getting a precursor, they should release a method for players to get a precursor by choice, not chance. I think that’s what this thread is about: a method to get a precursor by choice.

Phibes.4128:

Ayrilana.1396:

Also, avoid the ad hominem arguments please.

I have not made any ad hominem remarks. The first ad hominem remark in our conversation (and a rather insulting one at that) is this one:

Ayrilana.1396:

This [my reasoning] is one of the reasons that so many people have financial problems in the real world.

made by you two posts ago.

Acually, no. That comment was regarding people failing to see the bigger picture in how things are interconnected. Constantly people suggest drop rate increases, price ceiling, and so on for precursors without even considering the impact this would have in everything else. I then made a reference to people making financial decisions without considering the entire consequences. If you took offense then I apologize but that was not my intent.

Perhaps it was misplaced by what I saw in your post. I could have swore an earlier post of yours had a statement along the lines that those who felt that that 500 gold wasn’t reasonable were those that wanted to profit off precursors or had a stockpile of them. I can’t remember the exact wording. The statement was coming off as our argument was irrelevant because we may or may not have motives to keep prices where they are.

I personally could care less as legendaries matter little to me what I do care if how any changes would impact everything else that I may care about.

Edit: found the post

Phibes.4128:

500g is not too cheap and people who say that it is are holding stock that they wish to sell.

Please, stop arguing. We’re not going to get anywhere and this thread will get closed. I’d like to see some good suggestions instead of arguments as to who has the bigger… “brain”.

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

given the responses i saw here most of you don’t even know how to behave on forums like this. Also: NO GEMS. if you place gems in the middle, prices will raise even higher. just an example: prices one yeah ago were 3g for 100gems, now…..you know how much. Also: i did the dailies at the beginning and trust me if i knew that i could get precursors by getting to 10k ap I would do every one of them. People who say that have more then 10-15k ap and its not fair. Granted- i agree, 10k ap would be fine and no im not at 10k ap plus, i have 6k ap so its a long way, but any of-the-top-of-my-head ideas like gems or tickets are in my opinion stupid and fruitless. why? because that again makes gems more expensive, cause people will buy bl keys. now unless you folks want to get to a point where gems will be traded for 1gem=1g stop thinking that way. I do agree with laurel idea though, and of course that any and all precursors need to be account bound.

Yet again another example where someone misread. Woooo~

Brother Grimm.5176:

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

I did alter the OP suggesting that the precursor gained would be account bound, but I fail to see how it would “devalue” the originals at all. 10k or 15k AP is not easy to get: there’s a ton of work that goes into it, so it in no way would devalue the experience. What it would do is offer a set goal that you can actually work toward for earning your legendary. In no way easy or quick, however.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

I did alter the OP suggesting that the precursor gained would be account bound, but I fail to see how it would “devalue” the originals at all. 10k or 15k AP is not easy to get: there’s a ton of work that goes into it, so it in no way would devalue the experience. What it would do is offer a set goal that you can actually work toward for earning your legendary. In no way easy or quick, however.

AP is drop dead easy to get. It only requires time. I’m at 10k AP and that’s from just doing no more than 4 maybe 5 hrs most days. If Anet made AP into a requisite for a precursor that would be a bad idea. Grinding AP requires little more than being camped on the PC every day. However, if they made it like my suggestion above, by tying it to Guild commendations which actually requires effort then it would be worthwhile. You’re being rewarded for completing content.

Esplen.3940:

Please, stop arguing. We’re not going to get anywhere and this thread will get closed. I’d like to see some good suggestions instead of arguments as to who has the bigger… “brain”.

I think first of all you should adress how you would handle the sudden demand on gift related mats that will occur, if tens of thousands of precursors are being handed out simultaneously.

Azrael.4960:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Brother Grimm.5176:

This would not be possible if the Precursor is trade-able (nor should any Legendary generated from this “freebie” be trade-able).

To be honest, it would need to be a different set of Legendaries than the originals to keep form devaluing the existing Legendary’s. Just my 2 coppers.

I did alter the OP suggesting that the precursor gained would be account bound, but I fail to see how it would “devalue” the originals at all. 10k or 15k AP is not easy to get: there’s a ton of work that goes into it, so it in no way would devalue the experience. What it would do is offer a set goal that you can actually work toward for earning your legendary. In no way easy or quick, however.

AP is drop dead easy to get. It only requires time. I’m at 10k AP and that’s from just doing no more than 4 maybe 5 hrs most days. If Anet made AP into a requisite for a precursor that would be a bad idea. Grinding AP requires little more than being camped on the PC every day. However, if they made it like my suggestion above, by tying it to Guild commendations which actually requires effort then it would be worthwhile. You’re being rewarded for completing content.

10k AP still requires a lot of work to achieve, but it’s spread out over a long time. Is it such a problem if you take two years of work to get a single part of your chosen legendary? Even at just 4 or 5 hours a day, that’s 2920-3650 hours spent playing. Dedicated toward AP? Probably not, but you were still working toward them whether they were your actual goal or not.

As I pointed out, only 10% of the games population have even reached 10k AP. Far fewer have reached 15k, and nobody has even reached 30k. Of those, some would invariably take a non-precursor option (laurels or gems could work) and some have also left the game.

And it wouldn’t be a “requisite” it would be an alternate method. Existing methods would be unchanged.

Wanze.8410:

Esplen.3940:

Please, stop arguing. We’re not going to get anywhere and this thread will get closed. I’d like to see some good suggestions instead of arguments as to who has the bigger… “brain”.

I think first of all you should adress how you would handle the sudden demand on gift related mats that will occur, if tens of thousands of precursors are being handed out simultaneously.

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s not like they could…idk balance the supply of t6 if they increased precursor supply……………………oh wait…

This goes for everything in the game as they have the ability to adjust it.

Essence Snow.3194:

Wanze.8410:

Esplen.3940:

Please, stop arguing. We’re not going to get anywhere and this thread will get closed. I’d like to see some good suggestions instead of arguments as to who has the bigger… “brain”.

I think first of all you should adress how you would handle the sudden demand on gift related mats that will occur, if tens of thousands of precursors are being handed out simultaneously.

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s not like they could…idk balance the supply of t6 if they increased precursor supply……………………oh wait…

This goes for everything in the game as they have the ability to adjust it.

The problem with this is that the demand is sudden, so after everybody made his legendary, the market will be flooded with t6 mats. Sure, they could establish the old droprates again, once demand goes down but its alot of work and people will get confused, if they change droprates every couple of weeks from champs, loot bags, mobs, events, etc. All the droprate research on the wiki will be useless, for example.

Prices will go topsy turfy all over the place (which would favor traders/speculators), I dont think this will be the better alternative compared to a steady price rise due to inflation as we see it now.

The fact is in any case mats would rise. They rise as its is since they are nearly half as expensive as they were 2-3 moths ago. Im not entirely sure that there is a workable solution here, unless they really adjust the drop rates, with of course will be met with discontent because suddenly when you would run coe and gotten 3 vicious claws they would be only 50s worth for example. So those not needing a legendary and making money of t6 mats will argue and complain. Not saying i would complain, in fact i would love to see the t6 mats market crash. Just don’t think its the way.