Guild Wars 2

Right, lets stop dancing around the elephant in the room.

Pecursors.

The best ones cost over 700 gold right now, and the price just keeps going up and up every day. Not because players are outbidding each other, but because there is only ever 1 or 2 for sale, and when one gets bought, the next one goes for sale at an even higher price.

I can’t earn gold fast enough to keep up with the price increases. By the time I’ve earned 100 gold, the price of my precursor has gone up by 110. It just gets further and further away each day. Can you stop this?

Surely this is not what was intended? To allow a small number of players to buy up every precursor on the TP and then re-list them at a much higher price, hoard them, and artificially increase the price every day? Isn’t this a form of exploit? Unfairly taking advantage of other players for personal gain?

Can we get some information on how many players are doing this? What amount of gold do these players have, how many precursors have they bought and sold total? What kind of profit margins are they making? Where is the gold they’re making going?

What is Anet going to do about this? We’ve heard some rumours about a “Scavenger Hunt”, which may or may not come out in 2013, but is “not being worked on”… OK, sounds great, but what about in the meantime? How do we get our Precursors this year? What is being worked on? Anything? Should we just give up this year?

It seems that the drop rate is lower than it ever was, nobody is getting them from the Forge any more, and very rarely we hear about someone dropping one in the “wild” from a chest. Can we have some information about what the drop rates are, what they were, what’s the best way to get a Precursor apart from buying one?

My Suggestion

Add a crafting recipe for each Precursor.

This is a simple solution, which requires no code changes or anything, just a recipe. Add it as a rare drop to a certain dungeon or chest if you like, make the mats whatever you want, 250 stacks of each T6 Mat, 9001 ectos, whatever, at least if there’s a base material cost to craft one, there will be a ceiling to how high the price can rise. Right now, we’re at the mercy of secret RNG tables which we can’t see, or a secret consortium of players with seemingly infinite gold setting the price.

This isn’t fun, I can’t win against RNG or against people with infinite money. What do you suggest?

I agree that something definitely needs to be done, newer players don’t ever even have a chance of getting one with how bad it is now. I agree that it should be hard to get one but not this bad. The gold grinding is just too much, you’d literally have to play days on end without many breaks to keep up.
Not only that though but people WILL play days on end to farm the money for it and with people that have some sort of mental disorder like OCD or addictive personalities to the extreme it’s going to affect them badly — some people don’t know when to stop and look after themselves so I think it should be made a bit easier ‘cause it’s dangerous to make something so nice looking but very hard to get, certain people won’t look after themselves and it’s not really something that anyone can do anything about but if this certain thing is made easier it’s a little bit more safer for the players that just won’t stop playing until they have what they want. I guess this is just something that hasn’t been considered.

why don’t you guys think about how all the other people got them? not everyone exploited MF or Southsun Cove event. Many people actually gambled for them, got them as regular drops, etc. The reason prices grow so fast is 1) last update, that makes it easier to farm T6 materials. 2) The fact itself that most of those exploited precursors have been sold and turned into actual legendaries, so the supply decreased significantly.

FKwrong.9104:

why don’t you guys think about how all the other people got them? not everyone exploited MF or Southsun Cove event. Many people actually gambled for them, got them as regular drops, etc. The reason prices grow so fast is 1) last update, that makes it easier to farm T6 materials. 2) The fact itself that most of those exploited precursors have been sold and turned into actual legendaries, so the supply decreased significantly.

There was a cool exploit you could do with the godskull sword, which was a really cheap item to craft.

I think it was something like 1x level 78 + 3x lvl 65 godskull would give you a chance at a lvl 80 rare / exo.

People made hundreds and hundreds of combines using that and got quite a few precursors.

Then there was the time that Anet priced some rare weapons from the norn karma vendor at 21 karma instead of 21000, you could chuck that in the forge for more chances at precursor…

Yeah… a lot of people got them early on, now the major loopholes and exploits are fixed it’s harder, much harder. For those of us that didn’t cheat in the beginning to get rich it’s basically impossible.

Which is the point. If it were easy it would negate the value of the Legendary.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Which is the point. If it were easy it would negate the value of the Legendary.

No not really. I don’t think they ever intended Precursors to be the most expensive thing in the game. You have the “Gift of Fortune” which is supposed to represent earning a lot of gold, the precursor is what… Gift of SUPER fortune?

There is still the other 3 gifts you need to craft, they’re not exactly a walk in the park, even if the Precursor was taken out it would still take a long time and need a lot of effort to get the Legendary.

What you have now is the Legendary going up in price every single day, faster than anyone can earn gold, so people who crafted one early on get it for a handful of gold, but people who want to craft one now are basically priced out of the market.

If anything, it cheapens the value of a Legendary, since you know anyone who crafts one now basically had to spend a few hundred $ to get their precursor, they didn’t get it through playing the game.

I think it’s possible to make a precursor expensive without leaving it up to the Trade Post to decide how much you pay. What if they just cost 100G from a vendor?

Chamone.6890:

FKwrong.9104:

why don’t you guys think about how all the other people got them? not everyone exploited MF or Southsun Cove event. Many people actually gambled for them, got them as regular drops, etc. The reason prices grow so fast is 1) last update, that makes it easier to farm T6 materials. 2) The fact itself that most of those exploited precursors have been sold and turned into actual legendaries, so the supply decreased significantly.

There was a cool exploit you could do with the godskull sword, which was a really cheap item to craft.

I think it was something like 1x level 78 + 3x lvl 65 godskull would give you a chance at a lvl 80 rare / exo.

People made hundreds and hundreds of combines using that and got quite a few precursors.

Then there was the time that Anet priced some rare weapons from the norn karma vendor at 21 karma instead of 21000, you could chuck that in the forge for more chances at precursor…

Yeah… a lot of people got them early on, now the major loopholes and exploits are fixed it’s harder, much harder. For those of us that didn’t cheat in the beginning to get rich it’s basically impossible.

Thank you, cap, i generalized this as MF exploit.
So you’re basically complaining about others having legendaries, not them being so hard to get… boo.

Chamone.6890:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Which is the point. If it were easy it would negate the value of the Legendary.

No not really. I don’t think they ever intended Precursors to be the most expensive thing in the game. You have the “Gift of Fortune” which is supposed to represent earning a lot of gold, the precursor is what… Gift of SUPER fortune?

There is still the other 3 gifts you need to craft, they’re not exactly a walk in the park, even if the Precursor was taken out it would still take a long time and need a lot of effort to get the Legendary.

What you have now is the Legendary going up in price every single day, faster than anyone can earn gold, so people who crafted one early on get it for a handful of gold, but people who want to craft one now are basically priced out of the market.

If anything, it cheapens the value of a Legendary, since you know anyone who crafts one now basically had to spend a few hundred $ to get their precursor, they didn’t get it through playing the game.

I think it’s possible to make a precursor expensive without leaving it up to the Trade Post to decide how much you pay. What if they just cost 100G from a vendor?

You missed the point entirely. The way to get Precursers is not designed to be BLTC at all. The fact that they are available there is completely beside the point.

RNG for such an expensive item is definitely no fun. Throwing months of work away and coming away with nothing almost makes you want to just quit the game for good.

I think there is a requirement for maybe a chance of getting it in a hunt of some sort but please keep the chance a very low number since u dont want everyone to run around with a legendary, there will be no sense of acomplishment if everyone has one.

I spent 1 and a half months working on my legendary. I was lucky to get my (spark) from the southsun cove weekend event. With that i had a base to start from and began. If i wasnt lucky that weekend i’d still be waiting to get it. Most probably given up by now. I do think although i have my legendary now there should be some sort of way to obtain them even with this new luarel system. Just something that allows everyone to enjoy the game and aim for what they want instead of relying on RNG cr*p.

ZilentNight.5089:

u dont want everyone to run around with a legendary, there will be no sense of acomplishment if everyone has one.

I see this argument being asserted again and again, and it really makes me angry. It’s just not correct. I wish so many people did not hold this ridiculous viewpoint.

Did you feel a sense of accomplishment when you passed your driving test? How about when you got your high school diploma? Sure you did. Guess what, “everyone” has a driving license and graduated high school. Does that make these achievements any less worthwhile? No.

It simply just not the case that something has to be made artificially “rare” by putting it on a low drop rate for it to be “special” or give players a sense of satisfaction when they attain it. This is not logical, it is a fallacy, and I’d thank everyone to stop saying it and spreading this misinformation.

krippler.9826:

RNG for such an expensive item is definitely no fun. Throwing months of work away and coming away with nothing almost makes you want to just quit the game for good.

For many people, they go right past “almost” and simply uninstall the game. I know if I’d saved up 500G or even just bought 500G worth of gems. tried for a Precursor with it and came away empty handed, the bitterness I’d have toward the game would mean I was unable to even look at it again.

This is why I will not even consider trying for a Precursor in its current form, I like the game too much to be soured against it like that.

I’ve lost count of all the dedicated, long-term players that were on my friends list and guild roster that I knew were working toward a Legendary and have just disappeared. I can only assume they got fed up with the odds being stacked against them and quit.

Kal Spiro.9745:

You missed the point entirely. The way to get Precursers is not designed to be BLTC at all. The fact that they are available there is completely beside the point.

Sorry what? If they were not designed to be bought and sold on the BLTC, why have they not corrected that error in the last 6 months?

That being the case, I sort of see waht you’re saying, they wanted us to get a precursor ourselves, not neccesarily buy one…

I can’t imagine a game being based around saving up money then spending it, and I also can’t imagine any game being based around chucking hundreds of items into the Mystic Forge either, so Are you saying the devs want us to drop one from mobs?

If they want us to do that, why is the drop rate so ridiculously low, and why is there literally zero information about where you should get one either in the game or outside it?

No, there does not seem to be any master plan, supporting lore or any kind of encouragement to get a Precursor in the game, just a bizzare ritual where we destroy level 78 rares over and over until we’re either bankrupt and quit the game, or get our precursor.

I don’t think they really thought about how people “should” get a Precursor at all, they were in a bit of a rush and made some really poor decisions.

That’s fine for a little while, but we’re heading towards 6 months now, and still no better way to craft a Legendary than pure luck.