Guild Wars 2

Infamous Redditor Nugkill has posted data on over 11,000 attempts at asking Zommy to forge four rares (average level 75+). These attempts were all made since the feature patch in April.

You can review his results by reading the relevant post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/27am2f/lots_of_data_weapon_forging_since_the_feature/. (Or if you want to type out the URL yourself — recommended for those of us who never trust anyone’s links — reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/27am2f.)

Here’s how he describes the results:

• The chance for a precursor from rares has not changed. It is still ~0.125% or 1 in 800.
• The upgrade chance remains at 20%, but now you have an ~8-9% chance of getting an exotic lower than lvl 80, and an 11-12% chance of getting a level 80.
• The chance of a named exotic from random rares is no longer higher than combining four of the same. Both methods have just over a 4% chance of returning a named exotic (meaning named exotics are now rarer than they used to be).
• There is still no difference between forging 4 level 80s versus 4 weapons that average at least lvl 75 – both still return a guaranteed lvl 80 rare, or an exotic based on the distribution laid out above.

A couple of other points that might not be clear:

• The sub-L80 results apply only to exotic results. You still always get 80s from average L75+ inputs for Blue->Blue|Green, Green->Green|Rare, and Rare->Rare.
• There are ~29 different possible exotic drops for each weapon type Nugkill forged (staff, dagger, GS, & 1H-sword).
• The average value of the sub-80s is only sometimes substantially less than the items they replaced. Further the sub-80s no longer have greater value, although this was sometimes true in mid-April.
  • Etched & Ceremonnials are nearly the same price at all levels (exception: daggers, about 1g less). These represent about 11-15% of the exotics, but only 5-6% of the total values.
  • Iron, Tribal, and Legionnaire types: sub-80s are 50s-1g less valuable than their L80 counterparts. These represent 30-40% of all exotics and about 10% of the total value.
  • Pearl (i.e. crafted) skins are less common: used to be ~43%, now only ~24%.
  • 50-100s/weapon applied to about 40% of the drops adds up. The per-item loss isn’t much, but Zommy dropped over 2,200 exotics for Nugkill: even 50s loss on 1/3 of those represents a potential loss of 350 gold.

• Named weapons might be dropping more often, according to Nugkill’s own data.
  • Over 21% of his staffs this month were named, compared to his pre-patch results which were ~15%. Another Redditor had 16% named staffs.
  • Daggers: nearly 25% of Nugkill’s current exo dagger drops were named. Redditor Fiammadt had <15% pre-patch.
  • Greatswords: Nugkill shows nearly 17%, about the same as pre-patch results I have from other Redditors.
  • Swords: Nugkill has 19% currently; I have no other results to compare.

My own methodology was as follows:

• I typed out Nugkill’s data into a spreadsheet. Validated by comparing his totals to mine and reviewing each row in reverse order.
• I categorized items by level (80 | less than 80) and by a “skin type” (pearl | standard | fancy | named | precursor). “Fancy” refers to etched and ceremonial skins; standard are all “none of above,” e.g. Iron or Tribal.
• I took lowest sell and highest buy offers from GW2TP.com, using the item ID (which I also validated).
• To get the “value” of a type, I multiplied each item count by its gw2tp value, summed over the same skin type, and then divided by the total in the category.

“The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now.”

So far, I don’t like how it is right now. I don’t see any positive changes that would make me like it. I only hope that these supposed changes that are a work in progress will improve it as mentioned.

Vol.7601:

“The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now.”

So far, I don’t like how it is right now. I don’t see any positive changes that would make me like it. I only hope that these supposed changes that are a work in progress will improve it as mentioned.

The first week, I liked that a few different skins were dropping. And it turned out that some were more valuable (since it was also the first week that the wardrobe was available). But… since then, all I see is that it became riskier to use the forge to charm the RNG gods out of their precursors.

And that means that people like Nugkill will be less motivated to spend time mindlessly clicking 4 items and a “forge” button, which will, in turn, likely reduce the number of precursors available in the market.

And everyone knows that is bad, because it increases the number of forum posts about how the “economy is broken — precursors are too costly.” (j/k — the real issue is that I don’t see how the community benefits from an increased risk in forging-for-precursors.)

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

Vol.7601:

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

Yes, please. I would actually use the Mystic Forge if my abysmal luck could turnaround into something like this. I also think somewhere around 800 failed attempts would be a good sweet spot for a token system like this. That would mean using mean current prices you would get a precursor after 1060g or so of failed attempts.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

On this hypothetical note, would you prefer these tokens themselves to be tradable or untradable?

Further would/should they be linked to specific precursors/weapon types? (distinction here for Dawn/Dusk)

EDIT: Also, should you get 1, or 3-5 for failing with exotics?

Vol.7601:

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

Well I have seen people gamble for delusion since it’s not account bound

Vol.7601:

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

I’ve been saying this in a few other threads, too. Four stacks of 250 precursor tokens = 1 precursor. Make it happen, ANet.

Rauderi.8706:

Vol.7601:

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

I’ve been saying this in a few other threads, too. Four stacks of 250 precursor tokens = 1 precursor. Make it happen, ANet.

Do you know how much the price for mats will go up as a result? I don’t care enought to want to guess, but will probably shift the cost of the precursor onto the materials needed.

Rauderi.8706:

Vol.7601:

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

I’ve been saying this in a few other threads, too. Four stacks of 250 precursor tokens = 1 precursor. Make it happen, ANet.

How about forge 4 stacks of 250 tokens… to get 1 random Precursor?

Just out of interest, are there any studies on the random precursor rate when forging 4 different weapons?

Or using 3 random weapons and a mystic stone?

Back when achievement chests got introduced and we got awarded 1 chest retroactively for our achievement points every day, alot of people had over 100 mystic stones after a week. My guild started using their stones to throw them into the forge with 3 random rares (usually the cheapest) and the precursor droprate seemed quite high. I think about 30 people of my guild used up around 100 stones and we got 13 precursors.

Personally, i got the colossus at my 4th try but no more precursors with my other 96 attempts. I bought 25 more stones with gold, also no precursor. At that point, i stopped.

I’m going to have to fully agree with Vol here (which doesn’t normally happen). Let’s hope future changes bring JS’s promise to fruition.

Essence Snow.3194:

I’m going to have to fully agree with Vol here (which doesn’t normally happen). Let’s hope future changes bring JS’s promise to fruition.

I hope it comes with using 4 superior runes and sigils in order to get rid of supply. One month a way. This is sickening.

Wanze.8410:

Just out of interest, are there any studies on the random precursor rate when forging 4 different weapons?

Or using 3 random weapons and a mystic stone?

Nugkill believes (based on his data) that the rates are currently the same for combining four random weapons or four weapons of the same type. About 1/4 of his data comes from the random method.

• Rare staffs x4: 18.79% of trials; results: 0.10% precursors, 19.1% exotic
• Rare Swords x4: 26.88%; results: 0.10% precursors, 20.1% exotic
• Rare Daggers x4: 13.23%; results: 0.20% precursors, 20.2% exotic
• Rare GS x4: 14.24%; results: 0.19% precursors, 20.2% exotic
• Random rares x4: 26.86%; results: 0.10% precursors, 21.0% exotic

He doesn’t have sufficient data on exotic, but if you read the thread linked in my OP, you can follow the links to another Redditor who points out that the cost of exotics makes it significantly more expensive to gamble and doesn’t appear to be worth trying.

At the volumes required for testing, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to have enough mystic stones to run thorough testing. Nugkill’s smallest count was 1,600 for Greatswords — even if the drop rate was 10x better, that would still require 160 trials and I doubt many people have even that many mystic stones left.

Every bit of evidence on throwing random rare weapons into the forge is consistent with it choosing from the 19 different output weapons with equal probability, with the quality of the output identical to what you’d get from 4 weapons of the same type.

‘Named’ outputs look like they’re up a bit from pre-patch (was: ~ 1/6 | not a precursor). They have the same drop rate as every other level 80 exotic now (but were much lower before).

Precursor rate does not appear to have moved far from the pre-patch expectation of ~1 in 160 exotics.

Vol.7601:

To me, the forge serves only one purpose – to acquire precursors. No one in their right mind would gamble on the forge for the purposes of finding named exotics.

So I don’t see an increase in named exotics to be of an improvement that Anet would advertise.

The improvements I expected (or still expect) is a way to help balance the RNG aspect of precursors.

For example, for every combination ‘failure’ (no precursor received), you get a token. At a certain # of tokens – let’s say 1000, you can change that in for a guaranteed precursor.

That way, people who are unlucky enough to go on cold streaks end up getting a precursor.

Is it 1 token for rares used, or 1 token for exotics used, or 1 token for both methods?

Aidan Savage.2078:

Is it 1 token for rares used, or 1 token for exotics used, or 1 token for both methods?

I’d probably make it 1 token for every rare and 4 tokens for every exotic combined that has a chance to yield a precursor. This means that if you did 3 rares and a mystic forge stone, you’d get 3 tokens. If you did 4 rares, 4 tokens. 4 exotics = 16 tokens. Then, I would scale this so that it takes about 1000 tokens (or 1000 rares or 250 exotics) to get a precursor of your choice. Note that you only get tokens on an unsuccessful precursor forging. This would amount to, at current prices:

0.50g/rare x 1000 rares = 500g
2g/exotic x 250 exotics = 500g

Of course there would be variance in price and the values of rares, ectos, and exotics would fluctuate to adjust for this, but I think this is a very solid baseline. The other neat thing is that doing it this way would make other rare weapons like Harpoon Guns and Tridents more valuable since they could give you these tokens when forged. This would thus work wonders to decrease the overabundance of those items on the TP (their supply currently is regulated only by ecto value now).

While I like the token idea, I somehow think that there is no extra currency needed. Just make the equivalent of an increased chance working in the background. As soon as you get a precursor it goes back to zero.

Optional this could also increase after each precursor drop. Doesn’t have to be much, but over time it might offset the additional account bonuses and help newer players.

Rouven.7409:

While I like the token idea, I somehow think that there is no extra currency needed. Just make the equivalent of an increased chance working in the background. As soon as you get a precursor it goes back to zero.

While I appreciate this sentiment, I genuinely dislike things that work magically in the background. A newer player would have no idea what’s going on with this sort of system, meanwhile the token system (with a merchant who had the precursors) would be much more explicit and explorable.

Tokens should be account bound. If not, it would only be a new easy to make currency to buy precursors.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rouven.7409:

While I like the token idea, I somehow think that there is no extra currency needed. Just make the equivalent of an increased chance working in the background. As soon as you get a precursor it goes back to zero.

While I appreciate this sentiment, I genuinely dislike things that work magically in the background. A newer player would have no idea what’s going on with this sort of system, meanwhile the token system (with a merchant who had the precursors) would be much more explicit and explorable.

There could still be some other indicator. If we look at the state of the game right now, there is no indication at all, correct? As in nothing tells me about “legendary weapons”.

I guess the point would be to leave a little bit of the “gambling” feel for those who like it. Counting tokens up to 1000 could end up not being very epic either. Plus once you end up with a precursor beforehand – could you feel disappointed because it’s not the right one and now they are not much worth anymore? Dang, 698 tokens to go.

The glow of the mystic forge could maybe change for you. Zommoros or one of his elves could leave comments. “we are not pleased with these puny swords!” “Zommoros is starting to like your offereings, pathetic mortal”

This is only if we restrict ourself to this concept, I’ve said long time ago I’d rather have some sort of adventure or voyage attached to the entire endeavour, little bit of story sprinkled into it.

Rouven.7409:

While I like the token idea, I somehow think that there is no extra currency needed. Just make the equivalent of an increased chance working in the background. As soon as you get a precursor it goes back to zero.
.

The main flaw I see with this and the tokens idea is that a precursor is guaranteed after “P” number of attempts. That sets the value of the precursor at roughly 4P x the cheapest rare/exotic that can be used. So if it takes a maximum of 1000 attempts, and the cheapest item that can be used is 30 silver, precursors are valued at 1200g minimum.

Now the problem is, the price of the rare/exotics to forge is not absolute. Within hours the cheapest rares and exotics will be bought out, making later attempts cost 1g per rare minimum, more than tripling the price of precursors. The price will continue to be tied directly to the cost of MF fuel, because it’s inefficient to run dungeons until you have enough tokens for 1000 weapons and such. So anyone with enough gold to make the initial investment of 1200g for enough rares can guarantee a precursor, while those who are late to the party pay an ever increasing price just for the rares and exotics whether they want to forge them or not.

The prices of the materials to make them also go up, because with a precursor guaranteed after P attempts, anyone who wants one will keep trying until they get it. When there is no more affordable MF fuel on the TP, and they can’t afford crafting mats to make them, they’ll complain that it’s still impossible to get a precursor because you have to be rich to buy one from the TP or super rich to buy the MF fuel to forge one yourself.

So this doesn’t solve the your problem, it just creates new ones by pricing rares, exotics, and crafting mats out of the reach of average players. So not only can they not make progress towards the Legendary, now they can’t even gear up their characters unless they grind karma for exotic gear.

So this doesn’t solve the your problem, it just creates new ones by pricing rares, exotics, and crafting mats out of the reach of average players. So not only can they not make progress towards the Legendary, now they can’t even gear up their characters unless they grind karma for exotic gear.

This idea still ties the acquisition of a precursor to the market, and is driven by the amount of gold you have available to spend. Since most players don’t have enough gold on hand to buy thousands of rares, they still won’t be able to obtain a precursor any faster than before. And by directly tying it to other markets you’re just pulling those other markets into the hole.

If you’re going to create a new method of acquisition, you need to tie it to in-game activities that don’t involve gold. That’s why they use time-gated activities like the daily/monthly Laurel reward, they can control how long it takes to acquire ascended trinkets because a price of 25 Laurels, for example, requires a minimum of 15 days (1 per day plus the 10 Laurels for the montly reward) and having a lot of money in your bank account doesn’t change that.

Giving out account-bound tokens for World Boss kills, jumping puzzle completions, PS completion, etc. is a viable way to obtain a precursor that can only be done by playing the game, and there is no shortcut for players with fat wallets. They could utilize a system already in place by crafting a precursor from bloodstone bricks, empyreal stars, dark matter etc. because these are already in the game and account bound. But at this point, so many players have hoards of these materials that there would be an immediate flood of precursors so they would probably need to introduce an entirely new token system if they went this route.

And, given the complaints about ascended crafting and the bound materials already, it would just create more problems.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rouven.7409:

While I like the token idea, I somehow think that there is no extra currency needed. Just make the equivalent of an increased chance working in the background. As soon as you get a precursor it goes back to zero.

While I appreciate this sentiment, I genuinely dislike things that work magically in the background. A newer player would have no idea what’s going on with this sort of system, meanwhile the token system (with a merchant who had the precursors) would be much more explicit and explorable.

If ANet decided to do a token system, it would likely be something like:

4 level 75 rares -> level 80 rare or level 75-80 exotic or named exotic or precursor or 0-1 tokens

4 level 75 exotics -> level 75-80 exotic or named exotic or precursor or 0-8 tokens

They would probably also want to lower the random drop rate for precursors to make up for the ones coming from tokens. Once 1000 tokens are accumulated, four stacks could be placed in the forge to generate one random precursor.

Right now, (assuming I haven’t misread the numbers) it looks like about 800 forges of rares or 125 forges of exotics produce one precursor on average. Changing to a token type of system should have a very small net effect on the economy (depending on the token and precursor drop rates) but would drastically reduce the variability of precursor drops among players and alleviate a lot of frustration. There would still be plenty of RNG as well. Players would still either need to get lucky with RNG or sell a precursor they don’t want to buy one that they do want. But people would no longer dump 5000G in the forge and get zilch for it.

Someone feel free to poke holes in this as I am sure I ignored something important.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Someone feel free to poke holes in this as I am sure I ignored something important.

Players will see only “MF guarantees a precursor if I keep throwing stuff in,” which leads to a rush to buy “stuff” that cleans out the cheaper options leaving only very expensive “stuff” for anyone whether they want a precursor or not.

Look at account bound Magic Find: millions of units of green and blue gear were sold on the TP for a loss because people didn’t need them. Then you could salvage them for Magic Find boosts and the listings at vendor price + 1c were bought out, then more expensive listings were bought out until the lowest prices were several times what they were.

Even though it takes thousands of them (hundreds of thousands?) to reach maximum MF, you can see the progress you make with each salvage so that drives players to keep salvaging them. This change increased demand for items that no one wanted.

The problem is that rares and exotics already sell for a lot more than vendor price + 1c. There is no oversupply sitting at rock-bottom prices to be used up, because they are already useful for salvage and MF fuel. So the reasonably priced items would sell out quickly, leaving the only available rares and exotics at very high prices, putting them out of reach to the average player. And since the average player cannot acquire MF fuel to forge P times and get his precursor, he’s still forced to grind gold and buy it from the TP.

This makes things worse, not better.

Maybe this would actually solve another point as tolunart mentions. As Anet confessed they felt that exotics where too abundant and acquired too fast. If that is truly the case. Don’t forget that we already have a certain average at the mystic forge, it’s just not an individual one and therefore I’m sure less people actually do this.

Again, I’d rather they send me on an adventure anyways, I’m not really an excel spreadsheet warrior.

Would it solve anything to make the tokens that come out specific by weapon thrown in?

If the system were to be implemented as discussed, players would throw the cheapest rares and exotics into the forge just to get tokens, not really caring about the precursors themselves.

If tokens were specific to the items thrown in, it might not change the current state of things dramatically. If you’re throwing rare and exotic greatswords in….you’ll get greatsword tokens out (if you don’t get a precursor). If you throw rare and exotic tridents or focii in, you’ll get trident or focii tokens out.

The chance to get a precursor wouldn’t change and those specifically looking for a certain type of precursor would be gaining tokens toward that specific kind of precursor.

I would say that the tokens would be account bound so that you could stack and use them between characters. Also, it might be an option to make any precursor “purchased” with tokens Account Bound. That way, the tokens are ONLY useful for those attempting to get a precursor for themselves and wouldn’t be able to sell a precursor purchased with tokens.

tolunart.2095:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Someone feel free to poke holes in this as I am sure I ignored something important.

Players will see only “MF guarantees a precursor if I keep throwing stuff in,” which leads to a rush to buy “stuff” that cleans out the cheaper options leaving only very expensive “stuff” for anyone whether they want a precursor or not.

Look at account bound Magic Find: millions of units of green and blue gear were sold on the TP for a loss because people didn’t need them. Then you could salvage them for Magic Find boosts and the listings at vendor price + 1c were bought out, then more expensive listings were bought out until the lowest prices were several times what they were.

Even though it takes thousands of them (hundreds of thousands?) to reach maximum MF, you can see the progress you make with each salvage so that drives players to keep salvaging them. This change increased demand for items that no one wanted.

The problem is that rares and exotics already sell for a lot more than vendor price + 1c. There is no oversupply sitting at rock-bottom prices to be used up, because they are already useful for salvage and MF fuel. So the reasonably priced items would sell out quickly, leaving the only available rares and exotics at very high prices, putting them out of reach to the average player. And since the average player cannot acquire MF fuel to forge P times and get his precursor, he’s still forced to grind gold and buy it from the TP.

This makes things worse, not better.

I’m not sure that it is merely the ability to salvage junk items for MF% that has created higher demand for those junk items. The salvage materials also became more valuable (due to ascended crafting?) and generated increased demand for those items for salvaging. Also, using a token system to eliminate variability but without actually increasing the supply of precursors should not necessarily have the effect you describe long term. There might be a short term “MF guarantees a precursor if I keep throwing stuff in” irrational exuberance but it probably would not last long. People already know, or should know, that if they keep throwing stuff into the forge, they will eventually get a precursor. And if they just grind gold and buy it, they are effectively doing the same thing except they are instead getting the precursor that somebody else got by that same RNG method.

If ANet implemented a scavenger hunt or quest for precursors, wouldn’t that also have a similar effect to what you are concerned about? Materials used to craft all those precursors into legendaries would increase in price? Maybe ANet should half or quarter the drop rate of precursors so the cost of them skyrockets and the price of rares, exotics, and T6 materials drop? ;-)

tolunart.2095:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Someone feel free to poke holes in this as I am sure I ignored something important.

Players will see only “MF guarantees a precursor if I keep throwing stuff in,” which leads to a rush to buy “stuff” that cleans out the cheaper options leaving only very expensive “stuff” for anyone whether they want a precursor or not.

You’re missing a lot here. Supply of rares is constant and flowing. Players can go out in the world and collect 1000 rares on their own without too much trouble, just a lot of time. This ‘solves’ the problem because with RNG forging a precursor, you never know if you’re just RNG’s kitten forever or if you’ll get lucky. With the tokens you can make progress by forging rares you find in the world and never spending a single gold coin.

You get anywhere from 1 to 5 from any given world boss. You loot them from dungeons and random mobs fairly frequently. The initial rush that comes from a token system will spike prices high initially, true, but once those market warriors calm down the supply will keep flowing in fast enough. Also consider all other ways to get rares! You can upforge greens to get rares, and greens drop like candy. You severely underestimate the resilience of the rare market to the notion that you get a guaranteed precursor if you fail at forging too many times.

Things I do see happening:

• All rare weapons and exotic weapons reach a baseline equilibrium value around the same range of each other, some still slightly more valuable than others
• The ecto market fluctuates heavily as more rares are liable to be forged for the precursor tokens than salvaged for the ecto

I personally feel that with this sort of precursor token, precursors obtained this way would equalize to between 600 and 800g, some staying lower due to lower demand.

Maybe y´all should open a new thread for the token discussion as it is off topic here and propably wont be seen by an Anet employee.

I really like the token system but with a twist: You get to choose the precursor, but it’s account bound. This way it isn’t for money making but for the people who actually want a specific Legendary. The Legendary would be normal. If you want to sell it you have to go through the production of the Legendary.

John sees all.

Automatic message lenghtening activated.

Iason Evan.3806:

I really like the token system but with a twist: You get to choose the precursor, but it’s account bound. This way it isn’t for money making but for the people who actually want a specific Legendary. The Legendary would be normal. If you want to sell it you have to go through the production of the Legendary.

This is likely to happen when new Legendaries are introduced, whether they are weapons or other kinds of gear. Ascended crafting already results in account bound items, so it’s a small step to "here’s an ascended quality precursor, it’s crafted the same way but requires an additional “Legendary” component and it’s account bound."

They cannot do this with existing precursors, however, because it’s too late to change existing ones and will cause massive confusion if some Dusks are account bound when they drop and some are not.

Wanze.8410:

Maybe y´all should open a new thread for the token discussion as it is off topic here and propably wont be seen by an Anet employee.

The original post was sharing data on results from 11,000 forge attempts. I was hoping to start a discussion about the mechanics of the current system, not brainstorm about some potential future mechanic.

What’s gotten lost is that John Smith said:

The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now.

The data shows that the new drop tables offer a choice of nearly 30 skins+stat combos (up from ~20), but a loss of value (primarily due to seeing sub80 results). Previously, we could count on the Zommy always returning items at least as powerful as the ones we flushed. Now, he will often return lesser items than the top level rares and exotics we give him.

Objectively, this isn’t “much better” under any definitions or connotations of which I am aware — in fact, it’s easy to argue that it’s significantly worse now. So, either John made a major tactical mistake or there are more changes coming to Zommy’s drop tables.

Since Smith’s track record is imo really good, I’m expecting (hoping?) that future changes will blow us out of the water.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Since Smith’s track record is imo really good, I’m expecting (hoping?) that future changes will blow us out of the water.

His track record is that of a festival fortune teller gypsy. Very vague, thus applies to all. Those that choose to see it fit believe it so.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Wanze.8410:

Maybe y´all should open a new thread for the token discussion as it is off topic here and propably wont be seen by an Anet employee.

The original post was sharing data on results from 11,000 forge attempts. I was hoping to start a discussion about the mechanics of the current system, not brainstorm about some potential future mechanic.

What’s gotten lost is that John Smith said:

The mystic forge changes are a work in progress. What I will promise is that when it is done you will like it much better than you do now.

The data shows that the new drop tables offer a choice of nearly 30 skins+stat combos (up from ~20), but a loss of value (primarily due to seeing sub80 results). Previously, we could count on the Zommy always returning items at least as powerful as the ones we flushed. Now, he will often return lesser items than the top level rares and exotics we give him.

Objectively, this isn’t “much better” under any definitions or connotations of which I am aware — in fact, it’s easy to argue that it’s significantly worse now. So, either John made a major tactical mistake or there are more changes coming to Zommy’s drop tables.

Since Smith’s track record is imo really good, I’m expecting (hoping?) that future changes will blow us out of the water.

Words are cheap. John should know that, he’s an economist.

Essence Snow.3194:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Since Smith’s track record is imo really good, I’m expecting (hoping?) that future changes will blow us out of the water.

His track record is that of a festival fortune teller gypsy. Very vague, thus applies to all. Those that choose to see it fit believe it so.

I dont think he meant John´s track record of talking about changes but making changes.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Since Smith’s track record is imo really good, I’m expecting (hoping?) that future changes will blow us out of the water.

His track record is that of a festival fortune teller gypsy. Very vague, thus applies to all. Those that choose to see it fit believe it so.

I dont think he meant John´s track record of talking about changes but making changes.

That is indeed what I meant.