Guild Wars 2

3000 hours, 575 days played, 850g in gambled rares/exotics, no precursor.

So in all seriousness: Is there an estimated timeline for the precursor scavenger hunt? We were told it would be here by end of 2013, it is almost a full year later (over a year after the announcement) and full silence from Anet. Can we get an update on this? Or if it is even on the radar anymore? The prices of pres has gone through the roof, and I after everytime that I gamble away more than 300g in the forge with nothing I contemplate quitting because I’m so upset (I do log out for the night). I’m a loyal customer, but this seems a bit ridiculous.

One of those thread again … oh well, I’ll bite anyway.
~2800 hours, played since betas, saved gold enough to buy my precursor, no drops so far.

Belzebu.3912:

One of those thread again … oh well, I’ll bite anyway.
~2800 hours, played since betas, saved gold enough to buy my precursor, no drops so far.

Well, in all fairness, the reason that these keep popping up is that they aren’t addressed. They are ignored, and then a new one comes up because people still seek an answer to the problem. I just wish we could get some comment on this. I understand things slip deadlines. That’s not why people are upset. They are upset because the deadline slip didn’t happen with a “Sorry we didn’t get around to it yet, but it is coming in the next 3-6 months!” We got nothing.

And I did buy dusk for my twilight (after spending 200g in the forge for nada) but I’ve been working towards bolt, and I can’t force myself to grind out 1800g or however much zap costs now.

with 3000 hours, if you spend all that time farming, at 10 gold per hour, you can make 30000 gold and bought your self 30 precursor.

That being said, if you spend 3000 hours farming, you’ll be very very bored with the game.

laokoko.7403:

with 3000 hours, if you spend all that time farming, at 10 gold per hour, you can make 30000 gold and bought your self 30 precursor.

That being said, if you spend 3000 hours farming, you’ll be very very bored with the game.

You can’t make 10g/hour continuously. Even if we were to grant that you could speed run dungeons that fast (I full zerk speed run with friends, and we still take 30 minutes for a path of arah which is 3.76g plus drops) you can only run the dungeon path once per day, and not all reward as much as Arah.

That aside I agree that I shouldn’t be spending my 180 hours of playtime (by your math, more like 360 hours) grinding for gold to get a precursor.

eleshazar.6902:

laokoko.7403:

with 3000 hours, if you spend all that time farming, at 10 gold per hour, you can make 30000 gold and bought your self 30 precursor.

That being said, if you spend 3000 hours farming, you’ll be very very bored with the game.

You can’t make 10g/hour continuously. Even if we were to grant that you could speed run dungeons that fast (I full zerk speed run with friends, and we still take 30 minutes for a path of arah which is 3.76g plus drops) you can only run the dungeon path once per day, and not all reward as much as Arah.

That aside I agree that I shouldn’t be spending my 180 hours of playtime (by your math, more like 360 hours) grinding for gold to get a precursor.

you can do that now with coiled watch. Eventhough many people get upset about the farmers, because they can’t do their living story.

dry top? if you know all the geonodes location maybe, the pot is worth 8.5 gold now.

Harvesting? If you have lots of alt like me, 24 lvl80.

There have always been ways to farm gold without playing the TP.

I’m down 700 gold, to buy exotic for exotic hunter achievement. and made about 500 gold in a few days.

That being said, grinding gold isn’t the exactly most fun thing to do in the world.

same boat as OP – long play time, never randomly got a precursor. however:
If I were to ever find one, guaranteed it would not be the one I wanted and I would just sell it anyways then buy one I did want. So in effect, I see them as just an expensive drop. A drop I’d like to get, for sure, but I might as well get another Belladonna, meaning they both amount to the same thing to me: 500g.

Yes, yes.
We get it.
You feel entitled to a precursor because you’ve racked up time and effort and gambled all of it away.
I’ve been around the block too. I have nothing to show for it either.
yet, I’m not complaining about it.

Mystic forging is a gamble, and not everyone will see results.
It’s kind of a ‘tough kitten’ thing here.
O_o

I actually got 2 precursor. 1 is a zap… I remember selling it “really” cheaply a long time ago.(how time have change)

and another is a venom…

I think the price of precursor is ridiculous too.

I think it is possible for most people to actually afford a precursor/legendary. The problem is if you bought a legendary, you barely have any money to buy other things.

Because seriously with 3000 playing hours, all you need to do is earn 1 gold per hour and you can afford a legendary(but nothing else).

I have game for two years already. I play everyday – and still no precusror. This is ridiculous.

RNGod smiled on me today

You should save up and buy one. I know it feels like a horrible way to do it because the huge price is sitting right in front of you, but statistically, you probably spend less gold than with toilet gambling.

Once upon a time, I played a game that had an item similar to precursors. It was highly sought after and probably about as rare as precursors would be if you couldn’t get them through the mystic forge.

Over the course of something like 1-2 years (the time is a blur now) I looted 4-5 of them. I was ridiculously lucky.

I know the temptation to forge your gold away. I’ve done it myself and as it is like gambling, there is that notion in your brain that says, “This time will be the one. No wait, this time.” It’s all bs that your mind creates and a distorted use of “hope” at that.

Gamble some imaginary gold away for fun if you want, but if you’re super serious about getting your precursor, just save up. I know it’ll hurt to hear that after all the gold you’ve spent unsuccessfully, but you’ll ultimately be much happier with a situation that you can control than a situation that you can’t control.

LOL!!! LOL!!! only 3k hours?

I got my ONLY one at 5,127hrs game time. Ive done more dungeons and fotm than 90% the players.

When you get to 5k+ hours then say something.

laokoko.7403:

with 3000 hours, if you spend all that time farming, at 10 gold per hour, you can make 30000 gold and bought your self 30 precursor.

That being said, if you spend 3000 hours farming, you’ll be very very bored with the game.

Actually, at 3000 hours, if you’d gotten a second job at minimum wage, you’ve have made $21,750. Figure $19,000 after taxes. With it you could buy 1.52 million gems, which would currently translate into 136,800 gold. You could’ve bought every precursor in the game.

Even the folks getting rich off the TP are wasting their time. If you’re that good at making money off the TP, you should really be playing the RL stock market. For the same amount of time invested, you could probably make enough RL money that you only need to convert 5% of it into gems to make the same amount of gold as you’re making from the TP. Use the remaining 95% to treat yourself to a nice vacation to some exotic location (and no, don’t waste your time on vacation playing GW2).

Games are for fun; they’re not supposed to be a second job. Grind and farm in the game because you enjoy doing those things. If there’s a specific item you want in the game and it hasn’t dropped for you by luck, and you don’t have enough gold/laurels/etc to buy it outright, it’s almost always cheaper, faster, and less work to get it by paying RL money for it.

It’s all RNG – I’ve played for almost 2 years, and I’ve gotten my hands on 2 precursors total. One from the MF (4th try) and the other as a drop from dungeons. But my luck is just one out of many.

I would prefer legendary feats > legendary luck, but farming the gold for a precursor harness the same amount of respect for time and dedication, no? It’s a scavenger hunt for gold.

Solandri.9640:

Games are for fun; they’re not supposed to be a second job. Grind and farm in the game because you enjoy doing those things. If there’s a specific item you want in the game and it hasn’t dropped for you by luck, and you don’t have enough gold/laurels/etc to buy it outright, it’s almost always cheaper, faster, and less work to get it by paying RL money for it.

exactly….and Anet knows this………and that is why they will take their sweet time with precursor crafting/hunt (if they are even still pursuing it).

I think its more likely they add new ascended non-legendary skins (hopefully weapon and armor….not just back pieces) and create processes to get them like they did with mawdrey….a combo of grind/crafting/gameplay and exploration that takes you to all facets of the pve game. they will keep legendaries as they are, as it’s a easy way to get people to buy gems and convert them to gold.

I am SO glad ArenaNet does not believe in making grindy games…

Amiright?

Thanks.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

I am SO glad ArenaNet does not believe in making grindy games…

Amiright?

Thanks.

Quite honestly 95% of the content have no grind. You can do 95% of the content wearing lvl80 blue gear.

That’s why opinion about GW2 is quite split.

On one hand, you have a bunch of people calling GW2 really grindy. And a bunch of people calling GW2 the most casual mmorpg.

My response to the op would be, “so what?”

As others have said, that is way more than enough time to have bought the precursors you want/need. And I am not sure why anyone would throw away 850g at the toilet……but, whatever rocks your boat, I guess.

Or, what Solandri said.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

I am SO glad ArenaNet does not believe in making grindy games…

Amiright?

Thanks.

If you think this game is ‘grindy’, then you haven’t played very many mmos.

Arikyali.5804:

I would prefer legendary feats > legendary luck

Agreed.

but farming the gold for a precursor harness the same amount of respect for time and dedication, no? It’s a scavenger hunt for gold.

No. There’s nothing ‘legendary’ about spending mountains of gold. No matter how much you’ve diligently saved, I’ll always see it as the lazy way of getting one, all because Anet allows it. Re-read quote #1 above, and also my signature.

eleshazar.6902:

So in all seriousness: Is there an estimated timeline for the precursor scavenger hunt? We were told it would be here by end of 2013, it is almost a full year later (over a year after the announcement) and full silence from Anet. Can we get an update on this? Or if it is even on the radar anymore?

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We want to let you know that the ability to build your precursor will not be in our upcoming Feature Pack. The way progression and rewards work in Guild Wars 2 have changed quite a bit since we initially talked about that feature, and our main horizontal progression systems are about to get some additional updates in the upcoming feature pack. Because of that, we are looking into several ways to integrate building your precursor into our new updated reward and progression systems we’re working on, which is requiring additional development time and iteration. As always, we’ll share details on this system once it’s far enough along in production we’re ready to discuss it.

The scavenger hunt is here!
Play your normal way, find items that are worth some gold… sell and save up! See you’re scavenging for items to sell ;D .
Or… flip.

I have four legendaries, I’ve gotten one precursor drop (which I used, I didn’t sell). You can make legendaries without gambling away money at the mystic forge. Had you spent money on the precusor a year ago, instead of throwing 850 gold away in the forge, you’d already have your legendary. It was a bad decision.

There’s been no word on the scavenger hunt, but many people believe the Mawdrey quest was a test run of the type of thing it will be.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Arikyali.5804:

I would prefer legendary feats > legendary luck

Agreed.

but farming the gold for a precursor harness the same amount of respect for time and dedication, no? It’s a scavenger hunt for gold.

No. There’s nothing ‘legendary’ about spending mountains of gold. No matter how much you’ve diligently saved, I’ll always see it as the lazy way of getting one, all because Anet allows it. Re-read quote #1 above, and also my signature.

There is one problem. Requiring mountains of gold means gems→gold conversion so more money for the devs, legendary feats don’t give them any money.

Unless they add the “recipe” for the precursor on the GEM Store! Imagine, 800 gems to buy your Zap Recipe! Then you have to actually craft it! Scary scary idea

Chiming in with my stats!

• 3,487 hours 22 minutes over the past 766 days.
• Doing every world boss at least once per day, usually more than once with Alts.
• No precursor drops

I have two legendaries which I bought the precursors from the TP for. As Val said, nothing legendary about the trading post!

Why do people justify Anets excuse to the op’s worries. I think his concerns are legit and should be addressed. I have had all my friends quit GW2 because they never once obtained a precursor after years (literally) of playing. I obtained one precursor and that was from the mystic forge, but even I considered that a lucky drop knowing how I have not seen a precursor drop after constant play through of fractals, dungeons, and world bosses. Please stop justifying Anets drop rate for precursors and maybe Anet will fix it for those who aren’t lucky enough to find one, I am so sick of people saying just grind for gold, well sorry in GW2 gold doesn’t come easily as people make out, especially for the casual players.

Tbh it’s not even about the overall droprate, the main problem about all of this is just that the RNG is broken. Anet seems to have divided the Gw2 players into 3 groups, the lucky kittens, the normal ones and the trash can. I know i’ll definitely get some comments again like RNG is RNG, just accept it and stop whining. However any1 with a healthy mind understands that there is something wrong with the RNG if 1 person puts up to 2k rares+ and 200+ exo’s in the MF and doesn’t get anything back at all (like myself), while he just notices that a friend on ts just mentioned he had 3 precursors after 20 rare tries in the MF.

If the average amount to obtain the precursor is like 500 gambles to get a pre, (which would correspond towards the loot tables+price range) the chance on getting 3 or more precursors in 20 gambles=1-binomcdf(20,002,2)=0.00000889 chance=0.000889% chance, or i just witnessed something that only happens like 1 in the ~150.000 times, or this RNG is broken

I know it is possible for the “Trash canners”to farm your way up to get your legendary, however this still shouldn’t be needed if anet designed a decent RNG instead of this broken kitten. Also take into account that not every1 plays PvE so we don’t have the same income/day. For example back in the old times had to PvE to actually be able to buy sieges off the vendor to be able to do my main buiseness in gw2 (WvW), it was just costing me money. And even nowadays i’m already happy if i make 2g/hr.

3588hr/766 days
2000+rares 200 exo’s Mystic toilet
Best drop so far: exo with bloodlust sigil

7.7k+hours……ZERO pre drops
4k ish gold into forge……..got 2 after 3.5k gold

The rng in this game simply sucks and buying things from the tp doesn’t feel rewarding. After years of gw1 (16k+ hours) and gw2 being the only games I would play, I am finally looking to other games to feel rewarded and finding it.

ANet have answered this question.

It boiled down to: “Maybe. Someday. Or not.”

Sit down and stay awhile. I have a story to tell…

(After almost 4k hours of play since early access start and thousands of wasted gold)

I got my first precursor a few months in by buying 2g worth of green hammers and threw them in the forge. I got enough rare hammers for two tries at an exotic or The Colossus. First throw of the rare hammers and I got it. It only took 2g worth of masterwork hammers for my first precursor. I would later make the Juggernaut. (Blasted silver doubloons… mumble…grumble…)

The next time I held such a valuable item was waiting for the Great Jungle Wurm. I killed some nearby boars (level 50-54 I believe) while waiting for the event to start and to my surprise… The Energizer was blessed to me by the great RNG God! I gave it away and was later paid 150g.

After the new PvP system, I was pumped to get my Balthazar backpiece. I began the slow but awesome grind toward a goal I thought was worthy. Sadly, this goal would be dimmed by opening a rank up chest champ bags… The Legend appeared in my inventory! I was working on the Bifrost at the time too. The RNG God surely had blessed me on that very day again.

Lastly, I was playing some WvW with my awesome guildies. The night started well but I had this feeling something grander would be coming my way. We took some towers, a keep, and killed some small guild zergs… all in a normal WvW reset night. My second rank up chest put the cherry on top by gifting me The Leaf of Kudzu! I was truly blessed that night. I gave it away though to one of my guildies.

I have tried all the other ways to get a precursor: Exotics in the forge, rares in the forge, and trying to save up gold. But in the end, I found I could get them just by playing and tossing in the cheapest items. I’ve stopped forging purposely and keep playing every aspect of the game. Is the RNG too random? I think so but also think it isn’t what Anet wants either. I’m told that you are supposed to find a precursor every 1k hours of play and I’m right on par… but I know A TON of other players who are not.

With the story told, I bid you all good luck and good hunting!

So far I got 4 precursors 3 from mystic forge one from queen karka, and 2 ascended weapon boxes in pvp and 4 armor boxes from fractal with about 2100 hrs,

If your only reason you are playing this game is to grind hours, earn gold and toss it in the Flusher for a Precursor, I seriously suggest you re-evaluate WHY you are playing this game at all….and I’m not being sarcastic, mean or demeaning.

YOU are making yourself unhappy, not Anet.

Just wanted to chime in that the precursor scavenger hunt was highly hinted at being for new legendaries, so if you want Bolt you should save up for Zap.

To others if your goal is just to have a legendary instead of a specific one, I highly recommend trying for a cheaper one I was going for Kudzu until one day I said “kitten it” and liquidated my bank and bought the precursors for the axe and the horn (about 9 months ago got them both for 500g). I already finished Frostfang and I’m only missing 50% T6 mats to finish howler.

I don’t recall seeing anything that guarantees a precursor when we spent X amount of hours playing and has Y amount of gold….

So I don’t think ANet needs to do/fix anything here.

you can buy it from the gem store after exchanging ~$400 real dollars to gold. If you need it that bad….$400 is 40 hours of minimum pay job at the rate of $10/hour. So should take anyone a week max to get one….

Legendaries are broken, don’t waste your time on it… they were supposed to be the all end of adventurers in Tyria but they are actually for wallet players or hardcore farmers… there is a legend that says that a few of them got a lucky drop and craft their own.

Brother Grimm.5176:

If your only reason you are playing this game is to grind hours, earn gold and toss it in the Flusher for a Precursor, I seriously suggest you re-evaluate WHY you are playing this game at all….and I’m not being sarcastic, mean or demeaning.

YOU are making yourself unhappy, not Anet.

QFT. Well said.

AngelDiscarnate.5489:

Yes, yes.
We get it.
You feel entitled to a precursor because you’ve racked up time and effort and gambled all of it away.
I’ve been around the block too. I have nothing to show for it either.
yet, I’m not complaining about it.

Mystic forging is a gamble, and not everyone will see results.
It’s kind of a ‘tough kitten’ thing here.
O_o

Seriously what is with you people who jump to the worst conclusions? The OP wants a concrete method to WORK TOWARDS a precursor, not just get given one. The OP wants the promised precursor crafting. Frankly, it’s an incredibly reasonable request. It’s not being entitled.

Dunno how long it’s going to take the playerbase to realize their grinding like zombies day in day out for gold to get a legendary which so many players already have, and so many players got because of blind stupid luck, or because they bought a precursor when they were affordable.

Seems very “legendary” to be in orr killing Orrians like a zombie for hours and hours, for weeks in weeks out to be able to have a special effect greatsword on your back

Dunno I think I’m too lazy for it, i can make 50G/Day now by running dungeons, but seriously, i don’t see the point

I’m genuinely confused, and don’t intend to offend anyone who hasn’t built or bought a legendary weapon yet, but … why is this so onerous a problem? What’s wrong with crafting an ascended weapon and moving on with life?

I seriously don’t understand the animus about this; some people get lucky or are savvy with their funds, others have the exact same weapon but just not the same flashy skin or spell effects. Why not build the same weapon and play the game? The “scavenger hunt” idea isn’t going away (apparently), might as well do something productive while you wait.

Almost 6K hrs. wasted alot of gold in Mystic Toilet, have all the gifts ready to make Predator, so I’m just saving up gold – maybe ask for Gems for Christmas LOLOL

First off, if you would read my post, I already have one legendary. I bought Dusk on the TP for 880g after having thrown 200g in the mystic forge to no avail. I wanted to go for bolt as well, but I can’t justify grinding the gold for the current price of zap (which will probably be at 2k by the time I can grind that much gold).

To everyone who says there is no problem, stop feeling entitled: Why do you feel the need to attack me? I think that my request for a guaranteed way to earn a precursor, that is not subject completely to the rise and fall of the TP prices is not unreasonable. I’ve done the journey once that way, and the grind for the gold was awful, and there was nothing legendary about it. The developers said back in 2012 that they didn’t anticipate the rise in the precursor market, and they don’t like that precursors cost 100g (the quote is out there somewhere if you care to find it). Well they have gotten up to near 2k gold, and they still haven’t fixed what they have admitted is a problem.

I have tried to fight the belief that RNG is implemented per account, but I now think that is highly likely of being correct. I started the game at the same time as another friend of mine, and for about the same time of gameplay, he has gotten 6 precursors as drops (none from forging, hasn’t even tried) and I have gotten zero. I also bought an account for my boyfriend, and his account constantly gets amazing drops (first black lion chest he opened had a full ticket). And I know another person who like me has played a lot, actually he has double my hours, and has never gotten a pre either. If the RNG is the same for everyone, that doesn’t make any sense. Being 1 or 2 drops off from someone who has played as long as me makes sense, but a difference of 6?!

So if you are just going to come on here to say grind for gold, stop being entitled, nothing is wrong, then please don’t bother commenting. If you want to offer constructive reasonsing as to why you believe the current state of obtaining a precursor is fair then feel free to comment. I don’t mind differing views, but just coming in to white knight and not really offer anything useful is just a waste of time to everyone who reads the thread.

eleshazar.6902:

First off, if you would read my post, I already have one legendary. I bought Dusk on the TP for 880g after having thrown 200g in the mystic forge to no avail. I wanted to go for bolt as well, but I can’t justify grinding the gold for the current price of zap (which will probably be at 2k by the time I can grind that much gold).

To everyone who says there is no problem, stop feeling entitled: Why do you feel the need to attack me? I think that my request for a guaranteed way to earn a precursor, that is not subject completely to the rise and fall of the TP prices is not unreasonable. I’ve done the journey once that way, and the grind for the gold was awful, and there was nothing legendary about it. The developers said back in 2012 that they didn’t anticipate the rise in the precursor market, and they don’t like that precursors cost 100g (the quote is out there somewhere if you care to find it). Well they have gotten up to near 2k gold, and they still haven’t fixed what they have admitted is a problem.

I have tried to fight the belief that RNG is implemented per account, but I now think that is highly likely of being correct. I started the game at the same time as another friend of mine, and for about the same time of gameplay, he has gotten 6 precursors as drops (none from forging, hasn’t even tried) and I have gotten zero. I also bought an account for my boyfriend, and his account constantly gets amazing drops (first black lion chest he opened had a full ticket). And I know another person who like me has played a lot, actually he has double my hours, and has never gotten a pre either. If the RNG is the same for everyone, that doesn’t make any sense. Being 1 or 2 drops off from someone who has played as long as me makes sense, but a difference of 6?!

So if you are just going to come on here to say grind for gold, stop being entitled, nothing is wrong, then please don’t bother commenting. If you want to offer constructive reasonsing as to why you believe the current state of obtaining a precursor is fair then feel free to comment. I don’t mind differing views, but just coming in to white knight and not really offer anything useful is just a waste of time to everyone who reads the thread.

I feel your pain. Others seem very lucky, some of us not so much :~( Add to that the fact that the precursors go up regularly (mine having jumped from 400g over a year ago, to doubled one month ago, and now it’s almost 1k g). That kind of sucks…

i got around ~6k + ~700 days and no precursor.

Sublimatio.6981:

i got around ~6k + ~700 days and no precursor.

That’s so sad. :-(

Your opinion that the request is not unreasonable is just that….your opinion. Others posting here are expressing theirs. You should note that WHEN they do introduce some sort of “guaranteed” method to get you Precursor / Legendary, I would be HIGHLY surprised if they are the existing ones.

Faux.1937:

LOL!!! LOL!!! only 3k hours?

I got my ONLY one at 5,127hrs game time. Ive done more dungeons and fotm than 90% the players.

When you get to 5k+ hours then say something.

I have 6k+ hours, played since beta and didn’t get any precursor ever. (except the ones I bought)
OP, if you really think there is any kind of fairness or rewarding your “hard work”, you didn’t get into this game’s phylosophy yet. Proof on this? A person I know got his precursor after barely 300 hours of gameplay. Dropped randomly in WvW while finishing map. He gets so many good loots that he has already crafted a full ascended armor, 2 legendaries and goes full runes of strenght. He almost gets 1 weapon chest each Tequatl he runs. Some accounts seem to have stole hundreds of others’ RNG-luck, seriously.

Took me about two years and 1000 hours played to finally make twilight here’s what i did:

ALL AC paths (~1.7g each)
P1, P2 COF (~1.3g each)
AC tokens = buy exotics (180 tokens each) → salvage for ectos and insignias → sell them on TP
CoF tokens = buy lvl 70 rare armor (30 tokens each) → salvage for ectos → sell on TP

You wont waste more than 2 hours of play in a day to do these things and it will give you some pretty nice gold (depending on your luck on the salvages) :P

You can answer here all day, all those Folk want is the easy way to get a legendary. Which kinda defeats the whole meaning of Legendary Weapons.
If you would get what you ask for, nearly all of the players would have a variety of Legendaries. Wow, that would be no fun at all. You then would complain about Legendaries not being Exclusive enough, you worked soooo hard for it.

It’s not a ‘i played a year’ kind of weapon, it’s a ‘I have dedicated a legendary amount of time and had legendary Luck’ kinda Item.

Although the Luck Part is cancelled out by the possibility of Buying one. Even my Girlfriend, who has a demanding Job in IT, manages to save up Gold to buy her Precursor.
She is playing for two years now and finally got Howler. Crafted it herself. Okay, I bought her Howler, but she’s got the Gold for it now herself. How? See all the other answers: Daily Tequatl, One or two dungeons, more on weekends. The odd Black Lion key from Story rewards=Scraps and Tickets which are an instant +100g. Play the game and stop complaining about things that are working perfectly Don’t waste all your Gold away on Stuff everybody has if you want a Legendary. BE Legendary!