Guild Wars 2

munkiman.3068:

Riselight.3695:

Since when is the only way to get a pre-cursor trough the Mystic Forge? It never was. Since day one, you can loot pre cursors from all chests after an Orr Temple event, or after the Claw of Jormag battle. After Mid-November the drop rate got buffed, it is now possible to find it in any JP Chest, Shatterer, Tequatl & Claw chest and still in all Orr Temple chests. It even drops in WvW as regular loot! Srsly, before you go whine about how many gold you have already wasted to try to get your precursor in MF, go outside LA, do events, play WvW, and you might be lucky.
Tho I’m not 100% happy with the current pre-cursor system as well, a (long) Scavenger Hunt would indeed be the best way to improve it.

This isn’t true, not even close. The karka chest got an increased drop rate, that’s the only time it happened. I do everything you’ve mentioned multiple times a week and i’m usually lucky to see a few rares in a day, let alone an exotic. You almost make it sound like it drops from the sky if you pray hard enough to dwayna. You can easily tell based on hard data off the auction house. Post karka event i could get the lover for a bit over 90g (or even 128g) it’s now over 600g, that only tells you the drop rate is extremely low based on hard numbers.

My friend got precursor from JP chest, I got precursor from regular WvW loot. What I try to make clear is that the Legendary is a long-term goal, you should not waste hours & gold trying to get it in the MF, just do what you were doing (except sPvP) and you might find a precursor yourself.

Riselight.3695:

munkiman.3068:

Riselight.3695:

Since when is the only way to get a pre-cursor trough the Mystic Forge? It never was. Since day one, you can loot pre cursors from all chests after an Orr Temple event, or after the Claw of Jormag battle. After Mid-November the drop rate got buffed, it is now possible to find it in any JP Chest, Shatterer, Tequatl & Claw chest and still in all Orr Temple chests. It even drops in WvW as regular loot! Srsly, before you go whine about how many gold you have already wasted to try to get your precursor in MF, go outside LA, do events, play WvW, and you might be lucky.
Tho I’m not 100% happy with the current pre-cursor system as well, a (long) Scavenger Hunt would indeed be the best way to improve it.

This isn’t true, not even close. The karka chest got an increased drop rate, that’s the only time it happened. I do everything you’ve mentioned multiple times a week and i’m usually lucky to see a few rares in a day, let alone an exotic. You almost make it sound like it drops from the sky if you pray hard enough to dwayna. You can easily tell based on hard data off the auction house. Post karka event i could get the lover for a bit over 90g (or even 128g) it’s now over 600g, that only tells you the drop rate is extremely low based on hard numbers.

My friend got precursor from JP chest, I got precursor from regular WvW loot. What I try to make clear is that the Legendary is a long-term goal, you should not waste hours & gold trying to get it in the MF, just do what you were doing (except sPvP) and you might find a precursor yourself.

I completely agree and I do that stuff since i enjoy it. I’m not running from event to event or JP to JP savaging a precursor. The main thing i disagree with is any buff to the drop rate, it simply just isn’t there. If it is it’s negligible. There’s enough RNG built into the recipe for the precursor with clovers to warrant it not being so harsh with the precursors. IMHO.

Gaudrath.6725:

As I said before, the above “solution” has only two outcomes.

1. Everyone and their dog and their dog’s fleas has a legendary.
2. The system is actually so hard skill-wise that 99% of players can’t even hope to get a legendary.

In either case much crying would ensue.

Option 2 sounds good lol <3.

I agree completely.
Pure RNG is bad design. Like every other system in the game, you should get a token for just trying, especially considering the load of gold it takes to “try”.

This is why I haven’t chased legendaries yet, I’m waiting until Anet fixes this ridiculous system.
I’m in no rush really.

molepunch.5673:

Maybe in the big picture there has to be constant demand for rare and exotic crafted weapons in some form, as heavy handed as it may be.

They’d be better served redesigning crafting than trying to force onto everyone else a use for that crafted junk.

Just because you crafted it doesn’t mean anyone is interested in it. I bet you didn’t even look to see if it would sell for a profit before you crafted ten of them consecutively.

Ansultares.1567:

molepunch.5673:

Maybe in the big picture there has to be constant demand for rare and exotic crafted weapons in some form, as heavy handed as it may be.

They’d be better served redesigning crafting than trying to force onto everyone else a use for that crafted junk.

Just because you crafted it doesn’t mean anyone is interested in it. I bet you didn’t even look to see if it would sell for a profit before you crafted ten of them consecutively.

I did the math on exotic carrion staffs last night, it would cost you more to buy it than it does to craft, you make no profit selling them either, due to fees. For awhile it was much cheaper to craft rares and salvage for ectos than it was to actually buy the ectos, but those days are long gone. The market has actually become closer to fair in most cases, at least when it comes to crafting. The margins are really tight. Do i spend 5 or 6 more silver a piece just to buy them or do i just craft them? What’s my time really worth?

marnick.4305:

Do not agree. Mystic forge is gambling.

However dragon chest tokens would be more up my alley. A stack should cut it. But even then people will complain because they want a free precursor. No amount of making it easier will be enough.

And that is exactly it. No matter how many changes, if and when, come down the pipe, until they are given free for anyone that wants one, there will ALWAYS be folks clamoring to make it easier/cheaper. It’s the way of the world lol…

Gaudrath.6725:

As I said before, the above “solution” has only two outcomes.

1. Everyone and their dog and their dog’s fleas has a legendary.
2. The system is actually so hard skill-wise that 99% of players can’t even hope to get a legendary.

In either case much crying would ensue.

This can be offset by allowing 1 legendary per character. Furthermore several prerequisites need to be completed in order to begin your legendary story.

1) World Completion
2) Do each dungeon (story)
3) Do every dragon event

Then you could tackle this quest by completing the following:

1) X-ammount of DE’s (Hero’s Badge)
2) X-ammount of crafting/slavaging (Diploma of Weaponsmithing)
3) Revive X-ammount of fallen team mates.
etc. etc.

These can be then taken to crafting or mystic forge. The precursor could be obtained by going into a special zone. It could be a mix of zone and dungeon. By completing specialised DE’s in that zone you get access to a dungeon run. After finishing it all you can get a pre-precursor items which can be crafted by the weaponsmith in that zone.

Then you take all your stuff to the mystic toilet and whalaaaa – LEGENDARY WEAPON of CHAOS

Death Reincarnated.3570:

This can be offset by allowing 1 legendary per character. Furthermore several prerequisites need to be completed in order to begin your legendary story.

1) World Completion
2) Do each dungeon (story)
3) Do every dragon event

Then you could tackle this quest by completing the following:

1) X-ammount of DE’s (Hero’s Badge)
2) X-ammount of crafting/slavaging (Diploma of Weaponsmithing)
3) Revive X-ammount of fallen team mates.
etc. etc.

These can be then taken to crafting or mystic forge. The precursor could be obtained by going into a special zone. It could be a mix of zone and dungeon. By completing specialised DE’s in that zone you get access to a dungeon run. After finishing it all you can get a pre-precursor items which can be crafted by the weaponsmith in that zone.

Then you take all your stuff to the mystic toilet and whalaaaa – LEGENDARY WEAPON of CHAOS

Also, while undertaking the quest you can’t use any Waypoints aside from dungeon Waypoints (so that you don’t inconvenience others).

Riselight.3695:

What I try to make clear is that the Legendary is a long-term goal, you should not waste hours & gold trying to get it in the MF, just do what you were doing (except sPvP) and you might find a precursor yourself.

There’s literally nothing else to do at 80, and with the hundreds of hours I already put in, yeah I expect one just handed to me at this point because I would have found one already if it had any reasonable sort of drop rate.

They could set about redesigning sPvP and WvW so that there actually is something to do at 80 besides work on a precursor, but I bet they’d sooner just hand out free precursors (because even the most expensive ones are still only a fraction of the effort required to make a legendary).

Aoshi.4785:

And that is exactly it. No matter how many changes, if and when, come down the pipe, until they are given free for anyone that wants one, there will ALWAYS be folks clamoring to make it easier/cheaper. It’s the way of the world lol…

Bull kitten.

Seems it is impossible to stay on topic… but it’s also completely understandable.

Legendary weapons were supposed to be the crowning jewel, the pinnacle of the epic adventure that is Guild Wars 2. Instead, it has become a cesspool of forum hate and in game frustration. Worst of all, apart from a vague “try to add more places to obtain them” and “scavenger hunt” in the far distant future (perhaps, who knows for sure anymore) we are not being heard. Better communication is supposedly top priority but all I see is threads being ignored or locked or deleted without any communication about this issue, whatsoever.

Even constructive threads like this one is skimped over while others, seemingly insignificant complaints (in the big picture), are quickly commented on. I’ll post links if needed, but I’m confident that anyone with halve a brain and who has been following the forums for more than a day will know exactly what I’m on about.

So… where does that leave us?
If someone asks me what to do about getting a precursor I’ll tell them to dump all their savings into the forge. If they get it, great, if not, quit and find some other game to play until this mess is sorted out. Saving up 700g++ to give to gold sellers and market manipulators is not an option.

Legendary weapons are not for casuals, we’ve all heard that argument before, but if someone has gone to the trouble to craft all 3 of the other gifts: can you really call them ‘casual’? If your answer to this is yes, I digress. For me there is no point in arguing about player commitment vs RNG.

I hope this thread gets viewed by someone sensible over at Anet. I hope that that person thinks about this and other suggestions and that something useful comes out of all this unpleasantness on their forums.

There’s a lot of things that need to happen really. They need to get people back into the game, that alone would bring down prices. They could (i’d assume) easily have special weekends to help bring some players back, like GW1 has done for years. Double exotic drops from chests would be one, double karma, etc. etc. WvW population is down, sPvP is practically vacant, zones are becoming ghost towns. IMO, they really need to do SOMETHING and much sooner than they are. It’s simply too soon for the game to be slumping so much in population. The intro of dailies and monthlies was a start, a small one, but it did bolster the community somewhat. Most people I know are either only playing GW2 or only show up randomly for some new content release.

I realize it takes time to get stuff like that in game, but a double drop weekend should be a pretty quick band aid, at least toward the ridiculous increase in precursor costs.

Fix achievement point exploits, make achievements part of the scavenger hunt which gives a pieces together to forge the precursor of choice. eg. 3500 achievement points for part of a piece of a precursor? Of course, to ensure this is not exploitable, make this only give you a piece out of 4 or something. Throw in another piece out there in some epic event achievement, throw out another piece buyable from NPC for a very heavy price (100-200g) and the last piece.. they can think of something creative themselves? Particularly something to do with skill? Maybe make a kinda like obstacle course in which it test our speed, endurance, skill? Like make us fight a clone? Survive a horde? hunt down a dev player in pvp and backstab him?

So, with no scavenger hunt anywhere in sight… lets pick this up again.
Maybe Anet sees it this time, haha, who knows.

Oh you all thought that scavenger hunt was really coming? HAH! GW2 without RNG massive grind, that’ll be the day.

Legendaries sicken me with the way they’ve been implemented… absolutely nothing legendary other than the peoples patience who actually get through making one.

The way DaiBash talked about a big quest to create a legendary made me laugh, because it’s exactly how you made them in WoW …. YEARS AGO. ANet for some reason just went with an RNG grind system that puts any koreon MMO to shame.

/endrage and disgust

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Lets just think about something for a second:
The game needs RNG and the mystic forge to survive in it’s current state.

I know, harsh words and I almost cannot believe that I’ve typed it…
While I was working on my legendary I was blinded by rage at the nonsense of the mystic forge and how stupid the whole idea was. I slowly realized, however, that without this ‘idiocy in design’ as I once called it, the in game economy will look a whole lot different to what we have now. Rares will be basically worth just more than vendor prices. The same can be said about exotics. Why is that, you may ask? Well, it’s a simple matter of supply and demand. There are hundreds, even thousands, of rares being farmed and crafted each day. The market will simply be flooded. This will cause a spiral effect where things like ecto (amongst others) will drastically loose value. Even harvested materials will become literally worthless. The game needs a mechanic where we, as players, can dispose of all these excess items: the mystic forge. Currently, the primary reason for using the forge is the chance you have at a precursor. Take that away and you disrupt the entire system.

In the long term, with ascended gear requiring a gold sink in the form of ecto, this may change to the point where the gamble for precursors are no longer required in the game in order to keep item quantities in check. For now, though, we have to accept this situation as reality and think of ways how Arenanet can improve the current system. Something that will keep players content and feeling like they are progressing, even with bad luck, while not destroying the economy.

i agree that the current economy is based around the mystic forge, but i disagree that the current economy is good for the game.

I mean your suggestion is one that occured to me, looking at the situation, essentially, a hard cap on precursor obtaining, setting a worst case scenario for players.

I would however make it more interesting by making an event where you challenge zommoros every time you reach a certain amount of failure tokens. lets use some numbers here just to illustrate

say the projected worst case scenario now is 250 failed attempts with exotics, putting worst case scenario precursor at worth 1000 exotics. (current prices this would be like 2-4k gold)
every 50 attempts you get kitten off and try to rob/kill zommoros(think a randomized event in Zommoros home dimension say there is like 10 possible events). Succesfully completing this awards you with some pretty fat loot, and say a 1/20 chance at a unsellable precursor, (but also various treasures, lodestones, or gold, possible rare skins)
cost here is 50 attempts, or on current market 400-800 gold, so giving people some lodestones or even 3-4 gold, or a random highly rare skin is not really a drop in the bucket, but it makes the event feel better

if you reach 5 attempts, you get an event whereby you try to beat zommoros to death its repeatable until you succeed, on success you get precursor(unsellable) of your choice.

Its essentially the same idea, but it sets smaller goals, and at least a feeling of progress, it gives some interesting events, and people can be proud of goin this way for precursors, i would even suggest that each precursor gets an alternate color option so that there is even a feeling of achievement for taking the long road.

but as i said, while these type of solutions might somewhat allieve the perception and feel of current precursor issues, the economy would still be mostly a failure.

The precursor driven economy they created creates too much glut items that have no value, even less than npc prices for many items. It also drives excess production of that same glut, and reduces the game to best money farming is main way to succeed post 80.
Id suggest
get rid of weapon/armor drops from normal mobs
instead, give salvageables with runes/sigils on them that npc for roughly the same as what we have now

Veterans/champions can drop completed items
chests can drop completed items

npcs sell up to blues and greens depending on level

putting 4 salvageables in mystic forge can reward random completed items

mystic forge overall has better rates to compensate for a lot less items in the world
chests

crafting exotics(and even low level rare skins) or higher uses crafter energy or skill points(crystals and philosopher stones) crafter energy is built by doing a simple crafting quest for the crafters guild (like a crafting daily) more can be awarded by doing various dynamic crafting type quests which pop up in towns, hamlets, in the open world, as well as another method something grindy but helpful to the economy where like every day some points are given for bringing overproduced items to the crafters guild.

crafting rare and named exotics now becomes possible, but requires a finite resource, theres more to do in the world and more reasons to go to foreign towns. This will give crafting better value, and better progression,

it reduces the glut of items and increases the value for trash as well as gives value to every drop in the world.
it gives crafting the same low barrier to entry, but gives it a value and limits over production.
Destroying items, but not having so much of that item destruction being top heavy, and negatively impacting top end play to becoming a massive gold grind.

Its probably a lot of work, but lets be honest, the game as a whole will need a lot of work to have a fulfilling reward system with its current structure. Almost every drop you get is fairly worthless and most of the items you create are as well.