Guild Wars 2

TL;dR: Monetary cost and opportunity cost of legendary crafting feature far exceeds the cost of just buying the precursor off the TP.

From my own personal experience, I am crafting dusk 2nd tier atm. dusk cost 1100 gold atm. Crafting dusk requires me to get 70 deldrimor ingot, which cost ~9-10 gold. Furthermore there is an extra of 200-300 gold cost of all the other side materials to complete this journey. This is a total cost of at least 830gold -1000 gold.

Furthermore this process is locked behind a time locked barrier which is at least 2 months long. This time lock is impossible to escape because buying all the ingot off of the TP is an un-viable strategy since low supply.

Thus the question comes down to, is it better to just buy the legendary or to craft? The answer I came to is that it is better to buy just because it is less frustrating, and in two months a serious player can get at least 600-800 gold. Because the crafting process cost both time and money, actual cost is exponentially higher than just buying the precursor.

Furthermore, Anet claims that they do not intend to change the price of precursor but they instead arbitrarily increase the cost of the already high costing precursor this way. The only reason why precursor price can stay decently low because most sellers probably recognize that increasing the price will make it astronomically more difficult for them to sell the precursors. However, if taking into consideration of how absurdly long the legendary crafting process is due to time gating, I suspect sellers can raise the price by 100-200 gold to account for it.

In general I think this is a terrible implementation of a possibly good feature because no one in their right mind should do it, it is very shallow and not the journey to uncover the deep story behind each precursor as promised. Furthermore it will not cause deflation because while legendary crafting is a big gold sink, the gold is actually not going out of the economy just to other player who are willing to sacrifice w/e progression they may have in ascended gear, guild hall for gold.Thus it makes legendary more exclusive gold wise than it already was for any new players.

This is not a good strategy for GW2 cause it seems to assume that players will actually stick around for years on end for these aesthetic despite little “progression” . Since very little new content had been released since launch, aesthetics is the bulk of the time sink atm, and aesthetic is not a very good long term incentive for most people. When considering that other MMO ares coming out, such as Blade and Soul next january, it make more sense to reward the already hard effort that players put into crafting the legendary instead of punishing them by arbitrarily lengthening the process.

I hadn’t given any serious consideration to crafting a legendary before… but when the legendary collections came out I was hooked. It’s a great big scavenger hunt and I’m enjoying it. I haven’t got to the part of actually crafting the precursor as you describe, and maybe that’ll seem daunting when it happens, but the initial stages of finding the items is quite fun so far.

Precursor crafting is fun until you get to the actual crafting part.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

I hadn’t given any serious consideration to crafting a legendary before… but when the legendary collections came out I was hooked. It’s a great big scavenger hunt and I’m enjoying it. I haven’t got to the part of actually crafting the precursor as you describe, and maybe that’ll seem daunting when it happens, but the initial stages of finding the items is quite fun so far.

Enjoy the massive time-gated crafting grind when you get there

When ANet decided the amount of ascended materials needed to craft a precursor, they based it off the current TP price. Which is incredibly stupid. The market will adjust itself to become cheaper than crafting it outright, however the precursor crafting process won’t change itself. You can’t race with the market.
So yes, it’ll FOREVER be cheaper and less infuriating (read: snowden drift events) to buy it outright from the TP. Bravo to the economists!

ferdi.1452:

Precursor crafting is fun until you get to the actual crafting part.

You think? I stopped having fun not even halfway through the first tier collection.

Stand around waiting for events (that I’ve done dozens of times) to start, 15+ minutes not an exception, then finish event in hardly a minute. Rinse and repeat. The day I went for Dawn tier 1 was not well spent. And then I saw the material requirements. Bought precursor on TP, done with that rubbish.

Crafting a legendary IS meant to take a long time.
Moaning that it costs insane prices because you don’t want to work with the time stuff and buy everything now is stupid.
The whole point of this legendary crafting is so people have 100% chance to get the pre in a certain time frame and not rely on RNG.
If you want it now. You pay the extra from the TP which is User defined.

They didn’t bring it legendary crafting soo people can make them in a few weeks.
Jeez

They could’ve made it interesting. But that would’ve involved creating content, hah.

If monetary cost of the precursor is what is important to you, then please buy yours off the TP. Please don’t assume that your motivations are the same as everyone else’s.

Me? I’m having fun doing all the collections. Sure, I know it will cost me more to craft all the precursors, but I’m going to do that, too. If something becomes not fun while doing it, I’ll go do something else. This is a game, remember.

The hot’s ones you have no choice dude
I have gotten a percurser in all possible ways one

A random drop
From Mystic forge
From gold
and now from a collection

The only one which was interesting was the collection part
The fastest way however is pure luck
The boring way would be grinding the gold lol

Right now in my collection part i have make a telescope, go to several areas during the night and look at the stars that beats mindless farming gold anyday

Tamasan.6457:

If monetary cost of the precursor is what is important to you, then please buy yours off the TP. Please don’t assume that your motivations are the same as everyone else’s.

Me? I’m having fun doing all the collections. Sure, I know it will cost me more to craft all the precursors, but I’m going to do that, too. If something becomes not fun while doing it, I’ll go do something else. This is a game, remember.

Monetary cost is indeed a consideration, but what’s really important to me is being able to play content that I enjoy while wielding the shiny legendary that I’ve already spent dozens of hours working toward.

If I were to attempt to craft dusk, rather than purchase it off the TP, it would take longer to craft than it took to craft my last complete legendary. And force me to do things I don’t enjoy, like spend hours trying to get sucked into one of Tequatl’s whirlpools, which has only happened to me twice since Tequatl was revamped.

ferdi.1452:

Precursor crafting is fun until you get to the actual crafting part.

yeah, that.

Also, the number of mats required is just plain out of whack, both absolutely (we’re making exotic weapons here, why does it even need ascended mats?) and relatively (there’s no standardization in how many mats are required, so you get really dumb stuff like two-handed weapons requiring almost 10 times as much material as an offhand weapon for no real reason).

HardRider.2980:

Crafting a legendary IS meant to take a long time.

And no one objects to that.

What we object to is it taking a long time in addition to requiring even more gold than just buying it off the TP.

HardRider.2980:

Moaning that it costs insane prices because you don’t want to work with the time stuff and buy everything now is stupid.

Yes, it’s very easy to point and laugh at a strawman.

HardRider.2980:

The whole point of this legendary crafting is so people have 100% chance to get the pre in a certain time frame and not rely on RNG.

An individual has to rely on RNG. The community does not. The community can simply turn to the Trading Post to normalize all random occurrences, making it possible to pick up a precursor very reliably.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

ferdi.1452:

Precursor crafting is fun until you get to the actual crafting part.

yeah, that.

Also, the number of mats required is just plain out of whack, both absolutely (we’re making exotic weapons here, why does it even need ascended mats?) and relatively (there’s no standardization in how many mats are required, so you get really dumb stuff like two-handed weapons requiring almost 10 times as much material as an offhand weapon for no real reason).

Honestly, I would have had the first weapon come out as a rare, and cost about the same as making 5 rare versions of that weapon. Second, functional looking weapon comes out exotic, again at 5x the cost of a normal exotic. Third one ascended, and again actually crafting it should be about 5x the cost.

You can only do each of these once, and the journey is supposed to be the important part of it. And remember, these are not legendary weapons, they’re only the starting point for them. The “legendary effort” is supposed to come AFTER this, not before.

Maybe economic conditions have shifted, but I dumped my bank and completed The Legend within the first week of the expansion being out and the total bill was about 650 gold.

I mean, I know it kind of sucks that a large part of it was a cash dump and that is disappointing, but it’s had additional positive economic impacts on the game that aren’t as easily realized.

Primarily, in shifting the prices around substantially on common items that you get from just playing the game at lvl 80 and not grinding.

Like, for example, tier 5 common materials that you get in bulk from salvaging. With an ascended tailor and artificer, I can save up tier 5 cloth, leather, wood and metal and then when I have enough to make the time gated ascended materials, I can purchase the tier 2-4 materials, make the ascended pieces and sell them for 3-4 gold profit each. This is potentially a 12-15 gold profit every day just from the mass salvage I generate by doing anything really in PvE at 80.

To me, that’s kind of huge, because I don’t feel like I have to grind out certain content to get certain rare items to sell. I can just participate in any content I want and keep a steady influx of cash coming in.

Other examples are what it has done to the leather market, since before HoT, you made more of a profit by selling the leather gear to the merchants than actually salvaging it.

I mean, HoT has done some really bad things to the economy, primarily quartz crystals and sprockets, but I feel like money is shifting around much more than it was before and it’s a lot better for players like me who just want to log in and do PvE content based on how fun it is. My daily influx of cash has nearly tripled.

MadRabbit.3179:

Maybe economic conditions have shifted, but I dumped my bank and completed The Legend within the first week of the expansion being out and the total bill was about 650 gold.

It shifted rapidly. Spiritwood Planks alone have almost doubled in price since HoT hit thanks to the increased demand from both Ascended Armor crafting (spurred on by raids) and precursor crafting. As for The Legend itself: https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/29180-The-Legend

Highest Buy Order on TP: 867
Lowest Sell Order on TP: 1019
Cost to craft: 1413

Blaine Tog.8304:

MadRabbit.3179:

Maybe economic conditions have shifted, but I dumped my bank and completed The Legend within the first week of the expansion being out and the total bill was about 650 gold.

It shifted rapidly. Spiritwood Planks alone have almost doubled in price since HoT hit thanks to the increased demand from both Ascended Armor crafting (spurred on by raids) and precursor crafting. As for The Legend itself: https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/29180-The-Legend

Highest Buy Order on TP: 867
Lowest Sell Order on TP: 1019
Cost to craft: 1413

I guess that makes sense. I got all the leather when it was still 3-4 gold a piece and I think the planks were still 8 gold. I got all the elder wood when it was still coppers a piece.

Looks like I lucked out.

Yeah, I don’t know. That does really suck, but as a player who already has the legendary and has zero plans to ever make another one, the current market is pretty awesome for me in the money I am making off creating and selling ascended materials.

I still think the current economic conditions make it easier for a player who doesn’t play the market and earns money solely from looting to acquire a precursor.

The precursor crafting collections are a disaster. Only do them if you really want one of the new legendaries or want the few AP that come with the collections.

So if this thread is even remotely correct, Anet has found a fare way to keep most people from getting a Legendary?

Angelica Dream.7103:

So if this thread is even remotely correct, Anet has found a fare way to keep most people from getting a Legendary?

No. Most people can get a precursor for a legendary if they choose to do the work to get it.

What path they choose to do is up to the player and their motivations.

Some will decide to try their luck at the Mystic Forge. Some will grind gold to buy the precursor directly from the trading post. Some will do the collection. And some will bypass the precursor step and grind gold to buy the legendary itself off of the trading post. Or open their wallet and buy gems to convert to gold to buy the precursor/legendary.

Based on my calculation, crafting dusk would cost 1000~1100 gold atm, plus all the time spent on it. There seems to be no reason to not buy it off TP directly.

Blaine Tog.8304:

MadRabbit.3179:

Maybe economic conditions have shifted, but I dumped my bank and completed The Legend within the first week of the expansion being out and the total bill was about 650 gold.

It shifted rapidly. Spiritwood Planks alone have almost doubled in price since HoT hit thanks to the increased demand from both Ascended Armor crafting (spurred on by raids) and precursor crafting. As for The Legend itself: https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/29180-The-Legend

Highest Buy Order on TP: 867
Lowest Sell Order on TP: 1019
Cost to craft: 1413

So… why does your “cost to craft” not have a buy order/sell order split?

Because ascended materials are one of the most overpriced items in the game if you don’t mind processing them yourself once per day…

HardRider.2980:

Crafting a legendary IS meant to take a long time.
Moaning that it costs insane prices because you don’t want to work with the time stuff and buy everything now is stupid.
The whole point of this legendary crafting is so people have 100% chance to get the pre in a certain time frame and not rely on RNG.
If you want it now. You pay the extra from the TP which is User defined.

They didn’t bring it legendary crafting soo people can make them in a few weeks.
Jeez

You don’t have 100% chance to get in a certain time frame, if you’re locked by time-gating and currency walls. You would have to be logging in every day and/or have a lot of money, in which case you might as well buy it off the TP.

Your logic… don’t make sense. I’m pretty sure most of the people who waited for this system to get a precursor were not doing it because they were too rich and couldn’t stand the idea of paying for one.

Nike.2631:

So… why does your “cost to craft” not have a buy order/sell order split?

I have no idea. You’d have to ask whomever’s behind gw2bltc.com.

Nike.2631:

Because ascended materials are one of the most overpriced items in the game if you don’t mind processing them yourself once per day…

You’re right! Because of the time gating, they are one of the very, very few examples of an item that’s actually cheaper to make yourself.

However, that doesn’t actually impact the calculations because overpriced though they may be, you could always sell the ones you make and use the profits to buy a precursor off the TP, ending up with more money and less hassle overall. If we assume that 1400 gold pricetag is entirely composed of sell orders on TP-able items (which it isn’t), then you could still get 1190 gold by listing them at those prices. You likely wouldn’t even have to wait very long for them all to sell thanks to the voracious demand right now. You could then turn around and fill a sell order on The Legend and end up with 200 gold to spare, or 300 if you put in a buy order.

Eversleeping.6452:

Based on my calculation, crafting dusk would cost 1000~1100 gold atm, plus all the time spent on it. There seems to be no reason to not buy it off TP directly.

Different goals. Different priorities. Different reasons for going after the legendary.

For me, I don’t like big huge goals that aren’t able to broken into smaller goals.

Legendary crafting gives that to me. And now precursor crafting does that for the big precursor step.

And I have the self control to not spend money I do not want to spend and instead save.

Also kind of interesting to look at the difference of how much gold is taken out of the economy…

Say you were to buy The Legend for 1019g … roughly 866g will go to the buy and 153g will vanish into thin air due to tax. So, buying it off the TP takes 153g out of the economy if you buy The Legend.

On the flip side, if you craft it completely through, supposedly it costs 1413g to craft. No percentage (as far as i’m aware) of the 1413g goes to any other player, meaning 1413g vanishes into thin air. That’s about 9 times more gold taken out of the economy than buying one off the TP…

Malediktus.9250:

The precursor crafting collections are a disaster. Only do them if you really want one of the new legendaries or want the few AP that come with the collections.

There’s another way to look at it. I don’t really care about the legendaries. I like completing collections and the crafting ones have some fun items and activities to do with friends.

So read the posts and main counter arguments are which I’ll reply in order:
A/ This method provide guaranteed legendary
B/ This step by step process somehow keep people on track.
C/ This helps the economy.
d/ This increase the amount of money going out of the economy via more taxes collected on trades off TP.

A. Guaranteed legendary was never an issue. Someone aptly replied to this argument by saying that individual chances at precursor is not guarantee but the community’s chance at precursor is. This meant that even though the individual may never get a lucky precursor drop, someone, somewhere playing GW2 will due to sheer probability and this person can sell it for a price which our unlucky friend can choose to buy or not buy it. The price of precursors are determined by this process.

If said individual still wants to pursue the legendary, despite the process already costing more than what it is worth in term of cost efficiency, then such zeal or masochism, I don’t know what the innate motivation is, do not care about any guaranteed method. Furthermore I’m pretty certain that majority of people do not possess this zeal or masochism.

B. I’ll agree that this process will keep you on track, but in a really toxic way. The legendary crafting tiers are essentially the money collecting process broken down into smaller micro transactions. I’m certain of this because 1 process had me getting 3000 mithril ingots, a sum no single individual will likely get in a reasonable amount of time. This coupled with the other stuff that is required in bulk and quite clearly the only way is to just buy these mats off the TP.

This meant that essentially, the players are slowly gathering the amount of money needed for legendary and then converting it into these things that have no monetary value because they can’t be sold. This makes the player likely more invested in the process because he/she essentially wasted money if he do not follow through, Since the money gathering process is the same, by not being able to convert those things into money the player will literally have wasted time and that makes it a toxic investment.

C + d/ This increases demand for mostly time gated goods and slight increase for components + other mats. Is this good or bad? I think it is bad, currently anyway. This meant that cost are going to be increasing for almost all goods but the amount of liquid asset the player gained each day is marginal at best. This leads to massive deflation which is coupled by the amount of taxes collected from these extra micro transaction which, imo, not a good thing for players especially now.

New players, since F2P, won’t be able to get their foot in the door for essential processes such as max crafting levels because money is harder to get atm. Gold buyers because gem to gold is already a bad but fair ratio comparison now gem to gold will be even worse for gem buyers, which this really only benefit Anet.
Will price of goods lower due to this, idk. Because so many people want things done atm such as guild hall ascended gear for fractals and raids, I can see price staying high for another few months but dropping in at most a year. This is bad for the game because the biggest influx of player is every expansion, right now, and risking losing people in 5 months due to stressful economy is not my way to go.

If it was considerably cheaper, everybody would just buy deldrimor ingots form the tp and sell the dusk they get until deldrimor got so expensive and dusk so cheap that it isnt profitable anymore.

It was implemented as a long term goal and more than a third of the crafting cost goes towards circumnavigating the daily timegate on deldrimor.
If you craft them yourself for the next 3 months, you only pay 633g, if you get all mats on current buy orders.

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

Either make it expensive or time-gated, not both.

ITT: People that honestly thought that legendary crafting “journey” meant they would simply get a list of items, go to TP to buy them, and it would be cheaper than buying a precursor off the bat.

The legendary crafting gives you a long term goal to work towards. You can make all of those deldrimor ingots on your own, for FAR less than 9-10g if you farm the materials yourself. That’s the point.

If you were planning to shortcut by using the TP, then take the ultimate shortcut of buying the precursor from the get-go. If you aren’t interested in speed and want to do it over time slowly for far less than buying on TP, then do legendary crafting and gather the mats yourself.

It’s really that simple. Don’t listen to OP, he doesn’t understand what the point of the crafting is.

HardRider.2980:

Crafting a legendary IS meant to take a long time.
Moaning that it costs insane prices because you don’t want to work with the time stuff and buy everything now is stupid.
The whole point of this legendary crafting is so people have 100% chance to get the pre in a certain time frame and not rely on RNG.
If you want it now. You pay the extra from the TP which is User defined.

They didn’t bring it legendary crafting soo people can make them in a few weeks.
Jeez

Don’t talk like you know what you’re saying.
The problem here is that IT DOESN’T TAKE A LONG TIME! It takes a LOT OF time gated MATERIALS, if you buy those outright you do it in days, not weeks or months, but then its more expensive.
Also do keep in mind we’re talking about the precursor ONLY, the LEGENDARY part is still the same, and unchanged.

You should also read the comments everywhere: No one (for the most part, there’s always the whinny newb) has claimed it takes too long, if anything it’s too fast, given that in 2 weeks people have already completed the new legendaries. The problem is, instead of the EPIC journey we were promised we got a couple of quick, albeit fun, scavenger hunts, gated by a crafting farm/grind of epic proportions. Pretty much the epicness was applied to the wrong part.

The worse part of this is that its FOR NOTHING, you’re asked to dump dozens of ASCENDED materials to craft a EXOTIC weapon only to SALVAGE THE THING right after. The precursor craft simply stinks of something that was rushed, and then corrupted by the “need” Mr John Smith has to change the economy (as in completely screw it up), a symptom that is echoed in most of the stuff that came out with HoT, the guild halls, the Scribe craft, the new stat sets, every one of these systems uses up unprecedented amounts of materials.
Its a badly disguised case of giving with one hand (the map bonus) and taking with the other (all of the above plus nerfed rewards in fractals and dungeons).

Draknar.5748:

ITT: People that honestly thought that legendary crafting “journey” meant they would simply get a list of items, go to TP to buy them, and it would be cheaper than buying a precursor off the bat.

The legendary crafting gives you a long term goal to work towards. You can make all of those deldrimor ingots on your own, for FAR less than 9-10g if you farm the materials yourself. That’s the point.

If you were planning to shortcut by using the TP, then take the ultimate shortcut of buying the precursor from the get-go. If you aren’t interested in speed and want to do it over time slowly for far less than buying on TP, then do legendary crafting and gather the mats yourself.

It’s really that simple. Don’t listen to OP, he doesn’t understand what the point of the crafting is.

Actually, you’re the one that is failing at comprehending, because, apart from the small scavenger hunt steps, that’s exactly what precursor crafting is: a huge list of stuff you buy from the tp and throw at it to get the precursor.

Sure you can farm the stuff to make the deldrimor ingots for less than 10 gold. BUT you can sell the all the deldrimor ingots you’d have farmed for the precursor, and in most cases you’d end up with MORE gold than what the precursor costs on the TP.
And that’s the problem with this whole discussion:
It was supposed to be a third way to get the precursors, you had the gold way, you had the RNG way, and this would be the long Epic journey one that would take months of work, and yes, some gold, but instead we got a Quick trip (albeit fun) followed by a gold cost/huge farm for materials (NOT an epic journey, farming materials). Which means its NOT an alternative to the old TP option, its the same option with a larger wait time.
Lets put this in simple terms:
You want to buy a car: The dealer sells the car for 20 000€, and its yours, key in hand. But you have a second choice, you can pay in goods. You can either produce the goods or buy them, the final cost is roughly the same if you buy them, but it still takes longer, and also you have to do chores for the dealer to get you the car for those goods. Moreover as you turn in the goods the dealer simply tells you to throw them in a incinerator and watch them burn.
That’s pretty much the gist of the precursor crafting atm, its simply Arena Net’s (read John Smith) way of removing a ton of resources from the game to keep them “scarce” by dangling the carrot in front of you. So pretty much we’re working for him to do his job.
The problem with these changes is that stuff that should be fun (the new crafting, guild halls, precursor journeys) are simply depressing and frustrating grinds that are simply anathema to what Arena Net’s Manifesto claimed would be GW2’s philosophy.

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Draknar.5748:

ITT: People that honestly thought that legendary crafting “journey” meant they would simply get a list of items, go to TP to buy them, and it would be cheaper than buying a precursor off the bat.

Not remotely. You’ve read the objections exactly in the wrong direction.

We were hoping that the legendary journey would get us away from the TP, maybe not entirely but mostly. We wanted gameplay goals to work on, not a big shopping list. Yes, we wanted it to cost less gold than buying a precursor, but we also wanted the effort involved in completing the tasks to be significant enough so that someone with the gold would be happy to just buy their precursor like before.

What we got instead was a bunch of hoops to jump through (good!) in addition to a massive TP shopping list (bad) that, in many cases at least, greatly exceeds the price tag of just buying a completed precursor (very bad).

I did the first section of The Legend’s path and really enjoyed running around the Shiverpeaks, hunting down items and giving tribute. That was fun. What put me off was the huge material wall I ran into immediately upon completing the fun part. I was even more put off by hearing about how most of the second and third tiers were primarily about dumping even greater mountains of mats into the void.

Draknar.5748:

The legendary crafting gives you a long term goal to work towards. You can make all of those deldrimor ingots on your own, for FAR less than 9-10g if you farm the materials yourself. That’s the point.

You can indeed. But then, you can turn around and sell them very reliably for more than you spent making them, earning enough profit (from those and from selling the other mats) to easily afford the precursor itself. That’s the point.

Draknar.5748:

If you were planning to shortcut by using the TP, then take the ultimate shortcut of buying the precursor from the get-go. If you aren’t interested in speed and want to do it over time slowly for far less than buying on TP, then do legendary crafting and gather the mats yourself.

It’s only cheaper if you ignore the value of what you’re crafting. You could theoretically farm nodes all day and all night until you got enough mats to craft a precursor without spending a single copper, but if you sold those exact same mats on the TP, you could end up with both a precursor as well as a couple hundred gold to boot, not to mention the potential gold you could’ve been making when you were instead running around fulfilling the account-bound portions of the journey.

Precursor crafting is a textbook example of a noob trap. It seems like a better way to go if you’re willing to put in the the time, but actually it’s just a time and money hole.

Qazwersder.3574:

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Yes. Absolutely. In a heartbeat. That was the sort of journey I was hoping for: a bunch of account-bound mats you could work towards while playing different content on top of specific objectives you’d have to go out of your way to acquire. I’m not opposed to requiring some amount of TP materials or even for the final price to be pretty high (say, around 50-66% the price of buying a precursor), but I don’t think the price to craft should equal the effective price to buy, much less exceed it significantly in
some cases.

PyrateSilly.4710:

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

What a silly post. I guess you’re living up to your name. :P Ignoring your strange “I’ll do what I want because I’m a biiiiig girl!” rant… these precursors sure as heck are costing you money. All those mats you gathered? You’re choosing to use them and not sell them. You are effectively spending money. It will cost you less than someone insta-buying them, but it’s still costing you plenty.

Lothirieth.3408:

PyrateSilly.4710:

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

What a silly post. I guess you’re living up to your name. :P Ignoring your strange “I’ll do what I want because I’m a biiiiig girl!” rant… these precursors sure as heck are costing you money. All those mats you gathered? You’re choosing to use them and not sell them. You are effectively spending money. It will cost you less than someone insta-buying them, but it’s still costing you plenty.

And maybe he’s just fine with doing that. Everything has an opportunity cost. Maybe he’s just fine giving up the opportunity cost that comes with not selling the mats and comes from not buying the precursor straight out. I know I am.

I like knowing that I’m going for an end point that’s not going to jump 100 g right as reach the end point. Because I don’t like doing the things that generates gold quickly so making up that difference would take me a long time. Yes, it could drop 100 g right as get to the end point, but I also understand that I’m taking a risk in doing so, it’s part of the opportunity cost.

Lothirieth.3408:

PyrateSilly.4710:

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

What a silly post. I guess you’re living up to your name. :P Ignoring your strange “I’ll do what I want because I’m a biiiiig girl!” rant… these precursors sure as heck are costing you money. All those mats you gathered? You’re choosing to use them and not sell them. You are effectively spending money. It will cost you less than someone insta-buying them, but it’s still costing you plenty.

It’s not costing me a thing to play and to have fun. If I wasn’t having fun I wouldn’t play but I do play every day.

As for my name? I got that name years ago when I would get paid to be a pirate all up and down the coast of FL, some for various festivals and some corporate parties. Got paid a lot of money to make people smile and laugh so I figured I could still use the name. If there is a rule against me using my char name then please point it out.

PyrateSilly.4710:

Lothirieth.3408:

PyrateSilly.4710:

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

What a silly post. I guess you’re living up to your name. :P Ignoring your strange “I’ll do what I want because I’m a biiiiig girl!” rant… these precursors sure as heck are costing you money. All those mats you gathered? You’re choosing to use them and not sell them. You are effectively spending money. It will cost you less than someone insta-buying them, but it’s still costing you plenty.

It’s not costing me a thing to play and to have fun. If I wasn’t having fun I wouldn’t play but I do play every day.

As for my name? I got that name years ago when I would get paid to be a pirate all up and down the coast of FL, some for various festivals and some corporate parties. Got paid a lot of money to make people smile and laugh so I figured I could still use the name. If there is a rule against me using my char name then please point it out.

The cost Lothirieth is referring to is the opportunity cost you “spend” by not selling the mats you gather and use for the precursor collection. The mats used for it aren’t cheap and you pass up the gold from selling them when you put them towards the precursor collection.

It’s like when you get a really expensive drop. Do you sell it or do you keep it? I know I check the TP to see how much a good drop is worth before I do anything. Just so I know what I would be giving up if I decided to salvage it or equip it or consume it.

Seera.5916:

PyrateSilly.4710:

Lothirieth.3408:

PyrateSilly.4710:

I am just playing and getting the things I need for all the legendaries. I will NOT stop playing just to suit you. I am a grown woman I can do what I want and there is nothing you can say to force me to stop playing and having fun. They are not costing me any gold or real money. Nor will I pay for them. So you telling me I can hurry up and get them and that’s wrong and how much they will cost if I rushed is just stupid and then going on and on about how it’s too expensive is again just stupid. Just because you want to rush does not mean everyone will do it. And just because it’s costing you lots of gold to rush is your problem and not mine.

What a silly post. I guess you’re living up to your name. :P Ignoring your strange “I’ll do what I want because I’m a biiiiig girl!” rant… these precursors sure as heck are costing you money. All those mats you gathered? You’re choosing to use them and not sell them. You are effectively spending money. It will cost you less than someone insta-buying them, but it’s still costing you plenty.

It’s not costing me a thing to play and to have fun. If I wasn’t having fun I wouldn’t play but I do play every day.

As for my name? I got that name years ago when I would get paid to be a pirate all up and down the coast of FL, some for various festivals and some corporate parties. Got paid a lot of money to make people smile and laugh so I figured I could still use the name. If there is a rule against me using my char name then please point it out.

The cost Lothirieth is referring to is the opportunity cost you “spend” by not selling the mats you gather and use for the precursor collection. The mats used for it aren’t cheap and you pass up the gold from selling them when you put them towards the precursor collection.

It’s like when you get a really expensive drop. Do you sell it or do you keep it? I know I check the TP to see how much a good drop is worth before I do anything. Just so I know what I would be giving up if I decided to salvage it or equip it or consume it.

I get so many mats from just playing, some from harvesting and some from salvaging that I do sell some mats. Just the other day I had over 1k in a low wood that I sold 250 just to clear out some inventory and made over 12g. I do that with other mats also. I get so many mats that I am even letting my new chars have some crafting.

When I saved up for my first legendary (Sunrise) it took me several months to even get that much gold together because I’m a fairly casual player.
Actually only sinking some time into the precursor every now and then seems nice to me. There’s no rush to finish this thing any time soon. Of course you could just buy the ascended mats off the TP but shrugs
The beautiful thing here is that you have a choice with the old legendaries.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Qazwersder.3574:

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Yes. Absolutely. In a heartbeat. That was the sort of journey I was hoping for: a bunch of account-bound mats you could work towards while playing different content on top of specific objectives you’d have to go out of your way to acquire. I’m not opposed to requiring some amount of TP materials or even for the final price to be pretty high (say, around 50-66% the price of buying a precursor), but I don’t think the price to craft should equal the effective price to buy, much less exceed it significantly in
some cases.

But what difference would it make? If Anet had said ‘Get 100 of ’A’ collectable from ‘X’ and 100 of ‘B’ collectable from map ’y’’ etc that wasnt tradable on the TP then it would require time. All they have done is said get ‘w’ amount of wood, ore and leather from maps x y and z’ which also requires time. Assuming the time investment to harvest both kinds is the same then there is no difference investment wise.

Qazwersder.3574:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Qazwersder.3574:

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Yes. Absolutely. In a heartbeat. That was the sort of journey I was hoping for: a bunch of account-bound mats you could work towards while playing different content on top of specific objectives you’d have to go out of your way to acquire. I’m not opposed to requiring some amount of TP materials or even for the final price to be pretty high (say, around 50-66% the price of buying a precursor), but I don’t think the price to craft should equal the effective price to buy, much less exceed it significantly in
some cases.

But what difference would it make? If Anet had said ‘Get 100 of ’A’ collectable from ‘X’ and 100 of ‘B’ collectable from map ’y’’ etc that wasnt tradable on the TP then it would require time. All they have done is said get ‘w’ amount of wood, ore and leather from maps x y and z’ which also requires time. Assuming the time investment to harvest both kinds is the same then there is no difference investment wise.

Some players care about the how they obtain it. That that process is why they do something. Not for the reward at the end. They’re interested in the journey and not the destination. They just chose the destination because it’s a long ways away. They want to take the scenic route, even though it may take longer and/or cost them more money.

The difference would be a different route to the destination.

Qazwersder.3574:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Qazwersder.3574:

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Yes. Absolutely. In a heartbeat. That was the sort of journey I was hoping for: a bunch of account-bound mats you could work towards while playing different content on top of specific objectives you’d have to go out of your way to acquire. I’m not opposed to requiring some amount of TP materials or even for the final price to be pretty high (say, around 50-66% the price of buying a precursor), but I don’t think the price to craft should equal the effective price to buy, much less exceed it significantly in
some cases.

But what difference would it make? If Anet had said ‘Get 100 of ’A’ collectable from ‘X’ and 100 of ‘B’ collectable from map ’y’’ etc that wasnt tradable on the TP then it would require time. All they have done is said get ‘w’ amount of wood, ore and leather from maps x y and z’ which also requires time. Assuming the time investment to harvest both kinds is the same then there is no difference investment wise.

The difference is it would completely decouple the process from the vagaries of the TP while simultaneously turning it into an adventure rather than a shopping list. It would give the creation of a precursor a normalized time requirement tied to effort rather than being much speedier if you happen to have a fat wallet. And finally, it would create a rational choice between crafting and buying a precursor. As it stands now, the choice is between buying a precursor for a lot of money, and buying a precursor for even more money + a bunch of effort.

Seera.5916:

Some players care about the how they obtain it. That that process is why they do something. Not for the reward at the end. They’re interested in the journey and not the destination. They just chose the destination because it’s a long ways away. They want to take the scenic route, even though it may take longer and/or cost them more money.

The difference would be a different route to the destination.

Totally fine, except the choices should be between spending more money and spending more time. The way ANet has it set up right now is just poor game design.

And here’s why: is anyone else familiar with the project management triangle? The idea is that between getting something done quickly, cheaply, or well, you’ll only ever get to choose two of those at most. In other words, “Fast, Cheap, Good: pick two.”

Now regardless of how you go about it, the resulting precursor is going to have to have an identical level of quality, as we’re trying to fulfill a specific recipe. This means one of our choices is made for us: regardless of how you get there, it has to be “Good.” This leaves us with one choice remaining, and it’s between Fast and Cheap… except that’s now what we’re seeing. Instead, the choice is between “Fast, Cheap, and Good” and “Slow, Expensive, and Good.” And that’s just bananas.

I’ll craft the ones that I intend to use which are below the buy order price. I will probably wait until I see what the next batch of legendary weapons will be though.

Draknar.5748:

ITT: People that honestly thought that legendary crafting “journey” meant they would simply get a list of items, go to TP to buy them, and it would be cheaper than buying a precursor off the bat.

The legendary crafting gives you a long term goal to work towards. You can make all of those deldrimor ingots on your own, for FAR less than 9-10g if you farm the materials yourself. That’s the point.

If you were planning to shortcut by using the TP, then take the ultimate shortcut of buying the precursor from the get-go. If you aren’t interested in speed and want to do it over time slowly for far less than buying on TP, then do legendary crafting and gather the mats yourself.

It’s really that simple. Don’t listen to OP, he doesn’t understand what the point of the crafting is.

do you value your time? If no then we have nothing to discuss because regardless of whatever points I and the people who agree with me makes, you don’t care.
Here is another question.
Are you, by yourself, gonna farm 16,820 mithril ore in any reasonable amount of time? Or about 9,000 iron ore?
Like it or not, all the things that you are farming have a price tag and while you are free to choose to spend your time farming all these materials or get it however you wish, there is still an inherent cost to your decision. I am just telling you what that cost is.

In my view, farming is not a journey. It is a means to an end. Most people are not invested in the act of farming, but the goal from farming. If farming is the “journey”, then the journey is about taxiing into maps to mine ores and chop wood.

Qazwersder.3574:

I see a lot of posts complaining that the precursor crafting is too expensive and the collection should have been longer but no one ever says what anet could have done to make it longer.

Anet made it a very long inexpensive collection. It just happens that the components of the collection can be sold on the tp.

Would we all prefer a collection of account bound items from all over the world?

Actually, i have, in other posts. This isn’t the first nor will be the last thread about this issue, which just shows it IS an issue. But if you want i’ll do somethign i hate, repeat myself.

So step one, simply add more steps, there’s a lot of tyria to see, and the parts that are done right are done right too fast.
If you need time gates, do them like they did for the Xmas tree, have us get a different item every day to sate the hunger of an NPC.
Similarly, instead of asking for dozens of the same ascended material, why not gasp introduce a special, precursor-only material, specific to each precursor that you have to mine on special nodes.

I.E. To make Zap you require “Mithril sword requisition” which is pretty much harvesting a ton of mithril and crafting swords, so why not instead require the special metal “Fulguritium” sword requisition (well, they added fulgurite to the game, so yeah), the collection would hint its a metal that is formed when lightning strikes in a beach, and it requires a special spade to collect. The spade needs to be purchased once a day with karma from a wandering miner which would spawn in one of the mines/quarries in the game (there’s a few of those), so people would have to find where he is, buy the spade, then look for fulgurite on a beach. The shovel could also have actions, one working like the treasure map allowing us to find in which map the nodes are present, the second like the SW shovels would allow us to pinpoint where the node is when in the map, the third would allow us to harvest. After harvesting you’d exhaust the shovel, and would have to wait a day to get a new one. Each harvest would have enough materials to craft one sword. The recipe for the sword could be bought (with karma) from a master crafter.

Of course instead of 250, it would require 10, since its already time-gated, and involves a bit of running around. So 10 days later, you’d deliver the fulguritium swords to the NPC and get the basic fulgirite sword requisition.

Instead of having to hand over a ton of blades/hilts (including 5 ascended) for the “Art of forging” you could do chores for the NPC to get you the stuff, some of the chores could involve making a special recipe using more fulguritium, or crafting one or two items with 450 recipes, using special account bound materials, because the point is to prove you’re a good smith, not that you can buy sword hilts or blades from the TP (which, btw you can atm).

I could really go on and on, i mean they had MONTHS to create this, sure it takes a lot of time coding, but kitten , couldn’t they think of anything better than “Craft 10 of each sword hilt”, “fork over a metric ton of mithril for a item”.
The for example the actual crafting of zap experiment would require 10 more days of harvesting fulgurite.

Also you could have more interaction with other masteries, for example, having the pact commander supply line mastery, some of the npcs could sell the shovel, or even fulgurite outright, same for the Guild trader, etc. These things would entwine the legendary with other content more firmly, and make it faster.
Sure its a ton more work, but it would result in a better system, since the time gates would be a bit more understandable, unlike the current ones that are simply there because arena net decided some time ago that we shouldn’t craft too much ascended materials at once.

I would have liked a precursor hunt that’s entirely divorced from the TP and crafting (i.e., tied entirely to account-bound materials obtained through events and map completion, which you would combine in the MF.) Even if it would take many times longer to acquire that way, I’d have been okay with that.

ferdi.1452:

Precursor crafting is fun until you get to the actual crafting part.

Then it becomes a soul-crushing chore that present you with choices such as “Should I go play with my friends at Tahrir… or spend 4 hours gathering the nodes at the statue of Melandru over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over to be able to make 50 of the 250 basic elder staves I need to make, hm…”.

A grind that takes actually more time and gold than just buying the actual precursor off the trading post, and makes the whole system pointless except for some AP you wouldn’t gain otherwise.

The precursor crafting imo is the same thing like Obamacare, where instead of buying something directly off the market you can go through all these little steps which is market based in the end and actually costs more than buying something directly off the market.