Guild Wars 2

Okay so this is not a complaint. This is a post I am making based on complaints. All I am looking for is opinions.

A fairly large base of players are complaining that the new Legendary Crafting Mastery, is nothing more then a money sink.

Here’s what I think. I have sunk about 100 gold total in crafting Howler. I still haven’t finished it, but oh well, I will when time the time comes that either A. I have the proper mats to craft the proper mats, or B. The gold.

I never thought it was a money sink. I needed 10 Elonian Leather square, which right now are 116 gold for 10. But I don’t look at this as a money sink, because I can’t afford them, I don’t buy them. Instead I wait, I farm materials that need to go into them, I kill things through out the world that I know drop what I need.

I don’t believe they are money sinks, and I firmly believe that people who think it is, are just too impatient to actually ride it out.

What do you all think? Money Sink or Not?

P.S. Also taking any tips on crafting, should you care to share.

Just to be picky here. Money sinks are when you pay NPCs or game mechanics (such as trading post fees) for something. It pulls money out of the economy. The complaints here are that the legendary crafting are expensive. The people either use up mats (which can’t be sold to others) or they buy mats from other players. The difference is between gold being removed from the economy (gold sink) or gold being transferred between players. The crafting is the second.

Crafting a Howl is 326g now, the highest buy order is 275g (https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/29184-Howl). You can compare costs and decide what to do.

If you craft a precursor/legendary, your money will be still there, it is not a money sink, it is a material sink.

Just from what other people have said on the forum, I gather they were expecting a legendary journey, that didn’t cost much. Then they started comparing prices between crafting and buying outright, and of course most were more expensive to craft so people weren’t happy about that.

Material Sink sounds accurate. I permadestroyed thousands of trees making Chuka. Trees that will never bask in the sun’s warmth ever again. I wish them well up there in tree-heaven. Hopefully Abaddon’s gardener treats them kindly.

Legendaries are money/material sinks. If you think about it, yes you’re taking the time to craft the Elonian squares yourself, farming the mats required, mats you could sell to make (at least) 116g if you wished.

Basically their economic function is to remove cash and/or materials from the world. That’s what people mean when they call them money sinks.

Actually there are some pure Money Sinks too now that I think of it. Those Gift of Crafting Booty (Fangs, Claws, Etc) costed me 10g each just for the Recipes from NPC and I needed 8 of them. Then there’s the 100g Icy Runestones. That’s all permadeleted gold.

Legendary crafting has always been a massive gold sink in this game, but it seems like people were hoping for super cheap precursors with legendary collections, and are disappointed because it didn’t really turn out that way.

Doggie.3184:

Actually there are some pure Money Sinks too now that I think of it. Those Gift of Crafting Booty (Fangs, Claws, Etc) costed me 10g each just for the Recipes from NPC and I needed 8 of them. Then there’s the 100g Icy Runestones. That’s all permadeleted gold.

Yah. There are gold sinks in the old, non crafting version also. The icy runestones for example were a requirement for at least one Legendary.

Nobody ever said crafting precursors was going to be cheaper than buying one off the TP. What it does is put the acquisition of a particular precursor into the hands of the person wanting it rather than others (TP) or RNGesus (drop or MF). It’s about agency.

Behellagh.1468:

Nobody ever said crafting precursors was going to be cheaper than buying one off the TP. What it does is put the acquisition of a particular precursor into the hands of the person wanting it rather than others (TP) or RNGesus (drop or MF). It’s about agency.

This.

Precursor crafting should have been a much slower but much cheaper way to get a precursor (requiring very little in gold or mats that could be turned into gold), making a nice dichotomy with buying one off the TP, which is expensive but instantaneous.

Anet, who as always only care about the robber barons and their play economy, kitten out a massive gold and mat sink that technically delivers what they promised in a way literally no one wanted.

And that’s without getting into the really dumb stuff, like requiring ascended mats to make an exotic weapon, or the fact that Anet used the price on the TP as a basis for how many mats each recipe required.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Precursor crafting should have been a much slower but much cheaper way to get a precursor (requiring very little in gold or mats that could be turned into gold), making a nice dichotomy with buying one off the TP, which is expensive but instantaneous.

Anet, who as always only care about the robber barons and their play economy, kitten out a massive gold and mat sink that technically delivers what they promised in a way literally no one wanted.

And that’s without getting into the really dumb stuff, like requiring ascended mats to make an exotic weapon, or the fact that Anet used the price on the TP as a basis for how many mats each recipe required.

Really it’s not the price or material cost I despise, but it’s more the fact that all the materials for it are Timegated, so if you want to obtain it in a timely manner, you’re going to have to dump about as much gold to get the mats as you would just buying the precursor off the TP.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Precursor crafting should have been a much slower but much cheaper way to get a precursor (requiring very little in gold or mats that could be turned into gold), making a nice dichotomy with buying one off the TP, which is expensive but instantaneous.

Anet, who as always only care about the robber barons and their play economy, kitten out a massive gold and mat sink that technically delivers what they promised in a way literally no one wanted.

And that’s without getting into the really dumb stuff, like requiring ascended mats to make an exotic weapon, or the fact that Anet used the price on the TP as a basis for how many mats each recipe required.

The price on the Trading Post is reflective of the effort ArenaNet decided that a Legendary should require, which is why they did not make it cheaper to get one before and why they did not make it cheaper to get one after they introduced Precursor Crafting.

You can craft a Precursor for almost no gold at all, so it is in effect vastly less expensive than buying one if you are willing to put in the time. What you wanted was a fast and cheap alternative to the fast and expensive option that has always existed, which was a completely unrealistic expectation and the sole source of your current dislike of the Precursor Crafting solution.

I’m not sure where people got the impression that crafting a precursor was ever going to be cheap. My understanding was that Anet had actually said the only difference would be it’s not random – you do the collection and you’re guaranteed to get the one you want instead of hoping for a random drop from the Forge or an enemy or paying gold to someone who got a random drop.

I’m in the process of making the Bifrost and I chose to do the collection for The Legend instead of buying it. I’ve nearly finished the first stage and I’ve looked up what’s required for the 2nd and 3rd stages on the wiki (along with what’s required for the actual legendary) so I know what to expect and I’m fine with it.

I’ve taken a mixed approach to getting the materials, some I had already, some I’ve collected while playing (I wouldn’t say I’ve farmed them because other than 1 run around Cursed Shore I’ve not gone out of my way to get them) and some I’ve bought. But in that case I always buy the lowest tier and craft them. For example buying wood logs and crafting Spirit Wood planks instead of just buying the Spirit Wood.

I much prefer it to simply saving up gold, which is what I had to do for my first legendary (the Dreamer, yes I like rainbows). It may not be cheaper, or quicker, overall but the fact that it’s broken down into smaller pieces makes it seem much more achievable compared to watching my gold total slowly going up and just hoping one day it’ll match the amount I need, which keeps fluctuating (and at the time I made my first legendary just seemed to keep going up).

The fact that the requirements are fixed helps too. If I can’t play for a day (or a week or a month) then it slows down my progress but I don’t lose any progress. If I was trying to save up gold I could easily find that in that time something’s shifted the economy and now I need another 200g to reach my goal.

But I think the important thing to remember is crafting it is only one option, the others are all still there too. If you want to buy it from the TP you can (and you can get that gold any way you choose), if you want to throw things in the Forge and pray for a lucky result you can, if you want to wait for a random drop you can do that too. So it’s not like people who prefer the other methods have lost anything by crafting being added.

I wouldn’t have cared if it took a year to do it, what was promised was a Legendary Journey, something new and exciting to get involved in the world and feel like you had done something awesome. What we got was a legendary gold and time grind. There’s nothing fun about it.

mtpelion.4562:

The price on the Trading Post is reflective of the effort ArenaNet decided that a Legendary should require,

No, it’s reflective of how much demand there is for that weapon type. The underwater precursors are just as rare as any others (probably rarer, since I doubt many people deliberately tried to forge them), and yet cost a fraction of the price.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

mtpelion.4562:

The price on the Trading Post is reflective of the effort ArenaNet decided that a Legendary should require,

No, it’s reflective of how much demand there is for that weapon type. The underwater precursors are just as rare as any others (probably rarer, since I doubt many people deliberately tried to forge them), and yet cost a fraction of the price.

And ANet can influence that price by affecting rates the materials needed to get them. Such as T6 mats or ectos or the various other materials. Or increase demand for the items.

The thing about making a precursor for less gold, but taking more time, is that gold is not the primary currency of guild wars – time is. How much time you spend in game can be directly equated to gold earned and because of this, a low gold cost / high time cost option would have worked out to be no better. Adding to this, since legendary weapons and precursors function as a means to keep the economy stable, any low gold cost precursor would need to take significantly longer to acquire to allow for the usual tp flushing or outright purchasing to remain viable. Bit of a catch 22, really.

The entire point of having in a game items that are rare and difficult to make is simply so people will put a lot of time and effort into getting them.
To make something difficult to obtain means either requiring players to devote a lot of time , or a lot of resources, or a lot of gold into getting them.
If it was possible to buy legendaries off NPCs for 1 gold each, then everyone would have them, and they then wouldnt be legendary any more.

Anything that removes gold from the game is a money sink. That includes buying mats on the TP because of the 15% the TP takes from the transaction. It also includes, buying recipes, etc.

If you gather the mats yourself, you aren’t removing gold from the economy. You are suffering from an opportunity cost, however, in terms of what you could have gained by selling those mats. If people lose the gold they could have gained by selling the mats, their account bank has less gold than if they weren’t pursuing the L. Item. The same result happens (though the amounts might be different) if they bought the mats. While it is inaccurate to consider an opportunity cost a gold sink, this is the internet, and people will use terms they think will influence opinion. Nevertheless, if people are talking about the cost of L. Items being a gold sink, it’s most likely they are thinking about having less gold as a result of the pursuit, than about removing gold from the economy.