Guild Wars 2

Hey GD, what are some of the common myths associated with precursor mystic forge crafting? Doing some individual research on precursor rates, and I hope to debunk some of the popular myths other there about precursor crafting! (You can find my progress in the crafting section of forums)

I’ll start off:

1. Level 80’s have a better chance of crafting a precursor from the mystic forge.

DEBUNKED: I’ve done over 1200 forges with exotics on my level 28 TP mule, and got about 16 precursors. This rate is about the same, if not higher, than some of the research done with level 80’s. Safe to say character level has no effect on precursor rates!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Precursor-Research-with-5k-gold-PICS/first#post3461246

Here is my own data after 1.3k forges (rares not included):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ag8JM0NiX6YNdEo0MlFteG9BaEVEdDRUZ05BODE0SEE&output=html

Myth #2 Account name (numbers at the end) have significance when getting precursors. Something about having a 2 gives a higher chance. (Lol)

LOL! Seriously, that’s a myth? Well my name doesn’t have a 2 in it, and I’ve been relatively lucky haha

Esoteric.4395:

LOL! Seriously, that’s a myth? Well my name doesn’t have a 2 in it, and I’ve been relatively lucky haha

I’ll try to find the actual post. One moment!

Agh, I can’t find it T.T

That some accounts are created with better luck than others

It’s all RNG.

For the longest time I had terrible luck on the forge with about 1000G wasted before I got a precursor, and then another 100G later I got another

I’ve gotten 2 staves, 1 scepter (boss drop) and 1 short bow. I’ve maybe spent… 700g in the forge, total? That might actually be stretching it.

Myth #3:There is no particular recipe that gives higher chance of a precussor from Mystic Toilet.

Esoteric.4395:

Hey GD, what are some of the common myths associated with precursor mystic forge crafting? Doing some individual research on precursor rates, and I hope to debunk some of the popular myths other there about precursor crafting! (You can find my progress in the crafting section of forums)

I’ll start off:

1. Level 80’s have a better chance of crafting a precursor from the mystic forge.

DEBUNKED: I’ve done over 1200 forges with exotics on my level 28 TP mule, and got about 16 precursors. This rate is about the same, if not higher, than some of the research done with level 80’s. Safe to say character level has no effect on precursor rates!

16 for around 1200 exo combos. ~1 for 75 combos. You’re definitely doing much better than the average. Everything I’ve read seems to point to a number of about 0.3% chance of getting a PC from exotics, so ~1 in 333 combinations. For my time, I’ll just farm gold off the TP and buy what I want.

What were you using? Crafted exos or those purchased off the TP?

There is, or at least used to be, something terribly wrong with ANets RNG. Some accounts seem cursed, while others blessed. Magic find gear, when it was still gear bound, actually made drops far worse for those affected. There was a large thread about drops and RNG on the forums last winter and there was wide speculation that for some unknown reason some accounts were getting stuck with some form of permanent DR. I had such an account and it was disheartening when you’re in a group and they’re consistently getting good gear while you get vendor trash. I remember farming cursed shore and getting more than 100 porous bones/hour while those around me were regularly getting exotics. Then they made Cursed Shore unfarmable, at which point I stopped playing for near 7 months.

Vol.7601:

That some accounts are created with better luck than others

It’s all RNG.

There was a point at which the problems with the RNG became apparent and there were patterns that were identified that proved there were issues. Probably why they changed how MF works. Again, I don’t know if this extended to the mystic toilet, but there’s no reason to thing they wrote a separate RNG for this.

To be honest a lot of the ‘myths’ and superstitions are probably not worth typing out a post to disprove because people know they don’t really work, they just want to believe that they do.

Gamers are nearly as bad as gamblers for inventing their own superstitions (especially when it’s something that effectively boils down to gambling). You’ll be hard pressed to find a Pokémon player who never holds A+B or B+Up or whatever other combination when waiting to see if they caught a pokemon. We know for a fact it doesn’t work because people have extracted the code and gone through it line by line and there is nothing like that. But it doesn’t hurt either, and it makes you feel like you can do something to help your chances.

Human beings do not like random events. We like patterns, events that are caused by previous circumstances. Even if the pattern is incredibly convoluted and virtually impossible to follow it’s better than random events. Because if there’s a reason you got a specific outcome, and if you can find out what that is, then you can change it – you’re in control.

It’s actually an instinct that goes back a very long way in our evolution (and can be seen in many other species too) and has played a vital part in our survival. In real life there are very few genuinely random events, and most of those are not things that will directly affect us. (It’s things like the rate of decay of radioactive material, although even there it’s debateable whether it really is random.) So the ability to find, follow and change patterns of cause and effect is extremely useful.

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

Having said all that if you do want to do something constructive to debunk a lot of the theories about precursors a good start would be explaining what a percentage probability actually means. That a 1 in 500 chance doesn’t mean you have to do it 500 times to get the outcome you want. Or even that if you do it 500 times you are guaranteed to get one success. Because that seems to be a sticking point for a lot of people.

Vajra.3914:

Myth #3:There is no particular recipe that gives higher chance of a precussor from Mystic Toilet.

This is not a myth this is fact. You get a random named exotic when you get the upgraded precursor chance. The more named exotics a weapon has the lower the chance of a precursor. Additionally greatswords have an inherent 2x chance as other weapons since there are two possible precursors.

I think Foci recipes have the lowest chance since there are so many named ones, where as greatswords and maces have a higher chance. Of course the amount of data needed to confirm this would be staggering.

So Myth: the type of weapon you are going for doesn’t effect your chance at a precursor.

Vajra.3914:

Myth #3:There is no particular recipe that gives higher chance of a precussor from Mystic Toilet.

It was the case before, which we all know as the Godskull exploit

Danikat.8537:

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

But there are problems with the RNG…

A while back, I threw 62 crafted rare staffs, plus the rares returned, and received 7 unnamed exotics back. Now it’s supposed to be random. This is what I got, in no particular order…

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries. If this is considered random…it’s broken.

I’ve seen this pattern many times out in PvE. I rarely get rare drops from anything other than the world bosses, perhaps one every few weeks, unless I do the champ train, but when I do, it’s very often followed by a second rare within minutes and that second rare most often is from the same group, so both berserker or carrion, for example. I’ve had this happen well over 10 times. Once, I had had the exact same weapon, including sigil, drop twice within minutes of each other, one from the Jormag chest and one a few minutes later from some random mob near Jormag. When you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not random.

Leamas.5803:

Danikat.8537:

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

But there are problems with the RNG…

A while back, I threw 62 crafted rare staffs, plus the rares returned, and received 7 unnamed exotics back. Now it’s supposed to be random. This is what I got, in no particular order…

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries. If this is considered random…it’s broken.

I’ve seen this pattern many times out in PvE. I rarely get rare drops from anything other than the world bosses, perhaps one every few weeks, unless I do the champ train, but when I do, it’s very often followed by a second rare within minutes and that second rare most often is from the same group, so both berserker or carrion, for example. I’ve had this happen well over 10 times. Once, I had had the exact same weapon, including sigil, drop twice within minutes of each other, one from the Jormag chest and one a few minutes later from some random mob near Jormag. When you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not random.

sooo what’s the issue here? It’s all RNG. You can do a thousand more combines and you could end up with 1-2 more situations where you get the exact same outcome three times in a row.

Heck, I remember getting 7 straight exotics. Did I freak out and think I came across something other than RNG? No. I took it as a random occurence.

Precursors drop and are obtainable outside of the trading post?

Color me shocked. It makes me very sad to hear that “OH the droprate is fine, I’ve gotten X number of precursors and I’ve only played the game for a few months”. I’m starting to doubt that I will ever get a precursor outside of saving hundreds of gold for one. :,(

• 13k+ achievement points, including dungeon master, every jumping puzzle done at least once, participated in every living story everything…
• thousands of hours played in all areas of the game (PvE, WvW and even some PvP)
• World boss events done nearly daily
• Rares/exotics tossed in forge, every chest I’ve found raided
• Map completion done 4 times now
• 8 level 80 characters (and one level 51 character)

Precursors that have dropped for me = 0

I’ve gotten one precursor from the trading post for 19gold (all I could afford at the time) and I’m saving everything I possibly can to try and afford Leaf of Kudzu and I’m still so very far away.

Even with ~140% account magic find I’m still lucky to get a rare or two outside of the guaranteed ones from world events.

Vol.7601:

Leamas.5803:

Danikat.8537:

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

But there are problems with the RNG…

A while back, I threw 62 crafted rare staffs, plus the rares returned, and received 7 unnamed exotics back. Now it’s supposed to be random. This is what I got, in no particular order…

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries. If this is considered random…it’s broken.

I’ve seen this pattern many times out in PvE. I rarely get rare drops from anything other than the world bosses, perhaps one every few weeks, unless I do the champ train, but when I do, it’s very often followed by a second rare within minutes and that second rare most often is from the same group, so both berserker or carrion, for example. I’ve had this happen well over 10 times. Once, I had had the exact same weapon, including sigil, drop twice within minutes of each other, one from the Jormag chest and one a few minutes later from some random mob near Jormag. When you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not random.

sooo what’s the issue here? It’s all RNG. You can do a thousand more combines and you could end up with 1-2 more situations where you get the exact same outcome three times in a row.

Heck, I remember getting 7 straight exotics. Did I freak out and think I came across something other than RNG? No. I took it as a random occurence.

I think what they are getting at is that it’s not pure rng. It’s modified so that certain occurrences happen more than others.

ex) outputs of A B C (A=non upgrade, B=upgrade, C=named upgrade)
80% chance of output A
15% chance of output B
5% chance of output C

Within each output there is a sub A1 A2 A3 etc etc
80% chance of output A1 when A is rolled
15% chance of A2 when A is rolled
5% chance of A3 when A is rolled

Within each sub there is another sub A1a A1b A1c etc etc

Thus a chance at A1a is basically predicable, where as C3c is not…ie it’s programmed that certain occurrences happen moreso than others.

Myth #(whatever): The more you throw in, the better your chance…

Many folks have a misconception of what RNG is an how it works. RNG is getting s a specific result out of (X) possible combinations. So, if one throws in the same exact ingredients, the result is going to be the exact same ratio for each attempt.

(Much Simplified) Example: If you roll a regular 6-sided die, you have the exact same chance (1 in 6) of getting a 4 every time you roll the die. The number you rolled is not removed from the rotation. You have the potential to roll a 4 every time you roll, or never. It’s the same chance on roll #1 as it is on roll #401.

If you extrapolate to the chances of making a precursor, you have the exact same chance of getting one on your first attempt as you do on your 9000th. the odds simply don’t get better the more you try.

khani.4786:

Precursors drop and are obtainable outside of the trading post?

Color me shocked. It makes me very sad to hear that “OH the droprate is fine, I’ve gotten X number of precursors and I’ve only played the game for a few months”. I’m starting to doubt that I will ever get a precursor outside of saving hundreds of gold for one. :,(

• 13k+ achievement points, including dungeon master, every jumping puzzle done at least once, participated in every living story everything…
• thousands of hours played in all areas of the game (PvE, WvW and even some PvP)
• World boss events done nearly daily
• Rares/exotics tossed in forge, every chest I’ve found raided
• Map completion done 4 times now
• 8 level 80 characters (and one level 51 character)

Precursors that have dropped for me = 0

I’ve gotten one precursor from the trading post for 19gold (all I could afford at the time) and I’m saving everything I possibly can to try and afford Leaf of Kudzu and I’m still so very far away.

Even with ~140% account magic find I’m still lucky to get a rare or two outside of the guaranteed ones from world events.

Play some Organized WvW for two hours with that MF. I get at LEAST 3-4 rares an hour with 102% MF. Maybe I’m just lucky though?

Essence Snow.3194:

Vol.7601:

Leamas.5803:

Danikat.8537:

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

But there are problems with the RNG…

A while back, I threw 62 crafted rare staffs, plus the rares returned, and received 7 unnamed exotics back. Now it’s supposed to be random. This is what I got, in no particular order…

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries. If this is considered random…it’s broken.

I’ve seen this pattern many times out in PvE. I rarely get rare drops from anything other than the world bosses, perhaps one every few weeks, unless I do the champ train, but when I do, it’s very often followed by a second rare within minutes and that second rare most often is from the same group, so both berserker or carrion, for example. I’ve had this happen well over 10 times. Once, I had had the exact same weapon, including sigil, drop twice within minutes of each other, one from the Jormag chest and one a few minutes later from some random mob near Jormag. When you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not random.

sooo what’s the issue here? It’s all RNG. You can do a thousand more combines and you could end up with 1-2 more situations where you get the exact same outcome three times in a row.

Heck, I remember getting 7 straight exotics. Did I freak out and think I came across something other than RNG? No. I took it as a random occurence.

I think what they are getting at is that it’s not pure rng. It’s modified so that certain occurrences happen more than others.

ex) outputs of A B C (A=non upgrade, B=upgrade, C=named upgrade)
80% chance of output A
15% chance of output B
5% chance of output C

Within each output there is a sub A1 A2 A3 etc etc
80% chance of output A1 when A is rolled
15% chance of A2 when A is rolled
5% chance of A3 when A is rolled

Within each sub there is another sub A1a A1b A1c etc etc

Thus a chance at A1a is basically predicable, where as C3c is not…ie it’s programmed that certain occurrences happen moreso than others.

I think it’s always implied that there are conditions for precursor drops. RNG is a catch-all term that best explains it. It’s certainly easy to say rather than “multiple condition-based drop rates” .

Vol.7601:

Leamas.5803:

Danikat.8537:

Unfortunately a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into simulating as closely as possible a random event in mad-made systems, particularly computer games, in order to get around the human instinct to manipulate patterns for their own benefit. And part of the reason it works is because even if we know it’s actually random, and no matter how many times we hear, or say ‘RNG is RNG’ we don’t want to believe it.

But there are problems with the RNG…

A while back, I threw 62 crafted rare staffs, plus the rares returned, and received 7 unnamed exotics back. Now it’s supposed to be random. This is what I got, in no particular order…

Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Dire Orrian Staff of Rage
Shaman’s Etched Batch of Rage
Rampager’s Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Carrion Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)
Valkyrie Pearl Quarterstaff (No upgrade)

So, 3 identical dire orrian staves of rage, 3 pearl quarterstaffs with no upgrades, 4 staves with superior sigil of rage. This from ~20 tries. If this is considered random…it’s broken.

I’ve seen this pattern many times out in PvE. I rarely get rare drops from anything other than the world bosses, perhaps one every few weeks, unless I do the champ train, but when I do, it’s very often followed by a second rare within minutes and that second rare most often is from the same group, so both berserker or carrion, for example. I’ve had this happen well over 10 times. Once, I had had the exact same weapon, including sigil, drop twice within minutes of each other, one from the Jormag chest and one a few minutes later from some random mob near Jormag. When you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not random.

sooo what’s the issue here? It’s all RNG. You can do a thousand more combines and you could end up with 1-2 more situations where you get the exact same outcome three times in a row.

Heck, I remember getting 7 straight exotics. Did I freak out and think I came across something other than RNG? No. I took it as a random occurence.

With the sheer number of exotics and possible combination with various sigils, the odds of the above situation are astronomical as are/were with situation explained in PvE and as I said, when you can reliably predict the outcome, it’s not truly random. A couple times I would chalk up to randomness, but the sheer number of times I’ve seen it happen, it’s simply not random. It’s weighted, at best. My best guess is that there are situations which cause a bad RNG seed. It also used to be that the first 2 hours after a new build yielded vastly better loot than normal. I don’t know if that’s the case anymore, but again, points to problems with the RNG. 7 exos in a row I can concede to randomness since it is only 20% chance. Multiple similar or identical items in a short period of time, especially when my account has a history multiple similar drops to the point of being predictable, points to a bad RNG seed.

It does go the other way too. If I happen to hit a lucky day I can far exceed the average. I was counting on the 10 clover recipe to get me some T6 mats and ended up getting clovers 7 out of 9 tries…6 hits in a row. Overall I ended up only spending just under 120 shards. Unfortunately, from what I’ve read on the the forums, my luck does tend to be somewhat below average, but oh well. I’ve come to terms with it and only mention it here as a possible reason why some people seem to have better luck in the forge than others.

There were huge threads related to loot and RNG problems last winter. This sort of behavior is not an isolated incident.

Well my account must be cursed, I hardly even get rares anymore. I don’t even know what it feels like to get an exotic outside of TP anymore.

khani.4786:

snip

I’m in a similar boat.
1800 hours since day 1 of the game, almost 12k AP, 6 lvl 80’s, every LS done, all JPs done, rank 80 in WvW, I kill world bosses daily (not all bosses though), and a total of 0 precursors, but at least I got a rabbid ascended weapon box from WvW.

khani.4786:

Precursors drop and are obtainable outside of the trading post?

Color me shocked. It makes me very sad to hear that “OH the droprate is fine, I’ve gotten X number of precursors and I’ve only played the game for a few months”. I’m starting to doubt that I will ever get a precursor outside of saving hundreds of gold for one. :,(

• 13k+ achievement points, including dungeon master, every jumping puzzle done at least once, participated in every living story everything…
• thousands of hours played in all areas of the game (PvE, WvW and even some PvP)
• World boss events done nearly daily
• Rares/exotics tossed in forge, every chest I’ve found raided
• Map completion done 4 times now
• 8 level 80 characters (and one level 51 character)

Precursors that have dropped for me = 0

I’ve gotten one precursor from the trading post for 19gold (all I could afford at the time) and I’m saving everything I possibly can to try and afford Leaf of Kudzu and I’m still so very far away.

Even with ~140% account magic find I’m still lucky to get a rare or two outside of the guaranteed ones from world events.

I tell this to people who always mention their hours in game and getting no precursors.

Hours in game do not matter. What you do with those hours increases you chances.

Let’s say you are logged in for 12 hours. Now assuming you can only do one of these activities for the whole day, which do you think has the highest chance to get a precursor?

-Run dungeons
-Run Metaevents
-Run Champtrains
-WvW-Farm high-density mobs
-Do JP’s

Without a doubt, farming large quantities of mobs is the best way to roll for a precursor. Why? Because each mob you kill has a roll chance for loot, which has a roll chance for a precursor (obviously, a very small one)

You could definitely make an argument that the large metaevent chests have a slightly higher drop rate for a precursor. But how often do these pop up? Even when you guest on all three servers? You don’t have a steadily stream of loot rolls. The same with WvW. You could spend 15 minutes just flipping keeps and not encountering zergs. Very rarely will you ever have a constant 1 hour battle with many lootbags dropping. Same with dungeons. Mob density in dungeons is very low.

But farming specific events gives you the highest loot rolls per hour. This is why I farm hardcore and why I have ended up with 3 precursor drops. I don’t waste my time in dungeons or overly dedicate 30 minutes of my time to do Jormag for 1 rare and a chest.

tldr: if you want to get the most chances for a precursor, farm large quantity/high density mobs.

Zommoros is actually an ArenaNet employee named ‘Phil’ who actively sits at a pc with a ‘drop precursor’ button. If he likes the way you look, he may hit the button.

Elbegast.6970:

Zommoros is actually an ArenaNet employee named ‘Phil’ who actively sits at a pc with a ‘drop precursor’ button. If he likes the way you look, he may hit the button.

If this was the case, I’d have 100s.

hair flip and wink

I feel your pain…

Precursors that have dropped for me = 0

10K+

tons of dungeon runs….

wvw season 1 complete…

a lot of this sounds like that birthday math problem:
out of 30 students in a classroom, what is the probability that at least two of them have the same birthday?
it’s tricky for several reasons I won’t get into. most people would think it’s a 1 in 30 chance (3.33%). turns out it’s around 70% = highly likely.

I’m also reminded of the Monty Hall problem…

statistics can be fun!

You guys realize that your not busting a myth, you’re just asserting that the myth isn’t true.

I’ve never had a precursor drop for me but I have received 7 precursors from the Mystic Forge from throwing in rares.

I have seen a number of precursors drop for friends and guildies from open world, WvW and dungeons but it seems a pretty rare occurrence.

Myth: Precursor scavenger hunt coming for 2013!

Busted.

Myth: A casual player can get a precursor without sacrificing his first born child to the Goat Lord.

Aeonblade.8709:

Myth: A casual player can get a precursor without sacrificing his first born child to the Goat Lord.

LOL Awesome…and about true. ;-P

And then a friend of mine who has no interest in Legendary weapons got a very nice precursor (The Chosen) the other day just from using a tricolor key. He sold it immediately and bought one of his toons Tier 3 Cultural Armor as part of the celebration.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Lol, another one I heard was that magic find affects your chances.

Well, I have a friend who is currently at over 45 precursors from the forge. Keep in mind that he’s done TONS of forging, puts everything (exos and rares) he gets into the forge, but still?

I forge all my gold weapons, since day one, and have gotten 2 pres. So, who knows?

myth: after you hit 3000 hours of playing guild wars 2 you will reweave a precursor from a drop. that was non mystic forge,

myth: Busted played 2251 hours on mesmer and 3703 hours total. myth way busted

Myth: You are actually going to get a precursor.

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

myth: after you hit 3000 hours of playing guild wars 2 you will reweave a precursor from a drop. that was non mystic forge,

myth: Busted played 2251 hours on mesmer and 3703 hours total. myth way busted

I don’t really think this is a myth. I don’t know a single person who actually thinks that their number if hours has any bearing on their precursor chances.

The point is, precursors are extremely rare as mob drops. More come out of the forge, to I’m nearly positive of. Some lucky folks do have them drop (like me, one Storm from Malrona, excellent!) but I have really good luck.

I think the real myth here is that everyone in the game deserves and will eventually get a precursor. Regardless of their hours. I can say that I’ve been into a shop that sells lottery tickets every day and I still haven’t won, but then it might also have been the case that I never bought a ticket. Don’t expect a precursor as a drop. If you wanna win the lottery, play the forge. That’s the only way you really have.

LittleLepton.8915:

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

myth: after you hit 3000 hours of playing guild wars 2 you will reweave a precursor from a drop. that was non mystic forge,

myth: Busted played 2251 hours on mesmer and 3703 hours total. myth way busted

I don’t really think this is a myth. I don’t know a single person who actually thinks that their number if hours has any bearing on their precursor chances.

The point is, precursors are extremely rare as mob drops. More come out of the forge, to I’m nearly positive of. Some lucky folks do have them drop (like me, one Storm from Malrona, excellent!) but I have really good luck.

I think the real myth here is that everyone in the game deserves and will eventually get a precursor. Regardless of their hours. I can say that I’ve been into a shop that sells lottery tickets every day and I still haven’t won, but then it might also have been the case that I never bought a ticket. Don’t expect a precursor as a drop. If you wanna win the lottery, play the forge. That’s the only way you really have.

Probably more cost effective to farm gold and buy it. I know of lots of people who ended up spending more money crafting the PC, than it would have been to actually buy it outright.

Leamas.5803:

LittleLepton.8915:

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

myth: after you hit 3000 hours of playing guild wars 2 you will reweave a precursor from a drop. that was non mystic forge,

myth: Busted played 2251 hours on mesmer and 3703 hours total. myth way busted

I don’t really think this is a myth. I don’t know a single person who actually thinks that their number if hours has any bearing on their precursor chances.

The point is, precursors are extremely rare as mob drops. More come out of the forge, to I’m nearly positive of. Some lucky folks do have them drop (like me, one Storm from Malrona, excellent!) but I have really good luck.

I think the real myth here is that everyone in the game deserves and will eventually get a precursor. Regardless of their hours. I can say that I’ve been into a shop that sells lottery tickets every day and I still haven’t won, but then it might also have been the case that I never bought a ticket. Don’t expect a precursor as a drop. If you wanna win the lottery, play the forge. That’s the only way you really have.

Probably more cost effective to farm gold and buy it. I know of lots of people who ended up spending more money crafting the PC, than it would have been to actually buy it outright.

I totally agree, but people complain about buying it. I’m just saying, you’re most likely not going to get a precursor unless you play the mystic forge lottery, or buy it.

Getting something as a drop or as a reward for doing something is fun imo. Buying something or trying to justify buying something as being a reward is not imo. If I wanted to buy my rewards I would play a different genre of game.

Essence Snow.3194:

Getting something as a drop or as a reward for doing something is fun imo. Buying something or trying to justify buying something as being a reward is not imo. If I wanted to buy my rewards I would play a different genre of game.

Then gamble for it?

The likelihood of the exact precursor you want dropping randomly from a mob is…. Very low. I don’t really know what you want. Precursor crafting? If so, then I guess wait. But I am nearly positive it will be as bad or worse than farming gold to buy it.

LittleLepton.8915:

Essence Snow.3194:

Getting something as a drop or as a reward for doing something is fun imo. Buying something or trying to justify buying something as being a reward is not imo. If I wanted to buy my rewards I would play a different genre of game.

Then gamble for it?

The likelihood of the exact precursor you want dropping randomly from a mob is…. Very low. I don’t really know what you want. Precursor crafting? If so, then I guess wait. But I am nearly positive it will be as bad or worse than farming gold to buy it.

I’ve thrown close to 3k g worth in forge to no avail, made 2 legendaries (bought both pres), farmed myself crazy, 11 80s, over 5k hrs, etc etc. Basically there’s nothing I can do except buy them….I don’t have an option…..that is not fun imo.

It’s not really about being able to buy them…as I can and have..it’s about the premise.

Esoteric.4395:

Hey GD, what are some of the common myths associated with precursor mystic forge crafting? Doing some individual research on precursor rates, and I hope to debunk some of the popular myths other there about precursor crafting! (You can find my progress in the crafting section of forums)

I’ll start off:

1. Level 80’s have a better chance of crafting a precursor from the mystic forge.

DEBUNKED: I’ve done over 1200 forges with exotics on my level 28 TP mule, and got about 16 precursors. This rate is about the same, if not higher, than some of the research done with level 80’s. Safe to say character level has no effect on precursor rates!

I love statements that purport to be fact, but offer no supporting evidence. That’s the best kind of data!

Afater watching many videos of people gambling the Forge I noticed the pattern that in most cases the people who get their precursor are using some kind of a booster , magic find or other.
So after spending tons of golds on rare GS I was left with my last 20G. I logged on my low level necro, popped crafting booster and threw in first 4 GS and got Dawn.

@khani: I’ve had TWO Precursors drop for me from random mobs since I started playing (since launch). O.o The first was the Hunter, off some random ghost in AC Story. The second was the Energizer, off some random white centaur in Harathi Hinterlands.

THIS is why I insist on killing everything that looks at me funny. XD I never have luck with chests or the Forge, but it seems that the God of Death has a soft spot for me.

I got a Leaf of Kudzu for approximately 5g worth of rare level 80 bows I bought on a whim to throw in the forge.

RNG is weird.

2K hours played, 8 Level 80s, 4 World Complete, 10K Ach Point. I have never seen anyone in chat that has got a precursor from loot.

I have done all gifts, just waiting for my precursor. But I will probibly buy it from TP when having 800 gold or something (year 2015 or so…). i wish I could play the TP instead as that is the only way of getting 800G fast.

I’m not sure what a ‘precursor’ is exactly (I got this game for Christmas this year) but I got this gold dagger called Fire or Spark (I think it was Spark – that sounds right) when I walked into that one cave in Queensland and a bunch of players were fighting this big troll. I’m not that high level yet so I don’t think I did much damage but I did get a chest and this Spark popped out. I didn’t know I was supposed to keep it. It was too high level for me and it also said I was the wrong profession to use it so I just sold it to the merchant in Divnity’s Rest. It was worth something, huh? Rats.

Seriously, I’ve been playing since launch and have decided to go for Incinerator and really REALLY don’t want to rely on the Forge. I’ll probably just save up and buy Spark outright. In other news, my brother, who has no intentions of making a legendary, got Quip the other day after about 20-30 tosses. Sold it for 300gp.

Ashabhi.1365:

Myth #(whatever): The more you throw in, the better your chance…

Many folks have a misconception of what RNG is an how it works. RNG is getting s a specific result out of (X) possible combinations. So, if one throws in the same exact ingredients, the result is going to be the exact same ratio for each attempt.

(Much Simplified) Example: If you roll a regular 6-sided die, you have the exact same chance (1 in 6) of getting a 4 every time you roll the die. The number you rolled is not removed from the rotation. You have the potential to roll a 4 every time you roll, or never. It’s the same chance on roll #1 as it is on roll #401.

If you extrapolate to the chances of making a precursor, you have the exact same chance of getting one on your first attempt as you do on your 9000th. the odds simply don’t get better the more you try.

I mean no disrespect, but your conclusion may or may not be correct. If the rate of return of precursors/exotics is truly uniform, then you are spot on. No matter the combination of rares/exotics thrown in the forge, you have some X percent chance of receiving a precursor that stays the same.

However, if this rate of return is not uniform (meaning it does not act like a single thrown die, but perhaps like a pair of dice or something else entirely) then the above is false. For example, mentioned in the thread is the godskull exploit. Before this was patched, throwing in some combination of godskull weapons, lvl 65ish rares, (lets call this combination k) with other rares would give higher chances of exotics (and therefore precursors). Thus given a parameter of having k godskull, our chance of getting some precursor, X percent, was increased. Since it was/is possible to vary our X percent with some parameter (which there may be others out there), to me it shows that the distribution is not uniformly uniform, (boy that sounds weird) but something else like a Weibull, Gamma, or Beta, where our parameter is not based on some number, but rather some number of objects.

I do want to give credit where credit is due though, and you deserve much credit for your post. Your post was debunking the myth that the more you throw in the better your chances, which is false since the actions in the forge are (supposedly) independent of each other. Just to add what was stated, it is totally false that your next forge will be good/bad simply b/c your last n number of forges has been bad/good.

Edit: Apparently GW2 forums dont use alt codes.

oilstorm.1748:

/snip

I mean no disrespect, but your conclusion may or may not be correct.

/endsnip

None taken. As I said in my post, the example of a single six sided die was very much simplified to illustrate the point that just because combination (X) did’t work the first 40 times doesn’t mean that your chances improve the next 40 times you use that exact combination.

I know that the variables are way to complex to definitively say that equation (XYZ) is the best chance of getting what you want.

The things you listed are exactly why we won’t be able to come up with an exact “recipe” to maximize one’s chances.