Guild Wars 2

This has been debated across multiple threads. It’s an adventure before and after with a paywall in between – it’s apparently what they meant by “barter for knowledge, seek out great minds and convince them to teach you their tricks, and prove your ability at the crafting workbench”. There’s obviously mixed opinion as to whether this is ok:

- Precursors should be expensive. The game is about the accumulation of wealth, be it through grinding over 7500 nodes (that is counting getting at least 3 mats per interaction), gold farming, or pouring in your real money. Those that don’t grind or $$$ don’t deserve precursors.

- This form of accumulation is far better, even if much more expensive than current precursors because it is static. By the time you farm 700 gold, the cost of Dawn may have gone up, and you have to farm even more. By the time you’ve farmed 70 Deldrimor Steel Ingots, you at least know that the 20 left will not change, and you’ll be done with that specific aspect once you’re done.

- People actually enjoy grinding nodes in the open world/wvw – so needing to do it over 7500 times is no barrier.

- People already had a bunch of materials saved up over the years of gameplay that they never spent, so they don’t care.

- People have already spent their tens of thousands in mats or hundreds in gold, and any change to the paywall would upset them, so it must be argued against as it’s not “fair”.

Now I realize that the tone of those points is a bit slanted and it can go on and on. I’m not saying that the reasoning that precursors should be expensive is explicitly wrong, but I am saying it places the same barrier from getting precursors that has always existed:

- Pre-HOT, getting a Pre-cursor was either getting super lucky or pay for it by grinding huge amounts of resources, or spending real cash to just buy those resources. Post-HOT adds some fun steps, with a 2nd stage is the same “pay for it” by grinding a huge amount of resources or spending real cash to bypass it. Why could we not have a third less grindy/$$$ option? Buying specific materials from event vendors across the world (barter), actually talking to NPCs in remote locations (seek out great minds and learn their tricks), and then make the proving your crafting by using these special materials bartered (and/or found in part 1 and 3 of the adventure)?

- Crafting a precursor into a Legendary already has a paywall. 500k karma (1 million if crafting clovers), 200 spirit shards, over 100 gold (runestones and recipes), thousands of materials, and World Completion. While unfortunately you can pay past this gap too, those that go for their precursor are not, so they have this to prove the “accumulation of wealth”.

I had my hopes up with the Legendary Journey – I play all aspects of the game and enjoy a challenge, but doing the same thing over and over thousands of times is just tedious – not what I had hoped for when they said it won’t be easy. I also don’t want to take “then just don’t do it” as an answer. I want to try for change – to find an alternate method to a tedious grind. Those that like the grind can grind, sell their mats, and buy the precursor. And those that wanted the “Journey” could go on the journey that wouldn’t require that (or at least be far less of a grind).

Behellagh.1468:

The devs were never looking at the “cost” of this method over the others, just the reliability of getting what you want.

The problem is, since RNG is involved in the process, there is no “reliability.”

Behellagh.1468:

Because it gives the player a sense they are working toward their choice of precursor.

So here is a way to “earn” your precursor by playing the game, the whole game, “on an epic quest” and while on it, gather all the mats you need. For long running players they may already have a fair chunk of the mats needed. The devs were never looking at the “cost” of this method over the others, just the reliability of getting what you want.

Of course some players don’t really care about all that. They look at the price on the TP, and realize that if they sell off those materials they need to gather and/or craft along the way their precursor, they could simply buy the one they want now as the price has crashed. Of course some of that crash is recovering as more players realize that crafting a precursor isn’t going to be cheap and easy.

This is like the question about why some players craft their own gear rather than buy superior ones off the TP for less than the material costs (excluding ascended gear of course). Some players want to use what they make or find while others go to Evon-Mart.

Except that crafting gear yourself is almost always cheaper than buying direct off the TP.

Which, from what I understand, is not the case with all precursors.

Drawing Guy.3701:

I had my hopes up with the Legendary Journey – I play all aspects of the game and enjoy a challenge, but doing the same thing over and over thousands of times is just tedious – not what I had hoped for when they said it won’t be easy. I also don’t want to take “then just don’t do it” as an answer. I want to try for change – to find an alternate method to a tedious grind. Those that like the grind can grind, sell their mats, and buy the precursor. And those that wanted the “Journey” could go on the journey that wouldn’t require that (or at least be far less of a grind).

Excuse my cynicism for a moment, but I think the ship has sailed when it comes to precursors. It took them, what, 3 years to come up with a new system for precursors that wasn’t 100% based on an infinitesimally small chance of looting one?

And then they come up with a half scavenger hunt (what people asked for) mixed in with RNG (what people hated), apparently.

Maybe in another 5 years they’ll implement a precursor system that isn’t so painful.

What’s funny is I did a search to check when they were first being complained about and found this thread, and a post by Lindsey Murdock (dunno if she’s even with the team anymore), saying:

We’ve seen players discussing the topic of crafting legendary precursor weapons and claiming that we’ve made changes to make this more difficult. We’d like to be clear that we did not make any across the board changes to reduce the drop rate, nor was it our intention to significantly increase the difficulty in acquiring these precursor weapons.

We did fix a few bugged recipes that were rewarding Legendary precursors more often than they should have been. These recipes were mostly using Rares in the level 70-75 range and mostly affected the precursors for the greatswords and the dagger. This has had some effect on the drop rate when using lower level rares to attempt to get a precursor but it was never intended for that to be the best way of acquiring these weapons. The recipes for throwing in level 80 exotics have not changed at all.

We have been watching the prices climbing on Legendary precursors and share your concerns about some of them becoming too expensive. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make any adjustments we feel are necessary.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/crafting/Official-Response-Drop-Rate-of-Legendary-Precursors/first#post378176

I guess somewhere along the line they stopped sharing concerns about precursors becoming too expensive. Or they have a very strange concept of what expensive is.

Labjax.2465:

Drawing Guy.3701:

I had my hopes up with the Legendary Journey – I play all aspects of the game and enjoy a challenge, but doing the same thing over and over thousands of times is just tedious – not what I had hoped for when they said it won’t be easy. I also don’t want to take “then just don’t do it” as an answer. I want to try for change – to find an alternate method to a tedious grind. Those that like the grind can grind, sell their mats, and buy the precursor. And those that wanted the “Journey” could go on the journey that wouldn’t require that (or at least be far less of a grind).

Excuse my cynicism for a moment, but I think the ship has sailed when it comes to precursors. It took them, what, 3 years to come up with a new system for precursors that wasn’t 100% based on an infinitesimally small chance of looting one?

And then they come up with a half scavenger hunt (what people asked for) mixed in with RNG (what people hated), apparently.

Maybe in another 5 years they’ll implement a precursor system that isn’t so painful.

What’s funny is I did a search to check when they were first being complained about and found this thread, and a post by Lindsey Murdock (dunno if she’s even with the team anymore), saying:

We’ve seen players discussing the topic of crafting legendary precursor weapons and claiming that we’ve made changes to make this more difficult. We’d like to be clear that we did not make any across the board changes to reduce the drop rate, nor was it our intention to significantly increase the difficulty in acquiring these precursor weapons.

We did fix a few bugged recipes that were rewarding Legendary precursors more often than they should have been. These recipes were mostly using Rares in the level 70-75 range and mostly affected the precursors for the greatswords and the dagger. This has had some effect on the drop rate when using lower level rares to attempt to get a precursor but it was never intended for that to be the best way of acquiring these weapons. The recipes for throwing in level 80 exotics have not changed at all.

We have been watching the prices climbing on Legendary precursors and share your concerns about some of them becoming too expensive. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make any adjustments we feel are necessary.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/crafting/Official-Response-Drop-Rate-of-Legendary-Precursors/first#post378176

I guess somewhere along the line they stopped sharing concerns about precursors becoming too expensive. Or they have a very strange concept of what expensive is.

Let’s face it, all they care about is keeping everything super expensive, so people would more likely waste real money in exchange for gold. They do not care anything else.
They’d do anything to keep precursor/legendary expensive as hell. That’s why we have this rip-off precursor crafting, that’s why they increase the material craft from 2 ->3 or 3-> 4 and never other way round. They only want to raise price of everything to make everyone suffer enough that they may consider using Real life money for gold.

The only thing they need to concern about is not to flip the market too much to the degree of driving away players. They’d find that delicate balance and exploit it as much as possible.

Aomine.5012:

Let’s face it, all their care about is keeping everything super expensive, so people would more likely waste real money in exchange for gold. They do not care anything else.
They’d do anything to keep precursor/legendary expensive as hell. That’s why we have this rip-off precursor crafting, that’s why they increase the material craft from 2 ->3 or 3-> 4 and never other way round. They only want to raise price of everything to make everyone suffer enough that they may consider using Real life money for gold.

Maybe it’s just because I’m tired, but part of me thinks you’re right. And I’m certain it’s not all black and white. Like not every designer is sitting there asking “how can I fleece players?” In fact, many of them are likely principled and dedicated to making a fun gaming experience. But when it comes time for executive decisions that affect the overarching direction of the game, it’s hard to deny the signs of garden variety greed.

This is not personal, mind you. I’m not calling out any one developer or Anet company leader. It’s just a general impression of the company’s direction with this game. I have seen games that try to fleece you and I’ve seen games that try to have integrity, and this game constantly gives me the sense of both. The presence of some integrity is really the only thing that keeps me here.

Grim Jr.8946:

precursor crafting was never meant to be a way to get the precursor cheaper than the tp it is just a way to get a precursor out of RNG something you can work towards rather than hoping it would randomly drop.

get it through your thick skulls devs never ever mentioned it to be cheap or free it was stated multiple times it will retain the cost of the precursor in the market.

there is already a way of getting precursor out of rng drops which is buy it. which require the same amount of effort/money as the crafting minus waiting for events to spawn. don’t forget that after you craft/buy your precursor you still have to farm the final recipe for the legendary itself.
when you say you don’t have to buy the mats but farm it you are forgetting that all those mats you are using and not selling plus the time gate are worth much more than just selling the mats and buying the precursor.
i don’t mind a long term goal, but when the long term goal is exactly the same as earning tons of gold a copper at a time i don’t see the purpose of an alternative convoluted way to do the same thing

Personally I am not surprised.

TP = Gold = Gems = Income for Anet.

As with most things in the game, it’s a tinly veiled money grab.

Amadan.9451:

when you say you don’t have to buy the mats but farm it you are forgetting that all those mats you are using and not selling plus the time gate are worth much more than just selling the mats and buying the precursor.

And the price currently is that high because “everybody” has got the same goal like you. If that weren’t the case the materials would be cheaper = you would get less potential gold for your node farming.

Devata.6589:

HoT made big steps with this, but it still needs to make many more steps and need to do so within the next half year.

Well, next expansion WoW is giving legendary weapons a try. Well see if Blizz can do any better :P

Jana.6831:

Amadan.9451:

when you say you don’t have to buy the mats but farm it you are forgetting that all those mats you are using and not selling plus the time gate are worth much more than just selling the mats and buying the precursor.

And the price currently is that high because “everybody” has got the same goal like you. If that weren’t the case the materials would be cheaper = you would get less potential gold for your node farming.

There are many other ways to get gold than node farming, and ascended crafting was meant to greatly increase the value of those material already. Every material did shoot up – while didn’t really balance the demand evenly so some materials are worth more than others (I’m looking at you cloth – placed a high demand on a low supply item), that can always be adjusted with requirements in material crafting itself. Placing the Precursor strain on these materials was not needed – they were already expensive. Crafting ascended armor already takes hundreds of gold in materials to craft, did it really need to cost more? The addition of more content that requires ascended items beyond Fractals would increase demand and cost on it’s own. They’re already encouraging that with Raids.

The RNG drop requirements are also frustrating (we’re back to the equation that means people can get zero hope of ever getting it), but to me that is still dwarfed by the sheer pay/grindwall they have in place. It should never have been implemented in the Precursor Journey in my opinion.

Jana.6831:

Amadan.9451:

when you say you don’t have to buy the mats but farm it you are forgetting that all those mats you are using and not selling plus the time gate are worth much more than just selling the mats and buying the precursor.

And the price currently is that high because “everybody” has got the same goal like you. If that weren’t the case the materials would be cheaper = you would get less potential gold for your node farming.

i don’t agree. i mean al lplayers not interested in legendary crafting are still using the same mats for other purposes. i don’t think this happen accidentally, i think this is what arenanet wanted from the beginning. keeping in check the price of some mats because they are needed in insane amount for various things, guild halls, legendary crafting, ascended gear, collections and so on.
i am in no rush of a new legendary weapon, i already have one. and i have no problem spending money on the tp to buy a new precursor or spending the same money to craft it. what i don’t understand is this: while for the brand new legendary the crafting is the only way, why on earth for the old ones the are 2 different way which have the same result but one of those even if it requires more time and effort it can be even more expensive?
what’s the point on chosing the crafting against the buy outright? if it is only for the collection and the flavor they add to the legendary… well i can just read it in the wiki!
my problem with all crafting in this game is that there is no reason to chose crafting over tp unless you are forced to do it like ascended gear or the new legendary.
it can cost more but at least give me a reason why i should pick it

Amadan.9451:

i don’t think this happen accidentally, i think this is what arenanet wanted from the beginning. keeping in check the price of some mats because they are needed in insane amount for various things, guild halls, legendary crafting, ascended gear, collections and so on.

Yes, because they have to. Someone buying gems and turning them into gold is getting less and less unless I’m mistaken, so they have to somehow control the inflation.
(f.e. I bought my first bank expansion for 20 gold, nowadays it’s 120 gold – I never converted gems to gold though).

Amadan.9451:

what i don’t understand is this: while for the brand new legendary the crafting is the only way, why on earth for the old ones the are 2 different way which have the same result but one of those even if it requires more time and effort it can be even more expensive?

Because they can’t just erase the ways there were before and they can’t just make one set of precursers craftable – the forums would’ve been full of “HOW DARE YOU?!!” threads. And yes, most people already have their ascended equip, so they need further mat sinks to get gold out of the economy.

Amadan.9451:

what’s the point on chosing the crafting against the buy outright? if it is only for the collection and the flavor they add to the legendary… well i can just read it in the wiki!

A lot of people asked for this and further reasons: see above.

Amadan.9451:

my problem with all crafting in this game is that there is no reason to chose crafting over tp unless you are forced to do it like ascended gear or the new legendary.
it can cost more but at least give me a reason why i should pick it

I said it somewhere already: It’s 20 old/vanilla precursers – it’s really hard to come up with 20 unique stories and possibly make them like the personal story/living story S2 – so 20 separate stories for something that already existed in game for 3 years.
You can make money with crafting, you just have to know what – I craft a lot actually. But I’m free to spend my time elsewhere and buy the things I need with the gold I make from the other things I’m doing instead – that is great.

Edit: Grammar

Labjax.2465:

Behellagh.1468:

Because it gives the player a sense they are working toward their choice of precursor.

So here is a way to “earn” your precursor by playing the game, the whole game, “on an epic quest” and while on it, gather all the mats you need. For long running players they may already have a fair chunk of the mats needed. The devs were never looking at the “cost” of this method over the others, just the reliability of getting what you want.

Of course some players don’t really care about all that. They look at the price on the TP, and realize that if they sell off those materials they need to gather and/or craft along the way their precursor, they could simply buy the one they want now as the price has crashed. Of course some of that crash is recovering as more players realize that crafting a precursor isn’t going to be cheap and easy.

This is like the question about why some players craft their own gear rather than buy superior ones off the TP for less than the material costs (excluding ascended gear of course). Some players want to use what they make or find while others go to Evon-Mart.

Except that crafting gear yourself is almost always cheaper than buying direct off the TP.

Which, from what I understand, is not the case with all precursors.

That is not true.
The majority of rare and exotic armor and weapons is more expensive to
craft than to buy.

As for the precursor I’m 50/50 on whether I will keep on the farming
and downright grinding to get it,or simply either buy it using the gold
I already have,or farm the gold to buy it so I won’t use my stash.
It seems to me that grinding for the mats and grinding for the gold will
take,more or less,the same time.
GW2 became a lot more grindy and farming focused with HoT,and precursor
crafting is not an exception.
Although anything is better than gambling like an addict in the Mystic Toilet,
it’s still far from what I’d like it to be,a simple mix of combat and exploration
challenges with absolutely no grind at all.