Guild Wars 2

Cuddy.6247:

Generating a farm will also decrease the value of a precursor on the TP, which makes buying it easier.

Don’t think so actually: The more people farm the more gold they have the more they are willing to pay. Got my pre last year and it was worth 800 gold, a year later it’s at 1300 and people never farmed like they do now, thanks to megaservers and zones like Dry Top and Silverwastes.

Edit: Although it might be more difficult as that as I’m not sure if the precurser drop rates have decreased since the MF has been nerfed.

Jana.6831:

Cuddy.6247:

Generating a farm will also decrease the value of a precursor on the TP, which makes buying it easier.

Don’t think so actually: The more people farm the more gold they have the more they are willing to pay. Got my pre last year and it was worth 800 gold, a year later it’s at 1300 and people never farmed like they do now, thanks to megaservers and zones like Dry Top and Silverwastes.

Edit: Although it might be more difficult as that as I’m not sure if the precurser drop rates have decreased since the MF has been nerfed.

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors. Bringing a higher supply of precursors into the economy (via effort of farmers) would lower the prices. If restrictions were placed on drop acquisition in a reasonable fashion we would expect that a higher RNG chance would take place alongside it, which would just generate a new farm. If they don’t up the droprate, then the idea is pointless.

All you see when people are farming Silverwastes or Dry Top is people who are farming for gold, which, again, is a contributing factor to the inflation of prices – not a farm for a precursor.

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

I was pretty sure that you and cuddy suggested that farmers rise the amount of availlable precurser, but in his last post he said the contrahery.

Then let’s see where the precursers come from: From people doing whatever event there is in this game and from people tossing yellows/exotics into the MF. More people farming world bosses/champions increase the numbers of yellows and exotics availlable, so the number of precursers coming from the MF should rise – but the MF has been nerfed back in April. So all farming does is to inflate the market because farmers have more money.

Ironically, everytime someone makes a thread about good drops happening to often, 2 more people post thread complaining that they don’t happen enough. “Perception”, this must be.

slamfunction.7462:

Ironically, everytime someone makes a thread about good drops happening to often, 2 more people post thread complaining that they don’t happen enough. “Perception”, this must be.

Yeah the topic is misleading. The OP didn’t mean there are too many precursers but that it’s unfair that anyone could get one, no matter what they’re doing.
You might have noticed if you’d read the OP :P

Dead horse is dead.

Oh no you didn’t!

Ashen.2907:

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

No? Stagnation isn’t the same as stationary. Essentially the only farm that genuinely exists is a goldfarm and everything else is a footnote to the fact. What the OP suggests, and I’m inclined to heavily agree, is building actual farms through limited acquisition and higher drop tables, which generate actual farms. Dry Top/Silverwastes are no more a farm for precursors than doing EotM ktrain, dungeons or world bosses. Saying that anyone is farming Dry Top/Silverwastes, or anywhere for that matter, is farming for a precursor and not money is negligible stupidity, at best.

Precursors rise in price because of inflation, money enters trade at a faster rate than precursors do. If the game had any actual farms instead of just one massive goldfarm, you’d see farmers actually generate items for sale and money would enter at about the same rate and prices would massively stabilize until the demand for whatever item in question drastically changes.

If you thought this thread was about precursor’s dropping too often, precursors not dropping often enough, or legendaries being too hard to get, then I advise you to seek assistance before the next time you have to read something.

For those of you that actually got the point but disagree, here’s a point of consideration: Do you think that players should be able to get a legendary by doing casual, unorganized content? I see a lot of statements along the lines of “no thanks casuals won’t ever get a pre”, but isn’t that the point of legendaries?

Where we’re at now a casual player who just does the world boss train each day has probably a better shot at getting a precursor than the hardcore Fotm runners. This is why legendaries don’t have prestige.

I’d go so far as to say that, if all you’re doing is facerolling open world trash, then no, you absolutely do not deserve to ever see a precursor drop. I’m having a hard time seeing why there should be an expectation to the contrary.

EDIT: There’s kind of a side convo about farms. If you want to say that people will begin farming the content that does drop precursors after this change, then yes, I agree, turning FotM 50, Wurm, Arah etc. into precursor farms is a good idea. Just keep in mind that most “farmers” shouldn’t be able to do this content, and that it would be difficult to really grind away repeatedly in the way that most “farms” work.

Everywhere you say? Been playing since launch never got one myself, if they are dropping “everywhere” maybe some people would consider spreading the love and donating a few of em to some other players? Yeah just because your friend got insanely lucky and happened to find a precursor doesn’t mean “they are dropping everywhere” also legendaries have lost all prestige so stop pretending like they should have more prestige, at this point they are just overly fancy ascended skins and Anet has done NOTHING to suggest that they want legendaries to be “prestigious” considering most of the stuff involved in getting them is simply grinding for hours

Honestly I think that precoursers should be dropping more frequently or their should be an alternate way of getting them, because at this point, people that already have a legendary can spread it to any other character, and those who are working towards one have an almost impossible task because of the insanely bloated prices of the precoursers

so in conclusion precoursers aren’t “dropping left and right and everywhere” otherwise the prices on the TP would have tanked to gasp achievable levels by now

Legendaries have no prestige as far as skill they are literally just shiny skins that cost an insane amount of in game currency, fractal skins actually have some prestige because they require running fotm one of the few parts of the game that can actually prove challenging

thewaterguy.4796:

Everywhere you say? Been playing since launch never got one myself, if they are dropping “everywhere” maybe some people would consider spreading the love and donating a few of em to some other players? Yeah just because your friend got insanely lucky and happened to find a precursor doesn’t mean “they are dropping everywhere” also legendaries have lost all prestige so stop pretending like they should have more prestige, at this point they are just overly fancy ascended skins and Anet has done NOTHING to suggest that they want legendaries to be “prestigious” considering most of the stuff involved in getting them is simply grinding for hours

Honestly I think that precoursers should be dropping more frequently or their should be an alternate way of getting them, because at this point, people that already have a legendary can spread it to any other character, and those who are working towards one have an almost impossible task because of the insanely bloated prices of the precoursers

so in conclusion precoursers “aren’t dropping left and right” otherwise the prices on the TP would have tanked to achievable levels by now

This thread has literally nothing at all to do with the total drop rate. Go read either the first post or the one immediately prior to yours. Now close your mouth and sit down.

Linnael.1069:

For those of you that actually got the point but disagree, here’s a point of consideration: Do you think that players should be able to get a legendary by doing casual, unorganized content? I see a lot of statements along the lines of “no thanks casuals won’t ever get a pre”, but isn’t that the point of legendaries?

Yeah, I do think that precursers should drop from whatever mob/activity there is; Are people really that EXCITED when they get the ascended Teq chest or did they somehow expect that it will happen to them eventually?

To your point that casuals shouldn’t get one: I’m by no means a casual but I play differently from a lot of people – I can’t do champ farms/trains too often as they bore me to death, I have a problem with dungeons (stems from my time with wow), I’m a roamer in wvw (do small scale fights, no tower capping thus no loot), I don’t do pvp, farm all mats I need for crafting myself and actually help people to get something in this game, like skillpoints or anything.

A lot of people wouldn’t be happier when I wasn’t doing all of what I’m doing now and I actually think it requires more knowledge than learning how a dungeon works and doing that nonstop until a precurser drops.

Like I said before: The problem with legendaries isn’t that the precursers can drop anywhere but that they (ready made legendaries) are tradeable. There were a lot less if that wasn’t the case.
But do I care? No.

Edit: My usual if and would problem – hope it’s solved.
Edit²: Still working on the would if problem.

Zenith.6403:

Linnael.1069:

Why work my way up to harder content if it won’t even improve my chances?

- Could you explain what you mean by “working your way up” to “harder content”?

I’ll give you an example with dungeons:
Spend ~1 hour with a pug in Arah: 3.26 gold, 60 Arah tokens.
Spend ~1 hour with pugs in SE P1+P3 and CoF P1: 3.78 gold, 120 SE tokens, 60 CoF tokens.
Rewards don’t get better as the content gets harder. That’s a problem.

I’ve given up worrying or even trying to obtain ascended gear or even legendary weapons. The stat increase isn’t much and plus I’m not a big fan of “crafting” them. I wouldn’t mind seeing dungeon currency allowing us to buy gear.

Hopeless.5403:

I’ve given up worrying or even trying to obtain ascended gear or even legendary weapons. The stat increase isn’t much and plus I’m not a big fan of “crafting” them. I wouldn’t mind seeing dungeon currency allowing us to buy gear.

Dungeon tokens can buy gear. Although why it has to be marginalized to a single stat per dungeon is kind of stupid.

Linnael.1069:

If you thought this thread was about precursor’s dropping too often, precursors not dropping often enough, or legendaries being too hard to get, then I advise you to seek assistance before the next time you have to read something.

Oh, i know. This thread is about some players thinking that only people that play their way “deserve” a precursor.

Linnael.1069:

For those of you that actually got the point but disagree, here’s a point of consideration: Do you think that players should be able to get a legendary by doing casual, unorganized content?

Why not? It’s not like the content casuals like is in any way worse than the content that hardcores like.

Linnael.1069:

Where we’re at now a casual player who just does the world boss train each day has probably a better shot at getting a precursor than the hardcore Fotm runners. This is why legendaries don’t have prestige.

But they look nice. Well, some of them. I don’t really care about the prestige part.

Linnael.1069:

I’d go so far as to say that, if all you’re doing is facerolling open world trash, then no, you absolutely do not deserve to ever see a precursor drop.

And this is the point where we disagree. No player in this game is (or should be) more “worthy” than the other. It’s all about fun, which should be for everyone.

Yes, i know that some people think otherwise. I started playing GW2 in order to avoid those people (and their way of thinking) as much as possible.

Linnael.1069:

For those of you that actually got the point but disagree, here’s a point of consideration: Do you think that players should be able to get a legendary by doing casual, unorganized content? I see a lot of statements along the lines of “no thanks casuals won’t ever get a pre”, but isn’t that the point of legendaries?

Where we’re at now a casual player who just does the world boss train each day has probably a better shot at getting a precursor than the hardcore Fotm runners. This is why legendaries don’t have prestige.

I’d go so far as to say that, if all you’re doing is facerolling open world trash, then no, you absolutely do not deserve to ever see a precursor drop. I’m having a hard time seeing why there should be an expectation to the contrary.

You’re having a hard time parsing this because you feel that being good at a video game entitles you to the best stuff. The games that offer the best loot only in high-end instanced content are that way. This is not one of those games.

I get that you think that what passes for high-end content needs better rewards. I agree. However, these should be new rewards, not precursors. As to deserving… you’re playing a bleeding video game. Everyone paid a similar amount to get access. Legendaries have a large set of requirements. Playing 1% of the content of the game should not be one of them.

And before you make assumptions, I have no intention of making a legendary weapon, nor have I ever gotten a precursor. I just flat out disagree with your premise.

Linnael.1069:

This feel cheap to do, and is the reason why legendaries have near zero prestige right now.

Lol, the reason they seemingly have zero prestige is because this game has been out for over two years and legendary acquisition has always been about gold; something that most people have made plenty of during their time playing. There has also been the same set of legendaries since launch. Of course the prestige is starting to diminish.

As for the “farmer/RNGeeus” comment, uhh that’s what getting most decent cosmetic items comes down to in most games.

Oh and actually the single worst thing that happened to legendaries was making them buyable on TP, massive mistake by Anet. That was a nonsense decision and still is. Final nail in the coffin for any kind of “prestige” associated with them. Before this it was primarily about gold, now it’s all about gold.

Morsus.5106:

Zenith.6403:

Linnael.1069:

Why work my way up to harder content if it won’t even improve my chances?

- Could you explain what you mean by “working your way up” to “harder content”?

I’ll give you an example with dungeons:
Spend ~1 hour with a pug in Arah: 3.26 gold, 60 Arah tokens.
Spend ~1 hour with pugs in SE P1+P3 and CoF P1: 3.78 gold, 120 SE tokens, 60 CoF tokens.
Rewards don’t get better as the content gets harder. That’s a problem.

If the rewards get better. You’ll just get pre-made group making ridiculous amount of money.

And Anet dont’ seemed too keen to reward people with too much money.

I do think it is a problem, but I don’t know the solution.

I’ve done enough dungeons to buy the emperor title, moot, mjolnir, and several other frivelous/rediculously wasteful gold stuff, and I only seen about 5 or 6 precursors drop for guildies in all those dungeons. That being said, even if you don’t find a precursor on your own loot, if you do enough content you can buy whatever you want. I’m still tryin to trash gold, but no, you can’t have it

And this is an MMO with almost no level grind, so surprise, your grind is on RNG.

Cuddy.6247:

Ashen.2907:

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

No? Stagnation isn’t the same as stationary. Essentially the only farm that genuinely exists is a goldfarm and everything else is a footnote to the fact. What the OP suggests, and I’m inclined to heavily agree, is building actual farms through limited acquisition and higher drop tables, which generate actual farms. Dry Top/Silverwastes are no more a farm for precursors than doing EotM ktrain, dungeons or world bosses. Saying that anyone is farming Dry Top/Silverwastes, or anywhere for that matter, is farming for a precursor and not money is negligible stupidity, at best.

Precursors rise in price because of inflation, money enters trade at a faster rate than precursors do. If the game had any actual farms instead of just one massive goldfarm, you’d see farmers actually generate items for sale and money would enter at about the same rate and prices would massively stabilize until the demand for whatever item in question drastically changes.

My apologies, I was referring to the, “same amount of precursors,” comment you made. I completely agree that if currency is being produced, proportionally, at a much greater rate than are precursors then the price will continue to rise with the inflation.

In my now two years of game play, none have dropped for me from mobs or events of any kind. My conclusion is either I’ll get one from the forge or one day have saved enough gold to buy one.
The exotic drop rate in general is fairly low, at least for me.
Biggest annoyance is the amount of gold you can lose trying to get one, not to mention how long it can take to build gold stocks back up to try again.
It’s only over the last 4 months that I have seen other players pick up precursors from mobs. All except one were from the coil event.
My understanding is they can drop from any level mob or event that drop exotic items. Do not think it should change as the odds are of getting one are extremely low and no doubt there will be many players who have never had one drop or will never have one drop.

laokoko.7403:

Morsus.5106:

Zenith.6403:

Linnael.1069:

Why work my way up to harder content if it won’t even improve my chances?

- Could you explain what you mean by “working your way up” to “harder content”?

I’ll give you an example with dungeons:
Spend ~1 hour with a pug in Arah: 3.26 gold, 60 Arah tokens.
Spend ~1 hour with pugs in SE P1+P3 and CoF P1: 3.78 gold, 120 SE tokens, 60 CoF tokens.
Rewards don’t get better as the content gets harder. That’s a problem.

If the rewards get better. You’ll just get pre-made group making ridiculous amount of money.

And Anet dont’ seemed too keen to reward people with too much money.

I do think it is a problem, but I don’t know the solution.

EotM zerging, Mad King’s Labyrinth, Chests in Silverwastes (even after nerf), Champion trains in Frostgorge / Cursed Shore, for a company that doesn’t want to reward people with too much money they are not doing a very good job. Unless you meant that they don’t want people to make too much money running Arah or high end fractals only, because there are so many places that reward too much money in the game (compared to other content difficulty / time investment).

So, allowing players that run an Arah P4 or Aetherblade path or Fotm level 50, that takes ~40 minutes to finish, to get the same rewards as someone farming any of the above mentioned mindless zerging places for 40 minutes is going to hurt the game?

Just think how many players will actually do that, and how many players will continue farming their usual places, the vast majority will continue farming in their easy-mode farms, only a handful will make these premades you are afraid off…

maddoctor.2738:

So, allowing players that run an Arah P4 or Aetherblade path or Fotm level 50, that takes ~40 minutes to finish, to get the same rewards as someone farming any of the above mentioned mindless zerging places for 40 minutes is going to hurt the game?

Just think how many players will actually do that, and how many players will continue farming their usual places, the vast majority will continue farming in their easy-mode farms, only a handful will make these premades you are afraid off…

I don’t think that 40 min of farming any of the places brings even 50 silver, so those doing dungeons are better off anyway.

Ashen.2907:

Cuddy.6247:

Ashen.2907:

Cuddy.6247:

The inflation is a result of stagnation. More gold to spend, still the same amount of precursors.

Not sure if I understand this point. It seems that you are suggesting that without farmers the number of precursors in game would remain static ? This is not the case.

No? Stagnation isn’t the same as stationary. Essentially the only farm that genuinely exists is a goldfarm and everything else is a footnote to the fact. What the OP suggests, and I’m inclined to heavily agree, is building actual farms through limited acquisition and higher drop tables, which generate actual farms. Dry Top/Silverwastes are no more a farm for precursors than doing EotM ktrain, dungeons or world bosses. Saying that anyone is farming Dry Top/Silverwastes, or anywhere for that matter, is farming for a precursor and not money is negligible stupidity, at best.

Precursors rise in price because of inflation, money enters trade at a faster rate than precursors do. If the game had any actual farms instead of just one massive goldfarm, you’d see farmers actually generate items for sale and money would enter at about the same rate and prices would massively stabilize until the demand for whatever item in question drastically changes.

My apologies, I was referring to the, “same amount of precursors,” comment you made. I completely agree that if currency is being produced, proportionally, at a much greater rate than are precursors then the price will continue to rise with the inflation.

Yeah, items lag behind currency because there are no farms. Sure, it’s of some benefit to the farming community – but I don’t see why people don’t realize that letting farmers farm precursors at a faster rate for “us” means the Average Joe can farm money and still buy a precursor or any other item. I recall in GW1 never farming for much but I was able to acquire enough wealth in a stabilized market to actually afford things, rather than watching prices climb higher by the month.

Not only that, but it gives incentive to do different content. It has never, ever been a problem in MMO games before – I fail to see why it should start now.

There’s no downside to lowered accessibility with higher drop rates, there really isn’t. At least not when you expose the current farming trends for what they are.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Played from day 1, 8k hours in game. I’ve had one precursor drop in all that time.

Precursors are not “dropping everywhere”.

This^^^ e’nuff said. Played from the beginning and not one precursor drop. OP is way off.

Linnael.1069:

The reason precursors feel so nasty to acquire isn’t that they’re too rare. Based on my knowledge of MMOs, players will literally grind for anything. The problem is that they’re too distributed.

Spamming autoattack on world bosses and farm trains shouldn’t get you essentially the same odds for a precursor as Arah or FotM 50. There’s absolutely no reason for there to even be a minuscule chance of them dropping off of trash mobs.

When so much faceroll content has odds of dropping a pre, the odds for any given activity have to be crazy low to keep the supply limited. Players are pushed into this global lottery where nothing feels like progression. Why work my way up to harder content if it won’t even improve my chances?

This leads to a situation where the most effective method is to find the easiest gold grind and buy it off the TP, rather than actually putting any effort into playing the game. This feel cheap to do, and is the reason why legendaries have near zero prestige right now. When you see a legendary these days, all it means is “farmer” or “RNGeesus”.

My suggestion:Take precursors off of trash mob loot tables. Take them out of afk-auto world bosses. Dramatically raise the odds of them dropping in actual content, so that players get to feel like they can do something about getting them, and they regain a bit of prestige factor.

What do you guys think? Would it actually help the process of getting a legendary feel more special, or would it see too much casual backlash?

I dont think basic trash mobs like moas or should have them drop but [EDIT] the chance to get them from veteran and from world bosses especially should be much higher. Also there should be a much better chance in dungeon, fractal loot. This especially because the effort and cost to make the legendary even with having a precursor is still high.

I have played many hours from early start and have not had one drop.

As numerous others can claim, I’ve played since launch and have yet to see a precursor drop from any loot.

I’ve had other exotics (no blue text at the bottom) and ascended chests, but no precursors.

Cuddy.6247:

Yeah, items lag behind currency because there are no farms. Sure, it’s of some benefit to the farming community – but I don’t see why people don’t realize that letting farmers farm precursors at a faster rate for “us” means the Average Joe can farm money and still buy a precursor or any other item. I recall in GW1 never farming for much but I was able to acquire enough wealth in a stabilized market to actually afford things, rather than watching prices climb higher by the month.

Not only that, but it gives incentive to do different content. It has never, ever been a problem in MMO games before – I fail to see why it should start now.

There’s no downside to lowered accessibility with higher drop rates, there really isn’t. At least not when you expose the current farming trends for what they are.

There is a downside. There are so few items that drop that are worth getting excited over. Removing one type of such drops from 99% of the places they can drop now means that tiny bit less chance of getting a drop and feeling excited. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’d rather preserve that possibility because there is zero excitement in farming gold. At best, farming gold is incremental excitement, parceling enjoyment into tiny little bits too small to really notice.

In the two+ years I’ve played this game, I’ve gotten maybe 2 drops that gave me a feeling of, “Great!” I’d rather the game had more of that, not less, no matter how unlikely it is I’ll get one. And no, I prefer not to have to do the 1% of content to get such a drop.

Have never found a precursor.
It’s rare enough already.

Linnael.1069:

The reason precursors feel so nasty to acquire isn’t that they’re too rare. Based on my knowledge of MMOs, players will literally grind for anything. The problem is that they’re too distributed.

Spamming autoattack on world bosses and farm trains shouldn’t get you essentially the same odds for a precursor as Arah or FotM 50. There’s absolutely no reason for there to even be a minuscule chance of them dropping off of trash mobs.

When so much faceroll content has odds of dropping a pre, the odds for any given activity have to be crazy low to keep the supply limited. Players are pushed into this global lottery where nothing feels like progression. Why work my way up to harder content if it won’t even improve my chances?

This leads to a situation where the most effective method is to find the easiest gold grind and buy it off the TP, rather than actually putting any effort into playing the game. This feel cheap to do, and is the reason why legendaries have near zero prestige right now. When you see a legendary these days, all it means is “farmer” or “RNGeesus”.

My suggestion:Take precursors off of trash mob loot tables. Take them out of afk-auto world bosses. Dramatically raise the odds of them dropping in actual content, so that players get to feel like they can do something about getting them, and they regain a bit of prestige factor.

What do you guys think? Would it actually help the process of getting a legendary feel more special, or would it see too much casual backlash?

Thats the main problem with any reward. Much items can drop anywhere but extremely extremely rare. Meaning you can’t work directly towards it. What then results in people grinding stuff they don’t want to sell to get gold to buy what they want. And of course then there are the cash-shop items you can also only get for gold. Those things together make everything a gold grind. (what might be great for there cash-shop but bad for the game).

The only difference with precursors is that the drop-rate is even more rate so the price is even higher so the grind takes even longer. But essential this is how much of the rewarding in GW2 works.

And yes that is not good but for as long as they use the cash-shop to generate income I don’t think this will change a lot. But maybe your lucky and they will then change it for the precursors.

maddoctor.2738:

So, allowing players that run an Arah P4 or Aetherblade path or Fotm level 50, that takes ~40 minutes to finish, to get the same rewards as someone farming any of the above mentioned mindless zerging places for 40 minutes is going to hurt the game?

I actually do Fotm 50 everyday. I think the rewards is really good. That is if you actually care about ascended armor of other stats and have a bunch of alts that need gear.

Some path arah p4, SE p2, for example are obviously too long for the rewards. The other arah dungeons people actually run them in dungeon tour group.

My point is aetherblade path can take 20 minutes in a good group. The problem is in a bad pug you probably wipe over and over again.

Moral of the precursor drop story is to “KILL EVERYTHING!” whether a level 10 or 83 mob.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Cuddy.6247:

Yeah, items lag behind currency because there are no farms. Sure, it’s of some benefit to the farming community – but I don’t see why people don’t realize that letting farmers farm precursors at a faster rate for “us” means the Average Joe can farm money and still buy a precursor or any other item. I recall in GW1 never farming for much but I was able to acquire enough wealth in a stabilized market to actually afford things, rather than watching prices climb higher by the month.

Not only that, but it gives incentive to do different content. It has never, ever been a problem in MMO games before – I fail to see why it should start now.

There’s no downside to lowered accessibility with higher drop rates, there really isn’t. At least not when you expose the current farming trends for what they are.

There is a downside. There are so few items that drop that are worth getting excited over. Removing one type of such drops from 99% of the places they can drop now means that tiny bit less chance of getting a drop and feeling excited. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’d rather preserve that possibility because there is zero excitement in farming gold. At best, farming gold is incremental excitement, parceling enjoyment into tiny little bits too small to really notice.

In the two+ years I’ve played this game, I’ve gotten maybe 2 drops that gave me a feeling of, “Great!” I’d rather the game had more of that, not less, no matter how unlikely it is I’ll get one. And no, I prefer not to have to do the 1% of content to get such a drop.

You can always acquire the wealth to get the item that gives you that “Great!” feeling. And, to the benefit of you, having a farm would make it cheaper! I don’t see why it’s any less meaningful just because RNG didn’t give it to you. It’s how WoW does it. It’s how GW1 does it. And I’m persuaded by WoW and GW1 to say that is how GW2 should do it. No, I don’t want GW2 to be a WoW/GW1 clone – but basic features in the game like drops, loot and distribution probably shouldn’t be tampered with – not when previous models work so well.

Also, there is hardly a 99:1 ratio here. There are so many potential farms…it would be silly to employ the idea that precursors should only drop from Arah, but rather that a certain item should only be obtainable in Arah’s end chest or something. Similarly could be said for any world boss. WvW Stonemist Keep having its own special drop table with a 1-2% chance of something coveted would be cool as well.

Think of it like WoW or GW1. In WoW, some items are bound to the dungeon – you might not want to do a dungeon to get T4 armor but you could certainly farm another dungeon, get the valuables from that, and buy your T4. Basically anything that wasn’t BoA. In GW1, you might not have been a fan of UWSC but you could always do MTSC or DoASC (which both had many more options and different styles of play) and just trade your wealth for the item(s) you want. There can be several farms that coexist, allowing people to do what they enjoy and generate a supply – along with stabilizing prices tremendously beyond a never ending state of inflation.

You’ll see in GW1 how inflation has hit the economy like a lead weight because over half of the farmers no longer farm – and it’s basically become exactly like GW2…where currency (ectos) enter faster than the items they want to buy. That’s because the only 3 farms that I ever see going on still are UWSC, MTSC and rarely MQSC.

To summarize:

Goldfarming is bad.

Item farming is good.

no critically better rewards for more challenging activities is a fundamental design choice of GW2. Do I like it? Hell, no. Do I think it is best for Anet´s business. Yep, “everyone is a special snowflake” makes a succesful game these days.

The whole system of getting a precursor is flawed. There should be an epic set of quests that you can complete (solo) in order to earn your precursor (of your choice) and along the way the quests reward much of what you will need to make the legendary, so that when you complete the quest chain you feel like you deserve the legendary as you have achieved something to obtain it.

I know they were planning on doing a ‘precursor’ series of events but the plan was dropped- probably as they spend all their time on living bs and nothing else.

The issue is actually deeper than just the drop table for precursers.

There is more incentive to do the world bosses on timers, than work together in a group to complete dungeons. It should be the other way around. Lack of rewarding items and length dilutes dungeons into being extra content that is done for completion titles/AP, or small group of farmers who enjoy the minute rewards received.

World events have become the laziest example of ‘group content’, and rewards players better more efficiently than other end game content.

OnyX.9027:

yup they are dropping everywhere…

Hahahahahahahahaaa /endofsarcasticlaugh

The laugh was too short m8, I suggest you to edit your post.

:D

dkspins.4670:

Moral of the precursor drop story is to “KILL EVERYTHING!” whether a level 10 or 83 mob.

Ha, so that’s what undead minions mean by yelling this at me all the time, thanks for clarification

Linnael.1069:

For those of you that actually got the point but disagree, here’s a point of consideration: Do you think that players should be able to get a legendary by doing casual, unorganized content?

I think the term ‘Legendary’ should be changed to ‘Vanity’. These are Vanity Items. There’s nothing remotely legendary about them. Unless it’s the amount of grind and/or gold and/or pure luck involved in their creation.

A legendary item should be legendary because person wielding it performed and/or participated in legendary deeds with the kitten thing. Not because it’s shiny and makes the wielder’s footprints look silly.

SPOILER BELOW for New Players who have not yet Experienced the Personal Story. Stop here, New Players.

Last chance.

Taking down Zhaitan was a legendary feat (even if the presentation was epically lacking). Whatever weapon the player character used in that fight should be that character’s ‘legendary item’. It might have been upgraded with trinkets and souvenirs found along the way, to make it more shiny and magical; or possibly at some point it might have been damaged and reforged/remade, with better (and more shiny) materials.

Or maybe it was destroyed in that final legendary (yeah, yeah) battle, but members of the Pact gathered up the remains and rebuilt the weapon for their beloved and revered and now legendary Commander, fusing the remaining pieces with components of highest quality in turn infused with Essence of Dragon or Pact Power or a drop of Trahearne Sap or something.

“Here ya go, Commander! You earned it! Hip Hip Hooray and all that!”

That would be a Legendary Weapon.

No footprints, though. Fingerprints, maybe. Or if the wielder passes gas, there’s a rainbow. That would be cool.

Believe it or not whilst on wvw a commander actually got precursor to the legendary hammer…. He always gets the best drops, also he already has the jauggernaut, lucky kitten…..

The amount of people in this thread misinterpreting the OP in order to be able to offer “witty” retorts to something that was never claimed (at least in the OP) is staggering…

Guys, guys, “precursors dropping everywhere” does not mean that they drop all the time. Stop pretending that’s what was stated. It means that it has a chance to drop literally everywhere, in every place and from every thing that can drop a weapon. Every mob can drop a precursor, but the chance is really really really low. What the OP is arguing is that it should be removed from some of the loot tables for trivial content, and that the chance to drop should be increased in more challenging areas. What is “trivial” and “more challenging” is quite debatable, of course. Some people still find certain parts of the open world challenging, while others consider running FOTM 50 to be quite trivial.

OP are you out of your mind? I played about 2,5k hours and 1 precursor dropped that was worth 40 f——-king gold.