Guild Wars 2

Well just realized something, is the requirements for the Auric Weapons Collection intended (basic collection)? Entire collection costs:

Aurilium – 5800
Auric Ingots -110 = 3300 auric dust + 3300 auric slivers

+ others like linsed oil, orichalcum ingots/ancient planks

Let’s say you have 6 toons, you take 2 hand weapons from story and PvP track then you are left with just one hand weapons cool, but… you still need:

Aurilum – 2500
Auric Ingots – 45 = 1350 auric dust + 1350 auric slivers

Question: For real?! This is like uber grind, not to mention having to use ascended materials to craft rare materials (auric dust required for auric ingots) makes completely no sense.

Let’s say you open all chests after completion (26-27) and average you get 1 dust, you will still need 50 successful runs when you had to buy about 20 additional keys from merchant for 200 aurilium + 19 silver total.

Would be nice if some dev would say that its working as inteded, as it seems bit overpriced.

PS. I know I’m not forced to do it, but since expansion is basing on collections they should be made people do more interesting stuff than just grind to death for rewards which aren’t even worth the effort.

That is insanely expensive and hard, they should fix the recipe and make it take less.

Just keep redoing the personal story.

Grey.5731:

Well just realized something, is the requirements for the Auric Weapons Collection intended (basic collection)? Entire collection costs:

Aurilium – 5800
Auric Ingots -110 = 3300 auric dust + 3300 auric slivers

+ others like linsed oil, orichalcum ingots/ancient planks

Let’s say you have 6 toons, you take 2 hand weapons from story and PvP track then you are left with just one hand weapons cool, but… you still need:

Aurilum – 2500
Auric Ingots – 45 = 1350 auric dust + 1350 auric slivers

Question: For real?! This is like uber grind, not to mention having to use ascended materials to craft rare materials (auric dust required for auric ingots) makes completely no sense.

Let’s say you open all chests after completion (26-27) and average you get 1 dust, you will still need 50 successful runs when you had to buy about 20 additional keys from merchant for 200 aurilium + 19 silver total.

Would be nice if some dev would say that its working as inteded, as it seems bit overpriced.

PS. I know I’m not forced to do it, but since expansion is basing on collections they should be made people do more interesting stuff than just grind to death for rewards which aren’t even worth the effort.

If the rewards aren’t worth the effort, don’t do it. Why is this hard to understand?

Because there isn’t much to do except those collections? Also I’m not doing it at current state, just wanted to point out that the requirements are kind too demanding for both reward and basic collection.

Malediktus.9250:

Just keep redoing the personal story.

Will it give the rewards even if they were already done by specific character? I thought it didn’t work like that at least with Core stories.

Different characters have always been able to earn their own rewards in the personal story, even in the core game. It’s the achievements/mastery points that can only be earned once.

Dulfy has a page which suggests which weapon each class should select in order to minimize costs:
http://dulfy.net/2015/11/08/gw2-hot-weapons-armor-and-backpieces-guide/#Auric_Weapons

Yep, HoT is just a collection fest. It’s sad but true. I’ve tried to do some of them, but I just get board of doing the same thing over and over and over. I’ve got to the point now that unless I’m in a HoT map doing personal story, I don’t bother with anything on the map at all. After doing the first 3 maps about 4-5 times each, I got really bored with then. I’ve only done DS once dew to the timer. It always seems to be at a time that I’m busy. But hay, there is nothing I really want anyway. Things I would like to have, but I just can’t be bothered with the grind.

Before anyone says it’s not grind, it is. You can’t get the items any other way than grinding out events on the map. It’s not like I could go play PvP and get them that way.

onevstheworld.2419:

Different characters have always been able to earn their own rewards in the personal story, even in the core game. It’s the achievements/mastery points that can only be earned once.

Dulfy has a page which suggests which weapon each class should select in order to minimize costs:
http://dulfy.net/2015/11/08/gw2-hot-weapons-armor-and-backpieces-guide/#Auric_Weapons

This is what Malediktus said:

Malediktus.9250:

Just keep redoing the personal story.

This is what I said:

Grey.5731:

Will it give the rewards even if they were already done by specific character?

Conclusion: I stated that redoing story with specific character didn’t work with Core game neither it does with HoT, according to what I’ve heard at least.

If Malediktus suggested buying extra character slots just for the story, would be kinda bad to spend like 10 * ~150 g ( there are 10 one hand weapons ) = 1500g to complete basic collection instead of grind (not to mention you need to grind a lot to get that amount of money, or I’m missing something crucial.

Apologies, I did misunderstand both those posts.

Anyway, back to your original point:

Like it or not, all MMORPGs need some sort of incentive for their players to keep playing. Some MMOs make it near compulsory to repeatly complete a lower tier dungeon in order to get the better gear so you have a reasonable chance at a higher tier one. Or you need to gain XP in increasingly difficult zones in order to progress your level. GW2 is different in there is no further gear progression once you get max tier equipment and there level progression is capped too.

Instead one of it’s major incentives are getting the cooler/rarer skins. Immobulus is a great example… when giant eyes used to cost 5-8g apiece, who in their right mind would ever consider owning one? But people did, and they did it for the prestige it gave them. Black lion weapon collections are a similar extreme (Interestingly, I’m surprised I don’t see threads complaining about the impossibility of BL skin collections). Some other collections are so trivial, noone values them (e.g. Bandit/Krait weapons). Auric weapons falls in between somewhere.

I feel Auric weapons are a reasonable compromise… it’s easy to get the 2-3 skins that you really like, but the whole set requires a lot more effort and planning.

My personal feeling is that the whole concept of grind is a subjective thing in relation to cosmetic items. You can perceive it as grind, or as a valuable reward for your effort. It’s just like owning a Ferrarri; for some it’s a major milestone in life, but for others it’s money better spent elsewhere. A Ferrarri is never compulsary.

Unless Anet decide it has made a mistake and changes the system, we’ve got to live with what we’re given. I like a few of the skins (which I now have), but don’t value the whole collection, nor its reward, that highly, so I spent my efforts elsewhere in the game. Easy choice. You obviously attach more value to that collection, so you are considering the opportunity costs of the Auric collection. Less easy choice, but it is still a choice.

These weapon collections seem like a long-term goal than rush in a week one. With that said I have no intention to rush them. I’ll slowly gather flax and make linseed and at some point I have enough to make one.

@onevstheworld

Mostly I agree with you I think most people don’t really complain about BL collections, since at least to me they are pretty much for people who spent cash/in-game gold on gems, as they are not really accessible via other in-game methods (you can’t farm keys in a ‘normal’ way).
I don’t even mind other hard collections like full ascendent, or exotic weapons collections, which ain’t easy. Just auric weapons are placed in the ‘basic’ collections, and they require way too much than any other, even if you decide to go for specific dungeon collection there is nice way to get them (3 different dungeon paths + pvp reward track which helps a lot), here you just have to do ONE specific meta, I don’t consider maguma reward track a viable method, since full track gives you just one auric ingot (2 hand weapon’s core needs 10, 1 hand weapon’s needs 5). In addition meta is time gated, which forces you to play at specific time and that makes it even worse.

And yes we have a choice, mine for the current state is just not care about this as it’s way too demanding in my opinion, which is sad as there is not much to achieve in the expansion except collections.

@Bambu

Linseed oil is not a problem at all in this collection, auric dust (needed for auric ingots) is. I’ve done the tarir meta about 30 times, cleared map and story with 6 characters and I don’t even have a stack of auric dust, I took 2 hand weapons from story and pvp track, so I’m left with just one handed and they still require 1350 dust (sic!).

Mainly been playing with one char. I crafted a couple weapons in the beginning and let it rest. Then last week, I decided i wanted to finish it, and powerplayed Tarir over a whole week to grind ten weapons so i could craft and complete the collection. The auric and luminates backpieces are lovely!

Managed to complete this with only crafting 2 weapons (pistol and shield). One of the perks to having a problem when it comes to alts. Had to craft those 2 because I only had 1 engi.

That said, it did burn me out a bit, so I haven’t gone back to AB to work on the second part of the collection to get the ascended version of the backplate yet.

Also, you rarely doget auric ingots from the chests after the AB meta event. Not completely reliable, but its not like you need 250 per weapon or anything.

I used tomes to make new 80’s, took em through the storyline getting Chak skins, Auric skins, n leystone armors, with my primary goal being the armors.
Didn’t actually take too long that way, had to craft a few still but was faster than getting all the Chak skins.
I deleted the chars that I made for this purpose, so didn’t need to worry about slots, though I’m sure a lot of people don’t have a free slot to do this.

That one comment that said just keep redoing HoT personal story … totes agreed. I only had to make like, 3 weapons. I ran 14 characters through AB for this.

edit: am also burned out after running through with a lot of alts, but it is much cheaper/easier than to make weapons. I still have tons of ingots + dust left over.

Running the story is what I did for most of the auric and Chak weapon collections.

Personal story, pvp rewards… easy

Malediktus.9250:

Just keep redoing the personal story.

This! I actually made a list of which class could choose which weapons as reward and just ran my 13 characters through; picking the weapon I needed and taking it off my list.

I admit that it was a little tedious (and not everyone has 13 level 80 characters) but still doable and in the end I think I only had to craft 2 more weapons myself and I was done.

This is GW2, the only thing keeping people going is eternal grinds for gear that if you already have gear of ascended quality will do literally nothing for you.

Rasgalinj.2763:

This is GW2, the only thing keeping people going is eternal grinds for gear that if you already have gear of ascended quality will do literally nothing for you.

I’d quit playing long before starting any “eternal grind” for “gear”. Everyone I play with feels the same. Unless we represent the tiniest niche of players, then there are lots of other things “keeping people going” other than grinding for stuff.

To everyone who is saying “run the story with many characters” you are missing the point. Auric weapons are needlessly expensive to craft and the ability to get them by other means is irrelevant.

I don’t see any problem with that collection. It is not like you need it. If you want to appease your collectionist syndrom, you can do it.

maddoctor.2738:

To everyone who is saying “run the story with many characters” you are missing the point. Auric weapons are needlessly expensive to craft and the ability to get them by other means is irrelevant.

This exactly, if you have enough toons sure you can run story which is easy, but if you would like to go ( or don’t have that many slots ) crafting, the collections is terrible as the requirements are really high and not to mention they don’t make any sense (ascended material needed to craft rare material).

So it’s not just to whine about the colllection itself, it’s just the crafting way, which should be nerfed (in my opinion at least).

Mortifer.2946:

I don’t see any problem with that collection. It is not like you need it. If you want to appease your collectionist syndrom, you can do it.

There is not much to do in HoT except collections, that’s the case.

Grey.5731:

There is not much to do in HoT except collections, that’s the case.

You mean, there’s not much for you to do. I’m not working on collections at all and I have plenty of things to do.

I have 9 classes and 1 from PvP → only 6 weapons left.

That are 30 auric ingots (you get 5 for achievements and a few out of the Tarir chests or noxious pods – you can get the rest by collecting the auric dust)
1500 or less Aurillium – doable, compared to e.g. blade armor parts (you get a recipe out of the AB PvP reward track)
60 vials of lineseed oil – around 45 gold

I just did Tarir like 30 times, opened only the 5 biggest chests (while exploring AB with my first 7 toons) and I’m only missing two weapons now. Chak weapons are way harder since you can’t get 2hand weapons from story rewards and chak eggs are harder to get than auric dust (they’re cheaper however).

Thanathos as it was already mentioned with additional toons it’s easy, imagine you have basic 5 and instead of needing 30 ingots you need 50 auric ingots, I’ve done successful tarir 25 times and I got like 2-3 ingots drops and about 300 dust ( i was opening chests with more than one toon couple of times).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Grey.5731:

There is not much to do in HoT except collections, that’s the case.

You mean, there’s not much for you to do. I’m not working on collections at all and I have plenty of things to do.

Really? Like what? Raid – once per week, story – once, map completion – once, not much to repeat except collections and I’ve done all of it pretty much by playing ~2 h per day average.

I see. I still think that it’s easier than chak weapons.
It may be a bit tedious, but if you want to try to get all achievements anyways, you can combine it with rescuing Tarir 100 times. This should give you enough dust and aurillium.
Maybe I was just lucky with those direct ingot drops, but I’d guess that ~70 times should still be more than enough.

You get a unique backpiece which unlocks a second collection to get an Ascended backpiece. That’s probably part of the reason for the high cost, since they seem to like to keep Ascended back items costly / difficult to acquire.

Doing the no mask left behind achievement gets you an aurilium node for your home instance. I know that you will still need to do the runs but maybe it helps to get some more aurilium in an easy way.

Doing the final meta and tagging all four octovines will allows you to get about 150 Aurillium.

A thought occurs: don’t you make decent bank from doing the AB meta? Last I checked, opening all the chests resulted in me getting all 80 inventory slots filled with loot.

If the grind was consuming and cost oodles of money, I would definitely understand the sentiment. Doing the AB meta 50 times and ending up spending hundreds of gold just to get an achievement point and a title, yeah that is horrible. But if you’re making money doing this achievement, then its not much different from grinding for a legendary or for full ascended. To buy Juggernaut I spent literally a week running a chest train in Silverwastes.

@Thanatos – Actually i find chak weapons easier, I’ve been doing TD/AB meta every day for quite some time and I need like 3 more eggs and I’m done with Chaks and need about 5 1h auric weapons. As even if you fail the meta in TD you are rewarded with chak egg (note it rarerly fails), which seems to be the main problem in this collection and consider if you have 6 toons + 2 chakk weapon chests (achievement + pvp track) that leaves you with approximately 4 2h weapons and 6 1h weapons, which in total costs about 38, so you will need maximum 38 runs if you haven’t dropped any eggas from caches/bonus chests. In general in the worst case 5 runs of TD are needed for one 2h weapon (you will get enough ley-line crystals + 5 eggs), for one Auric Weapon 1 handed you need 150 dust (it’s down to RNG but I usually get around 10 dust per run), which would be 15 runs, that makes 1h auric weapon needs 3 times more grind than chak 2 handed weapon.

@SlateSloan, @Ayrilana – Aurilium is not the problem here, ascended dust/auric ingots are.

@Blood Red Arachnid – Fair point I agree on that one, doing meta can be rewarding, never said it isn’t.