Guild Wars 2

If i put exotics in the mystic forge am i more likely to get a precursor than if you just put rares in im trying to get dusk and buying it isnt going to be an option for me please help

I’m not a MF guru, but I guess it’s the same chance (not profit) – assuming you get lucky with the rares and get an exotic.

Simple math:

Scenario 1 – 4 exotics
– Chance of getting exotic back = 1 (100%)
– Chance of this exotic being a precursor = X
Actual chance of getting a precursor = 1*X = X

Scenario 2 – 4 rares
– Chance of getting exotic back = 0.2 (20%)
– Chance of this exotic being a precursor = still X
Actual chance of getting a precursor = 0.2X

So you’re certainly more likely to get a precursor when forging 4 exotics over 4 rares, but it might cost you a lot more…

Always go for rares, you can forge many more swords and with this type of gambling the more swords you put in the more you will approach the general odds %. Which is about 48 precursors/20000 gold based on rare swords. If you use exotics you have higher chance of getting a precursor but you can forge far far far less swords for the same amount of gold. Not enough to bridge gap between both odds %.

Also, anyone attempting this. Understand that 20k/48 precursors would technically mean 1.2 precursors per 500g. However, compare it to flipping coins. If you flip a coin you have a 50% chance. You can flip 5 in a row and get screwed by RNG hard and get the one side you didn’t choose all 5 times. Now flip 1000 coins and it will be extremely unlikely for your win/lose ratio to not get very close to 50%. Most likely it’ll be anywhere from 49-51% win/lose ratio. The same applies to precursors. The more swords you forge the more likely you are going to approach the predicted odds.

With 20k gold in forge and an expected 48 precursors, you’d need to get 36 to break even/zero profit. It’s extremely unlikely you only get 36 when forging that many swords (20k gold is about 26k swords + you will get many rare swords back + gold back from selling exotics you get so probably closer to 30k swords)

I hope this helps, the one thing to take away from this is: If you don’t spend alot of gold (500 at the very minimum) then it’s usually a waste of your gold. People who throw in 20-50 gold every now and then might get lucky but they are better off saving it up and spending alot in one go. If for some reason you are poor and 500 gold or more is sometimes you will never have, accept the fact that unless lady luck is on your side you will not, statistically speaking, ever get a precursor from the forge. Better off to just hope it drops then.

Spending 20-50 gold at a time or 500+ gold at a time doesn’t matter. The drop rate from the forge isn’t cumulative and each forge attempt is independent from the others.

Ayrilana.1396:

Spending 20-50 gold at a time or 500+ gold at a time doesn’t matter. The drop rate from the forge isn’t cumulative and each forge attempt is independent from the others.

Verificus is simply stating that with more attempts the chance of getting the desired result is bigger, which is true and completely logical. It’s like buying 100 tickets instead of 1, but also means the investment is bigger. So you’re both completely correct. Though I’m also a fan of more attempts at once, makes the RNG feel slightly less extreme.

@Ayrilana
Then you don’t understand what I am saying. I’ll lay it out again. It’s about variance in odds. If you flip a coin 10 times there is a much much higher variance of not getting the expected 50/50 odds. If you flip a coin a million times it will most likely be 49.999% or 50.111% or anywhere between that. The same goes for forging precursors. Odds have been calculated based on research many people have done using large sums of gold. Based on current rare GS prices on TP 20k gold = 48 precursors on average. Aka expected odds. Since you only need 36 to break even and those chances are very unlikely it is extremely like to profit on precursor forging when you invest a large sum like 20k gold. The odds don’t change ofcourse and many people can get a precursors using just 4 swords or only 100g or whatever random amount. But on average, the people who spend the most money forging will get the highest return because the variance gets lower as you spend more gold. You can always get screwed over by RNG anyway as they are only odds, not guarantees, even with high sums of gold. It isn’t very likely however. For anyone who attempts this seriously, either as way of making money (like I do) or because you really want the precursor for your legendary weapon you gotta be willing to invest a little. More times than not forging a precursor is cheaper than buying it.

Verificus.4320:

@Ayrilana
Then you don’t understand what I am saying. I’ll lay it out again. It’s about variance in odds. If you flip a coin 10 times there is a much much higher variance of not getting the expected 50/50 odds. If you flip a coin a million times it will most likely be 49.999% or 50.111% or anywhere between that. The same goes for forging precursors. Odds have been calculated based on research many people have done using large sums of gold. Based on current rare GS prices on TP 20k gold = 48 precursors on average. Aka expected odds. Since you only need 36 to break even and those chances are very unlikely it is extremely like to profit on precursor forging when you invest a large sum like 20k gold. The odds don’t change ofcourse and many people can get a precursors using just 4 swords or only 100g or whatever random amount. But on average, the people who spend the most money forging will get the highest return because the variance gets lower as you spend more gold. You can always get screwed over by RNG anyway as they are only odds, not guarantees, even with high sums of gold. It isn’t very likely however. For anyone who attempts this seriously, either as way of making money (like I do) or because you really want the precursor for your legendary weapon you gotta be willing to invest a little. More times than not forging a precursor is cheaper than buying it.

Still though, there’s no difference between doing X amount of attempts over time compared compared to doing X amount of attempts in one sitting. The result will still be the same. That’s what I was arguing.

Then you don’t understand how RNG works.
What you are saying is wrong.

Variance is incredibly important when it comes to RNG. Having the same statistical chance (lets take an arbritrary number like 0.001%) does not mean if one person does a million forges over a million days and the other does a million forges in a single day that they will both average the same amount of precursors if the process is repeated. Because this is were variance comes in. Back to my coinflipping example. Flip a million coins a day and you can get 50k coins straight that are heads or tails. But at the end of the day the odds are approx 50/50. Similarily if you only flip 1 coin every day you can easily go 50 days without ever getting tails, because when we are going for so many coin flips 50 heads or tails in a row is such a minute deviation of the pattern it largely goes unnoticed after the 1 millionth coin flip.

Translate this to precursors and the person who spends more money, both in total amount and in amount per day, is going to be getting more precursors as someone who casually puts in 20g every day.

I think what you actually mean to say is: If John spends 500 gold each time he forges and gets 1 precursor then on average people will be getting their precursor after spending a total of 500 gold. But even then you still forget about variance. There is 1000’s of people throwing swords into the forge everyday, how many people walk away with precursors? The variance is huge even at pretty good odds of 1.2 pre/500g. The only people who are drowning in pre’s are people that power trade on the TP and can afford to buy multiples or people that have large amounts of gold somewhere and spend it all in one go.

This is not like Diablo where the game tracks your RNG and boosts it by alot if you haven’t gotten the jackpot in a while. To sort of compensate people who people who get the short end of the RNG stick. GW2 has no such system (afaik). As such, some people may never ever get a pre despite having sunk in a million gold (each at really small amounts of 20g) because of the high variance in RNG. While others can kind of ‘cheat’ RNG by sinking in huge amounts of gold that will dimish variance by a lot and moves away from the RNG and more towards the exact possible odds.

Edit:
Thought of an easier TL;DR example.
Let’s assume for argument’s sake 500 gold = 100% of getting a precursor.
That means 10 gold = 2% chance of getting a precursor.
If you spend 10 gold every day you have to deal with a 2% chance every day. While technically 50 days makes up 500 gold and 100% it’s very possible to get nothing all 50 days because you are dealing with a 2% every time. The person who spends 500g could get it on the first forge or the last forge. And the person who spends 10g a day is dealing with the same overall % chance to drop but with only 10g this guy relies on luck and the one spending 500g relies on expected odds (in our example 100%). Anyone should be able to see here it’s smarter to save up 500g rather than spend 10g/day.

I don’t believe that you really understand what’s going on. What players perceive doesn’t matter as doing one million forges over time is no different than doing one million forges in one sitting. Not everyone will get the same exact result but that difference would be experienced between two people who do one million forges in one sitting as well.

You haven’t seemed to grasp yet that doing X number of forges over time will yield the same results of doing the same X number of forges in one sitting. You appear to be implying that doing them all at once somehow gives you a statistical advantage which it doesn’t. There’s variances between everything but that same variance would be the same. The variance range between forging X over time would be the same as forging at once just as it would be the same for two people forging X at once.

Yes, someone who spends more in one sitting will typically have better pribability of getting the results that they want but that’s irrelavent to the argument that I have made. What people perceive as they’re doing the forges is irrelevant as it’s subjective. The calculations for the probability is not.

Edit: Also, your example you edited in is very wrong. Nothing is 100% unless it is hard-coded into the game to bypass the laws of probability. That percentage calculated for spending 500G is derived from the calculations of the forges up to that amount. The gap of time between forges doesn’t matter.

I highly suggest you do the calculations. I really wish this thread was in the general sub forum and more visible to those that are much better explaining this than I.

Again you do not read properly. I specificaly state i’m giving an example, to make my point more clear. Nowhere did I state those are the actual chances.
And you just admit in your post ‘Yes, someone who spends more in one sitting will typically have better probability of getting the results that they want’
Which is exactly the point of the thread and the point im trying to make.
OP asks about exotics vs rares for forging. Implying he aims to get his desired precursor through forging rather than buying or hoping it drops. Therefore I give him the best possible advice. Go for rares, and forge a whole bunch of them at a time, rather than little or one at a time. This makes it more likely to get what he wants. If he instead goes for small 10-20 forges it is very likely he will not get what he wants. This is how it is. English isn’t my native language so maybe I mix up the terms or words and you misunderstand me because of that but the what I just said is the way it is.

Me and some other ‘richer’ guildies take this approach daily and it provides us with profit on par with the projected 20k/48 pre or 500/1.2 pre every single time. In fact, it is my main method of acquiring gold in this game. Yet, all the other guildies who do not have these amounts of gold to spend also very regurlary put stuff in the forge (like with dungeon tokens or small amounts of gold) and they never get precursors and never make back the money they spend.

Verificus.4320:

Again you do not read properly. I specificaly state i’m giving an example, to make my point more clear. Nowhere did I state those are the actual chances.
And you just admit in your post ‘Yes, someone who spends more in one sitting will typically have better probability of getting the results that they want’
Which is exactly the point of the thread and the point im trying to make.
OP asks about exotics vs rares for forging. Implying he aims to get his desired precursor through forging rather than buying or hoping it drops. Therefore I give him the best possible advice. Go for rares, and forge a whole bunch of them at a time, rather than little or one at a time. This makes it more likely to get what he wants. If he instead goes for small 10-20 forges it is very likely he will not get what he wants. This is how it is. English isn’t my native language so maybe I mix up the terms or words and you misunderstand me because of that but the what I just said is the way it is.

Me and some other ‘richer’ guildies take this approach daily and it provides us with profit on par with the projected 20k/48 pre or 500/1.2 pre every single time. In fact, it is my main method of acquiring gold in this game. Yet, all the other guildies who do not have these amounts of gold to spend also very regurlary put stuff in the forge (like with dungeon tokens or small amounts of gold) and they never get precursors and never make back the money they spend.

Nowhere did I state that you said they were the actual chances. I was arguing that your example was wrong.

You don’t understand probability. You make the assumption that someone who does X amount of forges over time will experience worse results than someone who does the same number of attempts in the same sitting. You argued variance when the variance would be the same. None of this is true.

You’re essentually arguing that me flipping a coin 5 times, while waiting for 5 minutes between each flip, will present worse results than flipping the coins 5 times without stopping.

Because results in this case are gold spent vs precursors.. because it is about making profit. And then yes, it is like that. You can believe whatever you want and continue losing money spending 10 gold a day while the rest of us who actually know what they are doing make more gold.

OP, if you want the short answer then exotics is better % chance than rares for precursor in forge. This is a direct quote from the wiki (post is over a year ago, but pretty sure this is still correct): “As you only have a certain chance to get an exotic on throwing in 4 rares (if we assume it is a 20% exotic return) the chance on 4xrares is way lower then on 4xexotic.”

Basically you have better chance of geting exotic with 4xexotic, so obv better chance of getting precursor. I actually got a Dusk drop almost a year ago from throwing in 4xexotic GS in the forge. This was my 2nd attempt that month, I only used dungeon tokens and previous to that I had about 10 tries or so, I usually did about 2-3 tries of 4xexotic in the forge per month (about 1500 tokens each attempt). So I guess you could say its an alternate way if you’d rather not spend any gold, who knows you could get lucky like I did.

Let’s look at 100 MF pulls when the chance is 1% (made up number) for a precursor

Chance of:
0: 36.6%
1: 37.0%
2: 18.5%
3: 6.1%
4: 1.5%
5: 0.3%

6 or greater is 1 in 1870

So while the average is one, in a group of 1000 players, 3 got five while 366 got nada. That’s variance.

So now lets assume you are tossing in rares so the chance is now 0.2% (20% of 1%)

Chance of:
0: 81.9%
1: 16.4%
2: 1.6%
3: 0.1%

4 or more a 1 in over 18,500

Now lets look at prices. A “cheap” exotic greatsword is about 4g each so 16g per pull. Like I said at the top the 1% chance I pulled out of thin air so it’ll cost you 1600g but you’ll get, assuming you get “crap” exotics, 400g worth of exotic greatswords so your total cost is 1200g for the attempt.

A “cheap” rare greatsword is about 60s each or 2g40s per pull. 100 pulls would cost you 240g but you get 128g back (rares 80@60s and exotics 20@4g) so only 112g for the attempt.

This is spitballing the analysis. A SWAG at best. It assumes that if you do get an exotic from tossing in rares that there is the same change that exotic could be a precursor. It also doesn’t take into account of additional attempts with the “failures” whether rare or exotic.