Precursor Gift (Edited)

Precursor Gift (Edited)

in Suggestions

Posted by: ValarX.6729

ValarX.6729

My suggestion is that on the anniversary of an account that a gift be delivered to that account (via mail) that contains a ticket that can be redeemed via a quest to obtain a precursor of choice. The quest would be a single solo quest and have the following requirements:

1. That the character be the highest level (80 at the time of this post).
2. That the character have reached certain achievement level in game (either WvW Rank, PvP Rank, or PvE Achievement).
3. That the one-year achievement ticket be turned in (ticket is only destroyed when selecting the precursor at the end of the quest).
4. The achieved precursor will be either soulbound or account bound (preventing it from being auctioned).

[[Original Suggestion: My suggestion is that on the anniversary of an account that a gift be delivered to that account (via mail) that contains a ticket redeemable for a single account bound precursor of choice.]]

This would alleviate much of the frustration of having to save for the ever increasing in price precursors in the auction house or to spend months running dragon events hoping to get lucky enough to get the drop. And it is a nice way to commemorate the anniversary of account creation, something that was historically done in the previous game.

Does this hurt auctioneers? It will not create a huge influx of new precursors as the gifted one is account bound and cannot be listed on the Auction House. It will lead to a decrease in precursor purchases as some who are saving may decide to wait it out for the anniversary gift. Overall, it benefits many and only hurts a few (those listing precursors). The market will still exist for anyone attempting to achieve more than a single Legendary a year. And the market will likely increase on all other ingredients for Legendaries as more people see them as a viable path.

Does this mean a huge influx of easy to get Legendaries? Not necessarily. Remember, this just gives one of the many items needed to craft the Legendary. The player will still need to work to achieve the rest of the ingredients in order to craft their Legendary. It’s not an easy, automatic Legendary, but a stimulus to play and collect the ingredients needed.

Overall this is a simple way to reward players of the game, increase the interest in crafting Legendary weapons, and provide Arenanet with an easy fix to a tricky problem without having to introduce a bunch of new content.

(edited by ValarX.6729)

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: Olba.5376

Olba.5376

Yeah, let’s give people free items so that they can save 500 gold just because they’ve been playing for a year.

Why not just mail everyone 500 Gold so that the ones who are not going for a Legendary could get something worth their time as well?

Heck, why stop there? Why not send some universal “Get 1 account bound version of any single skin the game” ticket?

Benefits the many and hurts the few? Excuse me? The amount of people wanting Legendaries sure isn’t that many. Heck, I am pretty sure that quite a few of them would rage the crap out of ANet if they did something like this.

You would really kitten of a ton of people, actually. After all, it’s not like the rest of the Legendary is that hard to get. You do that and then what? You go play WoW or what-have-you until you get your free precursor. And that’s even crappier than being told that you should save up 500 gold, because all you can do is start counting the days.

And besides, if you start a trend like this, you’re gonna have to keep it up. What about someone who gets two years in, eventually? Three? Seven?

(edited by Olba.5376)

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: WhiteAxolotl.7562

WhiteAxolotl.7562

It might be better to have separate story lines that will take some time (weeks~months) to complete with the result of a soulbound precursor, this way you get to see more of the game, get sucked into story and have something to show for it in the end. (All story quests regarding the precursors should all be solo too, so it wont be easy to get precursors).

The approximate length of the story line for each precursor should be well adjusted to the current precursor price, if you consider the same time spent on farming certain areas or dungeons. To avoid precursors drop in price too much.

Certain difficulties should also be added, like fighting a legendary or epic boss all by yourself. Other features can also be added to kill time and add more variation to these story quests (Like jump puzzles, a vast amount of riddles, mini dungeons, quest around tyria, obtain certain artifacts from specific bosses..)
Just to kill the experience of farming CoF p1 all day everyday to buy a precursor.
This will then allow players to enjoy more aspects of the game and still build towards a legendary if they want to.

To avoid no-lifers to complete these story quests in a minimum time, there might have to be certain intervals between these quests, like a 24 hour timer or something.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: ValarX.6729

ValarX.6729

It might be better to have separate story lines that will take some time (weeks~months) to complete with the result of a soulbound precursor, this way you get to see more of the game, get sucked into story and have something to show for it in the end. (All story quests regarding the precursors should all be solo too, so it wont be easy to get precursors).

The approximate length of the story line for each precursor should be well adjusted to the current precursor price, if you consider the same time spent on farming certain areas or dungeons. To avoid precursors drop in price too much.

Certain difficulties should also be added, like fighting a legendary or epic boss all by yourself. Other features can also be added to kill time and add more variation to these story quests (Like jump puzzles, a vast amount of riddles, mini dungeons, quest around tyria, obtain certain artifacts from specific bosses..)
Just to kill the experience of farming CoF p1 all day everyday to buy a precursor.
This will then allow players to enjoy more aspects of the game and still build towards a legendary if they want to.

To avoid no-lifers to complete these story quests in a minimum time, there might have to be certain intervals between these quests, like a 24 hour timer or something.

I’d love to see a ‘scavenger hunt’ style experience like this to achieve a precursor where a series of quests/jumping puzzles/stories are required. The problem with this approach is that it requires a lot of development assets for content that is largely solo and does not contribute to the social experience of the game. It’s also an avenue that is likely to be locked down to a single precursor per character per completion. What if you want one for the off-hand? Or what if you want one for your underwater weapon?

I believe that Anet has stated that they are working on something like this already.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: ValarX.6729

ValarX.6729

Why not just mail everyone 500 Gold so that the ones who are not going for a Legendary could get something worth their time as well?

Heck, why stop there? Why not send some universal “Get 1 account bound version of any single skin the game” ticket?

Because part of the point is to give people a reason to actually go for a Legendary weapon. It’s an incentive (or a teaser) to go out and earn the rest of the ingredients needed to craft it. The precursor is always the highest hurdle (unless you just happened to get really lucky at a chest) to the crafting and it has very few and very frustrating ways of achieving it.

You would really kitten of a ton of people, actually. After all, it’s not like the rest of the Legendary is that hard to get. You do that and then what?

I’d have to disagree here. I’ve been playing the game since it released and outside of heavy farming or dumping a bunch of money into the auction house, gathering the ingredients for a Legendary is not a trivial task. Things like the 200 skill points, 500 badges of honor, and map completion means that it requires a certain amount of dedication and work to complete. I’m about 70% complete with my first one, and I would consider myself an average player as far as resource gathering goes.

And besides, if you start a trend like this, you’re gonna have to keep it up. What about someone who gets two years in, eventually? Three? Seven?

I was expecting this response, and I have prepared rebuttal. The precursor can be given as a reward for ONLY the first year (once again, acting as an incentive and enticement to play). I’m sure ANet can come up with viable options for the following years. However, I personally don’t feel this is needed, because as the road map goes we are likely to see legendary armors, legendary jewelry, and new legendary weapons in the coming years. With the influx of new Legendary options the once a year precursor is unlikely to ever catch up to the growth of the Legendary options.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

As someone who is actively going for a Legendary and DOES NOT have the Precursor…

I DO NOT want this. I’d rather just get a nice mini like before. (Account bound, given when account was created. If account was created before the game was released, birthday is release day. 3 day headstart doesn’t count.) [Note: I had a 3 day headstart, so I’m not just saying that so that other people won’t get it faster.]

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: DarkSider.1079

DarkSider.1079

I don’t agree with getting it as an anniversary gift, but I do think there needs to be a more clear path to getting a precursor than “random drop in world” or “farm the gold and buy it, but we’re going to limit and punish people for farming by reducing drops.” It’s anti-gaming, forces you to spend real money for gems > gold. It’s obvious it’s just a suited mechanic to the few percent that are high end money players.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: ValarX.6729

ValarX.6729

I don’t agree with getting it as an anniversary gift, but I do think there needs to be a more clear path to getting a precursor than “random drop in world” or “farm the gold and buy it, but we’re going to limit and punish people for farming by reducing drops.” It’s anti-gaming, forces you to spend real money for gems > gold. It’s obvious it’s just a suited mechanic to the few percent that are high end money players.

Yes, this is where I am trying to go with this. I also agree that random drop or saving up the high amount of gold for the precursor is not beneficial to the game as a whole as it tends to discourage many players.

The advantage of the anniversary gift is that it targets all players (PvP, WvW, PvE) and doesn’t favor one over the other.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: DarkSider.1079

DarkSider.1079

For instance, and this is completely just an idea, a long path of progression completing certain objectives, such as doing cof all 3 paths which unlocks a shard piece, doing all honor of wave for water shard, beating the world dragons for a dragon tooth (random drop rate, but not excessively low, like 25%), completing certain specific quest chains that take a long time to complete and CANT just be bought. The whole point of a legendary is it should feel legendary to accomplish it. If it takes 8 months to do all the events, so be it; it shouldn’t be about farming for gold to buy (or be excessively low drop rate) in which you are already punished by farming (DR anyone?) thus making the experience look and feel like a complete money grab.

I don’t want to compare this to vanilla wow, but look at the thunderfury and the first set of naxx weapons from vanilla wow. They didn’t come from buying, it was specific difficult, long time consuming quests and some random drops (not as long as what precursor is currently). In this way it would give players a more linear method to getting a legendary, rather than this random-dumb-luck it has come down to.

There is nothing legendary about getting one if it’s about luck, it should be completely about time dedicated to game and player skill required to complete. Most of us aren’t actively seeking legendaries due to the games money-grab-to-get-a-legendary mechanic as is; I’d gladly work towards earning a legendary, even knowing it would take me months or a year to achieve <—-it at least shows me a trackable, achievable method that is controlled by the players actions performing those tasks, not by random game mechanics.

Frankly I don’t think many players would care how long it took to achieve a precursor, as long as they had a guaranteed method to attain one! Even if I saw “takes roughly 700 hours to complete all quests, attain such & such” I’d be interested rather than this current “spend X amount of gold to get 75% of items, take a few hours to get rest, done”. Also think legendaries SHOULD be account bound, period.

Until this type of game mechanic is evened out (on top of my personal dislike of RNG, and their nerf everything about ele into oblivion) I refuse to spend another dollar on this game & promote it’s random gambling habits.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: AryasRevenge.3175

AryasRevenge.3175

Dont feel like read all that?

No we shouldnt get free percursors, i workeed hard for mne since day 1 and got it last month, i would hate to see someone who played the first two weeks to get a 600g weapon now for free.

Precursor Gift (Edited)

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Posted by: ValarX.6729

ValarX.6729

No we shouldnt get free percursors, i workeed hard for mne since day 1 and got it last month, i would hate to see someone who played the first two weeks to get a 600g weapon now for free.

Someone who just bought the game today and logged in for the first time could drop a good chunk of cash ($1000+) into the gem store and purchase a fully forged Legendary. At least with a precursor, you still have to put in the time and effort to fill out the rest of the Legendary.

You can’t really equate the weapon to 600g if it is account bound, since it cannot be liquidated via the auction house. It either saves you a large amount of cash for purchasing one or a large amount of time grinding for one. And it doesn’t devalue anyone’s purchase since you’ll essentially be getting two for the price of one.

I’m going to edit my initial post with additional comments to alleviate some of the ‘free’ concern.