it gave a much larger impact than you realize. I believe JS mentioned it at somepoint in passing, but you apparently dont believe me. As i said, i know very clearly that a decent amount of high traffic items basically have their main value tied to the production of precursors. However, just because production is tied to X, doesnt mean changes in the market would crash the entire market. It fully depends on how, and what is executed.
I was not referring to precursors but legendary weapons.
Ascended weapons. The core ingredients are ore and logs. Before ascended weapons, these items had relatively no value. People used them to level their crafts and maybe the random items here and there. There really was no other use for them. Ascended weapons gave those items a purpose and created value.
Ascended armor. The core ingredients being ore, leather, and cloth. Leather still has no real value other that the T4. On November 4th 2013, linen scraps were selling for about 80 copper. They had no real demand and were worth very little. Silk sold at vendor price.
Tier 5+ ore and logs did have some value initially. They were both used to forge precursors and tier 6 were used for exotic crafting. There wasn’t much else to be honest.
Ascended weapons/armors gave value to items that had relatively no value to begin with. Increasing precursors rates would cause an increase in demand for all of the items used for making legendary weapons causing those prices to rise. These items already have value and you’re now increasing it putting them more out of reach from players. One of the differences, as you can see, is the starting value before the change. They are not the same.
Also, if it is true that precursors drive the entire economy (which may be the case) thats a major flaw in the economy. It essentially means that many prices are set based upon something that only a very small portion of the population makes use of. It means they need other driving forces within the game.
It’s not the precursors that drive the economy but the drive for legendary weapons. A lot of items go into creating a legendary which creates a value for said items. Without legendary weapons, the demand for T6 materials would be almost nonexistent. It would still have uses but the supply would quickly surpass the demand for it.
Legendary weapons give value to the items used to create it. What do you think the economy would be like if these items had no value? Would champ farming be worth it? A lot of players would find it difficult to make gold as the only reliable source would be those methods which produce gold directly (e.g. dungeons).
As for you saying i want 250 gold precursors, i never said that. In fact im not really looking to put a direct price on precursors. More so, i would give methods of obtaining it that are based on finite amounts of effort (random is always potentially infinite). After this, the price for precursors would represent the effort/skill/knowledge whatevers value to produce. I would also make randomly obtained precursors in the field come from precursor boxes (that allow you to select precursors) Annd i would make precursors generated from putting random exotics in the forge instead give an account bound token that could be used with laurels and the precursor knock off exotic (like usoku needle) to create the precursor.
This would essentially normalize the value of all precursors. the cheap precursors would cease to exist, but the hyper expensive ones would begin to go down as well. The overall demand of precursors would not change, but the supply would be 100% player controlled.
By combining supply created 100% by choice, and creating a finite path (even if its time consuming/difficult) I think you will create a healtheir precursor market. Players will gladly give their money knowing what they are paying for, or do it themselves, and precursor markets will be more based on how the players value their time, rather than straight up gambling (though gambling will still be an option!)
To be honest, I don’t know why I stated that you said that. It was late so either I, for some reason, lumped you with him or thought I was replying to him. In any case, disregard it being directed at you as it is clear that you don’t have that same mindset.
As far as you wanting a more reliable method that you can visibly see progress in, I agree with that. However great care does need to be taken when implementing such a system whatever it may be.
