Precursor crafting, more like gold sink simulator.

What the title says, it was supposed to be a great adventurous voyage, yet all i saw from crafting dusk was a major gold sink that chewed up my funds and soul. Yeah it had a few small parts which were actually fun, like the collect the gloom and find the missing pieces here and there, actual fun stuff to do, then came the gold sink which was really a major failure in my eyes and failed to deliver.I know it cant be modified differently at this point cause people already made their legendaries and payed the premium to do so, so it would be taking the piss to them if any monetary change was to take place. All i want by making this thread is to first off blow some steam off, and secondly to show to all new players what we could have gotten and what we got instead.Crafted price of a dusk:1000gold Buy it from the Trading Post :650g......I mean, good job arena net on this one.I think that people dont talk much about it cause they are interested only in the new legendaries which are account bound, cause the old ones are a joke to try and make these days. Its actually cheaper to outright buy them from the TP and skip the whole "adventure" of crafting one.

PS. I should note also that RNG is really heavy in this game, as 5 years down the drain in this game i have yet to "drop" one from the billions of mobs i have killed.

I would like to know what do u guys think about this? Do u share my opinion on this? Am i right or wrong to be in this mind set?Thanks for reading :)

@Salonikios.3154 said:What the title says, it was supposed to be a great adventurous voyage, yet all i saw from crafting dusk was a major gold sink that chewed up my funds and soul. Yeah it had a few small parts which were actually fun, like the collect the gloom and find the missing pieces here and there, actual fun stuff to do, then came the gold sink which was really a major failure in my eyes and failed to deliver.I know it cant be modified differently at this point cause people already made their legendaries and payed the premium to do so, so it would be taking the kitten to them if any monetary change was to take place. All i want by making this thread is to first off blow some steam off, and secondly to show to all new players what we could have gotten and what we got instead.Crafted price of a dusk:1000gold Buy it from the Trading Post :650g......I mean, good job arena net on this one.I think that people dont talk much about it cause they are interested only in the new legendaries which are account bound, cause the old ones are a joke to try and make these days. Its actually cheaper to outright buy them from the TP and skip the whole "adventure" of crafting one.

I would like to know what do u guys think about this? Do u share my opinion on this? Am i right or wrong to be in this mind set?Thanks for reading :)

https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/legendaries?filter.type=weapon

I think that gw2efficiency is pretty accurate, and it states

Here's dusk materials list

https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/calculator/a~0!b~1!c~0!d~1-29185

If you buy outright the mats from the TP and u dont craft the daily cooldowns it will sum up to 1000g, u just posted the daily crafting version. Do u believe an experience is good when all u do for a year is craft daily cooldown items? In my eyes its not fun. Also, recent market price drops in items doesnt mean that when i made it i payed so little i payed a total aproximate of 1100gold, the market moves up and down,which is why i made this thread in the first place, to show how broken this experience is and how tied it is to the market.

This topic has actually been talked about a bunch when it was implemented, those were on the old forums though and that's gone now. But I assure you there was much discussion on it at the time with a wide range. People did realize it was more expensive then buying off the TP, however that wasn't the point (imo). People wanted a non -RNG way to get pre's and now there is one. The idea is meant that you slowly work towards it as you progress in the game. If you have the lump sum of gold or know you can just save for it that way without spending anything before reaching your amount needed, then by all means go for buying it off the Trading Post. The Precursor collection is for wanting a goal to work towards on your way to your legendary and maybe have some fun along the way if you enjoy that sort of game play. Though I can see why people might assume it would be/should be the cheaper way. I also realize the collections could be been made much more enjoyable to progress, but at the core it does what people wanted it to, so personally I'm fine with how it is.

I am sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your collection crafting but always remember to do your homework before starting big projects.

@Salonikios.3154 said:If you buy outright the mats from the TP and u dont craft the daily cooldowns it will sum up to 1000g, u just posted the daily crafting version. Do u believe an experience is good when all u do for a year is craft daily cooldown items? In my eyes its not fun.

It's simply trading time for golds and viceversa.

There's no point in the discussion itself, cause crafting a legendary ( and a precursor, through the achievement epic run ) is meant to be something that somebody would achieve over the weeks/months, and not instantly.

You want to skip and get your item without waiting?You can, but you probably will pay a higher price.

@Shirlias.8104 said:

@Salonikios.3154 said:If you buy outright the mats from the TP and u dont craft the daily cooldowns it will sum up to 1000g, u just posted the daily crafting version. Do u believe an experience is good when all u do for a year is craft daily cooldown items? In my eyes its not fun.

So basically this sounds to me that if i want something faster,and i dont wish to spend an eternity grinding i will be effectively punished with a greater cost of the precursor i want to craft?This sounds really familiar to me, almost like some new mounts that got released quite recently, isnt that what they responded to their official answer? A goal to work towards?. Guess anet never changes...

Is crafting a precursor more expensive than buying one from the TP? Probably. But economics aren't the only reason to go for crafting instead of buying. I personally prefer the collections over plain gold farming and buying the precursor. I am a hoarder, which means crafting usually doesn't cost me any gold because I have a surplus of materials so I don't have to buy them. It's also infinitely more enjoyable to me to go on a journey and get my precursor. I prefer the added context over gold farming, and I am one of those people who regret (but understand) that they removed the collections for future legendaries (as much as I like the collection journeys, if it means no more new legendaries I'd sacrifice the collections as well).

And it's only 1/3 of the collection that is a gold sink, namely tier 2. Tier 1 and 3 are journeys which require you to do events, gather items. etc and are anything but gold sinks. The point is, crafting a precursor is not meant to be cheaper than buying one, so they have to do something to increase the cost, hence the tier 2 gold/material sink. It would be unfair to everyone who bought precursors before they implemented the collections to basically give them to newer players for free. It's a precursor for a legendary, it's meant to be costly and time consuming. Easy and cheap and 2 things that will never be tied to a legendary.

@Salonikios.3154 said:So basically this sounds to me that if i want something faster,and i dont wish to spend an eternity grinding i will be effectively punished with a greater cost of the precursor i want to craft?This sounds really familiar to me, almost like some new mounts that got released quite recently, isnt that what they responded to their official answer? A goal to work towards?. Guess anet never changes...

It's a trade.You have an alternative.

A legendary path will need you do to X specific tasks which will need Y hours, and also to wait Z days because of timegate on ascended materials.You could avoid X hours of playing and Z days of timegame by buying the item from the TP, but you have to need money.

You are going to pay around 300 extra golds for the precursor, but since you will save time and currency, it could be a good deal.

It's worse the way are working the T2 legendary items, trust me.If you want to craft one you have only 1 way, and it's pretty stupid compared to the T1.

My practice regarding timegated crafting materials is this: I craft them every day, whether I need them or not. Then, when something is released that requires those timegated materials to make, I have more than enough to actually make it without having to wait X days. I did that with Bloodstone Bricks, Dragonite Ingots and Empyreal Stars. I still have almost 2 stacks of those materials refined in my storage. I do the same with Spools of Silk Weaving Thread, Lumps of Mithrillium, Globs of Elder Spirit Residue and Spools of Thick Elonian Cord. It works like a charm. The only time I ever had to wait to gather enough timegated materials was when I crafted Mawdrey, because the timegated materials didn't exist prior to it being added to the game. It's called thinking ahead.

@Salonikios.3154 said:

@Shirlias.8104 said:

@Salonikios.3154 said:If you buy outright the mats from the TP and u dont craft the daily cooldowns it will sum up to 1000g, u just posted the daily crafting version. Do u believe an experience is good when all u do for a year is craft daily cooldown items? In my eyes its not fun.

Legendary weapons are designed to be a rare, long-term investment. Also - they can be acquired through 100% in-game methods, instead of requiring you or someone else to spend real-world cash on the game. (Gold to gems requires someone else to spend money on gems to gold)

I also crafted dusk, tbh despite having paid more to craft it than buy it outright, I felt better about doing that because I then had a sense of attachment to the weapon, however having said that, it would be nice if there was some cool gizmo that went along with having crafted it, like the ooze thing or the wolf transform that other precursors have.

I feel you, lol.When i made the decision to craft Leaf of Kudzu i also thought it was going to be cheaper than buying it straight from TP.But in the end it was fun, it made me know a lot of mechanics from the game, play a bit of everything and soon i'll have a piece of gear that i feel i worked hard to get. It's like a sense of achievement.

What really grinds my gears tho is that 100 Icy Runestones. It's just 100g gold sink for nothing.

Wait until you see how to craft the precursors of the 2nd Gen (after shortbow), it is just a terrible mat sink for mithril, t5 wood and t5 fine mats.

• If you care only about cost, you should always buy off the TP: the gold you save is more than offset by the inconvenience and time lost to doing collections, refining materials, crafting pieces of gear, and so on.
• If you care mostly about AP, or like the journey, or want to feel that you've personally gathered all the elements (without having to pray to RNGesus), then the collection method is your best option.
• If you're not sure, start and/or complete the first tier collection. If that's not fun for you in some way, then save your gold to buy off the TP. If it is, then it's worth pushing through the final tier.

The legendary collections were never intended to be less costly or more efficient; the developers were always clear that the goal is to invest the player with the full responsibility for building each part of the weapon.

When I started it myself, I really didn’t care how much it cost, just that now I didn’t have to rely on horrible loot drops to get a precursor. Then I got past first tier and into the second and saw all the timegated mats and just stopped...god I hate timegates.

Precursor crafting is an expensive trap because Anet couldn't stop themselves from bowing and scraping before the TP barons. What people complained about wrt precursors (constantly, there were new threads at least once a week) before was the sky-high prices, with the RNG of the mystic toilet an extra layer of insult on top of that.

It should have been a purely collection thing that was time-consuming, but required little gold (or materials that can be sold for gold, before anyone tries to be clever), as a counterpoint to the more expensive but immediate method of buying a precursor from the TP or the pure RNG of the forge. The actual collection parts are entertaining and well-designed but then you get to the "vomit money into a hole" part (and newer ones are nothing but that) and it's just awful.

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:Precursor crafting is an expensive trap because Anet couldn't stop themselves from bowing and scraping before the TP barons. What people complained about wrt precursors (constantly, there were new threads at least once a week) before was the sky-high prices, with the RNG of the mystic toilet an extra layer of insult on top of that.

It should have been a purely collection thing that was time-consuming, but required little gold (or materials that can be sold for gold, before anyone tries to be clever), as a counterpoint to the more expensive but immediate method of buying a precursor from the TP or the pure RNG of the forge. The actual collection parts are entertaining and well-designed but then you get to the "vomit money into a hole" part (and newer ones are nothing but that) and it's just awful.

That would completely invalidate the effort people put in to get one through the RNG of the Forge.

@"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:Precursor crafting is an expensive trap because Anet couldn't stop themselves from bowing and scraping before the TP barons. What people complained about wrt precursors (constantly, there were new threads at least once a week) before was the sky-high prices, with the RNG of the mystic toilet an extra layer of insult on top of that.

It should have been a purely collection thing that was time-consuming, but required little gold (or materials that can be sold for gold, before anyone tries to be clever), as a counterpoint to the more expensive but immediate method of buying a precursor from the TP or the pure RNG of the forge. The actual collection parts are entertaining and well-designed but then you get to the "vomit money into a hole" part (and newer ones are nothing but that) and it's just awful.

Most of the reason pre's are espensive on the TP is not due to traders, but people who sell them for ridiculous sums because otherwise they are dirt poor.

"TP barons" deal in the legendary market, not the pre market, as it is way more profitable.

@Malediktus.9250 said:Wait until you see how to craft the precursors of the 2nd Gen (after shortbow), it is just a terrible mat sink for mithril, t5 wood and t5 fine mats.

I did a Shining Blade, and I somewhat regret having sold my Zap to fund that gold hungry legendary... But I also crafted Dusk and The Chosen and I don't regret it.

Yeah, i have to admit that i feel the same way as most of u do about the whole precursor crafting, there isnt much worth into crafting one. I remember a very old post from arena net back when Matt Visual was crafting his Sunrise, when there was no precursor crafting, it stated that they are trying to find fun and "rewarding" ways to implement it into the game so people dont have to rely on RNG and the TP. Honestly, i am not the guy that has 1million gold , or amongst the top 0.5% of this game, i want to get things affordably, buying a precursor from the TP is one thing, u know what ur getting for ur gold right there, crafting one is a different story, u wanna do it for the fun of it, to experience what the devs wanted u to experience, venture into "fun" adventures and and......u get me.I have given up on legendaries in this game , purely for the time and money that they require, but that doesnt mean that if i could aquire them for a cheaper monetary value i wouldnt go for them,just i would like it to be meaningfull, constructed properly, have u do things of legendary proportions ofc to reflect the effort, not being a giant mat and gold sink,and above all good god not time gated materials......nothing breaks immersion into a game than time gated materials....

@Salonikios.3154 said:nothing breaks immersion into a game than time gated materials....

Ironically, everything is this game is becomming Timegated with each passing day.

They are meant to be expensive, you chose to increase the expense by buying ascended mats (which you could have been saving up for a year before hand). Your complaint is a complaint about the core aspect of Legendary items - rarity achieved through expense.

@Coulter.2315 said:They are meant to be expensive, you chose to increase the expense by buying ascended mats (which you could have been saving up for a year before hand). Your complaint is a complaint about the core aspect of Legendary items - rarity achieved through expense.

Actually its not about how much i paid, i could afford it and i did it, what i am "complaining" as u said is that there is less and less fun going into these things and more gold sinks, read what i wrote before u post please.

@Salonikios.3154 said:

@Coulter.2315 said:They are meant to be expensive, you chose to increase the expense by buying ascended mats (which you could have been saving up for a year before hand). Your complaint is a complaint about the core aspect of Legendary items - rarity achieved through expense.

When you say "less fun" do you mean "less fun than spending 1k gold in one go on the TP" or "less fun than throwing 400 exotics into the mystic forge" because, if you want, you can still do those methods.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

• If you care only about cost, you should always buy off the TP: the gold you save is more than offset by the inconvenience and time lost to doing collections, refining materials, crafting pieces of gear, and so on.
• If you care mostly about AP, or like the journey, or want to feel that you've personally gathered all the elements (without having to pray to RNGesus), then the collection method is your best option.
• If you're not sure, start and/or complete the first tier collection. If that's not fun for you in some way, then save your gold to buy off the TP. If it is, then it's worth pushing through the final tier.

The legendary collections were never intended to be less costly or more efficient; the developers were always clear that the goal is to invest the player with the full responsibility for building each part of the weapon.

This.