Precursor crafting, more like gold sink simulator.

[Zaxares.5419]

The big mistake ANet made when designing the Precursor crafting was that they wanted to "preserve the existing value of Precursors". That was why they deliberately made the costs for certain Precursors so much more than others. But by doing so, they basically locked in those Precursors so they could no longer follow market trends. When the price of Gen1 Precursors inevitably fell (inevitable because as ANet continues to release new Legendaries, players will ALWAYS chase the new shinies), it reached a point where it was far, FAR cheaper to simply buy many of them rather than craft them. What they should have done is just set the Precursor crafting prices to about the level of the cheaper ones (like Rodgort, Howler etc.), then let the market take its course.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

I am lazy (oh yes... B) ). I do not want to go via collections. For all my legendary weapons, I bought the precursors.

Counterpart: I can't get Legendary Weapons having an ascended precursor, because the only method for them are the collections and I do not feel for that.

So, of course, for me personally, I would have preferred that both methods (buying or collecting) remain available for all precursors, so that players keep having a choice.

What laziness can do... :3

[Ace Woodlink.1863]

Precursor crafting was never meant to be a cheap/nearly free way to get a precursor. It's meant to be a way that a.) doesn't rely on random chance, and b.) gains a great deal more immersion/the feel of being on a journey than just tossing weapons at Zommoros and hoping for the best. Except all the legendaries past Chuka and Champawat. I'm not sure what went on there.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

If only each Precursor had a special thing you get to have unique to crafting it, like Juggernaut's cosmetic item.

[Klowdy.3126]

@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.

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.

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...

Or almost like real life. If you wanna make a car, it will take you time, but cost less. If you want the car today, you will pay more. That goes for just about everything. I'm not sure why you think instant gratification is supposed to be cheap, because that's not the way life has ever worked.

[Ayakaru.6583]

The idea is you pay the same as the average mystic forge gambling cost to get the precursor.You just pay for the removal of the RNG

[Torolan.5816]

@Klowdy.3126 said:

@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.

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.

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...

Or almost like real life. If you wanna make a car, it will take you time, but cost less. If you want the car today, you will pay more. That goes for just about everything. I'm not sure why you think instant gratification is supposed to be cheap, because that's not the way life has ever worked.

???

When you buy a car and pay cash, it´s all yours after the money goes over the table. You get both a discount for paying cash and you don´t have to pay interest.When you order a wedding dress(the classic example, I know) and you receive it after your wedding day, you not only can ask for a refund but also for compensation.

The only scenario I can think of from the top of my head where your idea is fitting is with items that sell because they are handmade and exclusive, like Ferrari who fashion series of cars in very, very limited numbers for selected customers. You order it today, you get it in 2020 or so. But even in this scenario, Ferrari does not ask you to dig for carbon, titan or fibre but only allows you to dig once a day.^^

And no, a legendary weapon is not such an exclusive content. It would be one when you had to make lots of quests to get it, but the potential methods to achieve such a weapon also has a viable method of instantly buying it.

[Rikkagin.9472]

In Everquest, circa 2000, they had Epic weapons. They were a massive time sink, and for many simply impossible to attain due the amount of time needed in a single block to camp the named mob's, required to kill, for the drop you required. I think you had to be a little masochistic to attempt it, but of course a lot of people did. To me there was nothing remotely epic about them, they were just a huge waste of time.

12 years later Anet releases GW2 and it's version of epic weapons. The attaining of them is a little better, even a "casual" could eventually obtain one, but they are still a massive time sink. Grinding is now called "farming" but it amounts to the same thing. If you are masochistic enough to try to make one, well done!

As for me, 17 years on, I feel the same about way about legendary's as I did about epics, got better things to do with my time.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Rikkagin.9472 said:In Everquest, circa 2000, they had Epic weapons. They were a massive time sink, and for many simply impossible to attain due the amount of time needed in a single block to camp the named mob's, required to kill, for the drop you required. I think you had to be a little masochistic to attempt it, but of course a lot of people did. To me there was nothing remotely epic about them, they were just a huge waste of time.

12 years later Anet releases GW2 and it's version of epic weapons. The attaining of them is a little better, even a "casual" could eventually obtain one, but they are still a massive time sink. Grinding is now called "farming" but it amounts to the same thing. If you are masochistic enough to try to make one, well done!

As for me, 17 years on, I feel the same about way about legendary's as I did about epics, got better things to do with my time.

But whats the point of doing other things if I'm not Stylin' while I'm doing it? Without ever increasing gear stats, how else am I supposed to inform other players of my greatness? /ego

[mauried.5608]

In just about all MMos , time = money.The price of something if you want it now , is far more than the price of the same something if you are happy to have it later.Its basically a trade off of what value do you put on your own time in playing the game.eg I want a legendary weapon.I can either buy one of the TP for a large amount of gold , or go thru the insane time consuming process of making my own.Which method is better for you, in terms of how much is my time worth in gold if I make one , or buy one.

[Obtena.7952]

@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.

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.

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...

So you want it cheap, you want it now and you want it easy? Wow, aren't you easy to appease.

The fact is that you can't have all those things and the precursor crafting OPTION was never intended to deliver those to you.

[Klowdy.3126]

@Torolan.5816 said:

@Klowdy.3126 said:

@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.

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.

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...

Or almost like real life. If you wanna make a car, it will take you time, but cost less. If you want the car today, you will pay more. That goes for just about everything. I'm not sure why you think instant gratification is supposed to be cheap, because that's not the way life has ever worked.

???

When you buy a car and pay cash, it´s all yours after the money goes over the table. You get both a discount for paying cash and you don´t have to pay interest.

When you order a wedding dress(the classic example, I know) and you receive it after your wedding day, you not only can ask for a refund but also for compensation.

The only scenario I can think of from the top of my head where your idea is fitting is with items that sell because they are handmade and exclusive, like Ferrari who fashion series of cars in very, very limited numbers for selected customers. You order it today, you get it in 2020 or so. But even in this scenario, Ferrari does not ask you to dig for carbon, titan or fibre but only allows you to dig once a day.^^

And no, a legendary weapon is not such an exclusive content. It would be one when you had to make lots of quests to get it, but the potential methods to achieve such a weapon also has a viable method of instantly buying it.

And if you made all of those things yourself, it would be cheaper, and take longer. My point still stands, there is always a way for you to make or have something made, and buying premade items. There are handmade for cheaper and more time, and instant pay for more.

The point your are making about buying a car for full price with cash over the regular monthly payments makes no sense. There is no payment plan in this game. There was also no mention of a deadline, so the dress arguement makes no sense either.

The point I was making to the comment I quoted was fast = more money, self made = slower and cheaper.

[mauried.5608]

A car doesnt equal a legendary weapon because cars are intended for everyone to have.The entire point of legendary weapons is that they are supposed to be scarce and hard to get, and if everyone had one they woudnt be legendary anymore and would have no value.Otherwise you could simply buy legendary weapons from vendors.

[Salonikios.3154]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@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.

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.

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...

So you want it cheap, you want it now and you want it easy? Wow, aren't you easy to appease.

The fact is that you can't have all those things and the precursor crafting OPTION was never intended to deliver those to you.

I never wanted it cheap, all i wanted is more fun out of it, an enjoyment if u will of the overall experience, i mean, i expected 1k gold to get me something fun out of it.Isnt that why we play this game? To have fun? Or we play it to gather gold to throw into gold sinks?U tell me.

In my humble opinion it all comes down to marketing, and how arena net wants us and forces us to the gem store, one way or another. I would like a less offensive gem store to be honest. Having said that, i have supported this game with gem purchases over the years, i am an active player and no other game makes me come back as much as guild wars 2. Just i miss the fun i had when i was running dungeons with my friends, doing fun activities , lately its a pattern that has been imbeded in the core of the game. Gold sinks everywhere and RNG beyone comprehension,take for example the new path of fire unidentified loot,follows the same prinsipal as precursors, open x amount of bags= chance at precursor, i am sorry but i want story, i want depth i want emotion i want fun and an incredible story behind every precursor i craft to justify the cost of it. With no disrespect to my fellow players in Asia we Europeans and i believe even Americans have a different thought on how luck is perseived.RNG is an Asian thing and it needs to stay there, where the people really apreciate and value it.

[Astraea.6075]

I'm currently working on the third tier of The Colossus collection and yes it's cost more than buying the precursor now would have, but when I started on the collection the TP cost of the precursor was much higher. I'm also a very casual player, so the collections have been a great way to slowly make progress towards my goal.

[Torolan.5816]

@Klowdy.3126 said:

@Torolan.5816 said:

@Klowdy.3126 said:

@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.

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.

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...

Or almost like real life. If you wanna make a car, it will take you time, but cost less. If you want the car today, you will pay more. That goes for just about everything. I'm not sure why you think instant gratification is supposed to be cheap, because that's not the way life has ever worked.

???

When you buy a car and pay cash, it´s all yours after the money goes over the table. You get both a discount for paying cash and you don´t have to pay interest.

When you order a wedding dress(the classic example, I know) and you receive it after your wedding day, you not only can ask for a refund but also for compensation.

The only scenario I can think of from the top of my head where your idea is fitting is with items that sell because they are handmade and exclusive, like Ferrari who fashion series of cars in very, very limited numbers for selected customers. You order it today, you get it in 2020 or so. But even in this scenario, Ferrari does not ask you to dig for carbon, titan or fibre but only allows you to dig once a day.^^

And no, a legendary weapon is not such an exclusive content. It would be one when you had to make lots of quests to get it, but the potential methods to achieve such a weapon also has a viable method of instantly buying it.

And if you made all of those things yourself, it would be cheaper, and take longer. My point still stands, there is always a way for you to make or have something made, and buying premade items. There are handmade for cheaper and more time, and instant pay for more.

The point your are making about buying a car for full price with cash over the regular monthly payments makes no sense. There is no payment plan in this game. There was also no mention of a deadline, so the dress arguement makes no sense either.

The point I was making to the comment I quoted was fast = more money, self made = slower and cheaper.

I assume we are speaking of new parts and you want to build a car that can cruise around on the streets of a halfway civilized land. If you order a set of tires, it costs you around 200€. A single fender depending on your car can easily cost 1000€. Electronics, engine, gears, light machine etc etc... When you pile that up, only work by yourself and work outside a small car like a VW UP will easily cost you between 20000 and 30000€. So why can VW sell an UP for 10K? Because they not only build one of them, they build thousands of them. Where you buy a fender for 1000, VW buys them for 100 because they order 10000 and not only 1. I agree with you that it would take forever for a single person to build a functional car though.

With legendary weapons, you could argue that there was a deadline with HoT. I don´t know if this would stand when it goes by court, but I am pretty sure that you could try it.

When I buy a car cash, I get instant gratification. No car salemsman would talk down on me and demand that I go build the car mysyelf or enter a finance plan because the bank said so. Instant gratification is not a thing of the present, it always was a thing. Even gladiatorial combat was an instant gratification, or foragers and gatherers. Working as a way of life is a relatively modern concept. Laborers were looked down upon for the largest majority of mankind, and the industrial revolution 4.0 will probably kill that concept again.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

As said in a previous post, I have given up on crafting any of the Legendary Weapons for which I cannot buy the precursor.

What made my decision was the Astralaria. I liked it much so I check the Wiki page about it (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Astralaria)... At first sight, I was like ... WOW! I then said to myself: "Come on, don't let it scare you, you have no time pressure, take it easy". So, I did not read in details to prevent losing the motivation. That's how I started.

• Collection I was more or less OK and done fast.
• Collection II ... LOL! I can still remember! I started with the Basic Axe Requisition: 750 mithril + 500 elder wood for only one item. I got scared. So, before to go on further, I checked in details the other items and for me it became clear: No way. I am a casual player with not much playing time due to busy real life. This incredible list of stuff would have meant months, if not years. At the top of it, the warrior who would have used it is a toon I use very rarely, so really, it was not worth the long work.

Now even if I chose to abandon, my personal opinion is still that there must be something like that in the game. You know what I mean? Such a "close to impossible" stuff that needs patience and work until we can reach it, if at all, and that remains an "out of the norm" rewarding, sort of "The Ultimate".

Also, since legendary weapons are not mandatory to the game play, nobody is forced to it so there is no harm done if we cannot get one. Our progression and playing will not be stuck in any activities due to that. That way, it remains a wonderful optional thing to have, however at big costs and big efforts, and I believe it is good so.

[mauried.5608]

In an MMO everyone can make everything, but thats not the case in the real world.Good luck trying to make your own mobile phone for example.MMos also must have grind and gold sinks otherwise players will run out of things to do and the currency becomes worthless due to hyperinflation.MMOs have an infinite money supply because resources never run out , and vendors will always buy your junk, so there has to be ways of removing gold from the economy.GW2 does a very good job of doing this which is why its one of the few MMOs with a stable currency.Also MMOs which have a level cap like GW2 have to provide some mechanism to make players want to get better , and want to have better things so the current mechanism is to introduce time sinks to get something thats rare.A gold sink is just a time sink by another name because you can convert time into gold in an MMO by doing just about anything.And the most obvious problem with MMOs is that everyone will never be happy.

[Obtena.7952]

@Salonikios.3154 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@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.

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.

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...

So you want it cheap, you want it now and you want it easy? Wow, aren't you easy to appease.

The fact is that you can't have all those things and the precursor crafting OPTION was never intended to deliver those to you.

I never wanted it cheap, all i wanted is more fun out of it, an enjoyment if u will of the overall experience, i mean, i expected 1k gold to get me something fun out of it.

That's not a very reasonable view. Every element of the game can't be all things to everyone. There is no logic behind the amount of gold you spend and how much fun you have. I have the most fun NOT spending gold, but earning it. Let's be honest, it's crafting ... crafting is collecting mats and pressing a button. Why would it be more fun for you just because it's a precursor? Were you a huge crafting fan before this was released? Do you get massive thrills from hunting down materials? Did you not think the volume of materials you would need for a precursor would be significantly more than anything else? I mean, I KNEW it wouldn't be fun for me and I didn't even need to see it ingame to figure this all out.

[JVJD.4912]

That's the point OP, its always been a gold sink

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@"Dreamy Lu.3865" said:As said in a previous post, I have given up on crafting any of the Legendary Weapons for which I cannot buy the precursor.

What made my decision was the Astralaria. I liked it much so I check the Wiki page about it (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Astralaria)... At first sight, I was like ... WOW! I then said to myself: "Come on, don't let it scare you, you have no time pressure, take it easy". So, I did not read in details to prevent losing the motivation. That's how I started.

• Collection I was more or less OK and done fast.
• Collection II ... LOL! I can still remember! I started with the Basic Axe Requisition: 750 mithril + 500 elder wood for only one item. I got scared. So, before to go on further, I checked in details the other items and for me it became clear: No way. I am a casual player with not much playing time due to busy real life. This incredible list of stuff would have meant months, if not years. At the top of it, the warrior who would have used it is a toon I use very rarely, so really, it was not worth the long work.

Now even if I chose to abandon, my personal opinion is still that there must be something like that in the game. You know what I mean? Such a "close to impossible" stuff that needs patience and work until we can reach it, if at all, and that remains an "out of the norm" rewarding, sort of "The Ultimate".

Also, since legendary weapons are not mandatory to the game play, nobody is forced to it so there is no harm done if we cannot get one. Our progression and playing will not be stuck in any activities due to that. That way, it remains a wonderful optional thing to have, however at big costs and big efforts, and I believe it is good so.

Thing is, that collection is basically the "price" of the precursor. Look at Spark - what makes spending 400g on materials for the collection worse than spending 500g on the precursor straight up?

The Mechanism - pre to Astralaria - currently costs a bit under 500g to make, if using Buy Now prices, cheaper if you use buy orders!

[Orion Templar.4589]

I hear you OP. I've crafted a few and bought a few. In hindsight I suppose buying would have been less expensive in terms of both gold and time, but it was a learning experience so I'll take it for what it was worth. That said, the thing that gets me a bit depressed as I look toward crafting one of the HoT legendaries is the mystic coins. I'll need about ~230 for the mystic clovers, and another 250 for the Mystic Tribute component. Ug. If I want to save up my mystic coins "naturally" from dailies, it will take me about 18 months to get enough coins. If I purchase them from the TP, that's an extra 450 gold.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@"Orion Templar.4589" said:I hear you OP. I've crafted a few and bought a few. In hindsight I suppose buying would have been less expensive in terms of both gold and time, but it was a learning experience so I'll take it for what it was worth. That said, the thing that gets me a bit depressed as I look toward crafting one of the HoT legendaries is the mystic coins. I'll need about ~230 for the mystic clovers, and another 250 for the Mystic Tribute component. Ug. If I want to save up my mystic coins "naturally" from dailies, it will take me about 18 months to get enough coins. If I purchase them from the TP, that's an extra 450 gold.

I don't think you're factoring in that when saving them up yourself you'll get all the clovers needed in about 11 months if you pick the right Loyalty chest. That cuts the coins needed drastically.Still a long time, but you shave about a third off that estimate.

[Hesione.9412]

I like the way that 1. legendaries aren't much of an advantage (stats-wise) over ascended so there's no content progression requiring them and 2. they aren't locked behind some raid boss RNG where people roll on loot. I'm currently working on The Bifrost (for my thief, nothing like a thief in shadow assassins outfit wielding a pretty rainbow staff) and I'm enjoying it.

The HoT legendaries are awful w.r.t. the crystalline ore. I think I've made 3, and each time I promise myself never again. Dragonstand, over, and over, and over, and over...

[Kurrilino.2706]

If you would spend the time you need to craft a single legendary at a minimum pay job,you could buy all of the legendaries. Just saying