Remove Mystic Binding Agents from final step of Precursor crafting

[Atticus.7194]

Really feel like this is a gimme, making the FINAL step of precursor crafting require a gatekept item that you can only get 1 way is poor design. At no other point during the whole process was there anything like this and suddenly boom, can't progress please wait for laurels for legendary.

Options are:

1.) there needs to be an alternate means of acquiring these like through spirit shards

or

2.) the mystic binding agents just shouldn't be account bound

or

3.) Provide a recipe that allows us to convert bottles of Elonian Wine into Mystic Binding Agents

Anyway super salty and my motivation to play at all is next to zero so I apologize for slightly ranty suggestion

[Danikat.8537]

If that's enough to put you off then I really hope you've researched the process required to turn the precursor into a finished legendary or you're in for quite a few nasty surprises. The Gift of Battle (only obtained through WvW) the Gift of Exploration (only from 100% PvE map completion), Bloodstone Shard (200 spirit shards) and Mystic Clovers (multiple sources but expensive RNG or a lot of grinding involved) are common pain points, and the Icy Runestones (which have to be bought from an NPC for 100g) might be an issue too. Oh and dungeon tokens which only come from dungeons or PvP or WvW.

Having said that unless you've already got absolutely everything else you could start working on some/all the rest while you're saving up laurels for the Mystic Binding Agent. Making the legendary isn't like the precusor collections, you can do it in any order so there's no need to get the precursor before you start working on the other stuff and that way you've not lost any time, just done things in a slightly different order.

[Atticus.7194]

@Danikat.8537 said:If that's enough to put you off then I really hope you've researched the process required to turn the precursor into a finished legendary or you're in for quite a few nasty surprises. The Gift of Battle (only obtained through WvW) the Gift of Exploration (only from 100% PvE map completion), Bloodstone Shard (200 spirit shards) and Mystic Clovers (multiple sources but expensive RNG or a lot of grinding involved) are common pain points, and the Icy Runestones (which have to be bought from an NPC for 100g) might be an issue too. Oh and dungeon tokens which only come from dungeons or PvP or WvW.

Having said that unless you've already got absolutely everything else you could start working on some/all the rest while you're saving up laurels for the Mystic Binding Agent. Making the legendary isn't like the precusor collections, you can do it in any order so there's no need to get the precursor before you start working on the other stuff and that way you've not lost any time, just done things in a slightly different order.

Oh that's the thing, I literally have every single other thing needed for the legendary sitting in my inventory, all I need is the mystic binding agents so I can get the precursor and that is it.

Going to see if I can save up enough for just buying a precursor but no idea if the craftable ones are soulbound.

[Linken.6345]

what weapon are you trying to make?

[Khisanth.2948]

There is also 90 days of timegating for the deldrimor steel ingots which is more than enough time to accumulate 10 laurels ...

@Linken.6345 said:what weapon are you trying to make?

There are only two weapons that need it. Dusk and Dawn. A single purchase gives enough for crafting both.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Khisanth.2948 said:There is also 90 days of timegating for the deldrimor steel ingots which is more than enough time to accumulate 10 laurels ...Those can be bought on the TP. For that matter, so can Dusk and Dawn.

@"Atticus.7194" said:Really feel like this is a gimme, making the FINAL step of precursor crafting require a gatekept item that you can only get 1 way is poor design. At no other point during the whole process was there anything like this and suddenly boom, can't progress please wait for laurels for legendary.Pretty much every gen 1 precursor has something in the mix that cannot be obtained "right now." Bricks of Clay, Charged Quartz... these are all things that cannot be acquired instantly. Plus things that have random drop rates, such globs of dark matter, mist essence (although that can be bought if you also have fractal masteries), etc. There are also things that can only be acquired with karma or with other currencies.

In short, there are all sorts of gates in precursor crafting. Laurels aren't all that unusual, especially since most people who can afford to invest in a precursor are likely to have more than they know what to do with.

---

I'm sorry that the OP feels frustration at hitting a road block. I can't agree that this is an example of poor design, especially since the 'issue' can be avoided with good planning.

[Sam bt.2679]

I do agree that they should either replace the item or give us some other means of obtaining Mystic binding Agent. There are no ways of obtaining Laurels other than ... well, waiting for days. and that's the thing. The fact that there is nothing to be done about it. It's not like random drops that you have to grind for it's just a long meaningless delay in getting what you've already worked hard for, and that Does seem like something worth to think about when it comes to designing this process.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Sam bt.2679 said:I do agree that they should either replace the item or give us some other means of obtaining Mystic binding Agent. There are no ways of obtaining Laurels other than ... well, waiting for days. and that's the thing. The fact that there is nothing to be done about it. It's not like random drops that you have to grind for it's just a long meaningless delay in getting what you've already worked hard for, and that Does seem like something worth to think about when it comes to designing this process.

But to be completely fair, the Pre-cursor craftig was purposely meant to be a multi-month process and get you into all areas of the game. The Tradable portion of the materials are mostly a side effect of what those materials were originally used for, and they needed an excuse to sink some of them off the market. None of the Collections are meant to be run in parallel.... players are simply prone to it because we have a drive for efficiency, and hate down time. The time gates in the pre-cursor crafting are there to force newer player to space out the process, so theres time to passively accumulate things they'll need later. Players that can afford to do everything in one go are usually organized enough plan things out ahead.... either to find ways to do it cheaper, or to stock pile things they'll need ahead of time.