Gen1 Precursor Collections.

[Metaljaw.6437]

I believe it is about time we re-vamp these collections to be more in-line with their worth.  Currently the Lover collection costs over 350g worth of just mats (not to mention the time investment for doing all the achievements) to complete.  However, the Lover is available on the trading post for 64g (sell price) immediately, or as low as 46g (buy price) if you don't mind waiting for the order to fill.  Ridiculous imbalance.  Just the cost of the thick leather (3430 pieces) itself that goes into the precursor crafting is worth over 85g.  And that is a single component. There are very few precursor collections that are actually worth doing. I really shouldn't be incentivized to skip a collection for buying the item on the TP.  It is basically telling us just pay to win.

[Cyninja.2954]

The developers don't go around and change recipes constantly. Neither in one or the other direction. If something is cheaper on the TP, great, get it there. If something is more expensive on the TP, craft it yourself.

 

There are many items, achievements, collections, etc. which have fluctuated in one or the other direction over the years. An example is: Superior Sigil of Nullification, which spiked in value when a collection was added to the game which required the sigil.

Asking for developer intervention means they would have to intervene continuously, which I am sure they have no interest in doing, and it wouldn't always be in the way you might "want" them to.

 

TL;DR:

If you want the collection done, pay the gold. If you simply want the precursor, buy it off the TP and be happy it's this cheap by now.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Danikat.8537]

I normally try not to look at how much The Lover costs, I once spent almost 800g on it, I think it was close to the most expensive it's ever been. Of course I wouldn't have waited years to get it, but if I'd waited until I had all the other components it would have been about 500g. But I didn't know that at the time because this was before precursor crafting was even rumoured, when the only way to get them was as a random drop and the assumption was the price would just keep going up (which then meant players would buy them as investments to sell for a profit later on, further increasing the price).

I think that's the idea behind adding the collections: it's not supposed to be the cheapest way to get them, it's supposed to put a cap on how much they'll sell for because if buying them is ever more expensive than crafting them many people will choose to craft them instead. Also giving people another option, so you don't have to rely on luck or paying someone who got lucky.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

At this point the gen 1 legendary collections  are there for the ap and the added content, for example the secret garden for finishing the bow collection or extra food drops from the mace collection. 

This unfortunately shows the biggest design flaw from making these 6 years ago, they made the collections to try to preserve the price of precursors at the time, which is a double blunder. The first is the natural deflation that occurs when more precursors spawn while demanding decreases, and the other is the collections are so cost prohibited, many player will not do them.  Gen 1 collection actually are really good content, made me play events I did not even know existed in the game and all had a fun theme like collecting different dyes around the world, but most of the fun was locked behind the awful tier 2 collection.

At this point there no saving this content, like mystic forge recepee using the risen priest of balthazar, it was designed for a time that no longer exist.

[Cyninja.2954]

16 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

At this point the gen 1 legendary collections  are there for the ap and the added content, for example the secret garden for finishing the bow collection or extra food drops from the mace collection. 

This unfortunately shows the biggest design flaw from making these 6 years ago, they made the collections to try to preserve the price of precursors at the time, which is a double blunder.

That is factually incorrect. The collections where never made to "preserve" any value. In fact the exact opposite was the case. They were implemented to:

1. offer an alternative which yields a guaranteed precursor at the end versus the rng mystic forge method

2. provide a market related cap to how expensive any T1 precursor can be via crafting

The goal was never to somehow stabilize or preserve the TP price. If this had been the goal, some minor tweaking to the drop rates would have been far more efficient than adding an entire set of collections. If at all, the collections were introduced to STOP the TP price inflation and value gambling with precursors by adding a attainable price point.

16 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

The first is the natural deflation that occurs when more precursors spawn while demanding decreases, and the other is the collections are so cost prohibited, many player will not do them.  Gen 1 collection actually are really good content, made me play events I did not even know existed in the game and all had a fun theme like collecting different dyes around the world, but most of the fun was locked behind the awful tier 2 collection.

At this point there no saving this content, like mystic forge recepee using the risen priest of balthazar, it was designed for a time that no longer exist.

The collections serve the same purpose now as they did back when they were introduced, the fact that TP prices dropped and made the precursors cheaper to purchase is irrelevant. You can just as much lose 500g today on rng gambling as you could back in the past.

It has shifted the value proposition for doing the collection yes, that is true.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Debesyla.7102]

The collections nowaday are worth not for the precursor, but for AP and adventure/fun you can get. It's not for every person though, so you are not forced to do the collections.

[Vavume.8065]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I think that's the idea behind adding the collections: it's not supposed to be the cheapest way to get them, it's supposed to put a cap on how much they'll sell for 

I think you are probably right.

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

they made the collections to try to preserve the price of precursors at the time

Nope, that's not it.

[Bollocks.4078]

I could be wrong but I think Shadowmoon meant that they were trying to match the current precursor prices when they made the collections, not that they were trying to keep precursor prices at that same price forever.

As I recall the main reason for the precursor collections was to provide a guaranteed way to get the precursors rather than relying on extremely low RNG odds or extremely high TP prices. 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

4 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

That is factually incorrect. The collections where never made to "preserve" any value. In fact the exact opposite was the case. They were implemented to:

1. offer an alternative which yields a guaranteed precursor at the end versus the rng mystic forge method

2. provide a market related cap to how expensive any T1 precursor can be via crafting

The goal was never to somehow stabilize or preserve the TP price. If this had been the goal, some minor tweaking to the drop rates would have been far more efficient than adding an entire set of collections. If at all, the collections were introduced to STOP the TP price inflation and value gambling with precursors by adding a attainable price point.

The collections serve the same purpose now as they did back when they were introduced, the fact that TP prices dropped and made the precursors cheaper to purchase is irrelevant. You can just as much lose 500g today on rng gambling as you could back in the past.

It has shifted the value proposition for doing the collection yes, that is true.

The former game dev that made the system says differently.

[Khisanth.2948]

2 hours ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

I could be wrong but I think Shadowmoon meant that they were trying to match the current precursor prices when they made the collections, not that they were trying to keep precursor prices at that same price forever.

As I recall the main reason for the precursor collections was to provide a guaranteed way to get the precursors rather than relying on extremely low RNG odds or extremely high TP prices. 

Prices that were already out of date for some weapons just between the devs working on it and the system getting released.

Of course it doesn't help that someone is ignoring the legendary elephant in the room which is the armory. That is going to result in a massive reduction in demand which is compounded by market saturation and competition from gen2/3 weapons.

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

The former game dev that made the system says differently.

Maybe look what he was responding to, because it wasn't about somehow capping the "minimal price", but instead about it being less reasonable/harder to make the price on tp higher:

Quote

What happens if there is an expansion for the underwater dragon? In a normal market, the price of the underwater precursors would go up substantially, but due to your price fixing, they will remain at around 50g or so.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Cyninja.2954]

9 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

The former game dev that made the system says differently.

If by differently you mean you just confirmed what I said, then yes.

 

Read that quote, then put it into context of how the collections were priced, how the market for precursors reacted and developed before and after the implementation and then realize what is meant.

That quote is as far from "stabilizing the TP price" as can be, or rather it is but not for fixating it upwards but rather putting a maximum in place. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Cyninja.2954]

9 hours ago, Bollocks.4078 said:

I could be wrong but I think Shadowmoon meant that they were trying to match the current precursor prices when they made the collections, not that they were trying to keep precursor prices at that same price forever.

As I recall the main reason for the precursor collections was to provide a guaranteed way to get the precursors rather than relying on extremely low RNG odds or extremely high TP prices. 

 

If so, his wording was off because the way he used "preserving" and his deduction of the effect was incorrect.

 

If his intent was to say:

the developers designed the collections around the price of precursors back then in order to not crash the market, then yes. That has little to do with wanting to "preserve" the price though given the TP market still existed and prices could still drop . It had everything to do with limiting the price gouging upwards and establishing an alternative method of acquisition.

 

Or putting it in other words:

there is a difference between a price ceiling and a price floor being implemented and in this case the collections functioned as a price ceiling and not a price floor. Neither prevets the price from developong in the other direction.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Doggie.3184]

I just did the Dusk one and don't think I saved anything worth the effort it took.

[Einsof.1457]

Does anyone else just do these collections slowly ? I get one or two a year and put almost no effort into it. 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[Solvar.7953]

I did a few of the collections.  At the time, I looked at https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/legendaries to see which ones I would save money crafting vs just buying, and there were a few in which it was cheaper doing the collection vs buying.

And as someone else said, doing the collections can be an interesting task - finding things I had never done, or revisiting things I hadn't done in 5 years.

And it would tend to take a while - getting the materials, doing the tasks - I wasn't really in a rush.

But at this point, I think I've done the first collection for all of those, just because it was somewhat interesting and really didn't cost anything, but stopped at that point - I'm not going to spend effectively 200 gold just to continue a collection.  And in most cases, the second collection is really just sitting around as you crafting 250 of some item (which really means crafting the 4 items that the final one depends on)

So this is yet another thing which IMO is basically dead content, but I suspect if the crafting costs were lowered, the value of the precursors may drop to match that price.  If doing the collection was always a way to make money, then people would end up making them to sell.

I wonder if the crafted version could be account bound, so it could not be used as a way to make money, and thus the costs to make it become more realistic.  But the ones that drop randomly could still be sold on the TP.

 

 

[Randulf.7614]

7 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Does anyone else just do these collections slowly ? I get one or two a year and put almost no effort into it. 

Me, I chip away at them over long periods, sinking spare mats where needed to avoid costs

[Einsof.1457]

4 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Me, I chip away at them over long periods, sinking spare mats where needed to avoid costs

Nice. same same. 

[Einsof.1457]

6 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

I did a few of the collections.  At the time, I looked at https://gw2efficiency.com/crafting/legendaries to see which ones I would save money crafting vs just buying, and there were a few in which it was cheaper doing the collection vs buying.

And as someone else said, doing the collections can be an interesting task - finding things I had never done, or revisiting things I hadn't done in 5 years.

And it would tend to take a while - getting the materials, doing the tasks - I wasn't really in a rush.

But at this point, I think I've done the first collection for all of those, just because it was somewhat interesting and really didn't cost anything, but stopped at that point - I'm not going to spend effectively 200 gold just to continue a collection.  And in most cases, the second collection is really just sitting around as you crafting 250 of some item (which really means crafting the 4 items that the final one depends on)

So this is yet another thing which IMO is basically dead content, but I suspect if the crafting costs were lowered, the value of the precursors may drop to match that price.  If doing the collection was always a way to make money, then people would end up making them to sell.

I wonder if the crafted version could be account bound, so it could not be used as a way to make money, and thus the costs to make it become more realistic.  But the ones that drop randomly could still be sold on the TP.

 

 

Just play the game and have fun, and that 200g will come naturally. 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[Danikat.8537]

12 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

Does anyone else just do these collections slowly ? I get one or two a year and put almost no effort into it. 

I don't do them that frequently, there's a year or so in between finishing one and starting another, but when I do I take my time with it.

The first time I made a legendary I bought the precursor because there was no other option and gathered everything else. It took about 13 months and grinding gold to buy the precursor was my least favourite part. Later on I made another using the precursor collection which took about 7 months (but I did have the Gift of Exploration already) and then actually re-made my first legendary because I wanted to do the collection for that one as well. (I finished the legendary and sold it because selling the precursor would have lost me money but I didn't want two.)

I also made a couple of gen 2.5 legendaries (where the collections are just gathering materials to craft stuff) one of which technically took me just over 2 weeks, if you count it from when I bought the first recipe to start the collection. I was able to do that because I waited until I had all the materials I needed or currencies to buy them. That was actually my least favourite because then the process was just buying, refining and crafting stuff with all the interesting parts already done.

If/when I make one again I'll definitely do the collection and I'll space out the whole process instead of just letting stuff pile up in the bank and then burning through the collection when I've got enough.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Two things can be true at once, the tier 2 collections were manipulated to put a ceiling, which almost instantly most precursors were below that value at launch, but they also tied to not tank the current prices with the collections. That is only reason why every t2 collection have different requirements,  1 handers having between 11  (storm)  and 15 (spark)  steps based on what the prices of those precursors were at the time, same for underwater, same for off hand, same for 2 handers. Heck the two short bows and staves  t2 steps have completely different values for their collections. There was no uniformity,  unlike what latter gen2 and all the gen 3 precursors act like.

Clearly this was a mistake because Anet abandoned the legendary collections,  because very few people did them because it was cheaper just to buy them off the to. If they would have done what they did with gen 3 precursors, made them modestly priced to build and not worry about tanking the price of precursors at the time, we would have had more people engaging in precursor collections, and that content may have  continued to get developed.

Now we have dump a bunch of materials to make mystic curios, or buy the recipee from a material you get from the tp and do some metas to get 1k rep.  The precursor collections could have been great content, but it was ruined by in my opinion was bad design decisions of the t2 collections. We can argue if you think those choices were in my opinion intentional, or in your as a unforeseen consequence, but that does that change the fact that it is abandoned content, like raids, like dungeons, like guild missions, like fractals?.

 

[Sobx.1758]

23 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

wo things can be true at once, the tier 2 collections were manipulated to put a ceiling, which almost instantly most precursors were below that value at launch, but they also tied to not tank the current prices with the collections. That is only reason why every t2 collection have different requirements,  1 handers having between 11  (storm)  and 15 (spark)  steps based on what the prices of those precursors were at the time, same for underwater, same for off hand, same for 2 handers. Heck the two short bows and staves  t2 steps have completely different values for their collections. There was no uniformity,  unlike what latter gen2 and all the gen 3 precursors act like.

Putting the initial prices of the collections/crafting around the past tp prices has little (nothing) to do with attempting to preserve that price for a long time. Pretty sure precursor crafting was added so you could reliably work towards it without a need to keep rolling the dice by flushing unknown amounts of gold down the mystic toilet.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Moradorin.6217]

On 11/24/2022 at 10:38 PM, Metaljaw.6437 said:

I believe it is about time we re-vamp these collections to be more in-line with their worth.  Currently the Lover collection costs over 350g worth of just mats (not to mention the time investment for doing all the achievements) to complete.  However, the Lover is available on the trading post for 64g (sell price) immediately, or as low as 46g (buy price) if you don't mind waiting for the order to fill.  Ridiculous imbalance.  Just the cost of the thick leather (3430 pieces) itself that goes into the precursor crafting is worth over 85g.  And that is a single component. There are very few precursor collections that are actually worth doing. I really shouldn't be incentivized to skip a collection for buying the item on the TP.  It is basically telling us just pay to win.

agreed generally I think all the gen 1 recipes should cost a say 20% of the avg legendary purchase price. Even then a few pre would still not be worth crafting and doing the collections. That said, many on the forums will respond with the argument that doing the collection and farming the materials to make all those sub components IS the reward. (eyeroll)

So, although I agree, I would argue its a lost cause. Just buy the precursors. Its generally never worth the time and cost to do the gen 1 pre collections. That said, some people do them anyway *shrug* I dont get it either.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Moradorin.6217

[Shadowmoon.7986]

36 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Putting the initial prices of the collections/crafting around the past tp prices has little (nothing) to do with attempting to preserve that price for a long time. Pretty sure precursor crafting was added so you could reliably work towards it without a need to keep rolling the dice by flushing unknown amounts of gold down the mystic toilet.

That is the point, it was short sighted, which is why it failed in the long term. Gen 1 pres were going to lose value over time especially when more legendary were going to be added, trying to match the tp price on the collection just ensure the content was going to die.  Am I saying Lindsey made the content for it to  fail, no. But this is the same dev that ruined the gw1 endgame with perma shadowform and attempted to fix the economy by nerfing 600 monk.  She was the queen of unattended consequences.