73 replies to this topic

[The Shadow]

I did the whole, custom, buy order thing on Rare daggers in the hopes of getting Spark.

So I've spent 250g already, made about 100g back thanks to exotics.

But seriously.. Is this what Anet intended when they said they were keeping their eyes on the situation and wanted to make precursors more attainable?

'Cause I'm certainly not seeing it. Shoulda just saved up an extra 150g more and bought the bloody thing off TP.

But now that seems senseless, since I've spent so much already, perhaps I should restart the whole process? Besides, Spark is at like 450g right now, awesome stuff.

What kind of luck have you guys been having?

Friends of mine have done this method (some of them multiple times) and always gotten their chosen pre-cursor and in fact ended up making a profit. Some other people got x2 precursors at the Karka event. Some of them got their pre-cursor randomly just by saving same-type dungeon drops and forging them. Silly me for believing I'd ever so be lucky, I suppose.

Either way, after having horrible luck with Clovers (spent over 500k Karma and still only have 40) and wasting 250g on the Mystic hole of horror, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I know how to make money, I know how to get Karma, I know how to salvage for ectos, the point is this whole ridiculous RNG factor just doesn't seem fair at all.

It's depressing cause I've pretty much got all the mats for 2 of the 3 legendaries I want, I just don't have the Clovers or Spark or Karma for the Gifts of Mastery.

I hope this doesn't come across as a massive whine. I'm curious as to how other people have fared/ failed. What are your views on the system?

[Nexdeus]

I was lucky with my clovers, I actually made a good amount of money while making them ( I had gotten 3x 10 stacks of corrupted/charged lodestones ), as for the hammers, well, I tossed in bundles of 200 hammers at a time, I did that about 7 times. I sometimes made a huge profit (magamatons at the time), and then some other sessions would be a big loss. I did toss in small bundles of 50-75 sometimes too.
I have a guild mate that has made 1 Dawn, and 3x Dusk, he sold them all and now he cannot obtain another Dusk for his legendary (through forge that is). It's really just random XD

[The Shadow]

Nexdeus, on 31 December 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

I have a guild mate that has made 1 Dawn, and 3x Dusk, he sold them all and now he cannot obtain another Dusk for his legendary (through forge that is). It's really just random XD

Feel like saying it serves him right c_C

[madmaxII]

The Shadow, on 31 December 2012 - 03:10 AM, said:

Friends of mine have done this method (some of them multiple times) and always gotten their chosen pre-cursor and in fact ended up making a profit. Some other people got x2 precursors at the Karka event. Some of them got their pre-cursor randomly just by saving same-type dungeon drops and forging them. Silly me for believing I'd ever so be lucky, I suppose.

If it helps, your friends are either extremely lucky or liars. The average player has to throw a fortune into the forge before he gets a precursor. Same for the karka event. The vast majority of people didn't get a precursor.

If you can't get a precursor at the moment, wait for the big jan/feb update before wasting more money for gambling. Maybe there will be something that makes them more accessible.

[matsif]

I've spent maybe 50g tops on rares going in, and made much of it back (maybe 40g) from selling the exotics back, but I hate gambling so I usually only do it like once every few weeks and never more than 50 weapons at a time.  Basically I'm just trying for a dawn/dusk to resell on the TP to help me pay for my juggernaut, but I don't do it that often because its such a horrible gamble.

[Real]

Yeah ANet increased the chance to obtain a pre-cursor on the mystic forge... from .001 to .002!

With only the icy runestones to go, for me, the pre-cursor itself is my only obstacle. Given how tycoons have manipulated the market ruthlessly my options are gambling, farm 400++ gold, or just wait until the supposed pre-cursor quest arrives (which will require equally grindy, arbitrary demands, of that I have no doubt).

[ArcViper]

I'm in the same position, I've gambled about 250 - 300g, although I was gambling about 2 months ago and just recently started playing again.  Prices have gone up further since then.  I was originally planning on never gambling with the forge but the luck that my guildmates had whom I was grinding in Cursed Shore with got to my head.

[kalliusss]

A friend of mine threw in his first 4 greatswords and got dawn so i thought it couldnt possibly be that bad. 750+ greatswords later i had nothing to show for it. The system is ridiculous, id love to acctualy see the drop rate. Honestly id have to tell you to save up and buy it off the TP. I got my Dusk yesterday for 85g cheaper than the sell price. Have a decent buy order and youll soon get one, theres always people who want the money there and then.

Good luck buddy.

[Lucav]

Real, on 31 December 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

Yeah ANet increased the chance to obtain a pre-cursor on the mystic forge... from .001 to .002!

With only the icy runestones to go, for me, the pre-cursor itself is my only obstacle. Given how tycoons have manipulated the market ruthlessly my options are gambling, farm 400++ gold, or just wait until the supposed pre-cursor quest arrives (which will require equally grindy, arbitrary demands, of that I have no doubt).

The simple fact that you can have wildly different amounts of work necessary for a legendary due to rng is a big problem. Its a bad system, and its made worse by the fact that rich players can so easily manipulate the market and make tremendous profits doing so,

[Lasareth]

Well, from a statistical standpoint, it's entirely possible to never get a precursor.

From an economic standpoint, it's worth considering that if such a simple method were guaranteed profitable, then people would be using it until the economy balanced in such a way where you end up breaking even or losing (which I think is the situation we're in now regarding precusors and the almighty mystic forge).

Very sorry to hear about your luck. I am staying far away from the MF and will be attempting to invest cash to buy a precursor as it seems less risky.

[Ritualist]

On principle alone this makes for a bad game. But on principle alone, other things make for an even worse game than this mystic forge shit. Not only that, there are things in the game that  ACTUALLY make for an really shitty game.
So, while I think it should be looked it, it certainly should be VERY low on the list of the game's priorities.

Edited by unraveled, 31 December 2012 - 10:31 AM.
Removed image. No.

[Daesu]

I am still waiting for the fanboys to come out and say this mystic forge gold sink is necessary to curb inflation.  Considering the amount of gold that got sucked into it, it is a very effective gold sink wouldn't you say?

How else are they going to nudge people to pay real money for gold?

Edited by Daesu, 31 December 2012 - 09:30 AM.

[Chibii]

I got extremely lucky a few days ago. I bought 5g worth of lvl80 rare axes in the hope for a Tooth of Frostfang and I got it on the second try forging.

Edited by Chibii, 04 January 2013 - 11:29 AM.

[Arquenya]

Daesu, on 31 December 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

I am still waiting for the fanboys to come out and say this mystic forge gold sink is necessary to curb inflation.  Considering the amount of gold that got sucked into it, it is a very effective gold sink wouldn't you say?

How else are they going to nudge people to pay real money for gold?

It doesn't remove gold from the game, just materials afaik.
Only repairs, travel fees and salavage kits are really gold sinks.

[Lordkrall]

Arquenya, on 31 December 2012 - 09:50 AM, said:

It doesn't remove gold from the game, just materials afaik.
Only repairs, travel fees and salavage kits are really gold sinks.

It does.
Unless you find all those materials in the world.
Using the TP does remove quite a bit of money with the fees and such.


----------------------------------------------

They have already stated that they are working on a scavenger hunt for getting Precursors, I suggest you wait for that (highly possible we will get it in January or February update) if you don't want to "gamble".

[Samarin]

Well, in gw1 we speedrun dungeons using tremendeous times to get highly sought skins with minimal drop rates the other option being buying them from open market. At the end the most skins were not that expensive due to saturation and such things but they used to be expensive. Nobody whined how they won´t get lucky with BDS drops and went on farming.

Legendaries are essentially the same thing, I think, with the exception of farming rares and then using mystic forge instead of opening chests. Well, trading post IS more or less manipulated, which is a problem for those using gold for buying precursors. Using mystic forge is consciously risking your time for gains next to nothing, just as using hundreds of hours to farm dungeons. In GW2, you at least get loot to sell/salvage in the process if you don´t get lucky. In GW1 skin runs we got little reward from monster drops and the chest dropped mostly junk and still we felt somehow rewarded.

Using forge is consciously risking your time farming rares. Anyone using it should weight the risks beforehand and not whine here. As mentioned before, it is possible never getting them.

Whether current state of getting precursors is healthy, all I can say is that only way is to fix TP manipulation somehow. If Anet intented getting precursors difficult, options are 1) make it cost sick amount of mats 2) make getting them highly probable but make it possible for more people. Well, at the moment it is both considering all the lodestones, ectos and stuff plus getting clovers and precursors. Let´s hope they come up with a good solution balancing all this.

[Ojikes]

What can i say.. bad for you.. :/

Random is Random, not ANets fault you  spent the money.. hope you get your precursor soon though.

[kalliusss]

Samarin, on 31 December 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

Well, in gw1 we speedrun dungeons using tremendeous times to get highly sought skins with minimal drop rates the other option being buying them from open market. At the end the most skins were not that expensive due to saturation and such things but they used to be expensive. Nobody whined how they won´t get lucky with BDS drops and went on farming.

Legendaries are essentially the same thing, I think, with the exception of farming rares and then using mystic forge instead of opening chests. Well, trading post IS more or less manipulated, which is a problem for those using gold for buying precursors. Using mystic forge is consciously risking your time for gains next to nothing, just as using hundreds of hours to farm dungeons. In GW2, you at least get loot to sell/salvage in the process if you don´t get lucky. In GW1 skin runs we got little reward from monster drops and the chest dropped mostly junk and still we felt somehow rewarded.

Using forge is consciously risking your time farming rares. Anyone using it should weight the risks beforehand and not whine here. As mentioned before, it is possible never getting them.

Whether current state of getting precursors is healthy, all I can say is that only way is to fix TP manipulation somehow. If Anet intented getting precursors difficult, options are 1) make it cost sick amount of mats 2) make getting them highly probable but make it possible for more people. Well, at the moment it is both considering all the lodestones, ectos and stuff plus getting clovers and precursors. Let´s hope they come up with a good solution balancing all this.

Ahhh the good ol days:p.

I think the worst thing is thers  realy no solid drops for precursors. As you said, we atleast had somewhere/something to do in order to get the skins. Sure we've seen precursors drops from temple chests, cursed shore and dungeons. Surely an easier fix is to implement a dungeon, hard dungeon when once completeing it you have a concrete chance of obtaining a precursor. Im not saying throw them at people but atleast people can start somewhere and can establish they're on the right track.

[Daesu]

Arquenya, on 31 December 2012 - 09:50 AM, said:

It doesn't remove gold from the game, just materials afaik.
Only repairs, travel fees and salavage kits are really gold sinks.

Unless you find all those materials from loot, it does remove gold from the game.  Even if you did find all those materials from loot, it gets rid of the opportunity cost you would have had from selling them on the TP, instead of using them in the MF.

In other words, the MF is a very effective gold sink.

Edited by Daesu, 31 December 2012 - 10:28 AM.

[NumNumPie]

It really is random. I spent 100g on and off and finally got Dawn. Then later I wanted to switch to Juggernaut instead, and threw in 150g and nothing. And what sucks is that you make less money off Hammer exotics because they're less popular than GS.

[keli]

Daesu, on 31 December 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

I am still waiting for the fanboys to come out and say this mystic forge gold sink is necessary to curb inflation.  Considering the amount of gold that got sucked into it, it is a very effective gold sink wouldn't you say?

How else are they going to nudge people to pay real money for gold?

If you like to gamble then bear the consequences.

[P4ndora]

Well if Spark is 450g then ofc there's a great possibility you won't get it with 250g, otherwise it wouldn't cost that much to begin with. (yes, I know that's off, since there are people manipulating the market). I feel your pain though, I myself dumped a lot of money into the mysc forge for dusk and got nothing, so I decided to save the money for it instead, too bad that the price of it is way higher than I can get ingame without spending any real-money. I'll wait till january/february update but I won't raise me hope up as I don't think we'll see the "scavenger hunt" anytime soon (we should've got the guesting feature since launch, where is it now?).

Actually I don't understand why anet hasn't added a recipe for precursors yet, at least it would give the player a sense of progression. Right now some (extremely lucky) people get a precursor in a few tries, while other people don't get anything after hundreds of gold spent. So people from the second group feel frustrated and ripped off, they are still in the same place as they were hundreds of gold before.
They should've given us recipes that still requies a lot of matierial/gold, but at least you know that you're progressing.

[Symbiont]

i don't care, don't make it any easier arenanet!

[Hector]

The Shadow, on 31 December 2012 - 03:10 AM, said:

I did the whole, custom, buy order thing on Rare daggers in the hopes of getting Spark.

So I've spent 250g already, made about 100g back thanks to exotics.

But seriously.. Is this what Anet intended when they said they were keeping their eyes on the situation and wanted to make precursors more attainable?

Yes. Expecting Anet to change things and make things cost less gold to acquire is wishful thinking at this point. It is pretty clear that they want you to spend tons of real money to get these things. The whole game is designed around money "choke points".

[jthamind]

i've spent about 75 gold so far trying to get The Legend from the Mystic Forge. the best thing i got out of it was some named staff called (i think?) Emberspire. all i need is The Legend too, so i have a feeling i'm going to be stuck here until they release the new way to get precursors.

i will never ever buy The Legend off the TP, though. never. i am not going to work for hundreds of gold just to give it to some random person who either 1) got lucky or 2) is cornering the market and thus ruining the game for honest Legendary seekers. if 500 gold dropped into my bank right now, i would still buy rares to throw in the forge. either that or i'd just spend it on other stuff and wait for the precursor update.

[Beta Sprite]

The Shadow, on 31 December 2012 - 03:10 AM, said:

But seriously.. Is this what Anet intended when they said they were keeping their eyes on the situation and wanted to make precursors more attainable?

...  No.  It isn't.  They haven't made the changes for making precursors more attainable yet.  There are big updates coming this month, next month, and the month after, so there might be something then.

[gamblers_luck]

Threw in 70 rare greatswords, got 12 exotics including Dusk,  first time I tried this properly.... been told I'm lucky apparently.

[B3aT]

Strange how all the rpg based games rewards players based on luck, and way less on their effort / intelligence.

[Shatteredz]

Daesu, on 31 December 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

I am still waiting for the fanboys to come out and say this mystic forge gold sink is necessary to curb inflation.  Considering the amount of gold that got sucked into it, it is a very effective gold sink wouldn't you say?

How else are they going to nudge people to pay real money for gold?

How is gold being sucked into it?
You buy the rare's from other people, those get your moneyz.

[Stigma]

Can you all specify if you got the precursor before or after they patched the Mystic Forge due to the karma exploit? =p they probably messed with the RNG

Here is a video earlier of a guy throwing in 1500 rare gs and getting nothing back.

Edited by Stigma, 31 December 2012 - 07:10 PM.