Guild Wars 2

As I explore areas in GW2 I tend to get slightly annoyed at resource nodes (ore nodes, trees, and plants), because there is no convenient way to tell which of them I can exploit with my currently equipped gathering tools and for which I need to swap them out for better quality ones. The sheer number of different types of resource nodes in the game makes is hard for me to learn what quality each of them are, and opening the inventory and checking the descriptions of my gathering tools each time I encounter a new type of node is too much work to be worth it.

There are a couple of solutions I can think of. Some of them may be easier to implement than others:

1) Apply color codes to resource node name tags based on equipped gathering tools. E.g. yellow name tag means currently equipped gathering tools can exploit the node, red name tag means they cannot.

2) Apply quality-based color codes to resource nodes and gathering tools. E.g. white = copper tools and nodes, blue = iron tools and notes, and so on.

3) The quick and easy solution: indicate in each resource node’s name the minimal gathering tool quality that is required to exploit it. E.g. “Root Vegetables [Iron]”.

Or do the normal thing and check with a vendor when you enter a new area, if they have a different set of tools buy them. Not really that hard.

Kaimick.5109:

Or do the normal thing and check with a vendor when you enter a new area, if they have a different set of tools buy them. Not really that hard.

Each area has different quality resource nodes. For example, Lornar’s Pass has copper, iron, and steel nodes. I prefer not to waste money by using steel tools for copper nodes, or, more importantly, mithril tools for anything below mithril quality nodes, since mithril tools are extraordinarily expensive compared to other tools.

Besides, implementing a simple solution to this takes hardly any time. See solution 3 above, which involves no more than adding a tag at the end of the name of each resource node. What’s that, maybe one man-hour’s worth of work? And then I’m being generous.

Well it sounds like you want to never use higher tools for lower area’s, sounds like more of a personal opinion to me. The lowest area in Lornar’s Pass sells Mithirl tools which you will need in the area. Now if you want to be nit picky about what tool will mine or gather what level of area then they have the Wiki that will tell you that. But lets face it I am betting most of the players just purchase the highest level and go for it, we don’t worry about if cooper can do this and what it can’t do. So where your idea is great for the person that wants to try and penny pinch in the game it probably wont ever happen as the majority of people don’t care and buy the highest available.

That and I can complete one heart leveling and make up enough money and then some to buy a full set of the best harvesting tools, and run one event in orr and have enough to cover the cost and then some.

My suggestion go to the wiki look up the ore, trees, and plants it will tell you what the minimal tool you need and comprise a list and put it buy your monitor if your that worried about saving 3 silver altogether

I don’t know how others play the game. If enough players are annoyed by this and indicate that towards ArenaNet, they will probably change it. If I’m the only one, I guess not. I can only relay my own thoughts.

This is true and if there are enough players that ask for this options I am not going to stand here and call you morons are idiots, I support your ability to ask. Just with me I don’t worry about it and just go about my business. If I am in a lower area and I am actually thinking about it I will buy a lower level and equip it other than that I don’t are to much.

But if enough of the people step up and say they want this, then I say Arena Net should do it, I am just not a supporter of the above mention suggestion as I feel it is not needed.

Each tool does state the types of nodes it can gather from, and after a while of playing, it becomes second nature knowing which types of tools can gather which tiers of nodes. Of course, by that time your income level has probably increased to the point where you don’t even bother with keeping multiple tiers of tools to use on different nodes. I also used to keep both Copper and Iron tools on hand for harvesting, but I eventually found that the small amount of savings wasn’t worth the time spent swapping tools and the inventory space needed to hold multiple grades of tools.

As a general rule, here’s what I would do when it comes to tool usage:

Level 1 – 15 zones: Buy and use only Copper Tools.

Level 15 – 25 zones: Start buying Iron Tools. Use up your remaining Copper Tools on any low level nodes you find in these zones, but replace them with Iron Tools.

Level 25 – 35 zones: Start buying Steel Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 35 – 50 zones: Start buying Darksteel Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 50 – 65 zones: Start buying Mithril Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 65 – 80 zones: Buy ONE set of Orichalcum Tools and use those on any T6 nodes you come across. For everything else, continue using Mithril Tools.

That’s helpful, Zaxares, thanks. That’s pretty much how I play the game. The whole reason I’m bothering with lower quality tools is because I always have leftovers from previous areas and I don’t like throwing those away. Maybe I ought to stop worrying about it, anyway. Hmm. Well, I still hope they’ll make resource node quality easier to determine sometime in the future.

I agree that an improvement could be made here but it would be terribly low priority what with all the aformentioned workarounds.

I personally have made a note of karma Mithril vendors and stock up, buying 3 of each when I pass by. The only exception is buying Darksteel ones when I’m running low (still from karma vendors mostly) and copper ones I use for low level areas but I usually buy them, use them, destroy them when im done with the area.

Yea I’ve wasted a node and tool uses not realising I didn’t have the right set on.

It’ll be nice if each tool had its own icon, and when you were going to gather a node, the icon would appear in the ‘use’ button, over the generic tool drawing that appears now, and if your tool may not match the node, the words in the button would appear red.

I second this…my personal preference would be for tools to “level up” with you as you do, so you are never having to worry about this. It seems like an unnecessary complication. However, the way it is set up, some kind of notification that you are about to use an inferior tool on a node would be great (broken red tool icon upon mouseover or something similar).