Some very good points and reasonable suggestions have already been made above. The bots provided the supply to meet the demand from max-leveled characters, whether they be garbage rares for the mystic forge or crafting materials for exotics. With this supply gone, prices have already gone up and will continue to rise as demand builds. This is great news for people who like to farm, as their profits will be greater for now, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The math says that if 12S garbage rares result in 150-300G precursors, 17S garbage rares will soon cause an proportional adjustment in precursor prices as well. And it doesn’t stop there either, as other commodities will also catch up in price as well. If I have to pay more for an item, I have to sell my own items for more. It’s all relative.
I can understand if players want to farm for a Legendary Skin, because they are truly optional and don’t affect gameplay. Yes, the cost to build one is excessive, but it’s still a personal choice to pursue that particular endgame objective. On the other hand, I feel that a full set of exotics for a level 80 character is absolutely essential. It is required to stay competitive in WvW, dungeons, and improve overall playability. Throw in a full set of superior runes and sigils as well, and you could be running into a significant financial barrier for many players. The price increases of crafting materials directly influence the cost of obtaining end-game exotic gear. Fewer garbage rares, lodestones, and fine crafting materials will result in decreased supply of ectoplasm, runes, sigils, and exotics. This obviously doesn’t affect the hardcore players as much, since they will farm items to sell at inflated prices if they have to, but hits the casuals the hardest since they are on a fixed income of event rewards and vendor trash. I mean, seriously, who does higher prices hurt more, the Cursed Shore farmer who sells his proportionally priced rares at the TP, or the casual player who earns 1S 98C from selling the green item to the game vendor?
In the end, Mr. Smith indicates that we get one result from the loss of bots: the rise of more player farmers, hardcore and casual alike. Veterans will need to farm for their ambitious legendaries, and newly minted 80’s will need to farm for their competitive gear. Really? ANET wants more farmers? Are we are simply replacing bot farmers with player farmers, and all the while the price hikes will be felt across every aspect of the game, from eggs to ectoplasm? At least the bots didn’t increase demand. Is this a reversal in ideology, where farming is now definitely required of any player who wants to be competitive. I thought we could be competitive without grinding too much, if at all –wasn’t that what was originally advertised?
Despite what I just read, I still believe this is a supply problem, amplified by the ambitious and taxing requirements needed for building end-game gear (legendary or othewise), that was once alleviated by bots. Without increasing greater supply, or reducing demand, prices will continue to rise, and a vicious inflationary cycle continues. But, are people going to stop throwing rares into the mystic forge? No, but when they pull out a garbage exotic, they’ll sell it at a price proportional to how much the ingredients cost. Therefore, you can’t limit demand and the only other option is to fix the supply issue. While the idea to lessen the effect of diminishing returns or delay the effect of diminishing returns would help, that just further encourages grinding and farming. Even better would be a revamped loot table to allow for increased fine material and rare/exotic drops, such that casuals and semi-hardcore players would not have to rely so much on the trading post to get their materials. Having higher priced materials on the trading post doesn’t address the fundamental issue of low supply, it just makes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, cost more. This doesn’t hurt player farmers, it hurts everyone else, especially the casuals, newly-minted 80’s, and especially the people who bought gems with real money. Their cash/gems/gold now has less buying power.
C’mon ANET, we’re happy you got rid of the bots, but please fix the supply problem too.