Guild Wars 2

Let me preface this by saying I thoroughly enjoy Guild Wars 2. I’ve got 100% map completion, I’m active(ish) in WvW and play a good amount of sPvP. However, I’m mildly concerned for the PVE side of the game because of what I call the Plinx dilemma.

People are already complaining that Orr is the only place to farm for an 80. The karma/loot rewards are unmatched, there simply isn’t another option. This is true. However, I take it a step further. The only place worth farming IN Orr is Plinx and the events surrounding him. It’s ridiculous how much better coin/xp/karma/loot you get from that area. You can do 10+ events in 30-40minutes, over and over and over until you hit DR. The Plinx chain itself is 5 events, plus tar elementals, plus 2 from the arena, plus the Broodmother (which plinx happily tanks for you), plus Rakkan, plus the Packheart. If you get a good rotation going there is nothing EVEN CLOSE to as efficient as this. Not to mention the fact, that with the exception of the Abom, all these events are easily soloable.

Now people say “but the other events are fun, blah blah blah.” I don’t disagree with this. The Arah events do feel quite epic and are fun, the first time, and maybe the second time. After that, I no longer want to spend 40 minutes doing 3-4 events that more often then not fail on my server.

Granted, whenever a new friend gets 80 I bring them all around the zone, we do Grenth, we do Arah, we do the Pearl and we Burn Corpses and everything. But inevitably EVERYONE is going to up at Plinx. There is no reason to be anywhere else.

I personally would like to see some kind of DE balance. Give me a reason to go do Arah or Grenth (yes I realize that opens the dungeon and gives access to the vendors, that’s something I need once a month). I’d rather roam all over Orr, if that’s where I’m going to be at 80, doing everything, rather than be stuck in a small rotation of events or be making money/karma at 1/3 or 1/4 the rate.

Most of the characters I see in other portions of the map when I do venture out are:

1) Fresh 80s that don’t know better or are working on map completion

2) Bots farming intentionally bugged events (grenth anyone?)

Is is possible to change the rewards for events based on length or difficulty?

Give me a reason to do the Arah dungeon so everyone wants/needs to keep the gate open!!!!!

Yes, the way Orr turned out goes against the entire GW2 philosophy.

Why not make the entire world our playground instead of the same 10 Events in Orr?

People stay in Orr because of:
1. Most efficient Karma
2. High level crafting Mats
3. Best loot
4. Most money

All of these could be easily fixed by.

1. Having all events in the world reward the same amount of Karma at any given level? All events are super easy so I don’t accept the argument that downleveled content is easy.

2. Have high level mats spawn all over the World (Orchi, Oak etc.). Low levels can’t farm them anyway and it would be another reason to go out an explore.

3. Loot is a bit tricky, but should mainly scale with character level. This is already the case, but needs optimizing.

4. Rewards too should be based on character level, just like Karma.

There, fixed the Orr farming by making the whole world your playground by simply adjusting some numbers.

Don’t forget about fixing some of the free no skill loot classes. There’s an event for fixing a cannon that’s always active and frequently spawns 80+ mobs… all the time. It used to be fun until lol2shot warriors and hunter bots showed up.

Here’s the thing.

There will ALWAYS be a “Most efficient”.
There will ALWAYS be a “Most gold”.
There will ALWAYS be this.
The PLAYERS are the ones who find it.
If the devs change this somehow, the players are just going to move to another, that one will get clogged, and then you’ll be complaining about that. It’s always going to happen.

I agree with everything posted by Dee Jay and Katfish. It’s the same problem I’m having myself and the same solution I proposed elsewhere.

I think in addition, the Plinx chain could stand to be cut from 5 events to 2-3, to make other areas a bit more competitive.

I don’t disagree that players will always find the most efficient farming spot. But my gripe is that nothing is close to plinx at the moment. It’s literally 3-4x more efficient than anywhere else for mats/coin/karma/xp. I’d just like some comparable alternatives.

Here’s the thing.
There will ALWAYS be a “Most efficient”.
There will ALWAYS be a “Most gold”.
There will ALWAYS be this.
The PLAYERS are the ones who find it.

This is true of course, but it still doesn’t have to be as extreme as it is today.

For example it would be a good start if “the most efficient Karma grind” and “the most profitable Event chain” were two separate events chains, ideally in two different regions.

Give people viable alternatives when they see a certain area is overcrowded.

I know it’s hard when players will always look for the most efficient. Where do they draw the line? Is a 10% less efficient path acceptable? Is 5% less cash acceptable? Who knows?

Anyway, I still think ANet should do more to encourage us to leave Orr.

I mean they can’t be all that pleased by the focus and contention these zones get?

You’re overestimating the degree to which plinx beats other karma farms. I’ve reached “plinx numbers” running with a small group and killing all the veteran priests in straits of devastation. Works best in off hours, but on my server everyone’s usually in cursed shore anyway. Plinx is popular because you can stand there and spam a couple skills for easy rewards, and all the events are squeezed into a nice line for you.

I think the real problem is all events of the same level give the same karma/gold/exp rewards. I could spend 30 minutes killing claw of jormag, or 30 seconds tagging a champ in orr for the same reward. Scale up the big events to give more karma (oh and fix the mob HP so it’s not waves and waves of stuff dying instantly) and we should see people disperse to new areas.

If people want to farm plinx to max/min karma gains, I think that’s fine. But I don’t think we should be rewarding the max/min karma mentality. If you’re playing the game for the purpose of max/mining karma, then to a degree you are already trivializing content.

It’s like having your cake and eating it too. At some point you have to ask yourself the question, why do I play this game:

1. To have all the coolest stuff the game has to offer faster than anyone else.
2. To explore all the content the game has to offer

There are 2 things that make gw2 different than most MMOs

1. lvl 80 exotics are the best you can do statwise. So for the majority of your time at 80 you will not be at a statistical disadvantage.

2. You still get rewards that can be used towards max level gear in ANY zone. Just not at the Plinx rate. (For me it’s the right amount of incentive.)

Keeping things the way they are forces 1 of 3 things to happen:

1. People getting frustrated with the lack of “end-game content” and “min/max” options and find some other game to min/max

2. People realizing that getting that “skin” a month or two or six early isn’t worth mindlessly grinding the same event over and over again, and people will naturally begin to branch out and seek out fun and entertaining content. But not because it has the best rewards.

3. People realizing that if they want to farm the most lucrative content then their options for content are limited and are ok with that so long as they get to flash their legendary around town and make the rest of us jealous.

Personally for me, I would rather have Anet focus on ways to make the content more dynamic, engaging, fun rather than find ways to incentivize people to do existing content via rewards. I see this game as more of a marathon than a sprint.

But for those looking to max/min karma, you can have plinx. I’m fine with taking everything else. But I’m really not a fan of turning the entire world into a plinx-like extravaganza.

I’m not suggeting I don’t have a problem with the high concentration of players at certain chains, I find it quite irritating, especially since most are probably bots.

I do feel compelled to play devil’s advocate for a moment, though.

With DR being what it is on loot, these people are pretty clearly in it for the karma. Maybe the coin, too, but mostly karma. Why? Legendary hunting. Once they all get legendaries (making them all unique snowflakes that are identical to each other and no better than anyone else, possibly worse because of the lack of actual practice) they will do what? Farm more karma? Hang out in town to show out how awesome they are? Start actually playing the game?

I don’t know the answers, but the problem might just solve itself when these players are ready to move on.

Now if only the rest of the game world offered the same amount of profits in terms of Karma/Coin/Materials every hour as the plinx area in general it would be great.

At the current time however going anywhere else to grind is kinda a waste of time unless you are looking for certain other materials and what not.
That said even should they nerf that area people would just jump on the next best thing to farm. No one likes spending hours and hours getting nothing out of it.

Fildydarie.1496:

I’m not suggeting I don’t have a problem with the high concentration of players at certain chains, I find it quite irritating, especially since most are probably bots.

I do feel compelled to play devil’s advocate for a moment, though.

With DR being what it is on loot, these people are pretty clearly in it for the karma. Maybe the coin, too, but mostly karma. Why? Legendary hunting. Once they all get legendaries (making them all unique snowflakes that are identical to each other and no better than anyone else, possibly worse because of the lack of actual practice) they will do what? Farm more karma? Hang out in town to show out how awesome they are? Start actually playing the game?

I don’t know the answers, but the problem might just solve itself when these players are ready to move on.

I’ve got Sunrise and a complete set of dungeon gear. What should I be doing to “start actually playing the game”?

Fildydarie.1496:

I’m not suggeting I don’t have a problem with the high concentration of players at certain chains, I find it quite irritating, especially since most are probably bots.

I do feel compelled to play devil’s advocate for a moment, though.

With DR being what it is on loot, these people are pretty clearly in it for the karma. Maybe the coin, too, but mostly karma. Why? Legendary hunting. Once they all get legendaries (making them all unique snowflakes that are identical to each other and no better than anyone else, possibly worse because of the lack of actual practice) they will do what? Farm more karma? Hang out in town to show out how awesome they are? Start actually playing the game?

I don’t know the answers, but the problem might just solve itself when these players are ready to move on.

Thats not devil’s advocate. That you worried about how others play the game. Some people like or don’t mind some grind. Some people hate it. Then you go on to project on others why they are getting legendaries lol.

Maybe some are getting it because that is their “End game” In the end who cares. I run cursed shore alot and if you take the time to talk to people you will find alot of them are there for Karma yes. Though many are not there for legendaries.

Many players have wised up and realized they can get there tier 3 exotic armors from the karma vendors so they are farming that. So not everyone at cursed trying to be you know that snowflake. Jormag give you like the same karma for 1 part of Pinx yea Ill go run and do jor if I want to change it up.

Like someone else said no matter what anet does people will find the most efficient place to go that they can get their rewards the fastest. The only way to fix it is to make every DE like plinx. Basically plinx area is the model for all the DE’s if a change is to come.

If there is a change and all DE’s are popping out karma like plinx here is what will happen. People will go where the mobs are easiest to kill, travel distance is the shortest time. Some how some way a chain will be min/maxed and it will still have a high concentration of players once a youtube vid is made. In the end nobody is forced to do anything in GW2. So if people want to grind plinx they can if they want it fast. If they arent worried about speed they can go DE’s in queensdale that they missed or Grenth temple.

Plinx is fine; nerfing him would just lead to people looking for the next most efficient chain.

There will always be a “best” farming spot; and with this game essentially being a huge grind fest, you would kitten off ALOT of players by nerfing a location. Look what happened to Frostgorge after they nerfed trolls. Completely empty unless jormag is about to spawn.

And lets face it, karma grinding is HELLA BORING. When i karma grind, i can’t stand doing it for more than an hour at a time; when im in that 1 hour, i want to be as EFFICIENT as possible. Plinx happens to be the location that is most efficent. I’m all down for buffing other locations if they want though (extremely unlikely)

mostly people complain who got all their karma they need now and don’t want others to get near them…. always the same :P

Chessrook.8643:

Here’s the thing.

There will ALWAYS be a “Most efficient”.
There will ALWAYS be a “Most gold”.
There will ALWAYS be this.
The PLAYERS are the ones who find it.
If the devs change this somehow, the players are just going to move to another, that one will get clogged, and then you’ll be complaining about that. It’s always going to happen.

But it makes a huge difference when “most efficient” is most efficient by 20% or 200%.

I bet most people would happily take a 20% hit to Karma for the sake of variety and do events in other places.

“I bet most people would happily take a 20% hit to Karma for the sake of variety and do events in other places.”

I want to agree with you but I’m betting you’re wrong. It’s like asking someone if they want $20 or $25. No one is going to say no to an extra $5. That’s just how humans work.

Interestingly enough Cursed Shore and Orr in general is dead at the moment. Nothing but bots – everyone is in Lion’s Arch spamming “LFG MK” over and over and over again. Zero karma involved there, but it’s new and shiny. Perhaps your theory holds true, then?

Vigil.3408:

“I bet most people would happily take a 20% hit to Karma for the sake of variety and do events in other places.”

I want to agree with you but I’m betting you’re wrong. It’s like asking someone if they want $20 or $25. No one is going to say no to an extra $5. That’s just how humans work.

Interestingly enough Cursed Shore and Orr in general is dead at the moment. Nothing but bots – everyone is in Lion’s Arch spamming “LFG MK” over and over and over again. Zero karma involved there, but it’s new and shiny. Perhaps your theory holds true, then?

If they’re offered 20 or 25 on equal conditions, yes. But here 20 and 25 are rewards for different activities and enjoyment from the “20” activity could likely outweigh the extra $5. Much less so if the question is between 20 and 60.

I think class should be looked at most of all. Give mesmers (since they seem to have it the hardest) a fast AoE like warrior’s axe 5, or give us all a non-elite axe 5 utility skill to give everyone even farming chances. Like I keep saying, classes other than warriors want to make a lot of gold too!

I somehow don’t think by “strategizing for content” devs had, " Take out shadow refuge and smokescreen and put in haste and assassin’s signet in their place to maximize tagging. Stand in the middle since being where hyleks are will ensure I tag at least some if they spawn, but if tars spawn instead I’m guaranteed nothing as everything will be dead before I’m even in range with my shortbow. Wait for axe 5 and other people’s high damage/no-low charge fast abilities to be blown by the warrior in the zerg and others then use haste, and cluster bomb, or if I’m basically on top of the spawns haste and cluster bomb. Initiative management is important here, don’t blow it all on stuff that I can’t reach and will die before the ability reaches it." in mind.

Vigil.3408:

Interestingly enough Cursed Shore and Orr in general is dead at the moment. Nothing but bots – everyone is in Lion’s Arch spamming “LFG MK” over and over and over again. Zero karma involved there, but it’s new and shiny. Perhaps your theory holds true, then?

It’s not a question of MK being new and shiny, though it does play a (minor) factor. You’re missing the point of why people run Plinx; it’s not just karma, it’s loot. Because Arenanet took the astonishing decision to give all mobs an equal chance of dropping items, the best way to get your hands on more rares and epics is to kill lots of stuff. And the Plink chain spawns a lot of stuff. That’s why people do the Camp defences as well; large quantities of mobs that are easy to kill in groups.

It’s the same with Mad King. People can complete it in 10 minutes, and they have a chance at getting epics from his chest. That’s why they’re running it non-stop: it’s loot.

I actually posted a suggestion that I believe would go some way to fixing Orr a while back. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/Fixing-Orr-Expanding-the-End-Game/first#post408052

I do it because it is the only way to make money right now. I turn on music turn my brain off and auto attack.
There is no fun or skill in it just grinding hoping for gold. As soon as I hit 80 that is where i was. Sad and sorry state of affairs.
I still have a personal story to do by why bother? I have to fight the bots and gold sellers to just stay ahead in this game or I fall behind. They have taken a toll on the economy.Anet doesnt care or they sure would have communicated that there was an issue and they were looking at fixing orr so I am left with “working as intended”.
I just dont know any more and that is disappointing to say the least.
I dont see a vision or direction for this game at all.

Well, their way to fix or should i say kill this, was to reduce the frequency so now we don’t have that loot, karma, efficiency, maybe fun (I had fun doing plinx) per minute/hour whatever.

If I can’t play efficient why should i play? It’s now boring to wait until an event pops up. You could do plinx primary and the surrounding events secondary what’s wrong with that at all?

The better way would be something like plinx in the other 80 areas. That snow thing in the north and karka.

Plinx can’t be that bad if a lot of people played it. But the reaction is what counts.