Guild Wars 2

At the start, we had a reasonable way of gold income without Diminishing Returns (DR) . It didn’t make us instantly significantly richer, but it helped, and we were satisfied with what we earned. Then, because of the bots ( presumably, since ArenaNet is biased against them and is responsible for introducing new stuff), Diminishing Returns was implemented, and we earned less. That is one hit to our gold income.

Moving on, as you all know, Plinx WAS the most manually profitable way of earning gold. It wasn’t much, but we could get by with what we earned there. However, due to some inexplicable reason, the event chain was nerfed. This hit us hard. Second hit to our gold income.

Hitherto, selling gathered materials such as Orichalcum, Ancient Wood Log etc. was very profitable. We could net a tidy sum to last us through. It needed patience, but we thought this was a stable income that will not be hit. Unfortunately, it was. Orichalcum and Ancient Wood Log prices took a dip, for reasons I do not know, and yet again, gold income was affected. Third hit to our gold income.

So, with so many hits to our gold income, we had to improvise to pay the bills. Here comes the Arah bag farm. This was highly profitable, with roughly 5g per hour. Honestly, it is an significantly above average income, and also provided the ONLY STABLE income, since we are guaranteed the loot, unlike the kittening RNG-run sources of income (Magic Find, Rares, and Exotics). This became popular, and many people who disregarded ethnics (This is a fact) run them for many hours. Sadly, it seems we are not allowed to earn gold. ArenaNet, surprisingly quickly, “fixed” this and our income from this was halfed.

What is left, then? Fractals Of The Mist ,Trading Post? The former plays a ridiculously large factor of the oh-so-mighty-and-revered RNG, while the latter requires impressive economic skills to profit. Add to that that Fractals Of The Mist is undeniably hard to find groups of our specific level.

One recently discovered way of income is running Dungeons of Citadel of Fire and higher, converting the tokens into 30token rares, and salvaging them for Globs of Ectoplasm. Now this again, is RNG. Profit is luck based whether you get a Glob of Ectoplasm or not. From personal experience earlier today, salvaging 15 of these netted me nothing but a drip of mithril. This may be due to supreme bad luck, but still, it is an example of the negativity of RNG.

As of now, the remaining source of income is either via RNG-dependent sources, Trading Post, or Running Dungeons by itself.

This thread, is to place the facts on the table, and let us discuss how we can attain STABLE gold, or are we even allowed to. This is also a show to ArenaNet that RNG is not the best way to reward players. It is guaranteed rewards that are attractive. The Arah bag farm is proof of that. The negative response to Gem-Store chests are proof of that, as well as the Mystic Forge.

this falls in line with anet’s anti grind policy. i admit that at times there are grey areas when it comes to interpretation or implementation of their manifesto, which as we have seen, has evolved, though the wording on the document stays the same.

if they wanted you to grind out gold, they would have left all those mechanisms alone. the fact that they did away with these methods proves that they don’t want you sitting in the same zone for hours at a time, whether it be making gold or doing something else. granted, player expectations vary wildly in both directions for what is considered fun. some love grinding, some don’t.

anet has repeatedly shown us(in both blatant and ninja-like forms) that they want us to explore the world, experience the richness of the story-telling, the art that was created and the music composed for our enjoyment.

this is my personal opinion….but i feel like the hardcore gamers want what they want right now and if they don’t have it, they throw a tantrum, which usually involves ranting here on the forums and has a collateral damaging effect on other players who read their posts.

if you’re no longer having fun…why play? this game has a rather large audience from casual mmo player to grindfest mmo player to dungeon crawler and people after ‘phat lewtz.’ anet can’t please everyone so invariably, someone will get angry. if those players don’t vibe with this game…go play something else.

That’s a very good description of the progressive nerfing of any faster than basic gold income. I really wonder whether it was the extra gold income or the repetitive grinding that ArenaNet cares so much about.

You are however writing from a hardcore player’s perspective: you will do whatever nets you the best g/hour, for hours at a time if you have to. Casual players (like me) are lucky if they can scrape together 1g per hour in open world play.
That kind of income leaves us perpetually broke, playing for a month to craft only an exotic set of armor maybe, and forget about outfitting alts.

I dare say that it’s just NOT FUN playing with such incredibly poor rewards from dynamic events, loot and such. If a decent income could be had from DEs and exploring in different zones, I bet a lot more people would not be speedrunning dungeons. Now, they rightly feel they have to in order to progress.

Gems buy them you will?

This game is grind central and forced at that. In order to make income anet has attacked the player in every feesable way of deriving income with the exception of gold buying.
That keeps you playing longer and longer and that is what they want or you buy gems what they also want.
Fun has nothing to do with this and they dont care if it is fun as long as your grinding the vertical progression dungeon you dont worry about economics cause you have the next level to worry about.

It really is horrific if you think about it. It will get even worse when guild activities (raids) get introduced and the unreal grind and power creep that will happen with that.
So long answer is no they dont want you to have gold. They want you dependent on them for you next fix/grind.

How do you make 1 Gold in the open world? I’m new and need to make some for Leatherworking lol, but I have 2 silver. I realize I can guy Gems and convert, but last time I did that half of the Gold poofed into thin air… so yeah. that and I have to contact support to get the Gem store to accept payment everytime…

So what can a newb that refuses to run dungeons but will do anything else, do?

Narkosys.5173:

So long answer is no they dont want you to have gold. They want you dependent on them for you next fix/grind.

like any other commercial company.

Fractals are a pretty bad way to make money also. I did a run on level 10 and got nothing but 2x green and 1x blue out of each chest, along with a very small amount of other loot from random enemies and the 3s from the misleadingly-named “Bag of Gold”.

6x greens and 3x blues is a very small amount of loot, around 16-18s for a 1.5hour run of the fractals.

Abysmal. Loot/rewards are seriously bad.

I’m a casual player. I will buy gems for conveniences and fun stuff (skins etc) if I’m enjoying myself. I will not buy gold with gems and if I stop having fun in the game, I will just quit. Also I will not gamble, but that doesn’t go for all or even most casual players.

50G from farming 3 days straight.
MF gear with Food —- 161%

Best bet is, to farm the events in orr, or other possible locations.

Aside of that dungeons can lift quite a remarkable amount aswell if you get decent groups.

There’s plenty of other alternatives, just wouln’t know of them right now.

Actually, the answer seems to be there’s a bug with the drop rate. There’s a long thread about it in this very subform (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Change-in-loot-parameters-or-a-bug-Merged) and another one in the Game Bugs forum I think. The AMA said they were looking into it.

Yes, I am rather ashamed to admit I am a hardcore player.

this falls in line with anet’s anti grind policy. i admit that at times there are grey areas when it comes to interpretation or implementation of their manifesto, which as we have seen, has evolved, though the wording on the document stays the same.

if they wanted you to grind out gold, they would have left all those mechanisms alone. the fact that they did away with these methods proves that they don’t want you sitting in the same zone for hours at a time, whether it be making gold or doing something else. granted, player expectations vary wildly in both directions for what is considered fun. some love grinding, some don’t.

anet has repeatedly shown us(in both blatant and ninja-like forms) that they want us to explore the world, experience the richness of the story-telling, the art that was created and the music composed for our enjoyment.

this is my personal opinion….but i feel like the hardcore gamers want what they want right now and if they don’t have it, they throw a tantrum, which usually involves ranting here on the forums and has a collateral damaging effect on other players who read their posts.

if you’re no longer having fun…why play? this game has a rather large audience from casual mmo player to grindfest mmo player to dungeon crawler and people after ‘phat lewtz.’ anet can’t please everyone so invariably, someone will get angry. if those players don’t vibe with this game…go play something else.

My plan is to look good before I start exploring so that the Screenshots will be nicer. Mock me all you want about that (Not directed to quoted person), but I like it that way.

Also, I may be offending or generalising, but I think Hardcore gamers like me as pointed out prefer swagging around with gold and looking better while Casual gamers have fun with what they like such as Exploring or WvW.

mcwurth.2081:

Narkosys.5173:

So long answer is no they dont want you to have gold. They want you dependent on them for you next fix/grind.

like any other commercial company.

In your previous post you shout: " IT IS JUST A GAME NOT YOUR REAL JOB! ", now you are saying it’s just business. You seem to be all over the map on this one.

I make more money when i’m not trying to than when I decide to farm. wander through a zone…any zone… killing and harvesting as you get from point A to point. list as much as you can on the TP andvendor the rest. This seems to be the best way to earn money for me.

A warrior, engineer or elementalist in full magic find gear farming dynamic events can get tonnes of rares, which broken down for ecto is worth a small fortune in the current economic climate. The gold from the event is dwarfed by the gold from drops if you’re a grinder

Trading on the auction house is by far the most profitable option, but you need to enjoy maths and that sort’ve thing; it is however technically not a grind since you place your bids and go do something else, come back later to collect your gold.

Exploring high level zones can yield quite substantial rewards in terms of gold and gear as well as gold and loot from kills while exploring (Assuming you don’t just run everywhere and kill nothing which probably explains why you’re so poor in the first place!)

Grimshetara.3265:

One recently discovered way of income is running Dungeons of Citadel of Fire and higher, converting the tokens into 30token rares, and salvaging them for Globs of Ectoplasm. .

This is an exploit. Karma/token rewards are usually not salvagable for this very reason, if you do this don’t be too surprised if you get your kitten busted and temp-banned like all the similar exploits before it

Rehashed Jibe Tube.7102:

I make more money when i’m trying not to than when I decide to farm. wander through a zone…any zone… killing and harvesting as you get from point A to point. list as much as you can on the TP andvendor the rest. This seems to be the best way to earn money for me.

This. I personally kill everything in my path (I like killing!), and have never wanted for gold; yet I see people sprinting all over orr desperatly searching for orichalcum with a train of mobs on their kitten that’d probably yield 5-10s if they just turned around and stab-murdered them in the face

Nhalx.9735:

50G from farming 3 days straight.
MF gear with Food —- 161%

Best bet is, to farm the events in orr, or other possible locations.

Aside of that dungeons can lift quite a remarkable amount aswell if you get decent groups.

There’s plenty of other alternatives, just wouln’t know of them right now.

how can u make that much from farming orr events and still avoid the anti-bot loot nerf mechanisms?

Ryuujin.8236:

A warrior, engineer or elementalist in full magic find gear farming dynamic events can get tonnes of rares, which broken down for ecto is worth a small fortune in the current economic climate. The gold from the event is dwarfed by the gold from drops if you’re a grinder

Trading on the auction house is by far the most profitable option, but you need to enjoy maths and that sort’ve thing; it is however technically not a grind since you place your bids and go do something else, come back later to collect your gold.

Exploring high level zones can yield quite substantial rewards in terms of gold and gear as well as gold and loot from kills while exploring (Assuming you don’t just run everywhere and kill nothing which probably explains why you’re so poor in the first place!)

Grimshetara.3265:

One recently discovered way of income is running Dungeons of Citadel of Fire and higher, converting the tokens into 30token rares, and salvaging them for Globs of Ectoplasm. .

This is an exploit. Karma/token rewards are usually not salvagable for this very reason, if you do this don’t be too surprised if you get your kitten busted and temp-banned like all the similar exploits before it

I agree with that exploring gives substantial rewards, but there are only so many level 70-80 areas. I would be satisfied exploring for gold. On the part on exploit, even the level 80 Exotics are salvageable. I doubt it is an exploit overlooked by ArenaNet. I will gladly stand corrected however. Still, if it IS an exploit, it will add to the list inherent in essence of the thread.

Ryuujin.8236:

This. I personally kill everything in my path (I like killing!), and have never wanted for gold; yet I see people sprinting all over orr desperatly searching for orichalcum with a train of mobs on their kitten that’d probably yield 5-10s if they just turned around and stab-murdered them in the face

Not everyone has the build, skills or profession to take on a train of mobs.

Do you help with mobs when you see that? If you see someone doing that, ask them if they want the mobs or if you can take them. Easy 5-10s for, and they can harvest in peace.

OT: Yeah, I used to make enough money just playing to not worry too much. But now I’m seriously outleveling my gear and repair costs are being a pain since I’m dying.

Mutiny.4180:

I love people who tell others they make exuberant amounts of gold by “playing the market.” Good to know, but too bad for the rest of us who’d rather play the game and still be able to afford cool things.

Ask yourself this:
How does an adventurer make gold?

Answer:
He sells the loot he finds in his adventures.

A savvy adventurer will always get a better deal than one who just sells for asking price; this isn’t unique to GW2. Whether it be selling an item on auction in WoW or Allods, making an appraisal throw in Dungeons and Dragons, or taking ranks in speechcraft in Skyrim.

If you’re not willing to shop about for the best deal and be savvy with your gold in GW2, don’t be surprised when you find yourself having less than the next guy.

Personally I love this aspect of GW2, it isn’t a matter of grinding up and vendoring items, the civvie side of life is a mini-game of it’s own; the greatest PvP arena where the stakes pay out in gold.

Gilosean.3805:

Do you help with mobs when you see that? If you see someone doing that, ask them if they want the mobs or if you can take them. Easy 5-10s for, and they can harvest in peace.

I do actually – I’m like “Thanks for rounding them up for me” and murder them all with mind bullets. I do wonder why someone would risk training so many mobs though if they won’t survive it if something went wrong.

Grimshetara.3265:

Yes, I am rather ashamed to admit I am a hardcore player.

this falls in line with anet’s anti grind policy. i admit that at times there are grey areas when it comes to interpretation or implementation of their manifesto, which as we have seen, has evolved, though the wording on the document stays the same.

if they wanted you to grind out gold, they would have left all those mechanisms alone. the fact that they did away with these methods proves that they don’t want you sitting in the same zone for hours at a time, whether it be making gold or doing something else. granted, player expectations vary wildly in both directions for what is considered fun. some love grinding, some don’t.

anet has repeatedly shown us(in both blatant and ninja-like forms) that they want us to explore the world, experience the richness of the story-telling, the art that was created and the music composed for our enjoyment.

this is my personal opinion….but i feel like the hardcore gamers want what they want right now and if they don’t have it, they throw a tantrum, which usually involves ranting here on the forums and has a collateral damaging effect on other players who read their posts.

if you’re no longer having fun…why play? this game has a rather large audience from casual mmo player to grindfest mmo player to dungeon crawler and people after ‘phat lewtz.’ anet can’t please everyone so invariably, someone will get angry. if those players don’t vibe with this game…go play something else.

My plan is to look good before I start exploring so that the Screenshots will be nicer. Mock me all you want about that (Not directed to quoted person), but I like it that way.

Also, I may be offending or generalising, but I think Hardcore gamers like me as pointed out prefer swagging around with gold and looking better while Casual gamers have fun with what they like such as Exploring or WvW.

there is no shame in being any type of player…i think what happens is that when people start saying that ‘this part of the game is broken because ’i can’t get _ fast enough or as fast as i would like or as fast as i could before or as fast as someone else.’

i understand that in an mmo, the nature of the game being social…that looking nice is intrinsic to enjoyment. i just think that the unrealistic time tables that some of the hardcores have are unreasonable with the rate at which it takes to acquire their shinies.

not trying to bash anyone here…i am somewhere between a casual and a hardcore player myself. while i don’t have upwards of 8+hours a day to play, when i do play, i tend to min/max my time, but the minute i get bored, i leave what i’m doing to enjoy some other part of the game.

for instance, i can babysit the tp and make about 25-45s per 2-3minutes invested. but that is so boring. the allure of gold that fast is nice, but once it wore off, i found i would rather run fractals, then explore southsun cove, followed by some jumping puzzles in eternal battlegrounds, finishing off with some wvw since i’m already there.

the whole time, i’m making money(minus wvw) and enjoying myself(especially wvw)

Actually with the current lack of gold sinks, the economy has plenty of gold. What we don’t have are rare crafting mats.

when i was playing I never made a lot in the market about 2g per hour and sometimes took a hit and sometime got a winner.

I found with MF full and plinx I manged about 3-4g per h or 2 runs of the circuit with the arena thrown in. I did the market while I waited for plinx to pop.

I havent been back since they nerfed it and could care less about the dungeon grind. Your best bet would be grind that puppy till your fingers bleed then Anet will nerf it as well. They nerf very well you know.

people who are “playing the market” aren’t.

they are ripping off other players to line their pockets.

“flipping” is not a mini-game.

if everyone who was spending all day and night cuddling the TP merchant would actually go out and play the actual game,
there would be plenty of cheap mats in the TP.

Anet needs to restrict market manipulation, otherwise everything will just get more and more expensive – flip after flip after flip…

I can pretty much do around 10-20 gold per day by running dungeons, doing events.

I dont know what are you talking about here ..

3 paths of AC can give you around 4 gold, just dont skip anything.
And farming in orr gives you stable 1,2-2g per hour just by doing events, dropping rares, selling the rest.

So if I do for instance 6 dungeons per day = 6-8 gold
+
If i farm another 5 hours in orr = another 6-12 gold

When you drop exotic, you can make even more … Come on, only becaues you cant make 100g per day there is no reason to complain here.

You have to take the lesson from real life — look at the wealthy folks. They don’t work to get wealthy, they trade to get wealthy.

But if you can be content with a modest middle-class level of wealth, I find no matter what I do, if I play the game anywhere that’s not sPvP or a crafting table, at the end of playing I have more gold and mats than I started with. Relax, have fun, good things will happen.

Dogblaster.6713:

I can pretty much do around 10-20 gold per day by running dungeons, doing events.

I dont know what are you talking about here ..

How many hours in that day?

Mimizu.7340:

people who are “playing the market” aren’t.

they are ripping off other players to line their pockets.

And in WvW people murder you for gold, life in GW2 isn’t fair. Kind’ve like the real world

God Of Fissures.8627:

there is no fun way to make money in this game. it is all a repetitive grind.

I agree, plus to this, I do not want to run FoTM nor want to kitten up the Trading post. Hell, I think I’ll always stay poor.

Mimizu.7340:

people who are “playing the market” aren’t.

they are ripping off other players to line their pockets.

“flipping” is not a mini-game.

if everyone who was spending all day and night cuddling the TP merchant would actually go out and play the actual game,
there would be plenty of cheap mats in the TP.

Anet needs to restrict market manipulation, otherwise everything will just get more and more expensive – flip after flip after flip…

Actually the real problem with that system is there’s no way to short-sell, no put options, so there’s no way that traders can exert negative pressure on prices.

I think Anet wants the market to be part of the game. It’s just not particularly deep.

“This thread, is to place the facts on the table, and let us discuss how we can attain STABLE gold, or are we even allowed to. This is also a show to ArenaNet that RNG is not the best way to reward players. It is guaranteed rewards that are attractive. The Arah bag farm is proof of that. The negative response to Gem-Store chests are proof of that, as well as the Mystic Forge.”

This is based on the fact on aNets part: The fact is aNet wants some type of RL cash flow, the best way for RL cash flow. is allow players to trade gems for gold in the gem shop. So the objective will be nerf coin drops, add MF in game for gold sinking, put a price on each waypoint for gold sinking. Well you see the pattern here.

If gold were sinking, why wouldn’t we be seeing deflation instead of inflation?

The real question is “How much gold do you want to make?”

I am pretty sure, most everyone is able to make enough coin to keep up on repairs, add to WvW upgrades, get their crafting done (eventually) and just about everything else needed to play the game.

If earning 5 gold/hr is what you consider acceptable, then you may have your standards a little too high. Shouldn’t the profit rate be enough to cover bills (which are the examples above, not buying enough gems to buy out the gem shop or over-throw the TP) and have a little extra to start to save for gear or play the market? Over that, wouldn’t that seem to be excessive for the average player?

mulch.2586:

If gold were sinking, why wouldn’t we be seeing deflation instead of inflation?

Simple short answer: players who buy from Gold sellers.

I hope Anet continues to eliminate single-area, simple grinds for gold. I don’t want to mindlessly kill the same boss, or repeat the same event over and over to earn piles of coin. Moreover, I don’t want to compete in an economy where others do this. Many of them will be bots, and a fair portion of the rest are just nuts

Coin should be earned by doing things that are, themselves, enjoyable. Don’t sign up for punching a clock in Tyria. There’s plenty of that on Earth already.

Ryuujin.8236:

Mutiny.4180:

I love people who tell others they make exuberant amounts of gold by “playing the market.” Good to know, but too bad for the rest of us who’d rather play the game and still be able to afford cool things.

Ask yourself this:
How does an adventurer make gold?

Answer:
He sells the loot he finds in his adventures.

A savvy adventurer will always get a better deal than one who just sells for asking price; this isn’t unique to GW2. Whether it be selling an item on auction in WoW or Allods, making an appraisal throw in Dungeons and Dragons, or taking ranks in speechcraft in Skyrim.

If you’re not willing to shop about for the best deal and be savvy with your gold in GW2, don’t be surprised when you find yourself having less than the next guy.

Personally I love this aspect of GW2, it isn’t a matter of grinding up and vendoring items, the civvie side of life is a mini-game of it’s own; the greatest PvP arena where the stakes pay out in gold.

Gilosean.3805:

Do you help with mobs when you see that? If you see someone doing that, ask them if they want the mobs or if you can take them. Easy 5-10s for, and they can harvest in peace.

I do actually – I’m like “Thanks for rounding them up for me” and murder them all with mind bullets. I do wonder why someone would risk training so many mobs though if they won’t survive it if something went wrong.

I need to know more people like you.

It happens accidentally is why. Mob aggro in this game is off somehow – sometimes I can be close, and sometimes they target me through huge obstacles. Maybe I just seem extra-tasty.

So I try to avoid / flee from one mob, and another mob aggros so I keep running, and then another joins in, and then it’s Benny Hill all over again with repair costs at the end. I’ve once to twice gotten a mob train to aggro another mob and looted the resulting pileup, but frequently I have to flee. I love elementalists, but we are just squishy for regular PvE right now.

I also enjoy the market mini-game. I think it’s interesting that everyone who complains about it seems to think it’s a sure-fire winning game. A lot of people lose money that way, just like a lot of people lose money in dungeons or PvE or WvW. It’s a risk just like all the other ways to make money. Some make it big in the market and some get a precursor as a random drop and some are great at PvP. People can earn money all over in this game.

All the examples the OP describes are surrounded by more complex issues… it’s not like Anet is proactively trying to slight it’s player base because kitten ‘em that’s why. They’re trying to create a balance between all aspects of how stuff is acquired…. the balancing act that occurs swings both ways.

DR was to combat botters, speed runners, and people exploiting things in order to get constant waves of mobs (like grubb’n). Prices are shooting back up partially due to the DR, but mostly because less botters/people are farming and a lot more people are clearing content… They’re walking away mostly with gold, but nothing to spend it on. Basically, supply is lower yet demand is the same if not greater and you’ve introduced more money; hence price inflation.

Plinx nerf was an attempt to make more of the map (Cursed Shore and the rest of the world) viable/desirable. A relatively quick and easy DE chain of 5 events that are near at least 2-3 other DEs (some you can do while doing the plinx chain) that respawns quickly is awesome for players, but unbalanced in the grand scheme of what they were trying to shoot for.

Ori and Ancient wood prices are market factors, and probably dipped due to botting, also dipped due to a lesser demand in needing those materials; for example, not as many jewelcrafting exotic accessories are necessary/desired. Not sure what the market is now, but dips/spikes are mostly market driven.

The new Arah gold run is just as bad as, if not worse than, the original token farming runs. All you’re doing is inflating the market… but hoping you can get your cash quick enough to buy stuff before the market responds. Anet fixed this exploit for the second time now, deal with it.

You can still make money…. try your hand at farming some stuff. With all the folks running fractals and dungeons, not focusing on T6 mats and such; you can make decent profit. You just can’t make absurd sums of money easy for low risk…

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@OP:

In order:

- The bots were bad for the game. Period. You might argue they were pumping materials into the world, but only at the prices they would be able to set since they’d hold a majority supply through their repetitive work just to grab loot. Diminishing Returns was put in to try to nip the bots where they care . . . the Gold income. It hit a lot of actual players who were content to farm but I’m going to guess it was seen as “collateral damage” and the hope was the players would choose to spread out rather than grind through that DR until it was pointless.

- Plinx got hit for much the same reason. Bots no longer farming loot, but now running the event chain. And a lot of players simply sitting in the same spot doing the same chain over and over because it was the fastest and most profitable way. Again, ANet wants players to spread out and move on rather than pick a spot and farm. They raised the timer so it takes longer to recycle (is what I recall reading that they did) and thus it was no longer always up for Gold/Karma Event Zerging. Again, unfortunate that the players didn’t respond as perhaps hoped and just moved to the next target of high-return, low-effort.

- Orichalcum and Ancient Wood dropped probably because you can get some in Southsun Cove. There are 2 Ancient Wood nodes, 2 Orichalcum nodes, and 1 Rich Orichalcum Vein. This translates to . . . A LOT MORE . . . entering the market per node cycle. It’s dropped because the supply increased.

I don’t think there is a definitive magic bullet to earning Gold, though if your server is on an offensive roll in WvW then you can tag through capture or defense events and earn approximately 2 silver per until you hit Diminishing Returns. This assumes you aren’t repeatedly throwing yourself into the fray and dying.

I primarily make my money simply killing everything and selling anything to the vendor which is not more useful being Salvaged. This, along with one dungeon run per day, for the last week, has net me almost 8 Gold. And total playtime per day is roughly 3 hours devoted to just laying waste to an area and sorting through the loot.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

All the examples the OP describes are surrounded by more complex issues… it’s not like Anet is proactively trying to slight it’s player base because kitten ‘em that’s why. They’re trying to create a balance between all aspects of how stuff is acquired…. the balancing act that occurs swings both ways.

DR was to combat botters, speed runners, and people exploiting things in order to get constant waves of mobs (like grubb’n). Prices are shooting back up partially due to the DR, but mostly because less botters/people are farming and a lot more people are clearing content… They’re walking away mostly with gold, but nothing to spend it on. Basically, supply is lower yet demand is the same if not greater and you’ve introduced more money; hence price inflation.

Plinx nerf was an attempt to make more of the map (Cursed Shore and the rest of the world) viable/desirable. A relatively quick and easy DE chain of 5 events that are near at least 2-3 other DEs (some you can do while doing the plinx chain) that respawns quickly is awesome for players, but unbalanced in the grand scheme of what they were trying to shoot for.

Ori and Ancient wood prices are market factors, and probably dipped due to botting, also dipped due to a lesser demand in needing those materials; for example, not as many jewelcrafting exotic accessories are necessary/desired. Not sure what the market is now, but dips/spikes are mostly market driven.

The new Arah gold run is just as bad as, if not worse than, the original token farming runs. All you’re doing is inflating the market… but hoping you can get your cash quick enough to buy stuff before the market responds. Anet fixed this exploit for the second time now, deal with it.

You can still make money…. try your hand at farming some stuff. With all the folks running fractals and dungeons, not focusing on T6 mats and such; you can make decent profit. You just can’t make absurd sums of money easy for low risk…

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By “Farming T6 mats” you mean, grinding and hoping the kittening RNG gives the items in question? That has been covered as “RNG-dependent sources”.

T5 are still profitable as well. UNID’ed dyes (which drop more frequently in lower level zones apparently)…. Yes, low drop rates and DR doesn’t help, but low risk doesn’t mean income/reward should be equivalent to those taking riskier ventures.

This is an exploit. Karma/token rewards are usually not salvagable for this very reason, if you do this don’t be too surprised if you get your kitten busted and temp-banned like all the similar exploits before it

How is this an exploit? All dungeon token rewards have been salvageable since the beginning of the game. God forbid we have something to use our tokens on once we finish our gear. I imagine dungeon participation would tank even further if they were made unsalvageable.

Just helps to UP the replay value…thats it !

Could be like other games out there ,where you grind all the end game gear ,just so they can put out an entire new set next month for you to grind all over again ! Mostly because these games have no endgame content to speak of other than the monthly farm to aquire the hottest new gear sets .

I for one am tired of getting new pvp and pve sets every month ,it gets old . I like the fact it takes TIME to aquire these things ! You cant show everyone how good your are at the game , yet . But in 6 months or so , youll look kitten and everyone will know what it took to get that =0…

Grimshetara.3265:

By “Farming T6 mats” you mean, grinding and hoping the kittening RNG gives the items in question? That has been covered as “RNG-dependent sources”.

This. Especially with the DR. Some of us (like me) either have extremely bad luck or are being hit with perma DR (and yes, I know there is something wrong with drop rates right now.), which means we get shafted and don’t have the cash to advance stuff (like crafting). I’m stuck at about level 380 in Jewelcrafting (I think its jewelcrafting, its either that or Tailoring/Artificing. All I know is I need globs to create the next level insignia/thing to not have to repeatedly craft the same things over and over in hopes of getting to next crafting lvl), because I don’t have the expendable cash to try and either buy globs straight up or even try to buy rares/exos and try to salvage them for globs.
I actually miss the botters. At least then stuff was somewhat cheap enough to advance through the crafting levels.

I get the feeling from what they are doing is trying to make it so we can’t readily/easily make gold. Between the nerfs, drop bug, DR, Repair costs, WP costs, etc., most of us barely make enough gold to get anywhere/thing.

@skullmount

I do agree, at least up to 400, that jewelcrafting shouldn’t require ectos… but I think Anet did that in response to how remarkably easy it is to level that crafting profession relative to other professions. Did they change tailoring and other crafting professions as well to include ectos in the 375-400 craft? I know they increased the number of ectos required for a crafted exotic piece (except jewelcrafting).

I think the better question is, what rate of farming is acceptable to create a full exotic set via crafting materials? What’s the rate for those who want a set running a particular dungeon? Obviously, the riskier option (dungeons) will be faster… but what’s the acceptable time frame? Take in mind that it currently takes about 2 weeks, running 3 non-DR’ed paths each day, to get a full set of armor and weapons from a particular dungeon (1 week for the armor set, and about another week for the weapon set depending on the profession and what they use). Before DR, you could craft full exotic everything in a matter of a day or so; and aside from speed runs in CoF and Arah, it took a lot longer than 40 some odd runs to get full dungeon gear.

Mimizu.7340:

people who are “playing the market” aren’t.

they are ripping off other players to line their pockets.

“flipping” is not a mini-game.

You just made me spit my drink out laughing. People who don’t know how to use this type of TP/AH are letting themselves get ripped off.

Mimizu.7340:

if everyone who was spending all day and night cuddling the TP merchant would actually go out and play the actual game,
there would be plenty of cheap mats in the TP.

Anet needs to restrict market manipulation, otherwise everything will just get more and more expensive – flip after flip after flip…

Another “REGULATE EVERYTHING” fix. Really?

So that the TP will be useless for everyone? 90% of items right now sell for 1 copper over what you can sell them to a vendor. If everyone is forced to go out and farm then everything will be like this.

You really think ArenaNet has the time to sit and monitor what people are doing? They are taking long enough to fix important bugs that have been in this game for months as it is.

kiba.2768:

this falls in line with anet’s anti grind policy. i admit that at times there are grey areas when it comes to interpretation or implementation of their manifesto, which as we have seen, has evolved, though the wording on the document stays the same.

if they wanted you to grind out gold, they would have left all those mechanisms alone. the fact that they did away with these methods proves that they don’t want you sitting in the same zone for hours at a time, whether it be making gold or doing something else. granted, player expectations vary wildly in both directions for what is considered fun. some love grinding, some don’t.

anet has repeatedly shown us(in both blatant and ninja-like forms) that they want us to explore the world, experience the richness of the story-telling, the art that was created and the music composed for our enjoyment.

this is my personal opinion….but i feel like the hardcore gamers want what they want right now and if they don’t have it, they throw a tantrum, which usually involves ranting here on the forums and has a collateral damaging effect on other players who read their posts.

if you’re no longer having fun…why play? this game has a rather large audience from casual mmo player to grindfest mmo player to dungeon crawler and people after ‘phat lewtz.’ anet can’t please everyone so invariably, someone will get angry. if those players don’t vibe with this game…go play something else.

Agree whole heartedly if the game isnt fun just find another game or something that is fun to play

yeah no offense, I don’t see how forcing people to go farm mats rather than play the TP makes prices go down. They just play the TP less, you assume that they’ll throw up their assets for cheap.

Market players make money because people are willing to pay for things at outrageous prices. Ever wonder why a pair of Gucci sunglasses is $400-600 for basically plastic? Cause there are dolts out there willing to buy them at that price.

As for anti-grind…. they meant it as it’s not mandatory to grind. You don’t need rares/exotics/legendary to do anything, you simply want them and the market players know it; hence the prices are what they are.

krojack.4920:

90% of items right now sell for 1 copper over what you can sell them to a vendor.

i love made up statistics.

oddly, anything i buy from the TP doesnt fall into this “90%”

krojack.4920:

Mimizu.7340:

people who are “playing the market” aren’t.

they are ripping off other players to line their pockets.

“flipping” is not a mini-game.

You just made me spit my drink out laughing. People who don’t know how to use this type of TP/AH are letting themselves get ripped off.

Mimizu.7340:

if everyone who was spending all day and night cuddling the TP merchant would actually go out and play the actual game,
there would be plenty of cheap mats in the TP.

Anet needs to restrict market manipulation, otherwise everything will just get more and more expensive – flip after flip after flip…

Another “REGULATE EVERYTHING” fix. Really?

So that the TP will be useless for everyone? 90% of items right now sell for 1 copper over what you can sell them to a vendor. If everyone is forced to go out and farm then everything will be like this.

You really think ArenaNet has the time to sit and monitor what people are doing? They are taking long enough to fix important bugs that have been in this game for months as it is.

You forgot something krojack. You really think ArenaNet is actually fixing any of the old bugs with the way they keep pumping out events to try and cover their old screwups?

Mimizu.7340:

krojack.4920:

90% of items right now sell for 1 copper over what you can sell them to a vendor.

i love made up statistics.

oddly, anything i buy from the TP doesnt fall into this “90%”

Cause you’re buying, not selling…. people who opt for the auto-sell option to make a quick buck right away often fall prey to the market players who buy low and are willing to set the prices a little higher when they sell and wait until the item sells.

On the flip side, personally I’m earning way more money now than I was a month ago.

Currently my tactic is not to farm the same area two days in a row. Frostgorge one day, Fireheart the next, Southern Coast the next then down into the Orr areas. Never do the same thing twice in a week, don’t farm for more than an hour at a time. So far reliably I’ve picked up 1 – 3 gold a day this way. Not the insane 25 g a day that some people want but I think this is a fairly reasonable rate of return.

Between that and my other adventuring and dungeons I pull in more I’m sure but I actively don’t keep track of profits for anything but farming.

Now Dungeon are kitten slow to build up enough tokens to buy anything. I wish there was a scaled diffecult system almost like the fractals with a higher drop rate as you get to higher levels cause it’s hard enough to get a group together to run 1 dungeon run rather then 3 (that’s like 3 – 4 hours for 120 – 150 tokens).

I think that 2 gold a day is pretty reasonable, too, for an average player with responsibilities that eat most of their time (work, family, school, whatever separates you from those who can play 10 hours a day).

Of course, at that rate, it will take about a year to earn a Legendary.