Guild Wars 2

Firegoth.6427:

It takes a lot more than a couple of rich players to change the flow of the market.
Everyone are willing to pay these prices, there aren’t these imaginary rich players who keep purchasing precursors.

Just a couple of days ago, there was a player who earned 1kg by playing the game over a long time, he bought both Dusk and Dawn, just a regular player like most people or the OP here.

As long as there are people who are willing to pay those prices, the rarity will remain the same.

The numbers of 1 and 2 were only to simplify what’s going on, but evidently I should elaborate a bit further.

We have limited supply of certain items. Those items’ prices are not dependent on the entire community’s willingness. It only takes a portion of the community to set said prices. As long as A (number of players with elevated capital creating demand) is greater than B (supply of said items), then C (everyone else) have zero bearing on price.

These are not imaginary players. These are the tp players, the cof grinders, the “enthusiasts”, etc. They have capital far beyond the majority of the player base. Their numbers (by virtue of a massive player base) are enough to exceed supply on many items. Notice I’m not saying precursors…this applies to a lot of things and should not be limited as such.

As for Sunday, the player you are referring…if you noticed the 29 stacks of deadly blossums, 4 stacks of ecto, 104 unident dyes, the 101 onyx lodestones, 88 pristine relics, the multiple stacks of mats, and a bank tab slider which eludes to min of 5 tabs on top of the 1k g or that they have played on average 7hrs every day for 7 months….this is not your average player…that should be plainly obvious.

Mirta.5029:

Hoyvin.3241:

Mirta.5029:

You’re not supposed to convert gems to gold really.

Says who? Why on earth would they give you an option like that if they didn’t want you to do it?

so you could convert your gold back if you made a mistake converting gold to gems?
Why would you convert gems to gold when the conversion rate just decreases and you get less and less gold?

Uh….what??? facepalm

Mirta.5029:

Hoyvin.3241:

Mirta.5029:

You’re not supposed to convert gems to gold really.

Says who? Why on earth would they give you an option like that if they didn’t want you to do it?

so you could convert your gold back if you made a mistake converting gold to gems?
Why would you convert gems to gold when the conversion rate just decreases and you get less and less gold?

You’re missing the point. Yes you can buy gold by buying gems and converting them to gold. Yes, you can buy gems with gold. No you can’t convert back and forth. Well, you can but you will be throwing away money if you did. Being able to convert one to the other is working as intended. They intentionally off set the price so that if you bought gems with gold then converted the gems back to gold you would suffer a net loss.

The price values of both fluctuate as a way of control. Too much gold floating around the player base? Adjust the prices so that you get less gold from your gems and you can buy more gems with your gold. This will result in less people converting gems bought with cash into gold and will encourage people to spend their gold on gems.

Octavius.7462:

Guild Wars 2 do not want farming to be huge part of the game. -Octavius of Tyria

Great post and so spot on.

Mirta.5029:

This game has stated at the beginning that it is against all means of farming. It was designed in a way to not allow anyone to farm. You don’t need to farm to gain levels, to gain gear or to gain money. It’s not the game that’s farm inducing, it’s your view on it that’s wrong.
A legendary and other lots of material requiring weapons are supposed to be gotten over a really long period of time. I just ran CoE. Got lucky and 2 bottles of T6 blood dropped. An exotic that I salvaged and sold dropped. If I was collecting the blood I would use the money from the exotic that dropped to buy more of it. I would also sell other T6 mats that I have collected while running dungeons and fractals and buy more blood. See? Easy material management. You don’t need to farm for them

SOMEONEwould have had to farm those T6 mats you would buy. Farming IS a requirement in order to obtain a legendary.

Wiser with Age.3714:

In theory, ArenaNet’s early comment about Legendary weapons implied that they expect people to take 6 – 12 months to accomplish them. When people got full Legendary weapons within just a couple months of the game’s release, ArenaNet was really caught off guard. For some reason, they really expected everyone to be ultra casual about the process and not so aggressive about farming content.

To be honest, I really don’t know what ArenaNet was so surprised. They were caught with their pants down since Legendary weapons were likely supposed to be a large time sink. As a result of this, they started to nerf the available farming options as a reactive way of creating more artificial time sinks.

While I like many aspects of this game, there are times when I wonder about ArenaNet’s lack of ability to predict obvious reactions in their customer base. The Legendary weapon matter is just one of many in my mind. Like it or not, I don’t really expect ArenaNet to change their minds.

So now the rest of us must suffer for an oversight on ANETS part?

What I find funny is that one of the “Dailies” is “Gathering” and it is there EVERY DAY. -LOL {:þ

It used to be that Anet listened to their costumers. Look at the guaranteed rare in some world events now. Granted it took a long time to implement, but they did listen. If you believe we are loosing out on not being about to farm. If you believe it’s enough to make you want to quit like me, then I believe we need to let them know. I don’t want this issue to kill my favorite game in the end. The squeaky wheel gets the grease as they say. So don’t let the trolls convince you that you are just a whiner if you are unhappy with an aspect of a game you paid for too. Don’t let them convince you that you are the only one who has the problem when we all know that we see people in map chat and on the forum who feel the same way. So I for one want them to know that I want MY game back. Quit making Orr with less dense mobs and replacing them with enormously stronger mobs that spawn more mobs which give no rewards for killing. Quit remastering our game. This isn’t Star Wars and you don’t need to add any Gungans after the fact^^

Mirta.5029:

Ridley.3691:

The economy in this game is just awful, rare items are ridiculously overpriced, and gold is too scarce for people to afford much without farming. Add to this that ANet seem to nerf farming spots pretty frequently and it’s just a chore.

I understand that easier gold = even higher prices, hence why the economy as a whole is screwed, I mean compare it to WoW, where yes, lots of stuff is overpriced, but the average player can more readily afford most stuff, and make gold at a good pace.

rare items are overpriced? After making map events guarantee you a rare rare items slumped in price way down. 15 silver for a rare if you’re buying it out, 8 silver if you order it. Rares used to be 30-40 silver before.
I have T3 on my elementalist and just recently afforded a flame dye. Without farming or doing anything special I can amass up to 20 gold in 2 days. People actually working for gold can amass the same sum way faster. It’s not hard to make money in this game.

Ya really, rare items IMO are very cheap. The problem now is that diminishing returns makes people “like me” have to mess with the economy by mass buying/reselling with undercuts etc for a profit.

Navzar.2938:

Not farming is a disgusting lie? What? You only need to farm if you want one of the expensive exotics with awesome skins and don’t feel like waiting for it either. You get at least 1g an hour playing normally in higher lvl zones or dungeon/fractals. Sure it’s not much, but it’s enough to gear up 1 character with lvl 80 exotics or you spend karma, only 252k for a full set or just save the dungeon tokens (unless you count doing ~3 paths a week until you have your armor set farming too?).

This is a completely enourmous BS.
There’s no way to make AT LEAST 1g per hour just playing normally.
If you play normally you can make 1-2 gold PER DAY, unless you luck up and get some exotic or something equivalent in value.

Valanga.5942:

This is a completely enourmous BS.
There’s no way to make AT LEAST 1g per hour just playing normally.
If you play normally you can make 1-2 gold PER DAY, unless you luck up and get some exotic or something equivalent in value.

Play an 80 instead of a level 1?

I’m in game poor atm, but I don’t consider 1g+ a chore on an 80 :P

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

Valanga.5942:

This is a completely enourmous BS.
There’s no way to make AT LEAST 1g per hour just playing normally.
If you play normally you can make 1-2 gold PER DAY, unless you luck up and get some exotic or something equivalent in value.

Play an 80 instead of a level 1?

I’m in game poor atm, but I don’t consider 1g+ a chore on an 80 :P

I’m playing since day one, so i guess i play an 80…
Maybe i forgot to mention that i don’t farm, don’t do more than 2 runs in CoF (path 1-2) once 2 or 3 days, and i don’t play the TP.
I just do WvW, world events and occational dungeon runs with guildies.
So i probably don’t play as intended.

Valanga.5942:

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

Valanga.5942:

This is a completely enourmous BS.
There’s no way to make AT LEAST 1g per hour just playing normally.
If you play normally you can make 1-2 gold PER DAY, unless you luck up and get some exotic or something equivalent in value.

Play an 80 instead of a level 1?

I’m in game poor atm, but I don’t consider 1g+ a chore on an 80 :P

I’m playing since day one, so i guess i play an 80…
Maybe i forgot to mention that i don’t farm, don’t do more than 2 runs in CoF (path 1-2) once 2 or 3 days, and i don’t play the TP.
I just do WvW, world events and occational dungeon runs with guildies.
So i probably don’t play as intended.

I run 0 CoFs a day, and tend to only wvw. 1g an hour is not crazy though. I tend to play the tp occasionally, but I’m not even counting that :P Mainly just drops, although with playing the tp in the background it’s a lot more gold.

Because nerfing the amount of carrots makes you play longer and more and also encourages you to buy gems to buy the drops you no longer get from the TP.

Drew.1865:

Because nerfing the amount of carrots makes you play longer and more and also encourages you to buy gems to buy the drops you no longer get from the TP.

Or drives you away from the game (not my case, i play mostly because i have friends online).

It is more than likely that they are nerfing/trying to nerf farming because they simply want to push people into the gem store.

Regardless, I think the more interesting question is – if they are insisting on nerfing farming, why are they allowing CoF1 to remain as it is?

go farm life, buy gems to make ANet happy, trade them for gold and buy the stuff you need, or the legendary (since its not account bound)

If you get a part-time job, you can buy your legendary within a month, get some experience, a raise, a promotion (ok, no promotion in one month)

PearlGore.7419:

Took you 3.5 months to get the best skins in the game? Most other MMOS would have taken that time to get a full set of gear alone…

Just imagine trying to get a full set of legendary armour. Now that would be interesting to see.

It should be up to the user to decide if they want to farm or take their time.
Farming is valid and even relaxing sometimes, I don’t want a legendary so I just farm to kit out my toons.

I still go and play other content infact the only time I farm is when I cant stay sat at the computer constantly as it lets me come and go as I please.

Ridley.3691:

The economy in this game is just awful, rare items are ridiculously overpriced, and gold is too scarce for people to afford much without farming. Add to this that ANet seem to nerf farming spots pretty frequently and it’s just a chore.

I understand that easier gold = even higher prices, hence why the economy as a whole is screwed, I mean compare it to WoW, where yes, lots of stuff is overpriced, but the average player can more readily afford most stuff, and make gold at a good pace.

WoW players pay a fee, for a similar monthly expenditure on gems, you too can have “WoW swag access”.

Nightarch.2943:

PearlGore.7419:

Took you 3.5 months to get the best skins in the game? Most other MMOS would have taken that time to get a full set of gear alone…

Just imagine trying to get a full set of legendary armour. Now that would be interesting to see.

I’m sure someone will figure out a way to do it in 2 weeks lest it be time gated by the almighty zomorros.

Mirta.5029:

Meglobob.8620:

They are against farming…

They are also pro you buying gems with real $$$…

Its a marriage made in heaven…

they limit the amount of gems you can buy directly from them in a month. You’re not supposed to convert gems to gold really.

Yes, and they are nerfing and removing every way possible in game to earn gold and how are we, and especially the casual gamers going to get by? Because I know that I’m not going to use my hard earned money that I work my kitten off for in real life to buy gems just to turn it in for a little bit of gold. And I did like this game, in the beginning, and only reason I’m still here is it’s all there is that’s out that is good to play atm, something better comes out and I’m a ghost here.

Rama.6439:

Mirta.5029:

Meglobob.8620:

They are against farming…

They are also pro you buying gems with real $$$…

Its a marriage made in heaven…

they limit the amount of gems you can buy directly from them in a month. You’re not supposed to convert gems to gold really.

Yes, and they are nerfing and removing every way possible in game to earn gold and how are we, and especially the casual gamers going to get by? Because I know that I’m not going to use my hard earned money that I work my kitten off for in real life to buy gems just to turn it in for a little bit of gold. And I did like this game, in the beginning, and only reason I’m still here is it’s all there is that’s out that is good to play atm, something better comes out and I’m a ghost here.

Dungeon armor only takes time…

Valanga.5942:

Navzar.2938:

Not farming is a disgusting lie? What? You only need to farm if you want one of the expensive exotics with awesome skins and don’t feel like waiting for it either. You get at least 1g an hour playing normally in higher lvl zones or dungeon/fractals. Sure it’s not much, but it’s enough to gear up 1 character with lvl 80 exotics or you spend karma, only 252k for a full set or just save the dungeon tokens (unless you count doing ~3 paths a week until you have your armor set farming too?).

This is a completely enourmous BS.
There’s no way to make AT LEAST 1g per hour just playing normally.
If you play normally you can make 1-2 gold PER DAY, unless you luck up and get some exotic or something equivalent in value.

You don’t make 1g if you just count the trash you sell to NPCs .. however its not a big problem mostly if you sell all crafting mats instead of just sending them to your bank.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Mirta.5029:

I just ran CoE. Got lucky and 2 bottles of T6 blood dropped.

SOMEONEwould have had to farm those T6 mats you would buy. Farming IS a requirement in order to obtain a legendary.

how about this part? You get more T6 mats by just running dungeons and going around your business than you do by farming, so no, a certain someone wouldn’t have to farm it, a certain someone would have to get a drop, go “this is useless to me” (Like I do with T6 materials) and sell it.

Rama.6439:

Yes, and they are nerfing and removing every way possible in game to earn gold and how are we, and especially the casual gamers going to get by? Because I know that I’m not going to use my hard earned money that I work my kitten off for in real life to buy gems just to turn it in for a little bit of gold. And I did like this game, in the beginning, and only reason I’m still here is it’s all there is that’s out that is good to play atm, something better comes out and I’m a ghost here.

1. complete zones and re-complete them on your alts (any zone starting from 60-70 gives you exotics to sell), zone completion takes time, but doesn’t have to be done in one sitting.
2. Gather while you’re in those zones and sell.
3. Use laurels to buy ascended amulets and rings if running fractals is not for you.
4. When you unlock all map boss locations port around from time to time to check if any of them are currently happening. If you want to save money there’s this http://guildwarstemple.com/dragontimer/ though it can be not very accurate, or you could join a big guild that will tell you when the events are on.
5. Buy exotics with dungeon tokens (running dungeons is a great way to earn money), if you have no time for it, explore Orr and buy exotics with karma at the temples.
6. If you want a certain expensive thing from a trade post, put in a buy order, that’s close enough to the original seller price, that some person with the object would think “yeah, I’ll sell it to that guy for some quick cash. If I put it in I at most would only earn 50 silver more and there’s no guarantee that someone will buy it..”, if your buy order doesn’t get fulfilled you can just cancel it and lose nothing. It’s a bit more risky with sell orders, however most of the time it’s worth putting a sell order in instead of fulfilling someone else’s buy order.
7. When selling on the trade post pay attention to how much you’ll have to pay and make sure that you don’t get more by just selling to a merchant. Some people put in buy orders one copper above the merchant price, when you fulfill those you’re losing money instead of gaining it.
There. I just gave you a bunch of tips how to earn money in PVE without farming and how to save money instead of over spending it.

Cause they can’t (effectively) deal with botting. Only reason (bots can’t farm CoF p1 remember?)

“Why make it nearly impossible to create high value items without farming, then punish us for farming with all these nerfs.”

That was probably my favorite thing that you said. It is very true and I have also heard that they are against farming but this points out how much we do actually have to farm and how the community keeps getting punished for doing so. I think the champions that were added were probably the biggest slap in the face because not only do people not even go to farm anymore the people that are there get there butts kicked repeatedly for no reason. Which is very frustrating.

Fenrir.3609:

Regardless, I think the more interesting question is – if they are insisting on nerfing farming, why are they allowing CoF1 to remain as it is?

Because CoF has just got out of control like the precursors price.
If ANet does anything to bring CoF path 1+2 at the same level of the other dungeons, there will be an entire army of Quaggan Backapacked-CoF armored-Zerker GS Warrior ready to flood the forum with their tears.

They aren’t attacking farming as much as they are (slowly) chipping away at popular farming spots that give returns far in excess of what you can receive anywhere else.

Those farming spots are a problem because they depopulate the rest of the game.

There is always going to be a difference in income between ‘power farming’ and ‘playing the game’, but they are (rightly) working to minimize that difference as much as possible.

I have to say I have a pretty strong opinion on this subject…

It is complete nonsense to say that this game was designed to discourage farming. The entire PVE side of the game is really nothing but farming.

I find it amusing how some of the reasoning seems to go in this thread. Many seem to define “farming” as running through the same dungeon 30X a day to get gold. But these same posts seem to imply that running the same dungeon 2X a day for many days to get gold is not “farming”. They are the same thing. The only difference is the time it takes and the efficiency of the endeavor.

This entire game is built around farming, if you are honest about how the term is defined. Yes, I suppose you could play the game and level without even thinking about gold/karma/dungeon tokens/etc. But you will never (in a reasonably number of years) be able to obtain any of the spectacular gearsets that are central to the game.

It is so contradictory to have legendary weapons, cultural armor, and other high end gear that will take immense ammounts of repetitive “resource gathering” (farming) to obtain. If someone runs COF once a day for a month in order to obtain flaming armor or weapons, and another player does it in a day…BOTH are still farming. Basically any event/dungeon/whatever you do in this game, after the first or second time wherein there is a challenge to completing it, is farming. You are doing it for gold, karma, or loot of some other kind.

What I resent about the constant nerfs and manipulations of the game, is that it is hypocritical on the part of Anet to do it. They are taking a “we know what style of play is best for our customers” tone. It is condescending and irritating. If they were making changes to legitimately improve gameplay or fix glitches, that would be great. But that is not what it is about. The recent changes to the Orr events at Shelter’s Gate and Penitent Camp are perfect example. Now the enemies that spawn in those events are just boring and ridiculous…millions of hit points each so that anyone who desires to participate in the event has no choice but to grind them down with a thousand hits. They don’t do anything new or interesting….they are just practically endless to burn down. Does this improve gameplay? No, it makes it much worse. Does the change control the amount of gold/loot that can be earned from the event? You bet it does! Is part of the intent here to increase the amount of gold (gems) that are purchased from Anet? I have no proof….but I would bet a month’s real world pay that is part of the intent of the changes.

I am not complaining about the original structure of the game. To some extent I enjoy farming. I enjoy putting in the gameplay to earn rewards, buy cool gear, etc. I also enjoy going into WVW or whatever and just enjoying the game with friends. What I do not appreciate is Anet’s constant tweeks to the game that are designed to manipulate us into playing the game in the manner they think “is best”, or the one that provides them with the most income from gem purchases.

Ensign.2189:

They aren’t attacking farming as much as they are (slowly) chipping away at popular farming spots that give returns far in excess of what you can receive anywhere else.

Those farming spots are a problem because they depopulate the rest of the game.

There is always going to be a difference in income between ‘power farming’ and ‘playing the game’, but they are (rightly) working to minimize that difference as much as possible.

Yet… they created the free chests at the dragons. Yet… the efforts to reduce “power farming” affect the people just playing the game, since the rewards for most areas between the farming areas are sparse.

People can argue that “farming” is not “necessary”, but with drop rates being so low (with the exception of small areas of the game) and requirements being so high to craft the desirable items, game design is pointing us at a different direction. “Play the game more causally” ignores some pretty fundamental human psychology, as ablative experiences (read: “the carrot”) are one of the main motivators for engaging in activities such as gaming.

The solution is to increase demand beyond the concentrated few items of ectos, T6s, and lodestones, then increase supply until people stop complaining about how the game is unrewarding… but that’s easier said than done.

The Stain.4169:

snip

1. If to take the definition your way playing any game is farming. Why? Because farming is repeating the same activity. Not all quests in single player RPGs are unique so you “farm” them for exp. Running the same game more than once is farming, because you’re repeating the same activity again and again are you not? Yet when it comes to single player games replaying content is just considered to be enjoying the game, yet in MMOs it’s considered farming, why is that?
I suppose if to be pedantic about it we should ask why Anet opposes power farming, not farming in the term of repeating the same activity, because if we define it like that even leveling alts in the same zones would be considered farming.
2. Who says that one runs the dungeon solely for the rewards? Yeah, rewards are nice, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t run dungeons because they like them. Example – molten facility dungeon. What are your chances of getting a very expensive back pack skin? Near 0. Yet my guildies still run it 4 times, 5 times, or more. I ran it 3 times. Once to get my reward of getting a tittle and the achievement, second time because I was helping my friend to get his, third time because my guildie asked me to. What did I get from those bonus runs? Near nothing. I enjoyed myself and enjoyed the content though. It was fun, because the boss fight is challenging and requires team play.
3. Why is there legendaries and tier 3 gear sets you say? Because they’re skins. You don’t need them, but you can get them if you work for them for a really long time. What would happen if the moment you hit level 80 you would get the most expensive skins in the game? If you don’t care about the goals much and continue playing sooner or later you will ask “what do I do with this money?” “how do I look unique if everyone can get every skin whenever they wish?”. By that point having an economy would be pointless. By that point wouldn’t it make sense to have a PVP only game? But where does the RPG come into play then? Do we reduce the gameplay to story only and PVP? It would face many many problems. Now the skins is just something you can chose to work for, but don’t need. I’m not saying that a game without hard to get items could not succeed. I’m just saying that Guild Wars 2 would need so much rebalance for it that it wouldn’t be anything like Guild Wars 2 anymore.

Mirta.5029:

The Stain.4169:

snip

There is something odd going on if people can’t see just how prevalent “farming” is in this game and why that happens to be the case.

Regardless, whether you think that farming is right or wrong or whether you think ANET is pro or anti farming, it makes no sense whatsoever to have the current set up.

The disparity between one dungeon speed run and every other (non TP method that I am aware of) is just, well, strange.

If we are being brutally honest, ANET have fubared quite a lot up. The whole farming scenario is conflicting to say the least. We have a major dungeon farm speeding along and yet event farming in the endzone is being pretty much annihilated. We have legendaries which are not so much about amazing feats and quests, as about the 9000 mats you need to (supposedly not) farm. We also have an RNG system which is completely and utterly OTT.

On top of that, if you just thought “ah well kitten it, i’ll go do something else in game”, well WvW is a joke for many servers (EU T1 being a case in point) and sPvP is all over the shop.

It is frankly a bit of a mess currently and the whole “zerker CoF1 gogogogo, but farming is bad yo” and “requires 2000 T6 mats, but honestly farming is bad” messages we get are indicative of the general lack of direction.

Navzar.2938:

Not farming is a disgusting lie? What? You only need to farm if you want one of the expensive exotics with awesome skins and don’t feel like waiting for it either. You get at least 1g an hour playing normally in higher lvl zones or dungeon/fractals. Sure it’s not much, but it’s enough to gear up 1 character with lvl 80 exotics or you spend karma, only 252k for a full set or just save the dungeon tokens (unless you count doing ~3 paths a week until you have your armor set farming too?).

This was exactly my point. I am glad you understand.

Yes you CAN play the game without grinding but you can say that for any MMO out there. You can play every MMO and not grind a day in your life. But my comment was about people understanding that if let’s say you decide to get Infinite light, or Aether, that cost hundreds of gold, and you earn 1g a day of really casual play, you would need 2 years to get that item. And that is just plain stupid.
You can’t even craft it yourself without grinding because the lodestones just don’t drop and you need like 250 of them, T6 mats are rare, you need 250 of them, 250 ecto without farming? Yeah, sure. In your dreams.

Its not that people want things RIGHT NOW, it’s people wanting things in a reasonable time frame, and ways you can get these rare items. Some games award players for completing a set of (challenging) achievements with pets, mounts, costumes, titles.

Like for instance, why can’t we get some sort of a token for completing Maguuma jumping puzzles and exchange it for a skin, instead of farming 200g for it. And then another token for another set of JPs.
Another one would be like a explorer award for finding hidden caves + walking a certain distance + jumped from X cliffs, you get a token for fancy boots you’d like.

People like “quests” achieving feats and going on adventures and not running around Queensdale all day doing the same events until you gather enough coin to buy whatever it is you wanted. I’d rather say “Oh hey friends want to go and complete this mini dungeon and get this achievement that requires us to kill the last boss in 10 minutes?” instead “hey want to form a group and farm cof until our brains bleed?”

Oh yeah i remembered why not. Money. We need some people to spend money on gems so we can keep this game alive for many years to come.

Fenrir.3609:

There is something odd going on if people can’t see just how prevalent “farming” is in this game and why that happens to be the case.

Regardless, whether you think that farming is right or wrong or whether you think ANET is pro or anti farming, it makes no sense whatsoever to have the current set up.

The disparity between one dungeon speed run and every other (non TP method that I am aware of) is just, well, strange.

If we are being brutally honest, ANET have fubared quite a lot up. The whole farming scenario is conflicting to say the least. We have a major dungeon farm speeding along and yet event farming in the endzone is being pretty much annihilated. We have legendaries which are not so much about amazing feats and quests, as about the 9000 mats you need to (supposedly not) farm. We also have an RNG system which is completely and utterly OTT.

On top of that, if you just thought “ah well kitten it, i’ll go do something else in game”, well WvW is a joke for many servers (EU T1 being a case in point) and sPvP is all over the shop.

It is frankly a bit of a mess currently and the whole “zerker CoF1 gogogogo, but farming is bad yo” and “requires 2000 T6 mats, but honestly farming is bad” messages we get are indicative of the general lack of direction.

somehow it feels to me as if you weren’t actually responding to anything I wrote, because this post doesn’t actually address anything I said. And now like I said
1. Special skins is something you should be slowly achieving over time. I addressed why such objects exist in my 3rd point of the post you were quoting.
2. Now about events. What gives the most money and best drops:
number one is fractals. Never have I gotten as many greens as yellows as I’ve gotten n fractals.
CoF. CoF is broken at this point and will be made harder later.
Meta events. Very fast, guarantee at least one yellow.
High level dungeons. 15 silver or so per boss means that you will be leaving with over a gold every run, however it will take you more time than CoF to work for it.
High level map exploration. Guarantees a great reward, but it can take up to 4 hours to clear. Reward might not always equal that 8 gold that you could have made just running high level dungeons if you’re good at them, however it requires so much less skill to do.
Gathering.
Random events (not doing any important event chains, but just following simple events that give you no chest)
WvW.
I do agree with you that the current difficulty of CoF makes no sense, especially having in mind that a lower level dungeon than it is so much harder to do. However all the other methods, throwing that one out? They’re all just fine. You can get all the items that you want doing pretty much anything in the game, without farming CoF. The only catch is it will take you some time. Like it’s supposed to (see point 1).

Mirta.5029:

Fenrir.3609:

somehow it feels to me as if you weren’t actually responding to anything I wrote, because this post doesn’t actually address anything I said. And now like I said
1. Special skins is something you should be slowly achieving over time. I addressed why such objects exist in my 3rd point of the post you were quoting.
2. Now about events. What gives the most money and best drops:
number one is fractals. Never have I gotten as many greens as yellows as I’ve gotten n fractals.
CoF. CoF is broken at this point and will be made harder later.
Meta events. Very fast, guarantee at least one yellow.
High level dungeons. 15 silver or so per boss means that you will be leaving with over a gold every run, however it will take you more time than CoF to work for it.
High level map exploration. Guarantees a great reward, but it can take up to 4 hours to clear. Reward might not always equal that 8 gold that you could have made just running high level dungeons if you’re good at them, however it requires so much less skill to do.
Gathering.
Random events (not doing any important event chains, but just following simple events that give you no chest)
WvW.
I do agree with you that the current difficulty of CoF makes no sense, especially having in mind that a lower level dungeon than it is so much harder to do. However all the other methods, throwing that one out? They’re all just fine. You can get all the items that you want doing pretty much anything in the game, without farming CoF. The only catch is it will take you some time. Like it’s supposed to (see point 1).

1. Special skins were from the very conception of this game, the carrot most people would be chasing as opposed to stat gear in other mmos. That should be clear to every player and it was as clear as day to the developers themselves. “Oh it’s optional, you should chill guys” is in no way, shape, or form a response worthy of any merit with regards to the situation we currently have. The entire format of the way legendaries are constructed is a combination of an inordinate amount of grindable mats and OTT RNG, it’s just a bad, bad system.

If they want stuff to be rare and time consuming. Great, i’m all for that. But then don’t implement them in such a way as to actively promote grinding and RNG and then proceed to nerf into the ground the methods of grinding/farming.

Quest chains that unlock over time, one off events and tags you need to get (which could be repeated as high level fractals for those who joined/missed the events. More stuff like world completion and player kills. But no, “gather loads of T6 mats and bin all your rares into the toilet guys, but remember, don’t grind plox!”.

2. So people are farming fractals.

3. It’s been “broken” for a while now and as far as I am aware there is zero evidence to suggest it is going to be “fixed”. As it stands in the here and now (and as it has stood for some time now), it makes a mockery of any supposed anti farming policy.

4. Meta events, which you can run once per day per char. Looping the same meta dragons over and over is not a farm? Sure as kitten looks like one to me, which was why it was nerfed (see the once per day loot rule).

5. High level map exploration? If you happen to be doing it as part of the process of naturally leveling up alts, then cool, it is an nice byproduct of your leveling process (for alts), but you are going to need some severely extreme luck in terms of pumping them exotics in the toilet and getting a precursor.

From whichever view point you take (pro or anti farm), the current situation is a bit of a mess quite frankly.

Well said Fenrir. I agree 100%.

Anet is being disingenuous and inconsistent. They build a game that from the ground up is based on farming and the in-game economy. Then they gradually nerf most of the efficient means of earning.

In the process, many aspects of the game are becoming very irritating. As I mentioned above, if you have not done so recently try the Shelter/Penitent events. Half the creatures in the mobs that spawn in those events now take longer to DPS down than some bosses. And these 1,000,000 hit wonders don’t drop kitten in the way of decent loot….

But you can still buy gems from Anet…Coincidence? No….

Ya, I think it’s a huge joke on all of us that they continually make event’s and dungeons (especially fractals) harder and continue to make the drops for these events and dungeons worse. Are we being punished for playing the game or something? Sure seems like it to me.

Justin.7163:

I think in some ways these “super-dedicated hardcore players” affect the mindset of other players because of how they achieved their items and therefore others feel like they are falling behind or that getting Legendary stuff is easier than it actually is. Don’t feel like you must follow the path of these players and get your Legendary or other fancy items right away because ultimately you will probably just set yourself up for disappointment and frustration.

Indeed, I believe this is the crux of the problem and why many players think they need to “grind” to get this stuff. If you want it tomorrow, then yes, it’s a huge grind. It can also happen over time of normal playing, though I admit some items may take you more than a year, but then again, what’s the rush? Is it worth it not being able to enjoy the game through seemingly eternal hours of CoF 1 grind just to be “like your peers”? And who does really care? I never see Legendaries, T3 armors, or the rare named Exotics as evidence of skill, or “GW2 leetness,” though of course it’s not wrong if you feel good by having them. NOT having that stuff, however, doesn’t impair in any way or fashion your playing experience, nor does it speak ill of your skills or dedication to the game-even if your more “pro” peers would have you believe such a thing.

In short, grinding IS a problem-when you want things ASAP. When you don’t care about that, the problem-and the grinding, all of it-goes away, since all the “needed” stuff is reasonably easy to obtain.

I am getting the Juggernaut in a year-or 2, or 3-but I think the honest “biggest grinds” regarding the Legendary are: 1)The Precursor and 2)Some lodestones are uber rare ATM. Those things are “fixable” (if they are considered broken) in the future, and stressing about this stuff just because you are casual and can’t be on your computer for too many hours is counter-productive. My state of mind is, I’ll get it when and if I get it-no need to join a lifeless chore/grind, though I admit there are venues for farming stuff that are way more fun than others (which is also subjective, in any case.)

Do not be like your friend-be who you are, and follow your own goals, according to your own timeline and what is fun to you.

Fenrir.3609:

1. Special skins were from the very conception of this game, the carrot most people would be chasing as opposed to stat gear in other mmos. That should be clear to every player and it was as clear as day to the developers themselves. “Oh it’s optional, you should chill guys” is in no way, shape, or form a response worthy of any merit with regards to the situation we currently have. The entire format of the way legendaries are constructed is a combination of an inordinate amount of grindable mats and OTT RNG, it’s just a bad, bad system.

But it is optional. Legendaries is something only like 10% of the whole game community should be able to own maximum. You are no worse without it and if you make it your goal how about actually working towards it slowly and understanding that it should take years to get, not weeks? The amount is completely sane if you would just play this MMO for years slowly amassing stuff.

Fenrir.3609:

If they want stuff to be rare and time consuming. Great, i’m all for that. But then don’t implement them in such a way as to actively promote grinding and RNG and then proceed to nerf into the ground the methods of grinding/farming.

How does it promote grinding? You chose to grind, because you want the item now.

Fenrir.3609:

Quest chains that unlock over time, one off events and tags you need to get (which could be repeated as high level fractals for those who joined/missed the events. More stuff like world completion and player kills. But no, “gather loads of T6 mats and bin all your rares into the toilet guys, but remember, don’t grind plox!”.

I already asked this – how will you make a questline so long and hard that only 10% of all players would ever have a chance to finish it? How long would it even take to create a 100 hour, 200 hour quest line? Years?

Fenrir.3609:

2. So people are farming fractals.

Nope, not really.

Fenrir.3609:

3. It’s been “broken” for a while now and as far as I am aware there is zero evidence to suggest it is going to be “fixed”. As it stands in the here and now (and as it has stood for some time now), it makes a mockery of any supposed anti farming policy.

There was a topic about nerfing CoF that the developers answered to. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Revamp-Cof-dungeons-and-remove-boulders-trap/first#post1799043 it will at least be revamped.

Fenrir.3609:

4. Meta events, which you can run once per day per char. Looping the same meta dragons over and over is not a farm? Sure as kitten looks like one to me, which was why it was nerfed (see the once per day loot rule).

There are 12 main meta events and maybe about 8 extra that give dailies and chests. That’s at least 20 yellows. You don’t get the guaranteed yellow if you repeat it on a different characters, but you still get a chest that will most likely feature at least one yellow. You don’t even need to loop, you can just end up on a nice chain of 6-7 events going okittenmilar time and get some fast yellows.

Fenrir.3609:

5. High level map exploration? If you happen to be doing it as part of the process of naturally leveling up alts, then cool, it is an nice byproduct of your leveling process (for alts), but you are going to need some severely extreme luck in terms of pumping them exotics in the toilet and getting a precursor.

And why the hell would you do that? You sell the upgrade components or the exotics themselves, save up and buy the precursor if you need it. Achieving the amount needed to get a precursor is not impossible.

Bonefield.9813:

My biggest issue with the changes to Pent/Shelter in this last patch is that the events are no longer fun. I thought they were very fun and appropriately challenging after the previous change to them that added the champions and veterans.

The only reason I can see for them having made the changes they did was to encourage people to get away from Pent/Shelter, but I have a huge problem with gameplay design that moves from “We don’t want you to just sit here and mindlessly spam buttons to get loot” (which the previous changes addressed) to “We don’t want you doing this at all and to get the point across we’re going to make doing the content punishing.” At first, I thought champions that don’t despawn, have ridiculous HP, and can one-shot people had to be a tuning mistake, but as my wife pointed out, the fact that the veteran hatchlings don’t drop loot makes me think this was intentional, and a way to say, “You’re not welcome to farm in this area any more. Thin out or the event will become undoable.”

I mean, do that many people really farm there any more? After CoF1 became huge, the farming population already dipped pretty low, to the point where the events frequently fail during the day even on my very populated server. This seems kind of like shutting the barn door after the cows have already escaped, and it’s spoiled an event that was legitimately fun to do with a group of people. If we’re not supposed to be at Shelter, just…deactivate the event at Shelter. There’s already the escort that runs there, so just leave that one and Jofast’s up. Don’t try to chase us out.

I totally agree Bonefield.

Particularly at Shelter. Add to the practically infinite hitpoint champions and veterans, now you have mobs of veteran spider hatchlings that are a real chore to kill, and don’t even drop loot when you do. And the enemies no longer die when the event ends, so you might be fighting them off for two or three minutes after the event ends. I have even noted that the Champions/Veterans spawn now when there are far too few players there to have any hope of dealing with them. I see groups of players going down with no one who can res them….

It’s clear that Anet doesn’t want us doing these events anymore, and with regard to Shelter their wishes are about as subtle as a train wreck. It’s not that my game play is dependent on farming there….I know lots of other places/ways of getting loot and my needs for it are no longer that great anyway….

No, what bugs me is the blatant manipulation of Anet constantly changing the game (that we paid for) to make us play the way THEY want us to play. With Shelter, it is very much like Anet collective egos are out of control, and they are trying to show us that they are in charge, and we WILL play the game the way THEY want us to! Or else!

I find myself going back to Shelter/Pent just out of spite….even though the events pretty much suck now. The changes make me think that Anet have subconsciously fallen into the trap of thinking this game is THEIR entity, with a life and importance independent of the desires of the customers who purchased the game and play it. True or not, that is how their actions can be interpretted.

Why can’t we play the game the way we as individuals feel is fun and not as ANET seems to be preventing us from doing?

Bear in mind it’s a F2P game, if it wasn’t it’s nigh certain GW2 would be very different from what it currently is. Players just wouldn’t bother and go elsewhere. So I guess we have to play their game in a different style than some may be used to.

Whatever the idea is with the pen’/shelter area, the events seem more regular. Eventually though, some will grow tired of being hit for 16-20k from a Champion Chicken. To make something more difficult to do doesn’t necessarily make it better.

Firegoth.6427:

taomang.2183:

There is absolutely nothing legendary about Legendaries. By now a lot of people have them, and they aren’t even special or good looking.

You can say many things about legendaries, but how is:
*Shooting oversized unicorns
*Shooting confettis with irritating sounds
*Opening a window to the sky / abyss
*Covering yourself in chromatic skin
*Zapping everything around you
*Creating footsteps of all the above

Not special enough for you?

None of that is special in any way, it all pretty stupid actually.

Mirta.5029: But it is optional. /snip.

The issue is that the method of getting these legendaries is a system which seemingly promotes material farming and RNG. It is a system specifically set up which makes you look at it and think “I can/am meant to farm that”. It is not an epic storyline that only 10% would manage to complete. It is not hard content, it is not interesting content, it is farming mats and dumping stuff into the toilet. When you combine that with the “oh you’re not supposed to farm guys” line then it is a joke quite frankly.

Play this mmo for years and get stuff? Awesome, it is questionable given the current mmo environ whether the game will still be here in several years, even more questionable if it will have an active playerbase. Potentially getting a legendary et al after years would be fine IF the path to it was not seemingly utterly grind/farm intensive. Special dungeons, new content and quests over years? Cool. Farm mats? Nope.

The flaw is not that people want a legendary in weeks or months, it is the whole process is set up in a farm like manner.

How does it promote grinding? You chose to grind, because you want the item now.

You don’t see how having the process require a morass of mats you get from potentially farmed mobs isn’t something that would promote farming?

I already asked this – how will you make a questline so long and hard that only 10% of all players would ever have a chance to finish it? How long would it even take to create a 100 hour, 200 hour quest line? Years?

You make the quest over time with new updates. Something that gives more meaning to the living story stuff. It doesn’t even have to be a quest line, there are plenty of alternatives (one off events, new dungeons, more wvw stuff). Something that get’s people actively looking forward to what’s coming up in the next bit of dynamic content.

Nope, not really.

You think people are not farming fractals at all?

There was a topic about nerfing CoF that the developers answered to. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Revamp-Cof-dungeons-and-remove-boulders-trap/first#post1799043 it will at least be revamped.

Cooming soon tm, possibly, er perhaps. Well that’s alright then.

There are 12 main meta events and maybe about 8 extra that give dailies and chests. That’s at least 20 yellows. You don’t get the guaranteed yellow if you repeat it on a different characters, but you still get a chest that will most likely feature at least one yellow. You don’t even need to loop, you can just end up on a nice chain of 6-7 events going okittenmilar time and get some fast yellows.

And running though the same 12 (timer specific) events every day specifically for rares to either ecto, sell or dump into the toilet is a farm. Again it is why the loot drop limit was applied.

And why the hell would you do that? You sell the upgrade components or the exotics themselves, save up and buy the precursor if you need it. Achieving the amount needed to get a precursor is not impossible.

Precursors are going for over 500g (some alot more) how many exotics are you getting per character for map completion to sell on again? I haven’t said at any point is was “impossible”.

Look, no one is saying that rare skins (legendary or otherwise) should be got every few weeks or months. No one is saying that everyone should end up having them at all (well if anyone is that is certainly not the stance I am advocating).

But it seem obvious that the whole process and approach involved is A – Badly done and B – Clearly at odds with any “oh you shouldn’t farm” stance. The whole random “all these places are kitten to farm in but knock yourself out in CoF and fractals” is also badly thought out (if indeed it has been thought out at all).

In all honesty I would rather they spent their time improving the pvp aspects of the game then mess about or have a complete volte face with regards to “loot” and the skin set up. But for the life of me I cannot understand how anyone could imagine the current set up is a good one, or even one slightly in line whith the whole “farming is bad yo” ethos.

Sorry about the poor editing.

I lost count of how many times I posted about increasing loot drops in general. I suggested having a daily “bag of loot” from any DE you do that drops something and doesn’t make you seem like grinding while you can explore with your characters.

Is there really anything that comes after your personal story and world exploration? It’s your nice “skins” and all that. If Anet’s serious about letting you get your casual legendary in a year, the would up they daily dungeon rewards with an account-daily “bag” that’s relevant to your legendary (mats that’s related to the legendary you want).

Having another precursor hunt is another. Perhaps it’s the truth from one of the legendary grind player that shows off his 8-16 hours a day that finally made the community wake up over how overwhelmingly impossible and legendary as to the difficulty of getting one weapon. I guess I’m going for another long run of not touching GW2, maybe longer if Anet doesn’t fix up things…

Even your ascended equipments takes weeks or at least 20 hours in FOTM. That’s amazing. This topic is demoralizing to say the least…

And there’s one achievement about having 5 legendary something… Rofl. Anet…

I don’t get this…if people really want to farm, and already do the most boring of things…why not just run path 1 of CoF over and over again? you’ll get more money that way than just beating mobs senseless

Ridley.3691:

farming world bosses (doing every single world boss every day).

That’s not farming. That’s doing a broad variety of different events: what some people might call, “casual play”.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Why can’t we play the game the way we as individuals feel is fun and not as ANET seems to be preventing us from doing?

Because Anet wants MMOs to grow up and the only way they’ll do that is by taking their medicine; sometimes it’s a bitter pill. They knew when they moved away from the WoW model that there were gonna be people what didn’t like the changes, but you don’t make change by pandering to everyone.

Mirta.5029:

This game has stated at the beginning that it is against all means of farming.

So when anet stated that they didn’t mind legitimate farming they were lying? Of course they punish all forms of farming so one does wonder what legitimate farming means to anet.

Oh and yes you do need to farm if you want to craft, build up gold etc. There is a contradiction in the game.