Guild Wars 2

In regards to the 90% Karma Nerf:

I’ve googled the topic over and over again trying to understand and possibly overcome this nerf implemented by ANet. There’s been I’m sure countless threads on this subject and on many different forums, as I have discovered many just in my searches alone, but in none of them did I see a response from ANet.

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

It’s been far too long.

TL;DR bolded

(Edit) More Info:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Karma-nerf
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/WHY-KARMA-NERF
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Surrounding-the-karma-nerf
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mjq0i/daily_karma_reduced_by_over_90_did_they_go_too_far/

Only people that research thoroughly know why.

Besides, I am a semi-casual player and I accumulated more than 2 million karma the past few months by playing every part of the game. It is less than before for sure, but it’s still a good amount and it’s really not hard to get it.

I thought this wasn’t suppose to be a grinding game?

Memnoch.2589:

I thought this wasn’t suppose to be a grinding game?

It isn’t unless you voluntarily decide to go for the grindy parts of the game.

Taku.6352:

Memnoch.2589:

I thought this wasn’t suppose to be a grinding game?

It isn’t unless you voluntarily decide to go for the grindy parts of the game.

“Sure, you could buy meth, but your don’t >have> to.”

Out of curiosity, what do you need the karma for?

I literally zeroed my karma on Orrian Jewelry Boxes in anticipation of the liquid karma nerf (no longer affected by buffs). And after that I’ve had no trouble buying wads of obsidian Shards to keep up with my Ascended crafting.

Is it just I spend most of my time out in the open world or WvW where you trip over karma wandering around?

Memnoch.2589:

I thought this wasn’t suppose to be a grinding game?

And up to Exotic gear and basic skins, I’d say it’s not a grindy game. Outfitting a newly minted level 80 alt is a matter of a couple of gold in a couple of minutes either crafting the gear, cashing out some dungeon tokens, or doing a little budget shopping on the Trading Post.

I’ve got an Infinite Light on my guardian, and that was HELLA GRINDY but it’s not like my stats were defective while I pursued that goal for 8 months or so. I just played where and how I wanted, mastered Charged Lodestone farming to a tragic degree, and saved every copper I could to bribe Zomorros to turn Cores into Lodestones.

I appreciate the urge to have BiS gear. But I also don’t mind pacing myself moving towards it ((shrug)). Maybe after a few years of organized raiding I’m just used to the idea that upgrading even a single slot can take weeks of succeeding at time-gated top-difficulty encounters and beating the RNG drum over and over until my token or rare drop finally falls. Logging in for dailies or gathering a known and finite number of common crafting mats seems super-casual to me.

Originally, there wasn’t karma jugs and even then, I found karma easy to acquire. Upon reaching 80 back at launch, I almost had enough karma to buy a full set of temple armor without ever farming it.

Back then, people complained about alts and the lack of karma, so ArenaNet added jugs to the daily. To me, it’s no surprise that after making karma account bound, they removed the jugs.

Other reasons they could have changed it is due to karma bonuses. It’s far easier to acquire karma now compared to launch. With all the boosts, you get something like 600-800 karma per event. Instead of expecting all your karma to come from the daily, they want you out in the world, playing.

I never used karma jugs until the day they nerfed them. At that time, I had acquired 2.5 million karma normally, and 3 million karma from jugs. Such a large quantity meant they either had to drop karma due to it being worthless, or balance around having millions of it. Ascended temple armor, 1 million per piece.

There was a (90%)Karma nerf? I don’t recall that one. Are you talking about the Liquid Karma not affected by boosts from nearly a half a year ago?

They gave us a bunch of weeks to use up the ones that we had with the boosts, which is what most people I talked to did.

I am currently sitting on 5 million Karma and have never stepped foot in a dungeon.

I guess I am just not getting:

• what the 90% nerf was? Is that what all the boosters added together equaled?
• didn’t the OP use up his boosters and Liquid back when they told us it would change?

Clearly this IS an issue for the OP after six months. I guess I just look at it as… things change, moving on.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

There was a (90%)Karma nerf? I don’t recall that one. Are you talking about the Liquid Karma not affected by boosts from nearly a half a year ago?

They gave us a bunch of weeks to use up the ones that we had with the boosts, which is what most people I talked to did.

I am currently sitting on 5 million Karma and have never stepped foot in a dungeon.

I guess I am just not getting:

• what the 90% nerf was? Is that what all the boosters added together equaled?
• didn’t the OP use up his boosters and Liquid back when they told us it would change?

Clearly this IS an issue for the OP after six months. I guess I just look at it as… things change, moving on.

Yeah pretty much… I just wished people would quit it with the ascended complaining and look at it like you do this… there would be so many more happy people…

Hold your horses.

Karma is still abundant and you don’t actually NEED that much of it. I don’t see why people are complaining.

Yes, Karma was nerfed. You stopped getting it for failed events and they nerfed the liquid Karma jugs you got from loot and daily/monthly rewards.

You still get the same amount of Karma, more if you account for the account-wide buffs, by participating in Events. And that’s where the Lion share of Karma comes from.

in for blood.5670:

In regards to the 90% Karma Nerf:

I’ve googled the topic over and over again trying to understand and possibly overcome this nerf implemented by ANet. There’s been I’m sure countless threads on this subject and on many different forums, as I have discovered many just in my searches alone, but in none of them did I see a response from ANet.

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

It’s been far too long.

TL;DR bolded

Why?

Because they wanted karma to have value. They wanted account bound currencies to have value.

People as it is hate the way rewards are handed out for bosses like Teq or wurm. Now, instead of rewarding everyone guaranteed exotics and destroying their value, they have rewarded people with guaranteed karma. That way people who desperately need karma have the incentive to run these events.

Karma was getting too trivial, I’m a casual player buy I play regularly, and my guild used to make a “karma party” every end of the month where all karma boosters possible was available, every month I spent around 7m (probably more) karma in orrian boxes, and I made no efforts at all during the month to farm karma, all that was only from daily/monthly + drops from playing the game in general.

Maybe 90% nerf was a bit too much, but it should be nerfed for sure.

Instead of nerfing it into the ground, they should have just given us more stuff to buy with it………

Naz.2607:

Instead of nerfing it into the ground, they should have just given us more stuff to buy with it………

That doesn’t fix things if the items you buy are something that you would only buy once.

Items like the orrian box were perfect at baiting players to eating up all their karma before the karma nerf.

Karma is still so easy to acquire a lot of you say, eh?

Well then you should breeze through my challenge to you:

- Waste all your easily earned Karma on Orr Boxes.
- From 0 Karma now go accumulate an easy 1 mil Karma.
- Report back here when you have done so.

At 5,000 Karma per day: 200 days (nearly 7 months)
At 10,000 Karma per day: 100 days (over 3 months)

Hope you’re more of a hardcore gamer than those two examples. Good luck.

Just so I have some perspective, might I ask how long you have been posting on the forums?

That might allow us to answer you better.

I’ve gotten close to 10 million Karma since the beginning of this game until today. Karma was a bit too easy to get, and had next to nothing to spend all of it on. Due to that, there was the Great Karma Nerf. Even with it scaling back all these months, the new Living Story is giving players a chance to get a LOT of Karma.

Refugee Child’s Drawing, which seems to be a common drop from supply bags, gives 5k Karma a pop. Take advantage of the event farming while you can.

Edit – Striking. Might have been wrong.

Do you have any suggestions (servers/areas) for this form of Karma farming?

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Just so I have some perspective, might I ask how long you have been posting on the forums?

That might allow us to answer you better.

That question and the answer is irrelevant.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ve gotten close to 10 million Karma since the beginning of this game until today. Karma was a bit too easy to get, and had next to nothing to spend all of it on. Due to that, there was the Great Karma Nerf. Even with it scaling back all these months, the new Living Story is giving players a chance to get a LOT of Karma.

Refugee Child’s Drawing, which seems to be a common drop from supply bags, gives 5k Karma a pop. Take advantage of the event farming while you can.

I coulda sworn (can’t check right now) those gave LUCK, and only the Flame and Frost ones gave Karma? Am I on dope?

I haven’t received any Karma from one.

KarateKid.5648:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ve gotten close to 10 million Karma since the beginning of this game until today. Karma was a bit too easy to get, and had next to nothing to spend all of it on. Due to that, there was the Great Karma Nerf. Even with it scaling back all these months, the new Living Story is giving players a chance to get a LOT of Karma.

Refugee Child’s Drawing, which seems to be a common drop from supply bags, gives 5k Karma a pop. Take advantage of the event farming while you can.

I coulda sworn (can’t check right now) those gave LUCK, and only the Flame and Frost ones gave Karma? Am I on dope?

And here I thought I was the only one that read that Refugee Child’s Drawing gave luck and not karma. I’ll have to check when I get home.

They changed the Drawings to Luck instead of Karma? I wasn’t aware of this. If that’s the case, that’s a pretty big Karma nerf to these boosters as well. I better check my storage when I get home.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

They changed the Drawings to Luck instead of Karma? I wasn’t aware of this. If that’s the case, that’s a pretty big Karma nerf to these boosters as well. I better check my storage when I get home.

All the drawings I’ve gotten in this event are worth something like 25 luck

drawings give luck.
the karma nerf he’s talking about is going from 4500 karma / daily to 600 karma / daily
couple that with nerfing karma boosters, and 90% reduction isn’t so far off.

• If someone just logged on, got dailies, logged off, they went from about 9,175 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 400 from events) to 800 karma / day (600 + 400 from events).
• If someone was fairly active elsewhere as well as daily, they went from about 14,775 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 6000 from events) to 6,600 karma / day (600 + 6000 from events)
• If someone was very active elsewhere as well as daily, they went from about 28,775 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 20000 from events) to 20,600 karma / day (600 + 20000 from events)

so depending on your activity, you saw a 28% to 92% karma nerf.

Neural.1824:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

They changed the Drawings to Luck instead of Karma? I wasn’t aware of this. If that’s the case, that’s a pretty big Karma nerf to these boosters as well. I better check my storage when I get home.

All the drawings I’ve gotten in this event are worth something like 25 luck

That’s a big drop, going from 5k Karma to 25 Luck.

They also went from one for the entire cluster of episodes to 10+ per 1-hour run.

That they share an icon is about the ONLY thing they have in common.

Mystic.5934:

drawings give luck.
the karma nerf he’s talking about is going from 4500 karma / daily to 600 karma / daily
couple that with nerfing karma boosters, and 90% reduction isn’t so far off.

• If someone just logged on, got dailies, logged off, they went from about 9,175 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 400 from events) to 800 karma / day (600 + 400 from events).
• If someone was fairly active elsewhere as well as daily, they went from about 14,775 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 6000 from events) to 6,600 karma / day (600 + 6000 from events)
• If someone was very active elsewhere as well as daily, they went from about 28,775 karma / day (4500 × 1.95 + 20000 from events) to 20,600 karma / day (600 + 20000 from events)

so depending on your activity, you saw a 28% to 92% karma nerf.

Well said.

One day people will start to realize that somewhere along the way the people in charge of this games future decided that if they made every extremely grindy and removed every non grindy way to get anything in the game that they could make a kitten ton of money selling gems/gold. Its like someone new came in and kitten all over what the original vision for the game was.

I like math

I wish the drawings were either replaced with a blue essence of luck or removed entirely. far too small of an affect to merit taking the time to click it. if it didn’t take longer to destroy it, I’d do that instead.
4 million luck required. If you got that with only these drawings, that’s 160,000 drawings; 640 stacks; 320,000 clicks to open. At 5 clicks a second, that’s 17.7 hours of JUST clicking. maxing thirst slayer doesn’t even require that many and people have been complaining about how absurdly monotonous that one is for over a year.

Vol.7601:

Because they wanted karma to have value. They wanted account bound currencies to have value.

It still has no value. Yes, it’s hard to get, but you still can’t buy much for it (and most of what you can is useless for you once you have enough karma to buy it anyway).

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Karma was a bit too easy to get, and had next to nothing to spend all of it on. Due to that, there was the Great Karma Nerf.

Yes, and there still is next to nothing to spend it on.

There is no grind in this game. But just because a game has no grind doesn’t mean it doesn’t have long term goals. The difference is grind is REQUIRED to play the game.

There isn’t anything after exotics that are required to do any activity in the game except high level fractals, and by the time you’ve get to a high level in fractals you’re not experiencing something new, you’re just repeating something you’ve done many times before, but tougher so you can get more gear to do it again, but even tougher. If you do high level fractals you’re doing it because you LIKE grind. That’s the entire point of doing them.

The problem with karma is if you don’t care about Legendaries then it’s pretty much useless. We really need a karma vendor that is as useful as the laurel or guild commendation vendor (but with different stuff so as not to make those obsolete).

DragonWhimsy.6489:

There is no grind in this game. But just because a game has no grind doesn’t mean it doesn’t have long term goals. The difference is grind is REQUIRED to play the game.

There isn’t anything after exotics that are required to do any activity in the game except high level fractals, and by the time you’ve get to a high level in fractals you’re not experiencing something new, you’re just repeating something you’ve done many times before, but tougher so you can get more gear to do it again, but even tougher. If you do high level fractals you’re doing it because you LIKE grind. That’s the entire point of doing them.

The problem with karma is if you don’t care about Legendaries then it’s pretty much useless. We really need a karma vendor that is as useful as the laurel or guild commendation vendor (but with different stuff so as not to make those obsolete).

You’re derailing the topic.

Karma’s importance hasn’t changed, but the amount in which and how it can be acquired has, and drastically so. I and others would like to know why.

Thanks for all the input. Always a big help.

Karma has value, but I feel its more limited than some other currencies. Obsidian shards, a limited set of armors, and some crafting materials..is there anything else I’m missing? Still, you need it for sure but I’m at like 3.1 million and ive been looking for things to spend it on like boatloads of shards, crafting recipes, and…well I guess thats it.

in for blood.5670:

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

I’d say because players complained they were sitting on millions of karma that was worthless.

Dean Calaway.9718:

in for blood.5670:

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

I’d say because players complained they were sitting on millions of karma that was worthless.

So then you’re saying rash outbursts by players was the direct result of the change?

Personally, as the views and replies of this thread climbs, I’m wondering when a dev will chime in and truly explain the reasoning behind it.

Dean Calaway.9718:

in for blood.5670:

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

I’d say because players complained they were sitting on millions of karma that was worthless.

The could have made it more usefull :/

aspirine.6852:

Dean Calaway.9718:

in for blood.5670:

To keep this short: Why is that, ANet? Help me, and other players concerned with this move you took to understand why.

I’d say because players complained they were sitting on millions of karma that was worthless.

The could have made it more usefull :/

Exactly. Instead the usefulness wasn’t changed, only the amount and ways in which it was accumulated.

IMO, it hinders the (new/returning) people who are now in pursuit of their first legendary, and with no clear reasoning behind it, besides pure speculation by the player base.

Why leave us in the dark over this is I suppose another question to ANet.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

There was a (90%)Karma nerf? I don’t recall that one. Are you talking about the Liquid Karma not affected by boosts from nearly a half a year ago?

No, I think he’s talking about dailies giving 500 karma rather than 4000 karma.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

There was a (90%)Karma nerf? I don’t recall that one. Are you talking about the Liquid Karma not affected by boosts from nearly a half a year ago?

No, I think he’s talking about dailies giving 500 karma rather than 4000 karma.

Mystic.5934 explained it best in his post above.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

There was a (90%)Karma nerf? I don’t recall that one. Are you talking about the Liquid Karma not affected by boosts from nearly a half a year ago?

No, I think he’s talking about dailies giving 500 karma rather than 4000 karma.

There is more than that. The karma from dungeon completion was also removed. Karma from event failure was also removed but I am not sure if that really makes much difference.

All the changes can be seen at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-September-3-2013/2761943 under “Changes to Rewards”.

That being said … I still don’t have much use for karma either. Sure there are some expensive karma items but they are mostly one time purchases.

Hanging around trader forums in LA right now is probably very good for karma right now. You can get credit for up to 5 events at the same time without moving much. The trick is figuring out how to do deal enough damage to get gold for all 5. They are all lv80 group events as well.

As a returning player after a year of absence this nerf is so annoying it is not even funny. By the time i stopped playing i was almost done with my first legendary, which i completed without a problem after returning but only because it was mostly done anyways (the only thing missing were the dungeon marks.)

As i have mostly no interest in PvE, even after trying to get into it after i returned, i decided to work on a second legendary which i would wear (first one was sold).

So, i was able to make 100k+ karma a day without much hassle in time of plinx+etc. but now, even if i play all day the most i got was 40k-50k and i really played all day for that (mostly wvw because it seems the fastest way to get karma if you got a good group and a competent commander).

Yes, i know you can run fractals without end but i am no fan of PvE/dungeons and as i have no guild, “trying to” run pugs drives me insane.

Try finding pugs which are good and have no requirements (experienced, 5k AP, yadda yadda).
Karma from daily and monthly is a joke and not even worth doing except for the laures which i can spend on 3 Obsi shards for 3.

I tried doing the living world stuff for karma but in the end it isn´t worth the time for the karma i got. I know you can trade belongings for obsi shards but after testing for a weak wvw is still more reliable and faster in terms of aquiring karma/getting shards.

I am nowhere near being done with getting the 250 obsi’s and i currently have no intention to keep on playing for that until karma gets boosted again (which it will eventually, i hope) as getting the obsi’s and the karma for the mystic clovers, which could be done (if determined) in about a week before the nerf but now takes probably more than a month.

It is infuriating that i see people in overflow spamming their 6 Legendarys like its no biggie because they maxed out karma before the nerf hit and as a new or returning player you simply put, got screwed.

People complained that they had nothing to spent their vast amounts of karma on and arenanet screws things up by punishing the players which not already got their karma maxed out.

So yeah, screw this iam out again until it gets changed back one day.

I hated the change to karma the day it happened. It took me months and months of saving karma. Also it didn’t help that the MF hates me. I would attempt to make 90 clovers ( understanding the chance to make t6 mats) but I only got 20-30 clovers and the rest mats.

I usually buy my obby shards each week. I can usually buy 30 of those. Except this week. I bought 80 of those. What’s the difference? I played WvW for 20 hours over the week where I didn’t do that before.

Conclusion, want karma? Go in WvW.

Fror.2163:

I usually buy my obby shards each week. I can usually buy 30 of those. Except this week. I bought 80 of those. What’s the difference? I played WvW for 20 hours over the week where I didn’t do that before.

Conclusion, want karma? Go in WvW.

“Play how YOU want” eh? Eh?

I believe you can also buy rare quality weapons in the borderlands with karma, which you can throw into the mystic forge.
Not sure if this is considered as an exploit though.

pswendel.8179:

“Play how YOU want” eh? Eh?

Well, it’s “play how you want”, yes, but it’s not “play how you want and get the same rewards as the next guy that plays how he wants”.