Can someone clarify EXACTLY what the problem is? I just see people saying they get DR and how they hate it. Yet didn’t Anet say it was implemented to stop players from abusing game mechanics? I guess I just have yet to see anyone clarify exactly what they are dong to get DRs. I’ve yet to see DRs once and I’ve been playing since early access. If the system is to stop abusing game mechanics, then why is this so bad? From a rationale standpoint I just do not understand the outcry.
If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.
Irish, if you look back at some of my posts / threads, you can see a good chunk of information on this.
The issue I have with the DR is that, even though I am not farming, I am getting hit by diminished drops. I don’t farm DEs, don’t grind the same mobs over and over again, yet whenever I play Orr, I get severely reduced drops (either nothing or porous bones). This is the result of playing the game exactly as is intended. It is incredibly frustrating and really hampers me from playing in any meaningful way.
So how do you even know its DR? Do you get a debuff or something? Or do you guys all know that if you do “X” you get “X”? I thought a lot of players were just mob tagging and “gaming” the system. Does it not work like that?
Well… at level 80 standard reward for an event is ~3k exp, 243 karma, 1.xx silver.
When you’re getting hit by DR, the karma and silver reward and silver keep decreasing down to 12 karma I think (not sure about the other rewards).
As for mob drops, I would suspect it’s pretty obvious for anyone who has played the game even a tiny bit that if from 30+ mobs you get no drop whatsoever, apart from additional trophy, something is happening to your drops.
The main problem, as others explained to you already, is that while it was meant to be an ani-bot measure, players are hitting the DR during completely normal play.
Some zones are more more susceptible than others, especially Orr due to its design: it mostly has one type of mobs, the Risen, so you keep on killing same type again.
It also, by design, as Devs shared in one of their blog posts, has no hearts but more events: more frequent and in longer chains. So if you play in Orr, simply roaming them map and joining the meta-events, you can hit the DR extremely fast. And it’s painful, as you’re getting around 5% of usual reward.
But it is not just Orr.
Every zone has at least one meta event chain and – depending on how long it is, how fast events proceed and how long have you played before joining / how many events you have done, you can hit DR too.
Events also have a tendency to spawn the same mob type, also across chains, which may lead to you hitting the “drop”: DR, too.
And this is all by simply playing the game, exactly as it was meant to be played.
(edited by cherrie.8907)
… Well… at level 80 standard reward for an event is ~3k exp, 243 karma, 1.xx silver. …
For me, a Cursed Shore, Penitent Path event nets 378 karma and 17k XP, 1.xx silver. I’ve never seen higher in the game, yet.
vjek, aye you’re right.
243 karma is what I get for events in lower level zones before DR.
I’m not paying much attention to exp though.
So all of the moderators are funneling people to this thread to discuss this issue yet non of them are joining in on the conversation. What gives. They obviously know about this thread. This is an issue that needs some commentary.
I wanted to inject something, because it’s very relevant to the entire concept that players need to be prevented from advancing too quickly, or playing too much.
I hit the level cap with my Elementalist at around the 135 hour mark. I have now logged almost 245 hours with that same character. I haven’t touched a dungeon yet. I have only done a little WvW and even less sPvP. I have never sat in one place grinding. I’ve bought or crafted the more easily available Exotics as I’ve been able to afford to during normal play, currently two accessories short of a full set of exotic armor, accessories and three exotic weapons.
I haven’t played to pursue the End Game Gear Grind. I’ve played to have fun enjoying the game world. I still only have map completion in the 60s. I play the game like it’s one massive Skyrim and have been having a blast doing so.
The original design was correct. The entire game is “end game” There is no need for an “end game gear grind”. It doesn’t matter one spit that I hit the level cap in two weeks, or that I have over 365 hours of total time played on my account. I was still having a blast playing the game as it was originally intended!
The original design worked! I can not say it too many times or stress it enough.
What ever panic mode the developers got themselves in over people getting “too quickly” to the level cap or logging hundreds of hours, well, they need to just quit it! There was nothing, I repeat nothing to panic over. Nada!
The original design worked! Go back to the original design concept and get off of the two generations gone concept that you need an end game gear grind with this game!
Creating a gear grind was a completely wrong turn for the game. You created demand for RMT gold that never would have existed if you had just had faith in the original design. Making the End Game Gear Grind even more difficult, by implementing a DR system that effects real players, is just digging the hole even deeper. Stop it!
The game does not and never has needed an End Game Gear Grind. Period. There doesn’t need to be ANY artificial limitation on a real player’s ability to play as many hours a day as they desire. Period.
The game, as originally designed, is and was good for several hundreds of hours of play with a single character and the replayability and fun factor was indeed large enough to allow people who played one character for 300-400 hours to embrace the idea of doing so again, and again, with additional characters!
Stop the “OMG, people are playing the game too much and hitting the cap too quickly” panic. It’s a relic of the past and was irrelevant to the game, until you MADE it relevant by creating a massive grind where NONE was needed!
The Original Design Worked! Stop finding ways to break it, wound it or kill it!
Some of your players have made the paradigm shift, why are some at Arenanet failing to see the paradigm shift the game’s design created?
I agree with a lot of what you say here. GW2 is an amazing game, a fantastic journey. There is no sub fee, there is no need to keep people hanging around grinding for gear. I’m sure most people will spend in the gem store while leveling, it’s plateaued for me now I’m at max. If people suss how the game is meant to be played and take a different approach – go discover the content, they’ll get a hell of a lot more out of it.
Thing is there are so many people stuck in the old ways of grinding for gear that it’s a playstyle they want to keep pursuing, you cant force them to go explore the map or discover all the wonders hidden across the world, they’ll come to that if they want to, upsetting them is not the way to encourage it. The gear is all mindset is so deeply entrenched, getting people to stop with the ‘end game it’s all about Orr’ way of thinking isn’t going to be helped by a counter intuitive measure to stifle a grind that’s been put in by you the developer in the first place. These people have bought the game, if they leave once they are max geared then fine, their loss, you’ve got their money, they’ll be back when updates and content are available. People like me have this horrible feeling that my next alt is going to struggle, I loved leveling my first character, now I’m demotivated, I want her to be able to craft gear appropriate to her needs and level, DR on drops makes me think twice about that, I didnt mind spending a few hours farming to keep my gear relevant while leveling up my main, wont be able to do that on my alt, makes the crafting system less attractrive, a system that actually gave you the better stuff for your level.
It’s not a deal breaker for me, I’m in a great guild, we love the content, we have a blast. I fully intend on leveling alts and hanging around, this just seems like a shadow on the horizon that really doesnt need to be there.
(edited by Evil Geek.6904)
I agree with where the OP, and some other posters are coming from.
Sure, you can argue for and against (karma) DR, but I still don’t understand the hostility between both camps. Why should you care about how others want to play this game? As long as it doesn’t affect any legitimate players in a negative way, there shouldn’t be a cause for argument. Arguably zergs can have a negative effect if a solo player chances upon a DE but fails to tag any monsters, I’ll give you that, but is it so important to the non-karma-grinder / non-farmer that one MUST do a certain DE?
Just because ANet, and I’m loosely paraphrasing here, “did not want people to grind in GW2,” does not make it fair for people to champion the cause of putting down people who want to grind in this game. Those who are against DR aren’t saying to put more grinding elements into the game, at least I don’t, but rather to not make the grinding any harder or more time consuming than it already is.
Ultimately, I think everything depends on ANet’s stance on this and how they respond, which is something already encapsulated by the OP’s questions.
At this point in time, I just want to know:
1) ANet’s intended target of the DR.
2) Whether ANet wishes to use the DR as a means of making the legendary more time-consuming (READ: not more difficult, but more time-consuming).
P.S. I notice people saying that karma doesn’t affect botters, but think again. Karma ingredients are indeed used to craft certain items (albeit mostly food). But more disconcerting is that fact that legendaries are sellable on the TP, which means that karma-grinding can be part of a long term investment of botters and gold-sellers to farm for a legendary and sell it for exorbitant prices. I won’t say anymore as that issue is kind of off-topic, but to me this just spells out a “richest person ‘wins’ game” scenario where a wealthy person could just convert loads of gems and buy legendaries off TP. Of course, I doubt that any legitimate players would be willing to part with their legendaries though. This would be a cause for karma DR to be retained, which would suck. One fairly obvious solution would be to not make legendaries sellable, but I guess that is rather open to debate (one which I don’t want to start here).
OK two brief things:
1) Yes the other threads were locked. They are redundant. And you can’t call a 5-page thread that’s constantly in the first 5 of the general discussion section"swept under the rug"
2) To those calling “lying” or “bait and switch”: from a legal standpoint you are pretty much dead wrong. The EULA we all agree to stipulates, among other things, that the developer can pretty much change the game as they see fit at any time.
More to the point, it was the definition of an MMO. The developers observed behavior that went against their design for the game. Whether that was bots, or people farming faster than they’d like, or whatever. They took steps to fix it. We know, because they have flat out said it, that the steps are NOT working as intended.
So until we find out what “working as intended” is, and what Anet hopes to achieve by that, try to withhold judgement. Or at least be sane about it. No one scammed you. No one lied to you. The developer built a game, we tested it. It launched. After launch they saw something they felt had to be changed. They changed it. Badly. It’s not a big conspiracy to force you to play longer or whatever you think it is. Please check your tinfoil hats at the door before responding.
People need to understand that the DR affecting events done by normal play is a (admittedly terrible) bug and not intended (just with Occam’s Razor).
This is the most likely reason.
I’ll add the whole idea of “cheesing” (which I take it to mean you do enough damage for gold, then leave) is something the developers advertised as a feature. People were complaining about the length of DEs becoming insane as more players showed up. The developers’ answer was that you were free to leave at any time, knowing you’d done your part for a gold reward.
2) To those calling “lying” or “bait and switch”: from a legal standpoint you are pretty much dead wrong. The EULA we all agree to stipulates, among other things, that the developer can pretty much change the game as they see fit at any time.
I never said anything regarding a LEGAL BASIS AT ALL EVER NOT ONE TIME. Just FYI.
It’s still a bait and switch to add this garbage two weeks after release after advertising the game and selling us all on it WITHOUT THOSE SYSTEMS IN THE GAME. It may not be legally actionable, but that is irrelevant to the FACT that this is a classic bait and switch.
Never, not one time in the entirety of the GW2 marketing campaign was it ever made clear to players that their time would be wasted after 30 minutes of normal play. I would not have purchased the game if I would have been made aware that this system was going into place a mere two weeks after the game went live.
We were advertised, got to test, and were sold on GW2, not GW2-But-You-Can-Only-Play-For-30-Minutes-Before-Being-Screwed-Out-Of-Loot-And-Event-Rewards.
Changing the game from GW2 to that other THING 2 weeks after release is MOST CERTAINLY a bait and switch. No one that bought the game knew this was going to be put in and their hands on time with the game didn’t include it.
I agree there’s no legal basis for recourse in terms of this, but that’s completely beside the point that it is extremly shady, scummy and anti-player to put this stuff in after selling us on the game without it.
The fact of the matter is that I paid for Guild Wars 2, not Diminishing Returns Wars 2, yet two weeks after release, my GW2 was taken and replaced with DRW2.
(edited by ChairGraveyard.2967)
The global game economy affects the player’s everyday experience, too, though. So if the DR is in place to help protect the game economy, they are trying to protect the player’s experience. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but it’s simplistic to think that the player’s experience will be unaffected if the game economy goes south.
Karma and all items associated with it are untradable. It cannot influence the market.
I never said anything regarding a LEGAL BASIS AT ALL EVER NOT ONE TIME. Just FYI.
It’s still a bait and switch to add this garbage two weeks after release after advertising the game and selling us all on it WITHOUT THOSE SYSTEMS IN THE GAME. It may not be legally actionable, but that is irrelevant to the FACT that this is a classic bait and switch.
Some people, and I’m not saying you Chair, like to use terms like “bait and switch” and “BBB” and start accusing developers of illegal practices in situations like this. I was merely clearing the air. You’ll note my post wasn’t even quoting you. I wasn’t directly addressing you, so much as people in general who accused Anet of scamming them.
Never, not one time in the entirety of the GW2 marketing campaign was it ever made clear to players that their time would be wasted after 30 minutes of normal play. I would not have purchased the game if I would have been made aware that this system was going into place a mere two weeks after the game went live.
Three things:
1) Just to be the devil’s advocate…they never said they wouldn’t do that, either.
2) The decision to implement DR came after launch. The reasons for it being implemented seem to be driven by issues Anet noticed after launch. I would suspect had they witnessed them in beta, they’d have been addressed then. There is no sane reason to “trick” players in a situation like this. You just kitten, get a refund, and Anet gets bad publicity. No company is stupid enough to do that. If they made changes, it’s because they felt changes were necessary.
3) This is the big one, please pay attention here. At no point has Anet said that the current “DR after 30 minutes” system is the exact design they were hoping for, and working as intended. They have, in fact, stated CLEARLY that it is not, in fact, working as intended. In short, IT IS A BUG. Let’s see what it’s SUPPOSED to be before judging whether they have the best intentions or not, yes?
Now keep in mind, I’m with you. I think the current DR is wrong and needs to be changed. I just think running off half-kittened claiming that Anet intended to do this from the start and intentionally hid it from us is stupid. Please again keep in mind I am not accusing you of saying that, although your tone in this post does kinda imply it. Several other posters however have flat out said it.
> “Karma and all items associated with it are untradable. It cannot influence the market.”
All things influence the market.
A simple example: If you aquire an exotic piece of armor via karma by power grinding for a couple days, then you will not buy the crafted exotic off of the TP. If 100,000 people do the same, the price of crafted exotics will bottom out on the TP. The crafting ingredients which supply the production of those will be in less demand because people see less profit in crafting as a whole, so those too drop, and so on.
The flow of karma, like all currencies in the game, directly affects everything else.
3) This is the big one, please pay attention here. At no point has Anet said that the current “DR after 30 minutes” system is the exact design they were hoping for, and working as intended. They have, in fact, stated CLEARLY that it is not, in fact, working as intended. In short, IT IS A BUG. Let’s see what it’s SUPPOSED to be before judging whether they have the best intentions or not, yes?
Source? Because as far as I know (and I’ve been following the topic) they have not said ANYTHING of the sort about loot or event DR and have ONLY commented on dungeon DR which is not even what this thread is about.
This isn’t the first time ArenaNet tried to curb farming. Remember Ursaway? In GW1 Ursaway was the best way to farm and clear hard content for a year or so, then ArenaNet suddenly decided it’s not ok anymore, so they change the skill and now everyone runs shadow form assassins(after a dozen nerfs).
The different between these cases is that the Ursaway nerf only affected the Ursan Blessing skill, you could just do a different build and still farm things. The DR on karma affects everyone.
(edited by Cerise.9045)
… 2) The decision to implement DR came after launch. …
Yep, and it was an extremely bad one, for which the precedents of why it’s bad have been clearly demonstrated in all MMO’s since Meridian 59.
They know better. They already have GW1 as first hand experience. It is inexcusable that they implemented this mechanic, given all the better options available.
You may find, Terrant, after you have played your 18th MMO (yes, GW2 is my 18th MMO) that you no longer give the developers the benefit of the doubt, nor play devil’s advocate. You simply jump to the inevitable conclusion, because you’ve seen it all before.
The reason doesn’t matter. They made an absolutely terrible decision, and now they are reaping the consequences of that decision. Personally, having seen such bad decisions 17 times before, I’m not even slightly surprised. The only thing that will surprise me is if they fix it or change it before they’re pressured to by their quarterly financial statement.
The whole Diminishing Returns idea is absurd. Botters are your problem. You should have coded the game in a way that does not allow for bots to exist.
A mmorpg is a world. People play mmorpgs to get away from the “real world” with its rules and restrictions. They want to get away and be free, feel powerful, whatever. In an online world you’re supposed to do whatever you want – be it grind the same spot mindlessly for 10 hours while drinking beer and listening to heavy metal, or running the same dungeon over and over with friends while chatting about nonesense.
You can’t presume to tell us how to spend our time in the world we have chosen as our escape from reality. Find another way, or we’ll find another world.
I have no desire to log in again until your “diminishing returns” are completely removed in any way shape or form.
Bottom line then, if the stupid DR is bugged then it should be disabled so players don’t have to suffer through its mistakes, when they find its reasonable they can enable it again, if they are able to turn it on to begin with they can very well shut it off. This is why something smells fishy.
If the DR systems are in the game to just to stop botters/gold seller then DR systems shouldn’t be in this game, it just turn people off from wanting to play the game for most of the time, it affects the whole playerbase more than the botters/gold sellers, the bots would just teleports-hack around the maps completing 4-5 events at the same time and get alot of rewards even with the DR system in place anyway.
Best thing you could do is just to try and keep them away from the game as best as you can by banning them, just remove the DR system for karma gain tbh, it is pointless to even put it there in the first place.
We thought we should put in our 2 cents as well.
Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.
Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.
These systems are put in place to protect the economy from botters and exploiters. We will close exploits as quickly as we can. These thresholds help create a safety net to keep the economy safe when we aren’t there to deal with the offender. It’s important to have a safety net in place. It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously. When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy.
While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.
Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out. Please bear with us while we gather more data and lower the safety net until it’s only providing critical economy protection. Looking at the numbers this morning, we believe some of the threshold systems are just too harsh empirically and we’ll be adjusting those systems within the next few weeks to ensure that fewer legitimate players are being impacted.
I hope this helps to explain why a game like this needs systems such as this to protect its economy. I also hope it gives some insight into our philosophy about botters (BAD) and exploiters (BAD) vs. farmers (GOOD). Thanks for your support and we will see you in game.
Jon
I am not a fan of people that “grind” excessively, and I personally do not do it. But I think the current system is flawed – not because the purpose is wrong – but because the method is backwards.
Creating a cap on something causes players to feel limited and impeded. The way to solve this problem is to do the opposite – reduce karma/gold across the board but give some kind of daily bonus or higher rewards for the first 2 hours of grinding.
This could be either:
(1) the classic rested bonus from other games
(2) daily achievements related to events – which after completed gives karma/gold.
(3) rewards from the current daily being a karma/gold booster that could be used the next day.
After that period of bonuses expire, people can still grind for karma/gold but at a steady but small amount.
The overall point being: the DR system needs to take into account human psychology – and a system that places a cap like this one feels like a “punishment” when you want to make it feel like a “reward”.
It is the classic carrot and the stick. You can keep the exact same rate of return, but just make it less of a stick and more of a carrot system.
That….didn’t help at all, regardless of what you guys say now it was admitted before that the system is bugged, I understand the need to stop botters but your methods in doing so are hurting the player base….I feel restricted in some ways knowing I can’t go to a level 80 area kill mobs in hopes of getting some decent mats or loot. So yeah this isn’t fun at all.
That….didn’t help at all, regardless of what you guys say now it was admitted before that the system is bugged, I understand the need to stop botters but your methods in doing so are hurting the player base….I feel restricted in some ways knowing I can’t go to a level 80 area kill mobs in hopes of getting some decent mats or loot. So yeah this isn’t fun at all.
how did it not help at all? He explained why the system is in place, that it is too harsh for people who want to farm and that they will be adjusting it. What did you expect?
… While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us. …
Jon,
Thank you for posting.
Is farming creatures (repeatedly killing them) for fine (blue) crafting materials, necessary for advancing their crafting profession, considered “a normal game activity”?
If so, please seriously consider removing all DR’s from this activity, as currently, it is extraordinarily tedious to obtain the crafting materials necessary to advance all crafting professions that rely on fine (blue) crafting materials that drop from creatures (such as scales, blood, totem, fangs, etc)
Jon, ANet has always been too paranoid about things like this. I would much rather have a “ruined” economy where everything is dirt cheap and I’m free to enjoy the game, rather than having to “bump” into safety nets all the time. Just remove it. It’s not a big deal. You’re ruining the game for 95% of your players just because you don’t want the other 5% to maybe do something that you might not like.
A lot of this is caused by the insane pricing and ridiculous grind for some very basic items (not even touching on t3 culturals and legendaries), resulting in a NEED to grind. That needs to be addressed. I don’t even want to farm. But I have to. Things like how unprofitable it is to do fun things like returning to zones or doing jumping puzzles for literally 1/20th of the value of doing an Orr run. These are very problematic in your design model, and adjusting the DR will never fix them.
(edited by Plague.5329)
Hooray we finally get a response that this is a bug! At least we have a timeframe too, sucks that it’ll take two to three weeks to change a single variable value but at least i know when it’ll be worth coming back too.
We thought we should put in our 2 cents as well.
Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.
Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.
These systems are put in place to protect the economy from botters and exploiters. We will close exploits as quickly as we can. These thresholds help create a safety net to keep the economy safe when we aren’t there to deal with the offender. It’s important to have a safety net in place. It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously. When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy.
While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.
Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out. Please bear with us while we gather more data and lower the safety net until it’s only providing critical economy protection. Looking at the numbers this morning, we believe some of the threshold systems are just too harsh empirically and we’ll be adjusting those systems within the next few weeks to ensure that fewer legitimate players are being impacted.
I hope this helps to explain why a game like this needs systems such as this to protect its economy. I also hope it gives some insight into our philosophy about botters (BAD) and exploiters (BAD) vs. farmers (GOOD). Thanks for your support and we will see you in game.
Jon
So Jon, Please tell us why it took A. Weeks and Weeks for you to even make one comment on this issue? B. Why you put this system into PVE without a notification to the legitimate players so they could not with a veritable method to inform you glitches in the system? C. What happened to your apparent transparency on bugs and issues? D. Why wasn’t this handled with the Transparency and urgency with the Dungeon system? E. How does Karma and Experience Affect the Botters (ie: why didn’t you simply effect the money instead of all three?
You guys really dropped the ball on this… especially seeing how you know your “fixes” have had so many glitches and issues and you let this stay quiet on your end for so long.
@JonPeters, please err on the side of DRASTIC cuts to the current DR system, because it is not even in the ballpark of being correct right now.
Honestly this isn’t very reassuring. I like that we’ve finally got confirmation that the intent isn’t to completely screw everyone out of any sort of reward for their time, but it also seems as if you’re saying the current loot and event DR is only somewhat too aggressive, instead of MASSIVELY too aggressive like it actually is.
While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.
Thanks for this explanation Jon, this post has cleared up a lot of paranoia and confusion.
The part about the economy is still confusing though. Since the change to karma weapons making them impossible to sell or use on the forge, there is no known way to trade karma with other players or use karma for economical gain. So why the suppression on karma gain specifically?
I don’t think the DR system has anything to do with bots. I don’t believe arenanet could possibly be that stupid. The DR too obviously sky rockets the demand for the gold seller’s product due to legendaries etc. seeming impossible to get because of it for that to be the main intention.
Rather the opposite. I think they do get it. They are the biggest goldsellers. They also sell Karma (karma boosters). What I think they may have overlooked is that disatisfied players don’t spend in cash shops to supplement the experience in a game that they no longer enjoy.
Anet isn’t paranoid. This is why economy in gw2 matters and is useless in wow. Everyone needs to settle for less so we can all have a more enjoyable experience. Hope anet sticks to its current philosophy. People will adapt eventually. Those who like the game will stay regardless
I don’t think the DR system has anything to do with bots. I don’t believe arenanet could possibly be that stupid. The DR too obviously sky rockets the demand for the gold seller’s product due to legendaries etc. seeming impossible to get because of it for that to be the main intention.
Rather the opposite. I think they do get it. They are the biggest goldsellers. They also sell Karma (karma boosters). What I think they may have overlooked is that disatisfied players don’t spend in cash shops to supplement the experience in a game that they no longer enjoy.
This exactly. It hardly matters that you’re trying to protect the economy if your protection measures are actively driving players away from the game. If that’s the case you have failed miserably and your system is junk and should be scrapped immediately, as is true of the DR in the game right now.
And yeah I’m not too pleased that we won’t be seeing fixes for this for weeks, and that those fixes are only going to be minor tweaks. Minor tweaks aren’t what are required for this system. It should simply be gutted out of the game and removed entirely. It’s utter garbage and has no place in an RPG.
(edited by ChairGraveyard.2967)
Thanks for the update! This game is barely over a month old… so I understand it’s going to take a little time to get stuff sorted.
Also, keep in mind guys, that stuff on the Trading Post and whatnot is going to be expensive when a game first launches. Wait until everyone has 2 alt 80s that went through content, and injected all that gold/harvest into the market.
When a game launches, prices are always high as a ratio to gold in the economy.
So does anyone even know when DR triggers? or how to tell when its active?? Besides crap loot drops, some visual indication would be nice, also how long does it last and can I take steps to prevent it?
We thought we should put in our 2 cents as well.
Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.
Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.
Jon
Awesome Jon, That is a plausible expaination with a viable course of correction on your part. I wish this was said sooner. Thank you very much.
If I may ask a question though. Why not just go ahead and eliminate the DR on karma immediately? Karma is on no monitary value to exploiters, goldsellers, or even bots. Its more or less useless except for armor and weapons which are not sellable (soulbound) and not salvagable.
So why not in the meantime lift the karma DR?
It is nice that you finally commented. But why did it take so long? You realize that you have burned many bridges with your delay and silence. Mine included also friends who decided to stop playing all together.
You really need to come off the mountain and speak more often about specific topics that are important to the community.
I suspect the only reason you have said anything is because people are protesting by not buying gems and this leads to resentment. This is not how to deal with players.
You forget we are on your side – WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY- Please stop treating us like we are.
We thought we should put in our 2 cents as well.
Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.
Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.
These systems are put in place to protect the economy from botters and exploiters. We will close exploits as quickly as we can. These thresholds help create a safety net to keep the economy safe when we aren’t there to deal with the offender. It’s important to have a safety net in place. It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously. When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy.
While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.
Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out. Please bear with us while we gather more data and lower the safety net until it’s only providing critical economy protection. Looking at the numbers this morning, we believe some of the threshold systems are just too harsh empirically and we’ll be adjusting those systems within the next few weeks to ensure that fewer legitimate players are being impacted.
I hope this helps to explain why a game like this needs systems such as this to protect its economy. I also hope it gives some insight into our philosophy about botters (BAD) and exploiters (BAD) vs. farmers (GOOD). Thanks for your support and we will see you in game.
Jon
Loved this post until the part about fixing it in “the next few weeks”. This should be adjusted daily until it’s no longer effecting normal players. If we have to live with the game cutting off rewards for normal players doing normal things for a “few more weeks”, many may decide to go elsewhere.
Jon, lowering the net where it obviously needs to be lowered needs to happen now. Fine tuning after that taking a few weeks? Fine. It may even be an ongoing process for as long as the game is live, but a few weeks to fix some obviously unfair DR triggers is not acceptable.
I’m hoping you just meant that the entire process would take weeks and that the obviously needed changes will happen in the next couple days, if not tonight.
Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out. Please bear with us while we gather more data and lower the safety net until it’s only providing critical economy protection. Looking at the numbers this morning, we believe some of the threshold systems are just too harsh empirically and we’ll be adjusting those systems within the next few weeks to ensure that fewer legitimate players are being impacted.
Be sure it is communicated to whomever is responsible for this work that it is most valuable to focus their analysis on the 3 areas of orr, as there are no hearts to distract players. They’d also find more valuable data if they could filter it to players who have 100% completed the 3 Orrian areas, as their time obviously is most likely to be spent on dynamic events. Implementing changes around such data will result in the least impact to farmers.
I don’t think the DR system has anything to do with bots. I don’t believe arenanet could possibly be that stupid. The DR too obviously sky rockets the demand for the gold seller’s product due to legendaries etc. seeming impossible to get because of it for that to be the main intention.
Rather the opposite. I think they do get it. They are the biggest goldsellers. They also sell Karma (karma boosters). What I think they may have overlooked is that disatisfied players don’t spend in cash shops to supplement the experience in a game that they no longer enjoy.
This exactly. It hardly matters that you’re trying to protect the economy if your protection measures are actively driving players away from the game. If that’s the case you have failed miserably and your system is junk and should be scrapped immediately, as is true of the DR in the game right now.
And yeah I’m not too pleased that we won’t be seeing fixes for this for weeks, and that those fixes are only going to be minor tweaks. Minor tweaks aren’t what are required for this system. It should simply be gutted out of the game and removed entirely. It’s utter garbage and has no place in an RPG.
Hi Chair,
I’m the last one to defend anet. I’ve found Dr to be horrendous. I feel not voicing a position on it to be horrendous as well. However, IF they do what Jon said in the post, then DR won’t affect normal playing players and farmers at all once the fix is made. IF (that’s a big if) they do what was actually said here. = I’d be satisfied.
Still, I’ll believe it when I see it. Their credibility is shot with me as it is
Thanks Jon for the detailed explanation. Once again I can see that you guys are looking at the “big picture” and for a healthy economy.
Guild wars 2 is in safe hands.
Regardless of what they say is in the works bottom line is it will take a few weeks, and during that time this will alienate players from even playing or they might even go elsewhere as people said, and word of mouth travels fast.
Jon,
Thank you for your explanation. I look forward to these thresholds being adjusted to accommodate those of us that do actually want to farm, while still limiting those who bot and exploit.
And most of all, thank you for finally communicating with the community about this divisive issue.
“While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.”
That made me so happy to read.
I’m glad to know ArenaNet ISN’T trying to stop people from farming/grinding.
The worst exploit for profit in this game is the trading post (at least farming requires effort), can we get some DR for that. Or put taxes on the top 1-5% of the player base.
They have DR on the TP already, it’s called the 15% tax.
You guys are seriously still whining? The answer Jon Peters gave is a legitimate answer. It takes weeks, even MONTHS to develop a game of this scale. This isn’t just a few numbers that they can magically tweak and everything is resolved.
Why would ArenaNet concentrate full-time on polishing the DR system when they have bigger fish to fry? They have literally, so much to do that there isn’t time to work on the DR system everyday.
Everyone needs to understand that the development of an MMO takes time. If you don’t like it, LEAVE. If you’ve played over 40+ hours of this game then you’ve gotten your $60 worth. Wait for patches… you’re not paying a subscription fee. If the game has been released for six months and literally nothing has changed, then maybe you have a reason to whine.
“A few weeks” There isn’t much of an end game … “a few weeks” will be all it takes to drive players away for good. Lower server load = fewer servers = win for NcSoft?
“A safety net for when we cannot be there” … and why pray tell can you NOT be there? I have reported at least 100 unique bots in the process of leveling 3 toons to level 80 … most are still running their waypoints.
The bots are not even remotely difficult to spot and you KNOW IT. If so inclined and actually concerned you could pay a low level tech for a week to server bounce and ban them. They run in clusters for God’s sakes, this isn’t rocket science.
Bots aren’t the inspiration for the DR .. we the player base happen to be the target. DR on Karma and Exp says it all and only the most blinded fanboi doesn’t see that. No oops, no fine tuning issue … they are looking for the thresh hold for when server populations slow on decline over it. Then welcome to the in game store!!!
I have been supporting your products since your company came into being. This isn’t the first time you attacked your player-base to try to fix a perceived problem … original 55 monk ring any bells?
I feel like I found out a friend was ripping me off intentionally.
“A few weeks” There isn’t much of an end game … “a few weeks” will be all it takes to drive players away for good. Lower server load = fewer servers = win for NcSoft?
“A safety net for when we cannot be there” … and why pray tell can you NOT be there? I have reported at least 100 unique bots in the process of leveling 3 toons to level 80 … most are still running their waypoints.
The bots are not even remotely difficult to spot and you KNOW IT. If so inclined and actually concerned you could pay a low level tech for a week to server bounce and ban them. They run in clusters for God’s sakes, this isn’t rocket science.
Bots aren’t the inspiration for the DR .. we the player base happen to be the target. DR on Karma and Exp says it all and only the most blinded fanboi doesn’t see that. No oops, no fine tuning issue … they are looking for the thresh hold for when server populations slow on decline over it. Then welcome to the in game store!!!
I have been supporting your products since your company came into being. This isn’t the first time you attacked your player-base to try to fix a perceived problem … original 55 monk ring any bells?
I feel like I found out a friend was ripping me off intentionally.
I’d gladly work for free as a bot zapper.
“A few weeks” There isn’t much of an end game … “a few weeks” will be all it takes to drive players away for good. Lower server load = fewer servers = win for NcSoft?
“A safety net for when we cannot be there” … and why pray tell can you NOT be there? I have reported at least 100 unique bots in the process of leveling 3 toons to level 80 … most are still running their waypoints.
The bots are not even remotely difficult to spot and you KNOW IT. If so inclined and actually concerned you could pay a low level tech for a week to server bounce and ban them. They run in clusters for God’s sakes, this isn’t rocket science.
Bots aren’t the inspiration for the DR .. we the player base happen to be the target. DR on Karma and Exp says it all and only the most blinded fanboi doesn’t see that. No oops, no fine tuning issue … they are looking for the thresh hold for when server populations slow on decline over it. Then welcome to the in game store!!!
I have been supporting your products since your company came into being. This isn’t the first time you attacked your player-base to try to fix a perceived problem … original 55 monk ring any bells?
I feel like I found out a friend was ripping me off intentionally.
You seriously think that a few weeks is all it takes for a game to die? Are you guys out of your minds?
The reason why MMOs die is because of their subscription fees. People don’t want to waste their money on an obligation that won’t give them their bang of their buck.
You have no obligation to ArenaNet. As soon as you hear that there is a patch, all you have to do is fire up the game at no charge.
Do you really think ArenaNet is not going to release new content? They made an entire continent in six months (Elona of Nightfall). Trust me, now that they have the groundwork done and are about to finish polishing up the backend system, their development of content is going to go into overdrive. There will be new weapons, new armor, new areas, new dungeons, tons of patches, new features, who knows what else?
Everyone should be excited for the future…not so melancholic.
Ok for starters people have reason to be upset, there are no “bigger fish” to fry since this DR implemented as a means to combot the bot issue in the game, and as a result they screwed up the regular experience of the average player as well. As such they could easily disable the DR but they choose not to for fear of the effects of the economy. It wouldn’t take WEEKS or MONTHS, its a simple matter of adjusting the games code and completely deleted the DR system from the game or reseting it back to the pre-patch.
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