Guild Wars 2

The people posting in this thread act as if most players are farmers. I play this game every day. I have an 80 and 40. I haven’t noticed any appreciable drop in my income from normal playing.

I understand that some people believe because they play a certain way and they’re frustrated, that people are so frustrated by this they are leaving in droves, but I asked around in my guild of 80 and no one has noticed anything at all but this thread.

Honestly, while this does affect a percentage of players, it’s a pretty small percentage. And I have confidence it will be fixed….that numbers will be adjusted.

Everyone wants everything now, today, but that’s not the way programming works. Changing one element affects changing others and everything has to go through a process, including testing on a test server of some kind.

If your’e really frustrated, take a break and come back later, but don’t make it sound like 20-30% of the people playing this game are farmers who are all going to desert because it takes a couple of months to fix a bug that affects a small percentage of players.

It’s a new and ambitious game with a lot of stuff that has to be fixed. This is just one of those things.

Did the restart do anything?
I’m about to login now and play some… but was just curious if anything has changed since the restart.
I would hate to push to hard or use a karma booster only to be hit by the DR and have it wasted.

It kind of feels like they’re trying to replace the gear treadmill with a gold… “treadmill?”.

Jon, thanks for the update. It’s always nice to hear new from you guys on controversial topics like this. As for the rest of you posters, Don’t Panic. ANet still listens more than any other game company I’ve known.

@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.

Actually, that’d be bad. Did you read the explanation? Given the intention of the DRs, the only feasibly way to reduce them is to reduce them in small amounts, but steadily, until hitting the right amount.

Or next we’ll see just as many “The economy is bogus, please reset”-threads as we see threads about DR right now.

The entitlement in this thread is strong. It’s funny that people are talking as if transparency from Anet is their god given right. It is a privelege. Be happy that Anet is actually communicating to us in some way.

Jon’s explanation is completely valid and understandable. I’m happy the DR system is in the game but obviously it just needs some tweaking. It will take some time, programming and testing is a lot harder than most people think it is. People just assume that all they gotta do is change some numbers and while that may be true in some cases, it’s almost always more complicated.

While Anet sorts out the DR system, it should remain in the game in its current state until the tweaks can be rolled out. Why? Because this game is full of exploits. We’ve already heard of multiple exploits in this game and it would be foolish to think there were none left. I’m positive that there are other known exploits in this game that haven’t been made public. Some of these exploits might already have been severely hindered by the DR system. If Anet removed the DR system until the fully completed one can be rolled out, what will stop these exploits?? GW1 has shown that exploits can and will destroy the games economy (more than it already is).

There is one change that I think needs to be made to the DR system and that is that karma shouldn’t be affected. Everything related to karma cannot be sold so there’s no reason why it should be affected.

Either way, the DR system should have been in the game since day one. One month without it has allowed a number of players to a-mass an incredible amount of money, giving them the power to control certain aspects of the market.

I understand what he was saying. I can see their point of view. But, just looking at this as a seller and customer: if something you are doing is angering a good portion of your customers just stop it. You flipped the switch on, switch it off. You want to put in some sort of safety net fine. But obviously its not working very well atm. So test it before you put it live.

I just got 80th and so far I havent see this, that I am aware of. But, I shouldnt have to worry I will. Its sucked out the fun in the game for me and my husband. We both feel very meh about playing knowning at some point we will gain less (whatever) for our effort.

Its not just me, or ppl we know. Its more ppl then on this forum. Its a dark whisper swirling around the gaming community. People are not just annoyed, they are angry. And angry ppl dont spend money on gems. I know we wont be. Why should we reward the seller with money, when it seems very obvious they dont care about me, the customer.

Just a big fat THANK YOU for the official post. It’s appreciated, well formulated and exactly what I was hoping for

Lol well this is what I ran into myself.. I went event hopping for about.. 30 minutes? And this wasn’t even just smacking a mob and running to the next, but finishing each event until completion. At this point I was definitely down to getting 200 karma per event from Cursed Shore’s. This is kind of ridiculous considering the massive amount of karma it takes to make legendaries as it is. Considering there are no mid-point goals to even keep people looking at them, nerfing karma gain is really going to deter those people from even looking at making legendaries. For me personally, I’m 80 now, saving up some G to buy some crafted exotics, and farming events to save up some skill points and karma to start chipping away at the legendary. However when I start getting 1/2 the standard amount for no real reason, even when I’m not leaving events early or anything, what gives? And how do you expect people to actually get one. If you guys really underestimated how fast people would be able to farm karma, and thought legendaries should take longer to make, then you should say that it was your mistake to begin with imo. That’s about the only reason I can really see that it would matter. It’s not like getting ANY exotics is actually difficult, and it’s really all for looks. It’s not hard to get enough g for 6 pieces of armor and an 80 transmute stone.

Why does everyone expect something brand new, as big and different as this to work perfectly ever, but especially when released? It takes time to get things right in an MMO and it might be hell for a while, deal with it and things will get better. This game however will never give you the best skin or gear without effort and a good deal of time.

I don’t think DR would be as much of a problem if:

A: It’s wasn’t so ridiculously expensive to map travel. In the current system, you have to stay in one place and farm for at least 10 minutes or warping will dry you out of money- and to ever make money you need to not warp at all – casual players who aren’t saving up their money will never afford exotic gear because any bit of cash they earn gets sucked up by waypoints.

B: The loot scaling is crud. Orr and FGS are the only areas worth farming. There no point to going back to lower level areas because, while it’s true that masterwork and better gear scales, materials and coin don’t, which makes up a pretty big bulk of income. I know things in lower level areas are easy to defeat because of the way the system works, but It would be really nice to get a hard mode that, instead of scaling you down, scales everything else up. Pretty much every 40-70 area is a ghost town because all the casual players aren’t above level 40 yet, and all the dedicated players have been 80 for weeks.

I never said thanks but I do appreciate Jon taking the time to give us a response and for what it’s worth thanks.

I saw it said earlier to change the DR drastic, I don’t think that is needed at all.
It just needs fine tuned so that if you catch several events up close together and or run several chain events or fail and then forced to repeat a chain event… this is where the DR system is coming on and hurting the regular player.

Never mind the players and zerg who speed through events and kill the champions in record time and move fast, they need to calm down and spread out.

I hope Anet looks into the problems with having only one level 80 zone and the AoE tagging of mobs by zerging and the problem with invisible mobs caused by so many people in a given area zerging the event and making mobs and players invisible.

Jon while we got your attention do you think the problem with waypoint cost could be scaled down so the cost of travel actually matches your level?
This would go a long way in solving the cost of waypoint travel if you did this, since the reward payout in the lower level zones would match the travel cost.

Jon why are you flat out lying to us? DR in it’s current state cannot possibly affect botters and not affect farmers, let me explain why. Regardless of the strictness of when the DR triggers, the main issue is why the DR triggers not when. The karma DR triggers when a large number of events are done in a short period of time. A farmer will always be able to complete more events faster than a bot. It is impossible for a trigger of this type to affect bots and not legitimate players. Additionally a farmer will be more effective in combat than a bot and will therefore kill more enemies and get more items having the loot DR trigger faster than it would for a bot. Again this entire type of trigger is incapable of punishing a bot more than a player. You need safeguards yes, but they should be a net partway down the building not a shotgun at the door to the roof.

Stratzvyda.3921:

Jon why are you flat out lying to us? DR in it’s current state cannot possibly affect botters and not affect farmers, let me explain why. Regardless of the strictness of when the DR triggers, the main issue is why the DR triggers not when. The karma DR triggers when a large number of events are done in a short period of time. A farmer will always be able to complete more events faster than a bot. It is impossible for a trigger of this type to affect bots and not legitimate players. Additionally a farmer will be more effective in combat than a bot and will therefore kill more enemies and get more items having the loot DR trigger faster than it would for a bot. Again this entire type of trigger is incapable of punishing a bot more than a player. You need safeguards yes, but they should be a net partway down the building not a shotgun at the door to the roof.

A bot farms the best spots because the gold sellers need a steady supply to meet their demands.

If for example they need to make 100g a day to meet the demand, putting in DR will make this impossible with their same set up. They then need to find alternative ways of making that 100g a day. This could mean by finding other farming spots or by using more accounts.

In any case it does affect bots. Saying that it doesn’t affect them is just a silly statement. However, it doesn’t mean that DR solves the botting issue. It means they need to adapt or use more accounts making them more visible and easier to trace. DR cannot be seen as the only measure in the fight against botting. It’s just a small part of it and it forces botters to do things differently which Anet can then measure.

They cannot just swing the ban hammer at any suspicion either. The other side of this is that they might ban people by mistake and that would also be a bad thing.

DR is only one part of a bigger approach. The reason why it is such a big topic lies in 2 areas. First of all it affects players as well. Secondly it affects players who aren’t the target audience and are playing the game in a way that it wasn’t made for (this second part is of course my opinion based on the advertisements, interviews from Anet and experiencing the game myself as a player).

The reason I put that second reason in is because it is also my belief that DR isn’t just about bots. To me it was also a clear measure, just like changes in dungeons against speed clearing that Anet does want to stick to their vision for this game.

I have seen the reduction in Karma gain once myself and it was day that I was doing the grenth chain a few times cause people kept failing the chain because of the shade thing.

I was like oh well and after it failed again I left to do something else anyways caus I get bored with doing the same event 5 times in a row as it is…reward or no reward.

But even though DR by itself doesn’t fix the bot problem, it does have an effect on them.

Stratzvyda.3921:

Jon why are you flat out lying to us? DR in it’s current state cannot possibly affect botters and not affect farmers, let me explain why. Regardless of the strictness of when the DR triggers, the main issue is why the DR triggers not when. The karma DR triggers when a large number of events are done in a short period of time. A farmer will always be able to complete more events faster than a bot. It is impossible for a trigger of this type to affect bots and not legitimate players. Additionally a farmer will be more effective in combat than a bot and will therefore kill more enemies and get more items having the loot DR trigger faster than it would for a bot. Again this entire type of trigger is incapable of punishing a bot more than a player. You need safeguards yes, but they should be a net partway down the building not a shotgun at the door to the roof.

That first sentence may get you into trouble, my friend. A page back, I implied the very same, pointed out that I didn’t buy it, why I didn’t buy it, only to have my post deleted by the moderator, lightning-fast. This is the second time they do this (my first experience of having my post deleted on forums) to me.

As for the rest of your post, most people have been trying to tell the same; seems it’s just being ignored by some. So don’t even bother posting, really. Some people even believe and state, in a very patronising and holier than thou style, that we are not entitled to our opinions. Just check this out:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/PSA-Opinions-vs-Constructive-Criticism/first#post341266

That’s what I meant in the first part of my (deleted) post: fanboyism and “yes man” style are obviously OK on this forum. They certainly have an interesting idea of a “forum”.

This thread just needs to get closed and the official post stickied and what not. If you check my history, you’d know that I am pretty upset about the DR myself, but they finally came out and said they know our intentions and are looking for a solution to this issue. Mission accomplished, now we just have to be patient.

Thanks for the explanation Jon. When DR was initially introduced there was a post saying it was bugged.

The problem is that nothing becomes cheap if you get rid of DR. People who farm have the money will raise the prices for players who play more casually (best word I could think of) and they’ll be priced out of the market. You only have to look at the micro-economy of pre-legendaries to see this in effect. 99% of players won’t be able to afford the 120g or whatever it is for Dusk.

A lot of people here are saying that bots have no use for karma. You haven’t seen the powerlevelling / karma farming services advertised in map chat by the goldsellers then?

I think it’s good what they’re trying to accomplish, would you rather this be WoW where stacks of elementium ore go from 200g a stack to 16g – 20g a stack due to botters essentially making any farming you do a complete waste? I sure as hell don’t.

DR may be horrible now but in the long run it will be adjusted and you will be thanking ANet for the system later. Jon already stated that they don’t frown on farming, so it will be fixed to where we can farm safely. That’s all I needed to hear.

For too long bots have completely ruined economy, and if I decide to farm something I expect to make a good profit off of it for my time.

Rukia.4802:

I think it’s good what they’re trying to accomplish, would you rather this be WoW where stacks of elementium ore go from 200g a stack to 16g – 20g a stack due to botters essentially making any farming you do a complete waste? I sure as hell don’t.

DR may be horrible now but in the long run it will be adjusted and you will be thanking ANet for the system later. Jon already stated that they don’t frown on farming, so it will be fixed to where we can farm safely. That’s all I needed to hear.

For too long bots have completely ruined economy, and if I decide to farm something I expect to make a good profit off of it for my time.

karma has no gold value, it can’t be sold, it can’t be traded in any way, it has no connection to the economy in any way

DR in this game is the most dysfunctional, frustrating anti-player mechanic I have ever encountered in an MMO, and that is saying a lot. It needs to be scrapped entirely. Variable drop-rate farming qualifies as a mild form of psychological torture as it is, and it it is made worse in this game by the ridiculously low drop rates for crafting mats. Setting up a DR wall lowers this frustrating process to sadistic levels.

As should be abundantly clear, none of this is dissuading botters. They can teleport from place to place at no charge and no DR you can devise is going to defeat them. It’s just another poorly-conceived anti-player mechanic in a game full of them that is angering and frustrating players and making the game suck.

My advice to Anet is throw away the bloody slide rule. You need to do away with DR right now, not three weeks from now. If there was anything Blizzard was notorious for it was the tyranny of the slide rule, always using “the numbers” to justify broken mechanics while remaining completely oblivious to customer complaints about those mechanics. It’s why I am here playing your game now and why I suspect I will be playing the next game when it comes out unless you change your tune.

You need to start learning how to err on the side of fun and player satisfaction, rather than this typical anal-retentive, bean-counter MMO mindset that hamstrings all MMO games and alienates players like me. This was supposed to be a new type of MMO that was all about FUN, remember?

@Cerise, I never even mentioned karma that’s a whole ‘nother matter, and should probably not even be on DR, but I also can’t say I know for sure that there isn’t anything someone could buy with karma that isn’t soulbound which would mean profit for bots.

Such big LIES coming from devs tbh. You don’t want people to farm this has NOTHING to do with being an anti-bot system. It is an anti-farm system. Just admit it. You can’t be such fools to put is so low for bots i refuse to believe that otherwise wow.. i don’t think you can ever handle an MMO.

Karma: 15 minutes of running around in Cursed Shore and i hit diminishing return – which basicly forces me logout for 15 minutes if i dont want to lose karma boost time.

Really? 1 hour karma boost and 15 minutes to hit the karma DR?

Loot: The more magic find we use the faster we hit the DR. Really? i mean..REALLY?! the only point of magic find atm is to have it high enough so you hit loot DR same time as karma..so you give a break for both.

Bots farm one spot.. and more importantly they do. not. farm. karma. I’ve not seen one single bot farm karma events at lvl 80. They only stay at a spot and do 1 or 2 events close to eachother which will NEVER EVER put them in DR unless you make it so low it’ll be impossible to get karma.

Oh and nice hidden fix on logging out to get out of karma DR… now we have no way to play game nonstop.

I cannot play the game in my free time. Game FORCES me to give breaks in less than 30 mins that is gameplay-breaking something worse than economy-breaking bots.

TL;DR: I prefer bots over your DR.

Apparently people are not reading all the replies on this forum so I will say again, as other people did, to all those who say that botters do not affect the karma system that they actually do. Botters with GOLD they get GEMS, with GEMS they get BOOSTERS. Someone said this before and still people are saying the exact opposite. Oh and thanks a lot for the reply Jon on this matter. And someone said that 2 million sales is nothing if 1.9 quit the game. Just because you are quitting doesn’t mean that everyone is quitting. If you wish then go you won’t be missed but I bet all those who quit will come back again when the game is stabilized and more expansions are out, and also just don’t try to push others out of the game just because you got frustrated. Admit it you are the minority of the players that are quitting, those who like the game will stay faithful to it and be patient, and trust me they are many.

OK, so since Mr. Peters responded, a few points to make:

1) It is now clear that per Anet, the current DR system in place was intended to deal with bots.
2) It was never meant to punish players actually playing the game
3) It was never meant to punish people farming for mats.
4) It is, however doing both. Something they are aware of.
5) They intend to fix it, but feel it will take time to get the numbers just right.

Now we sit back to see what actually happens.

The amount of utterly idiotic comments in this post is beyond belief.

Mostly those who are bashing the developers post, and those with the sheer audacity to call him a liar.

If you actually took the time to read and understand the post. The DR on Karma isn’t really about bots at all. DR on other things, such as drop rates and what not is aimed at bots.

It’s about having a (as Jon put it) ‘safety net’ to catch exploits.

If they unintentionally put something into the game that gives more karma than it was meant to, or something sells for way less than it is supposed to, Anet won’t have to sit and babysit the game, as with DR on Karma, this will limit the negative affect that such a bug would have on the game.

Obviously as he stated there are issues with the system. Such as normal players being penalized by said DR. Which they are working on fixing so normal play should not incur any DR.

Expecting this to take any less than a few weeks is plain ignorant. In order to balance a system that actively tracks how much somebody is doing something and when it should kick in (which seems to differ from player to player (bugs)), it will take a lot of data gathering in order to see where the problems lie and the best ways to fix it.

Not to mention a fair test period to work out whether the changes are working. (and yes, Anet test everything, they make software, of course they do. What they cannot plan for is what happens when you throw thousands of players at it at once, as even a public test realm wouldn’t supply the kinds of numbers that are in the live game)

I find it downright disrespectful to the developers that some people on this forum have such narrow minded and thoughtless reactions to a well written and considered post.

1. 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.

In a few weeks all my mates will be keeping to lose interest in this game, which we really like, but all those systems that should affect the 5% of the population between bots and exploiters is affecting everyone else, I have no idea how you want us to get 180 gold just for a pre-legendary weapon, if you don’t want us to farm a bit.
I seriously got amazed by " A FEW WEEKS" I was used to GW1, when a build was to powerful or something was broken it was fix the same night or next day, here we are dealing with bugs since 1 month 2 weeks AGO.

@Pants,

It is a shame indeed that people point fingers and shout “liar” without knowing all the facts. Whilst I have yet to run in to DR myself, I acknowledge there may be bugs which may affect some people. But to just call ArenaNet liars, well – it’s pretty short-sighted. There will be fixes. And perhaps I am lucky not to have run in to it, and I tried really hard today to hit it, doing events in Queensdale over and over, moving to Sparkfly then to Straits of Devestation. All in all, several hours worth of hitting up events. My loot never changed and my karma was always “as expected”.

“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.”

I hit DR yesterday in 35mins farming DE’s.. please some players its not hard at all to hit… anyways I have no idea how to offer suggestions to make it better sense im not 100%sure what makes it kick in and why its kicking in yall seem to lack comunication but want us to post “ideas” for fixes… guess its a need to know basis and we dont need to know?

Stratzvyda.3921:

Jon why are you flat out lying to us? DR in it’s current state cannot possibly affect botters and not affect farmers, let me explain why. Regardless of the strictness of when the DR triggers, the main issue is why the DR triggers not when. The karma DR triggers when a large number of events are done in a short period of time. A farmer will always be able to complete more events faster than a bot. It is impossible for a trigger of this type to affect bots and not legitimate players. Additionally a farmer will be more effective in combat than a bot and will therefore kill more enemies and get more items having the loot DR trigger faster than it would for a bot. Again this entire type of trigger is incapable of punishing a bot more than a player. You need safeguards yes, but they should be a net partway down the building not a shotgun at the door to the roof.

This here is the elephant in the room that Mr. Peters failed to address. A bot can NEVER play as efficiently as a live player can, no matter how well programmed it is. The only advantage to a bot is it never needs to take a break. Other than the fact that it can literally play for days, weeks, even months without stopping, a live player in the same amount of time will ALWAYS gain more loot/gold/karma/exp than a bot will.

Mr. Peters, please explain to us how a system that limits rewards based on how much was gained over a specific period of time could EVER affect a bot before it affects a farmer. -unless that period of time is long enough to account for the fact that the bot doesn’t ever need to stop, which would have to be in at least the “many hours” range. The current system is obviously no where near that kind of time frame.

I’m glad they finally said they knew/know it’s buggy. That’s been my guess since it first hit me. It seemed so random and all.

I’m also amused at the use of “entitled” in this thread. The DR system is in fact a socialist system that favors the “entitled” mind set. ie. Don’t step up and “work” for something, just sit back and with time, it will all be handed to you.
The people that are complaining about the DR are asking to be allowed to work – this is the opposite of “entitled”. #amused

So anyone who has bought any of the boosters from the cash shop will have to wait for the few weeks after they’ve done some changes to the DR system to use them?

Soulravel.4150:

So anyone who has bought any of the boosters from the cash shop will have to wait for the few weeks after they’ve done some changes to the DR system to use them?

Basically, hopefully there will be at least some change in the monday patch, but given their history with “fixing” dungeon rewards kaborking everything in the process I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I think one central issue here is that ArenaNet’s definitions of “normal play” and “farming” are likely quite different from some players’ definitions of those words.

Some players consider it entirely normal play, and just normal farming, to game the system in any possible fashion to gain rewards at a dramatically higher rate. Finding a little spot where the mobs spawn fast in groups that can be tagged with AOE and then get killed by NPCs…crap like that…and then grinding the kitten out of it for days on end.

I think what some people will find is that even after all the bugs are worked out, what they consider “normal play” will still not be allowed by the DR system. This comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of mentalities between ArenaNet and some players…and I doubt there will be a solution for that.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense will recognize that stopping bots is not the primary purpose of this system. The primary purpose is to stop exploits and hacks from causing very quick damage to the game, and also to put a downward pressure on players who over-zealously game the system in a way that ArenaNet sees as detrimental to the game.

Basically, if in a few weeks the bugs are worked out and you are still smashing headlong into the DR every time you play, it’s a pretty good bet that your play style is not one that ArenaNet considers “normal”. You’ll need to recognize that the DR system was, at least partially, intentionally designed to slow YOU down (again, only those players who are playing outside of what ArenaNet considers normal play). Take it or leave it, that’s likely the situation.

Cerise.9045:

karma has no gold value, it can’t be sold, it can’t be traded in any way, it has no connection to the economy in any way

The mystic forge says you’re wrong. You also can buy salvaging kits for mats with them to sell for gold for example. That also increases their gold totals per day.

You’re just not thinking creatively enough….the gold sellers/botters on the other hand are.

I have to agree with most of the current posters, a few weeks for potentially minor tweaks to the system isn’t going to cut it. It needs to be turned completely OFF/set to zero, then tuned up until it only hits bots/exploiters, not tuned down, slowly, from the current stranglehold it has on the entire playerbase.

The friends I have that play GW2 have already moved on to other games because of the DR system constantly hitting them when playing normally.

It’s a bad thing when it affects players that are ACTUALLY running around different areas, zones and different quests and events, like me last night I was getting junk xp while exploring Kessex Hills and Gendarran Fields and no I was not camping events.

Can you imagine the foresight necessary to provide systems of dealing with exploits, cheats and bots in a game… before launch? It’s not much at all. I mean, it’s not like the extent this would happen wasn’t detailed and discussed during beta, openly. Gamers learn, and move on, quick these days.

As for the rest of your post, most people have been trying to tell the same; seems it’s just being ignored by some. So don’t even bother posting, really. Some people even believe and state, in a very patronising and holier than thou style, that we are not entitled to our opinions. Just check this out:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/PSA-Opinions-vs-Constructive-Criticism/first#post341266

That thread is disgusting to say the least. What’s funny is people love to pull out the “Hey! Every new game has it’s share of bugs and ickies!” Well, every new game also has it’s people who whine and complain. It’s a good-with-the-bad scenario. And sometimes, those whiners actually have a point.

I think so many people responded harshly (I know I did) is while Jon said a lot of the right things. He stopped short of saying that legit people playing will never hit DR again.

This to me and many others is the only acceptable fix. I think some of the terms used leave room for ambiguity. example “Exploiters”. Is me repeating an event exploiting? I know its not, do they? If I want to remain in a high level area with a high level character, is that exploiting?

I don’t want to hit DR at all. Do I have to worry about DR and constantly watch my rewards? That is a hassle I don’t want to have. That is work and a job. This is a game. I want to play for enjoyment, not work.

JonPeters.5630:

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

This is a great official statement and it should be added to a sticky thread for everyone to see. There’s still a lot of misinformed players out there who most likely won’t see this.

Thanks for posting that Amon. It clears up a lot from what they were actually intending with this….in fact I think it clears up some misconceptions on both sides of the argument, myself included of course

Alizianne.4058:

springelf.9236:

I understand what he was saying. I can see their point of view. But, just looking at this as a seller and customer: if something you are doing is angering a good portion of your customers just stop it. You flipped the switch on, switch it off. You want to put in some sort of safety net fine. But obviously its not working very well atm. So test it before you put it live.

I just got 80th and so far I havent see this, that I am aware of. But, I shouldnt have to worry I will. Its sucked out the fun in the game for me and my husband. We both feel very meh about playing knowning at some point we will gain less (whatever) for our effort.

Its not just me, or ppl we know. Its more ppl then on this forum. Its a dark whisper swirling around the gaming community. People are not just annoyed, they are angry. And angry ppl dont spend money on gems. I know we wont be. Why should we reward the seller with money, when it seems very obvious they dont care about me, the customer.

Are… are you insane? Like, are you legitimately, certifiably insane? You and your husband can’t play or enjoy this game anymore because you JUST hit level 80 and have never once experienced the diminishing returns first-hand? I am honestly sincerely baffled by this post.

Actually, his/her point is completely valid. Just because you haven’t experienced something firsthand, doesn’t mean you can’t be bothered by it, and to imply otherwise is asinine. I’ve never been shot, well, anywhere, but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid to be.

To use an in-game example, I am scared to chat in-game because of all the heavy-handed banning that happened at the beginning. I tend to be an extreme cusser, or as my aunt puts it, “mouth like a sailor”. So I’m afraid that something I’m going to say is going to offend, and I’m going to get reported. The funny thing is, I’m gay, so I’m not about to go around going “LOLFAG”. But I will cuss up a storm (in general) if something happens and I die.

While we are looking at the karma DR can we take a look at the Mystic Forge DR as well? I find that one even more annoying since you created the recipes and there is no “farming” of the mystic forge, so I don’t get why you had to slap a DR on that too?

Also your response about putting DR in to save the economy doesn’t make much sense. The only advantage someone can get by farming karma is a person gain. There is no karma market to flood, no giant influx of items, no karma→ gold conversion. I completely fail to see what horrible death the economy would suffer by allowing me to farm 15k karma/hr. I mean that is still over 130 hours of JUST karma farming for a single legendary weapon, not even counting everything else that is required.

Fozzik.1742:

Basically, if in a few weeks the bugs are worked out and you are still smashing headlong into the DR every time you play, it’s a pretty good bet that your play style is not one that ArenaNet considers “normal”. You’ll need to recognize that the DR system was, at least partially, intentionally designed to slow YOU down (again, only those players who are playing outside of what ArenaNet considers normal play). Take it or leave it, that’s likely the situation.

Yeah, at that point I will simply bin the game as that is something I won’t accept in an “MMO”

Is trying to complete a zone (hearts, POIs, skill points, etc.) considered normal game play? Cause I’ve hit DR several times just trying to do that while working on my 100% map completion. There are several zones that have a large concentration of mobs of a single type (centaurs, flame legion, branded or undead). It’s disheartening to have to choose between finishing a zone now or waiting a few days to finish it when you can get normal loot too.

To add (I can’t edit my post above), does the ~presence of botters~ affect how quickly regular players experience DR?

I work, so if I get a chance to play 2-3 hours a day, I’m lucky. The DR experience seems to have gotten much worse lately, as most regular players have already completed the content I’m still working on. If the bot:player ratio is part of the DR formula, casual players like me are really screwed.

@JonPeters

Thank you for your political explanation but it doesn’t help, the issue is with Karma, which you guys have gone out of your way to make it impossible or impractical to convert to money.

It seems you guys are rushing patches to avoid botting, go and ask FFXI developers how they managed, that game it was full of RMT (not botters, it seemed like actual people doing it) and they fixed it, now the economy is run by players.

All your post doesn’t explain the need to have a “safety net” on Karma, karma is for bound stuff, not stuff you can sell, so we have no PvE endgame but to play for 20 minutes at a time? It’s going to get old really fast, rollback the DR until you have a good idea of what to implement next, maybe even have polls or data gathered from the forums instead of just pulling stuff like this.

tl;dr Karma DR is kitten , karma is for account/soulbound stuff, stop breaking our game with poorly thought patches and systems.

lunatuna.6823:

To add (I can’t edit my post above), does the ~presence of botters~ affect how quickly regular players experience DR?

I work, so if I get a chance to play 2-3 hours a day, I’m lucky. The DR experience seems to have gotten much worse lately, as most regular players have already completed the content I’m still working on. If the bot:player ratio is part of the DR formula, casual players like me are really screwed.

I think the real issue is that it effects different players in different ways. I have yet to receive any any diminishing returns through normal play, yet some players on here have apparently received it within 25-30 minutes of normal play.

This is clearly (as a few people had suggested previously) a bug, which shows that the code does actually work for some of us in the correct way, i.e. I see no sign of it at all during normal play.

@ Rufio. DR is twofold, whilst it’s aimed at drop rates on items over long periods of time to prevent the detrimental effects of botting, he also mentions exploits.

Having a system that prevents large amount of karma being farmed is preventative to loopholes in the games design, such as bugged events etc etc. This means that if such an issue did arise the diminishing returns would limit the amount of gain somebody could exploit from the game.

As Jon said, there are issues where the code is being to harsh on some players, which is being ironed out in the coming weeks. So it should stop affecting ‘normal’ play.

@JonPeters

Thank you so much for that explanation. It makes perfect sense, I’m more than happy to wait for the delicate tinkering and bug fixing. I understand how hard it is to manage a game like this, and I’m continually blown away by Anet’s willingness to be transparent and even to admit mistakes.

@The Majority of Posters

Calm down and think. You (collectively) have accused Anet of being too fast and too slow with changes. You have accused them of doing too much and too little. Quite frankly, most of the posts here are contradictory, and yet they all demand something from Anet which is supposedly “easy” and “obvious.” If there was an easy and obvious way to fix all of this games problems, I guarantee you it would have happened.

Remember this, you are angry because you LIKE this game. Anger and love are two sides of the same coin. In order to get this angry, you must really like the game.

The reason this issue gets such a strong response is because it hits at the psychological core of gaming, getting rewards and achieving things. When something prevents you from getting that “fix,” it hurts. In a way, people are suffering from withdrawal. Thus the screaming, crying, ranting, rationalizing, etc.

They cannot fix this problem quickly. It involves debugging and crunching/interpreting a significant amount of game data, which takes time. Also, they cannot just turn off the “Safety Net,” or the next discovered exploit will destroy the economy, and ruin your ability to get rewards and achieve things anyway.

There is no pre-built system for managing an MMO. There are no rules or theorems. A lot of what Anet did was “best guess” stuff. Their only choice was to release the game with a “best guess” then use data crunching to tweak or rebuild things. The same thing goes for bugs, there is way too much content for them to catch all the bugs before release. If you expect a fine-tuned bug free game already, you are expecting too much. You only payed $60 after-all.

Due to “withdrawal pain,” people want knee-jerk solutions. I’m grateful that Anet has not given in.

TL DR
Your pain is valid and real, but yelling at Anet won’t fix it. If you have reasonable expectations, Anet is doing great.