Guild Wars 2

Clearly anet dropped the ball with the maize balm.

ToT bag drops need removal.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2l21xk/actually_game_master_can_ban_for_preventing_maize/

Stuff like this happens.

Counter arguements like this happen:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Weapon-Mastery/first#post4533504

Another:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-the-maize-balm-rat-farm-an-exploit/page/4#post4532881

Honestly.. What the hell were you thinking anet?

Oh my, you kids.
I love the balm and haven’t done any farming with it as I think the idea alone is great and plan to keep the potions I’ve got for times in which I’m bored – but hey everything has to be nerfed because everybody makes a farm out of everything, then others come and “troll” and then… sigh

I think balm should be nerfed to single target. Would fix the problem.

Malediktus.9250:

I think balm should be nerfed to single target. Would fix the problem.

From what i understand, in the “Rata Sum ban case” the problem was not the maize balm, but the player that intentionally wanted to grief others. If maize balm didn’t exist, that player would have likely found a different means (and excuse) for griefing.

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maize_balm

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Palador.2170:

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Ok, my understanding was the balm only worked on ambient creatures inside the mad prince instance or am i wrong? I actually tried using it on crabs in SouthSun Cove but it had no effect on them at all, that’s why i’m asking.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Palador.2170:

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Ok, my understanding was the balm only worked on ambient creatures inside the mad prince instance or am i wrong? I actually tried using it on crabs in SouthSun Cove but it had no effect on them at all, that’s why i’m asking.

You’re sure you used it on ambient creatures? They’re the little white critters that die in a single hit. It does work outside the Halloween instance. The elementals it creates also die in one hit.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Palador.2170:

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Ok, my understanding was the balm only worked on ambient creatures inside the mad prince instance or am i wrong? I actually tried using it on crabs in SouthSun Cove but it had no effect on them at all, that’s why i’m asking.

I’ve seen someone using it in open world. That was during the last week so possibly something may have been adjusted since then. I don’t know where today’s controversial area is (I don’t hang out much on that particular map) but it’s not in the mad prince instance.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Palador.2170:

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Ok, my understanding was the balm only worked on ambient creatures inside the mad prince instance or am i wrong? I actually tried using it on crabs in SouthSun Cove but it had no effect on them at all, that’s why i’m asking.

Try it on the pigs and deer in Claypool. I’ve played around with it a bit there. The targets are a bit far apart, though, so bring something with pets to kill them for you before you use the third shot.

Guhracie.3419:

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Palador.2170:

Baoz.4735:

can somebody explain to me what the flack is a Maize Balm>

It’s an item you get from some Trick or Treat bags, or can craft if you have an artificer that’s learned the recipe (which can be obtained right now).

When you double click it in your inventory, it becomes a bundle. You get three uses of it, three “potions” to throw. Within the target area, up to three ambient (white, no level) creatures get turned into small candy corn elementals. When killed, they drop Trick or Treat bags.

The trick is that to get the most out of one, you need a good collection of ambient creatures close enough together that you can hit three at a time with each throw, AND close enough that you can use all three tosses of the potion before changing back to a weapon to kill them. (Like most bundles, if you shift back to your weapon while holding it, it’s lost.)

Ok, my understanding was the balm only worked on ambient creatures inside the mad prince instance or am i wrong? I actually tried using it on crabs in SouthSun Cove but it had no effect on them at all, that’s why i’m asking.

You’re sure you used it on ambient creatures? They’re the little white critters that die in a single hit. It does work outside the Halloween instance. The elementals it creates also die in one hit.

Yep definitely i often do them for dailies when its up and that was about a week ago now, but yea no effect on them at all. Maybe it don’t work in SouthSun for some reason? not even tried it elsewhere.

One final question, (been debating if i should get the recipe) do these balms only work while Halloween is on?

A new Maize balm thread has been here for more than an hour without being closed. I think its a new record!!!

@Tiger, unless Anet codes it in, it should behave like any other holiday item in the game, and work outside of the holiday timeframe.

Chrispy.5641:

A new Maize balm thread has been here for more than an hour without being closed. I think its a new record!!!

@Tiger, unless Anet codes it in, it should behave like any other holiday item in the game, and work outside of the holiday timeframe.

lol. indeed.

Yeah, it should work out of halloween just fine.

The item is great fun. But it seems its only “fun” while its also profitable.

To be perfectly honest when I found out they dropped tot bags after transformed i was shocked.

I expected a transformed ambient to behave as any other ambient. This would be in line with other holiday items, no?
A bit of fun, but nothing more.

Once the halloween instance is gone for the year, this grieving is gonna pop up more and more. we’ve only seen the beginning of the disasters this will cause. Sadly AN is smothering it, trying to make it look like it doesn’t exist.

This item should be a bit of fun, but nothing more. Transforming ambient creatures is a brilliant idea! But they should still be ambient, and not dropping extra loot.

ToT bags and the super rare loot in them is partly to blame, but that should be another thread tbh.

artemis thuras.2461:

Chrispy.5641:

A new Maize balm thread has been here for more than an hour without being closed. I think its a new record!!!

@Tiger, unless Anet codes it in, it should behave like any other holiday item in the game, and work outside of the holiday timeframe.

lol. indeed.

Yeah, it should work out of halloween just fine.

The item is great fun. But it seems its only “fun” while its also profitable.

To be perfectly honest when I found out they dropped tot bags after transformed i was shocked.

I expected a transformed ambient to behave as any other ambient. This would be in line with other holiday items, no?
A bit of fun, but nothing more.

Once the halloween instance is gone for the year, this grieving is gonna pop up more and more. we’ve only seen the beginning of the disasters this will cause. Sadly AN is smothering it, trying to make it look like it doesn’t exist.

This item should be a bit of fun, but nothing more. Transforming ambient creatures is a brilliant idea! But they should still be ambient, and not dropping extra loot.

ToT bags and the super rare loot in them is partly to blame, but that should be another thread tbh.

Well the way i see it, those balms cost a lot of mats to make. Eech one is 100 candy, 5 skulls, empyreal stars and something else, nougat i think, but not certain. The fun would wear off quickly if you weren’t able to get steady supply of those mats without having to keep buying them and even if people did buy them, the supply would run dry pretty quickly. The recipe isn’t cheap either, 700 nougat, so if you can’t craft an item with it that it’s useful on ongoing basis, what would be the point of it? As long as it’s available to everyone, which it is, Halloween all year round sounds fun to me hehe.

It’ll probably get nerfed after the contest is over. It looks good to inflate contribution numbers after all. If the bags didn’t contain unique items, the prices would have collapsed and this wouldn’t even be a problem.

It really makes no sense that farming critters > labyrinth zerging > clock tower in terms of rewards. The more effort it takes, the less rewards you get, which isn’t really surprising considering most of the game is like that.

Healix.5819:

It really makes no sense that farming critters > labyrinth zerging > clock tower in terms of rewards. The more effort it takes, the less rewards you get, which isn’t really surprising considering most of the game is like that.

Not just more rewarding than labyrinth and clock tower (does anyone still do it after the PvP change?), it’s the most rewarding farming by far in the entire game right now. You can easily make more than 1 gold a minute and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got 100 gold/hr (I only do it casually, a few runs a day).

The drawback is that it’s incredibly boring and has zero fun factor …the solo version, I mean; I’d imagine the group version can be ok because of the social factor — just like with the QD farm (RIP).

Wasn’t there some announcement recently where Anet bragged about how many millions of ToT bags have dropped? I wouldn’t be surprised if a huge percentage of that is from this farm.

I wonder how much this has/will affect the economy.

Well ANET have done a grande job of muddying the waters when it comes to player behaviour.. they can’t even put clear and simple reporting tools in place… something that has been requested since before the release.
Toxic behaviour has largely been created by the inept placement of certain content and mechanics around them.. Queensdale starter map with high level champ trains that had ridiculously short rotation times, failtrain reset mechanics and now to top it off implementing an item in game which will only have one outcome after the event con cludes.. every man and his dog piling into certain areas to farm nothing but ambients.

Any area that now has a certain ambient content can be considered hazardous for anyone wanting to use it for their weapon mastery achievements because the maize farmers will just spam botting reports on anyone that endangers their ability to claim ownership and lootz.
I would like to be a fly on the wall if a player who is happily farming ambient kills in order get something like shield mastery suddenly see’s a large influx of maize farmers hit the map and run over his fun.. will that one persons report be taken as seriously as ANET took the haordes this time round… no.. as ever it would be a double standard made up out of inconsistent GM’ing and general game design.

TBH Openwolrd has become a virtual mess full holes constantly being sought out in order to attempt to exploit the inherently poor risk/reward/reset mechanics.
Bringing this item into game to me simply says they don’t really know how to fix such inherent issues without a major overhaul of the game, so decide move those players into supposedly less damaging areas and allow them to farm unhindered.. except they overlooked the effects any kind of large scale farming has on both the economy and the rest of the player base.

Welcome to Farmwars2

I find it quite insane to blame the developers for creating content which “brings out the troll” in people, there are jerks in the world, and they will be jerks no matter what. They find trouble in anything, mo matter how much you sanitize it.

right now, i see people who couldn’t get in on the reliquary farm trying to grief the farmers…“nerf it! You aren’t allowed to have fun that way!” this just happens to be in the real world.

What’s worse about this is my ignore list doesn’t work on the forum, so I can’t get away from the griefing.

Tl;dr: Anet doesn’t ruin their game, kittens do.

Quick question as I’m not planning on being in-game in the near future, does this work in the Swamp Fractal? I think there’s big groups of ambients there, yes?

Healix.5819:

It’ll probably get nerfed after the contest is over. It looks good to inflate contribution numbers after all. If the bags didn’t contain unique items, the prices would have collapsed and this wouldn’t even be a problem.

It really makes no sense that farming critters > labyrinth zerging > clock tower in terms of rewards. The more effort it takes, the less rewards you get, which isn’t really surprising considering most of the game is like that.

That indeed annoys me. Someone who can do the clocktower consistently, and get each chest should be getting more tots than someone who zergs, or kills ambients.

But yes, once again this is typical of AN’s messed up idea of risk/skill:reward.

As for it being “available all year round”. Why should this item generate you profit? No other holiday “fun” item does. Regardless of supply of them.

So I should receive the cost of a tonic in the mail from AN each time i use it? So I can continue to have fun by buying more?

Or should we be expecting to leave bags of coins in our trail when we walk around in tonic form?

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Clearly anet dropped the ball with the maize balm.

ToT bag drops need removal.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2l21xk/actually_game_master_can_ban_for_preventing_maize/

Stuff like this happens.

Counter arguements like this happen:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Weapon-Mastery/first#post4533504

Another:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-the-maize-balm-rat-farm-an-exploit/page/4#post4532881

Honestly.. What the hell were you thinking anet?

Most of the posts you linked are people discussing Arenanet employees banning griefers preventing people from farming….. not banning people for farming.

This was an incredibly poorly thought out item. I’m not sure how ANet couldn’t see the problems this balm would create. I imagine the problems will be exacerbated once the labyrinth goes away. We’ll just have to see.

But all around, this balm was a bad idea.

A fiasco i am slowly getting used to with each event they do.

There is no problem directly associated with ToT bag farming but it’s interesting to see how the economy works. People are saying that they make more gold than ever but you have to keep in mind that other people are paying for this. I think this clearly shows how this whole economy fails because gold is way too dominant.
It leaves me wondering how the people who are now buying ToT bags like crazy got their gold from in the first place.

Given the costs to make one of these potions, and the fact that you can only make one every… 10 hours I think, I predict that the problem will sort itself out in a month or so. Of course, I also expect them to nerf the drop rate of maize balm within ToT bags to speed up the rate at which most people use up their supply.

U get a LOT of them from the bags u use them to farm.

No , OP, you need to be nerfed. But seriously , this oversight is not entirely Anet’s fault. You think farming the ToT bags like this is wrong but do the other players who make 100 stacks of ToT bags think like you? This maize balm farm is victimless and it really doesn’t hurt anything.

Okay the only thing that it did was make Labyrinth empty. Maybe you are just mad that you completed the story and you cant do it. ToT bags are cheap on the TP if you really want them.

The Labyrinth isn’t empty – thanks to megaservers and taxis =)

You can nerf it after I use all of the ones I have left.

On topic though, just because it enables arguments of -who is allowed to kill ambients when- and generates wealth from instance rats, doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed into the ground.

Exploring the open world, even if its just to turn helpless rabbits into candy corn is still better than hanging around in the labyrinth all day.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Exploring the open world, even if its just to turn helpless rabbits into candy corn is still better than hanging around in the labyrinth all day.

The labyrinth actually teaches teamplay and some fight mechanics.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

You can nerf it after I use all of the ones I have left.

On topic though, just because it enables arguments of -who is allowed to kill ambients when- and generates wealth from instance rats, doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed into the ground.

Exploring the open world, even if its just to turn helpless rabbits into candy corn is still better than hanging around in the labyrinth all day.

It needed to be nerfed into the ground because not everyone has the same option to farm. It’s not a matter, as Chris put it, of players saying, “Thanks for farming this thing, because I didn’t want to,” it’s a matter of a lot of people who want to being unable to get back in without exploiting a glitch.

And, again, using maize balm in the open world is not worth the risk of kill stealing.

I’ve spent many hours Maize Farming during the past two weeks. In fact, I was farming in PvE within an hour of the patch dropping. The rat farm was/is actually one of the least efficient and sustainable places to Maize Farm. So players wanting to get back in shouldn’t have been an issue, at all.

I do prefer Maize to stay in game and not be touched. It was designed to generate supply that the economy requires. If the dev’s wanted to remove all possibility of conflict in game during it’s usage, then they could simply put ambients in our home instances.

Guhracie.3419:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

You can nerf it after I use all of the ones I have left.

On topic though, just because it enables arguments of -who is allowed to kill ambients when- and generates wealth from instance rats, doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed into the ground.

Exploring the open world, even if its just to turn helpless rabbits into candy corn is still better than hanging around in the labyrinth all day.

It needed to be nerfed into the ground because not everyone has the same option to farm. It’s not a matter, as Chris put it, of players saying, “Thanks for farming this thing, because I didn’t want to,” it’s a matter of a lot of people who want to being unable to get back in without exploiting a glitch.

And, again, using maize balm in the open world is not worth the risk of kill stealing.

You don’t need to go back into the Halloween instance to use the maize balms.. there are ambient critters all over Tyria to use it on. Sure at first before players had considered openworld critters to play farmwars on, it was seen as a disadvantage cos of those fast respawn ratties.. but as of now and certainly after the event finishes, the balm will still be used by those only seeking to sit in one place all day long and spam there new favourite AOE skill…. just go on a short trek to Rata Sum or simply map flip to a map of your choosing, grab a coke and some popcorn, sit back and watch the map chat evolve.

DeWolfe.2174:

I’ve spent many hours Maize Farming during the past two weeks. In fact, I was farming in PvE within an hour of the patch dropping. The rat farm was/is actually one of the least efficient and sustainable places to Maize Farm. So players wanting to get back in shouldn’t have been an issue, at all.

I do prefer Maize to stay in game and not be touched. It was designed to generate supply that the economy requires. If the dev’s wanted to remove all possibility of conflict in game during it’s usage, then they could simply put ambients in our home instances.

That is actually a sensible solution … place ambients in home instance and any player wanting to organise their own farm can do so without any intrusion or objections… shame your not paid by ANET to come up such complex ideas for them. ^-^

I can’t say as I’ve spent much time in home instance. Good place for ambient to farm though. Would indeed remove the problems caused by it at least.

Pretty sure swamp fractal at level 1 would work too, just a pain to roll it.

there are a few immune ambients. I believe it mainly includes the flying and exotic birds. The only bird I’ve been able to turn is a raven. all others seem immune

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Clearly anet dropped the ball with the maize balm.

ToT bag drops need removal.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2l21xk/actually_game_master_can_ban_for_preventing_maize/

Stuff like this happens.

Honestly.. What the hell were you thinking anet?

?? You don’t like the fact that someone who was clearly griefing other players got banned? did you read the entire post? the guy was like a pest. It’s a miracle he didn’t get banned for life. BTW, I don’t think his attitude had anything to do with the maize farm at all.

There are other cases of guys accidentally getting in the way of the farm and being told to GTFO by some rude farmers. But rude people are rude. Same happens with people purposedly failing events, to the champ train in queensdale a while ago… some people accept the fact some random guy can accidentally spoil the fun, some are too $/%& to care at all and resort to insults from moment 0. Doesnt have anything to do with the maize farm.

When this skitten, not being able to farm the instance, i found a nice empty spot to farm rats. Suddenly, a guy showed up and started killing the rats before i could convert them. I asked what was he doing and he said he got there first and he would kill the rats until i left. I asked him (politely) to stop ruining the farm and share, and he told me: give me 5g or i’ll continue to kill the rats ruining your farm. Stupid thing to do: up to that point he could have claimed he was just killing critters for the achievement, but extorsion is extorsion. I reported him and I assume he has been banned and with good reason. And it didn’t have anything to do with the maize balm, but with his horrible attitude towards me.

Guhracie.3419:

And, again, using maize balm in the open world is not worth the risk of kill stealing.

Boy, for 1g every 3 minutes, EVERYTHING is worth the risk of kill stealing.

Besides, there are groups of organized people runing around naked, politely tagging mobs without oneshoting them. i did that for a while and people even begun sending me their balms so I would continue converting critters for the whole party to share the loot.

zenleto.6179:

I’ve seen someone using it in open world. That was during the last week so possibly something may have been adjusted since then. I don’t know where today’s controversial area is (I don’t hang out much on that particular map) but it’s not in the mad prince instance.

No, it works perfectly in the open world, only some critters seem to be immune. For example, there are lots of crabs in some spot in metrica province, but they seem to be immune.

There are 2 spots i know of, where ambient creatures spawn regularly in groups of 2-3 and there’s enough of these groups so you can go around converting and tagging. One of these spots is being heavily farmed by naked people though, and the sheer amount of people means you not always get to tag the critters, so I moved to spot two.

And then there are the rats in Rat-a sum. But the whole might not equal the sum of its parts, as you need to be lvl 2 to not get reported, and there has to be a lvl 30 with low damage AOE on short cooldown to be able to convert the rats and tag the elementals without killing them at the same time.

Just tried Fractal Swamp this morning. It works just fine, one jar will get you about 7-8 candy corn creatures. No kill stealing. No messing with other peoples PVE experience.

Aha, so someone else thought of the same spot I did. XD

… Hmm, I just had a funny idea. Has anybody tried using the Maize Balm on the Ebonhawke chickens?

anet already posted that they are fine because they aren’t creating gold in the economy, it’s just moving gold from one player to another (with the TP tax). A gold sink.

emikochan.8504:

anet already posted that they are fine because they aren’t creating gold in the economy, it’s just moving gold from one player to another (with the TP tax). A gold sink.

One maize balm costs about 10 silver on the TP. If I buy it, that’s 1.5 silver that leaves the economy (TP tax). However, each maize balm nets me 9 ToT bags.

From those 9 ToT bags, I get on average: 10 chattering skulls, 10 nougat centers, and 10 plastic fangs (source: ToT bag research on the wiki).

Each of these items are worth 0.37 silver at the merchant, totalling 11.1 silver. So just counting these three items, a total of

11.1 – 1.5 = 9.6 silver per maize balm enters the economy as merchant fodder.

And this is only the out-of-thin-air silver from these three items — there are many other items that come in addition to these.

Considering how popular this farm is (and the fact that we know over 1 million ToT bags have dropped), I’d say a lot of gold has entered the economy because of the maize balm.