Guild Wars 2

Okay, there’s a big elephant in the room…and it’s guarded by the Champion Karka. That permanently placed Rich Orichalcum node has single-handedly killed the Orichalcum market for profit miners and market speculators alike. How so?

Currently there are “special picks” either from The Black Lion Trading Company or from a renown heart guy in Bloodtide coast http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crusader_Patrick. These picks, unlike Orichalcum Picks, are not level locked and can be used by even a level 1 character. Both these picks are also account bound so dumping them from a main level 80 into your bank to supply your alts isn’t that difficult either.

Now, unlike Orr, getting to Southsun Cove is relatively easy for any level 2 character just by going through the Asura Gate from their capital city to Lion’s Arch. From there just take the ship from the docks to SSC and they’re there. And, it’s just a trick of using movement increasing boons, abilities, and stealth (usually Thief alts are used) to get to the node and wait for a very casual other player to distract the Champion while the low level mines the ore node.

Some ideas to fix this clearly exploited/broken situation to re-stabilize the Orichalcum market:

1) Make all picks that mine Orichalcum level 40 and above for the “special” ones and level 60 for the normal ones as they are now.

2) Make Orichalcum nodes themselves locked to where a character below level 60 cannot mine it. This lock would still allow those “special picks” to be used on all other kinds of ore, just not yield any Orichalcum.

3) Soulbind those Masterwork Picks sold by the heart Karma vendor so that they can’t be passed by a level 80 to a level 1 character.

Any other solutions could/would be appreciated. But there’s got to be a way to cap this leak sooner rather than later.

Haha, I don’t think game changes should be made because a specific individual’s means of profit has been reduced.

Heck no. I use my black lion picks and such in world v world.

As far as I’m concerned if you can get a character to a place you deserve what you can get. And if you can limp a level 2 char to an Orichalcum node (one hit from ANYTHING will kill you), you deserve the reward.

I’m guessing this pick is a bug. It is obviously not working the way it was intended as all other picks for ori have a lvl 60 requirement. Submit it as a bug.

It’s just yet another thing that shows how Anet is making stuff up as they go along and have no coherant plan for the game.

Picks were level bound on launch, you could only mine ores in maps suitable for your level. I questioned this, and got the answer of “the experience you get from higher nodes is quite a lot so it prevents power levelling”.

Ori nodes, on launch, were also scarce and randomly placed at each server reset in high level areas, this made it a significant effort to do an ori run, therefore defining the value of ori.

Now they have made ori cheap and easy to get AND farmable by low levels (helped by the fact the map is adjaceant to LA).

honestly, can Anet keep ANY plan going longer than a few months? Just stop selling the low level ori picks and there will be no problem. This is clearly some cheap way to encourage people to play the new map (as it doesnt have anything else going for it!)

Really don’t see an elephant or lesser problem here. Sounds more like people are just mining the node.

It is a problem in the sense that the design doesn’t make sense. If we want level 1s to be able to mine top tier mats why do we restrict everything but a few specially available picks with a level requirement? Clearly the basic system contemplates level gating. There are just a few items that ignore the gating mechanism. They seem like an oversight.

Kopipoki.3542:

Haha, I don’t think game changes should be made because a specific individual’s means of profit has been reduced.

If you’re thinking it’s only an individual’s means of profit, that’s a one-track minded thought.

First, there’s the economy of the game itself. Orichalcum, just like Ancient Wood and Ommnomm Berries, is meant to be a rare crafting material specifically designed for high-end items (not even rares, but exclusively exotics). To flood the market with this rare item is to decrease it’s value, as well as decrease the value of every item related to it (crafted exotics).

Yes, I’m effected by this form of revenue being decreased, but so is a large chunk of the community. There were multiple websites and blogs dedicated to make new Orichalcum maps of Orr because it helped others keep up the lucrative market, ….yet with SSC having this node, and people farming it at a guaranteed spot with 5 different characters (1 x level 80, 4 x level 2’s), that gives them far more yielded Orichalcum than ever from a single Orr run on one character. So, many of these sites have stopped posting the maps, given up on the market of a supposedly rare ore because it’s sank so low.

P.S. As someone else in this thread already said, it does seem like a bug/exploit and has been reported. I’m hoping by posting in this thread it will get the word spread out.

asa consumer, rather than a supplier, I support this exploited node

Anet tends to quickly fix any bugs that result in prices getting cheaper. They have a vested interest in propping up prices to encourage gold buying.

Some time ago when orichalcum ore was hovering just above 2 silver and everyone was doom and gloom about it I predicted it will rise again, and it did for two weeks straight up to 2,70ish before experiencing a small drop. I won’t go into detail why it dropped at the first place, why it started to recover, and what is the cause of the present small drop. I will tell you mining orichalcum with alts had no effect on it whatsoever.

I also posted a guide for everyone on how to mine rich orichalcum for a little extra income. Your assumption that everyone can merrily prance about Orr on four lvl 2 alts and mine all the orichalcum is laughable. You have no idea what it takes to do it.

Either way, I’m going to make money. Why? Because I know what really drives the orichalum market.

If you look at the market trend, it’s been pretty stable (between 2 and 3s). There’s not been that many peaks worth noting since release (other than the initial spike). I simply see this little tidbit as a very minor example of a change in volume, hardly enough to justify what you are suggesting.

Siphaed.9235:

Kopipoki.3542:

Haha, I don’t think game changes should be made because a specific individual’s means of profit has been reduced.

If you’re thinking it’s only an individual’s means of profit, that’s a one-track minded thought.

First, there’s the economy of the game itself. Orichalcum, just like Ancient Wood and Ommnomm Berries, is meant to be a rare crafting material specifically designed for high-end items (not even rares, but exclusively exotics). To flood the market with this rare item is to decrease it’s value, as well as decrease the value of every item related to it (crafted exotics).

Yes, I’m effected by this form of revenue being decreased, but so is a large chunk of the community. There were multiple websites and blogs dedicated to make new Orichalcum maps of Orr because it helped others keep up the lucrative market, ….yet with SSC having this node, and people farming it at a guaranteed spot with 5 different characters (1 x level 80, 4 x level 2’s), that gives them far more yielded Orichalcum than ever from a single Orr run on one character. So, many of these sites have stopped posting the maps, given up on the market of a supposedly rare ore because it’s sank so low.

P.S. As someone else in this thread already said, it does seem like a bug/exploit and has been reported. I’m hoping by posting in this thread it will get the word spread out.

The economy as a whole will not be effected by this, ONLY the INDIVIDUALS that mine ori for profit. The rest of the economy will just readjust to the new prices.

I’m not seeing the problem with this. A few people’s way of making money, mining ori, is less profitable. SO WHAT? the rest of the economy will just balance itself based on the new prices.

PS: Another thing your doing by spreading the word is letting people know that there is easy ori to be gotten.

Get a level 80 alt with ori picks, leave him there to farm it once a day, is that an exploit then? I don’t think it matters that it is level 2 people farming it, the fact it is stationary means it is easy to get to regardless of bosses in the way. You are welcome to do a full ori run every day and add this to your run. If players want to recreate characters over and over to farm a single ori node then let them. Not exactly game breaking, just a node so easy that everyone can farm it.

Yukishiro.8792:

It is a problem in the sense that the design doesn’t make sense. If we want level 1s to be able to mine top tier mats why do we restrict everything but a few specially available picks with a level requirement? Clearly the basic system contemplates level gating. There are just a few items that ignore the gating mechanism. They seem like an oversight.

What exactly would be the advantage of having a level 1 mine the node, assuming you could get it there before it made level 2? Why not park a level 80 that you aren’t currently doing anything with? I understand what you talking about in terms of design, but I’m also interested in the specific problem we’re trying to fix here. Just, what is the problem?

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, there’s a big elephant in the room…and it’s guarded by the Champion Karka. That permanently placed Rich Orichalcum node has single-handedly killed the Orichalcum market for profit miners and market speculators alike. How so?

You still have not answered your own question.
Though I suppose it would be best if you started out by providing facts to back up your premise.

So people have found a way to make money again, and you want them to nerf it already?

Ugh…

And sadly, knowing Anet, they will. Every time anyone finds a way to start making decent money, they nerf it instantly.

Why do you care if someone mines ore? Mind your own will ya? And a level one can not mine ore, or anything else… You must be level 2.

this doesnt bother me, i make more money from Powerful Venom Sacs.

The price of orichalcum ore has gone up pretty steadily since the aftermath of Lost Shores, and that price drop was more likely affected by the glut of exotics and precursors than it was anything to do with the existence of a single rich ori node.

Because the entire player base is put into a single pool, it’s really tough for even the actions of a couple hundred players farming that node daily to have any real impact on the long term price. The extra supply they are generating versus not having that node isn’t even a blip on the market.

More than that, it’s a horribly inefficient way to spend a character slot that costs 800 gems if your goal is to make money. Heck, the gems alone could be sold for more gold than your miner alt is going to make back any time soon.

With the advent of Ascended gear, and the Great Legendary Precursor Lottery, as well as the killing off of the bots, fine crafting materials skyrocketed in price. Since fine crafting materials have gone up in price, the demand for their complement (Ori) has gone down. This means that the price of Ori has gone down.

Ascended gear also lowered the demand for aesthetic gear, as playing catch up back to 100% in stats is more important than pretty looks to most people. Mystic forge recipes for aesthetic gear used to be a big sink for Ori. Lower demand for Ori demanding aesthetic gear means lower demand for Ori. This means that the price of Ori has gone down.

The price of Ori isn’t a simplistic one dimensional issue here. There are many factors at play.

I dont see how this is a problem when the prices for Ori is going up. It was only 2s30c past few days, now its 2s65c. Apparently its not hurting the market.

Raine.1394:

Yukishiro.8792:

It is a problem in the sense that the design doesn’t make sense. If we want level 1s to be able to mine top tier mats why do we restrict everything but a few specially available picks with a level requirement? Clearly the basic system contemplates level gating. There are just a few items that ignore the gating mechanism. They seem like an oversight.

What exactly would be the advantage of having a level 1 mine the node, assuming you could get it there before it made level 2? Why not park a level 80 that you aren’t currently doing anything with? I understand what you talking about in terms of design, but I’m also interested in the specific problem we’re trying to fix here. Just, what is the problem?

It takes time to get a character to 80. How long does it take to get a character to level 2? 10 minutes? A fresh character can get to that Ori and mine it in 15-20 minutes, depending on load times & speed buffs.

What is stopping that person from deleting that character and doing it again?

Himei.5379:

I dont see how this is a problem when the prices for Ori is going up. It was only 2s30c past few days, now its 2s65c. Apparently its not hurting the market.

It is actually artificially holding down (yeah, despite the crazy price spikes) the prices on exotics.

Cheap Ori from these characters is the same as cheap Ori from bots … more supply so it keeps it cheap. If they stop people from farming Ori like this, expect the prices to go up like ectos recently did, and exotics to spike even higher.

A level2 character needs to buy the top end pick – which costs several silver. Sif they will spend all of their money on one pick.

Furthermore based on this – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gathering_tool

The orichalcum pick requires level 60+, so even though it scales a character to level 80 in that zone, there are nodes in other zones. This particular node is just one.

Now to top it off…

Low level characters have low level armor/weapons/etc. Perhaps one or two may get lucky to get that node, however they still need that particular axe to mine it and based on their low level equipment they would rather omit that area where the champ guards the orchi node.

So really…..
The chances of low level players getting rich of orchi nodes is slim to none.

I think it’d be fine if they put a lvl 60 restriction on the karma orichalcum tools.

On the other hand, I don’t think it’d have a measurable effect on the orichalcum market.

One other point…this is a horrible waste of an alt

In one hour, a brand new character can make 25-30s in just their racial newbie zone. Delete and repeat if you’re looking for mindlessly easy money. (I can run all three paths of AC in a PUG and get 2-3g’s in about an hour even without any really valuable drops).

Conversely, the 12-15 ori ore sells for 30-40s but is limited to to just once per day. Now, you might think that you only ever have to get the toon to the rich ori vein once and then it’s only a minute or so out of your day…but you might get jumped by the champ karka and then you’re stuck waiting for a rez.

As I alluded to above, that character slot with your newbie cost 800 gems. Right this moment, 800 gems is worth 11g49s (and rising). At 30-40s a day, it’s going to take a long time to pay that back.

In short, newbie farming the rich ori node is high risk, pathetic reward, and very high entry cost.

Dominae.3146:

Raine.1394:

Yukishiro.8792:

It is a problem in the sense that the design doesn’t make sense. If we want level 1s to be able to mine top tier mats why do we restrict everything but a few specially available picks with a level requirement? Clearly the basic system contemplates level gating. There are just a few items that ignore the gating mechanism. They seem like an oversight.

What exactly would be the advantage of having a level 1 mine the node, assuming you could get it there before it made level 2? Why not park a level 80 that you aren’t currently doing anything with? I understand what you talking about in terms of design, but I’m also interested in the specific problem we’re trying to fix here. Just, what is the problem?

It takes time to get a character to 80. How long does it take to get a character to level 2? 10 minutes? A fresh character can get to that Ori and mine it in 15-20 minutes, depending on load times & speed buffs.

What is stopping that person from deleting that character and doing it again?

Think about what you are saying. Why would they delete the character and do it again rather than just leaving the character parked at the node. What possible advantage would that give. I have 5 level 80 characters. If I’m going to park something in a level 80 area it would be a level 80 character. There is no advantage to parking a level 2 character in Southsun. That was my whole point. Perhaps you can address specifically the advantage conferred by using a low level character. Perhaps you are addressing a player who doesn’t really play the game and only creates characters to function as locusts on one node in Southsun.

Quaz.4931:

It’s just yet another thing that shows how Anet is making stuff up as they go along and have no coherant plan for the game.

Picks were level bound on launch, you could only mine ores in maps suitable for your level. I questioned this, and got the answer of “the experience you get from higher nodes is quite a lot so it prevents power levelling”.

Ori nodes, on launch, were also scarce and randomly placed at each server reset in high level areas, this made it a significant effort to do an ori run, therefore defining the value of ori.

Now they have made ori cheap and easy to get AND farmable by low levels (helped by the fact the map is adjaceant to LA).

honestly, can Anet keep ANY plan going longer than a few months? Just stop selling the low level ori picks and there will be no problem. This is clearly some cheap way to encourage people to play the new map (as it doesnt have anything else going for it!)

Because no company or individual ever has accidental oversights. Only Anet. Those kittens. YOU AREN’T ALLOWED TO MAKE ANY MISTAKES ANET!

I agree with you OP. Sounds like an oversight that needs fixing.

Cheers.

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, there’s a big elephant in the room…and it’s guarded by the Champion Karka. That permanently placed Rich Orichalcum node has single-handedly killed the Orichalcum market for profit miners and market speculators alike.

Some of us consider that a good thing…

Mephane.8496:

Siphaed.9235:

Okay, there’s a big elephant in the room…and it’s guarded by the Champion Karka. That permanently placed Rich Orichalcum node has single-handedly killed the Orichalcum market for profit miners and market speculators alike.

Some of us consider that a good thing…

You consider it a good thing that the market on rare things is becoming flooded and “not so rare” because of a major oversight on certain usage? I would say it’s a horrible thing.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the price of Orichalcum also reflects on the price of crafted goods. The cheaper the ore gets, the cheaper the crafted items get and the less profit that crafters can make as well. Exotics dip so low that they might border on the price of a vendor offer, and then it’s considered too far, but that brink is coming…

Here’s what some people in this thread aren’t understanding when they say “a character slot is 800 gems, it’s not worth it…” and all that jazz. A player gets 5 character slots per account off the bat. If a person dedicates 99% of their time to a single character, that leaves the other 4 as open wasted space that never get leveled up. However, with being a bunch of level 2 characters, they can now exploit this farming method to obtain 5x their normal orichalcum amount than that of their only one level 80.

In all technicalities, based on how they designed Orichalcum picks, a level 2 shouldn’t be farming end-game tier materials; this is also why every reset the nodes change position, because it helps to prevent character-park-camping of specific node locations.

That is why I suggested in the original post to level-lock the Orichalcum so that nobody below a level threshold (be it 40, or the original 60) is able to yield Orich out of it. This is how it’s originally designed and how it should function. If a person levels 5+ characters past the threshold to farm, to play, to whatever….kudos and they can have it because they put tons of time into multiple characters, but a person should not yield these kind of valuables when they’ve got nearly no time in the character at all…it’s almost as bad as botting.

Siphaed.9235:

these picks are also account bound so dumping them from a main level 80 into your bank to supply your alts isn’t that difficult either. […] And, it’s just a trick of using movement increasing boons, abilities, and stealth (usually Thief alts are used) to get to the node and wait for a very casual other player to distract the Champion while the low level mines the ore node.

[…]

Some ideas to fix this clearly exploited/broken situation

Er… how exactly is it an “exploit” or a “broken situation” ?

Pets, elementals, stealth, etc., are all perfectly normal game mechanics and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be used while gathering. Same goes for moving in a group and gathering while another player kites the enemies.

If I choose to mine a node with my level 5 thief (who will get 1-shotted by pretty much any creature in those zones) instead of using my level 80 ranger, so what?

If anything, GW2 needs less level segregation. Mid-level zones are empty because there are no high-level nodes there. If there were a couple of randomly-placed nodes of orichalcum, omnomberries, ancient wood, etc., in every zone, players would have an incentive to travel around looking for them, and the world wouldn’t be so dead.

It takes less than one hour to level a character from 1 to 80 anyway; all you need is gold to buy crafting materials (which can also be obtained in seconds through the gem exchange). “Level locks” would just give an even bigger advantage to richer people.

I’m working on my seventh level 80 right now and on a daily basis, I leave my other 6 level 80’s sitting in Southsun Cove to mine the Ore/Wood. I come out with about 66 Ingots daily. That’s from hitting the Rich and the two other nodes with 6 characters.

I really don’t think the few people who have the fortitude to get a Level 2 over to the Rich node are making a big difference. I’ve tried bringing a level 72 into Southsun and they were agroed further than my 80’s and one-shotted. I highly doubt there are many people using this tactic.

That being said, yeah, put a level 60 cap on the picks and such, because I’m sure that’s what was intended and just missed.