Guild Wars 2

Just making a general topic, maybe for the moderators to take all of the threads about farming nerfs and to put it into one topic that is generalized. Please keep it civil amongst eachother, please do not troll.

What are your thoughts about farming nerfs, pro or against?

Mine feelings/opinions:
And it would be nice if someone from Arenanet would chime in. This IS getting out of hand. I came back to Guild Wars 2 after a two month break to farm for my legendary, but areas continued to be nerfed. I don’t want to participate in guild missions. I do as many meta events as possible. Ive done enough instigator bosses in southsun to last a life time, and Im sure the 4-camp hold + karka queen will wear me down over time. I’ve done enough COF P1 (which seems the only way to acquire legetimate cash…70 silver before vendoring).

To Arenanet: I WANT to farm. Why can’t I do this? This is how I want to play the game. Isn’t that what you have been preaching? “Play how you want to play”? This is it. I want to farm. I want to do some metas and ocassionally dungeons/fractals, but I want to farm. You are shrinking the ground beneath my feet. Pretty soon, I’ll have no where to stand. I don’t even play 10 hours a day, 2-3 hours per night. Im not hardcore, but when I log in I want to kill things, get rewarded for it, while listening to music or watching a Star Trek DS9 episode(I dont care what you say, DS9 was the best!)

Why? Why are you doing this to your playerbase? We are not the casual people that come and go because of real life schedules. We are the people playing your game every single day or night for a few hours. We stick with the game(provided the game doesn’t fundamentally change, as it seems to be). We are the ones that will spend in your cash shop. I used to buy gems for one reason only: to reward Arenanet for a job well done. Well, then ascended gear and guild missions(ahem raids) came, and now RNG and farming nerfs. All things to make me STOP buying gems.

All I want to do now is farm. It is how I want to play your game. Can I play this way?

I’m all for nerfing the areas where a braindead monkey could be successful as long as they add something that’s actually difficult for a team to beat (like a really hard dungeon) that rewards those who do beat it with the best loot in the game with loot that’s specific to the area. In order to pull that off they’d have to make it so 90% of the players can’t beat the content but the skilled groups could. Who knows, it might give the skilless players something to strive for in the future.

tldr~Nerf skilless content, make/buff content so the higher the challenge, the greater the reward.

cesmode.4257:

Why? Why are you doing this to your playerbase? We are not the casual people that come and go because of real life schedules. We are the people playing your game every single day or night for a few hours. We stick with the game(provided the game doesn’t fundamentally change, as it seems to be). We are the ones that will spend in your cash shop. I used to buy gems for one reason only: to reward Arenanet for a job well done. Well, then ascended gear and guild missions(ahem raids) came, and now RNG and farming nerfs. All things to make me STOP buying gems.

All I want to do now is farm. It is how I want to play your game. Can I play this way?

The majority of the playerbase consists of casual players, not farmers to begin with. More farming means higher supply which means dropping prices, which means less gold. Even if you have more gold because you simply farm more, you will use it to convert gold to gems and don’t buy gems. The people playing less are usually the ones to buy gems, exactly because they don’t spend their precious time farming.

It’s all been said but yes, Anet is pretty actively interested in nerfing farming areas almost as soon as they are discovered. Which is very paradoxical because this game is probably the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played.

The only conclusion is: they want the game to remain ‘the casuals paradise’, catering to the vast majority of the playerbase that plays less than 8 hours a week and spends RL money on the cash shop to buy gems. (Which they can then exchange for gold at a ridiculous exchange rate)

Dangerkips.6035:

It’s all been said but yes, Anet is pretty actively interested in nerfing farming areas almost as soon as they are discovered. Which is very paradoxical because this game is probably the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played.

The only conclusion is: they want the game to remain ‘the casuals paradise’, catering to the vast majority of the playerbase that plays less than 8 hours a week and spends RL money on the cash shop to buy gems. (Which they can then exchange for gold at a ridiculous exchange rate)

^ This

The hardcore players aren’t exactly the profitable ones for Arenanet. They knew how to make money and made a lot of it, lessening the need/desire to buy gems.

But the casuals are the people who more than likely have a job/family commitments, and are more than likely to buy gems to get what they want in a timely manner.

cesmode.4257:

To Arenanet: I WANT to farm. Why can’t I do this? This is how I want to play the game. Isn’t that what you have been preaching? “Play how you want to play”?

Actually, if you watch the Manifesto to see what ArenaNet was preaching, you would have heard they saying “We don’t want players to grind”. Not “we don’t want to force players to grind”, but rather “We don’t want players to grind”. They have stated with all letters that they don’t want you to grind, and still you claim you want to?

The issue isn’t that ArenaNet nerfs farming. It’s that they don’t nerf farming enough. Farmers and grinders are the ones responsible for how mediocre MMORPGs are – they tell developers that they don’t want fun and deep content, rather they want to be Skinner rats mindlessly pressing their tiny levers for shiny rewards. ArenaNet has made many bad design decisions, but the original idea was that this game was going to be something for human beings, not for rats. Each nerf on farming pushes some of the mice away, but doing things like the entire Southsun event (horrible storytelling, but 200% magic find and quick spawning events with unlimited reward chests) is like adding a big piece of rotten cheese in the game: the rats love it, but it’s still putrid.

ArenaNet should cull all the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters. This not only would improve significantly improve the community, but also allow the studio to focus on building good content, instead of Farming 101.

Farming =/ grinding

And yes, lump us farmers with exploiters, botters and hackers.

Dangerkips.6035:

It’s all been said but yes, Anet is pretty actively interested in nerfing farming areas almost as soon as they are discovered. Which is very paradoxical because this game is probably the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played.

The only conclusion is: they want the game to remain ‘the casuals paradise’, catering to the vast majority of the playerbase that plays less than 8 hours a week and spends RL money on the cash shop to buy gems. (Which they can then exchange for gold at a ridiculous exchange rate)

The big question for me is however still : why don’t they do anything about CoF Path 1 where people can farm so much more than anywhere else ?

Vol.5241:

Farming =/ grinding

That is the kind of petty, meaningless semantic argument I expect when someone has no real counter to an argument. Farming is the same as grinding, with the exact same negative connotation as in someone wasting time doing a mindless and easy activity (that a bot could do better than a human being) for the sake of a shiny reward in the end. Much like a donkey chasing a carrot in front of its face, and definitely not any smarter.

Beldin.5498:

The big question for me is however still : why don’t they do anything about CoF Path 1 where people can farm so much more than anywhere else ?

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a way to satisfy some of the hardcore farmers and keep them in the game.

It’s a terrible solution, but that’s probably the best card in their hand at the moment.

I think its just unfair for people who just started farming lately or new to the game. They’re faced with the hyper-inflated prices of things and yet don’t have the opportunity to acquire gold as fast as the people who farmed before nerf.

Of course it can be said that the people who farmed earlier are entitled to their riches – early bird gets the worm. That’s a legit thing to say. But nobody can blame people for feeling bad and demoralized cause they won’t seem to be able to catch up. That’s just as legit a feeling. Things like that is what would make anyone just give up and not want to play anymore.

I’m for anti-farming and all. But if you change things drastically and too often like that, people who are used to having long term plans are just gonna be fed up.

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Farming =/ grinding

That is the kind of petty, meaningless semantic argument I expect when someone has no real counter to an argument. Farming is the same as grinding, with the exact same negative connotation as in someone wasting time doing a mindless and easy activity (that a bot could do better than a human being) for the sake of a shiny reward in the end. Much like a donkey chasing a carrot in front of its face, and definitely not any smarter.

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

Vol.5241:

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

They are. In both cases, you have someone who is doing something not for the sake of the experience, but for the sake of the result. The farmer who doesn’t like CoF but is running it over and over to get gold for ectos is very similar to the guy who exploited the snowflake salvaging to get more ectos: both are not enjoying what they are doing, both want to get done with it as soon as possible, and both are in it only for the result. It’s even questionable if the impact from the extra ectos added to the game by those exploiters was that much worse than the elitism introduced in the game by the CoF farmers who, not enjoying the dungeon and thus wishing to clear it as fast as possible, only accept Berzeker warriors in their teams.

I really don’t mind the farming nerfs. Keeps the economy balanced and discourages a playstyle that would severly shorten the lifespan of the game for many players. If we were all super rich with legendaries after playing for a couple months and farming then the population would drop like crazy. Anet know this, so don’t expect them to give you easy money/mats any time soon.

They won’t respond to this, they must think it is below them or something cause there has been multiple posts about the farming nerfs and they haven’t responded to any of them. Really ignorant imho since they know what they are doing, chasing players away just for profits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/another-one-bites-the-dust/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/T6-Dust-Crisis/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Crystalline-dust-most-expensive-t6-mat-yet

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

They are. In both cases, you have someone who is doing something not for the sake of the experience, but for the sake of the result. The farmer who doesn’t like CoF but is running it over and over to get gold for ectos is very similar to the guy who exploited the snowflake salvaging to get more ectos: both are not enjoying what they are doing, both want to get done with it as soon as possible, and both are in it only for the result. It’s even questionable if the impact from the extra ectos added to the game by those exploiters was that much worse than the elitism introduced in the game by the CoF farmers who, not enjoying the dungeon and thus wishing to clear it as fast as possible, only accept Berzeker warriors in their teams.

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Rhaps.8540:

I really don’t mind the farming nerfs. Keeps the economy balanced and discourages a playstyle that would severly shorten the lifespan of the game for many players. If we were all super rich with legendaries after playing for a couple months and farming then the population would drop like crazy. Anet know this, so don’t expect them to give you easy money/mats any time soon.

You’re right, man. I was planning to stop playing after maybe getting a legendary in about 2-3 months time. Now it will take more time than that. So I’m just gonna stop playing now.

Good thing they did it though. Knocked me to my senses about planning to waste all that time for a stupid skin when I have done everything else to do in-game.

Vol.5241:

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Do you think the players who exploited the snowflake issue deserved to be banned? They were people who liked to be wealthy and wished to gain as much gold as possible, and I’m not so sure they were unskilled players.

And if you think they deserved to have been banned, why? Because they hurt the economy of the game? But didn’t they increase the supply of ectos, thus lowering those prices, pretty much like farmers increase the supply of rare items in the game and (supposedly) decrease their prices?

Vol.5241:

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

They are. In both cases, you have someone who is doing something not for the sake of the experience, but for the sake of the result. The farmer who doesn’t like CoF but is running it over and over to get gold for ectos is very similar to the guy who exploited the snowflake salvaging to get more ectos: both are not enjoying what they are doing, both want to get done with it as soon as possible, and both are in it only for the result. It’s even questionable if the impact from the extra ectos added to the game by those exploiters was that much worse than the elitism introduced in the game by the CoF farmers who, not enjoying the dungeon and thus wishing to clear it as fast as possible, only accept Berzeker warriors in their teams.

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

The problem is more that ArenaNet can get away with slip-shod content (exhibit A: Living Story) if people are still willing to play that content (or the game more generally) only to get rewards. ArenaNet will never have the pressure necessary to create good, meaningful content (and overhaul the game mechanics to make that possible) as long as farmers and grinders accept the state of the game as it is and suffer the boring content to get a chance at loot.

projectcedric.6951:

Rhaps.8540:

I really don’t mind the farming nerfs. Keeps the economy balanced and discourages a playstyle that would severly shorten the lifespan of the game for many players. If we were all super rich with legendaries after playing for a couple months and farming then the population would drop like crazy. Anet know this, so don’t expect them to give you easy money/mats any time soon.

You’re right, man. I was planning to stop playing after maybe getting a legendary in about 2-3 months time. Now it will take more time than that. So I’m just gonna stop playing now.

Good thing they did it though. Knocked me to my senses about planning to waste all that time for a stupid skin when I have done everything else to do in-game.

Totally do it, stop playing! Anet doesn’t mind, that’s why they don’t have subs. I highly recommend anyone bored of the game, and not interested in grinding for a silly skin to stop playing. Go play another game, come back to Gw2 when it has some more content, or a precursor hunt etc. If you feel you’ve done everything else and don’t want to take on a massive grind it’s the best thing to do.

How does ‘chasing people away’ engender ArenaNet more profits? Seems that would elicit the opposite.

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Do you think the players who exploited the snowflake issue deserved to be banned? They were people who liked to be wealthy and wished to gain as much gold as possible, and I’m not so sure they were unskilled players.

And if you think they deserved to have been banned, why? Because they hurt the economy of the game? But didn’t they increase the supply of ectos, thus lowering those prices, pretty much like farmers increase the supply of rare items in the game and (supposedly) decrease their prices?

So just cause they increase the supply of items by playing a lot more than a casual player means they should be banned? A player who decides to keep killing reefs or wraiths instead of killing a wide variety of mobs should be banned?

Seriously, what kind of mentality is this?

If you refuse to acknowledge the difference between an exploiter and a farmer then I can’t help you and I won’t bother to waste any time arguing about it.

Vayne.8563:

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

This is a valid point… if this was the first month that the game came out. Its already more than a year, man! If they were to nerf it, they should have nerfed it early. Now the market is hyper-inflated, too many people have already amassed too much money from pre-nerf, and even more so from the pre-nerf Nov 2012.

The “acceptable amount of profit per hour” is based on fixed content and the in-game economy. You cant tell people that it’s legitimate to decrease the gold-per-hour from content when that same farming before hand has increased the prices of things pre-nerf.

That’s why in-game economies are quite sensitive stuffs to handle. At the very least, they should decrease it very gradually over time, so that prices and new players have a chance to adapt. Not a dramatic change overnight – something like half of the original rate of gold acquisition or less. That’s kitten brutal, man.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

How does ‘chasing people away’ engender ArenaNet more profits? Seems that would elicit the opposite.

Chasing who away, farmers? Well easy, farmers aren’t the profitable players for Anet. They are self-sufficient so don’t spend a lot on gems. Also a lot of the farmers are players that have completed the majority of the content they want to and are making the aquisition of a legendary their end game. After they get it, they aren’t likely to stick around much longer so it makes perfect financial sense to draw out that process as long as possible with rng, dr and farming spot nerfs.

The bread-and-butter for Anet is cash-rich casual gamers, not hardcore mob grinders. They will continue to punish the latter group until they either leave, suck it up and take on the extra long grind or finally crack and invest in gems for gold. Whatever the outcome it’s all good for Anet

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Vol.5241:

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

They are. In both cases, you have someone who is doing something not for the sake of the experience, but for the sake of the result. The farmer who doesn’t like CoF but is running it over and over to get gold for ectos is very similar to the guy who exploited the snowflake salvaging to get more ectos: both are not enjoying what they are doing, both want to get done with it as soon as possible, and both are in it only for the result. It’s even questionable if the impact from the extra ectos added to the game by those exploiters was that much worse than the elitism introduced in the game by the CoF farmers who, not enjoying the dungeon and thus wishing to clear it as fast as possible, only accept Berzeker warriors in their teams.

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

The problem is more that ArenaNet can get away with slip-shod content (exhibit A: Living Story) if people are still willing to play that content (or the game more generally) only to get rewards. ArenaNet will never have the pressure necessary to create good, meaningful content (and overhaul the game mechanics to make that possible) as long as farmers and grinders accept the state of the game as it is and suffer the boring content to get a chance at loot.

Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment but why do you want to change the game that the Anet guys want to make to suit yourself? The game is what it is. Aren’t there other games that provide a more meaning experience for the farmers and grinder?

For the record, I’m not anti-farm. I just don’t understand this mind set.

zenleto.6179:

Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment but why do you want to change the game that the Anet guys want to make to suit yourself? The game is what it is. Aren’t there other games that provide a more meaning experience for the farmers and grinder?

For the record, I’m not anti-farm. I just don’t understand this mind set.

I think you’ve got a meaningful and intelligent question here, but I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding it. Would you mind rephrasing to help me craft a good response?

Guns and Giblets.9308:

zenleto.6179:

Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment but why do you want to change the game that the Anet guys want to make to suit yourself? The game is what it is. Aren’t there other games that provide a more meaning experience for the farmers and grinder?

For the record, I’m not anti-farm. I just don’t understand this mind set.

I think you’ve got a meaningful and intelligent question here, but I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding it. Would you mind rephrasing to help me craft a good response?

Not sure if I can lol. I’m mostly asleep. I had the same thought just as I was pressing the reply button. If this thread is still alive in the morning I’ll give it a go. And if there’s any interest left for it.

Rama.6439:

They won’t respond to this, they must think it is below them or something cause there has been multiple posts about the farming nerfs and they haven’t responded to any of them. Really ignorant imho since they know what they are doing, chasing players away just for profits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/another-one-bites-the-dust/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/T6-Dust-Crisis/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Crystalline-dust-most-expensive-t6-mat-yet

I was responding to this, which states that nerfing farming spots chases away players for profit. Doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m not a game developer, or economist.

Erasculio.2914:

cesmode.4257:

To Arenanet: I WANT to farm. Why can’t I do this? This is how I want to play the game. Isn’t that what you have been preaching? “Play how you want to play”?

Actually, if you watch the Manifesto to see what ArenaNet was preaching, you would have heard they saying “We don’t want players to grind”. Not “we don’t want to force players to grind”, but rather “We don’t want players to grind”. They have stated with all letters that they don’t want you to grind, and still you claim you want to?

The issue isn’t that ArenaNet nerfs farming. It’s that they don’t nerf farming enough. Farmers and grinders are the ones responsible for how mediocre MMORPGs are – they tell developers that they don’t want fun and deep content, rather they want to be Skinner rats mindlessly pressing their tiny levers for shiny rewards. ArenaNet has made many bad design decisions, but the original idea was that this game was going to be something for human beings, not for rats. Each nerf on farming pushes some of the mice away, but doing things like the entire Southsun event (horrible storytelling, but 200% magic find and quick spawning events with unlimited reward chests) is like adding a big piece of rotten cheese in the game: the rats love it, but it’s still putrid.

ArenaNet should cull all the farmers, grinders, addicts and exploiters. This not only would improve significantly improve the community, but also allow the studio to focus on building good content, instead of Farming 101.

Perhaps the “we don’t want players to grind” was actually just a smoke screen for " we don’t want you to grind, we want you to buy gems and grind the TP to get what you need.. ie Legendary etc"
It’s all well and good saying don’t grind, but not everyone wants to hang out in the TP mindlessly buying up mats to achieve things… farming mats or loot is no different to farming XP and levelling up.. every MMO has grinds, its how individuals decide to play out the game is what counts.
I am not someone who enjoys standing around in one place killing the same 5 or 6 respawns for hours, but sometimes I can alter my mindset to do it when the need for things arise and others do the same… I just don’t buy in to the “you cant grind this anymore” approach, if you want it buy some gems and ANET will provide those “must have” things.

I see no issue with having the ability to farm.. its a choice thing at the end of the day… what ANET could of done is adjust the respawn timers.
Then again when they mindlessly introduce things like dragon timers that are able to be egg timered and camped and dungeons that allow you to run it over and over for loot and comms, its no wonder nerfing openworld farming areas has gone down like a storm in a tea cup.

Vol.5241:

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Do you think the players who exploited the snowflake issue deserved to be banned? They were people who liked to be wealthy and wished to gain as much gold as possible, and I’m not so sure they were unskilled players.

And if you think they deserved to have been banned, why? Because they hurt the economy of the game? But didn’t they increase the supply of ectos, thus lowering those prices, pretty much like farmers increase the supply of rare items in the game and (supposedly) decrease their prices?

So just cause they increase the supply of items by playing a lot more than a casual player means they should be banned?.

I was asking you questions, not making a statement. I would still like to see your replies about the snowflake incident.

Vayne.8563:

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

The prloblem is that whatever metric they are using is based on what players are earning in CoF1.

There are currently only 3 effective ways to generate gold in the game current and two of them are destructive (i.e. for one person to make gold someone else is losing even more gold). These three ways are CoF1 Farming, Farming and selling on TP and Playing the TP.

The second two ways are completely determined by the number of people doing the first method (CoF1) to generate the gold to buy the things they are selling off the TP.

As farming gets harder prices rise because the equivalent time to run CoF is also rising. For example the lyssa Dust farm that was recently nerfed:

You could earn about 5g worth of bags and dust an hour there. This was equal to your average CoF1 farm. Therefore the amount of Dust you could get in an hour had its price determined by what fraction of CoF runs you could do in a similar time. It worked out to about 25s a dust.

Now that all the Dust farms have been nerfed, the amount of dust you can get in that same hour is greatly diminished so right now it is more profitable to run CoF and buy dust. This will continue until an hour of CoF earns you the same amount as selling dust you can farm.

TLDR: Their metrics are worthless because everything is based on CoF runs, which is the only major gold creation source in the game. If they changed CoF the entire market would be thrown into chaos, which is probably why it hasn’t been nerfed yet since it might destabilize the entire game.

Much of the problems with farming arise due to the fact that MMO players HATE HATE HATE having access to something, then having it taken away.

If these sort of overly-high spawn locations were better tested in-house before being released there would be much less sadness over farming nerfs (because they wouldn’t be needed).

ZudetGambeous.9573:

TLDR: Their metrics are worthless because everything is based on CoF runs, which is the only major gold creation source in the game. If they changed CoF the entire market would be thrown into chaos, which is probably why it hasn’t been nerfed yet since it might destabilize the entire game.

The economy’s stable, but a good chunk of the liquidity is coming from CoF. The $64,000 question is how do you take CoF out of the equation without creating spiraling deflation or inflation.

Marxo.3829:

Much of the problems with farming arise due to the fact that MMO players HATE HATE HATE having access to something, then having it taken away.

If these sort of overly-high spawn locations were better tested in-house before being released there would be much less sadness over farming nerfs (because they wouldn’t be needed).

The devs don’t have nearly as many man-hours available to finding farm spots as the players do.

projectcedric.6951:

Vayne.8563:

I’m assume that the metrics used to nerf a specific farming spot are pretty much locked in. Not every farming spot is going to be nerfed, but there’s an acceptable amount of profit per hour that makes the game a game. When it gets too high they nerf it.

I’m not seeing the problem here.

This is a valid point… if this was the first month that the game came out. Its already more than a year, man! If they were to nerf it, they should have nerfed it early. Now the market is hyper-inflated, too many people have already amassed too much money from pre-nerf, and even more so from the pre-nerf Nov 2012.

The “acceptable amount of profit per hour” is based on fixed content and the in-game economy. You cant tell people that it’s legitimate to decrease the gold-per-hour from content when that same farming before hand has increased the prices of things pre-nerf.

That’s why in-game economies are quite sensitive stuffs to handle. At the very least, they should decrease it very gradually over time, so that prices and new players have a chance to adapt. Not a dramatic change overnight – something like half of the original rate of gold acquisition or less. That’s kitten brutal, man.

The idea is more like this. A farming spot is discovered, a few people use it. It’s not throwing the balance of the game out too much. Everyone starts to use it and suddenly it starts to have an affect. They nerf it when it has that affect.

The problem is people get attached to farming spots. I like to farm HERE. Every time a spot gets nerfed someone finds a new one anyway. It changes up the game for people. It’s like the changes to skills in games. If no skill ever changed most people would get bored. Changes to skills change the meta, change the game. Farming really doesn’t have a meta, but more people will bore themselves to death and burn themselves out farming the same spot than would like to admit it.

And those that do farm one spot, over and over again into oblivion are a minority, possibly a vast minority. It’s too boring for most people to do.

You consider it brutal because you only look at how much you can make an hour, not what’s good for the game. I consider it appropriate because I believe if it’s better for the game, it’s better for me.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

Thanks for this. Reasonable explanations like this are sort of what’s missing from the dialogue between Anet and the fans. I don’t know too many people who could argue against this.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

2 things:
-bugfixes and farm nerfs are separate issues imo. for example, union/malchor events getting stalled on purpose by players for farm endless mobs wave is something that HAD to be fixed. It’s obvious.
The issue is when something who has been treated as “correct” farming income for months, namely the tunnel event farming in CS, gets arbitrarly butchered for no apparent reason… aside pushing more ppl to southsun. This is something that shoudln’t happen, because after southsun won’t be anymore the flavour of the month, i’m sure the CS nerf will stay, and i guess your economist can easily tell you what this means…

because (leads to point 2)

-the moaning about farming getting nerfed is manly due to recent T6 (in general) and Dust (in particular) prices rising. Which has much much wider consequences than simple “ppl stop farming there, go in southsun or cof”.

Uruz Six.6594:

Marxo.3829:

Much of the problems with farming arise due to the fact that MMO players HATE HATE HATE having access to something, then having it taken away.

If these sort of overly-high spawn locations were better tested in-house before being released there would be much less sadness over farming nerfs (because they wouldn’t be needed).

The devs don’t have nearly as many man-hours available to finding farm spots as the players do.

Fortunately there is this thing called math and statistics which allows content to be designed with appropriate numbers without needing a dev to ASDW-key a character through every inch of designed content

It is of course true that there are frequently differences between theory and practice of course, and as a dev just said, this one was the result of a ‘bug of a bug’.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

How about the nerfs like shelt/pen, where we spend minutes beating on a veteran spider only to encounter many more veteran spider hatchlings (which don’t even provide any loot or exp).

That is not fun, and there is no good loot at all.

Reloading.3260:

…You think we’re running back and forth between two areas, clicking a target and pressing 1 because we enjoyed it?…

Just a quick comment on this sentence… TBH I play games only to have fun (which, in the end, is the whole point of a game), if I’m not enjoying something I’ll just not do it to begin with, and if I wasn’t enjoying the game, I’d just not play..

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

Perfect reply. I saw the skelk area before the fix and it was broken. It’s still a nice area and there’s just the right amount of skelks.

You sir are awesome and I’ve found my own personal sweet spot and quite have a lot of fun there! (and it’s not the skelk area)

P.S. I miss the ’Gator train. But it was fun while it lasted and Thank you for providing us with it!

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

let express me in this way

Marxo.3829:

Fortunately there is this thing called math and statistics which allows content to be designed with appropriate numbers without needing a dev to ASDW-key a character through every inch of designed content

It is of course true that there are frequently differences between theory and practice of course, and as a dev just said, this one was the result of a ‘bug of a bug’.

Fair enough, especially after getting corrected by a redname. Though I think math, stats, and simulations can still only take you so far. Working in software deployment and maintenance myself, I’m just all too familiar with no plan surviving first contact with the customer.

Where are these event chests that appear every 8 to 10 minutes?

Reloading.3260:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes.

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal.

The only thing Southsun had going for it was the skelk/shark farming with the 200%mf and instigator farming. Sorry to say but neither were fun engaging content. It was simply more profitable than most other pitiful activities bar cof farms.

You think we’re running back and forth between two areas, clicking a target and pressing 1 because we enjoyed it?

No penitent, no fish oil, no union, no temples, done cof1 till my eyes bleed, and now no more instigator. At the moment its just akitten gw2 till the world boss pops.

Have you seen the huge number of mobs that spawn in the camp events – and how often the camp events recycle? Just move from camp to camp and do the world boss when it comes up. I know the mobs are a little more challenging than the pushover skelk, but they are rewarding (especially with the MF buff).

Also, farming in Curse Shore, Frostgorge (dredge caves in the south), etc, is still very much alive. You just have to be smart about it and not stay in the same 5X5 square area for an hour.

Like the dev said earlier, there has to be a balance between acceptable farming and overkill (as well as pure bug fixes and fixing silliness like the union waypoint debacle).

The community is a little too eager to jump at every single tiny change like it is something that broke the game.

Reloading.3260:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Where are these event chests that appear every 8 to 10 minutes?

Gone.

lol

He’s talking about southsun champ instigators.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Where are these event chests that appear every 8 to 10 minutes?

That was the instigator chest. It’s gone now.

loot was pretty good too:
http://i.imgur.com/9bRo8u1.jpg

Blaeys.3102:

The community is a little too eager to jump at every single tiny change like it is something that broke the game.

Broke the game?

Absolutely not.

But i’d take a loot at T6 mats prices trend.

That is gamebreaking for a lot of ppl. And is direct consequence of farming nerfs.

btw: grats vol. i didn’t even had a green in all the istigator spamming. only shells and blu crap. :p