Guild Wars 2

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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.

You’re wrong. You’re just plain wrong. The Southsun event was terrible from that perspective and it encouraged players who wanted to accomplish certain goals to literally only do one event over and over and over in two different spots with the occasional break to farm a dynamic event that spawned in between. I ran that kitten ed Instigator event for 6 hours one rainy day because it was the best way to get rares and I was on a tear to get ectos for crafting.

You are doing a terrible job on this point. That’s all there is to it. There is no debate on that matter at this juncture, you’re just doing an AWFUL JOB. People feel, justifiably, like you’re just jerking them back and forth. Even as you added the megafarming for the Southsun event you quietly ripped apart the Orr events which not only screws farmers but, frankly, screws anybody who just wanted something basic to do when they’re just kind of casually goofing off in the game. I liked being able to just drop into Cursed Shore and do some mindless blasting away for thirty minutes. Now, not only am I boned on the farming (especially compared to all those who farmed it successfully for hundreds of gold and even legendaries over the months) I feel like there’s no reason for me to even go there anymore because NOTHING EVER HAPPENS NOW. I can stand there picking my nose for 30 minutes and I’ll be lucky to see 2 frickin’ events.

There may be some sweet spot, but you guys are so far off it at this point (and have been since you released the first Guild Wars client so long ago) that most of us feel like what you’re actually extending to your customers is a salt lick.

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.

So why don’t you guys just do the same thing, just do it in other zones rather than Southsun. You could easily redesign a few events and make suitable farming locations around the world, heck every zone in the game could have one like the instigators. Then there probably wouldn’t be as many complaints about farming.

I think it’s funny. They gave us the MF/GF buff in Southsun but for some reason I get better rewards (T6 mats) farming in Orr. The only reason most of us farm is to get T6 mats which have a god awful drop rate and would take years to get a full stack playing the game “as intended”. So we find a go spot with lots of spawns and kill kitten. Sure it’s brainless and boring but so are the Dragons and world bosses and CoF 1. It’s the fastest way to collect the mats you need to accomplish our goals so we do it.

Erasculio.2914:

Mada.5319:

Darkever.9732:

Farming is not fun

Who are you to say what people find fun? What you may find boring, others may not.

People often lie to themselves. Want to see an example?

Mada.5319:

What about the rest of us who only got 20 minutes spare time and wanna just relax while killing things? Am I not allowed to achieve anything in that short time I have available?

If you really had fun farming, you wouldn’t need a reward for doing so – you would be happy with the experience itself, and not need to be given loot to feel like you have “achieved” anything.

Those who defend farming are so disconnected from their own speech that they don’t even see the glaring flaws in their own arguments. Saying “I have fun farming but only if I’m rewarded for it” is the same as saying “I’m going to the movies to see something I really like, but I will only be happy if someone gives me money at the exit!”. Both statements are false.

Enjoyment is rewarding, therefore you are rewarded. You lack understanding of your own statement. And you do not know what others like, do not act like you know what others do and do not like.

This makes you a hypocrite.

bullettohead.9715:

Oh! You wanted to make farming find a sweet spot, yeah?

Okay.

Well I mean, it’s obvious that’s your intention since you nerfed Camp far- oh wait.
Oh! Well you didn’t put DR on mobs with the same “class-” oh, wait. Well at least you didn’t make 3 entire zones of nothing but mobs of that class- oh. Wait.

Hmm… Well you guys tuned the rewards for each dungeon path so that the shortest path of all dungeons ever wasn’t farmed to oblivion by a select group of people- oh wait.

Well you didn’t put time locked content at least, right? I mean world events and what- hmmm, no, did that too…

Oh surely you guys didn’t put a DR on doing fast paced events, instead of actually working to time the events properly so that the whole problem didn’t happen in the first place? I mean, defending Filias Thorpe every 5 minutes is totally inteded, despite rewards being crpa and a WP literally 5 feet from it, right?

OH, OH, I KNOW! You didn’t subtly nerf droprates for different monsters around the world! Right? Right? No, you did that too.

Oh, no, wait, I got it this time! You guys DIDN’T make the hardest (supposedly) to acquire weapons in the game basically a game of RNG where you can buy literally every part except skillpoints and karma, right? Where doing anything requires a ton of money? Or make it so any of the other near-legendary weapons require 250 of cashsink X to get, right? You surely didn’t do that, did you?

The issue here is there’s a difference between wanting to put the playerbase in a “you don’t have to farm” mindset and literally making farming so bad it’s not worth our time in any aspect. And if that’s the case you’re not even doing that right (see: cof).

I love what you said, I think they are a bunch of egotistical morons.

And since we have not seen anything else since we called out Anthony for Lying about the “bug fixes” for what they really are, cause we all know what they really are, intentional nerfs, I guess Anet is just gonna continue to ignore us and keep nerfing. They could just MAN UP and say, “hey, we’re sorry, we know what we did was wrong and we can do this, and this, to set it right, and it will take this long…” but no, they want the game to fail. Well, looks like we have like 5 new games coming out this year anyway that look good, I myself am looking forward to ESO, and might check out Wildstar also, was never an Everquest fan, but the new Everquest Next might be something to check out also…

Hey, if they want us to leave, then by all means, we will I guess.

Erasculio.2914:

Mada.5319:

Darkever.9732:

Farming is not fun

Who are you to say what people find fun? What you may find boring, others may not.

People often lie to themselves. Want to see an example?

Mada.5319:

What about the rest of us who only got 20 minutes spare time and wanna just relax while killing things? Am I not allowed to achieve anything in that short time I have available?

If you really had fun farming, you wouldn’t need a reward for doing so – you would be happy with the experience itself, and not need to be given loot to feel like you have “achieved” anything.

Those who defend farming are so disconnected from their own speech that they don’t even see the glaring flaws in their own arguments. Saying “I have fun farming but only if I’m rewarded for it” is the same as saying “I’m going to the movies to see something I really like, but I will only be happy if someone gives me money at the exit!”. Both statements are false.

That’s because part of what makes farming fun is the idea of the hunt, it’s why I spent an hour farming full venom sacks in mount maelstrom just for the sack of crafting . Of course, we also want the things we find to be useful, which is why I tend to focus on T6 mats at level 80. Also, just because I proclaim myself as a “farmer” doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I do, it just so happens to be a side activity that I enjoy.

If there was no drops to look for, it would be called farming, that’s just killing monsters

Rama.6439:

Hey, if they want us to leave, then by all means, we will I guess.

Well, bye.

I miss the old cursed shore pen/shelter farming spot.. All they did by nerfing that was making sure NOBODY ever does those events anymore. Maybe they should instead increase the avaliable farming spots and maybe, just MAYBE people would actually go to different areas of the world instead of staying in the same tiny spot as 100 other people.

And for the love of god, don’t nerf CoF. That’s the only friggin good farming spot there is left.

If they make items that need to be farmed, then farming should be allowed.. pretty simple..

Also with current drop rates set to insanely low (outside of Southsuns weird buff area for an event) then farming is forced to get items of any type.. constant farming nerfs only lead to one thing..

Players leaving the game.

darkace.8925:

darkace.8925:

I haven’t read past this post, but I’m willing to bet they did argue against it.

Edit: I agree with you, it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. But I’m willing to bet it will be lost on those who just want to complain.

Yeaah, its lost on me, man. I know you and Vayne are right though. I know people like me are just being whiney. I know that you got the right arguments. My brain knows it, but my heart feels differently.

Any of it doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather be here posting on these forums right now instead of being inside the game. You gotta acknowledge that.

:D you know they’ve got problems when the forums more exciting that the game..

Anthony Ordon said they want people to farm, yet nerfed all the cursed shore events to hell.

Plinx? Nerfed to death.
Events that have champion wraiths appearing like Priest of Grenth part 3 ? GG , try later.
Events that have champion spiders spawning lootless , veteran level spiderlings? Have fun killing all of them 15 minutes after an events.

There is a reason why T6 dust prices are skyrocketing for for the last two months or so.

Also, the laughable gold rewards + drops for lvl 80 events cannot match CoF 1 farming . It’s that pathetic.

I find farming fun. I like to get rewarded with loots that I can sell for a profit after splitting my enemies head open. not everyone likes it, but some of us do. you make think its boring, but for me grinding dungeons is more boring.

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.

no. having DR’s exist in the game is direct penalty to farmers no matter how you try to spin it.

I enjoy farming as well.

Sometimes I dont want to group up, do events, read dialogues, get stressed out popping all my cooldowns and dodging my kitten off to stay alive.

Sometimes I just want to roam around killing things, and selling the loot I get. Whats wrong with that? It’s relaxing.

Personally I think the more they nerf farming, the better for the rest of the game. On the forums I seem to be a minority in this, but in game among those I encounter at least, my stance is not unusual.

Farming / botting / hacking / glitching – all just various degrees of the same thing.
- Its people who attempt to avoid or bypass the intrinsic aspects of the game to focus on extrinsic, external rewards – often to the selfish detriment of the larger community.

Darx.9842:

I enjoy farming as well.

Sometimes I dont want to group up, do events, read dialogues, get stressed out popping all my cooldowns and dodging my kitten off to stay alive.

Sometimes I just want to roam around killing things, and selling the loot I get. Whats wrong with that? It’s relaxing.

Actually nothing is wrong with farming. Are you tracking how much you make per hour, hitting the same spots again and again, and if it goes down you come and complain to the forums?

Because there’s farming and there’s FARMING.

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.

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

This isnt about “farming” and you people are making me angry…its common sense.

If you can only gather about 1-2 gold in the game in a day (say two hours playtime)and there are items that are available that cost between 500 and 900 gold to craft (any of the more desirable exotics like Volcanus and legendaries) that would take you somewhere between three and five YEARS to achieve.

Fact is you USED to be able to make about 10g in two hours and that, although hard work, was fair.

THIS is not fair.

Its not about farming, its about reward for your play time. I would expect anyone to be abkle to craft a legendary with between 9 months and a year of play time. This also used to be well within reach. Now it is not.

This is not about people playstyles or whether they are farming or not, its about NERFS.

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

….

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.

…

I agree with the fix, something wasn’t working as intended. Even though is kitten es off many.

Now giving my opinion about what you said, do not take me on bouncy steps but it seems you did us a favor for implementing these features. We players got many alternatives regarding games. You did not us a favor. You did your job as a game designer to provide/bring fun and interesting content onto the game not neglecting low level players, bring underused zones to life again and surely one of Anet, Ncsoft and any other game company of keeping the players base steady growing, and have one of the best games of the year. Correct me if I am wrong.

Raybunny.6190:

Now giving my opinion about what you said, do not take me on bouncy steps but it seems you did us a favor for implementing these features. We players got many alternatives regarding games. You did not us a favor. You did your job as a game designer to provide/bring fun and interesting content onto the game not neglecting low level players, bring underused zones to life again and surely one of Anet, Ncsoft and any other game company of keeping the players base steady growing, and have one of the best games of the year. Correct me if I am wrong.

You are wrong. They have annoyed a lot of people over the last three months of constant nerfs.

But you are right in that we have a lot of choice regarding games, which is why if they dont fix the issues regarding loot this game will be a graveyard by the end of the year.

Its not about Southsun, its about everywhere…dont you get that?

Rama.6439:

I love what you said, I think they are a bunch of egotistical morons.

And since we have not seen anything else since we called out Anthony for Lying about the “bug fixes” for what they really are, cause we all know what they really are, intentional nerfs, I guess Anet is just gonna continue to ignore us and keep nerfing. They could just MAN UP and say, “hey, we’re sorry, we know what we did was wrong and we can do this, and this, to set it right, and it will take this long…” but no, they want the game to fail. Well, looks like we have like 5 new games coming out this year anyway that look good, I myself am looking forward to ESO, and might check out Wildstar also, was never an Everquest fan, but the new Everquest Next might be something to check out also…

Hey, if they want us to leave, then by all means, we will I guess.

With arguments like these, I really can’t take your post seriously. Do you really think the developers of this game, in which they poured so much time and energy, wilfully want that project to fail, leaving them with no job and so many years of their lives ending up in nothing?

pricer.5091:

This isnt about “farming” and you people are making me angry…its common sense.

If you can only gather about 1-2 gold in the game in a day (say two hours playtime)and there are items that are available that cost between 500 and 900 gold to craft (any of the more desirable exotics like Volcanus and legendaries) that would take you somewhere between three and five YEARS to achieve.

Fact is you USED to be able to make about 10g in two hours and that, although hard work, was fair.

THIS is not fair.

Its not about farming, its about reward for your play time. I would expect anyone to be abkle to craft a legendary with between 9 months and a year of play time. This also used to be well within reach. Now it is not.

This is not about people playstyles or whether they are farming or not, its about NERFS.

How about this:
So what?
The prices will go up, the normal casual will find some items and sell them on the market to get his money. Prices for rares will go up as well. Farmer will get 50% less loot but it is actually woth the double amount. Meaning. Nothing actually changes in the long run.
The only thing that would change it, is to nerf the game with a DR system, that allows casual players, who play the game as intendet, to get more of this loot than somebody who farms. This way, the “normal” player finds enough money to buy his stuff, while the farmer, who plays the game to say" Hey, look at me, aint I great!" is not part of the community. Because he never were anyway.
Oh right, that system exists and its kicking in after 30 minutes. Meaning, you can farm, you just can’t abuse the system! And everything else is just finetuning of too good farm spots and too good a reward for time investement. I guess after the farm spots have all been made bad, we will see an actual rise of reward in time investing content, that is not farmable in the common way.

Thucydides.8510:

It seems to me that what ANet is going for is farming in the context of playing the game. For example, running the Grenth chain, getting drops from mobs during the events, silver + karma + xp from events + chest reward at the end (pretend the event ends successfully, okay? ;P). They should be encouraging this sort of “farming” more.

If they were really trying to encourage “casual” farming over the “hardcore” one, then they should not be introducing constantly new recipes that require full stacks of t6 mats. It’s because everywhere you go you bump up in things needing stacks of T6, ectos or lodestones that hardcore farming is necessary. Without steady supply of mats to TP that those farmers provide you’d never be able to match those prices. And this is a direct encouragement of mindless farming.

Vayne.8563:

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.

What!… minority, are you really that blinkered.
Farming spots are always found, true enough but I am pretty sure you have no idea what your on about if you think that sweet spots are farmed by the minority.. there is a reason they are considered sweet spots.. and that’s the reason why ANET is able to flag them.

I don’t farm unless I really have to or I am killing time but it doesn’t take too many brain cells to work out why ANET seeks to eliminates every farming spot they can, I will give you a clue – it involves opening your wallet and entering the long number on that plastic card into the T. How is that good for the game, sure it helps generate cash for the game potentially but as a side effect it will only serve to drive prices for mats up even higher as supply decreases… so more and more players will hive to CoF1 speed runs in order to make money to buy them.. meaning large pools of players no longer run anything else or go everywhere else and those that have already pooled 000’s of gold from exploiting dungeon farming or early release gold rush exploits will be the only ones making something out of the situation.
Players will grow tired of the increased grinding required to either bank enough mats /gold for things such as legendaries etc that they will drift from the game….

SO how is nerfing farming spots in anyway good for the game, especially.. simple its not. Its only good for ANET and the gem store and those willing to unleash their CC to buy and exchange gems for gold or utilise their bulging bank accounts from previous farming.

If ANET are keen to nerf farming spots, then they should also limit dungeons runs to once per day/account and kill the boss timers to stop players camping them to death everyday… then see what reactions it generates.

Fact.. farming is healthy for the game, Botting is not but using farming nerfs and heavy DR to cull botting is not, its just lazy security mechanics within the games core.

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

It’s quite logical that casuals will spend more in the gem shop. Many hard-core players have no very few commitments and can sink 30, 40 hours a week into a game. People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind. Since many have a job, they could conceivably have extra money to spend on a hobby…and people do spend money on entertainment. That’s a proven fact.

So if this is your entertainment (and this game is far better for casual than hard core players anyway), you’re more likely to buy gems to get some gold, or buy stuff that makes the game fun for you.

Hard core players can farm gold to buy gems for certain things. That’s harder for casual players.

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

You’re not casual. You’re a burnt out hardcore. That’s the only reason you believe this game is bad, because it’s made for casual people. You’re burnt out. Take a break, that’s not something to be ashamed for.

I don’t have access to bank accounts, but lets not dart around the facts. If people can only play for a maximum of 1 hour a day, I have a fair idea of what their bank account looks like. It is extremely evident why these people can’t play more than a single hour.

That bank account probably has more digits than the account of someone who plays 10 hours a day 7 days in 7 and probably is written in blank ink as opposed to red. Not for individual cases like you and me, but averaged on the casual vs hardcore population, that’s almost certainly true.

marnick.4305:

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

You’re not casual. You’re a burnt out hardcore. That’s the only reason you believe this game is bad, because it’s made for casual people. You’re burnt out. Take a break, that’s not something to be ashamed for.

I don’t have access to bank accounts, but lets not dart around the facts. If people can only play for a maximum of 1 hour a day, I have a fair idea of what their bank account looks like. It is extremely evident why these people can’t play more than a single hour.

That bank account probably has more digits than the account of someone who plays 10 hours a day 7 days in 7 and probably is written in blank ink as opposed to red. Not for individual cases like you and me, but averaged on the casual vs hardcore population, that’s almost certainly true.

Probably not true in my case. I can play all day every day and I still have a nice nest egg…but my case is admittedly quite unusual.

I agree with you. Most of the money spent in the gem store will be spent by casuals.

Or to state it in a different way. I want the Quip legendary which has the precursor Chaos Gun. At current gem prices, Chaos Gun costs less than 150 euros. Last week I bought a race bike for 400 euros. I’m willing to spend 400 euros on any hobby, irrelevant of whether that’s cycling or Guild Wars 2.

I won’t play pretend and just say how it is … 400 euros is not a lot of money and could buy me Dusk if I wanted to. I can do so every single month without dipping into my savings account and honestly, I don’t even earn a whole lot of money either.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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. :/

Why I feel all these “anti-farm conditions” are actually in game…….

“…we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove.” Gold find is a joke on Southsun, and I highly doubt the reliability of magic find over a small amount of time(eg. less than an hour). Long period farming? Oh heck no, DR kicks in as intended. My 400% mf toon was mainly getting greys and eggs from kills.

“We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events”. Well I do agree that it’s nice for you guys let loot(mostly blues and greens) drop for my upleveled guardian, but the question should be why there is DR on farming? DR is “surely” not a nerf to farm. Please don’t bring up that DR is for bots—the game prohibit third party software and why there are still bots? Also, yes, giving us equipment loots are good, what about give us a bit more t6 mats?

“We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes.” This is gone currently, if you mean the instigator. I missed instigators so much, please bring them back.

“How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. " How quickly has the ninja nerf on Heavy Moldy Bag gone forgotten in the seemingly strong proofs on you guys surely haven’t do any nerfs to farm =/

Vayne.8563:

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

It’s quite logical that casuals will spend more in the gem shop. Many hard-core players have no very few commitments and can sink 30, 40 hours a week into a game. People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind. Since many have a job, they could conceivably have extra money to spend on a hobby…and people do spend money on entertainment. That’s a proven fact.

So if this is your entertainment (and this game is far better for casual than hard core players anyway), you’re more likely to buy gems to get some gold, or buy stuff that makes the game fun for you.

Hard core players can farm gold to buy gems for certain things. That’s harder for casual players.

Vayne, your general assumptions are outrageous. “Casuals will spend more, thats a fact”. How do you know? Casuals might view this game as a pass-time hobby, something to do for an hour each night, and then log off, not taking the game too seriously. Thus, why would they spend money on it? If I am a casual, and I only play for a short period each night or every other night, why would I want to invest a lot of money in something that I spend little time on, and possibly care little about? Youre entire arguement is insane and infact contradicts logic.

Not to mention, the next line of your paragraph, “People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind”…the last few words there “…feel they’re falling behind”. Isnt this game supposed to not make you feel that way? Arent I able to put this game down for 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months and not feel “behind” as if it were a sub model item/gear progression game? Well, I did put the game down for two months. I was behind in the living story, which I had to catch up. I wanted to get the achievements. Not to mention, i still feel behind in terms of ascended gear. I do not have my ascended piece. Yes, I feel “behind”. This is what the game aimed not to do. Yet you yourself in your paragraph there said that people will feel they are “behind” everyone else since they play casually. Im confused. Is this game supposed to leave me with that feeling everytime i take some time off?

Well, after all these response from your community, I would seriously suggest the team ask themselves “Are we nerfing the farms?”

I love the game and the devs(maybe not JonPeters), but the indirect/direct nerf to farm is consuming my passion in this game. (Including RNG boxes)

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.

I understand partially what your saying Anthony. I saw some of the crazy grouping in SOME areas. Let me ask the question though.. After the South Sun events are done players I guess go back to a battered and bruised ORR. (Yes you nerfed it that hard). The timing is ridiculous between events, and the vets/champs are terrible to deal with.

Making gold in this game is terrible. I’m not sitting on the trade house flipping. It’s not how I play, Kudos to those who can.

Miggz.8213:

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.

I understand partially what your saying Anthony. I saw some of the crazy grouping in SOME areas. Let me ask the question though.. After the South Sun events are done players I guess go back to a battered and bruised ORR. (Yes you nerfed it that hard). The timing is ridiculous between events, and the vets/champs are terrible to deal with.

Making gold in this game is terrible. I’m not sitting on the trade house flipping. It’s not how I play, Kudos to those who can.

I agree. Im sure the MF buff will go once June 11 arrives, so Southsun will be on equal footing with Orr..maybe…Is that good or bad? I dont know.

And I dont flip in the AH either. For me its double edged, I think its interesting to be able to play a market, but this is an MMO and Id rather play the game. Plus, I guess I am too afraid to risk my insanely hard earned gold to flip the market because Im going to guess you need a lot of gold to make a lot…Cant just order 20 items of one commodity and expect to turn a 50 silver proft overnight.

Ping.5739:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

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. :/

Why I feel all these “anti-farm conditions” are actually in game…….

“…we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove.” Gold find is a joke on Southsun, and I highly doubt the reliability of magic find over a small amount of time(eg. less than an hour). Long period farming? Oh heck no, DR kicks in as intended. My 400% mf toon was mainly getting greys and eggs from kills.

“We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events”. Well I do agree that it’s nice for you guys let loot(mostly blues and greens) drop for my upleveled guardian, but the question should be why there is DR on farming? DR is “surely” not a nerf to farm. Please don’t bring up that DR is for bots—the game prohibit third party software and why there are still bots? Also, yes, giving us equipment loots are good, what about give us a bit more t6 mats?

“We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes.” This is gone currently, if you mean the instigator. I missed instigators so much, please bring them back.

“How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. " How quickly has the ninja nerf on Heavy Moldy Bag gone forgotten in the seemingly strong proofs on you guys surely haven’t do any nerfs to farm =/

This is exactly right, you say you do these nerfs for a spawn bug, but you guys at Anet nerf T6 drop rates to almost nothing in Orr, and in frostgorge, THAT IS NOT A SPAWN ISSUE! Not only that you nerf the miner bags in fractals? pathetic. simply pathetic. I mean that fractal is already hard as it is even in the 20-30’s and I will no longer run it in the 40’s cause the loot in a fractal 40+ is an utter joke that some janitor at Anet must have come up with or something.

Yes I’m very upset, cause I like playing this game, and I just want you all at Anet to admit your wrong doing and at least set the loot tables for T6 mats back to what they should be, if there was some kind of bug with spawning, fine, just set the loot tables for T6 mats back to what they should be, cause Orr is what it looks like, a wasteland, desolate and empty, and to be honest, most the game will be to cause the Southsun thing is kinda lame, I mostly get Karka shells there and they aren’t good for squat anymore, them exotics on that new vendor are a really bad joke, should have done this event back in April, people might have laughed about it then.

I gotta say I wish they had never introduced the gem converter because we know that this is what is driving all of this. They do not want us making too much gold. As a casual player I can’t convert my gold I have to save it anyway. Remove it for all I care (I’m sure that’s going to make all the rich players mad)

I’m pretty anti-farming, and find it hard to understand people who claim to enjoy such a monotonous activity.
But there’s one thing that has perplexed me about ArenaNet’s implementation of DR in GW2.

Ostensibly, it was implemented as an anti-bot mechanism.

But if that was the case, why does ANYTHING drop once DR kicks in?
The porous bones that drop once DR kicks in may not be worth as much as T6 materials, but they can still be sold by farm bots, which then results in them selling gold for cash.

In effect, by implementing this cack-handed form of drop reduction, ArenaNet are driving their players into the arms of gold sellers.

I see all this going to them adding T6 mat bundles on the Gem Store. LMAO, I can see that chasing off everyone, cause then that will prove to everyone that they did intentionally do all of this…

I already see people in Southsun complaining about the new meta, waiting all this time, all these months of temp content for this, 2 more rares to salvage a day, and the crap they make you do for it, and then the poppers and hatchlings drop nothing, and most the Karka just drop shells and no one wants them anymore, cheapest T6 mat now.

Shuguard.7125:

So why don’t you guys just do the same thing, just do it in other zones rather than Southsun. You could easily redesign a few events and make suitable farming locations around the world, heck every zone in the game could have one like the instigators. Then there probably wouldn’t be as many complaints about farming.

In ANET’s defense, that is exactly what they are doing. One of the unstated goals with Temporary Content (I assume) is to test the waters with upcoming content, and to gather data before a permanent addition to the game.

I might be a hardcore farmer, annoyed by all the farming nerfs, but the Southsun ordeal makes sense at least.

Personally I think they need to make Champions drop 10s, or something to make them rewarding though.

Mungrul.9358:

I’m pretty anti-farming, and find it hard to understand people who claim to enjoy such a monotonous activity.

Fill in the blank: “I’m pretty anti-__________, and find it hard to understand people who claim to enjoy such a monotonous activity.”

Whatever we fill in the blank with, whether it’s “farming” or “frisbees” or “fishing” or “frito-eating”, it’s immaterial. Some people will like it, some won’t. That’s life.

Some people, in this thread and others, have bashed people for liking farming. Some people do. Please try to understand that there are lots of ways to create enjoyment, and just because someone doesn’t do it the way you do, doesn’t make it wrong.

Mungrul.9358:

I’m pretty anti-farming, and find it hard to understand people who claim to enjoy such a monotonous activity.
But there’s one thing that has perplexed me about ArenaNet’s implementation of DR in GW2.

Ostensibly, it was implemented as an anti-bot mechanism.

But if that was the case, why does ANYTHING drop once DR kicks in?
The porous bones that drop once DR kicks in may not be worth as much as T6 materials, but they can still be sold by farm bots, which then results in them selling gold for cash.

In effect, by implementing this cack-handed form of drop reduction, ArenaNet are driving their players into the arms of gold sellers.

Some people find it relaxing not having to worry about anything or stress on having to react all the time.

Go look at something like lvl 40 fractals where it’s very stressful – you need to pay attention at all times and make sure you are accurate to the second.

While farming is stress free since the zerg keeps you alive.

This is ridiculous. You can still farm extremely efficiently in southsun cove. If you know where to look and how to farm, it’s possible to find 20t6/5 crates an hour with 350% MF. Even after this ‘nerf’.

There was an area of the map which was completely bugged. There was a spawn area for skelks where about 20 would spawn just outside of the map, but you could still see them, and if you had long enough aoe range you could pull them all. It was obviously a bug, and it has been fixed. But it has not affected in any way the efficiency of farming before the patch (assuming you didn’t spend all your time on that 1 beach, running around tagging skelks).

Mungrul.9358:

I’m pretty anti-farming, and find it hard to understand people who claim to enjoy such a monotonous activity.

Same reason people like to go for faster dungeon times.

People like me enjoy going for faster ways to make money. It’s another sense of progression.

Dear gods Spiral Architect and Vol, did you even read past my opening sentence?!
I was stating that ArenaNet’s anti-bot measures hurt players more than bots!
I was stating that even though I don’t like farming, I’m actually on the farmers’ side regarding drop reduction!
Epic reading comprehension fail!

Edit: Dear Grenth, Kain too.

I don’t think Arenanet needs to question whether or not to nerf things they deem improperly implemented as far as farming, or exploitable events. I think the real question is what can they come up with in time that is fun, beneficial monetarily and time wise for us, while still holding true to a fair model of “farmability”. There are still plenty of things to farm in game that don’t require you to exploit, abuse bugged events, or harm the play of others. Imo the real thing we need is specific new spots created by Arenanet that fit theirs and our idea of farming fun. I believe something is in the works, either something wide reaching or many small things. And my hopes are that it will help with this situation.

Geotherma.2395:

There are still plenty of things to farm in game that don’t require you to exploit, abuse bugged events, or harm the play of others.

Yeah? Which ones?

Thaia.5146:

Geotherma.2395:

There are still plenty of things to farm in game that don’t require you to exploit, abuse bugged events, or harm the play of others.

Yeah? Which one?

Ones. As in many.

Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.
~Ayn Rand

pricer.5091:

Raybunny.6190:

Now giving my opinion about what you said, do not take me on bouncy steps but it seems you did us a favor for implementing these features. We players got many alternatives regarding games. You did not us a favor. You did your job as a game designer to provide/bring fun and interesting content onto the game not neglecting low level players, bring underused zones to life again and surely one of Anet, Ncsoft and any other game company of keeping the players base steady growing, and have one of the best games of the year. Correct me if I am wrong.

You are wrong. They have annoyed a lot of people over the last three months of constant nerfs.

But you are right in that we have a lot of choice regarding games, which is why if they dont fix the issues regarding loot this game will be a graveyard by the end of the year.

Its not about Southsun, its about everywhere…dont you get that?

Do you even read his post properly? Or we having some kind of understand.
As far as I know his main answer was regarding the latest nerf and that was the Southsun Cove skelk nerf. So yes! I am not wrong there. Regarding the other nerfs, my opinion is that GW2 been loosing its shine again.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

pricer.5091:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with your assumption that casuals don’t pay for gems. In my experience, casuals pay far more than so called hardcore people and I will continue to do so.

In your experience of who? You? Well thats one customer ANet are making happy then I guess. Unless you somehow have have access to the bank accounts of everyone in the game that plays less than one hour a day of course.

I used to be fairly “hardcore” and occasionally spend cash…now I am “casual” because the game is so bad and I refuse to spend anything.

Great, thanks for the meaningless observation.

It’s quite logical that casuals will spend more in the gem shop. Many hard-core players have no very few commitments and can sink 30, 40 hours a week into a game. People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind. Since many have a job, they could conceivably have extra money to spend on a hobby…and people do spend money on entertainment. That’s a proven fact.

So if this is your entertainment (and this game is far better for casual than hard core players anyway), you’re more likely to buy gems to get some gold, or buy stuff that makes the game fun for you.

Hard core players can farm gold to buy gems for certain things. That’s harder for casual players.

Vayne, your general assumptions are outrageous. “Casuals will spend more, thats a fact”. How do you know? Casuals might view this game as a pass-time hobby, something to do for an hour each night, and then log off, not taking the game too seriously. Thus, why would they spend money on it? If I am a casual, and I only play for a short period each night or every other night, why would I want to invest a lot of money in something that I spend little time on, and possibly care little about? Youre entire arguement is insane and infact contradicts logic.

Not to mention, the next line of your paragraph, “People with real life commitments that can play a couple of hours a day max are people that will feel they’re falling behind”…the last few words there “…feel they’re falling behind”. Isnt this game supposed to not make you feel that way? Arent I able to put this game down for 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months and not feel “behind” as if it were a sub model item/gear progression game? Well, I did put the game down for two months. I was behind in the living story, which I had to catch up. I wanted to get the achievements. Not to mention, i still feel behind in terms of ascended gear. I do not have my ascended piece. Yes, I feel “behind”. This is what the game aimed not to do. Yet you yourself in your paragraph there said that people will feel they are “behind” everyone else since they play casually. Im confused. Is this game supposed to leave me with that feeling everytime i take some time off?

Name calling is just silly. I’m not insane.

Those who play the most, farm enough gold to buy gems. Those who play the least, if they want to buy stuff from the shop they have to pay for it. It really is that simple. I’m not sure why that’s hard to follow.

Hard core guys tend to play the game to get their stuff. Casuals don’t care if they “cheat” or not. So they spend money to get stuff. I’m not sure why that is hard to follow.

Most logically if Anet is really trying to make money they’ll aim the game toward the most profitable segment of the community. Are you really suggesting this game is aimed at hard core?

ref.8196:

This is ridiculous. You can still farm extremely efficiently in southsun cove. If you know where to look and how to farm, it’s possible to find 20t6/5 crates an hour with 350% MF. Even after this ‘nerf’.

There was an area of the map which was completely bugged. There was a spawn area for skelks where about 20 would spawn just outside of the map, but you could still see them, and if you had long enough aoe range you could pull them all. It was obviously a bug, and it has been fixed. But it has not affected in any way the efficiency of farming before the patch (assuming you didn’t spend all your time on that 1 beach, running around tagging skelks).

Have you actually farmed skelks since this patch hit? I am not sure what you are talking about above, because I do not abuse exploits and that sounds like one. The biggest nerf was to the beach just north of Pearl Islet. There was no exploit there, it was just fast spawning/dense clusters of skelks. Now there are half the skelks, with a longer spawn time. Not to mention all of the reports that the drop rates were also changed. There is no way you are getting as much T6 now, as you were getting before, on legitimate skelk farming paths. I just did 45 minutes @ 300% mf and got 5 T6, a bunch of T5, 0 yellow, 0 exo, 0 crates, 15 or so whites, 6 blues and 3 green. I’ve farmed here enough days to know that isn’t “RNG bad luck”. The best run ive had since nerf was 1 throwaway settlers exo, 1 yellow, and 5 T6 in about an hour.

Time to go farm CoF1 I guess.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne, your general assumptions are outrageous. “Casuals will spend more, thats a fact”. How do you know? Casuals might view this game as a pass-time hobby, something to do for an hour each night, and then log off, not taking the game too seriously. Thus, why would they spend money on it? If I am a casual, and I only play for a short period each night or every other night, why would I want to invest a lot of money in something that I spend little time on, and possibly care little about? Youre entire arguement is insane and infact contradicts logic.

I’m throwing the flag, there’s too many absolutes between the both of you. Its likely that casuals such as myself with less free time and more money will actually spend considering that we’re enjoying what time we can spare with our favorite hobby. That’s my experience. That said, its also not a certainty. Some will spend less, some will be more hardcore.

i don’t have any prb with farming if it is optional.