Guild Wars 2

So recently, a good friend of mine has been working towards Juggernaut, that beautiful legendary that haunts the crafting stations of Lion’s Arch and the hills of WvW. However, he’s been stumped by farming something called Silver Doubloons.

These lovely little crafting materials drop in the 20-30 level range, but after you pass 30, you’ll start getting gold and later, platinum doubloons instead. Despite this, they are still required for a level 80 Legendary, and because the level at which they drop is usually not the level on which people get them, the price has inflated to a lovely 1 gold + on the Trading Post. Currently the only way to get Silver Doubloons for level 80 players is A ) Farm gold and buy them or B ) Create an alt, level that alt to 20, then farm Jumping Puzzles, but be careful not to reach too high of a level, because you will have to make yet another alt!

Obviously, this is counter-productive to the idea of getting a legendary. You make a legendary so that your character will look the best/have the best gear, or whatever, not so whatever puny alt you will likely delete when you get them all will get it.

There are a few other instances of this problem across the board — that is, needing materials that only drop for lower level characters. Sure, mats will still drop from their respectively leveled bags, like the Tiny Moldy Sacks and the like, but the gear you get won’t salvage into the materials you need, and we all know that the primary source of materials, such as cloth scraps, ingots, and leather squares, comes from salvaging, not exploring and the like.

How to solve this? My suggestion is to take a mechanic that’s already in existence and spread it across the game, and that is the Reward Level seen in Fractals of the Mists.

Essentially, how it would work is, at any level, you have the ability to down scale the level of rewards your character will earn in PvE. If you are running a level 80, farming for Ascended Armor, and you need linen scraps, you can scale your reward down to level 60-70, to receive armor that will salvage into Linen Scraps. There are downsides, of course, as, for instance, you won’t receive lodestones or other level 80 gear, but you would be accepting that in exchange for easier farming of other mats.

This would allow players to farm for lower level mats, easing the crafting of Ascended and Legendary gear. Additionally, it will help ease the price of Tier 3-4 Materials, which are currently much higher than should be. Iron Ore sells for more than Mithril, because it doesn’t drop in high quantities for high level players, despite Iron Ore being the lower ‘quality’ material.

This is just a suggestion, of course, and I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter!