Guild Wars 2

It’s a drama we’ve seen oh, so many times. Will the devs ever learn?

So, I logged in and went to Silverwastes to work on AP and titles. Everything is going fine at first until I make it to Amber. I was surprised to see so many people there in one spot. There were banners and a bonfire, so I knew that there was something here that was good, but I didn’t know just what it was. . . yet. The chests. I still don’t quite understand their mechanic on how they spawn, but they’re everywhere. Why here? I still don’t know, maybe there’s big clumps of them other places, just not discovered yet. Well I had a bunch of keys, so I’ll jump in and get some too, I’m just not going to spend hours here like everyone else is.

Then it happened. Defense phase hit and someone calls out in map chat, “Blue needs help”. Silence for awhile, then again “Is anyone coming?” Silence again, then “Why am I the only one here at Blue?” Finally someone replies, “Why don’t you join us at Amber, we’re all here”. Then the guy at Blue states the obvious “Isn’t that what we are not supposed to be doing?” referring to us being all gathered at one fort.

So there it was, letting certain events fail so you could benefit in other places. How many times has this happened before and it keeps repeating itself? Now one of two things will happen to this chest farm based on Anet’s history of these things. 1. There will be a slight nerf to chests, but ultimately inconsequential. 2. A big nerf that causes players to completely abandon the map. My bet is on number one. What’s sad is that’s obvious something will be done soon, and it’s not even a week old yet.

So do the devs truly not understand that if we players are given a choice of events or loot that we will always choose loot. Loot seems to be the one thing we are all drawn too in this game or any other games. We like those rewards, it keeps us going!. So then my not amp up the rewards for defense? Those events are a lot of work and the rewards aren’t that much better – again this is a pattern we are oh so familiar with. If it was worth the time and effort to do these events we would spend the time doing what the map was designed for rather than focusing on a unintentional side effect of bandit chests. This can also be said for all those things in dungeons, fractals, WvW and other PvE things we just skip rather than fulfilling the original design.

It’s been over two years and it seems that they are still not learning from the mistakes of the past.

Why can’t you just enjoy how it is right now? To be honest, there’s a reason why these kinds of things become insanely popular: because looting the chests is more profitable then doing the actual events. No one cares about the events because they give us nothing. We waste a lot of time for 3 piles of sand and a couple of bandit crests. Until they start making events more enticing, obviously more people would rather the chest farm. I’ve been playing this game since launch, and have had so much trouble making money that doesn’t involve me having to spend hours and days and weeks to rack up a decent profit. Once the chest farming started I was able to finally build up some gold at a decent rate without having to spend a ton of time. In this game, the rich get richer, and the poor stay where they are until something comes along that can boost them out of that. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that people abandon the events, but just remember. The shovels will start to run out quickly with most people just doing chest farms, and when they do run out, a lot more people will be more inclined to do the events again for a while until either the next part of the story comes out, the farm gets nerfed, or everyone finally starts to lose interest. So yeah, the way Anet is providing content needs to be rethinked, but until then, just join in and enjoy it while it lasts. Unless of course, you’ve got 500g and a full armor set already and just play the game for new content. There are a few lfg maps that state they’re event only not farm maps, maybe you should hit one of those up if you’re looking for story and not farm.

Never said I wasn’t enjoying the game it is right now. Was just pointing out the drama it was creating and how it’s unintended and potentially toxic to the community. Remember coil? I’m not thinking about myself, here, I’m actually one of those people who care about this game and it’s impact on the community not just myself. Otherwise I would have left it and moved onto something else a loong time ago.

Here we go again lol

I know. That’s what my question was originally about. Why does the dev team set things up from the beginning to cause drama?

I’ll actually didn’t see any drama about it. I’ll tell you why.

Open up LFG. There are specific map people do just for farming. And specific map that people do the events.

I dont’ see anyone actually complaining about it, because both group never even need to meet each other.

Kythan Myr.4719:

I know. That’s what my question was originally about. Why does the dev team set things up from the beginning to cause drama?

I don’t think they do. I just think it’s an oversight. Eitherway they should know people like loot chests, so people will always take the easiest path. At 80 for some you really don’t have much to look forward to once you do all the mapping, finished all the content for fun, built all the legendaries you wanted, it becomes a job to just horde gold for the next cool piece of gear.

For some they are just tired of doing the same quests over and over for their alts so they decided farming in the best way to gear their other toons. I mean really, this game for most players at 80 is slim pickings, and if farming is the way to keep people playing then that’s the what anet is gonna allow.

Only way anet could fix this is to pretty much make a new map the size of the old one and raise level to 160, then maybe people would have something new and exciting to do for a few months, but this would leave old areas empty…and eventually we would be back to the good old farming again. It’s a problem that plagues many MMOs, people run out of content and leave. The ones who stay farm, while a small group of others role play.

Anyways thanks for telling me about this, I know where I’m gonna be tonight. xD

laokoko.7403:

I’ll actually didn’t see any drama about it. I’ll tell you why.

Open up LFG. There are specific map people do just for farming. And specific map that people do the events.

I dont’ see anyone actually complaining about it, because both group never even need to meet each other.

This. Did chestfarm and normal maps all day long side by side and never had drama because one group ended up on a map dedicated to the other. You want your achievements? Open the lfg tool and look for a taxi to an organized map. There are plenty.

Ceimi.1063:

Why can’t you just enjoy how it is right now? To be honest, there’s a reason why these kinds of things become insanely popular: because looting the chests is more profitable then doing the actual events. No one cares about the events because they give us nothing. We waste a lot of time for 3 piles of sand and a couple of bandit crests. Until they start making events more enticing, obviously more people would rather the chest farm. I’ve been playing this game since launch, and have had so much trouble making money that doesn’t involve me having to spend hours and days and weeks to rack up a decent profit. Once the chest farming started I was able to finally build up some gold at a decent rate without having to spend a ton of time. In this game, the rich get richer, and the poor stay where they are until something comes along that can boost them out of that. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that people abandon the events, but just remember. The shovels will start to run out quickly with most people just doing chest farms, and when they do run out, a lot more people will be more inclined to do the events again for a while until either the next part of the story comes out, the farm gets nerfed, or everyone finally starts to lose interest. So yeah, the way Anet is providing content needs to be rethinked, but until then, just join in and enjoy it while it lasts. Unless of course, you’ve got 500g and a full armor set already and just play the game for new content. There are a few lfg maps that state they’re event only not farm maps, maybe you should hit one of those up if you’re looking for story and not farm.

The shovels don’t run out, you get them for doing the defense events…

Sube Dai.8496:

Ceimi.1063:

Why can’t you just enjoy how it is right now? To be honest, there’s a reason why these kinds of things become insanely popular: because looting the chests is more profitable then doing the actual events. No one cares about the events because they give us nothing. We waste a lot of time for 3 piles of sand and a couple of bandit crests. Until they start making events more enticing, obviously more people would rather the chest farm. I’ve been playing this game since launch, and have had so much trouble making money that doesn’t involve me having to spend hours and days and weeks to rack up a decent profit. Once the chest farming started I was able to finally build up some gold at a decent rate without having to spend a ton of time. In this game, the rich get richer, and the poor stay where they are until something comes along that can boost them out of that. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that people abandon the events, but just remember. The shovels will start to run out quickly with most people just doing chest farms, and when they do run out, a lot more people will be more inclined to do the events again for a while until either the next part of the story comes out, the farm gets nerfed, or everyone finally starts to lose interest. So yeah, the way Anet is providing content needs to be rethinked, but until then, just join in and enjoy it while it lasts. Unless of course, you’ve got 500g and a full armor set already and just play the game for new content. There are a few lfg maps that state they’re event only not farm maps, maybe you should hit one of those up if you’re looking for story and not farm.

The shovels don’t run out, you get them for doing the defense events…

It’s a bit irksome that some people don’t seem to understand this fundamental fact: you need shovels to find and dig up those lovely lost bandit chests, BUT you can only get them by successfully completing the defense events. I’ve noticed a couple of times that people on certain (not all) maps seem to be so monomanically focused on digging up the chests north of Amber that they ignore the defense events at other camps that are the only way they can get the tool they need – and even at Amber, you only get one shovel per successful event. It works out, though; they’ll figure it out when they run out of shovels and realize that they can’t fail events to upscale loot like in some other incidents, they need to win the events to get the loot they want.

why sw is better than everything else?

~10 world bosses→1 exotic(spoon) + 12 rares plus occasional rare + 3g (5h time)
~5 daily dungeons – 6 gold + maybe 3 rare (2h time if good group)

silverwastes→ 500 chests opened : ~min 5 exotics + 100g worth materials (4h farming)

see the point?

takes you 2hr to do 5 dungeons? wow.

So again, majority is ’ spoiling ’ game for minority … Maybe it is you who is playing the game ’ wrong ’ way . Shouldn’t be it choice of players how to play the game ?

Btw farm doesn’t stops you doing neither zone achievements or story achievements . Only problematic might be rare legendary spawns, but trust me, one I’m missing, I haven’t seen in quite few hours spent on defending blue oasis on non-farm maps …

ANet are such a bunch of Jokers.

They’ve found a way to make thousands of people scrabble around in the dirt for shineys.

It’s a drama we’ve seen oh, so many times.

generic thread about generic gameplay during new content?

Wanderer.3248:

ANet are such a bunch of Jokers.

They’ve found a way to make thousands of people scrabble around in the dirt for shineys.

::laughs::

At least now we know why the skritt keep running away. Day shift has shown up to take over, so they’re going home.

Posted this in the other thread, gonna post it here too:

Finally able to get more of the ascended mats I need, in a fun farm, that is team oriented, coordinated, doesn’t take forever, in a new map. Sucks that I have to come to the forum and see people crying about it. Just ridiculous… If you don’t like it DO SOMETHING ELSE! It is not hurting you in any way.

Failure? No. Find another map doing what you want to do if that isn’t what you want to do. Stop crying about failure and have some fun for a change.

Kythan Myr.4719:

“Isn’t that what we are not supposed to be doing?”

Because we should only do what we are supposed to do in this game?
Because if we don’t play how it’s meant to be played, we are breaking the game?

It’s good to see that the Devs still believe that players will do an event “right”. Sadly though more and more players choose how to play solely on accumulation of gold per hour.

They don’t want to spend actual cash for gem store items or want those few very expensive items on the TP ASAP. Too many players reduce gameplay of any genre game to a series of mechanics. Story no longer matters. Setting no longer matters. Any and all sense of RP is gone. You aren’t an elven archer anymore, you are a range specialist with a variety of spike and AoE damage abilities. You aren’t fighting back the hoard attacking a town for the sake of the town. You’re doing a task to get a reward. Too many players have become mercs, sell-swords out for themselves with no imperative to fight for the greater good.

So like every great meta event they’ve tried before. This one will also have to be nerfed reward wise because too many players simply want to line their pockets by doing the least work possible (just like porting in just before a boss battle so they wouldn’t have to be bothered doing the pre-event tasks).

On one hand I applaud the devs for trying to stick to their story telling vision. But on the other, sadly they will have to begrudgingly take into account the greedy human nature of their clientele who for the most part don’t care about story, only what rewards they can get the fastest.

It’s to be expected when the vast majority of rewards are based on gold. Can’t really blame players when the game is set up in such a manner.

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s to be expected when the vast majority of rewards are based on gold. Can’t really blame players when the game is set up in such a manner.

Exactly. If I wouldn’t have to grind for the newest fluff on the gemstore all the time, I would have more time to do other things.

This is 100% a player issue; and not an Anet issue. If players can’t tolerate people playing differently, then that’s their fault and they get what they deserve. And nobody is obliged to do any event anyways.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s to be expected when the vast majority of rewards are based on gold. Can’t really blame players when the game is set up in such a manner.

Exactly. If I wouldn’t have to grind for the newest fluff on the gemstore all the time, I would have more time to do other things.

Which lends credence to the notion that the exchange was a bad idea because for the play style it encourages. Maybe a direct gems reward, limited to some amount per day could have prevented this yet allowed players to still partake the Gem Shop for free. But that doesn’t help the money supply neutrality of buying gold with Gems however (because the gold is from players buying gems).

I honestly do it mostly for the dragonite ore. I personally “hate” doing world boss. Consider I farmed enough world boss to craft 18 ascended armor and 13 ascended weapon, I really dont’ want to do any more jormag or golem again.

And thanks to the SW farm. Hopefully I dont’ need to do more jormag or golem again.

If there are more fun ways to get dragonite ore, I probably wont’ be farming SW. I didn’t really farm much rats on halloween and that gives really good gold per hour.

The Map events aren’t being failed intentiaonally, especially around AMber where all the chest activity takes place .. most players farm chests when there is calm then hit the events when they spawn, whilst also spawning chests.. so shovels keep coming, crest drop in silly amounts so keys are never an issue.

The issue I have is the usual leechers that hang around on the rocks and cliffs doing nothing, (you know same players that we see see hanging out around the borders of the normal map champ rotations until the pre’s are completed) then when others use their shovels to dig up chests .. they pounce on the loot then jump back up and wait for more.

ANET should have made the chests limited to maybe only players in a party, thus limiting the leeching capabilities of these players and make them earn their loot. That way they will have to run some defence events to get their own shovels.
Only other thing that perhaps needs tweaking is the silly amount of crests we can get .. make keys a little harder to obtain and once again those leechers will have to think about doing something other than leeching of others work.

Aside from that .. this chapter is working as intended for ANET… they seem to of realised that even though the content has very poor replay value.. player retention can be bought by excessive loot farming allowances… but at least this farm, like the champ trains before… don’t require the need to exploit mechanics to still be able to farm your phat lootz, so I see nothing wrong with Amber being crowded cos whenever I am there its always getting the events done .. its up to others to organise themselves at other forts if they want to get the breach to spawn or as others have said, open up an LFG specifically stating organised map defence etc.

Kythan Myr.4719:

I know. That’s what my question was originally about. Why does the dev team set things up from the beginning to cause drama?

It is downright impossible to make a game, and have zero exploits, bugs, or errors.

If you make such, either you put a hell of a lot of time into it, or you’re a kittening miracle worker.

The devs don’t “set things up” like that, they and their testers don’t think the same way as those who find the exploits. I bet that they do, however, think of several exploits we players never see because they fix said exploits they think of.

Well, I have to admit. At first I was confused about some of the claims being thrown around in the forums. I was just doing my events and enjoying the game as usual.

As I am and avid solo-player in PvE, that hates all types of group farming and would love to be able to just grind mobs for an hour or two, the group search tab is non-existant for me.
Just on accident I opened it up again… “SW chest farm taxi”
The ‘Aha!’-Moment of the year for me thus far.

First stack of bags: ~60g
Second stack of bags: ~55g
Third stack fo bags: ~65g (Got lucky here with two hoelbrak rune items)

Its incredible! Though, it takes a good 2 – 3 hours for a full stack.
That is still a solid 20-25g / hour. Almost double the amount of what you get from T6 farming!

It was a fun day of opening chests… ugh. Then again I wont continue this anymore.
Its boring!
Let alone, what am I going to do with all the gold anyway? I am still 70 laurels away from crafting a new set of armor and I dont need gold for anything else since gem-shop items sucks, legendaries look awful etc etc…

I appreciate it nontheless. A friend of mine is still working on his twilight so he’ll benefit from it.
I’d much rather wish for different/more ways to obtain laurels…

This needs to be addressed. I have said it in game, and people just say I’m being a whiner. I have all the achievements, so it doesn’t bother me at this point, as I too am now one of the “farmers”, because it is highly profitable. HOWEVER! It is NOT good for the community and needs to be fixed promptly. People shouldn’t be continuously locked out of being able to complete achievements that are required with a community effort. Easy fix: allow only 5 dig sites per fort.

Doesnt the farming get rather problematic if fort falls the toxic cloud etc etc ?

Would have thought the farmers need to do the events as well .

This is the best example I’ve seen of players working cooperatively to create a successful farm.

1. LFG tool actively used to group people by interest. We just learned this from the Labyrinth event!
2. Completion of events is necessary to advance the farming. I saw one person suggest failing an event and they were shut down and/or ignored by the group.
3. Players are working for the advancement of the group, knowing that running out of shovels means the event will die. Heck, I often have a hard time getting the green lines with so many people using shovels!
4. Players will almost always res the dead, because of the single waypoint.. and no one that I’ve heard complains about it being lazy, etc.
5. There will always be event “leeches,” as one person above pointed out for the world boss events.. there aren’t enough of them for it to make a difference. And really, who cares, I don’t find a shortage of loot because of them. That said, these “leeches” are also people who need to go take a bio break or grab some food…

The downside is the potential to drive the price of items down, and distract people from doing any of the other content. Especially so because there is the expectation that the farm will get shut down, encouraging people to “get what we can, while we can.”

Cursed Shore has historically been the main farm in the game. Even with it fully occupied, there are people spread across all of the other maps. I think we often underestimate what the total player count at any time really “looks like.” Estimate 100 players in an instance. How many are playing at once, 50,000 maybe? That’s 500 instances across everything, if every instance is full. I suspect that the average player count is far in excess of that.

Finally: The Story. There’s only so much story that the writers can create, so everyone has enough time to play it. I’m on ..(blush).. EVERY DAY. Should I re-do the story events constantly? I’ve done them, thanks.. and I love them! This is something for after the story is done – it is not detracting from the story.

Anyhow, that’s my 50s.

Remember that here is internet. Numbers throwed here are internet numbers, you have to divide them by 5-10 to approach the truth.

Vanive.3804:

Anyways thanks for telling me about this, I know where I’m gonna be tonight. xD

Yep, exactly, now I’m off to get me some phat lootz :P

Lol most people are happy with the map. This is one of the more successful Anet creations. Gauge the mood in the forums before making such dramatic titles

And the only, really the only people fussing are the ones who don’t have the time or patience to ‘grind’ . Yes this chest farm is comparable to grinding or champ farming.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Exactly. If I wouldn’t have to grind for the newest fluff on the gemstore all the time, I would have more time to do other things.

So basically removing the gold to gem trading would fix most of these issues?

ArchonWing.9480:

This is 100% a player issue; and not an Anet issue. If players can’t tolerate people playing differently, then that’s their fault and they get what they deserve. And nobody is obliged to do any event anyways.

One of the first things that came to mind when I started spending more time in Silverwastes was: Why does the Breach not require 4/4 Forts held? On the first day, I thought that was the case, until I discovered that loosing a Fort meant nothing for the Pact Assault progress bar.

Two possible solutions:
1) Make the Breach require holding all fortresses at level 3. Each Fortress defend event raises the level by 1, and after level 3, the defend events shouldn’t progress Pact Assault for a given Fort. The only way to progress Pact Assault should be to take over more Forts. As far as I can tell, you only get Pact Assault progress for capturing a fort and defending it against Mordrem (defend events). Both of these combined should only give a total of 25% progress to Pact Assault (requiring a total of maybe 5-6 defend events to reach it, allowing time for the bull escorts to progress supply level), making it mandatory to get all 4 Forts to progress the meta event.

2) Determine the Breach reward based on number of forts held, defence level, and supply level of the Fortresses. The reward is further increased based on number of bosses killed during the Breach. This reduces the meta event reward for players only chest farming, while significantly improving rewards for players actively defending all fortresses.

I would personally like to see a combination of both, in some way:
The bare minimum to enter the Breach is to have all 4 fortresses at Defence level 1 (which occurs after capturing and one successful defend event). Losing a fortress to the Mordrem means losing a small percentage of Pact Assault, which can be re-obtained by re-capturing and defending the fortress.

Once Pact Assault is fully maximized through successful Defend events (no 25% limit on Pact Assault progress), the Breach is only triggered if the conditions are met. This would allow people to maximize Pact Assault by camping Amber without ever triggering the Breach (since all other Forts will need to be captured).

Some form of DR should apply too: the more defend events occurring at a Fortress, the less it should count towards progressing Pact Assault. This would really discourage camping at Amber, because after a certain number of defend events, Pact Assault will cease to progress.

This would increase the amount of time needed to reach the Breach for players who focus solely on Chest farming. Capturing and defending all 4 fortresses simultaneously should be balanced to progress the Pact Assault significantly faster, while allowing reasonable time to ensure a higher reward (dependent on Defence and Supply level).

In my opinion, playing around Amber has been the absolute most fun. Chest farming only happens between events and the new robo back pack makes it a really funny side quest (“faster.. faster!”). That aside, when the invasion starts, having so many people there creates a really challenging and thrilling experience. So many champions, elites, and mobs spawn. It’s just a major war zone and when the bombs drop, it really counts for something. And when a legendary mob drops in, ohh man it’s so good. So much action.

This IMO is far better than splitting people up and dealing only with a handful of lower scaled trash mobs that require no effort to take on. If anything, I’d like to see Anet move more in that direction. More action!

Aegis Dominion.4708:

People shouldn’t be continuously locked out of being able to complete achievements that are required with a community effort.

While this ideea is solid and noteworthy, it simply does not apply in this case.

There are maps for farming and there are maps for beating all events and then champs; people still do both and you only need to open the lfg tool and taxi in on your choice of map.

This is not coil farm and only narrow-minded people would consider it simillar. People are not failing the events on purpose to get faster respawn times for champs, all events at amber get completed. To say that players concentrating on amber and ignoring the other forts is “failing events” is downright stupid, it would be the same as saying people are failing events on purpose when they focus on, say, Shadow Behemoth and abandon the cave troll or wasp or w/e in Queensdale.

I havent seen any drama between the two groups. The main issue I see is lack of numbers for the final bosses. That seems to be due to a number of factors, including population and players not learning the mechanics.

Both of which could be overcome by increasing the rewards for a 5/5 win. Currently the map is so profitable, that getting all 5 is a low priority.

I think “failure” is a bit harsh. “Unbalanced” seems more fitting, currently. There are many things about Silverwastes that I like – NOT just the chests.

The shovels don’t run out, you get them for doing the defense events…[/quote]

I barely get these so I wonder how this thing goes on, I know I do enough for the events as I always a 2 item reward, very rare I get these shovel things, 1 or 2 sometimes and they stop dropping. Unless you need silver reward rank, I don’t know.

Behellagh.1468:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s to be expected when the vast majority of rewards are based on gold. Can’t really blame players when the game is set up in such a manner.

Exactly. If I wouldn’t have to grind for the newest fluff on the gemstore all the time, I would have more time to do other things.

Which lends credence to the notion that the exchange was a bad idea because for the play style it encourages. Maybe a direct gems reward, limited to some amount per day could have prevented this yet allowed players to still partake the Gem Shop for free. But that doesn’t help the money supply neutrality of buying gold with Gems however (because the gold is from players buying gems).

Putting not everything in the gemstore would fix the problem. I’m not buying gems, even though I could, because I don’t see why I should support the strategy of putting everything new into the gemstore. So no, removing the conversion option would just lead to me quitting the game.

I think if they took the crests out of the chests as rewards, and put the crests for the keys into the events people would at least seek to do more than just Amber’s events. But this is just my opinion. I’m neither here nor there about the chest farming. I’ve partaken myself recently and it is decently fun. To me its akin to Crown Pavilion this year. Lots of Loot bags. That didn’t ruin the economy and this won’t either.

The only problem I have found is the lack of maps where people are farming the events themselves. I was one day late and I have yet to be able to complete all of my SW achievements because lack of help with bosses/defenses.

Ragnarox.9601:

why sw is better than everything else?

~10 world bosses->1 exotic(spoon) + 12 rares plus occasional rare + 3g (5h time)
~5 daily dungeons – 6 gold + maybe 3 rare (2h time if good group)

silverwastes-> 500 chests opened : ~min 5 exotics + 100g worth materials (4h farming)

see the point?

Exaggeration, but you’re right.

Kythan Myr.4719:

Will the devs ever learn?

They don’t care. If they wanted to ‘learn’ or improve anything (related to this topic) they would have.

Life goes on, farmers farm, ppl buy gems, a minority is unhappy, but still the money comes.

It’s how they acted so far and IMO they will never change / improve / evolve.

If the events were rewarding to complete then maybe it wouldn’t be an issue.

Honestly it has been 2+ years and tons of suggestions to make completed events more rewarding and they make these roundabout ways to get loot like this chest farming instead.

Is it really that hard to give chest rewards or more raw coin from an event completion? Serious question! One day I would like to see people running trains to complete actual events because they are rewarding, not failing them because we are ‘forced’ (I use that term loosely) to resort to silly unintended(?) methods of farming.

Champ bags from events complete instead of from the champs maybe. I’m sure it would be some work to evaluate how much bags you should get from every single vent in Tyria but imagine people actually playing the game as it was intended … owahhowhaowha crazy thought.

I’m sure some things would need to be made into events as well but eh it would be so much kewler to join a map and just see people running events and being aptly rewarded.

DonQuack.9025:

takes you 2hr to do 5 dungeons? wow.

CoF 15m
HotW 20-25m
TA 15-20m
SE 15m
CA 20m
=~95 min -1h 35m
but if you do
arah 30+
CoE 30…

yes 2h…someone goes afk, someone is not geared, someone 1st try and not telling it etc etc…

Players will always focus on the more rewarding aspect (or what the general playerbase at least think is).

But at least this time, chest farming in SW isn’t prone to trolling behavior and doesn’t cause harm to the rest of the map. You could argue that it causes events to fail everywhere else, but from what I saw, the scaling is really nicely done and it isn’t out of reach to solo a defense event.

Even though I think this farm will (and should be) slightly nerfed, I still have a very positive attitude towards it.

This farm being a mindless boring experience or an exciting challenging experience is fully in the hands of the player. I personally have switched my guardian build from a DPS/tagging build to a support one, and I really enjoy timing and chaining all the CC, blocks and heals to interrupt thrashers and pull away hyenas from chests, or to group mobs together and burn them down, or to rush and revive Osa, or to skip hordes of deadly Mordrem up the stairs to light the signal bonfire which calls for the air strike. If you actually do a bit of every defence event, you get enough shovels to keep the farm going forever; they say it’s around 1 shovel per 5 events, so if, say, 75 people tag an event (which they should anyway if they’re in the area), that’s about 15 shovels per event extra to shovels from achievement maps – quite okay if you ask me. If you combine it with fun chat in Teamspeak with guildies or map chat – then it becomes even better.

But yes, I also agree that part of the popularity of the farm goes to the anticipation of the nerf. I believe this farm was (yet another) design oversight: hoping that people will play the game as intended just because the game says so rarely works with gamers. With that many cases in the past, I figured that possible unintended farms would get far more attention now. Like, the first thing I thought when I read “Chests can be opened by everyone in the map” was “Wouldn’t people group up in a train to maximize the returns? Isn’t there any limit/cooldown on these chests?” But since Maize Balm farm was oficially completely okay… I don’t really know anymore.

I agree, somewhat, with the OP. Essentially, a majority of players would love new content that is just a row of slot machines that they would sit at, pulling the arm to get random loot. Occasionally, they might have to get up off their stools to fight a mob or two, then they can sit back down and keep playing the slots.

I mean, except for the graphics, this is exactly what they are doing…and exactly what Anet designed.

If Anet was serious, failing to protect the towers means the Modrem eventually take Camp Resolve. Then, it spreads to Dry Top and BW…losing the Way points there. As it is now, there is absolutely NO benefit in doing the events (protecting the towers) at all, and also no penalty…no actual consequences. When there are no consequences for failure (think the new education system in this country) then there is really no point.

I’ve been in SW on 2 of my 4 chars just to do the LS. Went in to do other things once, and got bored. Rewards were ok, if that is the point. And I guess it is.

Stop this nosense complaining. Many people simultaneously USE THEIR SHOVELS, therefore many chests pop up! They take turns unburying chests, and this makes it feel like an unintended farm, but it is COMPLETELY legit.

And it is a level 80 area, nothing wrong with decent loot at all.