Guild Wars 2

It’s time to think about reverting the Maize Balm changes that were made prior to Halloween this year. Below I’ll outline my reasons.

1. Maize Balm farming kept farmers occupied outside of the rest of the game. Farmers could farm in peace without (and this is the key part) disturbing or affecting other players. This means that, unlike many other types of farming in which one type of gameplay conflicts with another, ToT farmers existed in their own little bubble.

2. Maize Balm farming was dreadfully boring. I mean, really dull. You also couldn’t possibly automate it, meaning there was no way to cheat. This meant that if you wanted to “play” the game just to make gold, you could do that – but it would be so mind-numbingly boring that most people wouldn’t bother.

3. Halloween is over and HoT is no longer brand new. This means there’s no real reason to restrict Maize Balm farming now. Players won’t be missing content as they’ve already played it and Halloween won’t be affected as it’s already over.

4. Most methods of earning gold have been nerfed or removed. Every time someone finds a new method, it gets crippled very quickly. Dungeon rewards were nerfed and various other gold farms became completely unprofitable.

5. We were allowed to farm using Maize Balm for a year. If it was unintended or bad for the game, I’m sure it would have been changed before then. It seems to most of us Maize farmers that it was removed because of Halloween and HoT. As stated above, this should no longer be an issue.

So, here’s hoping the changes can be reverted. It would be nice to see ArenaNet living up to their “play how you want” mantra once more.

You’re missing the point.

They nerfed maize balm farming (and in fact nerf pretty much all unintended farms eventually) because it created an antagonistic relationship between farmers and people playing the game as intended.

Maize balm was added to the game as a utility item for some random halloween cheer, just like toilet paper and raw eggs. The fact that players decided to use it as a primary method of earning income was a failing in the design of the item, and anet wasn’t aware of the problem until those farmers got really up in the face of all the new free to play guys that were just playing the game as intended. Then forum posts were made, anet was made aware, and they fixed the design flaw.

Now it still has its intended function, but it can’t be abused in an unintended manner.

It doesn’t work like it used to – it’s basically worthless.
But I’m getting pretty rich by selling halloween bags which are at ~9.50s a piece
I have no idea or real opinion whether or not this change should be reverted but the nerf was typically anet: “We could nerf it a notch or into oblivion… umm, let’s do the latter!!”

ETA: And I farmed the ambients in wvw – our north camp – there was never a problem. All enemies who stole my bags where annihilated, all (but one) allies who accidently killed the candy corns sent the bags to me. And they had someone guarding NC win/win. But alas, the old borderlands are no more anyway, so..

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

And the refinement change. Awesome news! This means prices for precursor crafting should be reasonable across all of them rather than just half.

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

Nope. You can still do the T6 node farm. Ancient wood logs and Orichalcum ore remain relatively unchanged.

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

he asked for a source, you gave him none. If that was the reason then i would like pvp nerfed. A lot of god awful people come from there…

warduke.1780:

Farming wood is now pointless

Guild upgrades say hi. My guild currently requires a total of 3300 Elder wood planks. If you don’t want yours, I’ll take them off your hands for nothing as you deem them ‘worthless’

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

he asked for a source, you gave him none. If that was the reason then i would like pvp nerfed. A lot of god awful people come from there…

He made the initial claim so it’s on him to prove it. Otherwise I’ll make the claim that there’s a planet made of ice cream and for all those that disagree with me must prove me wrong.

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

he asked for a source, you gave him none. If that was the reason then i would like pvp nerfed. A lot of god awful people come from there…

He made the initial claim so it’s on him to prove it. Otherwise I’ll make the claim that there’s a planet made of ice cream and for all those that disagree with me must prove me wrong.

glad you have taken it beyond guild wars related. I have seen far more toxic places than bag farming. It clearly was to take out “farming” as it were.

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

That’s kind of the idea.

They want you playing the game because its fun, not doing boring repetitive tasks because they make better gold.

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

he asked for a source, you gave him none. If that was the reason then i would like pvp nerfed. A lot of god awful people come from there…

He made the initial claim so it’s on him to prove it. Otherwise I’ll make the claim that there’s a planet made of ice cream and for all those that disagree with me must prove me wrong.

glad you have taken it beyond guild wars related. I have seen far more toxic places than bag farming. It clearly was to take out “farming” as it were.

i haven’t taken it beyond GW2 related. Asking for someone who makes the initial claim to back up their argument isn’t so. Map/say chat was sometimes toxic just like the other farms such as QD champ farm and the tower one in FGS.

Still, that change to wood logs is amazing.

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

Nope. You can still do the T6 node farm. Ancient wood logs and Orichalcum ore remain relatively unchanged.

You do realize T6 nodes refresh once a day, right? Which makes them very poor to farm.

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

I would see your point, had this not been about guild wars 2…and in the Guild wars 2 universe…which is the problem.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I don’t think so, unless you could prove that wrong. I have never read something being nerfed because of chat. It is an mmo, if some one gets their undies in a bind over what some one said, they need to find a new game.

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

Nope. You can still do the T6 node farm. Ancient wood logs and Orichalcum ore remain relatively unchanged.

You do realize T6 nodes refresh once a day, right? Which makes them very poor to farm.

Not so much depending on how many characters you have. And like I said before, they’re not the only farm.

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

I would see your point, had this not been about guild wars 2…and in the Guild wars 2 universe…which is the problem.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I don’t think so, unless you could prove that wrong. I have never read something being nerfed because of chat. It is an mmo, if some one gets their undies in a bind over what some one said, they need to find a new game.

The point of the the ice cream planet was to show an example of a claim and then have anyone who disagrees with it to prove me wrong. Whether or not the example itself was related to GW didn’t matter. I even revised it in a later post for you to make it GW related.

You’re all quiet daft on the subject. This wasn’t player interactions, inflation, HoT release, or Halloween. It’s very simple, Maize was nerfed due to a loss of Gem sales. Anet sells Boosters for real life currency. Maize farming was the supply chain feeding everyone’s Candy Corn Gobblers. Meaning, our one time purchase negated any future sales of Gems for Boosters. That’s why the Candy Corn Gobbler has never reappeared in the Gem store. Especially when everyone wanted to run as many Boosters as possible to help with Mastery acquisition at HoT launch.

Maize was intended to be farmed long term all year round. It’s why the loot tables for ToT bags had some exceedingly rare items. You can tell they decided to removed ToT bags as a year round item by how they practically gave away those previously rare items in the new loot tables. Whomever came up with the original concept for the Candy Corn Gobbler and Maize farming made a lot of players happy. Whomever decided to remove it, well, they can enjoy a lump of coal in their stocking this year.

Lastly, I had more fun Maize Farming than HoT content. So one cannot say Maize changes were to encourage me to “have fun”. Ambients could have easily been moved outside of regular traffic patterns to reduce any possible “antagonistic” interactions. The Dev’s easily could have moved a cluster of Ambients to high level zones, even on the HoT maps to encourage players to go there. There are several nooks and passages on HoT maps that would have been perfect to place Ambients out of the way. Instead, the changes to Maize were, as I mentioned above, simply a removal for business reasons.

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

I would see your point, had this not been about guild wars 2…and in the Guild wars 2 universe…which is the problem.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I don’t think so, unless you could prove that wrong. I have never read something being nerfed because of chat. It is an mmo, if some one gets their undies in a bind over what some one said, they need to find a new game.

How about the Queensdale champ farm and the toxic chat related to that?

Ah yes the ’Every inconvenient economic change exists to sell gems" defense.

No.

That’s not it.

When they want to shill gems they do exactly what they’ve been doing. They create overpriced “appearance Packs” and rachet the release rate of gem store skins up to 11.

They don’t derive a meaningful amount of gem sales from gems purchased specifically for gold/gem sales, and they don’t give a crap about booster sales. That exachange rate doesn’t meaningfully alter the economy because buying gems doesn’t create gold and furthermore they give away so many boosters that leaving them in the shop is an afterthought

It’s the same reason that PLEX prices in EVE are a reflection of, not a motivator for, the value of currency or relative gold/currency ratios, and EVE was the originator of the “sanctioned gold selling” idea.

They’ve shown pretty clearly that when they’re desperate for gems money they simply add more crap to the gem store and less to the game. They don’t nerf ingame gold faucets to encourage gem trading because in order to get a good gold rate for gems, people have to be able to farm gold in the first place to sell it to the buyer

As for your attestation that you had more fun maize farming than doing HoT content, that’s completely subjective, and intentionally obtuse. Point is they didn’t design balms for farming. They don’t design anything for “stand here and kill x 90 times” farming. They design the game around completing instances, PvP matches, or Events. They’ve made changes multiple times to every mob farm that became disruptive to intended play patterns. Including as recently as nerfing the verdant brink spider farm. They didn’t nerf the CoF farm because its in an instance and has no disruptive effect on other players in an economic or practical play sense.

In your haste to just talk crap about HoT and Anet, you’re blinding yourself to the facts. Anet’s management has been screwing up and chasing cash at the expense of player enjoyment a lot lately, but that has nothing to do with maizebalm nerfs or any ingame economic adjustments.

By your logic, one could attribute any change in any game with a cash shop to ‘they nerfed it so they can sell more gold’

Here’s a post about the Blix farm that was nerfed. Also read his subsequent post in that thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/About-that-blix-exploit/first#post4315297

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

I would see your point, had this not been about guild wars 2…and in the Guild wars 2 universe…which is the problem.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I don’t think so, unless you could prove that wrong. I have never read something being nerfed because of chat. It is an mmo, if some one gets their undies in a bind over what some one said, they need to find a new game.

How about the Queensdale champ farm and the toxic chat related to that?

yes it was toxic? did I just not say this game has toxic areas? that was nerfed because it was farmable. they do not nerf stuff because of players, there wouldn’t be a game. If people are making more money than they should be anet will nerf it, just like everything else they have to cripple farming.

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s a post about the Blix farm that was nerfed. Also read his subsequent post in that thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/About-that-blix-exploit/first#post4315297

alright ;p

Maize Balm farm was one of most cancerest so far,poor players that were lvling in the area were bullyed by crazy mob of naked people.

Is “toxicity” a problem? yes. Still the maize balm was left unchanged for a year.
Is people making a lot of money a problem? No as this was a gold sink for anet – everything sold on the TP is a gold sink.
Is people using bots to farm these bags a problem? Yes it is and I saw it – one guy with 8 bots.
I guess it was several reasons that led to that nerf.
ETA: And btw I’m still pretty sad that the queensdale farm was nerfed. I miss it, although I never really participated but that map seemed lively because of the chat – and no people weren’t “toxic” – at least not on my server.

Nick Lentz.6982:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nick Lentz.6982:

Ayrilana.1396:

Nick Lentz.6982:

right, ice cream planet, totes in Guild wars. yet guild wars related.
the nerf was most certain not for toxic reasons. that would be absurd, unless you live in a bubble and hide in a far away cave in Tyria, They’d have to nerf/get rid of 80% of the people. Everything in this game has toxic people. That’s a mmo (surprise). People were making too much money(also surprise) so anet had to drop the hammer on it.

It was to prove a point which you missed. But fine, I’ll revise. In the same universe as Tyria, there is a planet made of ice cream. There is also a golden, shiny planet in the shape of cheese. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Farms were nerfed for toxic chat before.

I would see your point, had this not been about guild wars 2…and in the Guild wars 2 universe…which is the problem.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I don’t think so, unless you could prove that wrong. I have never read something being nerfed because of chat. It is an mmo, if some one gets their undies in a bind over what some one said, they need to find a new game.

How about the Queensdale champ farm and the toxic chat related to that?

yes it was toxic? did I just not say this game has toxic areas? that was nerfed because it was farmable. they do not nerf stuff because of players, there wouldn’t be a game. If people are making more money than they should be anet will nerf it, just like everything else they have to cripple farming.

Shall I point out the part I was referring to in your post?

I have never read something being nerfed because of chat

That was nerfed because of toxic chat in the starting areas. They removed all those champs, but not the high level champs. The farm switched to there and continued there with zergs of people farming the champs, until better farms came up.

PopeUrban.2578:

wall of more daft

Jana.6831:

Is people using bots to farm these bags a problem? Yes it is and I saw it – one guy with 8 bots.

I’m pretty certain you only saw what you wanted to see Jana. Just like Pope only see’s the “intended” design to be what he wants it to be. Anyone deviating from that is obviously doing it wrong and it must be removed, right? That is exactly what is toxic in game. Players telling other players what to do and how to do it. That’s probably what most troll’s in game tell themselves to justify their actions too.

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m pretty certain you only saw what you wanted to see Jana.

Yeah of course and with me 20 others who were on that map at the time.

ETA: Believe it or not; there are bots and probably more than you or I think – I have friends who are capable of writing these programs and who alarm me every time they see a bot, of course with “Oh my, I would have written that programm wayyy better than this dude!” And since I’m a farmer myself I know what is odd behaviour, like porting after every node – which is of course hard to make out as you don’t know where they’re porting to. If soemone disappears after mining rich nodes that’s a different thing.
But that guy with the 8 bots was definitively a farmer with 8 bots as he stopped throwing Maize Balm after he was called out and the bots just stood there while he was angrily defending himself.

I’ve a feeling it wasn’t just the toxic chat but the fact people were reporting each other for griefing (probably a lot of false cases) as well as abuse. Never took part in a maize farm but I stumbled across one while levelling my first character a couple of weeks before the nerf and daaaaamn, there was more salt in chat than in the sea on the map. The nerf came as no surprise to me after that and the threads on the forums complaining about people being kittens. If something’s a major source of conflict in a game that there’s a crapton of reports over (especially false ones which are a waste of staff time), they’re going to fix it with a nerf; as much as the gem store theory is so fantastically constructed

Also:

DeWolfe.2174:

Anyone deviating from that is obviously doing it wrong and it must be removed, right? That is exactly what is toxic in game. Players telling other players what to do and how to do it. That’s probably what most troll’s in game tell themselves to justify their actions too.

Uh, that’s what maize farmers were doing to new players… So by your own admission it was toxic?

To be fair: I have never seen toxity on the bloodtide coast. There’s always 5 mins on some map somewhere where people argue- for mostly no reason.
To me people who call a few mins of disharmony toxic are a problem themselves.

Bloodtide Coast was actually where I observed the problem while levelling (first character, been playing a couple of days, doing hearts for karma/exp/getting the measure of the game), hadn’t come across any farmers until then. I just made up my mind there and then never to approach anyone who was farming. A couple of new players who made that mistake were yelled at so I learned from it -shrugs- I can honestly say I don’t care either way about the nerf but remembering people complaining on the forums about being reported as griefing for accidentally tagging/killing a mob when they had no idea what was going on… :/

They could have moved some ambients, sure. Most likely it was a variety of reasons but I honestly don’t think the gem store really figured into it much if it all. But ya know, this is all conjecture without someone from ANet giving their side, at which people will probably still claim there were reasons they won’t disclose to us. Such is life.

DeWolfe.2174:

PopeUrban.2578:

wall of more daft

Jana.6831:

Is people using bots to farm these bags a problem? Yes it is and I saw it – one guy with 8 bots.

I’m pretty certain you only saw what you wanted to see Jana. Just like Pope only see’s the “intended” design to be what he wants it to be. Anyone deviating from that is obviously doing it wrong and it must be removed, right? That is exactly what is toxic in game. Players telling other players what to do and how to do it. That’s probably what most troll’s in game tell themselves to justify their actions too.

And just as you attach… unsubstantiated claims using completely subjective reasoning, despite what we were told directly by the people who designed the item, and adjusted it right?

Because, when measuring basic logic and arenanet’s own statements against someone who is simply openly antagonistic to the product and development team in general, with a long post history of blaming literally every economic change on the gem store somewhere, it makes infinitely more sense to say “Yeah DeWolfe, you must be right, you’re qualified to make these decisions, and are completely objective!”

Rather than actually attempt to refute my claim you simply dismiss it with one statement because there is no evidence to support your position.

You’re just mad that arenanet did… whatever… that you didn’t like and choose to blame it in microtransactions with no evidence whatsoever to back that up.

In fact, your entire position supposes that they nerfed balm to sell boosters. Even if we completely discount arenanet’s statements, we can see through action that they have demonstrated a clear pattern of giving away larger and larger amounts of boosters as time has gone on since release, and nerfing mob farms that do not conform to their intended design but leaving be farms that actually conform to that design

Like such greats as:

• Shelter-Penitent (nerfed because anet didn’t want people farming one event over and over)

• Queensdale Champ train (nerfed because of conflict between new players and champ train farmers)

• Boss train alt farming (Nerfed because anet felt alts overly advantaged players using them for boss chests)

• Dungeons (Nerfed because Fractals were designed for gold farming, dungeons were designed for token farming, and there were no further plans to support dungeons)

• Maize balm (nerfed because of social impact and unintended play patterns)

• L10 Story key Farming (nerfed because of unintended play patterns and unintended gain rate of free keys. This one actually IS about gem store sales)

• VB Spiders (nerfed because of impact on zone meta and social impact)

yet they left

• Silverwastes Chest farms (left because chest hunting teams is the intended design, and events must be completed to gain access to shovels

• Northern Champ Farm (Left because it mirrors normal play patterns and is simply more efficient event cycling)

• CoF xp farm (left because it has no potential negative economic or social impact on others)

Their pattern aligns well with what they’ve said.

Now, if all you’ve got is the word “daft” then more power to you, but the fact is there’s no logical or factual basis for your claims, and they are built on nothing but a desire to appear smarter than other people and sling mud at arenanet.

Anet deserves to be held accountable for the stupid crap it does, and it does a lot of stupid crap, but your level of delusional paranoid conspiracy theories would be comical were they not so blatantly mean spirited.

Bellatrixa.3546:

Bloodtide Coast was actually where I observed the problem while levelling (first character, been playing a couple of days, doing hearts for karma/exp/getting the measure of the game), hadn’t come across any farmers until then. I just made up my mind there and then never to approach anyone who was farming. A couple of new players who made that mistake were yelled at so I learned from it -shrugs- I can honestly say I don’t care either way about the nerf but remembering people complaining on the forums about being reported as griefing for accidentally tagging/killing a mob when they had no idea what was going on… :/

I already said that I’ve been there as well (did several map completions) and never came across any toxicity. I came across “toxic” behaviour in frostgroge though when anet decided to make an event’s fail more lucrative than it’s succeed and also tied the personal story to a successful event. That was for about a week.
So, why didn’t I encounter any toxic behaviour on the bloodtide coast or in Queensdale when it was such a huuuuuuuuggggeeee problem?
Or are people just used to being put into cotton wool so they think that everything is “toxic”?

ETA: I still think tehre were several reasons why this was nerfed – and I’m not sure it had to be nerfed that hard – but alas. We will never know the exact reason why is was nerfed as the complaint threads about the farmers came up 3 days after the balm was brought into game, yet it was kept like it was for 1 year – makes you think, right?

“toxic” is a buzzword like “slap in the face” and “veteran players” that people just use because they think it makes them sound smart.

As for your experiences in bloodtide and queensdale, I’d imagine you didn’t encounter any problems with others because you weren’t disrupting their farm, and didn’t hang around their farms in local all that long. There were, however, lots and lots of screenshot backed posts in both incidents, and those player complaints (in addition to possible botting or economic concerns) were likely the catalyst that clued anet in that there was something they might want to look at.

The fact is Arenanet doesn’t pay a lot of attention to what goes on in its game and the fact that something goes unchanged for a long time persists is no indicator it is intended behavior. I assure you the only reason key farms were left as they were for so long is that nobody decided to look in to the metrics and saw exactly how much money they were losing on key sales, not because Anet wanted people to have more keys. When they wanted people to have more things, they started handing them out.

Anet is never subtle in its balancing. They do it with a sledgehammer that sends shockwaves of forum posts radiating from the point of impact with the force of a thousand kittens. I can’t percieve a world in which anet does anything with secret ulterior motives that the player base doesn’t immediately recognize because, quite frankly, they’re not that good at tweaking by small margins as a studio.

I was around quite a bit cause I’m a farmer and did map completion and my guild loved that farm.

In past years the BLTP has offered the Candy Corn Gobbler:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Candy_Corn_Gobbler

This was/is the absolute best way to get basically free buffs by mass consumption of very cheap candy corn.

I think Anet finally realized that players were not buying the BLTP buffs when you could almost get them for free from this item so they took a few steps to protect their income.

1. They didn’t sell the gobbler this year and i doubt it will ever be available again.
2. Nerf Maize Balms making farming of candy corn en masse impossible.
3. Create an item in game that would create a portal to LA anddrive the price of candy corn up by using huge amounts of it. (Rediculous because going to the pvp lobby and then exiting the LA portal does the same thing).

Removing the restrictions on maize balms now would be in their minds a decision that will directly effect their income on the bltp, so i don’t think it’s going to happen.

PopeUrban.2578:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

That’s kind of the idea.

They want you playing the game because its fun, not doing boring repetitive tasks because they make better gold.

I missed this memo. How exactly did they change the lower level wood farm?

Celtic Lady.3729:

PopeUrban.2578:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

warduke.1780:

Ayrilana.1396:

1) There have been threads with players complaining about being harassed when killing ambient a whether it be to complete a heart, go for the achievement, or as they’re passing through. They were not in their own bubble.

2) It could be automated and was. Not difficult to program a bot to go around in a set loop I would imagine. Bots have done more complicated things.

3) Maize farming wasn’t restricted for the reasons that you listed.

4) Doesn’t mean that this method needs to get reinstated. Have you tried node farming for lower tiered wood logs and ore?

All wrong. ArenaNet just decided to ruin “lower tiered wood logs” in their latest patch. So, they need to reinstate old methods of farming gold.

All that I said were true. Please provide source that Anet ruined lower tier wood log farming with the latest patch.

Source? Look at the prices now. Go on. Have a little look.

It’s not ruined as you can still farm it as you did before and make a decent amount of gold. It’s just not as lucrative as before with the 30G/hr. I also don’t see anything stating what the cause so how are you certain that it is Anet?

Oh the bags. Like I said, you can still farm the nodes and there’s still the T6 node farm. It’s also not the only farm.

Farming wood is now pointless, like every other farm in the game.

That’s kind of the idea.

They want you playing the game because its fun, not doing boring repetitive tasks because they make better gold.

I missed this memo. How exactly did they change the lower level wood farm?

Bags can drop wood but the major thing was that they dropped soft wood from needing 4 logs to be refined down to 2 logs.

On a separate note, it looks like the JP can net you over 30G/hr if prices on presents remain the same.