Guild Wars 2

Esplen.3940:

skullmount.1758:

Astral Projections.7320:

Ohoni.6057:

Since I didn’t quote you, then I never said you said that.

I’m just saying, I’ve heard complaints that certain common drops did not have any practical use so they keep piling up (the solution being to give them more useful, repeatable purposes), but I’ve never once heard ANYONE complain that anything should be dropping less than it is.

Some samples:

Bloodstone dust: “The rate at acquiring bloodstone dust is, in my opinion, too high” too much bloodstone dust.
Butter and chocolate: can you tone down the butter and chocolate (there were numerous posts around that time about butter and chocolate)
Individual post: dragonite
“Dragonite drop need to be nerfed. I get so many of these things, it’s unreal. The drops exceed even the Bloodstones.” source

I’m sure I can find more if I wanted to search longer but that’s what a few minutes got me. While most people do call for additional uses, in the ~2 years I’ve played I’ve seen a number of posts about increasing/decreasing drop rates of various items.

To be fair, Butter Wars 2 was an actual problem. It was coming out of just about every bag.

But yeah, I only did maybe 30 trees yesterday and didn’t get even 1 foxfire. At least the price will hopefully keep dropping. Might have to take an hour or so and go clear cutting across Orr.

And the butter was coming out in stacks of 2-10… Shudders I still have nightmares.

I think there was enough butter to kill an ED by giving him a heart attack/cholesterol problem. Maybe thats why Jormag/Primordus/Krakky have been so dormant. They’re still trying to digest all that butter…

I’ve gotten one in two days.

Ran around several maps the other day harvisting T5 wood nodes for absolutely nothing

hours of playtime completely wasted

im not even going to bother farming these things
they clearly have a pathetically low drop rate for some people and drop stupidly common for others

Yup, Anet’s RNG at it’s finest. After harvesting ~30 nodes without a foxfire drop, I’ve decided not to waste any more of my life running up to virtual trees and pressing interact; I have plenty of other more entertaining and/or productive things to do with my life, tyvm. I’ll let others do the dirty work and just buy them off the tp when the price drops in the future.

Not that I’m complaining, because it’s not a very important item… but with this being basically the most tangible reward (besides the equally RNG kites) from this entry to the LS, I think I’d rather work through my massive backlog of steam/ps3 games during my leisure time. Hopefully others will have enough fun clicking tree slot machines that the price will have plummeted by the time I come back to the game.

spikyblackhair.4951:

Yup, Anet’s RNG at it’s finest. After harvesting ~30 nodes without a drop,

I got one on my second tree, and haven’t see one since. I’m just gonna get it as more players give up and sell theirs.

Morsus.5106:

spikyblackhair.4951:

Yup, Anet’s RNG at it’s finest. After harvesting ~30 nodes without a drop,

I got one on my second tree, and haven’t see one since. I’m just gonna get it as more players give up and sell theirs.

Indeed; especially for those of us with some gold earned from investments, it just doesn’t make sense to slave away during our leisure time doing the gw2 equivalent of cotton picking, as crude as that sounds. Anyhow, even if one wants foxfires immediately, it’s infinitely more productive and entertaining to just do a 6 minute CoF run and buy some off the tp, so to anyone reading this thread, I’d recommend you go that route.

Thats What I was thinking about doing
run some dungeons and buy them lol
im in no rush though I have everything I need besides the FoxFire drops
I put my bid on the TP and im just gonna wait until they are worth nothing and buy them when my bid becomes the highest lol

I was going for some Foxfire today since I had nothing better to do while getting IV medicine and found that my Warrior alt has much better RNG luck than my main. She got 6 in Cursed Shore, but then when I did it with my main he got 5 from 3 maps. So stupid and annoying.

Spent 4 hours last night harvesting in Orr and Dry Top and got 3. 4 hours…

Gotta agree on the whole virtual tree comment above… I’m going to leave the dirty work to TP sellers, honestly.

They just hit 86s so it’s not going to cost an arm and leg, especially a few weeks in.

I tried running around and harvesting the “intended” way, and after an hour or so I didn’t have enough foxfires to even do that day’s daily combine.

So I said screw it and did what everyone else did, park my alts at Pagga. A 10 minute harvesting run a few times a day for a few days and I have all the foxfires I need.

I been trying to get them since yesterday. I did the whole map of Frostgorge Sound yesterday and today. I find ZERO!!!!!

I hate this RNG. I am so tire of this game at this point. When a game makes you tire and angry. It means it is time for me to move on.

I shall be back in a year or two when they get these things sorted out. So tire of RNG

2 tree cluster, 5 trees a cluster, 4 logs a tree, 5 alts

= 200 chances an hour

Got 10 foxfire in about 5 minutes of chopping, not a bad investment or very difficult.

I give it 3 days until they remove the spot, so go do it now and don’t come back here and complain when they nerf the spot.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

2 tree cluster, 5 trees a cluster, 4 logs a tree, 5 alts

= 200 chances an hour

Got 10 foxfire in about 5 minutes of chopping, not a bad investment or very difficult.

I give it 3 days until they remove the spot, so go do it now and don’t come back here and complain when they nerf the spot.

Inevitably maybe will get nerfed so where’s this spot?

The rate is plenty fine. If you have alts and have no care as to what you are doing.

You can even just port into WvW for quick access to a bank to store or TP to vend it for no waypoint cost.

RNG is very sucky on this one. My warrior managed nearly 16 ranging over Dry Top, Malachor, Cursed Shore and Frostgorge the first two days. Since then it has been 4 or less a day even trying with alts. Boosters seem to have little to no effect that I could see. I saw someone say in chat in Dry Top that the cacti were also giving them but have never seen them. Nor have I ever seen one in Ancient wood. Only in the elder wood. I don’t mind working for them but this seems on the pointless side working so hard for so few. At least allow the RNG give you a minimum of 4 a day over so much farming. Give more as a special reward occasionally…

I gave narwhalsbend a big +1 … I was actually pleasantly surprised that I got these mysterious items, I was hoping on an interesting side quest to find locations, perhaps get ‘a couple’ (as is 2 or possibly more, but still less than 6) of items to extend the combination possibilities…

Then I noticed this ‘show location’ thing, and it just blatantly showed where to go ?!? Like sure, it’s going to be on the interwebs in under 24h, but at least people can choose to use that as a source. And yes, obviously I didn’t look at the other pieces…

But then I read these threads about the whole process, and I’m like …?!?… so I dig a lil deeper and now what should have been a fun side quest to ponder about and see if I can find the things I need based on clues etc. I see I have to work a whole chore list including time gated crafting at 400+ level for several crafting professions, need to get lucky on farming a great number of trees as well as farm Dry Top…

Now I have done and participated in quite a number of Scavenger Hunts in GW1, organized by the community that felt a lot more enticing than this…

Some pointers:
- Remove those silly ‘show me’s from the item… if people do not want to spend the time they will use the internet, it will be on there in a matter of days. But at least you do not make those that want to challenge themselves look stupid to themselves by not just clicking the item…

- Know the world you make the hunt in, and make sure clues are descriptive, a clue doesn’t have to lead straight to the item, they can lead to another clue.

- Use a scavenger hunt to showcase clues or hints as they pertain to the story. This is more of an implementation feedback, but it could be nice to use the scavenger hunt to lead to places that have dialog or scenery that has to do with the story. f/e:
a. Close to some Priory Caravan that has a quarrel on whether to continue or not after the recent events.
b. Some villagers talking about another dragon. The ‘have you heard it ’gossip’ like stuff’
c. A location where the Vines have also struck, but where we have no immediate link to in our story journal. F/e. bringing us somewhere along the path of the vines (or a bit onward along the path) and have it attack a Krait Den. OR, you could have us enter some ruins that have vines in them and the upgrade location of some item shows that there was ‘once’ an object with great magic there, and that the residual magic in the area is enough to upgrade, with vines there it is pretty clear what happened…

- Try and avoid to have to make new drops, but utilize or change existing ones:
a. Source of Clay: from Earth Elementals (in combination with f/e turning pepples/gravel/stone to some NPC), from silky sand (dried up chunk of clay), from Geodes (as ’this is not a geode, just a hump of dried up clay), or Grab it from some swampy environment.
b. etc…

Guess one example is enough to illustrate that a scavenge hunt doesn’t have to be a ‘farm and craft’ list of chores … if anything, it has to do with riddles and exploration …

The drop rate is a bit rare (got 4 last night harvesting in Dry Top over one hour), but I feel I should point out that the Nightmare Vine backpiece is here to stay permanently. Sure, prices are expensive now, but there is only one use for the Foxfire, and players will only ever need to craft one to unlock the skin. Foxfire will continue to drop for years to come.

Give it a month or two, and I predict prices will collapse. For my part, I’m going to slowly harvest what I need, and if by the time I’m ready to craft it, prices have fallen to the 10s range or lower, then I’ll buy up any shortfall.

I just want to say a big thank you to most of the people in this thread.

I love you guys.

Patch after patch you are making me richer cause you want everything on the first day.

Please never change and keep supporting me!

Aerinndis.2730:

Nor have I ever seen one in Ancient wood.

They do drop from Ancient wood, though. That’s where I got my, so far, two Foxfires from.

munkiman.3068:

Labjax.2465:

Nilkemia.8507:

Wait…you can’t choose it’s stats when you make it?

I don’t know. I may be wrong about that part.

No, you can’t.

However, once you unlock the skin you can use it with your current back piece that has the stats you want.

Heibi.4251:

However, once you unlock the skin you can use it with your current back piece that has the stats you want.

Still, the point I was making was all the effort you put in and if you don’t already have a good backpiece (like an exotic or rare quality one), then you’re getting one out of it that you may not even want for its stats (e.g. an aggrandized skin).

If you already have an amazing backpiece with the stats you want, then obviously getting another one is just going to be for the skin regardless.

Heibi.4251:

munkiman.3068:

Labjax.2465:

Nilkemia.8507:

Wait…you can’t choose it’s stats when you make it?

I don’t know. I may be wrong about that part.

No, you can’t.

However, once you unlock the skin you can use it with your current back piece that has the stats you want.

I’m hoping they make it ascended and you can choose the stats like the tempered one.

Bubi.7942:

I just want to say a big thank you to most of the people in this thread.

I love you guys.

Patch after patch you are making me richer cause you want everything on the first day.

Please never change and keep supporting me!

HA! I just need to point out that this is funny. Because it’s so true. I almost decided to spend the ridiculous amount of gold for them on the TP, but then thought, nah I can wait, I don’t need it now. It won’t mean as much to own one if I didn’t personally take the time and effort to make it myself. Anyhow still funny though.

CrimeDog.5614:

Bubi.7942:

I just want to say a big thank you to most of the people in this thread.

I love you guys.

Patch after patch you are making me richer cause you want everything on the first day.

Please never change and keep supporting me!

HA! I just need to point out that this is funny. Because it’s so true. I almost decided to spend the ridiculous amount of gold for them on the TP, but then thought, nah I can wait, I don’t need it now. It won’t mean as much to own one if I didn’t personally take the time and effort to make it myself. Anyhow still funny though.

Unfortunately the “time and effort” part varies a lot.

My BF who’s sitting right beside me gets 6 clusters from the first few trees he cuts down (followed by many when he goes on a farm run). I can cut down trees a whole evening without a single cluster.

I just experienced that yesterday. I went through all Orr Maps + Southsun and Forstgorge yesterday and got nothing. I also paid mutliple visits to the statues… Nothing. Just right before I wanted to go offline I decided to cut down just another few trees and those last 5 trees gave me 3 clusters… 3 clusters a day… This means, I couldn’t even do the daily if I relied on my own luck…

I will definitely buy the clusters off the TP, but not now. I let those who find it fun cut down wood while I make money with the few clusters I randomly get when passing by a tree. Apart from that I will just continue having fun with other content until the price drops.

This has nothing to do with “speeding things up”, more with “sitting it out”. I just don’t want to reduce my online time to cutting down wood (worth nothing by now) without any guarantee I will ever see a cluster. I simply don’t see the motiviation in it – nor is it an “achievement” of any sort… It’s juts a grind.

8 alts with 10% gathering banner + 33% gathering boost
+
Park at Malchor’s Leap statue
+
Redo every hour while playing other games/netflixing
= massive golds for 0 effort

Well, the MP price is declining, so maybe it isn’t as bad as we are making it out to be.

A few days ago it was going for 2g but it was 76s yesterday.

Domino.1359:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

2 tree cluster, 5 trees a cluster, 4 logs a tree, 5 alts

= 200 chances an hour

Got 10 foxfire in about 5 minutes of chopping, not a bad investment or very difficult.

I give it 3 days until they remove the spot, so go do it now and don’t come back here and complain when they nerf the spot.

Inevitably maybe will get nerfed so where’s this spot?

One such cluster is at the statue of Melandru, west of Pagga’s Waypoint in Malchor’s Leap. If there’s a second one as well, as the OP suggests, I haven’t personally tripped over it yet.

I managed 11 in 8 hours. But then I wasn’t actively searching for them. So I hope they don’t change it.

agrante.2810:

On a side note, we’re collecting an essence of foxfire, which is produced by fungi that live from decaying wood, from saplings, young growing trees. I guess Earth biology only partially applies in Tyria (or someone should get their biology facts straight). On the other hand we’re choping down ancient saplings, I guess those froze in time and never actually had a chance to grow… they do re-spawn though. Oh the idiosyncrasies of MMOs…

For starters it’s not real, it’s make-believe.

Secondly, even if it were real, Earth biology wouldn’t apply at all on Tyria. Because it’s…you know…not Earth.

Finally got all I needed. I started in Malachor’s Leap and grabbed a gathering banner (many thanks to those guilds who provided them!) ran the bit around the Melandru statue and then ran around the rest of the zone gathering and then went to Cursed Shore, gathered there and on to Frostgorge. Repeated on 2 other avatars that have made it to those maps. If I had the time I ran them all twice a day but also picked up events here and there as well since they were going on. You would think with all the other stuff that drops that folk like Svanir would have collected the clusters and they would drop from them as well…

I did go long periods of time with nothing (gathering boost didn’t help either) then it seemed to hit and I would get them every couple of trees. The last day I even got two clusters from the last tree I logged so that put me one over what I needed. It was a grind but doable. I also changed it up farming for geodes in Dry Top so I could buy the clay. Over all I also got a lot of good materials for crafting that I needed so I guess it was worth it. Hopefully the drop rate will improve as things move on. I suspect it would take forever to gather those clusters if you were doing it casually.

I did enjoy the scavenger hunt aspect of it as well. That was a nice change of pace.

Vol.7601:

8 alts with 10% gathering banner + 33% gathering boost
+
Park at Malchor’s Leap statue
+
Redo every hour while playing other games/netflixing
= massive golds for 0 effort

I started doing this today (minus the gathering boost, but with the banner assists as they’ve been available – which, so far has been all the time). Today there were 8 trees at or close to the Statue of Melandru, and I managed 40 clusters at a rate of slightly better than one drop per alt run. That’s a 3-4% drop rate, if my maths is reasonable. Oh, and with very little running between nodes, it’s taking me an average of about 2 and a half minutes of actual farming per drop (YMMV, obviously).

Having lots of level 80 alts helps.

There is a second cluster of trees is at Waywarde Waypoint in straits

fishball.7204:

There is a second cluster of trees is at Waywarde Waypoint in straits

Yes, found it – Statue of Melandru, somewhat to the west of the waypoint. The problem with that one is that the WP is usually contested, so (in my case at least) it’s undoubtedly far more efficient just to ignore it and switch alts than to spend time running to it.

Although I have to admit the run is at least less boring than continual axe-thumping… …and if you’re bounced to another WP, you’re likely to pass a few more trees on the way there anyway. Undoubtedly worth including in your farming, if you’re running on a single character.

i saw this thread so i’ll ask here i had 200 chops and 1 cluster. Is this normal or just bad luck? i willing to work for my stuff but it feels out of wack the amout that i got after 200 chops.

Cheers,
Nassaya.

If you are finding the drop rate too small and want to get those clusters ASAP because you know, you GOTTA HAVE IT NOW. Might I suggest just buying the clusters from the TP for ~70s/ea.

Draknar.5748:

If you are finding the drop rate too small and want to get those clusters ASAP because you know, you GOTTA HAVE IT NOW. Might I suggest just buying the clusters from the TP for ~70s/ea.

I don’t wanna have them ASAP but if i get 1 or 2 for every 200 chops it’s kinda stupid.

nassaya.7109:

i saw this thread so i’ll ask here i had 200 chops and 1 cluster. Is this normal or just bad luck? i willing to work for my stuff but it feels out of wack the amout that i got after 200 chops.

Cheers,
Nassaya.

My luck seems to reflect that pretty well. And have not seen it get any better yet.

I’ve resorted to camping a character in Orr since I’m sick and don’t feel like actively playing hard atm. And my luck is still no better. Random is really random. I’ve gotten 9 firefox clusters since patch, farming at least 200 logs a day, usually 300. I’m in no rush but I can’t help but feel it seems off compared to others luck.

Please invent cosmetic bonfire. 100 elder wood logs for a fire out in the open that lasts 5 minutes.

Always hard to say, I seem to get enough to be doing that daily recipe. Only just started, I did sell them in the beginning. I’m not sure if an incentive for wood cutting was needed, hehe.

nassaya.7109:

Draknar.5748:

If you are finding the drop rate too small and want to get those clusters ASAP because you know, you GOTTA HAVE IT NOW. Might I suggest just buying the clusters from the TP for ~70s/ea.

I don’t wanna have them ASAP but if i get 1 or 2 for every 200 chops it’s kinda stupid.

I’ve gotten 1 foxfire in probably 75 chops, so it sounds like your experience is pretty accurate. Luckily like people have said there are areas you can go to easily farm them, so it’s not as kittenay farming T6 mats or something, yet they sell for more than T6 mats currently, which is odd. I assume its because everyone is wanting to get their backpiece quickly without having to farm wood so they are willing to spend a little extra.

The way I farm for things without having to farm for them is just a mental trick. I’ll farm for dragonite or something from world bosses or Dry Top chests. Every Rare I get I pretty much equate to either 1 T6 mat or possibly 1 Foxfire cluster depending on the Rare I get. Worst case is 2 rares per Foxfire. If I get burned out doing bosses, I’ll run some dungeons/FoTM, if I burn out doing Dry Top, I’ll run EoTM, if I get burned out on EoTM I’ll do WvW (similar to EoTM but actually quite different), if I burn out on WvW I’ll farm the actual trees for awhile in Orr. All of these net you Rares/gold (or the clusters themselves) which you can either salvage to sell ectos or sell directly on TP. Turn that into Foxfire money.

It helps to break up the monotony having multiple avenues to the same end goal. Some people forget you can look at things that way and only look at the one source to get Foxfire and don’t consider the others and then burn out farming one thing.

Decide where you’d rather spend your time. Because with an open market like the TP, there are plenty of people who have already done the work for you, you just need to come up with the funds and there are tons of ways to do that in this game luckily.

I think the drop rates are decent for their worth. For now I sell them, while worth a pretty penny. I’ll buy them back later when they’re cheap.

I get roughly 1-2 per day

Based on my experience, I’d say there’s a 1/20 chance of getting a Foxfire from harvesting wood. (It may possibly be a higher chance from T6 nodes. I haven’t harvested enough Ancient Wood to know for certain.)

Zaxares.5419:

Based on my experience, I’d say there’s a 1/20 chance of getting a Foxfire from harvesting wood. (It may possibly be a higher chance from T6 nodes. I haven’t harvested enough Ancient Wood to know for certain.)

Just to make things confusing and conspirations may be founded I’ll add my bit of experience to this:

I had 2 foxfires drops from the SAME node 2 times.

Both were Ancient wood.

I don’t know how you guys are getting 10+ foxfire per hours, or i have very bad luck, since i am getting three foxfires per hour, farming the three Orrian maps. I chopped 250 elder woods once without any sight of foxfire.

Three AC runs (45min) and you already get enough gold to buy 7-8 clusters if you need them for the backpack. With the current drop rate collecting them is no where near my favorite (or worthwhile) ways of getting gold.

I really don’t understand how everyone is reporting such low drops. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve been consistently getting 1 foxfire every 45 logs or so. I’ve got a pretty large sample size, (>1000 logs) and the only boost that I’m using is the occasional guild banner. I’m not even using a gem store axe, just Orichalcum.

If you’re farming, I’d really recommend just staying in Melchor’s Leap and Cursed Shore. Do a quick run through the map, starting at Pagga’s and work left (make sure to go up to Lyssa’s temple, 4-6 nodes up there) until you get to Cursed Shore, then do the same thing going down. Go do something else while you wait for the hour to reset nodes and then start over. Not very tedious, and you can break it up by finding the occasional champ fight or jumping into a temple run as you’re going by.

On average I get 1 foxfire per 34 wood logs.

Honestly, Please please cut down the drop rate so the price goes up!! How am I a poor player to make gold! (tongue in cheek)

I worked at harvesting the clusters. I still do not think the drop rate, at least for me, is all that great but it was doable with some effort farming Dry Top, Frostgorge, Malachor’s Leap, Cursed Shore and any other place with elder logs. (I made the rounds on any alt who had those maps which helped) It just took some time.

I made the back piece and now have a Cultivated Seed which says: “The first seed cultivated and produced by your own hand. To cultivate this specimen to be even better than the last, perhaps another type of magically infused clay pot is necessary.” This is making me wonder if we will still need to continue to collect foxfire clusters in addition to some other ingredients if we want the next level of this back piece.

agrante.2810:

I just chopped down 10 mins worth of elder saplings and got ONE. Any feedback on drop rate? Seems to be awfully low. Boosters help?

Haven’t gotten a single one yet. So offhand I’d say you’re doing good.

narwhalsbend.7059:

This is a very wrong step in the right path.

There have been good scavenger hunts before, see:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Thackeray%27s_scavenger_hunt
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Black_Moa_Chick

However, this is not one of them. Having to go to places to purify items is great, but forcing all of us to spent days running around cutting trees is extremely disappointing. In the hunts I listed above, we were made to run around Tyria to fetch different items, often having to interact with quests to do it. This would be perfect for GW2, but instead they decided to add ANOTHER grindfest, something which they say they don’t want, despite their actions.

Come on, Anet. I’m starting to seriously believe that none of the living world team ever worked on or even played GW1.

Off subject… I got dead weak off of reading some of the lines Thackery said when you gave him the wrong items in the hunt. Brings back good memories But yeah this hunt for all these materials is a little hectic not to mention we dont even know what the final back piece will look like. Im just gonna wait to see if its worth its when its finalized then think about crafting it.