Guild Wars 2

While the whole concept of shovels to dig up chests was a nice idea I think this will rapidly get out of hand.

Less than a week after the patch launched there is already next to no reason to do the events in this zone. The zerg can group up at amber and everyone can get at least 10 champion bags every 3min just hanging out. You’ll see 20-30 people at amber and 1-2 people at the other forts.

I think it may have been a better idea to make chests available in abundance only after the bosses are defeated – then the zerg could group and go on a farm spree in their 4min cooldown.

Now I’m not complaining – this is a nice easy way to get lots of champ bags but I see no value in this zone atm other than doing this once achievements are finished.

Edit: unless whatever is to the west is going to encourage faster event completion.

I have a feeling that the event to the west will require that all of the forts be held in order to be able to assault the big boss…

But if the rewards/difficulty don’t make it worth player’s time w.r.t. farming chests in a mob at 1 fort it won’t get done by the general community.

It is a non-issue imo. A large number of players zerged the event for 10+ hours and acquired a lot of shovels. Now that same zerg is spending those shovels to unearth chests. You get shovels at a rate of ~1 shovel for every 5 events completed. The zerg that stockpiled shovels in the initial rush is going to quickly exhaust that supply and end the farm.

In order to farm chests you have to farm the events. There is no way around it. Once people run out of shovels they will go back to trying to complete the events as fast and organized as possible to maximize the number of shovels and crests they get. The devs seem to have thought this one through pretty well.

Except that 50 people farming 5 events together, on one keep, while spending shovels together gets just as many shovels as would 50 people individually doing 5 events each scattered in the zone.

So what makes amber so special? is there more chest spawns there? maybe the solution is to make the chest spawns more even, or limit the number of people that can open a single chest to 10-15 to encourage spreading out.

I don’t particularly like the chests only available for a limited time thing. That was how it was in dry top and that just led to people afking until the sandstorm hit.

Even spread out I would imagine players would tend towards the biggest zerg for more shovels. As for afking I think an advantage this map has over drytop is that you need to play not only for lockpicks but also for the shovels.

Somehow tying the number of chests available to individual players to how active they are on the map and mission success would be nice is what I’m getting at. I don’t have an ideal solution but we need to encourage zone success rather than chest farming or have chest farming be a result of the success.

Perhaps opening a chest consumes a stack of perseverance…so that you need to do events as well to be able to use the keys.

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

You can build a bank at the WP actually.

I haven’t run into as a problem, but a few maps have people ignoring the events and just farming chests. I would say give it a week and see if it becomes more of a problem or if it stays just a few isolated maps.

I’m anticipating a change to chests only being available during the 5 minutes after the champion phase (similar to the sandstorm on Dry Top). Otherwise, everybody is going to want to be defending the Amber tower for obvious reasons.

Or they are going to have to spread out the chests more closer to some of the other locations, because right now it’s got to be like 10 chests between each attack phase. Or it’ll get a huge nerf and you’ll only be able to loot each chest once a day, but as somebody told me they probably shouldn’t do that since we get no loot from kills.

Working as intended: All hail to the mighty PvE!

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

the problem is not with you. Ppl like you are fine.

The problem is with other ppl that farm chests during events. I have seen other forts didnt have enough ppl because of this.

I think they should only make chests available during Time-out. Kind of like only during sandstorm of Drytop.

that’s what we do when events/bosses have been killed. we all run to the yellow camp, dig for the chests and after everyone gets them, we go right back to each fort before the events begin again. i honestly don’t see a problem with this.

the other reason everyone is hanging out at amber (according to what i see in map chat) is trying to kill The Executioner for the achievement. the Executioner seems to have a really low spawn rate compared to the other legendary bosses…

i’ve personally seen the annihilator and tormentor 3-4 times each and never seen the executioner. that includes people announcing them in map chat. and the continual “Still no Executioner?” type comment.

I must agree there is a problem here, I’m trying to do the event to get tokens and all the flows I can see around are taken by these queensdale farm train graduates chest farming while the events in the forts die off like nothing and those of us trying to get stuff done there aren’t able to do squat.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Working as intended: All hail to the mighty PvE!

I joined 3 of these so called “farm maps”

It was group of people yelling in map chat : WHO HAS A SHOVEL! I"M OUT"

Seems to be working as intended.

This again?

You need to do the un-soloable events to even get a chance at the shovels, you need to buy the keys ahead of time or go back to the waypoint and run back out when the chests are uncovered, and there’s even a “break time” for people to get the chests. Why do you people hate lots of loot all of a sudden?

This is definitely not working as intended, I farmed for about 2 hours and go a stack of champ bags, about 1500 Dragonite, countless badges and many other random things such as bags of gear and other ascended materials. The rate in which you get badges seems to be far more rapid than the rate you can buy and use keys. Shovels didn’t seem to be a problem as it seems the zerg always has enough to unearth all the chests around amber. Also, for some reason everyone puts up yellow commander tags (why?)

Waldir.2571:

This is definitely not working as intended, I farmed for about 2 hours and go a stack of champ bags, about 1500 Dragonite, countless badges and many other random things such as bags of gear and other ascended materials. The rate in which you get badges seems to be far more rapid than the rate you can buy and use keys. Shovels didn’t seem to be a problem as it seems the zerg always has enough to unearth all the chests around amber. Also, for some reason everyone puts up yellow commander tags (why?)

At best you break even on the cost of crest when opening a chest even if you didn’t have to use a shovel. The only way to get crests faster than you can use up the crests would be to do events. The chests are not self sustaining.

As for the yellow tags, it’s closest to amber in color.

Well there are more chests spread out among the other forts. It seems pretty even in the gaps between them. However, the gap north of Yellow is just easiest to camp. I’ve also tagged the events around there just killing a mob that keeps interrupting my chest opening channel. So I do keep getting the occasional shovel, but not nearly enough to sustain so many crests for keys. I do end up getting the Bag of Stolen Goods to help keep my inventory from filling with crests or keys I’ll never have enough time to use all of.

Nilkemia.8507:

This again?

You need to do the un-soloable events to even get a chance at the shovels, you need to buy the keys ahead of time or go back to the waypoint and run back out when the chests are uncovered, and there’s even a “break time” for people to get the chests. Why do you people hate lots of loot all of a sudden?

When you own a fort and it’s not being attacked, there is a vendor in it that sells the same stuff as the one at the Waypoint. And yes, people always hate on a farm. The ones that hinder other events seem to get the most hate.

Waldir.2571:

This is definitely not working as intended, I farmed for about 2 hours and go a stack of champ bags, about 1500 Dragonite, countless badges and many other random things such as bags of gear and other ascended materials. The rate in which you get badges seems to be far more rapid than the rate you can buy and use keys. Shovels didn’t seem to be a problem as it seems the zerg always has enough to unearth all the chests around amber. Also, for some reason everyone puts up yellow commander tags (why?)

Yes, the chests are pretty close to an endless loop provided there are enough shovelers. It doesn’t help that you can get large chunks to help keep the loss down. I averaged about a loss of one key per twenty, however, the random twenty crests kept that loss near nonexistent. Add in doing the Breach when it pops, and you’re on endless keys.

As for a “nerf”? I don’t think there is a need for one. People are always after more access to the ascended materials and Oby Shards, plus the one off cloth is a nice too. Although I do see them making less chests spawn or lowering/removing the crests from them to help diminish farming over map event success – especially since it’s looking like they’ll make the expanded boss require Breach success.

if my chances of getting the “gold and silver” achievement were already slim from no one understanding that the fight isn’t “chase boss pressing 1”, it’s become impossible now. i’ve just left the game after the instance i was in allowed all 3 forts that aren’t amber fall, while amber had multiple champions spawning during the defense event, from all the people in there. the responses i got from actually wanting to do this event right were baffling to say the least.

the kind of endgame community/mentality this game has fostered has reached the point that ANet can’t design anything interesting because the community would rather press F on things, even if an organized group could get several (we’re talking like almost 20) rares per hour, and it’s not even that hard to do it, if people would simply stop pressing 1 or stacking on amber.

ANet needs to do two things to fix this (otherwise really good) map: spread out the chests (there’s like a cluster on amber and everywhere else there are normal numbers), and make it so you can only find them during downtime (like the time after the bosses are killed). make downtime last longer if you have to, but for the love of god don’t let people bring this whole map down because they want to shovel dust for bags instead of completing the map event.

Turns out I was very very wrong…

At around 80 people you hit critical mass where you earn more shovels than there are chests every round of events. This leads to an endless farm of ~100 champ bags an hour lol. I made 300g today so far…

Suggestion: scrap the perseverance buff. Instead, give a buff that stacks up to 12, based on how many forts are held and how upgraded they are. Chest loot would be tied closely to this buff, so you’d get very little at low levels, but a bit more than now at the highest levels. Then add an extra level if you win at the Breach. The level of stacks at the end of breach lasts through Time Out. That way, people have to do the events to get the best chest loot, and you get far and away the most per key if you kill all the Champs in the Breach.

This seems utterly broken.

I farmed about a 100 bags with a zerg and ended up quitting out of boredom, not because I ran out of keys, badges, or shovels. It’s a free loot giveaway and I’m expecting it nerfed Monday.

Raap.9065:

This seems utterly broken.

I farmed about a 100 bags with a zerg and ended up quitting out of boredom, not because I ran out of keys, badges, or shovels. It’s a free loot giveaway and I’m expecting it nerfed Monday.

I agree. 100 bags yesterday, over 400 today in only few hours. And I didn’t even need to have shovels. It’s an endless farm, I have more Bandit Crests than I can spend on more keys (still have over 200 keys and few Crest stacks).
If it’ll remain like this, all prices on TP will fall to minimum.
Anet, do something or it will break this game more than Scarlet invasions and champ farm. Make it so Crests will not drop from Bandit Chests or at least add some other items that can be bought for Crests.

I was amazed that you could actually see the chests uncovered from everyone in the area. Having it only be a party specific “find” would go a long way to both make partying up more desired and reduce the mega farm it is becoming. Also this would give players a reason to spread out from the one most lucrative area.

There is easy fix for that just remove crest from chests so players cant endlessly rotate them for keys.

Olvendred.3027:

Suggestion: scrap the perseverance buff. Instead, give a buff that stacks up to 12, based on how many forts are held and how upgraded they are. Chest loot would be tied closely to this buff, so you’d get very little at low levels, but a bit more than now at the highest levels. Then add an extra level if you win at the Breach. The level of stacks at the end of breach lasts through Time Out. That way, people have to do the events to get the best chest loot, and you get far and away the most per key if you kill all the Champs in the Breach.

Best suggestion I’ve read. The current farm should only be possible on fully controlled and fortified map.

The only people who really seem to detest this id say are the hardcore TP flippers as this is destroys some of the high end mats the flip,

It is good for those who need mats for legendary’s etc after months of farming in lvl 80 zones and getting squat its kind of refreshing to see loot via the chests, granted I don’t agree with people ignoring events etc or failing them as this will just lead to the ultra nerf which you are all crying out far, then no doubt you will be back crying the new zone is dead,

Its been clear for months now on these forums that people have been crying out for loot, the new maps are full, I personally tend to find a more organised map, which really isn’t to hard to do,

The simple fix if anet is going to do it, will be to remove crests from chests, and make them only available in the 3 minutes in between defense events,

Any other form of nerf to this zone will result in it being left like a ghost town,

Too all those who are crying about the farm, press Y to bring up LFG tool and look for an organised map, its that simple.

Also all those shouting them make 300g a day from this farm I question your maths, I farmed 300 champ bags today, and after selling off everything including the 4 exotics I only made about 45g, given that it took me about 2 1/2 hours to farm them bags, that works out about 18g/hour which is easily on par with other parts of the game.

What this farm did was make some pricey skins cheaper, give everyone a large amount of acended mats and make cloth and t6 mats finally affordable for the avarage player.
Plus, at least on EU, there are still a ton of ‘non farm maps’ available for all those who want the achievements.
So what exactly are people complaining?

PS: Organized crown pavillion was way worse.

The problem of this event is not the farm of the chest to get loot or the effect to the TP.

The real problem is, that 95% of the player base is right now farming and do nothing else.

-U want a group for COF/Ascalon/…. —> wait 30+ min for full.
- U want help for some vista points or events in the cursed shore —> u r all alone.
- U want the achivements for perhaps indigo? forget it.
- It even affects wvw, because it s hard to resist so much loot.

Conclusion: Area with 0,001% of the whole game attract 95% of the player base.

My opinion: They will fix it very fast, perhaps tomorrow, because it affects to much the whole game.

Yes, this is quickly becoming a serious issue and is essentially ruining an otherwise fantastic map.

I expect to see a major nerf to bandit chest loot overall on monday or Tuesday. Either that or just a huge nerf to the chest locations around the amber area. Or both.

I can see a stealth shovel drop nerf in the next patch.

The Big Dig is way too good a farm now. It’s easy to get over 100 champion bags / hour, way higher if it’s a really organized farm.

What surprised me from the start in Silverwastes was that you get almost as many crests back as the key cost in the first place. Now with the large digging-zerg we get an almost endless loop. I think it’s good that you can have a shovelling zerg like this – just that the loot we get is way too good.

In my opinion reducing the droprates from the chest would be best “fix”. Maybe lower to something like 10-20 % chance to get that champion bag, as well as less ascended materials.

When Dry Top came the merchants there and the chests got new items with each Living story chapter. I would assume we will get new stuff to buy for our crests in the future updates?

The chests need to only be available during the cooldown period after The Breach. Even leaving the ridiculousness of the shovel zerg aside, they still encourage people to run past/ignore events where assistance is needed just to grab the next chest.

The problem is that the map was obviously designed so that you cap all 4 keeps, kill the bosses (all) for best rewards. The fact that chest farm yields better rewards is probably not intended and will be nerfed.

fishball.7204:

The problem is that the map was obviously designed so that you cap all 4 keeps, kill the bosses (all) for best rewards. The fact that chest farm yields better rewards is probably not intended and will be nerfed.

Given the RNG nature of the usual “rewards” it will never be as good as the chests.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

The key detail here is that all other fortresses are neglected, and only Amber is defended. While this does progress the meta, it’s a lot less efficient.

Honestly, I wish ArenaNet had made it a mandatory requirement to hold all Forts at level 3 defence to trigger the breach.

Waldir.2571:

Also, for some reason everyone puts up yellow commander tags (why?)

Indigo is Purple tag
Amber is Yellow Tag
red and blue..well..that should be obvious by now

Haha, yeah, I was wondering how many other people noticed that the colours of the 4 Forts matched the colours of the 4 Commander tags. XD

Rashy.4165:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

The key detail here is that all other fortresses are neglected, and only Amber is defended. While this does progress the meta, it’s a lot less efficient.

Honestly, I wish ArenaNet had made it a mandatory requirement to hold all Forts at level 3 defence to trigger the breach.

Today I joined (randon on login) a chest farming map. It was horrid for actual profit per hour compared to an organized full map completing map. First, I didn’t get a single shovel the whole time – defending every time it was up. I think the higher the defense rating, the higher the shovel chance. I also received fewer gear bags and no rare gear bags from the breaches.

A completing map seems to get me way more of all the bags faster. In between defenses, I could easily hit up several chests outside any fort I opted to be at. The extra rare loot bags from killing more breach champs really add up. And the breach happens faster (or at least seems to) when the map is doing everything. Let alone more of the regular gear bags that can give rares and exotics too.

Straight shovel farming seems less efficient than other areas of the game. I think most people just aren’t realizing this and/or are preferring to mooch other’s shovels/work.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

That’s not what always happens though, commonly everyone is gathered around amber, so none of the other bases get taken and defended, and only one of the bosses gets done. Also the other legendaries don’t spawn (because the other bases aren’t being capped and defended), so achievement chasers are slightly out of luck.
However in this particular case I can’t complain, having farmed a bit myself…

Kuju.2153:

I’m anticipating a change to chests only being available during the 5 minutes after the champion phase (similar to the sandstorm on Dry Top). Otherwise, everybody is going to want to be defending the Amber tower for obvious reasons.

Probably one of the better solutions. Will drastically reduce the profit, but people will be more likely to do the events.

Rozbuska.5263:

There is easy fix for that just remove crest from chests so players cant endlessly rotate them for keys.

Still like the idea of limiting the farming period. But I must admit, you get crests way to easily.

Breaking Bad.6241:

Olvendred.3027:

Suggestion: scrap the perseverance buff. Instead, give a buff that stacks up to 12, based on how many forts are held and how upgraded they are. Chest loot would be tied closely to this buff, so you’d get very little at low levels, but a bit more than now at the highest levels. Then add an extra level if you win at the Breach. The level of stacks at the end of breach lasts through Time Out. That way, people have to do the events to get the best chest loot, and you get far and away the most per key if you kill all the Champs in the Breach.

Best suggestion I’ve read. The current farm should only be possible on fully controlled and fortified map.

But it’s not really a quick fix. So although it does a better job at making people do the events its not something that we’ll see any time soon and thus not something that’s likely to be implemented.
The usually bug fixing mindset is: go with what works and is quick and easy to implement.

Ok I Did It.2854:

It is good for those who need mats for legendary’s etc after months of farming in lvl 80 zones and getting squat its kind of refreshing to see loot via the chests, granted I don’t agree with people ignoring events etc or failing them as this will just lead to the ultra nerf which you are all crying out far, then no doubt you will be back crying the new zone is dead,

Yeah I’m a bit torn, since as a pretty casual player getting mats is hard.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Also all those shouting them make 300g a day from this farm I question your maths, I farmed 300 champ bags today, and after selling off everything including the 4 exotics I only made about 45g, given that it took me about 2 1/2 hours to farm them bags, that works out about 18g/hour which is easily on par with other parts of the game.

I think by day they mean literally 24 hours of farming

La Goanna.8142:

Yes, this is quickly becoming a serious issue and is essentially ruining an otherwise fantastic map.

Well it’s definitely not inline with how Anet envisioned the map working (I assume).

I was on the map yesterday, but we did all events around amber fort. Mostly did it because silverwastes seem extra overwhelming. Every minute some fort gets attacked or bull moves or fray to be entered I need to take some time and actually read dulfy guide. But until then hanging out by amber seems to be the best

Pennry.9215:

Rashy.4165:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

The key detail here is that all other fortresses are neglected, and only Amber is defended. While this does progress the meta, it’s a lot less efficient.

Honestly, I wish ArenaNet had made it a mandatory requirement to hold all Forts at level 3 defence to trigger the breach.

Today I joined (randon on login) a chest farming map. It was horrid for actual profit per hour compared to an organized full map completing map. First, I didn’t get a single shovel the whole time – defending every time it was up. I think the higher the defense rating, the higher the shovel chance. I also received fewer gear bags and no rare gear bags from the breaches.

A completing map seems to get me way more of all the bags faster. In between defenses, I could easily hit up several chests outside any fort I opted to be at. The extra rare loot bags from killing more breach champs really add up. And the breach happens faster (or at least seems to) when the map is doing everything. Let alone more of the regular gear bags that can give rares and exotics too.

Straight shovel farming seems less efficient than other areas of the game. I think most people just aren’t realizing this and/or are preferring to mooch other’s shovels/work.

I was in a super organized map last night with the DTOP guild and from start to breach it took 15-18 minutes and we got all of the champs killed very quickly. Then during the break phase we chest farmed. This seems so much more fun and profitable than just champ bags….but I know how awesome it feels to get a stack of champ bags so quickly even if you don’t get much in the way or rares out of them. (I don’t anyways). I’ve also been in one of the chest farm maps and it is insane. People ignore the events in lieu of opening chests and that just doesn’t seem right. During the rubble events and between, sure…but while we’re defending you see people uncovering chests and searching for more. Just doesn’t feel right. As long as there are some organized maps going, I say leave it as is and let them farm their champ bags. I can’t wait to see what we get with the next patch and what will eventually happen when the breach succeeds. (I do hope there’s something more coming to this zone)

Pennry.9215:

Rashy.4165:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Not sure what the problem here is. After we trigger the assault, and kill all the bosses, we zerg around hunting for chests for 5 minutes. We redo the event, complete, zerg, rinse and repeat. My only complaint is the lack of bank access.

The key detail here is that all other fortresses are neglected, and only Amber is defended. While this does progress the meta, it’s a lot less efficient.

Honestly, I wish ArenaNet had made it a mandatory requirement to hold all Forts at level 3 defence to trigger the breach.

Today I joined (randon on login) a chest farming map. It was horrid for actual profit per hour compared to an organized full map completing map. First, I didn’t get a single shovel the whole time – defending every time it was up. I think the higher the defense rating, the higher the shovel chance. I also received fewer gear bags and no rare gear bags from the breaches.

A completing map seems to get me way more of all the bags faster. In between defenses, I could easily hit up several chests outside any fort I opted to be at. The extra rare loot bags from killing more breach champs really add up. And the breach happens faster (or at least seems to) when the map is doing everything. Let alone more of the regular gear bags that can give rares and exotics too.

Straight shovel farming seems less efficient than other areas of the game. I think most people just aren’t realizing this and/or are preferring to mooch other’s shovels/work.

This is wrong. People are making hundreds of gold chest farming. I go in there with no shovels and come out with no shovels and still manage to get a ton of loot. The Zerg is self sufficient. The number posts about this issue is a testament as to why this is so broken.

I dunno about those chest champ bags, I had a stack and really didn’t get much out of them, the loot from opening the chests was better but wow it gets boring real fast….defending them forts is fun, but so many people just don’t understand what to do, cause it really is easy to get a fort upto level 4+ supply level/upgrade and the reward chests just keep popping up so…..once again it’s the players messing things up not the designers.

I’d like to see buried chests be spawned by successful defend and supply events rather than guaranteed at set intervals.

This would mean that in order to get tons of chests, you also have to ensure that the entire map is clicking with both defense and supply running.

The amount of chest “bumps” in the small space between Amber and Blue is staggering. Perhaps moving the locations of chests or making them appear near a fort that has been successfully defended or upgraded would bring more people to the locations. But I agree that a lot of people don’t have any idea of what needs to be done at any given time to succeed.

+1 to chest only after successful events

also I’d like to have a balanced distribution around forts, not just swarming near Amber

Dawntree.7246:

+1 to chest only after successful events

also I’d like to have a balanced distribution around forts, not just swarming near Amber

The problem is that the chests and events were meant to be completely different mechanics and not connected to each other in any way other than the needed shovel that you can occasionally get as a rewards. The chests were meant to have people hunt them down when they got a shovel or 2 throughout the map. Unfortunately the 2 mechanics are now impacting each other and causing imbalance.