Guild Wars 2

When you read a lot of forum posts where farming is discussed, you will see mention of anti-farming measures, but I haven’t seen a lot of actual facts about it. Is anything really known?

• Is it time-based, or kill based?
• Is it global, or per-map zone?
• Does it affect all monsters on the map, or just the ones I’m currently farming?
• Is it character based or account based? I’ve seen one post that claims it’s character based.
• Once you’re getting a penalty, what removes it?

Going and playing on another map removes it, some people claim time plays a major factor from what I read.

Other than that – if it was known how the system works it would not be very helpful to combat bots.

From what I’ve read, it’s
Time based
Character based (probably)
Map based
Leaving the map and doing something else removes it. (Unknown as to time it takes or what exactly you need to do, whether it’s just kill other things in another zone or do an event/heart).
As to whether it’s all mobs or currently farmed mobs, I haven’t heard.

So if you are on a map for a long time you can get hit with DR (diminishing returns). You have to leave the map to remove it. If you switch to another character on the same map instead, that one shouldn’t (no guarantees here) be affected.

From what I understand is that it is based on “diminishing returns” the longer you farm in an area, the less the drop rate becomes. Now changing maps, doing other activities and time all play a large part in “removing it”

Here is the wiki on it and how it works:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns

Also this from Jon Peters: “We thought we should put in our 2 cents as well.

Guild Wars 2 is a game about freedom. We want you to be able to explore the world and engage in a huge variety of activities, focusing on whatever best suits your tastes.

Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.

These systems are put in place to protect the economy from botters and exploiters. We will close exploits as quickly as we can. These thresholds help create a safety net to keep the economy safe when we aren’t there to deal with the offender. It’s important to have a safety net in place. It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously. When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy.

While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.

Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out. Please bear with us while we gather more data and lower the safety net until it’s only providing critical economy protection. Looking at the numbers this morning, we believe some of the threshold systems are just too harsh empirically and we’ll be adjusting those systems within the next few weeks to ensure that fewer legitimate players are being impacted.

I hope this helps to explain why a game like this needs systems such as this to protect its economy. I also hope it gives some insight into our philosophy about botters (BAD) and exploiters (BAD) vs. farmers (GOOD). Thanks for your support and we will see you in game.

Jon”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Let-s-Start-the-Karma-DR-Dialogue/page/5#post338355

In short, it’s not about “anti-farming” it’s about protecting the economy from botters and exploiters.

pdavis.8031:

In short, it’s not about “anti-farming” it’s about protecting the economy from botters and exploiters.

I’m not really concerned with any of that. If I have a bad streak, I’d just like to know if it’s just RNG or I’m now wasting my time.

I would not be surprised if it has some RNG or rotating components that change. Since it is strictly Server side it can be changed without a client update (tho it would likely require the entire zone to respawn to become active). Note that with MegaServer, it is now likely much easier to “retire” zones so Server side code can update.

The last thing Anet wants is bot farms figuring out how it works thru long term data collection, so if they are smart they constantly change it.

Eggman.1405:

pdavis.8031:

In short, it’s not about “anti-farming” it’s about protecting the economy from botters and exploiters.

I’m not really concerned with any of that. If I have a bad streak, I’d just like to know if it’s just RNG or I’m now wasting my time.

Well, every drop is based on RNG so have a long bad streak is just because the fickle RNG gods are feeling especially fickle toward you that day. But if you were farming the same area for say, 4 hours or more, than it’s probably DR.