Guild Wars 2

Djinn.9245:

When I do BFF, I don’t only go bush to bush either. I harvest other nodes, kill mobs, etc. However in my experience the very few times I’ve seen a afker, they haven’t been taking up a significant number of the huge amount of mobs in that forest that it would cause me to complain about it. But I was specifically addressing your claim that “they make it more difficult, or in some cases, all but impossible for others to complete events or hearts”. I don’t know of a single case where that is actually true.

I’ve already cited the Prosperity Valley crystal race. The Inquest in that event scale up rapidly in response to the number of nearby player characters. That event went pear-shaped with disturbing regularity when people were AFK farming there.

Those farmers were truly AFK, too, using auto-loot to keep themselves from being disconnected after being idle for too long, so they didn’t disappear when the sandstorm started. That, in turn, meant they scaled up the Haze event, the dust mite twister event and the skritt burglar event when it spawned in that area, all of which became more difficult to complete successfully for the people who were actively trying to participate, and failed more than a few times when I was there.

More? Okay.

Silverwastes – people parking themselves outside one of the camps, pet on aggro, heal on auto. When Mordrem attack the camps, they go down relatively rapidly, but with more than a couple of these AFKers in the area, the event scales up, to such a degree that forces have to be pulled from other camps in order to prevent failure. If it’s not an organized map, the camp falls, and when someone comes along to retake the camp later, they’re fighting scaled up Mordrem from the outset because the farmers haven’t moved (the game doesn’t care if they’re dead or alive, active or AFK, only that they’re present, scaling up NPCs accordingly. that’s why people yell about others lying around dead at Tequatl, or the wyvern bosses in Draconis Mons).

Plains of Ashford – skale, Separatists and ghosts are all popular farmer targets, and all necessary for heart completion in their respective areas.

Iron Marches – ghost farm in the southeast.

Google will find you many more examples of AFK farmers causing problems like event failures and difficulty completing hearts. If you haven’t experienced these types of situations, that’s fantastic. I envy your good fortune. And I’m not saying, suggesting or implying that it’s a game-wide end of the world cataclysm, only that these things do happen. I have experienced event failures, I have had to walk away from hearts in different maps on more than a couple of occasions and I know others have as well, both from personal exchanges with those affected and through further research before adding my two bits to this discussion.

I have frequently done the Noran’s heart without touching a single centaur at the centaur camp. But if I preferred killing centaurs there to the other things you can do to complete the heart, I would tag centaurs before they were killed by the engis. After all, there are many engis there and yet the kills aren’t monopolized by only 1 player. So the other engis must also be getting tags in.

It wasn’t a matter of tagging every NPC in sight for the engineers, it was simply tagging enough enemies to make it profitable. There were so many turrets that they could take down every centaur which spawned, clean out the entire basin, in seconds, and they weren’t all focus-firing on one enemy at a time, the turrets were spreading out their field of fire, taking down all of the standard enemies at once. Veterans lasted a little longer, long enough for non-engineers to get a tag in, maybe even deal a few K damage, but they also spawned less frequently, even with the large number of players in the area. I suspect the entire centaur camp was set up to bypass the scaling mechanics, so the basin area could be used by loners or characters with lower attack strength, so they could at least get a taste of what the “leather farm” was supposed to be like without having to join a zerg.

Amaxia.5784:

Prosperity Valley blah blah blah

I have never seen a farmer there. You say it “was a favorite camping spot for farmers for several months” – why only for several months? If it was a favorite, why would they stop?

The auto-loot mastery introduced with the expansion was preventing players from being auto-kicked due to excessive idling. That was fixed.

Djinn.9245:

Amaxia.5784:

• NPCs are a resource, both in the sense of what they might drop and in how they’re tied to different areas, events and quest givers. When a handful of players camp an area to farm those NPCs, they monopolize that resource, denying other players access to more than the loot, they make it more difficult, or in some cases, all but impossible for others to complete events or hearts.

First, I am not a defender of afk farming. Any examination of my posts will show that I am against it. However your facts are incorrect. In this specific case at least, the afk farmers actually make it easier for players to do what they are there to do. The afk farmers stand next to Winterberry nodes which happen to be where mobs auto-spawn. The mobs that the farmers are farming happen to get in the way of other players trying to harvest winterberries and then move on to the next harvesting node. I can’t think of anyone except the farmers who actively WANT to kill what the farmers are killing.

I want to kill what they’re killing. They offer a chance at karma consumables. I can turn that into more materials, or unlock skins, or acquire minis, or a number of other things. You appear to be more interested in getting to the next bush, and that’s fine. We don’t all share that approach to the game. I kill everything in my path, and frequently deviate from my path just to find more things to kill. There are a lot of players like me. There’s more to the game than gathering nodes. A lot more, and AFK farmers aren’t making it easier for me, they’re making it more difficult by monopolizing a resource.

This is true outside of BFF. It’s not simply a matter of one type of foe in one specific map being camped, or whether or not a particular resource node is more easily accessible. This is has been becoming a game-wide problem, and it’s reaching a head.

I used to use the centaur area in Lake Doric to get quick, easy completion of Noran’s heart. The centaurs spawned quickly and in sufficient numbers, and were relatively easy to defeat (in comparison to White Mantle mesmers or clerics, which i despise having to fight). I was forced to stop when the engineer farms took over the entire area. A lot of people did. It was impossible to make progress on Noran’s heart in that area when the farmers took over.

Prosperity Valley was a favorite camping spot for farmers for several months because three events with rapidly respawning enemies occurred there. Due to the large number farmers, those events would frequently fail, as their presence scaled enemies up and generated tougher foes. Event failure made no difference to the farmers, as they were only there for the loot bags, but it made all the different to the legitimate players who invested time and effort, only to fail to achieve the desired map tier when the sandstorm began.

And I can’t think of any heart or event that the farmers are preventing anyone from completing.

See above. Those are just a couple of examples of progress being inhibited by farmers on higher level maps. There are areas all over Tyria where farmers set up shop for easy kills, depriving lower level players of the opportunity to advance heart progress with easier fights and preventing others from getting drops. They’ve infiltrated Kessex Hills, where they don’t even fight anything, they just stand in clumps together, hovering over toxic seedling spawn points with the F key macroed. They’re in the Plains of Ashford, camping skales and bandits. I’ve found them everywhere, and I really haven’t been trying.

Also, metas in VB, AB and TD frequently end seconds after they begin because of a different kind of farming (hero points), but that’s a another thread in and of itself.

Faaris.8013:

Amaxia.5784:

Farming is a selfish, self-centered activity which negatively impacts everyone (including the farmers, eventually) and, realistically, isn’t suited for a multi-player game in which much of what occurs in the open world is dependent on the participation of all in any given vicinity.

Surely you don’t mean people who need Iron Ore to craft something and then go to the zones that have Iron Ore nodes to farm them, right? Or players who need Sharp Claws and know that Drakes drop them and then seek areas where Drakes live to farm them.

Farming is not inherently negative. I agree with the rest of your points, I just think you could specify which kind of farming a negative impact on the game has.

No, I wasn’t referring to gathering/harvesting/actively killing in pursuit of materials. I mean AFK/bot farming. Parking your character at a location specifically selected for comparative weakness of foes, putting your character on auto-pilot and generating rewards for not actively participating in content. That farming.

Mavis.1463:

Amaxia.5784:

• The game’s economy, such as it is, is built and balanced around players actually playing in order to acquire items, currencies and other rewards. Farming creates imbalances, driving prices for some items up, devaluing other items, sometimes forcing developers to adjust pricing on some items while removing others (or making them more difficult to obtain).

lol no it’s not

The economy is built around a hellish grind for mats, tempting players to buy gems and skip it entirely.

Kill, reward. Gather, reward. Complete event, reward. It’s called “playing the game”. If you find that “hellish”, you may not be playing the game correctly, or playing the right game for you.

People kittening about AFK farming probably have never tried to craft and Ascended armor or a Legendary.

I’ve crafted three legendaries: Incinerator, HOPE and The Minstrel, and I started Astralaria earlier this week. I’ve also crafted four complete sets of ascended armor and more ascended weapons than I can count. I’ve spent exactly 0 hours, 0 minutes and 0 seconds AFK farming. Everything I’ve made, I’ve made with materials I gathered/salvaged myself, or with materials I purchased after selling what I didn’t need.

And, as can be seen in my responses to this thread, I don’t agree with your assertion.

It’s the developers fault for encouraging farming by creating these disgusting grinds, which they promised they would not do

The developers want players to play, to stick around for a long time and keep playing. That’s not encouraging farming, it’s encouraging longevity. Refusing to acknowledge that doesn’t make it untrue, or wrong, any more than refusing to acknowledge gravity allows you to fly.

• NPCs are a resource, both in the sense of what they might drop and in how they’re tied to different areas, events and quest givers. When a handful of players camp an area to farm those NPCs, they monopolize that resource, denying other players access to more than the loot, they make it more difficult, or in some cases, all but impossible for others to complete events or hearts.

• Maps have finite limits, in regard to how many players may be on a map at once. Once that limit has been reached, players are shunted to spill-over maps. This can lead to players being stuck on either nearly empty maps (which, in turn, often results in maps cascade closing as players desperately search for more populated maps), or players being on maps with high populations, but too few active participants to complete events.

• Maps and events scale based on the number of players in an area. There isn’t an exclusion in the underlying code for “is just AFK farming”. The more people you have in a locale, the greater the increase in difficulty, and when half of them aren’t participating, it can lead to event failure. This has direct and tangible consequences on maps like Dry Top.

• The game’s economy, such as it is, is built and balanced around players actually playing in order to acquire items, currencies and other rewards. Farming creates imbalances, driving prices for some items up, devaluing other items, sometimes forcing developers to adjust pricing on some items while removing others (or making them more difficult to obtain).

• Developer time has to be spent dealing with issues caused by farmers, be they bots, truly AFK players or people just camping one spot for hours because the loot is too good to move on, even if the only issue present is player perception of what’s “fair” or “unfair”, allowed or disallowed, or what have you. That’s time not being spent fixing bugs, implementing new features, working on new content or addressing more important issues. Also, the methods used to address farming issues are rarely positive for the players who weren’t farming. Changes to skills or traits, changes to NPCs, changes to areas, even outright removal of rewards from defeating NPCs… a few people abusing something is all it takes for everyone to be punished.

Farming affects everyone, whether they want to admit it or not, whether they realize it or not. Yes, you might be able to buy something for a little less on the trading post, thanks to farmers, but you’re also paying more for something else, and that price might be currency, or it might also be map accessibility, event completion, future content, or even your entire build on a character. Farming is a selfish, self-centered activity which negatively impacts everyone (including the farmers, eventually) and, realistically, isn’t suited for a multi-player game in which much of what occurs in the open world is dependent on the participation of all in any given vicinity.

TL:DR – Master Maintenance Oil (and likely all similar Maintenance Oils) grants 6% Vitality/4% Toughness, not the 4% Vitality/6% Toughness shown in the tooltip.

Lengthier explanation – While tweaking a character’s build, I noticed that my Precision was a few points higher than I expected. It wasn’t much, but every calculation I made indicated that it was off. I tried altering my equation to account for the WvW health bonus, treating it as though it were pure Vitality, but that didn’t give me the correct result. After testing various other things, I tried an equation which swapped the bonuses from Master Maintenance Oil and arrived at the Precision value displayed in the Hero Panel.

I then switched to a different character, checked the base Precision, Vitality and Toughness values, applied Master Maintenance Oil and checked the math against what was displayed. The value of Precision shown in the Hero Panel didn’t match what it should have been, but if I swapped the percentage bonuses listed in the Oil tooltip (6% Vitality instead of 4%, and 4% Toughness instead of 6%), my calculation matched what was on-screen.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Amaxia.5784:

I spent quite a while trying that. I made a new character and spoke with Kimmes in Ascalon, pre-Searing. Neither worked.

And there’s your problem. You dont get there in the tutorial. You get there by reaching level 10 AFTER the Searing.

I’ve got a level 14 necro/something and a level 17 mesmer/elementalist. The mesmer/elementalist is parked at the HoM until I can get the account linking sorted, and I’ve spent quite a while trying to fix the problem by entering the HoM and poking Kimmes with sticks, baguettes, small skyscrapers and anything else I thought would work.

I created a brand new character to try talking to Kimmes in Ascalon. Yes, there is a Kimmes in Ascalon, pre-Searing, specifically placed there by the developers when they realized there was a large portion of the population who preferred to keep at least one character in pre-Searing but who also wanted access to HoM things.

The first sentence of the paragraph you quoted indicated that I did go to Kimmes in the HoM and toggle the option between personal and account, as just a flesh wound suggested. The second sentence indicated that I attempted a secondary solution.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

How many points in the HoM do you have?

5, if I can get the accounts linked. 3 for linking, 2 for… dedicating(?) the minis I’ve collected from my birthday gifts (one was gold, four white).

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Well, if all he has done is linked he should have 3 points minimum and Kimmes should give him access to the armor for those points. He might need to wait 24 hours though for it to update.

What you might try, OP, and I know it’s a pain, but go back into Guild Wars 1 if it hasn’t updated after 24 hours have gone by. Talk to Kimmes again and toggle the options in between account and character a few times. Then log out of that game. Log into this game and speak to Kimmes in gw2 again.

I spent quite a while trying that. I made a new character and spoke with Kimmes in Ascalon, pre-Searing. Neither worked.

The problem appears to be my account name. I can’t change it to my e-mail address, so I can’t link the GW account to my GW2 account. It’s not a matter of being unable to change it for personal or esoteric reasons, the option to change it simply doesn’t exist.

I went through the support articles to find the process for changing the account name. The article ( https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28147506-Guild-Wars-Accounts-Their-Effect-on-Guild-Wars-2 ) which should have addressed the problems I’ve been beating my face against said I have to edit my profile. This is where the entire process comes to a sudden collision against the wall of reality:

There is no option to edit my profile. I can edit passwords on both accounts, birth date, my real name, but neither account gives me the option to modify the account name. So I can’t link the accounts by changing info on either, because the option to make the necessary changes don’t exist for either account.

The only option presented is verification on the GW account name, and that doesn’t work because the @ncsoft appended to my GW account name keeps trying to send e-mail to me @ncsoft, rather than to my proper e-mail address (same e-mail address i was using when i installed GW over 5 years ago).

I opened a support ticket this morning. They made this mess, they can clean it up. Thank you, just a flesh wound, for trying to help.

LunarRXA.5062:

Quite possibly the most entitled Hall of Monuments post I’ve ever seen. I spent about 300 hours playing GW1 while waiting for Heart of Thorns and I don’t regret it one bit. I got 32/50 points in the Hall of Monuments with help from /r/GuildWars and really enjoyed the game though I made a lot of threads asking for help from time to time.

Honestly, if you don’t have any patience then you shouldn’t play GW1.

You didn’t read. Most of the respondents didn’t read.

The Hall of Monuments system is horrible. I’ve been trying to get it properly activated on my account for months, and recently went to the extreme of buying EotN to try to get it sorted because the information I’ve found indicates that it’s required, and nothing I’m doing seems to be working. I’m not asking for hand-outs. I’m not looking for an easy or free bonus. I’m irritated because I can’t MAKE THE FREAKING THING WORK.

Honestly, if you don’t have any literacy skills, you shouldn’t be playing the forum game.

Oh, look, I can be condescending and self-aggrandizing, too.

My GW2 account is linked to my GW account (Prophecies, purchased on Steam). My GW account is over 5 years old and has two characters. I go to the Hall of Monuments GW2 and get nothing.

After doing some research and uncovering that the whole Hall of Monumental Failure system only works with the Eye of the North expansion for the original game (something NOT disclosed on the website), I decide to drop the extra cash on that, add it to my GW account (and that, in itself, was yet another exercise of patience, since there’s no clear and obvious information telling you that you need to add the key at the login screen, much less how that was supposed to be accomplished) and try again.

Nothing.

Okay, I make a brand new character in GW and go talk to Kimmes, because apparently, from what little I’ve been able to uncover, accounts past a certain age or which haven’t been logged into in a while need a little kick in the seat to get the whole process moving.

After talking to Kimmes in GW, I log out, log into GW2 and… Kimmes tells me to sod off.

This is why I gave up on GW almost 5 years ago. Too little information, too many roadblocks in finding it, and too many hoops to jump through. I paid for something, I shouldn’t have to go find an oracle to divine the information I need, or perform acrobatic tricks to get it.

Short version: your HoM system is as ugly and soul-destroying as your medium armor designs, A-net, and you should all feel terrible for implementing it in such a bad way.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s a manpower issue. If you only sell X amount of an armor set for $10 you have to keep the development costs (talking manpower) roughly half of $10 times X. Outfits which take less time to do because it’s all or nothing at $8.75 is likely very profitable.

At the end of the day, ANet needs to pull in income to pay the bills and it would be stupid of them to devote resources on developing a gem shop item that isn’t as profitable as it needs to justify the time invested. It’s a cold equation but for us to play the game, there has to be a company there tomorrow.

What they aren’t factoring into that equation is the necessity to create an emotional attachment between the players and their characters. Being forced to choose between hideously, atrociously ugly armor skins or an outfit which makes your character a copy of ten thousand other characters doesn’t promote that attachment. They churn out outfits and players buy them because they hope to find one which they can customize enough to make them happy while simultaneously giving them a sense of individuation, but that’s a short road to profit that ends in a ghost town. Beyond very limited color customization (yes, four colors, but lacking granularity in application), there’s no way to make an outfit unique to the player, thus no way to truly bond with the character. They may as well set all faces to a default model when outfits are equipped, because that’s the impression given and experienced.

We need more choices in armor skins. The ability to pick and choose between multiple pieces to put together an ensemble which satisfies our need to differentiate ourselves from everyone else is critical to the longevity of a game like this. Dyes can’t completely fulfill that requirement with limited armor options to choose from. Outfits do even less to meet that goal.

Our characters are our digital representatives in the game, they are our expressions of self-identification and they are how we interact with the game, the game world and the other players populating it. Every outfit they make sends the players yet another memorandum that they are, in the company’s eyes, generic. We’re not asking for mints on our pillows and warm expressions of affection on expensive stationary. We’re asking to be given the illusion of individuality in a virtual environment, through more armor skin choices so we can better customize our characters.