Showing Posts For AngelCole.6370:
It took me a week to grind out the three maps of Orr, and I do not use the word grind lightly. The number of mobs I had to kill from one waypoint to the next easily doubled, maybe tripled, earlier zones. It was tough, and frustrating (especially when ping ponging between 3 Preservers), but I did eventually get the satisfaction of completing those maps. And in the end I also managed to max out my two crafts. Awesome, right?
Save that Tier 6 crafting is bloody awful. Despite all that grind to complete the maps (and leaving gathering nodes out of the tally), I ended up with a high of 10 Ancient Bones and a low of 0 Elaborate Totems, and only 8 Gossamer scraps.. That’s with spending ~15 hours spread over about 5 days in Malchor’s Leap and the Cursed Shore.
I’d purchased all the exotic recipes from the craft vendors expecting to be able to make some high level gear to sell on the trading post. My reasoning being that some items I can craft currently sells for 2-3 gold, and even with needing to buy ectos I can make a profit. Provided I could go out, put in the time, and collect my own mats, that is.
However, due to Diminishing Returns, I cannot collect my own mats. Within 15-20 minutes, I start getting nothing back but white items to salvage and grey porous skulls. In the past, I’d just cycle through a bunch of zones to continue looking for materials, but outside of Frostgorge Sound, that isn’t really an option now, is it?
I realize that Tier 6 crafting materials are supposed to have a low drop rate. But when you add Diminishing Returns on top of an already rare drop, it becomes that much more punishing and a grind to try and obtain materials. Materials for a part of the game actively promoted—Crafting!
I’m not trying to grind out for the best gear in the game (though the aforementioned completionist in me would LOVE to craft a Legendary). Nor is crafting/gathering the only thing I do. Earlier this week my guildies and I did WvW. Last night we did Caudecus Manor. Tonight we decided to go World Boss hunting. But I really enjoy and look forward to making high end crafted items that I have personally gathered the materials for. I like the idea of playing that role both within my guild and within the game economy. But because of the Diminishing Returns system, I feel as though I’m being actively punished for pursuing a legitimate part of the game.
I’m not asking that the system be completely removed—as mentioned earlier, I understand the reasoning behind it. But 15-20 minutes is incredibly harsh when the areas for collecting Tier 6 mats are limited. Either extend the time out to 30 minutes to an hour, or give me some sort of warning that I’ve hit my limit so I know I’m not just a victim of low drop rates. Or, if the crafting system is really only intended to be viable 1-79, then tell me that so I stop becoming frustrated in Orr.
TLDR; When added on top of the already low drop rate for Tier 6 crafting materials, Diminishing Returns kicking in after 15-20 minutes makes it incredibly frustrating for gathering & crafting-focused players to actually craft high-end items. Please either extend the time for farming, or let us know when the limits have kicked in so we know to move on to something else.
(Please forgive the wall of text—there’s a TLDR at the end.)
One of my favorite things to do in MMOs is gathering/crafting. Thus when I found out that I would actually get XP for crafting in GW2, I was over the moon. Self, I thought, we finally have a game where we’ll be rewarded for what we love best! Imagine my thrill the first time my little Asura stopped to gather a copper node, and 8 XP floated up.
I may have even done a little happy dance in my chair.
I started day one of head start, and by Launch time I had quite a few mats saved up. Awesome! Lets crank out some tailoring and artificing. I was rocking and rolling along, grinning from ear to ear as my XP bar climbed, when I reached a point where in order finish out tier 1 recipes I needed a few more vials of weak blood. Hmmmm… let’s go find out who drops those vials… Brackish Skales in Queensdale? And the bandits drop jute? Awesome! So I left my beloved Metrica Provinces and ventured forth to strange human lands to get my farming on.
Things were going really well for awhile, and then I started noticing that my drop rate had plummeted. I mentioned this on Vent and my guildies tell me about the Diminishing Returns system.
(Cue foreboding music.)
It was a little irritating, but I understood the reasoning,. I started hopping between various starting areas and soon enough I had all the fine mats I needed. In addition, I managed to finish three more maps towards Map Completion. This made my inner completionist very, very happy.
As I leveled through the game I followed the same practice, bouncing around between various maps to collect current tier of mats. Sometime last week I hit 80 (the first time I have EVER hit the level cap in any MMO) and I was still bouncing around Sparkfly Fen and Timberline Falls. Once I broke into the 300 range of tailoring, I finally gave in and followed Trahearne to Fort Trinity and the horrors of Orr.
I wish I was talking about the Risen.
Dragonbrand – 401k
Maguuma – 121k
Tarnished Coast – 118k