Guild Wars 2

+1

I am in no way setting foot in FoTM.

Sad thing is that, as it is a PVE player suggestion, it might actually be done by the devs. Who cares for WvW, poor PvE player does not want to die in WvW and get his PvE stuff done!

bartem.2731:

This is my second mmo and the first one was wow, with tons of community issues. I just hated the players there. I liked this game a lot for that reason, I was even going to suggest people to support developers with real $ by buying stuff off T/P, sort of like a donation. Now, I feel the opposite. People want to provide data, Anet asked for it in extremely unclear ways, but it’s not working as there’s no communication. It’s very easy to see why frustrations build up, it’s like getting stuck in an airplane on the runway for 12 hours with no explanation. Maybe it’s less costly to lose us than try to fix the problem and we’re the lost cause.

This is not my first MMO but it is first one that is “F2P” in years. Well, except the very first MMO I played years ago I always gladly paid monthly fee. Point is, I can afford “donating” some sum of money to a company if it is stated clearly that for some services they provide me I have unrestricted access to all aspects of a game. Here I get the feeling that I am not obliged to support ANet but somehow indirectly forced to do it. Let’s be frank. There is no single item in Gem Store worth buying for casual player except Gems themselves and only because you can exchange them into gold.
Still, I do enjoy the game but sometimes I realise that I spend 90% of my gaming session mindlesly grinding same DE’s just to earn pocket change while there are other things I would rather do instead but am limited by lack of gold (levelling alts for example).

Yesterday I was roaming around LA and found all 4 boost banners. This was shortly after logging and I was not playing for last 30 hours or so. Said to myself, let’s try to farm some events in Orr. Ate nomnom tart, put more MF gear and started farming in a party of 4. Got 2 rares, few T6 mats, load of Heavy Moldy Bags (around 30), plenty of greens in about 1 hour (watched the clock). Then poof, Porous Bones and white junk at best.

Now I am almost 99% convinced that DR kicks in in about 1 hour OR after killing certain number of mobs (I tend to keep steady rate of killing stuff per hour).

After that I change zone to Frostgorge and managed to catch Jormag event. No drops worth mentioning and chest gave me 5 items including some green crest and 4 blues. All worth maybe 5 silver at NPC. Tried to farm some Corrupted Lodestones for the last 3 hours but except white trash I got absolutely nothing. Again I was in 5 man party and we killed dozens of Collosuses. No one in party reported any valuable drop.

At the end I crafted 8 rare swords just to salvage them for ectos… got 2.

Seriously ANet, I am not going to spend money on gems. There is no point for me in BUYING stuff for real money when I just want to play the game as intended. I want to craft stuff for alts, travel around and have fun and as it is now if I haven’t made some gold before I wouldnt be able to cover teleport and repair fees!

I started playing yesterday with exactly 15g 7s 34c in my bag. Ended with 14g 90s after 5 hours of playing and selling all I could on TP/NPC. See where it is going? And I didn’t even do WvW where you are bound to repair your gear few times.

@bartem and oloap
Fractals were never a problem in terms of effort vs reward, same with dungeons (in most cases).

I did several DE’s yesterday including Melandru, Grenth, Plinx, Penni/Shelter, some escorts and for the whole evening I got MAYBE 1 gold worth of loot (including stuff I sold on TP).
There are days, however, when I easily make over 7g in less than 4 hours and that’s when I do DEs, fotm, AC.

My biggest gripe now is that botters and TP manipulators do just fine despite ANet efforts. Only normal players suffer. IMO there is a difference between effort vs reward system and time vs reward (and that’s what botters do).

Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I do Grenth or dungeon/fractal with pug and have to suffer just because my team mates are not as “efficient” as they should be. We finish the event or dungeon anyway after MUCH struggle and the only thing I get is this f… T-Shirt. I mean 3 blue items and worthless, soulbound crest from boss chest.
OK, so I farm DEs instead. Try hard, gather party, invest in food, MF, whatever is needed, basically do my job. Game decides I am a bot and gives me trash.

ANet please realise that bots do not care if they drop exotics or Porous Bones. If they are allowed to “play” long enough they make enough gold to make RL profit and afford new account if you happen to ban them. On top of that they (the botters/goldsellers) can control the market of precursors/legendaries/T6 mats (as shown in recent I LOVE YOU PM spam accross the forums). Not that I ever going to do that but if I wanted to spend RL money to buy precursor I bet all my gold I would buy it cheaper from goldsellers than ANet gemstore (gem exchange).

Goldsellers are virtually untouchable, milk is spilled already as they have enough gold stacked on safe accounts to simply play the TP and multiply their gold in “legit” way. You can’t track them, you can’t even track gold flow as there are few ways to safely transfer gold without you noticing. I could tell you how but I won’t contribute to any unfair activity.

To sum up. As much as I appreciate your job in fighting bots please allow us to normally play. I am sure the community will continue report bots and scammers as they already do. It is up to you to fine tune your anti-bot/DR code to not harm the playerbase.

Darn, playerbase is quite resourcefull in finding possible bugs. Some of you should be on ANet paylist for doing their job.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Malediktus.9250:

Really? A legendary for winning a single tournament while others have to farm 100s of hours for one? Disgusting. Guess Anet only knows extremes with rewards, either almost nothing or precursors/legendaries lol.

The players who will win this tournament SURELY have spent 100s of hours perfecting their craft and strategies, without earning legendaries for it in the process.

We are tipping our hats to those that have put the time and dedication into PvP, and have earned this as a reward.
We’re not just handing them out.

First, I do understand that you are no giving away Legendaries. After all, 5 best PvP players surely deserve this reward for their commitment, skill and time devoted. No doubtely they deserve some cool, special and precious reward for it.

Secondly, I am a bit annoyed just because all they did was to play what they enjoyed the most (PvP) and did not have to go through really stupid grind, RNG, bugs, maps, grind, gring and grind.

I guess you (ANet) plan to host such tournaments on regular basis so every devoted PvP player wil have a chance of getting a Legendary now (would be very mean of you if you didn’t) but there is a massive difference between working ones kitten of and actually enjoying the part of the game.

I got my legendary bout a 8 months ago when it was relatively “cheap and easy”. I dumped the parts of the game I enjoyed most (WvW and PvP) just because I had to do something fun in a way but (in the end) boring as hell. You have eluded the GW2 community with the promise of “Scavenger Hunt” and “Way to craft Precursors” for months and no solid proof it is coming came along the way and this is the part which really annoys me to be honest.

To sum up, top PvP players DO deserve Legendaries. They should get such reward long time ago but you ANet should not diminish the effort and devotion of PvE/WvW players at the same time. Especially WvW players who are the backbone of each server community.

World Completion is one of the fairest requirements in your Legendary hunt. Also, it is not THAT hard to complete. Except EB, all Borderlands are designated to your server at some point. I mean, for example, this week your server home BL is Green, next it can be Red so it is easy to get all WPs, Vistas, Skill Points and PoIs.

I remember the only hard part were the EB just because of queues.

DemiGod.6413:

Lunasun.2491:

Oh and DemiGod, i totally disagree with you.

It does not matter at all which guild started the npc, both guilds took effort to try and find the npc…….. correct me if im wrong.

Not sure what you mean by both guilds took the time to find the npc. 2 guilds will not get the same npc if they activate at the same time. You should be finding the npc before you start the mission because you do not know which one(s) you will get so locating them all before starting is important to being able to successfully complete them. As for a server wide chat most servers have mumble for WvWvW. It could be used as a means of coordinating with other guilds for the sake of missions. Just a thought.

totally not true. Yesterday we did guild bounty 3 times and 2 times OUR NPC was killed before our eyes by other guilds. Providing that some NPCs take less than 45 secs to kill it is close to impossible to finish bounty.

I understand that yesterday many guilds had their bounty hunts unlocked so many NPCs were hunted at the same time but still the mechanic is somehow weird. Not to mention some NPCs (like the one in Gendarran Fields) who are VERY hard to find (wiki says he has around 300 possible spawn locations!).

For the same reasons finding each of 15 NPCs before you activate the hunt is pointless. Long story short, we couldnt do full bounty hunt with like 50 ppl online just because our NPCs were killed before we could do it.

Astralporing.1957:

IndigoSundown.5419:

This change was necessary. Anyone who didn’t realize it was “too good” was deluding himself.

It was “too good” only when compared with the rest of the game. The problem didn’t lie in the dragon chests having too good rewards. It was with everything else having bad ones.
Balance doesn’t mean nerfing everything down to the same level.
Anyone that thinks this change solved anything is deluding themselves.

this! I would gladly do more dungeons if it was worth the effort. Fractals are also meh if you compare time spent, repair fees, etc vs rewards. Let’s be frank, rewards in dungeons just suck. Besides the main reason people hunted those events were either Globs or stuff to dump into Mystic Toilet in hope of getting something of REAL value.

Personally I don’t care about this change. I get more rares just by farming events. Was fun while it lasted but indeed was too good to keep.

yeah, like me having over 10 Superiors runes of Divinity back then and sold them all for few silver :/

RedBaron.6058:

Their plan is simple…squeeze our wallets during Christmas and then in January return with repentance and promises, new plans for a great and promising future. Then, next Christmas, if the player base is still significant they will apply the wallet squeeze again. Rinse and repeat.

Who want to bet that we will have a new letter from Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside in the next 3 weeks, promising a new brighter future?

If that’s the case there is no reason for anyone to support such greedy company IMO. They did A GREAT GAME, really. If they want to make more money of ouf gem store they should just put some pay-to-win (easier) items rather than manipulating playerbase by tweaking drop rates or controlling economy from the back seat.

I remember reading that this game gem store will be for convience and fun only. What has happened to that? Sure items there are convenience and fun but the gems and the way they can be converted to gold is not. Just look how much 1 in-game gold is worth vs USD or Euro and how much some items are sold for. Few k $$ for some pixels, really?

OK, that’s my data as I see it. I tried to pay close attention since I came accross few topics about DR and strange loot.

I play 4-5 hours every day, do my daily mostly in Orr/Frostgorge/Malchor’s Leap with a visit to some low level zones to finish kill variety.
I usually do from 10 to 20 events (all in Orr) first and my drops tend to follow same pattern every day:
- first hour – 1-2 rare drops (armor/weapons), 5-10 greens, some T6 mats and about 20 heavy moldy bags.
- second to fourth hour – lots of porous bones, no rares of any kind, less than 10 heavy modly bags, 1-2 T6 mats and very few green drops.

At this point I must underline that reduction in drops is really visible after 1 hour of playing. Does not matter if I change zones or not.

In addition, since Lost Shores patch, I dropped total of 3 lodestones in open world and I spent around 20 hours strictly trying to farm them. Also since mentioned patch I dropped 1 exotic piece of gear (gloves).

I usually do DEs in party of 5, using peach tart, guild MF banner and full stack of Luck from sigil + some MF gear. I must be killing a lot because I usually make at least 2 level ups during my “farming” session (including XP from DEs). My usual income in gold from selling junk to NPC and some crests/dyes to TP is around 1.5g (80% of it comes in FIRST hour of play, checked). Also, before LS patch I had my bags CONSTANTLY filled with drops after 1 bigger event (like Plinx chain), now I feel lucky if I fill 2 15 slot bags with anything after Plinx.

Oh and I never ever got ANY loot from Champion monster be it during event or open world or dungeon.

Thank you for sharing this with us. Best of wishes from me. Hold on…

Jessie.2758:

I can’t complete it and I think the CT is fine.

Sure you can. Maybe just make your frame rate bit faster, think a lil, watch few YT vids and memorise jumps. I struggled with it like 6 hours but after watching some vids I realised I was making unneccessary jumps in few places and it all worked fine after.

PowerCat.5738:

There should be a subscription based GW2 package where they strip off the DR and let you play the game freely.

this! I spent fortune for many games till now and I wouldn’t mind paying some monthly fee. This game is great except the overgrown grind (which is also fun IF you can efficiently grind)

At the moment I have one full row in bank filled with different skins from previous events (sadly mostly backpacks) and no idea what to do with them. All my alts also have some “unique” backpack skins too.

The only thing I need is one more skin…

LHound.8964:

Precursor Weapons can be acquired from some sources:

- Dragon Chests after killing them (The Shatterer, Claw of Jormag and Tequatl the Sunless);
- Capturing the Temples in Orr;
- Completing rewards from maps [x to 80];
- Explorer Dungeon Reward Chests;
- Mystic Forge (4 weapons of the same type lv75 or more).

These days I’ve seen an increase of Precursors from these sources. I recommend that you make them everyday to increase your chances.

Acquired is the wrong word here IMO. More suitable would be RNGed. I must have had a really bad luck because the only time i got something other than blue from a chest was during Lost Shores event.

Also I have yet to see ANY exotic reward for map completion below last 3 zones.

Well, the steel chest was dropped by camp supervisor so it always contains badges and fragments. Sometimes some blue/green junk.

Tho I agree that such poor loot does not deserve a steel chest.

No idea if this has been brought up before but I noticed 100% increase in the price of Globs of Ectoplasm. Yesterday the cheapest alI could find on TP was 32silver and I believe that few days ago it was not more than 17s. Also few other T6 mats prices spiked but I consider it to be normal.

Does it have something to do with DR and less rares being dropped accross the game or some individuals decided to take over the market of ectos?

I decided I can live with poor open world drops, salvaged ALL MF gear and noticed my drops didn’t change a bit. Still rare stuff every now and then (average 1/hour), some amount of greens and stuff to salvage.
What really pisses me off is the fact that almost every dungeon or DE with chest showers me with blue/worthless green stuff. I mean, I get 50x better loot after one Penni/Shelter round. Really! Not to mention I have a real chance of getting rare drop (even if it is just some Pile of Vile Essence).
Just c’mon. How unrewarding this game can become if you try your best and do things ANet wants you to do?

I just refuse to do the fractals only because I feel forced to do them. Noticed I play less and less, just do my daily/monthly and log off in disgust. Normally it would take like 2 years and a really bad Dev team to drive me away from the game I paid for. Sad.

I will stick with rares tbh. When I throw 12 rares worth roughly 2.7g (or nothing if i craft/drop them myself) I usually get at least 1 exo back which is sold for 2 to X amount of gold. So in the long run I come out even or sometimes with decent profit.

For example: today I bought 10 rare swords for 2.5g, crafted 12 another and ended up with over 14g back. Almost got heart attack while checking Preview on exos I got when I saw a sword which looked like Zap but it was only Crystalline Blade.

In general if you are dumping 4 Exos into the forge usually you end up with 1 exo which in 99% of cases is worth 1/4 of exos put in (I assume u dump the cheapest ones). So it is at least 8g lost with each try to gain 2g. With rares u dump 1g worth of rares and may get at least 2g back or loose “only” 75s.

IMHO rares win this gamble.

heh, rank up chests are a joke. 99% of times I get those I get worse loot than from killing random mob.

What did you expect? With new and “awesome” matchup mechanics some servers are bound to play with same opponentsover and over again. This is not even funny.

OFC terrible rewards after Season 1 are also guilty but not as much as many think. For me it was just some free APs. If I count all I dropped during whole Season 1 it was more than enough for reward.

Eugenides.1274:

The ANet Glassdoor employee reviews are an interesting read. You may need to log in to see them all.

There have been a few new employee reviews in the past months and most of them talk about a disconnect between what the higher ups in the company want and what players want. In the end, it’s their game, but reading through the reviews is a bit discouraging as a player.

I too lost all hope for any meaningfull changes to wvw after reading this. Maybe it is time to look for some other game.

So, in other words, you would like to know which server has the best coverage?
Just look at rankings.

well. I think it is not worth wasting laurels on crafting bags even if they guarantee T6 mats. Now the drop rate of heavy moldy bags is quite crazy so you are bound to get loads of mats anyway. Which leads to massive drop in T6 mats prices soon so the only things of value (if you want to craft something exotic) will be globs of ecto.

I got my precursor from TP. I also farm A LOT in loads of places and do drop loads of rares, exotics and stuff bet never ever got precursor drop. I also put ALL rare weapons I get into MF which, sometimes, gives me highly priced exotics but never a precursor of any kind.

If you do farm a lot just grind the gold and buy what you need from TP. Saves a lot of frustration.

Unanimous.1486:

Why should someone be paid 300g+ in items when others who did just as much, if not sometimes even more, receive just a miniscule fraction of that?

Like my friend, who I invited for a trial during Lost Shores, who got 2 precursors and sold them to a vendor coz they were not for his class?

BTW he doesn’t play anymore coz he was annoyed about TEH GRIND.

mate, all of use experienced drastic lowering of drop rates for everything, not only lodestones. ANet has yet to take a stance on this.

In 2 years of farming Orr I got total of 11 Giant Eyes. All came from Heavy Moldy Bags. In that time I grinded enough mats and gold to make a Legendary. Really, there is a problem with that drop.

Horheristo.3607:

I’ve already said that there are no means of acquiring a legendary if you played legit so far. Take your opportunities when you can like in phase 3 @ Lost shores.

Things will only go downhill from here. (Ectos climbing already to 27s each)
I’m about to get my own legendary and will stop there, since I wasn’t lucky or smart enough like other players who own more than 1.

I am not even amazed that some people have more than 3 precursors while I lost like 200g + countless rare drops + crafted rares so far in Mystic Toilet, bad luck. But I am still annoyed when I see people with more than 1 legendary. Maybe I am not a hardcore player but I do play 4-5 hours a day since headstart and I am not even close to getting most of the mats for gifts/whatever.

I must’ve missed some serious shortcut to getting precursors/legendaries.

edit:

now I realised I could just buy 1-2 precursors by now with gold I wasted…

PowerCat.5738:

The problem with chests is that if they’re buffed, bots will just farm chests…

so in short, everything that bots can do is also ripped from normal players…

My question is:

Do you feel that measures taken against bots hit the average player base much more than intended? Wouldn’t it be possible to implement kind of Turing test so the normal players are not punished for playing (grinding) more than set amount of time?

AntiGw.9367:

It’s an issue with any mechanic that allows one tactic to be used in all situation (see stealth).

Let another Thief bashing begin!

When you consider economy (ANet gem sales) it is wise for them to keep it that way. Legendaries/Precursors are rare and hard to obtain via normal/casual gameplay. Ascended stuff just takes time(gate) so anyone who has a bit of free time can make it. Still, you can buy relatively cheaply most of the mats to make ascended stuff so no profit in it for ANet.

On the other hand I find it disgusting that you can buy/flip Legandaries.

I got my Precursor as a drop from Trading Post :P

Really, it is more reliable and faster just to grind money for Pre than wait for it to drop. Not saying there are no chances, got plenty of Exos from event chests/bonus chest. Some named ones too but never ever got Precursor.