Guild Wars 2

I am the kind of guy who runs dungeons with low levels, with green, white, blue and MF gear.
If I were to start choosing the people I play with, going by what I find to be appropriate, I would sit there all day alone waiting.

To grab an example to make clear where I am coming from:

The thing I mean is called ‘alternative loss’.

If you can choose between path A and path B,
whereas path A rewards you with X, and path B rewards you with X+ 10.

No matter which path you choose, you earn something.
If you choose A though, your alternative loss equals 10, because you could have had 10 more choosing path B.

Same with MF gear, and that is my whole point

Lymain.6723:

Zogyark.4597:

MF food itself is fine since plenty of pugs don’t even use food for stat boost

I’ve always found that an odd place to draw the line. Food generally makes a much bigger difference than a sigil or a couple pieces of gear, yet some people who despise MF gear religiously use MF food. It makes no sense to me.

If you really only want to group with players who get the most out of their characters, you should demand that all your group members use non-MF food (well, the boon duration+MF food is iffy).

I personally do not despise MF, but running a full MF set is useless if you want to earn cash with dungeons, and all the people I run dungeons with came to the same conclusion

TWMagimay.9057:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

Why would you compare a set with precision and power with something like healing power or tanky gear?

Oh, you haven’t seen all sets in the game. Knight set has power/precision combination as well with toughness as main stat which is what I compared to explorer with mfind main stat. The 50 precision difference is from the jewels, because opal jewels have mfind as main and emerald have precision instead. Also, there is a power/cond dmg/mfind set as well which further expands the sets you can compare mfind gear to.

So, taking your example of knight’s set.

If you do not need the toughness, why not take berserkers over MF?

I do not see your point, by the way. Are you grasping for straws until someone says:

If you run MF instead of Power/Vit/toughness, you do not lose damage?

TWMagimay.9057:

skotie.2614:

What honestly would have been wrong with the suggestion to change magic find I said ages ago?

Change magic find to a passive effect on your character rewarded from doing things in game, map completion, pvp, dungeon completions, jumping puzzles etc. The more achievements you’ve done the higher your magic find would rise and the better loot you would get all the time. This would of course mean replacing current magic find gear stats to something else and food and other things which give boosts to magic find other buffs as well.

This system would give better rewards to those who have been doing more activities in game and give you overall better drops depending on how much time you’ve invested into your character. Best of all magic find would not be on gear, food, sigils or anything else, meaning you can actually gear for survival, burst damage in pvp, condition damage etc. Your magic find stat would be I say again a passive effect on your character meaning you would have it in effect no matter what you wear, even if you wore nothing at all.

I love this idea. I so want achievements and ap to be smth more than e-kitten thing… Why do all games make these useless systems when it’s so easy to give them a meaning is beyond me…

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

TWMagimay.9057:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

Yes, you lose tons of damage.

I just checked. 50 precision is tons on dmg in what world exactly?

Compared to berserker gear, which is the only gear you can actually compare it with.

Why is Berzerker the only set you can compare it to? I already asked earlier and people agreed that toughness/vit sets are not useless or anything…

Why would you compare a set with precision and power with something like healing power or tanky gear?

TWMagimay.9057:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

Yes, you lose tons of damage.

I just checked. 50 precision is tons on dmg in what world exactly?

Compared to berserker gear, which is the only gear you can actually compare it with.
Edit:
The 2/3 is calculated without runes and weapons I assume?

They will not change MF for months, it should be about on the bottom of their priority list, if it is on there.
Just do not play with PUGs, all I can say.

And to all those defending MF:

Yes, you lose tons of damage.

I just wanted to point out that not being able to sell my drops on the TP for as much as they once were going for isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it means I can actually farm for needed mats myself, instead of being forced to grind the most profitable content and then buying those needed mats from the TP.

All my postings just described why the implementation of DR is a huge time sink by arenanet and does not stop bots in any way, only players.

What you wish for is Anet removing DR and/or increasing droprates which would my ideal world aswell

I have no business with D3, but do not see, how increased drops on different items would not please me

Khristophoros.7194:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

Khristophoros.7194:

Ansultares.1567:

Khristophoros.7194:

Nope. There’s no “fixing” the economy. Capitalism sucks for the 99%. When will you people accept that? There’s nothing that makes it fun.

Nonsense.

But as great as capitalism is in the real world, it’s not necessary in gaming.

A capitalist economy is all relative. The only things with high value are things which few people are able to efficiently obtain.

Thanks to a system like the trading post (the AH in D3 also did this), the economy is laid out completely for every player, even the least economically savvy, to understand. Thanks to this system, people measure their success relative to the most successful in the economy.

So as a result, those few at the top experience the game as rewarding, while the many experience the game as unrewarding because their expectations are inflated due to the trading post system.

So what’s happening here is, the economy is well understood by the masses. Normally in a capitalist system, the masses don’t have such a good grasp on it so they don’t understand how hard they are screwed over, and so they don’t tend to complain as much. But then when they do understand, we have things like “the 99%” happening IRL.

So drop rates. They are going to be “low” relative to most peoples’ inflated expectations. It doesn’t matter how high those drop rates are relative to the content we play. Even if you can faceroll everything without any effort grinding. D3 proved this painfully well.

If you as a player see, for example, the requirement of 30 corrupted lodestones for a corrupted weapon and start killing icebrood colossus’ and experience maybe 1 lodestone drop per hour, none if you are unlucky. How is that not relative to the content played?

…

However, the number of people complaining about “low drop rates” would not be any different.

How it is relative to the content is irrelevant. The economy adapts and these items become worthless, so people complain.

That is straight up not correct.
Items hold the same value measured at the recipe you need them for.

A solid 10 in the recipe will not require you to farm 15 items suddenly, if the item drops more often.

They would hold less value compared to other items with a drop rate that did not change only.

It shows you spent time, like everything you can ‘accomplish’ in this or any game does.

So if not time spent, what would qualify a player for obtaining a precursor?

Then what is?
Everything is muscle memory ultimately.

Khristophoros.7194:

Ansultares.1567:

Khristophoros.7194:

Nope. There’s no “fixing” the economy. Capitalism sucks for the 99%. When will you people accept that? There’s nothing that makes it fun.

Nonsense.

But as great as capitalism is in the real world, it’s not necessary in gaming.

A capitalist economy is all relative. The only things with high value are things which few people are able to efficiently obtain.

Thanks to a system like the trading post (the AH in D3 also did this), the economy is laid out completely for every player, even the least economically savvy, to understand. Thanks to this system, people measure their success relative to the most successful in the economy.

So as a result, those few at the top experience the game as rewarding, while the many experience the game as unrewarding because their expectations are inflated due to the trading post system.

So what’s happening here is, the economy is well understood by the masses. Normally in a capitalist system, the masses don’t have such a good grasp on it so they don’t understand how hard they are screwed over, and so they don’t tend to complain as much. But then when they do understand, we have things like “the 99%” happening IRL.

So drop rates. They are going to be “low” relative to most peoples’ inflated expectations. It doesn’t matter how high those drop rates are relative to the content we play. Even if you can faceroll everything without any effort grinding. D3 proved this painfully well.

If you as a player see, for example, the requirement of 30 corrupted lodestones for a corrupted weapon and start killing icebrood colossus’ and experience maybe 1 lodestone drop per hour, none if you are unlucky. How is that not relative to the content played?

Pretty much like you do not stop for every single enemy mob you see along your way.

And once you hit higher levels you will also have learned that killing champion mobs is not worth it most of the time, if not for the sake of fighting.

Yep. Assuming you have explored the entire world. Seen most events. Finished your personal storyline. Done all dungeons. Played all the WvW and sPvP you want. Played through all the monthly events. And if you have done all those things… Then you can just wait for the next expansion.

Meanwhile, a classic grind-based MMO would tell you to grind levels, then grind gear, and then just wait for next expansion so you can grind everything again.

Honestly, I prefer a grind over .. ‘nothing to do’, once you finished the non-grindy content.
But there is no reason to make the grind not feel rewarding.

Make people farm 10000 Lodestones, but have them drop every 2 minutes.

Ansultares.1567:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

Many items because of bots -> items do not cost a lot of gold -> people can not sell their items for a lot of gold -> people can not buy a lot of items.

Few items because of DR -> items do cost a lot of gold -> people can sell their items for a lot of gold -> people can not buy a lot of items.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your conclusion that drop rates are intentional and are intended to curb actual human players’ drops, I just want to point out that the former is not universally positive and the latter is not a universal negative, and in fact the conclusions you draw at the end “people can/cannot buy alot of items” are totally baseless.

I would rather farm for my own materials than farm for gold to purchase the materials.

I should thank you, though, for pointing out to me that the problem is the trading post itself. Normally I’m a supporter of capitalism and free markets, but if ever there is a place to fool around with less optimal forms of economic governance it would be in gaming, where the stakes are so low. Trading posts (or auction halls, etc) are clearly as toxic to MMOs as AQT is. No wonder they’re becoming staples of the industry have coincided with the genres relative decline.

Trading between players, be it a free market or not, is the reason bots exist.
If there was no trading possible, bots would serve no purpose.

I tried to simplify the whole concept, my conclusion of ‘can/can not buy’ is meant to make clear the amount of gold you make is to be seen in relation to the overall economy.
If you make 10 gold per hour and want an item that costs 10 gold, you will be able to afford the item in the same time, compared to a world where you make 20 gold per hour and the item costs 20g.

Example:

No DR: A player farms 10 x Item A in 1 hour.
No DR: A bot farms 10 x Item A in 1 hour.

DR: A player farms 5 x Item A in 1 hour.
DR: A bot farms 5 x Item A in 1 hour.

Let’s say our player wants to craft item X, he needs 20 x Item A to do so.

No DR: The player needs 2 hours.
DR: The player needs 4 hours.

DR slows down the economy, increasing the time people spend farming for ‘stuff’.
It does in no way stop botters more than players.

Erasculio.2914:

Khristophoros.7194:

It’s pretty simple. I find myself avoiding fighting mobs instead of looking forward to fighting them. There’s just no point to it. I have better things to do with my time. That’s not good.

That’s great. And that is exactly how the game should be.

Read my signature. Or, if you don’t want to read it, watch the Manifesto and listen to how ArenaNet says “We don’t want players to grind”.

That doesn’t mean, “We don’t want to have required grind in GW2”.

That means, “We don’t want players to grind”. In other words, if you are a grinder, this game is not for you.

And it’s easy to find who is a grinder. People who complain about rewards and rewards and rewards, who claim that the game is not worth playing if they are not rewarded, who do not care to have fun in actually experimenting the game, who are not happy with anything but a shiny reward – those are grinders.

And they have been cattered to by every MMO released so far, which is likely how they cannot understand how it’s possible that GW2, a MMO, has not been made for them. They probably cannot even understand the concept of playing a game purely to have fun, regardless of any kind of in-game reward.

So they complain, complain and complain. Meanwhile, the game is working as intended. “We don’t want players to grind”, and players are finding that grinding is so unrewarding that it’s not worth doing.

ArenaNet should have made it more clear:
• If you like MMOs, you are going to think GW2 is ok.
• If you hate MMOs, you are going to love GW2.
• If you are a grinder, a farmer, an exploiter, or an addict… Sorry, you will hate GW2. Kthxb.

As someone who hates the grind-based MMOs, I’m very happy with the original direction of GW2, and I thank ArenaNet for it :-) Let the grinders complain and spout ridiculous conspiracy theories. Sooner or later they will understand.

And here is the problem:

Unless you enjoy replaying all the content again with another character and another one af… or are big in PvP, this game has nothing to offer except grinding for cosmetics or a 3% stat increase.

Hawkmoon.5849:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

To anyone who believes DR was implemented because of the bots… nay.

“Diminishing returns, abbreviated DR, is anti-farm code implemented to prevent bots and exploits from disrupting the economy and gaining an unfair advantage over legitimate players.” Sourced from the Wiki, pulled from a conversation with Jon Peters. DR was implemented initially because of a botting problem.

Now, I’m not suggesting it doesn’t serve ANet to have a DR regardless of botting; it certainly does. They can’t expect to make a reasonable profit out of their cash shop if everyone can just spend a few hours farming, sell everything, and convert to gems. Thus, even if botting did not exist, it’s reasonable to believe that the DR would still be present.

The issue I’m presenting is that the DR is crippling to players. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to botters; they make money regardless. They make less, true; but they don’t stop botting because of a DR: they stop botting because they are caught and thus banned. Players, on the other hand, will stop playing because of an inability to acquire any amount of wealth.

Again, I submit: deal with the bots, and reduce the DR. I get that we will never be rid of it; we can’t be. Just like we will never be entirely rid of bots. But I would maintain that if your own “mechanics” are driving players away…

Which is exactly my point.
They say DR is there for the bots, but ultimately it is not.

DR a bot all you want, as long as the same DR applies to the players, it will not change anything, except slowing down the whole economy for everyone alike.

And slowing down the economy equals money for them, because people spend more time in the game and spent some real $ eventually… or just quit, which is the risk they take for keeping players busy with the DR.

“…and gaining an unfair advantage over legitimate players.”
To point this out again:
They punish bots and players to make sure, bots do not have an advantage.
Made me smile

Again:
To anyone who believes DR was implemented because of the bots… nay.

Many items because of bots → items do not cost a lot of gold → people can not sell their items for a lot of gold → people can not buy a lot of items.

Few items because of DR → items do cost a lot of gold → people can sell their items for a lot of gold → people can not buy a lot of items.

DR just makes people farm items slower. It does not make bots more or less profitable at all.

There is nothing wrong with droprates, because they set them to be low. They want them low to keep people busy farming, because this game lacks a little end game, a fact many ‘non-casuals’ noticed.

To anyone who believes DR was implemented because of the bots… nay.

Many items because of bots -> items do not cost a lot of gold -> people can not sell their items for a lot of gold -> people can not buy a lot of items.

Few items because of DR -> items do cost a lot of gold -> people can sell their items for a lot of gold -> people can not buy a lot of items.

DR just makes people farm items slower. It does not make bots more or less profitable at all.

The damage you lose depends on your build, traits etc.
But going full MF vs full berserker results in a missed 40% crit bonus damage.

There you have the ‘impact’ noone gave numbers for.

There is no point in farming items in this game.
You farm gold and buy the items. If you can not farm as much gold as you would like to have, go buy gems and convert them into gold.

Working as intended.

ZaiTh.6378:

I think it is a brilliant system with MF. I love how I can get into a pug and put on all magic find gear and make a ton of money. Why should I care about the others in my group who try to max dps and ensure they contribute to make the group succeed? Everyone can revive players, why care if I die and make them work harder? They have the gear for it to allow me to succeed. I love this plan! Thanks guys for supporting me! Please never change this, I love making money!

Finally someone who has understood what the devs were thinking when they made the decision to implement MF like this.

To add to your post: If your group is not good enough to carry you appropriately, just leave. Find a new, better group. Means more money for you!

You should have typed: ‘exploit’ because skipping is not one.

3. You do not get booted if the party leader switches character. Only if he leaves the party. That one really needs a fix though, because some ‘people’ just leave after they got their own loot.

And it is not even about being effective.

I do not run dungeons for the gold, because I have enough of that.
I do it for fun, and for me personally, killing the same trash mobs, lacking any creativity in their mechanics, is NOT fun.
The lack of drops does not really make up for that.

Splody.2640:

I agree that that p1 is a good path, like i said above, but instead of giving the last boss so much hp, give him some deadly attacks and a few less hp, something to make him harder, and not just spam all our skills on him, with no risk of dyeing, i can just stand inside his aoe full time and still survive.

You have way too defensive gear/ traits if you feel that way
The boss takes 1 minute with a damage specced group, and the spells actually do hurt you after 2 rotations if you do not dodge/block them.

CoF p1 is actually a good path.
Fast if you know how it has to be done, the last boss has quite an enjoyable set of skills. The slave driver could need some rework though.

I will not start making a list of all dungeons, stating what is good and what is bad.
Just this one thing:

In case of a rework, less trash mobs, more bosses with different phases (give them as much love as you gave Lupicus) and more punishing spells (Alpha, too much HP though) instead of HP.

Erebus.7568:

Saulius.8430:

and the fact that some players can solo lupi… nothing else to add.

exploiters should be banned, all i gotta say about that.

Check the other thread where the player who did that posted a video about it and the Anet dungeon designer said his congratulations.

The puzzle is very forgiving, time wise.
You can let others jump away and then just do a chilled tour on your own.

If you play dungeons often enough, you do not die, no matter the gear. It is all about learning the encounters.

Take a look at all the things you are going to need for a legendary.

500 tokens, no matter how ‘unfun’ the dungeon is, will be your smallest concern.

TL;DR:

Reality check. You switch 2 skills and just run through mobs.

Ereiz.2174:

Why do people keep saying that you have to master the sparks, anyone who has done this knows that the sparks do not work as they supposed to. Maybe everyone has used to exploiting through content that they think this is about “skill”. I agree even with sparks working dps check is quite high, but if sparks were working there would not be so much complaining.

You can master the sparks, they are not as random as some people make believe.
And it is not about skill, the dungeon is easy and so is obtaining the dungeon master title.

The irony here:
You will never have thousands of gold to spend if you keep wasting time on mobs that do not give you anything in any way.

Lol, I killed simin after patch and got dungeon master. Did not make a thread about it because it did not feel like an accomplishment.

And it is not easier now, because you actually need some spark management and not only DPS and poison. Still not hard though.

Geewoody.2017:

Item drops have to go.

Item drops promote players to not be their best they can be, hinder their teamates which is greedy and not cool, item drops needs to be gone from mmos, just make grind based with no item drops and it would be basicly the same thing as having item drops. Don’t think about it. I do not want to take the gold farm route, therefore no others players should be allowed to do so. I also hate spell check.

There are no drops ingame, so how could they remove them. We been playing the same game?
Have not found anything in months.

I killed her after the patch. It is entirely possible.
You just have to get a decent spark pull and ‘some’ dps.

Don’t take hits if they one shot you. Don’t play a glass cannon if you lag.
It is a simple matter of L2P, nothing else.

While I obviously do not do that, I agree. I very well could.

Several hours of trying, depending on how fast people pick it up though. And I also stated somewhere before that I would not mind making the thing more PUG friendly

DarkWasp.7291:

I think people fail to realize that you need to take time running / dodging / blocking an enemy off your DPS.

A glass cannon that jumps in and does 14k damage then jumps out may not deal as much damage as someone who comes in and does 9k but has the tank to stick around and do another 9k.

On some slower, hard hitting enemies tank isn’t going to matter as much as dodging, but in AC against the Queen Spider you have to admit its pretty sad when half your team is set for melee with heavy armor, but they need to get out of range to stay alive.

While backing off you switch to a range weapon obviously until your cooldowns are up and you lost aggro.
Facetanking is only viable if you BLOCK the incoming damage. Being able to take more does not help in most cases.

The spark pull is not random if you actually ‘mastered’ it.

Anyone who is not using a glass cannon build for dungeons except FotM should man up a little.

Dungeons are insanely easy to beat, glass cannons just speed that process up by quite a bit.
Being able to survive 1 more attack does not make horrible players any better.

~9 second spark pull, good dps.

Auto invis is at 50%, after that initial one she goes invisible in set time intervals, again and again.

I play a naked warrior, no gear no skills no traits. Working fine.

I been downloading the game for a whole day now, because the patcher thinks it is funny to stop downloading after each 200MB part. ~

Dungeons are always the same. Once you have understood the mechanics, you do not die.
And glass cannon does always deal more dmg than tank.

Facetanking in general is not very effective in this game, unless you are a guardian I guess.
If you pull aggro you have to back out, glass cannon or not.

I do not believe anyone here is complaining about the difficulty.
At least I did not even try the thing after I saw it had to be played with a PUG.

Astraea.6075:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

This is no manipulation, it is demand and supply.

People who stocked items and release them while the demand goes up slow down the price increase, therefore are good for the fellow player to save some coin.

While in general this is true, in this specific instance it appears the OP was hoping to ramp up demand by encouraging others to engage in momentum trading. If successful, this actually speeds up the price increase.

Well yeah, kind of a d-move.

This is no manipulation, it is demand and supply.

People who stocked items and release them while the demand goes up slow down the price increase, therefore are good for the fellow player to save some coin.

Comes down to different professions in the end I suppose.
I agree on that party wide MF implementation, especially because I personally fail to see the great increase in drops and do not think at all it is worth replacing actual damage, no matter how low, with that placebo.