Guild Wars 2

mtpelion.4562:

There are few things less rewarding than getting an item that is worth absolutely nothing.

Agreed, and that’s why people can stop buying those keys. I don’t have a permanent bank access and I still consider those items worthless. Whenever I get a key (zone completion for example) and open a chest, I get crap. I also got a couple of keys when I bought a starter pack from the store, and as far as I remember, it was all crap, like boxes of fun or those ticket scraps or WvW boosters while not playing WvW at all. Those ticket scraps are a nice irony though, you buy a lottery ticket and get get part of another ticket in return (which apparently was a decision made by the community).

From the Wikipedia entry for the “Let’s Make a Deal” Show:

The trader thus does not know if he or she is getting something of greater value or a prize that is referred to as a “zonk,” an item purposely chosen to be of little or no value to the trader.

Ashantara.8731:

I don’t think you are getting it. This isn’t about “crap” in terms of “items of low value”. This is about “items of no value”, as I can’t do anything with them (not sell them, not gift them, not even use them!) except destroy them. That is not the point of BLC drops.

Honestly, I think you are not getting it. You keep buying those lottery tickets, perfectly knowing that 33% of the content of those chests is worthless for you. Then you complain that 33% of the stuff you get is worthless. Even without your permanent bank access, those items would be useless at some point. I don’t know how often you use those bank accesses, but I can imagine that " about a hundred" of them would be enough for most players to last a year. Personally, I use one per month.

Now, to the point of Black Lion Chests. The point is not that you get shinies, the point is that you buy keys. If you play the lottery and none of your numbers match, you get nothing. That’s how lotteries work, you pay for the chance to get something, but in most cases, you get nothing, or nothing of value.

This is a huge loss for me and everyone else in my position.

Indeed, BLCs are a huge loss for everybody who uses them and a gain for ArenaNet. That is why they exist.

Jana.6831:

…on the other hand it’s understandable as Ranger and Thieves aren’t boon sharing.

Not saying Thief is a support class, but we do have Thrill of the Crime and Bountiful Theft

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Thrill_of_the_Crime
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bountiful_Theft

And I actually use Trickery when pugging and knowing that I will more often go ranged with double pistols. I also stay close to my group when using Basilisk Venom

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Basilisk_Venom

Thief is not completely unsocial.

(edit: sorry, I got to this thread because someone linked to it, I’m not playing WvW)

Panda.1967:

I’ve been around since the very beginning, I’ve seen how things were then and now… and from what I see, atleast on my server, things have gotten much worse. I was even around for day 1 of GW1.

Panda, that lies in the nature of people. Just ask around, was it better 10 years ago, or 30 years ago? Sure enough, everything was better in the past!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201212/why-does-the-past-seem-happy

It’s not a bad thing to only remember positive things, as long as you don’t make the mistake to think that now, things are worse. In 3 years you will probably be here and write about how much better the game/community was in 2017.

Whenever someone starts with the sentence you used in your post, I take it with a grain of salt.

Good point Fallesafe, it really depends on the group. I see myself adjusting traits/food after the first round with a pug. For example, I start with life stealing food and Invigorating Precision, and if the group is good, I switch to more offensive food and traits.

But in most cases, I outdamage the others anyway too. If someone outdamages me, it’s either a ranger, necro or another daredevil. Elementalists aren’t on that list for some reason. Last time I pugged I decided to not refresh my potions for 90 relics for a few more runs, and nobody questioned it. I was pulling 18k+ without them, and the next person was at 12k. I don’t get how people who use off/def/mob potions and that Scarlet’s Armies potion do so little damage on Molten Bosses, and they are not naked, I would notice that. As someone else in another thread today wrote, if you do 40%+ of the whole damage on a boss, it’s time to look for another group.

I went to the place and checked it out yesterday, and it felt bad. I fear this will be a completely dead area soon. I participated in a few hill runs before, but the whole Engineer Episode made this place ugly. It feels like Microsoft’s Edge browser, which has Internet Explorer’s foul odor sticking to it forever.

PimmoZ.5497:

I’ll go for defense then mobility then offense. Being1-shotted is really annoying, more dodges is always nice…

I’m not sure additional endurance regeneration is an advantage for Thief. I have a hard time keeping my endurance below max as is to make use of the Staff Master trait. If you have a Chronomancer in your group that provides Vigor, you can almost perma-dodge.

PimmoZ.5497:

…no rage timers there so damage is least important. If you need healing from Invigorating Precision this is already more then enough (very OP already tbh).

There are enraged timers for Molten Bosses, don’t know about others though. Damage is always important, more than damage mitigation. If the team goes for max damage, you won’t have to deal much with dodging or being one shotted. If Invigorating Precision suffices for you, then eat something that gives vitality to avoid one shots.

PimmoZ.5497:

Either way, I’m always using the 3 pots in T4 so it doesn’t really matter what infinite you get first. I’m not using pots in lower fractals.

Since offensive is more expensive I would also suggest to get defensive or mobility first since you can trade the ones you still get from doing fractals to relics, which boost your relics per day for the more expensive one, which is offensive.

Sorry, but that makes no sense. You want to use all 3 pots in fractals, so it does matter which one you choose first, or not? I don’t buy mobility pots, I just use them when I looted them. For me, it would make no sense to buy that one. Your last part makes no sense either. Why is it better to buy the cheaper infinite pot instead the most expensive one? The mobility/defense pot costs 25 relics, the offensive one 40. If you buy the infinite offensive one, you can trade in the looted ones for a few more relics.

One could argue if it makes sense to buy them at all. For 8000 relics (not to forget the 8 Integrated Fractal Matrices which include another 120 relics), you can buy 203 large offensive pots. And you have to actually farm for relics, because if you just do your dailies, you get only little more relics than you payed for the pots you used in the dailies. The first few runs are to get even, it’s 90 relics per set, that’s 5 T4 fractals (without pristines).

It’s a convenience item that pays off in the long run, and who likes drinking another 40 relic potion just to do one fractal? I’m going for the omni potion eventually. Need another 4600 relics to buy the infinite off potion though, it’s a long term goal.

You know, this just remindes me on giveaways on Steam. This weekend they gave away 5mio copies of Payday 2. Are people who payed for it before crying that someone gets it for free now?

I got my mobile phone contract with 1GB Internet volume per month included, one week later they offered the same contract with 2GB. Oh my god, that’s so terrible that other people get more for the same money!

That’s how life goes, just welcome the new players to the game and keep going.

Those chests are GW2’s version of lottery tickets you can buy on a fair. You get crap most of the time, it’s inherent in the system. Those bank accesses are blanks, like basically all common drops from the chests. You are not supposed to get anything valuable. Just stop playing the lottery.

zoomborg.9462:

To top it off some of the dungeon paths are 70% skips with stealth. Whats the point of a path when u basically just stealth through it, ignoring everything until u reach boss?

So true, and my female human staff thief doesn’t even have fighting animations while transformed into a ghost. The “bosses” went down in less than 15 seconds and looking for hives and hitting them again and again becomes stale quickly. Better rewards would not make me play dungeons, I think ArenaNet would like to remove them from the game, but that would create a kittenstorm from the few who play them.

Get a second hand computer that’s like 3 years old with decent specs. That’s easy with the budget. My 6 years old computer runs GW2 smoothly, and I wouldn’t get more than 250 bucks for it on ebay. I bought it for about 1400 then, computers lose value quickly but the requirements of games don’t change much these days.

Fremtid.3528:

Hey you said they permit us to multibox but its not really allowed. It is in fact allowed.

Can you show me the quote where I said that multi-boxing is not allowed? Multi-boxing is allowed, I never wrote that it isn’t.

I just think that ArenaNet is more like “yeah, we tolerate it because we can’t help it anyway.” and not “People, go ahead and do multi-boxing, that would be so great!”

Kenneth.7536:

Even not so tech-savy people understand that this computer will run anything for years to come.

Yeah, sounds more like a humble brag.

I run GW2 on a 6 years old i5 smoothly.

Ryou.2398:

…it is hard to find a guild that will run through it with you.

Don’t ask what a guild can do for you, ask what you can do for a guild.

Cynz.9437:

If i am not mistaken, you need HoT to do raids. Would you be willing to pay 50+ euro for few items off boss?

Is that a trick question? Obviously, I wasn’t aware that players of the free version cannot participate in raids. With that knowledge, my suggestion to create throw-away accounts for raids doesn’t make sense anymore. No need to ask that question unless you tried to be condescending.

I’m surprised what free accounts cannot do. Yesterday I learned that they don’t get log in rewards. I thought the only difference is that you are capped at level 80.

Fremtid.3528:

I have copied a list of synonyms from thesaurus.com for permitted of which allowed is included.

acceptable allowable
allowed
approved authorized licensed sanctioned accorded chartered conceded
consented favored legalized let okay

So what? “tolerated” is also a synonyme that belongs in that list. Would you say that “I allow you to drive my car.” has the same meaning as “I tolerate you driving my car.”

Synonymes are not the same meaning with different words, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

Panda.1967:

I’ve seen people complain over a run taking a mere 2 minutes longer than they wanted.

Molten Boss Fractal Level 40 farm? :P

btw, as “Illconceived Was Na” wrote, we have quite a skewed perception of what players actually use. I guess the vast majority plays in rare and exotic armor, exotic weapons and green and yellow trinkets. I don’t like to say that because it’s a phrase that’s often used to just shove issues aside, but: create your own group, with like minded people, and enjoy encounters. Ignore the minority that wants to play safe by using tested and proven setups. I’m totally for experimenting. The problem I noticed is that most players don’t have the time, patience or grit to experiment. I would even join a random pug for challenge mode Nightmare fractal, and it wouldn’t bother me at all if we got wiped a dozen times. I think everyone in the group would learn something. I regret a bit not having started GW earlier. I would have loved to be among those who had to figure out fractals and raids by trial and error and failing a lot. That would only be possible now if you moved over with your gaming group from another game to GW2 and ignored everything on the Internet about best practices.

Unfortunately, in pugs, when you get wiped three times, the group breaks up. It’s sad because it ends before it can get better. People then try to join a group where they can be carried by others.

Larka.7683:

Just because people get the base game and hot free with expansion, that doesn’t mean there is an injustice to you. You paid for the exclusivity to play the game for the past x years. So while it might seem they are “getting more than you”, what really is happening is that you gained so much more than them.

That’s because people think they are buying a product, like a toaster, while in reality, they are paying for a service. I think the reason for this is that we are wired to consider things that don’t have a reoccurring fee as something we bought once and own. You are absolutely right, we received the service since the day we paid for it, and that’s value new people who buy the next expansion didn’t get. We paid for the right to play the game (use the license) and for ArenaNet keeping the servers running and providing updates and fixes. And they will probably do that for many years coming, for as little as 25 bucks one time payment. The longer you play, the less the “monthly fee” becomes for the service.

That also means, of course, that someone who got HoT 2 years ago for 30 Euros, paid 1,25€ per month to play the game (if he never bought any gems). If you took a break of 6 months, you paid 1,66€ per month.

Now, there is no “fairness” in this, because it depends on the value the individual player got for his/her money. If you spend a lot of time playing the game, you get more bang for the buck than a casual player. If you want to play HoT now and pay 30 Euros for it, and the next expansion comes in 3 months and you buy that, you basically paid 10€ per month for the entertainment you had. That’s still a cool return on investment in my book.

tl;dr: you don’t own the game, you paid for a service that was delivered. New expansion = new service. Your old contract will not be broken, you can still enjoy HoT. Don’t envy people who missed the last years of GW2 while you enjoyed them, that’s stupid.

I think it could also lead to people just creating throw-away accounts, invite them to the fractal/raid, let them die and do their stuff. It’s basically what would happen with an unexperienced player anyway, just that you don’t have to wait for one.

Depends on the value of the reward of course.

@Panda: How do you know you are a super hero among normal heros in this game? When you are in a party, how do you know how valuable you are? Even with dps meter, you only see your own damage. When I started using one, it gave me no valuable information until I got into fractal parties with people who installed it too, so the dps is shared over the server. Only then I could see how other Daredevil builds do and I’m sure many people share my first thought: “I am not as good as I thought I am.”

To be honest, your bragging here about your super powers doesn’t sound convincing, and I strongly doubt that as an unexperienced PvP player (“on very rare occasions”), you were “completely unkillable”. Your post reminds me on that satirical one in the Raid forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Moral-problems-with-raiders/first#post6605553

especially “…and every time I’d end up practically carrying the group.”

I believe you are not as good as you think you are, because you have no comparison to understand how good others are.

You could get yourself meta armor and weapons and join those groups that require it. Then you play the encounter for a couple of minutes before you switch to your preferred gear. If nobody notices and the group gets even better afterwards, you can let them know what you have done. Good luck!

Menadena.7482:

Free accounts do not get login rewards.

I didn’t know that. Just proves that ArenaNet doesn’t like the idea of multi-boxing to gain advantages :P

Now, I wonder if some people decide to just purchase another account instead of 3 additional character slots. It’s cheaper if you don’t pay with ingame gold-gems, and you get 5 slots.

I guess starting your own group for level 100 requires you to unlock it first and that’s the problem ^^

It happened a few times when I joined a group that was advertising to do a high level fractal, that they were hoping someone would join who can select it. And it also happened that our party of 5 people was standing at the settings station and nobody had the required personal fractal level to actually start the fractal that was stated in LFG.

What Sister said is so true about the psychology of pugs, I have to quote her:

…more specifically, each person in the group is hoping the other 4 are flawless robots.

Djinn.9245:

Why are you making up things that Anet “might do”, and what Anet really means, based on zero evidence?

Do you really think ArenaNet appreciate the fact that players run a dozen accounts at the same time and siphon the created gold to the main account? Of course they don’t say so publicly, because there is nothing they can do to prevent that happening. And it’s not as public as the Engineer farm, nobody sees these people doing it.

At day 22 of the login rewards you get 8 Mystic coins = 8 gold. If you log in with a dozen other accounts that you don’t even play (and why not, free accounts, right?), and send them over to your main account, you get 96 extra gold.

I have seen people in other games with 40+ accounts. The problem is real, but not as visible as that ugly Engineer farm.

Asking for evidence makes no sense here. What would convince you that this exists and that no publisher in the world likes it?

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.

Mavis.1463:

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

Are we playing the same game? I’ve never afk-farmed and I find getting ascended armor and weapons quite easy. I’m pretty sure most people who have ascended stuff never afk-farmed.

Djinn.9245:

People who are against legitimate multiboxing either don’t understand, or are jealous because you can do something they can’t.

Well, it depends on the source of that power. Multi-boxing means that you have the hardware that supports it, either by virtual machines or several computers at hand. Some people have money to gain additional power. The power that comes from multi-boxing or farming is in a way like the power that comes with income. If the farmers had more real money at their disposal to buy the gold, they wouldn’t have to farm. I’m sure there are whales who find it hilarious to spend so much time and effort to get gold.

I think many people and even ArenaNet are against multi-boxing to farm or gain any other advantage. The reality is that you cannot enforce a ban of multi-boxing or multi-accounting. Some games tried to do that via IP-Address and restricting interaction between accounts that log in from the same location. It’s obvious how that approach fails. It keeps couples away from the game, people cannot play from Internet Cafés, people exploit it anyway etc.

If there existed a feasible way to enforce a ban on multi-boxing without punishing people who just live and play together, ArenaNet might consider it. It’s not specifically “allowed”, it’s “permitted”, it’s a pragmatic approach to the problem of multi-boxing. They really have no choice.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Feanor.2358:

HP trains exist for players with many alts, who find no fun in unlocking their N-th elite specialization, in the same way they unlocked the first N-1. They are simply an efficient way to do something you need to do before being able to play your character properly.

So, in essence: no thanks. The HP system is fine as it is.

HP trains exist for people who cannot solo champs.

It’s funny because Feanor describes exactly what my thought was when two guild mates led my new mesmer through Tangled Depth for Hero Points. I was grinding her through many old Tyria HP stations for days until I got to the point where I was still missing about 130 points to make her a Chronomancer and give her the shield, as I wanted to play a Chronomancer. We used our entry to TD in the guild hall because I haven’t unlocked it through the story yet (as I said, I want to play a Chronomancer and didn’t spend hours in the story without the elite trait), and it took us 20 to 25 minutes to get all 11 HP stations in TD and 2 in Auric Basin. And we killed the frog triple as a side quest in that time.

I’m still missing HPs from TD with my main character because I cannot kill that vampire beast alone. I can solo champs, but not with my new mesmer. The reason I did it like this is exactly the one Feanor gave. And it was fun to fly through TD with someone who knows his way around there. My orientation sucks and alone it would have taken me days to get to the places, despite having been there before. I have all masteries that make travel smoother, so that certainly helped doing it in 20 minutes. I’m happy that I can enjoy my Chronomancer now while playing the game instead of playing for another three weeks without the elite trait.

And by the way, I really want to see you killing that shadow leaper frog near Dragon’s Passage Waypoint alone, and also the vampire kitten.

Henry.5713:

Farming methods such as this one do make a game look rather boring and stupid to an unknowing crowd.

Although I agree in general, in this case there is no unknowing crowd because it’s in a map you only reach after having played for a while and have done the whole story and seen almost every other area. Same with BF.

circuitnerd.5863:

To me, this is not an exploit but rather a design flaw.

And that is why they made changes to the design of that area. Thank you for the clarification.

Only case I can think of is Superior Sigil of Concentration, which costs about 60 gold on the trading post. You are better off trading 38 gold for 125 gems and buy the extractor. I guess there are few of those exceptions. And maybe if you put time and effort into getting Runes, like with Superior Runes of Leadership. I think I would rather grind Dragon’s Stand to get another set. Also, it’s likely people don’t put those on anything other than ascended/legendary stuff. If you upgrade from an ascended weapon to a legendary, the extractor might be useful for Sigils that are more expensive than 38 gold.

On the other hand, keeping the item in the store does no harm as far as I can tell. People who get it without realizing that getting a new Sigil/Rune would have been cheaper don’t know their mistake.

Until they added that, look at which direction the wallows point. It’s possible to determine where you’ll end up when you enter. Same goes for Thermal Tubes. After playing for a while, you will know it by heart anyway.

I wonder why some people believe they are entitled to passive income. You don’t have time to play the game, you don’t have income, it’s that easy really. ArenaNet is already generous by giving you stuff just for logging into the game and opening a chest (Mystic Coins sell for good money). And if you can spend 10 to 15 minutes per day, you can get 2 gold doing dailies.

I see the incentive to do that kind of farming, but apparently, that’s not what ArenaNet wants in their yard, respect it.

It’s also really stressful to semi-afk while doing something that requires your attention. That’s why I stopped playing browser games. I switched from an MMO to a browser game because I imagined it will be easier to just play while doing other stuff, and you don’t have to spend 2 hours focused on a raid. I switched back to an MMO because here I can choose when I log in and play. In browser games, other people decide when you need to pay attention, and they don’t care if you need to do the dishes right now, they’ll just send an attack, at any time of the day. That was stressful, and the truth is that you cannot fully focus on your studies if you are constantly watching if your turret needs to be replaced. Don’t know what you are studying, but if it’s something you can do without focusing for at least an hour straight, you are either a genius or you don’t know the requirements of learning.

It is certainly more efficient to pay undivided attention to studying for 1 hour, do a fractal for 10 minutes, then studying again for an hour (more efficient for both your studies and gaining gold). That is if you have a short attention span. You can also study for 2 hours and then make a break. This semi-afk farming while doing stuff that requires thinking burns you out. Been there, done that.

Fivona.5061:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You’ve shown the turret farm. You haven’t explained how it’s killing the map.

Due to high population of farmers new maps opens.
Normal people getting separated those maps.
Farmers not doing meta events.
Result = Failed events or try hard events.
So legit players leaving map.
Dead map.

That’s a really good point I haven’t considered yet. In general, I would say let them farm and mind your own business. The megaserver concept changes that attitude. If such a farm were in Sparkfly Fen, many people would not be able to do the Tequatl event, or everybody had to rely on LFG. For Triple Trouble, you already need so many people and decent organization that, with few exceptions, only gw2community succeeds.

Foefaller.1082:

As for bots, GMs already whisper players they suspect are bots and ban them if they don’t respond (botting being a ToS violation.) I haven’t ever done anything to make them question me, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have any trouble distinguishing a stock response from a bot from real people.

I’m not sure, have talked with many engineers, and quite often, I cannot tell if they are bots or humans.

You know, as someone with an engineering mind and approach to problems, reading the patch note, the first thought I had was “challenge accepted!”, the second was “bring it on!”

I’m not playing an Engineer and I wouldn’t waste my precious time there, but I’m curious how they will counter this. Those people play engineers for a reason, and trying to overcome the barrier ArenaNet will set up is fun.

We’ll see how that works out.

Choose a class that has less issues with mobs. I only played thief until last week really, when I took my mesmer and maxed her levels and got her stuff. Running for hero points made me realize what a luxury I am used to with my thief. When a tiny spider throws its web on me, I cannot just ignore it and dash away like with my thief. When I’m crippled I’m crippled. With thief, you can basically ignore all mobs around you and go on with your farming business. I can even shadow step to a heavily guarded chest or wisp, pick it up and be gone before a mob can take a swing at me.

I like my chronomancer, but for daily business like farming, I will definitely use my thief. Berry-farming would probably take 3 times as long with mesmer.

Fallesafe.5932:

I started this game about five months ago, and decided that I wanted to play some of the higher level content. So I got all of my ascended armor and weapons and trinkets (even the underwater stuff), and filled them with the best infusions and upgrade components. It would be impossible for me to find any item for any slot that would constitute any sort of improvement over what I have.

…because I work 75 hours/week, and don’t have tons of time.

No, you haven’t maxed your character or account. Maybe you are in a state of what is called “unconscious incompetence”, you are lying or you bought everything with real money. Even if you did nothing else in your life besides working, sleeping (let’s say 5 hours of 24, some people do that) and playing GW2, you would have only about 1000 hours of playtime. Maxing might be enough for someone who already knows the game, but not for someone who started 5 month ago. I think I have a good feeling for this because I started playing this game end of February, and had a few weeks off, and I work 40 hours per week.

So maybe you simply don’t know what exists in the game, that would be option 1, unconscious incompetence. You think, for example, that you have reached max stats but don’t know that stat infusions exist. Option 2 would be lying, but I don’t see why you would do that. Maybe you are not lying about your progress in the game, but about the amount of hours you work per week, because in the culture you live in it’s a postive thing to work many hours. Or maybe you can play the game at work, or the game is your work (dulfy?). But you also say you have little time to play, so I guess that’s not the case.

Now, if you work that much, you might be able to afford to pay for the progress with money. If you have done that, then this could be the reason why you are bored and don’t feel challenged. Don’t get me wrong, paying for the game is a good thing. But it’s also true that if you overdo it, you spoil your sense of achievement. If I bought gems for 5k Euros and maxed everything within one or two weeks, I would probably feel empty. People do that btw.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/387314/so_i_spent_5000_on_gw2_gems_last_week/

That is not a problem of the game though. There can be a good discussion about what the game offers for endgame players, but your experience with it differs from probably 99% of the player base, it’s difficult to see it with your eyes.

Vayne.8563:

Where as some of us, on the other hand, see HoT as an improvement to the game and are more likely to prepurchase the expansion.

Like, how did you even play this game without gliding? Therer really is no question for me when the expansion comes. Only reason to not get it would be if for some reason I move to a place without Internet.

nottsgman.8206:

just so you know (and can tell the guy you were running with maybe) in instances /stuck (in the chat box) works for getting you out of scenary. it will teleport to the last checkpoint after 30 seconds if you use it and stand still.

not a fix, but a work around

Thanks for the 30 seconds standing still hint. I got stuck a few times climbing in Draconis Mons mountains. /stuck never worked, probably because I kept trying to jump and wiggle myself out.

mrstealth.6701:

Active is controlling what is going on with your character. Dropping a few turrets, then not interacting with the game for several minutes, while your character continues gathering loot, is not what I would call active.

I disagree. If making gold is your goal, ArenaNet has no problem with doing it afk via Trading Post. You set up that you want to sell 1000 Hardened Leather Sections for 35 silver and then you can go afk for hours or days. To get those 1000 Leather you set up a buy order before for 27 silver (there are always people who sell instantly because they need the money now). When you return, you will have made gold without being active. How is that less afk-gold-farming than moving to the Centaur farm, setting up your turrets, inviting people, replacing turrets etc.

And the goal is always to make gold, for both traders and farmers.

mrstealth.6701:

The issue I was pointing out is inflation, not the price of leather. If the activity contributing to inflation does so through overfarming certain items, then those specific items can still see a price decrease due to a surplus, while inflation creates an overall devaluation of gold and a price increase with everything else. Of course, leather is not the only item being generated in this farm. The other loot is more spread out and less likely to create a surplus/price drop with specific items, and the junk/trophy items (or anything else sold to merchants) simply inject gold into the economy. This just contributes to inflation without having any considerable impact on the value of specific items in relation to each other.

End result, is that even though effective leather prices might go down, injecting more gold into the economy and giving a number of players a passive source of income creates inflation that lowers the value of gold and makes the price of everything increase. Even leather is effected by the inflation, but its increase in price is likely offset by the increased supply. If the impact of inflation was high enough, even leather with a massive surplus, could still see a price increase.

What do you think those farmers would do if they shut down the pony farm (or did before)? Just stand around in Lion’s Arch and chat? They would generate as much gold by selling crap to vendors as before Lake Doric. Or should I say “as little” and “copper”? Because the currency you create by selling minor runes and other crap is nothing. We only sell it because it’s easier than deleting. Maybe those farmers would play fractals instead and open Fractal Encryptions. Now those really add lots of gold to the market. I would guess that 1 player opening a few of them adds as much gold to the world as 100 farmers do by selling their crap to vendors.

“Manuscript of ‘This Book Is False’” sells for 60 silver
“Minor Rune of Grenth” sells for 19 copper

You have to loot and sell 315 minor runes to add as much money to the world as one Manuscript does. You get a fractal ancryption and key easily from a Tier 1 fractal. You need to kill a lot of ponies to come close to that.

tl:dr: there is no risk of inflation caused by farmers because they would always do something that gives them vendor loot, and also because the amount of money added to the world by selling random crap to vendors is like a drop in an ocean.

I admit that I basically stopped resurrecting random NPCs after I got the Combat Healer title. I know they will get killed by the next mob within 2 minutes anyway, it’s fighting wind mills, and death is not the end.

I also believe nobody would really care if the settlements in Southsun Cove were permanently infested by Karka without the Karka Queen requiring this to spawn. I’m also sorry about the loss of every Exalted that has to volunteer every time we don’t free Tarir.

I only help out in low level maps when doing the event also helps with the heart quest I don’t have done yet. Maybe if these events were only happening once per week, they would have more meaning.

Truth is, you can’t be everywhere at all times, the suffering of NPCs is inevtiable. We might be heroes, but the inhabitats of Tyria have to stand on their own feet and not always trust that there is one of us around.

mrstealth.6701:

The account is the entity that matters more to Anet. It doesn’t matter that you are still at your PC, or at another PC, playing on another account. If you are not interacting with the account in question, that account constitutes an inactive player.

But is that really so? From what I could collect from reading the forums, as long as you respond to a moderator when whispered, you are not afk. Which makes sense, because afk means away from keyboard, and replying to a whisper kind of proves you are not afk (unless you use a chat bot).

mrstealth.6701:

Meaning that everyone not doing it gets punished with increased costs on everything.

Wait, so now additional leather entering the game through multi-box farms increases prices? I thought we established that additional numbers of X on the market makes X cheaper, for everybody?

Itz Jay.8941:

I try to avoid any comp with a theif or necro purely because they offer little to zero support compared to any other class.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post, in my experience it’s usually not the thieves that cause problems. Daredevils are top dps, the problem is again people, not the class. If you see a Chronomancer in the group, he better knows his role and has the very expensive setup, but you cannot know that by looking at the LFG.

I played enough fractals now (just started maybe 2 months ago) to see if a Mesmer or Elementalist is increasing my dps or if they do their 2k per second without contributing anything else (note, thief can do 14k to 18k). Also, with switching members when you do a few fractals in a row, you see if the former player sucked or not. It’s true that you need to take care of your thieves in the group more than of other classes because as we all know, dead dps is no dps.

But that’s the nature of the class. I often feel that even though I didn’t do any damage while downed, the damage I dealt before makes up for that down time more than enough compared to constant 2k dps. The more reliable dps will take long enough to experience enraged stances at bosses, and the risk of a wipe increases with it. If I have two dead members and have to choose whom to resurrect first, I usually choose dps.

On the topic: I don’t know how fractals were before, and I find most of them fun. The only thing that bothers me is that it’s hard to predict how much time you need for one because it heavily depends on the group. For Underground Facility at higher tiers, it’s easily possible that you need 30 to 40 minutes with a pug. If you get wiped, it’s even worse because some people lack the grit to start over. Last week I did Mai Trin at 73 and we got wiped 3 or 4 times. After the first wipe, 3 members just left the group without comment. With the new members we got wiped 2 or 3 more times I think, but we kept going (Mai Trin at 25% was our crux). That was a fun experience because we made it. We were not fractal grandmasters, but we stayed and finished it, so I thanked them for the good team, not being sarcastic.

I think if you could better predict how much time you need for a fractal, LFG would have more groups advertising. Sometimes you only have 20 minutes, and if you have bad luck with the group, even Urban Battleground level 1 can take longer (if you decide to resurrect people instead of just keep going). In that time you can do the Escort part of Stronghold of the Faithful raid for better rewards.

OriOri.8724:

Faaris.8013:

I think many people believe the people behind those accounts are not really playing the game actively. That’s simply not true.

So you admit that you wouldn’t actually be playing the account that is afk farming, but somehow think that you are still actively playing it? What kind of twisted logic is this to defend afk farms?

Obviously, we are communicating in different realms of logic. “People” are real persons, individuals. Those people who play two or more accounts at the same time are still “active players”. They are playing the game actively, just not with all accounts they are logged in with. Multi-Boxing is not against the rules, and I believe ArenaNet has especially no problem if it involves fully payed for accounts. And the farmers we are talking about are not free version players, otherwise they wouldn’t have the autoloot mastery.

What I’m saying is that reacting with pity towards those players is not asked for because you don’t know what they are doing on another box. Also, the logic that is expressed by the dev on reddit:

Eventually these players spend less and less time actually playing the game, and more time inactive and farming.

only applies if the players only play one account and only farm all day. If a person who plays two or more accounts just stops farming with one or a few of them, there is no player lost to the game and the business. Some publishers even have an incentive to keep multi boxing around because it increases the number of total accounts they can show around. If some F2P browser game that allows multiple accounts claims to have “20k accounts”, it’s quite possible that they only have 5k unique players, and that 3k of them are inactive.

btw, I’m not farming on any spots in this game, it’s too much effort for virtual items. But I have done it in other games. I was never “afk” and I believe most of the farmers in LD and BF are not afk either. If they don’t respond to your whisper, it’s probably because they are annoyed by all the spam they get and only answer to game moderators. They don’t have to respond to you in any way.

Edit: I did spend 1h to 1h 30m with the Engineers, and I got not a single Hardened Leather Section in that time. If they actually drop them, I believe if you can farm for 1h and not get one, the drop rate is insignificant. The wiki implies that they drop at the same rate as Thick Leather, but that’s simply not true. I got maybe 20 to 30 Thick Leather in that time.

Carighan.6758:

I am not sure I actually see the problem with this.

Mindless grinds aren’t inherently bad for your MMORPG. People need these activities. They allow you to relax, browse something, watch a video or (most importantly) focus on chatting. They shouldn’t be the mainstay of your game but they definitely got their place.

I think many people believe the people behind those accounts are not really playing the game actively. That’s simply not true.

My wife has a HoT account too, but rarely plays it. I could just log in with her account, use the level 80 boost on a Necromancer and play it until it has the autoloot mastery. Then I could just start a necro afk farm and run it while actively playing my own account. Most people would think the player behind that afk farm account must be somehow deranged or a completely boring person. And the dev on reddit even thinks that an afk farm means less active playing and people moving away from the game eventually. That’s only a correct assumption if every account belongs to a single real person. That’s far from reality though, especially in a game you can basically play for free. There are probably people who have a dozen afk farms running, while actively playing their main account. Then transfer the crap to that main account, because crap times a dozen adds up. And yes, there are people who have access to several computers.

ArenaNet should know how many people have more than one account, because they see the IP addresses.

Ayrilana.1396:

Prices have all dropped since the engi farm started. The more people farming, the more supply that enters the TP, and the further prices go down. That’s your impact. Both thick and hardened have seen price decreases with supply increasing 2-3 fold.

The prices have decreased a little bit since Lake Doric was put online, not since Engineers figured out how to farm the ground area. As the dev on reddit mentioned:

Small facts:

This area is outside of the leather farm and the farming going on in the area has actually decreased the amount of leather farmed in the area

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6ec2az/chris_clearly_engi_leather_farmbots_working_on_it/

He actually has numbers from the logs of that map. Contrary to what you believe, the Engineer farm does not make leather cheaper. You obviously didn’t even experience it yourself before talking about it on the forums. Please take 30 to 60 minutes and actually join the Engineers. You don’t need an Engineer for that, a character with AoEs helps. You will notice that there’s only crap to loot and the ponies down there don’t drop a single Hardened Leather Section. Thinking about it, since the Engineer farm only drops lower tier leather (mainly Tier 5), it could mean that people buy it on the market and think it’s a good time to start crafting. But for that, they need hardened leather again, so the demand on hardened leather rises, without additional hardened leather entering the market. You know what that means? Hardened leather could become more expensive because of the Engineer farms.

Ayrilana.1396:

Everything has dropped down due to that engi farm. The impact is based on the number of people farming. Since there are more people doing the engi farm than the old way, you’re seeing a greater impact. If even more people farmed then prices would fall even further. With how things are right now, players have control over the supply and prices.

And what exactly is the impact? They are looting crap, will have no visible effect on the leather economy. It looks bad, that’s all I can see. Not a big deal.

TexZero.7910:

Or even just a group of stealth thieves opening the chest.

Sorry, but Thieves using stealth to get to a chest is really not on the same level as the Engineer farm. The devs could easily have made that impossible by design, like they did at other instances. Thieves using stealth are not as pitiful as the Engineer farm in Lake Doric or wiggling players who ate Seaweed Salad. Stealth is just another means of doing what tankier builds can do without it. Warrior can just walk to the spider wisp in Swampland and ignore the spiders he triggers, Thief can shadow step to it.

And a stealthed Thief doesn’t make the game look bad. Necromancer and Engineer farms and wiggling players do. I bet ArenaNet would remove them quickly if they were in starting areas. When you get to the farms, you already know that this is not how the game is because you are in Lake Doric and Bitterfrost Frontier.

btw, since this is a Leather topic: If you want quick 40 Hardened Leather Sections and haven’t map completed Cursed Shore yet, do it! It’s probably the best one time “farm” for hardened leather per hour. You will probably go for map completion anyway, so why not now when the price for that stuff is so high.

Envy.1679:

im bald and this triggers me

You are probably a beautiful young, bald, lady. My human female thief is not as blessed though, baldness doesn’t fit her. And she cannot grow a beard to keep eyes away from her head.

Just like most men don’t look as good as Micheal Jordan without hair.

Tornupto.2304:

Fluffball.8307:

I am 100% certain I am correct that more people means it takes longer. I’ve done the event dozens of times. It’s not a false assumption, I know I can kill it quickly and zergs even breaking the defiance bar cannot.

It’s not the scaling that causes the problem. Lazy players cause it. One of the reasons why i don’t do world bosses if I don’t have to. Too many people just don’t know how to do dps with more than 3 digits.

That is exactly the real reason. The more people, the less personal commitment you’ll see. “someone else will do the work and nobody will notice how much/little effort I put in”.

It’s not something you can solve technically because that’s how swarms act. The more people, the less responsibility the individuum takes. My bet is that 20% of the zerg deal 80% of the damage. Pareto knew his kitten.

I love how people try to defend ArenaNet and find excuses for the issue. I strongly believe that ArenaNet is just as unhappy about the situation as the OP and many many other players. It’s just ridiculous that in a game that puts so much effort into making your character look awesome, hats make your hair vanish.

I love how ArenaNet handles character aesthetics and I’m pretty sure many people come to this game because of that.

The baldness-issue must be a huge PITA for the designers because they didn’t find a solution yet that can be implemented easily and feasibly.

The flaw is so obvious that I actually laughed when I read the thread. This is like Apple putting the USB jack at the bottom of their mouse. You would expect that from a company that doesn’t give a kitten about design, not from Apple. And you don’t expect this from GW2 either.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

As long as you accept that the hair would be specific to the headgear and not your character’s customized hair. It would also have far less animation, less texture, and use one of the four dye channels from the armor. That ‘missing link’ is what allows ANet to release more skins (gear + styles) more often.

In other words, that suggestion doesn’t address the root technical issue.

That sounds like there is only one solution for the problem, and it has flaws itself. I’m not a game designer or coder, but I’m pretty sure if those super creative people put their minds to it, they could come up with more elegant solutions.

tl;dr: Hats making you bold or hiding your hair is a major flaw and simply leads to most people hiding them. I hope ArenaNet is working on it and will find an elegant solution.