Guild Wars 2

Ceazer.7429:

If it was a “bug fix” the escort doylak instance is still bugged. Same exact skelk there as before the patch. Hmm.

Hidden, private & personal farming ;D

If you guys are talking about skelks, that got nerfed a few days ago..

Thucydides.8510:

It seems to me that what ANet is going for is farming in the context of playing the game. For example, running the Grenth chain, getting drops from mobs during the events, silver + karma + xp from events + chest reward at the end (pretend the event ends successfully, okay? ;P). They should be encouraging this sort of “farming” more.

What they’re trying to reduce is basically mindless farming a la Union Waypoint: i.e., group up + guardian staff 1 + collect loot + repeat (I’m speaking hypothetically, of course, I would never engage in such a thing myself). This kind of farming is fun (to a point) and lucrative, but it’s also a bot magnet and guaranteed to collapse the economy in the long run due to a greater than intended proliferation of materials.

The thing is, the kind of fun places like Union provide is very short term. It’s “hee hee, I’m getting stuff for little effort!” I suspect ANet will try to discourage this given that a) people tend to enjoy things more when they have to put a little effort in, and b) they make more money when there is a minor scarcity of materials rather than a super-abundance.

Having said that, when they nerf farming spots things usually swing too far in the scarcity direction (the current situation with T-6 dust is a case in point), and players have a legitimate gripe when that happens.

So in general, when players cry over nerfed farming spots… I sympathize. I (hypothetically) miss the old Union Waypoint. But what you’re crying over is super-easy mats and money. Get over it. In the long run, if getting mats and money is that easy it’s not going to be as fun a game.

I think I see what ANet is saying about finding a sweet spot between effort and reward, and I agree. But they ain’t there yet. Nerfing farming, while I see the reasons for it, is not the whole solution. Maybe if there was also a modest upgrade to rewards for doing big events there would be less grumbling…

As someone who has made over 800g from the union waypoint farming, it was bound to be nerfed. I agree with it being nerfed (though I’d love it to still be there). But you must ask, which is more destructive for the economy?

25s dust or 40s dust? and rising? I think the latter.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, arenanet can nerf bugged or immensely rewarding events all they want.

But they just keep nerfing the events that players find as the next best thing ( and just aren’t bugged)

i.e. Collonade, plinx, shelt/pen

And this whole time I was blindly salvaging all white weapons..

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Where are these event chests that appear every 8 to 10 minutes?

That was the instigator chest. It’s gone now.

loot was pretty good too:
http://i.imgur.com/9bRo8u1.jpg

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The latest case of “farming nerfs” was actually a bug fix. I’m aware of this because I was asked to help identify the issue. The area in question contained a spawn that was defined to have more creatures than spots for those creatures to spawn. So for example, 25 skelks spawning on 10 points. This is not intended. Not only does it just look absurd, it’s also leads to some extremely bizarre play conditions. This is one of those bugs that’s so buggy, the fact that our toolset even allowed this to happen is a bug. Another bug caused this bug. Bugception.

If we didn’t want players to be able to farm, we wouldn’t have put in the huge (and free) magic and gold find buffs for Southsun Cove. We wouldn’t drop loot from the giant mobs of creatures that appear in upscaled events. We certainly wouldn’t have put in chests that appear after events which cycle every 8 to 10 minutes. How quickly all of that content goes completely forgotten in the angered responses to a simple change to an area that was clearly bugged. :/

On farming in general, there’s a sweet spot that combines good loot with fun, engaging content. I think Southsun had that going for it, especially before certain aspects of the content were isolated as optimal. As someone who’s actively working on upcoming Living World releases, I’m aiming to find that sweet spot and hit it in a big way.

How about the nerfs like shelt/pen, where we spend minutes beating on a veteran spider only to encounter many more veteran spider hatchlings (which don’t even provide any loot or exp).

That is not fun, and there is no good loot at all.

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Do you think the players who exploited the snowflake issue deserved to be banned? They were people who liked to be wealthy and wished to gain as much gold as possible, and I’m not so sure they were unskilled players.

And if you think they deserved to have been banned, why? Because they hurt the economy of the game? But didn’t they increase the supply of ectos, thus lowering those prices, pretty much like farmers increase the supply of rare items in the game and (supposedly) decrease their prices?

So just cause they increase the supply of items by playing a lot more than a casual player means they should be banned? A player who decides to keep killing reefs or wraiths instead of killing a wide variety of mobs should be banned?

Seriously, what kind of mentality is this?

If you refuse to acknowledge the difference between an exploiter and a farmer then I can’t help you and I won’t bother to waste any time arguing about it.

projectcedric.6951:

I just logged out of the game after playing for an hour. I have never felt this empty about this game. Should I have continued farming after all that nerf? Maybe. Should I have done some other things in-game as Anet desire us to? Divided game time between open world/dungeons/wvwvw? Maybe.

I cannot explain it in words but I just decided to log out instead.

I feel like this is starting to be one of those endless races between developer and players. Developers intends something for their game, players play it a different way, and developers change the game. Players find another way to play it differently, developers change the game again. It’s almost as if they are FORCING people to play only one way, and the game play diversity is the diversity that the developers dictate players to have.

It’s a really beautiful game but the changes are starting to feel really dictatorial.

That’s how I felt after they nerfed grub farming. I felt lost. Then I heard malchor farming was available and hopped on that for 2-3 weeks.

With that gone, and southsun farming being nerfed, there is nothing I want to do in game.

Arenanet doesn’t want you to play how you want. They want you to play how THEY want.

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

They are. In both cases, you have someone who is doing something not for the sake of the experience, but for the sake of the result. The farmer who doesn’t like CoF but is running it over and over to get gold for ectos is very similar to the guy who exploited the snowflake salvaging to get more ectos: both are not enjoying what they are doing, both want to get done with it as soon as possible, and both are in it only for the result. It’s even questionable if the impact from the extra ectos added to the game by those exploiters was that much worse than the elitism introduced in the game by the CoF farmers who, not enjoying the dungeon and thus wishing to clear it as fast as possible, only accept Berzeker warriors in their teams.

Sooo what I’m understanding is that people who like to be wealthy and gain as much gold as possible (for the sake of experience) are pretty bad players and should be banned?

Erasculio.2914:

Vol.5241:

Farming =/ grinding

That is the kind of petty, meaningless semantic argument I expect when someone has no real counter to an argument. Farming is the same as grinding, with the exact same negative connotation as in someone wasting time doing a mindless and easy activity (that a bot could do better than a human being) for the sake of a shiny reward in the end. Much like a donkey chasing a carrot in front of its face, and definitely not any smarter.

Well, who am I to argue against someone who thinks farmers (or grinders according to you) are on the same level as exploiters.

Before the reef spot was nerfed I was able to get 12 powerful bloods in 30 minutes. That’s not including all the other goodies around there. Certainly possible.

Farming =/ grinding

And yes, lump us farmers with exploiters, botters and hackers.

Dangerkips.6035:

It’s all been said but yes, Anet is pretty actively interested in nerfing farming areas almost as soon as they are discovered. Which is very paradoxical because this game is probably the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played.

The only conclusion is: they want the game to remain ‘the casuals paradise’, catering to the vast majority of the playerbase that plays less than 8 hours a week and spends RL money on the cash shop to buy gems. (Which they can then exchange for gold at a ridiculous exchange rate)

^ This

The hardcore players aren’t exactly the profitable ones for Arenanet. They knew how to make money and made a lot of it, lessening the need/desire to buy gems.

But the casuals are the people who more than likely have a job/family commitments, and are more than likely to buy gems to get what they want in a timely manner.

Infernia.9847:

Vol.5241:

Don’t expect dust price to drop back down to 25.

How did the price reach this level?

They nerfed both union farming AND shelt/pen timers.

The only way to bring this back is to bring either or both back. And I just don’t see that happening.

They can also increase the drop rate to mobs that have it in their loot table &/or to the rate of its occurrence in moldy bags, or add the T6 dust to the loot tables of other lvl 80 mobs. There are a lot of things Anet can do to mitigate the damage. The real question is, ‘will they do anything about it?’

AFAIK dust drops from spiders, wraiths and ghosts.

Spiders are hard to find in cursed/malchor, and they also nerfed those spiderlings. Wraiths are very few and spaced out. Ghosts are in WvW and aren’t guaranteed to drop T6.

Moldy bag rate can increase, sure. But even if they do so, there are just not enough mobs/events to go around in cursed shore for it to rebound back to the 25s levels.

I can just imagine what’s happening in Arenanet’s office. On one hand, content designers and Colin wants to make loot as difficult as possible to get so that people are enticed to buy gems.

While John Smith is going nuts on not being able to adjust an item because the designers/Colin says not to.

I’m gonna be holding on to my stack of dusts (not like I need the gold) for at least a few more weeks. Just looking at how Arenanet is operating the past few months, they are nerfing farming, not aiding it. I think the price is going to go up quite a bit over the next few weeks.

What kind of chest are you talking about?

The daily chest or the physical big chest that appears on the ground?

The daily chest is limited to 1 per day per account per boss

The physical chest is limited to 1 per day per character per boss

Jam.4521:

‘-Dragon’s Jade Weapon Skins
You can find weapon tickets inside Rich Dragon Coffers and (rarely) in Dragon Coffers’

So there appears to be a chest that definitely has a skin token inside, as well as the RNG type. A more expensive version only from Gem store which guarantees the skin and a cheap version that also drops in game, but which has a small chance at the skin?

I’m hoping so anyway, its a step in the right direction.

I would interpret that as the Rich Dragon Coffers has a higher chance of a weapon ticket while the drdagon coffer (similar to SS crate) has a lower chance

FallenTear.3710:

Dust up so crazy 2hours ago.

lol whoever decided to buy all the dust up to 60s is short-sighted

It reminds me of the time someone bought all the dusk on the outpost a few months ago and plopped one up for 900g

Of course, others who hoard Dusk would severely undercut and now we are back to normal levels for Dusk.

Same with dust. Last I checked it was below 40s.

Don’t expect dust price to drop back down to 25.

How did the price reach this level?

They nerfed both union farming AND shelt/pen timers.

The only way to bring this back is to bring either or both back. And I just don’t see that happening.

asurae
humans
charrs
norns
sylvari (singular & plural)

CrazyDuck.4610:

Has already raised to 4.3gs

Pretty sure that’s artificial demand right there.

It’s like watching Giant Eyes jump from 50s to 1.2G in a matter of minutes.

Only to drop back to 50s a day later.

Interesting to see what it’s going to peak at.

At current rates its probably profitable to go out and farm spiders/wraiths

That’s why I tell people it’s foolish to hate on ‘grinding’ or ‘farming’

It’s impossble to plan, design and implement content which is new so that everyday you encounter something new and different.

You pretty much have to introduce something new everyday which is just stupid.

Apparently it’s a bug

As far as I can recall, they are also account bound and you cannot harvest more than 15 nodes per day

The AC Detha one, after patch.

affectionaly nicknamed ‘ghostbusters’

They haven’t released armor skins after each event. Halloween, Winstersday, Living Story – all the new skins that were released were weapon skins, and more often than not they weren’t available as merchant buys.

Not sure why you guys expected this – but it served as a perfect opportunity to profit off of those who speculated

Hickeroar.9734:

Well, hopefully around the time Dust hits 1g/per, Anet will realize they’ve screwed up.

Sitting on 300 dusts

/licks fingers

Amadan.9451:

i have a theroy, luck is account bound in this game, if you never get a precursor by rng in 2k hours you’ll never get it, if you already have one, chances are you’ll find another.
i have found zero precursors and i did everything in this game, every content.
i only never did some dungeon path.
i just killed the karka queen and i got a pletora of karka shell, a medallion of the traveller, a rare speargun and a rare medium helm…
i guess i’m in the medium luck since i find rares and exotic here and there, but somehow the game won’t give me unidentified dyes and precursors.

For the record, I’ve got all my precursors from mobs/chests

I’ve spent over 700g on the forge, got zero

It’s just luck

Maybe OP is salvaging lvl 50 rares ;p

The reaction will not be short-term. It’s long-term. Of course you aren’t going to see immediate changes after each nerf – people have accumulated wealth ever since they farmed each spot. As soon as that wealth runs out for whatever reason, people will be encouraged to buy gems.

For example, say I have every component available for a legendary except for 250 ectos and 250 dust. I’m discouraged to complete my legendary because it’s so expensive.

Then, somehow the dust price has dropped 80% so that I can afford to buy that stack! But I still don’t have enough money to buy that ecto stack – but i’m ever so close.

If farming were available, I’d probably just keep farming and buy my ectos slowly.

But because gold acquisition is now incredibly difficult, I may have to resort to buying gems since it’s instant.

And I can get my legendary in an instant.

This is what I dreaded after the ecto fix.

After each patch people will always doubt.

Let’s say you wanted a profit of 1s per shell
One person would have to have 100,000 shells to get that 1000 gold.

I’m figuring people didn’t do this to profit toooo much. Just to clear out their banks and recoup any gold they can

Kichwas.7152:

Kain Francois.4328:

What a shame. I only hope the Queen Karka event chain makes up for it.

Kichwas.7152:

Vol.5241:

It’s as if you lump in farmers with the gaming ‘scum’ of hackers, botters and exploiters

There’s a difference?

Yes. Farming is a legitimate way to the game in new ways, while farming gold.

The only difference between a farmer and a botter is the number of accounts one has been caught using.

The only difference between a CoF dungeon farmer and a banned exploiter is which one has been caught.

I actually chuckled at that. I’m too lazy to write a counter to that because, well, it’s ludicrous.

I told y’all

They don’t release new skins

and the stat combo is very low in demand

Aeonblade.8709:

Another wasted opportunity to make ten dollars off of thousands and thousands of people immediately by Anet.

They hate money~!

And this is based on?

You have to consider that there must be a reason why they have been doing this since release, despite the unanimous hate for it from the forums.

They must be getting increased sales each event from this. Why turn around and experiment with guaranteed items?

It’s been like this since release. No reason to think otherwise.

Kichwas.7152:

Minos.3450:

JonPeters.5630:

It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously. When one activity emerges that’s order of magnitudes more profitable than anything else in the game, it forces everyone to either engage in that activity or get priced out of the economy

How long is a CoF p1 with 4 W 1 M ? 4 minutes ? oh well…

Vayne.8563:

Yep, it’s long overdue for a nerf. The odds are they’re working on redoing it completely. It’s not quite as easy to change a dungeon as to stop an open world mob from scaling, I think.

Southsun has me on the fence on this.

On the one hand having gone with one of those ‘speed clear groups’ to do CoF p2, I noticed they do it by glitching, jumping over walls, and so on.
- I’m of a mind that anyone that has run this place like that more than twice deserves a ban, and for that I’d love to see my credit for having gone there stripped from my account. Actually waiting to go proper with a guild group -before- I finish Arah so I can feel I earned Dungeon Master when it pops.

On the other hand…

Southsun has become a farm between two enraged settler events. The farmers do NOTHING 24/7 but pat back and forth between those two mobs (*), and queue for CoF p1/2.

This is a blessing for the rest of us. We can now avoid these fools with ease. Other than an occasional bad attitude person, the rest of the game has improved dramatically now that the farmers have been herded out of the way.

I’m enjoying dungeons and Orr and even the lowbie Kryta zones now that the farmers are gone.

So if Anet isn’t going to just flat out ban any farmer / bot. I’m glad they’ve at least sectioned them off with an effective lure – and while these places should not exist and I feel should be patched out, I also dread having to deal with farmers messing up the game environment again.

That said, I notice the PvE zergs tend to go anywhere there’s a commander icon. So simply disabling commander icons outside of WvW might keep mega-zergs from forming and messing up events in PvE areas. Small sets of farmers could do their thing, without becoming a nuisance to others.

(*) Yes I have gone to that event to/fro – doing each of those events once a day. It frustrates me that no other group event in Southsun is viable because of the lure of the zerg. But at least group events in Orr now -are- viable because there’s no farm zerg sucking up all the attention, so when people say "need help with X’ others actually go and do it.

It’s as if you lump in farmers with the gaming ‘scum’ of hackers, botters and exploiters

Once it’s soulbound you cannot trade/sell it.

However there was a trick/‘exploit’ that allowed it to be unsoulbound but transferable to characters. I’m not sure if they patched it.

Horn is definitely not appropriate for humans or sylvari.

Obvious choice are the charr and maybe asura since they look so cute in them

BTW guys..keep in mind that hours in game doesn’t necessarily mean you should have had a good chance at getting a precursor.

A guy who plays 1000 hours purely in WvW is going to have a different chance than a guy who does 1000 hours farming meta events or even a guy who does 1000 farming shelt/pen (pre-nerf)

I’d wager that the guy who farms shelt/pen will have a greater chance at precursors due to the sheer number of mobs that person has an opportunity to have a roll on.

Well then I commend you for farming from scratch. I’m sure there will be people out there that will doubt you (such as I) but of course as long as you know that you yourself farmed every single thing, that’s all that matters.

Essence Snow.3194:

In 3000 (just hit minutes ago) hours I have yet to obtain one. I have thrown very rare sword, great sword, rifle, staff, shield, hammer, long bow, and short bow I have obtained after initial equipment of my toons into the forge to no avail. I have also thrown countless dungeon exotics in as well.

I have had all my gifts ready to go for a while, yet a precursor eludes me. I have had plenty of means to purchase one for a long time but, I feel that it is not acceptable that I am required to purchase one off the tp. Heck with all the stuff I have thrown in the forge I could have easily paid for dusk or the lover long ago, although tbh I don’t care which one as I only want it for the login medal.

I do not want it easy to obtain one. I simply do not want to have to buy one off the tp. I don’t care if it takes another 3k hours as long as it is actually obtainable via game play.

To me there is something fundamentally wrong with requiring (situational) us to buy things off the tp………I’ll end my post with that sentiment.

I’m pretty sure you have in one way or another bought the other components for your legendary.

Why would the precursor be exempt from that?

I guess we should cancel all events then until PvE culling is fixed?

Have zero fun at all rather than have some people have fun?

All games have more players Fri-Sun. People have school/work on weekdays.

That backpiece…reminds me of Aion

Rama.6439:

I have almost 2600 hrs in and have never seen one except the one I bought, I think they manipulate certain peoples rng (like mine) so they will never get them cause I give them hell on these forums, but they deserve it! And I will continue to do it until they either ban me or this game goes down in flames…

Funny – I’ve been complaining here non-stop about them nerfing all the farming spots since that’s where I originally got all my gold. I guess they want to force me to buy gems :P

Jokes on them, I’ve made 1000g in the past month with these precursors, and nothing to spend all my gold on :P

No gem purchases for you, Anet!

I’d rather take the viewpoint that Arenanet wants gold acquisition methods to be so rare and prohibitive that people are encouraged to buy and sell gems.

I sold my dusk at about 590g. There are a bunch at the 595-600 range last I checked, about 4.

Don’t give in to the buy order. Never give in. At the very least, price yourself 20-30g higher than the buy order.

I’ve got 3 in about 2000 total hours

Dusk in November from Jofast escort event in CS
The Legend last month from Lyssa farming @ Union
Dusk again two days ago from an instigator chest

I’m a lucky sob

FYI you don’t get armored scales from reef. You get bloods and I believe one of either fangs or claws.

That’s how I made 9g/h.