meanignless negativity? Perhaps you haven’t been on other game forums but a lot of the “negativity” you read here are very valid.
You basically just told Anet to not fix bugs, broken events, badly tuned encounters, characters losing gold and items etc.
GG, just because you like something doesn’t mean you should will yourself to be so blatantly blind.
8 gold as a max for a lvl 80 is a sign there’s been a lot of spending along the way and/or a lack of gold-earning strategies. Yes 100g is a lot. But 8 g you should have attained more than that long before 80.
My guild: Everyone chipped in what they could and we have a couple commanders so far.
And there is nothing wrong with not having a gold earning strategy while leveling up in a new game. I also hit 80 with about 8G. I spent a few on the T1 culturals and repairs and what not. Had I known how difficult and limited it would be to earn coin at 80, I would have saved every cent.
The tactic I used for my 100g is still alive and kicking: farming Cursed Shore events. The Shelters gate area is the best, even with all of the bots. Just get in a group and it makes tagging mobs easy.
15-20g a day if you stick with it for a while each day.
On average, a player would have to be consistently lucky with yellow drops and green drops and play about 15 hours p/day to earn that. I consider 1G per/hr as a very lucky hour. Otherwise the average is around 70 silver per/hr of pure grind.
As it stands, $500 in currency exchange is insanity. It doesn’t matter if something may or may not have been worth more, it’s still insanity.
It’s like asking someone which would be a worse way to die, to get hit by 500 lb dropped bomb or to have a wrecking ball dropped right on top of you from the 40th floor. The answer is just as ridiculous as the question.
Saying the info is easily available completely misses the point that we must first know to look for it. If the game can’t even give you basic info, don’t expect people to know to look for more detailed info.
For example, I still don’t know what armor and toughness does except that they mitigate damage. Ok, that’s it? no other basic info?
It’s like the game was designed so these things wouldn’t matter. Just slap on any armor and just spam what abilities you have and everyone run like forrest gump and kite. leveling 1-80 seems to reinforce that.
so many people simply don’t understand what the RPG in MMORPG means. The definition of it isn’t difficult to grasp but the meaning seems to be elusive to most players.
It means playing a game where you can role play. It means customisation. It’s a fantasy sim. What value a mmorpg when customisation is considered evil; and yes, the gear grind is part of that customisation. Too many people are too caught up in the WoW raid mentality to understand that you don’t need to get things to progress to the next step of something else. You can get it because it progresses your toon. The carrot is not evil.
You guys call this a “carrot”, when all it is is customisation/character progression. Whether that be cosmetic or stats based loot is exactly the same thing. You guys are arguing against the very things you are arguing for.
RPG’s need customisation. Otherwise don’t bother making an MMO. Just create a lobby and a ring for fighting (like gw 1) and let’s not pretend like it is actually anything more than a multiplayer game.
You can not argue against the carrot and progression and say that you are an MMORPG player or even that the game is an MMORPG. As far as “RPG” goes, GW2 is very. very shallow.
Have a go at LOTRO to understand what an MMORPG is and what the RPG part of it means. You may or may not like that game but the RPG elements of it are solid and well thought out. In fact, it could be argued that LOTRO’s world is designed to be more meaningful for explorers despite it offering no tangible rewards.
R . P . G
I really depends doesn’t it. In a game designed to be more of a sandbox, it makes sense that people will naturally find ways to do their own thing for fun, because it was designed to allow it.
GW2 is not that type of game. It is essentially a theme park. The game simply wasn’t designed for what you are talking about. You could look at UO for a good example of players finding their own fun in game; though rewards also played a role as well.
In a game like GW2, the only hook is rewards. Apart from doing the one time activities (exploring for example), and running the DE’s a few times, there really isn’t much else to do. I guess you could participate in the artificially depressed economy. It’s not a free form game and crafting so far looks to be rather useless. It was designed as a single player action adventure game with MMO features.
It is intrinsically not a player generated content game unless you participate in the pvp. So it very much is a developer issue.
Pure dedicated farming, selling everything to vendors and yellow drops to trading post, you can make roughly about 5G per 8 hours. How much you earn is entirely dependant on how much drops for you (including junk drops).
I’ve made as high as 1G per hour but that depends entirely on how many yellow items drop for you. They sell on the Trading Post for 15 – 30 – 40 silver each. On the low end, I can make as little as 70 silver per hour.
Realistically, expect to be making less than 1G per hour of dedicated farming. If you expect more than that, you’ll find yourself quite disheartened much of the time. Earnign gold in this game is embarrassingly bad; which ironically, makes the Gold Sellers services seem much more enticing.
What is this post for?
1. For new level 80’s who are put off by Orr for whatever reason but still need a way to make karma for the orange karma armor/weapons and still need low level crafting resources.
2. To highlight the problems with diminishing returns (anti-farm code) with sequential screenshots with time stamp to highlight that even when playing as per designed by the game, as a level 80, you will still hit Diminishing returns. Why this is in the sam epost is exactly because you will encounter this if your objective is the set armor(s).
It should be noted that diminishing returns affects 2 facets of the game at the moment. One is loot/mob and the second is Karma/coin/XP gain (yes, it is still useful to be gaining XP after you hit level 80). I’ll only highlight the Karma reward(s). Other people have started looking into the mob loot issue.
Wayfarer Foothills (1-15)
This zone is jam packed with Dynamic Events and the resource nodes are nicely strewn around the whole map. I started in Human zone and I can say that gathering here was more “profitable” mainly because the nodes are easily accessible and aren’t guarded by veterans or hidden deep inside troll infested caves. The layout is more straightforward and even as an 80, I find myself having fun in this zone.
MAP: http://i.imgur.com/jOUHl.jpg
Dynamic Events
See the map link. Double circle means more than 1 events starts there. Notice the narrow design of the map and how densely packed the Events are. As any level, you can chain these events pretty easily. There’s ALWAYS at least 2 happening at any one time. You can see how easy it is to finish one and be able to jump right away to the next event(s).
The fastest spawning events are the ones on the Eastern side of the map. There is usually ~5 minute wait time before the chain starts again if you decide not to do the North, West and South DE’s.
this area for me is the best starter zone (imo) and really reflects what Anet are trying to do with the game. It’s a fun zone and I would recommend anyone, even 80’s to have a go at it especially since it’s a massive change of pace to Orr. Also, if you’re 80, you can make more Karma here BUT your coin earnings will be HALF of what you can get in Orr.
Except, here’s the problem – Diminishing Returns
My screenshots in a zip folder (dropbox) https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10429631/timerbline%20Falls%20screenshots.zip
Here is the short of it – By event 14 in an hour, you will start taking drastic reduction in rewards.
The normal level 80 rewards. 3,675 XP | 243 Karma | 1S, 20C will end up as low as 10 karma | 5 C.
Screen 23. For those who say you can’t die in these low level events. You very much can… I popped Aegis and tried to rez someone, the guy walked over, stomped, bypassed my Aegis and 1-shot me.
*CONCLUSSION – *
As you can see, by the 14th Event in under an hour, you start hitting diminishing returns. From there, it quickly degrades to essentially nothing. Note that I am running around the zone, gathering, had a couple chat with people, inventory managed, some crafting; even went to loot a chest from a bunch of svanir in a cave. Playing as per normal and following the chain of events as it leads me around with breaks in between for nodes as I find them.
An 80 can easily hit this cap earlier if he’s not messing around and just farming, because I can hit this in 45 minutes+ if I just farm it (which i don’t usually do). Just playing normally, you’re going to hit the wall. for lowbies, you won’t hit this easily, but in a large group, it’s entirely conceivable you can hit this diminished state if you simply follow the chain of events.
If you notice my first map and compare with my screenshots, you will notice that I skipped a bunch of other events/didn’t do them. By the point I can do them, I get effectively nothing.
Also, my screenshots should be in sequence but there may be more screenshots in there than stated in this post. But you should be able to get the gist of it. the clock is sequential in any event; enough to get my drift.
If you’re bored of Orr or just dislike the place, this is ONE zone you can play in as a replacement. there are others I’m looking at as well. Keep in mind that you will hit the anti-farm code here faster than in Orr, because Orr events tend to take longer to spawn.
if you really need coin, stay in Orr – This place is best for Karma and low level node gathering. Roughly 3400-4000 karma p/h. It’s faster than Orr especially if you don’t have a lot of time.
if you cant make 5g in 8 hours you are doing something wrong.
this is a troll…
do not feed the trolls…
thank you
well, the way he put it is pretty trollish. Playing normally as designed, you’ll be lucky if you can make 1 gold. Likely your balance will be effectively flat.
However, you can make 5G on average per day by Event farming in Orr, sell everything to the NPC vendor. Sell any yellow items to trading post.
For example, on Saturday, i played 14 hours and made somewhere around 2.5G. Gathering nodes (and selling it to trading post), crafting a bit, playing the trading post a bit, went to help my wife in the low level zones a bit, died a lot to overtuned low level events and doing roughly about 80 events (admittedly, normal players aren’t going to be doing 80 events per day).
On Sunday, I logged into Orr at 4pm till midnight (8 hours) and from trash loot, event coin and random yellow drops, I made about 5G. But that was farming the event every time it came up, speed to the next event etc… It’s also mind-numbingly boring even by my standards (I like to farm).
It’s also not realistic to expect normal people to do this to make that kind of money. It means you forgo everything else just to earn money. Even your crafting material go up to the trading post, if you can find the time to gather nodes in between events. Most people playing as designed, will take about a year to earn 100G, if even that.
the cost is pretty dissappointing considering the type of game this is supposed to be.
Very informative, I’m curious to know how you gained this knowledge. Was it through experience or is there a source I can thumb through?
Mostly through playing the lower level Norn zone. I’ve mainly been playing the entire week since last Saturday. that’s about 5 hours per night after work, every night in that zone with a few zone switches trying to figure out why my Karma gains dropped to 19+ . I didn’t even know of the diminishin returns until I started this area shortly after I hit Orr (level 80 zone) and quickly left due to annoyances there. Also, I was missing so many low level crafting materials, i really did have to go back to the lowbie areas anyway.
I’ve detailed in other posts/replies how quickly I could hit the diminished state because this zone has multiple stacking, quick to do, chain events, mostly soloable (except for the raid events). without speed and taking your time, you could do 8 events back to back easily. With a 20 second speed burst, you can do 10. It probably takes 30 odd minutes to complete this circuit.
that’s how i hit the DR, the rest I put together myself based on trial and error. It’s still incomplete info as I have not sat down to explicitely test how long and how many events/mobs is required.
1. If you are at level you should not hit the diminishing returns. The speed which you kill and progress through mobs and events will be slow enough to not ever hit the diminishing returns.
Mob killing DR will typically only hit level 70+ players who engage in heavy event concentration areas and/or quickly kill mobs over a period of time. What this time is, is not definitive. Anecdotally, it’s about 30 minutes to 1 hour of mob killing will start DR, really depending on how many mobs you can kill in that time.
2. DR does not care how long you are in an area. You can stay the whole day in the exact same area and never hit DR. It’s most likely based on how many mobs you kill over a period of time and for events, how many events you complete over a period of time. My own experience shows anecdotally to be that if you run 12++ events in under an hour, the DR kicks in quickly and (example) your karma gain can drop from 290 per event to as low as 19+ (at level 80).
Again, as a leveling character, this won’t affect you unless you join a low level zerg, which you’re less likely to do since you move out of the zone so quickly anyway.
3. To reset, just log out for 30 minutes to 1 hour. It’s the safest bet and there’s no real guage of exactly how long you need to wait.
Why should you log out after DR hits? Because once your character is diminished, it affects ALL your activity gains in any map and/or zone. You can change location and map and you will still have DR on you. That is how it is working for me at the moment – I tried changing zones and events to get around DR, it simply doesn’t work.
I would like to think this is a bug because noone could purposely build something so intrinsically hostile to the player as that!
I am a huge opponent of the anti-farm code, but as a leveling player, do not worry! You will most likely not hit this even if you tried. It will only really hit you once you hit 80.
I’ll thank them when they remove the ridiculous anti-farm code that only really affects legitimate players. The farmers and botters already have a way to completely circumvent the system. I can think of one way in which this system is actually more beneficial to them.
I’ll thanks them when I can go to a lower level zone and have level appropriate loot drop and scale my costs to the zone I’m in. Instead, right now, I’m paying level 80 costs for everything, no matter what zone I’m in without any reasonable way to balance my wallet. Otherwise I am fine with getting slightly less rewards from DE’s in lower levels.
I’m ok with everything about the game except:
- levels scale, but not cost and loot
- anti-farm code penalises a legitimate playstyle that their own design encourages
- fix the ridiculous amounts of broken DE that can’t be progressed/completed
Once those are done, the game will really be a gem. While those linger, it’s a severely cripple experience.
The Zerg circle in Orr yields decent coin over time if you don’t die. You can still die quite easily in the zerg depending on the event. It’s also mind numbingly boring.
The best use of your time is to go down to the starter zones and look for high respawn, overlapping Dynamic events. Norn stater zone from the NW fort down along the Northeastern wall of the map has a series of DE you can do that is signifigcantly more efficient and, in some cases, much faster than the Orr events. You get about 50 less karma and 30 less copper per completion but you complete it faster and you effectively can chain ~10 DE in one run.
It’s also less annoying and less drab than Orr. You will make less overall since the random loot drops don’t scale, so there is a tradeoff. At least it can be done at your own time/pace without the massive zerg fest where you are just randomly AOEing without even knowing if you’re hitting anything.
There are several areas in other maps that have similarly quick/easy DE’s that overlap. Fire Ridge also has an area (southernmost town) where you can do a circuit completely solo with maybe a 5-10 minute wait before the circuit starts again. It’s about 3 or 4 DE and relatively quick.
I think it’s kind of hilarious that people have gotten so indoctrinated into the mentality of grinding and rushing through games using any loophole possible…that they actually, honestly don’t know how to play. Here’s a news flash… no MMORPG was really intended to be played that way. They just chose not to stop you from ruining your own experience for so long that you started thinking that actually WAS the experience.
Months and months ago, as I thought carefully about the game’s mechanics and their potential effect on the community…I figured that the game would really slow players down, get them exploring and feeling immersed, and get them enjoying the journey again, instead of just the extremely short-lived thrill of the meaningless never-ending ladder climbing sprint that most MMORPGs have been in the last decade. The bird seed those games drop every 10th time you peck the button doesn’t ever actually taste good…but maybe next time it will…
What I didn’t realize was exactly how resistant people would be to the reprogramming. It’s fairly astounding.
Want to know how to play a game? I’ll try to help. Stop looking for the fastest way to finish. Stop looking for the “best” everything. Stop looking at the numbers. Stop trying to shortcut or find the loopholes or game the system. If you KNOW that you got less experience this mob then you did on the last mob…you’re doing it wrong. Just play. The loot and levels and rewards will all flow naturally, and you’ll get a much longer, deeper, meaningful play experience. Maybe you’ll even find that you’re sticking around long enough to form server and game communities that are worthwhile and really add something to the game.
Play for fun… play because you enjoy the game play itself. Wander and explore and experience the stories and characters and the world for their own sake. Take pride in learning to play the combat really well (even when you don’t technically HAVE to), knowing your profession, etc. Help out other players just because it’s a nice and fun thing to do, and because paying it forward helps to create a better server community for you and everyone else.
If you don’t enjoy the game play, move on, because there’s no magical carrot at the end of the stick that is going to make it all worthwhile (there never really was in any game you played). This game IS the moment-to-moment game play that you experience just exploring and taking part in the world. It’s not some appetizer for 80 levels where you do things you don’t like in order to get to the “fun stuff”.
People complaining about anti-farm code sound a lot like 6-year-olds when you try to teach them organized sports.
“No, little Billy, you can’t kick three soccer balls around on the field in order to score points faster.”
“But…but…” throws up hands in disgust, “this game is IMPOSSIBLE!!”ALL games for people older than about five involve playing within a set of rules. It’s actually really refreshing to see ArenaNet attempting to nudge people into playing the game the way it was intended, instead of allowing the shortcuts and loopholes that typically make a large part of most MMORPGs completely meaningless.
Thanks for telling me how I should play an MMORPG since it’s quite clear you think your way of playing is somehow superior to my way.
You try and back up your statements by saying everyone complaining has been trained to “game the system”, which is to imply anyone who doesn’t like soft/hardcaps on certain playstyles are intentionally trying to hack the game. Something is wrong with your logic, not ours.
I like to grind. It’s how I like to play. It’s what I find fun. i like mob grinding more fun than DE grinding because it’s simpler and I can do it at my own time and pace. I don’t expect legendaries and such to drop from these things. I am fairly ok with just trash drops that I can sell to the NPC or finding the occassional somewhat useful item. I’m fine with that. If there is a chance for an exotic, even if it’s 0.01%, that’s just icing.
But thank you again for telling me how my playstyle is somehow wrong.
It’s pretty absurd that you think other MMORPG that allow you a wide range of playstyles without cripplying you is somehow a glitch and was unintended. Or even worse, that MMORPG that allow you a wide range of playstyles only does so because players are circumventing some mystical restrictions.
I’ve heard all kinds of crazy defence of GW2’s questionable decisions, but this takes the cake.
Orr can be fun if you’re not planning on doing anything else except DE. Everything else about the zone is an excercise in frustration. There’s only so many CC-break abilities my guardian can put on his action bar and I still can’t stop the constant CC. My frustration level in Orr is in the nerd rage zone.
Orr is the only zone in the whole game where I actively avoid mobs. Not because they are dangerous (they are dangerous) but because they are so annoying and they nearly always come in packs. It’s quite rare to get a single risen by itself.
Also, risen turtles….. 0_0 really?
Also, the artificial speed many of the mobs get completely takes you out of the moment. it’s so artificial.
Visually, I’m ok with the design though the layout is unnecessarily restrictive and complex. It feels like a large funnel rather than a large open world like other maps.
I really try and minimise my attendance in this zone for those very reasons. You don’t get as much karma and silver from other zones, but you still get a decent amount without having to deal with
1- the frustrations and annoyances
2- zerging everything
3- I’ve seen risen for nearly 20 levels already. Now there’s a whole area of only risen.
I really doubt players that don’t have much time to invest will ever deal with this system when it is functioning correctly. Most likely it will be at least 10+ runs in an hour.
anecdotally, it’s probably closer to 12+ in roughly an hour+…
While that may sound like a lot, consider my above reply. There are some zones where there are a lot of overlapping DE’s that can be repeated with minimal to no downtime. you can easily get over 10 in under an hour without even trying. It’s just… there, whether you want to do it or not.
most DE’s are space relatively far apart and while the timing may overlap, the DE area does not, so you’re naturally limited by distance and time. the natural spawn time of any one DE location will ensure you never hit the cap. It’s only when you enter a high density DE area/zone where you’re going to hit the cap (or Orr zerg – but those can take quite a long time to circuit).
that’s great but I have diminishing returns. I have been spending a lot of time in the Norn starter zone gathering craft mats and I am also farming the low level events there. The events there are very short (even the raid event) and there is one spot where there are 5 events that completely overlap so it is possible to run through at least 4 of them, often times all 5; rinse repeat with almost zero downtime. If you’re lucky, you can get a 6th right next to it.
this isn’t an exploit. This was just how the zone was designed.
2 of those events are chain events. So completing those 2 events will nett you 6 event completion (and reward). And they are very quick events.
I’ve been on this map 1 week now and every time, I can do about 3 rotations where my reward is 290karma and 1s 29c each. By the end of the 3rd rotation, it drops to 90 karma. The worst part is that your toon is locked in that state no matter where you decide to go thereafter – even if you zone. You have to log out and wait 30 minutes to an hour before it resolves.
Yes, if you sit there and run 1 or 2 DE on repeat you probably will never hit the cap. As I was leveling, I never hit the cap either, no matter how many times I ran the events (I had to rerun events a number of times for extra XP).
You’ll hit it once you hit 80 and start figuring out how to efficiently run these events.
Go try out the norn starter area. North East part of the map. The camp invasion DE > Veteran Wurm DE > Wurm Egg DE > Wurm attack DE > kill Grawl DE > Defend scholar from grawl DE > Destroy totem DE> Kill portals DE > Kill Raid boss DE>
For added bonus (good if you have speed), run up to the NW fort. There is a statue defence DE and if lucky, also the FORT retake and/or defence DE. If you have speed, you can do most of these but for practicality purposes, you’ll probably have to leave out the Camp invasion and th eFort defence. the rest are fair game.
There is also an event chain, although more rare, that pops, literally next to the raid event.
Try that for 3 or 4 rotations and let me know how you go. As an even more extra bonus, that area is littered with craft nodes!
I wish the human starter area was that active.
…
1. waypoint cost. I’m not talking about city waypoint porting. I’m porting from city to a waypoint or a way point to the city. It is costing me money. If I’m in Orr and my wife wants me to play with her in the starter zone, or if I’m in a level 40+ zone, it costs money for me to get to her map. It’s as simple as that.
2.tools I was in 3 starter zones yesterday night and ran out of tools. I went to the vendors and all they had were Mithril tools. Why should I be forced to pay for it with Karma? While Karma is more readily available than ability to earn coin, the anti-farm code has made earning those very precious especially as I’m saving for the karma gear. There is a cap to how much karma we can earn.
3. instagib bosses I’m level 80 in full yellow gear. Sure it isn’t the best, but it isn’t terrible either and well above the quality of the map I like to play in: Norn starting Area because right now I don’t have enough copper ore and cooking mats.
- A. the escort quest: 3 dogs appear (standard mobs). They sometimes open with some kind of ability which will instagib you. this is with Aegis up. I learned after that to use scepter and torch. I have some seriosu issues with a guardian wanding mobs but that’s another topic.
- B There is a raid Event on this map in the centre with the Shaman boss. He has a breath that he breaths out that won’t instagib me, but will kill me over a period of 3 seconds. Try and roll out of the way, you won’t dodge it. I’m using sceptre here. Also, after transofrming to the ice form, he has a stomp that WILL completely override aegis and it will one-shot people. Either that or there is a pre-attack that eats aegis beforfe the big hit.
Most times I do him, I won’t die but there are times when he’ll just ignore all 10 people around him and just run towards me and chase me the entire fight. You can’t get away from him forever because he lays out multipel massive GTAOE’s that slow and DOT. If you run thru it, you’re going to die anyway. He will get to you and he will stomp or he will breath and stomp. Either way my toon is dead.
- C human starting area: Go to the bandit cave and attack the event mob there. He can regularly gib me if he targets me. It doesn’t matter if I survive 1 shot. 2 shots is still gibbed.
I wouldn’t normally just pick a post apart like this, but the whole “Anet make it impossible for me to make money to force me into the cash shop” is such a stupid arguement. Millions of other players are earning money just fine. Ever thought that maybe you’re just playing the game badly
Nope. i’m playing the game exactly hwo they designed it and how they advertised it. For me to HAVE to go to Orr so I can play another zone with a friend (or wife) is really as broken a concept as it can get. One way or another, we have to farm. Implying I shoul dbe in Orr to make some coin pretty much says exactly that – best place to zerg farm DE’s.
The very fact that they downrank you to fit the map says that by design, the player should be able to operate at any map without restriction of it not being max level map. Instead what we have here is downranking, just as easy to die, loot and coin and rewards that don’t scale but cost is still scaled for lvl 80. You’re asking me if the problem is with my playstyle; I’m asking you to consider that the game and design decisions is possibly at fault here.
OP said every thing I wanted to.
I am sick of game companies forcing me to play the way they want me to.
If I want to kill in one area for 5 hours and farm. Let me do it with out punishing me. Please. I like doing it. It is fun for me.
this, omg, this. It may be hard for some people to believe, but some of us like to farm mobs. yes, we LIKE it as an in-game activity. It’s too bad Anet feels they need to punish this playstyle.
Hell, even their own Dynamic events are structured and timed for farming. In some maps, the DE’s overlap and just doing those will earn you a hefty Anti-farm code, which means you get next to nothing for doing EXACTLY what their game is letting you do without having to exploit at all!
Here’s playing the game normally:
- Zone down to low level zone to play with wife. 3.50 silver
- Buy gathering tools. ~5 silver because I no longer can buy low level tools to harvest low level nodes.
- Do some exploring
- Do some killing
- Do some Dynamic Events + 6 silver
- Repair cost + 2 silver waypoint rez because some boss or random instgibbed us. On average, maybe 2 times per day. – 10 silver
- zone back to main city – 3.5 silver
My normal play day, my expenditure is about 20++ silver and my revenue for that day after loot sells and DE rewards usually comes up to maybe 10 silver. Maybe. I still have a loss of 10+ silver just for playing normally.
When I DON’T play normally, I can make about 80 silver to 1G Gold per day depending on the rare chance I get a yellow loot drop (it happens some times).
Basically, for me to get that armor skin, I either pay $500, which is what Anet wants us to do – hence the price and narrow avenue for making money, OR I hardcore farm DE every 30 minutes, log out for 30, farm for 30 etc…
so I guess you’re saying that “playing the game normally” is a constant repeat of logging out, logging in, chain repeating Dynamic Events.
the problem with the “no trinity” ideal is that even in group, we’re all just soloing. The mass amount of little bits of support skills are the only thing that glues the group together; and frankly, you don’t need to be in group for that.
the good groups are the groups with competent soloers, not necessarily that they can play well together. There is no group role, no specific role or need any class fullfills. You are just a slot filled and frankly, apart from someoen ressing you from a downed state, you’re pretty much on your own.
I’m a melee player but I find my guardian using a sceptre FAR more than I really like (80% of the time). I don’t like range fighting, though in this game I do it. I like melee and I like absorbing damage. In this game, there is no such thing. Everyone is essentially soloing in group and mostly at range. you melee only when things are off cooldown for those short few seconds, then go back out and range for the remainder. And frankly, I find circle strafing to be just as dizzyingly simple as “pressing a few buttons” to control aggro.
i can see how some people would like that but let’s be honest, why even have classes and why even call it a guardian when frankly, everyone is a ranger anyway.
surely it would be more effective to just have one base toon for everyone and build from that via ability points. The classes so far as i have played really aren’t that different in the end.
Or… you know… save up for it over a period of time. But no, the game has been out almost a month so by golly ANet should just give it to everyone!
The price is there to keep it as a unique skin that not everyone is going to be carrying around. If you’re dedicated and really want that look then save up. Unless you’re really, really, really bad with saving gold or making any then you should have it within a month or two. Or, you can be stupid and buy several hundred dollars of gems to sell and get it asap, your choice.
having problems posting this. the short of it is this.
That armor set skin costs $500 USD in exchange rates. For an average player on hardcore DE farming status, it will take him something like 3,700 hours to earn that, doing absolutely nothing but farming DE and paying for nothing except travel and repairs.
The game was designed to take more gold out than gold can come into the economy by limiting the avenues you can earn gold. It’s quite clear the intention is for players to be so desperate for gold that they turn to the trading company and buy gems for conversion.
Otherwise, there is no other explanation for the way it was designed this way and why an armor skin is currently priced at $500 real life dollars.
(edited by ounkeo.9138)
Killing the one or two mobs that get pulled to you is not a problem at all 99% of the time. If they pull a vet or champion, just run 10 feet away so that they lose interest. It may kill you if you go afk in the wild, but use your head even a little bit and you won’t end up like all those naked, dead, afk people you see scattered around. It takes one second to log out and barely any more time to log in. If you want to go afk, just log out! You’ll still stay in your party, you’ll still see what they’ve put into chat while you were gone, there isn’t any downside. Comparing it to EQ trains is absurd. They are nothing alike.
It really depends. Soem mobs are fine to just deal with if they are trained on you. though I have found 2 plus th eone I’m currently fighting is managable; above that and it’s hairy or certain death.
then there are plenty of mobs who start the fight with special abilities the moment they are in range. those wargs and wolves, especially in a pack of 2 or 3 can effectively 1 shot you right at the beginning of the engagement if they start with a special attack.
Some mobs will aggro you and charge you from out of the screen. I have gotten killed by 2 bears charging from out of screen. Both hit me and I died.
The other day I was about 3% from killing a DE boss when another person came, pulling a veteran and 2 regular mobs with him. He ran in to tag the DE boss then ran away, which dumped the train on me very quickly. As a guardian, I blew all my healing, aegis, CC and whatnot and i still ended up dead while trying to kite.
OP, let’s be clear.
There are some things which are fun because of “risk vs reward”. then there are things that are fun just because…
People won’t go skydiving if there wasn’t an adrenaline rush. that’s what makes it fun – the extreme emotional state is the reward. There is a clear pay off.
People don’t go on roller coaster rides just because they can say it was fun to sit in the carriage. There is a payoff; which is the extreme emotional state that is rewarded via adrenaline ONLY when the ride is experienced.
Likewise, i like going to the beach. I will go; but I will NOT go if the beach is closed. you are effectively saying, if I enjoy going to the beach, I would do it anyway. What is the point of me going to the beach if it is closed? What is the point of me going when the only reason for going is just to go?
Anet has effectively closed entry onto the sand and water but has allowed you entry to the “beach”; which is to say, i went to the beach but am only allowed on the sidewalk.
If there was no payoff for, let’s say, killing mobs, would anyone do it? Maybe one or 2 times but beyond that they wouldn’t. Likewise, people aren’t going to do the dungeon beyond 1 or 2 times just to experience the content.
Exploration is fun (for some at least) that doesn’t need any reward beyond exploration. However, a dungeon that rewards poor coin and poor loot is a beach where you can only stay on the sidewalk. It’s incomplete as an experience.
Even in the days of pen and Paper D&D, people did dungeons because of the danger/thrill AND reward.
It’s all fine and good that we do things just for fun but as an MMORPG where we are stuck on repeat for months at a time, there is noone, i repeat, noone, that will continue to do the same thing day in and day out without a payoff of some kind.
For example, I like mob grinding. I have for over 20+ years of RPG and MMORPG. i find it relaxing and while it isn’t the best way to make money, it still rewards me over time. And while I like it and find it relaxing, it is also rather boring but the small coin I make from it is enough to be worth my time.
in guild Wars 2, I no longer can do that. I am effectively penalised for mob grinding as a playstyle – and it is a valid playstyle- the coin and drop tables on mobs are so poor and the diminishing returns on it kick in so quickly that even as I like that activity, I won’t do it. I can’t even cover the cost of travel and repairs by doing it.
I still NEED to recoup my cost and I still NEED to make coin to continue playing.
then there is also the sense of progression. Even at 80, there should be some level of progression. People do things because of a sense of moving, progressing. “rewards” are a way of progressing. Imagine if there was zero reward for doing anything in game. No coin, no loot, no xp. Who would do it?
Without loot, coin, xp, rewards, there is no progression.
Your points only make sense in a purely single player game and even then, you are typically rewarded massively for doing difficult or long, time consuming activities.
As it is right now, playing the game as intended by the developers, you will end up losing more coin than you will gain with a very, very narrow path in how you can gain that back again. I like shopping but because it is really expensive, I only rarely do it. I have to work a certain time amount to earn $$$ so I can shop again. Imagine if I had little to no way to earn that “reward” ($$$) for my time, then shopping becomes a far impossibility.
Rewards are everything. Even in exploration, how many would like doing it if it also didn’t open up the fog of war? I probably would but I would be near 100 enrage that exploration didn’t unlock the fog of war – and I would only ever go there again if I had something to farm – but anet has seen fit to make sure farming is disallowed!
If you delve into “fun”, you will see that there is a clear risk vs reward vs time investment ideal behind it. At the moment, “fun” is what Anet decided should be fun, when clearly not everyone agrees. Being broke all the time and being penalised for playing the game (as intended to boot) kills fun. Instead of enjoying the game, people are compelled and feel compelled to farm ad nauseum just so they can stay in operation. And Anet disapproves that kind of playstyle. They would rather we hit 80, spend about 1 day in Orr and go flat broke with no real way to participate in “fun” again.
By design.