Guild Wars 2

Absolutely horrific system.

Why?

It creates nothing but bad feelings, mistrust, and further expands the already vast chasm between ArenaNet developers and customers.

You need to change DR so it kicks in after 8 hours of play, counting from midnight server time. That means players can do whatever they want for 8 hours a day, in GW2, and there will be no anti-farming code, no reduction in loot, no reduction in xp, no reduction in karma, no reduction in ANY reward of ANY kind. Period. For the first 8 hours.

After that, do what you want.

Just consider this for one second, ArenaNet: Your current systems are preventing you from acquiring new customers. You are intentionally, by design, and with forethought contributing to your own financial harm with any kind of Diminishing Returns / Anti-Farming code in your game.

I will repeat myself so there’s no misunderstanding:
For the first 8 hours of play for each character, after midnight Dallas time, there should be no Diminishing Returns, nor any Anti-Farming code effects in play for each character.

Ban the botters, fine. Do not punish your existing customers, nor new existing customers. Stop with the punitive mechanics. It was bad game design 10 years ago, it’s still bad game design.

Also, you need to scale ALL XP AND KARMA rewards to the real level of the player. You already do it for loot, just add XP and Karma and you’ll have a truly innovative system instead of a half-baked hybrid scheme of fail.

CC Eva.6742:

… Nynja, we delete those specific posts here because this sticky will benefit all of us if we keep it for discussion and feedback only. Thanks for your understanding.

The report function doesn’t work, Eva. The bots are everywhere. This is the only way to get any kind of a response. If you agree the bots are everywhere, go in the game and ban them. Otherwise, what else are we supposed to do as customers? Stop playing? How is that good for you?

What, you mean mindlessly feeding the random number generator to get your ultimate item isn’t fun?

Oh right, sorry, I see what you did there.

It’s not viable to level crafting as you adventure; you’ll outlevel any profession you try to keep at your same level, if you do hearts and DE’s as you go. It’s simply impossible to collect all the raw materials you need, given the absurdly low drop rates for what you need, in the time you would spend in the areas for those levels.

There’s no doubt you can collect the stuff you need, but it will take far more time than it takes to adventure through the content. In other words, you’ll be farming low level content at a higher level, in some cases, at between 10 and 30 levels higher. In particular for leather and cloth.

It’s not viable to make money. There are thousands of every crafted weapon, armor, and jewelry on the market, and this shows no sign of changing. Given the game is now over a month old, there’s no reason to expect this situation will change any time soon.

You’re far better off selling raws such as logs, ore, jewels, scraps, squares, creature-bits, than using them yourself. You will have nothing but money in a completely broken economy and able to purchase anything you want at cost. (even rares/exotics/ecto’s, now)

There is no upside to crafting, and no downside to not crafting. Working as intended, apparently.

Wormfodder.2051:

Crafting for me is a major part of progression, so when the rates were so buggered I could clear an entire zone and still not be able to make a single item, I logged out and haven’t been back in some weeks.

Have they fixed this issue or is it still next to impossible to reliably level crafting?

The drop rates have been lowered since launch, and continue to decrease with every patch. During head start, drop rates were barely adequate. Now, they’re ridiculous. Evidently farming for weeks, 8 hours a day, for enough tiny and small (t1/t2) mats is considered “working as intended” for anyone starting out, or starting another new crafting profession.

There has been no official comment regarding the drop rates of crafting materials such as blood, fangs, scales, bones, etc. To date, the issue remains unacknowledged. The only conclusion to draw from ArenaNets silence is they are intentionally nerfing the drop rates to force people to buy gold to buy them from the Trading Post, so ArenaNet can make their money.

Part of the problem is that anti-farming code kicks in so fast, players that are trying to level crafting on their own are penalized for attempting to do so. Anti-farming currently applies to crafting mats, and should not.

My advice, if your goal is to level crafting yourself, is to buy gold from ArenaNet and buy the mats from the Trading Post. This is evidently their goal, and will at least save you time and frustration, while unfortunately being completely pay2win. Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but I’m a pragmatist and I’m not going to fight them on this.

If they want people to pay to craft, you should pay to craft. Save your sanity! I’ve played MMOs too long to fight greedy developers who. refuse to make their game fun for crafters. You win this round, ArenaNet.

RNG for legendaries is why I’ll be using exotics until it’s changed. If it’s never changed, I’ll be content with exotics. RNG end-game is extremely poor game design. Oh, and lazy, too.

As garraeth mentioned, tweaking the down-leveling would fix that, but thanks for your opinion, GADefence.

X The Manimal.5293:

… 1. Except GW2 doesn’t require a sub fee… …

Correct. You have to pay for the game (give the money to ArenaNet) before you can complain. You can’t complain until you have paid for the game.

You can’t post on these forums (complain) until you have a valid account, which requires you paying for the game.

GADefence.5634:

“The karma and XP does not scale. Loot may/does-kinda but isn’t part of this particular suggestion.”

I get 250~+ karma from an orr DE.
I get 150~+ karma from a queensdale DE at level 80.
I get 80~+ karma from a queensdale DE at low level.

Great, ok. So if you want numbers for the suggestion, here are some numbers.

You currently get:
378 karma at level 80 doing a Penitent Path DE.
You should get:
378 karma at level 80 doing any DE in any zone.
OR
You should get:
340-378 karma at level 80 doing any DE in any zone.

Not less than 340. If the reward is not 90% of the max, people won’t do it (as they don’t, today), so I think that would be an effective incentive.

GADefence.5634:

I don’t get why you people are arguing so much, it already does.

In queensdale at low levels I got around 50 copper for an event I did on my warrior later on and got 1.2 silver for. It doesn’t scale all the way (1.8s in orr) but it scales most of the way.

The karma and XP does not scale. Loot may/does-kinda but isn’t part of this particular suggestion.

Agreed. The only time I want to see a loot dialogue is if my inventory is full.

Also, the current system would work perfectly fine if there could be a dedicated loot key different from interact, and auto-loot radius was line of sight (including behind the players view).
If they didn’t want to recode very much, that’s all that would need to change, which are almost certainly current tweakable variables.

Yeah, DE contribution issues aren’t part of the suggestion. There are a wide variety of very good ways to fix that problem, and I have every confidence ArenaNet will continue to address that.

I’m only suggesting the karma/xp scaling, no loot adjustments, no drop rate/crafting mats adjustments, or any of that. Just creating an incentive to play the entire game at max level, that’s the main goal of this suggestion.

Put another way, having too many players in low level events (again, after launch) is a great problem to have. It’s a far better problem than what is in place currently, imho.

Today, you can bind a key to swim straight down. It doesn’t work from the surface, but it does work once you’re submerged.

There is no keybinding by default.

F11 – Control Options – Movement (first section) – second last option “Swim Down”

If you make what you describe as “best builds” difficult to play, you will lose customers. Players want to feel powerful.

The point of my previous post was that the problem is not one we can solve. Until ArenaNet changes their position on this, publicly, there is no solution except to “join ’em”.

Trust me, I wish- it was different, but as you say, this game is all about numbers. It’s the same problem in Rift. It’s the same problem in any game that allows “everyone to do everything”.

You’re seeing the result of a hybrid game design. One in which there are levels, and all that brings, as well as equipment, as well as no defined roles.
ArenaNet did not choose to make a game good at one thing, they chose to try to do it all, and the cracks are showing through the varnish, I’m afraid.

There is no reason to play an elementalist vs. a warrior, strictly by the numbers. You can certainly do it if you feel that being less effective and dying more often is fun. But to most players, that is not the case. However, in ignorance, many players will try elementalists. And even play them, and even think they’re being effective, and even having fun. Until they try a warrior.

The “challenge” of the various mechanics, to any MMO vet, are simply an impediment to being effective. Press 1 button to get the job done on a Warrior/Guardian, press 2,4 or 6 buttons to get the job done on an Elementalist/Engineer. The path to effectiveness is obvious.

Tuning the abilities as they currently are, or tuning the “profession defining” mechanics will be seen as nothing but nerfs and negative. All the adjustments should have been done during development/testing/beta, but they were not. Now, every adjustment will be treated with skepticism.

No-one I know that has played MMO’s since 2005 is surprised by the consequences of this incredibly flawed design decision. We’re all happy to ride the wave as long as it lasts, and fully expect it will crash soon.

You cannot have the highest damage dealers (or even the average damage dealers) with the highest survivability and expect balance. It’s impossible.

Specific nerf requests will simply be perceived as class envy. True class envy or not, that is the reality.

ArenaNet is not going to recant. They want the R in RPG to vanish, and until that fundamental design philosophy changes, it is extremely unlikely you’ll see the changes you suggest.

Also, if they were to start down the path you suggest, it would require retuning every single ability in the entire game, along with adjusting all the stats on all the equipment in the entire game, retroactively.

I’m sure you can imagine the impact that would have on the game, now, or at any point in the future.
This has already been done several times in several other MMO’s, and in the case of AC2 and SWG, it actually killed both games (sure, it took a few years for SWG to die, but only a few months for AC2). Every time EQ2 did this (massive sweeping balance/combat changes) it netted them exactly one consistent result: Fewer customers.

Silvermane.1328:

… There has to be a more subtle and clever way to prevent exploits than that.

Sure, they can summon you on top of them, or teleport to you. Which would you prefer?

I don’t disagree there are far too many common situations where mobs turn invulnerable (or you get obstructed when there is no obstruction) but the nature of the landscape (the actual world landscape) in GW2 is such that ArenaNet cannot permit players to damage mobs without the reverse being true.
As such, the situation you describe is here to stay until an equally immersion-breaking technique is put in place.

Currently, there is no reason to play a non-heavy class. 5 warriors, properly equipped & traited, will consume any content in the game faster & better than any other combination of classes.

There are no enrage timers. Until there is, the above will be true.

Please note: I hate enrage timers. But this current situation is the cost of poor design, poor planning, and attempting to remove “role” from “role playing game”.

Those graphs are not “nearly identical”. In particular, the trending slopes are completely different, and GW2 is rapidly losing customers, if that data is correct, which I suspect it’s not.

Given the wide range of problems with GW2, evidence for which there is this very forum (suggestions), I suspect this title will continue to bleed subs until some of the customer suggestions are implemented.

Until then, ArenaNet will hold onto it’s flawed design philosophy because they don’t have to care. In order to complain, ArenaNet already has your money. Win-win for them.

Agree with #2, disagree (for varying reasons) with the rest of the solutions.

Number 3 isn’t bad, but the applicable reset from #6 should apply daily to #3, rather than weekly, imho.

Gynxz.4079:

… So you are suggestion to get rid of Orr? …

Nope, my suggestion is to scale Karma & XP based on your real level, rather than your adjusted level.

If there are content issues beyond that, those should be addressed, but are not part of this suggestion. However, players that don’t want to go to Orr can already go to Frostgorge Sound.
More options (being able to go to any zone) to have fun, gain karma, and gain xp, seems like a win-win for everyone.

Eventually, there will be more & different zones available to max level players via expansions. This suggestion simply expands the “max level” content to potentially be the entire game, rather than a few zones, until that time arrives.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Someone suggested in another thread to limit the in game mail system to just people you have on your friends list and guildies. That would work much better than not allowing gold/ items sent altogether. Plus you can always update your friends list to include new people as needed.

Great idea, and would love to see this in game. I only want to see email from people on my friends list, and people in my guild.
Make it opt-out, (default is enabled when you start, you can turn it off) and you have an awesome solution. Or make it opt-in, but I see that as less useful if the overall goal is to stop gold sellers.

They can already farm the higher level events. It makes no difference where the event is. The events in Malchors, Frostgorge, and Cursed Shore are exactly the same event script code as all the other zones.

If there is an exploitable lower level event, that should be fixed regardless of whether or not the suggestion is implemented.

EDIT: Also, the only impact it would have on lower level players is that there would be more players to play with. There’s no downside to having more players in an event, it just makes it more fun.

If the goal of the anti-farm code is to restrict the incoming ecto’s, then make it apply to rare items only. Leave the blue and green items alone, exempt from the scope of anti-farm drop rate adjustments.

If the goal of the anti-farm code is to restrict incoming MONEY, please tell us that so we can come up with a different solution.

Currently, karma and xp rewards are based on your adjusted level.

My suggestion is that they should scale based on your real level.

Item rewards (loot) already scale based on your real level (you can get level 80 loot in a level 1-15 zone) so this wouldn’t be a precedent as a game mechanic.

Alternately, this could be a feature that is only available at max level, that is, once you’re level 80, you get the same karma/xp rewards for participation, regardless of location/event/zone.
This would allow a max level player a real incentive (or at least, no dis-incentive?) to replay all the content in the game, rather than replaying the same few dynamic events in the same few zones to be efficient.

And just to be 100% clear, the only way to get the BLTC salvage kits is via the gem shop (or in other words, pay real life $$$$) or the BLTC chests, which require keys, which again, aside from a few one-time rewards of the personal story, are purchased from the BLTC gem shop.

Correct?

"
And why should someone be forced to wear full magic find gear just to be able to keep their crafts equivalent to their level during the leveling process?
"

They shouldn’t, and with the current anti-farm code, it wouldn’t help. The anti-farm code eclipses the effectiveness of MF gear within 1 hour max, on any character, in any zone.

MF Gear is a trap. It doesn’t work the way most people think (50% MF on a 1% drop rate is 1.5%) and it doesn’t help at all after 1 hour of play, per day.

Test it yourself, and you’ll see. It’s extremely easy to track, and it’s an absolutely horrible mechanic. However, it is allowing ArenaNet to increase the exchange rate of gems <-> gold, which is the entire point of this game, so good on them for that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/R-I-P-Drop-Rate/148040

Now from my understanding on how MF% works in this game, it not only amplifies your chance of any loot on the mob, lets say in theory thats around 15 percent. And with a full set of low level MF and a Tart(MF food) you can easily get to about 150% MF. So in this case your base chance is 15% and you now have 150% extra MF, essentially giving you 37% MF (assuming they are additive). Which I believe is quite a significant boost.

However the downside to this is the “unconfirmed” anti-farm scripting in this game. Which basically boils down to the fact that the longer you stay farming something the lower the drop rates on those mobs would be AND the lower the chances of getting worthwhile drops from those mobs.

A little bit of data:
Hours farming frost trolls in Frostgorge Sound in hopes of Powerful Blood and Potent Blood.
(All data is with 210% MF)
Hour 1: 23 Potent Bloods/7 Powerful/ 21 Large Bones/5 Ancient Bones/10 Blues/6 Greens/2 Rares
Hour 2: 11 Potent Bloods/3 Powerful/ 15 Large Bones/1 Ancient Bones/6 Blues/3 Greens/0 Rares
Hour 3: 8 Potent/1 Powerful/ 9 Large Bones/ 0 Ancient/ 4 Blues/1 Green/0 Rares
(This is where it gets dismal)
Hour 4: 1 Potent/0 Powerful/2 Large Bones/0 Ancient/1 Blue/0 Greens/0 Rares.

Sorry for the wall of text, just hoping that some of this information can be used to help people. Gather some of those “rare”(too rare i think) to level their professions.

Yep, that confirms what I’ve been seeing. After 1-2 hours, you’re better off logging out than banging your head trying to get yellow drops for ecto’s.

Such a profound disappointment that ArenaNet chose this horrific idea over all the better ideas available. This is all they could come up with in 5 years? A real shame.

If you had access to all the materials you needed to craft, you wouldn’t need the Trading Post. Which requires gold. Which you buy from ArenaNet.

A nice tidy package, wouldn’t you say?

I agree, prior to the cooking patch, it was fine. Now? Not fine.

Wow, 4, really? Bad idea. 3 was bad, 2 was fine. If this trend continues in all the other crafting refinement recipes, expect an extraordinarily negative response, ArenaNet.

The Karma vendor at the south end of the Penitent Tunnel in Cursed Shore sells level 80 blue/green water breathers/helms of light/medium/heavy armor types. ~1100 karma if memory serves.