Curse

Gli · Mar 27, 2008, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by reetkever

The removal of the Loot Scaling has nothing to do with greed and laziness. Instead, it encourages players to work towards their goals.

Pre-lootscaling, you got x gold for playing in a full party, and rougly 8x gold for soloing.

Post-loostscaling you still get x gold for playing in a full party, and roughly 2x gold for soloing.

These are rough numbers, and don't account for exempted drops, so they're slanted to make lootscaling look worse than it actually is, but let's go with these numbers anyway.

You're saying, you don't think getting 2x instead of x is enough incentive to farm. Twice the money doesn't encourage you? Why's that? Because you used to get 8x once and you can't be arsed to make an effort for a measly 2x? You're spoiled, that's what you are.

reetkever · Mar 27, 2008, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

Wow, once more you prove the point that you just can't type without resorting to some sort of made up version of the game that doesn't exist.

You make less money per kill with UB than any form of farming since, ta-da, all the drops will be split eight ways, basic, simple math. Or is there some magic area of the game that drops eight times as much stuff if a full party of Ursanway players enter the instance versus anyone else I don't know about?

Besides, I find nothing wrong with UB at all. It requires a full party of humans to do, that in and of itself is all the nerf it will ever need.

You make less money per kill, but with the rare drops, gems and the speed in which monsters are killed, more money is made (I'm talking about Ursan-ing DoA, btw). Also, since there will be the Anti-Farm Code without LS, monsters will decrease their drops after a few runs while in a party of 1, while DoA will keep dropping valueable items for everyone at a much faster rate.

Yang Whirlwind · Mar 27, 2008, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Did you deliberately miss the point or was it a reflexive action?

I know Groovy - it was on purpose! He's an ooligan!

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

What about this definition? (from dictionary.com, one of the seven)

Black Market

A type of economic activity that takes place outside of government-sanctioned channels.

Quote:

black market
n.
1. The illegal business of buying or selling goods or currency in violation of restrictions such as price controls or rationing.
2. A place where these illegal operations are carried on.
black-market (blkmärkt) adj.
black-market·er, black-market·eer (-märk-tîr) n.
black-market·eering n.

Noun 1. black market - people who engage in illicit trade
market - the customers for a particular product or service; "before they publish any book they try to determine the size of the market for it"
black marketeer - someone who engages illegally in trade in scarce or controlled commodities
2. black market - an illegal market in which goods or currencies are bought and sold in violation of rationing or controls
market, marketplace, market place - the world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold; "without competition there would be no market"; "they were driven from the marketplace"
Verb 1. black market - deal in illegally, such as arms or liquor
run
crime, criminal offence, criminal offense, law-breaking, offense, offence - (criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act; "a long record of crimes"
ply, run - travel a route regularly; "Ships ply the waters near the coast"
merchandise, trade - engage in the trade of; "he is merchandising telephone sets"

How about another Black marked = illegal link. Just to make sure we all know what we're talking about!
This is the definition of the word - live with it! Don't make up your own and expect us to buy it!

Default Name · Mar 27, 2008, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by reetkever

-huh?-

So what seems to be the problem since the stuff are being split eight ways?

As opposed to one person getting eight times?

WTF?

tmakinen · Mar 27, 2008, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Forgive my asking, but the situation requires I do so... does your area of expertise tie directly to loot-scaling or anything else relevant to the discussion? You can meet the greatest mind in quantum physics, but odds are he won't tell you how to brew a better beer.

Here are some things I've done in the past:

Makinen et al. Nature 405, 321, 2000
Makinen et al. Science 292, 1326, 2001
Fulchignoni et al. Nature 438, 785, 2005

My background is indeed in theoretical physics but although Quantum Mechanics is very instructive I haven't touched it since uni. My specialty is mathematical modelling of systems, physical and otherwise, and that requires a pretty specific way to see things.

pumpkin pie · Mar 27, 2008, 05:41 PM // 17:41

At first I was sitting on the fence enjoying the scenary untill, that fated day when my necormancer finally found a good H/H build (smiting monkie, Thalkora and Dunkoro and Souske with ele warders) to clear out Shards of Orr, to my disappointment, he, my necromancers average, has gotten, 1 of those so called, white yucky none-moded weapons which sells to merchant for around 50-90gold after identify per every 3 groups of wizards + necromancers + brutes, in hard mode .... .... please do something about the loot scale, do you know, for a casual player who farms when they needed gold to buy stuffs, drops like that would make them move to play some other mmorpg, which I have .... as you can see, I was an avid Guild Wars Fan, vowed never to play other mmorpg, but, its just too disappointing sometime when you invest so much of your precious time doing something just to get yucky drops... and seeing other players achieving titles with the help of third party programs (texmod on cartography) its just very sucky.

I sincerly hope loot scale will be return to its former form. Do not punish your regular players because you are unable to control those tiny amount (compare to the majority who are real players) of gold farmer and bots. As a game providing merchant, it is up to you to control the botting community and give real players enjoyable moments when they log on to the servers. How else are you going to keep us loyal to your game if its not fun to play?

MithranArkanere · Mar 27, 2008, 05:47 PM // 17:47

How come? If you are talking about a H/H build, lootscale does not affect you.
Even before lootscaling you got less stuff while going with henchmen.

Anyways, it's the same. A bot doing it or a player behaving like a bot. More or less, it should not be allowed for anyone. The more reasons th people try to give against LS, the more sure I am about removing it being a mistake.
If you llok at the drops lootscale affects, they are:

- White..purple weapons.
- White..purple salvageable items (armors)
- Trophies.
- Crafting materials.

The rest are all out of lootscaling. From tomes to special event items. All of them.
Most Trophies are still easy to get (although they should increase the drops rates of some New Year ingredients, that was horrible) and it's better to have them reduced, since before LS getting 5 of any of them was so easy that crafters where a bad joke.

For white..purple weapons, most of them are merhant fodder, with the exceptions of some, and most of thir upgrades are never used.
And for the rest, as you can see in Traders, there is no problems with suply in runes or materials.

CHannum · Mar 27, 2008, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

I started this topic because LS takes out a lot of fun out of the game + replayability.
Fun in my book is buying things I want in the game with some certain degree of effort. In the pre LS days this was true. Nowadays it's not.

At the risk of taking you seriously, I'll just suggest something: It's not a factor of limited replayability and it's not LS that killed the fun, it's that the game is played out for you.

I started last fall. I haven't come close to getting tired of basic gameplay yet. Since I've got ten characters and play all of them, I've only "finished" Prophecies with three, Factions with four, Nightfall with one, and EOTN with one. Even though by the standards of all the "already beat everything sixteen times" crowd that dominates this board, this is nothing, this is still something around 500 hours of entertainment for me. That puts the real world cost per hour of entertainment at less than $0.30/hour, that's cheaper than anything other than a paperback novel. Further, it's a safe bet that I'll get another 500 hours of entertainment before all the characters are even sort of done, there's just so much to do in the game outside of obsessing about weapon and armor skins.

Because I'm relatively new to the game, being only half way done with the basic game play due to my altitis in games like this, I make plenty of money without feeling like I'm working for it. By the time I do reach the sort of done point, all the skills will be unlocked, everybody will have at least one suit of elite armor, most toons will have at least KOABD, and I'll probably have even found or purchased a couple of neat item skins here and there. I will have "achieved" all that just by playing the game at a real world cost of less than $0.15/hour and gotten a year or more of entertainment in the real world. Just how much more replayability is needed?

I'll take you at your word that the game isn't fun for you to just try and work towards cosmetic goals, but I would suggest that LS was just an acceleration of the tipping point for the transition between fun and work and that you'd have reached that point already anyhow. I would argue you are laying blame where none is to be found. As a guy who's playing the game, I don't even desire the 2-3X income I could make farming without much effort under LS, since, as I've reiterated time and time again, I make plenty doing what I'm doing. OTOH, having played complex games for longer than I figure most board members have been alive, I know full well that the greatest game in the world eventually plays itself out and you just stop playing it or you come to hate it for all manner of imagined flaws.

Angelic Upstart · Mar 27, 2008, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

I never had pre-LS position since I started long after LS was in effect.

Then you are really not qualified to compare the two... seriously

mr_groovy · Mar 27, 2008, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

At the risk of taking you seriously, I'll just suggest something: It's not a factor of limited replayability and it's not LS that killed the fun, it's that the game is played out for you.

I started last fall. Wall of bla bla bla

As a guy who's playing the game, bla bla bla.

1) You don't even know what the the pre-LS era was like. If you did, you weren't talking like this now.
2) If I'm not in to the game anymore, I wouldn't be complaining about it. I would say: "Screw you guys, I'm going home".
3) Stop "trying" to convince how people should play gw.

Sir Pandra Pierva · Mar 27, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

I started last fall.
wall of rambling text

i know a couple of reasons why LS was introduced. HM could you picture HM farming without LS

.

but also to control the bots but it didn't do crap iff you ask me. so it needs to be removed from the game. or make it so that heros dont steal drops. Since you have to pay for their sorry asses.

also dont talk as if you know about LS unless you were around before it.

CHannum · Mar 27, 2008, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr_groovy

1) You don't even know what the the pre-LS era was like. If you did, you weren't talking like this now.

So not having played pre-LS makes someone unqualified to comment even though it is a common game mechanic throughout these sorts of games? Sorry to burst people's bubbles, but games aren't rocket science, and what works in them, particularly what works well, is rarely original since if it was a good idea somebody has most likely implemented it previously.

Scaling, be it of loot, experience, or even the number of foes appearing is a common mechanism to almost all electronic games based on a variable number of players collecting goods. It is so ubiquitous precisely because it is so necessary to eliminate the notion that games are meant to be exploited rather than simply played. Any time you have some sort of player interaction surrounding loot, score, or merely level, any game dev worth their salt will come up with a system to ameliorate the effect from exploits on the metagame. It's not some conspiracy out to rob you of your fun.

The only people unqualified to comment are the people who don't even understand what it is or what it does. Otherwise, my opinion is at least as valid. I would argue more so since it's not based in this subjective nonsense about how it felt playing the game pre-LS versus now. In fact, since I am playing now and I do know exactly what LS is, I serve as the counter voice to the played out game geezers who want to blame the introduction of one of the mildest forms of LS ever in a game like this as what killed their fun.

Finally, based on what we do know about GW2, you all might as well accept that it will be even worse in GW2 than it is now. By all appearances they're going to implement something akin to Diablo 2 where number, strength and loot drops of mobs was scaled to the number of players active in a zone such that, in general, it didn't matter whether you went solo or went with a full team. The weak point of GW1 is that mob populations and their loot tables are inherently based on an assumed fixed party size. When they make it so that the fixed party size goes the way of the dinosaur and everything is scaled relative to number of players, you'll have LS across the board 24/7 no matter what you do. You guys are going to have a stroke

CHannum · Mar 27, 2008, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Pandra Pierva

also dont talk as if you know about LS unless you were around before it.

That's the viewpoint of someone who thinks Anet/GW invented the notion instead of simply implementing something they'd done a decade ago when they were working at Blizzard. The same sort of LS that exists in GW now is the same sort that was in Diablo. And although Diablo is the first time I became aware of the notion, it's probably even older than that. We have the LS we do because they tried to do something new with the anti-farm code and decided that it didn't work out nearly as well as just doling out rewards based on team size. Simple works better.

reetkever · Mar 27, 2008, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHannum

That's the viewpoint of someone who thinks Anet/GW invented the notion instead of simply implementing something they'd done a decade ago when they were working at Blizzard. The same sort of LS that exists in GW now is the same sort that was in Diablo. And although Diablo is the first time I became aware of the notion, it's probably even older than that. We have the LS we do because they tried to do something new with the anti-farm code and decided that it didn't work out nearly as well as just doling out rewards based on team size. Simple works better.

That still doesn't cover up the fact that LS doesn't help the game but only makes it worse.

If every game has a function, it doesn't mean it's always good. Maybe these games couldn't do without LS. Guild Wars CAN do without it, as the days before LS were better for everyone than now.

Sypherious · Mar 27, 2008, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

How come? If you are talking about a H/H build, lootscale does not affect you.
Even before lootscaling you got less stuff while going with henchmen.

Anyways, it's the same. A bot doing it or a player behaving like a bot. More or less, it should not be allowed for anyone. The more reasons th people try to give against LS, the more sure I am about removing it being a mistake.
If you llok at the drops lootscale affects, they are:

- White..purple weapons.
- White..purple salvageable items (armors)
- Trophies.
- Crafting materials.

The rest are all out of lootscaling. From tomes to special event items. All of them.
Most Trophies are still easy to get (although they should increase the drops rates of some New Year ingredients, that was horrible) and it's better to have them reduced, since before LS getting 5 of any of them was so easy that crafters where a bad joke.

For white..purple weapons, most of them are merhant fodder, with the exceptions of some, and most of thir upgrades are never used.
And for the rest, as you can see in Traders, there is no problems with suply in runes or materials.

From the official update:

Adjusted the following items so that they are now exempt from loot scaling:

* Skill Tomes
* Scrolls
* Dye
* Rare materials, such as Ectoplasm
* Gemstones from the Domain of Anguish
* All other rare (gold) items
* All unique (green) items
* Special event items

MithranArkanere · Mar 27, 2008, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sypherious

From the official update:

Adjusted the following items so that they are now exempt from loot scaling:

* Skill Tomes
* Scrolls
* Dye
* Rare materials, such as Ectoplasm
* Gemstones from the Domain of Anguish
* All other rare (gold) items
* All unique (green) items
* Special event items

I though, you didn't read.

Those are OUT of lootscaling. I was talking about those affected by lootscale: whites-blues, trophies and crafting materials. Everything else is what you have posted.

Sypherious · Mar 27, 2008, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

I though, you didn't read.

Those are OUT of lootscaling. I was talking about those affected by lootscale: whites-blues, trophies and crafting materials. Everything else is what you have posted.

Which is exactly why I posted it, so people know.

MithranArkanere · Mar 27, 2008, 07:20 PM // 19:20

There are no more types of items dropping from monsters. The rest are equipable armors and miniatures, that do not drop from monsters.

Eldin · Mar 27, 2008, 07:21 PM // 19:21

I see someone put up a vote - as you can see, LS removal is winning.

Also on topic, I bet everyone who says LS doesn't need to be removed is...
1) Some newbie who doesn't know how epic the pre-LS days were.
2) A goldbuyer who's too rich to care.
3) Some evil 55 monk bot master who's too rich to care.

If you are not from the old days, stop whining about how LS is awesome. It's NOT. To you it may be, but FYI things were a LOT awesomer back before LS. You never experienced it, you have no say in it, LS is of concern to people who were there before it - sure it's nothing to you new people, so this is not your affair. So if you're some 2007 player here to whine about how we're all nubkaekz who want LS removed so we can get rich by doing nothing, please hit Alt+F4 right now.

Sypherious · Mar 27, 2008, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eldin

I see someone put up a vote - as you can see, LS removal is winning.

Also on topic, I bet everyone who says LS doesn't need to be removed is...
1) Some newbie who doesn't know how epic the pre-LS days were.
2) A goldbuyer who's too rich to care.
3) Some evil 55 monk bot master who's too rich to care.

If you are not from the old days, stop whining about how LS is awesome. It's NOT. To you it may be, but FYI things were a LOT awesomer back before LS. You never experienced it, you have no say in it, LS is of concern to people who were there before it - sure it's nothing to you new people, so this is not your affair. So if you're some 2007 player here to whine about how we're all nubkaekz who want LS removed so we can get rich by doing nothing, please hit Alt+F4 right now.

I love you. And I agree with you 100%.