Curse

Evenstar · Apr 20, 2007, 04:40 PM // 16:40

tbh this new "update" makes me want to quit gw and not come back! how can you play this game with 0 cash? the weapons,armors,upgrades(runes and stuff) and simply skills require cash... at this moment im broke *kicks the newly bought asura* and im absolutely out of ideas how to get any money or items i wanted....i doubt ill bother buying the 4th game if the game stays at the state in which it is now....
*leaves greatly disapointed*

billypowergamer · Apr 20, 2007, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evenstar

tbh this new "update" makes me want to quit gw and not come back! how can you play this game with 0 cash? the weapons,armors,upgrades(runes and stuff) and simply skills require cash... at this moment im broke *kicks the newly bought asura* and im absolutely out of ideas how to get any money or items i wanted....i doubt ill bother buying the 4th game if the game stays at the state in which it is now....
*leaves greatly disapointed*

Or it may be a matter of deciding what's vanity and what's necessity. Maybe people will start giving some priority to what's really needed vs what they want.

Mad King Corn · Apr 20, 2007, 05:18 PM // 17:18

Changes should possibly be:

Increase Drop Rate by X% for each player in your group

Green weapons need to drop much more

The Purple items in high end chests should be eliminated

Key drops need to improve

Monsters that drop gold need to drop more gold

The free treasure chests need to be reset once a month

If these ideas were used, the impact of the solo-farming nerf would not be so bad because I could still get the items i want for my heroes and still get 15K armor.

Bug John · Apr 20, 2007, 05:38 PM // 17:38

what was exactly the problem with solo builds ? as many persons have said, maybe farming is a bad thing, maye it isn't, but as the economy was based on it since gw beginning you can't nerf it now

the only consequence will be prices going up for items that were more and more accessible 2 days ago (dead sword, tomented items, fow armor...)

i think they should switch back normal mode to what it was before, and keep hard mode as it is now, with a really higher drop rate

this way they would encourage players to pug more, without trying to force farmers to play the way they don't like, and making hard mode less interesting to farm than normal mode

clawofcrimson · Apr 20, 2007, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by billypowergamer

Or it may be a matter of deciding what's vanity and what's necessity. Maybe people will start giving some priority to what's really needed vs what they want.

is there ANY necessity in a video game... for many pvers the chance to get cool stuff is what makes or breaks a game.

I for one will wait until the dust settles and see how it pans out.... I'm still playing this game after many...many 'adjustments'

Captain Robo · Apr 20, 2007, 05:40 PM // 17:40

First of all, let me say that I'm kind of surprised at the blatantly unprofessional reaction to this update on behalf of the forums. Swearing, whining, and moaning isn't going to convince anyone of your justification. If you want to state an opinion, exercise enough restraint to avoid turning this situation into another Soul Reaping fiasco.

So, without further ado:

Guild Wars is a game with an extremely harsh economy. In terms of loot from slain enemies, 90% of whatever items you find are unusable, no farming runs give you a significant amount of dropped gold, and in order to farm the hardest areas of the game, you need a full team of 8 or 12, and even then, good drops are far from guaranteed.

The most coveted and sought-after items in this game are perfect Golds, followed by Unique Greens, and after that: collector items. Purples, blues, and whites are nigh-useless, and are reserved for use only by new players and people who can't afford the perfect equivalents.

As gamers, it is natural for us to showcase our achievements in the form of various player bling, for reasons none other than basic showboating, and rare items allow us to do this. After all, the only difference between a Perfect Dead Sword and the PvP crafted equivalent is purely aesthetic; the two items are functionally the same.

Since Perfect Golds are the rarest items in the game, the next best thing (and best items in the game overall) is the large library of Green Weapons. I remember a time, before even Factions, when Green Weapons were the end-all-be-all of in-game cool, and one of the highest indications of prestige. After all, in order to get them, you needed to farm Sorrows Furnace; and due to random loot distribution, you really didn't stand a good chance of getting the item on a drop. I'm sure everyone's been on those SF runs where one guy ends up getting two or three greens while everyone else just stands around grumbling. However, with the release of Factions, and now Nightfall, practically every boss drops something worthwhile, and farming these bosses for their items has become commonplace. Boss farming was somewhat of an elite subculture in the PVE world, because of the inherent challenge presented in the task and the fact that only a few classes were able to do it reliably. If you knew what you were doing, you could make a killing on the green market.

This changed with heroes.

In Factions, you needed to find a way to kill a boss' mob, and finally the boss itself in order to reap his green... but in Nightfall, all you need to do is create a counter build to the boss, use henchmen allies, clear the boss' mob, and send the henchmen away. There's no skill to this type of farming; no finesse, and it still gets you the same results as legitimately soloing a mob.

Suddenly, pretty much everyone had become able to solo-farm.

With the large availability of perfect unique items to the PVE market, and a large farming community, it was easy exploit the green market in order to make a lot of gold and supply your characters with the best weapons.

In addition to unique items, the only other way to reliably make money in this game was to solo FoW and UW for ectoplasms and shards, which are really the only things worth a consistent amount of gold in Guild Wars.

After two years, three games, and developing a large online following, I can't really say I didn't see something like this coming.

PVE has finally felt the same kind of hammer-blow that Anet has been reshaping the PVP side of the game with for a very long time. The efforts of solo farmers have effectively been reduced by 1/8, and with drop rates as low as they currently are, this kind of of a change is absolutely repulsive to PvE players, and disastrous to people who actually care about solo farming. Lets take a look at some of the issues surrounding the recent update:

1. Inflation

The Guild Wars Economy has literally been flooded with a very large quantity of unique items. Because nearly every boss now drops one, it's not hard for people to acquire them. However, does it really make sense for items of this quality to be in such a massive circulation?

Well... it actually kind of does: Guild Wars has a fatal error in item creation because the numbers which matter on weapons have such a low variance and range. Maxed Swords are 15-22; hammers 15-35; bows 15-28...

Because these numbers are so low, the difference in quality between a 13-20 weapon and a 15-22 weapon is immense, even though the fundamental numerical difference is two. For this reason, nobody cares about purple items or Istan/Shing Jea Greens. Many people, including myself, consider Green items to be the best quality items in the game, because they're always the same and they're always maxed. By lowering their drop rate, their immediate value will go up, and unless gold drops are massively increased in order to compensate for this, there is no way for people, especially new players, to be able to afford these quality items. People will then resort to using (dare I say it) even purple items, which will reduce the effectiveness of the player overall. This isn't as apparent in the caster classes, but it makes a huge difference to the classes which rely on their weapons for dealing damage.

2. Alienation of new players

Guild Wars is an extremely unfriendly game to new players. The campaign system that Anet has launched is not only expensive for people to buy, but exhaustingly time consuming in order to catch up to the current state of the game. If you want to play competitively, you stand no chance whatsoever of getting into the game now. For high-end PvP, you either needed to have started before or around Factions, or have ungodly amounts of free time in order to have the necessary skills unlocked and game completion needed to play a wide variety of builds. With thousands of skills, a very expensive economy which has no room for non-perfect items, it is quite likely that a player new to the game will become overwhelmed with the amount of catch-up they have to play, and ultimately quit.

3. Class difference in game economy

Chances are, if you were a hardcore solo-farmer before this update, you've got quite a lot of money and items stockpiled up. I refuse to believe the argument put forth by so many people that this update is going to kill their funds and defunct their games. If you care enough about this update to be considerably upset about having reduced loot quality while solo farming, sorry to say this, but you're probably just being greedy. The people who have legitimate cause to complain about this update are the people who started the game within the last six months, and anyone else who begins playing from now on. Anyone who has been playing for more than a year has had plenty of time to get on the farming bandwagon, exploit green items or rare crafting materials, and make their gold. I feel no sympathy for people who complain about this update and then sit on their 500k storage accounts and whine about the drop rates.

Because the drop rates have been decreased, the prices of items will go up, and people who needthese items will have to work harder in order to buy them (and the argument here is circular because you need good weapons in order to get gold from monsters, and you need gold to get good weapons...)

My Thoughts:

This article has gone on long enough, so I'll end with my thoughts on the issue. Personally, I am not affected by the update. To me, Anet did a far more disastrous thing than nerfing drop rates when they effectively neutered the usefulness of PVE characters in PVP at the release of Nightfall. Because PvP characters can now just craft any weapon they need, my stockpile of items and armor switches became useless literally overnight. Prior to Nightfall, I had been a hardcore solo farmer, and I farmed greens in order to arm my PVE characters and prepare them for PvP. After Nightfall though, there was just no incentive to farm anymore. I already had green items, they were customized, and effectively worthless to everyone else. I earned a decent pile of money from selling those that I could, and I already owned several sets of 15k, but my entire motivation for playing PVE was destroyed, because I could no longer play my PVE characters as effectively in PVP, where every rune, every stat, every point matters.

To me, this was a more disastrous update on PVE than a drop rate nerf could ever be, because this update had effectively wasted my time. The reason I played PVE was in order to better play PVP, and when I couldn't use my PVE characters anymore, all my efforts in order to outfit my PVE characters for PVP was in vain (to give you an idea of the work I put into this, I had a Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Assassin, and Ritualist; all of whom were PVP ready completed characters). Decreasing the drop rate does not mean that the items will stop dropping completely, and as long as you're willing to spend the time farming the items, you'll eventually get one. God forbid you actually form a group and farm an area with 8 people (from what the update sounds like, this will actually end up rewarding you more now).

I don't think this update is ideal, but like every other ridiculous update Anet has thrown at us, we're going to get through it. The game is not unplayable, and with the advent of Hard Mode, even I'm interested in PVE again. It would be a real shame if you stopped playing this great game just because you can't exploit valuable drops as well as you once used to. I don't think this nerf to PVE is anywhere near as drastic as some of the stuff that has hit PVP in the past, and even still, the PVP metagame continues to chug along.

But the bottom line is, if you're upset by this update, Anet is not going to listen if you swear, whine, and complain with such immaturity. If you want changes made, petition Anet in a formal, orderly fashion. Raging about it on a forum isn't going to get you, or your movement, anywhere.

Abnaxus · Apr 20, 2007, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Strangely, so far no one has opened a discussion about this, although in other threads somebody has given his/her opinion on possible implications of the new loot distribution system.

First of all, let's try to use this thread to give our own views and speculations, and not to complain that there's no more fun in the game, or start the usual debate about classes, rich and poors, haves and have not, and so on.
Just everyone tries to make his/her own analysis and give his/her own point of view on what will be the effects of the update.

************************************************** *********
I start giving my definition of what I think is "real wealth" in GW.

In my opinion, GW's "real wealth" is

- cash
- normal crafting materials, like dust, hides and so on
- rare crafting materials, like ectos, rubies, but also steel and other
- to some extent, also runes

Cash, normal and rare crafting materials are required to craft normal of high end armors, runes are required to improve attributes, and cash is also required (don't forget it) to buy skills.

This "real wealth" is created every time a monster drops XXg, or an ecto, or a junk sword is salvaged into steel, or simply collected and merchanted for cash.

On the other hand, rare weapons or green weapons are not "real wealth".
They are something that can be used to move "real wealth" from the storage of one player (the buyer) to the storage of another player (the seller).

But they don't introduce any new real wealth in game, unless they're salvaged or sold to merchant.
A simple example can explain this.
Imagine there's only 1 player in the whole GW, and this players has the luck to drop a uber req. 7 15% unconditional colossal scimitar.
"OMG this weap is worth thousands of ectos" he can think. Unfortunately, he will never be able to buy any FoW armor just giving that sword to the forgemaster.
He will be able to get the XXX ectos only if there's another player who has stockpiled ectos and cash, and is available to buy the sword. But no "real wealth" has been created when the sword dropped, only some "real wealth" was moved from one storage to another.

************************************************** *********

That said, it seems (I can only say "seems") that with the nerf to solo farming there will be less production of "real wealth" (that I repeat, is cash, normal and rare materials).
A group of 8 players killing 8 monsters will give 8 drops, 8 individual players killing each one 8 monsters will give 64 drops.

On the other hand, it seems (I can only say "seems") from the early information that "gold drops" have been increased, especially in HM.

If this is true, we are going to see less "real wealth" influx ingame, and maybe an increase influx of rare drops.
But rare drops can only move "real wealth" from one storage to another, they don't represent "real wealth" by themselves (unless they're salvaged or sold to merchants).

If the above analysis is correct, what do you think will happen to the "economy"?

Actually I don't have answers, I'd like to hear your opinions about that.

> Abna <

Navaros · Apr 20, 2007, 06:01 PM // 18:01

This change doesn't require any "thoughts". Simply revert it back to exactly how it used to be. End of story.

It wasn't broken and hence it shouldn't have been "fixed".

Hyaon · Apr 20, 2007, 06:11 PM // 18:11

How is using my hammer w/mo to farm hydras outside augury rock making usually 4k+ in 45 minutes ish something that anet want to stamp out? I want to play on my own at times, I also want to be able to afford stuff I want to buy, I also found it fun. FUN. Slight grind yes but I enjoyed it a hell lot more than my job. Now what do you do? You've turned it all into a unfun LONGER grind fest, that forces you to group up and even then the 'rewards' are complete crap! It simply does not pay the same as before and it will make buying new armours etc extremely stressful. Do you not realise people play at different times for different lengths, you can't expect every guild's members to band together in synch because its not what we do, we play together to do missions/pvp and talk. People lead different lives and there are times when you have to solo farm because no one else is online.

This reminds me of when SOE shafted SWG players with the CU, not a good move.

Bloody pissed off!

Orbberius · Apr 20, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20

So happy that it was finally implemented. I think they could increase the loot drops from everywhere a bit, now they don't have to worry about solo-ers.

And my opinion is that if you ever sat down and solo-farmed, you're almost certainly not a "casual" player, so this doesn't really hurt casual players. In fact, by bringing a more balanced distribution of wealth, I would say it helps casual players.

edit: Oh, if you're leaving guildwars forever, please give me all your moneys

BlackSephir · Apr 20, 2007, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Its really pathetic that now ppl complain that they can't buy skills, items etc because farming was 'nerfed' ;D
I don't play much pve, never farmed anything, yet by doing quests, killing mobs and so on I can afford all the skills I want, max armour, items and runes

Irony much?

Anarion Silverhand · Apr 20, 2007, 06:32 PM // 18:32

This wouldn't have hurt me as much if Anet decided to implement this change earlier, but after nearly 2 YEARS, it seems like a.... can't find a polite word for "dumb"...idea..

Macktar Wang · Apr 20, 2007, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

Its really pathetic that now ppl complain that they can't buy skills, items etc because farming was 'nerfed' ;D
I don't play much pve, never farmed anything, yet by doing quests, killing mobs and so on I can afford all the skills I want, max armour, items and runes

Irony much?

Some people are buying more than just the skills they NEED. Some people are completionists, and want every skill unlocked. Try doing this, then you'll see why people complain.
Everyone knows the game is setup to give you enough skills to survive and enough money to get the armor and weapons that you need. Some people want to go beyond that. That's why there is more than one type/price of armor in the game. After all, once you've finished the game, what's left?

Burma_GW · Apr 20, 2007, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Watch for these trends:
1. Online gold price will increase as a function of demand. Gold-farm organizations will see census rise as Gold Farm Teams are built.

2. Average gamers will have less access to Items.

3. Rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

4.. Game direction .....unchanged.

Namaste...have fun out there.

afterthought: Let me be more specific...the Gold Farming Organizations in Asia are significant. It is a real-life business. Because they can build teams of farmers (for profit in real money), that will happen. Because average GW players now have less access to in-game funds, they will turn to purchasing "gold" online, the simplest alternative. Top gamers will find a way to make money far more easily then the lower echelons. Social stratification increases.

Hell Raiser · Apr 20, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

I have no idea why ArenaNet felt the need to scale down on drops; that only pisses people off. Scaling up would have made everyone happy. The only thing that is going to change is: The amount of legit solo farmers will decrease, and the amount of bot farmers will increase (after all, they need to compensate for the decreased drops. And I don't see Anet in those towns like Granite, [that people have reported several times to be full of bots] banning any of them)

boarderx · Apr 20, 2007, 06:42 PM // 18:42

imo, this ruins many people's money making ways so now if they need money they might just go ebay it. This is a bad move on anets part. If you got attacked by a group of monsters they would look and see that there is just one of you and set down some of thier money then go fight you. It doesnt make sense to me.

I agree with what was mentioned above, how will casual players make their money? Not everyone can take the time to form groups and farm for hours. it was nice when i could take 30mins and make an ecto so i wasnt broke, buy some runes for heros so they dont suck and quest with guildies and get stuff done.

Without steady cash flow how can players upgrade there chars to be able to do more things? it almost takes the replayabilty out of the game.

dr_forest · Apr 20, 2007, 06:44 PM // 18:44

This sucks. a lot

blood4blood · Apr 20, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48

EDIT: Silly idea on my part, nevermind.

rista blodorn · Apr 20, 2007, 06:51 PM // 18:51

ANET has taken a great update and trashed it by slamming small team and solo farmers for no apparent reason. The GW economy as enough money sinks built into it that there is no apparent inflation and the farming community has actually helped keep prices down by creating a competitive selling environment...to the point that even many casual players could afford many "elite" type items (dyes, mini-pets, weapons, shields). So of what benefit is this change? So that people know have to take a full party of hero's/henchies to farm something and do it 8x more to get the same amount (because thank goodness the farming penalty code has been removed for zoning into an area repeatedly). ANET has also killed a fair chunk of the build creativity that was created through the farming community coming up with new solo and small team builds. People won't need to worry about buying skills because as soon as you find one build that works you won't ever have a need to find another PvE build for that character class. Oh sorry, you may need 10-12 skills instead of just eight since you might want to go wild and switch out a skill or two to fight margonites vs. mursaat.

ANET: GW:EN team, we're going to make your jobs a lot easier.
GW:EN dev team: Really how's that?
ANET: Remember all those PvE skills you were working on?
GW:EN dev team: yyyeeeaahhh?
ANET: They won't be needed. Thanks for stopping by.

The End?

lyra_song · Apr 20, 2007, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Ive been thinking very hard about this...and about how i really feel. Its hard since my point of views like to conflict.

Botters - Gold Sellers
--------------------
Overall impact on botters/gold sellers is minimal. the costs will increase since farming takes longer, but overall, they can continue without any real problems.

Now the farmer archtype....i feel that most players hover between the two.

Hardcore Farmer - Farmer Who Farms For Fun
-------------------------------------------
This is a farmer who doesnt care about profit and really just wants to solo high end areas to prove something to themselves. These guys do it for fun or for the challenge. The overall impact on them by this nerf is negligable as well. Areas remain farm-able and the hardmode versions offer new areas to solo. Loot is irrelevant, or not the priority.

This archtype may or may not mind farming with other people.

Hardcore Farmer - Farmers Who Farm For Gold
-------------------------------------------
These guys solo because they want gold to prove they have money, to achieve a goal, to buy stuff, to buy someone stuff, etc. In the end, its about profit. The farming nerf will hit this player archtype VERY VERY hard, since it effectively destroys their only method of gaining money. And since their gaming style revolves around this, it effectively kills their fun.

Ive found that this player type is solitary and would rather NOT have to farm with other people. So thats out of the question.

Hardcore Trader
-------------------------------------
The impacts on the solo farmers impact the economy, where the Hardcore Trader likes to play. Green Items will no longer be solo-able and can increase in rarity. Those who have already heavily invested are going to profit with the increase in difficulty of getting items. Plus with the influx of new rare items, Hardcore traders will be able to continue to increase their riches by investing in the new tomes and scrolls.

Casual Player
-------------
Hmmmn....what an interesting time. Ive never had difficulty gaining non-vanity equipment (max armor, max weapons) even with full parties of henchmen on characters that couldnt farm. Playing casually in full parties has always given players enough cash and XP to be able to equip themselves to be effective without needing to farm, since the game was always designed to make farming completely optional. This farming nerf, imo does not affect the casual players too detrimentally.

============
Me? I like getting gold drops....but the incentive to get better drops in full groups and farm with my guild sounds good. I still wish it was an upscale and not a downscale.

This is me whining: Some of the posts around here are pure rubbish without any analytical or insightful thought into the whole situation, full of conjecture and strawmen, long disproven in past arguments.