Originally Posted by rohlfinator

I guess we have a difference of opinion here, but I highly doubt any casual player will be able to earn 11k/hour in addition to questing, missions, socializing, acquiring skill points and capping elites. If you can do that, more power to you, but you are definitely not a casual player.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

1. Who am I parroting, again?
2. You're right, I don't know for sure what Anet's reasons were. However, random drop systems such as this one are a pretty well established characteristic of the RPG genre, and that rationale is used in numerous other games. It's reasonable to assume that Anet was using similar reasoning.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

Armor is not "possessed wealth" because it can't be sold. Having FoW armor doesn't make you richer.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

This is completely false for items with elastic demand, like luxuries and entertainment items. The music industry discovered this the hard way: raise the price of CD's, and suddenly there are a lot fewer people willing to pay for them. Guild Wars gold falls into this category as well, as it is not a necessity to life or a societal standard.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

3. Go for titles that don't require gold - Protector and Cartographer are fairly straightforward and don't require any investment.
4. Play PvP - This was intended to be the "end game" of Guild Wars anyway.
5. Go outside - Seriously, if you've done every quest and mission in all three campaigns, there's nothing wrong with taking a break from the game until new content comes out. For players who don't like farming and have most of the game completed, trying to squeeze more enjoyment out of the game is just going to end in disappointment.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

The focal point of the game was never farming, so I don't know how you can seriously say that it has shifted. The focus is still squarely on 8-player gameplay, just as it always has been.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

Neither has ArenaNet. I'd be very interested in seeing a quote from either Gaile or Anet saying that "the coolest items should be accessible to all players."

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

I will explain the reasoning for the change:
It could be said that in the past, when certain players were receiving 800% the rewards of other players, there was an inequity.
All players were seeing high prices for the most desirable items; they noted a push to unattainable of items they wanted to get.
The only players able to attain the coolest items fell into a certain player type, the farmer.
This reduced the fun factor of the game, in that the game seemed to require that players play in a certain way if they wanted to get those items.
Farming is ok with us, no problem at all, but we did not intend that farming would be "required," or that only farmers would be able to obtain the coolest items.
Loot scaling was implemented, in part, to adjust for the changes to the game that affected normal mode with the addition of Hard Mode. If you're able to enter a map more often without a reduction in loot, and if you can complete a map or kill X number of mobs faster, then loot scaling makes the rewards more fair and more appropriate. See the original post in this thread for more information.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

I think we both agree that the game should be friendly to casual players. From my point of view, balancing the reward system helps achieve that goal. I'm not sure how you can argue in favor of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, and then suggest that the game should show preference to players who play 10 hours a day.

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

But if they're playing for the content (I assume by content you mean quests and missions), then wouldn't they spend their time playing the content (which they find fun) rather than farming (which they don't enjoy) for some non-content "wants"?

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

I think the real root of this disagreement is that all of us are trying to speculate about how casual players play, even though we have no real definition of "casual". The whole discussion seems to have degenerated into essentially, "this is how it affects me, and I consider myself a casual player, so this is how it affects casual players as a whole." Which is not very productive or meaningful. So that being said, I'm going to refrain from discussing the effects on casual players, because I don't think anyone here (myself included) really has the qualifications to speak on behalf of "casual players."

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

All of this I just typed can be applied to just about any change/nerf implemented so far, including the SR nerf that I am also adamant about. The old addage "Don't fix it unless it's broken." applies, but can also be said "Don't break it in a different way, just because it's already broken." - and you can quote me on that.

Originally Posted by Kaleban

Would a simple solution not be to simply have the NPC merchants give you fair market value for drops? Such that a merchant would pay you 1 million gold for a crystalline sword? Something to think about I guess.

Originally Posted by free_fall

"Why anet want to sabotage their own game is beyond me"

Perhaps this is anet's devious strategy to get us so disgusted with GW that we will all leave and move to GW2 (especially those of us who have expressed no interest whatsoever in it) so they can shut the GW servers down all the sooner to save those bandwidth costs.

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

we removed artificial barriers to casual farming such as certain farming builds not working

Originally Posted by S_Serpent

This is sick, I mostly only have collector items, and like them, but now I will have to grind for the collector items as my droprate has gone 1/8 (solo farming is not always about gold) or pay ridiculous prices to other players for them, yay. Even the weaponsmiths are already costly enough for the casual player!! A.net beter lower the cost for skills, weaponsmiths, and the number of collectable items for collectors since you have to grind and grind now you casual player. I feel terrible for all the new players out there as for the casual players I feel your pain.

You can't restore a flawed economy after two years. We had the no-reroll error, non farm code time, ... and whatever more, its was screwed since day one+3months.

Why do I even bother anymore, GW:EN and GW2 are scratched from my to buy list.

Originally Posted by aaje vhanli

I've been playing for a while now, and the drop-rates are terrible. Soloing, with a friend and heroes, or even with a full party... they are the worst I've ever seen.

We completed an area (Xaquang Skyway) and I received <100g, one stack of 5 bolts of silk, two useless items, and three white weapons.

So now, the only way to actually gain any significant gold is to farm rare items and weapons. Those of us who actually play thru the game are buggered with botched-up drop rates.

Originally Posted by Nomen Mendax

From my perspective the part in bold is just nonsense. I'm a casual farmer and I also like playing parts of the game solo (I had a lot of fun finding a functional build to solo The Gates of Kryta), and I'm not in any way a "professional farmer".

The update means that my vermin farming now gets me less loot to save up for goodies, and is easier. From my point of view both these things are bad. ANet's reasoning is now that its easier I can do again and again and again, and then spend more time selling the gold items I find.

But now that it is easier to farm it is less fun. So I get a fun quick activity replaced with repeatedly doing a less fun (slightly quicker) activity followed by more time spent trying to sell the gold items (another unenjoyable activity).

It seems like ANet's idea of a "casual player" is someone who doesn't like any sort of challenge, and enjoys doing the same boring activity over and over again. If this really is part of their design philosophy it doesn't bode well for the future.

One thing that would help, and has been asked for numerous times, is to create item traders, I do hope this is something that is being considered.

The bottom line for me is that I enjoyed the solo farming, which I will now do a lot less if at all. It's not a big deal, but it does mean the game is less fun.

Originally Posted by Skyi

here is casual farmer speaking

dear Anet

these changes bring prices to the hell and stop: just look at "bot web sites", now they are selling golds (illegally) at double price, ecto are straight to the sky.

if u want to stop "botting" this is not the right way. You know where bots there are and how they work: just implement this tricks of 1/8 the stuff dropped only for they, and not for all the community.

i'm seriously thinking to leave guildwars game for ever, and i think i'm not the only. After beating the game is just fun to make some money to buy or chestrunning some nice rare items. I'm not interested in pvp play.

thanks if u do something.

bye

Originally Posted by Sol Faithman

Contrary to what the dev's think, as many people have pointed out, this nerf does absolutely nothing for the casual farmer - fair enough, the mobs no longer run from AoE etc, but you get no drops, so now have to do tonnes more farming to make the same money. This is called GRIND and something Anet has always said is not part of GW. I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that the Dev's actually do not understand how people play their game, and cannot comprehend the effect these changes have on the casual (1-2 hours a day, 5-10 hours a week) player. How on earth is a casual player, starting today supposed to even get anywhere near 1.5k armour with all the runes necessary for a char with any kind of survivability or creativity in builds (don't forget we need money to buy skills in factions and nighfall - there goes any diversity in build let alone the Elite skill hunter titles)?
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Tbh, I think this has taken a fair bit of the shine off the game for me - I enjoyed solo farming, just for the satisfaction of being able to do it. I may have used cookie cutter builds but I wasn't bothered - the challenge for me was pulling it off. I think in my almost 2 years on GW I only ever sold 1 gold item to another player (for 50k iirc), all the rest has gone to the merchant or is used on my chars or heroes. I just can't undertand where the dev's are coming from with this idea, and nothing I've read anywhere has answered my questions including Gailes comments.

I've played through the AoE nerf, and through all the other "tweaks" that Anet has undertaken, seen some of my builds buffed and some totally destroyed through pressure from the pvp mob, but I've always come back for more, adapted and moved on. But this is just down right silly, to the point of verging on stupidity - how can this adjustment meet the criteria and have the result that Anet are saying it will? In a nut shell.....it won't. The casual player is now buggered good and proper. No more money, no more new armour, no more new skills coz they simply will not be able to afford it, no matter whether they farm solo 24/7 or do every quest and every mission with 8 real people.

Oh yeah.................there is alway e-bay, but I thought Anet didn't want us to go there??!!

Sorry for the longish rant - been mulling this over the last couple of days, and I guess this is me kinda barfing it all out............I feel much better now!!

Rich

Originally Posted by Alas Poor Yorick

Well, if you question can't be answered then I am going to try the impossible.

I thought I was going to be happy with the compromise of keeping certain high end items from being affected by the loot-scaling. I was wrong.

After playing a great deal today, I realized that the immediate rewards, though small, are what made the game fun for me.

True, certain high end items will still be plentiful for those dedicated gamers who like to solo or play in hard mode (in fact, drops in hard mode seemed to be pretty good). But by loot scaling the low end stuff, the immediate reward for the casual gamer is gone.

I had not realized how much I was getting off of cash drops and white and blue items. It turns out that the rare gold item drop wasn't having as much impact on my playing as I thought.

Rather, there was a small sense of immediate satisfaction at the end of fighting a group to look around and see 6 or 7 drops - even if they were only white or blue. Secondly, it turns out those were adding up. I don't solo, but I will often go out with only a partial party of heroes (sometimes just a healer) to increase my share of the drops. Even with anti-farming code, the small drops eventually added up. (kinda like taxes - you could tax the rich at 90% and still not come anywhere near equaling the money the government gets from the middle class. A lot of small amounts can add up faster than a very few large ones)

So, in the end, I was getting small immediate rewards with the reasonable expectation that, even though I would never be able to buy a mini-yeti, I could anticipate eventually being able to afford 15k armor or most nice weapons I might want. (it was a nice balance of small immediate rewards with a reasonable goal of large long term rewards)

Today that is all different. After fighting large groups in normal, I look around and there are only 1 or 2 drops - often just cash. Once I pick up the 100 gold pieces or so and it is shared between myself and 3 heroes, I get a grand total of 25gp. The sense of immediate satisfaction is gone and my hope of affording moderate high end stuff is so far into the distance that it makes it hard to want to work toward. Frankly, even if they had left anti-farming code in I doubt I would have noticed it because there were so few drops that it would not have mattered one bit. Had this happened once or twice, that would have been fine. But it was consistent all day long.

So, now i have a choice, always play in hard mode or learn to farm very high end areas. (but neither one of those fits the definition of "casual player") Frankly, I don't know if I really want to put that much effort in.

So in the end, what will be the effects on the economy? Overall, I don't know. There will still be rare items available. People will still farm for ectos. But I suspect we will see the casual players begin to leave in droves. I predict 2 groups of people. There will be those who buy the game and are in the middle of playing through the storyline. They will stay long enough to finish the story but then there will be no real reason to hang around. Also, there will be no sense of loyalty or anticipation that will make them want to buy GW2. They will move on to other games. The other group will be the very wealthy who will find and exchange high-end items. But the causal gamer who has finished the game and stuck around for other things, those who form the bulk of guild wars society, will gradually fade away.

I've enjoyed playing for the last year. And I will not quit out of anger. But unless something else happens I certainly see myself moving on our of boredom.
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This just isn't much fun anymore.
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I'm a casual player. I don't want to have to learn how to run the high end areas just to get anything. I don't even want most of the 15k armor. I just want enough rewards to keep the game interesting and to have a little hope that if I really want something nice I actually have a chance of saving up for it.

It was fun seeing something fancy someone else had and thinking i had a chance to get it myself someday, or finally getting that new armor and showing it off. Now the rewards are so meager there is no point in looking at that new knight's armor - I'll never be able to afford it.

Now, once you have completed the story line, the game is just killing a lot of mobs for almost nothing - not my idea of a rocking good time!

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted - I'll keep an eye on the forums and if I see a change for the positive, I'll play again. But for now, yawn.
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I know they are looking to see what prices do in the long run

But a game is just for fun and players don't wait for the long run
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Finished 2 of the 3 games - no more quests or missions to do in them unless I want to try them again for title or do them in hard mode (not especially interested in that). Was enjoying saving up for stuff but don't get any drops in normal and cant sell the golds and greens i get in hard.

And playing for 30 mins and then standing trying to sell for an hour is just not my idea of a great time.

I'll AFK LDoA for a while but after that if there are no changes, no point to play. Enjoyed it while it lasted - but its over now - dont think ill bother with GW:EN or GW2.

I still can't figure out why ANet cant realize that when they get this much negative feedback it means that people are not happy. And, in a game, unlike real life, you have a limited window of opportunity to fix things. After that it is twice as hard to get players back as it was to get them to play in the first place.

Originally Posted by Improvavel

...As you can see I m in favour of farming.

Why?

Because I could get the stuff I wanted by myself, not needing to trade to anyone.

I want a dwaynas grace! I go and farm for her. It can take 10 minutes or 2 hours, but I will get her in reasonable time span. Or would. Dunno anymore.

I wanted an Obsidian Armor, cause I m vain, or I m bored. I would go there spend something like 50-100 hours farming and I would get it. My time, my effort, my reward. !00 is too few? Well Prophecies take like what 40 hours if that? I cant even remember.

Some will say, farmers are a disgrace, they kill the game cause stuff gets too expensive, or all missions areas are empty and I cant get a pug, cause those stupid farmers should be helping me getting my protector title instead of going after their vanity objectives.

You see, I help my guildies getting their protector titles. I wont waste 1 hour doing a mission+bonus to help some random dude get its vanity title.

I can easly give my guild mates good modes, good greens, some money for their major vigour. I wont spend 100 farming to give something to a dude I dont know.

I also wont be doing more general PvE, like going after the vanquisher title cause they KILLED FARM. I ll stop doing pve at all. And just keep doing my PvP.

And maybe get myself a copy of a MMORPG where I can go after my objectives, prolly WoW.

Originally Posted by Ishtar Serket

Can't say I like the update...

I've been a casual farmer (I made lots of gold but I never considered myself a pro farmer) since soon after I bought Prophecies. With this update, the main sources of my gold are gone. Greens don't drop every time and golds are frequently difficult at best to sell with the archaic trade system Anet thinks actually constitutes as usable. Everyone has better or more interesting things to do than what they'd have to do now. Farm several more times a day just to get how much you had before and then spend an hour + tryng to sell anything of discernable value in trade chat.

Originally Posted by kumarshah

What Anet is saying is BS. I am a casual gamer and a casual farmer. But I still like so solo farm the easier areas of the game. I don't care about making 50k a hour, I am happy with 10k a hour.

But guess what, I can't ANet. Because Hydras and Vermin drop jack shit now. You think that is going to attract new players? In order to make gold, you gotta either got UW, FoW or DoA or The Deep which is dominated by specific builds and if you can't get them its all to waste?

God, how the hell does this help casual gamers. Making gold just got freaking harder for casual gamers. Thanks a lot.
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You solo farmed in hard mode? Good for you. Guess what an average Joe won't be able to do that.

And the only solo farming in normal mode is limited to high-end areas were gold, ectos, shards, etc drop.

Hard core farmers are not going to have any issues. Ectos will still drop normally and they will still make 100k a day.

I farmed Hydras outside Augury Rock. I farmed Vermin. I was satisfied with what I made. Farming them now is useless.

Originally Posted by tenebreoscure

I'm one of those casual farming people. I started playing the game around october 2005, when money sinks, keys for chests, 1k skills and drop rate nerf where already in place, so I really never had the chance to get rich quickly like the first 3-months-after-release players did. The first time I farmed was around droknar's forge, and that was because I had no money to buy the basic 1.5k armor. I did not rush through the game, played every mission and did every quest, played always with max people permitted by the map. That was, and is still the problem with the game: playing it the "regular" way won't guarantee you the cash to buy basic stuff, like maxed armor, and most importantly skills. I'm not talking about 15k armor or other luxuries, I'm talking about really basic stuff. So as I said I relied on farming to buy runes, skills, and after that insignas and other stuff for my heroes. I didn't like farming, it was boring after a couple of runs, but since it was the only way to get some money I did it.

Every change arenanet made to the pve environment to stop botting was, in my opinion, ineffective and detrimental for the gameplay. Making enemies scatter from aoe damage over time didn't make the game more challenging, it made it slower, boring and actually easier for casters, since they could bring a cheap aoeot skill as a life saver.
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In my opinion, as the game is now the new or casual player is bound to poverty. Instead of twisting the gameplay to counter bots and soloers inflating the economy, why not remove the need for farming, at least for normal stuff?

Originally Posted by DarkLight OCA

NP but to let u know If this is not sorted i will not be obtaining eye of the north and guildwars two as i planned and will also be leaving the building for good evan though i had invested in the other 3 campains and all time i spent playing the over the yrs!! the fun has now gone. the loot scaling does not work how u say it does.. I've wasted 15k in uw runs over past 24hrs and received zip for my time and effort,and im not the only one. lots of my friends and ppl in town talking same way, you feel hurt from ppl flaming you/Anet? sit back and think why they are they flamming you/Anet!! this is not a problem that is not going to just fade out with sugar coating and time!!!simply stop hurting the honest paying player and invest in anti cheat coding!!! also why not take a note from EPIC who forced hosting sites of cheat softwear to close with threats of big law suits,worked very nice for them.

Originally Posted by Baroness Scarlett

I just don't understand why they are trying to make us unhappy!It is a GAME, it is supposed to make people happy and give them funny experiences.
They don't understand that people don't want to feel like they are working like in a real work instead of feeling like playing something fun and productive that gives you a lot of money, weapons, armors...
If you make a game as hard as making money in real life what is the pleasure of playing and forgetting real life. Just let it go Anet, make us happy, satisfy us! we are simple humans with simple minds that like satisfaction, once you understand that you will do good. UN NERF EVERYTHING! starting with AOE, Soul Reaping, only 10 minions, skills (if you have to separate pvp from pve do it damn it!) and everything you have done for the good of us! feels like a parent punishing us! And let me tell you, nobody likes that lol
Oh! and let us bring our chars to GW2 and not transferable birthday presents.
This is my DREAM and i know is not gonna happen, so bye bye
And the bad thing is that this game use to be like that: perfect, i miss those days badly.

Originally Posted by Lt Smackahoe

In my humble opinion I feel that this update is a bad choice. I dont understand the reasoning behind this. Now if you want to buy decent armor or weapons you have to buy gold online and pay a rediculious price for them, because this is going to be driving prices up.

I do understand that the problem with the bots...but who cares. You are punishing all of us because of the bots!!! Most of us farm the gold and these green items to sell at market price and then buy our armor and whatever else we need. What about the players that arent in guilds or even the ones that are just starting out, theyre not gonna stay, whats the point?!?!?!? You cant make these Deep runs, and DOA missions with the base crap you get and it will be too hard to get anything else. There must be a diff way to stop these bots than making everyone suffer, I for one MAY never play again that may not bother anyone but for 3 years I have been playing in my spare time and made lots of friends and it sucks that this is happening cause I have a really bad taste in my mouth for Guild Wars now, I was soooo looking forward to GW2. Kinda pointless now.

Originally Posted by Twlzted

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Now youve unloaded a whole new can of beans that from my perspective noone is happy nor content w/.Yea you as you call (VETERAN/HARDCORE FARMERS) say arent hurt by it,no WE are not,im one of them,i can farm w/ the best of em but you know what,its gotten to the point its a headache nemore to do so,yea i can still do it,thats not the issue.Its not FUN to do nemore is what im getting at.I dont enjoy my time here in guildwars no more,its gotten to a point that its to politically Fu**ed up w/in the economy these days,remember ANET,this is (A GAME!) its not meant to be turned into REAL life drama,its supposed to be fun not give you a frickin headache when you launch your game.
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This post was pointed toward one thing in general (you shoulda left the game alone!) it was perfect (MY OPINION) before the last (3) updates.

GW's 2? hmmph,you wont be seeing me buy it netime soon if its to be designed & crafted to meet the same standards as this first chapter.
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I wanna have fun & i wanna take my guild places & explore new options,areas that give us the FUN we do so desire as a whole.Its not fun nemore when oyu have to sit in a town for 30 minutes going over builds,skills,schematics,neumatics,odometers,maps, global positioning sensors,speedometers,calibrations,blue prints & i could go on and on,yall git my point,lol....

have a g-day,can hardly wait to come back and see the response.

Originally Posted by adderworks

My guild is a tiny guild, but the large portion of 46 players in it are actively seeking a new game as a direct response to the update. The reasons range from the farming nerf to the dislike of the AI changes.

Originally Posted by Necrokitty

I was severely ticked off by this change when I first read the update news. I told my girlfriend "There's no point in ever playing that game again." Because I'm not a great player. I've never beaten the game with any of my characters (though I have a ranger sitting 1 mission away from the end), haven't made any ventures into uber areas. I like getting stuff, collecting bows and trinkets and my ultimate goal is to have a complete stack of every crafting material there is. I might have made it if I hadn't gotten antsy and sold them all off to play Nine Rings a while ago...

I farm to get stuff I want. It's tedious and frustrating at times. I sell everything to merchants because I hate sitting in town trying to read the scrolling spam of the trade community. On average, I make 3 plat/half hour. Most of it from white items. It's sufficient income for my purchases, usually.

After thinking about it a couple days, I'm still annoyed. Gold (money) and white and blue and purple drops are a fraction of what they used to be. I've got no chance of having even the small amount of cash I used to pull in. I see people complaining about not being able to afford their 15K armors. What about us not-so-1337 players who just need the necessities?

Explain it to me. Does this mean prices for armor materials and capture signets and otther things will go down? Will there ever be hope for players, old and new, to make their way through the game without having to spend 8 times as much time trying to earn what they need?

I just recently talked my sister into buying Factions to try. I kind of regret that, now. I've personally spent around $300 on Guild Wars - all campaigns, extra character slots, instore upgrades, promo items - for myself and my girlfriend. I really regret that, now. I can't say if I'll be giving Anet any more of my money. I want to say never again, no more GW, no GWEN, no GW2, nothing, but I don't know.

I don't know if I want to play anymore. It's really depressing. So tell me, how are the not-so-great players supposed to be better off, now? This sucks.

Originally Posted by Jibrail

... i don't understand why there are still people in this forum who continue to justify everything anet has done to this game which has caused all this negativity. you see, irregardless of whatever in-game studies you show to prove that anet has done a wonderful job, people bought this game with their hearts and not their minds and they have since decided that this is no longer fun, even though bunnies may begin falling from the sky. and once people think that the game is no longer fun, then it is a dead game to them. no amount of e-scientific justification or e-economics is going to change their perception of that.

this is why i say anet blew it. and why this game is no longer fun. its subjective, a matter of perception, a matter of faith. and we no longer have faith in anet to deliver entertainment.

Originally Posted by Stormer_99

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BTW I completely agree with the person who is sick and tired of all the nerfs/changes. Trying to balance PVP while screwing PVE or visa versa. For example the Necro nerf... My god that character has been in the game since the beginning and they wait till now to nerf soul reaping??? Either Anet is very slow or something else changed to prompt it. Either way, if it was a PVP issue, then just add an environmental effect to the PVP areas. I've been playing this game since the closed beta and over all not very happy with the way they like to nerf stuff and waste our time. Yes I've bought all 3 Campaigns but have been quite frustrated during the process. So I don't think I'll be going on to GW 2. Even though the games rocks... Anet has wasted to much of my valuable game time and to many of my builds...The frustration is just not worth it.

Originally Posted by Abarra

I am also a casual farmer that just farms for what I want. this is now impossible or at the very least stupidly time consuming. Anet is now saying I have to become a leet farmer to earn any money, that I can't make a few plat here and there for what I need.

they gave us heroes which we have to kit out, with weapons and runes for them to be up to the task. We don't get their share of the cash to do it, they get it and then we kit them out. This is now going to be very hard if you have only one character, but if you have several... Oh well there goes the revenue to anet for new character slots, no one will be able to equip their current characters and heroes so they won't be buying more.

'gold drops are exempt from loot scaling' OK but have they reduced the gold item drops in normal mode then? I used to get a reasonable amount of gold drops soloing kryta including ettin pauldrons even with farming code up. I'm getting none now, even after many attempts, so I don't see this gold item exemption from the scaling at all. I just see a drop in gold itme drop rates.

I did hard mode with heroes and hechies, got some great drops first run, then they stopped, eight runs later I get more in normal mode. Every run after that got worse and worse... hang on thought farming code had been removed. Apparantly not in hard mode.

This update is not helping everyone make more money. People in groups make the same, casual farmers make a lot less, leet farmers go on as before, bots make a bit less but charge more on ebay as gold is now in demand more.

I have never bought gold and never will, but can see a move of a lot of people saying what the heck and just buying gold as they can no longer get it any other way.

Anet say they don't want to force people to farm to make money, now if you want skills, runes and equipment for yourself and heroes, Anet are FORCING you to learn advanced farming as it's now the only way to make money

thanks
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I don't understand this update at all. The reasons given are rubbish. This update alienates the casual player and rewards the leet farmer with his hordes of cash and ectos and farming builds for UW and greens. the opposite of what anet are saying.

Their response just proves to me that this is not the real reason, they don't want to share the real reason with us and they don't care if they lose a significant amount of their casual player base and future sales of GW:EN when it comes out.

Well there's always WoW or LOTR online which apparantly is getting rave reviews.

Why anet want to sabotage their own game is beyond me, maybe one day the real reason will come to light.

Originally Posted by Jongo River

I disagree with the notion that the current "nerf" doesn't affect casual players - my idea of very low level farming is to drop 2-4 henchies to improve my income. That allowed me to keep a decent cashflow going, whilst actually playing the game. I can't do that now. It's ironic that a farming nerf will actually force me to farm (or drop the goals that are keeping me playing).

Originally Posted by LadySandkicker

Well I feel the hard mode reward being higher is absolute bull, yesterday when doing trips from secrets we cleared the entire area three consecutive times with full party no hench no heros and hardly got any gold drops, the gold drops we did get where crap, and the loot from locked chest was not fantastic either never mind that alot of the time it was purple. I am very against this update and as people have pointed out I have 10 pve characters one for each profession with 6 finished nightfall 8 finished factions and 3 finished proph and have most of the heros which at an average of 8 heros per character thats 80 heros which need weapons, inscriptions and runes. How can you afford that with the poor drop rate or cash comming in and I find trying to trade so annoying as the comments are so fast you can bearly read what people are buying or selling so whats the point, is more annoying trying to trade than enjoyable. So I am afraid this will only make me think more of those little chinese farmers selling gold in vast quantities at real world rates rather than the nightmare of facing Kaineng or Kamadan for hours on end getting a head ache watching this text fly past so fast I can bearly read only to make a few k at the end, or perhaps I might even look for something alternative to do altogethere if this continues.....

From a highly annoyed and used to be dedicated player who is not so certain now

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

...I would classify myself as "casual" (1 level 20 about to beat Prophecies, 2 others chars. in early parts). I haven't farmed at all, but I was going to go out this summer and try to get enough money to buy some 15k armor(s). Right now I have maybe a total of 25k between my 3 guys, solely from doing quests/missions. This is only buying some armor, no runes (that I remember, all drops), weapons, etc.

Now, it seems like I may never get the armor I was looking forward to. I'm not going to grind Hard Mode, I don't want to spam the trade channel, I don't want to spend a weekend constantly going through Hard Mode to make any money. I've never even been in FoW/UW, though I do sort of look forward to popping in one or two times.

Originally Posted by MerLock

Even though prices go down, still hard to make money for the higher end items. For me, it wasn't about getting the money to buy stuff. I just enjoyed solo farming areas while waiting for my friends to get on. Now there is nothing to do in between and it's hard to meet up with my friends since they use to do the same. I'll catch them farming and then we all go off and do a quest or mission. Now, I rarely see them log on since they all just log on and can't find anything to motivate them until the rest of us get on .

Originally Posted by Young Hero

So normal mode can now be farmed with no Mob Scatter, ok sounds fun but wait wheres my loot?

Hard mode is where its at but wait, mobs are scattering, huh?

Nice try but not good enough to bring me back.My wow realm is back up, see ya

Originally Posted by Master Sword Keeper

Sorry If I'm Solo'ing items drop 100% like they used to do in the old days why is it that we can't do it now?

Silly as. I don't have the hours anymore to play. I work full-time and need to concentrate on other things. If I'm unable to get in some fast farming I miles well hand in my game card and say goodbye. HM FTW alright. But item cycling and loot management needs to be re-adjusted to that of the old days.
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amen to that. This game is less than fun. I log in then log back out and quit.
Where's the appeal?!? Gone with the rest of the bloody fun stuff.

Originally Posted by Angelic Upstart

Well i dont know what to say really, after trying out the new modes of play after the update/nerf, i can only conclude that the game for me at least is now boring to the point of where i have nothing left to do in game, and more importantly i havent the drive to do it if there was a goal i felt i needed to complete.I have played this game now for 18 months and approx 2800 hours, i have in that time completed Prophecies a dozen times with different characters, Factions three times and NF twice, i have one set of FoW armour and one set of Vabbian and the rest of my chars i clad in 15k armour, when i needed a few extra platinum i used to farm for it , beleiving in the ethic , the more you put into something the more you get out of it, and as a result of this i have been able to furnish ny characters with the best and 'coolest' (for want of a better word) armour and weapons.
I used to farm specifically if i wanted a particular item or armour (FoW), and contrary to popular belief this can become a grind beyond belief, i also used to farm for fun, my 55 used to farm all over the place, not just trolls and minos, the closer to the stars mission was always challenging and fun with a 55. What i am trying to say here is simply, by adjusting the drop allocations Anet have single handedly cut off any enthusiasm for whatever the game has left for me, i did a couple of troll farms before i casme on here to post and the results in both hard mode and normal mode were pretty much identical, from around twenty trolls i managed to accumulate two raven staffs , one wooden buckler and 100 gold. I can assume this is going to be the same right across the board.
Regarding hard mode, i really cannot be bothered to try to grind my way through Prophecies again especially when faced with DoA types of mobs, the same applies to Factions and doubly so for NF which was a grind to get two players through it let alone do it on hard mode.
For those that support the update , then good luck to you all, for me i think this is the end , of what was once the best game i have ever been involved with , nothing else has kept me this entertained for so long, or drove me to rant on forums about particular issues. For that i would like to say thank you to Anet, but recently the game has been changed beyond recognition for me, AoE nerf, SR nerf and now this poorly though through and implemented decision to scale loot drops... oh well i guess all good thing come to an end, and on that note i would like to say see ya, to all those who i have met ingame and on this forum.
Oh one last thing to those who say 'can i have your stuff '- no you f%^$in cant go farm for it

Originally Posted by cellardweller

Right now I'm speaking as a casual player, and I'm going to call you up on this one. A casual player doesn't have the time to farm, but has to fit it in regardless, because the games money sinks are stronger than the money you get from just playing. Using myself as an example - I play 8-10 hours a week, during which time I'll make ~20k from adventuring. To keep the game fresh you have to continually buy skills so giving just 2 skills a week to each of my characters and I've already spent every cent I earned without even looking at things like xp scrolls for skillpoints.

No, a casual player doesn't want to farm, but unless they're the sort of person who can play with the same skill bar week after week, the game forces them to. Just since the update, my bank account has gone down 10k because the ability to do a quick rihlon or vermin run at the end of the night has been taken away. When my bank account hits 0 I'm not sure what I'll do, but it will amount to being forced to spend 3/4 of my time farming or give up playing altogether.

As a casual player, the update had done absolutely nothing to help me. It has not made the "coolest" items any easier get, but it has taken the absolute bare basics away from me.
...
Ummm, thats kind of the point. I am a casual player, I play 1-2 hrs a night with an extra couple thrown in on weekends. Prior to the update I would do the occasional hour or two of solo farming to get gold for skills and xp scrolls - life was good.

Because I can no longer farm for gold, I can no longer to afford the basic necissities I require to enjoy the game - all of this as a direct result of the update.

Originally Posted by Nomen Mendax

I mostly farmed vermin, so I guess that makes me a low end casual farmer. I'm not going to make any claims about other people, but I can say that I've never contributed to inflation.

My money has gone towards:
- buying skills, because its fun trying out new skill bars
- this includes capturing elites (also fun)
- saving up money for 15K armor, and the materials for 1.5k Kurzick armor
- buying keys, because I hate seeing those chests and not being able to open them

If I didn't low end farm periodically I'd either have to spend way more time just earning money in a group or give up some of the above.
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In total I've traded two items for gold (6k), and swapped one item for another, after which I decided that trading with other players for anything would be a last resort because the trading system (if you can call standing in a town yelling at people a system) was such a pain.

As a "casual player" I'm not likely to be playing in hard mode so farming in hard mode isn't an option (particularly as none of my characters have beaten the game yet).

The other irritant with the update is that there is no incentive to take less henchies into an area. It was fun seeing if I could survive exploring an area with less companions. Without the extra incentive (a bit more cash) for making things harder on myself the fun goes out of it.

So ANet has made the game less fun for me, to fix a problem which I had no part in causing. I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm just pointing out why I don't like the update, and why I'm really unimpressed with the way that ANet treats their customers.

Originally Posted by Albert Algorn

Well I am new to the forum but have been playing GW for about 9 months. The last big update really has made the game less interesting and a bit boring for me personally. I don't "solo farm" or hard core group farm but could alway just play and make enough gold to buy some of those things. Now the drops are almost nonexistent. Just seems like a waste to kill 2-3 groups of enemies and get one lousy white sword worth 50g? There's no way I could ever put in enough game time to buy 15k armor at that rate. So is ArenaNet going to sell game gold?
...
I 'm sorry to say that Angelic Upstart's comments pretty much sums up the effect the last "update" has had on me! I have only played once after it - because it just wasn't the same game at all. A lot of the fun was seeing what would drop, knowing something would drop, even if it wasn't great stuff. At least I could grind away and eventually get enough to buy 15k armor or that rune or purchase a green weapon from someone.

I finally finished one of my 3 campaigns (NF) but don't even waste my time in DoA because it's just too hard. Now I'm faced with three DoA like campaigns if I am going to make a few lousy K! I prefer to stay alive and take on mobs that I and my friends or heroes can actually kill. Now doing that nets me... well practically nothing.

I understand Anet's desire to nerf the bots and well they should but there must be a way to do it without changing the game so drastically. It seems like people have gone from being excited about the prospects available in the Eye of The North and GW2 to quiting all together. In the end this is a game and if it isn't fun I won't play and I'm sure a lot of people are contemplating the same thing.

Originally Posted by Revan Bastille

From a local chat on April 25, Gaile said the following:

To quote Gaile in her "Farming and Loot Scaling" post:

all emphasis added

The nerf to the gold drops meant that people would be relying on selling to merchants and other players, as Anet intended. The fact that ArenaNet is not planning/going to have an Auction system while saying that casual farmers should still make similar amounts of money is ludicrous, in my opinion. Over the past week, I've become very disenchanted with GW as I watch the titles I've been working for become more and more out of reach (and my required farming time go up). I don't see anything easier, fun and/or rewarding about that at all. ...
I'm not ready to give up on Guild Wars yet, Anet has usually responded to the outcry of their customers. I hope the current lack of info from Anet means they're looking into this and not saying, "This is how it's going to be from now on. Tough luck." If the latter is the case (and I'm worried about GW2), I might switch over to LotRO or another game... or I might just get a real life.

Originally Posted by darkknightdominator

With this drop in drop rates of more common items, I now find myself WANTING to farm ecto. Since the common drops whites worth 50g etc are no longer profitable for me. I no longer get enough of anything common to make runs worthwhile. So now im going to have to do ecto farming. Or i could give up playing the game....No, i dont like PvP, but i was saving to buy fissure armor. But now it takes four hours to get 10k when it used to take under an hour. Totally not worth it. (argue the worth it/not worth it nature of 10k in under an hour all u want, i cant farm fissure or UW or tombs, nor do i like to)

Thanks for completely ruining it for me. :-)

Originally Posted by Shmanka

Anet has attempted and failed once again.

I'm sorry but this is the truth and I just cannot stand it where people just leave the game/sell their accounts/every other action possible because this game gets consistantly nerfed over and over.

This is a problem, I had a method to nerf solo farmers, although increase the rewards for group farming. Which ANet has decided not to do. You want to make the game profitable for casual players? Then why did you take away their white/blue drops? A point was risen before, that the players who HAVE accumulated wealth beyond belief doesn't have the chance to get at that stage anymore. This whole loot system... did nothing but ruin it for all your new customers, and casual gamers. Only the hardcore, full-time players now have rewards and a game they can enjoy time-cost free now. My proposal: Solo farming gets half of what they originally got one week ago, and team farming(more active people in the party) gain 4-5 times as much, depending on party size. This only makes sense.

Otherwise everyone just uses henchies+heroes in North Kryta and its the same as solo'ing underworld.

All ANet did was give ebay, and their loyal customers more problems.

I'm not buying GW2.

Originally Posted by ValaOfTheFens

I've had a week to adapt to this new system and my opinion is still the same. Its just plain bad. I'm in the ranks of the casual farmers and my drops have drastically dropped in quanity. I've experimented with parties of different sizes: solo, me + 3 Heros, and me + 3 Heros + 4 Henchmen. The solo and 4 man drop rates were like 3 drops in an entire cleared area(Arjok Ward, starting and ending at Yohlon Haven). Even with 7 NPCs my drops were horrible. Tomb seemed pretty much the same, though the gold drops were noticibly diminished. I'd try UW or FoW but I don't have the equipment(nor will I ever now) for it. I was willing to be skeptical and willing to give the system the benefit of the doubt. But now my doubts are gone and I just want things to be the way they used to be. *le sigh*

Originally Posted by Rawraslan1121

well, for me, i will not continue to play gw...a shame really...i hate selling and was happy just to earn gold farming so i could get armor, etc. I won't be recommending gw to anyone and won't buy expansion or gw2. I think you just don't try hard enough to keep bots out, which is really the issue...since you can't then i will pick up a different game...LOTR here we come!

Originally Posted by axmonkey

I went to the trouble of registering for this forum to say:
Loot Scaling Sucks.

I consider myself a casual farmer, made a trapper ranger.

Now, I can kill 9 level 24-26 creatures and get all of 1 white drop and if I'm lucky 100g, well that was WELL worth the time of setting 12 traps. I don't have a lot of time to play in groups because real life tends to interrupt me. So solo is the way I like to play. Plus loot drops in groups or with heroes/henchies usually suck too. So now we get crap drops in groups AND solo AWESOME! Thanks for making the game A LOT less fun to play.

Originally Posted by GodofAcid

I'll be honest, I thought I could live with this change.. I thought it was a fair trade-off to finally put a hurt on botters, but this is making it very difficult to enjoy this game. I've been through most of the missions in this game so many times that I'd rather not do most of them ever again.. it's like eating the same thing for dinner day after day. You will get sick of it. The thing I enjoyed about farming runs was not just about getting rich like so many people seem to think, but about seeing the reward. I enjoyed watching my money in storage go up more than having the money itself. It was a sense of accomplishment for me. You can dissect that any way you'd like but that's the truth. I've been farming cupcakes at vermin over the last couple days. I usually find 2 per run, 4 if i'm lucky, sometimes none. After enough farming to build up about 55 cupcakes, I've found 1 gold, a bunch of junk dyes, and pretty much nothing else. Killing a group of 6-9 vermin now nets me 2-3 junk white items/vermin hides, sometimes less (There are too many times that I now find 2-3 items total from the entire group where the boss is). That's not fun. I don't see the reward in doing that run anymore, and it makes me not want to do it. I've never enjoyed green farming, and ecto farming can get old pretty quickly. It was nice to have a variety of fun farming runs, but now I find that they're not fun anymore, I don't want to do them, and it doesn't leave me with much in this game that I enjoy anymore. I can't see myself hanging around much longer, the fun for myself is pretty much gone from this game. I don't think I'm alone in feeling that way either.

Too many chefs in the kitchen killed this game. I'm all for people trying to improve it, but there's a balance to it, and right now there are too many people trying to make too many changes and trying to fix things that aren't broken.

Originally Posted by drowbane

This is the first time that I am looking for a new game to play since GW released. This update took all of the fun out of it for me. I am a casual player. I play several characters PvE solo (in a fully party with heroes & henchmen) and supplement my income soloing Hydra's with a 55hp monk. I am not in a guild and rarely play with other players. Until now, I have loved Guild Wars.

This morning I have been playing for three hours with both play styles and have made less than 1,000g. Oh.... and 3 cupcakes.

For the past week I had been working getting my Skill hunter title. Now, I can not even make enough gold to purchase the necessary capture signets.

I want to play the game - Not stand around in town spamming chat to sell drops. I sell almost all of my drops the the merchants.

I my play style so that rare that there is no concern about eliminating the players like myself? I think it would be a mistake.

Were the farmers really that destructive to the game? After playing Lineage II for two years, I was amazed as how well the Guild Wars economy worked.

Originally Posted by free_fall

Well, I finally got my first green drop (while doing a quest, not a farm btw) since the update - a really crappy Mo off-hand that I wouldn't even give to a hero to use, one I doubt I could even get 1k for.

While I enjoy buying items from other players (when/if the price is reasonable), I absolutely hate wasting my time in standing around trying to sell stuff. If an item isn't something I or my heros can use (or has a nice salvageable mod), it goes right to the merch.
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GW has come to remind me of that line in the Woody Allen film where he says something to the effect that his mother spent most of her time while making dinner in putting the chicken through the de-flavorizing machine.

GW started out pretty tasty, but seems to gets blander with each update; some even leave a bad taste in your mouth.

"Why anet want to sabotage their own game is beyond me"

Perhaps this is anet's devious strategy to get us so disgusted with GW that we will all leave and move to GW2 (especially those of us who have expressed no interest whatsoever in it) so they can shut the GW servers down all the sooner to save those bandwidth costs.

Originally Posted by blackbird71

The point is, these changes have had a net negative impact upon the playerbase. Anet has upset many of it's customers, so in effect, the loot scaling changes are both bad for the game and bad for business, period.

Originally Posted by Darksun

You are taking the entire point of the forum and throwing it out. You've already come to your conclusion & picked & choose your supporting evidence.

There is nothing definitive about your quoting people who agree with you. If you want to know if there is something to actually pursue (in terms of game changes) you need to measure the good reposes with the bad. Not just quote all the ones you like.

Personally, I've had my rare item drop rate higher than it's ever been. I'm getting gold items more than ever and earning more money than I usually do. I definitely want to play more because my chance of getting the items I want is actually in reach!

Originally Posted by Darksun

You are taking the entire point of the forum and throwing it out. You've already come to your conclusion & picked & choose your supporting evidence.

There is nothing definitive about your quoting people who agree with you. If you want to know if there is something to actually pursue (in terms of game changes) you need to measure the good reposes with the bad. Not just quote all the ones you like.

Personally, I've had my rare item drop rate higher than it's ever been. I'm getting gold items more than ever and earning more money than I usually do. I definitely want to play more because my chance of getting the items I want is actually in reach!

Originally Posted by blackbird71

Ok, I think that we've beat around the bush as much as is possible with this topic. So the resulting question is "Is Anet losing any customers over this update, and if so, how many?" I can't give a perfect answer to this, none of us can without additional data. However, I have done my best to compile the most reasonable and powerful response to this question that I can with the given information.

Originally Posted by Darksun

There is nothing definitive about your quoting people who agree with you. If you want to know if there is something to actually pursue (in terms of game changes) you need to measure the good reposes with the bad. Not just quote all the ones you like.

Originally Posted by Loviatar

every special hardcore group from day one who did not get what they wanted stated they were leaving because the game was not fun to play now.