Curse

noblepaladin · Jul 21, 2005, 02:34 PM // 14:34

People keep saying the game isn't about items and the game isn't about farming. However, the problem is what do I do? I don't know if you have realized, but the game has become sooo easy and fast to beat. I mean it was fun the first time I played it, it was hard to get even some basic armor pieces so doing all the non-required quests was essential to get some items and have time to gather the required materials to craft a piece of armor. Right now it is so easy to buy everything you need. If you encounter a black dye in pre-searing, you might as well skip right to ascension cause you got enough money to do so. Also, people know the quests so well that half the PUGs I join will just rush through to the end. So basically I got all the skills I want and stuff and there is nothing left to do and when I want to kill an hour or two because I am bored I turn on the game and I just farm for money to get something that looks cool (15K armor, Fellblades, maybe eventually Fissure). They need to make it so there are other things to do other than farming because this game is a very short game.

Kabale · Jul 21, 2005, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Come ON

Can't you live without a superior rune???!!! Geez, the stats aren't UBER different from major runes.

Adaria · Jul 21, 2005, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Y'know, I honestly do not understand how the term 'nerf' got put together with making monsters harder, putting more monsters in areas and such like that. Nerf to me is soft, squishy and safe, easy and such. How did the term 'nerf' get associated with this anyway? Could someone explain this, spare me the sarcasm and rudeness please, I'm simply curious about how these conditions ended up associated with the term 'nerf'.

Watersong · Jul 21, 2005, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Whether or not I can live without a superior rune is irrelevant. If there's no uber item then why not make them more common?

Deja vu.

Weezer_Blue · Jul 21, 2005, 02:49 PM // 14:49

The problem is that they destroyed farming - a fairly entertaining part of the game, to some (I admit finding a good farming build is fun, but actually doing it isn't). So... without farming, how do they suppose we get our items and money when we need them? Oh! Of course. Casual play. Well, after completing the game with 3 characters, and never seeing a superior rune, and scrounging for gold to get my Droknar's Armour, I can assure you that this concept is bullshit.
Alright... So what if they do it? Fine for new players. What about the ones who have already completed the game? Do they just not get money without redoing the entire story? Without a stable source of money and supposedly "rare" items, the economy goes out of whack. Admit it, you've seen mediocre items going for upwards of 20k.

Also, appearantly, whenever anyone has a complaint, they are labeled as whiney. "whiney farmers"?

Saerden · Jul 21, 2005, 02:59 PM // 14:59

What part about "farming is the only way to reach anything in this game" dont you understand? ANET is not against farming, they are profarming.

For pvp you need UAU (unlock everything). You dont care about the look of the weapon, but you sure as hell need most weapon upgrades, every single rune, and every single skill for every porfession. Since time is finite, and PVP is not the best thing one can do with life, scrubs like me will ignore major runes, most necro stuff, beast mastery and lots of useless elites to safe time. There are also a couple useless skills for other professions out there... Of course i wont be able to use them when people discover uses for them, but this is another story...

If you say you dont need EVERYTHING unlocked, your either joking (you dont need major absorbtion

)) ) or are a scrub.

So if you want to be successfull in this game, you need to unlock stuff. How? Playing the game for 100h with your main to see the story, then playing it again with 3 other characters? Or play with a wa/mo once, and farm the living hell out of everything? Sad thing is, both options are stupid, but the second one is much more efficient. Only dumb people chose the inefficient one. (note that playing 3 times is not really dumb, playing 3 times when you consider it boring IS dumb if you could farm instead)

People will say faction. Sure, you can farm faction. PANK rules, but can YOU do it? Playing GvG to unlock skills is not an option, you need em to win in the first place. And ganking newbs with your superior skillZ while using poor skills / runes to stand a chance against players of same talent but more unlocks later on is ... grind in the worst sense. Its WoW honor farming pvp.

I played 150h of regular gameplay and 2h of farming, and i can tell you that i unlocked a couple runes and earned lots of gold farming a very poor farming spot... farming >>> repeating the boring missions all over again in terms of reward / h. I bet they designed them using "MobClusterPlacer"TM - design a mob of different enemies (Healer, melee, ranged, nuker etc...) - and the mob placer will just adjust the monster type to fit the map and then just fill it with lots of mobs in a predictable pattern...

Oh and name one high end area that you cant farm solo. Just one that is worth farming, that is... and no, farming mursaat eles is not a good idea for most people ...

Farming is the only way to earn ANYTHING in this game, since playing with 8 players not only slows you down (organise 8 elite pve players ... ), but also cut everyones income by 1/8.

Oh and hey weezer

the shadows of the grind wars ... hahaha "whiney pve grinders" ... this community rules ...

Note: this thread moves fast. 16 Air > 15 Air. if you dont understand this, how about this: pvp players can unlock 16-23 swords for their pve characters. No big deal, right?

Kabale · Jul 21, 2005, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Whether or not I can live without a superior rune is irrelevant. If there's no uber item then why not make them more common?

Deja vu.

You're obviously not trying to make it irrelevant by stating that you still haven't found one.
It's the 'best' of it's range, and that's why it should be less common, even though it might not be that big a difference stats-wise.

I never had to strounge/trade for money in order to get Droknar armor. I had collected pretty much everything I could up to when I got to Droknar (except plain white weapons/shields) and had more than enough to buy it. I collect all the crafting material I can find/salvage, and when it piles up to 250, I sell it giving me between 750g-1p. Now that most of my piles are reaching the 250 mark, I'm selling them and getting a lot of return from doing it.

Quote:

Admit it, you've seen mediocre items going for upwards of 20k.

This is a result of the nerfing and will decrease over time when the amount of money in circulation reaches the levels it is supposed to (= the whole point of the nerfs in the first place). It's just a tough time for new players in general.

OT: one of my friends just started playing GW and sold a black dye to a merchant for 10 gold

Watersong · Jul 21, 2005, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Mm, less whining, more whinging! XD

Er, so anyways. That's the thing. An item with barely any advantage over it's inferior is so much harder to find!

By the time I got to Droknar I was able to buy my armour and I had 1k left.

So, again, I'm not going to be finding what I'm looking for by playing the game through. Half of the areas have no chance of dropping of whatever I'm after if I'm looking for something useful.

Adaria · Jul 21, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

I suppose no one will answer my question, too busy squabbling over this farming issue, yet again...

Drakron · Jul 21, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

The game lacks any goals besdies PvP after endgame.

That was a huge mistake or oversight, people will either play PvP or they dont, ArenaNet cannot force people to do it.

75k armor needs farming or someone being very lucky with drops, the 75k sets were designed as gold and time sinks for people that would farm, be it missions or areas.

With the "anti-farming" policy leading to nerf drops things get worst, this game have a horrible drop balance since players can go in missions were they get nothing because monsters only drop ONE item and we have a 8 people team in the end maps.

But farming is pointless, a player can get all 75k sets by extensive farming and it still does not change the fact nothing is changed, he farmed for the goal of having a diferent looking set.

Customization in this game is almost non-existent, we can dye armor and weapons and thats about it ... we use the stronger weapons we can find even if we wanted a diferent looking weapon we will still use it because there is no way to buy the weapons we want outside the trade channal but then its a waiting game and since most people only want max damage weapons ...

This game have no goals after endgame and very few customization options.

Kabale · Jul 21, 2005, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Watersong you're the one whining about the farming, we're just trying to explain why it has been done but it's sad you can't see that...

Adaria, I'm not sure whether they made monsters harder, the term 'nerf' is being used in conjunction with the decrease in drops. Don't think there's really another word to describe it as these things are usually called nerfs.

Watersong · Jul 21, 2005, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Sorry, double post.

Watersong · Jul 21, 2005, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Eh, as for the nerf thing... It's not so much soft and easy in the case of farming.

By "nerfing" farming they've made it ineffective.

Quote:

In the context of computer games, a nerf is a change to the rules of the game that is generally considered to have a weakening or negative effect upon the affected object(s). The term 'nerf', originating from the days of Ultima Online, relates to how Nerf toys for children use safe, soft foam and plastic to mimic sports balls and guns.

Saerden · Jul 21, 2005, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Because the areas did not get harder. Just more annoying. You can still farm most of them ... its the rewards that got dumbed down... Patch after patch after patch, anet increased the time it takes to click the UAU button.

***

I challenge the people in this thread to tell me one area that cannot be farmed and that earns you more rewards then farming a good area...
and yes, GvG can be farmed.

Watersong · Jul 21, 2005, 03:15 PM // 15:15

I meant the whole whining post as a joke.

I'm whinging, not so much whining anyhow.

Quote:

we're just trying to explain why it has been done but it's sad you can't see that...

Well, the thing is that taking an anti-farming stance DOESN'T HAVE to be done. Please refer to my earlier posts about the whole common item thing. I'd probably copy and paste it but I'm having trouble with the site.

Weezer_Blue · Jul 21, 2005, 03:22 PM // 15:22

I love how people can spew whatever bullshit they want on forums without anything to back it up. From personal experience, before the series of farming nerfs, the economy was relatively stable - ie: no selling worthless crap for ludicrous amounts. After the farming nerfs, I saw rune prices and everything else skyrocket. Great job. Nerf farming AND require it. What a great game plan.

Borealis · Jul 21, 2005, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Just look in the for sale section of these forums if people think farming hasn't been or should further be nerfed, I don't even bother to look in it anymore because of the insanely overinflated prices people are asking.

Example.
WTS GOLD MAX DMG FELLBLADE
Starting bid 100k!!!!

If the games meant for items to NOT be important then why should anyone have to shell out this kind of gold for a friggin weapon. Go look in there right now, I'm sure the whole front page is flooded with buttheads asking for 50k or 100k or more for almost everything in there. The only way to kill that forum is to make rares more common and or add an auction house.

Ba Ne · Jul 21, 2005, 03:43 PM // 15:43

The way I see it is this: Anet nerfs coin drops and item drops simultaneously. The result is that players stay poor compared to pre-nerf conditions, but item prices skyrocket because they are now more rare when compared similarly. Whether you're pro or anti farming is irrelevent as this affects everyone from the casual to the hardcore. The people that have already made their fortunes will continue to trade the good stuff amongst themselves and those that didn't have a chance to make a decent living will continue to live without. Nothing changes except the ever-widening disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

My crystal ball told me so.

Creston · Jul 21, 2005, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adaria

Y'know, I honestly do not understand how the term 'nerf' got put together with making monsters harder, putting more monsters in areas and such like that. Nerf to me is soft, squishy and safe, easy and such. How did the term 'nerf' get associated with this anyway? Could someone explain this, spare me the sarcasm and rudeness please, I'm simply curious about how these conditions ended up associated with the term 'nerf'.

Well, when the monsters got made "harder", really the only thing that Anet did was add massive enchantment hate to the mobs to stop the prevailent, enchantment dependent, farming builds / bots.

Ofcourse, the downside to that was that they made enchantments basically useless to waste a slot on from the point you reach Kryta, since almost every mob will have some way of getting rid of your enchantments.

So while they made the monsters "harder" (I would say they just made them more annoying), they NERFED enchantments. And there are a LOT of enchantments in the game.

Btw, I don't mind A monster ripping enchantments (such as the Charr Chaot), because then it becomes tactical to take that monster out as soon as possible, so you can run the rest of your enchantments again. But when a mob of six critters all strip your enchantments, they become useless, and not worth sacrificing a slot on.

In my opinion, that's a nerf, albeit an indirect one.

A direct nerf on the monsters, for example, was when they took the Beastmaster boss in the dwarven mines (only shows up for a Ranger quest), and turned him from a self healing lvl 28 juggernaut that required you to plan ahead and bring interrupts, to a lvl 14 wimp that dies in approximately ten seconds of you attacking him. All because there were a few people who complained that he was too hard.

That's a nerf too, because a lot of people actually enjoyed the challenge of fighting him at his lvl 28 badness.

Creston

Acan Vishnu · Jul 21, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

It seems that the only people that are directly effected by a lack of item drops are PvE players, as PvP character have instant access to perfect items. Now, this seems odd to me because PvE players have a good and pretty darned easily attainable option in collectors items.

The only way that a PvP character would be effected by the item drops is due to unlocks, which in my mind still shouldn't induce farming. Playing through a character normally you will unlock almost all of at least the basic upgrade componants. At which point you can use faction unlocks to pick out the perfect mods that are relevent to you.