Curse

Lazarus · Jun 09, 2005, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by ANet

We know that some players currently engage in repetitive farming activities for the primary purpose of unlocking skills and items for PvP. Rather than preserving the effectiveness of farming for this purpose, it is our intention to address the larger issue of the need for farming by assessing how players acquire and unlock items, runes, and skills, and then by taking steps to ensure that players can acquire and unlock these things through normal gameplay. We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game. You can expect to see the first meaningful changes towards this goal next week.

I do not know exactly what it is yet, but something about this very ambiguous statement sends chills down my spine. Maybe it is the fact that will finally see just what ANet thinks our idea of "Fun" should be. Fun is different for everyone. Words can not express how much ANet needs to keep this in mind.

I have completed the PvE part of the game with one chartacter and was using him to farm. I only have 2 or 3 superiours and about a third of the majors unlocked. I am glad they will do something since they nerfed all chances me unlocking runes and items by farming. I just hope that it is the right thing. I want to play a game where the rwards are equal to the challenges.

Now I can go back to my other charcters and get them through. I guess that's all I can do. I just have a sick, sinking feeling that a few hundred hours of game time are going down the drain in the next update.

Lazarus

Dreamsmith · Jun 09, 2005, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Personally, I've always been a big fan of waiting for someone to commit the crime before convicting them of it.

What does this mean? We'll have to wait and see.

Lament Messon · Jun 09, 2005, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus

I do not know exactly what it is yet, but something about this very ambiguous statement sends chills down my spine. Maybe it is the fact that will finally see just what ANet thinks our idea of "Fun" should be. Fun is different for everyone. Words can not express how much ANet needs to keep this in mind.

I have completed the PvE part of the game with one chartacter and was using him to farm. I only have 2 or 3 superiours and about a third of the majors unlocked. I am glad they will do something since they nerfed all chances me unlocking runes and items by farming. I just hope that it is the right thing. I want to play a game where the rwards are equal to the challenges.

Now I can go back to my other charcters and get them through. I guess that's all I can do. I just have a sick, sinking feeling that a few hundred hours of game time are going down the drain in the next update.

Lazarus

What I get from the anti-farming policy is this: Anet does NOT want anything like the old mephisto/pindleskin run types from Diablo 2. People were abusing lightning drakes because they were ABUSED. The drakes were hidden and relatively obscure, and once the spamming of the zone began Anet stopped the FARMING of the zone by 1) lowering the drop rates and making them the same as normal L18 mobs 2) fixing the damage that the drakes were intended to deal (beefed up the mobs).

This is not to say that Anet does not endorse people taking a L20 char and running through his/her favorite area (whereever that may be) and killing everything in your path. Anet seems to want there to be no "best, easiest, fastest way to farm items. Making such a place would create char build best suited to fight within that specific zone, and extermely restricting the character variability that we see today.

Farm away, but don't expect there ever to be an uberest zone to farm in like D2, or EQ.

that's my 2 copper.

Zaklex · Jun 09, 2005, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Yes, you'll have to wait and see, and I wouldn't be so sure about that wasting of a couple of hundred hours of game time(personally over all of my characters I probably have 500 hrs logged and I only have 1 superior Rune over 2 accounts).

So don't have a sinking feeling yet, until you know what the changes will be(and no I can't give you a hint - the NDA still applies to things not yet in game).

Poppinjay · Jun 09, 2005, 06:03 PM // 18:03

Just allow a way for money to leave the game and all these problems are solved.

There are SOOO many things that people would spend their extra cash on that would be incredibly simple to put in from a programming standpoint.

That would fix the farming problem and the fact that the economy is degenerating.

But I have a feeling they don't care.

Pop

Lasher Dragon · Jun 09, 2005, 06:27 PM // 18:27

I think I can see where Lazarus is coming from.

I am a bit worried myself because I have spent nearly all my time on one character - and don't get me wrong - I have had a blast. What worries me is that after 265 hours as that character I have yet to unlock any superior runes at all.
I've made it to Ember Light Camp and once I got there I decided to take a break from the storyline and the Underworld/Fissure runs, and make a PvP character to get a feel for the PvP side of the game. So, I see that I haven't unlocked a single superior rune for any class. That's when I decide I am going to try to find a viable way to farm as a ranger. It's not easy, lemme tell ya. I see the videos of E/Mos farming Riverside and I just wish Rangers could farm that easily. I wish I could pull 4 mobs of 3 zealots at once and have a decent shot at survival. Well, now farming is getting nerfed just as I find some decent Ranger farm strategies LOL.
So, I think I can see where Lazarus is coming from... what about us with bad luck and no attention span, who have played through 265+ hours on one character, who are juggling this awesome game, a wife, a full-time job, and a social life all at once? We didn't unlock anything of note up until now, and now we can't farm, what do we do?
Play through again as another character? While it is intriguing to want to play through as an entirely different character, there is also that part of me that hates having to do anything over. There's that short attention span... say for example pre-sear. When I was in pre-sear during the BWE's I loved it, I explored the hell out of it and loved all the strange little details they put into the game. I can't really get interested in pre-sear now when I go into it with one of my new toons. It was awesome when I was first there, but with the new toons I just want to get them post-sear as soon as possible. (I made a total of 3 PvE characters, and left 1 slot open for a PvP slot to test builds.) I get them to post-sear and start thinking of those god-awful protect Prince Rurik missions and that's about as far as they get.

Back to my ascended Ranger.

Pyxis · Jun 09, 2005, 06:31 PM // 18:31

They need to make drop rates based on party size, regardless of how many members are in your party. If you get the same drops whether you have a full party of 8 or running solo, then no one is going to run solo because their is no benefit to it. People will actually look to fill their parties out with people because their is no drawback to doing so, you get your share of drops regardless. Also no one will cringe to bring a hench because they aren't "Stealing" drops anymore.

TEFFalcon · Jun 09, 2005, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pyxis

They need to make drop rates based on party size, regardless of how many members are in your party. If you get the same drops whether you have a full party of 8 or running solo, then no one is going to run solo because their is no benefit to it. People will actually look to fill their parties out with people because their is no drawback to doing so, you get your share of drops regardless. Also no one will cringe to bring a hench because they aren't "Stealing" drops anymore.

??? WOW they do. It is the same # of drops no matter the size.

Lasher Dragon · Jun 09, 2005, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEFFalcon

??? WOW they do. It is the same # of drops no matter the size.

No, what Pyxis is saying is that no matter how many people are in the party, each individual's drops will be the same. So, if you soloed an area and killed everything, let's say you got 4 gold items, and 8 purple items. Well, if you cleared an area as part of an 8-man team, each of you got 4 gold items and 8 purple ones.

Aug · Jun 09, 2005, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaklex

Yes, you'll have to wait and see, and I wouldn't be so sure about that wasting of a couple of hundred hours of game time(personally over all of my characters I probably have 500 hrs logged and I only have 1 superior Rune over 2 accounts).

So don't have a sinking feeling yet, until you know what the changes will be(and no I can't give you a hint - the NDA still applies to things not yet in game).

Are you suggesting that they're going to unlock runes for you based on how much XP your character has? I suppose that'd be 'fair', but it wouldn't really address the issue that PvPers have: they don't want to spend 500 hours in the PvE game.

By the way, 500 hours would be like 10 hours a day since the game came out. That's an awful lot of game time. And not terribly productive if you've only unlocked 1 Superior rune and a 3rd of the Majors. I've got all Minors, 20+ Majors, and 6 Superiors, with about 225 hours of game time.

dansamy · Jun 09, 2005, 06:50 PM // 18:50

But, when you take henches with you, you get far, far less than what you would were you to run that same area with a party of human players.

dansamy · Jun 09, 2005, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aug

......I've got all Minors, 20+ Majors, and 6 Superiors, with about 225 hours of game time.

That's great for you. You got in early, farmed what you needed and now you don't care what they did to the drop rate/monster difficulty because it doesn't affect you. You already have what you need. I don't.

Deathlord · Jun 09, 2005, 06:53 PM // 18:53

The only reason im somewhat upset on the farming issue is the fact that the way to make money is so incredibly diverse, meanwhile they nerf it constantly, they've provided no other way of unlocking runes/making money. They nerf and promise a solution to this problem practically every update. The people that relied on this strategy (People that couldn't sit in front of the comp for hours a day) are now left in the dust while those who are capable of sparing more than 8 hours a day are beggining to control everything.

Low - mid levels can only make money through missions and soloing some simple areas for a lowish plat per hour sort of thing. Mean-while mid - high can solo/party harder areas for maybe 3ish plat an hour. Meanwhile high levels who just do HOH and get sigils at 70k a win (Plus theres 3 sigils) can do that in less than an hour. They worked hard and had to cordinate well, but as long as there are people that are wiliing to pay high prices for any item then the people simply killing regular things cannot compete with the rich (In the market).

Farming was a way how people could get runes and items and $ at a fairly good rate depending on how effecient/what you were farming. More and more people were learning of this, so arenanet thought it could crash the economy by means of too many good items/runes. They nerfed it enough so that runes became fairly difficult to maintain, complaints were made, and now there's a rune trader. However, people farmed not for a major rune to use on their armor, they were more focused on pvp.

Arenanet said GW would be a game of skill, not hours played. I definetly do not believe a person who plays 2 - 3 hours a day can compete with a 8 hour a day anymore. Rune traders arn't exactly the solution to the problem.

I think they attempted a minor money sinker by means of dwarven ale. The fact that people are capable of sparing money for this dissapointed me severely. I've played around 120 hours throughout a five week period and by missioning/killing random monsters here and there (not farming), i've made maybe 15kish at MAX. People in droknars were already bragging about how they spent 40k on dwarven ale. I fail to see how 120 hours of playing didn't even give me enough gold to compete with a person that spent more than 200% of what i made on a pointless money sinker.

I was able to farm about 20k in 2 hours from flesh golems. Unfortunately I just got to fire island one day before they decided to nerf them up, so i'm still in the dust.

My runes are useless for selling because they cost 120 - 500 at a rune trader. Nerf of farming + rune trader = Hard to get runes, even if i got any, it'd have to be a very commonly used rune such as major/superior fire or swordsmanship.

My suggestion?

- Money issue
Simple, they adjust it so that the money drops are adjusted according to amount of players, possibly start a regular 100% gold drop amount and increase 75% for every person in the party. Therefore a person doing solo won't become rich off from soloing because theres very little gap between party play and solo play. Would you rather have 78% of the $ killing at a 8 player-rate or getting 100% of the $ while killing at your own solo rate? You decide.

- Rune issue
Most major and minor runes have become fairly common. But the people who did farm didn't get rich off of runes, but they still liked it because unlocking the items is part of the after-game challenges. It provided more variety for pvp builds. Now it's difficult to unlock runes, and the only reason most people find them anymore is for that "_______ has been unlocked!". A majority of the runes are incredibly cheap and those who are expensive will hopefully soon die down once people realize that "Swrds (don't) PWN All HAHAHAH!1!!". If they added the rune trader then they need to un-nerf the farmable monsters. Combine them together and you'll have people actually appreciate finding runes. (Out of context, just letting everybody know that only one out of about 5 golds i've found in my life was a superior, seems like crap to me ;P)

- Sigil issue
Ok, if you tried to lower the average Person gold rate, then you'd have to focus alot on sigils. These babies are currently sold for 70k. Before the patch implemented to "help" more guilds get more halls by making the reward three sigils, they were only at 50k. So what's going on? I'd say an estimate of 30% of the same guilds are getting the sigils over and over. Some would say 30% isn't much, but you have to consider how many guilds are vs how many guilds. If 30% of the sigil collection is dominated by say 10 guilds, while the other 70% is dominated by 1000, then it's rather obvious whois getting more money. Hogging has occured and those that do get sold have become pricier than before. Solution? Lower the average price the sigils are sold. Do so by making the seller sell them for no more than 50k each. Make him buy them for 10 - 20k each. That's about the price of a superior rune.

- Why do we need to lower the APGR (Average person gold rate)?
Currently, there are people who can afford every single rune in the rune trader, and there are some who can only buy a few majors and minors. The rune trader has gotten a pretty fixed price for it's merchandise, the APGR needs to be close in order to maintain a good economy. I'm pretty sure that i've mentioned throughout the incredibly long text that this is not the current situation. In order to gain a games image similar to arenanet's slogan of "Based on skill, not hours played" we cannot have a APGR ranging from 100 - 300,000 when the average price of a major rune is 1000.

Just a few question(s) I think people might ask.

Why do you compare so many things to the rune trader?
A: The rune trader is a good comparison because they play a large role in GW. They were a large part of the economical chain and now they've been made availible to everyone. It's just ideal to compare the economy to one of the largest economical products.

Why do you think you're able to make so many suggestions? What gives you the right to think you know how the economy works and try to suggest fixes?
A: I've played this game for more than a month, played wpe, and e3. I may not have played a massive amount of hours, but i know the prices and enough information to make suggestions on how to improve this game. If you decided to read and think about my suggestions, you could probably relate if you were in a situation similar to mine. If not, then just disagree and forget about it.

Aug · Jun 09, 2005, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansamy

That's great for you. You got in early, farmed what you needed and now you don't care what they did to the drop rate/monster difficulty because it doesn't affect you. You already have what you need. I don't.

I don't have what I need yet. I have unlocked 0 Monk superiors, and my intent is to play a Monk in PvP. I made no comment in regards to my opinion of the current state of farming, I merely asked someone who indicated they knew the changes A.Net was planning to make were. And then noted that 500 hours of game time should've yielded more than 1 superior rune.

As for PvPers throwing the economy out of whack with sigil farming... how do you think people are making money to BUY the sigils? None of the Traders actually produce/make money. They actually remove money from the economy with every transaction.

As farming becomes more and more difficult, and less profitable, it will cause all items to be within reach of the casual gamer, because farming simply won't happen. At some point, farming won't be rewarding enough, and people will stop doing it... the question is, will A.Net go that far? If not, then the game's economy will continue to be run by the farmers.

The economy is NOT run by the PvPers. The PvPers merely get market value for their Sigils. The farmers, the people who are actually picking up gold and items that they sell to Merchants (not Traders) are the ones who drive the economy. That is the only way money is MADE. They drive the Trader economy by the spending that money that they made at the Traders, who then hands out a somewhat smaller sum to the PvPer (it seems to be about 15% or so that the Traders take off the top).

Lazarus · Jun 09, 2005, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lasher Dragon

...So, I think I can see where Lazarus is coming from... what about us with bad luck and no attention span, who have played through 265+ hours on one character, who are juggling this awesome game, a wife, a full-time job, and a social life all at once? We didn't unlock anything of note up until now, and now we can't farm, what do we do?
Play through again as another character? While it is intriguing to want to play through as an entirely different character, there is also that part of me that hates having to do anything over...

That does cover a lot of what I am trying to say. There is also the fact that many people, myself included, would hate to see hunting for elite skills become the only reason to vernture off the beaten path. As I said in my original post, the rewards should be equal with the challenge. Additionally, I want a reason to keep playing PvE because PvP is boring and frustrating after a while.

I do not mind adjusting my playing style to meet the needs of a changing game. I am just worried that my idea of "Fun" will be rendered "deFUNct" in the coming updates.

Lazarus

Talesin Darkbriar · Jun 09, 2005, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Originally Posted by ANet

We know that some players currently engage in repetitive farming activities for the primary purpose of unlocking skills and items for PvP.

Translation: these are the guys that when you ask them to join your mission group, are only interested in the "drops" and usually kamikaze the party if they aren't getting what they wanted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Originally Posted by ANet

Rather than preserving the effectiveness of farming for this purpose, it is our intention to address the larger issue of the need for farming by assessing how players acquire and unlock items, runes, and skills, and then by taking steps to ensure that players can acquire and unlock these things through normal gameplay.

Translation: We didn't intend for the game to be utilized this way, and we're going to look at changing it. Would you rather have the ability to obtain these skills and items yourself, or pay some idiot 100k because he's managed to get a monopoly on said item?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Originally Posted by ANet

We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game. You can expect to see the first meaningful changes towards this goal next week.

Translation: As stated right up front in the beginning, Guild Wars is supposed to be a challenging game of SKILL. Not who can win this weeks "most uber gear contest" or purchasing rights to "ultra-rare rune z."

When it comes right down to it, monopoly and avarice are the driving force behind every other game out there - in this inssue Guild Wars seeks to set itself head and shoulders above the rest.

I look forward to implementation of the changes mentioned above.

Talesin

Sadye X · Jun 09, 2005, 11:24 PM // 23:24

A couple of things to keep in mind here:

If you farm in GW, no matter what your specific goal or reason, it's done so out of choice. If you chose to farm for a few hundred hours, then it's something you did of your own will, so nothing is being *taken away* from you.

The most common reasons to farm, as said in the offical statement, tend to be for the purpose of unlocking. Perhaps they intend to simply implement a standard means of gaining items to be unlocked that *doesn't* involve spending countless hours? It could be via quests, it could be a new point-type ( similar to attribute or skill points ) that you'll gain from xp from any source ( pvp or pve ) which will allow you to *purchase* the equivalant of unlocking the rune / upgrade of your choice. Only time will tell.

It was stated long before GW went live, that the focus of the game isn't based around repetition and grind. Sounds to me like they've discovered that after a month of being live, alot of people have found a way to implement grind out of their choice to farm, which they plan on fixing so that people can simply enjoy the game as was intened from the begining.

Banned · Jun 11, 2005, 04:25 AM // 04:25

Personally, I have a level 20 monk, 20 warrior, and 18 elmentalist, and while I have bought some stuff here and there I have certainly not made any kind of money to buy A Superior Vigor Rune from the Rune Merchant at 60+k. I currently have about 36k in my stash, and that's the highest i've EVER gotten it, how do they expect people to shell out that kind of money if they expect farming to cease? I mean, the people who have tons of money are usually the farmers, and most of the people in the game aren't farmers so how do they expect players to come up with 200+K for Superior Vigor and Absorption Runes?

To DeathLord, as yet, I have well over 200 hours of game time, perhaps over 300 ( I should look sometime soon since it has been about 3 weeks from my last stat check) and I have never found a Superior Rune, and maybe 3 majors. I have completed the game numerous times with my monk, helping guildies and whatnot, but still I have not unlocked many runes at all. Consider yourself lucky you have unlocked more than I have:-((.

Yoshi · Jun 11, 2005, 04:47 AM // 04:47

last time i checked... superior vigor was selling for 100 platinum now...

evilb · Jun 11, 2005, 05:20 AM // 05:20

IF ANET wants to lessen farming greatly, all they have to do is to make PVP characters have access to all weapons & armors(except those that have good aesthetics.), weapon upgrades, runes, skills. No more unlocking.

Keep PVE players to those who wants to follow the story. Add mini games and weapons and armors for those who prefer to look good - which these aren't offered for PVP chars. Quests that involves moving objects, puzzles... to keep the mission interesting instead of just plain Kill X-Get Y Item-Return to Z NPC.

--- or ---

at the start of post-searing ascalon, they should have implemented missions until hells precipice that will unlock weapon upgrades & runes - all with max stats BUT the NPC will not give you the item - just a window that says you have unlocked X weapon upgrade/rune.

for replay value, enable the NPC's to unlock runes specific to your profession & 2nd prof.

one thing ANET forgot is skill points - the current state is not enough to unlock all skills.