Update - Thursday April 19, 2007

Several people I know are thinking of quitting guild wars over this update. I don't entirely blame them. Changing the game to make things more challenging in hard mode is fine, but leave things alone in normal mode. One of my guildies was halfway to the 1st level of the skillhunter track, and now he will have a long way to go because it's been split up. Many of us enjoy playing alone, not being forced to team up with others, and it's not exactly fair to lower the loot in even normal mode for those of us who PREFER to play alone. Yes, this is a game for people to play together, but that doesn't mean that we should be forced to go into all areas in a large group in order to get drops. I understand that it's supposed to be scaled or whatever, but maybe some of us are working toward goals when we farm. Sometimes I farm simply so I can buy the max armor for my other characters, not even 15k armor. Not to get tons of money or anything like that.

And for those who say that we are complaining when they gave us a new mode, well some of us don't have access to that mode. There are people who just started the game, or people who haven't even gotten the game yet. This is not the same game that I bought two years ago. Hard mode is fine and dandy, but for those of us who don't even have access to it, all these changes seem to turn this into a very different game.

So..Anet spends 6 months balancing an area (which right now i'm getting owned in, but i think its a good difficulty)..however, until I start seeing people with better drops, what is the point? The first , and only chest I've seen was a grape...and the drops are horrific.

that is a sad sad picture. there used to be about 50-60 items in that run.

good thing i been in this game for almost two years and have alot of money saved up. i feel sorry for the newer players.

In an interview a few months back Anet reported that they had someone testing out farming builds on a fairly permanent basis as it was recognized as being part of the game ..... guess that person was just fired.... there's no point in going into an area any more with a team size of 8 or less.

Woot - hard mode rocks!
WTF - loot got nerfed!

Why is it that every major positive update Anet makes they slide something in to detract from it - it's going to be the thing everyone focus's on you know!

At NF release it was the AI crapastic kiting for miles problems and now this...
Let the solo farmers solo farm I say.... even though I've only dabbled in it every now and again it was challenging - now there's no chance of a reward so why bother.

There was no mention to this prior to the update - Anet knows this will cause uproar... why did you do it!!?!

58 thumbs down for loot scaling.

I'm glad I've been farming Torment gems.. too bad my stupid butt didn't get more Titan gemstones. They're gonna skyrocket in price! (I hope )

Well. It looks like I was right about that loot being scaled down.

&*$%!

And my point that I already stated was that they introduce a N E W mode with a bunch of new goals and all people are worried about is solo farming?

No one at this point can complain about there being nothing to do besides farming.

Also dont forget that the average drop rate for rares has increased for Hard Mode:


While normal mode is even easier to farm now:

Anet giveth , Anet take away - this is going to be a sensastional few days in the forums....

I hope they lose a vast majority of their customers over this stupid crap! They have ruined our fun big time over the last few weeks and they deserve to go out of business. Any company that is hell bent on ruining their customers enjoyment of the game deserves exactly that. Sorry Anet, this is the last nickle you will EVER get from me, you can stick the expansion and GW2 up your ass!

Actually, that's not true. It doesn't matter that there's stuff to do besides farming if you don't -enjoy- doing any of it other than farming. It's a game, it's designed to let people have fun, and for me and about 7/8th of my guild so far, a majority of that fun has been altered or removed.

There's more than just farming that people don't like about this update, too. Hard mode is actually quite dull, and is pretty much the same in every place. Not only that, but it makes normal mode more or less pointless. Why go normal mode now that Hard Mode is in effect? Especially considering that normal mode has been made easier/too easy. Where's the fun? Supposedly it's in hard mode, but I fail to see the appeal.

I payed for Guild wars. But now the whole game is different, like some sort of Guild Wars 1.5 or something. If I wanted to play a new and different version of Guild Wars, I'd buy Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. Put this new stuff in there instead of changing the way the original works. That's my suggestion.

The loot scaling means that to get any decent chance of ectos you'll need to get a group of 8 then hope you are the lucky one out of 8... I mean honestly, invisible henchman stealing your ectos?

Ninja henchmen

Okay so how am I now going to get money as an Assasin? I can't Solo Farm anymore, and nobody wants Sins in their UW/FOW/DOA etc. groups...

I really just wish they'd leave the Normal Mode alone..

I find it frustrating in that I farmed to pay for skills, and from what I've done in hard mode so far, it doesn't seem that it'll make up the difference. It also reinforces the divide between players with piles of platinum and ectos and players without. Previously, if I really wanted to, I could put in enough time to catch up to them. Now, the difference in wealth is permanent and insurmountable.

This won't stop botting, either. The change introduces more tedium into farming (because you have to run 5-10x more to get the same amount of loot), and botting is immune to tedium.

They won't be bringing as much loot into the game, but they'll potentially have that much more effect on the economy.

Edit: This isn't doom as such. I'm sure that the money will be obtainable. It's possible that the boost in drops in hard mode might make things less painful.

The thing about "invisible henchmen" clearly can't be true. I've spent the last two hours testing farming spots, first solo and then with a full group of henchmen, and I definitely make a lot more profit farming solo. Two or three times more. But not eight times more like it used to be.

Anyway, I'm guessing that the real money is now going to be made by farming elite skill tomes in hard mode and selling them to other players, so I'm off to try that.

Don't take that too literally, it was merely the easiest way of explaining the change.

Two hours is really not an impressive sample size for any kind of conclusive test.

Anyone consider it a glitch?

Maybe it was supposed to be scaled in that people in parties got better chances not Solo Farmers get screwed.

May of been a bad coding.

It only took over one year to impliment....

Better late then never I guess.

Lol what is this the New rant

Instead of Stop with Pve and PVP screwing each other its not

Dont let Normal and hardmode but rape the other.

Watch when A-net makes sure Hard Mode stays balanced so they nerf skills to keep pve balanced but it bootlegs pvp ^.^.

No.

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