Fix to the farming nerf

Someone posted this in one of the rant topics, and I think it would be the perfect solution.

I've never understood this idea which people have, where the amount of stuff which drops, magicaly increases if you have more people in your group.

The idea is that one creature carries a set amount of gold and items, which you share amoung your team or you take solo.

Are you suggesting that we should increase the amount that creature carries by 8 fold, if your in a 8 man team? That doesnt really make sense does it.

Its fine as it is. I've never understood why people think there has been a "farming nerf" because ive not seen a staggering change in drops.

If you always run in 8 man PUGs, you won't notice any difference. This only impacts players who enter an area alone. I've tested this, the drop rate has changed dramatically.

There are many things to do in this game - so at this point I'm keeping an open mind. However I won't be spending money like a sailor on leave until I can guarantee I can replace it.

I agree with fish. I understand that the so called "economy" might be in danger but I am not to worried. Anet is trying to kill farming mostly due to the bots and gold sellers out there. If they really wanted to kill it they would start selling gold on the GWstore. If the buyers could buy their 100k for cheaper prices from anet it would do to things. The people that suck or are to lazy to make the money on their own would have it. and it would stop the gold sellers as they would lose an enormous amount of profit.

~the rat~

But this rule has still been violated, because when someone goes into an area solo, they (the monsters) are only carrying 1/8th of what they were before. The loot is already scaling, the suggestion is simply that it be scaled so as to be a reward, rather than a punishment.

The farming nerf concern comes from this line in the last update:

i dont think it should go up but i do think it should go back to normal....

Or ANET could just nerf solo farming all together and the game would be 80% better.

Er... they have nerfed solo farming altogether and the game isn't better. That's kinda the point of this thread.

I don't think you understand the nature of the latest nerf. Basicaly, you get the same amount of drops if you go alone or with seven other people. You can still solo the underworld with an elementalist, for example, but you won't get any more drops than you would with a full 8-man team. Therefore solo farming *is* completely nerefed. There is no point to it. And the drop difference *is* significant. It's not a matter weather something *can* be done as much as what's the point of doing it, as there are no rewards.

Drops haven't changed for a full party, so there's no 'punishment' involved for party farmers. It's purely solo-farmer based, as far as the 'nerf' goes.

And on that note...can't you just take heroes into an area with you and flag them far away while you do the killing?

And, on the more expensive side, buy 7 more accounts (yikes! But some people will do it, I bet) and figure out how to run them all at once, then flag them in the area. Full party with ALL the drops for you. So, it's not a complete nerf for solo farming, but it's a GOOD start. You have to put a good amount of effort into getting around this one.

I don't think that solo farming should be completely nerfed at all. There ARE people, believe it or not, who solo farm because they enjoy being able to clear an advanced area by themselves. And sometimes you just don't feel like getting a group. I am a frequent solo farmer myself, and I don't mind all THAT much that drop rates have been changed, but nerfing the ability to solo farm entirely? That would be a poor move, IMO.

This is what I seriously hate about these discussions, people saying "just put in a little more effort". No, effort has nothing do with it. Now we have to put in 8x the amount of time.

I'm not a hardcore player who wants to spend 5 hours a day doing nothing but grinding. That's why I loved Guild Wars, it let me play at my speed and still reap all the benefits of the game. If I wanted to afford some stuff like 15k Armor all I'd have to do was make a couple of runs in the UW each week, and in a couple weeks I'd have enough cash. Now, multiply that by 8, and the same results will take me several months, or I'll be grinding every day.

In other words, what used to be attainable for casual players is now delegated to the hardcore grinders or the already rich. There's a reason I enjoyed playing this game instead of things like Diablo 2, and now that reason's gone.

(For anyone who dares respond with "you don't NEED those items", guess what, I WANT them. I play this game for enjoyment, and I enjoy seeing my characters decked out in that nice looking gear. Tell me the benefit of removing that enjoyment to anyone who isn't a hardcore gamer)

any one for bots ?

party of 8 bots clearing a area. 8x the speed it normaly took. but 8x less drops than solo. they still make the same ammount of money over the same time. so the people who have bots are unscratched, but the person who's farming for his/her obby armour gets 1/8 th of the drops.

baisicaly it means its gonna be; Guild Wars: Attack of the Bots. xD

So here's a thought; has anyone tried to see what happens if you enter an area with a full team of hench, and flag them at the start (so they end up offscreen pretty quick and thus don't get drops), then go solo farm?

I don't solo farm (I guess I'm just not cool enough ), so it's not something I could probably test easily, but I'd be very inetrested to see the results.

Mind you, I didn't really like solo farming. The problem is that it was the only efficient way to farm that doesn't take several hours. When farming with a 8 man team, the drops are pitifully low, and the chances of getting a good drop are really bad. I just want to be able to get the same amount of loot as I used to. The proposed fix would allow that and it would still encourage grouping together.

For the people who suggest to take heroes and flag them away: from what I read on the forums, it doesn't work. And even if it did, I am sure Anet would fix it eventually, as it sounds rather exploity-ish anyways.

The thing is, this encouages botting! Don't call me crazy, it's true. The people who sell in game money don't care, they have computers running with botting programs and it doesn't matter to them how much lower the drop rate is. They'd go back into an area so many times that they make most of their money on about the same drop rates that we have now, only they have infinite time and energy to do so. That's because that is there job, and also because, like I said, they are running many computers with many accounts. Even if there accounts are banned, they will buy new ones, it factors right into their costs.

The people this hurts are the players, who now, may find it more difficult to gain money in game, are frustrated with it, can't find a group to get loot in HM, or just simply don't have the time-- might turn to buying gold. Like I said, the bots don't care about the drop rates, and even if they did, what would it do to them? Maybe they'd up their prices a little bit? No matter, that just means more profits for them, considering buisness is booming.

I tend to agree with you. Botters overcome the obstacles that human players find far too time consuming. So, either A-Net will have to step up its Bot-sniffing methods or it may have to place the so-called "anti-farm" code back in the game.

My feeling is that there never should have been any "anti-farming" code at all in the game. However, there should have been:

-anti-bot code

-exploit detection

-online gold/item sales detection

Clearly, the path of least resistance was "anti-farming"...truly the equivalent of restricting the farming of cotton in order to eradicate boll weevils.