Nerf to Item Drops

this just plopped out of my mind ^_^

maybe the actual "drop-nerf" is just a quick "anti-bot-solution" until they'll have worked out the real code to stop excessive overfarming and botusing?
i want to believe in that, cause that way i don't have to bother my head with these questions anymore.

there are a fews reasons why i lile to solo sometimes:
-testing the skill set on various monster-classes
-not having to share my xp with henches / people
-getting gold and materials/collector items ( for personal use / helping guildmate )
-the sheer roleplaying fun when you go out to hunt some monsters and explore tyria....
= and even without drops i will do that when i feel like it.


it's not that i don't want to group up - i love the teamfocus: and i love to help people out... but sometimes you just need some time off.

needless to say that i solo from spot A to spot B and then head for something that might be a C --- i dont farm the same spot over and over just to feed some insane market


blessed be***

and that's the best answer i've gotten.

thank you, uzul.

Someone in a thread about this on another forum who was getting zero drops throughout the entire game after awhile noticed that if he completed a mission, then drops started up again like normal.

I'm wondering if there's something tied in to mission and/or quest completion, and drop resetting. Like you get drops for awhile, but then they stop until some form of objective is completed. This is merely speculation, as I have no proof of this.

But yes, something has definitely happened to drops. Last night I took a group of henchmen with me to finish up all of my unresolved quests in the Kryta region. I did them all at once in a big loop, and then went to retrieve the rewards for them all at the same time. Most of my drops were relatively weak ones, though I did get a few cool items. At one point however, drops just stopped altogether. I wasn't farming at all, but did have to deal with a lot of the same creatures over and over again moving between regions.

My question is that if I had gone back and retrieved the reward for each quest one at a time, and then head back out for the next one, would the drops have stopped? I may try that next time.

Fwiw, I remember when running around like that I'd have to salvage stuff just to make room for more items because my inventory was full. But as of late, I hardly ever fill up my pouch, let alone the bags. It's definitely different. Can't remember the last time I had a "Your Inventory Is Full" message pop up.

Apparently with the current system in effect, farming the same place over and over again nerfs the drops in that place for you. It's quite ingenious, actually. Drops have been increased overall, yet if you farm an area repeatedly, the drops disappear for you. Improves rune acquisition through normal means and penalizes farmers.

It's not just in the same place over and over again, I fought my way through the Frozen Forest with henchies and killed nearly everything, and about 3/4 of the way through item drops stopped all together, gold included. (I'm pretty sure the hench don't get every drop.. especially with that many enemies.) When I reached my destination I went back to Elona Reach and headed to Seeker's Passage, there were no item drops along the way aside from chests, it's like you kill a certain amount of monsters - item drops stop.

UNLESS.. the thing about the drops resetting after a mission or quest is true. I have no quests left in that area and didn't feel like doing Thunderhead Keep right then, but just going out into the explorable areas was yielding no drops.

That hasn't been my experience the last two nights, and I am not a farmer. I just like doing several quests in a region at once, often with henchmen instead of a party because the little quests are hard to find good, patient groups for.

That I can go through four quests in a region, with a couple of henchmen, for almost two hours total, and come back with less than a backpack full of items, is not ingenious. It's a bummer.

Really when you think about it, this seems pretty stupid. What happens when you nerf farming and make items drop less, prices go up, and people have to farm TRIPLE what they had to farm before, because items drop less AND because everything costs more. I myself am personally not a farmer and havnt had any problems with money or funds whatsoever, but this approach toward farming just confuses me.

Let us hope it is just until the real bot fixes.

Indeed.. I'm hoping it's a temporary fix, not much else I can do while I wait for friends to catch up.

The attempt to adjust things by creating a drought at the source is admirable, since this is a sort of natural or ecological approach. The problem is that this is an elaborate, long-term solution when all you need is a short-term one. The game isn't real natural life and its economy isn't a real economy. This whole thing is about Monopoly money.

Instead of trying to curb inflation by killing the gold crop, revise the exchange value of game-world commodities. Instead of trying to invoke real laws of supply and demand so that rune traders charge astronomical prices, set a ceiling on those prices. While you're at it, embed a ceiling on the amount of gold a player can pay another player for an item. Then open real gold sinks, such as cosmetic improvements to armor, players' appearances, etc., and fix those prices as well.

Stop allowing things to get horrifically expensive. Either that, or re-institute ways for people to afford horrifically expensive things.

Yes, this probably belongs in one of the economic threads.

I used to play Diablo 2... anyways while waiting for people to enter my instanced map to buy someting I was selling... I would hop on down to kill 2 of 5 game bosses while waiting then restart another map about 10 minutes later. Repeat.

I noticed this: the first few maps I did would have decent drops... then crap for drop... I never figured out the exact mechanic behind it but I concluded that most likely the game stopped giving me good drops from those bosses unless I didn't kill those bosses for atleast a few real-time hours (switching to other bosses would also get me good loot.... for a few runs only, of course)

anyways... It's likely they have incorporated something along similar lines... although apparently some people now -never- get drops, which seems like a in-your-face way of telling you (though indirectly) to move on to other activity.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/...ead.php?t=20538 <-- the same link shown earlier in this thread... tells about how some people getting absolutely nothing.

Although this is a good direction that ANet is taking us... this might not be a good step tho.

*clapping wildly* Go into politics. Maybe you can fix Social Security, too.

Nerfing the drops will not solve the problem. The fact remins that in my normal gameplay of quests/missions I was unable to amass the wealth needed to buy even one piece of the 15k/piece armor. Removing the source of income does not reduce the need for income. Earning income is not the same thing as amassing wealth.

I farmed for only 2 reasons: to unlock items that I would need should I decide to eventually PvP and to earn a steady stream of income with which to finance all my characters' needs. Just brought a monk from pre - she needs armor. Just got one character to the desert - need money to buy the collectables to give the collectors OR I need to farm the collectables myself to get this character's desert set before Ascension. Then that same character will need a real set of armor in Droknar's Forge. I have a necro in pre. God only knows what he'll need for his armor in post! I've not played a necro before. That's without counting in any runes, any id/salvage kits, weapons, etc. I have no way of bankrolling my younger characters now.

I remember a week ago, farming or not I'd get decent drops now this week all I get is crap, regardless of where I am or who I'm with it's pure absolute not even worth a trip to the merchant crap. Most of it goes right in the garbage can because it's a waste of inventory space.

Spent 3 hours in underworld tonight....wanna know what the best thing I got was.....A SINGLE GLOB OF ECTO!!!! Big deal.

And tonight, I helped a bunch of lvl15s get to Galrath from Lion's Arch. The best thing I got while out? ONE rune. Major Fire. Which since I hadn't unlocked it already, I was thrilled. But for the major PITA that getting to Galrath is, there should be something for it. And yes, I know they increased the xp for it. But I didn't get 4k xp. I got 500 when I did it. The rest of my drops were absolute trash. Nothing on them. No value. Not even decent quality for mid-game items. These were bargain bin whites. All of which promptly got salvaged into wood and iron. (I just throw things away!)

This is redicolous, they nerfed farming and didn't improved item drop.

Same mission (thunderhead keep) in 8 player:
Item found:
-2 major runes (water and vigor) and of course not mine...
-4 minor rune ---> 0 for me too
-0 gold items
-0 golden armor
-7 angry and bored guys that was flaming about this imbalance! (the one with major vigor was obviously happy)

So to get hero's challenge i went to desert to do 2 quest... 1 hour spent on desert, killing hundreds of mob with hench.
Item dropped:
-1 nice purple sword (that unlocked me a component, that i will never use...)
-1 shitty purple hammer not max-damage
-1000 shitty white items

I explored for 40 mins the path from moladune to copperhammer mines (with hench) for Hero's challenge.
Item found:
-0 golden/ purple armor
-1 blue armor (containing a minor rune that i dropped like 50 times)
-0 gold/purple weapon
-6 shitty blue weapon not max damaged, some of them "precious" or "highly salvageable".

I didn't end the quest coz i was bored, and i start playing pvp, with a not god equipment of course, coz i didn't drop nothing and i don't have good things unlocked.
This means that alpha and beta players at the moment are very advantaged on players that got the game when i came out, like me.
If this is a competitive game i should be able to be competitive with all.

Er, remember that they just nerfed all farming of the same area repeatedly, right? There goes your 'farm the collectables myself' idea. I was trying to pick up some seeds for a collector earlier tonight and after a few runs the aloes stopped dropping altogether. Rather maddening when there aren't exactly alternative sources of the things.

Waiting for a less maddening 'fix' to the 'pharming problem'. I understand that they don't like people hitting up the same areas repeatedly, but they're doing dental work with a chainsaw. This thread is testament to the number of unintended consequences the patch had.

Peace,
-CxE

Seems to me the best way to fix "farming" is in fact to increase drop rates. Farming for hours on end becomes pointless because you can get what you need fairly quickly.

Anyhow I'm just annoyed because I, like others above, am trying to get items to give to collectors. In this case, ebon spider legs to get my elementalist gloves. So how do you get these? Easy. Start the Aurora Glade mission, kill the two groups of three spiders at the start, rinse, repeat. Well after three runs of gold, white items and a couple of spider legs, the drops dry up. And since I am not uber, soloing elsewhere is near impossible and henchies would steal my drops. Looks like I'm not getting my gloves today ...

there is no way i could saved my beta items - all gone forever: the big piece of knowledge i gathered in all those months may be an advantage; but it's mostly pve-wisdom and while they kid-approved some mechanics like the soc so that all the pvp-people have it easy and comfy: i dont complain - although i think they made it too easy - but that's just me.

example - there is hardly a way an experienced player would loose the academy-fight to a newcomer - why? cause someone who played for months knows that alesia is a perfect target. (/or the monk, depending on how many real ppl are in the team) and he doesnt waste time with doing nothing...
targetting, kill, C, space... chekcing - unleash combo no1 - oh dead already... next one - instant-C and so on...
i seen many people in pvp and pve waste time with beeing slow on targetting/attacking --- it's not all about the items you use.

but to be honest: while playing a weapon-based class like warrior the item you got is pretty much the base for all your damage - true that there can be someone who has a better sword - but that won't make him a better player


to get to my point: mabye it's the lack of items - maybe you just need more insight into the mechanics to improve in pvp and pve.


now i need to get sth to eat - later ^^

Where are ArenaNet on this subject?
They sure must be really busy tweaking the fix for their fix.

When will it be..Wednesday?