Solutions to the over farming problem!

Well, as everyone who play GW long enough know that farming is one of the biggest problem in GW. Because of farming, prices for numerous items have been dropped drammatically. So how can we solve this problem? Well I have a serveral ideas for all of us think about.

1. Idea 1: We can set restriction on BIG farming places. For example, there is a limit of 3 times an account/character can enter the BIG farming areas (BIG farming areas are places such as DoA, The Deep,..ect.)

Pros:
- Will limit people getting too rich just by doing so much of 1 thing.
- Prices of some items will be more stable.
- Make players do other stuffs instead of just doing 1 thing over and over.
- Prevent/reduce complaint about nerfing.
- Give players broader experiment on the game.

Cons:
- Have to deal with HUGE farming players at first.
- Prices of some items that already exist will be much higher than now.

2. Ideal 2: We can make people do other things. For example, we can say that each time you want to enter the City in DoA, you have to kill 30 Margonite. Each time you want to enter Foundry, you have to kill 20 Titans. Each time you want to do The Deep mission, you have to earn 5000 faction...ect.

Pros:
- This will make people do other things
- Slow down and make the fluctuation of item prices controlable.
- Let/tell players that GW don't just have 1 thing but they have more than just DoA farming.

Cons:
- Same as the 1st one HUGE farmer complaints.
- Take time for players know and get used to this

Reason for 2 of my ideas: I know that a lot of my friend just do 1 thing over and over and over till they quit the game. For example, 1 of my former friend, she used to do faction farm over and over and over until she gets so sick of it and decide to quit GW. I believe this happen to A LOT of players as well especially those who play Heroes's Ascent too much.

Anyway, those are my ideas, what's everyone think? I know a lot of people will disagree with me because this will actually change profit from days and nights farming. But please give your truthful opinion! Thanks for reading!

This is obviously impossible to implement, even on people's honor. This will simply lead to 'honest' people losing out on lots of gold while people who honestly don't care (98% of farmers) continue to reap profits...

GL HF but those are ideas in vain.

So what you basicly want... Is prices to rise sky-high, and having no way to get the gold because farming for it is impossible?

And alot of people don't quit because they're doing one thing. People are doing 1 thing because they already did the rest, and that 1 thing they did gets nerfed. That is why people complain, and that is why alot of people quit.

I don't think low prices are a problem. I think its great that most people can get what they want without grinding.

Stop bashing farming!

Why does everyone think there is a farming problem? The only problem with farming is that ANET tries to nerf it with almost every skill change.

Onoes! The virtual economy is going haywire! The virtual world is doomed! Doomed!

/notsigned

Farming gets enough nerfs as it is.

/never signed

Farming is something that people do in any MMO. RO, WoW, FlyFF, etc... Most MMO's have wonderful farming areas for when you just want to sit back, grind, and get that awsome item that's worth alot over, and over, and over again. Farming is just a good way to pass time and have a fun challenge.

Having ANet nerf farming areas isn't helping Guild Wars, it's hurting it.

I have to agree with felix, by limiting players more and more to what they can do, it impedes Guild War's developement.

/notsigned

Restrict access to the Deep even more??? lol

What's wrong with prices dropping, anyway?

Horrible ideas. I'm positive that if this was ever implended, a majority of players would be moving to WoW or another MMO.

I have to agree with everyone else. There is nothing wrong with farming. I was drawn to Guild Wars because you had zones all to yourself without having to compete for bosses with other players, so you could get those nice items to use or sell. Money is actually worth something in Guild Wars because it doesn't come by easily. And I was drawn to the game because once you have been to a town or outpost, you could instantly warp to that place, bringing you close to the zones you want to hunt or farm in. Sounds to me like someone is just annoyed that he can't get a ridiculously high price for an item that he farmed. The system is fine the way it is.

Idea number 1 will make the 'big farming spots' desolated. Think about it, they can already only be used by a small number of people, if you can only go there 3 times per char/account, after a week, the majority of players cannot go to the place anymore.

Idea number 2 is just... contradicting itself? Like... you have to farm margonites in order to farm margonites?

Forcing people to do something annoying in order to do something fun is just dumb and it won't make people do different stuff, it will make people do no stuff at all.

What Guild Wars needs most now, is not more limitation of options, but more freedom. Why not just let farmers farm?

If A-net wants to kill botters, just make it so that if someone follows the EXACT same path all the time (like when it's a program), you will get warned, and if you don't listen to the warning, you'll get banned.

For the rest, farmers are doing a great job, they're making ecto's affordable (When I was a noob, ecto's were 18K each :S).

People seem not to realize that "farming" is nerfed due bot activity rather than individuals collecting nice drops. The true IRL commercial activity is the drive for Anet to nerf "easy" farming methods. Bot farming have besides selling items or gold for real cash also the negative aspects of hacking accounts and other nasty stuff.

As a consequence normal individual farmers will suffer from the restrictyions, but this is no other then in real life as well. We suffer more restrictions due people abusing gaps in laws. Where does it stop then? Never, there will always be people who want to have access to nice stuff, quick and easy, meaning paying cash. Once u have the responsability not to abuse (abide by the EULA that is) then bot farming will be abolished. So never.

I just got a chuckle at the "over-farming problem" comment because two weeks ago I had to kill that stupid Debinah Deathbringer 82 times over the course of 4 hours 6 minutes (3 minutes per run/kill) to get that fat rhino to drop the Deathbringer scythe. LOL

Predatorus Viktus
“The Father,” First Order of Blood Knights

"There is an ancient Repticus saying, that something lasts only as long as the last person remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable. Those who renounce the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth: Beware these men, for they are dangerous themselves... and unwise. There are false histories written on the blood of those who might remember, and on those who seek the truth."

That's a tremendous assumption, and I think it's wrong. Farming isn't a problem at all, botting perhaps, online gold sellers; but not farming.

ANet runs the risk of alienating a large portion of its playerbase everytime it changes the game to combat "farming'. Nominally, the stated purpose is to combat botting and online gold sales.

But the we have to "destroy the village in order to save it" approach, doesn't make anyone happy in the long run.

Rare item drops and tough mobs should provide enough of an obstacle to players that want to farm without resorting to ever increasing restrictive measures.

I look forward to the day, after I have beat each campaign, to do a lot of item and skill farming with a friend.

1. What's wrong with certain players being rich?
2. The more people farm, the cheaper things will be (I'm really not seeing the problem)
3. When you beat the game, there's either PvP, farming or doing quests (which I don't know why you would do, but oh well)
4. This is a "nerf"
5. Same point as 3.

Not signed, you're a silly.

When has cheap perfect items like greens ever been a problem for anyone. The only people it is a problem for is the people trying to sell it for a high amount. In my opinion it is good that items become cheap, it makes it easier for people to get their hands on it, which is in no way bad.

~Death~

Your right, but with the mechanics and the "Orwellish" limitations this game imposes, one wouldn't really see more gold influx into the game as a problem per say. Because at the end of the day, a req.9 elemental sword 15^50 is just as good as a victo's blade thats 5k.

/not signed

farming is going to happen no matter what, and the op obviously does not like farming, maybe (s)he is not very good at it or had some bad experiances.

farming is one of the only ways to get money is the game, playing the game through the missions is not a money maker, chest running is highly inefficent now with it all being nurfed and running prices are just not worth it no more.

i must admit some people piss me off with farming, i.e farm for a living i.e Ebay gold, but this happens everywhere.

and with people mentioning the rare skinned items, at the end of the day a req 9 crystaline does the exact same damage as a req 9 long sword.

strange guy this is a completely unfounded solution to a problem that does not exist.

/notsigned
Terrible ideas.

all this idea of yours would do is make bots actually more viable.

bots dont care what or where or how long they have to do anything. people do on the other hand. what do you think would happen. yeap thats right, increase in gold sellers and bots.

Restricting access to areas will not only limit 'farming', but will also limit access to areas that a level 20 can continue to get skill points for those cap skills for the elites. If people want to farm, they will find away to. Don't tell me I can't go into this area to 'farm' exp.

So your saying that farming is a problem because its caused prices to drop. However what you haven't done is shown how low prices are a problem for anyone except the farmers who are after the rare drops. So since your post hinges on the assumption that low prices are bad, I'm giving the a /notsigned unless you can show exactly how low prices are bad.

And to be honest, the large majority of the gold I've earned from farming has been from merchanting the white, blue and purple drops, not from selling the rare gold/green drops.

To "bilateralrope": Low prices are bad. For example. Titan gem in the 1st day is very rare and can be sold for 100k + ectos. Now it's only 60k. If this rate continure, soon gems are not even worth a 10k or less. At this point, those who farm gems so much will actually quit Guild wars forever or for awhile till new Guild wars come out. That is why when the 1st Green farm area come out, Guild wars prophecy has been voted to be the best game of the year! Then faction and nightfall can not achieve those like prophecy used to. I have played Guild wars and have seen so many of my friends quit Guild wars because of that! They either play Heroes Ascent ONLY or farming ONLY. When prices drop or when skills get nerfed, they can not do other things since they are not good at it. And why they are not good at things like Faction farm or solo farm? It's because they never play it. Again, this is not assumption, it's the things I have observed!

To others: I dun have much time to answer all your question sorry!

If people want to farm, let them farm. If they get tired of it, then they do. People move on to other games, it happens.

I'm sorry your friends aren't more diverse in their interests in GW, that if one tiny aspect of the game is changed, they quit and never come back. Not to be mean, but that's kind of their problem. GW offers a lot of choices in gameplay imho. Adaptation, flexibility are the keys to getting through life.

What does a person who farms Gloom 24/7 for gems expect? That no one else will be doing the same, no one else deserves to do the same? If they flood the market with the gems and the price goes down, so be it. There will always be something new around the bend, it seems.

Your plan would backfire when your friends got hit by all limitations on farming that you propose, causing them to become just as frustrated as a skill change nerfing their build or price drops on what they're farming. You can't make people want to play other parts of the game by restricting access to what they currently enjoy doing; that will only make them quit the game sooner.

I do agree with you quitting the game just from a small nerf is not a very smart choice. But at the same time, you can think like this. Chest runner run thousand and thousand of chests because that is their interest. They know that it will provide fun for them as entertainment. But when they achieve the max tittle, there is no reason for them playing the game anymore. Changing from a pro chest runner to a pro-farmer is time consuming. Those people who run chest or farm way too much devote their time to get money. If it gets nerfed then they have 2 choices, either quit the game and change a complete new enviroment/friends OR take time to get used to other aspect of the game such as Heroes's Ascent, GvG, chest run, Drok run..ect. It is really a tough choice. I don't know what do you in the game. You maybe the pro-chest runner or you could be pro-fame farmer, I don't know. But changing from 1 to another is not a fun thing to do. It's really a time consuming. That's why low ranked players tend to buy fame with a very high rate! And that's why there are those who accept the deal and do the fame farm services. If you just make them (Well I know it's hard to change one's habbit) play all other aspects or at least 2-3 from guildwars then they might play the game longer. And the longer the player play the game, the more fruitful the game will be (if you don't say this is an assumption.)

I myself is a PvE/PvP player. I play everything so I have felt that way. I remembered when the 1st green area come out (Sorrow furnance) I farmed there so much. I got tons of money but then I figured out "oh there is such thing call HoH" I started playing it but it's insanely hard for me to get fame. After awhile I got used to it and now I got my tiger. You guys may not think over farmed is a big prob but I can see that! Make ones do more things and exp everything is better than just play 1 thing then quit the game! Unless you want to say that "oh well this is the game, you play it for a year or two then it's time for you to change the game" then I have nothing to say!

Over farming have bad effect: Would you like to spend 10 hours to get 300k while you used to get 1 mil in 10 hours before? Well, for me I would quit farming and maybe wait for another kind of farming coming out. But since I can play PvP as well so I can play PvP while I wait for that happen. But for others that don't play PvP, oh well too bad! Would you prefer to spend like 100 hours at least to get used/pro at PvP? I guess not, quitting the game and playing WoW prob a better idea! Oh or you can spend your farming gold to PAY for fame which you NEVER deserve to have! (Since you don't earn any exp and fun in PvP.)

But forcing players to do things they have no interest in is much more likely to drive them away than to make them start liking those things. Even if someone might enjoy something if they start doing it willingly, they probably won't enjoy it if they're forced into it. That's just human nature.

The classic example here is the favor system for UW and FoW. Yes, I'm sure not having favor when one wants to play UW/FoW has caused some people to get into PvP, but the vast majority just get annoyed and do something else or log off. Their access to what they want to do is being restricted, but instead of that acting as an incentive to try PvP, it instead drives them away.

/Not signed.

Farming is good for my economy as I can eventually get to buy certain items. I don't care if person x can't get 100k + xx ectos no longer. I'm now waiting for titan gems to get to 30k

This is a serious problem..Especially for new players. They are expecting to find materials and items based round original prices like 100g each for materials and 400g for exp id instead of 500g currently based now.

This is because of Veteran players/Farmers like myself and someone mentioned A-NET Hurting their game? Yes you are correct mate. The game is becomming unbearable. Certain areas require more than 3 people to get anywhere. So I'm not sure who to vote for...I like money but I wont pay a great deal for expensive items...

/not signed

The only thing that nerfing farming would do is make GW's lack of replayability even more obvious than it is now.

OK forgive me if I seem a bit daft, but I can’t get what the problem is. You’re kind of all over the place in your arguments.

If a person does only one sort of activity day in, day out, they should have their own little bubble world where nothing changes for them. Prices for their items stay the same, progress toward treasure/wisdom never happens, skills never get re/balanced, all…. theoretically… to keep that player playing. Because if I understand you correctly, some people will quit if the prices go down, they max their title, anet changes a skill used in PvP. Am I understanding you?

But none of this applies to you personally, because you have adapted to change and have different interests. It only applies to your single-minded friends who no longer play. Is this right?

I too enjoy all aspects of the game, whether solo farming for materials, high level missions, PvE storyline missions, buying pretty armor, helping guildies, arena, occasionally GvG and HA for kicks. There is always something to do.

Do we really need to worry much about these make-believe people who do ONE thing only, who have these fickle temperaments which make them quit after one price/skill/area/title changes?

so...you want items to become more rare and drive up the prices, but not let people farm the money required to buy them? good plan! /sarcasm

/notsigned

Well I dont mind soo much about ppl farming since I don't really purchase items from others unless I really really want the item, I dont see farming as a big problem either, when i first started the game I couldn't afford ^%#$ but that didnt stop me so what if you get good loot or not so what if your rich or poor. Honestly if they want to farm let them farm if its the fun they see in the game what can you do?besides with farmers they make things cheaper, things in the game is expensive as it is i'd like to see them become cheaper if possible.

I play the game for the mission and quest I am always poor but what ever items i get i use the only difference with those green and exotic items is that they have cool skins but when you use it its the same as all the other items just they have the disply in gold and green.

To "Desbreko": This does not mean forcing people to do things they don't have interest on. This just to make others know and give them the chance to TRY more things. The main thing about these ideas is not forcing. It's the motivation. It's just like when the double fame event come out. Without it, MANY people never ever get the 1st emote of rank 3. The question is that why is it just 3 days and it can give people that never or play very little of PvP 100+ fame while they have played for almost 2 years? I do agree these events are good, but not a long-term solution. My ideas can somehow motivate others do more things than just FARMING.

To "MrTickle": Well you surely did not get my point. My point is that for newbie, they just start or play the game not long enough so they don't know how to FARM big. That mean 30k in 3 hours for them is a loot. But for me and other OLD Gw players 100k for 4 hours is way too slow. I would quit the game if I farm less then 100k in 4 hours. Not worth a bit of my play time. If the farm can not be done frequently then the prices of the dropped items will be stable. Stable prices will be my motivation for playing the game and farming and/or PvP. You have to think of a long-term. I do agree with you in short term, I can farm like 3 titan gems per 3-4 hours and sell them for 180k. Then I go again for 3-4 hours and sell for another 180k. But if you think about long-term, the less frequent the people can do the farm, the more stable the price. So even if I can only do 1 run for 3 gems then I have to kill margonite or do other things, my 4 hours of farming can worth up to 400k. Plus I can actually have time to do other things not just farming and farming. So the total benefit I can get is 4 hours = 400k AND 1 hour exp on doing other things.

To "Fallen Nephilim": No comment, you made a total assumption! I assured you either did not read my ideas WELL or just don't THINK about it!

To "Sofonisba": Hmm...you kind of get my points but not totally. My friend quit the game because she knows/thinks she is good at PvP. So when skill get nerfed, she can not play the roll she used to run or play all the time. She tried new build but she is suck at it. She does not want to start with newbie to know how to react with those nerf because it will consume too much time. She can not play PvE because she think she is godly at PvP and think PvErs are newbies. This end up quitting the game. If Anet motivate her play PvP And PvE at the same time/rate, then this would not happen. Noone will quit GW and only new players come. The prob is not about the imbalance of people who are too rich or who are too high in ranked. The prob is that GW can not maintain people just because the players never actually try to do other aspects of the game. If all players have to do other things then when their own interest aspect of the game get bored/nerf, they skill can find other interest aspects to stick with the game and make the game become even better!

To "rohara": If you want that item, it does not necessary mean you will have them. If you want a specific items, go farm it yourself. You want ecto? Farm UW/FoW. You want Elemental sword? Go do chest run. Ectos, gold only make a medium to exchange items. If it is so easy to buy things by ecto, gold then there will be an increasement of players who BUY ectos, golds from Ebay. bad!

To "Spartan Link": I do agree with you cheap prices are so good, you can buy perfect weapons with a little amount of gold. But on the long run, those who farm these weapons and sell it to you will quit the game. This cause less and less amount of players playing the game. Supply of those weapons will be much less. This mean prices should go up but then because people are not willing to pay more when they used to buy it cheap, prices will stay the same. This happen to Victo axe, shield, ect,....prices of them are so cheap. But at the same time, supply is little. It ends up a number of victo axes, shields can not be sold. And at the end, this farming area become desert dragging with many players quitting the game.

prices dropping is a problem because it decreases efficiency of farming time as someone said earlier. but the SOURCE of the price droppping is only a byproduct of overfarming. GW produces impatience and people want to sell faster and faster to get their money quicker so they drop their price a small amount. the problem there is that others who are selling for the item's true value now have to compete against a lower price meaning they wont sell their product without lowering to the other guy's price. basic capitalism.

Honestly...the true solution to this "overfarming" problem is for farmers to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT. if the small amount of truely smart and innovative players in this game didnt feel like they had to show off and brag to the whole community that they knew something that everybody else didnt, then the economy would be much more stable. show off your armor show off your weapons, show off whatever makes you feel better about yourself. dont show off your build...it can only hurt you

the problem farmers have to deal with is they dont always have a full group. so they have to make the build easier and dumb it down for the new guys. moral of the story:you find a build that works well, keep it a secret and farm the hell out of it before everybody else figures it out.

and to all of you who have said "well if you only do one thing and it gets nerfed theres always pvp":
this is even more niave than strange guy's original ideas for a couple of reasons:
#1. basic logic of specialization-do one thing, do it well, then do it better. this is a trait of any society. no one has time to do everything in GW better than everyone else...its much simpler to find what you are good at and concentrate your efforts, not to mention its basic human nature.
#2. pvp and pve are two completely seperate worlds...being a god in one means nothing in the other. anyone who disputes this: go farm for 3 months and join a pve guild. then without talking to anyone from previous experience go to HA with 0 rank and attempt to find a decent group who will take you. all you will find are groups that have no clue and will spend an hour forming and die in two rounds and break up. the same can be said for pvp players in the elite farming areas. you just cant make someone who is used to running the world stop and play garbageman. he will say screw you and leave.

If you could take online gold selling out of the equation <and that's a sticky wicket> then most of this conversation would be much ado about nothing.

It's dangerous to make real world economical comparisons with a virtual in-game economy, but you must understand that prices in a virtual world have less to do with an item's worth than it does to do with the value of the virtual currency. Think of it as inflation. A wheel barrow of gold to buy a rice cake.

It isn't a closed system. The outside influence that makes paying outrageous prices for in-game items has to do with the fact that in-game gold can be purchased relatively cheaply by anyone that has some real world petty cash.

As long as you have an outside influence muddling up the control signals in the economy, all bets are off.

Farming is not the issue, has never been the issue.

Yes, exploits/hacks are an issue if they are widely occurring.

Botting is an issue, because that's an automated way to accumulate in-game assets.

Those things influence the economy. But they are just feeding the real culprit: online gold sales.

If you were to magically take online good sales out of the equation the occurrences of exploits/hacks and botting would decrease significantly. The reason is because the market signals would work again: truly rare items would be expensive, but items flooding the market would not...in-game gold would start reflecting an item's relative value based on factors inside the virtual economy.

At present we have a cycle:

1) -Gather large quantities of lucrative in-game resources via botting or cheating <sure you could legally "farm" but that's not what it takes to feed the beast, you need to go over-drive to fill quotas>
2} -Sell the the fashionable in-game resources in order to amass in-game gold
3} -Sell the in-game gold for real world currency
4) -rinse/repeat

The gold buyers keep the process rolling over and those who don't buy gold online do as well, because we are usually paying the same inflated prices for items.

To "Kuldebar Valiturus":

This is a totally assumption. If you read all I have wrote, you will see that farming causes prices drop. This will make opportunity cost of the item become lower (With 4 hours of farming now only worth 180k compare to old time 300k per 4 hours of farming.) I do agrre with you this is the virtual world but it still have the same concept. In real world, if the real price of the item is higher than the selling price then there will be less and less people supply that item. In virtual world, part of the supplier who leave the market will also leave the world. Not all but part of them! And the lower the price, the less people playing the game. The less people playing the game, the more garbage Guildwars game become. Not worth the fun/time playing! About the botting, my ideas can reduce the botting in theorically. The more complicated you have to do before you can do what you want, the harder it is to program a bot. In the order word, my ideas can reduce botting and keep people on playing the game. In the bad side of course it will be insanely tough to set this up as people get used to old system of farming " Farm? repeat farming, fail? Try again!"

To "Bo C Phus":

Uhmm I'm sorry but where did you get this idea from? Would you want to sell your car half of the price that other people sell the same car? Unless you have like million of them. Same in the game. Unless you have numerous of the certain item, otherwise you won't sell it lower than other prople prices. The main reason why prices drop is because people farm way too much, everyone expect to farm their own and sell not buying. This will give tons of gems floating in the market that can not be sold. The only solution is that dropping the price in order to attract buyers!

Uhmm gee gee? What's your point? Can I keep your mouth shut? Farming and don't sell? Keep max in storage and end up putting those items in the trash??? And who are those that you call smart? You? Or should I call other farmers are noob and stupid? I'm sorry market is market. It does not do anything with smart or stupid here!

Uhmm, are you sure? When I form a group, I almost ALWAYS have enough players. I have friends, guildies that play at the same time zone as me. I just need to PM them 1 hour before head and I got a full group after 1 hour with only less than 2 min of forming! And what did you mean by keeping in secret the build? WoW, you are awesome, very genius thinking about something that noone ever think of. I'm sorry but I think you are wrong. Builds formed by testing. Players formed a group and try the mission. They try and eliminate the bad skills/tactics. At the end, missions become shorter and easier to do! Build does not form from individial player!

My main reason of those ideas are:
1. Stop players from quitting the game because of some nerfs.
2. Balance out PvP/PvE because you have to do PvP and PvE at the same time.
3. Keep prices stable and provide a better medium in other to motivate players to farm/play.