Chest Running: A Lost Art

Does anyone else think chest running has died. When factions was out it was all i did. Chests Runs at raisu palace. You met so many good people there (and some bad), but with nightfall no1 runs in groups anymore, if at all. And with this the random gold or Purp chests, it has lost favour even more. What a waste

Hopefully the new areas will have some places for us die hard chest runners to group up once again.



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Miss Hell's ID1. :'(

I think that is the main reason. Though I miss those days, I see how someone could exploit it, using multiple accounts.

For example, let's say someplace quick like Whitman's Folley. Account #1 (title-seeker) does the run, and makes a mental note of which chest is gold. Account #2-8 (same person) then goes for *only* the gold chests. Using this method, one can gather unid golds pretty fast, and then sell them at 1-1.5k each, or increase their wisdom title quickly. (This run at Whitman's Folley can be done in ~3minutes)

Since chest are now random and can yield purple and gold rather than being purple or gold only I think that doesn't matter anymore.

I mean look at it...at first chest could always be opened.
Then they came out with keys.
Then with Nightfall we got treasures so we get golds and gold for free.

And somewher down that line chest were randomised so one person could get a gold and the next takes out a purple from the same chest.

So it's hard to tell what really the point is...

i think anet thought of Chest Runner as more of a farming exploit, where i thought of it as a way to enjoy the game and meeting more people after having done all the missions.

Yeah there used to be guilds formed mainly around the basis of Chest Running only. It was something else to do, now chest running is only for title purposes, of course the occasional rare items are a bonus, but it used to be so much more of a group activity. Now its a solo activity.

Don't most of the higher-tier chest runners run solo anyway?
Didn't most of them open every chest regardless of color for the title?

Though the removal of some of the fun of group running is annoying - for those that don't have huge amounts of money to burn.

i used to chest run solo in raisu with my ele (Mist form build). No longer now. I go farming for elementals in the mirror of lyss and open the 5 chests there are in the process.

Also chest running is dead in cantha and tyria b/c in elona you can turn crappy weapons (especially wands) into decent, usable ones.

Lets face it with the free bonus chests renewing every month in nightfall, and yeilding 30K per character plus a gold from each (Treasure Chest, Buried Treasue, Or Do Not Touch) Why would anyone be buying high end keys and doing runs for chests now? There is no reason too except greed...

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Do_Not_Touch

By the time I do ALL the chest on all my characters, I get 180-200 Plat and 108 gold drops (Just from these free chests) ... And by that time its prob been a month again so I can do it all again... That also does not count the hours of fun time with all the creatures AROUND those things and all the gold and drops you get from those...

As to why some people do not get the reset every month I have no idea. I just think they are not keeping track properly. its does not reset on the 30th of the month or something like that, it resets 32 days from the last time you got that chest...

Its more lucrative to do that casually then to farm Keyed chests that are more often then not Purple at best. Heck I have not seen a gold chest in UW or Fissure in ages, Same with Palace in factions or Even the far southern areas in factions (use to be lucrative) Heck even Urgos is dropping a VERY VERY rare gold item from its chests... Its just not worth it in my opinion to farm chests now. Even less so with GW2 coming in a year or two...

Maybe hard mode will make this more lucrative (in quality of weapon for use, or mod for salvage), But I doubt it...

Personal note to Devs. I for one would be VERY VERY happy if every chest in the game were like the Buried Treasure chests and only was able to be opened 1 time a month per character, and removing the keys. This would go a LONG way to removing Chest farmers in 1 specific area. IE BOTS. Because the people that play the game will be rewarded over time by playing in a multitude of areas but those doing nothing but farming a over lucrative spot it would be punished because they would only be able to open it a max of 1 time a month per character. AND because the Chest farming would be significantly reduced the quality of the chests would be much more valuable overall.

Yes, the chest runs die. In the past they run because of the money but today you can´t make money with chests...just the people who wanted to have the titel make chest runs....btw: i´m a chestrunner til i have 10 000 chests

You can make plenty of money off chest runs. in 50 Chest runs, all it takes is 1 rare item to drop for you to make over 100k. There you go, you filled your quota for the day. Yeah you can argue that, "OMG I did 100 chest runs and didnt get a single gold," well tough luck. I still chest run, just because its more of a group activity and we can all just kind of hang out. It's almost like a competition to see who can get the first gold.

I still wish it was like the old days though, FF at Lutgardis+that gold chest spawn every run. The good ol' days.

I don't take golds for selling in the inflation meta game... I use them or give them away or destroy them... There is nothing in this game worth 100k NOTHING. You think there is because of your inflation greed... This is why I for one couldn't care less if they ever add an auction house. That is not what I paid for in GuildWars. You people made the little meta market game and destroyed PUGs and communication of any kind in chat effectively making it a single player game. so I have Zero Pitty...

I'm trying to understand your rant....Are you saying that because people sell and barter for money they are greedy? I think that is an awesome aspect to the game that Anet probably intended. To have rare items drop so that one day they could be worth 100k. An item being 100k+ is one of the best things for GW. It gives people a goal to strive for, or it gives them the aspiration to go out and chest run for them to acquire that item. The people that over price and manipulate the noob players minds into thinking they are getting a great deal for something they arent, thats what ruins the meta market.

Yes right but nobody believes it...for me it´s no competition because i made my first 5000 alone and thats a bit boring....sometimes i find good things but that is very rare...that is what the most people see first when they make chest runs "OMG!!!111 5purple and no gold????? F*** chest runs, i never do it again..."
cheers

Yea I get rather ranty on the market I'll admit it. But the point I am trying to make is just this. With very rare exceptions almost every weapon that is "100k+" on the inflated market you can get an equivalent for very very reasonable prices from the collector or crafter NPCs in the game.

Same is true of armor, Kourna 1k armor is no worse then Fissure armor for a fraction of the cost. AND its customizable to whatever you want it to be.
Indeed the FREE Crystal Desert Collector Armor is the same class as Fissure or Droknars Armor. So the only reason to PAY to get it is vanity... And as such pointless wastes of money.

Now I am not saying if you have it and want to do it, that you shouldn't be allowed too. Not at all, Great, go for it... But what I detest is these people that inflate the value of things unjustly just because they THINK its uber, when indeed its not any better in most cases then a collector weapon. I can think of a few exceptions to this, but still those "exceptions" are simply high demand SKINS... nothing more. The item itself prob has an equivalent cheap version from a NPC someplace in the 3 games. Indeed every "UBER" weapon has found a NPC in the next chapter that had something better or at least equivalent for much less then what the "MARKET" justifies it as...

That is why I say that no item is worth more then the trade cap. The reason, if your patient enough you can either
1: get one yourself and save having to buy it from an inflator, or
2: craft an equivalent item from an NPC or collector and customize it to make it the Rares Equal or possibly even superior for you and your heroes...

When I get a green I feel I earned it, and as such I put it to use for me. It is a symbol of stature and reward for doing something I enjoyed. When someone turns around and sells that Rare item to someone that couldn't kill that boss that wields it in 100 tries. It lessens its value even more to me to a point I would rather trash it and go get a collector weapon equivalent then to carry an item that now every n00b gold buyer can carry.

Agreed Ingram. I mean most inflation is caused by skin, but a green with same stats as a req 8 crystalline, 15^50, 20/20, +30 is same stats as a few greens. Since greens can be farmed A LOT easier than a crystalline, it then gives u the chance to customize it, and get that +20% chance to give extra damage. Therefore, the green is usually better than that uber rare gold.

It still is nice to sell those 100k items, that took you 2 tries to get. :P

Yes, the change of chests killed the runs. Didn't do them by myself, but I loved to open chests when questing with a party and that hast totally died out, too.
The most annoying part about the update was, that the new chest are NOT really random. There ist also some anti-farmin-code in place reducing the quality of chests very fast.
Really annoying, esspecially when looking at the prices for obsidian keys etc.
Seems like Anet want to abuse the players, who go for the title, as pure moneysink to fix a broken and not fixable ingame economy....

Everyone is well aware of collector items but collector items usually have crappy skins. An item that is req 8 15^50 health +30 and sundering 20/20 is not necessarily going to be 100k + X(X) ecto. It all has to do with skin, not the stats. The Collector's and Greens thing has been beat to death. When it comes to chest farming myself, I farm Luxon chests where they spawn a lot and in an easy run. Every once in a while I come upon a weapon for 100k + and I'm quick to sell it so my chest farming at least becomes somewhat profitable. I get a lot of crap in the middle but those 100k weapons seem so worth it.

Oh stop. Rich people have thousands of platinum, therefore those items ARE worth 100k+, for the simple reason that people are willing to pay that much for them, and that's the ONLY thing setting prices in this game, especially not you or anyone else's idea of what prices "should" be. Also, traders didn't destroy PUGs....bad players who refuse to play as part of a team drove most of the best players to just heros + henchies. Furthermore, you're bashing chest running as, apparently, being responsible for the destruction of any kind of friendly communication in the game, when it itself WAS a source of friendly communication for a long time.

I think that chest running has died for a number of reasons, most have been laid out already:
1. Random purple + gold chests remove most of the point in chest running with a group, beyond just the social interaction. There are few areas that can't be run solo, and I think people just do it with heros in that case.
2. Chest drops have been dropping in value, while key prices have stayed constant, making it harder to turn a profit (and longer in coming). People who are just looking for profit have turned to other things; most of the people chest running who are left are there for the title.
3. Related to 2, chest running in Cantha, Tyria, and FoW/UW (read: all the classic CR spots) is much riskier than chest running in Elona, because nearly every chest you open in Elona can have some use...at the least, it can go on a hero.

Good times, I remember the first Double Gold Chest Weekend in Cantha. I did lots of CR back then, now I still have 30 kurzick keys and I dont even bother doing it.

I love to chest run in the desolation. And i ussually make my money back plus a little more

When I started playing GW a few months back, I had people do DoA Chest runs for me, now it seems like nobody is doing it.

Made good money on the Gloom Shield drops.

Thank God, too. I always got so damn many useless weapons in Tyria and Cantha...

i dont think you understand what inflated means...wait i dont even think you understand what an economy is...in fact I'd say you dont even understand people!

Reasons:
-Free chests
-Chest title is for opening them
-buying things is generally cheaper unless you want something extremely rare
-eliminating purples by opening in groups is no longer existent

The random chest drop was the worst nerf in GW, it was really fun to do 8-man-CR, and it doesnt exist any more... Everybody running alone, what is boring, and now u cant make that nice profit that u could do in the past. I remember I got 2 req8 Fellblades at Witmans, however they were crap ^^! And yea, tons of golds in my inventory... Hmph...

Nothing will ever beat the Eternal Grove chest runs.

Chest running is dead for me (1073/1200 ATH3 currently) . I only do them now to boost title and have better luck with salvaging for guildies.

Side note: Too all those that abused the system, cheated, eploited and violated the GW/TOS, how does it feel to know you helped ruin the game?

Anet should jsut implement some new items or such in ceartain areas, or make them appear in random areas, such as GOTH shields and such that were introduced. It would revitalize CR.

Well, the other problem is most of the rare items drop in HoH!! Can I ask something? Why do PvP playas need items which are worth 100k+xx or xxx ecto? I suppose that most of the HA and HoH playas play only PvP, they dont need that great items, or if they do, we need them more :P ! Let chestrunners get more RARE items of normal high-end chests! Its not fair that all the nice inscribable items (such as Legendary Sword, inscribable celestials and more and more and more) drop only in HoH!! Btw I think I've seen a topic about that already...

Make ALL loot, non area specific. In other words, you could loot a crystalline sword in pre.. Sure it would be very rare, but if things were not so area specific, farming an area over and over would be a waste of time.

Now that said, there are people reading this right now that are screaming loudly NO NO NO, my ebay sales will stop, I won't be able to stay home and make a living off GW.. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

Simple, pvp requires no new content etc, GW wants people to pvp more and pve less. Then they can watch tv all day and not worry about developing new and compelling content, areas, storylines etc..

I guess the newest chest system did quiet a blow to chest run.
Since now chest are tied to monster group. Chests wont appear untill you trigger them to appear which make to chest dissapear untill you did some quest.

Make ALL loot, non area specific.

Thats it, what I said! Do it Anet! Btw 1 more thing: I understand why Anet nerfed 55 hp farms, and etc, (boring, ruins the game and etc :P) but why, I ask why did they nerf the chestrun? what was FUN, and not that easy money making (ok, a bit easy :P)!

Yea, make everything random, not just gold/purple drops from chest.

That would spice things up, but then every1 would just run port sledge all the time. Its a good idea, just needs some tuning.

Cr Si 5/8

=(

If they would drop in more areas, they would be a lot less rare and also cheaper. At least getting to HoH requires more skill then running to the nearest chest in (for example) desolation\ring of fire with (for example) Shadow Form on you.

Agreed, that was the best

We can only hope

Did 10 keys worth of runs in the Ravenheart Gloom yesterday...

Only thing worth keeping was a perfect Strength and Honor inscription.

Though, FoW chest runs were the thing that brought me back to GW at one point, and i still think that they can be a blast.

They can be a blast, with 0 profit lol.

Chest running really isn't as fun as it used to be, But I'll always be a chest runner nethertheless ^_^