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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Cynical Er... they have nerfed solo farming altogether

No, they haven't. To completely "nerf" it would to make it entirely impossible. There are still a handful of known viable ways to "solo farm", though a large portion of the community is probably too hung up on the drops being reduced to take them into account at the moment, and there will most likely be more methods coming in the near future. Solo farming is still alive. It just takes a little more thought and effort than before, that's all.

I find your username to be appropriate, taken in this context, by the way. Gave me a chuckle to brighten up this very hectic morning of mine.

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willie nelson I don't think you understand the nature of the latest nerf.

I don't think you understand that there are more ways to farm than just killing a monster or three over and over again...

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dusk_ I'm not a hardcore player who wants to spend 5 hours a day doing nothing but grinding.

You can make several hundred platinum spending only 10 minutes a day trying for it. I did, just the other day in fact, and so have quite a few other players so far. Best part is, the method is still viable (even more so now, after the "nerf"), can be done with almost any Primary Profession, and takes a few moments of sitting down, thinking, and maybe searching the Campfire to find.

Again, I will state, solo farming hasn't been completely nerfed. Don't try harder, think harder. Farming the same mobs endlessly to make money was a box the community closed itself into. Cut the tape and let loose. I don't like the fact that I can't SoJ Dragon Moss to death for "phat lewts" now any more than the next fellow, but I'm not going to sit with a thumb in my belt-loop waiting for somebody to fix what I can't adapt to. I'd rather spend a few minutes looking at the game and realizing I can still make money, and even better, I can do it in a way that the majority of the community is obviously blind to.

You can have the items you don't need, but want, and so much more, if you simply find the will to obtain them. You can grind mobs for 8x more time, or you can pop out of the box. It's up to you, and everyone else like you, to decide.

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.

You're talking that crazy "I can make ridiculous amounts of money easily" stuff that I'm not sure really exists. Why is this such a 'well-guarded secret'?

I fail to see what needs to be fixed, good update Anet!

I really wished a-net wouldnt of done that, for several reasons that doenst seem to matter to them anyway so i wont waste my time or yours lol, but i failed to see why it needed to be updated aswell, my guess is to stop [bots] but then why ruin it for the true players? gg.

This nerf doesn't hurt bots at all, it merely slows down their rate of gathering. People who bot just leave them on overnight to farm for them, they don't really care what their net gain was, since it was a gain without any work. Now honest people have no way to obtain FoW armor, except excessive DoA farming. Thanks a lot ANET.

Tagging Henchmen? I cant even select them let alone tagging them, they go where they want Do you need a certain expansion (erm, chapter) or level to do this?

The obvious answer to that would be, if the secret gets out, there is a greater chance of it being over-used and changed.

---

Back on topic:

Honestly. I love this farming change. The game is completely beatable without farming once. Any type of item is obtainable without farming (or without gold for that matter!)

The only reason for the high cost (and thusly high demand of gold-acquiring sources) is for vanity (skins) or those desiring perfect weapons.

Those should be rare. Everyone and their cousin shouldn't have 15k armor, or FoW armor, etc.

I don't know how many different posters I've read who say "I have 15k armor on all my characters" (or the ones that say they have FoW armor on all of them!)

So much for rare huh? Maybe now it will be.

Besides. Want gold? Try the Buried Treasure, Do No Touch, and Hidden Chests in Nightfall. They reset every 30 days (tested and verified in other threads, and personally.)

Lots of Platinum, lots of gold items, lots of mods.

When people understand the game isn't about farming, that it was designed for the "every man" casual gamer, emphasizing skill over grind, maybe it will be realized that the ascetic value of the items are a far second to the actual game play.

One Edit: Skills, skills and elites cost gold and aside from the initial two Signets you are given from the quest, you need to buy the rest (and only prophecies has the "learn skills from trainers" part.)

Well, let's look at it like this.

Armor: Collectors = Free
Weapon: Drops = Free, Collectors = Free
Inscriptions (Bonus): Salvaged from drops = Free
Mods (Bonus): Salvaged from drops = Free
Superior Salvage Kit = 400 gold
ID Kit = 100g
Signet of Capture = 1000 gold
Skills = Scalable up to 1000 gold each.

You can get by the game with only having to pay for four things (2 kits, Signet, Skills... and really skills are the only thing you "need" to beat the game.)

Everything necessary is capable of being attained for free, aside from Skills. So spend all that merchant cash and drop cash (and Nightfall key less chests) on skills and you can have everything without farming at all.

IF you /want/ vanity items, you /will/ have to work for them. That's how it should be. (Note: Work does not equate to copying the newest farming build, and running it ad nauseam. It means putting in the LONG hours necessary.)

Yes, you fail to see. Probably the best way to "fix" this:

If you can kill mobs without having a group you should get the benefit of all the loot that would normally drop. In other words, every mob you kill should be dropping something according to their loot table, and it should all be yours.

How's that for radical?

If the loot system was actually scaled, a solo player in an area of 8-man groups would get 8 times more loot than if he were in a full group. That's truly scaled looting. Of course, the new "improved" scale is running in the opposite direction and works counterintuitively. So, if you rob a bank with 8 guys, you get 8 times the loot, and if you rob the bank by yourself, you get 1/8 the amount... O.o

But, this loot change was done intentionally as a means to fight online sales of in-game items. Like I said in a prior post: it's like restricting cotton farming in order to fight boll weevils...

i'm not sure guys if solo- and duo-farm was truly nerfed, not like i care (cos personally i hardly ever solofarm now) but i've noticed that the numbers of duo titan farmers in DoA were the same as usual last nite after HM was made active... they all were farming on normal tho, mb solo/duo farm was nerfed on hard?

whats weird tho - the gold/gem drop rate of HM is just the same as on normal, we tryed foundry on HM and it takes forewer, mobs r scattering in sec, unprotted eles die in 1 hit even with barrier and bond on them (500+ damage after just life barrier), but the drop rate is the same.... i cant get it

It seems like aNet thought quite a bit about themselves and forgot their players in the process.

Even with this "hard mode" update, they have not done enough to make PvE repeatable over and over. Guild Wars has been out for about 2 years, and there have not been dynamic changes to make players feel like they're playing something different each time, no matter the character class. So how did people adjust? They set different goals other than just getting masters in every mission. They worked towards collecting items, armors, and gold. If people don't have a source of income other than just PLAYING through the game, people will get bored mighty fast.

I'm sorry, but aNet hasn't created something so spectacularly interesting that I can do each mission 17 times in different modes to get 1/18th of a way to a Fissure set.

"You have been playing for 10,934 hours. Please get a life."

I don't think money should fall from trees, but I don't feel like progressing at the same rate economically as someone who has been playing for two weeks.

Yeah, I get that it sucks about bots and stuff, but someone else previously mentioned: if people want to buy their gold, there will always be someone to sell it. Maybe aNet should have jumped on the bandwagon and become an authorized merchant of gold instead of sniffling about their "losses."

I'm feeling particularly bitter at the moment. I hope that didn't show too much in my post =P

this nerf in farmings ridiculous, and does-it-matter, are u crazy?????
if you wanna look like a dumb ass in little collectors items, be my guest, a lot of others wanna make their characters look better than that. now this farm things all messed up, its almost impossible to get these things. anets been trying to nerf farming for a while. what was the point in that? all their doing is making things harder to get. at the moment, a tormetned shield is around 950k or so. now theres stupid drop rate changes, can someone tell me how you wanna get 950k? some people dont want to collect gems in groups. in groups you get this.
-rage quitters
-noobs
-disbands
-trouble getting IN a group

this update is ridiculous, the hardmode things ok but why nerf farming? im sure a lot of people want high end items and now anet just took away the fastest way to do it. unless prices go down dramatically, i dont think anyones gonna get anything soon now.

Did I miss the memo where it stated choice in armor skins affected or was a direct result of the player's level of intelligence?

And they are entitled to that. They simply must work for it. The best things in life aren't free. You have your free alternative, so there shouldn't be any screaming about stuff being too expensive.

Actually, it would be our fellow players who set the prices. Typically when ANet is in control of the price (see traders) it is lower than the original market demand.

You need a torment shield to beat the game or to in some way affect your game play? Does it have some sort of "safety blankie" type effect I'm not aware of?

Well... how did you get it before? It's the same, just slower.

Well then, it sounds like "some people" are going to have problems collecting the very expensive gear. *blinks* Sorry, sorry, I caught myself there... it was almost starting to sound realistic. Bad game!

See: Human (noun)

So... yeah, I'm trying to see your point here. "Fast way to gather huge sums of cash is now gone. Players are resolved to other means, typically slower and more challenging, to gather expensive items."

To me, that makes the item more worth it.

You can 'work' two hours for an item (as some claim to be able to reach 100k or so in that time span) or you can spend sixteen hours 'working' for that item. Which in turn creates a more "rewarding" feel in the owner?

To bring up an example. There is a standard "tradition" (at least in the several parts of the US I'm familiar with) that you spend roughly three months salary on an engagement ring (and those recently engaged, feel free to correct me. Hell, if one of my friends had her way, it would be a year's pay.) It's not "X" money, it's not a set price. It's whatever YOU make in three months time. It shows invested effort.

Yes, you could use your lottery earnings on a ring, or a sudden stock market rising (in your favor!)... or your most recent score from robbing a bank to pay for said expensive ring earlier (I'm trying to find real world examples that allow a person to make abnormal amounts of income quickly... not too many examples if you notice.) But then that takes away the "invested effort" part.

(And as a side note: I know many men and women would be happy to receive anything from their engaged partner, I'm not attempting to dissuade that, this is just an example speaking to a tradition.)

Will this mean players get less? Yes.

Will it mean players accumulate "rare" items more slowly? Yes.

Will it mean the "Gimme Generation" has to put a little more effort in? You betcha.

And there we have it. Retailers of these items are human, like their buyers. They will want to get their gold, just like you do. And when their income (buyers) is turned off, they will take measures to see the flow returned. That means lowering prices.

Supply and Demand. Guild Wars is not going to wreck a millennia-old truth, have patience.

They have 'nerfed' nothing.

They just made that no matter how many people is in the party, you'll get 1/[possible party members] from the monsters.

Why? To encourage using AI or making groups.

So if you want to go for a Green, you call your guildies , join, and kill the boss, instead of solo farming.

Since that's how it was meant to be, it's not a 'nerf', but a 'fix'.

/Agree with the previous posters who pointed out that the bot farmers are significantly less impacted than the average players with this nerf.
Athough...
If this was designed to increase gold prices on 3rd party sites (For a reason I couldn't give you) then this is a great change to the game.

yea like 8x slower....

and YES it does make people want to bot.
if you seroiusly want to spend like 8 hours a day farming manually go right ahead. but most people rather spend 1-3 hours or so and make decent amounts of money.

TORMETNED SHIELD is a nice shield which people want to look BETTER???
you dont need it to beat the game it just makes you LOOK better. now theres thats tupid little nerf to solo farm itll take 8x longer then it woulda took. and if you really want to spend *16 hours* to feel better about urself...im not sure everyone wants to. and if is it even possibel to get a few 100k a day in a short amount of time?? i havent seen a way and im sure almsot everyoen hasnt. taking the tormetned shield as an example, its worth alot. and since it takes a good amount of time to get it, it is rewarding enough. now that u have to farm like 8x longer, how is that more rewarding? you work enuf to get the dam shield and now you have to work even more? not everyoen wants to play for 16 hours when they used to be able to do it in less time. many people do like to piss you off in groups and thats why it IS better to solo farm if people dont want to deal with that.

as how i got money before? i personally farmed about 2k per run + mods and runes. now i get like 500 per run IN hardmode, w/o any decent drops. plz tell me wats the pleasure in doing that? what your saying is completely unreasonable. do people get rare items slowly? YES! but now its even SLOWER. like 8x slower. and which in turn is more rewarding? spending 5 hours more of your life to play a game? is there any joy in sitting here playing a game farming forever? some people have a LIFE and would ratehr do things the fastest way. tell me in thsi real life situation, you said that it would be more "rewarding" to spend more time getting something? hows this for example then. would you rather work for 24$/hour or 3$/hour. gosh i wonder whats more rewarding?

you're right, people do not need FoW armor or 15k armor. but do people want it? YES! and do they want to spend 24 hours getting it when they used to be able to only spend 3? YES! can thsi be changed back? YES! is that why me and others are argueing about this matter? YES!

spending more time to get something is rewarding at times, but when you coulda gotten it in a lot less time, i bet you woulda rather had it the way it was.

Agreed, that is just more of the "Gimme Generation." They want something, they want it yesterday, and they want it with the littlest amount of work possible.

Personally, no I wouldn't enjoy that, but then again, I look at "high end skins" as an ascetically pleasing item, not a necessity.

Actually, I bet most people would rather spend just the amount of time it takes to fill in the appropriate boxes in the trade panel, and nothing more. Just because they want in soon, doesn't mean they should have it soon.

So we're agreed, it in no way affects game play. Thus, it is not necessary, and thus not "needed." You aren't entitled to gaining it easily, only with work.

As I said, I personally wouldn't attempt to garner insanely over-priced items at all. I am just saying that with greater investment, comes a greater feeling of worth.

Depending upon how loosely you define "few", there have been examples in the past.

Rewarding enough for whom? Enough for the person that wants it "now!" or enough for the amount of status it has garnered?

(Useful) time spent tends to equal a greater feeling of accomplishment.

I know for a fact my first engineering project which we basically bought off Ebay and modified slightly (and then spent the rest of the funds on food and "product testing" which essentially dissolved into crushing cans) was a lot less rewarding (but quicker!) than the one that caused a group of five to spend 80 hours of group work and double that of individual time on.

And thusly not many people should have these highly coveted, expensive and, rare items.

That's a product of people being human. The thought of someone playing purposefully to hinder the efforts of his/her team boggles my mind, but it is a reality.

But Guild Wars is a CORPG, the keyword there is cooperative (i.e. groups.)

I couldn't tell you, I never enjoyed farming in any state of reference.

Which is a fact of the game. The problem is, up until now many have gotten used to (even to the point of expecting, or feeling entitled to) a certain number of rare drops. That completely goes against the idea of them being rare.

Arena Net changed it. Items are more rare. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

(As a side note, have you noticed how everyone loves to cry the "it took them two years to change this!?" I saw it with Soul Reaping, with this, with AoE, etc. I almost feel that ANet should preface their updates with "In this update, it took us two years to change..." and then list the changes, simply to silence the monotonous cries of those unwilling to accept change.)

Personally? Hell no, but then I would say that to even ONE hour of farming. You seem to be happy with 1-3, so its a case of "to each their own."

More to the point, there are a variety of people who are doing the typical "New update = Rage quit" methodology because they ONLY played the game to farm (yeah... I was surprised to see that too.) So to answer the last question of yours, to those people, yes, there is a joy of playing a game farming forever.

Well, not everyone can have their cake and eat it too. If you don't want to go through the motions, you aren't going to receive the benefits.

If the situation was that my "living expenses" were already taken care of (as everything "essential" in guild wars is free) and I had to chose between $3/hr (playing the game) or $24/hr (farming), I would choose playing the game. If all things are equal, and I am only working towards something astetic, I would choose to more fun one.

Just a point of humor, you actually said that players would want to spend 24 hours instead of 3.

Back on topic, many things CAN be changed back. Minion Cap, Rune of Absorption, etc. but they HAVE NOT. I completely support you in voicing your opinion and attempting change, but I don't see it happening.

"Wanting" something is not a sufficient enough reason to "have" something.

For some people this is true. For me, see my engineering example.

Yeah, and it's called "trading with high-end items" but that's TRADING, it's not farming. And it's easy when you have something to trade with, but how do you suppose to get stuff to start trading with, unless you farm? Gold doesnt drop from sky...

i do agree on you on alot of what you just said, but can you not see what im argueing about?

solo farming is dead. for alot of people thats what they do for gold. now that its gone, they have to spend more TIME to get what they want. and even with solo farming, the tormented shield still takes a while. now it takes alot more time. just because anet inspires cooperative play, does that mean you cant do anything by yourself? im sure you havent gotten any fancy items to improve your character look judging on how much you hate farming. i do not farm every single day. if i want something, i farm until i have enough, i buy the item, then i continue playing the game as usual. now they it is 10x harder to get gold, i would have to spend more time farming, and less time playing the game. that is my main problem here. before the nerf, i was halfway there. and now that ive famred this much, i still want to work to get it but now i have to find alternative ways that gets you a lot less and takes a lot more time. playing guild wars is supposed to be fun. farming is NOT fun and i would like to do it as quickly as possible to get what i want then play the game again. if you were half way done wiht something, would you want to finish it? a lot of people try to get things on their own. if you get an item on your own with no ones help, then would that not be more forfilling to you? now it seems anet is MAKING you be on a team. the whole game you are ON a team so why take out the only thing you can do by yourself? and if you want something yes you work for it....but now that this update happened you have to work 10x harder and get 10x less then what you've gotten originally. if you want soemthing why not go for it??? its a game your supposed to want things.

Like I said before, I understand your point.

I /do/ have fancy items, as you say, I just haven't put extra effort (farming) into obtaining them. If a green drops, awesome! If I get a cool gold, super! But I'm not going to run at a particular character 30 times until I get what I want.

I /do/ understand other persons needs to have some as soon as possible. While I, and others, use the "gimme generation" reference a lot, it is human nature just the same.

Perhaps I've just gotten use to this scenario (either a particular item's greater expense, or more difficulty in obtaining enough cash to get said item... bills are great for that!) and that's why I'm not too quick to get upset. It is a fact of life after all.

The best advice I can offer, is stay dedicated and you WILL get your shield one day. And you will enjoy it.

Update - Friday April 20, 2007

Loot Changes

Adjusted the following items so that they are now exempt from loot scaling:

* Skill Tomes
* Scrolls
* Dye
* Rare materials, such as Ectoplasm
* Gemstones from the Domain of Anguish
* All other rare (gold) items
* All unique (green) items
* Special event items

Miscellaneous

* Henchmen that were previously sub-level 20 before entering Hard Mode now have appropriate armor and weapon damage for their level.
* Added the Warrior's 15k Knight's Armor set to the crafter in Marhan's Grotto.
* Updated the Legendary Cartographer Title Track to display as Legendary Cartographer.
=================================================


Un-nerfed, all's right with the world!

Now, where's that Auction House?