[Dev Update] Farming and Loot Scaling

Thank you. I think the changes (with the last modification) are absolutely brilliant. I'd make a few tweaks and suggest a weapons-mod trader:

* slightly increase the drop rate of gold so that buying skills, armour from crafters, and weapons from crafters is a bit more affordable

* slightly increase the threshold for something to be "purple"; most of the purple drops I get arn't worth salvaging and hence are effectively gold at the merchant

* change rune and dye drop coloring to be based on the current market price; if it's worth more then $250, make it purple, if it is worth 1k or more, make it gold

* add a trader for weapon modifiers, use the above price-based scheme for weapons (if the salvage value of a weapon is greater than $250, it is purple; if the salvage value of it is greater than 1k, it is gold).

But the farming change is seriously welcome. Before this nerf, average, high-profit margin "weekend" players (we buy extensions, but don't play much), are at a severe disadvantage getting the equipment we need for our heros. Buying golds/greens costs $$, buying skill signets costs $$, buying runes (esp vigor runes) costs $$.

I look forward to things getting a bit less expensive for us casual players. Also, thanks for _not_ nerfing green farming -- I actually dot this on occassion. Frankly, when I am farming I find selling all the loot to be, well, tedious. So, thanks for nerfing it. I'm just after golds/greens.

Cheers

Fair enough, discuss that and lets try to get others on the same page.

Why does 15k armor costs 15k, and not 1.5k? What kind of "average joe" is amassing 100+ plat for armor anyway?

I'd say I would like skills to be 500g and have been for a while, though I'm not sure how well these skill tomes will pan out yet. Upping the drop rates on those could be another solution.

Maybe you don't know, but me and Anet are betting that more rares = chaper rares = these guys will be making less money after everyone and their pet is flooded with them. The one potential problem is that chests may become near worthless if average rare value drops below lockpicks. (Or only worthwhile for those with high treasure hunter)

Other than that, I imagine it would probably be extra work for them to code normal monsters to drop two or more items in parties, as opposed to their current one max. AFAIK hard mode simply increases the quality of dropped weapons, not the frequency of any kind of drop. I suppose they could just make the gold piles bigger, but they are probably trying to get away from items being worth over 100k.

Yeah I doubt anyone is still listening, but I'll make a suggestion anyway.

How about adding salvageable armor and collectible drops back into the exempt list. I think that would take some pressure off the casual farmers who used to farm to get enough to buy basics but still wouldn't add much cash into the system.

I might still farm vermin on occasion if I knew I would still get the vermin hides to salvage for scale etc. I think material prices and rune prices are going to rise under this system which will ultimately hurt all the casual players.

As it is a fun part of the game is gone for me now. Poof. I know I could go farm gems or ectos but I have no use for those things so I probably won't.

I did enjoy trying to farm critters in areas as my toons reached new places. Partly for the challenge but also for the drops. I won't bother doing that anymore under the change so yes one aspect of the game that was challenging and fun and gave me a reason to try new builds and acquire new skills is gone.

edit: I'm also concerned with the 'lack of elegance' of recent changes. ie changes that don't make any logical sense in the game. Soul reaping only working every 5 seconds was the first and now monsters deciding what to drop based on the size of the party. I'm all for suspending disbelief and all for the sake of entertainment but it's really starting to get ridiculous and impossible.

I am not a solo farmer.
I never have been.
I simply like to play the game with just myself, or a small group of friends.
That is why I'm so upset about the issue.

Solo farmers do something percieved as "wrong", and everyone else must suffer the consequences.
Sorry folks, I'm just not a fan of collective punishment.

I don't intentionally try to scam anyone, as I rarely trade with players and instead just sell to the merchant.
That's why I'm hit harder than some others for the fact that all the "common" loot and gold drops are what have been affected the most.
I do not farm for greens, or ectos, or shards, or the few other things on their exempt list.

If they really wanted to somehow help poorer players get on even grounds with the rich, they ought to get rid of the games miserable excuse for an economy once and for all.

Add trader NPCs for every type of item and give every item a fixed price.
Stop having merchants buy at 1/100th the value of an item from players.
Add more gold drops to ensure everyone has enough money to get anything at all they need or want.

Granted it would wreak havoc with players at first, but think of it this way:
If anyone can afford anything, there would be no need to farm in the first place.
Players who "play the economy" for personal gain wouldn't need to, since they would already be maxed out on gold as well.
And botting for cash to sell to players would be useless as everyone would be considered "filthy stinking rich" and wouldn't need to buy anyway.

Personally, destroying the economy in that way would make me far happier than the current "grind wars" nonsense they've got now.
And it certainly isn't any worse of a fix, judging by so many complaints here.

One of GWs main attractions initially was that it was relatively grind-free.
At first, it was relatively easy to obtain even rare items for cheap.
Maybe it's simply a case of nostalgia, or maybe there's some truth to it, but it seemed like there were far less scammers and far friendlier players pretty much everywhere.
I'd never heard the term "WTS 100k+ectos" until after I'd been playing a fairly long time.
Whether it was player farmers or bots that slowly caused prices to head up, up, and away is really moot as far as I'm concerned.
If NPC traders sold everything at fixed prices, no one would be "scammed" for anything, since they wouldn't need to buy from other players.
And no one would be too poor to afford 100k+ectos items because, at fixed prices, they wouldn't ever cost 100k+ectos.

For the players that want to play the "trading game" stock market: go to Wall street.
Most people play games to escape the real world, not to emulate its economic inequalities.

Edit: For those who think a neverending supply of money would somehow devalue all the "l33t" gear, why not make some items attainable by some of the harder missions?
Instead of every 15k armor just being sold at the merchant in town, make all the 15k armorers someplace you have to really work to get to, like the FOW crafter or the Bone palace.
You could have 15k luxon and kruzik armorers at the end of the elite missions.

Leave greens on a "drops only" basis, but have weaponsmiths that will sell unique modded weapons (something the equivelent of the more sought after golds) somewhere hidden in far off corners of places like the ring of fire, the jade sea, echovald forest, the desolation, and the realm of torment.
That way, players could still have a guaranteed return for all their effort, but they'd have to work much harder at it, rather than just walking up to the guy behind the xunlai agent in town.

And for the love of god, add skillquests back in.
They would definately help new players or new chars.
If you don't already have skills for their profession unlocked on your account, not even skill tomes will help.

Apologies for the long-winded post.

i DO like this dev update.......the only thing that totally freaked me out was to implement a new 15k armor.the first thing i thought (before i tried to farm gold for that armor) was: "oh nice...one 15k more for my collection";well,so i changed to my ele to farm a well-known spider in nf and got some (i.e. 2) drops and that was already in HM, so i repeated that run in NM and got three drops.what i want to say is that it's a really good idea to try to force players to sell their loot to other players;the only problem is you can't sell stuff if there is no actual loot not to speak about that trade-channel-spamming in towns/outposts.
otherwise it's a nice dev update

I just don't see these changes as "punishment". ArenaNet is trying to fix an economy which is extremely unfavorable to casual users. Last month I even considered *buying* gold so that I could outfit my heros. Casual players don't necessary have to "have" expensive armour, but they should be able to outfit their heros with minor runes, a max weapon, and such things like this. Currently this is quite difficult since the value of gold is inflated - due to farming.

The first update was poor, but the change since then, to not scale drops of greens, ectos, etc. helps accomplish this. By not flooding the economy with "worthless" drops that are essentially gold and with lots of gold, it's going to increase the value of gold's buying power. That means, the price of greens (which will still be plentiful due to the drops) and other elite goods should fall and become more available to the casual player who only has a few plat.

I see it as good solid economics. It makes sense.

Firstly I'd like to apologize to Gaile, as she is only doing her job and we should probably be more angry at the Devs themselves, if no one else.

Which brings my next step into the spotlight, to destroy this controversy once and for all:

I'm going to create an extensive farming expediation and I will show what I have gained via screenshot during the run and after it, leaving proof, proof, and more proof to find the real truth to this overwhelming nosense.

Stay tuned!

Agreed, except I'm not bothered one way or the other about skill tomes as I doubt I'll be seeing them (they are in hard mode, right?)

Sure, that's your opinion (and ANet's I guess). You could well be right but any economy, even virtual ones are really hard to predict. But again, the way they've chosen to fix it punishes one group of people (the middle class, I suppose, if you wanted to get political about it).

We don't know, I can't see why it would be harder than reducing the drop rate for solo farmers. But without seeing the code there is no point in speculating either way.

As I've said before, the solution ANet have chosen seems designed to annoy one segment of their customer base. If the problems is that gold (and other rare items) are "too expensive" then I think there are much better solutions to the one they've chosen.

This makes me wonder if the problem they are trying to solve, is not that they want more people to be able to afford rare items, but that they want less people to be able to afford them. But again, I really don't know.

OK, but don't do it in hard mode, as that is not what I (and I think most of the other people) are complaining about.

Now I know this idea would through many players into a tizzy:

Why not cap the amount of gold the game can generate? Currently, the monetary system is akin to the a nation's treasury continually printing new bills. As more bills flood the economy, the value of the bills decrease. Think about the depressions various nations have had where a wheel barrow full of cash can't even buy a loaf of bread. The Guild Wars economy along with other MMo's is similar because gold is in excess and constantly minted. It also does not have any backing value.

Now such a system would have a hoarding danger. However, I am sure code could be developed that would keep gold destruction and hording in check.

Implementing such a cap on gold amount would be difficult at first. All the gold hoarders could be charged a tax to keep the gold falling as the economy stabilizes.

Granted, the economy would resemble a socialist system until the lurches are finished if the cap is a fairly low number.


As a farmer, I have to admit I like the drop system change. I play the game for fun and prefer to play in teams with other people. It would be nice if there was a drop bonus of some type for teaming with players instead of npcs.

Re-posted since it is a great summary.

I really don't see how this update is just a "minor adjustment", it not just affects the hardcore solo-farmers, but those casual gamers as well. The Reason us single minded individuals only care about ourselves is, well, Solo-farming was pretty much the only way to make a decent amount of money, and we are sorry that we wanted to do that farming in order to aqquire those armors that gave you a sort of status symbol (or because you needed a change).

I Agree that the bots have to go. But i too also see this as a way to not just punish the bots, but everyone as well. and besides, when somebody does figure out a build to easily kill monsters in one hard mode zone, and the bots start doing that, Anet will simply apply the same plan they do to all overfarmed zones, they add skills to those group of monsters or one particular monster that can easily counter your build.

If they do want to fix the economy, don't make it more frustrating for the people that are pretty much done with the campaigns and wish to simply make money so they can enjoy the other things, like armor or weapons for instance.

I admit, i farmed many areas, the last time i farmed was in Pongmey Valley for several days just to make 20k a day and at least 4 golds, and i slowly, but surely, made good money. then they put Dragon Moss just to make the build i used innefective. i went into both the European server and American server in Maatu keep before this update, and there were mostly bots populating these areas (more in the European server), which leads me to beleive they only want these updates to affect bots.

For you and all other people claiming to get more drops from solo farming than before, your location and build please, also post some pictures of the farm run, with in the textbox your drops. Don't go around posting stuff without having any proof at all (except dropping some items in a PvP area and saying you got it in 5 mins.)


I've tried all my old farm builds, from Trolls to Jade Brotherhood, and from Vermins to Snake Dance. Only Snake Dance got me more than 500 gold, but that's because the crazy amount of monsters I kill there by myself. Snake Dance netted me about 10K, which used to be over a 100K before Nightfall came out.

You have my word that I found those items in 1 farm trip. I dropped my inventory not as a trick, but in this area to prevent people from finding my original farming location. Dont believe me? You don't have 2.

Also, if I was disconnected, I could have reconnected and picked up the items. It seems obvious you don't have a clue what you are talking about, even your insults don't make any sense.

As mentioned before, i changed areas and dropped loot to prevent people from seeing where i farm.

And is there any reason to hide where you're farming? Don't go showing off with something and throw with proof if you can't show it.

My guess is that you just did the Bergen-->ToA clearing.


The 5 minutes part is b/s, though. There were like 25 items there? And since you only get 1/8 of what you deserve, that means you killed (25*8) 200 monsters in 5 minutes? Well even more, cause the stacked bones were obtained from lots more Skeletons.

Good call on not revealing your choice of farming location (although it kinda narrows it down because of the Orr armor drops) because if you did, bots would just flood the area and then anet will eventually screw up that zone, though ruining the botting activities, but also ruining your chance of getting anything worth of value there.

I kinda like the idea of limiting the amount of gold in the world, instead of having the monsters having a licence to print money. If that were implemented, there could be some sort of upkeep necessary to store over, say, 90 plat., i.e. an inverse interest on people who have crazy amounts of gold. Finding a balance which would allow us casual players to afford things w/o having to farm/grind like crazy would be quite difficult, and beyond my ability to help with. Maybe put in some interest for people who don't have much gold in the bank.

Possible tactics for economic control could come from other MMO's, like EVE online, which has a completely player-driven econ. (as I understand at least). Though, it also has a trade system, so it wouldn't be an apples-to-apples comparison.

Well, I still think this is bullcrap, even with the things like greens and rare materials that have now been exempt. Whenever I needed to buy a skill, I could do a quick mino solo run at Elona Reach. There were no rare materials, no greens. Every once in a while you'd get a gold, but that wasn't the reason it was done. It was a quick way to fill up on your run of the mill white items, sell them to the merchant, and score a quick 1k.

Under the system we have now, the math just isn't right. If you work with a full party you get 1/8th of the loot. However, if you can do 8 times the work, you don't get any more? 8/8 = 1. 8/1 = 1. Having a system where both equations are true is idiotic.

Perhaps you might like the new system if you subscribe to the idea "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." I for one would be more willing to side with the likes of Adam Smith than Lenin.

* I killed around 50 monsters, mostly undead yes.

* You draw a wrong conclusion about where i farm.

* And lastly, I hide where I farm to prevent ArenaNet to 'rebalance' things. They prob won't, but i hate to take chances on this 1.

I counted the drops and they were 32. This excludes multiple drops of bones and dust. With that, it would become about 35.

If you kill about 50 monsters and get 35 drops, you'd get 70% of the drops. Which is b/s.

Also, I don't know any area where 50 Undead are bunched up near a portal, with a boss. Somehow you manage to lure 50 monsters through the area and kill them within 5 minutes? And you also get 70% of the drops? Yeah right...

F*ck it. Outside bergen hot springs, kill all the undead till u reach the swirl to cursed lands. the boss i was referring 2 is aziz rottenscalp. He dropped the golden air staff and the UW scroll.
3 of the skeleton rangers dopped between 30 and 35 bones each.

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

Of most groups of 5 undead rangers, 4 would drop something and 1 would drop nothing. Myabe plain luck, that's how it went. if you do not believe me now and throw mathematical nonsense at me I will be sick.

-EDIT- In case you didnt know, I farm in hard mode. gold drops increase there etc etc.

My point still stands and is correct and is absolutely the crux of the issue.

The people that are upset are the kind of people that like to be rewarded for what they do. Even if it is just a game and it is supposed to be for fun and fun is what people are having even if they do farm for hours, they still like to be rewarded it.

Why do you think Anet added end game items? Adding items that you can get at if you just get through the game is an incentive to play through the storyline.
Quests have rewards so people will be rewarded with their time. Even if it is minimal reward, the deed does not go overlooked and you get a little bit of loot, xp and possibly an item of some kind (or in prophecies, skill unlocks). If quests didn't have rewards, a lot fewer people would be doing the quests.
Why do you think titles are so popular? A title is a reward saying, "Hey, look, I've done this and now I can show people!"

It's human nature. People like to be rewarded, in any way possible. Whether that be money, items, or even just recognition for their time spent.

Well said. I agree 100%.

Exactly. And every one of those things are different forms of fun, and all those things are provided by and endorsed by Anet. Why should any one of those things make more in-game cash than the others? That's exactly what is/was wrong with farming. Farming for some is just as fun as questing is for others, it's just that now they pay off about the same, so both can have their fun, and make the same/similar amount of cash doing it.

Just up the drop percentage for 8 man parties and put the old drops back like they were. Then everyone makes more money and the economy balances out and everyone has more fun. Just like in the real world more people would rather be rich then to make all the people that are rich now poor. Please Gaile and Anet give us back the game we all love, It is still not to late.!.!. Bots will still bot no matter what so just let everyone get as wealthy as they want. Meaning, if someone is willing to play your formally wonderful game for hours and hours to make millions let them, they are your biggest ,most dedicated performers anyway.

See, I'd personally be fine with that, too. As long as people are not penalized for grouping, or *gasp* rewarded for grouping over soloing. If that means to up droprate for both soloers and full parties, so be it.

The only reason I could see for them to not do this is perhaps some vision of the economy around fixed priced items, like 15k armor, ID kits, etc. There may be some formula Anet works with that determines the right amount of cash flow for these items, while the player-driven economy can adjust itself accordingly.

I swear, some people just don't get it.

When questing in full groups of 8, one of the things besides xp and drops is camraderie, chatting and interaction.

When farming solo, you don't get that. So the commensurate reward was more drops, if you want to look beyond the simple fact of more work equaling more reward.

Different activities SHOULDN'T give the same material rewards. Otherwise you'd be getting drops from killing players in AB. What's that, you get faction which can be traded in for materials?

Well look at that, a reward from a different playstyle that is more than what you'd get playing normally in a group.

Why the focus fire on farming is beyond me, simply because ANet and Gaile have stated time and again they're not against it. What's even more baffling, is that despite posts in this and other threads that show the logic and rationale beyond a non-socialized economy, players continue to defend ANet and Gaile's remarks because they're emotional.

In Gaile's last post in this thread I was surprised, it sounded contrived in a way to make people defend ANet's ideas not due to the logic behind it (there isn't any) but because evil me and evil Kane hurt poor Gaile's feelings. That's PR spin at its best, fact deflection +1!

There STILL has been no answer in regards to some of they very fine ideas presented in this thread, from auction/trade windows to stabilizing armor pricing. Its called putting up a smokescreen, and what I find truly amsuing is that the people who don't farm really don't understand that farmers only affected them in a positive way by lowering prices, its BOTTERS flooding the economy with gold and making everything worse.

Great, punish the positive, reinforce the negative. My only real wish is that the people on this forum would think critically about the issue and make an informed decision, rather than just blindly supporting yet another supposed "bot nerf" but which only hurts the farmers, the economy, and to a large extent the entire playerbase.

I agree that if things stay this way the overall community will suffer. A new person to the game will commit suicide trying to buy armor and skills after the tuitorial places. I have seen several posts from new players in all these popular forums: "Hi I am new to Guild Wars how do i make some cash or What is the secret to get some dough here". One sad word is all i can tell them Grind and earn it.

I think they're all great updates but there seems to be a bug or something that really screws up how your get loot in a group. May just be luck, i don't know, but the drops are really pathetic. I think they should make it so that Tomes drop in all hard mode areas, and the same goes with gold/purple items and such in Hard Mode, because I haven't seen them at all yet. I'm not bashing, I just think there is some problems with Hard Mode drops as opposed to normal ones.

Now I totally agree... just get rid of loot Scaling once and for all... please... It just isn't working out, even in groups. I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of it. That's been done, just get it over with, please...

Maybe it's you who aren't getting it. If you don't like farming, don't do it. It really is that simple. Anet upped the rewards in just about every other playstyle preferred by players so that no one has to farm for anything, period. So now you farm only if you want to, rather than feel forced to fall back on it to make some quick cash. Like you said, besides xp and drops, you also have camraderie, chatting and interaction (although all three mean about the same thing). It's simply more fun, why would you not want to make money that way above farming?

Wait a minute I tried jst doing Vanquisher and I got nothing.. I better go keep trying to see where I can make my money, because I'm just too mentally exhausted to decide which side is right or which side is wrong.

Hi, that's called an opinion. What's fun to you is not fun to everybody.

Its simply NOT more fun to sit in an outpost spamming LFG for a PUG, getting into one finally, getting no loot, and then wiping because people ragequit.

Its simply fun for me to shadowstep into a group of 40 or 50 monsters, then PWNZOR them with whatever skillset I have, and grab my drops.

My method of play is more fun for me than yours. Why is mine any less valid? And why should my way of play be wrecked, just because ANet refuses to address the real issue of botting?

Heck its their game, they can do what they wish, but at this point I'm probably not going to buy EN or 2, and only continue to play to help out my guildmates when they need it. The game has lost a fun component, and what boggles me is the stated balance reasons are logically flawed and only serve to hurt EVERYONE!

Sounds like you just had some bad luck. I'm pretty sure tomes, golds and purples drop in all hard mode areas (at least I got a few of each, even while in a full party). Keep trying, and I'm sure your drops will improve

If solo farming is more fun for you, there is nothing to stop you from continuing to solo farm. Just don't expect to get 8x the rewards compared to people who prefer to play another way.

I hope you don't actually believe that. Solo farmers got 8x the drops because they killed 8x the monsters. Don't try to claim that Anet weighed "camaraderie and interaction" as being equivalent to 7x a normal player's drops, and therefore decided to reward solo farmers based on that. It was a simple equation, not some elaborate social commentary.

What do you expect them to do? If they promise an auction house now, and later find that it's technically infeasible, you people will be at their throats again when it doesn't pan out. These kind of game-altering changes can't be implemented overnight, and any developer with half a brain knows that it's suicide to announce hugely anticipated features while they're still completely speculation.

Seriously, it's been three days. Let the dust settle a bit.

So play what is fun for you, and accept the reward that comes with it. The problem is that you want to have fun and make more money than everyone else, which is unfair to the rest of the community.

EDIT:
Wait, so first you said that solo farmers deserve compensation for not having the fun of group play, now you're saying that group play isn't fun. Sounds like you're grasping at straws a bit.

It's not. It's equally valid, and therefore deserves (relatively) equal rewards.

lol I knew it, cause I used to do that run as well in the now called normal mode. ^^

I can't see how you can do all that within 5 minutes, though.

Don't get sick please, though

[QUOTE]commensurate reward for not having to deal with the jerks?

as for extra work and extra risk the *invincmonk*wasnt called that because of the risk of dying and most people have said that they work faster and easier solo

to quote you yourself

that shows how hard you are working ......not

bandini

I do play what's fun for me.

Do not take my post out of context. I was not suggesting that I can't do what I find fun now, it was simply in response to arcanemacabre suggesting that hard mode is more fun than solo farming so why should anybody complain.

That's simply not true. What is fun for him is not fun for everybody, that's the point.

As for having fun and making more money, I already made my point on this subject. I'll not address it again.