Farming bug to 'stop' inflation? Pretty big oopsee!

Yes, the rampant Ecto inflation (which, may I say, was brought about by the 'drop scaling' screwup in the first place) has been contained, but the decision not to include rune-bearing items in the normal drop rate 'box' has caused inflation that affects a far greater number of Anet's paying customers than Ecto prices ever will: runes and insignia.

I could go through the whole list, but that would be tiresome so I'll pick one example. Radiant insignia were generally 400 - 650g (at the trader) before the drop rate screwup. Now (well, last night, I haven't checked since then) they are 1.8k. EACH. That's more than you would pay for a Prophecies or Factions armour with +energy inherent.

Anet need to do something about this - either by adding runes to the list of items excluded from the droprate screwup, or by making minor runes and insignia a 'fixed price' purchase and removing them from drops altogether. I'm just glad my two Nightfall characters (even if not their heroes) already have their Radiants from before the screwup.

Insignias, especially radiant ones drop plenty from almost every mob. Doesn't matter what you farm in Elona, by the end of your run you'll have some more radiant runes to spare (they come in blue, purple and gold armor salvages, so what?) And minor runes becoming too expensive, are you kidding me? I just checked them and they were still at 100 gold with the few exceptions that have been higher before the loot update allready.

The reason the radiant runes spike currently is due to hardmode. Bad players are thinking they would suddenly turn better if only they had a larger energypool which quite frankly is not the truth.

I have bought 3 armor sets in the last few weeks. One of those armor sets I got before Hardmode was out and I paid 1.5k for the radiant insigna. A few days ago i had to pay 1.8k each. That does not seem like a big rise to me.

Also have to realize there are many players who never maxed out their heroes and for Hardmode it is better if you do.

I know that the 'must have Radiants' rush for hard mode will be partly responsible for the price increase, but for them to triple I think drop rates being 1/8 of what they used to be for solo farmers has to take some of the blame too.

Yes, stopping bots is something we would all agree with. Making items obtainable for people in parties rather than just solo farmers is something most of us would agree with (even if we disagree with the means used here). But the solo-farm drop nerf has, through reduced supplies, and massively increased prices, of runes, harmed the very players it was aimed at helping. This nerf was supposed to make it easier (through REDUCED prices due to lack of gold) for non-solo farmers to obtain items. Unfortunately Anet neglected to inform their own Rune Trader system.

Radiant? Shouldnt people use Survivor?

These folks are concerned with PVE, where all you have to use runes for is having more energy to arcane echo meteor shower.

Yeh, they don't realize that's what Energy Storage is for. Elementalists don't need more energy, they need as much health as they can get, especially for hard mode.

I thought Radiant was used on all classes that aren't Eles...?


Anyway, this is a pretty big deal, IMO. The prices will continue to rise as long as they aren't dropping as often for soloers. This definately should be brought to the Dev's attention.

I'm glad the runes are looking a bit more reasonably priced now.

The price is high cause more people are buying them then they are selling them.

If anything, blame the people who keep the radiants for themselves and don't merch them.

Not true. Radiants were already over 1k weeks ago. There's some increase, yes, but you shouldn't exaggerate.

Who really cares, rune prices should be expensive so people actually expensive so people sell them to the trader and don't horde them.

1.8k isn't that expensive anyways, so deal with it. Runes should not be dirt cheap so that you can buy 10 billion of every rune.

Radiant has been at least 1.5k well before the drop change, and golds AKA superiors are exempt anyway and drop more in HM, so I don't think you have a point.

Right, nothing like screwing the casual players again who don't want to play Hard Mode. GG

Insignias being variable cost market items STILL is about as dumb a decision as I can think of. Especially considering that Prophecies and Factions characters have access to the same insignias on their armors, in general for MUCH cheaper.

Bloodstained Boots anyone? Yeah.

So many logical changes that need to be made taking backseat to irrational, ham fisted "visionary" changes that hurt the playerbase. Good Job ANet.

Befome whining, look at price of superior vigor.

500g more for radiant is bad, but 10k less for vigor isn't even worth mentioning?

Correct. I'm talking about your average, non-FoW farming player (which Anet claimed this update was supposed to help), who does not care whether a Rune of Superior Vigor is 22k or 32k, because they can't afford either. Such people make up most of the Guild Wars player base.

My point is that one of Guild Wars' great successes (especially in attracting and retaining casual players who don't fancy the grind of WoW) is that stat-perfect armour has always been relatively cheap to obtain (with more expensive prestige armour for those who want it), and the recent Anet-induced insignia price spikes have destroyed that for no valid reason that I can see.

Er... superior runes drop more often in hard mode so players being unable to get basic insignias doesn't matter. I don't follow your argument, please explain.

death magic runes have tumbled in price.while minion mastery insig has gone up alot

prices for a number of runes seem odd too :/

With a narrow-minded opinion like that, I suggest you never step foot off of the Battle Isles.

shhh... i don't want to start paying more. Survivor insig is nice and cheap.

Radiant is dumb, you'll get more milage out of the various +armour ones in hard mode.

I was going to make a joke about how the masses Arcane Echo Spiteful Spirit as well, but, you know, Necros are bad now or something.

But, yeah, I still can't come up with a reason for the huge demand on energy armor beyond 'people are bad'. It isn't like '55 Monks need Radiants' can reasonably cover the demand gap, right? Sure, there's this idea out there that a tank grabs all the aggro, and you're never going to be attacked, so you take Radiants and double supers to do more damage or heal better or whatever from safety.

Except none of that matters at all, because when aggro is perfectly controlled, everything is balled up, and all the damage is being focused into one heavily armored and protted target, it is *trivial* to keep everyone alive and drop the mob. Even in Domain of Anguish, as long as you have a decently built tank and backline, you're not going to die as long as that part works. Similarly you're not going to have any problems killing even a huge mob balled up on a tank.

No, where virtually every team dies is when that *doesn't* work, when aggro breaks, a Dervish gets into the backline, and starts 2-shotting all the shitty casters without a lick of defense.

I think there's a mentality left over from other MMOs, where either you execute an encounter perfectly the first time, or you wipe and try again. Hence, flypaper casters, warrior tanks, and rebirth everywhere to recover. In fairness to that idea, it's probably appropriate for players who have near-zero on the spot decision making abilities because they won't adjust to recover regardless. But still, I think it's sad that people are building themselves to fail spectacularly whenever anything goes wrong.

Not to say that Radiants don't have their place...but they aren't anywhere near as valuable as +health, or for PvE particularly, +armor most of the time. Certainly not nearly valuable enough to explain all the griping about them being expensive.

Peace,
-CxE

What about Superior healing? That one spiked insanely after NF and introduction of heroes. Would considering that rune useless be narrow-minded as well?

Radiant insignae are useless and expensive.
Sundering mods are useless and very expensive.

Just sell them when you happen to drop one, and buy something good.