Changing my tune about loot scale - a little

I guess I owe Anet a thank you for loot scaling

When it first came out, I was about ready to quit. Farming never tempted me - it sounded boring. I had been making most of my extra cash by running with 3 heroes instead of a full H&H party of 8. Doing quests, missions and an occasional run through Pongmai that way earned me enough to buy what I wanted within reason. When loot scaling was introduce, however, my income dried up to almost nothing - a full run of Pongmai Valley in hard mode after the update netted me a total of 800g in drops. I was salvaging runes and materials from the armors of the toons I didn't use much and that still wasn't paying the bill for elite skill caps.

then came the suicide vamp event in Urgoz Warren - wow - in just a couple of days I saved enough for all the elites in the game and then some.

They nerfed that but the Urgoz trapping build provided a way to keep on making money there - even if it was much slower (couple of very nice drops helped).

That got me hooked on farming.

Just tried the A/E gloom farm build on hard mode and it worked! - no golds yet but the future is bright.

Now I'm just itching to try IDS farming

So far I have made enough to buy a celestial +5 energy axe, juggernaut, harpy, mandragor imp, dyes etc - extras I thought I would never have - plus found some decent weapons to give away to new players.

Now I'm addicted to farming.

By the time GWEN comes out I should have another 50k socked away for skill caps and 100k in case I like any of the new armor.

If it hadn't been for that loot scaling I never would have experienced the joys or profit of farming.

So, thanks for the loot scaling, ANet. It's got me farming with a passion. And you can count on me to pump every bit of new gold into the market I can get my hands on!

hunh someone not complaining about loot scaling. *calls satan to ask about the weather*

same here i never farmed until the loot scaling came out. I would run with a 4-5 man party and make enough money etc. Now i am forced to 55 and don't think that is what was supposed to happen. Although i do enjoy farming it is seriously boring.....

and with almost nothing being rare anymore....there isn't much point in having alot of cash anyways.

either way....i am no longer mad about the nerf either....but i am not necessarily happy about it.

there was a nerf?

meaning: loot scaling isn't a nerf as far as I can tell, just a dynamic change (and no I do not have a PhD in politically correct speech). I get less cash now, but almost everything costs so much less now, AND tomes more than make up for any skill costs now...

LOL

I only learnt to UW solo a week before loot scaling came out and i do find it unfair that people could make a lot of cash before but new players have it rather hard as most of the titles are gold based
Treasure Hunter - Buy Lockpicks/keys
Lucky - Lockpicks or festival tickets
Wisdom - to max this you need to open alot of chests - so keys
Skill Hunter - 290k i think
Sweet Tooth - Buying Sweets
Drunkard - Buying Alcohol

I do think it's unfair on newer players that ways the older players made money are gone for us

One thing i didn't understand about the scale is the drop in ecto price - if this nerfed solo UW why did the price drop? surly there must be less ectos coming out of UW and therefore the price should increase

The price dropped because nobody has any money to spend on them....supply is same as always and demand went down since nobody has any money so the sellers had to lower prices to get gold

Its a bit sad to see that despite the positive message for the thread the overall picture is painted: A casual players had to switch over to farming to keep the same income.

The "drop 2 henchmen to get a bit more" strategy that was truly the way a casual player made money stopped working.

Im not griping though, I farmed like crazy before and farm even more now for those easy to get golds. Just sad to see a thread like this.

@ OP: if you saw how much stuff dropped before the loot scaling, you might be a little pissed off.

Its a good thing I did my fair share of farming before. I dont farm as much because of loot scaling, so I guess I can thank A-Net for that. Now I've just been working on vanquishing areas.

I'm not sure how "causual" a player is who can run with 4 instead of 8 players.

I think I'm closer to the definition of a causal player, and I'm a big fan of loot-scaling. I have always played with full parties of 8. I didn't start playing until a year ago - just got my first set of mini-pets which are not worth nearly so much now as they where then. I tried farming a couple of times in the past, but I always stopped after the 3rd run or so when everything turned white. Since I never had money problems, I never saw the point of collecting scads of white raven staffs and mountain troll tusks. I would rather hunt for golds and greens. Previously, the best way I found to do this was to play the game normally.

Then along came loot scaling. I am now seriously addicted to farming. I found a very nice Mo/D 55 build out of the farming section which I've tried in a lot of different places. I get lockpicks, greens, gold items with great mods, and I make enough money to open every chest I find.

When loot scaling came along, I had around 500k in the bank. Now I'm just a few Plat shy of 1,000k. I've got more tomes than I know what to do with and I've filled up all my expanded storage with quality golds. I like to watch Koss run around with a Req 9 20/20 +30 dead sword.

On top of all of that, the money I do have can buy way more than it ever could before.

I pray they never go back to the old system.

The loot scaling has completely destroyed my 55 Necro used to get a bit of money per day from her now I can hardly get anything same for a new character I started she should have at least over 1K now but has bearly made it past 500g thanks to this loot scaling.

As for getting elite weapons forget it their been farmed to death so the chances of seeing one of those at all is slim to nothing.

As far as I'm conserned Anet has killed this game for me.

I wish I had seen the anti-farm stuff coming. I farmed just enough for armor and stuff like that with a little extra money on the side. The rest of my time I just screwed around on my different characters, getting them through the campaigns. I made enough money to buy 15k kurzick in one weekend farming trolls (that was back when the amber was still 900g/per). I knew that was not the best place to farm for money but it was fun for a begininer farmer that thought that money would be able to come by and just wanted to get the cool looking armor. Frankly I have changed little, just let me farm for a weekend for the cool armors (there are a lot across all the characters) and not have to dedicate a week of farming to do the same thing.

EDIT
Im sorry, you are not casual if you had 500k in the band before you got serious about farming.

the loot scaling was the biggest farm-nerf fiasco ever

they wanted you to make money on selling rare weapons in a trade system that dont work.
But the biggest problem is that almost no weapons are rare anymore.

I've always run in parties of eight, and after the scaling I've noticed my income climbing steadily. More in the party = more for all.

Hmmmm- I think maybe I was a bit obtuse

While I do appreciate having my horizons broadened by being forced to try new builds - and I do enjoy the cash that comes from farming - the fact is that ANet was trying to reduce farming and new gold. In my case, and it sounds like the same is true of many others, it actually had the opposite effect. I was forced to farm in order to complete my goal of getting legendary elite skill hunter. (without farming I was barely clearing 800g an hour in either hard or normal mode - and with 160 more skills to cap at the time, the prospect seemed daunting) As a result of being forced to farm, I brought in, and spent, a great deal more gold than I would have playing normally - though not as much as I would have made farming before the loot scale.

So yes, I do thank ANet for forcing me into a new way of doing things, a more profitable way. For that, I am grateful. But I am only changing my tune A LITTLE. Overall, I still think loot scaling is a very bad idea. For one thing, as my own situation shows - It doesn't work!

As to those who have been making a lot of money since the scale - that is because hard mode was introduced at the same time and has nothing to do with loot scaling.

I also suspect the drops in prices are due mostly to hard mode and not so much to the loot scaling. I myself have been averaging about 5-10 golds an hour. The good ones flood the market - the rest are often salvaged. They have a much higher chance than normal of producing good mods and rare materials. That, combined with the fact that dye is not affected by the scaling, means that I hardly ever have to visit a trader anymore or buy any mods from anyone. Thus the farmer is saving a tremendous amount of money on things like steel, leather and mods. Plus it is reducing demand, and price, on those things because the farmers, of whom there are more now than ever before, simply aren't in the market for them.

So - overall -loot scaling - really bad idea

but I do appreciate the challenge of learning to farm

so have changed my tune A LITTLE -

but only A LITTLE.

Why do I sense a conspiracy to attempt to use reverse psychology on ANet to get loot-scaling overturned?

Hmm...

I understand that they want us to buy from other players or make money from other players and introduce less new money, but if we have less money then there is less money to be made by trading. If it is harder to get money then we go to things that don't make much money, like selling unid gold items. It takes a while to get 7 unid gold (unless you know something I dont, then plz plz plz tell me) then to find a buyer for them when there are others doing the same thing. that drives down prices and then there is less money to be made again.

I think hard mode was a direct result of loot scaling.

Think about it. In the old system, you had a built-in hard mode. All you had to do was reduce the number of other teammates and the game got harder and you got increased rewards. The problem was that smart gamers took this to the logical extreme and the solo farmer was born. Once the builds became common knowledge and fell into the hands of gold-selling botters, A-net decided to fight back.

At the same time, they didn't want to kill the player solo farmers because it's a really fun way to play and pretty unique. After experimenting with failed concepts, Anti-Farming Code and AOE scatter, they came up with loot scaling. This killed mindlessly repetitive raven staff farming, but it also eliminated a way for the player to make the game more challenging and at the same time more rewarding. Therefore, they had to create another way to make the game harder/more rewarding, and thus Hard Mode was born.

It was no coincidence Loot Scaling and Hard Mode came along at the same time. From the original idea of Loot Scaling, Hard Mode was born.

I, for one, much prefer making money the new way rather than the old.

Anyone besides me see a contradiction in terms here? How can something come along the same time as another and be a direct result of it? *scratching head*

oh yeah, loot scaling AND hard mode a definitive sign the end is nigh... ;P

ok, so like I've alway liked to solo farm just because I like IDing stuff, I don't even care about keeping most of it, I just merch it. The beauty of hard mode and loot scaling is I don't need to salvage junk to make room in my inventory to ID more cool stuff.

Because intelligent people designed it. In the creative process, you come up with one idea and then think of the consequences. Those consequences lead to other design choices. Because the consumer experiences both changes at the same time in no way implies they were designed independently. The fact that they came out at the same time actually suggests a causal relationship.

I'm speculating, of course, but that is what I think happenned.

Heh it tends to happen, doesn't it? Farming is far more fun than some people give it credit. Me, well, I'm addicted to seeing green or gold text in my little window. It's so dumb. I can't even get rid of a lot of it short of merching it.

I enjoyed farming again for the first time in quite a while when HM came out.

I don't try for max speed; rather, I use nice relaxed Slivernewal builds. But I've made some hundreds of K of gold, and gotten so many attractive drops I started a new warrior just to have somebody to use some of them. And so, besides letting my elementalist keep a req 10 Icy Blade Axe to farm with, an Ancient Axe of Shelter for PvP, an Exuro's Will, and so on, I bought him a couple of pieces of Iceforged Armor dyed black.

However, as much as I loved my req 11 Elemental Sword when I first saw it, I question how good it will look in practical use.

I must be doing something wrong. Even when I am farming I rarely see more than one gold....and it's usually one I've found many times already (Barbed Axe). I remember when NF first came out after getting as far as the Kodash I had enough gold to afford not only the full set of elite armor...but plenty left over for another character to get new armor as well. Once the loot scaling came along....I noticed a lot more salvage items drop....but nothing else other than the amount of gold decreased. I've had to farm more than I used to so I could buy all of the new skills my new Dervish didn't have (I still miss skill quests) and of course I want something besides the basic armor too....soo back to farming for hours I guess.

Really? Fascinating! Well what would I know about the creative process (or creative thinking) anyway? I'm just a painter, sculptor, 3D modeler, 3D environment designer and one hell of a problem solver (as are many of the people who come to this forum and GW).

No seriously... this is really a given. This is why one painting leads to another to another to another... and then to a 3d sculpture which leads to a 3D village which leads to... well you get my point

I don't... can't... see any such suggestion. I can see the possibility (unlikely though) of a casual relationship, but no such suggestion. Based on what I've read so far, however, I can see the (more likely) possibility that the two concepts answer two separate unrelated needs.

1 - that hard mode was created to provide the users with more challenge (http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/hardmode and http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forum...d.php?t=446133), and

2 - that loot scaling was an idea conceived in an effort to discourage farming by bot running gold sellers (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaile..._20_April_2007).

I can also see an integration of the two concepts in that they were released together and in that loot scaling is integrated with the rewards system in hard mode (as well as in normal mode). But, with the information I have thus far, I cannot, in all honesty, conclude that one is the cause of the other.

I cannot know for certain what the dev team's thinking is, of course, unless they tell me, and I don't waste my time speculating, nor do I accept anyone else's speculation, plus I have not yet read anything by any of them stating that hard mode is a result of loot scaling, so if you have read something, I would love it if you would please point me to it. Thank you!

I am making more money now 55’ing in Hard mode then before the nerf (High level monsters drop high level stuff) Salvaging armor get more $ then before (cloth /tanned hides / iron larger qty salvaged on each) But again I am a average player that never dwelled into the high end areas too much.