Loot scaling... Helping casual players...?

LOL, superior vigors are at 11k when they used to be at 25-30k and in a remote past even 60k, monk runes less than 2k, ectos are at 5,5k when they used to be at 10-11k, even black dyes are at 6k when they used to be at 10-12k.

Marginal changes?!?

The loot nerf helped only people who play with 7 other real people, and the times I have done that it doesn't seem like it even helped that much. Before the nerf you caould easily make 10-30k every hour now you can easily make 1-3k an hour, yes dye and runes and stuff has gone down, but 15k armor still costs 15k and materials are still high so the loot nerf failed and a-net just hasn't admitted it yet

Yeah, me too but I also remember when Sup Vigor and Absorption runes would cost 60 - 75K+

I have a lot more money now then I did when the popular runes cost 10K+, I paid 10K for a Sup Vigor the other day, a sum thats definitely affordable for most players whereas the difference between Major and Superior was once so huge I wouldnt even consider buying one.
I remember that making a 55 monk would itself cost a fortune because of the price of superior monk runes, all superior monk runes were over 10K a piece, now you can do it for what, 2-3K?

I've played GW for 2 years today to the day, I've made countless toons (and deleted most) and have had several 15K armors, I've never really farmed although I do solo runs for greens but most of those I keep for myself anyway.

Sure, I have bad drop days when all chests I open give lousy purples and then there are days when I get quite a few golds and elite tomes *shrug*

TS needs to get over himself, I think, I make gold easier now then ever before and from what I see thats the same for everyone.

All this talk of loot scaling causing lower prices is nonsense. Falling prices on sup vigors etc is 99% due to introduction of Hard Mode, nothing to do with loot scaling at all.

If you take out the exempted items from loot scaling ( golds, dyes etc) can anyone give me an example of something that has fallen in price due to the introduction of loot scaling?

There may be plenty of items I just can't think of any.

The things that people buy are exempt from loot scaling, so your argument is kind of flawed.

Its basic economics. If there is less of something, it is more valuable. There is obviously less gold because people get less gold from farming. So therefore the value of gold goes up. The same amount of gold can buy you more.

Look at it like this, an item that is worth 200k. Now if ectos were worth 10k, then the price would be 100k+10e right? Now if there is a sudden influx of ectos, and the value of ectos goes down to 5k, then the price of the item would be 100k+20e. If ectos suddenly became extremely rare for whatever reason, and their price went up to 20k, the cost of the item would be 100k+5e.

That is the same item for 3 different prices because of the value of the currency, ectos.

Gold is in the same situation right now. It has become harder to get, so the value of gold is going up, and the cost of items is going down to compensate.

[QUOTE]you are new so i wont simply call you a moron on that.

loot scaling had nothing to do with the sup vigor drop

HM had absolutely nothing to do with price drop either.

way back long before you started runes did not get a guaranteed salvage and about 2 out of 3 went poof and the prices were 75 K for a superior vigor and the minors were at least 2.5 K-10 K

other sups were 25 K- 60K

Anet put in guaranteed salvage and the rune trader and suddenly the price started dropping like a stone.

except sup vig/sup absorb which held at 100 K for the sup absorb and at least 30-40k on the sup vig.

Anet increased the drop rate by about 3X in an update and the present prices are the result

HM had nothing to do with it

It's because in the past, it was POSSIBLE to work for cash. If you invested time in farming, you would get cash in return as reward. Now, there is no reward at all for farming, since even though you do 8 times more than a full party, you aren't getting more than a full party.

Before Hard Mode came out, it was just ridiculously easy to make cash. You could get 1000K in no time, even when only playing a few hours a day. Any average joe can farm Griffons or Trolls. I think about every profession can farm them. There also were Vermins, I think. Back then, the amount of time one spent farming, equalled the reward.

Now, however, it doesn't matter how much grinding someone does - results stay low, and no better than someone playing in an 8-man team. What used to be possible for everyone, became impossible for everyone. This wouldn't be a problem if prices fell to like 5K, but they didn't. Instead, we still see stuff being sold for 100K + 50 ecto's.

This, of course, varies with each player. It depends on luck, the time one playes the game per day, and the part of that time one wants to use farming.

The loot scaling is here now a couple of months, and even though I did vanquishing, helping people with missions/quests, I only lost cash. I don't remember a single good drop since Hard Mode came out.

As for the 'price decrease' for Superior Vigor. May I remind you that when the exemption list wasn't there, the price went UP?

The price is only lowered because:

1: Gold items were exempt from the scaling list, so people still find them just as often as before.
2: Hard Mode made more gold items drop. Obviously, more gold armors = more sup vigors in the market means lower price.
3: With Hard Mode came new farm spots. People get alot of gold runes doing the SS/LB point farms. Even more runes came in the market.
4: Tyrian and Canthan armors also have insignia's. This caused some old, and seemingly useless farm spots like Ettins, be worthwhile, and used again. Yet again, more runes in the market.
5: With Hard Mode, it was possible to choose to salvage runes off the armors. If you choose for the rune, you'd get it 100% of the time.

Also, let's not forget the price was already falling since A-net made un-Identified Gold Armors be superior runes 100% of the time, made Superior Vigor and Superior Absorption drop more often.

Loot Scaling has nothing to do with it. If it wasn't there, price would be even lower now, since more people would farm, completely overflooding the market with all sorts of runes and insignia's.

This is all true. However,



Before loot scaling it was the rare items that players struggled to afford. Hard Mode has brought an abundent supply of rare items so the price has fallen.

If there was no loot scaling at least players could make a decent amount of cash to afford the fixed price items in the game by selling the white merchant junk. Fixed price items are not affected by supply and demand so these prices would not rise.

reetkever, I don't know what to tell you m8. Be smarter with your gold. I've gained quite a bit of gold since loot scaling came into effect. If you can't then I think that is a personal issue. Other people have made gold since loot scaling, so it is still POSSIBLE. Just because you can't doesn't mean that its impossible. As I'm sure you probably told the poor people ages ago. You don't need all of the fancy looking armors. 1.5k armor and collector weapons work just fine. If you want more then you have to work for it and save up. If you are not smart enough to save gold and are steadily losing gold, then maybe you should cut back a little?

What Anet tried is to screw over the Gold farmers. Not you and me, those asian (mostly) bots who sell their stock to anyone who likes it.
For a moment ANet saw victory after they introduced the loot scaling.

1000k gold before loot scaling was about $50, after the loot scale it went up to $125. Yer victory but not for long...... you can get 1000k for +- $60 dollar now.

Oh well then we will threaten all our players that when they buy gw gold they get a perm ban... (refering to the message when you log in) anet thought while smacking themselves on their heads.

Its pretty obvious why they are doing this. They dont want any other source but themselves to make money out of their game. Its theirs so heck we cant complain.

They are trying to make their game more and more profitable. And by doing so screwing it up more and more. (No i dont fancy buying mission packs , leave me) So anet, when are you going to sell gold? whats the next step? In the meantime im not going to touch this game anymore...

nuff said

Cut back with what? I only buy Superior Salvage and ID Kits, and some tickets for on the 9-rings when the weekend allows me, and that's it.

1.5K and collector stuff DOES work just fine, but I want to be able to at least invest time into getting cash for 15K armor, nicer weapons, hero weapons etc.


Before Nightfall came out, I used to farm trolls and vermins, and everything was fine. I wasn't a hardcore farmer or whatever, just a few minutes per day. That was enough to get me at least 5K a day, which is MORE than enough for me.

Now, I'm lucky if I get even 500 gold per day.

Regardless of loot scaling, there's still repeatable quests. If you have factions, you can FFF. Each run takes about 1-3 minutes (Kurzick or Luxon) and nets 150g. If you're Kurzick and you're the doorman, you basically stand there and let others get the gold for you. Now if ANet decides to nerf those quests, I'd be pretty disappointed.

[QUOTE]you buy at a 25 per cent premium and spend gold on guaranteed gold sinks.

BINGO

SO YOU ARE USED TO GETTING 5 k IN A FEW MINUTES OF FARMING?

no wonder you have no idea on budgeting your gold.

want to bet Del steel goes into one of those GWEN snazzy armors?

i stocked up early just in case

also fur

i told you how to get 7-10 times that but obviously you want 1000 times that as a minimum so forget that i actually did try to help you.

good nite

Don't know what FFF is, but if you mean these quests that let you run a supply box to the other outpost, scout the area for luxons/kurzicks, or kill a group of luxons/kurzicks... I already tried these. With some of them, I died, so no cash from there :P

And the others made me do a big forest-trip, which was so boring I just let my character and hench fight in the background, while I was listening music.

150 gold isn't alot, either. I think a Vermin run nets one more gold in that 1 - 3 minutes. It's just that even that is barely enough to compensate for the ID/Salvage Kits I buy about once per week, and of course the occasional weekend event.

If there is a Weekend Event that boosts chest drops, I DO want to run chests. If there is a Weekend Event for standing at the rings, I DO want to buy tickets, and stand there. Same goes for Elite Capping, too. They're only in weekends, and only once in a few months, but they eat away money like crazy.

IMO A-net should AT LEAST make the weekend events way cheaper.

So? If it's fun, why can't I buy it? A-Net should remove the Boardwalk Prizes, and just make tickets free.

Well, yeah. In the time of Griffon farming, one could make at least double that amount in less time.

Hmmmm I doupt Fur is going to raise in price. We're able to get them cheaply from the Charr Hide collector in Ascalon, so don't get your hopes up for that.

Deldrimore Steel, I guess, has high chances of going into GW:EN armors, but what if they don't? If I risk to invest all my cash in Deldrimore Steel, I can get rich, or I can get absolutely poor. It's too big of a risk to take, I fear

Thanks for the tip, though ^^

Thanks for the farm run, but I tried, and it gave me nothing more than all the other farm runs: some raw gold, and only a few whities. That't it. How many times do you do that farm run until you get lucky with drops?

Darn I double clicked? Sorry, delete please :S

Superior Vigors used to be 100k at the trader at their peak. Same with Superior Absorption. I left for about 1.5 years and came back and the Superior Absorption in my inventory was worth about 210g. Sounds bad but I think its actually great since people can turn their role play characters into pvp ready characters much easier and with much less expense.

What with collector items, inscriptions and cheaper weapon mods and plentiful gold drops in HM, its never been quicker or cheaper in my opinion to get pvping on your roleplay account, just in terms of the outlay.

It changes periodically but for a while (before faction and rune/rare material traders) your only chance in hell of unlocking a Superior Vigor or Absorption was to farm the Nebo Terrace Ettins like a mofo. Even then your chance was minimal.

Stuff that was prohibitively expensive 2 years ago, is still prohibitively expensive now. You earn less, people have to sell for less, since more people are in a position where they won't be able to justify the cost versus the effort.

I remember early on I used to buy black dye - it cost 600g inside the first 2 weeks. At the time this was alot for dye but it was manageable. A month or two later and the price had stabilised at 3 or 4k. After that, black dye has never been affordable for me.

Ectos used to drop in Underworld in stacks of 2 and 4 and prior to the advent of the rare materials trader cost about 500g each. I remember more than a few people buying up ecto at that price. Obsidian Shards didn't ever drop until after the rare materials trader went online. So nobody really bothered to get Fissure Armour. When Shards came online with the trader and people confirmed drops in Fissure of Woe, then the price of ecto skyrocketed and peaked at 15k or so. Which was insane.

I honestly don't know what people are complaining about. I got back into the game and bought nighfall a month ago after a long absence. I'm pleasantly surprised that everything is cheaper. I can actually change my build around and buy all the runes and insigs I need and it wont bankrupt me. Elite tomes in HM are also a nice quick cash injection if you get one. They sell quick too.

Keys? I've rarely found chest running profitable, though I know its possible if you buy lockpicks in bulk for a cheaper than trader price, get your treasure hunter rank up a bit and thus get better key retention. Then target chests tied to spawns which have a chance of dropping an expensive rare skinned weapon. Either way, playing through Nightfall normally and trying to do all the quests got me fairly close to getting primeval armour (about 60kish) - more if I sold the rubies I got from trade contracts.

EDIT: I forgot Treasure Chests. Come on guys - you get like 10 to 12 gold items a month for free and about 15k.

What on earth are you talking about? You don't have to buy mission packs so whats the problem? Guild Wars has always been marketted as a free to play action RPG with full priced totally optional modular extras.

Whatever Anet has done in the 1.5 years I was out seems to have worked because you no longer see 8 districts in Droks full of 55 monks streaming out the gate to Talus Chute. You don't see the same robomonks streaming out of Riverside Province (the infamous Tengu Rune farm) anymore. Theres definitely either (1) less of them or (2) they are much less visible. I dont know about buying in game gold for real money but I can't ever see how it would be profitable unless you have several computers and several copies of the game all botting like crazy round the clock, not catch any attention and avoid getting perma banned.

That's only true the first time you open those chests with a character. With subsequent openings, the drops get worse and worse. The first time I opened all the treasure I got all gold items. One month later with the same character, the drops are now all purple. And the amount of money given was less. So treasure chests are not all that viable unless you continually make and destroy new characters.

Bots still abound. Go to Granite Citadel, Altrumm Ruins, or even Chahbek Village sometime. Nothing but bots. It's actually kind of neat looking at the radar and seeing all the streaming blue dots heading towards the exit, somewhat like flowing water...

I never thought of FFF as being actually a good source of gold... but now...

I did a Vermin run in NM today to see how bad lootscaling is. (I haven't been there since the AoE nerf)
I got a total of about 200g for doing the full run. In the past I'd be pushing 2k...

The way I see it, is that ANet has punished anyone who farms outside of select areas like UW for Ectos, or other places for rare skins. (ie. Bergen Bot Springs)

At least with the anti-farm code, it was about farming too much. Now, you're screwed before you even farm the place once.

Which is exactly the point I was making (and it flew right over a few peoples heads) - loot scaling (not hard mode, despite how many times someone wants to change my argument to something else so they can say that) caused this. My old comparatively crappy farming is now quite profitable and there is pretty much no change on my end. Suddenly that 4-6k an hour from just playing and the 6-8k an hour farming makes it such that I can afford MANY things I never could before (though amusingly enough they weren't really things I wanted but oh well). Hard Mode simply made it such that I can now - with the same effort - go to 10-15k an hour farming, which makes me even "richer" both in GPH *and* in purchasing power. There are significantly more people in my class and below and those that are in the lower category are helped even more.

I generally also find it amusing when I'm told I am wrong and it is hurting me. Well, I'll take some more hurting

Yep, WAY more of people that are that way now, even ones who never touch Hard Mode. Heck, you can now pretty much afford a set of 15k armor simply by playing through the game - it hasn't been that way since a month or two after release. You can even come VERY close to Vabbian with a Nightfall character. Which, once more, that was the intention and it worked. Isn't it nice to be screwed over in such a way?

Eh, I can try and help people try and change their arguments to one that may be effective, but it doesn't seem to work too much. I suppose they will eventually ragequit or get over it.

I wish people would stop mentioning all the useless stuff (most of the exception list) like dyes, superior runes, and those crappy rubies, sapphires, ectos, shards. Those aren't things casual players even consider and you can call all those gold sinks.
Most of the useable rare materials need regular materials to craft. Look at the prices of those rare materials and regular materials and you'll notice it's pretty much the same as before loot scaling.
Minor runes are the most used runes and some of those have risen and a couple dropped. Seriously, who cares about superior runes when there's only a few that are used.

I still stand by loot scaling not being helpful to casual players. How is lowering the chance of drops helpful for anyone? Rich farmers are still rich and likely still farming because what else are they going to do? Bots are still raking in the cash whether they're doing it for real money or funding another account. These are people/things not playing casually.

What I worry about on my pve characters are skill costs. I like being able to switch my secondary professions and having a multitude of options to play with. Since skill cost is a set price and my chance of drops is lowered or stays the same loot scaling sucks. It's now telling me 'hey, instead of normal only you'll have worse or normal.' In other words, not helpful. If you're a player who sticks with what's given and a couple of builds congratulations you'll likely be thrilled to be playing with yarn.