Loot Scale: A Valid Arguement

Actually, if he is selling at 80% of what it's worth on the guru auctions, then there has to be some people out there who want it at that price (since people are buying it at the price from the auctions).

I don't want to start the auction house discussion again, but one of the things about the game is that you can find some relatively rare skinned items that is probably worth something to some people, but it is more of a hassle to find a buyer. Suppose I want some obscure skin like a Fiery Bladed Axe, a Shadow Axe, or an Aerowind Blade (some of the "rarer" skins I have in my storage at the moment). I have no place to go looking for it, and if I want to sell them, I don't know have any good way to sell them. Sure there are major "market" towns like Lion's Arch, but it's just inefficient. I don't even bother selling stuff to players at all any more, it's a waste of time. I just put them on my heroes and leave them there.

It doesn't bother me that much, because I was never big on trading with other players (I rather play than spam all day). But it does take some of the thrill out of getting rare items. "Yay, another item for Koss," I'll continue gathering these crappy items and selling them to the merchant to make gold to unlock more skills (I've been trying to UAS for a while now).

No you fail at economics. The correct answer is "No one will sell an item for what it is worth."

Suppose an item is "worth" the average amount of time that an item can be farmed in.

However, due to lack of good trade, and a trad systems that consists of getting lucky spamming the cost to sell an item is... (1) time to farm the item plus (2) time to sell the time.

Since trade in this game is grossly ineffiecient, the cost of the time in spamming (and after all there are no other activities to do in town so you are stuck doing nothing but spamming when you are selling) is very real. And the very real time cost of spamming for trade is sometimes much higher than the cost of actually finding the item. The seller will want recompense for the time spent spamming and looking for buyers, but the buyer will not want to pay that, because that money is not part of the item's cost.

Therefore trade doesnt happen in guild wars, except for rare items. Items such as runes, weapon mods, or materials all have value in trade, but this value is so low that a seller will not brave the spam nightmare when he can make as much profit by simply vedoring them and playing the game. Thanks to Hard mode, and the Loot scale exemption for golds weapons... even most gold weapons no longer count as rare items.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make. It's almost not even worth it to try and sell an item nowadays.

Double post, sorry..

You have some good ideas, but most of them are nearly impossible to do..

Yeah I got a lesseon getting a ban here.Seems that you cat sell common stuffs like gold req 9-10 weapons that easy anymore.
Latey I've been saving for 15K amours .Its sure take longer but cant help about it.
Looks like I gonna need safe up collectible drops for the coming events.Who knows when you are going to be lucky.

The problem, for people like me, is that armor price didn't
went down with loot scaling.

A Vabbian Armor is like 150k-200k and getting money for
it is such a pain.

Most people like me decided to specialized in other form
of farming unsuccessfully. Market is now flooded with greens and
people are so poor that they won't purchase your stuff.

I tried to sell my Bone Dragon for 100k and it took me forever.
Must people tried to exchange me stuff for it instead of buying
it.

I really, really, really hate loot scaling.

Why do it if GW does not support trading like other mmorpgs and is optional? You can easily make enough money just by playing through the missions/quests, use collector items, and not go crazy with the gold sinks.

Vabbian armor, keys, and other such items are gold sinks and not needed for regular play. You can do just fine with the Consulate Docks armor.

Honestly, complaining about gold sinks being gold sinks is just asinine.

That's bs. A-Net is always saying they want to make everything accesable for all classes. So why do we have to live on collector's weapons and armor, only? I don't need Vabbian armor, but I DO want to buy some keys and open chests once in a while.

And as the game is now, 1,5K armor and skills are the biggest gold sinks. A-Net isn't making anything accesable. I've never complained about gold sinks before, because by investing time, I could get cash.

However, if A-Net goes saying that they're making things easily accesable, and I'm getting poor and I can't even buy my own skills, I might have a slight reason to be a little upset.

so the people such as myself who has almost a complete set of minis should be investigated just because we have money? the guy probably made the money by trading since that's pretty much the only way to make mass gold now. most of the gold and ectos used to buy those items from other people were probably received before loot scaling was ever even in place.

since there aren't many large gold sinks in this game beyond buying new armors and going after the sweet tooth and drunkard titles, the gold supply just goes up thus making each point of gold not worth as much. loot scaling was designed to curb the large amounts of gold flooding into the economy. While I don't like it since I used to solo farm some and its not worth it to anymore, for the general players, it has dropped prices on most items as a whole. the only items are are continuing to rise are those that do not drop anymore such as the limited minis, everlasting beetle tonics, or unconditional +dmg mod weapons. everything else, the price is dictated by the sellers and buyers and most sellers will drop their prices just so they can spend less time selling.

I used to be a very casual farmer until loot scaling. Now I have turned hard-core because that's the only way to build up enough cash for the things I and my GF want. anet turned me into a nonstop farmer with their ridiculous nerf.

KANE

Human farmers make the prices drop. See what happened to zodiac weaponry when u could solo farm the vampires in urgoz or what happened to the price of radiant insignias and bloodstained insignias, when they started to drop in prophecies and factions.

Bot farmes make the prices rise.

Loot scaling made gold coin hard to get to both human player and bots. Things exempt of loot scaling became more accesible to human players, and bots dont really have much use for those kind of items.

Still, if you want to make money in a timely fashion, farming or a very very lucky drop are the only ways to do it, cause 8 party play is still extremly non-rewarding.

Finally someone who isn't totally stupid. It is amazing how many people out there will sit out there for days trying to get a bunch of money for an item that they are never going to get. The rule is pretty much, if you aren't able to sell it fairly quickly, then you are obviously asking too much. Time you waste asking too much for an item is time you could spend getting more items. I do believe A-Net needs to introduce a more stable way of making money into the game though, as the only real way of that is running atm. However, I hardly ever run or farm, and I still manage to have a few nice items, such as my war's elemental sword.

I beg to differ on a few prices, Most common gold 15^50's where already cheap before even factions, only the rare skins were over 100k+. And I do remember the good ole days as when I made my req 7 15% always falchion. Prices for like the yakslapper and that where only high for a short time, till many started farming it as with all items.

Alot here I agree on the old days were great were it actually ment something when you found a gold and it was perfect.
Though for me farming will never get boring.

Very true

Very false, The people who buy gold from them are the ones that raise prices.

Loot scaling has had NO EFFECT on bots, None. Only effect it has had is on normal players. The reason why 8 party loot was always different is cause its 8X easier.

Yeah, actually I'm suggesting exactly that. Since loot scaling, it has become very difficult to amass the wealth that is needed to buy these, so the only people who can afford these pets and items are A ) Honest people such as yourself, which would have nothing to fear from such an investigation, who made their money honestly and before it became too difficult, OR you worked much harder over the last few months to amasse it. I doff my cap to you if you did . Or B ) Someone who has several bots working for him and bought these items to sell for profit.

There are, what, 100 Pandas and 100 Beetles? I have no idea how trades and storage are logged for Anet, and whether they can do a search for specific items. BUT, if they can, doesn't it seem pluasable that they might spend a few minutes to find out where these items went?

And by the way that was just an example, I didn't mean to insult anyone who worked hard for their items and rewards.

Dude, there are people like me that like to build their character
and want them to have a perfect look.

For me, I can't do just fine with a Consulate Dock armor because
it doesn't have the look I want and most of people got the same.

When I started my MM 2 weeks ago, I couldn't afford Keineng
Center armor. I was stuck with my 30 armor.

When I play WoW, I can easily solo instances with my Rogue to
do some descent cash fast. When I played GW before loot scaling,
I could afford a Vabbian armor in a 2-4 days of farming. Now, I
can't afford anything.

LS was supposed to make things more affordable for casual players.
I don't think it made things really more affordable and I don't think
it stopped bots at all. I'm pretty sure Gold seller are praising A.net
for loot scaling. For the 1st time in my MMORPG (CORPG) experience,
i'm thinking about buying gold.

I like to farm for hours, I like to build by character but now it's less
and less entertaining doing this in GW.

loot nerf is making the game hard for a new character if you dont already have a nice gold, material and weapon supply. i have a survivor going right now. started him in Tyria. hes finished the missions in Tyria, up to Grand court in nightfall and at HzH and Cavalon in factions. currently sitting at 725k xp just playing the game. i have 12k gold on the character. ive played mostly hero/henc the whole time. drops have been so-so the whole way. only time i used my gold and materials in storage were to get max level armor. had i not done that it would of taken a long time to build up the materials for it. i couldnt of gotten collectors armor as the drops werent good enough to do so. i have made a decent amount of money though as i have capped 35 elites along the way. bought 10 regular skills ant the rest have been quested. with the loot nerf i feel the cost of skills should be lowered. granted the only skills ive bought are for specific builds, the reason i started the character in tyria was to avoid the skill cost so i can focus on early cheep elite skill caps. ive popped about 12 chests in hopes of finding something useable but all that has done is eat my gold. i can count on one hand the amount of keys that have been dropped through the whole time my survivor has been going. if i was someone new coming into the game i think i would of given it up by now as the less gold and lower drops and poor quality of dorps would make it hard to stay interested long enough to get to the higher level areas to experiance what is susposed to be the harder parts of the game.

You may have thought that you discredited my statement, but you have done far from it. Maybe if you told me the last time you bought a Fiery Blade Axe, a Shadow Axe, or an Aerowind Blade from another player it would help your case.

I too have a gross excess of perfect equipment. I will not complain about it. I make my money by selling items that players actually want that they can't easilly get. The Market is not gone; it has simply moved.

Casuals always had to live on collector weapons and armor. The only difference now is that many of the other prices, as confirmed by several high end traders in this topic as well as looking at the non-static merchants(rune, dyes, etc), are lower. Though not perfect for casuals, these items are at least attainable now.

Skills should not be a part of gold sink. That is something i complained about before. Unfortunately they are and personally, i have started to treat them that way. No buying every skill at every new outpost and only unlocking when i need or have the money to do so.

If you want a perfect look then you will have to work for it. Arenanet simply will not give you that very expensive armor for a few days of farming. It depreciates the value of that item.

No we didn't. Before the loot scaling, I never EVER had to collect drops to get collector's weapons. I always had a steady 100K in my storage. No, I didn't hardcore farm and I didn't play more than 3 hours per day. runes, dyes etc were never a problem to buy (except for stuff like sup vigor, of course (which is, btw STILL very expensive)).

Now, however, what A-Net says and do are once again just like PvE and PvP - 2 entirely different things. They say they make the loot scaling better for casual players. What they did, however, is make the gold weapons slightly less expensive (but still, nothing I could buy, being a casual), and they put the normal things like skills and armor WAY out of reach. GG A-Net, next time improve things for the farmers, cause all the farm nerfs are bad for the casuals as well.

This is easier said than done. When I create a character, I know nothing about the effectiveness and wether it plays good or not. When I buy a skill, I suppose it's good, but I'm not sure. Most of the time, the skill plays utter crap, and it goes off my skillbar again, and the empty spot has to be replaced.

And the ENDLESS skill balances don't make it easier, either. (I lost at least 30K on these balances, alone.)

Before the loot scaling it was okay to work for it. 15K armor was reachable for anyone wanting to invest time. And that's how it SHOULD be. the value of that item doesn't go down, as it'll stay 15K per piece.

I agree it shouldn't be bought within a few days, but as it is now, it'll take me a year or ten before I have my first set of Obsidian Armor.

I'm glad that most people who posted in this thread agree with me. The thing that I'm most upset about is that I used to have a ton of gold but have watched it slowly decrease. I went from about 300k down to 20k, although I do have about 200k worth of weapons I can't sell to anyone(probably what makes me the most upset). I probably choose a bad time to outfit all my chars but whatever.

Thanks for the replies guys, I just hope Anet decides that loot scaling was not the way to go.

When I re-started playing in November, I had 500k in my
account and a lot of expensive gold weapon and pets.

Bought armor, bought weapons, created new chars, bought
sup. vigor runes, sold pets. I got less than 40k now.

I still have a lot of weapon but they lost some appeal because
they aren't inscriptible. I have perfect mods, but they are
mostly less than 5k now. Its hard to try to sell something
that worth 5k for hours.

Tried the auction systems, no result. Tried to sell things
half their price, no result.

I know that Vabbian and 15k and Obsidian armor are elitist,
but I don't think you have to do 1-2 months of farming, PvEing
to got one. Thats also exclude runes, insignias.

To bring a PvE character to PvP you have to :
- Buy a Major(3-4k) Vigor or a Sup (25-30k) vigor.
- Buy runes and insignias. (2k-10k depending on runes).
- Buy a 60 armor base armor (6k-25k depending on armor (Nec. MM look))
- Have a max descent weapon. (Collector or 5k)
- Have mods on weapon (Find them or 2k-10k)
- Have a descent off-hand/shield (Collector or 5k)

So to have a PvE in PvP it cost :
11k (Collectors and item found) to 80k (to match a PvP character).

11k can be a lot of money now. . 80k means that you
must farm to have your PvE character in PvP with a PvP character
look and stats.

Do I have a lot of time to farm 80k now? no. Neither for 11k,
it doesn't worth it.

Must go Treasure Hunting each month.

Not true. When you leave Elona starters island you could have finished 9K worth of quests and missions.
Since armor at the docks is 5K, you still have 4K for skills.
Skill prices start low and get higher when you buy more, so for those 4K you could get a nice starting set.

It still is, it only requires some more time.
I got my sunspear 15K (character that was self-funding) while playing the game, in full groups (PuG, guild or H&H) before I even got to Vabbi. I don't sell stuff to players, only merchants.
This should not be any different with the loot scaling.


I worked about 2-3 months on my mesmers Vabbi armor parts.
Not farming, but playing the game (working on exploration title).


One simple solution, kill a PvE character and make a PvP one!
Skill unlocks are account wide, as are PvP weapon upgrades.
This does save a lot of gold.

Ah, now we are getting to the main problem for a lot of players.
They have stuff (found or bought) that is worth less because the number of buyers went down. Being weapons, ecto's and stuff.
You know what they call this?
Bad investment. Also happens to a lot of people in real life.

Let me teach you some basic economy.
The value of a company is the value on the balance sheet.
Banks and insurance companies look at this when calculating.
Then there is the expected value of a company.
This is the value people expect the company to have. This could be because the company has competetive advantage or a good product.
People are willing to pay more for the company because of this.
Investors get in trouble when the expected value suddenly is less than they expected.
In 2001, a lot of people lost money on bad investments.
They bought stocks because everyone was doing it and was making good money.
They made one mistake, they did not realise their stocks were priced by expectation and not true company value. And the expectation appeared to be a bubble.


In a game the same is true.
People were telling others that trading is the only way to make a huge amount of gold (which is true).
This worked because a lot of people believed that.
But they forgot one simple fact: the real value of items is the merchant value.
The ingame value is the price people are willing to pay because of expectations.
So a r7 15^50 Crystalline would be worth a lot of ecto's, since people expect then to be rare.
A r10 inscribable Crystalline would be worth less, since people expect less of them on the market.
The same is true with weapon upgrades.

With the introduction of HM, more gold items hit the market. This lowered the price.
With loot scaling, things got worse for players.
Not only did A-net reduce income (so people could spend less on gold items), they also left the gold items out of loot scaling.
This introduces the same rate of gold items on a market where less players are willing to buy. Hence, the price goes down to a rate where supply and demand meet again.

This was not expected by a lot of players, so they bought the weapons or had them but were unaware that they had to sell fast.
So now they have weapons/upgrades in storage that are worth merchant value, or whatever a player is willing to pay (if they can find one).

I work for an investment manager and we know that when you make X% profit, your risk was at least the same amount.
We therefore look closely at the risk an investment manager may take and less at the percentage of profit he is making. He should outperform his benchmark, but within risk guidelines.

I am wondering how many 'trading' players were aware of the risk they were taking when buying 'low' and selling 'high'?

You are almost implying that we should have economic course
before playing a MMORPG.

But MMORPG =/= Real Life economy.

What would you say if the government decided that everybody
now win 8 time less money because some people are doing
more money than they others? That doesn't solve the problem
at all. Rich will stay rich, poor will be poorer.

If people are 8 times poorer, will expensive product be reachable? No.
Will price drops? Yes but not 8 time cheaper.

As for creating a PvP character for PvP, ok, but AB doesn't take
PvP character. :P

Yes, but too bad I didn't do that. I made all my chars except one in Tyria, anyway. So no good cash bonusses there. Also, my chars deserve to be spoiled a bit for all the hard work they do. I let them participate in weekend events. (Board Walk opening quickly eats up 20K).

For me, skills and armor is unreachable atm. It's a fact, not an opinion you can agree or disagree with. This cash making you're talking about only counts if everything is open. It eventually runs out, like it did with me.




'Some' more time? By the time I'm getting my 15K armor as it is now, my chars will all have their 3rd birthday pressie (they didn't even get their second one yet, go figure :P)

Your situation obviously isn't mine. You might've been lucky with drops, but I'm not. When lucky, I get 3 to 4 drops when doing a mission. For the rest cash drops, but I only get 1/8th of the share, so that soon decreases to a mere 300 gold. It certainly IS different with the loot scaling. Missioning/Questing just isn't rewarding, so we're forced to farm. This wasn't a problem, since we could just do 1 or 2 farm runs, taking ~5 minutes each. When doing a run, you got about 1.2K, allowing you to buy skills fairly easy (still a bit slow, imo).

Now, you're lucky to get a drop when farming. I tried to farm trolls again now that they don't shatter, and the only thing I got was a Troll Tusk. Whoop de doo! -.-



Once again, you might've been lucky, but others didn't. Getting 400 gold from doing a mission or some quests is rare. Compare that with how much simple things cost in the game. It just takes WAY too long for people to get cash for stuff. But at the same time, A-net lies that they made it easier for casual players.

You forget one thing as well: An item is never sold for it's true value, or else no profit is made. I only costs a few dollars to make shoes, but shops are selling them for 70 dollars. Why? Because people buy them.

Also, merchant value in this game doesn't know the rarity of a weapon. It just looks at the mods on it, and wether it's Precious or not. Someone might buy a chunk of gold for 3 dollars, just because it's big. He doesn't know the actual value of the chunk of gold.

The loot scaling's effects should've been effective if they were happening, but they aren't. I do NOT see Crystalline Swords going for 1K, or any other rare skinned weapon, for that matter. Maybe they did devaluate a bit, but for me, a casual player, this difference means little. Cause the weapon is still WAY out of my reach.

In return for this 'favour', our income is gone (for the casual players who DID do a farm run so now and then to buy skills. Some casual players aren't drones who only live on basic equipment)

[quote]What would you say if the government decided that everybody
now win 8 time less money because some people are doing
more money than they others? That doesn't solve the problem
at all. Rich will stay rich, poor will be poorer.[quote]

That would not be fair, but the GW situation is different.
It's not like everyone gets only 1/8.

Suppose the government builds houses intended for 8 people and gives a premium for living there.
Up to now, they paid 800 per house, since there were suppost to be 8 people in there.
Now it turned out that many people are not living with 8 people in the house, but there are a lot of houses with only one person living there.
That one person is getting 800 alone, which is unfair compared to people that are living with 8 people in a house.
Sure those people can also live alone, but that is not the way it was intended.
So now the government decides to pay the premium to each individual person and not for the house.
People that were already living with 8 persons in a house are not affected by this. They still get paid 100 each.
It's the person that lived alone in the house that feels the pain, since he gets from 800 to 100.

That's how loot scaling works.

Again, wrong start. Not all people will be 8 times poorer, only a part of them that decided to live alone.
And they are not 8 times poorer (their bank account shows the same amount), they just have 7/8 less income.
And perhaps the value of their investments dropped, but that's a risk (my earlier posting).
Prices at government controled shops will not get cheaper, but they were intended for people with a 100 premium and not for people with an 800 premium.
And some prices, mostly on luxury stuff, would drop a lot.
Perhaps not entirely to the level where everyone could afford them, but with some saving and wise spending those items are in range of the people that were used to the 100 premium.

Are you sure?
I know Aspenwood and Jade Quarry are PvE, but I played there with a warrior a couple of months ago and I deleted my PvE warrior more than a year ago.

yeah loot farm makes me not want to farm aynore and i do it 5 hrs a day

Why doesnt anet just remove loot scaling. Problem solved. Just tell people not to buy from people going:

20k ok
19k ok
15k ok
10k ok
5k ok

then problem solved eh?

Oh and add better rewards for missions , people may still want fow/15k armors but have to farm for it .

False. You can AB with a PvP character, I've done it recently. Just go to the guild hall and go from there. And if you don't have a guild, there's always one recruiting.

Recently, my source of income was killing stuff while getting to the Elites I wanted. This put me back in cash a lot, since the drops don't net up to the 1K for the sig, except perhaps in some Tyrian areas.
Before that I was getting my exploration titles, which did net me more than 100K (I started saving when I was going to explore and did not spend any cash except on slavage and ID). This is tyrian > 70% and Cantha/Elona starting at about 50%.
This took a lot of playtime, but time exploring is time not spending gold.

Drops also depend a lot on the area.
In Tyria, missions in Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire net me about 2K on cash and items, up to 3K with a bit of luck (and ID-ing all whites worth above 50g at the merch).
I know from experience that drops in Kourna/Vabbi are worse than drops in the Shiverpeaks/Ring of Fire.

I never farmed, so I'm not used to 1K in about 5 minutes
I think this made me a lot more conservative on spending cash, since I had not that much to spend in the first place.
4 of my characters also started in Tyria, which is also less rewarding than the other two chapters when you start.

I also like to spoil my characters, but not all of them.
I got my monk 15K kurzick a long time ago (when amber was expensive).
My Derv and Para got 15K Sunspear, but that was because they were generating cash like crazy in Elona.
Now I am working on my Mesmer's titles, first exploration, now Elites.
But when I've got my Canthan title I'm going to save gold for a few weeks, because I'm not willing to pay another 80-100K on cap sigs without first having it in storage.
Elite titles are quite expensive.

I think I have two huge advantages.
I don't have a warrior I want to spoil.
Most items for other classes are cheap compared to warrior items (on the player market).
I also don't pimp my heroes, they get the leftovers.
That could still be expensive items, but I'd merch them otherwise (I don't like trading).

The second advantage is that I have several characters I can play with.
I don't want anything for my necro, so all cash he gets moves to storage.
Same for monk and ranger. They still have missions and quests open.
I only want titles on them that don't cost gold, so no drain there.
The main titles I want for them are the exploration ones and those generate cash for sure.

Why exactly was loot scaling instituted? Some say to stop the bots, others seem to think it was to "balance" the "economy" and still others say it is to bridge the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots". Sort of a Guild Wars Socialism thing...

So, lets look back over the last few weeks...did loot-scaling stop the bots? Anyone? What about economic balance? (WTF does that mean anyway? uhh....The_Jos, just forget I asked that, ok?)

Ok, so how about the haves and have-nots...ah...hmmm...nope, don't see that either.

If I have this straight, it goes something like this...

We had a lot of real players (you know people with real names, not names like askrndfgy) farming for all kinds of items...some went for ectos, some for rares, and some just farmed pretty much everything. They were making very good money too. Where was all of that gold coming from? Who was paying for these things? Some people have stated that the gold was coming from the bot companies...people were buying the gold for real cash and inserting it into the game thus creating havoc with the economy. Now, with loot scaling have we seen a sudden or even gradual decrease in the bot population? No? WTF?

As unpopular as it might be to some, my unlearned opinion is that most of the gold was coming from other farmers...yup, farmers farm to make gold and they spend it on the in-game items that they want and (dare I say) earned. Go figure...I sometimes get the feeling that some people think that farmers farm just to hid all their gold under a mattress, as a conspiracy to screw up the entire GW economy of course (or to tip that hot little Ele cage dancer in Lion's Arch....)

There are those who will say that by cutting down on the whole farming/drop thing we will see more players suddenly become available for PUGs...uh huh...raise your hand if that has been your experience. Anyone? What a wonderful concept though...players happily farming, enjoying the game and the fruits of their labor and WHAM, farming takes it in the shorts with the Nerf Bat From Hell. Suddenly the PUG market is absolutely overrun with ex-farmers just begging to be on a team..."GLF more ~ Deathbringer Farming"...I can see it now..."WTF OMGZ AGGRO LOoZZorz...arrgggg" ...ah, GW Utopia. Yeah, I am just waiting to kick Koss's ass to the curb and invite some lvl 16 hammer-wamm with his 3-toned Ascalon armor who most recently was spotted in Ice Caves spamming "LFR to Beacon's". That folks, is why I play the game!

How about all of the so called casual players that Anet is concerned about? Are they suddenly reaping the rewards promised by loot scaling? Suddenly the non-farming folks are kitting out with uber gear? I keep expecting to see a bunch of lvl 15 Mesmers running amok in Lions Arch, crazed with "green-fever" (not to be confused with "gold-fever") spamming "WTB ~~ ALL MALLYX'S WEPS 2k ~~ WTB". By the way, does anyone actually know a player who is 1.) new to the game and 2.) casual? uh huh....I think everyone in Ascalon has a 2 yr mini...remember when pre-searing was all "shock & awe"...now its all roxxoruber death-level, "WTB all ur Black Dyes ~ 1k..."

Sadly though, it has been my experience that folks are a little tighter with their gold right now. How is this improving the game? Up to now all I see are more bots in the usual spots...you know, there were days that if I could have earned one gold for every time someone opened a trade and said "20k you buy" I would be rich! Anyway, folks don't seem to be spending a whole lot on uber gear and there is seems to be a general sense of discontent throughout the community. Perhaps I am only getting that via all the happy campers on the boards...I am possibly tainted....damn...

And for what exactly? What was the purpose of all of this again? Anyone remember? Skillz Balance, Maximize the Gaming Experience, Take from the Rich and Give to the Poor...I can't remember. (crud, now I have that Disney Robin Hood song in my head...)

And then there are the farmers...the real farmers who could care less about PUGs, the "economy", loot scaling, PvE or PvP, silly little economics lessons (blind leading the blind really) and nerfs. They are out there playing the game as they see fit. (Rock on uber-farmer dudes, rock on.) They are farming away in HM not at all worried about "1 in 8 drop rates" or whether their favorite build bought it during the latest "adjustment". (Off the record some of these "adjustments" are sort of like having a metal rod jammed up one's rear and calling it a "spinal re-alignment".) But, I digress... Anyway, these farmers have simply continued on. As have the bot-masters of course. So what we are left with is a fired up community (whats new huh?), depressed trading, at least compared the the usual activity, odd little skill adjustments and nobody really saying they are getting what they want from the game.

Everyone except the bots that is...

Loot scaling only affects you if you're not in a full group. If you solo, you get a fraction of the whites dropped that you would have merched for gold. If you go with a party of eight, you get the same amount of drops as always. I've never solo'd and have noticed my account increasing in gold just simply by vanquishing. Nothing fancy, it just happens.

If you've been affected by the scaling it's because you're solo-farming character isn't raking in the gold anymore. I seriously doubt that ANet will be fooled into removing the scaling by fabricated stories of otherwise.

I've been affected by the scaling cause I can't buy sh!t in this game anymore. You try to play this game for a month without buying anything. Yeah I know, it sucks.

A-Net must realize that their 'plan' has failed. Casual players still can't buy rare skinned weapons, and bots haven't been stopped.

The only thing this loot scaling does is annoy the friggin hell out of everyone. Too bad that A-Net is rather stubborn with these things, and rather invent a new excuse

Also, why are people confusing hard mode with the loot scaling? The reason you're getting better drops is NOT the loot scaling. It's the increased drops in HM. Having only 2 hours per day to spend, I'm not playing in HM, so no 'improved drops' for me.

When playing in a group of 8, the loot scaling doesn't affect you in a bad way, but not in a good way either.

As a matter of fact, I don't think the loot scaling affects ANYTHING in a good way. It's just making everyone poor without decreasing prices.

I routinely power-farm and used to rake in considerably more plat. Now I'm down to 1k per 8 minutes, and 1k-30k every 14 minute UW smite run. Either way, my farming character is still pulling in a LOT more than most casual players/parties. In the last few weeks, I've purchased multiple high end items without selling anything to raise plat.

Loot scaling may have deflated the economy, but the high end vanity skin weapons are still in short supply. Certain vanity weapons did drop price-wise (dead swords/bows, colosals, etc...) thanks to hard-mode, but certain other items (elemental swords, tormented gear, etc) are still presently unattainable by most casual players.

So, has loot scaling helped casual players? Well, yes and no. Yes, it's easier for them to get certain vanity skin weapons, but it much harder now to obtain 15k/Vabbi/FoW armors.

Disclaimer: I work full time and enjoy life outside GW.

odd...my solo-farming characters are doing just fine..and "raking" it in as usual. Of course if I had been relying strictly on white, purples and blues then I would be feeling it but...the whole solo farmer out-of-business thing is highly exaggerated. Oh yeah and as for the party of eight thing...1/8 of the drops by any other name is still just 1/8 of the drops.

Meanwhile usable greens and golds still sell at decent prices...'tis all good, HM is working for me. Who is really hit by the scaling? Probably the "casual" farmer...but who cares, right? Some seem to think it's more fun to smack talk those who do solo farm and are having a problem with the loot scaling...sort of comes across like an envy thing. No matter how hard you might wish it, farming is always going to find a way. It's human nature that a certain cross-section of players will not wish to play with you and your PUG and instead will choose to run it solo, farming, quests, missions. I never understood "anti-farmers"...I guess they didn't get the invitation to join in.

Live with it and stop accusing folks of fabricating stories.

As a side note...how interesting would it be if all farming stopped. The cost of rares would skyrocket. Folks would start crying that Anet needs to insert a method to roll for the drops Yeah, farmers suck...

Sing it with me..."imagine there's no farming, it's not so hard to do...nothing to kill or die for, and no spam trading too...imagine all the noobies...crying where's the greens...yohoooo..."

Thumper, I'm not gonna quote your post, but I'm going to remind everyone here to read it. Very well said.... funny, smart, it has it all.

KANE

Everyone should realize: LOOT SCALE DIDNT MADE POOR GET RICH, IT MADE RICH CANT GEET RICHER.

Vabbi and FoW armors for casual players

I can live with 15K being for casual players, but when I bought my first set I had to save several months to get it.
The way I was playing back then is what I would consider how a casual player would play.
With my current playstyle I can now get a Vabbi in about the same time, but FoW is still too expensive for me.

I think it's fair to state that the casual player should be able to obtain 15K armor and a green weapon in a couple of months time with proper saving and spending. I consider this the most a casual player can achieve.
Rare golds (low req) and Vabbi/FoW are out of reach or can only be obtained when saving for many months (or years for FoW). Or by playing more/different, but then they would not be casual players anymore.

I think casual players, with factions and nightfall, still have the possibility to achieve this even with loot scaling.
Things are different in Tyria, gaining gold there takes a lot longer.
When someone only has Prophecies, I think farming is a must to get 15K armor. The regular game just does not give enough gold to get 15K.

No, not at all, you only have to be able to find the merchant and you can still sell the valuable items//mods to players. You can play the game well with little to no trade and end up with a PvP ready character.

Exactly. It reminds me of America.

I believe that the new system hurts the casual farmer more than anything, and not the hardcore farmer as Anet intended.