Enough Money from Playing Normally

The player to player trading is something ArenaNet have always claimed to encourage. Personally I have traded back and forth ever since I entered the game. No saying your argument doesn't have value, but I would not have disallowed it for this experiment myself.

Without having done a similar experiment myself, it is my firm belief that "noobs" have it much easier now than when I started playing the game.
Took me many months before I had a max 15^50 for my warrior fx.
Sure the heroes are "money sinks" (as I suspect they were meant to be), but the accessability of perfect or near ferfect items for next to no-price balances it out imo.

I do not agree with this,- you probably didn't settle for having imperfect items and thus created more expenses for yourself. I'll bet you got the best runes too,- spare no expense! I didn't even get a Major Vigor on my first character until some time after I reached level 20.
Furthermore you admit that you took the fastest route through the game - a true noob wouldn't do that,- failing and trying again would earn him more drops and make him more money on each level. This would leave him more funds available whenever he got access to better armor etc.

Thanks for a nice thread,- interesting and invoking quite a bit of nostalgia, even if I do not agree with all your results!

I have done this with almost every char I've ever made.

Its a simple matter to level a new char up to 20 without ever opening storage and have him fully equiped with max armor and weapons.

Now at that point if you want better skins for your armor/weapons then you have to farm for cash.

I upgrade my armor via collectors up until I can purchase max armor wich costs under 10K for a full set.

Max collector weapons/offhands work just fine, when good drops happen to come my way I aquire mods to improve them.
A max item with at least one perfect mod can be crafted for 5K + materials wich are extremely easy to comeby.

So for under 20K I can have a new char fully equiped with max armor/weapons and I can earn 20K before I'm lvl 20 just by playing the game and not spending cash but by using collectors.

I'd first want to congratulate and thank cellardwellar for his efforts and results.

Not at all, as many others I've managed fine throughout Prophecies - and the later campaigns - without any farming. And that in a time when runes, weapons and armor were more expensive then they are now and with a character that was created from scratch, with nothing else on the account.

There is, you choose the line you use, but there are different lines one can draw, one could for instance skip the armorer that doesn't offer armor at least +10 AL better then the one you have. Or one could get collectors gear.

The choice of runes is another part where you can save substantially, major runes are usually far cheaper then minor and superiors.

They have brains, supposedly, and basic math skills, it shouldn't take anyone more then a few keys (looted) to realize that selling them yields more money then using them, let alone buying keys.

Prophecies has skill-quests to obtain most available skills, Factions and Nightfall offer higher rewards to pay for the skills that aren't given and thus they allow players to choose only the needed skills.

They 'understand' wrong, loot-scaling has lowered the prices and is beneficial to the casual players.

No-no, that's not true, I enjoy playing more then I enjoy trading, has always been like that. I can't be bothered to stand around for hours trying to sell some gold item.

One of the things that makes this game great is the different ways to play it, which includes the economic aspect of the game. Some people actually play the game, like Monopoly. Their goal is to max out their income and collect rare items. They aren't interested to Titles or even finishing all the quests and missions. To them, that is "normal." I got my degree in Economics and have always been fascinated by the "free market" aspect of the game. The price of an item is truly the price where the buyer and seller come together in agreement. Also, I love the fact that prices for items change based on demand and perceived rarity, better known as "supply and demand." Greens, for example, will always have the highest price in the beginning, but, as more and more of these items drop, the prices go down.

But, I bring this up only to make a point. It was obvious to me that by the time I got to Drok's, and had all my slots filled with 250 of each material item that I may need to craft armor and weapons, that I could sell them to other players at twice what the material trader was offering and could buy them for 2/3 of the price the material trader charged. This was too great s discrepancy to ignore even for the noob player that I was. I was a noob because it was my first character in the first installment of the game(Prophesies).

This experiment would be more relevant if you'd done it in Prophecies. Nightfall is probably the easiest game to equip characters with only a little money. I know you did it for the heroes(I can't believe how much you spent on them) but since Prophecies is the cheapest of the GW games its the one most people start out playing.

Honestly, I would love to see a detailed description of the various items you purchased during the experiment (I'm at work and cannot access your link). If I had to guess, by the time you completed Nightfall:

1. Every single one of your heroes was completely runed, insignia'd, and had max weapons and shields/focuses.
2. You had most skills for your primary and secondary professions purchased.
3. You had purchased (i.e. not collectors) every set of armor along the way to Consulate Docks.
4. None of your heroes (or your character) were using collector's weapons.

Now, convert that to what you "need" to be a fully functional player that can easily complete Nightfall...

1. Consulate Docks armor, and that's it.
2. Bare minimum runes on your 4-5 primary heroes.
3. Collector's items for everyone.
4. 25 or so skills. You just need to be selective on what you need to purchase to achieve the build(s) you are running.

Total cost for all of that is nowhere near 46K, and that's assuming that you didn't make a dime during all of your travels. Using JUST the quest and mission rewards (including redeeming your commendations, etc. for their full value), you will generate income of over 50K. So, in total, your total expenditures ran in excess of 100K - which I find very hard to believe is commensurate with "what you needed".

thats what you call 'basic equipment'? :O

i spend 100g-1000g max on a new hero (for a major rune of their main attribute), maybe a few more when i enter a dangerous endgame area, but i never give them vigor runes (unless i find them on the way)

this is a pretty good thread...and alot of effort went into your experiment. I do believe it is easier now for a new player to start and equip themselves..

I personally feel you went a little over board on equipping your heros...as most new players will just put what they find on thier heros..and upgrade them as they get better drops. You said you were in debt 45k roughly...i would imagine if you figured up how much you spent completely on your heros...instead of just giving them your drops...you would be breaking close to even on the cash.
As for your character...i doubt many new players would spend 15k on a superior vigor...that is a luxury item..and 9 hps isn't really that needed in PVE...the major would be bought by the majority of players.

Holy crap your heroes are loaded!!!!

Ive never spent one single gold piece on hero equipment. And I've never had a problem with ANYTHING in this game.

Runes, weapons etc are all from drops/leftovers.

Why dont you remove them from the equation if this is really about "BASIC" gameplay?

You probably can be very minimal and get by on "normal" treasure and get through the game, but thats not my approach on it. I like to give my heroes good equipment, much like the OP...Also like to buy lots of skills because i am truly new (going on 3 months) and learning the game the first time. I also, of course like nice skins and other goodies.

Treasure is an important part of the fantasy RPG experience...... while you can "get by" on normal quests in GW for many that isn't quite enough, very counter intuitive for many people. GW does have the treasure close to right however- if they only boosted quests a little by giving more items (including runes and what not) and skills, especially in the beginning of the game beginner players wouldnt feel so stressed out about cash.

I'd like to respond to this as one of the 'new players' that this experiment was intended to emulate.

I initially purchased Prophecies just after it came out - then installed it, played for an evening and uninstalled. Only recently, mid December, have I come back to the game. This time around, I purchased and began in Nightfall. Starting from scratch, with effectively zero knowledge of the game, I have played through most of the NF campaign and all of the original one. For reference, I played Nightfall up to the point where I could take the boat to Prophecies. Once there I did all of the missions and quests I could find. By the time I finished Prophecies, I had perfect weapons for all of my heroes, and completed 2/4 pieces of my first 15k armor set. Now, after going back to Nightfall, I've finished that armor set (including full upgrades) and have begun working on my next set. My heroes have most of the skills they need to be competent (still going after a few specific elites) and a couple of key runes on each.

I think, as an analysis on the cost to start from scratch, your work was fairly spot on - with one exception. You completely and totally over geared your heroes. To suggest that perfect runage (is that a word?) is intended for anyone new to the game it an exaggeration at best. The level of difficulty in the standard game is nowhere near high enough to make me think it was tuned for people to need that kind of equipment. As a new player who took the time to research useful hero builds and teams, I quickly came to realize that I could put zero runes and mediocre weapons on my team and still win in most of the game. Then, as more money came in later on, I have been easily upgrading my most used heroes (and still can't for the life of me imagine wasting a Sup. Vigor on an hero - I'll sell it and use the cash for myself).

As it stands now, I have completed Prophecies, and just finished the Ruins of Morah mission in Nightfall. My character is equipped with a fully modded set of 15k armor and has 6 heroes with suitably deep skillsets for any given occasion and profession specific mods to match. Most of my heroes have perfect weapons - I'm still picking up a few mods to make them truly 'perfect'. That said, I'm sitting on about 23k right now, and that number is only going up.

I think to that to accurately represent how well a new player could get along in the current state of the game you need to play and buy things like a newb. This would mean not buying keys to try and get weapon mods, not buying heroes runes, etc. Most new players don't bother trying to upgrade their weapons and you'll usually find them running around with a badly modded blue sword. They also won't want to spend all their precious cash on heroes instead of themselves.

Basically the priorities of a new player differ greatly from those of an experienced player which is mainly why this experiment is flawed.

You did a nice test, but the fact that you seem to NEED the absolute best most 100% efficient item and rune setups looks like it really increased the money you used. Fact is that even though collectors isn't the best its 99% as good as the best, so there is no reason to spend nearly 200k on equipping your character (Expenses total 191425). I don't think any player who is new to the game is going to buy high priced equipment just to get a damage boost on the order of .5%. You spent more then 4x what I have spent on my main character who has gone through all 3 campaigns and eotn in both normal and hard mode, I think you are really trying to exaggerate things here. Not to mention of course in Prophecies/Factions you don't even have to equip heroes, though you might have to scrape by on collectors armor for a while since you don't have much money by the time you get to the mainland in cantha. Prophecies should give you more then enough cash easily.

EDIT: You bought keys. Need I say more?

I agree with this.

I also had very different results on several new characters from NF/Factions. but will give my experience from NF for a better comparison.

I made three new PvE Paragons and one Ele for friends who wanted to try out/farm DoA but did not want to level them up or play through NF again. In each case I did not use their storage, did not trade, pretty much what the OP set out to do, since I was playing on other people's accounts. Basically I finished the game with 36 to 42k on all but the Ele, who had 2xK due to more builds, simpy by doing the following:

• Only unlocked skills needed for a few builds, using hero points as needed, and faction in the case of a few hero elites/builds.
• Used collector equip and salvaged inscriptions/mods
• Only bought 1.5k armor when I had the money and materials
• Besides a few cheap minor runes, outfitted heroes with whatever I found by playing through the campaign
• Only farmed for drops for collectors/1.5k armor crafting materials/SS req
• Only did required quests/hero unlocks and bonuses for most missions

All of those characters sucessfully beat NF, had a book of secrets in inventory to sell, and farmed DoA in a mostly human group (plus solo UW for Ele) without further modification from the lazy account owners almost immediately after I turned them over. They continued to do so until they had a gemset to try their luck with, after which they left DoA forever.

So it's quite easy for the experienced player to make more than enough money for all the necessities (max armor, max weapons, strong builds for different occassions) with only minimal farming, and money to spare. Newer players however, will have a much harder time just trying to come up with money as they have to fight a steep learning curve, inefficient heroes, loot scaling, and a serious skills debt.

If you want unnecessary vanity weapons or armor then you'll have to farm, power trade, or ebay gold but I've never seen a game where you didn't have to do at least one of those thing in order to get the luxory items. The problem in GW is that farming is a pretty shitty way to make money now (so I hear - don't farm personally) so buying golds from bots/ebay seems to be a much more attractive option.

Edit: The new player account on post#51 is what I was wondering about. I guess loot scaling isn't as bad as I thought it was and you can indeed make enough money just by playing through the campaigns.

It's easy to adapt the experiment to reflect whatever you think the baseline should be. If you think hero equipment is a luxury rather than a necessity, just cut the debt by the amount spent on heroes and you have the adjusted figure. That's why full disclosure in an experiment like this is useful.

I also don't understand all of the people who are sitting around going "but I could buy X without farming!" Personal anecdotes have no value in the face of hard data. If you'd actually bothered to record everything you did so other people could pick it apart and see if there were any anomalies (did you fail missions particularly often, thereby getting more drops? Did you get any particularly lucky drops? etc.), then your cute stories might actually hold some weight.

yep dont think your heroes need all that stuff not really requirment in most missions all mine havent got 1gld spent on them.

Nice study tho thought you would make more than that over the entire campaign maybe enough to buy a set of primeval armor or something

Awhile back I was getting a little bored and decided to try some thing "different". I setup another account, bare bones, 4 character slot, Prophesies account. Starting from scratch to see how much difference "loot scaling" did make. Only difference between starting fresh now compared to 26 months ago, game experience.

I started a warrior, same as very first character, but instead of leaving pre at level 3 (oops), I stayed until level 8. I took 3k and quite a few materials to post, vs 30 something gold back when. I also had the Rin sword this time instead of the starter.

On first character, by the time I reached Yaks Bend, I had enough gold and materials to get armor, the same armor I was able to get in Ascalon City on my second "1st" character. Played the game in story line order on both, clearing all quests in each area as I went. When I reached Grotto on the 1st character, I was able to get the "Elite" Gladiator Armor, on the second "first", I didn't have the funds to do it, 25k+ shy.

I was hoping that game experience would at least let me match or even be better than first time through, but it seems the only place it helped was in the early stages, also getting bonuses first time through, and with fewer deaths.

PuGs are still there, but not like 2 years ago. Monk places were filled by people with hero monks in a lot of places. All in all, in my experience, it is harder to get ahead now, than 1 1/2 to 2 years ago.


Edit: Maybe "failing" missions first time through, making you go back 2 or 3 times added to the gold drops and item drops allowing for more to sell to merchant. Maybe "failing" isn't a "bad" thing?

I really don't think that fully outfitting every hero with full runes and insignias should be considered "playing normally". It's completely unnecessary; if you're H/H-ing the game (which I assumed you were) the henchies don't have any of that stuff, yet you get along just fine. Using any runes and insignias you find to trick out your heroes would be one thing; buying major vigors for each of them, and full runes, including attunements? Not needed, or "normal", at all. Especially considering the fact that you're not even going to be using all of your heroes...

What else what else....I think isolating yourself from players and ignoring market trends is another silly assumption to make. That's not "normal", that's turning the game into a single player game, which (despite many players' insistences to the contrary) it isn't. You should salvage things that get you feathers, granite, iron, and steel, and ID and merc everything else. Only salvaging things to get materials for your personal weapons and armor is wasting money, and shouldn't be considered "normal". It really doesn't take any effort at all to sell most materials; you have to go to cities occasionally, just check to see if anyone is buying in party search. Eventually, if it's a sought after material, you'll find someone.

Oh, and keys. They're a gold sink, not a source of mods. Players are a source of mods. And, yes, I think some level of interaction in towns (read: buying basic mods) should be considered "playing the game normally".

And nothing in your posts relates to loot scale at all - loot scale only affect smaller than max size parties. It will *only* affect your farmer (assuming you don't do some of the farming runs that use full groups). Unless you started after the addition of elite tomes (and I doubt that given what you are discussing) you couldn't have done much farming before reaching grotto simply because of the lack of the elites. You may have done some low level farming, but then as you note that didn't change a whole lot and 15k in low level prophecies farming is MANY MANY hours.

Of course, going through a mission 3 times means 3 times the gold (assuming you die towards the very end of the mission) so, yes that would make a large difference.

Another is how much a new vs old player tends to explore. My Dervish purchased nearly a full set of vabbian on her go through Nightfall (I had enough for the set but preferred a different set of leggings). None of the other have come close to matching that nor have any even come close to having the % explored for the cartography title. This isn't totally fair as I expect (and did so from the beginning) to get an explorer and skill hunter title on her so she did much more than just "play".

However my second ever character (A smiting monk) was dropped when she made it to Hell's Precipice (due to an update killing the build), I kept her planning to eventually make a prot bond (and post nerf a prot spirit) farmer out of her, I didn't do that until factions and she has almost no play time after the initial in Tyria. She has, by far, the highest percentage of Tyria explored - around 10% more than any other. The next highest was the third Tyrian that did *all* the quests, this particular monk still has Galrath left and is no where close to emptying her quest list. This was well before exploration titles and was just the difference in what "normal" play meant.

I can't tell you how much difference in gold they made - the monk was the first one to the end game and pretty much initially funded the next who funded the next who, well, funded the next. I *can* say that she *should* have made considerably more simply because of how many more times she went through things and how much more she explored. About the only thing I can say I already have (she grew up during the height of the UW farming and the massive inflation that many here think was the absolute best time in GW - I know what a new player experienced then and it wasn't the honey and roses established people made it out to be).

Unless you made most of your money on your first character (who you were using for comparison) through farming then Loot Scale affected you as much as it did me - that is absolutely zero. It will be that way anytime one is comparing full parties as that did not change with loot scale.

I seriously don't think you need to buy anything for your heros. I performed a similar experiment on my paragon a while ago when I first created him, and found that giving my heros things I found along the way, such as runes on salvage items and crappy gold/purple drops here and there along with a green or two that I picked up was more than sufficiant. I have characters who have not given their heros a single thing, but in basic gameplay, I see hardly any difference between the two sets of heros. In non-basic gameplay, which to me includes some dungeons, elite areas and such, I wouldn't use heros anyway, but probably get a guilf group, which, a basic player is indeed encouraged to do through the game.

The experiment here, exactly as you did it, was to see if one player on his own could outfit all his heros and himself using no storage or players trades, and it failed. IMO, the heros are what made it fail, along with the Superior Vigor. Spending 9k more for 9 more hitpoints on an experiment that only allows you a tight budget, in my humble opinion, wouldn't provide accurate data.

You got that right. I remember it wasn't until the desert in Prophecies that I was able to finally get a decent collectors +15 weapon and that was while enchanted. Then Anet progressively started to ruin GW and you could BUY +15^50 weapons from the weaponsmith in Droks. Well of course we all know about the cheaters run to Droks and how they conviently placed the weaponsmith right in that path so more and more people would cheat.

GW was so much more fun back in the first days of it. People grouped with anyone an everyone. HA you could get in a group within a few minutes and off you went into combat land. I had so much more fun back in the beginning days of GW. Now, everything is being devalued. Easy drops of rare equipment dropping out of the Zashiens chest now. There's nothing to value anymore except stupid vanity armor and that's just stupid to put any value on something that has no value ingame. You can't trade it and you can't sell it to other players. One of the greatest things about other mmo's or mmorpgs is the looting system and the ability to find and wear all that you find and if you don't wear it you could sell it to other players.

I loved the days when +3 absorption runes and +50 superior runes of Vigor were 30 to 80 plat. They ruined all that. Now ectoes are down to nothingness what are they down to now 5plat? I remember when they were 17 to 19 plat the good old days of profit. The firengee have probably left GW for better ground and higher profits because Anet has just about ruined every avenue of profit in this game that there was. They have done everything they can think of to ruin looting and getting decent items in the name of botting they say. I highly doubt that as it's not stopping botting at all and it's just giving things away now that people used to have to play for and earn.

Now they introduce Ursans Blessing and the kiddies are running amok with it. There's no classes anymore, just "do you have Ursans Blessing?" if you don't then you don't get into groups for what is left of the few pieces of rare items. It's so bad now I got GWEN and I haven't even hardly played it. There's just no drive there. I could give squat about the vanity value of HOM until I see what vantage it will have in GW2 IF I buy GW2. If they don't go back to old school and start having people EARN what they get instead of giving it all to them out of one chest I doubt I will buy GW2 either. There's no use playing in a world where everyone is the "same". That's no fun at all. I want to be better than others and I want a path to be that type of player and yes I want it to be in the "no monthly fee" game of GW or any other game for that matter. It doesn't have to be GW, but, it has to be a retail version not some off the wall garage made game with sorry graphics and riff raff hackers galore.

Well, Red Sonya, I'd agree with what you wrote - except that I see all the changes as being for better

I'd say about 90% of Anet's choices go right along with my wishes.

As for why people are leaving: because the game is old. You can only play one game for so long, before it grows stale. But for a game of its age, GW is one of the best games ever

this experiment failed in the fact that the limits set was very subjective. superior vigor does not constitute a necessity. a bare run through of the game wit everything that is necessary would be a max weapon, something that is 14-15% , and basic mods (u dont need that +30 for sword, 29 is ok). beaitng the game should provide enought to buy all that.

the point you miss is that farming is easier and gets you more gold even if
GOD DAMN ANET MADE FARMING INCOME REDUCED TO LESS THEN %25 of the old way

Since the 'loot scaling' went into effect, my gold reserve has been steadily going down hill. Newly created characters were unable to support themselves without doing 'extra' work to get their basic armors for each area. This was the reason for my experiment.

I knew nothing about farming 26 months ago. I just played thru the game like I thought it was to be played. For that reason, I did the same with my second 'first', on a virgin account, ie., no gold or materials in storage from previous characters. I was wanting to see how different the game plays today vs. 2 years ago. I had no heores then or now to equip, and PuGed all but the first 4 missions in post.

When I finished my experiment, my extra account has less resourses through regular play than my very first character.

IMO 'loot scaling' does make a difference.

Loot scaling may make a difference, but I'd say the biggest difference is the heroes/equipment chosen. Honestly, while I think the experement here was good, it's very skewed by the hero runes, weapons etc. Those are NOT necessary by any means and a new char wouldn't have em. Nor to buy every 15k armor etc, that's vanity armor you get when you do have the cash, not something a new char needs, 1.5k max works very nicely.

My hubby to be and I are doing something similar for the helluv it. We both made baby Proph chars on our alt accts. No other campaigns on those accounts, no heroes ... nada. Nothing in storage, no help from their "rich big siblings". We'll make do with armor/weapons/runes etc that we can collect or buy with what they make. Should be fun, and if the point is to see how loot scaling effects a new char, this'd do it.

You used a lot of salvage kits.

Of course - have your opinion. There are still people out there who think the moon landing was fake and the earth is flat. However, for the rest of us loot scale only scales less than full teams drops (and even then a solo farmer gets roughly 2x what one in a team of eight gets not counting non-loot scaled items). The software engineers in this project have had enough mathematical background to know the same thing I do - you have absolute no case regardless of how many fallacies you bring to bear on the "problem". Further, they know things I actually can not (I can only repeat what they have told us) - they have not changed anything for full groups.

If you want something "fixed" then you are going to have to first have a problem. If you wish, keep raging and even if the whole community does so it still will not change things. They can't revert something back to the way it was in the beginning if they never changed anything and it is *still* the way it was at the beginning. If you want it changed *at least* complain about the way things actually work.

Of course, feel free to ignore this advice and tell me I'm stupid. This advice has never seemed to sink in and rarely ever will. It has never done so in any project I have been involved in and it has almost never sunk in on any project I am not involved in (I can count the number of times someone stepped back and rethought things on one hand) and am giving advice on how to possibly sway the developer. People still continue to rant and rational thought never makes a difference: You can not reason someone out of a position that they didn't use reason to come up with in the first place.

The OP, like many others that play, feels loot scaling has made a diffierence. He posts an experiment trying to 'prove' it in his eyes. Immediatley everyone started shooting holes in the data. I had already performed a similar 'experiment'. I didn't keep exact figures as this was solely for my purposes, not meant to be shared with the community at large. I decide to post it to help the OP make his point, and now I am ranting.

I remember the day 'loot scaling' went into effect. Not by day/date, but by the immeditae change in drops. For 2 days, I was killing Skales and spiders outside Presearing Fort Ranik for dyes. After killing all the skales, I would run around picking up everything. I was also chatting with a guildmate that was farming somewheres in Factions. I entered town to unload and saw the build update. Salvaged and sold, told guildmate I was getting the update, logged off. Logged back on, headed out the door. The effect was immediate, in 4 trips out, I picked up 7 items total. Meanwhile, the guildmate got the update. 10 minutes later he was asking me what the update was. He said, "The drops have gone to hell." I told him, I see the same thing.

Now when a person talks about not getting drops, it's become a matter of luck. "You're just having a run of bad luck." "I am still making money farming HM." etc.

My first 2 post were not Rants, just backing up what the OP had found. So now, call it a rant. And today, I still say 'loot scaling' made a difference.

For the record, the op doesn't think that lootscaling makes a differnence to full party gains. The OP felt that casual solo farming was a required to afford the game's static gold sinks (a postition that the experiment demonstrated to be mostly incorrect) and it was this that was hurt by lootscaling.

The most surprising thing I've found is how many posters are perfectly happy with poorer gamers having substandard gear and heroes. Wasn't the whole point of GW to create an enviroment where "success is determined by skill rather than time played"? To my mind a player should be able to afford perfectly equiped characters and heroes from the get go, if that isn't the case then success isn't the basic game precept being violated?

Case in point, the dervish in the blog has finished every mission and quest and is ready to join up with another player for DOA. Doing these quests with 6 heroes (and not abusing consumables/pve skills) is hard enough, I would hazard to say that with under equiped heroes, it would be downright impossible.

You don't need well equipped heroes, you don't need a perfect weapon, you only need 1k armor.

Total should be <10k

[QUOTE]no matter who and how many times it has been stated in over the last 2.5+ years some still fail to make the connection that was for PVP not PVE

BECAUSE NOBODY IS MORONIC ENOUGH TO THINK A 10 HOUR A DAY PVE PLAYER WILL NOT BE MILES AHEAD OF A 5 HOUR A WEEK PVE PLAYER.

unless you really thimk a 10 hour a day farmer is skilled instead of time spent

Heh, I'd love to see someone go through the game with noob armor and noob weapons up until their first chance to get maxed armor.

Did that on several chars, its not really hard at all.

In prophicies I completed the desert missions on my war with armor I had purchased in Bergen Hot Springs.

Shortly after completing them, and dying in the Dragons Lair mission, I returned to the desert and aquired max armor from the collectors there. Losing several runes to the random destruction of salvaged items back then I had to purchase or do without most of my runes.

In Nightfall you get max armor before you even leave the newb island and in Factions shortly after leaving the island you can reach Kaineg Center and aquire max armor for the minimum cost.

46k in debt 0_o. You really shouldn't have had to spend more then 20k throughout the campaign, which you get back through the chests anyways. Really, Armor plus collector scythe is not much. I understand you wanted to pimp your heroes, but I got through with my paragon with heroes that had their starting equipment and no runes at all. I didn't PUG much either.

Nice report, but I've known this for ages. Back in the day, when guild wars was a month or two old, I got enough money for a 15k set just from doing missions. Now..bleh

We all managed to get by with our first characters, and I am sure it took us quite a while before we figured out how to farm with them.

Expensive runes, perfect weapons, having all the skills, and 10k-15k armour are all not basics.

Cheaper alternatives like 1k armour, Major Vigor, +28/+29 health, 14^50, 19% enchantment, r10/r11 weapons, awesome collector weapons are all affordable without farming*. The game definitely gives you enough for those through normal play.

* everyone draws a different line what is farming/grinding. I reckon if you're going out 8-man and doing a zone no more than 20 times, in order to get gold, materials or collector drops, that's normal play requirements, not farming.

2 years ago, i played with pre searing armor al the way til after the desert b/c i jsut started the game and wanted to save till max armor first lol.

Congratulations on a thorough and thought-provoking piece of work.

The main question seems to be over whether your heroes required all that stuff. If your aim was to complete every mission to master-level then I would argue yes, you need better than basic heroes. I'd say that managing masters on Dzagonur Bastion or Gate of Madness with basic heroes is a big ask.

Having said this - a point that no-one raised yet - who needs heroes anyway? The blog and the experiment are built around the assumptions that you are going to get Masters on everything, H/H the whole campaign, and pimp out your heroes to a 'max' level as soon as you enter the level 20 environment (which I would define as Vabbi onwards).

These assumptions are reasonable, but shouldn't be taken to define 'normal' gameplay.

First thing to take into account is that you could have avoided hero use almost entirely by a combination of PUGs and henchmen. If anything, this experiment confirms (unwittingly) that PUGing is not considered normal gameplay. I am not suggesting that you would PUG the explorable areas, just the missions, where is *is* possible to find PUGs if you play at the right kind of day and have patience.

Second thing is that you appear to have set yourself the aim of completing everything on the first attempt. To do this requires over-speccing your party in order to steamroll the campaign. A 'normal' gameplay experience might be to attempt things with a less well-equipped party, failing more often, and getting extra loot in the process.

Third thing is that we have to accept Nightfall is very different to the other campaigns, in that the others were not designed around heroes, and also being the third campaign, the vast majority of players would have the first two chapters and a substantial amount of funds in the bank. If your experiment was run in Proph or Factions I can't see how you would get into a loss.

Final question - can you explain how you got into a loss? This isn't really explained (apologies if I didn't see it - I did take a quick look at the blog). Did you just take money out of Storage when your methodology requires? For example.... 'Dunkoro needs a Radiant Insignia now; rather than waiting for one to drop I'll take the money out of Storage and buy from the Rune Trader'.

I think this is the main problem I have with the methodology. I have fully runed and maxed heroes on 3 characters, but never bought a piece of stuff for them. They take hand-me-downs and stuff salvaged off drops. Point is that I have waited for the drops.

It should be possible to repeat the experiment and make a profit if you only buy things when you have the money, and wait for stuff to drop before dipping into Storage.

Just another thought - if you did all the quests that generate Trade Contracts - did you exchange these for Rubies and sell to the Rare Materials trader? This ought to generate about 10-20k in cash.

Sorry if the answer is somewhere in the blog....don't have time to read it all.