Should Lootscaling be removed after the new Rtm policy?

Now that ban is gone...

(quoted from few pages back)
Before I say something, I would like to commend you on posting the same thing twice, filled with yummy, yummy insults. GG, you are amazing.

Now...

Umm, farmers have never deserved "special treatment" that you talk about, all those nerfs to builds, nerfs to areas, LS........farming code. Do you even think before you post now? Or are you just making things up for +1? Oh and the hardcore farmers are rewarded because THEY ARE working, (typically) harder than the casual player. They are more dedicated, because the farmer stays in a zone, for possibly, hours, and they make money in the process, being rewarded for their hard work.


And...why are you going on about how poor you are, when you say that you have millions of gold across your account, oodles of 15k sets, and a dozen leet weapons?

Well...whatever you're doing is obviouslly working for you, why should you care if LS is removed? You have enough items/gold, etc to keep you happy (and you've never solo farmed, congrats!). And now look at what I can do, see how utterly ignorant you are? You lost all your credit in this topic aloooooong time ago....I feel dirty after using the I-word.

Except that these items are all chance-based and something good barely drops. Also, I believe we are not looking at Hard Mode here, but at Normal Mode. Hard Mode is only for the hardcore farmers.

90% of the items on the Exemption List are worth less than 100 gold. The rest is worth something more, but ONLY if you sell to real players. The Exemption List supports Hardcore farming. I can understand that some people farm 10 hours a day, get 3 req 8 Elemental Swords and then spend another 3 weeks to sell them in LA, but casual players don't want to spend 3 weeks standing in an outpost doing nothing just for a few platinum. Cash isn't the thing that matters, it's the stuff you buy with the cash.


Yes, because when farming in Normal Mode, these items barely drop, and when they drop, they're still worthless 80% of the time.


This is all a matter of chance, but if you get loads of black dyes, lockpicks and perfect goldies, you are the one that is lucky, it's not the others that are unlucky.


Casual farmers are farmers that don't have the time to waste in an outpost trying to sell an item for 10 hours. For them, white junk is the only good source of income, since other stuff is only worth something when sold to other players.

In other words, Casual farmers farm because they HAVE to. They farm to play the game, instead of dicking around in an outpost trying to sell a super-rare item that makes them insta-rich IF they manage to sell it.

Your logic would only hold up if a solo farmer actually spent 8 times as much time and effort farming their mobs as it takes for a party of 8 to clear the same area. If it did though there woud be little or no solo farming because your yield would be the same as if you were in a party of 8 (8 time as long to clear the area for 8 times the drops = parity with party of 8. mathematical fact not opinion)

Now as regards to the statement that a solo farmer is doing 8 times the work... I solo farm alot (Perhaps I should say multiple hours a day. By some standards 2-4 hours a day is not alot.) in cycles (if my alliance is doing anything interesting or I am in a PVP mood then farming gets put on hold). When I solo farm I am using builds and choosing my locations based on minimum effort to greatest yield ratios.

My builds are designed for near infallibility and ultimate efficiency. When I slaughter mobs in HM with my terra tank-eternal sliver armor build I am actually working less than a team of eight would in the same area. I stand there and recast enchantments when they start to go down. I move adjacent to the casters so that they get their share of the damage. Very little more than that is needed and the mobs drop fast. In fact IAS for monsters in HM means that in some areas they die faster in HM than they do in NM (that rarely seems to be the case for full balanced parties).

I know that not all farming runs are quite so easy but I think that many or even most solo farmers work around the same idea of yield vs effort concepts that I do (even if they dont consciously call it that)

By the way you might want to look up the scientific definition of work. It is applicable here because we are talking about mathematical relationships with a number of variables. Solo farming doesnt actually take more effort and certainly doesnt take more time than a normal party size for a given area.

My last point is to assure you that I am actually not saying that I am for lootscaling..In fact enough very good points for both sides of the argument have come up here to convince me that this is not at all a black and white issue. I am undecided (And remember I am a solo farmer, but also someone who wants the best for the game as a whole). On the otherhand I felt it necessary to point out that arguments without basis in fact actually hurt your point by causing those who see the flaws to perhaps completely discount your point of view.

Without getting back into any sort of heated exchange, I'm going to simply assert something: there is no such thing as a casual farmer. Farming in games pretty much defines the start of non-casual. Where precisely the cutoff comes is too subjective, but I feel quite safe is stating at the point you say to yourself, "I wonder if I can kill all the hyrda outside of Augury Rock by myself?" you are no longer just casually playing through the game.

Given that me and many other in this and other threads have managed to acquire max stat armor and items, complete all campaigns, etc. without farming makes it pretty clear there is never such a thing as farming for need, only for greed. I'm not assigning a value to greed, just pointing out that, quite literally, anything you might be farming for has nothing to do with an actual need relative to the game of guild wars.

There are casual farmers, but their gains from non-LS are insignificant compared to what hardcore farmers get.

I feel absolutely no need to farm in this game and can still buy most of the things I want. (Bought my ranger' FoW last februari, she's 31 months old now)

You don't have a clue what farming is, do you? So when you're farming for Jade Mandibles to get your collector's armour (Droks armour is still too expensive for alot of players that don't save up on their cash), you're a Hardcore farmer in your eyes. Real smooth man... Remember that quest in Istan where you have to get 3 Insect Legs to complete it? So if you do that quest, you are a Hardcore farmer? Oh, and a horse equals a cow because they are both four-legged creatures?

Don't compare casual farming with hardcore farming. It is thanks to these kind of posts that everyone thinks that Troll Farming makes people rich, while the guys getting 5 ecto's a day end up being left alone while they DO fill up their storage with cash rather quick.

Sure, Hardcore farmers get more loot too, but who cares? Only the elitists care, but they are usually hardcore farmers themselves, so yeah... For the regular player, it wouldn't matter at all if hardcore players got the extra few platinum per hour. After all, this is still nothing compared to the 50K+ they can make every day.

The latest new toy is always expensive, that has nothig to do with the gold economy, that's just the way it is with new toys. Chapter/new item release has always been that way and the exact same is true with the loot nerf as without. The point about inflation is that prices didn't rise from their initial value, but fell, that is deflation. So claims that removing LS will cause inflation are completely without foundation or precident, that is the myth.

I know exactly what farming is, it's you who clearly don't. Actually, I think you do know exactly what farming is at some level, but for the purposes of this thread, you redefine it and its role in the game as it suits your insane need to play the victim.

If you're going to define farming as any activity where you kill something and hope something drops, well, no damn wonder you're so confused and frustated by the game.

Instead of continuing the personal attacks against me, just anwser the question first. It's funny how most pro-LS people only attack the anti-LS people and ignore the facts or questions that they state, I wonder if it has anything to do with the inability to anwser these questions.

The purpose of this thread has nothing to do with it. You clearly think that any kind of farming is hardcore farming, and as long as you think that you have NO idea of the situation casual farmers are in. Don't confuse casual farmers, who farm to play the game, with Hardcore farmers, who play to become rich.

Oh, and would you FINALLY anwser why you are against the removal of the LS?

[QUOTE]dont you mean the boots for non universal? bug fix?

superior absorb does not require a superior absorb on each piece of armor so very wrong again.

the sup absorb/ sup vigor held their constant 100k/75k prices almost a year after guaranteed salvage in june 2005 update.

HERE IS WHAT DONE THE PRICE HOARDIBG PLAYERS IN

APRIL 2006 UPDATE the dev announvement was 3 X
they were half price as the hoarders panic sold them before a new rune hit the ground.

i loved it

That is such a pack of bull. Solo farmers do NOT do the work of 8 people. If that were really the case then farming would stop being an efficient way of making money and people wouldnt bother doing it.

And solo farmers get 8 times the non LS affected loot than those in a full team, as others have pointed out. The whole point of farming is that it's a far more productive and faster way of getting loot than playing in a full team. Your claims are outright lies and you sure arent going to fool anyone.

Let me ask you, why does a casual farmer HAVE to do anything? I consider myself a casual player since I play 2 hours a week average and have done the occasional farm during special event weekends. I don't need to be "insta-rich", I just play and slowly save up my gold. If I get a "super-rare item" that I want to sell, I just put it on the forum. Sure it's not part of the game structure, but it's there for my disposal. Besides, a lack of a trade market has nothing to do with LS.

Sure, they're rare. But solo-farming, you'll still get upward of 30 times more of them than when playing in a full party.

It's the same in normal mode.

Wait, what? We're talking about the same game, right? Because, apart from most dyes and a few rare material drops, practically everything on that list sells for more than 100 gold at the merchants and traders.

I got it, you're living in a fantasy world. Most farmers, hardcore or otherwise, make the lion's share of their gold from merching. Also, you're confusing 'hardcore' and 'efficient'. I have people in my guild who farm 30 minutes at a time, not even every day, not even every week. But they do it where it counts, and make a decent buck. I know how well they do because they let me ID their rares. Are they hardcore? Casual? Or perhaps we should just drop your black&white hardcore vs. casual nonsense.

Also: No, it helps anyone proportional to how many monsters they kill solo. Which is as fair as it gets.

Please enumerate all these worthless exempted items you're talking about, because I don't have a effin' clue.

I don't get a whole lot of really special stuff, but contrary to what you believe, it adds up to a respectable figure. I can't help feeling you're either spoiled rotten, or quite detached from the reality of the game. Mmm... didn't you claim earlier that you could hardly afford your ID/salvage kits?

Casual farmers are probably also not pink elephants. I don't want to know what they aren't, I want to know what it is exactly they do to be in so much trouble from loot scaling.

They play the game you say, and they even farm, 'casually', whatever that may mean, yet they manage to completely avoid making enough money to get by... Man, they must suck at this game.

You obviously don't know anything about the business world or PR's and CR's. They are there for the ILLUSION that the company really does care what you have to say, but, really doesn't. It's just a PROP and most people like YOU fall for it and THINK you are important and your opinion and others opinon have value because there is a "representative" around? lmao

I must remember that the most effective builds work better in HM.
And in HM there are places with MORE monsters to kill in HM.

I must also rmemeber that are some monster that are EASIER to beat in HM, like the Doppleganger, thanks to that is easier to use their increased speed and damage against them.

I've explained countless times, but I guess you just don't WANT to understand, eh? Don't think everyone gets enough cash in this game just because you and a few others do. YOU are living in a fantasy world where the LS seems to deliver you unlimited prosperity and happiness. And how the hell does someone get 30 times as much when playing solo? Solo farmers barely make more money due to the fact they only do a few farming runs per day, and the farming runs only net 500-1,5K. Sure, they make more than 8-man parties, but that's not too hard, since when playing in an 8-man party, almost nothing drops.

When I'm talking about exempted items, I'm talking about Purple Dyes, Fur Squares, golden req 13 Restoration Magic Wands etc. Tomes and Lockpicks only drop in Hard Mode so they have nothing to do with the casual farmers. They are still pretty friggin rare even when farming... In fact, back in the good ol' days, the chances of finding a goldy were VERY slim, even when killing so many monsters...

Casual farmers don't LIKE to farm. They HAVE to. They're the people that just don't make enough money from the 2 or 3 drops you get in a mission or quest. They don't want to spend time farming, so they did simple farm runs for a little bit of cash. Any golden weapons were just merched, cause it'd take too long to sell, anyway. This is where it is different with the hardcore farming, where people make 50K+ with 1 item because they farm stuff like ecto's several hours a day, and spend even more time selling that item.

And again, you are just whining about the anti-LS people, but you fail again to make a SINGLE argument as to why NOT remove the LS.


I still believe that Hard Mode SHOULD be under the effects of the Loot Scaling. If Hard Mode was too easy to farm, the prices of everything would lower too much.

I know dozens of people who play in many different ways, and I've never heard any of them complaining about a shortage of cash. Not a single one. In fact, even among the anti-loot scaling people, you're a lonely voice. Most are just greedy or claim to have more fun when they get more drops. You're practically the only one anywhere who's actually complaining about a shortage of cash. It boggles the mind!

I said, you get upward of 30 times as much of the items of the exempted list. If you can't figure out how that works, I can't help you.

A few times 500-1,500 per day... how much is a few? 2? 3? 4? That makes 1,000-6,000 per day. And that's just from 'casual farming'? Sounds to me like a fine income for a casual farmer.

So, purple dyes and fur squares make up 90% of the exempted list now? And golden req 13 Restoration Magic Wands, aren't they at least somewhere near 240? Surely not less than 100.

I still don't know what a casual farmer does, but we're getting there, slowly, I guess. We learned that they don't farm on HM. And about goldies... do you even realize that the chance for finding goldies while doing your few daily casual farming runs has never been as high as after loot scaling was introduced, thanks to the removal of loot degradation for repeated runs? Do you even still try to farm? Because you strike me as someone who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

2 or 3 drops? Mmm... I usually have to bring salvage kits so I don't have to leave drops behind.

Again, how about dropping that horribly myopic black and white interpretation of the issue? You're dismissing all the people who aren't hardcore farmers, but efficient farmers, who can make plenty of easy money doing a few runs a day and just merching stuff.

Oh, the irony. I'm not whining, I'm celebrating the way the game works now. I'm jubilant! Hint: whining usually involves some kind of complaint. Look hard at these posts and see who's the one complaining. Another hint: it's not me! And for your information, I've made my points time and time again. Go look for them, I get tired of reiterating them.

That's just silly... you want me to find more merchant junk if I go outside in normal mode and kill my favorite mob of 30-40 than when I do the same in hard mode? I give up trying to understand how your mind works. Consider the towel thrown into the ring.

Tomes, I suppose. Lockpicks? Nuh-uh. They drop in normal mode. Got around 30 Treasure Hunter points thanks to lockpicks that dropped, mostly in EotN. (and another half-dozen or so points from various quest reward lockpicks) I refuse to pay for 'em.

EDIT: And just got another lockpick off the ground during "Assault on the Stronghold".

Why should I care if other people are duping armbraces? After all, whatever I'm doing works for me. Why should I care if people are getting rich quick with minimal effort?

See how bad your logic fails at every turn?

Can you please quote me on where I said how poor I was?

No, you can't because I never said it.

Not only does your logic fail (at every turn), you make stuff up.

Correct, I assume because normal mode chests in EotN areas are locked chests. It was added in the Thursday, December 6, 2007 update.

Do you really mean to suggest that farmers work EIGHT times harder/longer than a non-solo farmer with the same level of dedication? Or...?

Here's your 101st logic failure: you just compared "hardcore farmers" to "casual players". You can't compare these two things when the level of dedication is a variable.

Here's how logic works when making a comparison: Keep all variables the same, save the one being analyzed. Compare a hardcore solo farmer to a *hardcore* 8-man player. Assume same hours, dedication, skill level, and experience. If you use logic, even and you can deduce that the solo farming play style gets special treatment over normal one. If *eight times* the income isn't special treatment, nothing is...

CONGRATULATIONS! You did the following all in one post!

1) Fabricated things that were never said.

2) Made the most flawed comparison in Guru history.

3) Made the classic post that boils down to "why should you care if other people get rich quick but not you?"

Thanks! I've often wondered what that little button meant, I never knew. Well, either that or I didn't feel like writing how HM *also* affects prices when discussing LS. Not sure which though.

Sure, all sorts - prices at the traders for nearly everything were more expensive. Of course, now that we have hard mode none of that counts as it was the only thing that changed (or the only one some want to admit too).

You are confusing LS/HM with the shift towards high health builds and the MUCH higher demand for them. Prices for them *did* go down for a decent amount of time and coincided with the addition of HM/LS. The increase in their prices coincides to when people started noting that the more PvP like high health builds made HM MUCH easier and then the "expensive" runes shifted from the superiors to the minors. Even then the "expensive" stuff was quite a bit less than before. These events were months in between of each other and prices had very much stabilized from HM/LS for a long time before the later price increase.

Sure thing - perfectly agree there. LS also stops a great deal of gold from entering the system and shrinks the gap between solo farmers and people who play in 8 man teams. This also reduces prices by not allowing people to become super rich and drive prices for items way up (say, like it did when the 105 monks were in force and we had ~30k black dyes). I fail to see how only *one* of them is the sole cause - or heck even the main cause (for one thing the supply of trader items didn't increase *that* much).

Yes, it's common for a certain group to *want* it to only be HM so bad that they let their wants talk more than their ability to reason. It's also common for that group to think the other side is a bunch of idiots that didn't realize HM happened.

Taking that amount of gold out of the economy (or rather, not allowing that great amount to flow in) will *always* reduce prices. It may or may not be healthy for that to occur and it may or may not reduce the amount of "fun" of playing the game - that's another issue (I think it removes a great deal of "fun"). Drastically increasing supply will do the same thing. In this case they wanted to shorten the gap between the haves and the have nots while reducing the overall cost of stuff - they succeeded and LS is an integral part of it. Other than to respond to the idea that HM is the main (or only as implied) cause there is no reason to talk about how HM affected stuff.

Which, again, Anet realizes this and any arguing that ignores it is going to fall on deaf ears. You can tell me all day long that HM caused prices to drop, I don't (and I am certain Anet also doesn't) disagree with that. But pretending that LS doesn't affect it while saying that LS affects it and must be removed (if it doesn't affect those things then why care?) isn't going to win over Anet. In fact it tends to get whole posts pretty much ignored.

[QUOTE=Loviatar] Correction. They intially dropped to 60kish when the 3x drop happened then nosedived when anet reworked how they affected.

First of all you missed the entire point. The point was solo farmers do more work alone than a full eight man party therefor deserve more loot. Secondly many casual farming places do not offer significant rare material or green drops. Thirdly in reality; gold items, tomes, dyes, keys/lockpicks drop at such a low rate it hardly matters if you solofarm or play with a full team.

In the end it doesn't matter Anet isn't going to remove lootscaling. You have your opinion I have mine I don't feel like argueing this any more.

This thread has deteriorated so much that I'm tempted to write a lengthy (and boring) explanation for why sky is blue (Rayleigh scattering) and water wet (hydrogen bonds) just for the amusement value of scores of people crying "BS!"

However, since there is already a detailed analysis on which option is the rational choice for people depending on their 'social class' in the game, everybody can read it to identify their proper standing on the issue. This, of course, doesn't have anything to do with what ANet will (or won't) do with LS, and now I feel that I have truly done enough work on this issue and will go my merry ways

Too bad it's filled with bias, assumptions, fallacies and holes without any actual facts.

And they do get more loot. So what's the problem?

That's ridiculous. It matters a whole lot.

Despite 70 odd pages of discussion I am struggling to come up with a downside for the removal of LS.
We have discounted inflation because we had 2 years of deflation before the loot nerf. As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, do not confuse high prices with inflation. Inflation is rising prices.

The pole for this thread has been ridiculed for not representing the GW player base as the vast majority are casual players. Given this regular farmers must make up a small % of the player base by this reasoning. I don't necessarily agree with this as farming is very casual friendly as you can spend as much time doing it as you have free. But I'll got with the pro LS players who believe that casual players will say "WTF is LS".

How much of an impact on the economy will such a small amount of players have? Also, most farmers also do dungeons, missions, DOA etc as well so not all of their play time is farming. The money must also spent on the player/player trading for any price increases on rare items to become noticed. Do you forsee a time when WTB will outnumber WTS for an extended period?

HM will prevent all sup runes from moving much. After all when you kitted out all your hero's with sup vigours how many more do you need to buy?

According to Anet, solo farming was having a real impact on the economy and needed to be addressed.

No, that's not the exact quote that you can find on page 12 of this thread:
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Loot#Loot_scaling

Only "advanced solo farming" (i.e., the humans playing to gather gold for RMT) was harming the economy.

I just wanted to remark that the bolded part is purely your own interpretation and not apparent from the link you quoted. Not all people who farm for hours on end are doing it for RMT purposes.

We've all seen the bot trains in various places, elona reach, droknar's forge, granite citadel, bergen bot springs etc. The sheer number of these and their unchecked activities were in full swing when the loot nerf was put in place. I find it hard to believe that normal player activities were competing with this commercial activity that ANet didn't start to address until around the time of the /report feature. Indeed, shortly after the nerf, the bot activity went through the roof! I think this critical failure of the loot nerf was a contributor to force ANet to do things like Banning/Blocking.

Now that all that junk has gone, and none of it thank to the loot nerf, its pretty inconceivable to me to believe that there is any problem in removing that abhoration that is loot scaling.

They said "advanced solo farming". This means people who solo farm regularly, only a minority of whom are RMT people.

Seems like you're ignoring the fact that human solo farmers were negatively impacting the economy, per Anet's comments. How can you not "conceive" of this?

It wasn't just bots that were the problem. It was real people (ie maybe you).

If I'm the only one complaing of a shortage of cash, how do you explain the 68% that votes for the removal of Loot Scaling? I made all these votes alone?

People DO have more fun with more money, cause everything except for the storyline COSTS money. YOU and the 3 or 4 other pro-LS people here may enjoy beating the storyline 4 or 5 times in a row, but other people want to play the game for more except for just the story.

Again, the 30 times as much drops is BS. Have you actually played the game in solo? You get 1 or 2 drops for clearing the Raptor Cave solo... And that's in Hard Mode. Same goes for Charr, Trolls, Griffons - anything that is solo'ed. The Exemption List items are a rarity and their drop rate is based on luck. Sure, you could get a Black Dye in 1 run... It could also cost you a 1000 runs. That's not a steady source of income.

A few runs is 2-6 times a day. It, of course, depends on the items that one wants to buy. If someone wants to buy FoW armour, he'd still be doing months of Troll runs. 6K is nothing in this game. Especially compared to the 50-100K a day people claim to make.

You know what I meant, so stop being such a smartass. Every dye except for Black and White and all materials (Since the valueable ones only drop in elite area's) are pretty much worth no cassh. Other items on the list are very situational (Event items only drop during events, Lockpicks and Tomes only in Hard Mode (Well, and EotN, but not everyone plays there, and the income for casual players should be ~equal in each game).

Crappy goldies go for less than 100 gold alot of the time. Only the ones in high end areas sell for over 200/300 gold... Which is still not profitable at all, seeing how goldies almost never drop. The drop rate of golden items was lowered because of Loot Scaling, get your facts straight. The Loot Scaling has NOTHING to do with the raising of the Goldies drop rate now, which was the responsibility of the Exemption list.

And again, the removal of the Anti-farm code has no impact on most people, since most people never farmed so much as the point where it would kick in, and even IF it kicked in, more would still drop than the LS causes to drop now.

Efficient farmers are Hardcore farmers 90% of the time. Tell me ONE efficient farm build that doesn't require one to be in an elite area and where the target loot isn't stuff on the exemption list.

Hard Mode drops enough stuff even without the white junk. If the LS was completely removed in HM, everyone would farm there, and items would drop in price even more. Besides, in my honest opinion, Hard Mode shouldn't be farmable at all.

You ARE whining. Even though there are people that want to change the game to a point where no1 is at a disadvantage, you still want to prevent this for no reason at all. You are the one that is whining because you don't want others to farm in this game. Even though it won't impact YOUR gameplay, you still are opposing the removal of the LS with stupid arguments, and while people are having trouble making money, you just laugh at them and say that you CAN make enough money, and therefore the LS should stay.

In other words, you don't have a point. You just come here to pick a fight with the anti-LS people here, and make yourself feel good for telling us how much drops YOU get in the game.

We have a poll now???

the poll speaks the truth.

Anet / Regina please listen to your fans playing your game.

Typical broad generalisation. HOW was it negativley impacting the economy. It is hard to debate with you guys because you never give us any facts to debate against.

Well, maybe you don't see it. But most people already saw it.

They were getting too much cash, and considered amounts of cash meant to be 'big' mere spare change.

100k IS a lot. Is the maximun trader price, the maximum cap of gold in trades, the maximum price meant for most 'high end' items.

Those that farmed a lot before LS, considered 100K to be nothing, and thus changed to ecto as a currency.

That was never meant to be like that.

It's in front of you, you just don't see it.

Cab.... Cab Cab Cab Cab.... Please read pages 1 through 70-something of this thread. Not all are good points, but there's plenty of stuff out there.

Besides, I wasn't intending to prove anything myself with my post. I was merely referring to Anet's statement that pre-LS solo farming was negatively impacting the economy. They didn't limit that statement by saying it was just the bots were the problem either.

They have ways and means of viewing the issue that us worm's eye view people do not. Therefore I do not have access to as many hard facts as you'd apparently like me to have....