Limit Gemstones from HM Dungeon Chests

Onyx and Diamonds are too common right now due to 600/smite dungeon runs, voltaic spear farms, and Fissure and Underworld speed clears. For diamonds in particular, the value listed at the rare material trader is often below the base merchant price of 250 gold. It is also incredibly infuriating to spend an hour in a hard mode dungeon and get double gemstones from the end chest nearly 25-33% of the time. The gemstones are so ubiquitous that they evoke the same sense of futility and wasted effort as blowing 4k for a 50% shot at firewater and brulee.

Please either reduce the drop rate for onyx or diamonds, or at least guarantee that a maximum of one gemstone can drop from a dungeon end chest.

i agree!
/signed

i hate when you pay like 10k or more for a dungeon run to get a high end item and get diamons/oynx. i rather have a crappy gold then those materials!

/signed
with no use other than destroyer weapon crafting they have run their course allready.

/signed

I usually get a gold, and when I get gemstones I give it to a friend who is working on maxing his HoM. But it is still annoying. Reduce the % chance of getting Onyx and Diamonds please.

Although keeping it would be a good punishment for those who pay other people to play the game for them. Don't get why people do that...

because not all of us can find good groups or friends to do dungeons with. plus nothing wrong with paying a person to run us. its our time and money not yours.

i know why!! it's b/c they like to pay me 10k to run SoO.

/notsigned

its been observed as about 25% of the time, and thats fine.

how about you limit your VS Farms and 600/Smite dungeon runs and actually play the game. theres a solution...

EDIT: best solution...
nerf [shadow form] back to the old style

admittedley, i use it too...but if you're complaining about the prices, that is the reason.

and then there's always this.

stop doing dungeons, anet then might improve the drop rates to attract ppl again
if ppl are still interested in doing this and paying for runs, theres no need to change

/dont care they are only used to make ugly weapons. they might as well be cheep /not signed

Decrease chance of Diamonds for Dungeon Chests.
Decrease chance of Onyx's for Dungeon Chests.
Decrease chance of Creme Brulee for Zaishen Chest.
Decrease chance of Firewater for Zaishen Chest.
Decrease chance of Normal Tomes for Locked Chest.
Decrease chance of Common Miniature for Birthday Present.
Decrease chance of People failing at Guild Wars

I'd sign for these.

ehm.. this is caused by all the players farming the dungeons.. they did this to themselves.. so I think they deserve getting all the gemstones they can get. If people had been doing the dungeon how they were supposed to be done this wouldn't be a problem. /not signed

/signed

I hate spending an hour+ in a hm dungeon, especially a long or hard one, and getting double onyx/diamonds. Limit to one per chest max please.

Just nerf the common dungeon running builds. I can't see the fun in sitting around for the best part of an hour while someone else runs through a dungeon for you anyway.

Agreed on all those xD

At OP's suggestion: I don't mind diamonds and onyx gems from dungeons as they are easy to finish with all the runners around, however from FoW/UW I wish they'd change the stupid drop rate. I'd rather get 2 crappy req13 golds than 2/3 Scrolls in one run or onyx or diamond.


/signed

Guru needs to open up a cheese factory.

/NOT SIGNED

Why don't you whiners just say what you really mean, I can't sell this stuff at what I want to so Anet should knee cap it so it will be worth more so I can make more doing runs and farming this junk.

Say what you mean you paid 10k to get ran and only got a crappy gold weapon and some worthless rare materials. Hey you rolled the dice to get what ever you really paid 10k for the run to get and all you ended up with was junk.

Maybe you should save your plat and learn to run it your self or go ahead and buy super shiny weapon skin X you wasted your money for.

this...

speed clears and dungeon runs shouldnt exist. the only reason it does is because people would cry and complain if they took it out once it became so common. i would actually like them to raise the drop rates on these items to discourage the speedclears and such. noone should complain when they are given free stuff. dungeons like cof, where the price is 2k and the quest reward is 1.5k always end up profitable. maybe only by a tiny amount, but really you can pre pay, afk, and do whatever and you still come out ahead. no reason to pump more of the other stuff into the economy. so if chests should only drop the rare stuff, then its not rare, then its not worth anything and the next qq thread will be about how they should lower the drop rate of the rare stuff so things are valuable.

agreed due to the fact the dungeons are too easily farmed.

Overfarm causes problems not droprates.
Changing droprates can make the gems worth more but it will make other stuff that will drop instead of them in big numbers worth less. I also enjoyed getting Onyx when it was 5k+ and it felt allright, but it didn't take long for extreme overfarm to tank the prices completely.

Solutions: Fix overfarm (UWSC, VSF etc.), add more uses for the gems so they're wanted again.
Droprates are fine.

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves."

Over farming is the issue.

/signed

Frostmaw's HM... 5 level dungeon after a walk across Jaga Moraine... 2 onyx... lovely.

/signed

Example:
You spend 2 hours and 2+ consets doing Vloxens Excavations and get a pair of diamonds in the end.

They diamonds. Treasures usually have diamonds.

That makes me wonder why Chests do not usually have rare materials, if they ever have.

I won' mind reducing the drops of them in dungeons, if they add small chances of getting some rare materials in chests too.

Just before the release of GW:EN, diamonds had no known use and onyx were nonexistent. The Eye of the North expansion has now been out for about 18 months. People can fill out their hall of monuments with destroyer weapons very cheaply now, which is fine. However, many people that continue to play dungeons either honorably or through runs do so for a chance at the unique rares from the end chests. At the inception of EotN, Onyx were 15-20k, but EotN has aged since then and there is no longer any need for a massive influx of gemstones.

Personally, I've been frequently fighting through HM Darkrime Delves (1 hour) and HM Frostmaw's (80-90 min) with a full party in the hope that a Cobalt Staff, Violet Edge or Silverwing Bow will drop with no success in over 50 dungeon clears. The amount of gemstones I receive is staggering and rather discouraging. I get the impression that I'm playing a lottery or a slot machine, grinding until I get a payout. It seems Anet has designed EotN to keep you sitting at that slot machine, knowing that you have to keep playing to hit the jackpot, a rare unique to a particular dungeon. I don't do voltaic spear runs or underworld speed clears, and I don't have any control of overfarming there. However, over 18 months I have done many many HM dungeons (2 characters with Legendary Master of the North) with very little to show for it besides gold. It's incredibly frustrating and unsatisfying.

One of the reasons I purchased Guild Wars was to avoid the grind that plagues many multiplayer online games. Considering that Anet does update their games frequently, and is hopefully seeking input for Guild Wars 2, I feel like it is constructive to voice my concerns about the current lottery system of dungeon chests with low frequency unique items. I am hoping that limiting gemstone drops to a maximum of one per dungeon chest will be a small fix to reduce some of the frustration in a game on extended life support where new content is not expected.

You've hit the nail on the head as far as GW:EN goes. Sorry it took you that long to figure out the slot-machine style of the game, as you mentioned. But that's a good analogy of what it is.

I could care less if crappy golds pop or worthless greens for that matter. If i can't use them for my heros, Ill give them away to others who ned them. But these gems are just so out of control. Keep the drop rate in COF, but lower it in the harder dungeouns at least. Those of us actually fighting the dungeon would like a real reward even if it isn't valuable. As for those whop invariably call for nerfs, what are you going to do nerf every farming build? Good luck, there is at least 50 skills to change to make an anti=farming nerf stick. I doubt ANET wants to alienate that many people before GW2.

Well I agree on the fact that when a "Diamond" or "Onyx Gemstone" drops, it looks expensive, but you'll just be disappointed. If you think rationally, how can a diamond be worth less than a monstrous fang or something of that sort? The reason why rubies and sapphires are still a few K is because they don't drop from chests, you actually have to work to get em, so it would be nice to see the same for the other gems aswell. Maybe give them some other use too, Destroyer weaps aren't in my top 10 pretty list. As for running dungeons, I don't know why people have a grudge against it, I've done most of the dungeons myself but i.e. Vloxen was a bit too hard, and a runner is a great solution then. But joining a run because you "have a chance of getting a rare weapon!" is just retarded, I wonder what the drop rate for such weapons are, maybe 0,2% or less?

Overall, /signed for gems.

And replace them with what?

More common golds that may or may not be merchant fodder? - YAY for the +1 to wisdom title track!!

More rare skin drops? Buh-bye to the 100K+ voltaic spears & hello to all the QQ farmers coming here to whine about how the price of them has crashed!

/not signed

/notsigned

If overfarming is the problem, then increasing the rewards for farming is not the answer.

/notsigned

Supply and demand.

Diamonds in particular have only a few very limited uses. This should not be surprising.
How fun something is is not equal to how much money you can make off doing it.

Plus, even if you reduced the drop rates, prices wouldn't raise overnight as there is still a massive oversupply of diamonds.

Yes, it is indeed frustrating. But to be perfectly honest, people are enraged about the "grind" these days and the lower prices of Onyx and Diamonds have severely lessened the grind necessary to fill a HoM. The other day I had some loose cash and was planning on getting a new Destroyer weapon to toss in my hall. After paying for it and realizing it cost me, in total, about 15k, I decided to go on and buy the other 7-8 necessary to fill my hall. In some ways, it's a good thing, although when you get to the end of Slaver's HM 2 people and 6 heroes and get 2 Onyx, yeah, it sucks.

I wouldn't be against raising the drop rate of random golds/dungeon greens and lowering the chance of Onyx/Diamond, so long as the rare items stay at the same rate. So instead of:

35% gem, 50% random gold, 12% green, 3% rare,

25% gem, 55% random gold, 17% green, 3% rare.

I dunno. I've done all but one of the dungeons with worthy drops in HM, and have gotten absolutely nothing to show for it either.

/not signed.

If you want a fix, go to the source of the problem - overfarming (as already said).

Does it stink to get double gem drops from an end chest? Yep. But there's the lovely randomness of the chests. Deal with it? lol. Seriously.

It wouldn't be a problem if there was a need for the gems. Sad really.

The real problem is the same one facing ectos and z-keys. The supply is way more than the demand. Rubies and sapphires maintain their value because there is no way to really farm them so the lack of a sink for them is not really noticed. However for onyx and diamond, beyond filling up you HoM there is no sink for them. There needs to be either a way to use them (new armor skin or some other thing like that) or a drop in their supply so that they stabilize at a price that is more reasonable (much like jade and amber did after the title changes).

Making destroyer weapons dedicated or somehow allowing your othe characters to use them would be a great start.

/signed

If you are "honestly" playing through the dungeon (Not 600/smite or Perma Running) you shouldn't get punished because other people do.

lol, and some players wonder why no one actually does dungeons anymore. Plenty here seem to complain that it'd reward farmers and those who get run. BS. The farmers do tons of trips so the volume of what they get means this just annoys rather than hurts them. Same with guys doing stuff like cof runs. You get paid like 1.5k by the game to do the quest so on average you need to make 500g or so on white crap you pick up to break even. After that, all profit. On top of that you got dwarf and EV points and a chance for rubys/sapphires/polymock piece so what you get in the end chest don't matter (except for the polymock piece).

But for people who actually do what so many of you say and "play the game for your self"? Most dungeons are quite a distance from town. If you're not running, the grind of getting to places (and killing everything in your way) like frostmaws/rragars/kathandrax is pretty high. Than you get to the dungeons themselves. Rragars is full of patrols and pop ups and just trudging through there took me longer than doing frostmaws. And kathandrax? Go with your guild cause going there h/h is a nightmare. Nm was easy, but hm? If there was a bitchslap emote I'd be doing it to all my h/h after just about every encounter. I mean, hello? Firestorm falling on your head. And it actually starts hurting in HM. How about not standing there? Do I have to micro all of you?

Then after all that, you get to the end and get? A diamond and an onyx. And to add insult to injury, you get the same points as if you had done cof. I reckon I could do cof at least 4 times and with 1/100 of the annoyance in the time it took to get to and do kathandrax. And if I got run? Probably more than that. No loot, no points. Mucho annoyance. Finish my books and never went back alone. And the few times I went with mates, still annoying. The only fun bits were laughing at them when they got surprised by the bosses giant flaming boulders (which I may have forgotten to tell them about, hehehe). Sure, I could probably build a better team and get better if I do it more. But why?

High gem rates hurt guys who actually play the dungeons more than guys who run or farm. Ever wonder why dungeons are getting farmed and runners are everywhere yet no one actually wants to play dungeons? Cause everyone who actually wanted to play did it already in the first month or two and since then there has been no actual incentive to play something that is more chore then fun, and for no reward. Think about that before you just go 'play it yourself'.

/signed
Leave cof as is, but the others? Especially in HM? Reduce the gem drop rates. Just a plain wisdom point or two is worth more than this crap, or even greens.

You guys Realize that the only thing Diamonds and Onyx Gemstones are used for is the Fugly Destroyer weapons (yea you can make a useless summoning stone with a diamond) but who cares i mean really the destoryer weapons were ugly to start with and makeing them worth something by makeing diamonds and onyx gemstones worth something is worthless. because the only reason people got them was for there hom

Eh. It doesn't really seem like it's unfair when people overfarm dungeons to make the gems worthless. But then again, there's also not really anything wants to use them for except HoM. I still say /notsigned.

Seems to me that everyone here assumes that people want the drop rate cut because the gems are worthless. Maybe im the only one who would rather see the drop rate cut because i want the gold weapons for my Wisdom title. Crappy skin, req, or not. 8 of us did Frost Maw, of the drops, 1 green, 5 golds, 10 gemstones. We felt cheated because we couldnt do a thing with the stones and were envious of the few who at least made one more point towards a title.

/signed if for none other than to replace it with more crappy golds for us to ID.