The FOW Problem

It's seems most arguments for a nerf go back to wanting more money.

Shards used to sell for more... nerf SF and speed clears.
Elemental Swords used to sell for more... nerf SF.
Ectos used to sell for more... nerf SF and speed clears.
Voltaic Spears used to sell for more... nerf SF and speed clears.

It always boils down to greed.

Most people don't understand that speed clears and perma-Sins just sped up price drops and made it easier to spot. There is no cap on ectos or shards, there is a constant influx that has slowly but surely driven prices down. Ectos used to be 15k+ at the beginning of GW and they dropped a lot before speed clears and perma-sins, first noticeably dropping when 55's came into existence.

The reason that prices were so high in the beginning is because supply did not meet demand, but as soon as every player and his friend had a FoW set, supply started out-pacing demand, and prices dropped.

Just like prices will continue to drop... and nerfing SF and speed-clears will not change that, just slow it down again.

I guess if you consider 200k in storage "fortune" then... lol. I can honestly say that I've never done a "speed clear" with SF. Used it a little farming raptors before it was nerfed, then found an easier (and much faster) way using my ele. All in all, I think I've used an SF build for a grand total of less than 3 hours. I'm just saying that speed clears have had absolutely no effect on my enjoyment of playing.

If I had spent days upon days of grinding UW or FoW for ecto/obby and had a decent amount stockpiled in storage for the sole intent of selling it... well, I can understand why you'd be concerned that prices are low (compared to before) and that's the ONLY reason anyone can legitimately give for complaining about speed clears. This whole "but it's ruining the spirit of the game" is a load of crap and EVERYONE knows it. Greed is the only "legit" motive. Any game promotes the concept of stonger, faster, easier etc. i.e. More reward for more efficiency.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to want to kill speed clears to protect the value of your "stash." I'd be a little pissy too. But the fact of the matter is... Speed clears have no effect on gameplay or opportunity other than making some things more affordable to purchase in-game. I think it actually helps quite a bit. It allows some "shunned" classes to pay 20k (of hard earned gold) and actually get a display in their HoM. I mean, I could spend 3 hours with a well-balanced and organized team and MAYBE get 20k worth of drops to sell or I can pay to have someone run it for me. Those are my options (unless I want to risk wasting 2+ hours on a fail, in which case there's the PUG option) in which case, in-game money is still exchanging hands and still supporting the in-game economy. (Things are cheaper so they sell more.) Ele swords didn't lose popularity because they got cheaper... they lost popularity because cooler skins were introduced. So the whole "breaking the economy" argument is also a load of bunk. Money is still changing hands... it's just different hands now.

But since I'm not sitting on stacks of ecto or z-keys or whatever else, it doesn't effect my enjoyment of the game at all.

Honestly though... if I didn't think it would be mind-numbingly boring, I'd probably start doing it too. Who cares if every character created has obsid armor, chaos gloves, a voltaic spear and a tormented shield. It's all superficial and has no effect on the game. Why do some people have to be all "serious bidness" about PvE? It's PvE for Pete's sake! If it was truly balanced... you'd fail at 50% of everything you do.

A game's eonomy is well balanced if the rewards are proportional to the effort taken to obtain them. But SC's and other imba overfarm ruins that balance - the values are defined according to the most efficient and widely used rate of getting the rewards, so for example the EV from opening an overfarmed endchest is much lower. Now if someone wants to do the zone without using the imba shit he loses - his rewards aren't worth his effort - the player doesn't get properely rewarded for playing unless he starts using the imba shit himself (or goes powertrading instead of playing the game).

This is a universal rule and it applies to every ingame activity that has a reward, not just elite area farming.

And stop bringing the old absurd 'argument' of "don't like don't use". Some people are just hopeless in their desperate defending of their easy money source. Zero understanding of the deep and widespread effects that the existance of broken crap like god-mode has on many aspects of the game.

The source of all the problems is horrible skill balance, a complete failure that would be so easily fixed.

Oh, and I just have to respond to this:
Awkward way of thinking of many things there.

Time spent shouldn't be thought of as a 'tax' but as a cost of an investment (one of many costs to be considered), and all that matters is the revenue/costs ratio = how much profit you get for a given effort and time spent. Players can compare the ratios for various activities and the better the profits the more attractive the area becomes for the farming masses.
FoW is clearly the #1 choice right now but the rewards can't hold their value forever and it's obvious FoW will get heavily farmed until it's revenue/costs ratio gets down to the levels of other areas.

Now making an elite zone easier (for example by introducing a broken skill that absolutely owns everything there), and effectively reducing the time 'cost' CAN'T in any way be called a "win" situation. Such a thing will always allow some easy money to be made, for both the farmers and powertraders, since easily farmed (or given for free) money increases demand for various stuff. But you only see profits of some individuals where you need a more broad view. It's actually just a swing in the economy balance, after which everything will balance out. In the long term the FoW sc'ers won't be earning anywhere as much as they do now. I wouldn't be surprised to see for example Shards at ~1.2k again.

Next point is that driving prices down is also far from a "win" - from an economics point of view low prices are never a good or bad thing. Again some individuals will be happy about getting cheap fancy toys they couldn't afford before, but look at it from the it from a different point of view. I'll bring the most overused example of the Elemental Sword again - after they got overfarmed to infinity there were huge masses of happy buyers first, but then everyone ends with worthless trash. Now here we're talking about an "elite" zone with "elite" rewards, and those shouldn't be easily affordable for everyone. That's where a game economy differs from RL. A game's economy is all about making various stuff in the game well rewarding and maintaining a value over time. Cheap FoW armors for everyone would do more bad than good... same with ruining the values of even more weapons... should I really explain why elite rewards are good for a game?

Bottomline: A smart powertrader will always win. No matter if any heavy farming is around or not, the existance of sc's only makes it easier.

I'm sure all of us who play GW can spare at least 23 hours of our 24 hour-day to make money in GW. I mean, why make UW 2-3hours for a balanced? THAT is what I call "cheap", make it 10-11 hours at the very least, 15 hours is optimal imo.

Shouldn't the reward of the area be the fun you had while accomplishing it? If not, then why do it at all? If all you're interested in is the reward, how is that different from nonsense grind at all?

Some people don't like Wal-Mart's policies and by following their morals they don't shop there. Now, other people have no such qualms and continue to shop there receiving much more value (reward) for their money (time). Yet you now feel compelled to shop there for no other reason than to keep up with the amount of awards others are receiving, which has no bearing on your shopping experience -- you would spend the same amount of money elsewhere whether they shopped at Wal-Mart or not. And your sudden urge to sell out your morals for greater value (reward) is somehow Wal-Mart, or the other shoppers' faults? No, it's your urge to keep up with the Jones's.

What you're suggesting is that because of this, we should just shut down Wal-Mart altogether.

This reminds me of a study once done. The majority of people interviewed had a choice between them making $60,000 a year while their peers made $30,000 a year or everyone they know making $90,000 a year, including themselves. Guess which they picked? The first option. People need to feel special and on another level of others to justify their existence and quiet their insecurities. GW is no different.

What did I stutter? No I am not kidding you. DoA profitable? For who? You? Put that in general terms so everyone can relate and the end result is FoWSC/UWSC > DoASC. Even the time spent per dollar gained is better. DoA has shit drops outside of your gemsets to boot. I don't even need to debate this with you or anyone. The proof is in the pudding. The only thing good about DoA is your rewards are fixed. You know what you're going to get in the end chest.

Having said that though, nerfing SF or SC's will only make people move to the next best thing. Guess what the next best thing will be? That's right! Your very own backward. Land of the Torments. A place where many elitists believe if you aren't good enough you don't deserve to play in it. I say go ahead and screw with SC's, be nice to walk into someone else's backward and wreak havoc in it once again.

Lets assume you get 15 minute runs in UW, 20 minute runs in fow, and 60 minute runs in DoA.

UW: Assume 3 ectos+lockpick+a few random golds
FoW:Assume 4 shards+lockpick+a few random golds
DoA:Assume 8 titans, 6 Torment, 4 Stygians, 2 margonites+1-2 extra gem drops along the way.

At current prices, that comes out to ~18k for ectos, 3.6k for the lockpick, and 2k for merching your golds(doublescroll) for a total of 23.6k in 15 minutes, or ~85k an hour after time spent rezoning/merching/finding more players.

FoW:10k for the shards+3.6k for the lockpick+2k for the doublescrolls, for 15.6k an hour or about 40k with rezone times.

DoA:~45k for titans, ~15k for torments, ~16k for stygians, and about 6k for margonites, plus anywhere from 4-12k for the extra gem drops, which comes out to 86-94k/hour.

So be my guest and compare them. While DoA is not significantly better than UW, it is nearing triple the earnings of fow. Not to mention that armbraces sell for at least 30k more than individual gemsets. Pugs will not be able to do doa btw, it's been too long since they actually had to work

because the quickest form of raptor farming uses sf. find something else to qq over, ele swords look bad regardless.

Quickest raptor farming is actually a w/n tbh.

QQQQQQQQQ

There is really, quite honestly, nothing more to it.

I totally agree with that. Balanced team completing UW or FoW (or any elite areas for that matter) in HM should receive an automatic 50k, because trying to complete an elite area without a good guild or knowing some good people = at least 50 times harder and takes far longer. Dungeons are far harder than normal missions but all I get is 2 onyx? NOT well balanced. DoA is far harder than UW but all people get are a few gems (or none at all other than the chest drops) where a few of them depreciated to even less than what ectos are worth? NOT balanced. As for The Deep and Urgoz...also harder than UW and the reward is....a chance for a green that can't even be sold nowadays....yeah very balanced. And no the 0.00000000001% chance of winning the lottery from some of those end chest does NOT count.

Maybe it isn't gimmicks rewarding too much and its balanced / pugs rewarding too little. Today I did the 2 PvE Z quest (elona reach & killing nulfastu) for all 10 of my characters, took less than an hour and I got 15k (1.5k for each character) from just the quest reward and a whole bunch of junk for another ~2k. Then I just repeated Jade Quarry for 3 hours and got another 2k in quest reward and enough factions for about 1.5k in amber....a bit less than 4 hours for 20k, not to mention a bunch of coins that can be traded. No grouping, no hassle, no difficulty.

I do a damn UW balanced with a pug, and I'll be lucky if the group managed to complete the area in less than 4 hours and not fail. And even then I better hope my luck is good enough that I get 3 ectos or more to slightly surpass what I get by doing super easy casual stuff. (assuming 5k selling price, but as we all know price changes.)

Now THIS is what I call unbalanced.

Considering the difficulty...only exceeding UWSC by a tiny little bit is a joke. Then of course the reward curve for the entire game is a joke. See above.

Then group with SF shouldnt be able to do uw/fow*sc again for another 3-4 hours?

Maybe FoW is the next area to get a bossfight. Put Menzies on the map and have him curb-stomp all gimmick skills with the following:

Smoke Monstered:
All players using shadow form in shouting range are teleported into the Lake of Fire

Care Beared:
All players using a Norn form spells are made into Care Bears for 60 seconds. They earn the spells: Barf Sugar, Fart Rainbow and Wavey Wavey.

Indeed:
All players in shouting range under the influence of save yourselves get -120 armor for 5 seconds.

What he said:
The next three spells hitting Menzies also hit the casters and two people nearby. If the spells require triggers they are triggered as long as they triggered hitting Menzies.

After that we should have something similar to an equal ground since SF, Ursan 60s bumrushes, Imbagons and Cry are off the table.

You could still bring any gimmick to speed up the dungeon a bit, but for the bossfight you would need less gimmicky stuff. Bringing that other skills slows the group down to something slower than 15 minutes but faster than 2h.

fow boss would be wicked!

All it takes is 1 half decent drop in UW's end chest whether it be 10 runs or 100 runs and you can throw your numbers out the window.

Yes, it actually is. UW is an elite area. That means it's supposed to be hard. How can this be difficult to understand? Maybe your comprehension of common English is lacking.

Its supposed to be hard WITH GOOD DROPS. 3 ectos in 4 hours for balanced pug is complete crap. And that's assuming the groups doesn't fail. When I have to have perfect pug players just to match what I get from Z quests and doesn't even come close to some of the easiest solo farm something is wrong. How can THIS be difficult to understand, this is an RPG, not a strategy game where no reward/insufficient reward is accepted by the players.

If you think people will do an area that isn't even part of the storyline just for fun and not for superior loot just look at DoA.

No, elite hasn't got anything to do with the quality of drops. That's something you and your fellow GW players invented when the enjoyment of the area gameplay-wise shifted to the farmability of said area.

It's a pity people don't play areas for fun anymore, but don't start complaining if an area's difficulty isn't on par with it's 'rewards'.

But maybe this is just a veterans player Prophecies nostalgia kicking in...

I see most people saying that, excepting those that mostly use it to farm and make runs. Of course they won't find it a problem, they are making the profit.

I don't have any problem with anyone making profit, but I like to play for myself, not to pay a runner because no one else will do it any other way.

This is always a limit of how many times a person will do the same thing repeatedly for fun. If that's not the case right now I'll be playing Pong and Mario bros. 1 still.

How about we take away the guild ladder and the automate tournament and HA fame etc. See how many people would still play.

Those are called PvP for a reason, as in, competitive, e-sports, and the like.

Sure, some people are obsessed with those titles, but there's still a difference in being the best (guild ladder and such) and the wealthiest (farming the same stuff over and over again).

u are just looking a thing to Q.Q about aren't u?????

Very easy give shadow rangers choking gas and the FoWsc is over.....

Or just nerf SF. Fixes every problem with FoW and UW.


Or just balance it to the level from 2006-2007.

Stop putting band-aids on the tumor and just remove it.

Good. Very, very good. Prices for people who actually find those greens or gems and not just spend 24/7 grinding them will be more favorable.

Also, while we're at it, let's destroy every other invincible builds. It wouldn't kill farming, there is still a lot of builds that can kill monsters in FoW or UW or even DoA without relying on cheap gimmicks. I still remember farming in FoW with my W/Mo or R/Me, or R/N in UW, or traps anywhere.

Fun? Didn't you bought GW to play a game? If you want easy fast playing go play Freecell and Patience or so. Maxed out some titles? Try max them all???

As note I got the game 54 months and a few days... I want to squeeze out your idea of fun and play normal in the game and get lucky with a rare drop wich took me 2 hours to get and is highly valuable cus no shitty farming or sc could screw up the price of it. And yes UW has started it and I hope it is not getting any sc build what so ever and FoW, DoA and all EoTN dungeons will follow. It still can be save if the add a new weapon in each chest or something wanted and make sure it can not be speed cleared.

Good idea it'll be like Stygian fiends in DoA which unless you bring glyph of concentration your screwed royally.

Heh, yeah, I heard people's heroes shell out big bucks for greens. While you sleep, your heroes are using all that unseen money they take from you.

And gems? Those have barely been obtainable by playing balanced in... ever. DoA is ridiculous. It's gimmick vs. (insert whatever players bring), and unless () = something equally gimmicky, you're gonna wipe hard.

What I don't understand is that you go on to say that other farming builds aren't gimmicks. The 55 is a complete gimmick... lowering your health so that 2 skills can essentially keep you alive... the rest of the build is support. A Ranger trapper exploits stupid AI and good placement of traps. A Warrior farming build brings sufficient armor boosts to let you take low enough damage to kill a group while keeping yourself alive.

The common factor: THEY'RE ALL GIMMICKS. They let a single, level 20 player fight and kill higher level monsters en masse because of some aspect of the GW mechanics. I think the key element of your post is:

Your opinion is based on nostalgia. Those builds were gimmicks then, and gimmicks now. They're just currently outperformed by a gimmick that you don't have a personal flavor for or longwinded history with.

Yay. And I've seen bottles of water with minerals that were being sold and bought for $50
I once went with Glob of Ectospasm (spelling?) guild in a balanced. Two or three physicals, two months, there was an elementalist and an Imbagon somewhere there. And we were fine. No wipes, no difficulties. Hard Mode, with consumables, but we did it all except for Mallyx.
55 is a gimmick. Ranger traps? No. They actually require some skill, don't rely on a single trap (especially not after the QZ and EW shitstorm nerfs). Warriors farming? No. Not gimmicks. They don't die if a single or two skills stop working. Not one-trick pony builds.
Mmm... no. I have a longwinded history with. I started using Shadow Form back when it was fun to use Arcane Echo + Shadow Form + Shadow of Haste to farm in FoW, Tombs and some other mobs. Back when SF was about 17-20 seconds, recharge 60, no damage penalty. And I continued using it even after they nerfed Shadow of Haste to last less than the recharge.

I think I used almost every single gimmick there has ever been created. Except for the Dark Aura bombing, because I wasn't fast enough, and Signet of Ghostly Might because I wasn't GvGing back then. But Shadow Form, Searing Flames, 55, armor tanks, Splinter Barrage, Signet of Illusions, Spirit Bonding, you name it. And SF is in the top3 most overpowered skills.

1. Dark Aura.
2. Signet of Ghostly Might.
3. Shadow Form.

1. is obvious, because it worked in PvP destroying everything and everyone, and in PvE killed everything and everyone in 2 seconds. 2. because it changed GvG for few hours to "who's first to use the signet on the Guild Lord". And 3, well... works only in PvE, but it's affecting the economy more than Ursan. At least with Ursan, your team had to move as one, there were no speed clears.

I'm not going to quote war with you, but I still say every farming build is an abuse of some mechanic. Almost no great working general PvE builds (not necessarily PvX, just using the category) are effective for solo farming. It requires a specialized build to stay alive against 1vX odds and still kill at a decent pace.

As for DoA, I noticed you mentioned Imbagon. SY is another skill that people complain about how overpowered it is . Without that character do you think you could have withstood the kind of insane damage that the mobs in DoA put out?

Maybe we're talking about gimmicks in a different way. When talking about Ranger trap farming you mentioned that it required skill and didn't hinge on one or two essential skills. But the way those builds avoid aggro and kill are still something you wouldn't see in ordinary gameplay. How about the original SF, since you mentioned that? I ran perma before GW:EN came out with A/Me. I showed a bunch of people how to do it but they could never get the timing right. Would that not be considered a gimmick because it took an above average degree of skill to get the precise timing down?

At any rate, I just remembered this is a thread about FoW, and I'm wildly off-topic.

I understand perfectly. It's an elite area and is supposed to be more difficult. Relying on other players is the unacceptable part. Games are supposed to be fun, ya? Nothing fun about wasting 2 hours with a "balanced team" that fails.

And I don't understand how my comprehension of English has anything to do with it. If you're going to insult, at least make it sensible.

3 ectos in 2 hours is... wait what 4 hours? Ok you are slow. Still, 3 ectos in a full UW clear is not complete crap at all... or at least it would not have been, if not for the fact that overfarming by SF has dropped the ecto price so much that it seems like complete crap.

No reward isn't acceptable in strategy games, where do you get this. It's just that the reward is different there.

I'm sorry for insulting your word comprehension capabilities.

If you do not wish to rely on other players I recommend single-player games, or games where you exclusively play against other players instead of with them (e.g. deathmatch modes). In games such as Guild Wars, or in any other game where you play as part of a team, teamwork and relying on each other are considered important, for obvious reasons.
Maybe Dragon Age: Origins would be a game for you? It's brand new, you have some sort of party of henchmen like characters, and it's in a fantasy setting just like GW is.

Not my fault that the game is designed to be as frustrating as possible when you're not playing with the SMALL portion of people of people that are actually decent in the game. 3 Ecto not complete crap? I can repeat Z quests for 2 hours and get nearly the same amount as what I get in UW for 2 hours. 10 characters x 1.5k = 15k, done in less than an hour + PvP Z quest reward....win 2 GvG Z quest in a bit more than an hour = 15k+ 3k =18k, plus monster junk and Z coins. 3 Ecto at 6k = 18k + other stuff. Wow its equal?! Actually NOT, considering its almost guaranteed failure with balanced pugs that 18k had to be divided by at least a third to make up for all the failures. Playing "elite" areas is worse than just playing in normal areas -.-

Not to mention raptor farm, feather farm, etc. All of which are superior to UW balanced (especially pugs), have fun getting Anet to nerf all of those I guess.

Oh yeah also get them to nerf mist form, obsidian flesh, and spell breaker because sooner or later some team will combine them to make another "overpowered" gimmick.

Oh ya 600/smite too, and traps. People had been using these to farm DoA for better reward than UW balanced as well.

Anet have a LOOONNNGGGG way to go before they will make balanced UW attractive. People don't seem to remember that before UWSC what people did was not balanced, but constant UW solo/duo farm and other solo farms

Then make Anet do something that actually encourage the so called team play. All of the "NERF SF" "NERF THIS" "NERF THAT" doesn't exactly accomplish that purpose, when people still have to scroll through walls of text or constantly type LFG (within the ridiculously short character limit) to find suitable players that you would have to request to see if they have utter failure skill bar. Only to have someone grab the quest once they enter and completely waste the effort.

Mhm I agree actually when you put it like that. Normal area rewards should be reduced. But if you play GvG you should be immensely rewarded for it!

There are a rather small number of nerfs that would kill basically all overpowered farming builds. Mostly the skills needed to be nerfed are not used in general play anyway. You just mentioned some (no one uses Holy Wrath outside farming anyway, RoJ is overpowered and traps are... well traps are ok actually, they are slow), there's also spirit spamming which is used in general play so it should be handled carefully, and of course the stupid -health stacking rule that will let you hit 55 health.

But even if they don't, nah UW should be done for the adventure of it. The rewards should be a nice bonus and thank-you for playing, not the reason to play.

What? Man, I agree that the party search system could be much better, but it's so easy to see if a player is bad or not before you start.

• Doesn't ping build
• Doesn't update build when told to
• Doesn't answer/react to chat (as leader, it's your responsibility to tell him to not take quests, and to make sure he understands that)
• Doesn't know when to shut up (respect your team leader, he's trying to organize stuff)

Wasn't there a mention of comprehension skills? I'm pretty sure I joined the conversation by stating how much I enjoy playing GW and do not feel a need for any changes. (Remember, I'm not complaining about the current state.) That makes me wonder why someone who is complaining about the game and (more specifically) how other players are ruining it would suggest to someone who is enjoying the game to play a different game. Kind of an oxymoron wouldn't you say?

Evidently I wasn't clear in my post and for that I apologize. Let me try to summarize my position. 2+ hours for any "beginning to end" endeavor that usually ends in failure is NOT fun. On the other hand... 20 minute speed-clears are NOT fun either... For me. But since I don't agree with you, I suppose my point in invalid and I must choose a different game to play. Is that correct? (Just making sure I comprehended what you were saying.)

I don't know, actually. You make precious little sense to me. But I'd assume you know all there is about oxymorons, since you complain about having to rely on others in a multiplayer game.

No. How you choose to spend your time is up to you, I can only recommend things. For your point to be valid, however, it needs to be logically maintained. Is it? Mine is.

You seem to make the mistake of thinking that I think it's fun to fail after 2 hours. I don't. However, I'd like to have to run the risk of failing after 2+ hours, if I choose to go for the rewards.

Let me explain that statement, as it might be confusing to some. As mentioned, UW is supposed to be hard. That's why it's an elite area. It's not a place you go to when you want to relax and kick loose, it's a place you go to when you want to have a challenge. Overcoming this challenge will make you feel good, that's the point of it. However, the problem is that you won't get that good feeling unless the challenge is actually difficult to overcome. And if it's a difficult challenge, it makes sense that unless you are skilled, your chance of failure should be high. Right?

Right.

That means that 20-minute runs with high payoff and 90% reliability is not ok.

Please present the reasoning behind your point.

My point is that you're not prohibited from doing anything because speed clears exist. If you can't find a balanced group to do UW or FoW (or any other elite areas) should be proof enough to you that the majority of the player base doesn't feel the way you do.

You say you'd "like to have to run the risk of failing after 2+ hours, if I choose to go for the rewards. Do you not have that option anymore? My point is logically maintained. Speed clears DO NOT affect game play. You can still take hours to do things with a balanced team if that's enjoyable to you. But if you go to ToA and hang out for a little while, you'll discover you're the minority. So maybe it's you that should find a different game?

I never complained about doing things with a group. I do Urgoz a couple of times a week with friends and it takes about an hour and a half. It's fun. Could care less about the rewards. I said that being forced to do things with a PUG that is unsuccessful more often than not, isn't fun.

So back to my original statement. People who bemoan speed clears, dungeon runs etc. etc. only do so because they're self-centered, greedy know-it-alls who are upset because they can't exclude others from game content/rewards. (Generally speaking... I know there are exceptions.) If you want to be a power trader, go to Wall Street. GW is a "game."

I know you're not gonna understand this. It's difficult to have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Ooh look, the same arguments about FoW as there is about UW.

If only there was a single simple change they could make to the game to fix everything...

yes sarcasm ftw