Riverside Gets Shafted...AGAIN!

Tell me about it. The first month and a half that I played the game I didn't get anything except basic weapons, not even max-damage weapons at that. My total money, between all four of the characters I had at the time, peaked at about 25k. Now that I've started to find a few things me cash is increasin'! I guess you just have to hang in there, with the hope that your luck will probably change eventually... as you said, the only way is up .

It's clear to me that, for as much as ANet would like it to be balanced, they just keep unbalancing it with farming nerfs. I look at these posts and I see that a lot of people have enough money to buy their armor and weapons, and at the same time a lot of people have very little money at all. Guild Wars was supposed to be about winning based on skill, not hours played--this doesn't seem the case to me. Sure, you can start a PvP character and have max damage weapons and the best armor from the start, but you have to play through PvE so many times to unlock the skills, runes, and upgrades you need for that PvP character.

I have 3 characters, spanning all 6 classes, so that I can unlock skills for PvP. I used to enjoy PvE, on my first character. I didn't get a lot of rare drops or even runes, but I had a good time just playing normally, progressing through the story. Heck, the first time I saw a gold drop was my first time doing Bloodstone Fen, and that was someone else's drop. I didn't get my first gold item until I started farming Scoundrel's Rise, and it was a worthless gold shield.

I don't like farming. It's incredibly boring fighting the same monsters over and over to get money. However, the fact remained that playing through the game normally wasn't pulling in enough money. My first character is at Droknar's Forge right now, unable to buy that armor set. Across my account, I'd say I have about 8.5k. I have very few runes unlocked, and of them, none are superior, 2 are major, and all the rest are minor. The faction system does help with unlocking, but barely, because it requires that you play pretty much only PvP to get enough to unlock _one_ thing. I have about 500 faction from playing PvP, and I've played quite a bit of it. I've never unlocked something with faction.

Now, with farming nerfed, rare drops are actually rare. This is good, you get a feeling of accomplishment when you unlock your Superior Vigor. However, if you want to buy it, whether you've unlocked it already or not, you have no money to do so. You should be able to buy what you need from simple normal gameplay. Some people can, but many can't. Drops are not balanced. I see people who get several rares and purples daily, but I'm lucky if I get one in a week! What's wrong with this picture?

I am only at level 18 and just in the wilds at the moment - but through just playing through the game and exploring a little bit (and I mean a little bit) I have at the moment got 10k in storage.

I take out 4/5 salvage kits with me everywhere I go, then anything that drops which isn't much good, I salvage. All those raw materials come good when you get to the material trader and the prices are up!

It's just a matter of not spending all your money as soon as you get it. What do you need it for? Get One or two good weapons, get the collector armour (which to be honest has the same, or slightly worse stats, than the crafter stuff) until you've saved enough pretty pennies to buy the 15k armour (or FoW armour if that's your thing).

Patience is the key....

Oh and one more thing - play for the sake of having fun, not to make money. this is a game after all, not the real world! If you don't make 1k a day, you're not going to go hungry or be evicted from your home for not coming up with the rent!!! Have fun!

If I may, let me point something out.

The more rare something is, the more expensive it is right? You could blame arena net for the way that the economy in the game is right now. If you dont nerf the drop rates, nerf the farming, everything gets incredibly more common. Now, everyone has that Dragon sword, and are not willing to pay 50-100k for a good one, they will pay maybe 1k just because its that common. Not just for swords, dye, runes, fursquares. If you nerf all the farming you inflate the economy so high, because you have just squeezed the players to shell out more and more money for something decent.

~Sax out

I think the problem is that this just isn't much of a farming-oriented game compared to most MMORPGs. Which probably isn't such a bad thing.

There isn't as much variance in items as people may be used to, but the skill system is probably more sophisticated.

You can farm your life away in MMORPGs (to the delight of many :P )

I dont mind the nerfing and decrease in rare drop. But hope that we will make the rare items worth something decent by increasing NPC buying price. As Baratus said, it should be at least half the amount of the selling price. I dont want to be super rich but just want to get the decent and hard-earned benefit from grinding.

And it makes the farmers and regular players who only have 17 hours a week cuss. You know who's still making money? The 17 hours a day farmer.

It sounds to me like the game is and will always be broken, simply because the people who were playing it first were getting much more items etc. to become 'rich'. New players enter a harsher economy with less drops, which doesn't even things out as the rich guys are still rich with all their equipment - there's no chance an early player will 'catch up' and making it harder to make money just decreases the chance of new players getting the spells and armours they want. eg. There was a thread here about a guy who bought up all the Black Dye he could when ink traders first appeared. In the right place at the right time and he's set up to make a killing.

Though I generally like playing the game, I do feel somewhat lied to. The game was sold as 'you don't need to grind for hours and hours' but to attain the best stuff you do have to grind - there's no other way about it. The game was marketted as 'play smarter to level', and I believed using different spell/skill combos would net more XP, but again that's not true. It's a fixed amount of XP per monster based on it's and your level. So in that respect the game is no different to any other. There is no reward for playing smarter (other than not getting killed by playing dumb!) and there is a reward for hours of grind and farming. Well, if you consider doing the same rubbish over and over again FUN adn rewarding, and wouldn't rather be doing else with your life then spending countless hours trying to get Ectoplasm or Gold items

how, exactly do they expect you to make money? I mean, this is insane. In the ad for the game it says no tedious gameplay yet they keep nerfing drops! I havent gotten anything good--ever! With 436 hours! How is that not tedious!?

Added: Think about this, too. There is a max level so pvp can be even and based on strategy. But, for a pvp item thats NOT a collector item (some arent, like str. shields, 15>50 swords) easily costs over 100k! How is that fair when comparing one, like me, who has never got a good drop, yet has over 400 hours, to someone who started 20 minutes ago and clicked thru the presets on the pvp character screen!

I don't see a BIG problem...YET. I started farming almost a week ago with 0 gold basically and I have about 100k already. That's not so bad with the gold cap at 1 million + 100k per char, which means i'm 10% of the way there already. With the drops rarer, its harder to get the good items, which means people will pay more for them. Just yesterday i found a gold max f. dragon sword with a couple good mods (one of them HP+28) and i sold it for 25k. The thing about farming is you don't get much, but every once in a while something great drops, just keep trying. The people who started in the beginning b4 the nerfs will run out of gold once aNet introduces some new sinks, but until then yes they will have better stuff, but o well, there's always someone better than you.

EDIT: to the post above me, of course the pvp only chars automatically have basically the best stuff, thats so pvp is balanced and not based on hrs of play. But thats all they can do is pvp.

I find a few ( crap ) blue, a few ( crap ) purple...and never found a gold....basically I have nothing, doesnt seem to matter how much I play ( which isnt a lot... ) and yet all these areas are nerfed because of people who have no life and farm it over and over...how is this fair for the normal gamer?

the "Normal" gamer doesn't need money to play this game. Everything you can purchase is available for free from collectors..and nothing is overly expensive.

I agree...if I spend my time comparing my items/gold to others then sure, I will be discontent. But if I look at what I do have, use it the best possible way and play the game, I enjoy myself! It's kind of like life, lol. I can spend time being sad because others have more money and fancy things than I do, but why would I want to do that? I can spend my energy appreciating what I do have, and just enjoy life.

Besides, when I finally do get a gold or kewl purple item, it is way more exciting than if they they dropped all of the time.

not really because unless its perfect you wont get anything for it....because so many people have masses of them. theyre not rare. not for farmers anyway.

but theyre not as good as weapons you can find/buy ( especially if you dont rush or get someone to get the collectors items from high places for you. )

ArenaNet didn't set those prices. Prices are set based on what people are willing to pay. Convince enough folks that they are fools for paying 100K for anything, and you'll see prices drop; if no one pays the outrageous prices, sellers will have to charge more reasonably.

I've found:

* Superior Air Magic
* Superior Illusion Magic
* Superior Healing Prayers
* Superior Curses

Yes they are. You can get max damage collector items, and put weapon mods on them, and build yourself a weapon someone would sell for 300K for about 1/60th of that price.

The sad thing is that only the superior healing prayers one has any worthwhile value.