Solo Farming is Encouraged?

From what I can tell by all the changes made every effort has been made to stop aggressive farming particularly bots.

But why is it that if you play the game solo, the items dropped are far better than if you work in a team and kill the same creatures, does that not encourage farming? Would it not be better to increase drops for full party’s and maybe even better for balanced party’s using diverse range of heroes? Then you would just have full party’s farming all the time, is this bad?

If you try to form a team to go play in Underworld you’re stuck with the choice of let me see I need a Trapper ranger or a Invincible monk to go down with a Spiteful Spirit Necromancer or even a Barage Ranger. If you suggest going to Underworld with a full party your laughed at because you receive very little for your efforts. But if I go down in a pair kill everything this way I actually pick up good items and get what you would expect for a such an elite area is this fair?

Am I alone in these thoughts?

When your in a team you have a 1 in x chance of getting a rare item because your with other players. When you solo farm you dont always get a rare, and when your with a team you dont always get a rare. People laugh when you get a group for UW because to them the only good way to do it is 55ing. Chances are if you can be a 55 monk/SS SV necro you wont go to UW with a full group.

I agree. Although people could just bring a full, balanced group of henchies down with them and then just farm like normal. That is, if it was like you wanted and the drops per person were better in such a group than solo. Wouldn't solve anything I don't think.

Good point and I agree with the sentiment, it would make the usual "hunt" pugs much more willing to form varied parties in outposts and not worry about "must have" classes. No one feels unwanted.

Maybe even strategy will come into it rather than the "ideal" group mentality that steamrolls it's way through a zone to get to the end of it in the fastest and most effecient farming methos possible. If the loot is the same for groups as it is for solo.. Or if solo loot is reduced farther making it the same as if you were in a group or henchie team then maybe that sense of community may start to arise.

They really need to improve drops for bigger teams to actually make it appealing. I can go in a full B/P team to FoW and get 1 shard in 3 hours (like my last trip) or go as a solo farmer and get at least 1 shard in 30minutes of forest clearing. In other drops i made about the same in gold/items as the Forest farming trip as i did on a the almost full clearance trip.

You are not alone in your sentiments, but this thread is asking for trouble. The farmers are very passionate about being able to do their farming. You will be flamed.

I totally agree and always thought this.

* There should be an xp bonus for groups
Otherwise you'll always look to do the maximum with the minimum amount of players for XP grind - levels, skill points, etc Wouldn't have to be big but when I need some skillpts it's off to solo with a scroll. This isn't as big of a deal though as quests can counter/beat that, where applicable.

** There should be a drop bonus for groups **
This is much much bigger and really th reason people get solo oriented. Drops really bite and it's been theorized they even become less available as you play your character more - fun hmm? :b In a group of 8 you're lucky if you see anything nice all night, fill up your pack with any worthwhile sell items... heck even fill up your pack I don't think a few more drops would send the world out of whack and might help fight over-reliance on cheese play (ie 'kegging'), fotms and slimming the #s as much as possible.

Simply adding a little more dropping as the party #s increase, what's the big deal IMO?

[Sounds like they're killing the item-holding aggro but the point still stands.]

Many other MMORPGs implement one, the other, or both of these.
Soloing will always be viable, I'd just ask a little more love on a sliding scale for groups.

Actually the guild I'm in goes to UW frequently and Ectos drop a bunch more when you have a full group....but none for any of the monks doing all the work. On top of the monks getting nothing the monsters aggro monks from a mile away past your tank to run you down..ect. mindblade spectres (chaos planes) last group of eight we took down there 11 ectos dropped. Not a single one for the 2 monks.

I completely agree with this idea. Nobody wants to farm solo for hours just so that they can get the cash to their FoW armor. And that's not the point of this game anyways, the point is to play with your friends and enjoy it. It would be great to be able to wander with your friends and get the same amount of rares and gold that I can get from soloing the FoW forest...

Furthermore, if someone really didn't like people (i hope i dont get flames from hermits, but i guess they wouldn't be found on forum now, would they?), they could always go with henchies or by themselves and enjoy the current levels of drops for soloing (for a challenge).

Wouldn't it be great to be rewarded for being on a good team that works together efficiently? Even fellow farmers (believe me, I farm too) would have to agree that if we could get the same stuff by working as a team with our friends we'd all be much happier with it.


/signed and a half

Absolutely. Something has to be done. I made a suggestion on these forum that the drop rate should be 1 in x (x being the max party size in that region) no matter what your actual party sized is. This is so that it's no more rewarding for the solo farmer as it is for the full size group. Of course instant flame from the many people on here that are passionate about farming as Undivine said. Another suggestion would be that something always drops for you regardless of the party size. So if your in a full group of 8 then when you kill an enemy it drop 8 items at random with one assigned to each player. This way if gold drops it doesn't have to be shared amongst the team and can be assigned to a particular person. Why should those that repetitively be rewarded more than those that play the game doing the missions and quests. This would certainly make bots and sweatshop farmers not worth the time since they would lose the ebay buiseness. Also if you want to farm go right ahead or if you don't and only want to do the quests and missions in full parties then go right ahead. You will get equally rewarded either way.

I'm not saying drops should be identical whether you solo farm or go for full groups. If you can successfully solo farm areas you deserve your reward.
It would just be nice if they improved drops a bit for bigger teams. Not to the same level as if you went in solo, just improved.

I have absolutely no reason to go in to FoW with full balanced teams anymore, Barrage/Pet teams all the way. Much faster so at least if you do get jack shit you get jack shit faster and can go again. Then of course after a couple of runs with immensely shitty drops for B/P its back to solo farming the forest for a bit.

It just doesn't seem right that in 30 minutes you can fill your inventory with crap while solo farming and it then takes you 3hours to do the same in a full team. The only bonus is with FoW where you can run around afterwards and sell it all to the Forgemaster, doing that normally doubles your take.

I think I get the best drops when I go in teams of 2 or 3. My drops aren't really that great when I solo. At first they are, but as soon as I've been farming something for a lil while the drops go down to being just decent. When I go in large groups, I don't really have much of a chance to get drops anyway, especially when I'm playing the monk, but when I say, do a Spider run with my warrior along with a couple guildies, my drops are great.

Speaking of guilds, I personally also think you get better drops if you go in groups with your guild, or the majority of the group is all from one guild. Don't take my word on that though, I can't be sure.

I think should split between solo and farming.

Farming is encouraged.. because that is pretty much what dev made for the End-Game content. (since they don't want people to live, as it would look bad for a online game, thus they make FoW armor and farming area as a lure to keep people stay in)

Unless there is a secret conspircy theory that the Dev make certain area easily soloable for the pro-farmers, I don't think it is really encourage. For most part, the high level area are hard to solo, and require a full group of differnt prof to survie. However, people are able to find certain ways to exploit differnt part of the map, and manage to solo it. Its both a bad game deisng and ingenious player.

The Mobs need to change more, so you don't always see the same type of mob at same location all the time.

All the newer players that were looking forward to farming and making money just got screwed big time by the latest update. "Book/keg/gear trick" doesn't work anymore. Ettins in NKP aren't even dropping ettin crap anymore. (Although the fire imps are dropping loads of charcoal) Going to check to see what else has been nerfed.

Glad I got my fortune already

I enjoy solo farming, I actually got bored of the PvE aspect of this game, till lately when I made a 55 necro. I don't farm for uber weapons or gold (even though they are nice) I do it more to test my own skills. I wouldn't mind if they fixed the drops for the larger groups, but to take away good drops from ppl just b/c they have the skill to kill things by themselves isn't right.


They've moved the bird creatures to the head of the cave in Mineral Springs where the IDS drop, so no more easy soloing.

That has been happening for a while now. It's just a bad spawn, doesn't happen all the time.

Good, I just started enjoying that run again.

I am glad people understand where I’m coming from. I read someone say that farmers would then just take henchman and farm all the same, that’s probably very true but at least then when people do go as a team they do get rewarded for there efforts. I hear what Hildi is saying about farmers and I agree for people to be able to farm solo is clever and should be rewarded but as it stands those people get 8x the reward a member in a party gets. Also in my experience it seems like the quality of the items dropped does seem to be less.

I love my PvE and I’m in a small guild of very good friends that all help each other out and we follow story line read quests talk skills amongst ourselves and its been a strong guild from nearly the day the game opened. But because I’m now such a seasoned player I decided I would like to get FoW armour for my key character I get a bit of cash helping people and working in teams etc. and I have been working towards my FoW for nearly 3 months and I have made little headway in the required materials. Then I meet this new guy he has all four of his hero’s kitted out with FoW armour and has enough in his inventory waiting for the new Factions hero’s and he has been playing for the same time as me. I ask him how he has done this and he just says soloing UW or FoW and here’s me foolishly getting my guild friends all together so we can go to FoW or UW and battling the forces of evil together to get materials for our nice shiny new armour.

I think after reading what everyone has had to say it should be made that the amount of loot received by the individual should be no different if your solo, in a party of 2-3 or max size of 8 this wouldn’t stop farming by no means because it is the same if they go in a party of 8. But as it stands there is no appeal for me to go with my friends so I have now made a farming build with a friend so we can go as a pair and yes it does work great, but I want to play the game with my good friends not have to say sorry we cant have more than 2 or ill never get there, I don’t need you but they want the armour too can they not join me? No they cant, they have to solo.

I agree. I always thought it was a bit strange that a person in a group of 8 gets maybe 10-20 gold per drop, it's hard enough as it is to make money in this game. The drops should be more evenly distributed among all the party members as well.

I also like to solo farm too, so I don't think that would make it less rewarding for me. Like somebody said recently, it's also a good place to test your skills. So, even if you do decide to go solo, I don't think it should be discouraged so much.

Very nicely said Scott42.

It would be nice if solo farming was actualy "hard", as it stands, a typical wammo or 55 build doesnt even need the fraction of "skill" a decent boon prot in a balanced team would need.

Problem is not just the farming, it's about goals.

Majority has completed the UW/FoW quests. There's nothing of interest there anymore. Those that stay, are there for farming (FoW armor, money, mods).

Increasing attractiveness of missions would help in getting people to do missions, but farmers would still be there.

If loot were changed, people would just change their focus for team builds. You'd still have FotM. Look at SF.

Your true question here is clash of goals. Farmers care about profit. Full group or solo makes no difference. 55/SS or 5/4/3-man oro is the same. It does nothing to help people who do not want to farm.

What would be considerably better than nerfing the solo or "power" farming, would be adding different means of acquiring gold/items. Make them sure quest rewards, or something similar.
But never underestimate the greed. People will (no matter what) go for maximum profit. There just is no utopian solution, since any method can and will be abused.

GW has loot based economy. It doesn't matter how you get to loot, it just comes to finding optimal method between time and effort. Besides, majority of people in MMOs prefer to solo by a wide margin. Forced grouping is generally one of the worst and most hated ideas, which generates a lot of inter-personal conflict (cloudsong, leeroy, too many onyxia stories to count), where as in solo gameplay, it can be easily tuned around individual people without outside interference.

"Signet of Massve Approval"

Loots need to be scaleable.

soloer, gets the normal drops.
2 people: 2x gold piece sizes, +2% chance for Purple/Gold item.
3 people: 3x gold piece sizes, +4% chance for Purple/Gold item.
4 people: 4x gold piece sizes, +6% chance for Purple/Gold item.
5 people: 6x gold piece sizes, +9% chance for Purple/Gold item.
6 people: 8x gold piece sizes, +12% chance for Purple/Gold item.
7 people: 10x gold piece sizes, +15% chance for Purple/Gold item.
8 people: 12x gold piece sizes, +18% chance for Purple/Gold item.

Not only that, there should be a sub-code that keeps track of who got what blue/purple/gold items. As an item drops, it's "ticked" off off for that player until all players have gotten at least 1 blue and 1 purple item.

That way, as long as you take the time to kill stuff instead of run past it, you have a better chance of getting a decent item.

Well put Scott. What you have said is an example of the point I have been trying to make. The recent update being further proof. Due to bots, sweatshop farmers and all other repetitive solo and pair farming anet puts out these stupid nerfing updates that make it less profitable for the farmers but has the side affect of making it less profitable for those that go and do the quests and missions in groups. Nothing solved since solo farmers are still able to earn 8 times the amount of loot someone in a full party will earn in a given amount of time.

The repeatable areas that anet have taken the time to put into the game are there for a reason. Anet is against repetitive farming due to it's negetive impact on the game's economy and the recent updates is proof of this. They could have made those areas one shot deals like all the other quests but they knew that people would finish everything in the game and get bored and leave. So they added repeatable quests like the UW, FoW, and Tombs to allow those that are done to continue playing untill new content is released.

The SF farming that is done in the 5 man has somewhat been nerfed now so it was clear that anet wasn't for it. But even when it was possible it wasn't bad because it only allowed people to earn loot twice as fast as those in full groups instead of the eight times solos can earn. Due to gold being divided by the number of people in the party and an individual player having a 1 in n (n being the number of people in your party) chance of getting loot (other than gold) dropped for them.

True. If you have what it takes to handle high level mobs solo then maybe you should be rewarded a little more. As it stands right now though is that soloers get eight times the loot someone in a full party gets and that shouldn't be. Maybe if the enemies dropped an item it dropped one for each person in any party but if actual gold is dropped it is still split between the party. That way those skilled enough to go on their own get rewarded by getting 100% of the gold when dropped by the enemy.

WHENEVER I NEED CASH I GO SOLO....but if farming in a group would be as rewardig as solo i would be farming only with my guild groups, which is more fun then standing and doin protective spirit + heal breese over and over... until nitamare shows up! then its very fun and exciting cuz theres a third skill i can use!!!!!

i would still do solo sometimes, but mostly for the sport of it, and ofcurse not as much

Well spoken Scott.

Personally I've always liked Hunter Sparrow's idea of making the drops even. Note that it doesn't neccessarily have to be 1 in 8 chance either. They could make it so that each member in a group of 8 has a 1 in 5 chance of getting a drop. ANet has the power to decide exactly how much the monsters output, and this would give them greater control of the economy, while still keeping it player-based.

See, I don't neccessarily want a group of 8. I honestly find it easier to sometimes just do 5 or 6 people. Sometimes it isn't easier, but it's simply a lot more fun. I like having all the different options to play. Close-nit group of friends in a 5-man team to Tombs, 8-man group of random strangers doing a mission, so-on so forth. So I'm not terribly keen on rewarding larger parties, making people feel like they need another person.

I would definately prefer our goods handed to us in the form of quest rewards, and I've been making that suggestion for a while now. Even if people want to "farm" a quest, at least those who simply want to do the quest for enjoyment can get a group for it. Now that they've taken care of that sodding gear trick, maybe I can finally get some of those Sorrow's Furnace quests done. We'll see.

Thank you Undivine. However Anet in all their wisdom have spoken once again with they're latest updates. Two of my favorites that I can't wait to test out is 1. Gold armor only give sup runes, purple only gives majors and blue only give minors.
2. Fixed a bug that dramatically decreased the chance of finding uncommon and rare loot in explorable areas.

Rumor has it though that your odds improve with the more people you have in your party when it comes to rare drops dropping. Don't know if true but if it is I can only say three things.

HA HA HA

Sundering is now 20/20 instead of 10/10. I think I might try and get one for my horn bow to go with the 10% always.

So it would seem my suggestions have already been addressed to some degree with this update I’m uncertain of this I shall look into it further. I couldn’t see any direct mention of, if you like equal rights for people farming solo or working as a team.

After reading your discussions your right it would be unfair to force you to make a large party so you are still open to explore small party combinations for the added complexity of it. So really what needs to happen is equality for all party sizes and loot gained instead of being obligated to use a particular method for the best results.

Everyone has to admit it leaves you feeling unhappy when you finish a run in FoW after 3 hours of butchering bad guys to walk away with maybe 1 Shard for your armour when you require 100+ not to mention the Ecto you still need to acquire.

Well here’s hoping its better now with the update thanks for all the awesome feedback people and here’s hoping developers are reading your comments earnestly.

You FARM Hunter? Don't exploite the game, buy from the trader so the economy stays stable.

I don't farm. Only did some to test out the updates and see if the unmentioned updates were true. Yes they are. Don't have to farm. You know how many gold armors I have found just playing the game, going through every mission and quest? Quite a few but most turned out to be major runes. With those two updates my w/e that I am currently playing through every mission and quest has a much better chance at finding superior vigor and absorbtion now. That what I was talking about with 'test out'.

Keep in mind that the gold=superior fix doesn't mean more superiors overall. They could keep the number of total superior drops the same and you would just see a lot less golds.

Go to their website. It specifically state that they plan to increase the rate at which vigor and absorbtion drops.

Anet didn't nerf the SF farm b/c they didn't like it, it was nerfed b/c Ritualist carry stuff and during the preview they were drawing all the aggro b/c of it, so they fixed the attack item aggro, thus as a side affect, no more gear trick in SF.

This has been spoken before. First of all I dont really believe there is some sort of botting. If it is then it has to be some sort of superior bot... specially if its an UW Farm Bot.

Solo Farming is quite a task upon itself. Many people believe it is a very simple thing. It might be but when it comes down to UW it isnt a very "simple" thing do to the amount of enemies who can remove all your enchantments and/or interrupt you.

Solo Farming is not as rewarding as you might make it out to be. However it would seem this way because after all, the drops are yours and no ones else.

I believe Team Farming should gain a bonus for rewards so it is a more viable thing.

Questing should also be more rewarding as it has been stated time and time by quite a few of the forumers.

I was thinking that perhaps a good idea would be to rotate value of items in diffrent markets, treating them like real life markets. So for example what is valued in Kryta would be worth scat in Ascalon. Also perhaps every certain time the Market (as a whole) could rebalance itself (To make it seem that NPC's are also buying/selling/trading)

I'm sorry I have to disagree with you there Zhou I for one became very frustraited with the UW FoW situation because particularly I would like to obtain my FoW armour. I have since learned how to farm with only two people and I am now well over half way to my first set the farming techniques used are more difficult in a way but I do not enjoy this type of game play. I would like to see it so I do not have to resort to these methods. It is far far more rewarding going in a smaller party and your comment that "everything is yours" this rate of drop should be the similar for the individual using any party size in my opinion. I do understand why it is why it is, but I feel this is a dated notion.

Guild Wars greatest achievement is the level of team orientation that can be seen, for a role playing game to be able to have hero's that go into battle and are set so they don’t actually deal any damage and are there to support the damage dealers using a wide range of healing, wards, protections, interruptions and the list goes on. For them to encourage farming by making it so appealing by making it so much more profitable and team oriented nearly to the point it’s a waste of time they are losing this element to people the are moving to appeal of solo farming. Then they try to stop solo farming by adjusting areas so they can no longer be solo farmed they are not adressing the issue this way.

I know that Been to their website. Posted links to it in a couple of my posts. Preaching to the choir here.

That is just 2 of many (36?) possible superiors. I was refering to the fact that many are going to think "Oh wow! All golds are superiors. I'll be getting a lot more superior drops!" You may get more vigors and absorbtions but I think the overall rate of superior drops will be the same. Just a lot fewer golds now.

With that it will be easier to find a superior absorbtion and vigor through the course of the game. However just because they said they fixed a bug that decreased the chance of finding uncommon and rare loot doesn't mean they didn't nerf the ettins. It just means that when you take a character through the game you have a much better chance at getting rare stuff without having to farm for it.

Has anyone tested the trolls yet since the update? My guess is that there will only be a small change and that being since alot of the people who farm there have moved on the cantha. With less people farming the area, the drops will be a little better. What explorable areas are they talking about? All of them or certain ones that were experiencing this bug.

What they meant was this. When they removed the Luxon and Kurzick camps they inadvertantly caused a bug that reduced uncommon and rare drops (mostly in NKP and Nebo). Then they patched it so the former drops were restored. They also increased the chance of finding a superior vigor or absorbtion. The ettin nerf was the bug that they created and then fixed. Ask any ettin farmer.

Well I've already tested this myself three different times today. An hour each time. Now it could be that I just had crap luck but either way it doesn't matter. In fact I hope what your saying is true. Then the rare will be even less rare and the value will decrease even further since those that play the game will be able to find them and not just those that farm. So while the farmers sell their good runes anet makes an update that increases the rate at which they give them away. Kinda takes the buiseness away from the farmers and those that prefer not to farm don't have to if they are to find one for themself. Any way you look at it, it is still a farm nerf along with the "gear" exploit in SF that got fixed.

He doesn't farm .... he justs tests ..... three hours so far today. I don't spend that much time when I farm!

ROFLMAO!

Um Hunter I believe 2 just means that there was a bug that decreased the decreased the chance of finding uncommon and rare loot in explorable areas, which means solo farmers still get rewarded more

This farming issue might never be comepletly solved, I have time again said that it is better to regulate it by changing values of items in Merchants to reflect NPCs also buying/trading/selling. Also making more repeatable quests and making the current ones give out random uncommon to rare rewards so everytime you complete said Quests. And make them hard/harder and last longer and maybe require diffrent amounts of team members with the eight members being hard really hard quests that have just as good rewards.

Still farming should be allowed but regulated so it wont mess up the economy. Im also up with the idea that additional team members increase chances of drops but above 4 and less then 7 so:
(The following is ficticious data )
Team Members % Bonus Chance for Uncommon/Rare
1 4%/3%
2 4%/3%
3 5%/4%
4 5%/4%
5 5%/5%
6 6%/5%
7 6%/6%
8 7%/6%

So you dont actually "get rewarded" for having more people on the team, just not overtly unrewarded either.