A message from Gaile Gray

Gaile Gray has posted this message on the Guild Hall Forums as an answer to the concerns of PvE players after the wednesday update:

I just wanted to let all of you know that I read through this thread, and I understand what you're saying. It's a very difficult missions, really, to make a game that appeals, in equal measure, to those who play PvP only, PvE only, and a mix of the two. I believe that most of you do grasp the difficulty of the mission. And I think that most of you also know that we're working on this very hard, and we absolutely will not short one side of the equation in favour of the other.

We have a team who is working on all sorts of things. They may address Point A one day, and Point B another. But please know that we hear the concerns, and in fact we were discussing them just a few days ago. The challenge that I see, as a player and an admitted "cool item collector" type of player (when I'm PvEing) is that we do not intend to have overpowering items in the game. We aren't going to hand off hammers with 160 damage, or spells that kill everything within a 5 mile radius. PvE players might think "Why not? What does it hurt?" but Guild Wars is unique, and it is intended to appeal to, and be pleasurable for, both PvE and PvP players, and neither operates in a vacuum. Trust me, my PvE characters want the Bow of Burning with +1 gazillion fire damage, but getting that just isn't going to happen.

The bottom line is we're listening and we will address your concerns. I can't promise we'll address every concern with precisely the solution or suggestion that you've offered, but it's great of you to share your thoughts and always know that we consider this a high priority and an important goal.

Link: http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/show...7&page=3&pp=25

Hope this helps

A statement from ArenaNet, orgasmic wootcakes!!

I am not surprised by a response to all the aggro that has been posted (myself included in the posters) but it is heartwarming.

Thanks OP and Gaile Gray.

Watch this space folks.

Very cool! I think they are doing a great job. I love this game. Let's face it, this is a game not an epiphany. It is not meant to satisfy our every longing, lol

is it just me or does the word "orgasmic" when said by a beautiful woman excite you too?

that being said this is what they have been saying in not so many words all along. the nex update will involve PvE as they mentioned 3 weeks ago

Yayyyy ANet!

Urm, i'm a guy.

As for the next update....can't wait

rotflmao well then obviously that is not your picture :P i fully retract my statement lol

one problems is that they think the PVE'ers want uber weapons when we just want the drops back. Its not like we expect to find a 5-1 vamp bow string everytime we go out but just to find something instead of 42 gold and some basic white misc stuff.

IMO as I stated in another thread the way to curb the prices is not by nerfing it all but flooding it for a while so the supply/demand reverses roles and causes everyone to drop prices. Drop less gold and more items to make using the traders and trade system mandatory but drop enough that nothing EVER costs over 100k.

I just want to go out with my guild or in a random party and have fun seeing stuff drop. for anyone not just me, I have 3 characters with 15k armor and my 4th there is no shot in hell of getting because I don't farm...much..anymore.

I just want the drops to be more balanced. and as I stated before, they said there are no uber weapons and everything can be obtained...true but shady true. Why because some items can not be had by the casual gamer and if they want to keep a pve crowd around for the expansions that needs to change.

In 4 end game characters i have had probably a total of 10 gold Weapons (not counting the runes because thats how i made my money in the great rune days) And not a single one of them was ever at >50% Health weapon. In fact i've never had a weapon I could sell over 10k and right now I can't afford even to get a good weapon for my warrior because I have 23k thats it after 4 characters and using the appropriate gold sinks (armor) I have not enough left to get a decent weapon because A. I can't afford one B. I'm a horrible farmer of critters C. They don't drop for me ever

And its frustrating. I like the feeling of finding something, and no I don't care if 1million people have the same thing, this is mine and I found it.

My solution: Invert the drop tables for 1 day watch the market prices crumble as everyone is bringing in gold weapons and sup runes. Flood the market and bring it down to normal price. Supply/Demand is saying there is not enough of the "cool wanted" weapons dropping that its causing a diablo2 esque market and it will only continue to get worse as the game has only been out a few months.

I don't post much on these forums but seeing Gaile's response like everyone wants the uber spells of armageddon is wrong. We want the consistancy of fun drops for all. If you flood the market then gold value goes back to normal, no one pays for crap on ebay. The botters become a worthless annoyance and harm nothing and can easily be banned. The economy goes to a more stable version of itself where prices are more where intended.

I'm sorry for the rant and all but I get tired of finding a 8-14 raven staff on any shiverpeaks missions. The economy is on a spiral that will drive new players off as they can't obtain money, they cant get that big payday item. And so they leave after they play through the game once.

Or i'm just old and stupid....which is possible

roflmao. Is that embarassing to mistake someones gender or what...

Good point dinglenut, good point.

Gaile Gray message on Guild Hall Forums might be about replies in that forum but they are certainly not about replies in here, I dont see anyone asking for "swords of instant kill" but that we are not forced to grind as much because farming became grind.

PvE complain appears to be about the ecomony being shoot to hell with materials trader prices being lower that their craft price, ale stop being a gold sink because there is simply not much gold to spend on such a overpriced item.

Ok, she didn't even say why they did it.......that's rather annoying. And I don't like how she put it off like we're complaing because we can't get uber weapons . All I want is some gold to update my armour, and by myself a new new weapon. I don't even care what it is so long as it's max damage and looks good. Plain old max damage weapon. Is that so much to ask for? I hope she'll post a more explanitory post here at gwg.

The solution is soo easy.
The whole thing is an illusion anyway.
PvE player gets new blade of death dealing at lvl 40 it does 300 dam per hit. Makes PvE player think yay I'm hard, but the creatures he is fighting actually have 3000hp each so in the end it takes 10 hits to kill it and erm at the start when you are lvl 10 the creatures take 10 hits to kill also.

You don't have to put in new items to cater for this, just adjust the PvE monsters accordingly.
An example is the lich at the end, it is lvl 30, but weapons actually do huge damage, but he has shed loads of HP to compensate.
99% of players are players and don't have a clue or care about games design and implementation, they see 300 dam and go 'yay uber'.
Using the existing dynamics you just make some critters with low ac / high hp, and also make the + x% against dwarfs, more useful.
It won't be that easy to implement of the bat, but it can be done easily without major amendments to the game or items.
15% bonus when I am doing 12 dam does't mean anything, but 15% when I am doing 90 dam does.

I would think that men playing female characters with female names (essentially ROLE PLAYING a female...) would be more so.....

Not saying this is the case here....but its all too often the female characters in the game are being played by men...and I really don't understand it

Yes, i have more female characters than male.

Just waiting for the sexy lingerie to hit the shelves...i can dream

And then the PvE player takes that weapon into the PvP arenas, and that's when the trouble starts.

Tactical Delusions, I thank you for blessing my day with the delightful phrase:

Orgasmic wootcakes!

Aye, tactical is HOT!

Not if the weapon is only good against specific races such as Trolls, Charr, Plants, etc ...
Why not have an Uber Weapon of Trollslaying?

I just got to the Grotto where the 15K armor chunks are for the first time. Haven't been playing long enough for massive wealth or to have been spoiled by drops of gold raining down, so for me "nerfed" drops are more the standard than the outrage. From this perspective, I like the way they are now. Yeah, my ranger is running around with his Icy Short bow of Crap, but he's doing OK, and should I come across something better... well, it'll mean something more than running to the corner trader and buying one. Same with the 75K armor set... I may never wind up with the set, but knowing that my 7.5K armor is just as good makes that ok. So let me ask you this.. if the drops were always as they are now... well, go with it from here...

[QUOTE=Pandora's box...or spells that kill everything within a 5 mile radius...[/QUOTE]

ok ok I'll relent. One mile radius will be ok.

a suicide spell?

We need a Sundering Giant Axe of Trollslaying around here, though.

I don't want (nor am I expecting) a Windforce to drop from the Undead Lich, but I would like to see drop rates and quality return to a more normal state. When you're killing high-level monsters in the fire islands and in the UW/Fissure, they should not drop Plain White Fire Wand of Utter Crap. If they are gonna drop the plain white, it should at least be max/near-max dmg. Hell, even if they would drop more than 98 gold, I'd get a little happier.

If I could just get a Cruel Weeping Axe of Shizzle, I would never complain again.

Just curious.. is guild-hall the official GW forums?

It does worry me somewhat that opinions here might not be tended to...

i'm a bit unclear about the drops concern having just finished farming the Ring of Fire island and getting 6 whites (all max dmg), 2 blues, and about 700 in gold, using henchies. it took me about 45 mins to do. boring as hell but i needed the cash.

Actually, according to this there are four "Elite Fansites" and I don't see any mention that some are more overlooked than others.

I don't know if you've ever played Darkstone, but it had this system of scaling monster hp with your damage and it was the most annoying thing ever. You would gain a level, think "Yay! Now my Magic Bomb does 20% more damage," and then realize that the monsters had suddenly gained 20% more HP. The end result was that the game felt flat and stale, and the player never really felt like he was progressing in power.

lmao did you really think Mariah Carey posts on these forums?

Because in order to remain competitive against 3000hp mobs, you'll have to find an Uber Weapon of Trollslaying and an Uber Weapon of Dwarfslaying, just for the Shiverpeaks (not to mention Grawl, Avicara, Mursaat, and Pinesoul slaying). Then, when you get to the Ring of Fire, you'll have to find a few more Uber Weapons of ****Slaying.

If you're going to introduce uber weapons into the game, don't make them powerful, just make them have unique mechanics. For example, a shield that has a 10% chance to cast a lvl0 Armor of Earth every time you take damage, but has slightly lower stats than a regular shield. You can still have items in the game that give you a feeling that you just got something really cool, but they don't have to unbalance the game by being really powerful. Plus, the idea of getting an uber weapon that does X more damage, only to fight mobs with X*10 more health, is stupid. Why do I care how much damage it does, when it makes a mob's health go down at the same rate as when I was using a lesser weapon in an easier zone? What makes an uber weapon cool is an interesting mechanic.

The problem I have with that statement is that I don't want to find an uber bow of everythingslaying, I just want to be able to find decent drops from killing something and not nothing at all.

It seems like Anet doesn't understand that decreasing the flow of powerful weapons only makes the ones that do exist more valuable, making the economy screwed up even more

Who???

Edit: Yay for statement!

Agreed. I have never seen any posts on these forums stating that people want anything other than the drop rate increased. I too have played this game through with 3 characters and beat it. The only weapon I have ever found was with my warrior in Mineral Springs, it's a purple Fellblade with +12% >50% ( I mod'd it with sundering and fortitude). That saved me about 2 months worth of farming so I could avoid having to sit in LA trying to pay ridiculous prices for something I should be able to find myself. However, with my R/Me and N/Mo, I was forced to go to LA and pay those ridiculous prices because I have never found anything worth keeping.

I just want to find cool stuff occasionally. It's really sad, I got to the point with my N/Mo where I could farm a bit and I actually collected 100k! Then I went to LA to see if I could buy a max bow with mods for my ranger and found out... I wasn't even 1/4 of the way to being able to afford one at the prices these ()#@$* are selling them at.

i agree that what we need are better drops for everyone ...

if most people can get weapons they are satisfied with, in the normal course of playing the PvE game, that could possibly decrease the number of bots and chinese farmers in the game.

of course, we don't want everyone in the game to be running around with the same weapons/shields/foci etc. -- that's where theclam's idea of increasing the number of different mechanics would help a lot. the best items would be all essentially the same, but there would be more variety to fit the different tastes of different players.

by the way, those mods "of charrslaying", "of pruning", etc. are interesting ideas, but does anyone really use them?

We don't have an official forum. Don't worry, we do read many forums, every day. Including this one.

Taken in context, I stand by my answer. There are many different levels of this discussion. One is "drops" and one is "uber drops of godly stuff." We'll be addressing both, in good time.

Gaile,

Like others at these forums, I have several concerns in GW that I feel are really in great need of consideration and adjustment. However I'd like to take a second to say thanks to you and the rest of Arena.net for making a great, great game as well as your continuing efforts to make it even better.

woot! kill everything in a 5 mile radius!! how's that for nuking ??? lol

Dooh, the point is that YOU DON'T create a UBER weapon you use existing weapons.
You adjust the PvE creatures and the mods against PvE creatures to give the illusion of uberness.

I think it would help if Anet could actually identify the problem that they are trying to fix. Looking at the latest patches I can't really tell what it is.

The faction change obviously went some way towards fixing the problem of having to PvE in order to PvP but all of the drop rates and trader changes don't seem to have any real common goal.

Anet are obviously trying to eliminate farming but farming is an unavoidable outcome of the game mechanics and economy. Every time a player wanders out into the world they gain goods and gold, nothing (well, there is a tiny fee to enter certain area, but that makes no real difference) is ever lost.

Basically, the supply of goods and gold is proportional to the number of people playing and the demand (except for exceptional items) is proportional to the number of new players. The end result is that Guild Wars' economy is the equivalent of an inverted pyramid scheme.

There is massive gold- and rune-inflation because of excess supply and the only things that retain any value are exceptional objects. The net result is that to buy exceptional objects you have to farm, which increases excess supply of gold and drives prices even further up. There is nothing that can be done with drop rates to fix the fact that the economy is inherently broken.

Darkstone was stale not because of the leveling, but because it was a dull game, with a few nice ideas, but not enough variety in monster styles/tactics the leveling aspect is basically the same across the board.
The difference that GW has to this standard formular is it changes the skills the monsters uses. They have on average 3-4 skills and they change the skill sets to include elite skill past ascention, but the principle is exactly the same.
It is the basic core principle in ALL RPG games. High level = more damage = better weapon = harder monster with more hp.

OMFG! Gaile's everywhere! RUN!