About the Guild Wars economy

With the February beta being my first experience at Guild Wars (warrior/ranger build and a ranger primary build), I am slightly distressed over the econmy and how little reward is gained by beast kills and salvage. Seeing that the requirements for crafting armor to improve defense are so high, it seems to not only be favorably unbalanced towards casters, it also forces a player into endless questing to obtain the necessary gold and materials to upgrade to the appropriate level armor. Will the economy become balanced and less focused on questing or will obtaining materials via salvage and gold continue to be difficult and tedious for warrior and ranger builds? Additionally, will the stash expand? And finally, what are salvage stacking limitations within the stash?

Thanks for listening.

Well, the costs of crafting armor are pretty similar for all the classes - it isn't like Warriors and Rangers are singled out.

I really don't know what you're talking about when you say 'endless questing' to craft armor, though. Crafting materials are so abundant they many are worth less than a single gold piece each. Compared with the gold cost of crafting armor, the material cost is trivial on many sets. I don't know why you're focusing so much on Warrior builds - Warriors actually have the easiest time crafting armor, since they use iron and people can't get rid of that fast enough.

Seriously, if you can't craft a full level 20 armor set within 5-6 hours of playing you aren't trying hard enough.

The maximum stack size for crafting materials is 250. There are plans to create a form of account storage that would let players store more items, but that has yet to be implemented so anything more would be pure speculation.

Peace,
-CxE

The Warrior was my first build during my first experience at the game and was not my "focus". I can understand your example of "crafting a full level 20 armor set within 5-6 hours of playing" if I had multiple beta weekends under my belt, but since there was no handbook for playing available, I'm sorry I misunderstand your grasp of the game. My impression was as I stated, constant 'runs' to obtain gold and materials to improve my character hour after hour, with no easy waypoint back to my departure upon death or to sell items when the stash was filled. And after nearly 28 hours of playing, half of which was spent learning the game and maps, that level 20 still seems distant.

simply open map and click on place where you want to sell

sell stash

click on place closest to where you want to hunt and you are there

hope that helps

yes there is a good bit of running and exploring at first but many have posted of very profitable runs a bit later of only 15 minutes

I didn't mean to belittle your efforts to acquire a good armor set, I know it takes a bit of knowledge to do so quickly. I just wanted to point out that accumulating a big pile of junk - iron, wood, hides, cloth, and gold - is incredibly straightforward once you get the hang of it.

The thing you need to realize is that you aren't out looking for top notch weapons and armor - you want that pile of junk, a bunch of wood, iron, and other stuff that you can dump onto vendors quickly to craft armor. As such, what you're after is fast kills and lots and lots of drops.

So what you need to do is grab a bunch of salvage kits - five is usually enough. Then you need to find a spot with a bunch of enemies that you can kill, solo, very quickly. Three particularly good maps for this are Fort Ranik, The Frost Gate, and the D'Alessio Seaboard. They all start off fast with a bunch of creatures that you can kill relatively quickly. What you do then is just pave. Kill everything as fast as you can, and salvage every single drop. You should be able to finish one of these missions in about half an hour, and when you get back to town you should have a good assortment of junk to sell - piles of wood, cloth, hides, etc. A good run will net you around 100-150 gold in coin and junk, plus whatever runes, rings, upgrade parts, and the like you might pick up. That's enough for a common piece of armor right there. Repeat this a few more times, switching maps if you need a change of scenery, and you should have enough materials and gold to crank out a new suit of armor.

If you need rare crafting materials, you can either buy them, or hunt specifically for them. If you need steel, go hunt Gypsie Ettins - there are a bunch right outside Sanctum Cay, and some near the Hot Springs. Their Pauldrons salvage for steel fairly often if you use expert kits. If you need silk, the most consistent source I know of is Mind Spark Garb - gun down those Charr mesmers and break out the expert kits. The other rare materials have issues at the moment - pelts don't drop, linen can be crafted from a common material that doesn't drop, etc.

But at least you can crank out the junk, the common materials, and steel and silk. So do so, and start crafting your level 20 suit of choice.

Peace,
-CxE

Sometimes it takes a few beatings to know how and when to avoid them!

Also, if I remember correctly, a Butterfly sword salvaged with an Expert Kit gives you steel fairly often as well... unless that's changed.

Sometimes it becomes as clear as an azure sky who the idiots really are. If your knowledge is greater than others, maybe you should help instead of hindering. Thanks for your input, I'm sure it adds to the enjoyment of the game.