Guild Wars Update - Nov 10 and Nov 11

I can't help it, but every time when somebody says that the PvE needed some fresh air, was boring or had nothing left to do than farming anymore, I wonder if these people forgot that what we have up to now is only the very first chapter of the game as a whole. With every new chapter there will be a lot of new stuff to do.
The only problem is, that the expansion obviously takes too long to come out, so of course people get bored, because they already played through the currently available content various times.
I wouldn't be surprised if exactly these (bored) people were crying out about how "the game" needs to be more difficult. Again notice, that what you have up to now, isn't "the game" as a whole but only the 1st chapter.

When I played through the missions for the first time I found a lot of them to be extremely difficult. If I try the same missions now with one of my "complete" lvl 20 characters I'm like "Wow, I can do this mission now all alone, that's unreal".

So to me the question would be if the people who already played through the game, and by now can pretty much handle stuff alone, should have a say about if the game needs to become more realistic/difficult/whatsoever, when it's still about chapter 1 only.

Shouldn't the difficulty of a game increase the further you go? And wouldn't you think that the challenge that you're looking for should be in chapter 2, 3, .... instead of turning the "starter-chapter" into it?

Simple being the operative word. You're obviously not entirely confident of your opinion or you wouldn't be 'done with this thread' and would be here to discuss and defend it.
As for the mod suck up, as a forum moderator myself, I'm sure they do their job just fine without your 'help'.

Aaaaanyway.

1. Yes it's easier. But didn't people want it harder? Wasn't that the whole point? So you admit the update didn't work. Next.

2. Can't make sense of this. Plus the term 'noob' makes me not even want to try.

3. Maybe. But where will all the runes and items that you can buy now come from if noone is farming them? Yeah the average Joe Tank will have a more level coffer as everyone else. But him and everyone else won't have anything to spend it on.

4. Rubbish.

5. How does this give PvE 'more to do'? Battles last longer for no good reason other than lack of aggro management and hence do nothing but increase the universally hated 'grind' between mission and outposts. Think about this is the long run. 1 fight may be entertaining. But 20 of them just to get to Granite? No thanks.

6. This is in no way a 'pro' for the upate as it doesn't exist. If the update was released with the compensating spell buffs already in place, this entire charade would have been a different story.

As for henchman's stupidity being the fault of the player. So it's my fault all the hench run off blindly into mobs and stand in lava pits is it? Go stand about 15 feet away from the lava at the start of Abbadon's Mouth and see if Mhenlo and Lina don't just stand there in it looking gormless.
'Skillfull 'henchmen' does not mean the player should be dragging them away from certain death and pools of health sapping lava because they're too thick to move themselves away from danger. If it read 'Henchmen that may follow you and stay alive if you click frantically enough on the party list' then yeah, fair comment. As it stands. No.

Whilst in general I disagree with a lot of the things the patch has done, after a lot of playtesting I have found that it does increase the 'skill' of players as it forces them to adapt to the situation.

Now I'll prolly get flamed for this but the 'generic' W/Mo Griffon farming build relied upon the use of Balth's Aura and/or Zealots Fire, depending which of the many builds you use. Now I don't farm that much but Griffon farming has always been cool to me because its easy and when you're bored you can go kill things and get money / items at the same time. With this new patch the W/Mo has been nerfed considerably and as I like to think I'm a person who 'thinks outside the box' I've overcome the problems created with this patch and have created a build that might not be as efficient as the standard Wammo build but hey, 5 golds in half an hour aint half bad.

However, I would like to say to ANet that this patch does need work on. I agree with the whole concept of the patch but as many have said; it was poorly implemented.

I look forward to the next patch aimed at nerfing W/Mo farmers - I like a bit of variety in my builds now and again!

-Adam

P.S To those that want to know how my uber build actually works for griffon farming.... I'm not saying... go and think outside your box for ideas

Tried it and sometimes it dosnt work, as otheres have reported.

Also does my inability include not being able to select orions skill set huh?

**Try harder flameboy, and try growing up and being constructive, I find people who try and put others down in forums childish.


Ive also said in previos posts what youve said, its my main point the AI is now stupid.


When i started playing the game super absorb were 90k ish, they have never dropped from that price range since ive started (apart from the 1-2 day price re-set which i missed), and they encouraged me to farm as i wanted some.

So its Anets problem to sort out the prices if they want to stop people like me farming, to try and get the best equipment.

I've been playing the new version on quests, mostly with a full 7 henches, and I've really, really tried to give it a fair shake. I've tried to convince myself, "This is still fun." But no, it has become too tedious, and takes too much time, for me to any longer call it fun. And that's the point, is it not? To have fun. I want to have a good time, not feel like I'm working or, as people keep saying, "grinding." I'm not mad. I'm saddened. That's my 2 cents. GL to you all.

I love this statement. I agree with you that farming will cut down on the GOLD being pumped into the economy. But, let's remember, that GOLD is not the only thing that comes into the economy through farming. You also get the rare items (at times). Also, let's don't forget about Ecto (the other GW currency). Let's look back to before the Invinci Monk was the ecto farming kings. This dumped ecto into the economy at a tremendous rate. There was a point where you could get Ecto at around 8-9k per glob. Now, before this latest patch, the Monk solo build was still possible, but not near as easy, which cut a lot of monks off from doing it. Look at the average price of ecto now ... around 10-14k. Not really a big jump unless you look at the point of needing over 100 of them. Take into affect of this latest patch, the price of ecto could jump to almost 20k per glob with the decrease of people desiring to farm them due to the time consumption of smite farming.

Now, do I agree with farming? I DON"T CARE. If that is what you want to do then do it. I know people that are completely tired of the PvE storyline part of the mission and have done all the PvP they want to do in a lifetime and spend there time now just farming to get some items/armor they have been wanting. They do this in anticipation for the expansion. Now, that farming has pretty much been eradicated they have no reason to play the game. Sure A-Net has already got the money that they wanted out of them, but now they have left an opportunity for them to get "addicted" to another game and completely overlook the upcoming expansion when it comes out.

I say roll the game back to the way it was. Everyone has to see that this much commotion over what has happened must mean that it was not a good idea.

Yes, the price of ecto will go up in the short term. Supply has fallen, demand has remained the same, so price increases. BUT also important here is that the willingness to pay the price has to be taken into account. As the amount of gold coming into the economy slows, the amount of people who can afford 14k for ecto reduces, so the number of available buyers falls.

At that point, you have to start reducing the price or you don't sell it. Or you have to wait longer until one of the fewer people with gobs of money pays the price.

In the short-term it will be painful. After a while though, a new equilibrium will set in.

I have never farmed in my life and can afford some pretty decent things. I have never felt the "need" for that 5/-1 vampiric eternal bow of fortitude +30. Seriously The reasonfor my complaint is that I want to do the missions in less time with less of a drag and now this takes forever and is even mroe boring in the chaos of chasin enemies around. after doing the missions 4+ times they get boring quick.

Ok so the patch definitely did not have a good reception. ANet will probably revoke some of the ideas in it. However, I have to say I like the idea of having to wise up when it comes to AoE. I like the idea of PvE being considerably harder. I can see why some are upset considering the changes were quite drastic. The thing I like least about the update, however, is how some people are reacting to it. People are getting way too caught up in the drama of it. If there's a problem, they'll fix it. No need to get mad at each other. =\

TO ALL THE BORED FARMERS/PVP/ETC.

TRY THIS PEOPLE.

DO SOMETHING ELSE UNTIL CHAPTER 2 COMES OUT.

IT IS NOT AN MMORPG THAT YOU HAVE TO PLAY 24/7/365 OR YOU LOSE

IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE THAT GAME SO..............

I'm wondering why ArenaNet are so quiet. Such a huge thread and i think only one post from them. :/
Perhaps Gaile doesn't want to be the target of everyones frustration? I don't know. Waiting for the dust to settle? Maybe.

[Peeps through Anets keyhole...shouts "hello" and points to thread]

Guild Wars is a rpg and pve is therefore the bulk of the content.

The aim in any rpg is to have the best of everything. This goal however is only possible through farming,decent item drop rates or sensible prices in the economy.

So if ANET are insistent on skill 'balancing', please can they also 'balance' item drop rates and the cost of items to make it possible to attain these items.

While I agree with your point about drop rates, the cost of items is set by players, not ANet.

Maybe they are too busy reading through 1523 posts without points.

I don't know about the other farmers but I don't farm out of boredom. I farm because I want the cool trinkets that come with having a lot of money. For example, I want 15k armour. You say Drok's is the same... I say I want cool looking armour. In these kind of games aesthetics are just as important as stats to some people. And yes you could say I'm one of them. I don't care! I want my armour to look good and have an awesome weapon etc etc, thats why I farm... to get the money to do so or get good drops I can sell for money!

Besides, farmers make the economy go round....

-Adam

there is commotion b/c this affected pve only. pvp players learn to adapt b/c that's the environment they play in. now that pve has to change its tactics once in 6 months its a shock to the system.


you can blame the ecto on players not anet. nothing to do with the new ecto that enters the market or the slowing of.

the glorious price reset caused people that have no money go from 0 to hero in a few clicks with some pocket change. now you have people with a limit on how much they can make with with the ectos they just bought b/c they have nothing else. they don't know what to do when they are all sold. how can they make money after all the ecto is gone? they squeeze as much as they can get for them with rocket prices. since one guys raises his price the next guy will follow. since the demand out meets the supply you can get away with charging your price higher and higher slowly. demand for ecto will always be high its a usable material. there will never be enough to supply everyone b/c of people crafting armor. people will bite the bullet b/c they think they need it and pay more driving the prices even higher. anet does not set prices they merly adjust them. overall players set prices. if you want to blame someone for the high ecto price blame your neighboor for selling them at high prices and blame yourself for buying them at higher prices.

after ecto got over 10k i saw a trend of 1.5-2k increase per week after market stablize a little. i farmed them for all they were worth since people where hording them to drive up the price. just held them till people got so numb from price increase they paid it. then unloaded them. got my money and reinvested in other things. its no secret that weapons will give you more money than ecto and farming ever hoped to. if it was a secret well the cat is out of the bag.

ecto will not be a real currancy. it is good currancy for trades more than 100k but that's about all its good for. with the increasing gold sinks and farm nerfs slowed gold will still be the overall currancy. if people are poorer it will cost you less. if people are rich and afford to pay outragously higher than you just to get what they want prices will continue to go up.


When i started playing the game super absorb were 90k ish, they have never dropped from that price range since ive started (apart from the 1-2 day price re-set which i missed), and they encouraged me to farm as i wanted some.

sup absorption was down to 65k a few weeks ago. they are not hard to find i have 4 of them myself got to know where to look. so far only 1 type of monster size on the game has dropped one for me and that is giants. every sup absorption i've gotton has been from a giant class. first rune i ever found was a sup absorption 2 weeks into game. i still have that run to this day. it looks like a the current minor rune buts its a sup you can attribute the price of w/mo farmers buying the absorption from merchants. since the smite debuffs at last update they have b/c more common for griff farming than monks are.

btw players control prices more than anet. anet keeps them from getting out of control like it used to be. anyone remember 75k monk runes.


to who ever it was that said i should stay here and defend my point. i've been here since page 2. if you took the time to read everything you could have saved yourself and me 5 minutes of our lives.

i have only sold to traders i dont farm all day and never got a drop worth more than 200g except for a few black dyes which i still have.

i save/salvage everything and dont blow gold and suddenly i look and i have gold.

i got 1.5 pyro frok and then heard that the geo or hydro looked better so i got one of each and played mix and match with the geo and hydro.

i could get any sets of 15k but just dont want to spend the gold.

i am saving it for chapter 2 goodies.

as for the awesome weapon it vanishes in town so who will see it?

i can see it now

*WANT TO STEP OUTSIDE TO SEE MY HONKIN SWORD*

Found a solution the the problem, I learned to adapt, think outside the box.


I changed games, RFonline here I come.

(level 22 warrior)

While it is true that Anet controls prices...the update will have a significant impact. I say this in relation to my impression that missions now seem to take up to 40% longer than prior to the update.

Due to increased length of time in relation to money earned, it means even fewer people will be able to afford perfect items. I am sure the economy will stablise and prices will fall, but do you expect all those who bought perfect items for 15 ecto to suddenly sell them for anything less than what they bought them for.

I have found 4 sup absorptions in my 1500 hours of gameplay, but I know 40 other people with over 60 000 combined hours of gameplay that have never got one, and only 4 of us have ever had black dye drop...this is the item drop rate I am concerned about, as it will not help the economy.

By awesome weapon and all that I meant stats as well as aesethics. Besides, farming is fun.... I variate my builds so it doesn't get too boring. I try out new builds to see if they're more efficient than the one I'm currently using... I'm playing the game, I'm having fun...

-Adam

By your arguement any mob of 6 or less monsters without a healer in the party should instantly run away from an 8 man group of real players.

Because if they had any intellegence they would know they can't possibly win that fight, so it's better to run away to fight another day.

Realisim is not a base for aguement in this game, we are talking about people that throw MAGICAL spells, talking dragons, ghosts, goblins, fighting avrica that have money in their purses, people that die and get rezed, that never age, that never need to eat, can teleport to any location at will.

So dont bring that "it's not realisitic BS" please, it's not meant to mimic real life, it's meant to be fun.

Peter McNeily had absolutely no chance at beating Mike Tyson but he still stepped into the ring and gave it a shot. Acting in a realistic way is completely different than giving up because you think you can't win. Being outnumbered doesn't mean you have to run....having brimstone and fire rained down upon you from the sky is a pretty valid reason to move out of the way...and even simplistic AI should follow at least basic natural animalistic instincts like moving out of the way of a fire shower. Any argument to the contrary simply exposes you for the weak mindless gameplay you enjoy.

when i said i had a few blacks drop i meant about 15

i have so many of the others it is awful (100 oranges anybody)?

i have had (as others have had) double drops on dye

black/silver
silver/silver
blue/red

800+ hours

i've gotton about 50 silvers over my 1200 hours but can never get a green. that's the way drops are they are completely random. some monsters will drop specific things over other's but the chances of that special to drop is few small.

Oh...AoE spells....we can run.

If ANET are going to balance these skills..what about all the necro shadow damage. I can use spiteful spirit, dark aura, touch of agony etc...all affect adjacent foes and guess what...the enemies don't run from it.

UW solo farming necro/monk here I come...anyone wanna help me farm more orange and yellow dye in pre-searing?

In the short-term this could prevent A-net from gaining new players. I could make players who have been here a while start thinking about other games, thus losing the excitement for the upcoming expansion. I for one am going to give it some time to see how Anet reacts to the complaints of the next patch. But, as I have seen with the reaction from some guild members and friends the "short-term" affects of this patch may not be A-net wanted.

it says they will run from aoe "spells" not hexes.

only way a n/mo is affective is with AOTL. too bad you get it on the last mission of the game

btw they never balanced any skills. they never even touched them. they balanced the AI you where using those spells on. its not about the effects of the skills its all about the AI.

lately i have been getting nothing but purple and red.

gave a friend 5 reds and he seemed real happy to get them.

said later his character looked *fantastic*.

made my gaming day

ya i know what you mean. i had so much silver i made gold armor for every single toons armor than gave the excess to guildies.

I for one should have seen this coming.... I mean ANET WANTS YOU TO BE A WATER ELE and slow everything dowwwwwwnnnnnn!

Why else would Green Water Wands drop everytime!

You will do as Anet wants you to.

Expect a change sometime soon to assist Hammer Warrior Builds. Anet WANTS YOU TO BE A HAMMER WARR and knock everything dowwwwwnnnnn!

So many people complaining about such a common sense change.

You can get armor with THE BEST STATS for 1500 a piece. You can get NEAR PERFECT weapons for something like 10-20K. And you can get most superior runes for something like 10K. So if you get something like 40K, you can have near perfect equipment. If you think 60 armour looks better, then you need 90K (that is more, but still not that hard to get). And if you want to have fissure armour, you probably want it for its prestige value most of all. It is a luxury item only. Conclusion: you do not need to farm. Or at least, not much. If you happen to like farming, it has just become more challenging. Challenges are supposed to be fun, so enjoy.

For the normal PvE elementalists and even fire elementalists are still good. Just not as overpowered.

Please stop crying.

OK, so we have upset farmers and we have people who don't want to play the PvE at all and just want to get through it as quickly as possible.

Do we have any actual PvE'ers complaining?
As in people who play PvE? Because it's fun?

Anyone?

Sure, me for example. I keep playing through the missions to get the bonus for each of them, also helping friends/guildies go get further (not by running, just by normally playing through). Surprised now?

I do the Pve, and I find it fun. Got some family I play with online.

The company promotes a PvP option, not a requirement.
I been doing hella stating I don't like the patch, and listing reasons why.

I just get called weak, stupid for not being able to adapt(when they don't even know if I play an ele, or if I've already reskilled her or not...).

I figured this would have been posted already, but apparantly I was wrong. If it has and I've missed it, let me know.

So, Gaile was in Lion's Arch international district 1 on Friday, before they released the second patch to fix bugs. She had a bit to say on the latest hot topic (though I didn't get as many screenshots as I would have liked, I assumed someone else would, plus I left after she started repeating things for those who found her later) If anyone has a more complete record of what she said, it would be appreciated. That being said, here's my small collection of compiled text...



So what does this mean? The AI improvements are comming. For those who think things are hard now, get out now! It's also apparant they are not against honest farming (I remember it was mentioned somewhere), but rather against solo farming. If they could program it now, the AI would make PvE just as hard as PvP. It also seems like the economy as people know it is probably going to change as well.

So, thoughts on where the game is headed?

Woah...anybody tried FoW lately? much harder, its freakig chaos and annoying as hell with tons of shadow warriors running around. and the monks now rez other people..oh jesus

I play PvE exclusively because it is fun for me. I do not use a fire ele, my ele has always been earth/air.

This update creates chaos in normal fight situations. In FoW, the creatures run around randomly after being attacked, and no longer aggro anything like they did previously. My primary character is a monk, and I get to watch 7 shadows and 7 players doing a ring around the rosie dance where no one is accomplishing anything.

I bring Zealots Fire now when I am healing. 3 Shadow Warriors surrounded me this last run, so I cast that then cast Orison of Healing on myself. The 3 warriors scattered as if I had exposed them to molten lava, running all the way to another group of shadows!

While that was beneficial to me, it certainly doesn't seem improved from the previous AI? Anyone that has spent several hours with the Nov11 update in PvE can attest that the slightest notion of AoE is causing weird reactions.

I am all for them moving out of the way, you will never hear me say they should stand still forever under a fire storm. But please repair the AI so they aggro correctly and either maintain aggro or break off and do anything logical - rather than the incoherent spastic running with no purpose they currently exercise.

PvE is boring as hell. They made it so that the quickest way to unlock skills was by PvE because faction still takes a while to learn. PvE is not fun because the storyline is boring, there are no surprises, and that its just boring after beating the game. I bought this game for PvP not PvE btw but still the fastest way to unlock skills was PvE. But of course anet does not see the fault still. Faction should be 5x again in order to make this around PvE skill unlocks. I don't absolutely hate PvE but I have to do it to unlock skills for pvp. Get it or are you just gonna keep making my posts seem irrelevant? If Anet requires people to actually play through the game mission by mission why don't they just make a level system. Beat lvl 1 go to two with some skill trainrs and other things thrown in. It was because they know people don't like doing the same boring thing 4 times!

Upset farmers and people who don't want to play PvE at all. Well let me tell you that thats atleast 1/4 of gw's people at least. Basically put up or shut up/

I apologize if this has been posted before, but I haven't the time to read entirely through 59+ pages.

While A-net is about "fixing" the AI so that the beasties take reasonable steps to avoid damage, I wish they would adjust the supposedly intelligent human henchmen, so as not to run into poison water and stand there like zombies until they drop dead. Now that would help balance the game.

somewhere I'm not going