Improvement suggestions for PoF Trade Contracts

I have 25,000 APs and have been playing Guild Wars 2 since day one release. I have never had any complaints about any of the currency in Guild Wars 2 until Elonian Trade Contracts. These things take waaaay too long to accrue for the kinds of items you use them to get.

So, my particular situation is that I am trying to finish a Harrier setup for raid purposes. I only need two more items:

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corsair%27s_Ring
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elonian_Transit_PassThese damn things are 1,500 trade contracts and 3,000 trade contracts. That's 4,500 trade contracts needed to just get these two items which significantly enough also cost an additional 55 Pulsing Brandsparks and 30 Laurels. This is pretty crazy considering that in spvp, wvw, or maps like Bitterfrost Frontier, you can obtain ascended trinkets with far far far less effort.

I woke up yesterday morning and figured I'd grind this out and get it done. I ran a Soulbeast through PoF as the 2nd character I had taken through. I then kept grinding bounties/events/hearts and even tried mob hunting for the random contract drop rates. I've been grinding Elonian Trade Contracts for over 24 hours now. I started with about 840 and as of this morning, I have a total of 1,250. This is after 24 hours of full PoF clear and additional bounty/event hunting. This has only rendered +400 Elonian Trade Contracts? That isn't even close to half of what a player needs to go back after a full PoF clear and buy a single ascended trinket?

Let's do the math here:

• 24 hour full grind of PoF content "when I say 24 hours I mean 24 hours of actual gameplay" = 400 Trade Contracts.
• For a single ascended accessory you need 3,000 Trade Contracts.
• That's 8 days of 24 hour grinding that one would need to do, to accumulate 3,000 Trade Contracts.
• Realistically for the average player who plays 3 to 4 hours a day, that's 48 days to obtain a single PoF ascended accessory.
• For those who don't play pvp or wvw, you can imagine how long it would take to build even just: amulet/ring/ring/acc/acc/backpiece with the PoF content.

Currently, a player can roll through one bounty/event after another and have a very rare chance of it dropping +25 trade contracts. Usually they almost always drop only 2 to 3, sometimes +5, rarely 7+. Hero Points are relatively the same but only happen once each reset and any other method to obtain these is just slow as all hell and entirely impractical. Here are my ideas to fix this problem:

• ALL legendary bounties drop 15 to 25 Elonian Trade Contracts, always.
• Bigger events such as House Of The Dead, should drop 15-25 Elonian Trade Contracts, always.
• Hearts should reward 2-3 Contracts.
• Normal events should drop 4-5 Contracts rather than 2-3.
• SLOW DOWN the DR for drop rates vs. mob packs dropping Contracts.
• ^ All of the above or simply lower the cost of items in PoF that require Elonian Trade Contracts, significantly.

But yeah, I do have to ask: Is there some secret way to quickly farm Elonian Trade Contracts that I am not aware of? I already watched youtube videos and hunted all through GOOGLE but the methods listed were not quite so good as made out to be in the videos/threads.

Meanwhile, I have 29k trade contracts and nothing I consider worthwhile spending them on, I buy keys but its a drop in the ocean... and yes I guess you can say there is a way to farm them quickly, however I rather not see it nerfed, so whisper me in game and I will tell you.

I'm not interested in Harriers so my trade contracts are piling up. I wish I had a way to spend these, a lifting of the cap on purchasable Funerary essences from 1 to 5 from Vabbi Hearts would be ideal.

I have an alt at the Jumping puzzle in crystal oasis, and a few other alts opening chests in Tomb of Primeval Kings. Also, the various Istan events occasionally reward trade contracts.

I'm not even playing Path of Fire for the most Path, and these trade contract keep jumping.

Oh yeah, the trade caches should drop contracts as well. Forgot to add that in.

Also, I never heard back from the guy who claimed to have 29,000 trade contracts and some method of farming them easily. I wish he would respond with some amazing method as I'd like to get this grind done within some kind of reasonable time frame, before another expansion or meta patch hits, changes the meta, and makes all of this grinding for harrier, completely useless and a waste of time.

Enough of the gold sink game. Can we get some reasonably obtainable gear options?

To me the problem is not the fact that there are cleary differences between the way you can acquire a specific item ( by playing wvw and spvp indeed, then you are in need, you can simply convert some currencies into the item you need. PvE requires you to farm a specific content ), but the fact that, after years, we still don't have the possibility to craft our own trinkets through jewelcraft.

Using trinkets as something to force players to play a specific content ( instead of playing and using gathered materials in order to craft ) it's not the best deal.

You're certainly correct to say that. I understand the design behind making a content desirable to play, to achieve some goal "such as obtaining an item". But Arenanet has to consider the reality that this game isn't getting younger and newer players won't have much time to ever catch up to the level that veteran players are at, concerning their time invested towards crafting, building already existent ascended setups and general knowledge of/ability to obtain and finish content quickly, or even having the gear present to be accepted into groups who are doing that content.

I'm a veteran player and generally finish/achieve the content that I want very quickly but this ascended harrier ring/trinket is being a serious pain to complete. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be a new player, who only has access to some standard exotic stats, who looks at what it is going to take to achieve/obtain this kind of content. They look at it and say: "guess I"ll have to do without that". Then the problem there is that it's highly unlikely that they'll ever rise to even care about participating in things like T4 fractals or raids because what it requires to be involved in that type of content is absolutely ludicrous for a new player to set their goals on. I understand "raids and t4 fractals are for older more elite players" but that ideology should be gauged on skill/knowledge of the game/ability to communicate, not a big fat wall that segregates players who have access to certain gear options and others that don't. Again, the problem is that newer players didn't have that 5 years of play like the veteran players did, to max craft disciplines, stock gold to build ascended or run fractals/wvw/pvp every day to accumulate the type of gear required to be accepted into groups that are looking for "meta only" <- which is becoming more and more ridiculous to build in Guild Wars 2.

Look, I get the idea behind needing to work for cool new things. I get it. But Guild Wars 2 is a game that has gone through and still goes through large enormous shifts in class/gear dynamics with the arrival of patches and expansions. I couldn't count how many times I have had to completely overhaul a character or character(s) because the meta flipped and groups no longer wanted the build that my character was using. It's expensive and it's mandatory to do if you want to play higher tier content with better groups. But come on Arenanet... with how often this happens and is required, the new content could be more reasonably obtained. I mean seriously. I am not asking for EASY to obtain gear. I'm asking for reasonably obtained gear. No one wants to grind their ass off for 6 months to a year, just to complete a single setup, to be accepted into a better group, only to see a major patch or expansion hit, change it all, and make them have to do it again. Some of the content is easier to obtain than other content, it is. But some of this new content you are releasing is almost too demanding on time to even care about.

Look this isn't about my personal opinions. It's about the sociology behind the player base in Guild Wars 2. Raids as example: They will not want any player unless they are running a top notch superbly fashioned setup that is "meta" and functional with everyone else in the 10 man squad. If this calls for a full Harrier setup or w/e it may be that you need, you have to go get it or you won't be able to play raids without being kicked from parties. The same goes for T4 fractals even. A player NEEDS the full ascended outfit to have enough AR to even be able to participate in the T4s.

Stop making new gear stats overly difficult to obtain. Legendary weapons should be difficult to obtain. Legendary anything should be difficult to obtain. Cool items that make me look awesome or grant something special that is out of the ordinary, sure make it difficult. But just gear stats in general, that are required by community players to even allow a player to participate in said given activity, does not need to be an epic time sink to obtain.

Oh and one last thing, then I'll leave it alone:

Remember that there is a biiiiig difference between Gold Sink for the game's cash propagation purpose and just flat out Time Sink vs. the players that you aren't even making money on. All Time Sink does is drive players away from a game activity or the game in general. Think about that one, really think about it.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Stop making new gear stats overly difficult to obtain. Legendary weapons should be difficult to obtain. Legendary anything should be difficult to obtain. Cool items that make me look awesome or grant something special that is out of the ordinary, sure make it difficult. But just gear stats in general, that are required by community players to even allow a player to participate in said given activity, does not need to be an epic time sink to obtain.

The point is that they can't.Or better, if they will ever give that possibility, then they will somehow be forced to make new content more frequently.

Just think about trinkets compared to armor and weapons.

You can craft ascended weapons and armors. Can you do the same with Trinkets?

You can't.

You can craft legendary weapons and armors. Can you do the same with Trinkets?

You can't ( and the ones which exists are definitely a timegate goal if compared to the rest of the leggies, and also limited ).

There are plenty of players which would like to have the QoL provided by Leggies ( runes/sigil* and stats swap ) regardless the aesthetic, but giving this to players, as said before, would put the dev team in a very bad spot, because players will have everything they need, and will eventually get bored of the content.

I know that fun should be the main part of every game, but mmos work in a different way ( and also some players tend to dislike games without progression, long term goals and stuff like this ).

However, I will be here waiting for changes, playing when i want to.

*in a future sigils could be swapped.

finally a player who thinks the same as me. he played 24 hours. for 400 contracts.i play 8 hours a day so i have to work 24 days for 1 accessorie.

and he is a serious mmo gamer. 25k ap.

and the worst part is. raiders can buy the accessories with currency they got in heart of thorns raids. magnetite shards.

but tyvm for this explain topic. i hope anet see that this is too much work for a game.

With all due respect Shirlias.8104, that's garble.

Let's not avoid the fact of the matter :

• Player A can achieve an ascended ring from spvp and select whatever stats he wants on it, in a single day of playing a ranked season. This is on top of other rewards and gold gain to go with that.
• Player B can achieve an ascended ring from PoF after he runs 9 characters entirely through the PoF story line, while clearing every map and all events in his way, which will realistically take a week if he plays heavily. Or he could use a single character and bore himself into tears as he follows bounty trains all day, every day, for the next week.Exactly why is that designed that way? I don't know but maybe that would explain why more people are still in the Auric Basin and not playing PoF content.

But at any rate, I can safely say that if the game allowed me to equip double mist talismans and double mist bands, I wouldn't even be worried about farming 4,500 trade contracts to finish the harrier setup because it is an outrageous time sink. I'd like to point out that time sink is required to obtain any good gear, I get it. But the time sink for those gear items obtained through Elonian Trade Contracts is waaaaay too much time invested for what those items are actually worth.

The prices on those should just be halved.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:With all due respect Shirlias.8104, that's garble.

Let's not avoid the fact of the matter :

• Player A can achieve an ascended ring from spvp and select whatever stats he wants on it, in a single day of playing a ranked season. This is on top of other rewards and gold gain to go with that.
• Player B can achieve an ascended ring from PoF after he runs 9 characters entirely through the PoF story line, while clearing every map and all events in his way, which will realistically take a week if he plays heavily. Or he could use a single character and bore himself into tears as he follows bounty trains all day, every day, for the next week.Exactly why is that designed that way? I don't know but maybe that would explain why more people are still in the Auric Basin and not playing PoF content.

But at any rate, I can safely say that if the game allowed me to equip double mist talismans and double mist bands, I wouldn't even be worried about farming 4,500 trade contracts to finish the harrier setup because it is an outrageous time sink. I'd like to point out that time sink is required to obtain any good gear, I get it. But the time sink for those gear items obtained through Elonian Trade Contracts is waaaaay too much time invested for what those items are actually worth.

The prices on those should just be halved.

As said, I do agree with you.I was just going even deeper byt saying that they are now relying on trinkets in order to let players farm.

Halved wouldn't be imho enough.1/3 should be fine, since contracts do have many use.

Let's check for a moment to SPvP trinkets currency needed

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_Shard_of_Glory

Completing the whole tier ( Byzantium ) will give you 27,5g and 100 shards.You will need 150 for neck, 175 for accessory and 200 for a ring, with the stats you want.

It's obviously unbalanced ( WvW is imho worst than SPvP in order to make trinkets, but still better than PvE. Unless you farm Winterberries. but they are unique and also don't have PoF stats ), so that's why even 1500 contracts would be way too much. I am currently not sure about 1000 either.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Oh and one last thing, then I'll leave it alone:

Remember that there is a biiiiig difference between Gold Sink for the game's cash propagation purpose and just flat out Time Sink vs. the players that you aren't even making money on. All Time Sink does is drive players away from a game activity or the game in general. Think about that one, really think about it.

others might argue that daily gated time sinks make players log in every day and spend time in the game

Shirlias, you get ascended shards on the way to Byzantium:

• Cerulean = 25
• Jasper = 50
• Saffron = 75 (You will actually achieve 150 right here, only completing the 3rd tier)
• Persimmon = 75
• Amaranth = 75 (Here you get another 150, and could get a 2nd trinket)
• Byzantium = 100 (Once you hit this tier, you build asc gear easily so long as you can craft marks)= https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_League

@WanzeI agree when it comes to reasonable time sinks such as the above ^ but I completely disagree when it comes to unreasonable time sinks. Want to hear an interesting comparison? So I build 1 legendary a month and sell it. It's not difficult to do and it is the most rewarding content to achieve, in terms of gold gain when sold or swag when worn. Each legendary requires two grindy things: Gift Of Battle which on average takes about 6 to 8 straight hours WvW play and then Central Tryria map completion, which on average takes only about 2 days to complete now with mounts. Then you have to do a handful of dungeon runs to yield 500 tokens, also done in two days with how dungeon token rewards are gained or less time than that if you want to grind the small 20 token rewards from repeating dungeon paths in a single day. The rest of it, isn't a mandatory time sink, it's a gold sink. You have mats to be purchased or created like mystic clovers, all equating to a gold sink. A player that isn't ever bottomed out on gold can be wise and work the market with those kinds of mats, which is perfectly reasonable.

Point being:

• Takes me 3 days to build a Legendary Weapon, takes me 3 days to grind spvp for 2 rings, 2 accessories and an amulet full set
• Takes me 2 to 4 weeks of grinding Elonian Trade Contracts for a single ascended harrier accessory

So there you have it. I don't know how I could make this clearer with any other words.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Also, I never heard back from the guy who claimed to have 29,000 trade contracts and some method of farming them easily. I wish he would respond with some amazing method

You blew your chances of me responding when you wrote to me in game demanding to know my method instead of addressing me with some courtesy.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Shirlias, you get ascended shards on the way to Byzantium:

• Cerulean = 25
• Jasper = 50
• Saffron = 75 (You will actually achieve 150 right here, only completing the 3rd tier)
• Persimmon = 75
• Amaranth = 75 (Here you get another 150, and could get a 2nd trinket)
• Byzantium = 100 (Once you hit this tier, you build asc gear easily so long as you can craft marks)= https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_League

You don't get a thing, really.

We were talking about farming for accessories.Obviously at the start of the seasons you will have to do all the previous tiers, but once you hit Byzantium you can do 100 each time you complete the whole tier.

I link one random thread from SPvP, which is about Golds ( and so shards which are golds related because in the same reward tier ).

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/22063/should-liquid-gold-rewards-be-removed-from-pvp-mode#latest

So, let's say that 1 whole tier per hour is pretty impossible, and let's talk about a whole tier every 2.5 hour.You have the possibility to have an ascended piece in the faster way ever.

And still i don't get what would be the point of saying that you can get ascended shards on the way to Byzantium ( if not an extra but slowly if compared to byzantium, which supports what i have said ). Really.

Also, marks are only needed for weapons and armors ( as also fractals and wvw do ).Since we were talking about trinkets, no mark is needed.

@Vavume.8065 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Also, I never heard back from the guy who claimed to have 29,000 trade contracts and some method of farming them easily. I wish he would respond with some amazing method

lol

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong. I only go to the new regions when a daily requires it, after my initial venture which was for the purpose of unlocking mounts (I got as far as the skimmer, still don't have the coyote or the griffon). Basically, I play very occasionally and casually in the PoF content. I checked my wallet and I have 660 contracts. And I know I've already spent a bunch on some petty items. So without trying and spending only a few hours I got more than you did by farming?

@ Zaklex & BiffWhen you go in initially with no DR https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns just for dailies, you get jacked up drop rates for an hour or two. It's after that intial hour or two that your drop rates go abysmal. Then all events/bounties only render 2-3 contracts upon completion and you stop seeing any contracts fall from creatures. So sure, you could farm 100-150 contracts a day in a couple hours but after that, you play for 4 more hours and only find 60-80, so on and so forth. This is still looking at a week or two deep just to buy an amulet worth 1500.

Biff, I'm quite sure it took you longer than a few hours to accumulate 660 Elonian Trade Contracts. If what you say is true and it only took you "3 hours to gain 660 Trade Contracts" then you were for some reason finding +25 Trade Contracts upon every nearly every event/bounty completion that you were doing in those 3 hours. If this is the case, I'd like to ask Arenanet why my drop rates are so wildly nerfed.

i have now something around 700 contracts since release of the xpack.its stuped it had be a so nice xpack but the gameplay get destroyed with accesoires like this.they cant even imagine how it feels for a player to obtain this in a big grind.this isnt normal.

but i know raiders are everything. they forget that casual players who do simple events also bought their game and gave money and buy gems sometimes. not every addicted player does raids. (i am not addicted, but i mean players who like to spend much time in a game) few months grind while raiders can buy the accesoires instant at release with magnetite shards...

250 contracts is a fair price for 1 accesoirie.

There are times I ponder and wonder about the direction this game is going. release.. HoT.. PoF... each time, each step, I see more and more being taken away from the solid nitch game it was, into a gear grind like every other game out there. Removing what solidified its place in the MMO market.

Then a few days ago I remembered something. GW2 is also in the asian market, and the asian market LOVES grinding. These days I can't help but wonder how much ANET is putting in to try to pander to all and in the course losing more because it is not what the "local" market wants.

shrugs is what it is. A game. Time to stop playing (or at least take a break) when you are not having fun and treating it like work.

@Vavume.8065 said:Meanwhile, I have 29k trade contracts and nothing I consider worthwhile spending them on, I buy keys but its a drop in the ocean... and yes I guess you can say there is a way to farm them quickly, however I rather not see it nerfed, so whisper me in game and I will tell you.

I don't farm trade contracts and I have more than I can spend, too. I can't agree with the OP.

I can't help but wonder. So often seeing posts from a myriad of players lamenting they don't have the gear or build or whatever to be accepted into established Raid groups. Why don't they get together and form their own groups, and enter the Raid content? Why do they let others dictate their play? Then, it would not matter if they have the latest fotm Trinket.

It's a mystery to me.

can we swap stats on accesoy from PoF? then i can buy some with this currency Elegy Mosaic, they are otherwise useless for me.

i found out that if you kill the maw legendary in the desolation. you get a chest and there you can choose 100 trade contracts :)

and the best thing is, its not a shared drop. you can do it on every char again the whole day. got happy :D

That is still overly grindy, in my opinion. It is similar to the old 40 fractal farm, just encouraging a large player base to do the same thing over and over and over and over. Even with 9x characters, one of each class, you're looking at 4 days of ultra obnoxious grind to get a single 3000 trade contract trinket.

It's real simple, just make legendary bounties always render +25 trade contracts. Give the PoF content some reason to end game play. Hell, they could even add more types of ascended trinkets for this purpose or other items that are actually worth working towards.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@ Zaklex & BiffWhen you go in initially with no DR https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns just for dailies, you get jacked up drop rates for an hour or two. It's after that intial hour or two that your drop rates go abysmal. Then all events/bounties only render 2-3 contracts upon completion and you stop seeing any contracts fall from creatures. So sure, you could farm 100-150 contracts a day in a couple hours but after that, you play for 4 more hours and only find 60-80, so on and so forth. This is still looking at a week or two deep just to buy an amulet worth 1500.

Biff, I'm quite sure it took you longer than a few hours to accumulate 660 Elonian Trade Contracts. If what you say is true and it only took you "3 hours to gain 660 Trade Contracts" then you were for some reason finding +25 Trade Contracts upon every nearly every event/bounty completion that you were doing in those 3 hours. If this is the case, I'd like to ask Arenanet why my drop rates are so wildly nerfed.

I'm not sure what the problem with your account is, but I play anywhere from 4 - 7 hours a day, and I don't every run into DR, and that's on my work days, on off days I can play for even longer, but then I don't stay in the same map I move from map to map, so that's probably why I never see an issue with DR. Just doing a bounty train 5 nights a week I've made around 6k in less than 2 weeks, and most of those nights I was only able to do a single map, sometimes two...not a grind in my opinion, and besides I get all that other fun stuff I'll eventually open up one of these days.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Wanze.8410 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:That is still overly grindy, in my opinion. It is similar to the old 40 fractal farm, just encouraging a large player base to do the same thing over and over and over and over. Even with 9x characters, one of each class, you're looking at 4 days of ultra obnoxious grind to get a single 3000 trade contract trinket.

It's real simple, just make legendary bounties always render +25 trade contracts. Give the PoF content some reason to end game play. Hell, they could even add more types of ascended trinkets for this purpose or other items that are actually worth working towards.

just sell the tradeable loot to cover your costs