RIP Istan

Over one year after release, the map has officially been mercy killed with the reduction of Champion spawns in the Great Hall

lol

Not like I've participated in it for months now, but god damn this is after it has been readjusted twice now? NOW? After the chest limit has been introduced? This seems hilariously out of place and I don't understand the logic behind it at all other than not wanting people to play the map at all anymore.

I also fully buy into the "stealth nerf" to Akili now. That was 100% intentional and just not documented, then "fixed" by adding Elites to the spawns that have never appeared before to substitute for that.

The map is still here, and all game-related content is here as well, as much as I care. Seems like only farming is affected, but who cares? I don't. Play game for game, not for some twisted analogue of job, I say, problem solved.

Lame. Back to SW, I guess. So glad I kept my bag opener.

Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

Well, the obvious solution is to nerf those as well now ))I don't care, tbh. Farming nerfed or not, it's still won't reduce fan for me too much. If anything, I would prefer those maps (all 80lv maps, actually) be populated with mobs showing a similar AI and capabilities you can see in AI opponents in Heart of the Mists (pvp lobby). So they would be extremely pushy and aggressive, would counter-attack, block your skills, have proccing shields preventing you from bursting them too quickly, use heal on themselves and their allies in time, ideally even be able to assess which skills you throw at them and counteract them. That would affect my enjoyment times more than any farming changes.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

Well, the obvious solution is to nerf those as well now ))I don't care, tbh. Farming nerfed or not, it's still won't reduce fan for me too much. If anything, I would prefer those maps (all 80lv maps, actually) be populated with mobs showing a similar AI and capabilities you can see in AI opponents in Heart of the Mists (pvp lobby). So they would be extremely pushy and aggressive, would counter-attack, block your skills, have proccing shields preventing you from bursting them too quickly, use heal on themselves and their allies in time, ideally even be able to assess which skills you throw at them and counteract them. That would affect my enjoyment times more than any farming changes.

I agree with you, but having said that, you have to admit that without the farming element, there really is very little to bring anyone to Istan. I couldn't believe how empty that map is when I first visited. It's definitely one of the least re-playable areas.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

That's your thing. The majority of players, myself included, would not enjoy that. That's not what GW2 is.Farms should be equalized if anything, not completely removed from the game like this for arbitrary reasons. If other people want to spend 10 hours a day doing the same thing they should be able and allowed to do so.

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

The leather farm was put there intentionally, because leather was a lot harder to come by before. There is nothing inconsistent about that.

Also, losing out on a handful of champ bags does not kill the map. That sounds a bit melodramatic, to be honest. The previous changes made to the Palawadan meta affect farming a lot more than this current change does.

Even if no champions spawned, Istan is still a great farm due to unidentified gear drops and volatile magic from the chests

sigh oh well.

The original farm was far more valuable than anything else in the game. I am surprised that people think that nothing was going to happen to it. It's still very lucrative, even if it's not necessarily best in the game.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Even if no champions spawned, Istan is still a great farm due to unidentified gear drops and volatile magic from the chests

And where do you get them from?The nerfed Akili that spawns maybe 3 champs total?The nerfed GH that only has 8 champs total and 12 chests once a day?Pala with its daily chest limit?

Not to mention that they nerfed magic gains from chests too.

@TheNecrosanct.4028 said:

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

There is no leather shortage nowadays, so why should it still exist this way right now?

The champ bags were the last thing the map had going for it.

Is this the hand of NcSoft reaching in and making a resource (gold) more difficult to aqcuire, thus making players more likely to hit the cash shop?

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

It's not just that inconsistency, it's the idea that the developers said something to the effect that "they didn't want players to feel obligated to farm this 24/7".Wait wut? Does anyone feel obligated to farm gold? They might feel obligated to farm gold in Istan vs others places as it's the most efficient, but people will farm gold in Istan or wherever. I don't support this idea of developers saying "play the game how I want, not how you want".

Istan is dead.

Before Halloween Patch: 2000 volatile magic/ palawadan, a fair amount of volatile magic from GH, more unidentified drops (more chests), and normal amount of champions, all with 50 palawan phylacteries/hr

After first fix: Everything is still the same except less palawan phylacteries/hr

Patch prior to this one: less than 1000 volatile magic from first palawadan (about 200-300 for further runs), worthless volatile magic from GH, way way less unidentified drops and less champions. Everyone thought it was a buff for doing the daily meta, but it was nerfed even for those who did it 1 time/day

This patch: No idea what happened.

The map is dead and is not worth farming anymore. There are almost no commanders running the map again and SW is not always up as RIBA farm, yet still RIBA is not fun for everyone just as Istan wasn't for RIBA players. I barely do PvE now (naab at fractals and raids), and I've gotten rid of any legendary crafting goal in my mind. There should be more ways to farm gold.

@Freya.7650 said:Is this the hand of NcSoft reaching in and making a resource (gold) more difficult to aqcuire, thus making players more likely to hit the cash shop?

Doubt that. They've been planning to nerf Istan for a long time but didn't want to go the full distance until now

With a couple other locations being used as farming locations for several years now, I believe there are a couple reasons why they have done this in Istan.

1. They don't mind SW, etc., but do want to push people to farm the newest maps to maintain interest in the story, etc.
2. It was seen as more efficient to make this change as opposed to adjusting the loot tables/drop rates on certain items.

It has been a few years now that I've been tracking, for myself, the apparent drop rates of exotics (armor, weapons, rings), and the majority of the exotic drops I've had are from LW zones, with the 2nd, but much smaller amount, being from Path of Fire, then Heart of Thorns, and finally Open World. This is expected, as Central Tyria is not all level 80 zones, etc., and it is to be expected that sub-80 zones may not drop as many exotic weapon/armor items. Kinda like how you only see the colored 4 slot bags in newbie zones.

It could be that while adjusting the tables for Istan would have been simple, Anet saw a way to make a couple changes while keeping the work load low. Change the loot tables only, and the players might continue farming Istan anyway. Change the mob types, and place an absolute limit on the chests, and you get the same effect as changing the loot tables and encourage players to move to newer zones, etc.

It's not that these are absolute fact, it's conjecture, but clearly Arenanet did not want the Istan farming to continue, and when they make changes like that it's usually because the farms are injecting too much of something into the economy, and/or they have a reason to want to lower the average player population in a given map.

Awe, glad Istan was there when I needed it most.

and where to farm ? SW not profit if u have not 40+ chr. Only real money to gold ?

@"Biff.5312" said:I agree with you, but having said that, you have to admit that without the farming element, there really is very little to bring anyone to Istan. I couldn't believe how empty that map is when I first visited. It's definitely one of the least re-playable areas.

Can't really agree to that, as still as a new player I often roam core Tyria a lot with my alts, and see enough people there, though farm there is close to non-existent. I'm personally having fun playing them, and when I need gold that desperately, I just go to TP's conversion page ;)

As far as I'm concerned, if anything, that change has made Ishtan more comfort place to actually play the game, with all those farming zergs obliterating everything in seconds and harassing people playing for fun for "not doing the meta events" are (hopefully) gone now.

@"Blocki.4931" said:Its the inconsistency that bothers me.

Leather farm? Nobody bats an eye that this is farmed 24/7.SW? Been this way for years.

But Istan? No, they don't want people to "only farm one map 24/7" when they were asked.

Not sure that's inconsistency ... different maps, different intentions. I mean, let's be honest ... we know Anet added leather farm to Doric lake on purpose, so it would be pretty dumb for them to 'consistently' prevent people from going there to farm it.

And likewise, we have no reason to believe Anet doesn't want a 'farming' culture in Istan. Those inconsistencies can exist, on purpose, for good reason.

I said this before after the last Istan nerf. Without farming, it would take a year or more for casual players to afford expensive stuff like legendaries, infusions and some dyes

This game needs farming

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:Does anyone feel obligated to farm gold?

I have, in fact, seen people posting just that. (They claim it's too hard to obtain enough gold for ascended gear, for raiding, for WvW, for ...well whatever is important to them.)

I don't agree: the obligation is all self-imposed. It's just a mistake to suggest that there aren't actually a ton of people who feel that gold farming is an essential component of their GW2 experience.Of course, just because this is a large group doesn't mean that ANet should adjust the game accordingly.

Regardless, the reason ANet nerfs some farms (notably Lake Doric, Istan, and AB Multi) is that the relative amount of income was destabilizing. Those choosing to farm earned much, much more than those doing other things, even other farms. That discrepancy is ultimately bad for the game. Istan affected the price of ecto, rares, exotics, etc in ways that primarily benefited the farmers, at the expense of those doing other content.The only surprising thing to me is that ANet took so long to do anything about it. (I am not, however, surprised that they have done a poor job of explaining their reasons.)

@Jura.2170 said:I said this before after the last Istan nerf. Without farming, it would take a year or more for casual players to afford expensive stuff like legendaries, infusions and some dyes

This game needs farming

..or it could help Anet to finance faster content development as those of them who just can't wait for another useless shiny thing will be more willing to buy gems. After all, none of those are really needed to play the actual game, and, imo, vanity items being more premium-shop thingy isn't bad thing at all. But whatever.

Question -- isn't the main Istan farm the meta assault on Joko's palace, not the smaller one on Warden Amala? The patch notes only refer to the Warden Amala event.