Alt-account farming (Devs read!)

[Doggie.3184]

I would go crazy trying to manage multiple accounts. It basically becomes a job and when a game becomes a job it's not worth playing anymore to me. Unless it's a job in a literal sense and you're paid actual RL money to. I wouldn't wanna do that either though, I don't wanna be a Streamer or RMT. 😛

[Kulvar.1239]

15 hours ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

Older alt accounts have tomes in them... Lv.80 is only an issue for new alts. Even then you can get easy levels through crafting or stuff. It pays itself pretty fast.

The point is it translates into 300-400g/h farms. Honestly, why would I farm 10 hours of DF if I can get the same gains in 1 hour doing  easy stuff on alts? 

But older alt accounts don't have masteries. Try doing dailies without mounts nor autoloot.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

18 hours ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

The point is it translates into 300-400g/h farms. Honestly, why would I farm 10 hours of DF if I can get the same gains in 1 hour doing  easy stuff on alts? 

And your examples come with a at the least 750€ price tag, but.. 1500€ is more realistic for all accounts to gain access to content you used as an example.. because you sure as hell won't be doing any of that on accounts without HoT and/or PoF. 

Also, the 300-400g/h is... questionable. If I measure how long it takes for me to finish the dailies on my alt and just move it up to get a g/h value it'd be below 50. Some days I could reach 150+, but on average - even with the 150+ numbers - I still wouldn't hit anywhere near 100, and all this with only just the gameplay, no game booting, no logging into another account, nothing. I could bump it higher if I add the daily Jade Runestone run.

Edit:
This all on an alt with HoT, PoF, EoD with all waypoints, all mount masteries(-turtle) and all gliding masteries.

Edited September 3, 2023 by IAmNotMatthew.1058

[Hashberry.4510]

Lord I love the weekends here sometimes, always a full moon 🌝. 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

What are you on about???

Gees take a GOOD look at the new system dude, before you RANT that it is easy 5k for someone with 50 accounts.

These items in the vault can be sent to a main account:

- Large Crafting bag (40aa)
- Mystic Coin (9aa)
- Heavy Crafting Bag (8aa)

Rest is account bound. What also can work:

- Bag of Laurels (10aa) Buy stuff with it that can be transfered.

All in all, that does not equate to 5,000 gold if you own 50 accounts. 

Furthermore: The MOST valuable item is the Legendary Starter Kit (valued roughly 500 gold) But here is the catch:

NOT available unless you own SotO!
To make gold with that you need to craft the actual legendary! The Precursor is account bound. So you need:
- Gift of Exploration (cannot be farmed passively)
- Gift of Battle (Multiboxing is against TOS in WvW gamemode)
- At least some masteries completed
- At least some crafting maxed out.

Your idea of passively playing 50 accounts by just logging in making tons and tons of gold is incorrect.

Old dailies were MUCH easier to do fast with multiboxing than new dailies
Old Login Rewards were MUCH more valuable for ONLY logging in than current system.

I have 4 accounts myself that I play ACTIVELY. 
Your suggestion would also hit me. I DO multibox STRICKTLY WITHIN GUIDELINES.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Multiboxing

I never passively farmed, and I never broke ANY tos rules. Changing those rules will NOT hit those that only login for the rewards to begin with!

Before you go on a rant like that, I urge you to do your research PROPERLY and not just scream with so many INCORRECT facts 

[Sobx.1758]

I don't get it, I thought you said this is a great value for next to no investment and it would be super fun for you to get all the stuff for almost no gameplay. Sounds like the logical thing for you would be to get some (I think it was 50?) accounts and do exactly that?

[QueenKeriti.5176]

22 minutes ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

Actually, now I'm done for good on this topic.

See you in a few hours! 😄

6 minutes ago, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

- Heavy Crafting Bag (8aa)

Bonus: This isn't available without SoTO either. 🥲

So Mr. Angst's options are the 30AA bag of coins or 10AA per laurel for the crafting bags. ✨And the coins are bad because he can't send straight gold to his account after claiming 500g from his mail/guild bank every week. He would actually have to make wise decisions on what to invest in. That's probably more work for him than actually playing on an alt account.🙃

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

I have taken a good look at the reddit post.

His calculations might be remotely true IF he breaks the multibox rules. No way you can do all that without using automation which is clearly and unmistakenly against TOS and can get ALL your accounts banned. 

Here is my routine (4 accounts, I consider it 1 main + 1 alt per region, so main+alt EU and main+alt NA)

I play 2 at a time for dailies. While one is in loading screen, other does dailies - therefor not afk farming, actively played
They are both on their own screen on 1 computer. Any input from mouse or keyboard only goes to the account that is actively selected. The other is unaffected (Multibox Condition that MUST be met)

I play 2 by 2. I run dailies, daily material donations in Drizzle, 2 chests parked per account for runestones. That is it.

That takes me at least 30 minutes per 2 accounts, so an hour (but usually more towards 90 minutes) for all 4 accounts.

That is roughly the time it takes me to do all that while making sure I stricktly follow guidelines.

I still think that those that used to log in - get chest - log out on that many accounts have a harder time to keep up now investing the same amount of time without breaking the rules. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The initial idea for the alt accounts had to do with my Private Guild. 

The rules clearly states that Multiboxing is not allowed in competitive (WvW and PvP) with the exception of Custom Arena. I have had therefor untill the daily change, 2 custom arenas. 1 on EU 1 on NA. Usually you had 1 or 2 PvP dailies that were possible in custom. - both arenas also clearly stated (as ArenaNet requests in their guidelines) that multiboxing was happening there. I did that purely for potions for Guild Upgrades since I do not play PvP. - Some even called that cheezing, while I counter with, that cost me 2 gold per day per arena!

Above is no longer needed for Guild Hall since the potions for both WvW and PvP have been discontinued and the recipies changed to Shards of Glory and Memory of Battle which both can be bought on the TP - upgrading your own private guild has become easier.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

28 minutes ago, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

What are you on about???

Gees take a GOOD look at the new system dude, before you RANT that it is easy 5k for someone with 50 accounts.

These items in the vault can be sent to a main account:

- Large Crafting bag (40aa)
- Mystic Coin (9aa)
- Heavy Crafting Bag (8aa)

Rest is account bound. What also can work:

- Bag of Laurels (10aa) Buy stuff with it that can be transfered.

All in all, that does not equate to 5,000 gold if you own 50 accounts. 

Furthermore: The MOST valuable item is the Legendary Starter Kit (valued roughly 500 gold) But here is the catch:

NOT available unless you own SotO!
To make gold with that you need to craft the actual legendary! The Precursor is account bound. So you need:
- Gift of Exploration (cannot be farmed passively)
- Gift of Battle (Multiboxing is against TOS in WvW gamemode)
- At least some masteries completed
- At least some crafting maxed out.

Your idea of passively playing 50 accounts by just logging in making tons and tons of gold is incorrect.

Old dailies were MUCH easier to do fast with multiboxing than new dailies
Old Login Rewards were MUCH more valuable for ONLY logging in than current system.

I have 4 accounts myself that I play ACTIVELY. 
Your suggestion would also hit me. I DO multibox STRICKTLY WITHIN GUIDELINES.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Multiboxing

I never passively farmed, and I never broke ANY tos rules. Changing those rules will NOT hit those that only login for the rewards to begin with!

Before you go on a rant like that, I urge you to do your research PROPERLY and not just scream with so many INCORRECT facts 

Well written!

As for Legendary Starter Kit: you only have four type of Legendary that you can pick between which means all four weapon would sooner or later have a diminishing return when more and more SoTO player start to put those Legendaries on Trade Post as there would not be the same demand as it used to be before SoTO and Wizard's Vault existed to buy those Legendaries (those player already own those kind of weapon or have no interest in having Legendary weapons at the moment and prefer to get Gold ).

It is also a one time thing as we don't know what will happen for approximately next 70 days (the time until next expansion will be out). We might get a new Legendary Starter Kit in Wizard's Vault or maybe not.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

10 minutes ago, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

Well written!

As for Legendary Starter Kit: you only have four type of Legendary that you can pick between which means all four weapon would sooner or later have a diminishing return when more and more SoTO player start to put those Legendaries on Trade Post as there would not be the same demand as it used to be before SoTO and Wizard's Vault existed to buy those Legendaries (those player already own those kind of weapon or have no interest in having Legendary weapons at the moment and prefer to get Gold ).

It is also a one time thing as we don't know what will happen for approximately next 70 days (the time until next expansion will be out). We might get a new Legendary Starter Kit in Wizard's Vault or maybe not.

Actually, you see that happen already. Specially on the BiFrost which appears to be the most favorite choice from this kit.

It dropped quite a bit.

[Nightcore.5621]

Yeah i love this new daily weekly system i farm 1000s gold now with out doin almost anything its a gg ty anet

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

As someone with paid alt accounts. A good portion of my income from them did not come from the old login rewards.

Some of the new dailies are easy sure, but I don't always have that much time, so spending an hour doing multiple sets of dailies is something I'd only do occasionally.

Still better than converting gems to gold, just a long term investment.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

I have 7 alt accounts with a level 80 and one with a level 56 that I’m now painfully dragging up to level 80 (I changed all that account’s tomes to spirit shards a while back because. . . it was a good idea at the time).  6 accounts were paid for. 2 were free. 

that math about vast wealth for alt accounts doesn’t hold. Sure there’s stuff that’s valuable but it’s either account bound or you need to first spend money for the expansion or it takes a loooooong time to get. Farm alt accounts are for logging on, maybe spending a few minutes on then logging out. They’re not for extended gameplay. They’re especially not for extended gameplay if you have 100 of them as some are claiming. 
 

The thing is, the stuff you can reasonably buy with AA on a farm account is limited.  90 gold, 150 laurels, 60 mystic coins, 20 Black Lion Mastery Coffer  (total: approximately 270 gold at current prices). Once those run out basically there’s the 1 gold for 30 AA and one gold for completing a daily. Unless you do the full daily or spend the time doing a weekly you’re not even getting that each day.  So sure, the initial gold is great but once you buy the cost efficient items the money spigot is turned off to a slow drip until 3 months later. 

TLDR: your average farm alt account can get ~270 gold then 1 gold every 30 AA/completed daily in a 3 month period and for that you have to actually play the game. It’s a decent income for a farm account but not what people are making it out to be. 

[Nimris.3781]

after reading all 4 pages and reddit post i am not worried about people getting too rich easily.

On 9/3/2023 at 12:52 AM, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

I could've gotten 150 dailies done over 50 alts on 30mins today. Maybe not that difficult.

On 9/3/2023 at 12:37 AM, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

I could've gotten 150 dailies done on total over 50 accounts today in 2 hours (max) with multiboxing. If you think you can't do that just means you are just bad.

Actually it is so easy that it wouldn't even take me 30mins but I don't want to go hard on you.

its obvious you have no experience with multi-account. there are server-sided limitations on logins and after certain point (~15-20 accounts) your login time gets slowed down or you get timeouts. simply logging in (for login reward) would take you more time, let alone doing any dailies. your lack of knowledge is glaring here.

same goes for multiboxing, there are strick rules about it https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013658134-Policy-Dual-or-Multi-Boxing

there are no issues with just logging in, but doing any events, world bosses, farming monsters etc. on multiple accounts would mark your IP/hardware and lead to ban on every account. doing what you described in some posts would just end up in getting banned.

you shouldnt have problems doing it on 3-5 accounts, but your 50+ in 30 min everyday is... I don't want to go hard on you... but very "silly"...

On 9/3/2023 at 12:59 AM, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

That's 50*(10+10+5) = 1250 AA/30mins or 2500AA/hours. 1AA=14 silver > 350g/hour.

were did you get that number from? from fast farming site:

• bag of coins 16.66s per AA ( limited to 90 bags, 6 per bag)
• mystic coin 12.07s per AA (limited to 60 MC, 9 per MC)
• bag of laurels 6.9s per AA (limited to 150 laurels, 8 per 1)
• Black lion mastery coffer 6.66s per AA (limited to 20 coffers, 15 per 1)

your best choice would be bag of gold + MC for a total of ~155g per account (1080AA), after that gold gain drops drastically.

1080AA with your method (25 per day) is ~44 days ( thats just half of one reset) and since you cannot multibox accounts to do something simultaneously on them, than i see 2-3 min per account as reasonable. in total 2h+ per account for 155g with method that has many issues dont seem that amazing. (and that is if you actualy could do 2 dailies for 44 days straight on multiple accounts sitting there 1-2h everyday)

also i see very simple solution to this, make discounted gold bags and MC require any expansion, just like heavy crafting bag requires Soto.  they could also introduce Antique S. Stone require EoD etc.

besides you dont know what will vault offer next season, which might just kill alt farming

[Antrix.4512]

It's seems like the topic starter has maxed out his warning limit from the moderators 🤣

[QueenKeriti.5176]

1 hour ago, Antrix.4512 said:

It's seems like the topic starter has maxed out his warning limit from the moderators 🤣

I feel like a ton of his posts got deleted. 😂

But, anyway, I got super lucky with yesterday's(today's) dailies on my four accounts, so I got them all done in <15 minutes. But it's still HEAVY amounts of RNG on whether I'll have dailies that will take a combined total of 30+ minutes or 10 or if I'll have dailies that I can do at all.

About to go find out what my weeklies are.

[Hashberry.4510]

Ya got to let it all hang out once in a while .

[Antrix.4512]

22 minutes ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

I feel like a ton of his posts got deleted. 😂

But, anyway, I got super lucky with yesterday's(today's) dailies on my four accounts, so I got them all done in <15 minutes. But it's still HEAVY amounts of RNG on whether I'll have dailies that will take a combined total of 30+ minutes or 10 or if I'll have dailies that I can do at all.

About to go find out what my weeklies are.

I have to agree, since the RNG gods have been kind over the last few days and the dailies were really easy, fitting right into my normal gaming routine. Although this weeklies gave me Strikes, which I absolutely detest. As much as I hate PvP in any game, especially in this one, I'd rather grind in PvP for days than go into a Strike one more time.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

14 minutes ago, Antrix.4512 said:

I have to agree, since the RNG gods have been kind over the last few days and the dailies were really easy, fitting right into my normal gaming routine. Although this weeklies gave me Strikes, which I absolutely detest. As much as I hate PvP in any game, especially in this one, I'd rather grind in PvP for days than go into a Strike one more time.

Oof, got DE + strikes on the two EoD accounts, Forged with Fire + Strike on PoF account, and fractal and strike as the bad ones on the Core account. Yay. 😐

[Gotejjeken.1267]

What does 50 accounts cost in real world money--and if I'm buying 50 accounts why not just buy like 50k gold outright and be done?

Unless we're just talking about the outliers in the OP that scammed Heroic Ed. keys no one is buying 50 accounts at like $20 or whatever the game normally costs.  

Even if someone does, is this an actual issue? I've played for 11 years and never have farmed once, have one account, and one main character; according to GW2 Efficiency my account is worth more than 76% of the other accounts on there (nearly 400k accounts).  

The point being I don't really notice if someone has more than me because most everything in this game is about materials not gold. 

In fact, once you start making legendary everything then gold becomes kind of pointless outside niche cosmetics / infusions that guarantee half the people have no idea what they are.

[DeanBB.4268]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:44 PM, Linken.6345 said:

-snip-  Starting to feel its not worth itt to do all the dailies/weeklies on them anymore. -snip-

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling it already, and we're, what? 2 weeks into the expansion/new WV? I'll take the 5AA and whatever low hanging fruit they offer and call it good.

[Athena.6854]

On 9/2/2023 at 10:23 PM, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

Right now (been like this for many many years, just indifferent form) doing easy dailies and weeklies on alt accounts translate into 300-400g/h kind of farming.

You can literally get yourself 5000g+ in a day of full gaming if you have 50+ alt accounts.

Dodge 3 times (golem on aerodrome), view a vista, identify 10-100x gear,  gather 100x stuff (you can bring your alts to your full home for giga gains) or even do 1x strike mission (just carry your alts yourself on Shiverpeak) and so on are all very low effort and easy objectives that can be done on alt with ease.

Heck even if you don't do anything, 5AA/daily just for logging into an alt, still translates into tons of gold.

All of these activities are limited to once a day or week.  It is balanced around having a single account. That's why they are super profitable.

If you farm those with 50 accounts and funnel all the rewards into a single main, essentially bypassing those "daily/weekly limits", that's just beyond broken. It feels like cheating, but it is not against ToS.

This is not fair against players who only play their main. You are literally griefing yourself if you play the game with its intended way. The gap is way too big to ignore.

Now this would be a little bit more understandable if people paid full price for these "alt accounts" but...

Most of those accounts are just heroic editions (event keys) that's been bought over blackmarket (g2a etc.) for mere 1 -2$ per. Especially on Twitch event people hoarded tons of them. 

anet you didn't earn a single $ off these keys. These are the keys you handed out for events for free. A portion of players plundered them for a pocket change.

Just because someone hoarded 2$ event keys a few years ago, shouldn't allow them have at the very least 10x income advantage over other players who actually fully engages with the game (meta trains, fractals, strikes, raids etc.)

The most sweaty, tryhard ingame activities with full efficient gameplay usually rewards you with 30h/g max. On the other hand, farming daily Vaults, home instances, infusing quartz crystals, daily JP chests, multiboxing easy infusion metas (chak, AB etc) translate into god knows what. The vault itself alone is 300-400g/h till you cap out on rewards.

I'd hoped that the new daily system would get rid of this, but all it did was making alt-account farming better. You just need to spend 5mins on your alts, instead of just logging in and out and have more gold out of it.

You get away with this because most people are NOT aware of this abuse. And those who aware and are abusing this, usually either stay silent so that they wouldn't lose their gold mine or try to oppress people who try to raise awareness.  This is not how you get new players. This is not how you retain your current players. This is exactly how you slowly kill your already old game. No matter how I look into it, this is straight up ridicilous and unacceptable.

I ask you to provide fairness. You have so many options, but if you keep ignoring the issue I won't buy your upcoming expansions anymore and I will be more likely to move to an another game. It has been years. You had your chance to fix this with the new daily system, but you didn't. I have no intention of doing 20-30g/h metas at best when I know there are many people out there printing gold absolutely doing nothing.

1) Change your ToS. Multiboxing and then funneling resources to single main should not be allowed, period.

2) Restrict trading on accounts without expansions. At this point core game is a demo anyway. All the endgame is tied to expansions. Having to spent 30$ per alt account would stop most of these activities.

3) Remove 5 AA reward through daily login. Remove AA rewards on individual objective completion. All AAs should be rewarded when you complete 4x daily or 6x weekly. Remove 1g bags. Award 2g on daily 10 AP completion, just like before. And then you make sure that 1 daily out of 4 would be very hard to complete on naked alts! Or 3 weeklies out of 8 options! You need to pay attention what you pick as objectives, not just random stuff! Random casual player won't be happy about this, but you need to take that hit.

4) Keep distributing more and more heroic keys. Make them more accessible for everyone. Which will turn alt-account farming another method to farm gold. It will crash the market for materials and inflatiate the gold. But it will be more fair than what we have right now. Eventually its gains will stabilize around regular ingame activities.

5) ? This is your game. Not mine. Figure it out, thanks!

 

 

Valid arguments and suggestions - thanks for putting in an effort as its interesting to see what you observe cause I am not even aware of this.

My take on above: A person who chooses to spend their gaming time (and money), multi-boxing and logging into ##of accounts …well it is not really gaming.

Reading the above, one should add another suggestion: a person who spends their time playing 10-50 accounts to repeat the same things over and over every day/week needs help! So accordingly it suffices to say that ArenaNet should create a hotline for counselling such a "player" .

However, I think such restrictions are only necessary if it affects competitive modes  of the game as there is requires a level playing field. 

In the end, what to do with all the money......just create/buy sparkling looks. Not really something that should be so important that it effects another persons chances of success.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Athena.6854

[Kulvar.1239]

On 9/4/2023 at 1:00 AM, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

What are you on about???

Gees take a GOOD look at the new system dude, before you RANT that it is easy 5k for someone with 50 accounts.

These items in the vault can be sent to a main account:

- Large Crafting bag (40aa)
- Mystic Coin (9aa)
- Heavy Crafting Bag (8aa)

 

You forgot the bags of coin (6 AA until 90, then 30 AA)

[GeraldBC.4927]

I'm not sure where to stand on this issue. On one hand this passage is entirely correct.

On 9/2/2023 at 10:23 PM, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

If you farm those with 50 accounts and funnel all the rewards into a single main, essentially bypassing those "daily/weekly limits", that's just beyond broken. It feels like cheating, but it is not against ToS.

This is not fair against players who only play their main. You are literally griefing yourself if you play the game with its intended way. The gap is way too big to ignore.

Now this would be a little bit more understandable if people paid full price for these "alt accounts" but...

Most of those accounts are just heroic editions (event keys) that's been bought over blackmarket (g2a etc.) for mere 1 -2$ per. Especially on Twitch event people hoarded tons of them. 

anet you didn't earn a single $ off these keys. These are the keys you handed out for events for free. A portion of players plundered them for a pocket change.

Just because someone hoarded 2$ event keys a few years ago, shouldn't allow them have at the very least 10x income advantage over other players who actually fully engages with the game (meta trains, fractals, strikes, raids etc.)

The most sweaty, tryhard ingame activities with full efficient gameplay usually rewards you with 30h/g max. On the other hand, farming daily Vaults, home instances, infusing quartz crystals, daily JP chests, multiboxing easy infusion metas (chak, AB etc) translate into god knows what. The vault itself alone is 300-400g/h till you cap out on rewards.

On the other hand, all the alt account farmers generating mystic coins, could you imagine what would happen if they were all gone? What would happen to mystic coins?

Then again, since you now can simply spend AA on gold at a rate that's currently better than MC, the effect wouldn't be that massive anymore. Maybe now would be the time to nuke all the heroic edition accounts. At least all the ones that don't have any expansions attached. 

[Danikat.8537]

26 minutes ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

I'm not sure where to stand on this issue. On one hand this passage is entirely correct.

On the other hand, all the alt account farmers generating mystic coins, could you imagine what would happen if they were all gone? What would happen to mystic coins?

Then again, since you now can simply spend AA on gold at a rate that's currently better than MC, the effect wouldn't be that massive anymore. Maybe now would be the time to nuke all the heroic edition accounts. At least all the ones that don't have any expansions attached. 

What do you mean by 'nuke all the heroic edition accounts'?

I know a few people who have heroic edition accounts as their only account. It's a mix of returning players, ones who got it in a promotion and at least one person who found a (presumably old) heroic edition for sale on a reputable site. They're all playing slowly or on-and-off and planning to upgrade when they get to the end of Season 1 (or Season 2 for one of the returning players who already has it unlocked).

It may not be many people in total but I think the PR backlash for removing or disabling those accounts would be worse than the risk of allowing some people to keep collecting small amounts of AA on secondary accounts.