Domain of Istan Branded Meteor Multi Map Farming and rose quartz vendor price, is it safe?

[CinnaTree.8071]

So recently there have been this farming involving branded meteors that drop items called branded rose quartz, which sells for 50 silver each at npc vendors. Each meteor can give several of these rose quartz (even up to 9 per meteor) resulting in several hundreds quartz and thus hundreds of gold rather quickly in a multi map farming. I was wondering if it is an exploit to be multi map farming this, and also if the 50 silver vendor price / amount of rose quartz crystals obtained per meteor was intended by the devs. If not an exploit, everyone should try it if they are in need of quick gold.

[Zaron.1987]

Rip Economy

Hello isnane gold to gems Ratio

[Erasculio.2914]

I doubt it's an exploit. I think it was a mistake.

And, more importantly, I'm worried about how ArenaNet will fix it.

They could reduce the frequency in which meteors fall. They could reduce the meteor's duration. Both of those would be huge inconveniences to people who are trying to craft the Astral and Stellar weapons, and they would impact more than the main issue. Honestly, this entire mechanic of farming meteors isn't exactly fun.

The big problem is the vendor price of the Rose Quartz. They are simply too expensive - selling two gives you 1 gold? That's ridiculous.

I hope ArenaNet solves the issues by removing Rose Quartz from the meteors, and replacing them by Rose Crystals. Those crystals would be used for the Astral and Stellar recipes instead of the Quartz, but the difference is that their vendor price would be only 10 silver.

Solving the problem this way would avoid reducing the supply for the other crafting materials, would not make crafting those weapons more inconvenient than it already is, and would deal directly with the main issue.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Erasculio.2914 said:I doubt it's an exploit. I think it was a mistake.

Simple fix: don't allow you to salvage meteors from another instance. Since they drop with a set timer it shouldn't be so hard to implement

[Kenneth.7536]

Same thing was with Tarir when Heart of Thornes came out, everyone was multi-map farming. Anet fixed it by not allowing multi-instance farming. Should be a fix Anet can implement. Hopefully they will, also.

[Vavume.8065]

They should add an event to astralium that when completed gives you a buff that allows you to search and harvest Meteors, that way you will not be able to multi map them because you will lose the buff changing map and therefore need to do the event again.

[Zaron.1987]

@Kenneth.7536 said:Same thing was with Tarir when Heart of Thornes came out, everyone was multi-map farming. Anet fixed it by not allowing multi-instance farming. Should be a fix Anet can implement. Hopefully they will, also.

Tarir Ml fix only take 1year btw :/

[Erasculio.2914]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Erasculio.2914 said:I doubt it's an exploit. I think it was a mistake.

Simple fix: don't allow you to salvage meteors from another instance. Since they drop with a set timer it shouldn't be so hard to implement

How? If the meteors were an event that had been completed before people entered the map, I could see how ArenaNet would do this. But considering how that's not the way the meteors work, how would ArenaNet do it?

Say they give you a debuff that prevents you from mining a meteor after you have mined one, lasting 15 minutes. When would that debuff appear? After you have mined a meteor once? Considering we can mine a meteor five times, that wouldn't work. After mining a meteor for the fifth time? Then people would only mine meteors four times. ArenaNet could create a stacking debuff that is applied each time you mine a meteor, and when you have five stacks you get another debuff that prevents you from mining again for 15 minutes. But wouldn't that be too much work to solve this?

[maddoctor.2738]

@Erasculio.2914 said:Say they give you a debuff that prevents you from mining a meteor after you have mined one, lasting 15 minutes. When would that debuff appear? After you have mined a meteor once? Considering we can mine a meteor five times, that wouldn't work. After mining a meteor for the fifth time? Then people would only mine meteors four times. ArenaNet could create a stacking debuff that is applied each time you mine a meteor, and when you have five stacks you get another debuff that prevents you from mining again for 15 minutes. But wouldn't that be too much work to solve this?

Each meteor harvest point has an ID and a flag that tells you if you harvested it already, otherwise the game wouldn't know if you did harvest it yet or not, this is -probably-how all chests, harvest nodes etc work in the game.

The meteors drop every 15 minutes and they drop at the same exact time on all map instances, but at different places. If they give all the meteors, on all instances, the same object ID then it's really easy to prevent looting them twice. The 5 points you can harvest around a meteor will have the same ID on all map instances, so if you harvest one of them on one map instance, you won't be able to harvest them on other maps either. You could harvest 2 on one map, then port to another map for the other 3, but never harvest the same one multiple times on different maps.

Now the question is, if it's possible to have the same meteor ID on all map instances.IF you harvest a jumping puzzle chest or a rich harvest node and change map instances, you can't use them again.

[Erasculio.2914]

@maddoctor.2738 said:The meteors drop every 15 minutes and they drop at the same exact time on all map instances, but at different places.

I like your idea, but for the records, that's not how it works. The meteors drop every 15 minutes after the last one vanished; since each lasts for 5 minutes, they basically drop more or less each 20 minutes now. And they drop at different times on different maps, which I guess is pretty much the reason why we don't have sites with a meteor timer like we have for meta events. Ask people doing the multimap farms - they use multiple maps exactly because they try to chain meteor after meteor, with each map beginning at a different ime.

[Mister Asdasd.6194]

If anything is close to profitable you can count on it being "fixed"

[Erasculio.2914]

It could have a big negative impact on the economy, though. I heard a guy saying he got 12 Rose Quartz in a single meteor... And they have been doing far more than four meteors per hour. Between the quartz and the other rewards, it's way too much.

In other hand, we know it's not an exploit because that guild that uses exploits has not made a "statement" about this.

[Astralporing.1957]

The easier and simplest fix would be to change the rose quartz vendor price.

[Umut.5471]

Can Arenanet reply this? I see a lot of squads doing this multi-instance farm but can't be sure if it's an OK thing or not.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Umut.5471 said:Can Arenanet reply this? I see a lot of squads doing this multi-instance farm but can't be sure if it's an OK thing or not.

It's the weekend so no. They might release a fix tomorrow

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Ore make meteor mining once a day

[Shirlias.8104]

They made a mess with this LS4.

[Lambent.6375]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Ore make meteor mining once a day

You need a massive amount of quartz powder and kalkatorik (idk how to spell) ore for the new weapon sets.

[Daniel.5428]

I think it would be ok if they would make fix times on all maps. One meteor every 15 minutes is not bad.

[nekretaal.6485]

Well one day Anet will fix multi map farming, but I'm not especially worried about this farm. The Rose Quartz (both versions) drops from the home instance so farming these seems to be totally optional.

We'll see what the sink for these turns out to be but in the long run, it shouldn't be too far above vendor price. And the "farm" includes a lot of waiting around and travel time (even on a multi map).

Players have more profitable things to do. This one is just popular with people who want to finish the achievement and get/see the new weapons.

Kudos to Anet for not locking this content behind yet another account bound currency.

[Zania.8461]

This game has two types of farms - material farms and coin farms. The first type of farm lowers the price of the said material and removes gold from the game via transaction fees.
The other type is gold farm, where liquid gold is added to the game. The example of these are dungeon runs, encryption farms, etc.

Istan has both of these farms - meta events are material farm and rose quartz is coin farm. Overall the amount of materials and coin that enters the game from a single map seems reasonable, if a bit on the high side. However, multimapping once again seems to be throwing the balance out of the window. There are only few things that ANet can really do.

1) Disable multimapping - this is drastic and would cause massive outcry2) Synchronize meteorites (ie every 20 minutes starting on the hour) - this will make multi-mapping more difficult for rose quartz farming, although you might be able to get 2-3 maps done per cycle anyway3) Allow limited number of chests to be opened/nodes mined per account per day - this is similar to the things like Bloodstone Fen where you can only mine certain amount of nodes before they disappear for you. Might be difficult to impliment4) Change rose quartz price to 1c (or any other much lower value) - this will make people fuss but make it into a material farm instead of gold farm

Overall I expect that nerf will happen, the only question is how soon.

[Pifil.5193]

@Astralporing.1957 said:The easier and simplest fix would be to change the rose quartz vendor price.

Exactly, seems odd that these are 50s and other similar materials are closer to 2s. It might have been intended to be 50c.

[AliamRationem.5172]

What is the purpose of loot in a game like this? It's an incentive to participate in the content. It makes it feel more rewarding.

Are rewards relative? Yes, they are. If one activity offers 100g/hr and another offers only 20g/hr, players are far more likely to participate in the more profitable activity.

How much of a problem is this? I would say the problem is proportionate to the disparity. In other words, 100g/hr when the "average" activity rewards 20g/hr should have a much greater impact than a 30g/hr activity.

ANet, please don't let this drag out like you did with AB ML. It's discouraging that you guys can't seem to produce content without introducing game-breaking bugs like this. QC needs an upgrade.

[Menadena.7482]

@Erasculio.2914 said:I doubt it's an exploit. I think it was a mistake.

Why not both? It comes down to the exact definitions of words but it either case I highly doubt it was the intended behaviour.

Side note: this might be why people are seeing bugs with the metas on Istan since that is also part of multi-map. I would gladly do with a few days of no metas there if it meant they fixed this obscenity.

[Abelisk.4527]

I highly doubt Anet encourages multimapping to improve rewards. Though, you never know. Instance hopping has always been a thing recently and Anet knows this.

The way I see it is this farm doesn't impact the economy at all. The GPH rate isn't that high--not even as high as what F40 used to be.

When IP hopping the average cooldown between Brandstones is around 6 minutes, so that's about 5 Rose Quartz every 6 minutes.

So, in other words, 2.5 gold every 6 minutes. 25 gold per hour. RNG dependent.

That's like SW GPH before PoF released.

However there is also the. Powdered Rose Quartz that you can sell for some extra gold. The Kralkatite you get can also be turned into Volatile Energy for Trophy Shipments, or just sold directly to vendors.

To me, this doesn't seem THAT broken. Let us have our toys for once :)