Changes to Istan Meta Farming (Discussion)

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" wrotehttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/66519/istan-meta-chest-changesOur goal is for content like the Istan Metas to be a part of your daily play-cycle, without it becoming your entire play-cycle. In the next content build, we will be making some adjustments to the chests associated with the Palawadan and Mordant Crescent Great Hall metas in the Domain of Istan. An account daily limit will be applied to these chests, allowing for the opening of a maximum of 30 chests in Palawadan and 12 chests in the Great Hall per day per account. The base gear rewards have been increased, as well, so players playing through each meta once will see an increase to their rewards, but repeated runs will be less lucrative.

Discuss?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Lol, I've never done it, so it's rather moot for me. :tongue:

I expect to see many lamentation posts, though.

[Empanda.4617]

So ok I understand why you'd want to nerf istan but I'd just like to say Anet, you released the new chapter, full of bugs and crashes. You haven't fixed THAT yet, but you want to change istan, a map grind that people actually enjoy. Now its hard not to be salty about this after experiencing the new chapter and all the bugs, glitches and crashes. Are you POSITIVE, you want to change istan before you fix that new map and story instances where people can get stuck in rocks and crystals in the story instances, dwarven plates don't drop all the time or drop multiple time for the same person messing it up for the other players who need it? Are you POSITIVE you want to change it before you change the fact that you've released broken material that you expect us to be ok with? Like don't get me wrong the istan grind is OP, but at least its not SO broken it's not enjoyable like the new map is. I think you should look at the bad broken map and story you've released before dislocating hundreds of players from their happy grinding area. Now as a coder I know its not that simple, but as a player I have to say this isn't the best way to make your players happy at the moment.

I know this may not be the most popular opinion either.

[Doo Lally.8594]

Perfectly acceptable to me personally as I only ever run it once through every so often. An increase in rewards for that one run is also a nice bonus.

[LucianDK.8615]

Good, way overdue. Shouldve been done a long time ago to downsize the istan farms.

[unrivalled.7952]

Finally... Maybe now TP will work faster, cuz servers wont be overloaded by istan farmers

[Blackarps.1974]

Definitely overdue. Hopefully this helps other parts of the game and the economy get back into place. I imagine people will just finish Istan once then head back to SW though.

[Duckota.4769]

Let's look at this for one second and break it down.

"Our goal is for content like the Istan Metas to be a part of your daily play-cycle, without it becoming your entire play-cycle."-Okay so your goal to dictate how I play regardless of what I find fun and you're opening up with reasoning behind it which is also bogus but we will get to that in one moment.

"In the next content build, we will be making some adjustments to the chests associated with the Palawadan and Mordant Crescent Great Hall metas in the Domain of Istan."-Only thing I've got to say about this is it would be cool if you guys fixed things that actually mattered like the fact Swindler's Equilibrium has been broken since the Dec 11th patch for thief and has been reported multiples times here and in game and you guys just continue to fix miniatures instead and do things like this.

"An account daily limit will be applied to these chests, allowing for the opening of a maximum of 30 chests in Palawadan and 12 chests in the Great Hall per day per account."-Ok. Idk why, but ok.

"The base gear rewards have been increased, as well, so players playing through each meta once will see an increase to their rewards, but repeated runs will be less lucrative."-So you mean to tell me I'm getting a bunch of greens I'll just salvage.

Okay so let's put this all together. I find it rather funny a change to a map is made in a locked thread before the change is even made. Something tells me you guys knew this wouldn't go over well. Essentially what you're telling me or what I feel this is dev talk for is "You guys aren't buying gems from us because you're making decent gold in game and we don't like that so we're going to nerf this with the excuse we don't want you doing this content exclusively when really we have no problem with you doing a lesser method all day like silverwaste farm."

Nice try anet.

[Emberstone.2904]

@unrivalled.7952 said:Finally... Maybe now TP will work faster, cuz servers wont be overloaded by istan farmers

The TP isn't broken because of Istan farmers. It's only been slow since the rune update patch, which was very recent.

Overall, I'm not at all happy with this change. I used Istan to get Gem Store items and such within a reasonable amount of time without having to succumb to microtransactions, and I thought it was fun as well.

If they make one GH and one Palawadan after the change equivalent to like 6 or 7 of them pre-nerf loot-wise, I won't mind so much since that's usually what I had time for.

But we all know the increase in loot is going to be paltry, and Istan is likely going to die due to it no longer being that profitable.

I have a feeling that this change is coming along because people like me used it to avoid paying real money for Gem Store items.

[Cyanchiv.2583]

I have only done the Istan Metas a few times because I've never enjoyed farming the same content everyday, multiple times a day. This is more fitting with my personal play style for sure, but I expect a lot of people are not going to be happy to hear this.

[Gambino.2109]

All I'm seeing here is... oh it's not for me.. so sure ruin it for everyone else that enjoys it.

Unless something hits you in your pockets.. changes to everything else don't seem to matter. This is why we're severely lacking alternatives to farm for mats/gold and such, everything keeps getting destroyed to the point where it's a ghost town.

Me? I use to enjoy farming Silverwaste back in the day, Octovine meta? Sure count me in, Lake Doric leather farm? I'll be right there. Fractal 40? Let me get my chrono, Istan? Sounds interesting.

Now look back on this.. just what exactly am I'm gonna do with my free time? I almost always just get on to do dailies and T4s and log out.. I wonder why

[TokenG.7863]

Is the goal to have yet another meta that only runs at reset (if even then) and then sits largely unpopulated for the remainder of the day? That's where I see this going.

[Empanda.4617]

@"Duckota.4769" said:Let's look at this for one second and break it down.

"Our goal is for content like the Istan Metas to be a part of your daily play-cycle, without it becoming your entire play-cycle."-Okay so your goal to dictate how I play regardless of what I find fun and you're opening up with reasoning behind it which is also bogus but we will get to that in one moment.

"In the next content build, we will be making some adjustments to the chests associated with the Palawadan and Mordant Crescent Great Hall metas in the Domain of Istan."-Only thing I've got to say about this is it would be cool if you guys fixed things that actually mattered like the fact Swindler's Equilibrium has been broken since the Dec 11th patch for thief and has been reported multiples times here and in game and you guys just continue to fix miniatures instead and do things like this.

"An account daily limit will be applied to these chests, allowing for the opening of a maximum of 30 chests in Palawadan and 12 chests in the Great Hall per day per account."-Ok. Idk why, but ok.

"The base gear rewards have been increased, as well, so players playing through each meta once will see an increase to their rewards, but repeated runs will be less lucrative."-So you mean to tell me I'm getting a bunch of greens I'll just salvage.

Okay so let's put this all together. I find it rather funny a change to a map is made in a locked thread before the change is even made. Something tells me you guys knew this wouldn't go over well. Essentially what you're telling me or what I feel this is dev talk for is "You guys aren't buying gems from us because you're making decent gold in game and we don't like that so we're going to nerf this with the excuse we don't want you doing this content exclusively when really we have no problem with you doing a lesser method all day like silverwaste farm."

Nice try anet.

I KNOW RIGHT?! It's like they don't care about us players and whether or not we're enjoying the game! Their dislocating us without even thinking about how we the players who enjoy said content to do it. It sucks that their only going to listen to these players who never really cared or did much of istan to begin with. Now I feel bad to my friends as well because I talked some of them into buying PoF and ls 4 so they could join me in istan for fun! thats their rl money they have WASTED and yes I do mean WASTED anet.

[Duckota.4769]

Also imagine nerfing something that brings 100s of players together daily. Some of which I'll never see or play with in other content again.

[Zenith.7301]

You guys are nerfing the one PoF map that is even relevant while the rest of the PoF maps are virtually ghost towns because of the boring encounters, spread out, unrewarding events that do little to guide a player population into a coordinated goal with relevant rewards like HoT maps did.

Good job.

[Blocki.4931]

Honestly the first word that came to my mind was "pathetic".

Rest in Peace Istan. I haven't done the meta in several months, but it's a shame they decide to mercy kill the map like this. Now it will end up like Sandswept Isles and other maps. MAYBE it will be worth clearing once a day, but then that's going to be it and the map dies out. MAYBE this brings back Sandswept Isles meta farming since that is "okay" besides the boring and awful 20 minute sponge fight at the end. Probably just means that other farms get a little more popular.

This decision comes far too late and it's a poor idea.

@Empanda.4617 said:

@"Duckota.4769" said:Let's look at this for one second and break it down.

"Our goal is for content like the Istan Metas to be a part of your daily play-cycle, without it becoming your entire play-cycle."-Okay so your goal to dictate how I play regardless of what I find fun and you're opening up with reasoning behind it which is also bogus but we will get to that in one moment.

"In the next content build, we will be making some adjustments to the chests associated with the Palawadan and Mordant Crescent Great Hall metas in the Domain of Istan."-Only thing I've got to say about this is it would be cool if you guys fixed things that actually mattered like the fact Swindler's Equilibrium has been broken since the Dec 11th patch for thief and has been reported multiples times here and in game and you guys just continue to fix miniatures instead and do things like this.

"An account daily limit will be applied to these chests, allowing for the opening of a maximum of 30 chests in Palawadan and 12 chests in the Great Hall per day per account."-Ok. Idk why, but ok.

"The base gear rewards have been increased, as well, so players playing through each meta once will see an increase to their rewards, but repeated runs will be less lucrative."-So you mean to tell me I'm getting a bunch of greens I'll just salvage.

Okay so let's put this all together. I find it rather funny a change to a map is made in a locked thread before the change is even made. Something tells me you guys knew this wouldn't go over well. Essentially what you're telling me or what I feel this is dev talk for is "You guys aren't buying gems from us because you're making decent gold in game and we don't like that so we're going to nerf this with the excuse we don't want you doing this content exclusively when really we have no problem with you doing a lesser method all day like silverwaste farm."

Nice try anet.

I KNOW RIGHT?! It's like they don't care about us players and whether or not we're enjoying the game! Their dislocating us without even thinking about how we the players who enjoy said content to do it. It sucks that their only going to listen to these players who never really cared or did much of istan to begin with. Now I feel bad to my friends as well because I talked some of them into buying PoF and ls 4 so they could join me in istan for fun! thats their rl money they have WASTED and yes I do mean WASTED anet.

Even while I heavily disagree with their decision, I feel like this is a bit of an overreaction. It wasn't wasted, you've gotten at least some use of it and 200 gems is roughly 60g, not a big deal if you've farmed Istan for a couple of hours.

[Skyroar.2974]

Istan's meta is going to get buffed if you do it once per day. The map won't die.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" wroteThe

base gear rewards have been increased

, as well, so players playing through each meta once will see an increase to their rewards, but repeated runs will be lesslucrative.

Discuss?

I think what I quoted above is a positive move, but I greatly dislike it when developers "decide" how we should enjoy their content. If someone wants to farm Istan all day every day, why is that of concerns to the devs? It isn't as if players must farm Istan all day every day or be without resources... There are many ways to earn resources WHILE playing, dare I say, mainstream content; nobody is forced to farm Istan.

AND, there are players who actually enjoy farming Istan. This change really shafts them.

I'm someone who, at one point, was doing the AB meta several times a day. I was fine with the Hero chest being limited to 1, but if they decided to limit how many exalted chests I could open, it wouldn't have been well received, as I found the Octovine meta a lot of fun to complete.

[Emberstone.2904]

@"Gambino.2109" said:All I'm seeing here is... oh it's not for me.. so sure ruin it for everyone else that enjoys it.

Unless something hits you in your pockets.. changes to everything else don't seem to matter. This is why we're severely lacking alternatives to farm for mats/gold and such, everything keeps getting destroyed to the point where it's a ghost town.

Me? I use to enjoy farming Silverwaste back in the day, Octovine meta? Sure count me in, Lake Doric leather farm? I'll be right there. Fractal 40? Let me get my chrono, Istan? Sounds interesting.

Now look back on this.. just what exactly am I'm gonna do with my free time? I almost always just get on to do dailies and T4s and log out.. I wonder why

That's how I feel, too. Istan gave me a great option if I needed to go make money. It gave me something to do in the game. Is there a cool new Gem Store item I like? Awesome. I'll play the game for hours until I can get it.

Now, I'm just going to do Fractals and log off as there isn't anything else profitable to do.

Before someone says "stop worrying about profit! Play what's fun!," gold makes the world go 'round in Guild Wars. If you aren't raiding, you need it to make new ascended sets to play new builds and stuff optimally, as I like to do in Fractals.

For my own enjoyment of the game, gold is necessary. And a major part of that enjoyment just got destroyed.

[Blocki.4931]

@"DiogoSilva.7089" said:Istan's meta is going to get buffed if you do it once per day. The map won't die.

Why would anybody stay after they got their chests? Ever since Akili got nerfed the map was limping already. People just want the Volatile Magic and Phylacteries. The metas used to give you a big chunk of both, now VM will be gone and reason to play there is drastically reduced. It was already only on par with other farms, now others will strictly be better. Maybe a ton of people won't ever realize this because they just do their routine and never read patchnotes.

[Haishao.6851]

I only don't understand why they always take so long to do these kind of "fix" while pretending their intent was this or that. Shouldn't the intent for something be known before actually making it? Why wasn't it fixed the same week or month it came out instead of over a year later?

I always feel like all these "fixes" do is cut the grass under the feet of people who play casually. Because while it might be more profitable to do it only once, which is better for casual, they'll most likely have to do it on reset because the mass of people who farm these kind of thing endlessly, wont be there anymore after doing it once. The map will then be empty 99% of the time. The reason these farms are good for casual is because there's always hardcore playing them, making it playable for them too at anytime they might be able to play.

[Tom.9516]

Rip the community in the Istan map :/

[Skyroar.2974]

@Blocki.4931 said:Why would anybody stay after they got their chests?

They won't stay. But people log in at different hours, and Istan will remain as the best farm in the game, so the map will still be populated. If anything, it'll be less a lag fest.

[eldrjth.7384]

What if they make doing each map meta once per day lucrative. So you can do all LWS4 meta event for rewards once a day rather than a single map. That and they could improve the rewards for running fractals as they are making them incrementally harder/longer.

[Imperadordf.2687]

i feel sad for nelltwo