Changes to Istan Meta Farming (Discussion)

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@folk.8190 said:arena greed And Istan is just the beginning. what's next arena? SW too 1 time per day? AB also? players do not bring money? I have a great idea just follow the way EA. And of course, you need more lootboxes, more skins for mounts and at the highest possible price. Oh, one more thing. Remove gold exchange for gems. leave only real money to gems. This is a special option for the mastercad warriors.

This change is a direct buff to the incomes of every single player that did not farm Istan all the time. Both because doing Istan once per day is more lucrative, and because it potentially makes other activities better by making materials more valuable. The view that Anet is doing this as some sort of scheme to get more money is completely unfounded and very one dimensional. The game needs to be balanced properly so that players do multiple activities and don't get burned out farming the same meta all the time.

Btw, you are late to the party about them nerfing AB. That was nerfed a long time ago, and yet people still do it because it's very lucrative.

Now ppl probly will ignore istani but sw finally back maybe chest farm return

[Emberheart.8426]

@phs.6089 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@folk.8190 said:arena greed And Istan is just the beginning. what's next arena? SW too 1 time per day? AB also? players do not bring money? I have a great idea just follow the way EA. And of course, you need more lootboxes, more skins for mounts and at the highest possible price. Oh, one more thing. Remove gold exchange for gems. leave only real money to gems. This is a special option for the mastercad warriors.

This change is a direct buff to the incomes of every single player that did not farm Istan all the time. Both because doing Istan once per day is more lucrative, and because it potentially makes other activities better by making materials more valuable. The view that Anet is doing this as some sort of scheme to get more money is completely unfounded and very one dimensional. The game needs to be balanced properly so that players do multiple activities and don't get burned out farming the same meta all the time.

Btw, you are late to the party about them nerfing AB. That was nerfed a long time ago, and yet people still do it because it's very lucrative.

Right balance. PoF maps are still dead as well as any LW4 map. What exactly did they balance? If they really want people to play maps. Toward with this nerf there would be buffs loot on other maps but it ain't happening.

Istan will still be farmed fro VM and PPs just like AB is being doe now or not.

Just because there are PoF metas that need to be buffed, it doesn't mean that this nerf was unwarranted. Go and make a thread requesting them to buff the lacking metas, or post about it in an existing thread for that subject. They may or may not buff other metas, but I don't expect them to make all the changes in 1 patch.

[phs.6089]

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@phs.6089 said:

@Ganathar.4956 said:

@folk.8190 said:arena greed And Istan is just the beginning. what's next arena? SW too 1 time per day? AB also? players do not bring money? I have a great idea just follow the way EA. And of course, you need more lootboxes, more skins for mounts and at the highest possible price. Oh, one more thing. Remove gold exchange for gems. leave only real money to gems. This is a special option for the mastercad warriors.

This change is a direct buff to the incomes of every single player that did not farm Istan all the time. Both because doing Istan once per day is more lucrative, and because it potentially makes other activities better by making materials more valuable. The view that Anet is doing this as some sort of scheme to get more money is completely unfounded and very one dimensional. The game needs to be balanced properly so that players do multiple activities and don't get burned out farming the same meta all the time.

Btw, you are late to the party about them nerfing AB. That was nerfed a long time ago, and yet people still do it because it's very lucrative.

Right balance. PoF maps are still dead as well as any LW4 map. What exactly did they balance? If they really want people to play maps. Toward with this nerf there would be buffs loot on other maps but it ain't happening.

Istan will still be farmed fro VM and PPs just like AB is being doe now or not.

Just because there are PoF metas that need to be buffed, it doesn't mean that this nerf was unwarranted. Go and make a thread requesting them to buff the lacking metas, or post about it in an existing thread for that subject. They may or may not buff other metas, but I don't expect them to make all the changes in 1 patch.

I did, several times over and over, made gawd dem thread of Deserted PoF. That wasn't the question, question was of this famous balance to play other maps.

Give it 2-3 day if profit in Istan will be less then SW, people will forget of Istan.

[perilisk.1874]

Kind of hilarious to see how often angry Istan farmers call either Arenanet or players supporting them greedy. As if they are upset for any reason other than losing out on lots of fairly easy gold.

[Jura.2170]

and yet people still do it because it's very lucrative.

you get 5 rares worth maybe 60 or 75 silver

and it takes 2 hours to do the whole map meta

half an hour for the challenges and octovine

you could get more by farming wood and ore somewhere

[Glider.5792]

@"Jura.2170" said:

and yet people still do it because it's very lucrative.

you get 5 rares worth maybe 60 or 75 silver

and it takes 2 hours to do the whole map meta

half an hour for the challenges and octovine

you could get more by farming wood and ore somewhere

I dont belive people mean the "whole 2 hours". If you're smart you wont be doing all of that for gold. You will just be joining last few min to do the actual meta event (Octovines) which takes few minutes, maybe 5min of actual "work", yet you gain a ton of rewards.

[Eljedi.3297]

For once a map is so alive, I find it very unfortunate this map nerve. This card offers such a successful sequence of events (pirats/books/akili/GH/padawan) that some people actually spend some time there...

But the question would be more like: How to make attractive the other maps that are quickly deserted as soon as the episodes are over.....

Who regularly goes to Dragonis Mountain / Ember Bays / Salesable Islands / Jahai Promontory / Sun Creek etc... Some maps are of little/no interest for both events and loots...........

Improve these maps and if not be able to do so: Avoid reducing the interest of some.

When it comes to periodicity, why not apply this principle of daily event and limitation to all events and on all maps!!!!!! That's a little bit of nonsense.

Invent a tsunami and delete the map if you find that it monopolizes a little too many players......

Ty

[Goettel.4389]

Excellent change.

[Adenin.5973]

Okay, didn't expect that. How many years have players complained that there is too little replayability, especially with the newer content?

And then Anet killso off the replayability of one of the two maps in the entire game that ppl replayed regularly fort gold? Why would you do this?

Unless you give more viable options and other maps where ppl can grind your incredible lackluster and uninspired loot to get the one single progression left in the game "cosmetics", you should really not mess around with the 50% of the maps that ppl enjoy farming gold in.

But I guess nerfing one single map by adjusting a few loot tables is far easier than looking at 5+ maps, redoing some metas, bug fix and balance it. Meanwhile you focus on getting out one time throw away content every 3 months that keeps players interested for 2-4 hours. This game is not in any way going in the direction I would like it.

No character progression, no new mechanics, far too few balance patches, complete devoid of any serious PvP content other than the odd running around in circles to stand on top of circles game mode, in no way world pvp or challenge modes for open world, almost no good skins outside of the gemstore added, crazy focus on complete sets of outfits than kill immediately half of the fun ppl had to customize, artificial scarcioty with items disappearing from the shop, rng lootboxes, no mounts skins for ingame activities, masteries a complete and utter joke, no endless scaling systems, like horde defense modes etc. added after 6 years etc etc.

Anet, you have such a polished combat and class system, a beautiful world, everything a good MMO needs as a basis is already there and already was there 6 years ago at launch but you did nothing since then. you created more of the same. Your focus on getting out the 2 hours of LS every few months is what is killing this game.

Not more one time only content! More mechanics and more systems and they need to scale and they need to reward, they need to progress you as a player, character, account whatever.

Making a 24/7 replayable map that ppl liked another one time only a day is another step in the WRONG direction.

[ugrakarma.9416]

Istan was already nerfed to me long time ago because of FPS and others visual spam.

[Skotlex.7580]

GW2 had something called "diminish returns" (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns), meaning ANet just didn't want people farming on the same map all day long, and this is something from the very beginning of the game's life, so we really shouldn't be surprised this came to pass.

Though maybe the reason they applied this specific change is that those loot chests were immune to DR, whereas the rest of the event mechanics can be handled by it? Not that I think Istan was, in fact, affected at all by DR, considering how people could run it 24/7 without diminishing rewards already.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Skotlex.7580" said:GW2 had something called "diminish returns" (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diminishing_returns), meaning ANet just didn't want people farming on the same map all day long, and this is something from the very beginning of the game's life, so we really shouldn't be surprised this came to pass.

Though maybe the reason they applied this specific change is that those loot chests were immune to DR, whereas the rest of the event mechanics can be handled by it? Not that I think Istan was, in fact, affected at all by DR, considering how people could run it 24/7 without diminishing rewards already.More likely they applied the change because the metas of the last LS episodes aren't very popular. Although the nerf won't change that, because the main culprit are the metas themselves. LS maps (barring some exceptions, like Istan, or earlier Bitterfrost) just don't have any staying power, and this is the problem they should be working on first.

[Skotlex.7580]

@Astralporing.1957 said:LS maps (barring some exceptions, like Istan, or earlier Bitterfrost) just don't have any staying power, and this is the problem they should be working on first.Whenever I go to an LS map it has no lack of players. Lately I've been doing kourma, and even at the worst off times manage to gather enough people for the meta. So the maps are very well populated. You mention a lack of staying power, which for others could be read as farming: which is exactly what winterberries and Istan provide, a source of prolonged farming with little downtime that can be converted to gold.

So, really, what's missing for people who think most LS are throwaway is that there's no solid gold-making metas to them. Either because there's not enough rewards, or it isn't on a global timer so that players can join at the right time.

ANet may not be that adverse to such activities existing, but it seems now clear that they don't want a few popular farm trains that are notoriously better than the rest to exist (or at least, to exist in an 24/7 format). One complains of the lack of rewards for the other metas, yet this is relative: it's only lacking because there exists a much better alternative which we can compare to. If Istan and silverwastes did not exist, we would be comparing the farm profit to whatever is next in line.

Thus, reducing gains of popular farms does improve the relative gains of other activities. What it doesn't do is help those Metas at the bottom of the list (like serpent's ire).

[Jeknar.6184]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Jeknar.6184 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:I mean, lets not talk like Anet just lets bugs just linger around.

Dolyaks in WvW get desync'ed of their position when returning to camps since 2012...

That's not proof Anet doesn't address bugs though.

Indeed it's not... It would be unfair for me to say Anet NEVER adress any bugs in the game... But it's also unfair to say Anet ALWAYS fix the bugs in the game when there are 6 years bugs lingering about...

[Lydia.7913]

This probably happened because a very small group of players had "solved" the GW2 economy and figured out how to make insane profit (I'm talking accounts with millions of G)... and it all hinged on Istan. This is an economy adjustment.

[Cristalyan.5728]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Good change overall for the game. Excessive farming of content shouldn't be a thing in the game, some caps are needed, and a buff in the rewards. The only problem I see is that it's a bit too late now.

I agree with the excessive farming of content shouldn't be a thing in the game. But, although ANet states the same we have some contradiction in the game:

• They created a map only for the farming activity (Lake Doric). Then, with the measures implemented to prevent the farming (they said something about "unintended way of farming" =) LOL! We should farm as ANet wants) the map died. But the intention to create farming exists. From ANet part.
• The Mad King Labyrinth - here even the DR has been canceled. Why? To allow the players to have a peaceful candy-corn gathering route? No. To allow farming.
• The "legendary" weapons. Legendary only by the quantity of wood and metal needed. Absurd and totally unrealistic. Why so much metal for a BOW? Why so much wood for a SWORD? If you can gather +35K wood and +35K mithril only by playing and before the next decade ... maybe I don't know the game too well. But for me this is an invitation to farming. Wood and metal, but farming.

The examples can continue but I don't want to write too much. The conclusion is that ANet has nothing against farming. If the farming is made according with what they want, when they want and where they want. The players opinion is irrelevant.

To conclude in an optimistic note:

1. Before HoT they nerfed one of the best incoming source of the game at that time - the dungeons.
2. Before PoF they nerfed the best incoming source of the game at that time - The AB multimap loot (it was not a fix for an exploit - please read the ANet reasons - the word exploit is not used).
3. Now they nerf the best incoming source of the game in this moment.

I think we should prepare for the next expansion. Promising us nothing to avoid overhype, completing the Legendary weapons from HoT with the 3 underwater Legendaries (costing around half a million from each textiles/leather/metal/wood). And also containing strict restrictions to farming =). With a single "unintentionally" overlooked meta turning it into the best incoming source of the game. This meta will last until the next expansion will be ready to be launched.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Sylv.5324 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

You know raid dev team is small right. Open world gets more content than raids. But i agree and this also moves the issue to another map instead

Yes, but the content they create imo should be invested in the story and open world instead. Places like Kourna and Sandswept could have used a lot more attention. Part of why Istan is disproportionately popular is that other PoF maps are really not rewarding or poorly made (Kourna again) or unenjoyable. Istan is actually not the most lucrative farm, but people preferred it because it was a pleasant one.

So Anet shouldn’t invest resources in fractals either? Definitely not dungeons if they were ever going to go back to them? What about WvW and sPvP? Those aren’t open world and story related either.

Different types of content appeal to different people. Not everything in the game needs to be tied to what you personally enjoy.

Edit: typos

[Etria.3642]

Woooooow. They have nerfed the chests into oblivion. Instead of the 35-50 volatile magic you get 10-15.

So not only do you get only 30 chests the ones you do get are worth no more than killing a couple mobs. I won't even be returning here for a daily.

[perilisk.1874]

@"Etria.3642" said:Woooooow. They have nerfed the chests into oblivion. Instead of the 35-50 volatile magic you get 10-15.

So not only do you get only 30 chests the ones you do get are worth no more than killing a couple mobs. I won't even be returning here for a daily.

So... did they boost anything else in the chests to compensate? The initial post was suggesting that the rewards would be improved to offset the impact of limiting them to once a day, but it sounds like that wasn't the case.

Edit: Re-read, and it said "base gear rewards" would be increased. But no mention of a nerf to VM. Maybe the chocolate ration will be increased as well?

[Microsoft Chad.9462]

The patch was like getting sucker punched, they don't mention it in the notes so you think they waited, then you update to find it's even worse than they said.

[Etria.3642]

I didn't notice anything except the vm change but later on it did seem like there was an extra blue unid. I'd far rather have the vm, personally.

[Shabari.1504]

I'm fine with it. Yes I was a heavy farmer there. All good things must come to an end. There was also to many arguments going on in wc mainly pertaining to a certain farming community that thought they owned the maps. When a commander popped into one of their maps they were told to tag down or leave. Not nice as that person paid for their tag and could use it as they pleased. If that commander did not drop or leave I've seen said community then run ahead and mess the whole meta up for that group. And no it was not because of a map jump and the timer. For that reason I'm happy for it.

My only gripe is that since you made the meta chests only once daily why did you then nerf the vm drops from them??Anyway, now maybe I'll go be productive and get some achievements done. lol. xox

[Hirukaru.4539]

wrong way to fix something.

better is making is 7x 30 pala and 7x GH per week.this makes it so that players who play weekends only can do a few runs in the weekend.However this change will maybe kill istan, too few people to do the content is no content at all. (only fully organized groups will go) way too late to try and fix it should have done within a month of release.

@SpinDashMaster.5680 said:And yeah just in case I didn't make this clear enough on behalf of the silent majority: There's a lot of us who rely on that map for having something common we can all do together, that doesn't have the barrier-to-entry stigma that raids and fractals have. People could literally come as they are, have fun, socialize, and fill their pockets while doing it. It was an everybody-wins thing, where the more we worked together, the more everyone won.

If anyone here seriously agrees with this change, I strongly encourage you to look at the hundreds of players (and possibly thousands of newer ones) who are likely to lose the communities they couldn't find elsewhere in GW2.

Soon, they'll all be disgruntled.

Do you really want to shake your lower-end player base like this?

I so agree with you. Just keep it as is currently.

[Cerioth.7062]

This change doesnt affect me negatively whatsoever and I think it's healthy for the game.

[Mithos.9023]

Let’s start with an idea and add the feedback at the bottom otherwise it would get swept under the rug to easy.

What if there was a repeatable achievement just like that for dungeon runs? It could give out unidentified gear or some other rewards according to how many maps of season 4 you have played. Like having a low base reward, some unidentified gear and a bit of volatile magic. If you do some events on the first map you get the base reward, double the base reward if you finish the second map, triple the base reward for the third map etc. It would encourage doing something on every map, including the meta events. This would solve two things at once, it might increase the replay value of all maps and it would encourage new farm routines, that would jump from map to map instead of staying fixed on one map.

Now for the feedback:

I have a rather split opinion here. I mean doesn’t the explanation sound a lot like parents telling their child: “We don’t want you to watch so much tv, you get only 1 hour a day”? Somehow the explanation feels like that. But the difference here, many of the players are adults. Do we need someone to tell us how to play? Why is it wrong for someone to spend his time as he likes, even if that means doing one thing repeatedly? On the other side it was way to lucrative and some nerf had to come and spreading out players to other maps is a good thing in theory. But their reasoning feels strange and wired.I would buy the change if it was just stated it had economic reasons. That would have been fine, we all know how big the impact of Istan is and was. And the next thing is I don’t think much will change. The other maps of season 4 and the PoF maps will still not see much play. Their events are simply unrewarding, unnecessary long-winded or incredibly bad designed and frustrating, like the buried treasure chest meta. If we see no change here, nothing will change. Even my suggestion won’t fix it entirely as bad received as some maps and/or meta events are. The people will simply abandon PoF and move back to HoT as it seems more profitable and easier to organize.