Suggestion: Remove the yield of zero

[Zera.9435]

So for several days now, I've been going to various LS3 maps to gather from their unique nodes. I can accept that we're limited to how few nodes even exist on the map, and I can even accept that we can only farm them once every 24 hours. What I find deplorable, however, is that they have a high chance to yield nothing but bloodstone/dragonite/empyrean and some unbound energy. I just did my run today at Lake Doric, gathering from all the nodes I can possibly gather from, and I got like 5 jade shards total. I understand that it's RNG, it is always a relatively low yield, and my luck was just absolute garbage today in particular, but this is unacceptable.

I can understand the need for scarcity when the Lake Doric content was brand new, but after all this time, I think it's high time you updated the LS3 nodes so that they always yield at least 1 of their node: Jade Fragments, Bloodstone Crystals, Primordial Orchids, etc. Why can't they all be like WInterberries, where they yield at least 1? I've invested in numerous sets of unlimited gathering tools for a good chunk of my 20+ characters. I've paid for the character slots. I've paid for the gathering tools. I think I, no we, deserve to get at least 1 from the nodes, instead of next to nothing, especially given the time gate.

I beseech you: please revise the yield from those nodes and remove the yield of zero. Make it a minimum of 1 and then leave the additional yields to RNG. You can even lower the chance of an additional yield if you want, but at least ONE would be a massive QoL improvement. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

There's a minimum amount of time they've placed on how you can obtain any kind of Ascended gear. The numbers are tuned based upon this, to specifically make it so you can't farm it beyond an average, precalculated time gate. As a general rule this is about 1-1½ weeks per item, but there's some variance depending on the type of gear you're acquiring.

Providing a guaranteed drop would require the devs to reduce the number of nodes you can mine per day to compensate.

[Linken.6345]

@Hannelore.8153 said:There's a minimum amount of time they've placed on how you can obtain any kind of Ascended gear. The numbers are tuned based upon this, to specifically make it so you can't farm it beyond an average, precalculated time gate. As a general rule this is about 1-1½ weeks per item, but there's some variance depending on the type of gear you're acquiring.

Providing a guaranteed drop would require the devs to reduce the number of nodes you can mine per day to compensate.

And that explenation is thrown out the window since we got bitterfrost winter berry farm.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

@Linken.6345 said:

@"Hannelore.8153" said:There's a minimum amount of time they've placed on how you can obtain any kind of Ascended gear. The numbers are tuned based upon this, to specifically make it so you can't farm it beyond an average, precalculated time gate. As a general rule this is about 1-1½ weeks per item, but there's some variance depending on the type of gear you're acquiring.

Providing a guaranteed drop would require the devs to reduce the number of nodes you can mine per day to compensate.

And that explenation is thrown out the window since we got bitterfrost winter berry farm.

Winterberries have higher prices compared to other currencies and require multiple character slots to farm, which isn't something that everyone has access to. You can only truly "farm" them if you have multiple lv80 & fully geared characters.

[anduriell.6280]

@Zera Allimatti.2541 said:I beseech you: please revise the yield from those nodes and remove the yield of zero. Make it a minimum of 1 and then leave the additional yields to RNG. You can even lower the chance of an additional yield if you want, but at least ONE would be a massive QoL improvement. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.There is no need to have any kind of hard limit on this currencies there are other mechanics like daily crafting in game. All this limitations over limitations is a bad design which is designed to frustrate any new and old players as soon as you are forced to grind anything.The grind in this game is the most horrible i've seen in any mmo because all this daily and character limits only make any grinding an slog. I personally dread the grinding in this game so much i could not bring myself to do the last flying mount grind.

You should try WvW, at least you get 50 of those each time you complete the relevant reward track which depending on the amount of Reward Track buffs it can be as fast as 4 hours and are repeatable. It not much different from farming PvE maps you join a zerg and run along.

[Hesione.9412]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@Zera Allimatti.2541 said:I beseech you: please revise the yield from those nodes and remove the yield of zero. Make it a minimum of 1 and then leave the additional yields to RNG. You can even lower the chance of an additional yield if you want, but at least ONE would be a massive QoL improvement. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.There is no need to have any kind of hard limit on this currencies there are other mechanics like daily crafting in game. All this limitations over limitations is a bad design which is designed to frustrate any new and old players as soon as you are forced to grind anything.

The grind in this game is the most horrible i've seen in any mmo because all this daily and character limits only make any grinding an slog.

I personally dread the grinding in this game so much i could not bring myself to do the last flying mount grind.

I find the opposite - this game has the least slog I have encountered. I remember having to grind multiple faction reputations in order to get gear that was entry raid level in another game. And every time an expansion came out, there was new rep to grind with new factions because the character levels increased and the old gear was obsolete. That was a grind.

[Zera.9435]

@"Hannelore.8153" said:

Winterberries have higher prices compared to other currencies and require multiple character slots to farm, which isn't something that everyone has access to. You can only truly "farm" them if you have multiple lv80 & fully geared characters.

I DO have that many geared up characters. I took the time, leveled them up, geared them, bought them infinity tools. Why should I be denied the privilege of more efficient farming in all those other areas? As has been said, winterberry farming exists, and despite the higher cost with winterberries it is a much fairer way to acquire those ascended accessories. If I am willing to take the time and put in the effort to take multiple characters to run around a map to gather from nodes, why not let me? It's not like I'm taking an easy way out. I'm simply using the resources and 'man power' available to me with the characters I've invested time and effort into.

[Danikat.8537]

One option would be to increase the drop rate from the nodes so you're guaranteed at least one of their main/currency drop (like jade shards in Lake Doric) and then increase the prices at the vendors accordingly, so it takes the same amount of time to buy those items but the process feels less frustrating because you're always getting something from the nodes.

But also don't forget that nodes on the map are just one option. Doing events, daily achievements (when they're available) and opening various chests around the map will reward them as well. I usually start off looking for nodes but make sure to do other stuff as I come across it, because it often works out faster that way, especially if there's a group of players doing it.

[Luthan.5236]

On the contrary: When the content is older you would need more scarcity to have still players there populating those old maps for a much longer time.I jus tstarted with season 4 (playing everything slowly in release order).

Compared to season 3 ... the resources there are much more scarce it seems.

Season 3 you also get a lot of stuff like ascended trinkets. Afaik the reward track for Lake Doric contains more than the other reward tracks - of the resource there. (Cause in Lake Doric harvesting is soo slow.) I got all my nodes and have 1000 of each resource now in the storage. (Took my some months though. I tried to do the dailies there. Harvesting each map only when on daily. Slowly buying the miniatures and stuff. I never really bought trinkets though. I guess they do not want you to be able to farm them too fast.)

Season 4 still seems balanced so far (I just started with chapter 2). I noticed the meteors on level 5 give a ton of stuff. And there are not many uses besides the skyscale item and the weapon set. (Not that many minis. No trinkets.) Sandswept isles seem to offer much less. But only very few miniatures and stuff. And the skyscale item. Then only a few trinkets (probably made for people that do not own season 3 - as source to get them there). So eventually a state where most stuff is bought will be reached ... in a reasonable amount of time.

While for the people farming trinkets (afaik Bitterfrost Frontier is pouplar - and there the berries are fast to farm) it might feel slow. But they aren't intended to be farmed super super fast.

Edit: Also Bitterfrost has the 3 aqua breather items that need 500 berries each. (Each needed to unlock all the 3 skins.) So there needs to be more source of berries for people that want to get everything. The most interesting (cause of the reset item) stuff is in Bloodstone Fen though. (With harsher limits to how much you can gather.)

[Danikat.8537]

@Luthan.5236 said:Season 4 still seems balanced so far (I just started with chapter 2). I noticed the meteors on level 5 give a ton of stuff. And there are not many uses besides the skyscale item and the weapon set. (Not that many minis. No trinkets.) Sandswept isles seem to offer much less. But only very few miniatures and stuff. And the skyscale item. Then only a few trinkets (probably made for people that do not own season 3 - as source to get them there). So eventually a state where most stuff is bought will be reached ... in a reasonable amount of time.

The number of minis is about the same between the two seasons (38 in Season 3, 31 in Season 4) but in PoF and season 4 they started spreading them around a bit more. Some come from heart vendors or dedicated vendors for the map currency, but others come from achievements or as drops, or have to be unlocked by doing achievements before you can buy them. I think it's the same with trinkets, but I don't collect them so I don't pay as much attention to exactly where they come from.

[Luthan.5236]

PoF I found them pretty easy: The 100 trade contracts are a joke. If you do the daily meta (for the Heroic chests) you get tons of them. (+ there are other sources.)31 to 38 seems already a bit lower. And if there are more from achievements and less from the vendors ... it must be easier in terms of buying/farming. (Regardin the map resources.) I had only talked about the ones from vendors. Cause I noticed there were less.

Did you just count that manually? Or is there a wiki with stats? (Or did you remember it from when you played it and tried to do a comparison back then?) :D

So yeah: Since this was about the currency I mainly focused on the ones you buy with map currency. The other ones from achievements I get automatically for cheap (well just some time for the achievements I'm doing anyway). I saw the hydra one in Sandswept isles that needs currency + items (that drop) for in the mystic forge ... but I might ignore this one. Also heard about some that drop directly from some bounty (expensive at the TP) ... but I can just buy that anytime with gold.

I guess because of my obsessive-compulsive personality disorder I often plan a lot (too much maybe) when starting a new chapter/map ... and a main thing is to somehow manage to buy all the stuff from the vendor to have "unlocked" there when checking it. Then using the remaining stuff for storing up (for later buying asscended gear) or converting to magic.

As long as I don't see it at the vendor ... no problem to ignore it. Same for longterm grindy stuff like weapon sets (astral, stellar). I also somehow managed to just skip some stuff in Maguuma Wastes (geodes and the weapon set there is pretty grindy) and not force myself.

But doing all achievements (or most of them) + getting most minis, tonics, recipes ... is something I still like to do. Only that I did it for s3 a bit later. After I had finished the season I came back doing dailies and missing achievements (some there were harder than in S4 so far). That got me a lot of currency + also the magic needed to buy nodes and the karmic retribution, etc. (They seem to offer a lot more here for season 4 maps. Needs more magic since every map has everything I think. In s3 I think Lake Doric had nothing. And others had only 1 - either karma OR the exp boost permanent accountwide buff.)

[Senfdieb.3985]

@Zera Allimatti.2541 said:I DO have that many geared up characters. I took the time, leveled them up, geared them, bought them infinity tools. Why should I be denied the privilege of more efficient farming in all those other areas? As has been said, winterberry farming exists, and despite the higher cost with winterberries it is a much fairer way to acquire those ascended accessories. If I am willing to take the time and put in the effort to take multiple characters to run around a map to gather from nodes, why not let me? It's not like I'm taking an easy way out. I'm simply using the resources and 'man power' available to me with the characters I've invested time and effort into.

I dont think anything needs to be changed here. If you want the currencies to trade for ascended trinkets, there is an easy way to acquire one set in a week.

• Farm daily Winterberries with 5 characters. You should get on average 40 Winterberries per character so a total of 1400 Winterberries a week. Keep 900 and use the other 500 for UM. The conversion to unbound magic should give you 22 per Berry on average (15-30) so you'll get 11.000 UM - the exact amount you need to buy one ring, accessory and the bag.

• Do Daily Fractals (T4 + recs). You will get 100 pristine fractal relics. Buy the second ring with that. If you have problems with karma (see next point), get the karmic retribution on level 4. By doing daily T4 + recs you'll get 600x3x4x7+500x3x4x7 = 92.400 karma (i assumed that all recs are below level 51, which is actually not true).Big bonus here, you have the chance to get ascended armor boxes.

• Farm 700 Eternal Ice Shards and 112.000 Karma (if you have the fractal karmic retribution level 4 you only need 20.000 karma) and buy one amulet and second accessory from the two vendors at bjora marches. I never really farmed the ice shards so i dont have any experience with it, but it should be possible to get the needed amount.

The only thing that is hard capped is the ring from the pristine fractal relics (the other things are theoretically capped with the limit of 69 characters on an account).

Note:If you have more than 5 characters, you can buy further rings (for the fractal ring) but this will require an investment of 1500 Eternal Ice Shards and 54.000 karma per ring (buy 200 mistborn mote at the bjora march vendor, and convert 100 to an average of 2000 VM). Then you can buy another ring on dragonfall. For the other trinkets simply redo the steps 1 and 3.

[Luthan.5236]

Actually the one you can get with pristine fractal relics ... you can get with WvW or PvP curreny as well. Might be interesting for people (like me) that also play these (at least one of them) game modes and aren't spending much of their currency there for other stuff. Will then save the pristine relics for other things.

And to the question "Why should I be denied the privilege of more efficient farming in all those other areas? "There is no such privilege in the first place. It is a design decision of ArenaNet to have the different maps designed differently. (Which also includes the resources and how fast you can obtain them.)

Later content would feel much more copy-pasted if all resources could be obtained at the same pace. (And maybe every map vendor offering the same set of gear just with a different name and icon.)

[Danikat.8537]

@"Luthan.5236" said:PoF I found them pretty easy: The 100 trade contracts are a joke. If you do the daily meta (for the Heroic chests) you get tons of them. (+ there are other sources.)31 to 38 seems already a bit lower. And if there are more from achievements and less from the vendors ... it must be easier in terms of buying/farming. (Regardin the map resources.) I had only talked about the ones from vendors. Cause I noticed there were less.

Did you just count that manually? Or is there a wiki with stats? (Or did you remember it from when you played it and tried to do a comparison back then?) :D

So yeah: Since this was about the currency I mainly focused on the ones you buy with map currency. The other ones from achievements I get automatically for cheap (well just some time for the achievements I'm doing anyway). I saw the hydra one in Sandswept isles that needs currency + items (that drop) for in the mystic forge ... but I might ignore this one. Also heard about some that drop directly from some bounty (expensive at the TP) ... but I can just buy that anytime with gold.

I guess because of my obsessive-compulsive personality disorder I often plan a lot (too much maybe) when starting a new chapter/map ... and a main thing is to somehow manage to buy all the stuff from the vendor to have "unlocked" there when checking it. Then using the remaining stuff for storing up (for later buying asscended gear) or converting to magic.

As long as I don't see it at the vendor ... no problem to ignore it. Same for longterm grindy stuff like weapon sets (astral, stellar). I also somehow managed to just skip some stuff in Maguuma Wastes (geodes and the weapon set there is pretty grindy) and not force myself.

But doing all achievements (or most of them) + getting most minis, tonics, recipes ... is something I still like to do. Only that I did it for s3 a bit later. After I had finished the season I came back doing dailies and missing achievements (some there were harder than in S4 so far). That got me a lot of currency + also the magic needed to buy nodes and the karmic retribution, etc. (They seem to offer a lot more here for season 4 maps. Needs more magic since every map has everything I think. In s3 I think Lake Doric had nothing. And others had only 1 - either karma OR the exp boost permanent accountwide buff.)

I counted, using the Minis page on the Wiki which lists them all grouped by the type of content they come from.

For me there wasn't really a 'back then' it ranges from when the episode was released to yesterday. I always do the story as soon as I can but I save other stuff for when I feel like doing it or when it fits into my priorities. I collect mini pets so I always want to get them, but even then if there's other stuff I'm working on they have to wait until I'm ready. So some I picked up as I was going through the story or doing map completion, but if I didn't have enough of a currency at the time or didn't happen to complete that achievement I'll go back and do it sometime later. Right now I'm prioritising ones which cost karma because I got loads of it from Wintersday.

And when things involve tasks I find tedious, like farming map currency, I might space it out by working on two or three together. I'll park a character there to gather currency a bit each day and then play others working on other goals so I'm not spending all my time farming. It's slower but more fun for me and there's less risk of getting burned out and not wanting to play at all.