Feedback:User/Dealaka/Improve loot or say you believe in grinding.

I think I have to draw a line in the sand with Anet, and if you believe the same I hope you join me. This post is about our favorite subject; loot. In GW the loot drop rates are as horrible and low as I've ever seen in a non-raid event in any MMO.

I think they're about 1 maybe 2% in HM with 2 players and heroes. How do I get this number? Last double green drop weekend, a friend of mine and I went skill capping to work on their survivor title. Out of the one hundred bosses we killed, we got 1 green, a hammer at that.

Not that my luck was very good to begin with, but I'm not getting anything decent these days. I completed Legendary vanquisher and got 2 bonuses left before I finish Legendary Guardian. So you would think I would have found a few nice items. Nope. It used to be I would get 1 black dye or tome every few months, I don't even get that now. I still have yet to get a superior vigor rune even though I've identified about 400 sets of gold armor.

Today I've been trying to collect Mursaat tokens for the traveler. I'm not planning on selling them, just get my gifts for the week, and what I experienced made me really annoyed. I tried Ice-Flow hm, I tried Abaddon's Mouth hm, I tried Iron Mines of Moldune hm. I hero/henched them all, killing about 300 mursaat to try and get tokens. Wanna know how many I made? One. One token for hundreds slain. I'll repeat that. One token. And we need 15 for 5 gifts. >.> Ok Anet let's take this outside...

I can understand that heroes/henchmen decrease the loot. I can live with that sort of (even though I should be able to pay henchmen to keep my loot, and I'm paying for runes/weapons/armor/everything for my heroes). I can understand even decreased loot to make the game more of a challenge. You don't want players to get the best stuff quickly so they play longer (though I wonder why with gw since there's no subscription cost). I can understand that the goal is to have players play with other players (even though PUGs these days are ugly).

But when Anet developers punish players whom solo by 'nerfing' or changing skills, changing the skills enemies in one area get, or stealth buffs to enemy AI/mobbing this is getting really ugly. Enemies are already well beyond our level cap. They exceed the damage/regen/degen/healing cap that players must abide by. They exceed attribute points (and we get experience not attribute points for leveling). Some are even allowed to be of 3 professions where we're limited to 2. You toss in enemy only skills and how is this fair? They already have 0 limits to the types or size of groups they can appear in. The enemies have patrol points to purposely make the game even more sadistic. Anet can say this is all because their AI is terrible, but is that really a valid excuse? Shouldn't anet be focused on making the AI better for the npcs, heroes, and henchmen then? Heroes and henchmen we use also have poor AI but they don't get any of the perks that the monsters do. Is that fair?

Everything now has horrible drop rates. Holiday items? Pathetic. Green weapons? Pathetic. Collectibles? You've gotta be kidding me! I'm killing things in HM and not even getting gold coins or white items from them. Why? Why am I serving the Asalonians, Ebon Vanguard, the Sunspears, the Lightbringers, the Dwarves, or the Emperor if I'm not going to be paid for my service? You have two options in GW it seems, either solo and get nerfed, or you don't get things to cover the regular costs of playing (such as consets).

Combining requiring big numbers of collectibles combined with pathetic drop rates is not grinding. It's torturous sadism the likes I've never seen before. You should feel ashamed Anet developers. You not only have shown you have no compassion for players' time or friendliness, you show you don't even understand what it means to play as players.

So I draw my line in the sand.

I'm asking for Anet developers to announce publically that they believe in grinding and treating players badly, or improve the loot drop rates significantly.

I understand there is bad press for saying you believe in grinding and treating players badly, but it's the truth. Saying you don't believe in grinding while doing it should impose penalities or anger from the community.

I encourage everyone else to join me. I'm prepared to start a petition against GW if this situation is not addressed. We are all paying customers. We bought this game and are being treated extremely poorly by it. Do not tolerate the carrot anymore. We're just being beat with the stick.

I encourage everyone to take drastic measures against Anet for this grievance, which include but not limited to; Gathering in game and publically protesting, logging off for weekend events of any sort, writing a letter to Anet to state you oppose the treatment they have been rendering to us, joining me in a veto against collecting Traveler Gifts, and asking the developers for commentary on why loot is so pathetic.

I encourage people to use non-violent means to communicate our message. We all play this game for fun. This is not fun anymore. There is nothing to gain by wasting forty hours of your life for a green item. Unless you tell the developers you are unhappy with it though, nothing will change. Please join me in taking back guild wars from those who do not care about the players.

Thank you.

Dealaka 5:22 pm, 31 November 25th 2009 (UTC)