Guild Wars 2 Relaxes Loot and Event Farming Restrictions

 
By Frank Lewis,
 
Developer ArenaNet said it has relaxed the anti-exploiting system for loot and events, but players are debating on how exactly.

ArenaNet announced the easing during the most recent October 7 update notes, but there was no detailed explanation on how it was implemented, probably due to the sensitivity of the information which may be used by botters to abuse the system.

Players were instead reduced to comparing notes on how the relaxed restrictions personally affected their farming runs. In our scan of forums after the patch hit, most reported that they faced less punitive diminishing returns.

Lighter Diminishing Returns
Official forums user Joshewwah said that due to the patch he has effectively doubled his farming time before suffering reward gains. "I ended farming for like three hours straight. Usually before the patch I would for 30 minutes to 1.5 hours before hitting DR [diminishing returns]. So I guess it's kind of 'relaxed' as they have said and it's more easier [sic] to get loot."

Meanwhile, fellow forums user Karew said that "as far as I can tell, you hit DR the same speed you did before, but now DR scales you down much slower. Example: On Cursed Shore events, I get 370-379 Karma per event, and when I hit DR it starts reducing. Pre-patch it would sharply go down to 140 Karma. Now it seems to take much longer to get down to 50% efficiency."

Faster Gold, Karma and Mats Farming
With the relaxed restrictions, farming mobs in the same area and chaining dynamic events should yield more Karma and crafting material drops per hour spent.

Of these three, Karma seems to be the most sought after because of its rarity; it can only be earned mainly through dynamic events and World vs. World play. The other two can be obtained through general questing, trading post purchase, or Gems store exchange.

Last week we detailed three of the fastest ways to farm 1 million Guild Wars 2 Karma, which should now prove to be more effective now that DR penalties have been tempered.

Endgame Farming Routes
While we're on the topic of fast farming methods, we bumped into a few endgame farming routes that level-capped players should try out to speed up their way to a Legendary, or to max out their crafts.

"Basically, just event chaining Straits of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, Cursed Shore, Frostgorge Sound would net you a decent amount of drops, karma, cash, mats along the way, etc. Seems like the best route to me," said Guild Wars 2 Guru posted Vanguard Scout said in response to a high-yield farming route.

For those who want to stick to a no-brainer farming zone, the best bet for now is Cursed Shore. But there can be rewards for those who take the extra effort to pin down the complex farming route in Straits of Devastation, said official forums user Strill.

"The reason people farm Cursed Shore is not because it's level 80, it's because there's around 15 events all clustered so densely together that it's literally possible to participate in three of them at the same time. On top of all that you also get updates on another five events while you're there. You don't find events that dense anywhere else.

"The best alternative is actually Straits of Devastation. In fact, I suspect it might even be superior to Cursed Shore. The caveat is that the cycle there is much more complex since it requires zig-zag waypointing all over the map. Since it's much easier to farm cursed shore for Guild Wars 2 Gold you see few people taking the extra effort to figure out the Straits of Devastation event cycle."


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