Posts by dubbleclick

  • Open Letter to Anet is now live!

    Quote from ACWhammy

    I realize that many of you do not want Arenanet's involvement; considering their involvement would at the very least require game moderation (i.e., confronting illegal game activity), and many of you openly support illegal game activity.

    No. I don't think many of us openly support illegal game activity. But the reality of removing such activity without making at least minor changes to the game and its economy will literally kill it, or big parts of it. The compiler change (that STILL has sh*t fucked up with client crashes and more) and mass ban wave came so close to killing the SC scene and completely terrorized the economy. At this point it's a matter of literally having to spend real life money to gold sellers to even be able to play what you want.

    I think it would be very healthy for the game, especially PvP if bots were gone - if, and ONLY if, the issues that creates are addressed. Until then, bots are the lesser evil because they at least don't make it impossible to play the game.

    It's really sad that this "open" letter to ArenaNet, which we've never seen or contributed to (I mean sure there was a post on what to possibly include, but you just ignored it anyway and gave us no hints on what you'd actually write), doesn't address any problem except for bots and content updates.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    I agree, slightly above current (well, before bots botswere banned) minimum prices is okay for most pcons. Consets, lunars and especially rock candy need to go back to the prices they used to be sold at, however. 5e/stack lunars is reasonable, as well as ~5k/rainbow rock (2.5k, 1.5k, 0.5k). That would about reflect the price they used to be back in the days.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Are you seriously listing the zaishen chest as a weapon source? Yes, it can drop pretty much any weapon - but I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of weapons (invluding crystalline, VS & cc's) do NOT come from the zaishen chest but from speedclears. Zodiac weapons too, by the way.

    The only rare weapon skins that do not mainly come from speedclears are oldschool items like bo staves. And 99.99% of those are botted.

    But seriously, what's the point. This is in no way a valid argument against us needing different means to secure the access to (p)cons. Botting can't be a long term solution, especially not if they ever fuck us over again like with Lunars.

  • What would you ask Anet?

    Quote from Looney

    Damn, too late for...

    An actual public reply about whether toolbox and auto cons use / autoclickers is allowed or not.

    There have been replies to that. Essentially saying that it's a grey zone that is not technically allowed or forbidden, but you use it on your own responsibility.

    No, they did not explicitly ban toolbox or auto cons, live with it you anti pcon/toolbox whiteknight.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    That's obviously not a real statistic, but there are a lot of people in the SC scene - and apparently none who farm events manually to sell stuff. I mean i've been in kamadan throughout the event and couldn't really find anyone selling more than 100 tokens. All who were there were people who botted. Not like there were many of those.

    That being said, this is pointless. You think it's better to shoot 10% of your country because you don't want another 10% to lose their ability to play slave instead of actually earning money.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    So your by logic let's have 1000 players be unable to play the content they enjoy - or pay insane amounts of money that they can't even generate - to shield the 100 innocent people who make a tiny bit amount of money because they'd rather farm events than do content that gives then 10x more money? Seriously?

    You seriously think it's better than people have to pay like 300 arms a year to even afford basic pcons while RELYING ON BOTS is better than a couple players losing what, 20e per event??? Or do you think bots should stay banned and the entire sc scene should just die? Apparently so.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Looney

    Yep, and if they do... guess what goes missing. That 'special' thing from the 'special' event, that was intended as a 'special' bonus for participating in said event.

    You make more money doing other things, but, maybe taking a break to get the things you need to make more money.

    Again. Special bonus. But you don't do the event to get it, like many, many ppl.

    But, You want it 100% of the time for NON PARTISIPATION.

    Boy, you should've read the last pages. You'd need to farm the event 24/7 during active hours with 20 accounts at once to stock up enough to last YOURSELF for a year. And where do you take "But you don't do the event to get it" from? I've spent the entire fucking week farming this shit during my evenings and all I've made was gone after 3 evenings of runs.

    Casuals, by the way, it wouldn't have lasted a single record push evening.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Looney

    SPECIAL Events, SPECIAL Drops,

    yet you want them 100% of the time.

    Yeah, because that has literally never been a problem until now. And it's now a problem because you can't compete with records using them, if you can't have them. They're still available, so there can't be a meta reset. What's even the point in competing anymore?

    Honestly, if you can't see why we need a pcon vendor or different solution to this issue, you either have no grasp of the reality of this game, are an "omg pcons cheating" whiteknight, or just want to piss off people. It doesn't hurt you or anyone else if there was a solution to this issue. Saying people can make a little bit of profit off of farming them manually is stupid.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Pleikki

    I think price should be so high that it would be still worth it to farm pcons, but if shortage was huge it would be better buy from vendor than be without. Someting liek 1000g each.

    Are you crazy? How the fuck are you supposed to make up for the amount of pcons you use, at 1k each that's 8k each run + ~15k lunars. You make an average of what, 6k per successful run? Lunars should be at 10g each, the rest would be fine at 100g each. Make rock candies a little more expensive if you so will but what does that even matter. It's not like the game needs more money sinks.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Arcana Force

    i just took an example from reddit posts with futures or fixes that ppl were asking, you can put any other kind of future you want instead of the weapon mod npc, why pcons is more important than pvp ? let's fix pvp instead.

    Pcons aren't more important than pvp. But fixing pcons and therefore a big part of the economy doesn't take deeper thought or a lot of effort to implement. We're talking about half an hour here, at the very most, including "quality testing". Raw effort of implementing a vendor selling a bunch of items for 100g each? If you choose an existing one, less than 10 minutes.

    In all honesty, I don't get why people are so negative about this. It is an issue, you can't deny it. It takes barely any effort to fix and tackles multiple problems at once. Okay, it's not needed for you, got it, you don't use pcons. Pcon vendors or other solutions will not hurt you. They would increase the game play experience for many and hurt no one except for botters. If anything, I'm sure you'd appreciate how much less traffic and irrelevant trades would be going on in kamadan.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Arcana Force

    With that in mind that you are a professional programmer and you kinda knew what was going to happen if ppl didn't had an updated API i think you use the shortage of lunars as an excuse to accomplish a change to the game that it will be a huge advantage to your needs, cause it's not more that 4 hours to fix the api for an experienced programmer or something else was going on behind the scenes ???

    I'm using it as an excuse to accomplish a change that will be a huge advantage to my needs? You mean to the needs of everyone except for botters, I guess.

    And I don't know in what world you live in, but it takes considerably longer than four hours to "fix an API" that you've never used or worked on, in a game that you've never attached a debugger to. No matter your level of experience, working with new technologies/software will always take time, plenty more than it is to people who already use and develop it. Not to mention, again, GWCA was fully functional during the time but plenty of people who DID use it to bot, simply got banned again and again. Guess you've missed that part.

    But completely aside of that, is your solution to a skewed event system that doesn't work in this small playerbase seriously "develop tools to give to the public so they can make bots and farm events!"?

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Red Fireball

    lol.

    Did you ever see them complain about fuel prize? See the difference?

    How many percent of population claim to be in the F1? How many of the gw community seems to be in the SC community? Another difference? Maybe reason for the disproportionate PCon pricing?

    If fuel price was raised so much as to make the entire F1 unable to sustain itself from the income and revenue they generate, then yes there would indeed be an outcry. And well, imagine, the F1 would disappear and no longer exist.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Arcana Force

    I hope my post don't get deleted and sorry i can't hold but there is an easy solution if you want your unlimited stock of pcons back,

    find a programmer that knows good assembly and knows how to reverse engineering the game, pay him a small fee to correct the library (API) that most of the scripts use (bots) and release it to the public for free on the well knowed botting forum (don't use it just release it to the public) and leave the rest of the ppl do their job and farm for you, problem solved, there is ppl/members here in the forum that they are active and got involved with writing the API's so not hard to find help if you want.

    For one I wouldn't need to pay anyone to do that for me when it's my job. Second, GWCA is public. Third, this doesn't change anything about bots being banned and certainly doesn't bring Canthan New Year any closer again. For this year, it's over and it's now on ArenaNet to put ten minutes of effort into doing what they should've done 7 years ago.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Speed Clear Ele

    Cons were sold between 7 to 12k and ectos were like 7 8 to 12k ea.

    Yet at the same time pcosn were at least 25e a stack so between 175 and 300k which would translate in 120e per stack as of current rate. Fact is since ppl got replaced by bots, pcons got way cheaper but the dude complaining here probably didn't play pre 2012.

    I've played since 2006 and started uw speedruns in 2007. Pcons did get "cheaper" in this time, but yet harder to afford. Nowadays you need expensive drops to afford pcons, that has not been the case ever before. And it's only just now because so many bots were banned and barely any were around for Canthan New Year.

    Quote from Renkotsu

    This , whatever happened to not needing pcons , used to do fow or uw sc run without those all the time , now you see peoples do run and you can barely see anything since there is so many pcons used it's kinda funny especially the auto clicking one that can't even be bothered to manually reapply them.

    What happened is that we don't give a sh*t about casuals anymore. We're going for speedruns (records) and just "not using pcons" is just not in the cards when you compete against records that had them readily available.

    Quote from Izzy

    When the game was alive and there was 98% more population than now, pcons etc were more expensive than now.

    Translated to platinum, sure. More expensive to afford comparatively to what you earn? Hell no, not even close. Not that we got rich from underworld speedruns, but we were able to afford full pcons and rock candies without much of an issue, not to mention that we didn't have to spend years in kamadan.

    Quote from OS T

    the thing is tho, people have become so spoiled by any buffs,OP builds that people dont really know how to play good. Before the pcon hysteria we didnt have cons fow,uw,deep,urgoz,tombs. They want to play gw with as little effort as possible. Most people are so used to use pcons/cons if anything remotely challenging come their way.

    I can guarantee you that even if you tried you wouldn't come close to what we achieve, pcons there or not. This might sound arrogant, but it's just the difference of years of dedication and improvement compared to a mentality of "lol pcon easy". The entirety of regular gw content is piss easy, including WoC HM without pcons. Compared to getting a good 12 uw or fast doa, at least.

    Quote from Red Fireball

    I need my diesel cheap. I mean I need my sportscar eating 13liters/100km. I won't drive without. It's just too slow. I also want the bougatti to be cheaper! I mean come on this porsche is so slow. I will go protest now. The government needs to tackle the issue. I want my bougatti. Or I'm out. Fuel taxes are outrageous. Fix them or I'm out.

    I'd like to see you propose using slower cars to the F1 scene - to compete in the same category as faster cars.

    Quote from Izzy

    So maybe they should make consets & pcons only spameable in Dungeons and Elite Missions. Put a Pcons npc, and make it cheaper to buy consets.

    Finally, a reasonable idea.

    So yes, I would very much be interested in asking ArenaNet if they care about the SC scene and plan on taking actions to prevent that part of the game from dying.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Looney

    Ok so just to be sure i read that correctly...

    "I use the pcons of 20 ppl in one year, but, cba to help with the supply"

    Now please be so friendly to explain how I might possibly help with the supply? There's no way to farm your own supply, how do you expect ME to make up for the shortcomings of the event system? I farmed as much as I could, but with 4 hours a day I farmed barely enough to last me through two weeks.

    Quote from Red Fireball

    If scs get harder since ppl can't get their pcons that will result in a rise in rare skin items wich will balance out with the additional cost of pcons.

    Yeah that has worked fabulously well so far. Oh wait, it didn't? Oops. Pcons are 5x the price of what they used to be, comparatively, with bots. The market is oversaturated with rare items at this point, it's hard to buy or sell anything at reasonable prices at this point.

    Quote from Red Fireball

    Maybe the scers will discover that gw is more than rinse and repeat three dungeons/areas and find joy in that.

    Maybe they will try to find new ways to do things without pcon.

    Some will, sure, most will probably quit. The items are still obtainable so records can't be reset, but records are out of the question because we can't afford them, so where's the point in even playing? Not to mention, personally, I'm not going to play gw without cons and pcons. It's a very slow game showing it's age. Without pcons, it's even slower.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Looney

    Just a question...

    When was the last time you did the festival events and farmed ANY fortunes yourself?

    Blame a lack of bots, but, its really a lack of everyone...

    It's a lack of players who farm them to make money, because disproportionally many need them.
    Also, you'd have to farm the event 24/7 on like TWENTY accounts just to fill your own pcon needs for a year. Sorry, but I don't have 20 accounts, 40 hands and 48 hours per day.

    When a game loses 98% of its active playerbase that typically introduces some challenges to the economy. For now, bots somewhat balanced that out. But it's honestly time that arenanet just introduces everlasting versions, or vendors to close the gaps.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Ve_Zz

    Ofc bots have their pros and cons for market, but clearly the market can live without them, its not a big problem.

    Yeah... except for speedclear players who now have to pay more for pcons than they make money. I currently sink roughly 150e into pcons per evening - which used to be more like 30e a year ago. This is not sustainable for high end pve. Not to mention that it takes ages in kamadan to find pcons in the first place - and how in 2 months there probably won't be any lunars left to buy.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    Quote from Pleikki

    Considering they sold 20e when ecto was 7k (140plats) and now ecto is 2.5k (making 35e = 87,5plats) i dont see atleast rise in price

    And why did the ectos drop that much in price? That coinincidentally happened exactly with the bots being gone. Not to mention, platinum to ecto rate is utterly irrelevant. Nobody, literally nobody has his money in cash. The average doa player would need what, 20 storage accounts just to keep all that cash?

    Also, last year lunars were literally thrown after you for 10e a stack during and after the event. 20e/stack is the price you see at the end of the year, not at the start.

  • Speed Clear and pcon shortage discussion

    I'd ask if we're going to see a solution to the pcon shortage induced by the ban of bots. Lunars fortunes are currently going for 35e a stack if you're lucky enough to find any, if this persists through easter the entirety of high end pve will literally die within a year. I mean it surely can't be that much effort to implement a pcon vendor to compensate for it, if they don't want pve to die, surely?

  • What would you ask Anet?

    1) No

    2) No

    3) No

    4) They could, but they won't.

    5) No

  • BiP support

    Quote from shade

    I don't generally do simple content with a conset. I might pop one if it's a very very large area to vanq or if I'm doing elite content. But even then I never have issues of my esurges do no damage. Sure there might be some moments in fights if every esurge hits the same exact enemy, the one following might not do damage. But that's rare. Ineptitude had a higher number. But with the higher energy cost, requirement for it to go off, and illusion skills just being overall weaker than Dom ones, you cant say this specific team comp is worse just by the fact it has another es than inept. However feel free to test it yourself and see which you like more. Testing done by multiple community members has deemed this to be better without mercs. The air ele is good for anti melee as was inept, it may not do as much as inept but combined with airs armor pen as melees will have more armor than casters anyways, and the extra over all damage and cc from the esurge mesmer, this was what it's evolved to. Like I said, I still use 2 es 1 inept and clear content fine but I have tried this and it's worked a little better in general. I just play mostly on my Mesmer so there's 3 esurges already. And I still rarely ecounter the very very rare chance of my esurge doing no damage

    Well, you'll get f'd in the butt if you attempt uw without anti melee. Energy cost for Ineptitude is negligible since there's a bip and in general the air ele is 100% useless because it deals no damage itself, the bip can easily bring weaken armor and an ineptitude mesmer is more useful in utility. Basically get damage + effects from the third esurge and the bsurge combined in one and have a free slot to waste. You can (and should, minion master is arguably the worst build to ever bring anywhere) also replace the second necro with a HBurst/Spell Breaker Monk or a damage necro with 3 resto skills such as the BSurge here.

    But admittedly, my criticism is useless now considering the OP was edited to state that the build is for regular gameplay in normal mode. I'd still get rid of the minion master, kick the ST and stack more damage instead, but that's just preference. And then again, in elite areas I use only one ESurge, one Ineptitude and one Panic.

  • BiP support

    Quote from shade

    Because 3 esurges are better than 2 esurges and an ineptitude. Hence why they transitioned into bsurge ele. I still use 2 esurge hybrids and ineptitude hybrid on my mesmer. 3 esurges are not going to drain every enemies energy down to 0 energy. and if they somehow magically did do that before they died, then they are no longer using skills! there for making them much easier to kill.

    Except for melee enemies such as warriors. And shit, I've drained enemies to 0 energy before killing them with esurge plenty of times with only 2 mesmers in the party. Do you play without consets or headpieces or what? But even if they didn't fall to 0 energy, Ineptitude deals more damage than Esurge.