79 replies to this topic

[fffire24]

Arenanet, please make underflows.  The game is so much better with other player interaction.

[Gli]

kalendraf, on 06 December 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

Not only that, but even if you bother to kill the giant, you don't get much from it.  I've helped small groups of people bring him down multiple times, but I've never once gotten a single drop from him, even after they supposedly fixed champion drops.  The DE reward is pathetic for the effort and time involved in killing.  As a result, I no longer bother with this event and won't until they balance the reward vs. effort/difficulty.  As you say, there are much more profitable way to spend your time in that zone.

In WvWvW, events give rewards that depend on their magnitude. Stopping a caravan only pays a small fraction of what you get for taking a tower, for example. In PvE, events give rewards depending on the level of the area they take place in. (Modified by the character's level.) Given the wide range of difficulty and time required for PvE events, that's just plain illogical. Oh well.

[GSSB Lunaspike]

Kymeric, on 05 December 2012 - 07:02 PM, said:

Huh, I was part of a group fighting that giant only a few days ago.

IMO, that Champ needs to be tweaked a bit.  That stomp attack one shot me, and I was at least over levelled for the area by 10 levels.  The stomp attack cooldown is also very short, and has an enormous radius.

Still, there were a handful of people fighting it before I had to log off due to RL reasons.

Maybe it's a specific server thing, but I haven't had to skip a DE because of lack of players, and I always seem to get people to help with Champs when I announce their up in map chat.  That's both at NA prime time and during Oceanic prime time.

It would be a shame to nerf DEs and Champions.

Quite a few servers have become ghost towns outside of LA. Even Cursed shore is empty now. The only places I ever see people are in LA, maybe 1 or 2 others when I'm out gathering truffles.

They know they need merges, and the players know it. It's just a matter of perception keeping them from actually doing it.

[Valkaire]

Impmon, on 05 December 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

Today in Diessa Plateau the event where you do the cow race is borked.  The one where you have to collect bugs for the cows.  You pickup a jar, option 2 says ground bugs, you pick up a grub on the ground and npc says wrong and you have to start over.  Just two so far today coupled with a champion wurm & giant that nobody can do I'm apparently the only one in the zone other then bots.

That heart isn't 'broken', you just aren't picking up the right "ground bug."

There are forest grubs, plain grubs, etc. The heart NPC will tell you exactly which bug type to go after and where they're found in the enclosure as well as giving you a time to do it in. I just did this heart yesterday and didn't understand what to do until I properly read what the heart-giver said. Reading OP.

Also, I hope they don't turn champions into veterans. That would make the "hey guys, wanna come kill X champion in this zone with me?!" guild get-togethers non existent =[

I do agree that rewards for harder events need to be worked on and I am pretty tired of LA being a constant overflow because of fractals. I enjoy twiddling my time away in Divinity's Reach now in all honesty :P

Edited by Valkaire, 06 December 2012 - 01:54 AM.

[beadnbutter32]

Anet fell into the same bugaboo trap that most MMOs stumble into.  Instead of always working to bring players together they work to spread out the player base as much as possible.  New gated areas. Gear progression grinds, the list goes on and on. What this produces is what you commented on, starter areas are vacant and it makes new player experience  very poor.  I think it has a very big something to do with why MMO's are not in general making tons of money and most are struggling to maintain a size able player base.

I have a rule that I explain to any potential MMO player.  I tell them farther in the past the launch date is, the more vacant the starter areas will be.  Your best bet is to wait for the release of a new MMO and be there when it starts, and you will be 10 times more likely to stick with the game than someone who starts 6 months to year after a game launches.

I think adding new content, especially when it is gated by level or a combination of level and gear just makes the problem worse.  But this is exactly what Anet has said they plan to do.

[Kurosov]

Kymeric, on 05 December 2012 - 07:02 PM, said:

Huh, I was part of a group fighting that giant only a few days ago.

IMO, that Champ needs to be tweaked a bit.  That stomp attack one shot me, and I was at least over levelled for the area by 10 levels.  The stomp attack cooldown is also very short, and has an enormous radius.

Seems fine to me, an obvious attack animation that is easy to dodge combined with the fact that fighting a champion with the downscaling system shouldn't be a cakewalk.

I'd much rather see the champions drop something worthwhile, wonderous bags at least so you get karma/cash for killing one. Just gotta keep an eye on things to make sure people don't just start farming the same single champion all day.

The real issue is all decent loot is from the mystic forge, killing end game trash mobs for 250 on an item or just farming something else and buying those items instead of world drops is not the best system. The loot in the game need to be more evenly spread to prevent people sticking to a single area.

Bonus quests like the zaishen boss hunts would be nice to see also.

[MeltyLotus]

Champions are just too OP  and don't really give you anything for it, expect you just wasted 20 mins. The healing skills in this game make them nearly impossible on your own. Which sadly this game is pretty much a single player game outside of dungeons and LA anymore. They say they got rid of the trinity but they really didn't. Play solo enough and you've notice that everything is balanced around groups and zergs. I could kite but kiting as a warrior sorta defeats the purpose imo.

Once you hit 80, I don't see the point in going out in the open world anymore, unless its for orich or if your planning to go for 100%.

Servers need to merge imo. I'd rather have to deal with overflows all the place then having a empty world. Makes me miss heroes to be honest.

Valkaire, on 06 December 2012 - 01:51 AM, said:

I am pretty tired of LA being a constant overflow because of fractals. I enjoy twiddling my time away in Divinity's Reach now in all honesty

LA in overflow is a good thing. Mixes the servers so you can do cross dungeons. Pugs aren't bad in this game, not like back in GW1.

[GSSB Lunaspike]

Kurosov, on 06 December 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:

Seems fine to me, an obvious attack animation that is easy to dodge combined with the fact that fighting a champion with the downscaling system shouldn't be a cakewalk.

I'd much rather see the champions drop something worthwhile, wonderous bags at least so you get karma/cash for killing one. Just gotta keep an eye on things to make sure people don't just start farming the same single champion all day.

The real issue is all decent loot is from the mystic forge, killing end game trash mobs for 250 on an item or just farming something else and buying those items instead of world drops is not the best system. The loot in the game need to be more evenly spread to prevent people sticking to a single area.

Bonus quests like the zaishen boss hunts would be nice to see also.

Putting the newest dungeon in LA wasn't an accident. It's the hub. Before the new dungeon it was mostly empty, now it's always full. Makes the game seem much more alive. Well, that is until you actually go out into the explorable areas and can't find anyone. I suspect there will be much more of this in the future.

Simple solution to the problem is to merge servers, and then give players a reason to go into those low level areas. There are plenty of suggestions, but most of them seem to make the hardcore dungeon grinders not happy so they are ignored.

[wtgssg]

I think if anything is done right now, it should be some tweaks to spawn rate (and some DEs).

I'm mainly going to use to my charr alt as an example. Now, Anet's graphs state that Charr are among the least played races and I can agree, outside of the 1-15 (and some exceptions with Shatterer and CoF areas) there's rarely another soul around. So why is it that enemies have to respawn so ridiculously fast when I'm the only soul around attempting to get my renown hearts done? This stuff was fine in the first few months of the game, but it's frustrating to try and get through certain places when I just killed a flame shaman and he's right back up a second later.

This goes for certain DEs as well, like the giant in Diessa. Besides the fact he's just one big waste of time, one shots anyone who looks at him, gives no reward... the event cycles over so fast! There is pretty much no point in doing the giant at all considering the time/money investment and the fact all that hard work goes down the toilet a minute later.

The same can be said for a DE in Fireheart Rise. I had found an event to help the Pact clear areas of Flame Legion at the north part of the map. It was simple for the first bits; guide some pact and kill a veteran shaman. It was a tricky fight because the guy kept shooting fire and melting my face off, but I did it. I felt so happy (there were so many events on my way here that I had gotten some nice money/karma), but barely a second passed before the waypoint/little encampment became contested. The flame legion were already trying to take the place back. No problem, I think, I had done some Flame Legion killing the day before to keep another little encampment. How wrong I was... the same tricky veteran I had killed to take the encampment was now coming in packs of two-three. Luckily an engineer had stopped by to help, but after watching me kite for my life, I think the engineer got scared off. So I die and the work I had done was wasted.

So really I just want to see more of the underpopulated areas perhaps scaled back with their spawn rates and make some DEs more meaningful. That might help draw some people to go these places if they realize they aren't hair tearing QQ fests. Another option could be to make overflows the norm even in underpopulated areas (er... underflow? O.O) -- but with the option to travel to your home server if you want.

Edited by wtgssg, 06 December 2012 - 02:52 AM.

[LavaSquid]

I love to fight the Champion giant, the first time I did the DE and the giant was inside the nageling town (forgot how to spell). That was the best experience among all the DEs so far. I think they block the giant outside the town now, less fun doing that but still he is an epic boss to defeat.

TBH, I still blame Anet for putting FOTM in LA because almost everyone is camping in LA for FOTM and no one bothers to go out of LA.

For those DEs that are impossible to solo, I think Anet should give us an option to look for NPC reinforcement. There are some DEs with that option, you see the DE happening and you have 2 choices: to solo it yourself or to travel to another nearby outpost to talk to the NPC to request their assistance.

[fatrodmc]

Districts would be far superior to home worlds, but that would only be a temporary solution to people not fighting champs.

They need better rewards. Something like daily quests with guaranteed tokens, etc. People need a reason to fight them.

[dawdler]

Last time I fought a champion solo in the low-level zones, it was a champion spider. What did I get from it? A hairy spider leg. That is all.

[Kymeric]

Kurosov, on 06 December 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:

Seems fine to me, an obvious attack animation that is easy to dodge combined with the fact that fighting a champion with the downscaling system shouldn't be a cakewalk.

Fair enough.  I did have to leave after a short while, so i didn't get a lot of chance to figure out if I could adapt to it.  I wouldn't call the attack animation easy to dodge, perhpas because it is so obvious.  The animation takes a bit of time, and I found myself sometimes dodging too early because i saw him winding up for the stomp and dodged, only to have my dodge finish before the stomp effect executed.

Perhaps a couple more times going from full health to downed and i would have gotten the timing down.

Definitely not looking for a cakewalk.  The stomp just seemed a little overtuned to me compared to the many other champ fights I've participated in.

Edited by Kymeric, 06 December 2012 - 09:46 AM.

[Kymeric]

LavaSquid, on 06 December 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

For those DEs that are impossible to solo, I think Anet should give us an option to look for NPC reinforcement. There are some DEs with that option, you see the DE happening and you have 2 choices: to solo it yourself or to travel to another nearby outpost to talk to the NPC to request their assistance.

This is a good idea.

One of the things that is a little weird about DEs with lower populations is that they could be soloable if the populations were harder.  By that i mean, there are DEs that include NPCs that help you, and in a very full zone DEs are addressed frequently enough that those NPCs haven't been killed yet.  So even without other players, you have that help.

In a less populated zone, the DEs run their course for a longer time, so you get to them and all the NPCs are defeated.  That means in "wave" style DEs, you have to kill off the accumulated foes, then try to revive the NPCs between waves.  If successful, the event gets easier and easier as it goes as you get more and more NPC help.  If unsuccessful, you realize that the DE would have been a lot easier if you'd come by earlier.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

Well, I agree some group events should be made at least easy enough for 5-10 people to be able to do them more easily. Especially those with some kind of timer or requires for you to protect something. But it would be terrible if everything group related became regular events. I mean, it is after all not a single player game.

[Soki]

kalendraf, on 06 December 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

Not only that, but even if you bother to kill the giant, you don't get much from it.  I've helped small groups of people bring him down multiple times, but I've never once gotten a single drop from him, even after they supposedly fixed champion drops.  The DE reward is pathetic for the effort and time involved in killing.  As a result, I no longer bother with this event and won't until they balance the reward vs. effort/difficulty.  As you say, there are much more profitable way to spend your time in that zone.

If you can, in any way, profit from an event, expect it to be nerfed.
ANet is in the mood of monotization, not in making a good game.
The Dev team makes their changes, then their economics dept. makes their pass and tells them what changes and what stays.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

fatrodmc, on 06 December 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Districts would be far superior to home worlds, but that would only be a temporary solution to people not fighting champs.

They need better rewards. Something like daily quests with guaranteed tokens, etc. People need a reason to fight them.

A champ is easier if you're with more people around.  Now we have (let's say) 20 worlds, each with 10 players in a map, and 1 of those 10 (on each world) wants to fight that champion.  If you had a district system, you wouldn't have 1 player per map who wanted to fight that champion, but 20.  The larger the group, the larger the amount of people that will want to help with the group events or champions.

[Impmon]

LavaSquid, on 06 December 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

I love to fight the Champion giant, the first time I did the DE and the giant was inside the nageling town (forgot how to spell). That was the best experience among all the DEs so far. I think they block the giant outside the town now, less fun doing that but still he is an epic boss to defeat.

TBH, I still blame Anet for putting FOTM in LA because almost everyone is camping in LA for FOTM and no one bothers to go out of LA.

For those DEs that are impossible to solo, I think Anet should give us an option to look for NPC reinforcement. There are some DEs with that option, you see the DE happening and you have 2 choices: to solo it yourself or to travel to another nearby outpost to talk to the NPC to request their assistance.

Yeah its fun to go AFK and make dinner while you have auto - attack on and return 20 min later to find the giant still stomping and at half health.  Fun stuff.  The giant took too long to kill even when there was players in the area.  It obviously needs to be tuned and should've been from the start as do all champion npc's.  Primarily where the f--k is my reward.

[FoxBat]

Feathermoore, on 05 December 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

Frankly, I have no clue why they didn't do something like this. The whole "play with your friends" thing would be incredibly easy with districts. And they still don't have guesting (which works the same way as district switching it seems like).

Anet explicitly said they went this route because they didn't think districting gave good community. Running around in lion's arch you're very unlikely to come across the same people or even guilds more than once, which makes it a very anonymous and shifting environment with no accountability and little chance to re-socialize with people without sticking them on your friends list the first time you meet. In GW1 outside of guild/alliance or small clubs like marhan's grotto, persistent community was lacking.

Of course in practice as far as I've seen there's very little actual socializing in GW2 open world, plus enough zones are so empty that they need more players, but more robust communites like say ultima online would have been impossible with a districting system over the sharding (servers) they use. The reasoning in general is sound even if it doesn't work here particularly well.

Edited by FoxBat, 06 December 2012 - 02:39 PM.

[Feathermoore]

FoxBat, on 06 December 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

Of course in practice as far as I've seen there's very little actual socializing in GW2 open world, plus enough zones are so empty that they need more players, but more robust communites like say ultima online would have been impossible with a districting system over the sharding (servers) they use. The reasoning in general is sound even if it doesn't work here particularly well.

The likelihood of running into someone multiple times (and remembering who they were) when you haven't already decided to make connections and play together is already low enough as it is. You don't make connections in the city, you don't make connections by happening to see the same person twice. You make a connection by actually playing with that person and it is made at that time, not by running into them at some future time. Most connections are made through a dungeon group that went really well and was a great time where the group members add each other and start playing regularly. Guilds are multi server, and the only guilds you would ever see enough to actually notice (in PvE remember) would be the massive ones that would be cross server anyways.

The basic goal behind for it sounds logical, but it in practice it just doesn't work like that. Especially when you have a game as anti "make new friends" as GW2 is. The design decisions made around social systems clash and then the low pop in areas makes that even more apparent.

Increasing population increases the chances for player interaction which, in turn, increases the chance to make a connection with someone when they form a group with them. Smashing servers together would increase social interaction, not decrease it.

Edited by Feathermoore, 06 December 2012 - 04:09 PM.

[Achromatis]

Huh well isnt the "Districts" tech already sort of in place in the form of overflows? I mean all they need to do is add a number "Overflow #1" and youre good to go. And get Guesting ironed out and seamless.

They also need to increase incentive for actually grouping while doing DEs and "Hearts" IMO, moreso than there already is. As it stands even if youre playing a supportive character you never have any reason to talk to or even look at another players name during events, which hinders the whole "making friends" thing. Maybe a scaling Magic Find buff depending on how many players youre grouped with? I know that would essentially be the same as having more loot drop like there is(I think), but if its more visual its more encouraging.

[LavaSquid]

Impmon, on 06 December 2012 - 01:01 PM, said:

Yeah its fun to go AFK and make dinner while you have auto - attack on and return 20 min later to find the giant still stomping and at half health.  Fun stuff.  The giant took too long to kill even when there was players in the area.  It obviously needs to be tuned and should've been from the start as do all champion npc's.  Primarily where the f--k is my reward.

It seems that your problem is the reward != the effort and time to spend on the champion which I agree.

The champions are fine. Just that Anet should make sure champions at least drop a 'Rare' stuff.

[chrisbdrake]

Vysander, on 05 December 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:

What quests are broken?

Are you talking DE quests or heart quests?

Because ive done 100% world completion two different characters in the past month and there's only one heart event that is currently bugged and there is a way around it (wood cutting ghosts in a forest.... cant remember the map)

Why do hearts need xp boosted?

I don't see the need to reduce the difficulty of champions. The DE's somewhat scale to how many people there are, but yea, some are impossible solo.

DE's dont prevent you from doing world completion though, so i dont see this as a huge deal A-net needs to handle... theres much more pressing matters.

I believe you're talking about the Iron Marches.  That heart can still be completed.

[AKGeo]

Erighan, on 05 December 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

Open world, non-boss mobs were stealth nerfed with a decrease in rare drops.  Yes, they increased drop rates for bosses/chests, but they definately screwed with normal mob drops.

More tinfoil hat theory. I'm getting more rares from trash mobs than bosses or chests combined. I even got a nice level 78 aureate rifle from a luminescent grub in the troll cave in Queensdale. Gave me 2 ectos and a major sigil of strength.

People are blaming their bad luck on "stealth nerfs" without realizing that statistics sometimes work against them.

Edited by AKGeo, 07 December 2012 - 04:34 AM.

[Hex65000]

I agree that a lot of the unpopular areas of the world map are absolute wastelands. I've perhaps inadvertently adapted my playstyle and tried to keep my mish-mash build geared towards soloing as much as possible. However, there are limits and Champions usually are that limit. There are exceptions like the Grawl Badazar champ which I just stand there and toe-to-toe him down with my main. This leads into an interesting observation I had with a fellow guildie...

I was chattering and saying "All Hail Badazar!" and nobody got the reference. I then proceded to explain the event chain and the story associated with it. (It's in the Charr starting area) One guildie had two or three Charr characters and never saw the event. I look at this conversation and suspect that is where part of the problem lies. The only reason folks are in an area is to farm some object for the bigger better bit of gear they don't have yet. If the space between level 1and max level is the 'fluff' then to me it misses part of the fun.

My personal approach has been taking the scenic route to map completion. I kill things, I get stuff. Items are harvested, dynamic events succeed if I can help it. To me the dynamic events may not be the most efficient way of getting loot, but it appeals to my sense of "maintaining order" in the grand scheme of things. There is something satisfying to  being able to solo down a couple of veterans and the standard minions in order to retake an area infested by risen. Afterwards successfully defend it from the eventual counterattack and show those zombies who is in charge of this rock. Sure, some help would be awesome and I'd die a lot less when I bite off more than I can chew. Unfortunately, most folks are doing dungeon runs, fractals, farming, or PvP. Sometimes, I do events several times because I'm cheap. Why spend 1.50 to 3.00 on a waypoint when I can leg it, get various junk loot (money), crafting materials(parts/money), XP, and Karma if I stop to help out with an event. When I get to the target area, I've made my money to cover respawns and repairs and anything else that thrills me. Is this totally efficient? Nope, and I don't care. I view it as a way to see in extreme detail the world A-net built. Warts and all. And of course, kill things and get stuff.  

I hope that ArenaNet can come up with a good way to encourage folks to venture out onto the map again, and not just to queue up for yet another dungeon run.

Edit: Spelling fixes

Edited by Hex65000, 19 December 2012 - 08:44 PM.

[Millimidget]

Ark211049, on 05 December 2012 - 09:00 PM, said:

your talking about a round of server mergers...i dont know mate, Anet have only expressed denial or deliberate ignorance on these problems, server merges always makes a game look bad to the public at large on the MMO news sites, they seem increasingly concerned with ther image lately so while it may be the smart/logical move i seriously doubt its even on the table for them.

^^^

Server merges always come too late. They probably will come too late here as well, even though they already have a viable mechanic for consolidating players (overflow).

AKGeo, on 07 December 2012 - 04:32 AM, said:

People are blaming their bad luck on "stealth nerfs" without realizing that statistics sometimes work against them.

Some people have all the luck.

Edited by Millimidget, 07 December 2012 - 05:22 AM.

[fatrodmc]

Lady Rhonwyn, on 06 December 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

A champ is easier if you're with more people around.  Now we have (let's say) 20 worlds, each with 10 players in a map, and 1 of those 10 (on each world) wants to fight that champion.  If you had a district system, you wouldn't have 1 player per map who wanted to fight that champion, but 20.  The larger the group, the larger the amount of people that will want to help with the group events or champions.

Not necessarily. You'd have more people that want to do the same thing but then they would just zerg the most profitable part map (dungeons/cursed shore...). They need to encourage people to spread out some how as well.

Edited by fatrodmc, 07 December 2012 - 05:30 AM.

[AKGeo]

I got that Diessa Plateau giant down to 25% by myself twice before enough people showed up to draw his aggro away from the gate he was raging at the whole time. If you can catch him at a gate and hit him with 1200-range skills, you're out of his stomp range and the only thing that gets you is his fear skill. But once more than 3 player characters show up, he ignores the gate and goes after you, so you can't just sit there afk'ing with auto attacks for an hour.

I'd like to walk up on him with 2 other eles/rangers and start dropping bombs on him, see how far we get before he turns on us. But with range like that, with more than 3 players pulling aggro all you have to worry about are his direct target skills, which are MEGA telegraphed and trivial to avoid.


But there are other champs out there which ARE impossible to solo, and they need to be scaled down, removed, or placed somewhere not in the middle of a skill point or vista, like a few are (I'm talking to you, Cursed Shore).

[zaniix]

I don't agree with the OP

I will say that the game was much better the first few weeks leveling with all those other people. Back then it seemed like every event was swarmed with people wanting to complete them and it was a lot of fun at every level.

Now I am leveling a warrior (currently 53) and the feeling is much different, I complete events I can solo and occasionally I find 1 or 2 people to help with a harder event, but most of the time I just bypass events because there is nobody around.

I do not know how anyone can fix this, I think its the same in every MMO. I remember leveling my first character in Everquest, in WoW etc and nothing after that ever lived up to that original experience.

That said I still enjoy the game and I look forward to the upcoming holiday events.

[Grenths Ire]

Although I agree that there seems to be a general lack of interest in killing Champions, I think they are fun and challenging.
I will even grant that the loot/ minute is better on standard mobs.  But I try not to be a loot driven player.  Anet has spent
a lot of time developing story depth and variation.  I sometimes find myself racing through it and feel bad about that.

As for Champions, I enjoy them but wish more people were available more often.  Maybe if the npc's were able to contribute
to the battles in a more meaningful way...?