Guild Wars 2

I’m tired of hearing the anti-farming / anti-zerg rants esp. when the complaints have to do with the Escape from Lion’s Arch update. I can understand the complaints when it comes to Queensdale, but the complaints about LS farm / zerg doesn’t make sense.

First off, alot of farmers are doing folks favors by eliminating swarms of enemies in Lion’s Arch. Those enemies kill citizens. If a citizen doesn’t make it to the Whispers Agent, then they won’t count towards the final quota. If we don’t make the 1200 “citizens saved” quota, then we don’t get the big reward for the run. There have been alot of civillians on the west side of town that are constantly ignored because there are too many large swarms. It gets worse when the Miasma event shows up.

On the Tarnished Coast Server, I often had to pop my command tag (despite complaints) to try to create a zerg just get through the western part of town to chop down baddies, rez the civillians, and escort folks to the Whispers Agents.

In the center of town, farmers focus on protecting dolyaks which are attacked by huge swarms of Aetherblades (esp. thumpers and mesmers). In the east part of town, if people don’t destroy the Toxic Alliance by the Moa Ranch, the birds are killed by the krait and the Nightmare Court.

There are just some parts of this game that cannot be soloed. Some areas require large groups of heroes to defeat the opposing NPC army.

Plus some people are farming materials for the ascended Spinal Blades backpiece. That item requires alot of Blade Shards that can’t be bought via the trading post. Farming is the only way to get this limited edition material.

No, there’s nothing wrong with farming, or zerging.

But it just becomes too much when the majority of the patches ArenaNet releases contains zerging and farming.

And now we have, what, 10 threads on this?

Couldn’t care less about the farming or zergs, AFKs in LA—now that is another matter altogether. Come on Anet—release those red lazers on them~!

Darkobra.6439:

And now we have, what, 10 threads on this?

Getting close to a thread zerg!

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Sorry, but if nobody else is going to say it, I guess I will.

Events scale

Be it eight or eighty players, the events in Lion’s Arch scale accordingly. If there wasn’t a zerg at point X, the enemies could be handled. When a zerg passes through an objective or simply doesn’t do it properly in order to farm – it hurts the overall effort. Every person in the zerg, making the events scale to the zerg, is another person who isn’t elsewhere where they might actually be needed.

Of course, some zergers do try to at least do the events, and I appreciate that a lot. However, as already stated, it is a bit of a pain that Anet has designed the game so that nearly anything and everything seems as if it should be zerged. Still, it’s a loophole with a core game mechanic, we can hardly blame the players for it… unless they’re just plain toxic (see: Queensdale/Frostgorge).

This.

The zerg isn’t just wiping out huge swaths of enemies, its also creating them because the events scale. Then a large percentage of the map population are all in a few locations trying to tag enemies before they melt.

Meanwhile a much smaller percentage of the map population is trying to rescue citizens, but there isn’t enough of them to be effective because you can’t just run up to a citizen, encourage them and get it to count as a rescue. Those citizens have to make a long run along paths filled with enemies that kill them.

So those rescuing are trying to rescue and escort to safety and there simply isn’t enough time to do both.

If people would stop mindlessly zerging events and move into the paths the citizens are using to evacuate, killing enemies along those routes instead, they could farm bags and have a far, far greater chance at 1200 rescues. Plus, these evacuation routes often occur near events, so its possible to still get in an event or two for additional bags.

To be honest, the LA zerg isn’t that much fun. Most mobs melt so fast you can hardly get a tag on them. If the goal is just to farm mobs or champs for loot, I’m not sure the LA event is the most rewarding anyway. So its perplexing that so many choose to do it over the alternative.

I find civilians don’t tend to have too much trouble making there way past a couple of lvl 80 mobs once you’ve encouraged them. When a zerg has rolled through and scaled those same mobs up to lvl 84 though that civilian is getting one-shoted, and random Dave that is trying his best to roam around saving all the citizens he can in this little area can’t do jack about it, because chances are if he tries to take on this upscaled group of enemies he’s dying too.

kta.6502:

In the center of town, farmers focus on protecting dolyaks which are attacked by huge swarms of Aetherblades (esp. thumpers and mesmers). In the east part of town, if people don’t destroy the Toxic Alliance by the Moa Ranch, the birds are killed by the krait and the Nightmare Court.

There are just some parts of this game that cannot be soloed. Some areas require large groups of heroes to defeat the opposing NPC army.

^ This is rubbish, most of the escort events can be (and often are by myself) solo’d. It’s simply a matter of not being a mindless drone spamming your skill 1 and actually using your pulls/CC/reflects to suit the scenario.
Again zerging these events means upscaled enemies, that can hit a lot harder, and therefore kill your doylaks/ogres/moas etc a lot quicker.

The optimum number of players per event is around 10. A single 5-man group of well-geared highly competent players can handle a miasma all on their own. The only time the map requires a zerg to “succeed” is when said zerg wanders into a miasma event and upscales all the spawns.

As for myself, I tend to wander all over the map during the hour; grabbing 15-20 heirlooms each run while taking on any events that spawn within 30 seconds of my position. I encourage/revive around 30-40 cits (mostly around the Western Ward beach, Hooligan’s Run and Urmaug’s cave) and burn the 3-4 mobs that regularly spawn on the evac routes. At the end of the event I usually find myself at the Postern Ward and down the Worm Queen for a champ bag before heading toward Lornar’s. A quick swap for the aoe heal/cleanse in the final few minutes then I linger in front of the gate as long as I can to see if we make 1200. Usually we do, though sometimes it’s a minute or two after the evacuation order before the ultimate bag get’s handed out.

Each run usually nets me about 70-80 blue bags, 5-7 champ bags and the Ultimate bag if the map manages 1200 saved. I could probably double that with the right group in a competent zerg, but the mad frenzy to tag melting mobs for bags isn’t as satisfying to me as actually succeeding at an event.

I’m also on the Tarnished Coast server and whenever I see a commander tag leave the Trader’s Forum it’s almost always to hit an aetherblade miasma that spawned nearby. Once that event is upscaled it’s impossible to save any citizens in the area until the event fails, so I just ignore it and go someplace else.

The only problem I have with the LA zergs is that the zerg players get all of their rewards no matter what, and any bags the “citizen savers” get is just a bonus for them.

Meanwhile the “savers” get a greatly reduced number of supply bags. That ultimate bag is the main portion of the reward they’re getting. And that portion is completely dependent on enough players saving citizens to get. If there aren’t enough, then the numbers fall short, and they don’t get too much to show for the effort.

If a map doesn’t hit 1200, zerg players don’t care. They still got their rewards just fine. They got their 100+ bags all the same. A bit less bonus, but in the end every run for a zerg-player is successful. Its only the citizen savers who get screwed over if a map doesn’t reach 1200. The imbalance between the two, that’s a problem. One group gets success every time, the other group fails half the time.

Well, I think zerging is fine. No one is forcing you to do it. I try to do some of everything in Escape from LA. I like to do the big battles to get loot then if I see any people that need saving I save them. Then if there are ogres or children that need saving kill some of the bad guys and get some more credits. I pop around on the map to see what’s happening. I do think for the people who only like to do the saving they should get a bag when their person gets out. So maybe at the end if you saved 30 people you would get 30 extra bags. Then everyone has a reason to do everything. It’s kind of the same problem you used to have with healers who never got any loot for healing.

*I guess I’m part of the “I don’t mind event scaling” crowd. I actually liked the idea of event scaling ever since I fought Viscount of Candy Corn in the Mad King’s Maze last October. I was part of a 60 man zerg, and it was very challenging to fight an enemy that became more powerful when more players joined the fight. Plus, the fight was epic, and it was cool to have everyone working together to take down a massively powerful enemy.

I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t like easy games. If I can finish the meta within less than a week, I start worrying if the devs know how to properly program a video game. That’s what happened with Marionette. There are alot of relentless semi-hardcore and hardcore players on the Tarnished Coast server who were able to defeat Marionette within a few hours of being released. Nightmare Tower was pretty much the same thing. I was able to solo the entire tower (both the levels and the chambers) with my level 80 fire / condition damage engie (who wears exotic gear btw) without problems. I remember surprising alot of my fellow guildies during that time. I’ve mastered the art of timing, dodging, and rolling that is necessary for playing an engie character. (FYI: I tried other classes, but the others involve just spamming buttons 1 & 2 which gets boring after awhile. I’m the type who will stick with being an engie because of the challenge.)

For players who have fully-mastered level 80 characters in ascended gear (armor, weapons, trinkets), the game shouldn’t be easy.

With the Escape from Lion’s Arch event, there have been rescuers who would trail the small Bag Trains I led. Those rescuers took on the role of battlefield medics, and they would rez and escort citizens while the Bag Train was doing their stuff in the west side of town. I think clearing the area made it easier for the rescuers, heirloom hunters, and others to travel. Plus, the citizens were respawning every few minutes so it became necessary to keep clearing the paths so they could get to safety. The most bags I’ve gotten on my Bag Train has been about 60 bags per run.

One last thing: People often drop out of an event by the time the next update is ready. Most of the time these gamers have their meta achievements, or they get bored with the event. That’s why you’re seeing a drop in rescuers. Right now, the only ones who are doing the LA event are the farmers and those who haven’t finished their achievements.

ShibVicious.9681:

^ This is rubbish, most of the escort events can be (and often are by myself) solo’d. It’s simply a matter of not being a mindless drone spamming your skill 1 and actually using your pulls/CC/reflects to suit the scenario.
Again zerging these events means upscaled enemies, that can hit a lot harder, and therefore kill your doylaks/ogres/moas etc a lot quicker.

Which Server are you on? What class are you playing for this event? I tried soloing the dolyaks, Moas, & Lighthouse workers with my level 80 engie, and it couldn’t be done. I had a little better luck with my level 60 ranger, but she would go down before the event could finish. Children and Ogre were the only two I could do by myself.

It could be that the escort events got upscaled because I’m on a more crowded server.

Zergs are the reason why i, and many others have just stoopped doing the living story.

Standing in a huge mass of players, mashing 1 and getting some loot just isnt fun. It requires no thinking, no movement, no skillfull use of skills, and most of the time you only see floating names because you have to put character limit low, or get really low fps.

Im one of those rare people who play games for fun. I know some people only play for rewards, and just want to feel accomplished, but not everyone is like that.

I wish there were more instances. Im getting sick of 90% of all patches being nothing but zergs.

Alissah.9281:

Zergs are the reason why i, and many others have just stoopped doing the living story.

Standing in a huge mass of players, mashing 1 and getting some loot just isnt fun. It requires no thinking, no movement, no skillfull use of skills, and most of the time you only see floating names because you have to put character limit low, or get really low fps.

Im one of those rare people who play games for fun. I know some people only play for rewards, and just want to feel accomplished, but not everyone is like that.

I wish there were more instances. Im getting sick of 90% of all patches being nothing but zergs.

Don’t join the zerg in LA then. Get with a handful of friends and do the citizen evacuations instead. It’s much more enjoyable.

Alissah.9281:

Zergs are the reason why i, and many others have just stoopped doing the living story.

Standing in a huge mass of players, mashing 1 and getting some loot just isnt fun. It requires no thinking, no movement, no skillfull use of skills, and most of the time you only see floating names because you have to put character limit low, or get really low fps.

Im one of those rare people who play games for fun. I know some people only play for rewards, and just want to feel accomplished, but not everyone is like that.

I wish there were more instances. Im getting sick of 90% of all patches being nothing but zergs.

Then you should try this one while you still can. You don’t have to zerg in it. Small groups or solo works pretty well also.

Blude.6812:

Couldn’t care less about the farming or zergs, AFKs in LA—now that is another matter altogether. Come on Anet—release those red lazers on them~!

I had one that found a nook to hide in right next to Trader’s Forum. AFK the whole time.
I use these sort of events to level characters I rarely play and got them to 80. I can actually do something with my guild and other friends. It wasn’t much in way of drops, so farming for gold was a little pointless.

Firstly, going into L.A. again and again is farming. No matter if you are saving citizen’s, doing events, running heirlooms, or just sight seeing/afk.

It’s fairly simple to see why the animosity toward farming events has increased. In L.A. farmers are, by the design of the zone, a wall that blocks 1200 from occurring. You simply can’t have too many saving citizens for 1200 not to occur. But, you can have too many farming that will prevent 1200 from occurring. That is a serious design flaw imho. The other large issue is all of the rewards from saving is given to everyone else on map. If a global reward is to be given, all rewards need to be global. A global reward is an either or proposition. This mixed approach leads to a lot of bad feelings.

OT: A larger concern is that I have a deep suspicion that a percentage of the developers design with the intent to cause this bad blood between players. To troll us as hard as they can without being completely overt about it. As if it’s a design philosophy that if we’re malcontent, we’ll buy gems to make ourselves happy.

kta.6502:

ShibVicious.9681:

^ This is rubbish, most of the escort events can be (and often are by myself) solo’d. It’s simply a matter of not being a mindless drone spamming your skill 1 and actually using your pulls/CC/reflects to suit the scenario.
Again zerging these events means upscaled enemies, that can hit a lot harder, and therefore kill your doylaks/ogres/moas etc a lot quicker.

Which Server are you on? What class are you playing for this event? I tried soloing the dolyaks, Moas, & Lighthouse workers with my level 80 engie, and it couldn’t be done. I had a little better luck with my level 60 ranger, but she would go down before the event could finish. Children and Ogre were the only two I could do by myself.

It could be that the escort events got upscaled because I’m on a more crowded server.

I’m on Aurora Glade, but I get overflowed a fair bit.
I’m using a Guardian. Skill 5 on the GS is great for pulling the group that just spawned away from the npcs. A well placed skill 5 on the staff can prevent a group of mobs from catching/chasing down the npcs and wall of reflect prevents them taking damage from those pesky ranged attacks. Failing those just simply throwing yourself into a group so you take the aggro instead works wonders too, so long as you can take the hits, and don’t linger with those enemies too long, else the npcs will get swarmed by the next group of mobs. Also skill 2 and 4 on the staff can heal the npcs to help keep them alive.

DeWolfe.2174:

Firstly, going into L.A. again and again is farming. No matter if you are saving citizen’s, doing events, running heirlooms, or just sight seeing/afk.

It’s fairly simple to see why the animosity toward farming events has increased. In L.A. farmers are, by the design of the zone, a wall that blocks 1200 from occurring. You simply can’t have too many saving citizens for 1200 not to occur. But, you can have too many farming that will prevent 1200 from occurring. That is a serious design flaw imho. The other large issue is all of the rewards from saving is given to everyone else on map. If a global reward is to be given, all rewards need to be global. A global reward is an either or proposition. This mixed approach leads to a lot of bad feelings.

OT: A larger concern is that I have a deep suspicion that a percentage of the developers design with the intent to cause this bad blood between players. To troll us as hard as they can without being completely overt about it. As if it’s a design philosophy that if we’re malcontent, we’ll buy gems to make ourselves happy.

As much as I dislike the effects of RMT on GW2’s design, I think the last paragraph is unfair. Rather than supporting intentional monetized animosity; the pillars are broad enough, vague enough to support discordant content. In my opinion what we are seeing with the LA achievements and reward paths is the result of content designed by committee and built on an assembly line. Hopefully, a longer LW release cycle will translate into less dissonance.

Or do we not have the tools needed to cultivate emergent self-organization?