Guild Wars 2

Not even a day passed and i already see complaints…

Well it’s alright in my opinion, if someone wants to give some solid suggestions… just do it, i like them to read and like to see the views of other players.
But these nowadays are cheap like “It’s boring”, “You ruined it”… because… of what? The only reason is that the rewards have been nerfed or in my opinion “changed”. I don’t have much time but i already enjoy everything again. I’ll do the events, crystalhunts, minigames … in the bazaar of the four winds a bit later. Furthermore I’ll do the crown pavillion first and it’s now better for me.

I only liked, the arena in the first time because i disliked zerging. The arena had only some issues which has been removed which is awesome (It shows the time, npc who revives, no repair costs). Without those little improvements nothing really changed which is a little disappointing for me because i would like to have more bosses… but that’s my view.

Now we go the zergpart …oh boy… i like it. I dislike zerging but for its sort it’s now much better cause bosses are now designed for zergs. They have aoe with a big radius and many different skills which focuses all instead one. Don’t tell me the bosses have been better before, those are a big improvements for zergs all in all. In my opinion they just take to long. I don’t know how it’s when people split in smaller groups. Maybe it’s getting much better than a big zerg. If it’s true the rewards would be solid then (chance to drop rare things too).

I really like this patch and somehow I’m really wondering why so many of you dislike it? It would be nice to see your opinion

Thx for reading guys!

btw: I see big improvements by Anet.

Honestly, it’s worse in every way since last year.
Would be fine IF the rewards OR the gameplay were better.
No one likes investing 20-30 minutes in a payed event to get a few greens, and no one will bother setting up an organized group to slay the bosses at the same time and get the gold rewards – too much effort for too little reward.

And from the "fun"side…well, thats subjective. Personally, i don’t like to be chain-cc’ed while chasing a big HP-bag on 4 legs that runs away from me . It’s not fun, or challenging, just annoying.
Nor i like bullet hells with exploding kegs, again with chain-cc and big hp pools, or being 1-shotted by someone who teleports around and whose telegraph can’t be noticed due to the particle effect bonanza and fps.

There is no challenge, they’re just designed to waste your time…

I think they’re definitely on the right tracks for what open world boss mechanics should be like, or just good boss mechanics in general. Fair mechanics, clear tekegraphs and promotes engaging gameplay with a lot of movement.

Every one of those bosses on their own would be awesome in a dungeon.

However, I wish they would stop with trying to make open world raids a thing again. You cannot expect random players of all levels and playstyles to organise themselves, spit ends up as always a volley of frustration.

Rewards also need tweaking. I don’t want a flood of economy-wrecking T6 mats to happen again after last year’s fiasco, but I do expect something which justifies me spending time (trying to) organise it rather than pop a few champions on FGS.

I know there’s the chance for goodies like LS rares to drop but it’s the same problem as TA Aether: the chances seem so stupidly low that it may as well not be there.

I’m finding these bosses a lot more fun than last year, but the event a load more frustrating. Give it a few days and I think (hope?) people will get it and start playing smart. However, for the first time in nearly a year and a half I’ve been thinking of the rewards and how crap they are. I’m pretty sure I’ve never thought this in the game.

I’ve also done some Gauntlet, which I didn’t touch last time. That’s enjoyable.

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

The Pavilion is a empty husk of what it was before. The Zephyr Sanctum is little more than a glorified jumping puzzle in a mini-zone, with some useful merchants around, but not much else.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

phys.7689:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

I wouldn’t really call it organized if it takes 20-30min with only 1 zerg. If 6 groups participate, it’ll take only more than 5min with gold, which is acctually fair. So the crown pavillion rewards the players if they play organized.

Maybe the “no loot” thing was all intentional? If foes and bosses don’t drop any good loot and only the end chest does then that should encourage people to kill the bosses and not farm them?

Think of it, we’ve been spoiled in this kind of events, remember the Scarlet’s Invasions? There were groups farming Aetherblades all the event, didn’t even cared if the event failed (if it didn’t it was just some extra loot for them).

This should promote that players succeed in the event rather than farm it and fail it.

That’s how I see it, I would like to know if anyone has achieved the gold rewards and if they gained anything “good” because otherwise I see no reason to invest that much time/effort.

ghost.3208:

Maybe the “no loot” thing was all intentional? If foes and bosses don’t drop any good loot and only the end chest does then that should encourage people to kill the bosses and not farm them?

It most certainly is intentional as is the removal of xp. It is bad thinking though. In all honesty it just goes to show much this game is pushing players more and more to the gemstore and away from getting things in game. It is disappointing. The first events had their flaws, but they were designed with fun and reward in mind. With the blurb on this event of “Hey don’t forget to turn your gems into gold!” on the front page it is pretty obvious where the game is headed. I am truly saddened at the current direction of this game. I don’t know if it is from NCSoft making more choices and pushing for profit or ANet really thinking this is a good route, but I truly hope we get some of the old game design from the first few months of the game life back soon.

jazzllanna.1278:

ghost.3208:

Maybe the “no loot” thing was all intentional? If foes and bosses don’t drop any good loot and only the end chest does then that should encourage people to kill the bosses and not farm them?

-snip-

Sorry just wondering, why is the game pushing to the gemstore with the Pavillion? I’m aware of the constant promotions about the new items and gems→gold conversion but I can’t see anything related to the store in there.

Do you say it because of the skins? Or due to the “lack” of rewards and thus needing to convert gems to actually gain gold?

ghost.3208:

jazzllanna.1278:

ghost.3208:

Maybe the “no loot” thing was all intentional? If foes and bosses don’t drop any good loot and only the end chest does then that should encourage people to kill the bosses and not farm them?

-snip-

Sorry just wondering, why is the game pushing to the gemstore with the Pavillion? I’m aware of the constant promotions about the new items and gems->gold conversion but I can’t see anything related to the store in there.

Do you say it because of the skins? Or due to the “lack” of rewards and thus needing to convert gems to actually gain gold?

Lack of rewards goes in with it looking at what we have right now. You have to PAY gold to do the pavilion event. It will be interesting to see how much a person has to put in just to be able to do an event portion of the game once the interest is gone here in a few days. Then you don’t even get the amount of gold back that you needed to start the event. The only loot you get are some tokens and gauntlet tickets from the rare drops off the mobs-btw last year each character you owned got 5 gauntlet tickets to start out so you could do the gauntlet without investing anything up front. The gauntlet also gives horrible rewards this year as well. I did not farm it last year, but I did run it enough last year to get the mini and the rewards this year are so bad.. but hey I think you can BUY the rewards off the tp if rng frowns on you or you don’t get any gauntlet ticket drops. Then we have the mat vendor boxes- which where there last year as well, but again you can buy from the tp the mats you need to try to get these rewards, or again you can straight out buy the skins/recipes of the tp.

So basically, you have to use the tp or have gold to be able to participate in quite a few of the events. You know what my favorite event of all time in this game was- The first Halloween. What happened? Where are these events? We had a cool story to follow and earned a back piece. There were of course the gemstore rng boxes that upset people so they made a mystic forge recipe because they wanted people to have fun and not feel ripped off. You could also buy a skin for a few hours for candy corn- something that you had a ton of so you could at least feel festive for the event if you were not lucky enough for a weapon.

So why don’t we have rewards in the pavilion this year? To many people leveling characters and lowering the prices too much in the TP? Well you could also level a character just as easy through crafting but that takes gold.. and you can use gems to get the gold for that. The prices on mats from this event were not ever lasting – and where should you get all your t-6 mats in the game if you can’t get them there? Oh that’s right the TP feel free to use gems to get gold for those as well. The gauntlet tickets take tokens to get as well- so you can either farm those or just use gold for the mat vendor boxes. It all seems tied to gold and the tp and just disappointing.

This is my take on it.. and I am not even a huge farmer. I can only imagine what the people who really enjoyed last year’s event feel. I only missed 1 reward and will get that and be done with this event. I will say I appreciate the opportunity to get that item, but I just wish that this event was better. I would rather not have a chance to get that item and have an amazing event that I enjoyed in all honesty. I hope there is more of a reason behind all of these nerfs to loot and xp other than to push the gemstore, but as of right now I don’t see it.

Omg Im Target.3095:

phys.7689:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

I wouldn’t really call it organized if it takes 20-30min with only 1 zerg. If 6 groups participate, it’ll take only more than 5min with gold, which is acctually fair. So the crown pavillion rewards the players if they play organized.

yeah if new information is correct, and organized groups can do it in 6 minutes, and eventually pugs get to 10-15 minutes, then the reward is decent and encourages playing better

The #1 problem with the design of this content, is the ridiculous HP scaling that bosses have with participants, as well as being just be damage sponges. Some of their attack patterns are interesting, but just wailing away on someone forever isn’t fun. Making it worse, it is open world and was great for leveling last year. Having even 1-2 uplevels that show up to one of the bosses will make them IMPOSSIBLE to kill in a timely fashion. I am right now sitting in an instance that has been trying to kill boom boom for about an hour so that I will get credit for the meta achievement (trust me, idc about my 2 blues and a green). If I join the fight, I scale it up and do more harm than good. If I don’t join, I am kind of leeching. There are a couple of uplevels down in that fight, and I think they still have yet to reach 50% HP partially because of it. And its not like the players fighting are stupid, as I can see they are quick to call out to kill the turret when its up (and it takes them about 30s-1min to kill that HP sponge as well).

This event may be great when everyone splits up and does it “correctly.” It is miserable when there is deviation from that strategy AT ALL. Add to it that there really isn’t anything built-in to help players organize effectively (besides hoping there are 6 commanders on a map).

I’m sure Anet reads threads like these where the bickering is minimum. I’m going to throw my opinion out there:

Pros:

• Well designed boss fights
• Anti zerg design
• Requires coordination

Cons:

• Reward for effort is a bit lacking
• Open world and coordination doesn’t mix well. Can’t expect randoms to organize themselves to complete this type of event
• Too much emphasis on dps rush, there needs to be a smart balance that requires not only dps but control and support

The lack of useful loot is the primary reason I just did the meta achievement ankitten ow done with it.

Beyond that, I just don’t think this kind of content works with 100+ groups. The lag generated by so many characters on screen, and all of the particle effects of their attacks is just way too much to handle. I suspect a lot of the ‘AFKers’ at zerg events are really just doing the best they can at <10 fps.

This event could have been spectacular as a 30 or 40 man instanced raid, though.

Omg Im Target.3095:

phys.7689:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

I wouldn’t really call it organized if it takes 20-30min with only 1 zerg. If 6 groups participate, it’ll take only more than 5min with gold, which is acctually fair. So the crown pavillion rewards the players if they play organized.

However, even if you get gold, the rewards arent really worth the work it takes to coordinate 6 teams.

wingofbenu.4316:

Omg Im Target.3095:

phys.7689:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

I wouldn’t really call it organized if it takes 20-30min with only 1 zerg. If 6 groups participate, it’ll take only more than 5min with gold, which is acctually fair. So the crown pavillion rewards the players if they play organized.

However, even if you get gold, the rewards arent really worth the work it takes to coordinate 6 teams.

Always hope for a precursor

Jahroots.6791:

The lack of useful loot is the primary reason I just did the meta achievement ankitten ow done with it.

Beyond that, I just don’t think this kind of content works with 100+ groups. The lag generated by so many characters on screen, and all of the particle effects of their attacks is just way too much to handle. I suspect a lot of the ‘AFKers’ at zerg events are really just doing the best they can at <10 fps.

This event could have been spectacular as a 30 or 40 man instanced raid, though.

This is the thing you see. There’s nothing wrong with instanced raids. They keep saying that it promotes elitism and divides the playerbase, but look at this. I’ve never seen more frustration and verbal abuse in a MMO than when Teq/Wurm/etc fails, ever.