Guild Wars 2

There is a lot I could say, but won’t – everyone does have their own definition of “fun”. I do, however, wish to address a couple of specific remarks (mostly one of them):

This event is only worth it if you’re farming champions. Otherwise, there are better places to farm. End of story.

Stances like this are just bothersome. Some people do not play to farm. Seeing this comment made, like some absolute statement of fact, carved in stone and framed for posterity, is an affront. It is an opinion. You do not see me claiming my opinions are solid facts; you do not see me saying “This event is only worth doing if you’re in it to win.” or something like that. If I can accept that you’re prioritizing a different facet of the game for your fun, I expect the same courtesy.

As akamon quotes later in the thread, “You can play the way you want to play, but please be considerate and respectful of how others want to play.”

I play for completion. But I do understand others play for farming. And while I try to keep map chat apprised of completion, I know that not everyone will listen (I stick to notifying them, not ordering them around – occasionally, if debates are getting heated, I try to encourage the ones arguing for completion to tackle minions, and allowing the farmers to work Aether progress). What your statement is saying is that people who don’t play it your way are somehow playing the game wrong – and THAT is what I take issue with. Your decision to farm is your own. But others’ decision to progress is their own, and is no less valid for it.

How about this, to get Vorpp’s quest done you have to kill 3 different champions and you need a big enough zerg to do that,

Actually untrue; you don’t need to face Molten at all. You get one from an Aether Captain, one from a Clockwork Nightmare champ, and one through the act of closing a portal. This means two are from minion events, one from Aetherblade events.

There is a problem with play like you want in this case as one group is stalling the progress of the other, which in a lot of cases leads to failure. So you can say play as you want, but that’s not possible due to not being able to reach the end goal. Focussing on minions isn’t an answer as it forces me to focus on only one part. So in fact I’m being forced to play as I don’t want.

Conner.4702:

There is a problem with play like you want in this case as one group is stalling the progress of the other

Again, untrue. Killing aethers does not slow down closing portals. Not closing portals does.
The only thing really stalling the progress of the event is lack of enough organized completionist groups. Farmers move in large zergs, and thus never do more than 2-3 events at the same time – leaving all other events for completionists to do. With enough people willing to do the event, it will get finished regardless of what farmers will do.

Because winning is more gratifying.

Astralporing.1957:

Conner.4702:

There is a problem with play like you want in this case as one group is stalling the progress of the other

Again, untrue. Killing aethers does not slow down closing portals. Not closing portals does.
The only thing really stalling the progress of the event is lack of enough organized completionist groups. Farmers move in large zergs, and thus never do more than 2-3 events at the same time – leaving all other events for completionists to do. With enough people willing to do the event, it will get finished regardless of what farmers will do.

Sorry this is simply not true as I’ve seen it fail to many times.

Conner.4702:

Sorry this is simply not true as I’ve seen it fail to many times.

Well I’m sold. This is some pretty compelling stuff…

NONE of the achievements actually require the zone to be won. You DO need to be near Scarlet at then very end to get one of them.

Defeating Scarlet is NOT the same as the Event being Successful.

The Event being Successful rewards you with 2 guaranteed rares (limit of 1 set per account per map per day). If you got scraps with success, it was because you already got the 2 rares on that map, that day. I don’t discount the fact that that reward SUCKS, but you got the 2 rares you were suppose to at some earlier time. Are you even SURE the map invasion was a success?

Xprez.7130:

thefantasticg.3984:

No. No you don’t. Don’t lie to people. You get one more bag/box each. That’s it and that’s assuming your map has made it to the final phase. I’ve failed/won enough to know.

Don’t know where you’re playing or getting your numbers from…. I go from 2 of each box on a fail, to 5 boxes of each type on a win….

You get one box per wave defeated (with minions in phases 2 and 3 counting as a wave each). So you’ve got to fail pretty badly, not to get four boxes. Getting to the Scarlett fight means you’ve taken out all five waves, so gets you full reward whether you kill her or not. Which – once you have the achievement – means there’s no incentive, other than altruism, to stop farming and go join in.

Oh, and you only get the reward once per map per day, which – given there are 13 maps, they’re only once and hour, and which one comes up is random – is pretty arbitrary. Not to say dumb, because, if you’re unlucky enough to get a map you’ve already done once today, the only incentive to worrying about progress is getting to the Aetherblades. Other than that, you might as well just get stuck in and farm whatever fits your needs. You can’t even drop out and hope to get a different map; it’s stay and potentially mess things up for anyone who cares about completing the invasion, or give it a miss for that hour.

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

What should have happened is either make all aspects count towards the event completion, or limit rewards to success (i.e. take out the champs and send more elites, then increase the bag drops from winning).

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

What should have happened is either make all aspects count towards the event completion, or limit rewards to success (i.e. take out the champs and send more elites, then increase the bag drops from winning).

What they SHOULD do is completely eliminate the possibility of any reward unless the event is completed successfully. No drops. No XP. No Karma. Just a huge reward at the end.

This is also why they need to fix the stupidity of losing all reward should you be disconnected after participating in the better part of an event.

RvLeshrac.2673:

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

What should have happened is either make all aspects count towards the event completion, or limit rewards to success (i.e. take out the champs and send more elites, then increase the bag drops from winning).

What they SHOULD do is completely eliminate the possibility of any reward unless the event is completed successfully. No drops. No XP. No Karma. Just a huge reward at the end.

This is also why they need to fix the stupidity of losing all reward should you be disconnected after participating in the better part of an event.

Every time I go to an Invasion, people are whining about how farmers (by magic, I suppose, since game mechanics don’t support it) prevent them from winning it. Almost every time I try explaining to them that they don’t need the farmers, nor the particular events they’re scaling, in order to win. That all they need to do is disentangle themselves from their own zergs, fight easy events around the map in small groups until their respective bar is empty and that type of event stops being created, and pretty much stroll leisurely to victory. It’s hard to think of a way they could have made it any easier.

Of course, instead I see the same bunch keep whining in /map, while one or two non-Aether (I refuse to call these completionists, because they never will if they keep this up) zergs limp around the map snagging on every bunch of silvers and every champion Nightmare they spawn, until it fails.

You’d want to hope the farmers think it’s worth wagering 30-45 minutes of effort on the success of the event, in that case. If they don’t, something tells me that’ll be the end of it.

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

Isn’t it possible this is NOT a bad thing? Again, CHOICE is available to everyone that wants to take the time to even show up every hour on the hour.

Brother Grimm.5176:

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

Isn’t it possible this is NOT a bad thing? Again, CHOICE is available to everyone that wants to take the time to even show up every hour on the hour.

It would be a better design if they made the game so that choices exist but that those choices synergize.

Brother Grimm.5176:

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

Isn’t it possible this is NOT a bad thing? Again, CHOICE is available to everyone that wants to take the time to even show up every hour on the hour.

Personally I’d say it’s not. Without the incentive of the farming, the whole thing would have been pretty much over within the first few days as most people finished the achievements and gave up. Although I can understand the frustration of anyone who thinks the farming is stopping them succeeding.

I will add that you get full rewards if you get Scarlet to spawn, but don’t kill her in time. As in, she shows up, time runs out, she disappears → still get full rewards. We got her to pop in the last 40s and got full stuff.

It has a similiar feel to WvW to be honest, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose (after you get the scarlet kill achievement).

mtpelion.4562:

Brother Grimm.5176:

mtpelion.4562:

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

Isn’t it possible this is NOT a bad thing? Again, CHOICE is available to everyone that wants to take the time to even show up every hour on the hour.

It would be a better design if they made the game so that choices exist but that those choices synergize.

Funny thing is I fully think they DO synergize (in a roundabout and not so obvious way). Those that are convinced the farmers are “ruining” it just haven’t considered what these events would be like if nobody that was interested in farming showed up in the Map. Despite what they think, I’m guessing the majority of the successful Events, wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for players actively farming that Event map.

Astralporing.1957:

Conner.4702:

There is a problem with play like you want in this case as one group is stalling the progress of the other

Again, untrue. Killing aethers does not slow down closing portals. Not closing portals does.
The only thing really stalling the progress of the event is lack of enough organized completionist groups. Farmers move in large zergs, and thus never do more than 2-3 events at the same time – leaving all other events for completionists to do. With enough people willing to do the event, it will get finished regardless of what farmers will do.

While I do agree that the farmers do in the end help progress the aetherblades meta quests, I have seen plenty of times when it was not. For instance, I have seen several times where there are like 6 commander icons all clustered on 1 aetherblade event. I check out whats happening there and there was at least 40+ people there. For the morale event part, this leads to massive upscalling and the morale bar goes down soooooo little per pirate killed. Then for the Captain phase, I will see some people intentionaly lure the captain away from the other pirates, thus giving the zerg a green light to farm kill all of the other pirates and their seemingly endless spawning rate and champs.
^ THIS is what gets on everybody else’s nerves. The farmers are at this point no longer helping progess the meta event at all, they are ONLY farming the additional aetherblades and champs that spawn and do not kill the captain. This is what should have been fixed from day one. More pirates should only spawn at every 25% hp of the captain.

Brother Grimm.5176:

NONE of the achievements actually require the zone to be won. You DO need to be near Scarlet at then very end to get one of them.

Defeating Scarlet is NOT the same as the Event being Successful.

The Event being Successful rewards you with 2 guaranteed rares (limit of 1 set per account per map per day). If you got scraps with success, it was because you already got the 2 rares on that map, that day. I don’t discount the fact that that reward SUCKS, but you got the 2 rares you were suppose to at some earlier time. Are you even SURE the map invasion was a success?

The 2 rares is for defeating Scarlet and that is once per day per account no matter how many times you defeat her. It is not per map.

The per map reward is the scrap/stash + loot bags. The single scrap is a replacement for this reward not the 2 rares.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-August-20-2013/2662731

• Map-wide rewards are limited to once per account, per day, per map. For example, players who claim the map-wide reward for an invasion in the Gendarran Fields will not be able to claim invasion rewards in this map until the following day.
• Complete all waves of an invasion to unlock a bonus battle with Scarlet.
• Defeat Scarlet for a daily world-boss reward of two guaranteed rare items.

Unrelated to the above but relevant to this thread … http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/09/09/129757852/pop-quiz-how-do-you-stop-sea-captains-from-killing-their-passengers

RvLeshrac.2673:

What they SHOULD do is completely eliminate the possibility of any reward unless the event is completed successfully. No drops. No XP. No Karma. Just a huge reward at the end.

This is also why they need to fix the stupidity of losing all reward should you be disconnected after participating in the better part of an event.

This would only encourage people to AFK during the event because it wouldn’t take into account the difference between players who are actively playing the event versus those who are leeching on the map.

I find the bickering between the pompous self appointed bosses in map chat of a zone entertaining as I go about doing whatever I want to do. Both sides have some amazingly large egoed folks that love ordering others about and I find it imense fun to demonstrate that I’m not theirs to command.

Want to kill Scarlet? The Farmers are going to screw you over and they don’t give a monkeys.

I was lucky enough to get her once, sorry to those who didn’t and most likely won’t.

Fallout.1798:

While I do agree that the farmers do in the end help progress the aetherblades meta quests, I have seen plenty of times when it was not. For instance, I have seen several times where there are like 6 commander icons all clustered on 1 aetherblade event. I check out whats happening there and there was at least 40+ people there. For the morale event part, this leads to massive upscalling and the morale bar goes down soooooo little per pirate killed. Then for the Captain phase, I will see some people intentionaly lure the captain away from the other pirates, thus giving the zerg a green light to farm kill all of the other pirates and their seemingly endless spawning rate and champs.
^ THIS is what gets on everybody else’s nerves. The farmers are at this point no longer helping progess the meta event at all, they are ONLY farming the additional aetherblades and champs that spawn and do not kill the captain. This is what should have been fixed from day one. More pirates should only spawn at every 25% hp of the captain.

AFAIK the spawns are not, and weren’t infinite. The next set seems to appear after the previous set is killed, and after a few (three? That seems to be what I’ve noticed but I haven’t intentionally been counting, and it may vary) the captain is all that’s left.

Well after a small break from gw2 I come back to try out the chaos event.. only to find all through prime time there isn’t enough good people to win the event. Even when it seemed like commanders were all going to the right spot event, just not enough dps, to many people dieing.

Although from some of the chat I read, it looks like alot of people this far out are alts leveling too.

Its a good thing I don’t pay anything for this game, these types of bull$^@! events would never pass on a subscription.

Personally I find alot of people just want to get the gold, so naturally it’s a choice considering that alot of champs spawn during this event?

So it’ll just come down to greed or selflessness, it’s human nature. Least we can easily identify the farmers to the players. But then again, who doesn’t want all that gold… Maybe ArenaNet is testing us…

kyrioscyrus.2857:

Personally I find alot of people just want to get the gold, so naturally it’s a choice considering that alot of champs spawn during this event?

So it’ll just come down to greed or selflessness, it’s human nature. Least we can easily identify the farmers to the players. But then again, who doesn’t want all that gold… Maybe ArenaNet is testing us…

Every player is playing for their own selfish reasons. Some play because they want to have fun. Some play because they want to win the event. Some play because they want to have the achievement. Some play because they want to farm gold.

It’s all the same… just selfish wants.

The problem isn’t selfish players, so much as awkward loot distribution.

It’s just as selfish to want farmers to give up more gold for less time and effort, as it is for farmers to indirectly deny other people achievements. Or, possibly, more selfish. Fighting Scarlet needs to be more rewarding, perhaps scaling directly with the number of champions killed, prior to her appearance.

I have to wonder if these invasions weren’t meant to be farmed. I think of it as sort of an anniversary gift to players.

Stooperdale.3560:

“You still get your event reward loots and achievements, yet people seem to be hell-bent on ordering people around in chat to split up and blame commanders for stacking in Aetherblade Events. I don’t understand…”

It’s because some people want to play the game rather than rationalize it down to a time for gold ratio. There’s no reason for them to sympathize with farmers who put their personal gold accumulation ahead of the community effort and community reward. Since however you started from view that only your wallet is important then you probably can’t appreciate that.

I could not have put it better myself.

The problem is that the reward structure encourages you to “fail” the event. Poor design.

For me, it’s more fun to coordinate with a map full of people to complete the event, than it is to stand in one spot and spam 1 for champ loot bags. I’m rewarded with a sense of accomplishment, an achievement for anyone that needs it, and 2 daily rares. And if you just want to farm champs, I believe the Frostgorge champ farm gives better drops. I’ve done 15+ of these events and gotten nothing better than a couple 80 silver exotics.

When kill scarlet was the daily 12 of us got together and broke into 4 groups of 3 and ran around doing all the twisted events that were not near an aether( to avoid scaling due to proximity) and an amazing thing happened, we killed scarlet. I’m sorry but I have no sympathy for people who blame the commanders who pin up for easier farming for their failure, or lack of people. The events scale making it ridiculously easy to finish the event if people stop blaming farmers for everything long enough to do so.

Milennin.4825:

… blame commanders for stacking in Aetherblade Events. I don’t understand…

Commanders stacking is an issue because:

(a) Why bother? If all one commander is going to do is follow the other around all event then why bother flagging up? All I see is somebody waving their kitten around in public … nobody needs to see that.

(b) Double trouble. If two zergs collide then the ratio of players to mobs gets silly, given that non-captain Aetherblade champions are the same size as regular examples of their race, having twice the number of players getting in the way makes targeting champion mobs completely random, and there just aren’t sufficient champions around even with a double-zerg to make up for that. Each additional commander in the same event compounds the problem.

I don’t mind people farming in the slightest, the point with multiple commanders is that they actually reduce the amount of loot in my bags, and I don’t appreciate that.