Guild Wars 2

I don’t like the way monster respawning works in this game. Sometimes I’m going solo in an area, and I am taking guys out 1 or 2 at a time. Then, when I get to the last enemy, the first guys I killed respawn, join the fight, and wipe me.

Maybe if I could kill them faster there would be no problem, but then I’d have to change my playstyle (e.g. choose more offensive gear/traits/skills), or play easier content.

But there’s a different solution I’d like to have considered: Change the way that monsters respawn. I would love to see the area around a player be safe from spawning monsters. Make players leave an area before it is repopulated. This might even solve some of the botting problems. I don’t know all of the technical difficulties involved in doing this, but it doesn’t sound too prohibitive.

What do you folks think? Am I the only one who has problems with monsters spawning on them?

I fully agree with the OP. Just yesterday I was killed in a cave by the spawns. We came in the cave as a team of two. My partner died in the progress but I was able to clear the cave, by the time I went to revive him, the mobs respawned and attacked. So he went to the next waypoint while I died….. killed by the very same mob we just barely survived.

Adding to the suggestion from the OP, I suggest the following , which would support the “Living Story” and “Persistent World” approach that GW2 claims.

I may have a solution for this problem with happens to improve other areas that have been complained about:
Treat mobs, veterans, champions etc the same as resource nods, i.e. after I have killed them I cannot kill them again for the day (the best would be if they were invisible but that may be a stretch technically). As I see it it would address and improve the following:
- RE-SPAWNING: No more respawns would allow a more tactical game, taking out one mob after the other without kiting into the three I killed earlier.
- HARDER ON BOTS: No more farming one small area and feasting o re-spawned mobs
- MORE REALISTIC GAME EXPERIENCE and sense of accomplishment: You can clear areas of mobs, and dont see them re-spawn like nothing ever happened to them just a few seconds/minutes ago.
- FOSTER MAP EXPLORATION and help to revive empty areas as people/we have to travel further to farm and kill mobs.
In order to still support group play mobs should be only unkillable/invisble after I contributed a certain amount of damage, can be different for different mobs.

I would be interesting what the forum and ANet think about this.

florida.7540:

I fully agree with the OP. Just yesterday I was killed in a cave by the spawns. We came in the cave as a team of two. My partner died in the progress but I was able to clear the cave, by the time I went to revive him, the mobs respawned and attacked. So he went to the next waypoint while I died….. killed by the very same mob we just barely survived.

Adding to the suggestion from the OP, I suggest the following , which would support the “Living Story” and “Persistent World” approach that GW2 claims.

I may have a solution for this problem with happens to improve other areas that have been complained about:
Treat mobs, veterans, champions etc the same as resource nods, i.e. after I have killed them I cannot kill them again for the day (the best would be if they were invisible but that may be a stretch technically). As I see it it would address and improve the following:
- RE-SPAWNING: No more respawns would allow a more tactical game, taking out one mob after the other without kiting into the three I killed earlier.
- HARDER ON BOTS: No more farming one small area and feasting o re-spawned mobs
- MORE REALISTIC GAME EXPERIENCE and sense of accomplishment: You can clear areas of mobs, and dont see them re-spawn like nothing ever happened to them just a few seconds/minutes ago.
- FOSTER MAP EXPLORATION and help to revive empty areas as people/we have to travel further to farm and kill mobs.
In order to still support group play mobs should be only unkillable/invisble after I contributed a certain amount of damage, can be different for different mobs.

I would be interesting what the forum and ANet think about this.

A good idea in theory. But this would also stop people real players I mean from farming the mats they need for crafting etc. also could leave some players isolated. An area could be cleared by a large group of players, then your left all on your own, and the place looks as empty as can be, also say you killed a mob that was attacking another player it could die for you but what for them would it still be attacking them? After all they didn’t kill it, and that’s how nodes work. As I said good in theory.

These are some good point BrotherBelial, the approach still needs some refinement and that is why I welcome the discussion.
Regarding your point:
1) Farming: IMO farming should not be reduced to stand in a spot and kill/farm the same re-spawning mob time and again. Instead we could discover a good farming run that takes us across the map and would not be impacted by “loosing” killed mobs during that day.
2) Who gets the kill, I could imagine that there is a certain threshold of damage that you need to bring to a mob before it is no longer available that day. Could be fairly high for normal mobs, and lower for vets, champions, or dragons.

Alternatively a 10-15min respawn time would improve the overall feel of persistency and support some tactical gameplay.

While I agree with the OP in general, the risk here is that on especially crowded servers, you run the risk of the map getting depopulated and players not being able to find any monsters to kill. (This is especially an issue now that we have the Daily Veteran Slayer challenge. Last night I had two instances where I headed to a spot where I knew Veterans could be found, only to see a player just leaving the area after having killed the Veterans.

Still, I think a slight increase in the respawn time is warranted. Currently it’s 120 – 180 seconds according to the devs. 180 seconds is probably fine for normal mobs, but Veterans should respawn only every 5 mins, and Champions only every 15.

Zaxares, with my idea you would actually benefit in your case, as the vet would be there for you if you hadnt killed it on that day. I do not want to suggest that mobs in general disappear after being killed and some unlucky player wanders through an empty and desolate ;landscape ;-)

One of the Guild Wars 2 Content Designers stated multiple times that the default spawn rate is 95-120 seconds and there might be locations where the respawn is much faster: in this case we have to report it to him.

Well, reporting does nothing because 95-120 seconds is an incredibly fast respawn time. It should be way slower, or designed in a whole different way like suggested in this thread.

Currently the incredibly fast respawn rate leads to the overwhelming sensation of accomplishing absolutely nothing. Also it breaks the exploration experience a LOT: you think you have finally cleared the area and you’re ready to explore and enjoy the trip without monsters attacking you from everywhere, but then you turn back and you realize you’re surrounded by enemies again.

The whole PvE experience would benefit a lot from a revamped and recalibrated spawn system, and I’m sure it would make happy a lot of players.

PvE in GW2 is awesome, there are a lot of great ideas and things that I was looking for in a MMO since ages, but the flawed spawn system it’s a big game-breaker that should have been fixed long ago.

Hope this post can make clear to game designers that there is a problem in the spawn system actually and that, evidently, a 95-120 seconds default spawn rate is simply too fast.

I have definitely found places , many more than I can recall, where respawn rate is plain silly.

Good example: Brisbane Wildlands, Seraph Camp at Hidden Lake. Now it is not quite the hassle that a cave is…where you are then trapped, so to speak, inside by the rapidly respawned enemies you JUST killed.

I have been in caves where I could not get out as they never stopped spawning. It took until I got a brief respite in this cave, with no aggro to to use a wp.

Now, I did get a LOT of kill exp in this cave…..but it gets really tedious.

Hidden Lake is great if you want a kill spree. The place is swarming, overrun, with enemy NPCs in unending streams.