Guild Wars 2

My understanding was that the guesting system was meant to be used as a way for players to join their friends in PvE on other servers. However, many players have discovered they can use it as a way to increase the number of dragon chests and world bosses they can farm per day.

This “guest farming” is making it so that the world boss events last less than 10 seconds, are no longer fun, and create lots of lag and even overflows from the sheer number of guests hopping servers to farm.

Something should be done to stop this type of farming, because it ruins the fun of world bosses. I was leveling my Charr necromancer a few days ago in Queensdale when the Shadow Behemoth spawned. I have not fought him in months and was really excited to take him on with my new character.

I was about 100 feet from the spawn area when the event started, and I didn’t make 20 steps before it was already over. This type of “farming over fun” is not what Guilds Wars 2 is about, at least in my mind. Please do something to put a stop to this so I can fight my server’s World Bosses in a fun way again!

What about making the dragon or boss event chests have a cooldown timer to make it so there’s no advantage to hop servers and get more chests? That might cut down a lot on guest-farming while allowing players who guest with friends to still participate in those other servers’ events and get loot if they haven’t completed that event very recently anywhere else.

There are other threads about this, many on the first page. Please stop spamming the forums with the same topic thank you!

I completely agree. I’m getting overflow servers almost every time I try to do a dragon event lately. Even at 8:00am ET when our server population is the lowest. When I do make it to an event I sometimes end up getting bronze or silver because you can’t attack with all the lag.

Disabling the rewards for people guesting seems like a solid solution….

Ignore Kynmarcher. We need at LEAST one thread about this every single day, until anet fixes the problem.

Assuming there is a problem at all.

As I’ve pointed out in other threads, if you’re wanting to guarantee yourself a spot show up earlier. My impression of the system is ‘first come, first served’ so if you show up 1-5 minutes before the event starts, you run the risk of not getting from overflow to the actual zone before the dragon lands.

Show up a good 10-15 minutes prior and you should be good. Hell, give the zone a hand with the pre-events leading up to the big fight even, it’ll make it go just that little bit faster.

The only issue that cannot be solved so easily is if someone DCs and then is punted back to the overflow. This has happened, I have been punted mid-fight and lost my chance at the chest but I chalk that up to bad luck. If there was some way to reserve your place in the zone so that if your connection is dropped suddenly you won’t go back to the overflow that would be an improvement.

I don’t think we should have to schedule our day around when a boss should spawn. That’s the old, dumb way of doing MMOs. I just want to be able to run randomly through the world, have a giant monster appear, and have a cool fight with it.

200 players, most of which just guested to my server to farm this event, nuking it down in 10 seconds is NOT a fun experience. It ruins the immersion and serendipity of these kinds of encounters and makes it feel like a job in real life. “Better show up to the event early and wait in line or else you miss out.” No thanks.

It wasn’t like this before guesting, and I believe the guesting system is the only reason it has become this lame. I want my boss fights back.

-A Purple Hooded Charr

Kynmarcher.2184:

As I’ve pointed out in other threads, if you’re wanting to guarantee yourself a spot show up earlier. My impression of the system is ‘first come, first served’ so if you show up 1-5 minutes before the event starts, you run the risk of not getting from overflow to the actual zone before the dragon lands.

What? Dragons don’t show up in overflows?? LOL

Kynmarcher.2184:

Assuming there is a problem at all.

As I’ve pointed out in other threads, if you’re wanting to guarantee yourself a spot show up earlier. My impression of the system is ‘first come, first served’ so if you show up 1-5 minutes before the event starts, you run the risk of not getting from overflow to the actual zone before the dragon lands.

Show up a good 10-15 minutes prior and you should be good. Hell, give the zone a hand with the pre-events leading up to the big fight even, it’ll make it go just that little bit faster.

The only issue that cannot be solved so easily is if someone DCs and then is punted back to the overflow. This has happened, I have been punted mid-fight and lost my chance at the chest but I chalk that up to bad luck. If there was some way to reserve your place in the zone so that if your connection is dropped suddenly you won’t go back to the overflow that would be an improvement.

This is a rediculous and pointless response, that especially doesn’t take into account what the OP is pointing out in his post.

There is absolutely a problem. The exact nature of that problem is the only thing that is questionable. The simplest problem to track down, however, is abuse of the system in a way it was not intended to be used. This is an exploit. Chests are supposed to be accessible once per day, only. But as most people who have been around for a while know, that is only true for the specific instance of the zone in which you interact with it. What people are doing is hopping from server to server doing events to get the chests over and over because each new server is a new instance of the zone and a new unopened chest. This needs to be addressed.

This activity, coupled with increased value and desirability of the chest rewards, is increasing lag and apparently reducing duration on what is intended to be an extended battle.

I remember when the game first came out the fight with Shadow Behemoth was a long drawn out battle with at least five portal cycles. I did it the other day in two cycles and the portals were all destroyed moments after appearing. It was like it was being brushed aside cause it was in the way of the loot.

The question becomes how many of these things are problems that can be fixed. The first can be fixed and there are a couple good ways to do it. Once that is fixed the others can be looked into to see if they’re still a problem.

The only way to fix the ‘issue’ without harming legitimate guesters is to limit the amount of times you can guest to multiple servers. For example:

Player A on Anvil Rock wants to play with his friend B on Tarnished Coast. He guests there not only to just hang out with his friend but also to do the dragon events as they spawn. He can guest to Tarnished Coast as many times as he likes without penalty because he is only guesting to one server.

Player C on Tarnished Coast wants to get access to more world chests than others around him, so he tries to guest to multiple servers. The first guesting gives him unlimited access to the server he chooses, however after the second guesting he finds that the guesting option is locked, preventing him from hopping servers all the time.

-THAT- is a solution.

Half of the threads on these forums are made by people demanding zone spots or exclusive chest access and most of it is fueled by inconsiderate greed with lines such as: “I am a resident on this server therefor I should get the chest” or “I am a resident of this server, if I choose to go to a zone guesters should be punted to the overflow to make room for me!”

Eventually you just get desensitized to the whole thing. The fact that most of them lie through over exaggeration to make a point doesn’t help either.

“I am a resident on this server therefor I should get the chest” or “I am a resident of this server, if I choose to go to a zone guesters should be punted to the overflow to make room for me!”

This again. Aren’t overflows identical to the real shards? Including that they will spawn dragons? Nodes show up in overflow, and you can harvest them in both, the overflow and then again when you transition to the real shard. I’d imagine, it’ll work the same for the dragon chests, you can get one in an overflow, and one in your server shard. So it would be good to get into an overflow first, because you get basically an extra chest.
[edit] Ok, so the problem is there are no timers for overflows. Waiting for any of the low level bosses isn’t too bad, but a few hours for Jormag’s Claw, yea that could be tiring.

Also, the OPs complaint is about the event ending so fast, because you can have a bunch of guests now who are only interest in the chest. That’s assuming if we’d have just the regular server population there wouldn’t be this many players at the event.

I’m not convinced that’s actually true. Lots of people are now farming those bosses, it’ll be crowded even without guests.

And since everyone is fighting on their 80s (to have the chance for precursor), everyone is also traited and geared to the max. Even after downscaling, that makes an 80 much more powerful than a non-scaled guy in that zone. That’s why the boss now melts, because he is still made for non-scaled people. He gets a bit stronger with that many folks fighting him, but I’d guess the code still assumes they’re all non-scaled people.

This will be tricky to resolve for ANet. You can’t make the boss much stronger, or non-scaled people will get destroyed there. If you scale down more people without max gear will have a hard time in the zone.

Not sure how much is true, but the amount of rares dropping should either be decreased or somethign should change with the world events.

On a sidenote its NUTS that you get a rare almost every time while DUNGEONs barely give any

These events dont take long so its kinda farming rares easily, and the dungeons arent worth the work. All the work put into AC is of no use because it now actually takes longer and events got much more worthwhile.

The ballance between those was pretty ok, barely rares from the world events, yet rares and exotics did drop now and then in dungeons. But the increase we see in rares @ world events is fun, but now dungeons are absolete.

There has to be a better way to make ppl go back to certain areas and events, rather than emptying dungeons, and the other way around, dont pull everyone into dungeons, make the events worthwhile but at the same time also interesting, yet less favorable compared to dungeon loot. Worth the time…..

This again. Aren’t overflows identical to the real shards?

They are, but they are set at different times to regular servers.

For example, let’s say on Tarnished Coast the Shatterer is about to land, all the pre-events have been done it’s just a matter of minutes before the fight starts. On the overflow however, the Shatterer may not be ready to land at all to the point where the pre-events are not even active.

Sure people on the overflow -could- wait for the event to start there, but as there is no timer to indicate how long until events start, there is no way of knowing how long people are going to need to wait in the overflow to get the event to start.

For me, this issue is not about my “right” to an event chest. It’s about fun. I don’t enjoy farming, and I rarely go to dragons and world bosses even though I know you can lookup the timers for each and get great rewards.

I just want to be able to casually stroll through zones and participate in these big boss fights easily. The biggest problem is how fast they end now. If ArenaNet made it so they scaled properly, I would be okay with guests being there. The lag is not as big of an issue, however improving that would also be good.

I’m not going to camp at a boss spawn like it’s a midnight iPhone release just to participate in events within a game that’s meant to be immersive and flexible towards casual play styles.

Kynmarcher.2184:

The only way to fix the ‘issue’ without harming legitimate guesters is to limit the amount of times you can guest to multiple servers.

This is still not a good solution though. Limit the reward and you limit only those abusing the system. Limit the service and you limit everyone who wants to make use of that service no matter why they want to.

I’ve guested recently (to play with a friend, not to abuse the feature), and there is a limitation of two times of guesting for each day. Just saying that the limit already exists.

A boss fight like this should feel epic to players and not die so quickly like that. The original poster is not talking about a guarantee spot, it is about making the open world look more realistic. A scary big boss that dies like a little ant is not realistic.

I don’t enjoy gears being too powerful where fighting mobs does not require strategy anymore only pure raw damage. Hope Anet can find a way to fine tune the gears, some how cap the damage base on the number of players involved in the fight.

Causal play is meant to play causally not farming your daily or monthly, not camping bosses. Explore the world of GuildWars2, take on things and meet players as it comes to you on your journey. I don’t even mind if GW2 hide the list of dailies and monthly and allow it pops up as you completed it. It would be more interesting. The problem is people need goals and some need to be told what to do.

For one thing Anet, don’t make me need to do dungeon to get gears in order to play in the open world effectively, leave dungeons to dungeon players, just as you keep pvp to pvp. Thank you.

I know some people may disagree with what I say but that is just the difference of play style.

Solaria.4503:

For one thing Anet, don’t make me need to do dungeon to get gears in order to play in the open world effectively, leave dungeons to dungeon players, just as you keep pvp to pvp. Thank you.

In no way you have to do dungeons to “get the gear needed to play effectively in the open world”, even if you consider exotics to be necessary for that. You can get exotics for karma, or you can craft them, or you can buy them from TP from people who got them as loot. None of those methods require you to step inside a dungeon. Dungeon armors require dungeon running because they are rewards for dungeon running, but they are no better stats wise than any other level 80 exotics.

Thx for the replay Tuomir, so far GW2 been doing good the way they been, keeping things in their own sandbox and hope it will continue that way.

Just afraid they start shifting their direction ending into dungeon raid runs. There are so many games out there already have that, hope GW2 don’t lose their track on their unique features of the game. Love this game so far.

Solaria.4503:

Thx for the replay Tuomir, so far GW2 been doing good the way they been, keeping things in their own sandbox and hope it will continue that way.

Just afraid they start shifting their direction ending into dungeon raid runs. There are so many games out there already have that, hope GW2 don’t lose their track on their unique features of the game. Love this game so far.

What does any of this have to do with Guesting?

Kynmarcher.2184:

This again. Aren’t overflows identical to the real shards?

They are, but they are set at different times to regular servers.

For example, let’s say on Tarnished Coast the Shatterer is about to land, all the pre-events have been done it’s just a matter of minutes before the fight starts. On the overflow however, the Shatterer may not be ready to land at all to the point where the pre-events are not even active.

Sure people on the overflow -could- wait for the event to start there, but as there is no timer to indicate how long until events start, there is no way of knowing how long people are going to need to wait in the overflow to get the event to start.

There are people who SIT and WAIT at events for them to start. There is a website that has the timers that are relatively correct for the main map. I personally have seen, while doing some heart quests, people waiting for over twenty minutes for events to start. I don’t know if these people are guests on the server or if they’re actually people on the server trying to just be there so they don’t miss the chance for the fight. The fights these days are ridiculous. They don’t feel like boss fights. I barely get gold when I do participate in them because everything dies so fast I can’t get more than a couple hits.

Maybe boss life should scale with the amount of people who are participating? I don’t know. It’s just an idea.