Guild Wars 2

• It breaks immersion when monsters appear out of thin air right before your eyes.
• The respawn rates in many areas inhibit movement, forcing players to try to stay rooted to the same area and weather damage instead of moving and dodging for fear of attracting aggro from monsters that have respawned right behind them.

Solution:
Give the player an invisible perimeter field or AOE of about 1500 (the range of the ranger longbow) in which enemies cannot spawn. This way, the server can continue to spawn new enemies for other players without spawning old enemies on top of players who have already cleared an area.

I thought of a few way and reason to abuse this only by reading the thread title and i’m not even that much imaginative when it comes to things like that.
This could work in single player game but it’s a very bad idea for a mmo.

I agree with the fact it is odd that enemies just pop out of nowhere, as for the no spawn radius, thats a bad idea. I would like better if they had a nearby spawn point and ran to there set area. as an example, Say you be slaying some flame legion like a boss, 3 minutes later, more pop out of a bush or drop down from over a cliff, thats my best idea.

So the op doesnt want any monsters to respawn in high populatio area?

The respawn rate is fine and peobably the only thing that respawn too fast are ghosts…and thats not even that far off.

I think this is a bad Idea.

However Monsters Spawning directly next to or within Aggro range of Waypoints is pissing me off.

Nothing like coming in from loading screen to find myself DEAD.

Lord Aargadon.4135:

I agree with the fact it is odd that enemies just pop out of nowhere, as for the no spawn radius, thats a bad idea. I would like better if they had a nearby spawn point and ran to there set area. as an example, Say you be slaying some flame legion like a boss, 3 minutes later, more pop out of a bush or drop down from over a cliff, thats my best idea.

It’d would be nice if they climb out from behind a gate, a statue, a “closed” cave, or that they jump down from above a tree, a cliff, or that they are “summoned” or “conjured” from a stir of dirts or mist, a splash of fire or water, etc… from a place that’s less likely to give us the impression something pops just out of nowhere in the thin air. (It doesn’t matter if people are occupying their “spawn” points or not.)

Then, they walk, patrol, run to their set area as you said. (Perhaps they can be shown half invisible and invulnerable during the process.)

Could someone please explain to me what exploits are actually possible?

So the op doesnt want any monsters to respawn in high populatio area?

I’ve never been in an area so densely packed that there would be no room for monsters to respawn. But yes, if 500 players are hanging out, in spread out fashion, over a relatively small radius, of course no more monsters should spawn in that area. You’re controlling the area. It’s ludicrous that creatures and enemies should just ‘appear’ there.

Honestly, I guess some of you tolerate the idea of enemies appearing right next to you because you’re long-time MMO players. If the genre is ever going to advance to being remotely realistic, certain accepted nonsenses need to be taken on. The Holy Trinity was one of these, and well done to ANet for ditching it. But constant strings of enemies attacking you while you stand in one placer is another. Creatures respawning before their corpse has even faded is another.

ANet were really onto something with the idea of helping friendly forces capture land in order to clear out areas, but then having to defend that land against hostiles. They should take the idea a step further, imo.

But I guess what I’m proposing would upset those players whose one purpose in life is farming and grinding …

I agree, though, that a good solution would be to have special ‘realism’ areas where respawning could take place without breaking the visual sense of the game. Sometimes bandits or Sons of Svanir drop from trees – that’s a good idea. This should be the case for every type of creature – spiders coming from behind stones, drakes emerging from the water, grawl from a high-up cave etc.

Focksbot,

Suppose the mobs won’t respawn where there are players. The game cannot go on at all.

Someone can stay somewhere so that you can never enjoy your game.

Chain Dynamic Events cannot take place.

I don’t follow what you’re saying – it’s easy enough to create exceptions:

• Bosses respawn regardless of where players are standing, because they’re on a longer timer anyway. This prevents camping near legit objectives to grief other players.

• Dynamic events override the usual rule, spawning mobs just outside the area of the event who then approach the players.

• If a mob is prevented from spawning because a player is standing somewhere, it’s queued up so that it spawns as soon as the player moves on. Thus, mobs will still spawn at a decent rate – just not right on top of players, or right behind them when they’re trying to made headway in an area.

The only way of exploiting/griefing that I can see is if a big coordinated group of players organise a sit-in, camping at regular intervals throughout an area so that their proximities prevent any mobs spawning while they’re there. But (a) this is a realistic effect – if a party of adventurers occupy an area, you would expect there to be no monsters, (b) with the kind of range I’m talking about, perhaps reduced a bit, it would take hundreds and hundreds of players organised like this to shut down most of a zone.

Monsters should spawn “slower” meaning they should not attack for a reasonably short time (and be invulnerable in that time for all I care).
The problem I had multiple times is that monsters can hit me before I can barely see them. The fact that they can spawn right on top of me doesn’t help.

Possibly the respawn rate should scale with the number of players present (radar range).
I have often tried to solo a boss with reasonable success only to die because of the normal mobs in it’s immediate vicinity respawning while I was dodging the attacks of the boss.

There are some problems with the respawning I think. Last night I was tryign to get to this vista that required a very tricky jump that had to be timed perfectly. Due to the rampant respawning of monsters in teh area, I was constantly slowed due to being in combat (getting stuck in a combat is another separate issue) and could not make the jump. Finally, I got myself right to the edge, logged out and back in and was able to get across before I got put back into combat. I’m not sure how they shoudl fix it, but i t does seem like it’s in need of a tweak of some sort.

I happen to think the opposite. The more players, the more mobs, and the more fun.
The more we intruded into the dens of the monsters, the more they will gather and respawn to fight us back. We are not supposed to stay safely in a densely populated dangerous area and the mobs have every right to knock me from behind down before I can react and I personally like this.

Suppose 20 players are doing the same renown heart, mobs won’t respawn, and you have to wait, this brings us back to the old camping issue. I hate queuing. Mobs queuing means players queuing.

If the area is small enough, and spawns scripted to happen during events are not stopped or happen in some other spot within the event, it could work.
Otherwise a bunch of people would prevent more spawns altogether.

But it should quickly decrease in size until it disappears if the character stops moving, or someone AFK could stand anywhere with minimal risk.

joykafka.4308:

I happen to think the opposite. The more players, the more mobs, and the more fun.
The more we intruded into the dens of the monsters, the more they will gather and respawn to fight us back.

I don’t think our views are mutually exclusive. The way I envisage it, you would battle almost as many monsters, they would just be spawning at a suitable distance from you so that they don’t magically/unrealistically flicker into view right next to you, and so that you can push into a camp without worrying that any small amount of dodging and positioning will bring back the monsters you killed on your way in. The present system spoils any tactic that isn’t ‘tank n’ slash’ or ‘run straight through ignoring everything’.

Suppose 20 players are doing the same renown heart, mobs won’t respawn, and you have to wait, this brings us back to the old camping issue. I hate queuing. Mobs queuing means players queuing.

Actually, this would help with renown hearts a lot. 95% of the renown hearts can be achieved through a multitude of different tasks, only one of which is killing mobs. Yet nearly every one I’ve played has prevented me from doing many of the other tasks because I have to constantly kill mobs instead. So I get a thank you note saying, “Thanks for resurrecting allies/planting seeds/crushing nests/returning stolen parts” when I didn’t do any of that; I just stood in one place fending off mobs the entire time.

C’mon – you must see my point?

MithranArkanere.8957:

But it should quickly decrease in size until it disappears if the character stops moving, or someone AFK could stand anywhere with minimal risk.

I’d agree to this after a certain amount of time – say, if you hang around somewhere for more than four minutes, the field starts decreasing. That would prevent camping, but mean if you were trying to move through a cave, you could safely backtrack a little for kiting without running into mobs you’ve just killed.

In some high level areas, it is a chore to explore because there are hordes of enemies in low population areas. I would certainly like it if there was some way to manage how many enemies are in an area based upon the amount of players around. This seems to happen for events to some extent, but it would be nice if it was in the world as well.

A secondary problem to these lower population areas is contested WP EVERYWHERE, dying in one corner of the map and having to respawn in the middle because I died 30 seconds before reaching a nearby hopefully uncontested WP makes it kind of a chore.

+1

(12 characters)

Focksbot.

Sorry I don’t get your point, but that’s fine. We can think differently.

For me, I log in to see mobs, excitement, and surprise.
When I don’t want it, I log off. Or, I simply find a safe place.
I don’t want mobs to be kept away from me.

Even if we make them spawn at a distance, they have to come back to where they meant to respawn, which is, where I stand. If that’s also what you meant, I agree. I cannot understand why they cannot come close to you and attack you?

If one wants to “stay” fixed without moving around, the mob will be always in the queue. People gather because they want a bigger scale of encounter. Not vice versa.

The question in my eyes is how they show up, such as an animation to make them “fade in” to your neighbourhood without being visually weird or breaking the immersion. For me, I don’t see a need to change their respawn time table or spawn route due to player’s position. But that’s just me. I like how it is. I like how many times a few mobs or veterans just respawned right before I almost finished my jumping puzzle. To me, this is an achievement, and the reason for which I play this game.

Actually I just went exploring the glacier in the north, there is long gorge where the mobs respawn very rapidly. The moment I was going to kill the next mob, the mob I just killed alone respawned!!! Every time. That was a challenge and a lot of fun to advance in that one way gorge. I like that. I can’t imagine if the mob couldn’t respawn just because I was there, or that when I moved forward there was no mob at all just because there had been always traffic along this gorge.

The spawn rate is designed for a reason. Some areas are meant to be dangerous and are not meant for players to go afk.

I just think some mobs respawn too quick in some areas.

And that’s excluding the areas where this is intentional. Like that skill point in the underground cave where the wurms spawn infinitely…

For example – I found this Ettin cave I wanted to explore.
I found through pairs of ettins in a linear fashion, but as I finished the second line of ettins, the first pair respawned behind me and immediately ‘joined in’.

All they would have to do is after you kill a mob, if with in so many yard a mob spawns near you it will not aggro for so many seconds. That way mobs are still around for other players and it gives you time to run away or prep yourself to attack.

joykafka – how about making it optional? Some users could choose to have mobs spawn on them as happens now. Others could choose to activate the field, which means they will keep fighting as long as they keep moving forward, but be able to clear an area out and move around without getting attacked by respawning mobs right next to them or behind them. Any dynamic event chain will override that and make sure that more mobs spawn where players are gathering for an event.

I also started a ‘stealth mode’ suggestion thread. Apart from the immersion-breaking problem of sudden appearances, my real issue is that while, yes, sometimes I want to have a long and tough battle, at other times I’d like to plan a strategy to pick through an area or find a way to take in the scenery without being constantly attacked. I actually just don’t see what advantage it confers on players for them being able to avoid encounters.

Also, what I said above – I’d really like to be able to win renown hearts by doing a mix of activities. I’m kind of annoyed that on some of them, I don’t get a chance to do the alternative stuff because of high respawn rates. As an example, there’s a heart on Bloodtide Coast which you can earn by killing drakes but also by catching frogs, juicing them and then exposing poaches by throwing the juice on them. I only managed to expose one poacher while winning that heart because I was constantly – and I mean constantly – having to fight off respawning drakes, which meant the bar filled up entirely from killing.

The OP’s suggestion is a bad idea for various reasons.

However, Lord Aargadon.4135’s idea works.
Enemies should never spawn on their spot. They should always “fade in from the background” from some random spots, taking preference on spots that are not occupied, and then proceed to move towards their “standing spot”.

In the case of enemies that really need to spawn on the spot, there should be some kind of warning, like “You hear steps…” or something like that.

Focksbot.

Most of the time I was taking picture. It was a great fun taking pictures in dangerous place and in combat. There are some quiet places to enjoy landscape too. Even in a place densely populated with mobs, there are corners that won’t aggro mobs.

Running out from piles of mobs and catapults into Dungeon Arah is the same exciting from running into it. However, after you have succeeded once, you got an WP. It’s your choice whether you want to use WP to go in and out. Other people who never experienced the excitement to run in have all their rights to enjoy the process. I died multiple times. Multiple.

Like you said, sometimes I just didn’t want to do the killing to win renown hearts, and then I chose to run and gather things or do other interactive tasks, running with piles of mobs following after me. Some missions are tough some are repetitively boring while still some allow you to do it at your own pace without mobs bothering you. I think we can actually choose which mission to take.

It also happens very often that there is a champion or a couple of veterans that will respawn at the starting point of a puzzle or at the destination of a puzzle or just at any point in the middle; however, it also happens from time to time that there is hidden another route without the need to confront the champion. Otherwise, you can also shout for help. That is the fun part.

I think Anet does a good job to let us choose our playing style, like in Personal Story, We can always choose to act smart or act brave. It’s pretty much the same in PvE.

When the Dynamic Events take place, the mobs swarm in to the center of the event from the outskirts. They are already creating the immersion and animation. If there are another group innocently stay fixed near their respawn point so that we have to respawn them farther and farther, this will ruin the tempo of the attacking waves and ruin the fun of other people.

All that I asked, as LordAargadon and Nurvus said, is to add some animation or process so that their spawning won’t be “visually / graphically” abrupt to the eyes.

This is how I see it.

Focksbot.6798:

[…]

I’d agree to this after a certain amount of time – say, if you hang around somewhere for more than four minutes, the field starts decreasing. That would prevent camping, but mean if you were trying to move through a cave, you could safely backtrack a little for kiting without running into mobs you’ve just killed.

4 minutes would be too much.
GW2’s combat is rather fast. 1 or 2 minutes without moving should be enough so your ‘anti-spaw’ AoE starts shrinking in most areas,, As moving is as simple as pressing W once.

Denser areas in higher-level maps could have more time, though.

Ah, the old Guild Wars! How good it is that it does not have re-spawn! I though that it had been a great progress made by A.net. nevertheless, now I see that the old instant re-spawning system comes back as soon as Guild Wars becomes a permanent world and it is even worst than with other MMORPGs.

My view about this -I have commented somewhere else- is how clumsy does it look that creatures or foes in the environment are linked to a point in the ground to attack by-passers. In GW 1 creatures an foes seem more alive roaming everywhere alone or in groups. I have suggested also in other MMOs forums that- re-spawning should happen unnoticed or in a more natural manner. It is particularly weird in a living breathing world where Dynamic Events have substituted the old missions system that the “anchored” to the ground creatures and spontaneous generation of creatures is still at work. If creatures and other mobs had a behavior like roaming around the land -either individually or in groups- it should be also much more easy to design a natural re-spawning system. Think that a living world is alive not just because the big events but in every detail.

marianojc,

I think it is possible. Today I was exploring in the northern tundra where there are polar bears and their foes. Their enemies do climb out from huge corrupted crystals. In the event an NPC walked into his room and locked himself out. I could see him walk in but I couldn’t follow in. Later on he closed the door. I still could see him.

So there are things like this where NPC and mobs can spawn not bothered by us and not bothering us, they can walk to their set point from a “closed” space. Likewise, for example the thief NPC in PvP, she respawned with a dark mist appearing first in the mid air, in just 3 seconds right after stomped. I think the animation is quite good.

Sometimes in the wide open area there is nothing for the mobs to walk out from, and apparently eagles shall not respawn from underneath the earth or sharks shall not respawn from the mountain (I am just exaggerating). That might be what put Anet to lazily draw the mob out in the thin air. There is room for improvement for sure, but to be fair, such concept is already adopted in the game.

I guess it is rather difficult to be “unnoticed” anyway. There are just too many “eyes”. Perhaps some “creativity” and animation will solve most visual problems.