Guild Wars 2

Respawn rates in GW2 seem to range from “high,” to “too high,” to “that just respawned while I was still fighting it.”

I understand that GW2 is developed under the assumption that nothing solo will ever take place in any part of the game ever – an exaggeration, but given some zones (see: Orr), not an entirely inaccurate one – but I have to say that it feels really terrible to encounter an area or (not group labelled) event with respawns so fast that you can not effectively even make a dent in the mob density.

The Orr zones are the absolute worst of this (although sparse locations around the rest of the world can be just as bad – looking at you, wurm cave in Wayfarer foothills); they may as well just label pretty much the entire zone “group,” because for the majority of locales from Straits all the way to Shore, you lose all distinction between “group” and “non-group” areas and events except for a champion mob that takes forever to kill. You still need a group to do almost anything else and the primary reason for that is the absurdly fast respawn timers that don’t allow you to make progress, albeit slower progress, solo.

I have struggled through my fair share of events in the Orr zones and save for a handful of them that were surprisingly easy to do, I usually had to go through 2-3 rounds of respawns before making any progress at all. At times, I was reduced to playing dodge-the-mobs while whittling away at an event objective without even fighting because fighting was utterly pointless. At worst, it was just an endless killing cycle until more people showed up. Think the “this just respawned while I was fighting it” in the opening paragraph was an exaggeration? In Malchor the other day I was fighting a Risen Acolyte when another Risen Acolyte spawned from the exact same spawn point as the one I was fighting. I almost died because I facepalmed so hard.

On one hand, at least if you just labelled the entire zone “group,” it would actually be honest. That way you could just plaster a giant sign on the zone that says “Don’t even bother if you’re playing on a mid-low pop server during off hours” and call it problem solved.

On the other hand, high respawn timers is a really, really crappy way to induce difficulty into your game. Not only does it break any and all immersion when you try clearing an area with a high respawn rate, it also does nothing to make the difficulty actually interesting. You’re fighting the same thing you just fought, having your progress impeded not because you can’t kill something or can’t respond to a game mechanic, but because of a raw numbers issue that likely stems from gear, lack of people, and/or not being talented pure glass cannon.

When your game mechanic actually makes difficulty boring, you need to reevaluate your game mechanic.

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*I know I talk mostly about the Orr zones, but respawns really are too high in pretty much every area of the game. The Orr zones, along with a handful of other locations, are just the locations where it transcends “annoyance” into “I’ve been fighting respawns in this same location for 15 minutes.”

High respawn rates are a common issue with this game, though I disagree that every area has respawn rates that are too high. Indeed, what I find odd is how varied it is across general pve areas. There are places where mobs popped in under 30 seconds for no obvious reason. Sometimes it seemed like the rate increased when there were other players around, as if it is dynamically keyed to your killing rate or something, but that could just be perception.

Where high respawns really get my goat is in story quests, where all of these problems are heightened and can reach the point of blocking progress. I’d argue there should be no respawns in a story instance at all, but certainly not fast respawns. Out in the world, you can run away in most cases if things become overwhelming and continue on your merry way.

Elsbeth, I agree that there should be no, or extremely few, non-scripted respawns in story mode.

And I’ve had to flee some other areas because the spawns just wouldn’t stop. I was trying to fight my way out, but literally could not make any progress towards the exit because the spawns would not stop. Had to run for it and hope for the best. Very annoying.

Re-spawn rates and the comfort zone(!) are kind of horrible quite often! So, I’ve to agree!

In general it’s kind of sad that they use the same spawn mechanic like actually the first MMO ever… I thought they could come up with something new, immersive what fits to the concept of a living world! But well, that is another topic.

I wish they would at least consider how many players are around in an area when calculating the re-spawn-rate and would implement something like no respawn within double aggro range of any players or something like that!

elsbeth.3567:

High respawn rates are a common issue with this game, though I disagree that every area has respawn rates that are too high.

I would agree. There are a fair amount of places where the respawn rates are within an acceptable range, but even then I’d say that they’re on the high end of the acceptable range. Was not trying to say that every area has respawns too high.

Perhaps a different way of phrasing it would be “respawn rates are universally high enough that if you were to globally lower respawn rates, I doubt any area in the game would suffer because of it.”

It’s even worse when you get 3+ enemies with knock-down chasing after you with such a high respawn rate.

I agree, some areas have too high of a respawn rate!

Today I was exploring in the Sylvari starter area. The area was empty save for me, as there are no hearts in the area nor active DE’s. There were two Risen in the tiny little lake I had happened into, and of course, when I engaged one they both started attacking. Before the second one was dead, the first one had respawned on me! Mind you, I don’t exactly kill things fast, but it can get ridiculous at times.

It is probably quite tricky to hit the sweet spot between “where are all the mobs?” and “gah mobs on top of me!”, but I do hope the devs will look into lowering some respawn rates. Or at least, finding a way to keep mobs from spawning on top of players.

gah! wish i would have seen this post earlier, i just made a thread talking about the same thing.

here’s what i posted:

im really hoping someone can address as to why its this way when they PROMISED there would be scaling ( exe: if there’s 10 players in an area, more enemies will spawn faster, if there’s 1, less will spawn)

there has been several times where ill be downing a mob of 5 or 6 npcs and literally AS soon as i kill them all and heal up, 4 more appear out of THIN AIR right next to me and kill me. there’s another instance where AS im downing the npcs in the area more will spawn out of nowhere, seemingly for $h#*s and giggles.

i’m ALL for having large mobs, but having mobs spawn out of thin air is ridiculous! it would be cool if your enemies can call for reinforcements and it takes an X amount of time till they come.

i really enjoy this game but it really frustrates me as a gamer when i can’t feel the satisfaction of completely wiping out a whole area if the dam npcs are just going to spawn back in less then 30 seconds

I cannot stand these respawns. I was trying to harvest some sweet pumpkins earlier and killed the 4 trolls patrolling them. Once I began digging up the pumpkins, the trolls had respawned already meaning that I had to either kill them again, die or abandon ship.

It really is poorly thought out.

A mob simply can not respawn while you’re still fighting it, that is not acceptable, but does happen. The respawn rate is ridiculous in many places. Respawn rate has to depend on the number of players around the spawn point, however in many cases it seems the game thinks I’m a one man raid.

Stand in an area for a few moments and you’ll notice something. A vast majority of players have resorted to a, “run and gun” style of gameplay. If the quest doesn’t demand the killing of something, or if there is something to collect at the end, players simply don’t bother killing.

The reason? It’s actually worse to clear an area than it is to run through it.

Think about it. I want to get to a chest in a cave. I can fight my way through endless spawning mobs, risk dying, and repair costs, or I can outrun everything, quickly loot the chest, and waypoint out.

Other than mats, or collecting something directly from a creature for the quest, there is no point to fighting your way through creatures.

I suspect what may be happening is that the area the game looks at for respawn is too large. It’s registering players that just happen to be in the area, but not discerning if they’re part of the quest or not. So, for example I may be In a cave with one other person, getting swamped, but a short distance away 20 players are killing a boss. The game thinks those 20 players are part of my area, and scales to meet it.

I dunno, either way its totally annoying. If I kill a camp of Bandits, then that camp should be a wasteland until someone, or something moves in. Persistent world = reason to do things = reason to care.

Orr has badly calculated respawn rates on most places..

Yesterday (one example!) we tried to get a skill point (balthazar) and therefore we had to clear the area around it with a few risens and two veterans.. so killing these was not the point, but in fact after we killed one veteran and then the second the first one came back O.o (not to mention the normal risen were nearly all back..) and we fighted.. well.. maybe for about 10 minutes?

Not amused.

I already commented on that here and other threads, but I really wish one of the devs would give us something concerning that… Or are they working on that and they don’t talk to us before they are almost done with something great here? To be honest, I don’t think so, it’s probably just the desperate try of me to find a “good” reason for the silence! :-/

bumpity.

this needs to be addressed! >.<