Guild Wars 2

So, before making a post, I did my homework. I tried the event several times, mulled over the fight, tried again a few times, read other’s thoughts for insight, chatted with others in game, and with my friends.

In short, I think Tequila is a good fight. I like his new mechanics, and as evidenced by some servers not just killable but repeatable.

That said, there are very serious problems with this remake.

First and foremost, there is the problem of Overflow. Overflow is that big middle finger that has popped up every time you wanted to go somewhere everyone else also wanted to go since the beginning of GW2. As someone who works with server applications on a daily basis, I know why it’s there. The problem has always been, however, no matter what the reasoning behind it, it still sucks. A lot. Many do not have the time to wait for hours to join the main server, or the time to burn on spamming ‘join in sparkfly fen’ for 30-60 minutes. And so far no overflow I have been in has even made it to the 75% mark, much less anywhere near complete. Overflows don’t have community, and are conglomerates of many players with different server cultures. No guild which takes part in WvW will want to share their Teamspeak with an overflow, that would be idiot of the century level of bad idea.

Second, there are the other problems often mentioned by players. Most of them are small, but they add up to make for a bad experience for many. These include AFKers, Elitism, and abuse/misuse of the guesting system. AFKers are particularly bad in two cases: first and most importantly in the case of turrets, which are necessary for completing the event, and second there are many who are afk waiting to get into their own server. There are also those who continue to treat Tequila as if he’s just another easy-farm-boss, and are hoping to jump in at convenience for credit, but they will learn soon enough. Elitism will undoubtedly become a prominent if those who want the event/skins but are unwilling/unable to reach the necessary skill level insist on joining en-mass after a week+ goes by.

So, We’ve all heard these problems. AFK turrets undoubtedly needs a fix, but that will come eventually. What I worry about the most is Overflow. A slight improvement came with the sync of events like Scarlet and now Tequila, but in the case of Teq, it has alienated and disillusioned players. People are thinking ‘is this worth it?’ and ‘I can’t even get in with people from my own community.’

So, what do we do? We need explicit overflows for high-population servers which make it so that more people from a given server can play with others from the same server. That’s the only solution I can think of which would alleviate the problem while preserving content as-is. Other options include instancing Teq and letting guilds join up and take him on, and so forth, but all these other ideas I can think of would change the KIND of content Teq is.

Finally, the ultimate question of ‘why is this a big deal?’

This most concerns me because this continues the ongoing trend Anet has taken towards hampering communities. Let me explain this point a little better.

Communities have levels; there is the friends level, usually 4 to 20 people who know eachother well, maybe IRL, maybe not. Then there is the guild level; 20 to 400 people there. Then there is server level, and finally there is the game community as a whole.

Right now, there is support for the game community as a whole, but for servers/guilds/friends, the support is actually very lacking. Events and Activities (i.e. Southsun Survival or Choior Bell minigame) cant be played together, teaming up with friends in PvP is difficult (I know the reasons, still is a letdown), Guilds have a hard time getting everyone in the same map in WvW (or Scarlet, or Teq….), and now servers cant even all group up without a bunch of people basically getting ‘oh, sorry, you were unlucky/not quick enough/not persistent enough, so you’re gonna have to sit this one out.’ These are serious slaps to the face for communities of almost all levels! I know the technical challenges are difficult, but a simple press release of “we’re working on it” would go miles in strengthening my trust that this trend wont get worse.

I encourage all those who take the time to read my post to share their thoughts on the matter. Thank you for reading!

Yes, the overflow IS the main problem.

Players stay in the Sparkfly Fen afk waiting for the Teq event to save a spot(This is other problem because you left your others things in the game like other bosses, dungeons and WvW, only to wait a fail event), but in the midle of the fight, lose the connection with the server, like me, and sent to the overflow server.

Arena Net, the event is amazing, but this is a ONLINE game, the real challenge here at the moment isnt the Tequatl, but connectivity problems.

>_>

I agree that a boss of that caliber does need to be instanced separately from the over-world. At the very least, I can say that the inherent lack of coordination it entails is unreasonable under its current circumstances, primarily for the reasons listed above.

This makes the event very frustrating at times. It also makes exploring/completing the area a challenge since it is very likely a player will get stuck in overflow. This may not sound like a big deal, but some waypoints/pois/ and whatnot are much more difficult when certain events in their area are ongoing. In the normal server, there’s a good chance that there will be players in the area to take care of these events or be able to group up long enough to do so. In overflow, all bets are off. If the overflow is newly created because of a flood of new players camping the event, then players will have to contend with contested waypoints and events choking out key areas all the more.

If the teams plans to do similar things with all of the world bosses, I might end up sorely disappointed. Yeah, they’re an easy farm when giant zergs of players gather together, but is this level of cooperation amongst the players not something the develops wanted to achieve in the first place?

Well put. I’m not sure how they could make it better though. What you are proposing is basically the same system as the one we had in GW1 with different districts?

Anyways, I find it strange that a lot of other (equally big) MMO’s never had the same restrictions. My PC would blow up if they removed the cap though.

Other MMOs added ‘shards’ or ‘zone instances’, where each server gets a few instances of the same zone. Also, other MMOs usually had little to no incentive for players to group up in the overworld. In many ways, GW2 is the first MMO that really felt ‘Massively Multiplayer’ and not just ‘Online with a bunch of people somewhere out there doing other things’

I have to give GW2 tons of credit for encouraging so many to work together.

I would propose that once enough people from a given server are in overflows, a new, ‘server-specific’ overflow is created, and everyone waiting to get into the same home server gets an option to go there. This way all main/overflow servers still have plenty of people, but if enough people from a single server want in a map, they get their own overflow. It would be synced up to the main server event-timer wise, so any events up in main would get spawned there too.

Overflow and guesting are the two biggest problems as far as I see. I can’t get into my own server (Blackgate) because, since we were the first ones to beat him, everyone tries to rush there, creating hours upon hours of waiting to try to actually get into MY OWN SERVER. Very frustrating.

I’d like to add another point that ties into the rest, as with any main map events, you have to deal with the cards you are dealt with. BG was able to organize their map using eles with ice bows and with fiery GS’s….to be honest, it’s basically luck of the draw on who shows up and what class they show up with, it’s really hard to rally a massive guild group on the main server map because of how many sit in the map after the previous fight to save their spots. The hardest hurdle is that first 25% which a massive DPS spike is needed and within a specific amount of time or it’s doomed to fail. Bottom line, it’s way too team build oriented for a main map event. AFKers and trollers do infact kill hope of completeing this because for every person that isn’t trying to kill it, the boss scales in difficulty. It does take all 150 players in the map to complete, this is very evident. Due to this, overflow maps (and thus the vast majority of players attempting to play the content) are doomed to fail.

I’ll pretty much keep trying at it, just because I farm achievements, but the novelty of the event is definitely going to wear off soon. This is definitely a good thing as it gets rid of a number of people that will hurt the map population rather than help, but I do hope the rewards outweigh the effort.

Excellent, just excellent. I support this thread.

Overflows are indeed a problem. I was initially happy to hear Teq was getting updated to apply on all overflows within a 10 minute period. However, it doesn’t look like it’ll be possible in an overflow for a very long time.

I think there are solutions to the issue though. I just hope they get rolled out while the event is still trendy.

Glad to hear others echoing my thoughts. I hope that Anet will catch this thread at some point. I see a lot of people praising the event and having fun, and it deserves it for those who CAN get in, but as for me, I just haven’t been able to enjoy it. I haven’t even gotten to experience his phases and stages yet.

dreadicon.5840:

Other MMOs added ‘shards’ or ‘zone instances’, where each server gets a few instances of the same zone. Also, other MMOs usually had little to no incentive for players to group up in the overworld. In many ways, GW2 is the first MMO that really felt ‘Massively Multiplayer’ and not just ‘Online with a bunch of people somewhere out there doing other things’

I have to give GW2 tons of credit for encouraging so many to work together.

I have played a lot of MMOs recently, and almost every single one had these world bosses in which the server had to group together to get down. In fact, I can’t think of one that didn’t (maybe Neverwinter?)

I actually think this is the first time I felt the need to group in GW2 (outside of instances). So I would like to see more of it. But I do agree with the sentiment of the OP.

I agree with this thread. From what I am reading, I can see that at least most of you were able to participate. I on the other hand got kicked when the event started and was only able to login again after the evnet was over. Of course, ANet’s response to this is to ask for your error message as if no one knows why all this happened. Really?

Right now, as far as I am concerned, this is unfair. They should cancel this event and release it again when they are ready, or at least if I do not meet their requirements to play this new content, then let me at least play the other content.

Turret Trolls, AFK’ers in general.
OverFlow… (Not even being able to add guildys to party, and have them join due to full map, meaning all guildys have to wait ages per attempt. If DC’ed can’t get back even if in group)
No loot for using a turret.

Total uselessness of any spec that relys on Condi/Crit. (Slightly better than most ‘hard’ PvE content as CC is sort of useful sometimes)

Wasn’t there some idea of Mumble or VOIP built into game around beta time?

im pretty much at a point where i just dont give a * censored * about tequila anymore. im on sorrow’s furnace and its like as soon as the event starts (yes in overflow) i can already tell its going to fail. i like a challenge as much as the next person but it’s pretty much that if you’re in overflow (especially if you’re on smaller servers) you might as well not even bother w/ the event. but this is just my opinion….