Guild Wars 2

You are a regular player and want to give this whole Tequatl a legitimate attempt. You’ve read up on the strategy, packed your Potions of Undead Slaying, put your PVT pants on and have a voice chat program open to join in on efforts of coordination, should any be available.

Here is your option:

• Join an organized Guild / group dedicated to killing Tequatl at a set time and date, where everyone meets up in an Overflow or lower population server. It’s a cohesive group that is interested in seeing progress and improving on mistakes. The larger and more communicative the group, the better your odds of improving.

As you may have noticed it’s also the only option present here, because the others are silly:

• Idle in an Overflow at random times hoping to get into the main map, then hope that an earnest coordinated effort is currently taking place there. If not, continue idling on the main map until a coordinated effort occurs. This usually requires a time investment of anywhere between 2 to 8 hours to bypass Overflow queues on larger servers with no guaranteed return. This is a waste of your time.

• Legitimately attempt the encounter with the people present in your assigned Overflow server upon entering the map. For your viewing pleasure I’ve actually done this (half out of ignorance and half morbid curiosity) and compiled some data on how this plays out, and I am sure many of you will find this to look somewhat familiar:

Attempt [ 1 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 2 – Bone Wall counts: 3 – TQ HP: ~95%

Attempt [ 2 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 3 – Bone Wall counts: 1 – TQ HP: ~80%

Attempt [ 3 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 2 – Bone Wall counts: 2 – TQ HP: ~85%

Attempt [ 4 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 4 – Bone Wall counts: 4 – TQ HP: ~95%

Attempt [ 5 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 3 – Bone Wall counts: 2 – TQ HP: ~70% ((this Overflow had the [AARM] Guild attend and attempt to organize things))

Attempt [ 6 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 1 – Bone Wall counts: 3 – TQ HP: ~90%

Attempt [ 7 ] – Overflow – Commanders present: 4 – Bone Wall counts: 1 – TQ HP: ~90%

The only instance of this yielding a legitimate try is [ 5 ], in which by random chance a Guild chose the current Overflow to stage their attempt. The failures were a combination of AFK players, turrets being used incorrectly, focused damage being too low and people not knowing the fight.

This is also a waste of your time.

((cont.))

((cont.))

Currently we have a playerbase split into roughly two groups: Those who have chosen to group up and those who haven’t, with a few in between that happened to be on the right map at the right time to witness Tequatl actually getting killed (the contribution factor of those varying from player to player). The organized group continues to improve and solidify while the “silly option” crowd gets progressively more discouraged with each 90% attempt that they submit themselves to. Is this an oddly designed encounter to function that way? The arguments go in either direction, but currently it comes down to these three points:

• If you want to legitimately attempt Tequatl, you need to find a group using the forums / server sites / in-game announcements. This can be difficult as you generally have no idea how successful any of them are, but it’s infinitely more productive than the other options.

• If you’re not a part of such group, you are wasting time. Not only yours but that of others too, since you’re milling together with them in a random Overflow creating the apocryphal impression of there being any chance of making any reasonable amount of progress. You won’t. There’s too many factors playing against you no matter how hard you try, and waiting for an above group to randomly show up leaves you with gambling at no viable return, which is, once again, silly.

• Given time, the community will filter into either being part of groups staging planned “Boss” events or lose interest in attempting the content altogether. You don’t want to be in the second category if you’re legitimately interested in seeing this boss dead. The fights are designed to force cooperation and group play across a vast number of people, and the means by which to organize those are left to the players, so you have to be proactive about it.

Simplifying the content would be removing the “organize and overcome this challenge” aspect of the game entirely, and while it may not be possible for everyone’s schedule or play time to be part of such a group, it’s content that is most likely designed to function this way and won’t bar you from the rest of the game. Having said this, it comes down to Tequatl and the other world bosses being optional.

If you have the time and interest to join a Tequatl Kill Group, by all means do so, because it’s the way this encounter was intended to work. Die a lot, get better with people you’ve by now grown to fight with, make some friends and one day get enough luck and numbers aligned to finally kill the stupid thing. Don’t let the “server first” posts discourage you into thinking all these groups are already filled and closed, as this type of content has just started and we’ll continue to see them cropping up and unifying as ArenaNet continues to add more fights of this type.

TL;DR Find a group. Don’t wait for the group to find you.

Good luck you brave souls.

Your advice pretty much sums up the reason why I won’t be attempting this content anymore. When Guild Wars 2 first launched it was supposed to be about providing a game that people can pick up an play for an hour or 2 at any time of the day and enjoy it. When I find myself logging on and having to wait 20,30… 90 minutes just to play with other people and fail, receiving a 90c compensation, I have to wonder what happened to the whole “play your way” approach.

Yes, I know the rest of the content still exists, but nobody is playing it. The new content is disappointingly inclusive to the hardcore/elite audiences. I am perfectly willing to learn how to play the encounter, but I also despise it when developers force their players to use external tools in order to succeed at their content.

Essentially, I am one of the disheartened players and unless ANet offers something as an alternative to this, I’m done with the game.

Joining one of the existing groups (check this forum for NA and EU ones) lets you give the encounter 1-2 attempts per night at 15 minutes each; while this does go against the “play at any time” philosophy, you’re still a far shot away from several hour long raid events to have a try at the rewards.

I agree it’s not for everyone, though; hopefully the next Living Story update will include content of a different type that others can enjoy too!

Tequatl Terror Squad! JOIN US! haha