Guild Wars 2

Am I the only player here who is so sick and tired… SICK AND TIRED… of bad players trying to find little tricks and cheats to dungeons?

I shall provide some examples.

This morning – Fractals of the Mists – LEVEL 10. TEN. That’s all, just TEN. I’m with a Pick-Up Group. Before all the one-liners about “group with friends, lol PuGs, what do you expect” – None of my friends or guildies ever do Fractals, because they are sensible. I, on the other hand, don’t want to be totally behind when ArenaNet see fit to inevitably release more agony related content.

So Level 10 run it is. First fractal is uncategorised. At the Raving Asura we’re told to stand on the sides, on the sloping wall. “It’s an awesome place to stand, you don’t take damage there”. THIS IS A LIE. Half the group downed. Half the group downed on one of the easiest bosses in there.

Next fractal was the dredge one. “FOLLOW ME!” shouts the warrior. He tries to lead the group around the edge of one of the cages straight to the middle section with the two pressure plates and the switch. One guy falls to his death, I can’t make the tiny, precise jumps around the edge since that fractal, more than any other, is just a lag-fest for me. Two other people die and just quit. Wow. Great cheats, these. So time saving, so straightforward, SO REQUIRED.

The alarm bells should have rung for me this morning when one guy in the group asked or answered questions only ever using one word, in all capitals.

It’s not only limited to Fractals of the Mists of course. Little cheats and tricks are found in all dungeons. These usually consist of “This might be the easiest boss ever, but stand here so you take no damage”. Wow. Way to ruin the fun, really. Has noone noticed that the majority of the fun in GW2 is in the combat? If you’re standing on a “super special” spot that the boss can’t hit you on, that completely ruins the actual fun. You’re slowly turning a great game into a korean grindfest. Good job.

I was stunned when someone told me that ArenaNet even condone the scenery cheat in AC Path 1 on the basis that “it lets bad players win”. I’m paraphrasing slightly and taking someone at their word on that, but I find it too believable. Please, ArenaNet, PLEASE stop catering to the worst players. Halt the methods of cheating, force players learn how to fight in this game you have so lovingly crafted, else it all means nothing.

This post was a little erratic, that’s for sure. I had intended to create a more reasonable, well rounded post on this same subject, suggesting reasonable fixes to some of the current dungeon cheats. Fixes such as placing a counter on the number of mobs that must be killed when defending Magg in CoF path 2 in order to pass that section, instead of playing like a meat-head and just kiting everything. This morning’s Fractals run really was the last straw. Something had to snap.

Seriously people. Learn how to fight without cheats.

I don’t see glitching bosses to be as big of a priority that needs fixing so much as glitching multiple paths into one. I drop group the moment people decide to cheat for more than one path, I find that both anti-fun and a silly way to risk being banned (Anet has banned for less, remember).

I hear you man, it gets pretty annoying. So many of the stupid cheats are more hassle than just doing it right. The boss in Uncategorized has to be in the right spot himself to not hit you, that spot just doesn’t always work and isn’t worth it to try. Same with the Dredge fractal, getting into the center cage is not a problem for any team. Same with various other cheats, like the last time I actually fought Mossman. I decided to fight him about a week ago before everyone had a chance to get up in the tree. You would think I came into their homes and murdered their families, I couldn’t believe the rage over such an easy fight.

Zebra.4739:

I don’t see glitching bosses to be as big of a priority that needs fixing so much as glitching multiple paths into one. I drop group the moment people decide to cheat for more than one path, I find that both anti-fun and a silly way to risk being banned (Anet has banned for less, remember).

Is this still a common problem? I was aware of the existance of the Honor of the Waves dual-pathing method but that was some time ago and I assumed it was fixed now. Does it go on with others?

Never heard of this…. Thx for letting me know.

ArenaNet has an email address where you can use to report exploits and other glitches related to dungeon content: exploits@arena.net … whenever I discover an exploit during my pugging sessions, I take screenshots, document how it can be reproduced, and shoot them up an email.

Most of the time, I tend to avoid or even mention that such an exploit exists if I can help it, but if the pugs know about it … then I guess it’s one of those “PuG-Life” sort of things. You either leave the group or just deal with it.

Your best bet really is to report the actual exploit and hope it actually gets patched when the next update comes around.

Sarie.1630:

Is this still a common problem? I was aware of the existance of the Honor of the Waves dual-pathing method but that was some time ago and I assumed it was fixed now. Does it go on with others?

In Arah p2 you can use a portal gun to get to p3 boss, kill it, get 60 tokens and resume p2. It wouldn’t surprise me if it can be done in p1 and p4.

RedStar.4218:

In Arah p2 you can use a portal gun to get to p3 boss, kill it, get 60 tokens and resume p2. It wouldn’t surprise me if it can be done in p1 and p4.

Oh my, what a lovely feature.

I kinda sorta tolerate a certain measure of ‘cheating’ when it comes to special encounters. But it’s super annoying when you actually want to practice/sharpen your reflexes and skill with a character but people whine and cry about practically little thing you do if it’s not exactly what they say.

For instance, that 1st boss in path 3 of SE. Fight starts and everyone runs to that corner like scared little kittens and hop on top of that pile of rubble. I never set foot up there, ever, if only because it’s cheese-dicking the boss and he can’t do anything to you. I will, however run, dodge and kite behind the stairs when he does that underground attack. It’s cheap to do sometimes but the boss is pretty cheap with his 20+ stacks of bleed in seconds and insta-kill charge.

Or in SoE, players want to stand inside Alpha because apparently it can’t drop AoEs on itself and it doesn’t melee. Someone got stuck in crystal outside of the little safezone and I go to help but get told “Just let him die”.

I don’t mind some cheating but when people are actively searching for ways to cheese-dick every kitten encounter in a dungeon, I just have to shake my head and ask “How is that fun?”

Hell, I hardly understand the point of speed runs. Even in the instance you’re trying to get the full set of a dungeon’s armor for the 8th character you’ve gotten it for, running a dungeon the 376th time can still be fun if you’re not trying to cheese-dick everything all the time.

That said, players aren’t solely to blame. Some encounters are just badly made and should really be looked at so that the only way to get by is to cheat your kitten off or gtf o.

Where was the post from ANet condoning the AC Path 1 exploit?

Boss exploits usually wind up being a result of laziness. After doing something multiple times already, the encounter is no longer challenging. For example: I don’t see Subject Alpha and Lupicus to be difficult. It’s more challenging having to res the other people who don’t know/can’t dodge as well. However, exploits to get to your final destination are usually more of a hassle than it’s worth.

It is quite a plight for the people who want to do the boss the normal way, or wish to learn it.

Sera.6539:

Where was the post from ANet condoning the AC Path 1 exploit?

I would like to know that too – that was word of mouth for me. From my point of view a reliable mouth, but nonetheless third party.

Sera.6539:

Boss exploits usually wind up being a result of laziness.

Maybe, maybe for a week…then new players start running that dungeon and can only do it with the cheats because they have been hugged so much they’ve lost any ability to develop any kind of skill.

laharl.8435:

I hear you man, it gets pretty annoying. So many of the stupid cheats are more hassle than just doing it right. The boss in Uncategorized has to be in the right spot himself to not hit you, that spot just doesn’t always work and isn’t worth it to try. Same with the Dredge fractal, getting into the center cage is not a problem for any team. Same with various other cheats, like the last time I actually fought Mossman. I decided to fight him about a week ago before everyone had a chance to get up in the tree. You would think I came into their homes and murdered their families, I couldn’t believe the rage over such an easy fight.

On the dredge thing. I’m sure I’m not the only person who keeps a stack of Ash Legion Spy Kits. I dunno what to think about them really, they make it VERY easy really, but I guess they’re available in PvE and therefore not an exploit. I can live happy in the knowledge I have done it the ‘hard’ way, but the mass ragequit by my party this morning on the basis that they failed at cheating prompted my rather erratic, ranty and ill constructed post. I couldn’t believe my eyes, really.

Yeah, I’m tired of this cheating/exploit nonsense myself. I want to see how many of these people actually know how to do these dungeons when everything gets sorted out. It’s one thing for a person to exploit/cheat, but it’s another when they try to force others to exploit/cheat with them.

I gave PuG groups a try recently and about 75% of my runs are filled with these people. Now that I have my ascended backpiece from fractals, I think I’m just going to stick with my dungeon team’s daily runs until this mess is sorted out.

Sarie.1630:

I would like to know that too – that was word of mouth for me. From my point of view a reliable mouth, but nonetheless third party.

Here is what Robert has to say about this

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Just for the record, standing in a place where you can hurt the boss but the boss can’t hurt you back / can’t fight back is considered an exploit, and we are working on a solution for that problem. As is exploiting terrain like teleporting through walls/closed doors, and getting under/above the map to skip content and get to a place where you can take advantage of bugs or events not requiring previous completion in the order of events (skipping directly to Giganticus lupicus from the start of the arah explore chain for instance).

These are things we patch and fix as we discover them and figure out solutions for. As I have said before, if you see something say something by emailing this alias: Exploits@arena.net

I did HotW path 1 the other day with a pug group and it was agonizing. When we got to the second boss, on the stairs, they all kept wanting to run up above him and try to kill him without getting hit. They failed several times. This is one of the easiest bosses to fight and they were complaining that it couldn’t be done without a couple of heavies, which I know it isn’t true.

Read the post about players getting worse and worse about handling boss fight mechanics because they want to exploit, so much so they can’t fight straight up anymore. It’s frustrating and I want to say that I’ve been seeing this too.

Its acually funny how often skipping and exploiting seems to INCREASE difficulty. Had my share of “omfg why not do it the normal way its much faster than skipping”-moments in arah. Stupidity-increased dungeon difficulty. Its a strange world. And yes i have had people in fractals who wanted to exploit as well. Level 6… Wish i could give them their rewards for the dungeon and make them stay away from it.

I don’t want to complain about players choosing to cheese as it is their game too. But I don’t even want to do a dungeon anymore because it seems to be all cheese or legendary grinders on their 100 th run of the same path that day. Just not fun anymore. Story modes are still fun though especially when just staying in the back and seeing how the others choose to do it. That is what makes it fun for me anyways.

lOKI.8152:

Its acually funny how often skipping and exploiting seems to INCREASE difficulty.

This is more often the case than not. I’m not completely against skipping trash mobs by just running past them…still prefer to kill them but if you’re with a PuG where even just one person wants to skip you’ve got no chance persuading the others to kill. Anyway, it takes one person to not be able to run past mobs without dying to slow you up to the point that you might have well have just killed them.

My solution? Have ArenaNet make all mobs in a dungeon not reset. Even if you jump onto scenery they can teleport up to you. Yeah, that’ll do it. :p

Slither Shade.4782:

I don’t want to complain about players choosing to cheese as it is their game too. But I don’t even want to do a dungeon anymore because it seems to be all cheese or legendary grinders on their 100 th run of the same path that day. Just not fun anymore. Story modes are still fun though especially when just staying in the back and seeing how the others choose to do it. That is what makes it fun for me anyways.

I occasionally advertise for “newbie friendly” explorable runs. Whenever I do that I tend to get a plethora of first timers apply. I tell them all we’ll kill everything and I’ll explain where necessary. We kill bosses the proper way. You find some surprisingly capable players who are just so happy to find a group that doesn’t want “zerker warriors only for 5 min run”. It’s quite satisfying.