Guild Wars 2

You know those people who, at the end of a dungeon, swap to a secondary in order to level him?
The problem: people do this, only to forget they are the one who entered the dungeon > every1 gets kicked out. I’m constantly at the mercy of other people’s stupidity and it bothers me.
The solution: we all know we can’t solve man’s stupidity. I think removing the entire entire-party-gets-kicked-thing isn’t satisfactory either. What would work imo is removing the appeal to swap. So allow only the character that entered the dungeon to be the character that finishes the dungeon, something like that. This way, there’s no more reason to change characters, making victims like me actually able to finish dungeons.
The negative: no more free riding your secondaries to lvl 80. A “sacrifice” (insert Dr. Evil gesture) I’d be very willing to make.

Ty for reading.

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

swiftpaw.6397:

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

^ This.

swiftpaw.6397:

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

True, but this should still be removed outright. It breaks immersion, it forces the other 4 players to carry someone that is too lazy to level their character, and it’s redundant (if you want easy mode leveling then use crafting).

IamDuddits.1692:

swiftpaw.6397:

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

True, but this should still be removed outright. It breaks immersion, it forces the other 4 players to carry someone that is too lazy to level their character, and it’s redundant (if you want easy mode leveling then use crafting).

^

I agree that you shouldn’t trust pugs, morons, or Thieves (they always seem to Backstab you later on… c; ), but it still doesn’t make sense to have this mechanic in the first place.

Arganthium.5638:

IamDuddits.1692:

swiftpaw.6397:

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

True, but this should still be removed outright. It breaks immersion, it forces the other 4 players to carry someone that is too lazy to level their character, and it’s redundant (if you want easy mode leveling then use crafting).

^

I agree that you shouldn’t trust pugs, morons, or Thieves (they always seem to Backstab you later on… c; ), but it still doesn’t make sense to have this mechanic in the first place.

^ Asuras still suck…c:

Heyo, I’m one of those people. I make sure never to be the one that enters, and I always ask the pugs I get in if it is okay with them before I do it. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an issue if they just removed the whole psuedo party leader and didn’t ever kick an entire party out. It’s mindboggling that they haven’t changed that.

Btw, yes I am too lazy to level my alts up. I’ve leveled 3 characters to 80 now. Doing the same zones, same DEs, same personal stories.. it’s really not all that enjoyable.

As for using crafting, this is a free method of getting levels, and it actually earns you money in the process. Not just from the money and loot drops, but because every character gets their own separate “first run” of the day. Meaning, each character will get their 60 tokens before DRing to 20. More tokens, more ectos, more money.

:)

AlietteFaye.7316:

Heyo, I’m one of those people. I make sure never to be the one that enters, and I always ask the pugs I get in if it is okay with them before I do it. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an issue if they just removed the whole psuedo party leader and didn’t ever kick an entire party out. It’s mindboggling that they haven’t changed that.

Btw, yes I am too lazy to level my alts up. I’ve leveled 3 characters to 80 now. Doing the same zones, same DEs, same personal stories.. it’s really not all that enjoyable.

As for using crafting, this is a free method of getting levels, and it actually earns you money in the process. Not just from the money and loot drops, but because every character gets their own separate “first run” of the day. Meaning, each character will get their 60 tokens before DRing to 20. More tokens, more ectos, more money.

:)

So the reason you don’t want this removed is so that you can continue to work around DR? Also your argument for doing the same DEs, same personal story etc. really doesn’t work when you are grinding the same dungeons to level up alts.

Have you ever tried leveling up in WvWvW? In my opinion that would be a better alternative considering you are actually playing the character you are leveling (thus learning the profession) rather than piggy backing them to 80 on a character that you are already familiar with.

From both a role-playing and a game mechanics stand point it simply has no place here. And thank you for bringing up the DR abuse that this always. And yes, I consider it an exploit to complete a dungeon on the same one or two characters but get the full rewards benefit 3-5 times because you swap characters into the dungeon that wouldn’t be able to complete the dungeon.

I don’t find it much of a problem when people swap characters to capitalise on the chunk of XP at the end, the problem is that (like a lot of things in this game) the fact that dungeons reset when the party leader swaps character or disconnects is a huge oversight on Anet’s behalf.

Seems pretty daft that however many months down the line, Anet is busy making quaggan backpacks and dull living story events rather than resolving obvious design flaws like this.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Heyo, I’m one of those people. I make sure never to be the one that enters, and I always ask the pugs I get in if it is okay with them before I do it. Honestly, it wouldn’t be an issue if they just removed the whole psuedo party leader and didn’t ever kick an entire party out. It’s mindboggling that they haven’t changed that.

Btw, yes I am too lazy to level my alts up. I’ve leveled 3 characters to 80 now. Doing the same zones, same DEs, same personal stories.. it’s really not all that enjoyable.

As for using crafting, this is a free method of getting levels, and it actually earns you money in the process. Not just from the money and loot drops, but because every character gets their own separate “first run” of the day. Meaning, each character will get their 60 tokens before DRing to 20. More tokens, more ectos, more money.

:)

I don’t have an issue with this so long as the person intending on doing it lets me know before we start the run so it’s no unexpected. It really doesn’t affect me or my team in the slightest, especially when I insist on opening the instance so there are no kitten-ups at the end.

Once you’ve made your 8th character, no one wants to lvl it up the old fashioned way, it’s boring and grindy, so I find it completely understandable.

Didn’t even know this was a thing. Is it really worth the exp to your alt?

The fact that a whole dungeon resets if the leader disconnects or relogs is a huge oversight.

Dungeons in this game are pretty dull as it is, so if you’ve got an alt you may as well have him benefitting from the xp chunk at the end. There is barely any incentive to run them as it is, so if they remove the ability to use them for levelling an alt you will end up with even fewer people wanting to run them.

So yeah I agree fix the dungeon reset if party leader disconnects, but a getting rid of the XP for alts? Not too sure how that would improve things.

Oolune.4357:

Didn’t even know this was a thing. Is it really worth the exp to your alt?

It’s a whole level (almost, 90% of a level). Pretty fast way to level if you run a few paths per day, but it’s way too cheesy for me. Personally, I don’t mind if people in pugs do it, as long as they ask before hand and the final boss is almost dead before they switch.

IamDuddits.1692:

So the reason you don’t want this removed is so that you can continue to work around DR? Also your argument for doing the same DEs, same personal story etc. really doesn’t work when you are grinding the same dungeons to level up alts.

Have you ever tried leveling up in WvWvW? In my opinion that would be a better alternative considering you are actually playing the character you are leveling (thus learning the profession) rather than piggy backing them to 80 on a character that you are already familiar with.

From both a role-playing and a game mechanics stand point it simply has no place here. And thank you for bringing up the DR abuse that this always. And yes, I consider it an exploit to complete a dungeon on the same one or two characters but get the full rewards benefit 3-5 times because you swap characters into the dungeon that wouldn’t be able to complete the dungeon.

DR is dumb and shouldn’t affect people actually playing the game, anyway. So “working around it” isn’t exactly something I should be ashamed of. Doing the same dungeon to level up alts quickly rather than doing the same DEs, Personal Stories, and Explorations is definitely something that I’d rather be doing. At least it’s a method of getting my alts to max level quicker without making me spend my gold.

Leveling an alt in WvW does not work out very well, actually. It’s slower, you can definitely feel how downscaling is not as fantastic as it should be, and not having your skills and traits unlocked simply sucks.

Again, it isn’t “DR abuse”. It’s one of the FEW perks of having alts, so please don’t complain about it. Just because my character isn’t the appropriate level, doesn’t mean I completed the dungeon any less. Why would I want the extra EXP on my main character? It’s useless to me.

AlietteFaye.7316:

IamDuddits.1692:

So the reason you don’t want this removed is so that you can continue to work around DR? Also your argument for doing the same DEs, same personal story etc. really doesn’t work when you are grinding the same dungeons to level up alts.

Have you ever tried leveling up in WvWvW? In my opinion that would be a better alternative considering you are actually playing the character you are leveling (thus learning the profession) rather than piggy backing them to 80 on a character that you are already familiar with.

From both a role-playing and a game mechanics stand point it simply has no place here. And thank you for bringing up the DR abuse that this always. And yes, I consider it an exploit to complete a dungeon on the same one or two characters but get the full rewards benefit 3-5 times because you swap characters into the dungeon that wouldn’t be able to complete the dungeon.

DR is dumb and shouldn’t affect people actually playing the game, anyway. So “working around it” isn’t exactly something I should be ashamed of. Doing the same dungeon to level up alts quickly rather than doing the same DEs, Personal Stories, and Explorations is definitely something that I’d rather be doing. At least it’s a method of getting my alts to max level quicker without making me spend my gold.

Leveling an alt in WvW does not work out very well, actually. It’s slower, you can definitely feel how downscaling is not as fantastic as it should be, and not having your skills and traits unlocked simply sucks.

Again, it isn’t “DR abuse”. It’s one of the FEW perks of having alts, so please don’t complain about it. Just because my character isn’t the appropriate level, doesn’t mean I completed the dungeon any less. Why would I want the extra EXP on my main character? It’s useless to me.

It sounds like cheesing to me and I fail to see how it isn’t DR abuse. You are running the dungeon several times on one character and only changing characters at the very end so that your reward doesn’t diminish.

If alts have so few perks then why are you leveling one up to begin with? The whole point of making an alt is to try out a new class, which you aren’t even doing because you are just leveling through dungeon rewards?

I understand where you are coming from. Some people obviously don’t like leveling through content for the fifth/sixth time, however, if leveling in this game is so awful that you have to resort to a “work around” to level up an alt then why not just ask ANet to add a “Start at 80” button and save yourself some time. Seems like it’d be easier than swapping characters at the end of a dungeon which, aside from being immersion breaking, is simply an kitten backwards mechanic.

Edit: To elaborate, I agree with you that after five characters (one of each race) there really is little incentive to level up through the content unless you really enjoy it. I think that a “level to 80” option would be good for veteran players that just want to get to the end game dungeons or whatever, however, I disagree with char swapping dungeons as being a solution for this.

Also, keep in mind that leveling the “old fashioned way” serves as a learning process for players to get familiar with a new class. While I’m not implying you are incapable of rapidly learning a class that you power leveled, I’d guess that a lot of people that leveled a new class in this manner end up hitting level 80 with no clue how to play their class properly which leads to miserable dungeon runs for other players.

IamDuddits.1692:

Have you ever tried leveling up in WvWvW? In my opinion that would be a better alternative considering you are actually playing the character you are leveling (thus learning the profession) rather than piggy backing them to 80 on a character that you are already familiar with.

Yes, actually I have, and no, it’s nowhere near as fast. Besides WvW really isn’t my forte. I actually like the personal story, and dungeon leveling is an easy way to get the levels you need in order to do your next story step.

On top of that, have you seen the state of lfg’s lately? There are a lot of people who won’t take players under level 80. Char swapping is generally a nice compromise as the final boss is so very seldom defeated purely by dps, instead relying on a unique mechanic.

IamDuddits.1692:

Edit: To elaborate, I agree with you that after five characters (one of each race) there really is little incentive to level up through the content unless you really enjoy it. I think that a “level to 80” option would be good for veteran players that just want to get to the end game dungeons or whatever, however, I disagree with char swapping dungeons as being a solution for this.

The point of the game is for people to play as much as possible in order to become invested (thus increasing the possibility that you share it with friends or purchase something from the store). Even dungeon leveling through char swapping has a significant time investment.

However a button/option which essentially says “Boop, you’re done,” doesn’t support that idea. That more than character switching is a cop out which Anet would never implement without a significant cost to the player.

IamDuddits.1692:

Also, keep in mind that leveling the “old fashioned way” serves as a learning process for players to get familiar with a new class. While I’m not implying you are incapable of rapidly learning a class that you power leveled, I’d guess that a lot of people that leveled a new class in this manner end up hitting level 80 with no clue how to play their class properly which leads to miserable dungeon runs for other players.

A bad player is a bad player. I do use my alts in PvE and personal story, so I know how to use them. Don’t confuse individual ineptitude for a broken system. Leveling alts by character swapping doesn’t mean that character isn’t getting used; you just don’t see how it’s used.

Edit:
Other than the DC issue (which is sort of a separate failure of the dungeon system), I’m not sure what experiences have lead to such a negative view of Char swapping for you.

However, personally, I do it for the party as much as myself. My 80 has more skills unlocked. Therefore, I can be more versatile, switching from support/healing/condition removal, to pure speed/evasion,and back to plain old DPS mid run as needed whereas my alt is pretty much speced for soloing (because PvE and personal story are largely individual efforts for me; I have to hold my own on my own).

Therefore, the run goes more smoothly than if had used my alt the entire time.

I always ask before the run if anyone would mind if I switch. If they had minded, I would either accept it or excuse myself from the party.

I don’t bring in alts who aren’t at least level appropriate for the dungeon, and I fight the final boss with my alt. I try to do as much work as I can not to inconvenience the party, so I don’t really see the problem the same way as you.

However, I think a valid solution would be to 1) Open the dungeon yourself and 2) simply tell people that you don’t want them char swapping.

In my opinion it depends on when they do it, and what level/what dungeon they are doing it in.

And for those saying that its a ‘free’ levelling method, well its actually not. If you miss the death of the boss once, thats 40 silver missed out on, if you are transfering at the end of the dungeon mid boss fight you dont get the boss’s drop (15 silver), and dungeon cash rewards are scaled based on level. So if you level from 20-80 via dungeons, you will need to complete approximately (60/0.7 = 85 dungeons). If each one you miss out on between 10-40 silver (which is an accurate value, especially when you consider you cant buff the silver drops from bosses via omnoms/gildeds since you arent 80 yet), lets round to approximately 15 silver lost a run (id call that a low value, but lets go with it). Therefore 85 * 15 = 12.75 gold. Last time I tried, I could probably get 5 crafts to 400 with that much gold, in far less time. With a more ‘contributory’ value assuming that players are swapping when bosses are at 20% HP give or take, players will lose boss gold (15-20 silver depending on omnoms/gildeds) + from dungeon reward. Probably an average of 25 silver a dungeon, meaning lost cash from swapping is in the realm of 21 gold. Is it still worth it?

TLDR:

- Running on a low level character means less cash value from dungeon rewards
- Assuming a conservative 15s lost a run, and 85 runs from 20-80 will be over 10g
- Assuming a more realistic 25s lost per run, will be over 20g
- Crafting may be a more initial bank ‘shock’ but not necessarily more costly in the long run.

@Raina:
The thing is, you can do both. You can do char swapping to get money in order to craft whilst gaining almost a level from the dungeon. The two tasks aren’t mutually exclusive regardless of monetary loss.

Also, I wasn’t aware that people swapped mid battle. I have always switched at the last checkpoint before the final boss and beaten him/her/it with the alt.

IamDuddits.1692:

It sounds like cheesing to me and I fail to see how it isn’t DR abuse. You are running the dungeon several times on one character and only changing characters at the very end so that your reward doesn’t diminish.

If alts have so few perks then why are you leveling one up to begin with? The whole point of making an alt is to try out a new class, which you aren’t even doing because you are just leveling through dungeon rewards?

I understand where you are coming from. Some people obviously don’t like leveling through content for the fifth/sixth time, however, if leveling in this game is so awful that you have to resort to a “work around” to level up an alt then why not just ask ANet to add a “Start at 80” button and save yourself some time. Seems like it’d be easier than swapping characters at the end of a dungeon which, aside from being immersion breaking, is simply an kitten backwards mechanic.

Edit: To elaborate, I agree with you that after five characters (one of each race) there really is little incentive to level up through the content unless you really enjoy it. I think that a “level to 80” option would be good for veteran players that just want to get to the end game dungeons or whatever, however, I disagree with char swapping dungeons as being a solution for this.

Also, keep in mind that leveling the “old fashioned way” serves as a learning process for players to get familiar with a new class. While I’m not implying you are incapable of rapidly learning a class that you power leveled, I’d guess that a lot of people that leveled a new class in this manner end up hitting level 80 with no clue how to play their class properly which leads to miserable dungeon runs for other players.

I am not doing it to avoid the DR at all. You get DR after the first time you run the dungeon on any character. You don’t continuously get 60 tokens because you switched, you get it once per day per character. That’s not avoiding DR at all. That’s the way that ANEt designed it, and that was only changed to be so very recently.

I’m leveling alts because I have nothing else to do in the game. I have a Legendary, I’ve got Dungeon Master, and I’m entirely bored with my current selection of max-level professions that I can properly WvW on. I want to try out builds and ideas that I have for all the professions, not just the ones I have currently.

As for asking ANet to have a “start at level 80” button, that wouldn’t happen. That would be asking and waiting for something that is clearly not going to be implemented. That’s actually just a waste of time, in fact.

The problem with char swapping is non-existent. The actual problem is that dungeons are kicking players out when the psuedo “party leader” swaps. ANet should just fix that and get all the issues fixed that way.

Direngrey.8376:

Arganthium.5638:

IamDuddits.1692:

swiftpaw.6397:

Simple: Don’t trust pugs.
Always open the dungeon yourself.
Problem solved.

True, but this should still be removed outright. It breaks immersion, it forces the other 4 players to carry someone that is too lazy to level their character, and it’s redundant (if you want easy mode leveling then use crafting).

^

I agree that you shouldn’t trust pugs, morons, or Thieves (they always seem to Backstab you later on… c; ), but it still doesn’t make sense to have this mechanic in the first place.

^ Asuras still suck…c:

^- Must be a Charr player. Darn furries.

Already been addressed by the devs. It’s an intended and acceptable use of the party mechanics. Learn and let live.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Already been addressed by the devs. It’s an intended and acceptable use of the party mechanics. Learn and let live.

Source?

Anyway, I never advocated for the removal of the entire kick thing. It sucks when it happens to you though, and the main reason for that would be the party leader erroneously swapping chars. Remove the appeal to swap, and problem’s solved.

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

Sarcasmic.6741:

Already been addressed by the devs. It’s an intended and acceptable use of the party mechanics. Learn and let live.

Source?

Anyway, I never advocated for the removal of the entire kick thing. It sucks when it happens to you though, and the main reason for that would be the party leader erroneously swapping chars. Remove the appeal to swap, and problem’s solved.

What about when the party leader D/C’s and accidentally clicks the wrong character? There’s a new problem because you didn’t solve the actual issue. Stop kicking entire parties because of one player.

im amazed they havent fixed the instance closing when the owner leaves/changes character

i felt really bad yesterday because i left a group at the end of CoE p3 before we got tokens, and we had time to res the two dead players so im guessing one must have been afk and not skipped the cutscene; i only realised we didnt get tokens when one of the party members started yelling at me over whisper >_<

Next update will be fixing this issue so anyone can swap. No originators/starters. As for your idea of no swap allowed then am I suppose to take a hit in loot and experience to switch my character to one of my many 80s in order to allow the group to finish? I usually follow groups to the very end even if some are pretty bad pugs. I sometimes get my guard (been told many many times that I provide great support) or my ele (for ice bows and fgs) to help. Sorry but it must remain part of the game or I will leave new players who are struggling on their own instead of teaching and working hard for our success.

My suggestion would be quite simple. Let them know if they started that they cannot swap or even simpler indicating in your LFG no swapping. Cheers!!

Your necromancer skills seem to be most formidable.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Your necromancer skills seem to be most formidable.

The power of Necromancers aside, the new system opens up a different and funny new scenario:
5 people in a dungeon who don’t communicate. Five people who decide to relog at the last boss… Great fun for everyone!

I’ve actually been waiting for something along those lines to happen already, only with 3-4 people swapping characters. But the best I got so far were two who did that without announcing it beforehand in Cof 1.