Guild Wars 2

I was in Arah dungeon explorable alone to do some testing, when at a certain point I received a request from someone I had never seen before to join his party.
I refused (REFUSED) because I couldnt be bothered watching that flashing name on my screen, and I got instakicked from the dungeon.
Now the question is: wtf?

Edit: I tried to make this happen again with a guildmate, and not only this happened when I refused his request, but ALSO when he canceled his own request.
This means that if I’m alone in a dungeon anyone could kick me out just sending me a request and canceling it.

Make the people uninvitable when they are already in a dungeon. Just a plus check.

evolverzilla.2359:

Make the people uninvitable when they are already in a dungeon. Just a plus check.

Only problem with that is if someone does have to drop out due to real life issues and they want to find a replacement. It would be better to code it so that if someone leaves the group on their own (not kicked) that it does not activate that part of the code. And allow an option to hide the part of the invite that shows party invite requests if someone is in the instance.

Whatever is done, I think it’s absolutely critical to the health of the game that we be allowed to kick people from runs at any point. I’m all for anti-griefing, but if someone joins a group and trolls/flames/etc. and generally makes life miserable for everyone else, we absolutely need to be able to remove him/her from the group and replace him/her without fear of getting our instance reset. That also applies to people who just leave mid-run (ie. they leave group or they log off). That is so important, I cannot emphasize it enough.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It is caused from our new tech that keeps party leaders from disbanding parties without being punished (we close the instance if the party leader disbands so he can’t re-invite friends/guildies after using PUGs to get to the final boss)

Which is something that practically never happened anyway. What does happen is parties with a couple of guildmates inviting PUG players and then kicking them before the last boss to invite guildies. The leader never needs to leave the party, he just needs someone to confirm his kick.

And that still works perfectly with the current system – the recently invited guildies get 60 tokens and the PUGs who played through the entire dungeon get nothing (well, maybe 6 tokens or so from the blue bags – hooray!).

Is it really so complicated to give people tokens for killing each boss (ex., 20 tokens per boss), instead of 60 tokens for simply being present in the dungeon when the last boss dies…?

And is it so hard to code the party system in a way that it doesn’t get completely broken (players kicked out, replacement players sent to separate instance, etc.) if the party leader gets disconnected or needs to leave?

Dozens of other MMOs seem to have solved these issues years ago; GW2 has actually gotten worse since release (the way FotM handles disconnections is the biggest failure of QA I’ve ever seen in a major game).

Account.9832:

Is it really so complicated to give people tokens for killing each boss (ex., 20 tokens per boss), instead of 60 tokens for simply being present in the dungeon when the last boss dies…?

Yes, it is, because then no one completes the dungeon and just farms the first boss. Don’t think for a second anyone would finish Arah paths if it worked like this; people would just farm the p3 first boss more and more. The same applies for anywhere else if you want the tokens.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, it is, because then no one completes the dungeon and just farms the first boss.

First: What would be the problem with that? If a group of five people prefer to do one boss 4 times instead of doing 4 different bosses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? It’s not like dungeons even have a difficulty progression; the first boss is often a lot harder than the last one.

Second: The game has a diminishing returns system that reduces the number of tokens to 1/3rd on your second run of the day, so if you killed the first boss 4 times you would get 20+7+7+7, whereas doing 4 bosses would give you 20+20+20+20. How does the former count as “farming”, when they would be getting less tokens…?

Third: If people are only playing through the dungeons to get tokens, that means the dungeons are not enjoyable and need to be improved; limiting the number of tokens people get (i.e., making them get no tokens if the dungeon bugs or someone has to leave before the last boss dies) isn’t actually increasing their enjoyment, it’s just making them spend more time doing something they don’t like (and Arena Net doesn’t gain anything – either financially or in terms of reputation – by doing that).

Account.9832:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, it is, because then no one completes the dungeon and just farms the first boss.

First: What would be the problem with that? If a group of five people prefer to do one boss 4 times instead of doing 4 different bosses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? It’s not like dungeons even have a difficulty progression; the first boss is often a lot harder than the last one.

Second: The game already has a diminishing returns system that reduces the number of tokens to 1/3rd on your second run of the day, so if you killed the first boss 4 times you would get 20+7+7+7, whereas doing 4 bosses would give you 20+20+20+20. How does the former count as “farming”, when they would be getting less tokens…?

I can already see the hordes of people farming crusher & hunter in arah because they’re like the easiest bosses ever.

DR works only on the completion so that would mean more coding and more possible bugs.

Account.9832:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, it is, because then no one completes the dungeon and just farms the first boss.

First: What would be the problem with that? If a group of five people prefer to do one boss 4 times instead of doing 4 different bosses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? It’s not like dungeons even have a difficulty progression; the first boss is often a lot harder than the last one.

Second: The game has a diminishing returns system that reduces the number of tokens to 1/3rd on your second run of the day, so if you killed the first boss 4 times you would get 20+7+7+7, whereas doing 4 bosses would give you 20+20+20+20. How does the former count as “farming”, when they would be getting less tokens…?

Third: If people are only playing through the dungeons to get tokens, that means the dungeons are not enjoyable and need to be improved; limiting the number of tokens people get (i.e., making them get no tokens if the dungeon bugs or someone has to leave before the last boss dies) isn’t actually increasing their enjoyment, it’s just making them spend more time doing something they don’t like (and Arena Net doesn’t gain anything – either financially or in terms of reputation – by doing that).

cant argue with this guys logic. i would suggest anet introduces a system that is voluntary and locks the party. it wouldnt be mandatory and i imagine it would be popular with pugs. but allow individual players to leave the party but disable kicking.
i for 1 would make use of this as right now im a little apprehensive about doing dungeons. or make a vote at the beginning of any party that asks “lock party?” and if they vote no then get out of there before any damage is done. of course you should allow for kicking if a player is not in the instance for maybe 3 minutes. to prevent join griefers and make sure theres no exploit to join multiple parties.

haviz.1340:

DR works only on the completion

Duh. Token DR only works on completion because you only get tokens on completion. It’s absolutely trivial to apply it to each boss.

Pretty much every other MMO does this (so that you can’t get loot from the same raid boss twice in the same week, although you can still join groups and play the raid from the start to get loot from the bosses you haven’t killed).

haviz.1340:

that would mean more coding and more possible bugs.

Don’t fix what is a clearly bugged design (leading to frequent customer frustration) because you’re afraid of some potential coding bugs? Kind of the wrong attitude. I hope that’s not Arena Net’s justification, because it would suggest a deeply misguided business model.

poe lyfe.5879:

allow individual players to leave the party but disable kicking.

Kicking is fine and a useful mechanic in some situations, as long as people get the rewards for what they actually do in the dungeon. If someone killed 3/4 of the bosses and got kicked at the end, he should get 3/4 of the rewards. What doesn’t make any sense is the current system where you get 60 tokens simply for being in the group when the last boss dies.

It has led to groups of 2 or 3 people from the same guild using PUG players to kill everything up to the last boss, then kicking the PUG players and inviting friends from their guild, so their friends get the 60 tokens and the players who were kicked get nothing.

As long as players receive tokens for the bosses they actually killed (and only for those), this kind of jerk behaviour will stop paying off.

It will also ensure that if someone needs to leave half way through a dungeon due to some real-life issue, he or she will at least get the rewards for the bosses killed up to that point.

Account.9832:

First: What would be the problem with that? If a group of five people prefer to do one boss 4 times instead of doing 4 different bosses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? It’s not like dungeons even have a difficulty progression; the first boss is often a lot harder than the last one.

The entire goal of putting the tokens at the end, for ANet was to force players to play the entire paths instead of farming the first boss. I don’t necessarily care how ANet handles it because I will personally play the dungeons either way to get tokens in whatever way is fastest, but they specifically stated this. The man you want to answer this question is Rob.

Account.9832:

Second: The game has a diminishing returns system that reduces the number of tokens to 1/3rd on your second run of the day, so if you killed the first boss 4 times you would get 20+7+7+7, whereas doing 4 bosses would give you 20+20+20+20. How does the former count as “farming”, when they would be getting less tokens…?

This plays into the ‘dungeon rewards still need work’ topic that Rob has already said his team is working on, but the point stands that with countless dungeons—even with 1/3 rewards like you note—it would be a more efficient use of a player’s time to farm the first boss. This is definitely true with, say, Arah, CoE, HotW, well… Almost all of them. For instance, if you can get 27 in 6m, or 80 in 120 minutes, it’s pretty clear which you’d go for.

Account.9832:

Third: If people are only playing through the dungeons to get tokens, that means the dungeons are not enjoyable and need to be improved; limiting the number of tokens people get (i.e., making them get no tokens if the dungeon bugs or someone has to leave before the last boss dies) isn’t actually increasing their enjoyment, it’s just making them spend more time doing something they don’t like (and Arena Net doesn’t gain anything – either financially or in terms of reputation – by doing that).

No… It really only means that “people want the best rewards for their time investment”. Enjoyment really doesn’t factor into it. I, for instance, love Arah. I love all the hard parts, Simin, GL, the works. It’s an amazing dungeon and I always have fun playing it. However, I only play the parts of Arah that maximize why I am going to Arah (tokens). I’ll enjoy myself regardless, so I take the path of least resistance, and farm where I can. Your proposed suggestion does not reward appropriately enough for me to want to ever finish a path, and I personally think that’s a problem. There should always be a “you finished the whole path” reward in my opinion, because in my opinion that’s the only way you’ll really encourage people to do it in the first place. I repeat ‘in my opinion’ because some people might not care about finishing paths, but I have really liked being encouraged by the end reward to finish paths. It pays me really well to enjoy the dungeon as much as I can, and that’s nice.

Rising Dusk.2408

The entire goal of putting the tokens at the end, for ANet was to force players to play the entire paths instead of farming the first boss.

Do you have a link to that?

The anti-farming mechanism is the diminishing returns (i.e., the reduction in the number of tokens when you repeat the same content). Which is something completely different from the location of those tokens. It’s absolutely trivial to apply diminishing returns to each boss chest separately; it can be done with exactly one bit of storage on the player’s account.

In fact, the DR system also applies to events and chests in the open world, that don’t have any “tokens”, so we know the code is already there.

Add to that the fact that in nearly every dungeon the first boss is a lot harder than the last one, and it really doesn’t make any sense. I can solo several of the final bosses. The first ones are often a PITA even with 4 or 5 players.

Rising Dusk.2408

This plays into the ‘dungeon rewards still need work’

The issue isn’t the actual rewards. The issue is the way they are distributed, and how they are connected to the “work” involved in obtaining them.

Does any company pay its employees for “being present at the office on the last day of the year” ? Or do they pay them after completing each objective (ex., each job) or at regular intervals (ex., at the end of the month – based on the number of days they actually worked) ?

Rising Dusk.2408

with countless dungeons—even with 1/3 rewards like you note—it would be a more efficient use of a player’s time to farm the first boss.

Really? So you think you can kill Kholer in 1/3rd of the time it takes you to kill the Ghost Eater (or any of the AC bosses) ? You think you can kill Seamus in 1/3rd of the time it takes you to kill Vallog (or any of the CM bosses) ?

Go on, count them. I’m sure they’re not just not “countless”, they’re actually countable on the fingers of one hand. Possibly a hand belonging to an incompetent bomber.

And that is still an irrelevant point, because there is no benefit to anyone (player or Arena Net) in making people play through content they don’t like. If some people do prefer to kill Kholer three times (instead of doing the next two bosses in AC), why shouldn’t they do it? Who gains anything by forcing (or even “encouraging”) those players to do content they enjoy less?

It’s as if some GW2 designers are stuck into a WoW mentality, where “making people waste time with the game” is the ultimate goal. All this kind of design does is drive people away from GW2 and worsen Arena Net’s reputation.

The “addicted grinder” demographic is not a good source of income for the gem store.

Rising Dusk.2408

Enjoyment really doesn’t factor into it.

Maybe that’s the problem. And maybe Arena Net needs to read its own manifesto. Some of the designers apparently never did. Fun should always be the #1 factor.

Rising Dusk.2408

There should always be a “you finished the whole path” reward in my opinion,

If you’re not enjoying the path, then the “reward” is really just a bribe; an excuse to save the developers the work of improving that path, or of giving you alternatives that you might enjoy more. And if you are enjoying the path, then the reward is the fun you had playing it.

Nevermind, apparently it’s a concept that many MMO players (and sadly some designers) simply don’t understand.

P.S. – Besides, currently there is no “you finished the whole path” reward. There is simply a “you were present in the group when the last boss died” reward.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Thanks for the report on this. It is caused from our new tech that keeps party leaders from disbanding parties without being punished (we close the instance if the party leader disbands so he can’t re-invite friends/guildies after using PUGs to get to the final boss)
We’re investigating solutions to this.

i was just in a cof dungeon, and i was the party leader, now the pug that went in with us was the person to actually go in the dungeon, he decided to leave 3/4 the way through it, and we all got booted, is that the same mechanic? we were needless to say, pretty kitten never taking pug again, untill this mechanic is fixed/altered. and i like taking pugs and teaching/ meeting new ppl, this however leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

black sun empress.7401:

the person to actually go in the dungeon, he decided to leave 3/4 the way through it, and we all got booted, is that the same mechanic?

That’s an even older bug, that has been in the game since release (since before release, actually).

In GW2, the “party” is treated as a sub-entity of the account of the first player to enter the dungeon. This means that, if that player needs to leave, other people will get booted out, and if the player gets disconnected, any new players you invite to replace him will get sent to a separate instance (where all the bosses are alive, and where they can’t see the rest of the group).

Again, something that pretty much every other MMO solved years ago (by making the “party” an independent entity, and simply “promoting” one of the remaining players to “party leader” when the leader leaves or gets disconnected).

After 5 years of development and 8 months of public access with people reporting this issue on a daily basis, it still doesn’t work properly in GW2.

My only problem with dungeons is that the time vs reward isn’t quite there yet, a dungeon like Arah should give way more tokens than for example Ascalon Catacombs, the time it takes to do a path in Arah is almost the same it takes to finish AC 3 paths <.<"

Letifer.4360:

My only problem with dungeons is that the time vs reward isn’t quite there yet, a dungeon like Arah should give way more tokens than for example Ascalon Catacombs, the time it takes to do a path in Arah is almost the same it takes to finish AC 3 paths <.<"

Depends which path. Pugs farming path 3 (and sometimes path 2) can do them pretty fast.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Thanks for the report on this. It is caused from our new tech that keeps party leaders from disbanding parties without being punished (we close the instance if the party leader disbands so he can’t re-invite friends/guildies after using PUGs to get to the final boss)
We’re investigating solutions to this.

Nice. How many months more we have to wait to put an end on this trolling attempt ruining the gameplay?

The problem is:

This topic changed to a full 180 degress. The problem is an problem with some mechanic in the game not make a dungeon soloable, killing one boss or else.

If you really want this, there are other topics to discuss.

And I don´t see none problem in make someone uninvitable if he is in a dungeon. How did you can invite someone if they are in another party or if he is in another dungeon. I´m not talking about people inside a dungeon invite someone outside.

Account.9832:

Do you have a link to that?

I really don’t want to nitpick what I respond to since your post deserves a full reply, but I just spent way too much time finding the link for you.

Account.9832:

Does any company pay its employees for “being present at the office on the last day of the year” ? Or do they pay them after completing each objective (ex., each job) or at regular intervals (ex., at the end of the month – based on the number of days they actually worked) ?

I will respond to this. Many companies actually pay you primarily for completing a total task or, in many instances, finishing a specific sale. They do this in order to encourage the employee to follow through and succeed at the whole sale, not just a part of the sale. This is analogous to what is currently implemented in dungeons (small bags of little loot to give you a little now, then a big lump sum when you finish). This is largely philosophical in nature as to which is superior, but is based on whether the company really needs individual sales or whether moving along slowly and steadily towards some far-off goal is the plan. Just like dungeons, people will do them regardless; I want to get paid, and I like my company, so whatever they decide is best is what it is, and I’ll deal with it. That’s my philosophy in GW2 as well (Anet decides, and I’ll work with whatever happens) I don’t really like this analogy, though, because with my company I can take a 4 week vacation and get paid for the whole thing. Wouldn’t that be nice in GW2? :P

Suffice to say, there are pitfalls to both approaches, and I don’t think it is fair to claim one is objectively superior to the other. I personally like the way we have it now, and think that as far as anti-griefing is concerned, I’d rather them find a way to ‘transfer ownership of an instance’ than punish legitimate uses of the ‘kick’ functionality.

Also, let’s remind ourselves that this topic is about the anti-griefing mechanism… Not the rewards. Derailing threads results in their locking (I am partially responsible here too). Rob has already noted repeatedly (search his dev posts) that some dungeons still need reward tweaks to be worthwhile. They’re working on it, and I think that’s all I really want to say on the matter.

Ye agree the thread was having a bit of confusion, if someone was pointing the fact to allow solorun in peace

If it´s an allow solorun or not, it´s not the point. No one have the right to bother no one in the game. And use this to bother people who are trying to solo a dungeon (even against my opnion…) is against even the rules of the game.

Everyone has the rights to play without being bothered by other players.