Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Plain and simple this system is a safety net for stopping crazy farming when people find exploits that make each run super fast. We are also addressing those loopholes, but that takes time and new ones might always be discovered. If you and your group do the dungeons without skipping large sections and run different chains this system shoul(bugs aside) never impact you.

Addendum for clarity, super fast means < 30 minutes, and even then you must hit that speed multiple times in a row before you start seeing any impact.

Emphasis mine.

Seriously guys. Yes there are bugs, and there will be bugs, and there will never be a time that there are not bugs in a system this large. It’s a hard fact of programming that when you have hundreds of thousands of people interacting with the same instance of a program, things will invariably break for some reason or another. Let alone the fact that there’s probably additional content being designed by people not fixing the current bugs right now (well, maybe not right now since it’s 7 at night over there, but that’s beside the point).

From the above and other dev statements, I surmise the following is true about dungeons and dungeon rewards:

1) The ideal rewards are 60 tokens for the first run of each path on each day (determined by a universal reset time on entrance), 20 tokens on each repeat of that path on the same day, and a sum of silver and exp.

2) Dungeons are supposed to be tuned such that even the best teams find it very hard if not impossible to complete in less than 30 minutes, if done correctly (without exploits, in other words).

3) Diminishing Returns should affect the standard rewards when one or both of two conditions are true:

A: You run the same path back-to-back within the same reset period (possibly with a small allowance of runs)
B: You have several consecutive runs of less than 30 minutes, ignoring reset periods.

4) The DR mechanic is not meant to punish players, except those that choose to farm one easy path over and over in a small time period or use bugged mechanics to finish dungeons significantly faster than expected, the second of which is against the Rules of Conduct and thus, strictly speaking, should lead to a suspension or ban (Yes, it’s bugged. No, that does not give you the right to exploit it. You legally agreed not to when you started playing).

An aside: I would posit that these two actions tend to go hand-in-hand, as most ‘legit’ players will want to do each path of a dungeon at least once to get the first-run-of-the-day bonus of x3 tokens, an activity that should take a minimum of 1.5 hours, and likely longer. This is a significant time investment for most people, and any further time would be for a much lesser reward until after the reset. For reference, at 60 tokens per run, a full dungeon set could be gotten in as little as a week of only doing the three first-runs per day for a total of 20 completions, and a minimum of 10 hours. At 20/run, that increases to ~50 runs and 25 hours, assuming a blisteringly fast 30 minutes per run.

5) The DR system is unfortunately bugged, causing players to be affected even when they are playing normally. They have isolated and fixed at least one bug, and the system is undergoing internal testing currently. In other words, the system is not working as intended. Please stop acting like it is.

Are there balancing issues with the dungeons? Possibly. But that’s a different discussion altogether; the Diminishing Returns system for dungeon rewards shouldn’t impact anyone playing normally, except for maybe the very top tier of players than can clear some paths legitimately in under 30 minutes. And if that ends up being the case, I’m sure Anet will re-evaluate either the system or that path.

So if everyone can just take a deep breath and understand that Anet is working on a solution for the DR system bugs, we can stop worrying about this (though keep submitting reports!) and focus more on other issues.

Agreed. It’s unbelievable the amount of complaining over this. No matter what they do, even if it’s diminishing your rewards by 50% each run (which it’s not)… ANY such system is still way, way more rewarding than a 24 lockout which most games have.

People are complaining because it can be fixed by simply removing the DR system, a rediculous system to punish every players.

People are complaining because people don’t think running dungeon efficiently (even you run it in a normal way) should be punished. However, the devs choose to refuse listening to the community and insist what they are doing.

People are complaining because Anet don’t have a decent QA team to test stuff before it is released again, again and in the future.

People are complaining because the devs said they didn’t want us to grind anything but they designed something you must grind it to get it.

Err… my rewards have been diminished by, roughly, 75%. Due to bugs, obviously. Am I getting all these rewards (which I legitimately earned with hours of efforts) back in some way? Guess what, no. I have, at least, the right to complain as loud as I like.

If they wanted to punish people repeatedly running the fastest dungeon they already took half a step in the right direction.

the 20+40 reward makes it more lucrative to complete all the dungeons once instead of the same dungeon 9 times. In the event someone can STILL find a way to run a dungeon 9 times before others can do all 3 dungeons once, they should look for actualy GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS to be fixed, such that the dungeon’s difficulty is balanced.

DR is NOT THE RIGHT SOLUTION.

DeadlyStormZ.2370:

People are complaining because it can be fixed by simply removing the DR system, a rediculous system to punish every players.

People are complaining because people don’t think running dungeon efficiently (even you run it in a normal way) should be punished. However, the devs choose to refuse listening to the community and insist what they are doing.

People are complaining because Anet don’t have a decent QA team to test stuff before it is released again, again and in the future.

People are complaining because the devs said they didn’t want us to grind anything but they designed something you must grind it to get it.

So you’s prefer a 24 hour lockout so that you can run an explorable dungeon once, like most mmo’s do? I mean I’m not terribly in love with the whole DR system, as I feel it’s not a very elegant solution to the problem, but it’s quite obviously more rewarding than a lockout.

Hawken.7932:

DeadlyStormZ.2370:

People are complaining because it can be fixed by simply removing the DR system, a rediculous system to punish every players.

People are complaining because people don’t think running dungeon efficiently (even you run it in a normal way) should be punished. However, the devs choose to refuse listening to the community and insist what they are doing.

People are complaining because Anet don’t have a decent QA team to test stuff before it is released again, again and in the future.

People are complaining because the devs said they didn’t want us to grind anything but they designed something you must grind it to get it.

So you’s prefer a 24 hour lockout so that you can run an explorable dungeon once, like most mmo’s do? I mean I’m not terribly in love with the whole DR system, as I feel it’s not a very elegant solution to the problem, but it’s quite obviously more rewarding than a lockout.

I didn’t say I perfer a 24-hour lockout. The DR system is just a failure.

@DeadlyStormZ:

• Removing the DR system comes with its own return of problems, such as the rampant farming of CoF (which, let’s be honest, the removal of which is a big reason a lot of people arekitten off)

• If you’re going to argue pure efficiency, re-read my aside. You spend somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total time just running each path once per day versus farming one (or more) paths constantly. Last I checked, less time spent is more efficient.

• No QA team in existence can accurately simulate 100,000+ people simultaneously and actively causing ‘hits’ on a program that is also dealing with another 200,000+ people doing seemingly unrelated things on the same program. This is just a misunderstanding of the realities of programming. Understandable, but unrealistic.

• I know this sounds like a cop-out, but there are other things in the game to do besides dungeons, that lead to the same quality rewards in terms of statistics (and aesthetics, depending on your preferences). If they handed every shiny piece of armor to you on a silver platter, would you honestly still be playing? Yes, there’s grind, but it’s of the ‘I feel like doing this because it sounds fun/has a reward I want’ versus the more typical ‘I need to do this so I can do that so I can do this other thing that I actually want to do’. In other words, it’s all perspective.

Hawken.7932:

DeadlyStormZ.2370:

People are complaining because it can be fixed by simply removing the DR system, a rediculous system to punish every players.

People are complaining because people don’t think running dungeon efficiently (even you run it in a normal way) should be punished. However, the devs choose to refuse listening to the community and insist what they are doing.

People are complaining because Anet don’t have a decent QA team to test stuff before it is released again, again and in the future.

People are complaining because the devs said they didn’t want us to grind anything but they designed something you must grind it to get it.

So you’s prefer a 24 hour lockout so that you can run an explorable dungeon once, like most mmo’s do? I mean I’m not terribly in love with the whole DR system, as I feel it’s not a very elegant solution to the problem, but it’s quite obviously more rewarding than a lockout.

Not having a lockout has nothing to do with eventuating in having a DR. If you don’t want people to speedrun your dungeons, balance the game thoroughly so that they can’t. If you don’t want mobs to be ignored by players running by them, make the mobs chase the player endlessly. Jon Peter’s ‘safety net’ is nothing other than the development team saying ‘oh, there is NO way we can ever be ahead of exploiters, might as well quit while we can’.

Galador Dux.6359:

@DeadlyStormZ:

• Removing the DR system comes with its own return of problems, such as the rampant farming of CoF (which, let’s be honest, the removal of which is a big reason a lot of people arekitten off)

• If you’re going to argue pure efficiency, re-read my aside. You spend somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total time just running each path once per day versus farming one (or more) paths constantly. Last I checked, less time spent is more efficient.

• No QA team in existence can accurately simulate 100,000+ people simultaneously and actively causing ‘hits’ on a program that is also dealing with another 200,000+ people doing seemingly unrelated things on the same program. This is just a misunderstanding of the realities of programming. Understandable, but unrealistic.

• I know this sounds like a cop-out, but there are other things in the game to do besides dungeons, that lead to the same quality rewards in terms of statistics (and aesthetics, depending on your preferences). If they handed every shiny piece of armor to you on a silver platter, would you honestly still be playing? Yes, there’s grind, but it’s of the ‘I feel like doing this because it sounds fun/has a reward I want’ versus the more typical ‘I need to do this so I can do that so I can do this other thing that I actually want to do’. In other words, it’s all perspective.

I have no issue with the grind, because there was a just reward for what is expected when you participate. The 20+40 change is a GREAT change in the right direction, and it doesn’t even come with sacrifice. At which point they can say:

OK, a group of players are gonna run each dungeon path once.
First path will take 30 minutes, second path will take 40 minutes, third path will take 50 minutes. If someone decides to run the first path constantly, they will only have completed it 4 times, which will only get them 120 tokens.

See that? Problem SOLVED. If the first path was being exploited and could be completed way faster than expected, FIX IT. People ignoring mobs? Increase the mob leash. Add a door. Spawn the boss only after a select group of enemies are defeated. Use GAMEPLAY FIXES. Not some in-the-background monitoring mechanism.

@kKagari: An exploit is an unseen bug or flaw in the system that allows for bypassing or trivialization of content. By definition, they literally can’t be ahead of exploiters, because it’s something nobody caught.

It’s a lot like the million monkeys on keyboards thing. If you throw enough people at something, someone is eventually going to work out something that the much smaller group at Anet missed. Fact of life, and happens with a lot of programs – why do you think tech support exists? If it always worked right, we wouldn’t need them.

@Joe Chip: Valid point, though to be honest it’s like filling a cup with a known hole in it with water then complaining it spilled on you. If you knew it was bugged, you were kind of accepting the risk on subsequent attempts that it would still not work correctly.

@kKagari (next post): All of which are reactive changes, which could come days after significant harm has come to the economy and the prestige of that armor set, much like the CoF set is now. I don’t want people to see the TA set I’m working towards and think ‘oh, he probably farmed using that exploit to get it’. The DR system can be modified if it needs to be. Peoples’ opinions take a lot longer to change.

Galador Dux.6359:

@DeadlyStormZ:

• Removing the DR system comes with its own return of problems, such as the rampant farming of CoF (which, let’s be honest, the removal of which is a big reason a lot of people arekitten off)

• No QA team in existence can accurately simulate 100,000+ people simultaneously and actively causing ‘hits’ on a program that is also dealing with another 200,000+ people doing seemingly unrelated things on the same program. This is just a misunderstanding of the realities of programming. Understandable, but unrealistic.

*The rampant farming of CoF or any dungeon for that matter can be fixed by fixing the exploits and making the path in question harder. There is no need for a DR system. Fixing the exploits should be the main priority not introducing penalties.

They consciously decided NOT to fix the exploits and wait 2 weeks+ to develop a DR system that is in itself bugged and most likely somehow exploitable. That is just stupid and deserves no further discussion.

*Part from the fact that obvious exploits have nothing to do with simulating hits there are QA tools specifically designed to simulate these amounts of usage or hits as you call it. I have worked with these tools and they give very accurate metrics and can be customized up to a sophistication that rivals any bot. Some use in game AI to simulate players, these are not new, they are standard in the IT world and are in use for a few decades.

Galador Dux.6359:

@kKagari (next post): All of which are reactive changes, which could come days after significant harm has come to the economy and the prestige of that armor set, much like the CoF set is now. I don’t want people to see the TA set I’m working towards and think ‘oh, he probably farmed using that exploit to get it’. The DR system can be modified if it needs to be. Peoples’ opinions take a lot longer to change.

If there was such a concern for people’s opinion then Arenanet should be extremely worried about their’s, with a string of bungled fixes and poor implementations. The solutions I briefly mentioned wouldn’t even need to be ‘reactive’ changes. Perhaps they should’ve thought about it in the first place. See, the funny thing is, IF the DR was implemented in a working state, before release, then their would be praise about Arenanet’s foresight into their game design. NOW however, it feels like a complete cop-out. “We can never be ahead of exploiters, so lets not even try”. Worse still is, why would there even be an urgency to root out these exploits in future. They have the ultimate safe guard in place already. Exploiters are likely not going to exploit anymore, but the people that happen upon an exploit by accident will be the people who suffer most, the honest gamers.

Skyrant Kangaroomouse.7458:

Galador Dux.6359:

@DeadlyStormZ:

• Removing the DR system comes with its own return of problems, such as the rampant farming of CoF (which, let’s be honest, the removal of which is a big reason a lot of people arekitten off)

• No QA team in existence can accurately simulate 100,000+ people simultaneously and actively causing ‘hits’ on a program that is also dealing with another 200,000+ people doing seemingly unrelated things on the same program. This is just a misunderstanding of the realities of programming. Understandable, but unrealistic.

*The rampant farming of CoF or any dungeon for that matter can be fixed by fixing the exploits and making the path in question harder. There is no need for a DR system. Fixing the exploits should be the main priority not introducing penalties.

*Part from the fact that obvious exploits have nothing to do with simulating hits there are QA tools specifically designed to simulate these amounts of usage or hits as you call it. I have worked with these tools and they give very accurate metrics and can be customized up to a sophistication that rivals any bot. Some use in game AI to simulate players, these are not new, they are standard in the IT world and are in use for a few decades.

As I mentioned above, it takes time for the exploit to be reported, verified, fixed, and patched. During that time, players will invariably be abusing that exploit, which could cause a massive influx of gold and a cheapening of the related armor set, both of which will affect far more players than those abusing the exploit. Not to mention the fix will likely be rushed to minimize said impact, which in turn means it will be more likely to introduce other bugs, and so on.

In contrast with the DR ‘safety net’, which would rapidly demolish any possible profits from the exploit, not to mention raising flags in and of itself. This not only brings attention to the bug more swiftly, but also gives the programmers more time to work out a fix before too much harm is brought to the market.

In regards to the other point, you are correct. I meant the comment more in the ‘infinite monkeys on infinite keyboards’ sense: someone, somewhere, somehow is going to figure out how to break something in the game, whether by accident or experimentation. I doubt there’s ever been an online game where something didn’t need to be fixed after release (excluding exceedingly simple stuff, of course).

Dude they did this on purpose its not bugged its what the programmed in. I am getting 6 silver a run for reward. Just tried CM explore Ausra path I lost 6 silver repairing, cant even finish.

The shotty guy was chain KDing me till dead….amazing game guys Anet is such a class company let me tell you. Worst gamign company ever. They did this on purpose and its still not fixed.

I lose money running dungeons, and I have been ripped off well voer a gold for this pos game. Where is that reward? Are they going to make it right? Do the right thing? heck no.

I guess I can run around the open zones and farm trash mobs right? We can do that right? Or is that an exploit too? What isnt an exploit Anet? You mean running your dungeons killing the mobs you put there and getting pre patch rewards that YOU put in the game? Was that an exploit? Or is that just your krappy programming…what lousy joke of a company.

kKagari.6804:

Galador Dux.6359:

@kKagari (next post): All of which are reactive changes, which could come days after significant harm has come to the economy and the prestige of that armor set, much like the CoF set is now. I don’t want people to see the TA set I’m working towards and think ‘oh, he probably farmed using that exploit to get it’. The DR system can be modified if it needs to be. Peoples’ opinions take a lot longer to change.

If there was such a concern for people’s opinion then Arenanet should be extremely worried about their’s, with a string of bungled fixes and poor implementations. The solutions I briefly mentioned wouldn’t even need to be ‘reactive’ changes. Perhaps they should’ve thought about it in the first place. See, the funny thing is, IF the DR was implemented in a working state, before release, then their would be praise about Arenanet’s foresight into their game design. NOW however, it feels like a complete cop-out. “We can never be ahead of exploiters, so lets not even try”. Worse still is, why would there even be an urgency to root out these exploits in future. They have the ultimate safe guard in place already. Exploiters are likely not going to exploit anymore, but the people that happen upon an exploit by accident will be the people who suffer most, the honest gamers.

You’re hardly going to be punished if you ‘happen upon an exploit’. Anet has stated you have to make multiple sub-30 runs before DR starts taking affect (ignoring the current bugs, of course). ‘happen upon’ implies once. Players report it, players don’t use it again (or even reverse it, if possible), players suffer no ill effects.

To hit DR you would have to do it multiple times, which would constitute exploiting. Which is against the rules anyway, so I don’t care what penalties you’re getting at that point, because you should be looking at a ban.

In hindsight, yes the DR system would have been a good idea to have at launch, and yes, a bug free program would be wonderful. But it wasn’t, and it isn’t, and anyone expecting absolutely no bugs has obviously never played an MMO before, and especially not an MMO launch. Does that make it ok? Not really, but I have full confidence that they’re trying their hardest to fix it. Which is all we can realistically expect from anyone.

Cromx.3941:

Dude they did this on purpose its not bugged its what the programmed in. I am getting 6 silver a run for reward. Just tried CM explore Ausra path I lost 6 silver repairing, cant even finish.

The shotty guy was chain KDing me till dead….amazing game guys Anet is such a class company let me tell you. Worst gamign company ever. They did this on purpose and its still not fixed.

I lose money running dungeons, and I have been ripped off well voer a gold for this pos game. Where is that reward? Are they going to make it right? Do the right thing? heck no.

I guess I can run around the open zones and farm trash mobs right? We can do that right? Or is that an exploit too? What isnt an exploit Anet? You mean running your dungeons killing the mobs you put there and getting pre patch rewards that YOU put in the game? Was that an exploit? Or is that just your krappy programming…what lousy joke of a company.

… Yeah, I can’t tell if you’re paranoid or just riding the rage train. Or both.

If there’s one thing I can guarantee it’s that they didn’t intend the DR system to affect everyone. They’ve said it’s a bug, which by definition means it’s an unintended effect.

Also, if you’re loosing more than 36s per run (that’s the ideal reward, iirc) chances are you need to improve your game. Explorable mode is supposed to be hard, etc etc.

Riding the rage train? Try running every dungeon since that patch hit and getting only the minimal rewards? Then they plainly state make sure you have not run multiple dungeon runs too fast in the past. In other words they went back and went after people who were running dungeons pre patch.

Then they have the nerve to call it exploits…..as if that makes it ok what they are doing to people. Its not an exploit, trash company 100%. I lost like 1.2 gold in rewards alone, and then I lost 6 silver just now because of their garbage gameplay mechanics where if a boss can literally chain KD you until death with ease. Where are the diminishng retruns on chain KD?

Oh yeah there aren’t any because that actually might make their dungeons worth doing. It don’t matter population is thinning on their servers, and will continue to do so. I hope they merge servers and their xpac sells like krap. Only way they will learn is if they lose a few million dollars in sales revenue. If there is any justice in this world at all Anet will get whats coming to them.

So yeah Im angry getting ripped off for over a week, yet I still have to pay the same repair costs as everyone else. And they don’t even answer tickets about it. Boy i cannot wait until they come hat in hand wanting me to buy an xpac, I am gonna laugh so freaking hard its going to hurt.

Dungeon rewards drop off by 66% after your first run, why isn’t anyone outraged about that? Why should I be punished for running twice by having my tokens cut by over half? Where is the justice in the world and rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble

All this kittening is just sad. Have some friggin’ patience, the armor vendors aren’t going anywhere.

Oh but meanwhile I am wasting my time, can’t even play the game. Taking huge losses in repairs and if I do complete I get basically nothing for doing it. Yeah thats what Anet needed to do is chase off a huge portion of its player base in the first month of going live.

Insanity – repeating the same action and expecting different results.

You knew you were getting bugged rewards, and Anet has posted several times that it’s not intended. And yet you continued to do runs regardless, and say they are purposely screwing you over. Ok then…

And call what exploits? Doing something that’s obviously not working as intended to bypass or trivialize content? Yeah, that’s the definition of an exploit. Technically, you should get banned (or at least suspended) for exploiting those flaws. You agreed not to when you started playing (read the Rules of Conduct if you don’t believe me).

If you didn’t do any actual exploiting, that’s good. Just means you were hit with the DR bug like a lot of the rest of us. Which, again, is not working as intended and they’re fixing it.

Also, about the kd… did you consider watching for his animation and dodging his attack? Blocking it? Bringing a stunbreaker? Anything like that? Gotta play smart with the bosses…

Haette.2701:

Dungeon rewards drop off by 66% after your first run, why isn’t anyone outraged about that? Why should I be punished for running twice by having my tokens cut by over half? Where is the justice in the world and rabble rabble rabble rabble rabble

All this kittening is just sad. Have some friggin’ patience, the armor vendors aren’t going anywhere.

At first I was going to facepalm.

Then I loled (well, chucked, but whatever).

Galador Dux.6359:

Insanity – repeating the same action and expecting different results.

You knew you were getting bugged rewards, and Anet has posted several times that it’s not intended. And yet you continued to do runs regardless, and say they are purposely screwing you over. Ok then…

And call what exploits? Doing something that’s obviously not working as intended to bypass or trivialize content? Yeah, that’s the definition of an exploit. Technically, you should get banned (or at least suspended) for exploiting those flaws. You agreed not to when you started playing (read the Rules of Conduct if you don’t believe me).

If you didn’t do any actual exploiting, that’s good. Just means you were hit with the DR bug like a lot of the rest of us. Which, again, is not working as intended and they’re fixing it.

Also, about the kd… did you consider watching for his animation and dodging his attack? Blocking it? Bringing a stunbreaker? Anything like that? Gotta play smart with the bosses…

Oh yeah man what I should do is not even play the game I bought for what like 3 weeks? Or I can run around open zone and farm wild boards or deer….seriously. I want a refund of my money is what I want.

Galador Dux.6359:

You knew you were getting bugged rewards, and Anet has posted several times that it’s not intended. And yet you continued to do runs regardless, and say they are purposely screwing you over. Ok then…

And call what exploits? Doing something that’s obviously not working as intended to bypass or trivialize content? Yeah, that’s the definition of an exploit. Technically, you should get banned (or at least suspended) for exploiting those flaws. You agreed not to when you started playing (read the Rules of Conduct if you don’t believe me).

If you didn’t do any actual exploiting, that’s good. Just means you were hit with the DR bug like a lot of the rest of us. Which, again, is not working as intended and they’re fixing it.

assumptions assumptions.. not everybody reads the forums. not everybody knows whats an exploit is (or did you miss all the posts people asking if X is an exploit where X was routine mmo stuff?).

as for “fixing it” – people were already complaining about it LAST week. guess what they said (and fanbois like you repeated). and now look where we are.

and complaining about complaining hardly fixes the clutter in the dungeon forum, don’t you think?

Joe Chip.9538:

I have, at least, the right to complain as loud as I like.

/signed

OP obviously doesn’t do many dungeons

The problem is the DR system is just plain bugged…
Yesterday I ran two TA paths and timed them.
Forward Up – (already did it two days ago) – 35 minutes because one of the bosses reset – 60 tokens
Forward Forward (which I’ve absolutely never did before, since I got the message for doing it the first time, and completing the dungeon) 40 minutes – 45 tokens

If they don’t fix it, they could also put up a lockup on it, I don’t mind, I won’t be farming the same path 100 times a day anyway.
Make it so someone can do the same dungeon path only 2 times a day or something

kKagari.6804:

Worse still is, why would there even be an urgency to root out these exploits in future. They have the ultimate safe guard in place already. Exploiters are likely not going to exploit anymore, but the people that happen upon an exploit by accident will be the people who suffer most, the honest gamers.

Oh no, exploiters are always goint to exploit. The mindset is to get the greates possible reward with the least possible effort. If they can use exploits to finish a dungeon in 10 minutes, they’ll do just that and then take a bio, grab a drink, chat with the guild until the timer is resetted. Then, with their energy restored and with their concentration fresh, they’ll… exploit once more.

I on the other hand am not 80 so far. At my current rate of levelling, I will be 80 friday night or saturday, though. I don’t like PvP. I know that map completion will only keep me occupied for o long. I don’t like crafting. However, I love dungeons. What will I be doing? Running dungeons back-to-back is obviously a punishable offense. So, while I’m currently having fun levelling, I’m a bit worried about what I’m going to do at 80.

So if the game steals 135 tokens from me in three days, I should be silent?

Yes, we should expect bugs, but Arena Net’s track record is pretty awful at this point.

They released an amazing game. There was a problem with people speed-clearing CoF, so they decided to implement a Diminishing Returns system. I believe this was overkill, but that’s fine. The Diminishing Returns system did not end up working properly. So they patched it again, and it became even worse. So they patched it again, and, while some people are getting better rewards, some people are still experiencing a bugged Diminishing Returns system.

And we haven’t even touched the amount of exploits that are running rampant and going unpunished. They haven’t touched boss encounters that are simply broken broken. There are still a lot of bugs that crash people and prevent players from progressing.

Programming is not easy, which is why we leave it to the professionals to do. Arena Net is a good company. I am sure that their employees are among the best and brightest. So it is somewhat disconcerting when more things break as they are trying to fix things.

It’s somewhat sad when someone brings up a problem in Mumble, and my immediate response without being phased or surprised is, “Oh, it’s probably broken.” And, yes, I expect to say that at every new game’s release. But I have said it so many times that, when I played Borderlands 2, I had to stop myself operating under the mindset that everything’s broken.

I am a firm believer that Guild Wars 2 has the potential to be amazing in the long run, because almost all of its other aspects have wowed me. It’s just the dungeons, which I absolutely love in other games, seem like they do not share the same standard of excellence as the other areas. They have antiquated designs for a game that tries so hard to break the mold, and, now, they suffer from a convoluted system that was meant to stop speed clears but actually affects EVERYONE -negatively-.

Le sigh. I am becoming very jaded as I pay attention to how dungeons are being handled. I used to be a very positive person. It’s probably time for me to just call it a bust for now.

Everyone has the right to complain. For me this is not the issue of nerfing rewards, im all over that. This is the issue of the unfairness of the bugged DR. 5 of us do dungeons, its always the case where 2 of them got 60 tokens, 3rd guy gets 45, me and my friend gets 30 tokens. We run together always, never with others. Hell i got 45 tokens on my first every run on my account. So basically the DR is bugged to specific accounts, cos its always the same 2 guys, me and my friend getting punished.

How would you like it if i can get full legendary set(for example) in 1 week while u have to spend 3 months for it? Unfair right? For the same goal, you have to work 12x harder. You masochist? DR is bugged still, punishing ppl wrongly. Anet is a sadist…

What embarrasses me is the people complaining about getting 45-60 tokens. I mean this is seriously embarrassing because, I, personally played 4 dungeons that I ran for the first time EVER in this game, and I got 6 tokens from each one of them.

6 vs 45! be grateful people!

also, what everyone forgets is that the DR system kicks in JUST BY WALKING IN THE kitten DUNGEON. yes, that’s right, go in any EXPLORABLE and kill one kitten mob, any one…..then you have been tagged and bugged to hell and back, even TWO DAYS later if you go back to that instance(even if you never finished it or even downed a boss) you will get 13 silver and 45 tokens at best, maybe less.

swallow your motherkitten pride ArenaNet, and REMOVE your “fixes” until you actually work out the kinks.

I ran TA 3 times yesterday.
Run 1 took about 45 min (first run of the day) should have gotten 60 tokens. I got 15
run 2 (different patch) took 50min and was the first run of the day should have gotten 60 tokens i got 6.
run 3 same path as run 1 took 45min and got 0 tokens.

So your tellling me i should stop telling Anet how much they suck becuase im not getting the correct reward…

thats like going to the supermarket buying 100$ worth of food and the second you get it home its all mold. What would you do?

Toss it and go buy it again. ok fine so you do and its all mold again and again. then what? you just going to say “hey give them time to fix the firdge” or are you going there asking for your money back and freaking out.

my guess is option 2.

I don’t understand the attitude of “It didn’t happen to me, therefore you are wrong.”

First exploration mode in my life, I got 6 tokens.

This is kitten bullkitten, atleast give us some compensation.
Disable all of your anti-farming codes until you can get them working at least, instead of not responding to bug reports, not responding on forums and then releasing a fix in a patch 2 weeks later that ends up breaking something else.

Don’t see any point in running dungeons until this is fixed, and no, “fun” isn’t a reward, “fun” is overrated. The reward IS the “fun”.

People are mad because the system removes choice, plain and simple. It’s a “Run dungeons our way or else” motto. Also, multiple paths are doable in less then 30 minutes without exploiting(see, Magg and AC path 2 and some the TA ones).

Not sure what I really expected. It always amazes me how people are able to read something once and assume it’s designed to screw them over.

@fony: Where in the heck are you getting that from? That’s so far from what the DR system would do it’s just mindless panicking.

@Everyone saying I haven’t been effected/don’t run dungeons: Nothing could be further from the truth. No, I’m not running a ton of dungeons, but that’s mostly due to real life rearing its head with midterms. And I’ve been getting reduced rewards since the system came out. It sucks, but my guild’s good enough that I usually don’t suffer more than 2-3 deaths per run of TA (usually because the worms love me) so while I may not make as much profit, I do still make some. Do I want it to work correctly? Of course. But I go in expecting that I may get hit unfairly, because there’s a known issue.

But I’d be much morekitten off if an exploit was found and suddenly the armor I’m working towards is devalued in terms of prestige because everyone farms the hell out of it. I’m willing to deal with the buggy DR (which, if it’s working right, shouldn’t affect me unless I choose to farm only one path constantly) if it keeps that from happening.

Am I happy about it? Not really. But I recognize it as a temporary setback and keep my calm. Anet has a vested interest on getting this working right, they won’t leave it broken for any longer than they have to. I’d rather them take time to test everything they can rather than rush out yet another buggy patch, which takes time to deploy and interrupts everyone’s gameplay.

Galador Dux.6359:

5) The DR system is unfortunately bugged, causing players to be affected even when they are playing normally. They have isolated and fixed at least one bug, and the system is undergoing internal testing currently. In other words, the system is not working as intended. Please stop acting like it is.

So because they admit it’s broken we shouldn’t complain? This makes no sense. I will complain up until the point they fix it because it is directly affecting my ability to have fun while playing the game.

Galador Dux.6359:

1) The ideal rewards are 60 tokens for the first run of each path on each day (determined by a universal reset time on entrance), 20 tokens on each repeat of that path on the same day, and a sum of silver and exp.

And again, it’s not working this way right now. When it works this way I’ll stop complaining.

Galador Dux.6359:

2) Dungeons are supposed to be tuned such that even the best teams find it very hard if not impossible to complete in less than 30 minutes, if done correctly (without exploits, in other words).

There are at least half a dozen exploration paths that my guild group can do in under 30 minutes, and that’s without exploits. Anything in AC, versions of HotW, TA, SE, CoF. Should we be punished because we’re better geared, more organized, whatever than most people?

Galador Dux.6359:

3) Diminishing Returns should affect the standard rewards when one or both of two conditions are true:

A: You run the same path back-to-back within the same reset period (possibly with a small allowance of runs)
B: You have several consecutive runs of less than 30 minutes, ignoring reset periods.

Again, not working this way right now. My group runs the same 4 dungeons every day. Those 4 paths are different variations of AC and one of HotW. We find these particular 4 paths fun to do, so we do them. 2-3 people in the group get full credit for each path (240 tokens). The rest get some lesser amount. So even within the same group the DR system is not working. If it was punishing us for running the dungeons too fast it would be punishing everyone, but it isn’t. The notion that there is one thing wrong with the DR coding is complete horsekitten.

Galador Dux.6359:

4) The DR mechanic is not meant to punish players, except those that choose to farm one easy path over and over in a small time period or use bugged mechanics to finish dungeons significantly faster than expected, the second of which is against the Rules of Conduct and thus, strictly speaking, should lead to a suspension or ban (Yes, it’s bugged. No, that does not give you the right to exploit it. You legally agreed not to when you started playing).

I do not exploit dungeons. I complete dungeons in less than 30 minutes. I am punished for this under the rules of the DR system. How is this fair?

ANet admits there is an error in their coding. They are working to fix it. I understand that and I hope that they find out what is wrong and fix it as soon as possible. But the idea that they are fixing something at some later time does nothing to help those being affected now. It has become increasingly more difficult to find dungeon groups over the past few days. Part of this is because of the WoW expansion, Borderlands 2, and other games being released. Another part of it is purely based on the malfunctioning DR system.

When they fix it, I’ll stop complaining. Until then, they’ll hear about it every single day.

I only complained because I got a grand total of 15 deadly blossoms these past two days while my group got 60 tokens for each run. And no I didn’t excessively farm the dungeon, I ran it once per day just like they did. But oddly I only got a 15 token reward.

So I’m now behind 90 tokens. I sent in a trouble ticket, but I received a automated response linking the dungeon changes from the patch notes. Which I already knew about.

I don’t expect to get served right away or having priority over others who sent in a ticket before me. All I ask is eventually I get my 90 missing tokens.

Krazed.7458:

Selfish kitten whining

When they fix it, I’ll stop complaining. Until then, they’ll hear about it every single day.

Have some kittening patience, have you any idea how kittening hard it is to fix a bug? Yes this is unfortunate, but the people experiencing reward problems are only a very small minority hence it didn’t come forward in their local tests. (read the stickies)

I have the DR bug too, but I’m patient because I don’t expect it to be fixed in any short period of time. Sure, it’s frustrating only getting 6 tokens. Just think of kittens.

Hawken.7932:

Agreed. It’s unbelievable the amount of complaining over this. No matter what they do, even if it’s diminishing your rewards by 50% each run (which it’s not)… ANY such system is still way, way more rewarding than a 24 lockout which most games have.

Tell me which MMO’s have a 24hr lockout on a standard 5 man dungeon? Cause guess what there arent any at all, 24hr lockouts are for raid dungeons with the BEST loot in the game, the loot you get from these dungeons is purely cosmetic, so stop comparing apples to oranges ok?

Inci.7560:

Have some kittening patience, have you any idea how kittening hard it is to fix a bug? Yes this is unfortunate, but the people experiencing reward problems are only a very small minority hence it didn’t come forward in their local tests. (read the stickies)

I have the DR bug too, but I’m patient because I don’t expect it to be fixed in any short period of time. Sure, it’s frustrating only getting 6 tokens. Just think of kittens.

I have no professional experience with programming. I have no idea how hard it is to fix a bug.

But here’s a thought: Highlight everything having to do with DR… and hit delete. This could be done in 3 minutes.

It doesn’t work. Start over. Write something that works, actually test it, and then put it in the game.

And the side effect to this is what? For a couple of days, maybe, it’s easier for people to buy dungeon armor… wow, that’s a hardship, let me tell you.

Krazed.7458:

Inci.7560:

Have some kittening patience, have you any idea how kittening hard it is to fix a bug? Yes this is unfortunate, but the people experiencing reward problems are only a very small minority hence it didn’t come forward in their local tests. (read the stickies)

I have the DR bug too, but I’m patient because I don’t expect it to be fixed in any short period of time. Sure, it’s frustrating only getting 6 tokens. Just think of kittens.

I have no professional experience with programming. I have no idea how hard it is to fix a bug.

But here’s a thought: Highlight everything having to do with DR… and hit delete. This could be done in 3 minutes.

It doesn’t work. Start over. Write something that works, actually test it, and then put it in the game.

And the side effect to this is what? For a couple of days, maybe, it’s easier for people to buy dungeon armor… wow, that’s a hardship, let me tell you.

It’s not just the dungeon armor. There’s a bug with CoF atm, you can clear in in 2-3 minutes. That’s 500 silver per hour. This would seriously ruin the economy for a long time.

Inci.7560:

It’s not just the dungeon armor. There’s a bug with CoF atm, you can clear in in 2-3 minutes. That’s 500 silver per hour. This would seriously ruin the economy for a long time.

See, that’s the problem. They’re addressing the wrong problem entirely by trying to limit dungeon tokens. People running dungeons for tokens are not the problem. People running dungeons for money is the problem.

1.) Dungeons do not give silver
2.) Dying in dungeons does not require repairs
3.) Anything bought with dungeon tokens in unsellable/cannot be salvaged

Problem solved. And it has the upside of not pissing off half your player base.

Krazed.7458:

Inci.7560:

It’s not just the dungeon armor. There’s a bug with CoF atm, you can clear in in 2-3 minutes. That’s 500 silver per hour. This would seriously ruin the economy for a long time.

See, that’s the problem. They’re addressing the wrong problem entirely by trying to limit dungeon tokens. People running dungeons for tokens are not the problem. People running dungeons for money is the problem.

1.) Dungeons do not give silver
2.) Dying in dungeons does not require repairs
3.) Anything bought with dungeon tokens in unsellable/cannot be salvaged

Problem solved.

I don’t know about you, but for me dungeons are the only way to make a good amount of gold in a fine pace and not be bored to tears.

Around 45 silver (after selling drops) for a 45 minute run (you don’t want to ‘speed clear’ it) is good money for you? That’s kinda depressing.

I can understand the complaints, the bug is game breaking due to allowing some players to advance at triple the rate of others.

There should be dissatisfaction with the bug until it is fixed. It is that serious.

@Krazed & others: I never said you can’t be upset, I am myself (if not to a rage inducing degree). Just stop complaining like Anet is trying to screw you over on purpose. They get it, they’re working on it, more info is better but there’s more productive stuff we can be discussing such as balancing issues rather than rehashing the ‘ragerageDRrage’.

They’ve said that (once the system is working) they can tweak the numbers so that legitimate speed clears aren’t affected. Whether that be making the easy dungeon paths harder, or simply lowering the threshold for triggering DR. They don’t want to have DR trigger even on the farmers, so long as they are doing legit runs.

I’d say be patient. I know its frustrating getting hit with DR when you shouldn’t have. Had a guildie that got 30 tears and 10 silver for his first run in 2 days while the rest of us got full reward. It’s frustrating and we have very little tools at our disposal to help the devs figure out how and why this is happening, yes that’s an oversight on their part.

However, DR system, they way they designed it, once relatively bug free should be able to go almost completely unnoticed if you are actually running different paths like intended.

The second, and only other issue really is tuning the other paths so they’re all similar in lengths or difficulty. I think the Detha path is a good baseline for AC:ex difficulty. Trivial if you know the encounters, but hair-tearing-out frustrating if you don’t. Kohler can wipe your team if you aren’t prepared, but he’s a punching bag if you’re ready, the zerg event can wipe your team if you slip up once, but is completable with no wipes if you’re organized. The ghost defence has wiped my team numerous times, but last night we completed it (a bit sloppily) with only two people having to rez and run back, and ghost eater….well yeah he’s kinda pathetic but still.

Give the devs time, post your bugs, be polite and accurate about it. I can tell through my own personal experience that they are trying to break not only the MMO paradigm, but the money hungry corporate video game paradigm as well. They don’t have the same manpower as a giant like Blizzard, butkittenif they couldn’t fool me.

Also, are we forgetting that our second run of the day (30 tokens) is still giving the same reward as our first run from before this system? 90 tokens in 2 runs, as compared to 50 from before? What is there to complain about besides some people unfairly getting hit with DR even though they shouldn’t, and THAT will be fixed.

Lay off the wardrums, give AN some time. IMO they’ve done a wonderful job so far (with the exception of stealth nerfs: cursed shore omnomberries?). Let them continue to do their jobs, continue to give your feedback and have fun.