Guild Wars 2

Tbh i’d rather the open world (eg. SW) content was ‘carryable’ by a few than to require everyone be competent cuz we all know how that goes.

I remember being super frustrated when I had to do 6 minutes to knightfall achievement in LS1 because of so many useless people -_-

Lindbur.2537:

I really do find it highly amusing when people talk about something like they know it, but they don’t even have all the facts on hand, nor do they have any solid evidence to back their claims. Why? Because it’s an illusion of knowledge they’re basing their arguments on, and not simply ignorance.

If you can convince me that Dub and frifox’s DPS meters are illegal, I will pay you 5g.

well, it’s pretty well known Arenanet’s position on mods, but here’s the relevant TOS bit;

I’m sure you’ll give me an argument about how a DPS meter isn’t a ‘mod’, I’m too lazy to do a forum search as well.

Edit: OOH, yeah point of clarity. I meant ‘illegal within the terms of the game’ not ‘illegal as to go to jail’. If thats what you thought I meant, it’s a (somewhat hilarious) miscommunication. It can’t get you sued, but it can get you banned if NCSoft or Anet see fit.

Thing is the ToS is written in a very vague way, such that even running the game could be considered a violation. That’s a major frustration with those wanting to use that mod as a tool of self advancement.

As for the design of the encounters, well taht’s also a frustration. They’re designed such that there is room for those who simply don’t give a kitten about playing well to be carried by those who do play well, and it proves to be a problem if those being carried outnumber those who actually try by too much.

I have NOTHING against those who simply can’t manage the mechanics and use defensive tools (gear/traits/whatever) to let them get through. Everyone has their limitations. It’s an issue when people just stop caring because they can just ride coat tails. Hell I slack often myself in SW because I can, I hate that, it’s what makes it boring for me. I can try but I have no need to and that leaves me with a mind numbing experience. I enjoy being pushed, but without the content pushing me it simply becomes a chore instead of a fun experience.

I did Jormag with ~20 one time, it was VERY fun. I wish there were still an option to do these kind of events without a zerg, they are designed well enough that they could push players but when you throw numbers in there it just breaks down into a mind numbing experience. And I fully beleive they went to megaservers to free up server space since they no longer have to populate as many maps. I really hope they give guilds the option to create their own instances in the expansion. Which it actually sounds like they might do, at least in some cases. (the teq/wurm spawns are nice already for that option though you still can’t prevent others from joining in).

Only reason they didn’t add dps meter to the game is because they didn’t want players to see how poorly others perform, it creates drama blah blah but it still doesn’t change the fact most of the bosses are designed to be a dps race. Thats why everything is on a timer.

I would also take ToS with a grain of salt since it specifies in there that they can ban you for simply logging on or if they felt like it. Its hard to take any of that seriously even if they can and did that in the past, its not something players should go by as “rules”.

And I get what you mean Jerus, Back before the schedule stuff, it was fun going into Harathi and finding it fully controlled by centaurs, starting alone, or with 1 or 2 others, and running it all the way back, picking up allies as you went.

~~~

The place I’d have a serious break with you is that people who don’t know to or just don’t modify their build are still trying, and they’re not really hurting much. There are people who do simply leech (you look on any rock outcropping in SW by the forts and see them, or for that matter hanging out behind the camp at Claw of Jormag). Anyone else is at least trying and I don’t think we should have any beef with them being subpar contributors.

~~~

he custom instances… I’m still just not sure, you might well be right, although if they do it it’ll be part of the guild hall functionality, but I’m just cynical about the use it will get.

— which, I have to admit could well be fine. It doesn’t hurt me if there’s a feature that only .00001% of the game population uses, unless that hurts the texture and flavor of the live world versions of the fights.

Maybe it won’t hurt anything, silverwastes had a huge problem with crypto-elitists getting super angry at the zerg and shouting incorrect strategy information and the less of that the better (not to mention that private servers would probably get the proper information out quickly), but I have to admit that I honestly think it hurts the tone of the game. Anet rightly wants nothing to do with any resemblance of a raid mentality, and private guild server spawns are a definite step in that direction.

Lifestealer.4910:

Only reason they didn’t add dps meter to the game is because they didn’t want players to see how poorly others perform, it creates drama blah blah but it still doesn’t change the fact most of the bosses are designed to be a dps race. Thats why everything is on a timer.

I would also take ToS with a grain of salt since it specifies in there that they can ban you for simply logging on or if they felt like it. Its hard to take any of that seriously even if they can and did that in the past, its not something players should go by as “rules”.

This comes up occasionally on the forums, I’m pretty sure they’ve explicitly stated that DPS meters are verboten. The search tool sucks though so I don’t want to dig through the forums to try to find an example.

Use, or provide others with, any “hack,” “cheat,” “exploit” or “mod”;

Dub and frifox are still around, make of it what you will. Also, SweetFX.

Use, or provide others with, any service related to the Game, including but not limited to:
any service that interacts with the Software;

As far as I remember, the DPS meter simply reads values from the memory. Grey area, since ANet hasn’t said anything specific about memory reading.

Knowingly affect the Service, the Game, Content or Software via any bloatware, malware, computer virus, worm, Trojan horse, spyware, adware, crimeware, scareware, rootkit or any other program installed in a way that executable code of any program is scheduled to utilize or utilizes processor cycles during periods of time when such program is not directly or indirectly being used;

Like others have said, this bit is worded so vaguely that I could be banned just for launching the game.

Windsagio.1340:

This comes up occasionally on the forums, I’m pretty sure they’ve explicitly stated that DPS meters are verboten. The search tool sucks though so I don’t want to dig through the forums to try to find an example.

And I’m pretty sure they didn’t.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/3rd-party-programm-overlay/first#content

This guy joined frifox’s “Zerker only, experienced Arah p1” LFG with his effing 29k HP warrior. Got kicked flying for being a big fat liar.

Limber;

It’s no skin on my nose if they get trouble or not, it’s just a friendly warning to be careful of that kind of stuff.

If we really wanted to test them we’d have them post a public youtube video of them using their tool and draw anets attention to it. I ‘m not suggesting that, and don’t want anyone to do that though, because it’s my understanding that it’s against the rules, and I don’t want anyone to get trouble.

~~~

And that would be my point. Maybe it’s allowed, maybe they let it go if you don’t rub their face in it too much, but it’s at the very least a grey area, and seems pretty clearly against the TOS.

Which is what I said in the first place, I’m not going to yell and scream about you using it, but what inspires people to take any kind of risk with their account talking about using it on the public forum and using it to criticize other players? I just don’t get it.

Aye, again, those who are trying simply are underperforming are fine by me (I as well as many others here have done our best to try to help them best we can with guilds like NOOB and ARES as well as guides, mentoring etc). It’s the fact that these events are so easy you can just leach that is upsetting, that coupled with the fact that you can’t get your own map where everyone goes all out… it’s just disappointing and kills any motivation and isn’t fun.

ANet actually hired a raid person and said that’s something they plan on pursuing and from the sounds of the next expansion they will be doing more to promote guild play. So I do have a little hope there.

The DPS meters have been posted in the dungeon forums regularly we even have an entire thread about it There are two major benefits to the mod. 1 is of course being able to see other peoples stuff and call them out. The other though is self inprovment and data analysis. Back in EQ/DCUO we used these types of programs regularly (DCUO’s was built into the game) for the same thing. We would use it as a teaching tool in EQ to help us identify those who needed help while also using it to increase our own outputs and even create little meta challenges between ourselves (me and a fwe friends had A LOT of fun doing dps competitions on raid bosses). DCUO was the same, though it saw a lot more of the negative side of exclusion and blame game, but at least in the crowd I ran with (mostly friends/guildies) it was again a tool for self improvement and meta competition (again I had a lot of fun racing friends, I was our number 3 in my guild usually, but when we set one speed record I won by a large margin and in excitement called out the other guy “hey buddy, kitten your dps!” it was fun because that was the end of the video we took for it haha ) It’s not all bad, it is what you make of it.

Again the meter thing is an aside. I’m (clearly) perfectly willing to go on about it, bu it’s offtopic to something that’s offtopic, too.

I’m still thinking their ‘raid person’ (I think it’s a pretty safe bet that that person is an encounter designer) is creating open world content along the lines of silverwastes, etc and not instanced raids. In fact, if we had a way to do it, I’d bet gold on it.

Windsagio.1340:

And I get what you mean Jerus, Back before the schedule stuff, it was fun going into Harathi and finding it fully controlled by centaurs, starting alone, or with 1 or 2 others, and running it all the way back, picking up allies as you went.

That’s actually been a gripe of mine with open world content. It sounds a bit silly but I don’t really want to see many others players around. Anet’s “happy to see other players” stance is nice in theory but for me it has never played out to be enjoyable. Anytime I find a champion or event to solo or that I’m enjoying a zerg of players comes to ruin the fun.

I still vividly recall a time when I was leveling a new toon in timberline and fighting a Wurm champ when a random thief joined in at about 30% boss health. Within seconds he got himself downed and proclaimed to the whole map, “We need help at X Waypoint with Champ!!” This kind of annoyed me because “we” didn’t need help at all. I was playing and having a good time! Just like that, in came the zerg and the fun was ruined for me.

The encounter goes from managing endurance and defensive skills in order to kill a champ to sighing as 15 players come and zerg it down. Once that happens, I’m also reduced to spamming 11111111 as well. Not much else to do at that point. It cheapens the gameplay for me and I’m by no means remotely as into the mechanics as some of the guys posting on on here. That’s something that I think General GW Forum posters should understand a bit.

Windsagio.1340:

he custom instances… I’m still just not sure, you might well be right, although if they do it it’ll be part of the guild hall functionality, but I’m just cynical about the use it will get.

— which, I have to admit could well be fine. It doesn’t hurt me if there’s a feature that only .00001% of the game population uses, unless that hurts the texture and flavor of the live world versions of the fights.

Don’t forget, Triple Headed Wurm has never been completed by a PuG map. As far as I know, it has never come close. That is the closest thing that this game has to a hardcore raid.

You might be thinking, “But it gets completed almost daily in open world.” It does but it gets completed by dedicated guilds and groups who hop maps in order to organize. While there is no such thing as official instanced raids, that’s essentially how it’s being done.

I think instanced raids are the way to go. It’s a great way to let like minded players to play together.

Saint.5647:

Don’t forget, Triple Headed Wurm has never been completed by a PuG map. As far as I know, it has never come close. That is the closest thing that this game has to a hardcore raid.

You might be thinking, “But it gets completed almost daily in open world.” It does but it gets completed by dedicated guilds and groups who hop maps in order to organize. While there is no such thing as official instanced raids, that’s essentially how it’s being done.

I think instanced raids are the way to go. It’s a great way to let like minded players to play together.

The key difference is that random pug players get into those organized groups, it’s essentially impossible to stop. This is the thing, they get a chance to do it under the aegis of organized groups, there’s always a trickle. If the instances are closed off that chance goes down to effectively 0.

It’s a good compromise in that way, the encounters are hard enough and require enough organization that they can’t just be zerged, but at the same time, with a bit of luck or a bit of asking around there’s always a chance for anyone to get in on it… and as time goes on (as tequatl shows) that knowledge and those skills leak out and it becomes more and more puggable as more and more people edge into the encounter through these organized, yet still public groups.

Lindbur.2537:

As far as I remember, the DPS meter simply reads values from the memory. Grey area, since ANet hasn’t said anything specific about memory reading.

Which means it interacts with the Software. But on the same hand a lot of stuff interacts with it and somehow we are still playing (antivirs, vpns, sweetfx/gemfx, etc). To detect that one is reading the memory anet would have to change few things in how the game interacts with the system and I’m pretty sure they cannot or will not.

Iris Ng.9845:

Except that it’s not. There is way too much down time between the boss jumps around to different locations in the room, dodging the aoe pull and the poison spin that an ele cannot face tank at all. You can throw all the skills and try to burst him at one point hoping that he won’t teleport in the middle of your burst, but your dps isn’t 10k as you think.

That boss didn’t even jump once. And I honestly have no idea what poison spin you’re talking about. I have zero idea what boss that was, I only remember the pattern of small-large-small orange circles.

Funny enough none of the ToS points Windsagio posted have anything to do with frifox or my dps meter.

What it goes again is the part where having any soft- or hardware except guild wars 2 reading gw2’s memory is forbidden. Since the dpsmeter reads gw2’s process memory, it’s forbidden. But since the moment you launch gw2 your hardware, os and software of all kinds reads gw’s memory, that’s not really a too valid rule.
In case you launch gw2 – even on a new computer with nothing but os and gw2 installed – you go against that rule.

But the whole ruleset is highly irrational anyway, especially now that sweetfx has been approved, violating all and more rules of the dps meter, except for “intentional” level, maybe.

rotten.9753:

Lindbur.2537:

As far as I remember, the DPS meter simply reads values from the memory. Grey area, since ANet hasn’t said anything specific about memory reading.

Which means it interacts with the Software.

This might be semantics, but isn’t interaction defined by going both directions?

Dub.1273:

This might be semantics, but isn’t interaction defined by going both directions?

You are perfectly correct. So it’s actually not an interaction.

Dub.1273:

Iris Ng.9845:

Except that it’s not. There is way too much down time between the boss jumps around to different locations in the room, dodging the aoe pull and the poison spin that an ele cannot face tank at all. You can throw all the skills and try to burst him at one point hoping that he won’t teleport in the middle of your burst, but your dps isn’t 10k as you think.

That boss didn’t even jump once. And I honestly have no idea what poison spin you’re talking about. I have zero idea what boss that was, I only remember the pattern of small-large-small orange circles.

It sounds like the troll boss. Never mind. That one is easy to defeat and has no healing mechanics.

Windsagio.1340:

Saint.5647:

Don’t forget, Triple Headed Wurm has never been completed by a PuG map. As far as I know, it has never come close. That is the closest thing that this game has to a hardcore raid.

You might be thinking, “But it gets completed almost daily in open world.” It does but it gets completed by dedicated guilds and groups who hop maps in order to organize. While there is no such thing as official instanced raids, that’s essentially how it’s being done.

I think instanced raids are the way to go. It’s a great way to let like minded players to play together.

The key difference is that random pug players get into those organized groups, it’s essentially impossible to stop. This is the thing, they get a chance to do it under the aegis of organized groups, there’s always a trickle. If the instances are closed off that chance goes down to effectively 0.

It’s a good compromise in that way, the encounters are hard enough and require enough organization that they can’t just be zerged, but at the same time, with a bit of luck or a bit of asking around there’s always a chance for anyone to get in on it… and as time goes on (as tequatl shows) that knowledge and those skills leak out and it becomes more and more puggable as more and more people edge into the encounter through these organized, yet still public groups.

Im not sure you know how they taxi people into Wurm. Or atleast how GW2community does it. They get everyone to wp at the same time to find an empty map. Then everyone gets taxi invited on teamspeak. If you arent on teamspeak. You arent getting in. And even then half the people on teamspeak dont get in because it gets filled so quickly (and theres more people on ts than the map can hold). Its hardly the best implementation when people are forced to go through such lengths to complete open world stuff. Especially something that really should be a private instanced raid.

Generally, the first map is almost always entirely full of first time first serve TTS members all on TS.

The second map is generally just as successful as the first though. It needs members to flood the TS first and then players will recruit for the map. Yes, you do get trickle in and I agree that it’s a good way to force pugs to learn.

TTS does a great thing because at the start of each “raid” they spend 10 minutes or so going through all the phases and making people move around in rehearsal. In my opinion, this one of the reasons they are as successful as they are.

They do this by having essentially TTS maps. I don’t think you would ever see something like this in SW for example. Can you imagine the response to, “Hey guys let’s practice Gold/Silver and getting out of their dual AoE.” The reason I would like locked instances is because I don’t think people would get locked out. TTS invites people with no criteria and kicks members for inactivity.

The only requirement is to listen and participate. That’s the only thing it takes to beat anything in GW2 open world raiding. Locking instances to groups wouldn’t alienate pugs anymore than they already are.

Dub.1273:

Funny enough none of the ToS points Windsagio posted have anything to do with frifox or my dps meter.

What it goes again is the part where having any soft- or hardware except guild wars 2 reading gw2’s memory is forbidden. Since the dpsmeter reads gw2’s process memory, it’s forbidden. But since the moment you launch gw2 your hardware, os and software of all kinds reads gw’s memory, that’s not really a too valid rule.
In case you launch gw2 – even on a new computer with nothing but os and gw2 installed – you go against that rule.

But the whole ruleset is highly irrational anyway, especially now that sweetfx has been approved, violating all and more rules of the dps meter, except for “intentional” level, maybe.

Of course you say that though :p

It’s your account, do what you like with it.

spoj.9672:

Im not sure you know how they taxi people into Wurm. Or atleast how GW2community does it. They get everyone to wp at the same time to find an empty map. Then everyone gets taxi invited on teamspeak. If you arent on teamspeak. You arent getting in. And even then half the people on teamspeak dont get in because it gets filled so quickly (and theres more people on ts than the map can hold). Its hardly the best implementation when people are forced to go through such lengths to complete open world stuff. Especially something that really should be a private instanced raid.

I grant that they taxi a certain number of people in, but that’s partially because they still have to (they need to flood one server to get the empty), and there’s plenty of evidence in this thread of groups that would drop out of the environment entirely. Still that’s why I never wanted to present it as absolutes, but it feeds a trend of haves and have nots and a cultural shift towards exclusivity.

Windsagio.1340:

Dub.1273:

Funny enough none of the ToS points Windsagio posted have anything to do with frifox or my dps meter.

What it goes again is the part where having any soft- or hardware except guild wars 2 reading gw2’s memory is forbidden. Since the dpsmeter reads gw2’s process memory, it’s forbidden. But since the moment you launch gw2 your hardware, os and software of all kinds reads gw’s memory, that’s not really a too valid rule.
In case you launch gw2 – even on a new computer with nothing but os and gw2 installed – you go against that rule.

But the whole ruleset is highly irrational anyway, especially now that sweetfx has been approved, violating all and more rules of the dps meter, except for “intentional” level, maybe.

Of course you say that though :p

It’s your account, do what you like with it.

I say that because it’s what it is, lol. To my knowledge, there are no other rules it goes against, but if you find some make sure to post here.

Dub.1273:

I say that because it’s what it is, lol. To my knowledge, there are no other rules it goes against, but if you find some make sure to post here.

Honestly, even if I’m right, it’s lose-lose for me because if I’m right and I keep bugging you about it, and you end up getting suspended because of the discussion on here, then I’m the kitten.

edit: Meaning that I don’t want it on my own conscience if somebody gets himself in trouble.

Don’t worry I"m done with that part now, it’s gonna be up to you guys to bring up the meters from here on out.

Windsagio.1340:

Dub.1273:

I say that because it’s what it is, lol. To my knowledge, there are no other rules it goes against, but if you find some make sure to post here.

Honestly, even if I’m right, it’s lose-lose for me because if I’m right and I keep bugging you about it, and you end up getting suspended because of the discussion on here, then I’m the kitten.

Poor you. :/

The biggest put-off in Anet’s content design is:

1. They make content impossible for the bads to complete on their own, so that the goods have to organize and do the content.
2. But, the goods have no option to NOT have to carry the bads through said content.

I find it rather discriminating.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

Some of the people I see posting that we are not getting new dungeons also said that there would never be an expansion.

But Dramen, there isn’t going to be an expansion. They’re just trollin’ with HoT :-P I also know certain people (cough) who were convinced that there would be a new dungeon in Dry Top before it came out ;-)

Since I know this was, at least partially, directed at me, I’ll clarify what I said about the expansion:

Unless they explicitly confirm it, don’t assume it’s going to happen.

That was my stance towards the expansion, and it’s how I view the possibility of dungeons. Don’t assume that ArenaNet is going to do what makes sense — wait for confirmation to get your hopes up.

And re: DPS meters, it’s a grey area that ArenaNet wants to keep grey, for some reason. They recently said that such things are OK as long as they don’t “give the player a gameplay advantage.”

But since they refuse to clarify what qualifies as an advantage, we don’t really know. I wouldn’t consider knowing a boss’s exact HP or showing DPS statistics to be an advantage, but it is information that is not directly available to everyone. Where’s the line?

:-/