Guild Wars 2

First off — I’m not demanding a response from the development team, I’m not even going to explicitly ask for one. I just want to explain a frustration that many of us have with the way Arah exploits are being handled and leave the topic here in case anyone involved would care to comment. IOW, please don’t just delete this post as “Addressing a thread directly to ArenaNet Staff”. I’ll be happy to edit out any offending bits if there are problems with it.

To the issue:

Arah has many exploits that involve skipping large portions of the paths, often resulting in players being able to bypass bosses completely and get rewards for only finishing a fraction of the path.

The way this has been handled so far has been to put up invisible walls, modify world geometry, remove waypoints, etc — in essence, playing whack-a-mole with these exploits. Things like removing waypoints are especially irritating, as it makes the run far more difficult for legit runners (e.g. the tar elemental wp in path 1 — since that was taken out wiping at Lupi requires a long run that is quite difficult for inexperienced players, and make pugging extremely annoying). Yesterday’s patch is a good example of this, as some new invis walls appeared in an attempt to prevent players from skipping from the starting zone to the corrupted lights (p3/p4), or from Belka to Alphard (p2), etc.

It’s been less than a day since the patch hit, and players are already reporting that they’ve found ways around the ‘fixes’. Furthermore, many of the old skips haven’t been addressed and are still exploitable (anyone up for a swim?).

It has been suggested on this forum many times that most of these exploits could be easily and permanently fixed by requiring all bosses in a path to be defeated in order to get the rewards. For instance, the first 3 bosses of p4 are optional, as is Lupi in all paths (optional in the sense that finishing the dungeon without defeating them will still give rewards for the path).

If skipping any bosses would keep people from getting their rewards, players would stop skipping bosses and selling the path illegitimately. Legit sellers could still sell the paths, and we’d know that they worked for it. This fix also seems much easier than redesigning the world.

All of this just begs the question:

Why not take steps towards making the dungeon unexploitable in general, rather than making small, ineffective changes?

Am I missing something here? Are there technical issues that prevent it?

To fix that, or other dungeon issues like instance owner etc, you would have to redesign major parts of hardcore PvE content. And since no one is giving a flying kitten about dungeons(no gems in doin’ that) besides dungeons players no fix will occur.

Your question is just silly mate, its just like asking: why is Brie still spawning in all paths?

In other words, those changes wouldn’t be small and ain’t nobody got time for that with such a Living Story to tell.

Duanheim.9527:

To fix that, or other dungeon issues like instance owner etc, you would have to redesign major parts of hardcore PvE content.

I disagree — they have mechanisms for checking bosses before rewards. Arah Path 2 already requires all bosses except for Lupi to be defeated or there’s no reward. It should be a simple matter to mark other bosses as required — no redesign necessary :-)

Duanheim.9527:

And since no one is giving a flying kitten about dungeons(no gems in doin’ that) besides dungeons players no fix will occur.

Yep — that certainly is the impression that they’re sending out.

Duanheim.9527:

Your question is just silly mate, its just like asking: why is Brie still spawning in all paths?

Heh, that is a good question…They already have path-dependent bosses that only spawn on certain paths (e.g. the abomination)…

I really don’t expect an answer given this subforum’s track record of either ignoring or deleting these types of questions. I’m merely hoping against hope that some mature dialog about this aspect of the game might happen. There is a huge rift forming between the developers and the players when it comes to dungeons, and it’s not good for either group.

dlonie.6547:

I disagree — they have mechanisms for checking bosses before rewards. Arah Path 2 already requires all bosses except for Lupi to be defeated or there’s no reward. It should be a simple matter to mark other bosses as required — no redesign necessary :-)

Now you say they have, but are you sure mate? They are suppose to have a mechanism for spawning WP after boss fight and yet there are/were some cool ways to ignore that. If those changes are so simple to make as you say they are, lots of stuff would be fixed by now. Always remember RIP TAFU – it was easier to cut off the path than change it a bit.

And imo there are no universal rules for dungeon bosses, each one of them seem to have personal mechanics regarding WP/reward/unlocking stuff – there is no magical button that would made all bosses in dungeons a must have to finish and there is no need since they can fix jp so well.

Last thing, some of dungeon bosses are designed to be optional so the problem is not skipping them, but exploiting maps in order to skip. That is prolly how anet sees it and it would explain all invisible walls fixes.

Honestly the changes the last two patches seem promising. Like I just said in another thread, at least they’re giving some attention to dungeons. Arah p2 is in much better shape than a month ago. Sure, I’d rather they had fixed other things, sometimes their priorities leave me truly vexed, but maybe this is just the beginning.

Duanheim.9527:

dlonie.6547:

they have mechanisms for checking bosses before rewards. Arah Path 2 already requires all bosses except for Lupi to be defeated or there’s no reward.

Now you say they have, but are you sure mate? They are suppose to have a mechanism for spawning WP after boss fight and yet there are/were some cool ways to ignore that. If those changes are so simple to make as you say they are, lots of stuff would be fixed by now. Always remember RIP TAFU – it was easier to cut off the path than change it a bit.

Let’s put it this way: I design software for a living, and if they made an operation like making a boss fight required for dungeon rewards more difficult than adding walls, changing world geometry, etc….that would be a very poorly designed system.

After spending >1000 hours playing this game, I’d be very surprised to hear that the codebase was that bad. I’ve seen one actual crash in that time, and I don’t recall seeing any other issues that indicate bad software practices. Sure, there have been some bad balance/design decisions or overlooked issues with skills/traits/geometry, but the codebase itself appears solid.

But no, I’ve not seen their code or design methods, so it’s possible that they’ve hardcoded the required bosses in assembly or something crazy that would make it difficult to change. Possible, but not likely. To be an kitten and speculate, it’s far more likely they would just keep a list of some sort in the dungeon attributes that specifies the requirements necessary for giving a reward, including required bosses.

In the last part of my post I wondered if there are technical reasons preventing what would otherwise be a sound fix for exactly this reason :-)

You make another good point about TAFU. I would have assumed that fixing TAFU would have just been a matter of tweaking some balancing parameters on the final boss. Maybe the state of the code is worse than it lets on…or more likely no one is left in the company that knows how to change these things, hence why we see world geometry changes instead, as that should be a design system used elsewhere in the game that more developers are experienced with.

Again, this is all pure speculation. Just like the rest of the dungeon subforum xD

Duanheim.9527:

And imo there are no universal rules for dungeon bosses, each one of them seem to have personal mechanics regarding WP/reward/unlocking stuff – there is no magical button that would made all bosses in dungeons a must have to finish and there is no need since they can fix jp so well.

Last thing, some of dungeon bosses are designed to be optional so the problem is not skipping them, but exploiting maps in order to skip. That is prolly how anet sees it and it would explain all invisible walls fixes.

All we can do is speculate. And I hope you’re kidding with the “they can fix jp so well” bit ;-)

Bosses like Kholer are clearly optional — but Lupi and the first several bosses of p3/p4 are clearly not. There is not a way around them that doesn’t involve jumping off of the path. So why not just make them required to get the reward? If skipping the boss means no reward, who’s going to bother with JPs in the first place?

laharl.8435:

Honestly the changes the last two patches seem promising. Like I just said in another thread, at least they’re giving some attention to dungeons. Arah p2 is in much better shape than a month ago. Sure, I’d rather they had fixed other things, sometimes their priorities leave me truly vexed, but maybe this is just the beginning.

It certainly is refreshing to see that they are starting to pay attention to the dungeons again. But I can’t help question the methods that they are using to ‘fix’ them, since these fixes seem fundamentally flawed. Short of going through the length of each path and placing huge invis walls confining players to the intended route, such fixes will always be ineffective in a map with geometry as complex as Arah’s.

Making bosses necessary to progress along a dungeon path has already been done, if I recall correctly the Spider Queen in AC was changed this way maybe about a year ago. Now it could be there is something specific about Arah that is creating problems with that, but it has been done before.

Someone else had a great idea for stopping a lot of the exploits in Arah, since most of them involve going intothe water, if not all of them. If you added a poison mechanic to the water similar to what was done in Kessex Hills as you got close to the tower, there would no longer be any exploits involving water since you’d die before you could accomplish the skip, no more constant band aid fixes . But what about the parts of the legitimate path where you go underwater you say? Add in objects along those paths that clear the toxins in the area around them, same as in the tower. These mechanics have already been done, they just need to be put in the dungeon. “Fixes” like what was done to Alpkittenly make the dungeon more difficult for legitimate players.

Anet has no dungeon team, and clearly no devs that care about dungeons at all. Their numerous jp/invisible wall fixes are just half-hearted band-aid fixes that — hilariously — rarely work.

The funny thing is that if they had taken all the time spent on these worthless band-aid fixes and had put it into properly fixing the issues, illegit skipping would already be a thing of the past.

Omg the spoiler… are you ME or something?

100% support everything you’ve stated.

Well… If you ever need someone for a legit arah run, you know where to find me.

I’m not sure if they touched Lupi at all with this patch, but for some reason I kept going down in phase 2 after the patch. When I melee him, I always dodge out and dodge back in under him for his aoe spam. But for the 2 runs I did after the patch, after I dodge back in under Lupi, 2 or 3 more aoe circles appear under him and I get hit. Before I would get hit once if I’m unlucky, but now it seems like they’re just extra aoe circles. Can anyone else confirm this?

it has always been like that. some projectiles are random and you have to be careful where you dodge.

Alquinon.2957:

I’m not sure if they touched Lupi at all with this patch, but for some reason I kept going down in phase 2 after the patch. When I melee him, I always dodge out and dodge back in under him for his aoe spam. But for the 2 runs I did after the patch, after I dodge back in under Lupi, 2 or 3 more aoe circles appear under him and I get hit. Before I would get hit once if I’m unlucky, but now it seems like they’re just extra aoe circles. Can anyone else confirm this?

If your class has another form of mitigation, it is preferable to use that instead of the second dodge in a 5 man team.

Lord Kuru.3685:

… fixes are just half-hearted band-aid fixes that — hilariously — rarely work…

That’s how they approach their “fixes.” Ranger’s pet is the best example of this.

Thanks for the support Purple :-)

I’ll run with ya any time bbox :-) You’re on my “shortlist” for Arah already, lol.

Alq, I noticed the same thing yesterday, I even tried my ultra-safe AoE evade — dodge back twice then teleport to lupi. There were new AoEs directly under him after the first wave. Maybe they’re not new, but I don’t remember that happening before. It seems like just getting close to, but not under him works (i.e. just stay outside of the AoE in his hit box). Grab me if you ever need a fifth, seems like we haven’t run together in ages.

Dungeon too big, they’ll just bring living story in and create Scarlet riding a flying Mecha-Lupicus.

I haven’t been around in a while, but this morning I did a youtube search for Lupicus Skip and sorted by date. Get ready for the next round of sellers.

To beat this dead horse: walls don’t fix anything, there will always be ways around them in a map like Arah.

I know, I know, I might as well be talking into my armpit, but whatever.

I wish I could get hired to just check everyone’s instances that post on the LFG for Arah and just immediately ban anyone who’s selling without Lupicus killed. Would be so fun. Too bad that wouldn’t ever happen obviously :P