Guild Wars 2

Let me begin by saying this is probably the best PvE content since the release of the game. It caters to every ideal this game was built upon, with several improvements from learned mistakes. Anet has proven it can release quality content and learn from the past.

That said, some problems have come with the map. Everyone here remembers the infamous Amber chest farm which totally destroyed the map until it was nerfed, and rightfully so. Anet’s nerf was reasonable, and the map stabilized. Now, the chest farming has been growing gradually as people start finding ways to find farms again.

Recently the enormous trains that result from the new method of chest farming has become map breaking. Unbelievable amount of people form around a couple tags and completely destroy the map while this blob just runs around and opens chests. This has several negative effects.

• All map progress stops. Breach’s will not occur until the train is finished.
• This forces anyone who wants to participate in SW at all to join the train or leave. (due to the team based nature of defenses, it’s incredibly difficult for 1 or 2 people to defend a base.)
• All intended game play stops. No skills are required to participate. A level 2 (ran out there of course) could easily join this train with very little risk.
• Megaserver brings new people in who are forced to leave again or find a taxi if they want to actually play SW as intended.
• When the train passes by one of the few outposts trying to be defended, it upscales it to the point of multiple champions and often leaves those few to deal with them after moving on.
• It makes people like me come here and post.
• It holds great risk of community toxicity which WILL develop if this continues.

Suffice to say, it needs to be addressed. My suggestions is to cut the number of chests down by 1/2, but double the loot. Reduce the shovel drop rates accordingly. This would make finding chests rarer, and give a train less to do. Make the experience entice players with “Oohh! A chest! Those are few and full of goodies.” rather than “Oh hey, another chest. Glad I have 50+ shovels and 250 keys.”.

Buff defense and bull escort events slightly. Encourage people to actually play and contribute. Feeling like you were instrumental in saving a base because the bull you escorted spawned arrow carts is very satisfying, and should be as rewarding.

Reduce the time between breaches. Again this should only be a small reduction, as proper defense actually results in breaches quite quickly already.

Polish the Labyrinth. The dogs teleporting at certain areas, and congregating in others really frustrates players. Give us a little more counter play to their unforgiving strikes. Teleport dead people out immediately so they don’t cover chests in such a fast moving environment. The lab is incredibly rewarding, but with less reactionary players it is simply too frustrating to be worth it, and with good reason.

While there are a few minor gripes I have personally, I’ve posted what I believe are the most important issues. I love this map and want to see it stay. The last thing I was is it turned into an afk farm which is less rewarding than if people just played the game.

Please leave constructive criticism and try to be respectful. Help us keep moving in the right direction.

The content was definitely good, but got old fast.

Rage.9723:

The content was definitely good, but got old fast.

I agree. I enjoyed it at first, but it got old really fast. It had near zero replay value for me.

Breaches need to get reached quicker. It takes way too much time to get the bar full for a Breach Event in regard of how fast it is therefore over again.
The Break after a Breach can then be increased, so that new other Events can occur, while people wait on the next Breach to get build up.
people already use the LFG anyway to warp into Zone instances, where the Breach progress is nearly full, so that they simply have not to wait so long, until it starts so that people can work on that silly RNG grind that is collecting all the organ parts for the luminescent equipment skins, besides of the huge grind that is getting the like 10000+ Bandit Crests and more that yopu need basically to get everything bought with them that you need to finish the collections, which is just an artificially stretched grind so that players have to stay for a long time in the map, if they want the collections getting done and that final reward of that ascended armor piece of choice which every sane peopole would use to make a light ascended item, basically the most costy piece like the chest piece right now

people should be interested to stay in a map for the next events to come and work together to get them done quiickly, so that the next breach can start instead of bringing peopel basically only to swap like locusts via LFG from Zone instance to Zone instance, just to get the breaches done most quickly to speed up the grind progress with the organs and bandit crests as good as possible.

If the rewards for bandit crests would be better, then there would be lesser of a need to do this locust zone instance hopping for people and if the organ collectign would be more reliable and wouldnt consist of this silyl RNG grind, unless you wait for the next living story patch to bring you the guaranteed organ collector of what you need, then would be also players alot lesser annoyed by the heavy ground you get confrotnted with on this map for just a new equipment skin and 1 ascended armor piece of choice and you also don#t have to forget, we stil lhavent even the complete set, still 2 armor pieces of the luminescent set missing, which will further increase for the next patch the bandit crest and organ grind massively again and ANet already has increased the organ grind this time with the bladders, lettign us to have to get this time of them 2 unitis instead of just one, just to get the unit for the collection done >.<

I’m quite sure, Anet will repeat this next time again for the missing two skin parts.

The map is fun, while it was fresh and new and you had not to bunny hop into other zone instances just to get going further with your collection progress.
It was fun, while there were only 2 skin items to get, they didnt felt like grind, but so more parts get added, so more random and lower are your chaces to get exactly the organ parts that you need.

The design aroudn the guaranteed collectors is in my opinion a total antiproductive fail desing.
The guaranteed ones should be the cheap ones, to warrant, that achievement hunters have a warranted grindless progression.
Corect would it have been in my opinion, that if you use the random organ collector, that then the player would have from them the chance to receive also other rare valuable items, therefore, that the random ones would cost more silver and bandit crests.

But Anet did it just vice versa, random is cheap, and guaranteed is costy and you have to wait weeks over weeks, just to get finalyl the guaranteed ones, that you need.
It would have been better, if anet would have implemented everytime with new organ parts also the regarding guaranteed organ collectors, but no, rather let the players hit on more RNG and wait for the next living story patch, until they can bypass finally the annoying RNG that artificially slows the player progress only down and adds absolutely nothing fun to the game.

However, besides of all this criticism, Silverwastes is a very nice map.
I wish just only, Anet doesn’t forget all the other maps of the game one day and works on them one day too to improve their quality, so that all other maps will make similar much fun to play on, as like the latest season 2 added maps.

Season 2 added new game features, that I wish to see workign for all the maps of GW2

• Return of Trade Item NPCs from GW1
• Dynamic Event Mini Chest Rewards making DE feel more rewarding to the Player, other than gettign only a bit Karma, Gold and Exp
• Alot more usage of the Z-Achsis, playing more around with the 3D Environment
• Alot better Enemy A.Is
• Region Achievements including achievement rewards for mastering the region by doing those
  and more

In general, I see a problem that has plagued the design of LS things for a while – the incentives for individuals are not aligned with incentives for the group. Recall in the scarlet attacks where people would farm champs instead of attempting to get map success. In silverwastes it is personally optimal to run in, tag a defense event then run on to the next fort. But someone needs to actually stay and defend, so you’re forced with the choice of doing what gets you the most rewards or being the sucker who gets lesser rewards while others reap the benefits. Same thing with the actual breach fights, run in, tag, hope others kill and you can collect 4 parts bags. The advent of the “taxi” has only multiplied these effects.

I could be wrong in this, but I believe the bar fills faster the higher the defense of the forts. While ‘yay faster bar fill," that’s it. The defend timers get longer, and enemies get more numerous/harder, while the rewards stay static. I mean, defending for 2 min can net you the same reward for five.

I suggested it before, but I’ll say it again.
As each fort reaches the next tier, the events get hard and longer, rewards get better, and bar fills faster. Example in simple numbers:
Tier 1 defense – 2min, easy (not many mobs like boulder throwers), 5 crests and a loot bag reward, 1/10 of a bar filled.
Tier 2 – 3 min, moderate, 10 crests 2 bags and 5 random ascended mat reward, 1/5 of a bar filled
Tier 3 – 4 min, hard, 15 crests 3 bags and 10 random ascended mats reward, 3/10 of a bar filled
Tier 4 – 5 min, very hard (chance for legendary to spawn), 20 crests 4 bags 15 random ascended mats and a rare item, 2/5 of a bar filled.

Like I said, I just pulled numbers out of the air, so don’t take them as what I think they should be. The idea is a tier 4 fort defense should give better rewards than tier 1. Thus, it makes supplies more important to guard (want to hit t4 faster), and makes defense more worth it. This could reduce hopping as if you get on a good server, you breach fast enough hopping is pointless.

Also, for shovels, still throw them in random for events, or making them garunteed with supply escorts.

But I like silverwastes, its an improvement, but still just some tweaks were needed.

Lol. The picture is of a group at a Red Rock during a defense event where a champ has spawned, when the OP is QQ’ing about chest farms. Thought the picture was going to be a map queue surrounding a chest.

I don’t get why people think it’s so great. It’s a rehash of drytop with some PvE mode WvW mechanics

thehipone.6812:

In general, I see a problem that has plagued the design of LS things for a while – the incentives for individuals are not aligned with incentives for the group.

Problem is, that’s kind of an issue with all society. How can it be circumvented without forcibly controlling exactly what players do? More freedom generally means more room to act selfishly.

Brave Mallyki.1563:

Lol. The picture is of a group at a Red Rock during a defense event where a champ has spawned, when the OP is QQ’ing about chest farms. Thought the picture was going to be a map queue surrounding a chest.

And if you look a little more closely, you can see Amber was just lost and the fortresses are 1/4, while the zerg is clustered around champs after upscaling the event massively. The point was to show how damaging the zerg is to the area while chest farming, and how the rest of the map is entirely neglected. Try looking at the image again, the chat, and the status of the breach after 30 minutes.

Point taken about the chest farms, but I can’t say I feel guilty about the two farms I’ve taken part in. How else would I find enough shovels? One person with five shovels can open five chests, twenty people with five each can open a hundred chests.

Perhaps one approach would be to find a way to segregate chest farm maps. About half the commanders are “nice” enough to announce that they’re starting a farm after the next break and people not interested may want to leave by LFG taxi. But there has to be a better way…

As for Silverwastes, I like it on the whole. But I’m pretty fed up (ok, really sick and tired) with the RNG on underground champ parts. I have half each of three bladders I need, and it’s twenty-four breaches since I got anything I needed. My experimental extractors will produce nothing but fangs and spleens…