Guild Wars 2

Hello. I would like to preface this post by saying that most of my time spent playing this game is doing world bosses and event zones like Cursed Shore and Silverwastes. In that time I come across scores of players doing the absolute bare minimum, yet still receiving the same rewards as me as I actively participate in the events I attend. I would also like to state that my suggestions are not to reduce any rewards but rather to offer incentive to actively participate by increasing rewards to those who do.

1) World Bosses

Problems:

On any given world boss (especially those that require events to trigger, i.e. SB, Taidha Covington, Shatterer…) the vast majority of the players sit on the location of the boss while a handful of people do the pre events – and what do they get to show for it? A little bit of experience and karma, which amounts to almost nothing.

On the other hand, you have people sitting on a hill watching players run explosive barrels to destroy a gate, or waiting around while a small group destroys portals to the underworld, then they hit the boss a few times and get the same loot.

Solutions:

One way to increase event participation would be coming up with a way to quantify overall contribution to an event and increasing the amount or quality of rewards according to their overall contribution in relation to other participants.

Some things that could be considered contribution are damage dealt, damage avoided, adhering to encounter mechanics, applying boons, healing, reviving downed players, avoiding downed state or death, etc.

2) Silverwastes

Problems:

Another place with rampant AFKing is the Silverwastes. The amount of loot that can be gained farming this zone is unrivaled anywhere else. This attracts a lot of people who want the rewards but do not want to earn them. I have noticed on a lot of occasions the events and bosses will get scaled up so much because people show up to get the loot, but they do not actively contribute and end up making things more difficult for those who do.

The Silverwastes is also unique in that it encourages behavior that is counterproductive to the goal of the zone; I will call it base hopping. In other high level event areas like Orr, players are rewarded for tagging and killing hordes of monsters and champions. In these areas you see a lot of participation because rewards are directly tied to it. In the Silverwastes, these monsters rarely (or never in the case of base defenses) drop treasure, but the reward is received upon completion of the event. Thus, the way to gain the most treasure in Silverwastes becomes running to each base, killing a few monsters to tag the event, then moving on to the next – if every player did this, the bases would constantly be lost to the Mordrem. This structure rewards players more for helping out LESS in the defense of the bases.

Solutions:

This problem is much tougher to solve. One idea that comes to mind is adding a buff separate from the 5 stack MF buff from doing any events. This buff would stack and either be unique to a specific base or to running supplies – Cumulative Red Rock Defender or Cumulative Supply Runner – and increase amount of rewards for each consecutive defense of the same base WITHOUT participating in another base defense or running supplies between the bases. This buff would either be restricted to the area near that base or be removed upon participation in a different defense.
The one downside to this system is that while it would encourage more base defense, if one base became shorthanded players would be discouraged from leaving their base to help another that is falling. A possible counter to this would be having an “emergency base defender” situation whereupon players would keep their Defender buff if they aided in defending another base while that bases commander was under direct attack or needed to be revived.

I do not know what anybody else will make of these suggestions, but I know from being around the community that a lot of people are in agreement that something must be done about the event AFKing problem. Please post your comments, criticisms, and any constructive thoughts and hope that this issue gets some long overdue attention.

A lot of people AFK at world bosses because they’d scale up the pre-events and just wasting time. Try doing the shatterer collection event with 30 people vs only one.

Ayrilana.1396:

A lot of people AFK at world bosses because they’d scale up the pre-events and just wasting time. Try doing the shatterer collection event with 30 people vs only one.

they changed the shatterer pre months ago, its a fixed number now

Blix.8021:

Ayrilana.1396:

A lot of people AFK at world bosses because they’d scale up the pre-events and just wasting time. Try doing the shatterer collection event with 30 people vs only one.

they changed the shatterer pre months ago, its a fixed number now

Oh that’s good then.

I suspect a bunch are second/third/etc accounts who can run in and hit once or twice, die and collect their reward later once the main account rotates through them.

Could just be really bad/lazy players tho.

Have you ever tried helping out with the pre for, say, fire ele?
There are about ten times as many players as there are mobs. Even with only a fraction of those contributing to the pre, the mobs still die less than a second after they spawn.

I always used to try and get the little bit of extra XP from help with the pre, but to be honest, it just isn’t worth the effort of trying to land a hit.

In the old Shatterer pre there were people who would go and turn in one item to get their credit then wait for others to finish. Things scaling out of control is a symptom of the AFK problem. This is all about coming up with ways to incentivize participation, not punish anybody or force people to play their hardest or get nothing.

Afkers make things fun. At least for tequatl. Its not a fun teq until you have 3 champs running around at shills with only 4 people trying not to die.

i kid of course

Pre events in lowbie zones are something of an exception, as the mobs die faster than most can even tag so a lot of us don’t bother.

Higher up though its becoming a problem. Last night doing VW we had about 20 of the 30 people at the south lane AFK up until the path opened.
Fully 2 thirds of the players were just standing there.

My suggestions would be, give mobs drops back, that’s probably the only thing going to incentivize the afkers to participate. Yes sometimes people want to farm them, but that’s better than standing there making it harder for everyone while doing nothing.

Tweak pre events, possibly bumping the rewards for doing them.

And they could (potentially, although it would have issues) tier the rewards for the actual event, and make getting the best rewards dependent on pre event participation, or doing certain actions during the event.
Like killing a portal on the back half of the SB, killing ice spikes during the Claw, etc
Find way to reward people for better participation, and at least some will participate better.
Not all sadly, there will always be those who try to game the system, gain rewards from the effort of others.
Rewarding the 5 afkers the same as the one guy actually doing the event is a a bit of a slap in the face to the person actually doing the content.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Pre events in lowbie zones are something of an exception, as the mobs die faster than most can even tag so a lot of us don’t bother.

Higher up though its becoming a problem. Last night doing VW we had about 20 of the 30 people at the south lane AFK up until the path opened.
Fully 2 thirds of the players were just standing there.

My suggestions would be, give mobs drops back, that’s probably the only thing going to incentivize the afkers to participate. Yes sometimes people want to farm them, but that’s better than standing there making it harder for everyone while doing nothing.

Tweak pre events, possibly bumping the rewards for doing them.

And they could (potentially, although it would have issues) tier the rewards for the actual event, and make getting the best rewards dependent on pre event participation, or doing certain actions during the event.
Like killing a portal on the back half of the SB, killing ice spikes during the Claw, etc
Find way to reward people for better participation, and at least some will participate better.
Not all sadly, there will always be those who try to game the system, gain rewards from the effort of others.
Rewarding the 5 afkers the same as the one guy actually doing the event is a a bit of a slap in the face to the person actually doing the content.

Theres 2 big problems with Pres that still need to be addressed before any talk of incentive can be effective.

1. They need to rethink event scalability. Fixed scale means their too easy with lots of players, and active scaling means it becomes excessively difficult when too many players show up (or doesn’t scale up enough, leading to the former). This is the part thats almost impossible to deal with, since HP scaling is the only vector that even remotely works when dealing with a variable number of players. You can’t count on a minimum or maximum number of players in these situations, so scripting wise it needs to be doable for at least 2 people, all the way up to 100 people. On the task design side of the equation, thats literally impossible to balance correctly…. hence the reliance on HP scaling.

2. Practical Exclusivity through event placement and chaining. If you reward scale based on performance, players will proactively strategize to maximize reward output. This is what leads to problems with Tagging rewards. Ulgoth exemplifies this issue in spades, as the champ bags has lead to a pattern of zerging objectives one by one in order to maximize the number of champ bags each person gets. Its also developed the tagging etiquette that the zerg should slow DPS to allow everyone the chance to tag damage for maximum tag credit (which yields exotic champ bags). But tagging credit is % based, making it extremely sensitive to the HP scaling of mobs. Ever since world bosses got their HP doubled, theres been HUGE problem with reward scaling in both medals and champ bags where “less then Meta” DPS on a boss results in Silver or Bronze tier medals.

This issue, for reasons I still figure out, had simultaneously extended to all Champs when it comes to champ bag drops. Right now its abnormally difficult to get exotic bags when a zerg reaches a certain size, because of some flaw in the tagging rules. Right now, the only limitation I was aware of is % of total damage inflicted in the first 50% HP of the champ is what counts. But even with the relatively high DPS of a Symbol Mace/GS build, if I’m not in my full zerkers apparently I’m not doing enough damage in the ~5-8 seconds it takes to get the champ down to 50% health.

There could be an Orb that show up near your feets (and stored to your UI) , after you have used 6-8 different spells-attacks on the Boss or adds .
You need 3 orbs to open the Boss final Chest
The orb stacks up to 15
And each 1 of them deplete every 5 sec (if you have more than 10 stacks) and the rest deplete slower if you have less Orbs :P

Or doing damage spells (not auto attacks) ’’refresh’’ the Orbs duration

Or this system is enabled when some1 report you as AFK (if there would be that command in the future)

Edit yeah … there still the problem with ppl afking from the start till the boss/event gets near complition …. and participate afterwards …..
Maybe bosses will do a debuff (that stacks) to players that havent attack for a long time , and reduces their Orb ganied (forcing the to do 18-24 attacks for a single Orb ir they have 1 stack of the Debuff ) ?
After that first Orb gained , the Debuff is removed ?

There could be an Orb that show up near your feets (and stored to your UI) , after you have used 6-8 different spells-attacks on the Boss or adds .
You need 3 orbs to open the Boss final Chest
The orb stacks up to 15
And each 1 of them deplete every 5 sec (if you have more than 10 stacks) and the rest deplete slower if you have less Orbs :P

Or doing damage spells (not auto attacks) ’’refresh’’ the Orbs duration

Or this system is enabled when some1 report you as AFK (if there would be that command in the future)

Edit yeah … there still the problem with ppl afking from the start till the boss/event gets near complition …. and participate afterwards …..
Maybe bosses will do a debuff (that stacks) to players that havent attack for a long time , and reduces their Orb ganied (forcing the to do 18-24 attacks for a single Orb ir they have 1 stack of the Debuff ) ?
After that first Orb gained , the Debuff is removed ?

Something like that seems overly complicated and like it could be harmful for new or inexperienced players. The aim should not be to make a system that punishes players for current behavior, but reward them for meaningful participation.

-_-

a) The boss does an AoE debuff every 30 sec , that stacks over 9000
(If you normally participate while hitting the Boss-Mobs , this wont effect you at all )

b) Theres an extra bar upwards from the 6-10 space area .
With the values from 0-100%
You need to reach +50% to be rewarded at the end of the event .

c) If you have 1 stack of the debuff , all attacks exept auto attacks will award you with 1% of the extra Bar completition .
If you hit 10 times (no auto-attacks) , you will awarded with 10% of the Bar and you will loose the 1 stack from the Aoe Debuff .
If you have NO Debuff on you , then every damaging spell will award you with 3% of the Bar .
If you have 2 stacks of debuff (you choosed to AFK) then you have to hit 20 times to remove the debuff , but you still get 0,5% of the bar
And ofc a small Bar Decay over time

This is from the tecnical prospective ….

From the casual one …. it will be
a) Theres a Bar upwards from the 6-10 bottun area
b) Keep doing damage till you fill 50% (there can be a big arrow that say ‘’you need to fill up to get the end rewards’’
c) Try to Afk …. there will be a big suprise for you ……

The frustration comes from the length of time it takes to complete the pre events, and the longer it takes the more frustrating with Taidha being the worst.

The problem with more players contributing is that the objectives have more health (Taidha) and spawn higher tier elites and champions which take much longer than 1 person killing a normal level mob. Spawning a champion takes much longer, even with a team of 20 people against 1 champ compared to 1 person soloing a normal mob.

If contributing made a significant difference (e.g. Tequatl megalaser, Karka Queen pre) then people would contribute. But in most cases contributing makes a long pre event take even longer. Or the pre event is just too long to begin with andor too far away (Megadestroyer)

I’m doing my personal story on my own atm and I’m afking right now to type this whilst I autoattack the champ on my screen. Some fights in gw2 are just too long and disproportionate. I don’t think it’s the player bases problem and I can’t really see why they should ever be punished

I love how every time someone tries to suggest a “solution”, it’s wildly overcomplicated and more of a nuisance than the thing it’s trying to fix.

Chilipadiboy.9340:

Afkers make things fun. At least for tequatl. Its not a fun teq until you have 3 champs running around at shills with only 4 people trying not to die.

i kid of course

I was doing shills defense today. My party was constantly fighting champs and yelling about afkers.

Really people? Scaling so there will be better loot for everyone is one thing. Scaling so the people WORKING so you can get your loot is just being a …. kitty-cat.

Menadena.7482:

Chilipadiboy.9340:

Afkers make things fun. At least for tequatl. Its not a fun teq until you have 3 champs running around at shills with only 4 people trying not to die.

i kid of course

I was doing shills defense today. My party was constantly fighting champs and yelling about afkers.

Really people? Scaling so there will be better loot for everyone is one thing. Scaling so the people WORKING so you can get your loot is just being a …. kitty-cat.

I was at S hills earlier and on my map we got 2 champs at the same time. Twice. Plus an elite.

Makes trying to fight them before the next spawning and kill the fingers next to the turrets an interesting experience. -.-

I don’t do Taidha anymore because the AFK people up on the buildings tick me off and make the entire affair a lot of no fun. I’ve often dreamed of Anet one day putting a bunch of champs with Righteous Indignation up there.

I don’t mind AFKers jumping into an event and getting loot provided they don’t scale up the event while AFKing. Perhaps the most irritating flaw in the events system is the fact that a group of players can make life harder for others simply by doing nothing.

There should be a system similar to the PvP autokick for AFKers, except instead of booting people it marks them as nonexistent for the purposes of event scaling (maybe even removing them from receiving credit for events to prevent tag-and-AFK strategies). This doesn’t unduly people who have to go AFK for legitimate reasons while still giving them the option to return to the map and continuing to contribute.