Guild Wars 2

For all of those who missed my last two threads on the subject, a brief introduction.
Not one to blindly believe claims on DR, I set about trying to find it in game and find what triggers it (time/kills).

I ran two, all be it not very scientific, experiments. One on DR items and one on DR karma.

The items run, showed DR seemed to set in after 40mins/70 kills.
The Karma run, showed ZERO DR in Karma from Dynamic Events.

Following a rumour that Karma rewards have now been hit with DR from the recent patch I set about running the experiment again.

This time I choose a different region to farm DE’s than my previous attempt.

Long story short, the Karma rewards from farming the DE’s showed ZERO DROP IN RATES.

The first DE awarded 3675 Exp, 243 Karma, 1s 20c
After 11 DE’s in just over and hour the reward for the last DE was 3675 Exp, 243 Karma, 1s 20c

I took screen shots after every event. The timer is clearly shown.

After my last run I invited any sceptics to do the following,
Join me in game and run the experiment again
Post a photo log showing a decline in Karma from DE’s over time.

ZERO people took up either offer, so I again make the same offers to anyone who would care to try.
The photos are also available for anyone who would like to see them

Interesting results, but I’d liked to have seen the numbers for all 11 DE’s, not just DE 1 and DE 11. What were your results for DE 8 and 9? What zone did you run the DE’s in? Which DE’s did you use?

More information would be very valuable. Still, kudos for trying to go about it rationally.

I’ll give you my example that was deleted by an aggressive moderator 5 minutes ago while I was levelling…

1) Farmed Shiverpeak Mountains area for 40 mins: 2 Frozen Maw clears… DR Kicks In…

2) I mapped to Queensdale to continue levelling.

3) Do a regular DE. DR gives near full reduction: 90%.

4) Run to Shadow Behemoth. Complete event with a gold reward: 95% reduction.

5) Came to boards to ask what I did wrong once I received DR. Moderator deletes post and tells me to submit a bug report.

Well I don’t care what your results show. Popped into cursed shore the other night and went to do the Grenth event. Literally the first event I did in about 10 hours and I got 94 karma as a reward. Seems fair and probably working as intended.

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but… if it’s not a very scientific experiment then it’s not worth taking the data seriously.

Please focus better thought into it and meticulously post the data if you care for your findings to be taken seriously.

Eveningstar… what I mean was all the DE’s from the first to the last all produced the same result.

Fellyn… no problem amigo

Photos are photos, they show the numbers, the numbers dont lie. I would love someone to post evidence to show otherwise, until then I will firmly believe there is no dr in karma from DE’s

Maybe the DR is not triggered by running DEs but when your DR is triggered by killing loads of monsters it effects Karma from DEs?

Most likely a bug.

item drops have nothing to do with the karma DR, that’s a separate system (similar to http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Anti-farm_code).

as for the event DR, that’s been in two weeks actually, I guess people only start to notice it now. I’ve seen it the first time in straits of devastation:

- did a part of the central invasion
- 2-3 events northern invasion chain, got killed because the landing was flooded with risen and we were only 2 (nice balance there btw)
- then the southern invasion started in thunderhead and bugged out on the last part to the rally point
- did the cathedral event twice while waiting, at that point I noticed I get whopping 18 karma

so, I didn’t farm, I actually played the game as normal as you can (without changing the zone every 10 minutes to do something else, and what else is there in orr besides events?).

that was 2 weeks ago, but given I still got hit with DR on my guardian pretty fast last week in kessex hills by repeating 2-3 chains, I doubt they changed it much (if anything, they made it account wide)

Toggles… np.
All the photos save to my pc, and they show my name. Once I edit out that part anyone is free to view them.
As for the experiment itself, I agree its not the most scientific, but I am the only one to produce anything concrete on the subject and my photos show what they show. Still waiting on peeps to post anything that contredicts my findings

Some pertinent considerations would be:

Are you running back and forth between 2 DEs in close proximity over and over?
Are you farming a single DE chain over and over?
Are you moving around a zone doing several different DEs without repeating any?

This could be a major consideration. If you are doing the first or second option, you may be running into the “this is not intended” thing. If repeating the same DEs over and over is what triggers the DR system, then it means that ANet is trying to get people to stop “farming” and move around. In that case the complaint about how ANet is “making us farm” is turned on its head.

I’ve not yet run into any DR that I have noticed, but I tend to travel around a zone a lot and participate in DEs all over. However, I do notice that people say once DR has kicked in, it doesn’t seem to reset when they move along to something new or change zones. That may be a separate issue or not, hard to say since I haven’t even seen it kick in, myself.

Great Job. This is interesting to see.

In regard to the DR system for mob kills / drops…have you done any testing that shows if it’s only if you kill the exact same mob, or the same type, or just in the same area? I’ll never see it because I have no desire to farm / grind…but I’m interested in the reality compared to the supposition.

I love how some people are so skeptical of someone who actually has evidence, but are entirely willing to fly off the handle and panic when someone posts a single, unsubstantiated anecdote.

Kerri…
The first time I ran this was in Sparkfly area, in the centre, defending the toad peoples base. It gets attacked by Risen in 3 areas almost constantly. There was a couple of other events thrown in (Champion Shark), but it was mainly the key 3. Of which I ran 2 of them 3 times, one of them I managed to do 4 times in one hour. All enemies were Risen.

Second (this) run was through Queensdale, mainly Bandits and Centaurs, starting at the pipes, working my way to the centre bridge (defend and escort) back down to the fields and Champion Troll, back up to the pipes. Repeat

Fozzik.. thanks. Yes, my trial at DR for items was to kill the same 6 Trolls over and over again. Completed over 100 kills in 1 hour. That was a chore, the DE not so as I love the DE’s

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Patch-made-DR-worse-Explanation/first#post324940

Less than 1 hour of random DE’s across different maps. Karma DR does exist, it’s very real, and it’s affecting people playing legitimately. Take a look at the screenshots, I even had it so bad where it was down to 12 karma/gold medal. No, I was not repeating any DE’s, exploiting, or somehow completing DE’s at an absurd rate.

I’m tired of these threads and posts saying, “Because I experienced the game this way, it’s this way because I said so.” Guess what? Look around the forums, there’s plenty of evidence of DR and overly punitive mechanics.

You will hit item DR just by running 2 different events and then soloing random mobs.

This game has been conceptually broken by desperate attempts to slow down the pace of exotic acquiring.

Well today i was on for no more than 20 min. killed about 30 mobs and not one drop.Kinda depressing to play my 80 anymore..oh well..bots win again i guess.

The problem is:
- if they make a way to get rid of DR then the system is inefficient as bots/farmers will do just that and rinse/repeat
- if they don’t, people are stuck with DR without knowing what to do to get their game back playable.

Why not just make DR into a debuff?
“Fatigue: You are not willing to work and need some rest. 10 min left.”.

That would prevent afk botting and also prevent players from being constantly paranoid.

Keep moving, do not repeat Dynamic Events, no DR, no problem.

This morning I started from the Central Invasion from scratch, completed the entire line, escorted the troops to the Rally Point and ran the Temple of Balthazar setup up until the final boss who mercilessly killed everyone twice. End result ~40 silver in rewards and junk, ~5-10 masterwork drops, 3 yellows which I salvaged for 5 ectos.

Moved on to Malachor’s Leap trying to nail down new Orichalcum locations. Want along the bottom past one bugged DE to the camp there, went into the water and completed the Quaagan rescue de, did two steps of the Inquest lab DE but got killed, respawned, continued to hunt for Orichalcum. Completed the Risen Drake Broodmother short chain, cleared out the first camp and picked up the troop escort DE there, went along with the troops to the camp under Lyssa’s statue to bump into the camp defense DE there, cleared it and the escort at the same time, picked up the next stage of the troop escort chain to move to the siege camp which (of course) was also under attack, or rather just got overwhelmed when I got there. Did the rebuild the camp quest and cleared the escort at the same time again.

Again, no DR noted, full 1s 70ish copper / 380ish karma every time. End tally of this stage, around 12 – 15 orichalcum from lodes and salvaging, 18ish ancient woods, 10ish omnomberries and assorted junk t5/t6 ores and fine mats.

All together, after selling the stuff I didn’t need on the market, I came to around 2 gold and 5 globs of ectoplasm (which was very, very lucky, unless the recent patch changed it) in around 2-3 hours.

If you hang around one location and kill the same group of 10 mobs over and over till you puke, do not be surprised if the game nudges you to move on. GW1 did the same thing. Failed a DE chain? Yeah, you failed it, move on. Want to repeat it? Sure, but don’t expect the same reward as the first time, thats what you get for failing it the moment before.

If you stand around the same place waiting for the game to throw money at you, expect it to give a reward that is adequate to the effort you put in. Doing semi-automatic circles around the same area till you get dizzy is not the way to go apparently.

Can the DR use some tweaking? Probably. I’m not even mentioning that some DEs still bug, they should be fixed asap so you have an equal chance to run into an event you can do whenever you roam. But as far as I can tell it is not there only to discourage bots, it serves an equally important role of motivating you to move along instead of camping in the same spot. Put some effort to get rewards. Painting it as evil Anet punishing you for you relentless efforts at farming is silly imho.

Good point Silencer .I`m doing Orr zones in similar manner like you and yet to be “hit” from some kind DR.Several thousands of karma points,few rares,many blue and greens,some money,lots of various crafting items are end result of my run through Orr zones – more than enough as a reward for doing them.Actually from my point of view people experiencing a very low karma rewards are affected from a bug of implemented system-it is not intended to be in a such way and will be fix soon most probably.

I’ve hit the cap many times. It’s almost always happened to me after completing at least 16 events in an hour, although I’ve sometimes hit it after 8 events in a half hour.

I’ve sat around farming the same five events over and over again for hours on end without ever reaching the cap, so I can say for absolute certainty that repeating events has no influence on the cap.

I’ve tried farming events in multiple zones and have hit the cap in spite of that, so I can say for certain that switching zones does not fix the cap.

I’ve hit the cap without repeating a single event so I can say for certain that repeating events does not influence the cap.

As it is, the most efficient way to farm karm is to pick about five events, repeat them over and over again, and ignore everything else. It’ll keep your event completion slow enough to avoid the cap, and hitting the cap is a far, far bigger penalty to karma income than pacing yourself is. Of course, it’s horribly boring and repetitive, but that seems to be how ANet wants us to play.

I am almost sure that the karma DR is a bug. If it turns out it’s intended, I’ll submit a public apology on this forum with a picture of myself eating my hat.

That is actually a great question to ask anet.

Is DR karma a bug?

I would not expect any official explanation of the mechanics of the DR system, due to its preventative nature. As I said, I expect it to be a double mechanic, of equal “worth” – motivating players to move around and cycle areas and try a variety of thing instead of trying one beaten path, the other, punting bots. Explaining its mechanic would defeat both purposes, since both bots and “crafty” players could just omit it. And again, in my experience, if you just keep moving and do not repeat the same event chains in a single area run, it will never hit you. Simply put, doing the same DE/DE chains in an area in a short span of time will reduce your rewards. This is not a flaw, it seems (to me at least) as a deliberate mechanic that enforces certain behavior and at the same time motivates you to put some effort into your run instead of doing the same 30 minute loop over and over.

And yes, I do know that it potentially replaces one shorter loop with a longer one, but there needs to be compromise between those who have the time and will to find the “optimal” loop and those who, like me, just go on pretty chaotic area “runs”, fighting stuff along the way for fun and profit.

I hope that both the amount of justified an unjustified ailing over this system, combined with any user data that is gathered by the servers themselves serves to optimize this system in the long run. It is completely conceivable that in the case of some event chains, the system kicks in unintentionally.

But yeah, I can easily get 5-10k karma within a few hours along with 2-3g without hitting DR. Mobility seems to be key here, barring any unintended triggers which I’ve yet to experience.

silencer.5028:

I would not expect any official explanation of the mechanics of the DR system, due to its preventative nature. As I said, I expect it to be a double mechanic, of equal “worth” – motivating players to move around and cycle areas and try a variety of thing instead of trying one beaten path, the other, punting bots.

We’ve tried. We’ve tried doing events in different zones. We’ve not repeating any events. We’ve tried doing a wide variety of events. The only determining factor in whether you get hit by DR that anyone has been able to identify is SPEED. How many events you complete in a given amount of time. Nothing else appears to have any effect.

But yeah, I can easily get 5-10k karma within a few hours along with 2-3g without hitting DR. Mobility seems to be key here, barring any unintended triggers which I’ve yet to experience.

That is absolutely horrendous. You can get 10-15k karma per hour without the cap. The only reason you’re avoiding the cap is because you’re doing events incredibly slowly. Do them at a reasonable speed and you’ll quickly see the cap regardless of how mobile you are.

I’ve seen DR on event rewards, but only in a specific case. In the Grenth event in Cursed Shore, I started getting a lower reward, but for a good reason: We were in a yo-yo of failure. We escorted Jonez but kept failing the event in the crypt, then did the escort again, then failed the crypt again, then did the escort again, etc. DR in that situation looks to be very much intended to stop people from deliberately failing the event and farming karma.

If I waypointed to a camp to sell junk, I’d start getting full rewards when I came back a couple of minutes later.

Strill.2591:

]We’ve tried. We’ve tried doing events in different zones. We’ve not repeating any events. We’ve tried doing a wide variety of events. The only determining factor in whether you get hit by DR that anyone has been able to identify is SPEED. How many events you complete in a given amount of time. Nothing else appears to have any effect.

Let me repeat, I ran the entire Central Invasion -> Temple of Baalthazar chain in one sitting, without the initial escort mission. Thats building the megacannons, protecting them as they attack the bone ship, attacking the styggian depths, defending the depths, disarming the minefield and taking the beachhead in a single, uninterrupted chain. Thats 6. Reinforcement escort to Rally Point, thats 7. Escort to the Altar, 8. Take the Altar, 9. The 10th quest was the Champ which was failed. In around an hour.

Thats 9 * over 300 karma, 2700 karma from the chain. While getting 40+ gear drops, several of them greens and 10+ silver form just the rewards, without drops and junk items and 3 yellows that all dropped for me during the final escort mission form random mobs. All of those events are challenging, failable chains, we almost failed the final escort due to a few suprise waves of risen nobles in the middle of the Pact troops.

Can you do more in an hour? Sure. In low level areas. Cheesing between easy as pie events. In which case you deserve to be hit with the DR, as its exactly the behavior its supposed to be triggered by. Derping around lowbie areas and clearing the loads of 2 minute events they throw at you in your lvl 80 gear is not a challenge. It is not supposed to give you better rewards then failable, “callenging” (and I use the term loosely, all except the final Baalthazar champ are zerg to win ones, unless the zerg runs of and forgets to protect critical assets) dynamic event metachains. If you expect to get more rewards for easier content, then yeah, it does not work that way.

Strill.2591:

That is absolutely horrendous. You can get 10-15k karma per hour without the cap. The only reason you’re avoiding the cap is because you’re doing events incredibly slowly. Do them at a reasonable speed and you’ll quickly see the cap regardless of how mobile you are.

:O

Unless you are talking WvW, which is not the object of this conversation, how is that one possible exactly? A lvl 80 quest without a booster gives you 370ish karma. To get 10-15k karma per hour, you would need to complete roughly 27+ events in an hour. Let’s say you have a booster that doubles the gain (I honestly don’t even know if they actually double said gain, never used one), that is still 14+ events in an hour. Please show me an area in lvl 70-80 zones when you can do that without either intentionally cheesing the content by pre calculated fails or hopping around the same area. WvW is a completely different matter, but again, thats not what I was addressing.

silencer.5028:

:O

Unless you are talking WvW, which is not the object of this conversation, how is that one possible exactly? A lvl 80 quest without a booster gives you 370ish karma. To get 10-15k karma per hour, you would need to complete roughly 27+ events in an hour. Let’s say you have a booster that doubles the gain (I honestly don’t even know if they actually double said gain, never used one), that is still 14+ events in an hour. Please show me an area in lvl 70-80 zones when you can do that without either intentionally cheesing the content by pre calculated fails or hopping around the same area. WvW is a completely different matter, but again, thats not what I was addressing.

Go to Cursed Shore. Pop a Karma Booster. Do the following events.

Northwest Cursed Shore:

Defend Gavebeorn’s Waypoint
Kill Veteran Risen Spider
4x Chain: Escort Explorer Plix
Escort Packheart
2x Chain: Arena of Balthazar
Kill Champion Drake Broodmother
Kill Champion Abomination
Kill Veteran Risen Wizard
Defend R&D Camp from Tar Elementals

Total: 13 events

Eastern Cursed Shore:

Defend Penitent Camp
Defend Shelter’s Gate Camp
Defend Jofast Camp

Total: 3 events

All the ones in Northwest cursed shore are clustered into the same area. Heck, they’re so close you can do the Arena of Balthazar, Drake Broodmother, and escort explorer plix events all at the same time if you pull all three of those mobs together. All the ones in Eastern cursed shore are also clustered into their own area, but you get continuous updates on their stats from wherever you are, so you can just walk over to those without needing to waypoint at all. Furthermore, on top of all that there’s at LEAST six more events that should be playing in these areas that are perpetually bugged. It’s very easy to get that much karma if you know where all the events are.

My issue has never been with DE rewards (who cares? it’s 1 silver), but rather, the speed at which mobs stop dropping items, which is where the actual money comes from.

I guess DE rewards are important to people farming karma, which I don’t care a single thing about.

A minor personal anecdote.

I started a new character to see the last line of the Norn personal story that I hadn’t completed yet, so I was chaining DEs trying to level him quickly. In Wayfarer foothills, I noticed that the Bunny/Jackalope/Yeti event chain almost always ran immediately after the Gareth Bear event chain. As soon as one chain finished, the other started. So, I jumped back and forth between the two so I could hammer out some quick levels. On my fourth time through the chain, I noticed that all of the rewards for completing the event got sharply cut in half (probably not exactly in half, but they had taken a noticeable dive). On the fifth time they’d dropped to nearly nothing (I got, like, 9 experience, 3 karma, and a few copper). So, I figured that I hit the DR and left.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, so I didn’t get specific numbers or anything. I figure DR is the only thing it could’ve been, though, ‘cause my rewards dropped significantly. I didn’t even bother to check loot and such ’cause I was just there for experience.

Strill.2591:

Go to Cursed Shore. Pop a Karma Booster. Do the following events.

Northwest Cursed Shore:

Defend Gavebeorn’s Waypoint
Kill Veteran Risen Spider

Looking good so far.

Strill.2591:

4x Chain: Escort Explorer Plix
Escort Packheart
2x Chain: Arena of Balthazar

Those have a 10 – 15 minute cooldown. Unless you are lucky enough to catch them all at the same time or the happen to be active when you get there, very unlikely to do them all within the same hour.

Strill.2591:

Kill Champion Drake Broodmother
Kill Champion Abomination

10-20 minute cooldown. Abomination gets shot in the face almost immediately after spawn. Good luck syncing all this to catch it at the same time.

Strill.2591:

Kill Veteran Risen Wizard

No argument here.

Strill.2591:

Defend R&D Camp from Tar Elementals
[/quote

Total: 13 events

Eastern Cursed Shore:

Defend Penitent Camp
Defend Shelter’s Gate Camp
Defend Jofast Camp

Defense quests take 5 minutes at least just due to the character of the spawn. Thats 20 minutes right there. 10-20 minute cool-down on all of them, if that. Thats 30-40 minutes on champions and defenses alone. This is assuming you play the events form start, or form whenever you get to them, to finish, not go to defense events, kill 10 mobs to get gold and run away. If you do that, thats cheesing events. DR is well deserved.

Strill.2591:

Total: 3 events

Never, ever have I seen more then 5 of those happen within an hour, unless again, you just poke at one and run to the other.

Strill.2591:

All the ones in Northwest cursed shore are clustered into the same area. Heck, they’re so close you can do the Arena of Balthazar, Drake Broodmother, and escort explorer plix events all at the same time if you pull all three of those mobs together. All the ones in Eastern cursed shore are also clustered into their own area, but you get continuous updates on their stats from wherever you are, so you can just walk over to those without needing to waypoint at all. Furthermore, on top of all that there’s at LEAST six more events that should be playing in these areas that are perpetually bugged. It’s very easy to get that much karma if you know where all the events are.

Exactly that. If you just poke at an event enough to get gold and move on to the next one, why exactly do you not expect to be hit by the DR? Why are you entitled to more rewards then players who ride the entire events and do the work for you? Seems to me the DR in this case, assuming it triggers, is well deserved and working as intended. Rewards should be a function of time spent and effort put in. Not speedrunning around an area poking at mobs and abusing (not exploiting or doing anything that is punishable) how the DE system determines your rewards.

OP, see my screenshot set:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10429631/timerbline%20Falls%20screenshots.zip

if you look through based on the time on the map and compare to how much Karma I get, you will see I end up severely diminished. Based on my shots, you will see that there are blocks of time where I am not doing an event; I’m actually gathering and talking with other people and doing some POIs.

If I wanted to do more events I could have, but i didn’t. i included a map of the zone with locations of the events in just the north/mid sections of the map.

In Orr, you can definitely hit diminished returns. If you follow the whole Arah event chain and fail just once, you will hit DR for both loot and karma.

ounkeo

In Orr, you can definitely hit diminished returns. If you follow the whole Arah event chain and fail just once, you will hit DR for both loot and karma.

Keyword being fail. Games usually punish failure. Orrian meta events restart 10-20 minutes after they fail, if that, I do not see an issue with having less rewards for the steps you repeat again.

Now, I do agree that the DR should not stack onto the next steps in the chain (or other DE’s) or get progressively worse in the chain (unless you cheese it as I mentioned in the previous post), but as a general rule, I do not see a problem with this providing it is tweaked properly.

I do not see an issue with having less rewards for the steps you repeat again.

This isn’t a penalty for failing one step of the event. If you do other events on your way to the start of the event chain, you will hit DR before you even get to the gates even if you are 100% successful.

The penalty for failing to capture the gates is a time sink restarting back at the camp and redoing the 2nd half of the event over again. I’m cool with that as it should be. It’s a pretty long event so failure will set you back a good 30+ minutes.

For a person starting at the camp at the foot of the steps, they can fail 3 or 4 times before diminishing returns hit. They don’t get that penalty. (personally, I’ve never seen the event failed more than once).

ounkeo.9138:

This isn’t a penalty for failing one step of the event. If you do other events on your way to the start of the event chain, you will hit DR before you even get to the gates even if you are 100% successful.

That is not what you said. Which events? And actually do them, or just smack a few mobs on the way to the Arah gates chain? Apart from some of the minor boss ones, most even chains there take their time to complete, which in turn means you will miss the start of the Arah chain. You can either do the events that are on the way, or do the arah event chain.

ounkeo.9138:

The penalty for failing to capture the gates is a time sink restarting back at the camp and redoing the 2nd half of the event over again. I’m cool with that as it should be. It’s a pretty long event so failure will set you back a good 30+ minutes.

Yes, but it restarts the event chain. Unless the 30+ minutes is spent waiting for the event to restart (I’ve never seen it failed once, so I cant say much about it), you get to do another series of dynamic events for which you get to collect karma/rewards again. In which case I have no problem with having a slight (and I do mean slight, say 20-25% per failure) penalty to the steps you have just done. If you do need to wait the 30 minutes however, or it is one huge event (which seems contrary to how other big metaevents are designed, they are usually 3-4 or more distinct steps) then yeah, DR is completely unjustified.

ounkeo.9138:

For a person starting at the camp at the foot of the steps, they can fail 3 or 4 times before diminishing returns hit. They don’t get that penalty. (personally, I’ve never seen the event failed more than once).

Again, not what you said. It still seems to me that either actively participating in the Arah Gate event or “tagging” it and cheesing it towards other to tag them are the two choices here and I fully support DR for the latter method.

Quite frankly, you are all looking at DR wrong.

If you are not a bot, and you get punished for doing anything non-exploitive, it means the game designers have failed.

P.S. You can’t defeat bots. Punishing players to do so is insane. Blizzard can’t… but luckily they don’t do insane kitten like the DR system.

I wish I could upvote Silencer 100×. I play 4+ hour sessions almost every night and have never encountered DR.

Maybe some people are getting hit with it via bugs and that really sucks and I’m really sorry for that and it needs to get fixed if that’s the case…but my guess is a lot are actually causing it to trigger legitimately. My favorite are players who bounce between Penitent and Shelter’s Gate then wonder why DR kicks in…or even worse, people who just squat Penitent.

I play 4+ hours every night and hit the DR in Cursed Shore easy.
If I catch the events right and run with a good group it’s very common to hit the DR in Cursed Shore within the first 30-40min of being there after not having played the game for over 8hrs the DR system kicks in after doing to many events to fast.
The only way to stop the DR system is to stop doing events and wait.

Sorry but I’m not gonna be told how to spend my time or how to play GW2.
I will move on and find another MMO to play.
This is punishing the player for playing the game!

The core design for end-game and mechanics of playing end-game go against the DR which they have poorly implemented.
There is but one level 80 zone and it is badly over crowded and full of people zerging and botting.
The over crowding causes the mobs to be invisible.

Right now if you do to many events in a set period of time the DR system will punish you, it does not matter if you change zones to do events or logout… it has to do with how many events you do in a given time frame.

So if you’re good and push and strive to go fast and do as many as you can, you will be hit by the DR system.
In Cursed Shore the events give 378 karma and when the DR is in full effect they give 19 karma.

Anet this is why I’m quitting Guild Wars 2 and finding me another game to play.
I will not be punished for playing a game the way you designed it then within the first month ruined with a quick rushed out heavy handed nerf to the very design and mechanics to your end-game.

You’re failing your players Anet.

If you’re entire goal is to complete content and earn rewards at the maximum possible speed, with no consideration or attempt to play the game as intended, I would expect (and agree) that the DR system will continue to do what it should…which is slow you down a bit. It is, in fact, vital that it does exactly that, and I think once they work the bugs out it’s a fantastic solution to a common problem. Don’t complain about a headache if you continuously, intentionally, bash your head into a wall.

The DR system is entirely necessary. There has to be some gating mechanic placed on the speed of loot acquisition, otherwise your game gets used up and the economy goes bust…everything is worthless. I understand that some players’ only goal in these games is simply the fastest possible and most efficient acquisition…with no regard to actually playing the game as intended…and I think it’s important to acknowledge that the game isn’t designed for those people, and actively works to restrict those people from ruining things for everyone else. It’s still quite possible to earn everything in the game (many people already have tons of gold and karma and some even have legendary weapons already, so it’s certainly possible to acquire loot at a high rate)… there just has to be a cap on acquisition speed to maintain the value in the experience and the loot.

I’m going to talk general MMORPG design for a second…

It’s generally accepted that players who play fewer hours, say less than 20 hours a week (these players make up the largest part of the audience), should receive reasonable rewards for their play consistently enough where they feel it’s worth playing, so drop rates have to be relatively high in modern MMORPGs. The problem is, those high drop rates are applied across the board, including players who play many hours a day…which means WAY to much loot would enter the economy if there wasn’t some gating mechanic. I know this is hard to accept…but every game has to limit loot in some way for people who are playing a lot of hours (20+ hours a week). I’m one of those players (I play 40+ hours a week), but I understand the necessity of these mechanics. Gold and items sinks aren’t enough…they also have to control the rate at which things initially enter the economy, so that low-playtime and high-playtime players are both served without inflation running out of control.

In previous MMORPGs, the gating mechanics generally were other players…the competition you were always forced into for open-world mobs and nodes and loot. This kept a downward pressure on the speed of loot acquisition for high-playtime players, because they were competing with each other… but it also meant that seeing other players around was a negative experience. If you wanted to earn faster, you moved AWAY from other people and found a little spot to grind in. Even instanced group activities were set up to separate players to allow for maximum loot acquisition speed.

With GW2, ArenaNet removed those anti-social gating mechanisms. They wanted players to be able to enjoy the company of other players in the open world, and to create a much more cooperative atmosphere. Of course, giving everyone their own nodes and loot means that the rate of acquisition for the game overall is hyper-inflated. They still needed some way to keep the economy stable, by applying a downward pressure for high-playtime players. They replaced the “other people” gating mechanics with something very different, which avoided the problems that the competition caused. The DR gets people moving around in the open world, taking part in events with other players and doing a variety of content. I think it’s a much better solution. A social gating mechanism, instead of an anti-social one.

The fact that other MMORPGs regularly allow players to find little glitches or loopholes in the game’s mechanics and content that they can use to earn at much higher (unintended) rates doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea. ArenaNet is simply enforcing the necessary gating mechanisms when they find a loophole or unintended shortcut. I wouldn’t expect it to go away…it’s a good system once they work the bugs out.

The fact that this system may also diminish the effects that bots / hacks can have on the game is, I think, an entirely secondary benefit. It obviously doesn’t stop those things completely…but that’s okay, because it isn’t the primary function of the mechanic.

Quite frankly, you are all looking at DR wrong.

If you are not a bot, and you get punished for doing anything non-exploitive, it means the game designers have failed.

P.S. You can’t defeat bots. Punishing players to do so is insane. Blizzard can’t… but luckily they don’t do insane kitten like the DR system.

^ This

This is what it all boils down to. Well said The Only One.

Lysidian.4653:

Quite frankly, you are all looking at DR wrong.

If you are not a bot, and you get punished for doing anything non-exploitive, it means the game designers have failed.

P.S. You can’t defeat bots. Punishing players to do so is insane. Blizzard can’t… but luckily they don’t do insane kitten like the DR system.

^ This

This is what it all boils down to. Well said The Only One.

Okay, but who decides what’s exploitative and what isn’t?

Do players get to decide for themselves? That would be disastrous.

The idea that players should be able to do anything they want as long as it isn’t something they consider an exploit is just the epitome of unreasonable, selfish thinking. All games have rules, and an intended method of play which is designed to provide the intended experience and maintain balance and efficacy of game systems over time. Games enforce these things in different ways…but they all enforce them. They have to…otherwise you don’t have a game.

Usually the whining, “why can’t I play how I WANT?!” is left behind on the elementary school playground, as people realize that the only way to enjoy a game with other people is to have some structure and rules.

Logic dictates that because ArenaNet is a for-profit business, their primary motivation is going to be maintaining that profitability over time. It follows that the best way to do that is to keep players happy, and protect the integrity of their game. I think it would be a pretty safe assumption that if you are running into a gating mechanic, it was put in place to further those objectives (in this case, to protect the game’s integrity). The idea that they would put something in to intentionally “punish” players or turn them off to the game is silly…because it would go entirely against their goals as a business. Therefore, the DR system is clearly there to protect the game and the experience for players over time. If people understand nothing else about why the system exists, they should at least get that.

If you are constantly running into the DR system, then you should realize that the way you are playing is considered detrimental to the game by ArenaNet. Whether it’s because it negatively impacts the economy, other players, or whatever…you are doing something ArenaNet feels will harm the game. So stop doing it, or move on to a game that condones your chosen play style. The truth is, despite the constant complaining, I think players are having very little trouble playing and acquiring loot in the game. If it’s not fast enough for you, I’m sorry. The game wasn’t made only for you.

Therefore, the DR system is clearly there to protect the game and the experience for players over time. If people understand nothing else about why the system exists, they should at least get that.

If you are constantly running into the DR system, then you should realize that the way you are playing is considered detrimental to the game by ArenaNet. Whether it’s because it negatively impacts the economy, other players, or whatever…you are doing something ArenaNet feels will harm the game. So stop doing it, or move on to a game that condones your chosen play style. The truth is, despite the constant complaining, I think players are having very little trouble playing and acquiring loot in the game. If it’s not fast enough for you, I’m sorry. The game wasn’t made only for you.

Could you please provide your ANET source for these comments? Other wise it is only your opinion and doesnt seem to be backed in fact. I will repost this for your benefit.

Some of these white knights are really “reaching” to defend the DRs.

“This game isnt meant for you/your game play” Are you people getting a pay check from ANET? Are you employed by them? Then stop putting words in their mouths and speaking for them. If you arent employed by ANET then you dont know what the intent is, you cant arguably tell someone “This game isnt meant for you.” Poooolease GTFO with that crap.

Secondly, there are so many flaws in the arguements that players should not be grinding or that it should take X amount of time to collect Y item. To make these arguements while blindly looking at the facts game design is nothing short of pure ignorance.

Karma booster for 1h – Nope, DRs kick in for me within 30min
EXP booster for 1h – Nope, DRs kick in for me within 30min
Kill streak booster – Nope, fanbois say we shouldnt be farmin mobs, oh and DRs
Magic find – Forget it, you will only hit the DR faster, hence a total design waste
Karma gear – approx 252,000karma/379= 665 DEs WITHOUT DRs………
WvWvW weapon – 300+tokens? for one weapon (hint- I made 75 in 18hrs before DR)
Dungeon gear – 700+tokens?
Crafting – 3 fine mats for blue, 8 for green, 15 for rare, 30 for exotic, ……per created item
Legendary anything – over 512g worth of mats + 500 WvW tokens + 500 dungeon tokens + 550,000karma (not counting clovers) + explorer + 2 crafting skills at 400 + base exotic

Those examples alone scream grind/farm. Hell the kill streak booster alone blows 99% of these white knight arguments out of the water. These are facts, now stop with the speculating and the guessing and trying to pass it off as “This is ANETS intent,” “This wasnt meant for gamers like you,” “ANET doesnt want you doing X.”

If you cant cite your source from ANET or provide facts that can be verified, stop, just stop. Go back to enjoying the game you feel so passionate to defend, step outside, go get a drink, and come back with a reasonable and verifiable argument.

Until ANET gives us some transparency on the issue of DRs. None of us really know what the intent is. However, looking at the content and mechanics that is in the game, it is not farfetched or illogical to conclude that implimentation of DRs was a knee jerk reaction to botting and exploiting.

As for the arguments that DRs are meant to curve players repeating DEs/grinding/farming, the facts speak for themselves. GW2 has a lot of grind in it. DRs extend that grind. Manifesto clearly says “We dont want players grinding,” Conclusion = DRs are a broken design.

It’s called logic and common sense. I don’t need to work for ArenaNet to have a basic understanding of game mechanics and the motivations of businesses. The DR system is in no way a knee-jerk reaction…they had it in their first game for years, and always intended it to be a part of GW2. Again, this just makes common sense based on what we know.

GW2 only has the grind in it that you put in yourself. I have never done any grinding in GW2, and I never will…and guess what? In time, I will have every available reward in the game. Without ever grinding. Amazing, I know, but it’s the truth. If you don’t understand how that’s possible, it’s a failing in your understanding and your mentality, not in the game.

The central issue is that many players have been conditioned by previous MMORPGs to believe that anything which requires a lot of something to achieve… like a recipe that requires 250 mats…is a requirement for doing a single, monotonuous activity over and over as fast as possible in order to gain those mats in the shortest possible time. This is incorrect thinking. Those types of rewards are meant to be long-term goals…things you save up for over time as you simply play the game. It’s players themselves who create this requirement to get every reward in the shortest possible time, and that leads to grinding when no grinding is intended or required. The only real requirement is a bit of patience and enjoyment of the game play.

Hello

The Karma DR issue is being discussed in this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Let-s-Start-the-Karma-DR-Dialogue/first#post331599. Please, feel free to join the discussion and add whatever info you consider to be helpful. We are trying to funnel the discussion that way to keep the forums as organised as possible. Thanks for your comprehension.

This thread is closed.