Guild Wars 2

I don’t think it’s against their design philosophy at all. I feel in fact that it is exactly in line with it. People just did things that weren’t expected or intended….and so it was dealt with.

There is a meta event in Cursed Shore that leads all the way through the zone, you hit the brick wall telling you to stop playing the game before even getting to the end of that single chain.

People aren’t expected or intended to do a single even chain? Are you kidding me?
ArenaNet knew exactly how many events people were able to do in a given timeframe before the game was released.

This has nothing to do with any of that. This is just another in a line of knee-jerk reactions to the plague of botters, hackers and exploiter running rampant that is hurting normal players more then the people it’s targeted at.

Some of these white knights are really “reaching” to defend the DRs. (looking at you Gehenna, among others)

“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.

edit* DR is a crap design and needs to go.

This is kind of ironic, I remember a thread as little as 2 weeks ago suggesting the minimal grind for exotics to be reduced even more to make them more easily accessible.

The responses?

It was the exact same people thinking they have a higher authority on deciding what the game “should” be like than the designers themselves saying:
“ArenaNet designed the game so that you should grind”
“Having to grind is a good thing”
“You should have to grind to get exotics, because that’s the way ArenaNet intended”
“If you don’t want to grind then this game isn’t for you”

I’m looking at the TP and waiting for ectos to skyrocket, there are 0 ectos being listed in the TP by sellers and buy orders asking for huge quantities. My only guess is that because of the loot DR, the supply of ectos has hit rock bottom.

To expand: DR leads to less 70+ rares in circulation, less 70+ rares in circulation means less chances for ectos, less ectos being sold means having to shell out more to craft exotics, crafted exotics rising in price means that the bare minimum to be exotic’d out will rise. There are more dominos in this path but in the long run: The Guild Wars 2 quality of life just got more expensive, because crafting, being decently geared and not being able to retain money because the prices of goods rose while the average income of the playerbase stays consistant is not a good thing.

To expand, DR leads to less mudflation. Can’t see anything wrong with that.

It’s still easy to get exotics.

Vaerah.4907:

To expand, DR leads to less mudflation. Can’t see anything wrong with that.

This would make sense, except that bots and exploiters don’t get affected by DR, so they continue to flood the market with increasingly cheaper goods.

Tondrin.7806:

I’m looking at the TP and waiting for ectos to skyrocket, there are 0 ectos being listed in the TP by sellers and buy orders asking for huge quantities. My only guess is that because of the loot DR, the supply of ectos has hit rock bottom.

To expand: DR leads to less 70+ rares in circulation, less 70+ rares in circulation means less chances for ectos, less ectos being sold means having to shell out more to craft exotics, crafted exotics rising in price means that the bare minimum to be exotic’d out will rise. There are more dominos in this path but in the long run: The Guild Wars 2 quality of life just got more expensive, because crafting, being decently geared and not being able to retain money because the prices of goods rose while the average income of the playerbase stays consistant is not a good thing.

Yeah, no. Ecto market price has been consistently dropping, not rising (from around 30s to currently around the 17-20s mark, spiking on weekends).

Same thing for the fine crafting mats (blood for instance, from around 40s to 27s last I used it).

Loot DR is an even bigger myth then karma/event DR. I’ve yet to see the regular, map based mobs to stop dropping greens/yellows and random junk/scrap. Event mobs on the other hand seem to drop mostly scrap. But considering you fight them in huge swarms, why is that surprising exactly? Even after fighting them, if you return to regular map mobs, their drops never stop for me at least.

Ask the people who were making 70k+ karma per day to get their legendary.

GW2 is not supposed to just be GW1 with a bigger map and new graphic.
Its supposed to offer what GW1 did and MORE
The devs have said this too.

Simply mentioning that GW1 was quick to max gear is not some sort of proof that you are intended to have max gear with a a week of hitting 80.

The reason players are upset is that it is essentially a “lockout” timer artificially placed without any justification other than to combat botting and exceedingly fast player advancement. Many prior MMOs had the 24-hour or week-long dungeon instance “lockout”.

But it is two-fold here, since it was not in game on day 1, you have a class of people that were treated better by getting it first. This nth percentage of the top one-percent is what the DR code caters to and gives this class of player base a far greater head start (weeks of play time) than other players following and trying to accomplish the same goals will have.

Secondly, it really is for the anti-bot/farm group of players but is so dramatic that it is easy to realize that anyone playing under the right circumstances can hit it in ~40 minutes of continuance and ‘normal’ event chain hopping on a given map with your group.

In essence, the DR code is the opposite of fun. It sucks because it hurts the players that want to play the game far too much at the expense of combating the real underlying issues, bots, player advancement pace, third-party gold sellers, etc.

EDIT: Example of hitting DR code in ~40 minutes happened today in Orr. I did the Arah event chain immediately followed by the Plinx event chain (Broodmother was in as well during Plinx). Mobs at the end of Plinx were dropping nothing but greys. This was not random. If DR code is able to be hit after 8-10 events back-to-back, it is far too harsh.

There was never, ever supposed to be an “End Game Gear Grind” for this game. Ever. They need to go back to that.

The game doesn’t need it. I hit the level cap on my main at the 135 hour mark and now have almost 245 hours on that character. I still only have 63% map completion. I still haven’t done any dungeons. I’ve only barely touched WvW and sPvP. I play the game like I would play a massive, extended Skyrim and craft or buy the next piece of Exotic Gear when ever I can afford it.

I’m two accessories short of full exotics. I’ll probably eventually outfit myself with an alternate set to support a different build type. I’ve ignored the really grindy exotics. They are just pointlessly grindy and the grind isn’t necessary to provide hundreds of hours of enjoyable play for a character that has reached the level cap.

The original design worked. There is no need for an End Game Gear Grind, which has just created a market for illicit gold sellers, attracted botters and resulted in DR, which will just further increase the demand for illicit gold!

Botters will just adjust their botting to game the DR system. They can much better afford to have 24 accounts that each run an hour a day, circumventing the DR entirely and also making identifying them as botters pretty close to impossible, than a normal player can afford to deal with the very negative repercussions of a restrictive DR system.

DR will kill the game. It’s really the only thing that can kill the game. that and other bad game design decisions that abandon the original design concept and fall back on things like an “End Game Gear Grind”, which actually isn’t even needed!

DR cap does slow down some botters, but they need to ‘tweek’ it a little. Like if you are offline for X hours, you get bonus time before DR cap kicks in. At the moment they current system hits 24/7 playing bots and the casual 2hr a night player just as hard.

Grinding is bad and only botters normally do it (or afk players with a G15 programmed keyboard)

So until they can remove all botters (which will never happen) DR is a start

Natjur.4017:

DR cap does slow down some botters, but they need to ‘tweek’ it a little. Like if you are offline for X hours, you get bonus time before DR cap kicks in. At the moment they current system hits 24/7 playing bots and the casual 2hr a night player just as hard.

Grinding is bad and only botters normally do it (or afk players with a G15 programmed keyboard)

So until they can remove all botters (which will never happen) DR is a start

G19…at least get your facts straight…

And DR barely stops bots, but let’s just pretend for a second that it does, sure. So now, instead of having 1 bot, the botter uses 3 to make up for the lost loot. Obviously that’s a start, let’s increase the population instead of decreasing it.

If DR is what is saving the game, than I hope it’s more effective than it is at stopping bots…

On a more serious note: don’t you guys ever get tired of this?

DR doesn’t really do anything about the “endgame gear grind”. The crafted gear is still the easiest gear to get by far and it has the same stats as dungeon gear and karma temple gear.

But it does make it so instead of spending 3 weeks to get the karma for a legendary that people have already made, it now takes 4-6 months, probably longer as you’ll probably get burned out long before you get there unless you are some kind of robot.

ArenaNet knew exactly how much karma were getting for playing the game before the game was released. Reducing this karma gain by such a huge amount makes no sense unless it’s actually a side-effect of trying to stop bots or something.

Isn’t that where the selling of gems comes in?
Or are those completely for different things?
Just like piling up chests in your bank is where the selling of keys comes in?

Someone smelled money seeing the initial sales numbers I think, but that is probably me being overly cynical.
And quite frankly: it probably is… but I can’t shake the feeling of getting spammed by goldsellers.
I really hope i’m wong, and that it is indeed a mere byproduct of bot catching.

Apos.5184:

G19…at least get your facts straight…

And DR barely stops bots, but let’s just pretend for a second that it does, sure. So now, instead of having 1 bot, the botter uses 3 to make up for the lost loot. Obviously that’s a start, let’s increase the population instead of decreasing it.

G15, G19, there are a LOT of programmerable keyboard (two seconds on google would show you that the G15 IS one of them.)

And the bots its stopping is not the gold seller bots, but the players who want to get karma while they sleep and setup their char next to where an event appear and goes to bed and hopes to earn karma while they sleep. This code stops them from doing that. AFK botting is still cheating

Fiontar.4695:

There was never, ever supposed to be an “End Game Gear Grind” for this game. Ever. They need to go back to that.

The game doesn’t need it. I hit the level cap on my main at the 135 hour mark and now have almost 245 hours on that character. I still only have 63% map completion. I still haven’t done any dungeons. I’ve only barely touched WvW and sPvP. I play the game like I would play a massive, extended Skyrim and craft or buy the next piece of Exotic Gear when ever I can afford it.

I’m two accessories short of full exotics. I’ll probably eventually outfit myself with an alternate set to support a different build type. I’ve ignored the really grindy exotics. They are just pointlessly grindy and the grind isn’t necessary to provide hundreds of hours of enjoyable play for a character that has reached the level cap.

The original design worked. There is no need for an End Game Gear Grind, which has just created a market for illicit gold sellers, attracted botters and resulted in DR, which will just further increase the demand for illicit gold!

Botters will just adjust their botting to game the DR system. They can much better afford to have 24 accounts that each run an hour a day, circumventing the DR entirely and also making identifying them as botters pretty close to impossible, than a normal player can afford to deal with the very negative repercussions of a restrictive DR system.

DR will kill the game. It’s really the only thing that can kill the game. that and other bad game design decisions that abandon the original design concept and fall back on things like an “End Game Gear Grind”, which actually isn’t even needed!

I’m sorry, but I find this just the most ignorant comment. Just removing gear as an incentive system is no solution at all. Gearing your character, whether it be cosmetic or stat based is a fundamental part of an RPG or MMO in general and completely removing it would pretty well alienate a huge part of the potential player base. Not to mention almost all of the item systems and economy in the game have been completely designed around it and those would fall apart if there was no end-game gear “grind” as you call it.

Anet has done a great job of giving players incentive to do a number of things in the PvE part of the game — karma based events, exploration, dungeons, etc. — and the rules of their game state that if you keep repeating the same events over and over you will receive diminishing returns on your rewards. This both combats botting and is a system put in place to encourage players to play in more areas of the world, which in turn spreads the player base out to participate in events at multiple level ranges, and generally makes the game work better as a whole.

Obviously it does not sit well with is the crowd that only likes to zerg around a single zone to both maximize their profits and rewards in the shortest period of time.

The big question that I have for these people — what is the rush? What are you going to do once you have all of your gear. Oh I know, you’re going to come back to the forums and start complaining about having nothing to do.

Apos.5184:

Natjur.4017:

DR cap does slow down some botters, but they need to ‘tweek’ it a little. Like if you are offline for X hours, you get bonus time before DR cap kicks in. At the moment they current system hits 24/7 playing bots and the casual 2hr a night player just as hard.

Grinding is bad and only botters normally do it (or afk players with a G15 programmed keyboard)

So until they can remove all botters (which will never happen) DR is a start

G19…at least get your facts straight…

And DR barely stops bots, but let’s just pretend for a second that it does, sure. So now, instead of having 1 bot, the botter uses 3 to make up for the lost loot. Obviously that’s a start, let’s increase the population instead of decreasing it.

I used to work for logitech. The G15 is just as programmable as the G19. In fact even my cheapo G11 that I got for free has 18 programmable keys and each one can hold 3 different macros.

bwillb.2165:

Apos.5184:

Natjur.4017:

DR cap does slow down some botters, but they need to ‘tweek’ it a little. Like if you are offline for X hours, you get bonus time before DR cap kicks in. At the moment they current system hits 24/7 playing bots and the casual 2hr a night player just as hard.

Grinding is bad and only botters normally do it (or afk players with a G15 programmed keyboard)

So until they can remove all botters (which will never happen) DR is a start

G19…at least get your facts straight…

And DR barely stops bots, but let’s just pretend for a second that it does, sure. So now, instead of having 1 bot, the botter uses 3 to make up for the lost loot. Obviously that’s a start, let’s increase the population instead of decreasing it.

I used to work for logitech. The G15 is just as programmable as the G19. In fact even my cheapo G11 that I got for free has 18 programmable keys and each one can hold 3 different macros.

I’m aware, I have a G15 myself.

Only the G19 has the drivers to repeat button mashing without the user though. Macros doesn’t equal botting, not being active does. Only the G19 has the feature to repeatedly press keys on its own. At least last time I checked.

You can play however you want so long as it’s exactly the way we mean for you to play.

Apos.5184:

bwillb.2165:

Apos.5184:

Natjur.4017:

DR cap does slow down some botters, but they need to ‘tweek’ it a little. Like if you are offline for X hours, you get bonus time before DR cap kicks in. At the moment they current system hits 24/7 playing bots and the casual 2hr a night player just as hard.

Grinding is bad and only botters normally do it (or afk players with a G15 programmed keyboard)

So until they can remove all botters (which will never happen) DR is a start

G19…at least get your facts straight…

And DR barely stops bots, but let’s just pretend for a second that it does, sure. So now, instead of having 1 bot, the botter uses 3 to make up for the lost loot. Obviously that’s a start, let’s increase the population instead of decreasing it.

I used to work for logitech. The G15 is just as programmable as the G19. In fact even my cheapo G11 that I got for free has 18 programmable keys and each one can hold 3 different macros.

I’m aware, I have a G15 myself.

Only the G19 has the drivers to repeat button mashing without the user though. Macros doesn’t equal botting, not being active does. Only the G19 has the feature to repeatedly press keys on its own. At least last time I checked.

That’s built in to the Logitech Gaming software, not specific to the keyboard.
I can do that on my G11.

Humposaurus.5764:

@Arcalas and all other farm bashers, great that you like to not farm and that you have not had issues with the DR. But please try to also look from an another player’s perspective. Some of us (a minority or not) like to farm efficient.

If your a gamer that havn’t had problems with the DR, then thats great for you. But don’t come here telling other people that what they are experiencing wouldn’t happen if they played this game the way you do.

We all like to play our games our own way. Some like to get to the max point ASAP, while other like to stare at a tree 5 minutes. Should we be punished for playing the game? The answer is obviously NO!

As for the statement that we rush through to many events to quickly. It isn’t our fault that DE’s give gold medals after a single kill. Why should I waste my precious time on completing one event, when I can tag 5 events in the same timeframe?

Instead of implementing a system that hurts efficient players, they should have gone and:
- Either up the difficulty of the DE’s so it will be harder for them to complete.
- Make it that you need to at least finish 70% of the DE in order to obtain gold. Also make the difference between bronze, silver and gold larger. Right now the difference between silver and gold is maybe 50 karma.

Hump i know it looks alot like im trying to tell ppl how to do something but u have to see what could happen if they didnt have the DR in the game. If DR was not in the game some farmers would stop playing the game after they got everything they wanted in about 2 to 3 weeks. But i have a feeling anet will change how far the DR will go later one when more stuff comes out or they see not many ppl are farming some areas like orr.

Honestly just wait to see what anet does cuz things do change just like they made it some what punishing for some ppl who over do it. Example is with the token rewards at first it would take u forever to get some of the token rewards and now they made it so on your first time on a path u get 60 at the end instead of 30 when finishing that path. Things change just wait it out to see.

Arcalas.9368:

Humposaurus.5764:

@Arcalas and all other farm bashers, great that you like to not farm and that you have not had issues with the DR. But please try to also look from an another player’s perspective. Some of us (a minority or not) like to farm efficient.

If your a gamer that havn’t had problems with the DR, then thats great for you. But don’t come here telling other people that what they are experiencing wouldn’t happen if they played this game the way you do.

We all like to play our games our own way. Some like to get to the max point ASAP, while other like to stare at a tree 5 minutes. Should we be punished for playing the game? The answer is obviously NO!

As for the statement that we rush through to many events to quickly. It isn’t our fault that DE’s give gold medals after a single kill. Why should I waste my precious time on completing one event, when I can tag 5 events in the same timeframe?

Instead of implementing a system that hurts efficient players, they should have gone and:
- Either up the difficulty of the DE’s so it will be harder for them to complete.
- Make it that you need to at least finish 70% of the DE in order to obtain gold. Also make the difference between bronze, silver and gold larger. Right now the difference between silver and gold is maybe 50 karma.

Hump i know it looks alot like im trying to tell ppl how to do something but u have to see what could happen if they didnt have the DR in the game. If DR was not in the game some farmers would stop playing the game after they got everything they wanted in about 2 to 3 weeks. But i have a feeling anet will change how far the DR will go later one when more stuff comes out or they see not many ppl are farming some areas like orr.

Honestly just wait to see what anet does cuz things do change just like they made it some what punishing for some ppl who over do it. Example is with the token rewards at first it would take u forever to get some of the token rewards and now they made it so on your first time on a path u get 60 at the end instead of 30 when finishing that path. Things change just wait it out to see.

Wut? I played GW1 for 7000+ hours over the past 7 years. I got obsidian armor in the first few months with less than 200 hours played, and yet I kept playing the game for another 6800 hours. Why? Because it was a fun game that I loved to play.

GW2 is also a fun game that I love to play, for about 20 minutes, because then DR slaps me in the face and tells me to stop.

It’s not the players wanting to leave the game, it’s the game making people leave the game.

Well, I am not happy that such a solution was put in place, maybe it is temporary until something better comes along.

On the other hand, I understand it. This game was not supposed to be about “Epics” and the monotonous repetitive grind to them. It has so much more to offer, people playing it with the sole goal of getting Exotic gear, in my opinion are experiencing the game the wrong way.

So the solution while it may seem “poor” in implementation is necessary because of the singlemindedness of some players who dismiss all of the content and experience of GW2 in order to get gear…this was not meant to be a game for Gear junkies. Or at least it was meant to offer a different experience than having to become a Gear Junky of games we have had till now, this is why gear in GW2 is relatively very accessible in comparison. yet it is assumed that one will actually partake in all it has to offer, WvW, Market, Dungeons and many other events. It was not meant for everyone and their dogs to stay in the same area grinding mats and gear for the sole purpose of getting better gear. And so DR is now in place, accept it, live with it, and try to have some fun doing something different for a change too.

Get off the addiction of gear for crying out loud, get some Pride for yourself and your Server, interact with your fellow players a bit, participate and help them in the many aspects of the game, and like, while having fun doing many things and participating in many various activities earn also the rewards which will in a more paced way give you the gear too.

What is more cool to say “I played GW2 and got my Exotic Set”…or is it cooler to be able to have many different stories of adventures to share with your experience in the world? “I helped achieve Victory for my server”, “I helped to kill Epic Dragons menacing the realm”, “I went in to the deepest reaches of many Dungeons and fought many different foes”, “i explored all of the world seen every corner, discovered every secret it held”…“and through it all I had much fun with my friends and mates, as well I met many new and fun people.”

What is the kick with repeating and grinding over and over the same mobs in the same area just to get a set of gear? If someone came to me today and flashed their exotic set, to me it would simply mean that they have not experienced the game, because I know that this is all they did in the few weeks the game exists in order to get that set and nothing else. The value of the player is actually low, even if they are wearing that set as it stands. It is a single minded approach to playing a game, and it takes a single minded player to play like that.

Sorry to be blunt, not mean to personally offend anyone but that is what it really amounts to at this time. At least with DR achieving Exotic Set gear will mean much more than what it does now since we know that this player did not grind 8 hours a day killing the same mobs in the same area knowing practically nothing about the game beyond how to get that gear.

So boys and gals, go out and play, explore, adventure, have fun!

Cheers!

Suraknar, all the DR is doing is making the grind for gear take longer and make it more monotonous, so it has the opposite effect of what you want the game to be.

It’s not even a grind for gear, gear is easy to get if you really want it, you need to look around and talk with people to figure out a good way to get it sure, but once you figure out how to get the components and money it doesn’t take too long. Sure a lot of people have trouble figuring out a good way to get these things, but there’s nothing arenanet can do about people not wanting to take 10 minutes to learn how to make money.

Arenanet put in cosmetic gear for a reason, to provide long term goals. You have cultural armor that costs over 100g, weapons that cost anywhere from 50 to 500g in materials. Usually the coolest ones are the most expensive, you can even get a greatsword that looks like the summoned greatsword from the elementalist elite skill.

Before you get even close to getting any of these things, you’re already way past done “exploring” the world. The word isn’t infinite and neither is the number of events. Sooner or later you will have to end up repeating the same content or move on to a different game. I have over 7000 hours played in GW1. A lot of that was doing pvp, which takes place on the same handful of maps, a lot of that was repeating visits to areas I already cleared 5000 hours before that. But I still had a lot of fun doing that because I liked playing the game.

Maybe you’re the kind of person who gets bored after they’re done exploring and there’s nothing new left in the game for you to see, but there are a lot of people who have fun playing the game because it’s a great game and playing it after finishing it gives them progress towards new long-term goals.

One of the great tings about Guild Wars is that the long terms goals don’t give you better stats than anyone else. Instead of repeating the same dungeons over and over to get +10 strength which lets you go do the next dungeon over and over, you can do whatever you like doing most and the rewards are purely cosmetic.

So when you’ve explored everything and you get bored with the game, I’ll still be having fun with the game getting cooler armor and weapons for my character.

Suraknar, all the DR is doing is making the grind for gear take longer and make it more monotonous, so it has the opposite effect of what you want the game to be.

It’s not even a grind for gear, gear is easy to get if you really want it, you need to look around and talk with people to figure out a good way to get it sure, but once you figure out how to get the components and money it doesn’t take too long. Sure a lot of people have trouble figuring out a good way to get these things, but there’s nothing arenanet can do about people not wanting to take 10 minutes to learn how to make money.

Arenanet put in cosmetic gear for a reason, to provide long term goals. You have cultural armor that costs over 100g, weapons that cost anywhere from 50 to 500g in materials. Usually the coolest ones are the most expensive, you can even get a greatsword that looks like the summoned greatsword from the elementalist elite skill.

Before you get even close to getting any of these things, you’re already way past done “exploring” the world. The word isn’t infinite and neither is the number of events. Sooner or later you will have to end up repeating the same content or move on to a different game. I have over 7000 hours played in GW1. A lot of that was doing pvp, which takes place on the same handful of maps, a lot of that was repeating visits to areas I already cleared 5000 hours before that. But I still had a lot of fun doing that because I liked playing the game.

Maybe you’re the kind of person who gets bored after they’re done exploring and there’s nothing new left in the game for you to see, but there are a lot of people who have fun playing the game because it’s a great game and playing it after finishing it gives them progress towards new long-term goals.

One of the great tings about Guild Wars is that the long terms goals don’t give you better stats than anyone else. Instead of repeating the same dungeons over and over to get +10 strength which lets you go do the next dungeon over and over, you can do whatever you like doing most and the rewards are purely cosmetic.

So when you’ve explored everything and you get bored with the game, I’ll still be having fun with the game getting cooler armor and weapons for my character.

Putting the DR in the game made the game a lot less fun for people who plan on spending more time on the game beyond just exploring every zone. Instead of playing the game and slowly working on new cosmetics to make their characters cooler, what happens if you play the game for 15 minutes is the game giving you a message saying “YOU HAVE BEEN MARKED AS A BOTTER/EXPLOITER AND YOU DON’T GET ANYTHING ANYMORE GO PLAY A DIFFERENT GAME”

What kind of way is that to treat people who will be playing the game longer than the people who just want to explore a bit then move on to a different game?

Hello Cerise.

A thoughtful reply. But just like it seems that I like exploring (which I do), you seem like someone that is only motivated by getting gear.

Now, normally I do not get bored after having explored the game if there is some type of interaction to participate in that is challenging enough. See, WoW is a game in which I got really bored, repeating instances and Raids to Boot is not my thing, once twice maybe a third time in each of them is enough for me, and then? there was nothing else to do. But that game was designed for the people who are motivated by Gear, therefore were willing to repeat same Instances and Raids day in day out for it.

In GW2, there is WvW, this is my long term challenge, once I seen explored experienced and negotiated the content of the world, WvW is where it is at (not that i do not partake in it in the mean time mind you), but it is an ongoing struggle, adventure and action, teaming up with other people of my server, other guilds, planning, strategising and then putting these strategies in to effect, winning and losing not only battles but wars, trying to come up with new ways to counter the enemies strategies, is where the long terms is for me in GW2.

Gear comes as I go and do the things that are fun, but it is not the reason why I am interested or motivated in playing the Game.

As an Old school type of player, having been introduced to the Genre by an older game (Ultima Online) gear has never been a motivator for me. I am not a “reward motivated” kind of player. At least not a material reward. My reward is more abstract.

I know I maybe in the minority here, but I like to think that part of what makes GW2 different than other Themeparks. The effort that ArenaNet put in to it in eliminating the Tediums and Boring repetitious mechanics from a design perspective and the focus other Themeparks have towards Gear acquisition. All constitute an appeal to players like myself as well, along side the newer Generations of players who may (who have) been accustomed to a different idea of what an MMO should be about.

Surely it is not a Sandbox, but it is not boring as other Themeparks either, and I am willing to adapt to it, experience it fully, and do not expect it to be what it is not.

It seems like some players expect it to be and behave the same way as their previous popular MMO, and I do not think it was the idea behind it.

In any case, as I said, I do not like the DR per se, it is artificial to boot, but I understand why it was put in place.

Two main reasons come to mind actually.

1st To incite people to participate in all aspects of the game, including WvW which is a big feature of it. And not all cram in the same area killing the same mobs day in day out. Not to mention interaction with other players through, lets say the market, you know, it is an MMO it is not a single player game, if everyone can get what they want by themselves hen why even play it online?

2nd is a business one, if players can acquire what they need by grinding for 8 hours+ a day in the same area all that they need to get what they want. then who is going to buy Diamonds, why even bother? So I beleive there is a financial reason behind the decision, it might be a game to us but it is a business to those that made it too.

Finally, I do not think that DR makes for a grind.

Grind is doing the same activity over and over for long periods of time, if DR prevents you from doing the same thing for hours on end it actually discourages grinding.

But, DR does make the process of reaching that goal, longer that is for sure, as it imposes a certain pace to the game, Then again, this is not a Sub kind of game, so what is the rush?

Now the only real argument against DR might be the imposition of a Paced game, since this is the same mechanic as the other Themeparks which GW2 wanted to differentiate itself from…so, for sure it is a dilemma that the Devs will have to think about, yet due to reason two, it may be a justifiable decision nevertheless. And also, at some level, I think we the players may have forced their hand by the way we play it, focusing on a single goal and playing the game as if it was a Singe player one, forgoing the option available at us of reaching our goals through interaction with all the other players we share the world with.

As far as I am concerned as a player it does not bother me more than that, for me there is no rush, it is not a sub game I intend on playing it for quite some time, so when the set is complete it will complete. Furthermore my motivation is more abstract than yours, my fun will come from the adventures in WvW mainly it is what drives me to keep playing and that is something that really has no end. But in your case since gear is your main motivation and gear sets are limited, what happens when you completed all your sets? What do you do next? Are you going to move to another game?

DR is the worst idea ever to be implemented into a game and is ruining GW2. People saying it doesn’t exist are spreading misinformation since it’s been verified to be in the game and also verified to be bugged and incorrectly affecting normal players.

DR is a good idea with an imperfect implementation. ANet’s goal with this game has been “play it your way” from the very beginning. Obviously there are limits to their ability to deliver. I can’t play this MMO as a FPS for example, but you can clearly see that they are trying towards that goal.

DR is a means to that goal too. If a strategy for achieving in game goals is 5x more efficient than another, then players who are aware of it but don’t like it will feel slighted. It creates a scenario where people are willing to do something they otherwise wouldn’t do in order to get to their end-goal. That’s unfortunate because the game should be about the trip to the goal just as much as it is about the goal.

DR is intended to flatten the playing field so whether you want to progress y doing events, dungeons, or WvW, you can be there are roughly the same rate. I say roughly because there will always be a dominant strategy and people will always find it. As long as that strategy doesn’t confer benefits 400% greater than others (50% more is a reasonable upper limit) then there is no reason to nerf it.

Additionally, when a strategy is so much better than others that people start flocking to it like flies to manure, it degrades the experience for others nearby. I would argue that the average player doesn’t find it fun to happen upon an event with 20+ bots spamming AoE abilities making it difficult for me to actually experience the event.

So to me, if DR Levels the playing field in terms of strategies for advancement and makes it so I don’t encounter tons of bots farming specific events over and over, degrading my experience in the process, then I’m all for DR.

On the other hand, if DR degrades a normal play experience, and you are unable to complete an event chain from start to finish without hitting the limits, then it obviously needs to be adjusted. ANet has already spoken out on their intention to keep an eye on DR and make sure it doesn’t degrade a normal play experience. As long as players continue to give them feedback on their experiences, I trust ANet to make the necessary adjustments.

silencer.5028:

ounkeo.9138:

silencer.5028
Never heard off or encountered this, can you elaborate? I’d see it for myself and get back to you if I haven’t done it already. I have yet to encounter the mystical loot drop DR myself, even in Orr.

The town between craven blight and compass plaza. There is an NPC event just outside the outpost (literally). I forget the name of the event but your goal is to fight the waves of mobs with the NPC. Some of them spawn just out of aggro range so you have to drag them to the npc. most of the waves will spawn right on top of you.

It’s a 30 minute event, but I’m pretty sure it could be longer than that. All you do is wipe out waves of mob until the event completes. It’s completely stationery.

I don’t know the spawn time of this event but the last 4 or 5 times I was there, this event was up. It’s a Norn female NPC.

Hmm, can’t say I remember doing that one. Seems weird for one mass spawn even to last 30 minutes, even dragons don’t last that long. Sounds like an issue with an event and well, if thats the case then both DR and the event itself might be bugged and need fixing. Don’t think I remember any even or event chain part that would last longer then 10-15 minutes nor spawn enough stuff to kick in any DR myself, I’ll take a look at that one if I have the chance.

But yes, this does sound like bug and unintended behavior.

The bug you are referring to is called Diminishing Returns. Like all other bugs, it should be removed from the game.

So how would you FIX the following issues (with code, not man power, as the bot vs staff ration, that will never work)

(1) AFK players using simple bots/macros to farm karma (sitting at one event spawn spot and auto attacking while away)

(2) Bots farming the same area faster then a player can SEE the mobs spawn

Diminishing returns stops number (1) as they get nothing after 1 hour and it also slows down number (2) but does not fix it. But it does force the bots to have code to MOVE to another area, and therefore allowing players to kill those mobs as the bots move on.

Diminishing returns should not be the finally and only solution as some players LIKE to farm and if they are doing it manually (no bots or macros) then they should be allowed too. (like Sim farm, boring but some people must enjoy it)

So what would you do to fix it? Hiring more staff members to read all your ‘reports’ and manually check each one is off the table, just code ideas, not human gm monitoring.

Personally, I would have the DR code, just before it is about to ‘kick in’ pop up one of those ‘are you human’ checks. Where you have to enter in the random text on the screen into a box. But some would say that would break the feel of the game, so maybe have it as a option.

(1) DR warning and disable box yex/no… Even time you correctly enter in the code asked for, the DR timer resets. If you choose not to have this box, well you are stuck with auto DR

How would I fix it?

Hm, ban every IP address with more than 20 unique bot reports on it, for a week for the first infraction and a month for the second, automatically.

Remove all DR from the entire game, forever.

Remove all loot/money rewards from DE’s. Make them reward XP and Karma only.

Scale all XP and Karma rewards to the real level of the player, so no matter what DE you do, at level 80, you get the same XP & Karma as the penitent path DE’s (or within 90% of those rewards @ 80, that would work too)

and/or

Allow 1, 2 or 3 repeats for all DE’s, every 24 hours, for karma/xp. After that, you get zero karma/xp for that particular DE.

Also, remove all loot from all DE mobs.

Result? Everyone plays all the content in the game, spread out over all the zones.

I’ve read the majority of posts here. I’ll have to say I am unconvinced that DR is anything but harmful to the long term enjoyment of the game. I see what some might consider valid points; but the majority of those seem to suggest there is a singular way or direction in which to play the game.

It is, in my opinion, that DR is a socialist system set to reward the entitled mind set for simply waiting for Anet to reward the players for being patient and restricts players that seek exceptionalism and the ability to work for their earnings.
It could be that due to the bugs in the system (That Anet is addressing) the DR comes across this way; but until I see the end result – this is what the DR appears as.

Removing the DR will allow players to work towards their goal (the opposite of ‘entitled’).

With that said however, the DR has reduced my play time greatly. I’m not a huge “farmer” nor do I replay events over and over. I rather play alts and level them and at the oddest of times am struck with the DR – it is buggy after all.
I’m sure Anet has the data they need though and will do what they feel is correct for the long term health of the game. If DR drives off to many players, they will likely reduce or remove it. If it keeps players playing, they will keep it.

Anyway, just my point of view on it. I am not in anyway meaning to offend nor refer to any of my fellow gamers as ‘entitled’ – rather the system it self is as such. Please, do not anyone take any offense towards the comments – I meant none.

Hi,

This conversation seems to have run its course, the thread will now be locked.

Thanks for your contributions.