Guild Wars 2

I thought I had seen the last of these with the original Everquest, but unfortunately GW2’s aggro system has managed to bring mob-trains back with a vengeance.

Very often while I or my friends are out adventuring, often working on our own battle or just standing around discussing our next move, complete strangers will lead a trail of hostile mobs right through us and force us into a fight we didn’t want. In what seems like an irrational decision to me, those mobs will decide to forget about the easy prey they obviously have on the run and attack us instead.

That is called “mob training”, and I’m not just talking about the players who are trying to get from point-A to point-B as quickly as possible and unintentionally pull mobs through our position. This is also about players who will purposely detour past another player in order to intentionally lose his pursuers. This kind of reckless and/or malicious behavior has even led to other character’s deaths (including mine) when they step away from the computer for a few minutes in an area that should have otherwise been safe.

Accidents are accidents, but these are gamers on the internet. And, like it or not, the internet has its share of jerks who get their laughs off of causing other gamers grief. As much as Arenanet seems to be against this, I simply can not understand why you have made it so easy for players to train mobs onto one another (a practice which is actually a reportable offense in many other MMOs on PvE servers).

I understand that GW2’s aggro system likes to prioritize close targets, but in my opinion hostile mobs should not be prioritizing targets who have yet to take any action against them when they’re already pursuing (or returning home from pursuing) a character that has already aggroed them. You should be teaching players how to deal with their own messes, not making it easy for them to dump their messes on another player’s lap.

Thankfully on my server when someone does train you it is usually by accident. The person will usually stop and come back to help you if he sees mobs that were chasing him started attacking you. That`s pretty good community behavior and i like it that way.

I remember those times in eq. Karnors castle, haha TRAIN LEFT!

TBH I want them to massively extend their mob leashing and bring back the ole’ “Trains”.

If I’m fleeing a mob trying to break agro rather than fight and i notice my mob train engage with another player behind me I stop running and fight. it’s usually an accident that I drug him/her into my mess, but i at least try and help them get out of it.

I accidentally did that once. I was trying to get to a POI and had about 3 mobs running behind me. I ran past someone and they all jumped on the poor guy. I stopped and helped kill them all because it was my fault they jumped him in the first place.

I know there are some people who do train mobs on others. It’s annoying and I hope that the dev team will fix it soon, or put monsters on a shorter leash.

I have been killed a few times by players accidentally leading a train of mobs past me. It’s also a bit frustrating when someone is fighting an enemy, but you just aggro them by walking by. Why would a monster prefer killing me over the person stabbing it to death?

When i accidentally do it I turn around and help. I haven’t encountered anyone that does it to grief yet, and hope I never do. I agree with your concerns in principle, but I’m not sure we have a problem until it is used to do harm.

SquirrelKing.8964:

Why would a monster prefer killing me over the person stabbing it to death?

Better question. Why would the blood thirsty Branded continue its futile chase and ignore the person picking herbs ?

This is a complete non-issue

The aggro range and distance a mob will actually chase you is very small. I’m actually more than will to lay waste to anything threatening my fellow players if they bring it my way.

Proeliator.8740:

This is a complete non-issue

The aggro range and distance a mob will actually chase you is very small. I’m actually more than will to lay waste to anything threatening my fellow players if they bring it my way.

famous last words

You could always just run and get them stuck on somebody else, right? Or you could just kill them, it takes what, like 30 seconds?

MistaMike.7356:

You could always just run and get them stuck on somebody else, right? Or you could just kill them, it takes what, like 30 seconds?

Sometimes it’s an unkillable pack of veterans.

In other games I’ve played, it’s usually a pretty bad idea to try to run from mobs. In GW2, however, you can almost always outrun the mobs, so it’s tempting to use that tactic. I always, always stop to clean things up, though, if my “parade” runs over another player.

Situational awareness is an important factor, too, that shouldn’t be forgotten. Keeping an eye out for incoming traffic and reacting quickly can, most times, save your bacon.

Killing the one or two mobs that get pulled to you is not a problem at all 99% of the time. If they pull a vet or champion, just run 10 feet away so that they lose interest. It may kill you if you go afk in the wild, but use your head even a little bit and you won’t end up like all those naked, dead, afk people you see scattered around. It takes one second to log out and barely any more time to log in. If you want to go afk, just log out! You’ll still stay in your party, you’ll still see what they’ve put into chat while you were gone, there isn’t any downside. Comparing it to EQ trains is absurd. They are nothing alike.

Agree… i have those frustration moments as well. Just had another “incident”. Help someone out with her skill challenge and she ran off, collected a few mobs and dropped them on me. nicccce!

I don’t mind the A to B training though. I do it myself when I quickly try to get to a waypoint but recklessly pulling mobs and drop them on others. That’s totally wreckless!!

I don’t know about you, but I’ll kill anything and everything that appears to be a threat. Unlike in most MMOs, you still get credit for killing something regardless of who did the first blow. The way I see it is that the more stuff I get to kill, the better chances of getting decent loot.

Often times, I see this train of mobs when someone is rushing from a distant part of the map just to participate in an event. It has a tendency to happen more often when the event is on the last few waves. Instead of getting killed because of wanting to type someone off for it, I vanquish the threat and move on. There’s no point in arguing. Besides, I like extra loot.

Pursuit range is really short in this game – in fact it’s one of the things I love (I find nothing more boring and annoying in the “classic” MMO vein than having to run miles just to shake off some stupid proximity aggro), so I don’t know how “trains” are possible, unless it’s in camp in a dangerous area, in which case you should always be on your toes anyway, since friendly camps sometimes change hands.

“If I’m fleeing a mob trying to break agro rather than fight and i notice my mob train engage with another player behind me I stop running and fight. it’s usually an accident that I drug him/her into my mess, but i at least try and help them get out of it.”

I thought you could only undo CC on yourself other players? It would just aggro again it isn’t programmed to suddenly like you if you break its CC.

Although I find it slightly annoying, I enjoy things like this. It reminds me of the good ol days when MMOrpgs were scary. Like Walking into The Crawlers Nest (XI) to find 25 Angry Crawlers ready to eat your face, and two seconds later you were eating dirt.

Regardless of how nifty a feature some might think this is, it’s one of those “this is why we can’t have nice things” situations. When it comes down to it, the average gamer doesn’t give a flying fig about your well being. And, in their minds, their time is always going to be more valuable than your time.

For everyone in this thread who will stop and clean up a train they caused, there are players out there who will intentionally abuse this mechanic into the ground. I have seen players repeatedly pull mobs over on top of myself and my friends because they know how easily they they can force us into a role of helping, dying, or wasting time vacating the area. They don’t just do it once and apologize, they continue to do it until you are no longer close enough to “help” them.

I like to help characters who are in trouble as much as the next would-be-hero, but I want it to be by choice, not because someone is gaming the system to force me into action for their benefit.

To the person who suggested just logging whenever you go afk: While that seems like a simple solution, I picked my home server for a reason and (when I’m logged in) prefer to spend as much time on it as possible.. not get stuck in an overflow server for another 30 minutes because I had to walk away from the keyboard for a moment. And unfortunately that is the reality right now with the way the population is bunched up in certain zones. At the same time, it’s not like I just foolishly abandon my character out in the middle of a dangerous area. And yet, I’ve come back after going AFK for not even two minutes next to a zone-line portal and found my character dead from a mob someone trained.

Yesterday, I was running to the Chantry of Secrets. Just on the entrance, I saw a low level player trying to to the skill point challenge and he was about to die. I decided to jump in and help him, then he ran away, grabbed mobs around the place and brought them to me. So I was fighting the Order Agent and like 4 lizards. I just turned around and walked to the chantry as they were doing little damage to me. The monsters turned around and killed him.

I smiled.

There are many people who won’t purposely “train”, and will help kill if they do.

There are also many who do it maliciously and intentionally, and that percentage is only going up. The GIFT mentality is only getting worse.

I just don’t see this, because the mob leash is incredibly short… I find it hard to train mobs just to farm them myself, let alone train them to actual players off in the distance. Usually I can only train 3 or so mobs, going any further and a couple will wander from the pack back to their “home”

Simply continue running if you can’t kill em… it’s not like they are able to train archers, how would you NOT be able to get away???

Vargs.6234:

Killing the one or two mobs that get pulled to you is not a problem at all 99% of the time. If they pull a vet or champion, just run 10 feet away so that they lose interest. It may kill you if you go afk in the wild, but use your head even a little bit and you won’t end up like all those naked, dead, afk people you see scattered around. It takes one second to log out and barely any more time to log in. If you want to go afk, just log out! You’ll still stay in your party, you’ll still see what they’ve put into chat while you were gone, there isn’t any downside. Comparing it to EQ trains is absurd. They are nothing alike.

It really depends. Soem mobs are fine to just deal with if they are trained on you. though I have found 2 plus th eone I’m currently fighting is managable; above that and it’s hairy or certain death.

then there are plenty of mobs who start the fight with special abilities the moment they are in range. those wargs and wolves, especially in a pack of 2 or 3 can effectively 1 shot you right at the beginning of the engagement if they start with a special attack.

Some mobs will aggro you and charge you from out of the screen. I have gotten killed by 2 bears charging from out of screen. Both hit me and I died.

The other day I was about 3% from killing a DE boss when another person came, pulling a veteran and 2 regular mobs with him. He ran in to tag the DE boss then ran away, which dumped the train on me very quickly. As a guardian, I blew all my healing, aegis, CC and whatnot and i still ended up dead while trying to kite.

Rukia.4802:

I just don’t see this, because the mob leash is incredibly short… I find it hard to train mobs just to farm them myself, let alone train them to actual players off in the distance. Usually I can only train 3 or so mobs, going any further and a couple will wander from the pack back to their “home”

Simply continue running if you can’t kill em… it’s not like they are able to train archers, how would you NOT be able to get away???

Well, to answer this question, I can point to yet another example that wiped out my party just last night. We were standing next to an NPC vendor selling to clear up our inventories between adventures when I noticed someone training at least 5 elementals to our position (from an event that was taking place nearby). We were actually down-leveled (so it’s not like we were visiting a location that was over our heads), but the mobs were still 5 levels higher than us (like up-leveled to counter the number of players at the nearby event).

As the player raced right through our position, I had enough time to shout “Look out!” before the elementals hit us with a snare attack and then killed us off in one to two hits. Obviously between reviving at the nearest waypoint and repairs that gets expensive.

Sometimes you can not “simply continue running” and avoid this.

This issue should not be an issue at this point in time of MMO’s or after the 2+ yrs this thread was first started. Arenanet simply needs to deal with Mob Training either change the way mobs agrro the first target, make the agrro not transfer to others near by or give us a way of reporting the kittens who intentionally agrro others . Having to deal with this issue is stupid while trying to help another in-game, be it guild mates or just a random player who may have a question or looking to clear an area. It should be a choice to fight while standing someplace out of the way not have it forced on you because another player is bored. If want to deal with combat at any point I’ll go to the WvW. Arenanet “pull you head” out into the sunshine and fix this already.

Edge.4180:

I understand that GW2’s aggro system likes to prioritize close targets, but in my opinion hostile mobs should not be prioritizing targets who have yet to take any action against them when they’re already pursuing (or returning home from pursuing) a character that has already aggroed them.

ITA.

Tyria’s not a safe place. If you think you can simply farm creatures one by one at your leisure, this is not the case. There are other people, and you must keep your eyes open to see an oncoming train, as you put it.

OP would’ve loved ragnarok online and its community.

Trains of 50 monsters gathered by 1 class – which was the only class with a mount – and players (including me) got the most fun out of overrunning everyone that got in our way.
There was an item that would instantly teleport you to a random place on the same map. If you made a reputation for yourself the only thing you’d see of players not in your group was them teleporting in panic as they enter your screen xD

Such an kitten thing to do but so funny if someone was too slow to teleport.

The other day I was tapping a rich node somewhere with a character parked in the zone. Another player ran through trailing 5-6 mobs. They (naturally) dropped off and attacked me. Luckily, fighting groups is more fun for me than fighting a solo mob, so I took them on. If I’d gotten the character name of the trainer, I’d have PM’d him to thank him for the 2 ectos from the rare drop salvage.

#lemonstolemonade; #ommv

In all the thousands of hours playing I’ve never seen this happen anywhere …

Where do you lucky folks find these people along with those that seem to attract hordes of stalkers?

Can’t say I’ve ever seen this either, and I’ve been playing for nearly three years. With the short leash range, the mobs have to be really close to begin with, and in all honesty, in a hostile location, you should watch out for enemies if you feel they’re a threat to you.

Well, this is kinda ridiculous to complain, you just kill the thing in 3 seconds, but yeah, it can be quite annoying sometimes.

But one thing that i like to do is, aggro a red named enemy to a yellow named mob, it is funny to see them fighting. lol

Two solutions immediately come to mind: learn to control your splash or learn to kill the things you hit. Neither are terribly hard.

I am frustrated about how petty complaints about petty problems can actually become. Leashing is pretty short in GW2, mobs are completely without danger, a WP is usually close, repair costs are gone. This is so petty a problem those “jerks” are very probably not even noticing anything while just speedrunning areas. Play a single player game if you cannot even stomach this non-issue.

Thread Necromancy at its finest.

Anyway, this is a non-issue. Death is cheap, victory is fast, and the places where this would be a problem would be rare. Just accept some chaos in your life.

Mobs follow for a very short time / distance in this game so this is hardly an issue.

Are you absolutely sure it wasn’t an event that started nearby that spawned mobs to attack and not another player running around?

I just realized it’s a 2 year old thread. Bummer

haha, well, I guess ridiculous whining simply ages very well.

Eochaidh.4106:

MistaMike.7356:

You could always just run and get them stuck on somebody else, right? Or you could just kill them, it takes what, like 30 seconds?

Sometimes it’s an unkillable pack of veterans.

In open world? Where are these packs of vets? Now if it was a champ I’d agree, but vets? No.

Bring back massive Mob Trains and give Thieves Feign Death :P

Train Mobs? In GW2? Where?… How many are you guys talking about? 5? 10? 15? more? i don’t know if i’ve ever aggro more than 5 mobs at a time in open world (maybe in a cave, but even than there should be no more than… 5? maybe couple more?)… but of what I know, train mobs is not an issue. mobs just don’t have enough range of distance.

Swiftly.2385:

Bring back massive Mob Trains and give Thieves Feign Death :P

Lol, pulling the dragon world boss from dark shire and training it to stormwind? Or was it from the blazing steps? I remember a friend who.played WoW way back when telling me about it. Total carnage on all accounts.

I train mobs onto afk players all the time when covering south hill Tequatl. For that particular instance those players need to find somewhere else to afk.

I do miss my Hunter’s [Misdirection].