Guild Wars 2

This is mainly about Keg Brawl and Crab Toss as you can’t really troll/grief players in the other two.

The issue that I am see are players who decide to not participate in the activity but rather focus on a particular player and disable them from participating. Since the player is being shut down from participating intentionally, I would consider this griefing.

I have seen it often in Keg Brawl but the cool downs of the skills prevent it from getting entirely out of hand. Most often a someone gets upset that they’re losing or that someone bested them so they do the immature thing and lock them down from being able to participate in the activity. Crab Toss is currently the worst when it comes to this.

Last night I was doing a Crab Toss and performing well. Someone disliked this and decided to spend over half the match spamming the fishing pole on me. Since it has a 2-3 sec cool down, they can disable me from participating which they did. I reported them but that will likely go nowhere.

I noticed that the fishing pole has unlimited charges. This is vastly different from other items which have 1-3 charges. My suggestion is to cap the number of uses someone can have with the fishing pole. This won’t prevent griefing but at least the impact will be limited.

In the long run, I would like something to address the issue directly to be done. Some people do not know how to change targets so I can see the challenge in doing this.

Crab Toss is designed to grief other players. If someone is spamming you with the fishing pole, steal it, or if you have the crab, throw it to them and grab it back, forcing them to drop it. There’s only 1 pole, which is why it’s probably unlimited.

I thought using your abilities to shut another player down was just part of the game. I mean, you can either dodge the fishing pole’s ridiculously large telegraph or just swipe it by pressing 1 after you’re reeled in… does it really need to be fixed so that people who haven’t taken the time to find out what their abilities do won’t have to deal with being shut down by the players who have?

Well, I will admit to focusing on a player in those activities from time to time (not often), but my intention is never to grief, so much as to obstruct and observed (or at least perceived) tactic.

If I notice someone in crab that seems to be just running behind the carrier and attacking people that are trying to disrupt the carrier, then I might focus on them for a bit. They aren’t trying to obtain the crab, and seem to be just helping someone else carry. In that event, to me, you might as well have the crab.

In keg, someone might be effectively running as a spotter for a carrier and doing nothing more than obstructing those trying to foil the keg carrier. They may have decided that is their skill, and they may be very good at it. Everyone else on my team might appear to me to just be ignoring that person and trying to fight around the situation and continue to focus on the keg carrier. In that event, it would seem prudent to focus on that spotter person so that the rest of my team can get to the keg carrier.

When I do it, I ‘never’ do it with any sort of vicious intent. I don’t tab target them and then just follow them around annoying them for the entire play session. But I’ll engage them if I see them as a threat to my victory. Though in the case of crab, it’s much less so than keg, since there really isn’t any sort of team victory. I find myself ‘focusing’ on someone that otherwise would not be considered a primary target far more in the keg game.

Actually, I feel like I get griefed more in the sprint activity. I guess because I rarely use negative abilities myself, and rather just enjoy trying to run the race as fast as I can. Guess it’s all relative.

Healix.5819:

Crab Toss is designed to grief other players. If someone is spamming you with the fishing pole, steal it, or if you have the crab, throw it to them and grab it back, forcing them to drop it. There’s only 1 pole, which is why it’s probably unlimited.

I don’t believe you understand what griefing is as using the items in the course of playing the activity isn’t that. In my post, I had stated that there are people who specifically target someone to keep them from playing. They don’t even attempt to grab the crab and gather points. The plank disappears the second you hit someone so it isn’t spammable; only the pole with its short cool down timer.

The problem with stealing it is that nothing prevents them from stealing it back nor does it solve anything since now I’m stuck using the pole. If I drop it then there’s a high chance that the player will just pick it up again and resume griefing.

Mars.6319:

I thought using your abilities to shut another player down was just part of the game. I mean, you can either dodge the fishing pole’s ridiculously large telegraph or just swipe it by pressing 1 after you’re reeled in… does it really need to be fixed so that people who haven’t taken the time to find out what their abilities do won’t have to deal with being shut down by the players who have?

It is part of the game if you’re actually playing the game and not trying to grief the player. If you’re not trying to play the activity, but choosing to single out one player the entire time to lock them down, that’s griefing. I had indicated this in my post.

The pole has a fairly obvious telegraph. It is also a slow, line of sight skill pulling back the first thing that it touches. This makes it highly ineffective when a number of players are moving around the crab carrier. I personally do not like to use it as stealing the crab is normally 95% more effective. Telling me to steal the pole means that I would have to hold onto it hoping that the other player doesn’t steal it back. I also can’t drop it otherwise they’ll pick it back up and resume. I don’t have infinite dodges so telling me to dodge won’t work especially as I try to save them for when I have the crab.

I believe that you were a bit rash to assume that I did not read the skill. I knew pretty well that you could steal the items. However, I did not bring it up because of what I mentioned above and that it still doesn’t excuse that something is wrong in the fact that someone can grief with that item. I should not be forced to stop playing the activity to prevent the other player from possessing the pole. Your suggestion is flawed as it is also preventing me from playing the activity and doesn’t solve anything.

notebene.3190:

Actually, I feel like I get griefed more in the sprint activity. I guess because I rarely use negative abilities myself, and rather just enjoy trying to run the race as fast as I can. Guess it’s all relative.

I treat that differently as you cannot single out one player, the pick up items respawn slowly (or not at all), and players are constantly moving forward. There’s also the stability skill that you can easily get to negate all traps for a time. The #5 trap is supposed to be left behind to slow down players so you can increase the lead. That’s why you get it all the time from the red power ups after the first section.

I feel that I’m the founder of fishing pole trolling xD couple of months ago doing daily and being kittened at this stupid minigame I decided to troll people beause fishing pole is the only thing funny in this minigame, I dunno how can someone enjoy this.

I agree on the Crab Toss scenario that it’s basically griefing. You can tell when the player has singled you out in particular because they keep targeting you even when you don’t have the crab. The worst offender I’ve seen was in a match where there were two players from the same guild. One seemed to be the designated crab carrier while the second took the fishing pool and basically attacked anybody who was the next highest in score. (Which turned out to be me after a few minutes.) I only took offense when the fisher started taunting me in /say about how I couldn’t win, and I replied that his guildie must REALLY suck if he needed him to run interference for him. He then started going off at me, which ironically distracted him enough that he couldn’t run interference effectively anymore and I ended up winning. XD

Keg Brawl is less clear-cut. Since it’s a team game, having a defender for the keg runner whose sole objective is to impede people trying to stop the runner is a legitimate strategy. (Particularly if you notice that one player on the enemy team is very skilled, and by shutting him down, you vastly increase your team’s chance of victory.)

This is what I did when that happened to me. I went after the guy, stole the fishing pole from him and made his life hell until he logged. It sucks that you have to, but sometimes that’s the best strategy.

lol OP griefing over a pvp game ? crab toss is a trolling game, iirc.

In Keg Brawl it’s not griefing. You are trying to eliminate a good player of the other team which is a valid tactic since it’s a team game. And even so, cooldowns won’t allow this to succeed most of the time. The key difference between Keg Brawl and Crab Toss is that Keg Brawl is a team game, therefore disabling one player doesn’t mean victory.

In Crab Toss it’s another story altogether, it’s a solo game and everyone is fighting for top place, alone. What I noticed about the Fishing Pole griefers is that they start using it on the current top player (if he has way more points than the second) and never stop using it on them, even if they lose first place. Sometimes they can be friends of someone (or guildies) and try to make them win, which is the worst.

Putting a number of charges on the fishing pole would certainly improve the situation, but seen how Southsun Survival has been bugged for months now and nothing is being done about it, I doubt anyone at Anet even cares about the Activities anymore.

fishing pole + conch, only way to make this annoying daily activity more endurable. I hate it with a passion. Wish they would remove it from rotation. Dragon ball arena was fun and engaging. So was Aspect Arena. Why not even bring a shortened version of Toypocalypse?

Kajin.5301:

fishing pole + conch, only way to make this annoying daily activity more endurable. I hate it with a passion. Wish they would remove it from rotation. Dragon ball arena was fun and engaging. So was Aspect Arena. Why not even bring a shortened version of Toypocalypse?

So… because you dislike the activity, you go in there with the intent to troll others who do enjoy it? If you hate Crab Toss that much, why do you even do it? For the 1 AP? If so, just enter the arena and then just /sit while you go get a drink, alt-tab and watch Youtube, or go to the bathroom. You’ll still get credit and you’re not spoiling anybody’s experience that way.

Zaxares.5419:

I agree on the Crab Toss scenario that it’s basically griefing. You can tell when the player has singled you out in particular because they keep targeting you even when you don’t have the crab. The worst offender I’ve seen was in a match where there were two players from the same guild. One seemed to be the designated crab carrier while the second took the fishing pool and basically attacked anybody who was the next highest in score. (Which turned out to be me after a few minutes.) I only took offense when the fisher started taunting me in /say about how I couldn’t win, and I replied that his guildie must REALLY suck if he needed him to run interference for him. He then started going off at me, which ironically distracted him enough that he couldn’t run interference effectively anymore and I ended up winning. XD

Keg Brawl is less clear-cut. Since it’s a team game, having a defender for the keg runner whose sole objective is to impede people trying to stop the runner is a legitimate strategy. (Particularly if you notice that one player on the enemy team is very skilled, and by shutting him down, you vastly increase your team’s chance of victory.)

Woooot the last laugh is always the sweetest.

I’ve had this experience during the LS where Crab Toss was introduced. I was playing it, and it was a lot of fun. Until I started winning or performing well for some time, and I ended up having 3-4 players actively targeting me. Not trying to get the crab, not targeting others, just running after me and using all kinds of interrupts and steals so I couldn’t play. They ended up with 0 points at the end of the round, but they kept doing that anyway.
One guy in particular kept telling me how I sucked and taunting me and outright harassed me. Not that blocking and reporting him did anything, he’s now in the Top20 Achievement Leaderboards, so he obviously was in for the AP.
Still, if you’re performing well in Crab Toss (which has been made harder with some skill reworks I noticed recently), you’re likely to be bullied out of the game. And that’s a real shame, because some players can’t seem to deal with that and rather waste their time keeping themselves and someone else from actually playing instead of trying to just play better.

But it’s kind of inherent to the game mode. Which is why I don’t play it anymore.

Tbh i trully hate charr. For some reason i just cant stand them. Maybe its leftover feeling from GW1. So if in crab toss i see charr wining, chances are 50/50 i will stop caring about crab and focus on the charr. :P

crab toss is a mess, so whatever. Keg brawl: man-to-man marking is a common concept in many team sports, so no, working as intended. And overall: I can hardly see “griefing” in a playmode that directly pits players against players, especially without stat or level differences.

As others have said, the whole point of Crab Toss is to prevent anyone else from getting the crab. It’s not griefing, it’s just playing the game. It’s a silly, mad dash-about with giant karka steamrolling all over the place.

This is a perfectly valid tactic to focus on the best player and eliminate them and shut them down. It’s up to that best player to learn how to counter it if they want to keep on top.

Dodge.

as many have said., man-to-man on keg brawl is a viable tactic and pretty much works as intended. sure, it can get annoying if you’re stunned all the time but it is a norn sport, what did you expect?

as for the fishing pole in cab toss… some of my most amusing games were when i either had the pole or was regularly targeted by it. almost every instance when i targeted the same player with the pole multiple times in a row, was because of lag or misclick. the rest of the time was simply because they had the crab, which is what i was supposed to do anyway

I use this tactic in 2 scenarios. Firstly to prevent second place from catching up with my score and secondly to reduce first place lead.

Likewise I don’t take the crab from people on the lowest score if I am winning.

This has the added bonus of ragey, typically unpleasant people leaving who are better than me.

If people cannot stand others using tactics, then maybe they should play solitaire or watch Kelly Clarkson live in concert… not saying anything bad about Kelly Clarkson, she rocks……

For the whiny/ragey/unpleasant people I recommend killing the chickens in Ebonhawke

They will probably fix all of this in the new patch anyway