Guild Wars 2

silencer.5028:

Never saw any evidence to any sort of mythical mob DR’s. Saw constant drops of crafting mats and green and higher loot. Just now got a yellow after a buttload of defense waves in SoD, 2 ectos, whee. I have yet to see any comprehensive evidence of this system actually hindering anything when it works as it should.

I have. Happened to me a few times over the past week. My girlfriend had it bad last night. She got stuck in a 4 hour Arah run (I’m not gonna comment on whether or not her group was playing effectively, but she was stuck till the end so she could get her tokens). DR kicked in about 40 minutes into it and she didn’t get any loot on a single mob after.

It also happened to her earlier the day before too. She was attemtping to get some 325+ skill crafting mats, esp the inscription stuff. 30 minutes into her farming. She got DR’d, and none of her characters earned any loot on any kills for the next couple hours, even after logging out for an hour.

Again, never through my playtime through that and other areas I’ve seen karma gains drop form DE’s when I stuck with them. The only time this seems to happen, save when it apparently bugs like in the Norn area, is during obvious attempts of gaming the system by trying to chain events without contributing to them, just doing enough to get gold and moving on.

OK now I could understand this except…what about the player that’s trying their darndest, and struggling to get gold/silver because they can’t tag a lot of mobs as well as others? That guy just “did enough to get gold” Is the game differentiating between him, and the guy that did the bare minimum and walked off? I’m not seeing that it does.

silencer.5028:

Edenknight.9284:

I can’t tell if you are accusing me of cheesing events or not. I’m not, let’s just get that out of the way. Let’s also hope that you are correct in that it is a bug, it’s just hard to tell when there’s zero voice/transparency on the issue. The dungeon token DR system is great, I don’t mind it at all. 60 Tokens for the first time I do a run in a day? Great, they were vocal about the issue, clearly stated the intent of dungeons and everyone is happy. Why can’t they just say what people are experiencing is a bug or intended?

I am not accusing anyone of anything. Accusing sounds like its something thats punishable. I am just saying what seems to be the intention of the system, as I deduced by other instances when it kicks in.

Edenknight.9284:

Hoop-jumping is kind of a broad term.

Oh please. Thats just an excuse given by people who don’t want to admit they do it. I’ve yet to see a person who would be ignorant enough to realize something is giving way, way more reward then actual effort put in.

Edenknight.9284:

I find min/maxing rewards to be one of the most fun part in any game. It’s my prerogative and plenty of other people whom are even closer to legendaries/have them already feel the same way. It’s what we chose to do in the game, and completing those goals in a time frame is what gives us the ‘fun’ feeling that we play video games at all. Don’t get me wrong, I love ventrilo, guild chat, pvp, all of those things, It’s just -another- thing that I partake in.

And it is your prerogative to do so, as long as you actually put in effort thats appropriate for the reward you are getting. Finidng a low level grind spot that lets you blaze through multiple events in minutes for 240 karma or more when boosted is not that. Tagging/bunnyhopping events is not that.

Finding an area where you can do an event, finish it, move on for a next one nearby, finish it, move on, etc. and you experience next to no “downtime” event wise on the other hand is just that. But that means moving across the entire map, not picking a “chain sweetspot” and bouncing between two spots. And it is what I have been doing on both Straits of Devastation and Cursed Shore (ML to a lesser extend due to the way the events are spread there). Never had any DR issues.

You can still min/max rewards. You just need to take the DR into consideration and be aware that circling the same stuff will give diminished results over time. In any other circumstance, yes, its probably a bug.

Sigh, I’ve been following your posts for a few days and I do understand that there’s no winning with you, not even a slight budge. I get it, it’s fine – we can agree on one thing – that Anet can only implement one way and we’ll see whom they agree with. I can only assume they are watching these threads and formulating a way to keep the community happy while keeping the system in place, which I am totally fine with if they state their intent so I know whether I want to continue or not.

If they don’t want me to go to level 10 zones and do the Dynamic Events there, reduce the permanent karma down to 10 / gold and guess what, I won’t. People will always take the path of least resistance to a reward whether it is in real life, or in a video game. I guess that’s life for you.

sanadin.8317:

Since you seem to know exactly how the DE/medal system is supposed to function, please enlighten me. That’s one of the primary reasons I made this thread.

I already did. In this thread and others. It was ‘divisive’ and ‘insulting’ I believe. Look up my posting history, I’ve repeated this countless times by now.

sanadin.8317:

Exactly what “hoops” am I “running” around the system? My not staying to completion in 3 out of 15 events before I hit the DR? Out of those 3 events, 2 were my leaving Champion Risen Abomination 1:30 before it finished because there is no value in staying. I won’t get loot and in full Berserker’s Exotic, I’ve already contributed more damage to it than many of the individuals there. The third is me joining Packheart defense at the last second for Bronze. There’s nothing abusive, here. The game gave me the medals it thought I deserved based on time and damage.

You have answered yourself right there. Tagged the packheart just to get karma reward. Abandoned champ since “its not worth it”, yet still got reward for it. If its not worth it, don’t do it.

I also seriously doubt that all of the defense quests you did “from beginning to end”, if you run to whenever you see them in progress you will trip the DR, since again, you join in middle of the way events to get a medal. It is perfectly conceivable to do that a few times, but when it becomes your sole purpose, I wholly support rewards getting curbed.

sanadin.8317:

silencer.5028:

The game does not stop you mechanically form doing so – it does not lock you to an event and force you to stay there all the time to get rewards. But it does scale your rewards to actual contribution if you try and take advantage of this.

Right, it scales our rewards based on our contribution. These are known as medals. They are functioning as intended.

And, in a grand scale of matters, the DR system which makes sure you do not do what stated above.

silencer.5028:

This is not punishment. Those are game-play mechanics.

sanadin.8317:

I disagree. If we complete too many events in an undefined period of time, irrespective of our contribution (gold, silver, bronze), we are locked into a penalty period of at least 15 and perhaps up to 30 minutes where our rewards are reduced to practically nothing.

How can you honestly call this anything but punishment? The players take an action and as a result of that action we are prevented from receiving the standard rewards. That’s punishment, or a penalty, or whatever you want to call it but it’s not merely “game-play mechanics”.

You assume that the gold medal mechanic is the only scale there is when it comes to giving our rewards. It quite obviously isn’t.

Fayte.1803:

Didn’t they state before that the DR was to diminish bot farmers but normal players were being accidentally effected in the process?

They haven’t said anything about loot or event DR, only dungeon DR.

Edit: @Silencer, sorry but claiming you know “exactly how the event DR” works is absurd. Unless you’re a programmer at ArenaNet and have access to the relevant source code, you DO NOT by any stretch of the imagination know “exactly how it works”.

I AM a programmer and have worked on commercial games, and I would NEVER claim to know “exactly how” any system that I personally do not have source code for works, because I would be categorically wrong.

MF Panda at least can see the obvious.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Fayte.1803:

Didn’t they state before that the DR was to diminish bot farmers but normal players were being accidentally effected in the process?

They haven’t said anything about loot or event DR, only dungeon DR.

Edit: @Silencer, sorry but claiming you know “exactly how the event DR” works is absurd. Unless you’re a programmer at ArenaNet and have access to the relevant source code, you DO NOT by any stretch of the imagination know “exactly how it works”.

I AM a programmer and have worked on commercial games, and I would NEVER claim to know “exactly how” any system that I personally do not have source code for works, because I would be categorically wrong.

Based on his posting history, he very well could be a programmer at Arenanet.

Keaper Ambrose.6978:

This DR then transfers to alts, and it hard to shake, again a problem. I am glad you have never hit it, plenty of others have.

This is a kicker.. I like to play for a bit on my main, get some mats and maybe craft something for someone, do some DEs.. then relax a bit and switch to an alt, level some. But, I have DR.. so instead I just log off ;(

Edenknight

If they don’t want me to go to level 10 zones and do the Dynamic Events there, reduce the permanent karma down to 10 / gold and guess what, I won’t. People will always take the path of least resistance to a reward whether it is in real life, or in a video game. I guess that’s life for you.

Thats not the intent of the reward system. You are encouraged to add variety to your game. However if you complete several events in a matter of minutes that nets you 750+ karma without a booster, that seems a tad out of place compared to the level appropriate events, or even those in other newbie zones, no?

Going with the easiest path of littlest resistance should offer the smallest rewards. Rewards in games imo should be a function of challenge and time spent, not finding the easiest spot and grinding it to eternity.

But yeah, the DR in the Norn area in general seems very, very wonky.

ChairGraveyard

Edit: @Silencer, sorry but claiming you know “exactly how the event DR” works is absurd. Unless you’re a programmer at ArenaNet and have access to the relevant source code, you DO NOT by any stretch of the imagination know “exactly how it works”.

Please. It is not black magic. I don’t think I ever claimed to know the exact conditions, if I did then I used wrong words, but it is computer code. It follows a set of very strict guidelines and providing you have enough data (and if anything, the rush of DR posts have provided quite a lot of that) the mechanism becomes relatively clear.

Edenknight.9284:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Fayte.1803:

Didn’t they state before that the DR was to diminish bot farmers but normal players were being accidentally effected in the process?

They haven’t said anything about loot or event DR, only dungeon DR.

Edit: @Silencer, sorry but claiming you know “exactly how the event DR” works is absurd. Unless you’re a programmer at ArenaNet and have access to the relevant source code, you DO NOT by any stretch of the imagination know “exactly how it works”.

I AM a programmer and have worked on commercial games, and I would NEVER claim to know “exactly how” any system that I personally do not have source code for works, because I would be categorically wrong.

Based on his posting history, he very well could be a programmer at Arenanet.

Yeah, except he claims to know “exactly” how stuff works without source code. No programmer worth anything would ever say that for any non-trivial system.

silencer.5028:

Please. It is not black magic. I don’t think I ever claimed to know the exact conditions, if I did then I used wrong words, but it is computer code. It follows a set of very strict guidelines and providing you have enough data (and if anything, the rush of DR posts have provided quite a lot of that) the mechanism becomes relatively clear.

This might as well be an admission that you don’t have any clue how it works. If you think all programs follow “very strict conditions” and the inputs/outputs are 100% discoverable with minor amounts of data, you have no place saying you know “exactly” how this works (which you did above).

I am very upset with the current state and the direction this game has taken. I realize that it hasn’t been out very long, but each new patch has been progressively worse and worse in allowing players TO PLAY THE WAY THEY WANT. The system with dungeons was actually a decent attempt to try and reward the player with giving them rewards for actually doing multiple paths. However the DR system has only become worse and worse to the point of people leaving the game.

The whole mantra of PLAYING YOUR WAY. Is completely thrown out and gone.

I really think this game is beautiful and I’ve been a fan of it for a long time. I’ve enjoyed the majority of the time I’ve played. But having to continually find methods or techniques to NOT hit the DR because you are playing efficiently is horrible game design.

In order to get a legendary you MUST have karma. The DR system as it currently exists is so bad that I’ve quit the game as of the latest patch.

I really hope that ANET changes their direction on this as the game progresses for the benefit of other players.

Peace out girlscout.

Either way, if we continue down to personal stuff this thread will be closed like the very, very many other DR topics out there.

I really hope Arenanet states their purpose with Loot DR, as well as Karma DR to fix all of this bickering, myself included.

It’s clear that there are a lot of people upset about the current implementation and clearly there’s a lot of people who think there needs to be more DR or some weird crap. Arenanet, say something on this issue!

The thing I have not seen said is this.

“People playing uses up bandwidth and resources which = money.”

So yes they want people to play, but it does not hurt them to only “let you play” for a hour or so. You have already paid for the game and unless your cash shopping a ton, the cost vs expenditure actually is a loss.

The cash shop does not have much on it in terms of value really, except turning gems into gold, which the inflation in gold has killed that option really.

Honestly what I would want. Give me a item on the cash shop, a subscription fee so to speak, that will give me back the game I played at launch (Plus the Trading post please).

Id pay for no dr, better loot, repair costs, waypoint costs etc.

I remember pre karma patch getting my level 40 cultural weapon at 40.
You cant do that anymore. Arena Net, we want to support you, we want you to be successful, we want to give you some money, just please please for the love of <insert deity name here> don’t ruin the game any more than it already has been.

At least give us an option to pay our way out of these DR, Karma price increases, etc…
If you did that, i am sure a ton of us would pay, and everyone happy.

Yes it would be optional but at least its some sort of compromise.

ChairGraveyard

This might as well be an admission that you don’t have any clue how it works. If you think all programs follow “very strict conditions” and the inputs/outputs are 100% discoverable with minor amounts of data, you have no place saying you know “exactly” how this works (which you did above).

I did? Where?

Again, there seem to be several triggers that become pretty clear when you look at the reports of it popping. Neither does it seem complex nor unpredictable to a certain degree if you look at it, barring any bugs. It quite clearly starts stacking percentage decreases of rewards once you meet certain conditions. Those conditions seem to be related to two major variables:

-Amount of Dynamic Events completed.

-Time taken to complete them.

Are there any more factors determining it? Probably. I do not remember claiming otherwise anywhere. Nor claiming I know exactly how it works. Based on all the collected data, these two things seem pretty certain though. Feel free to correct me if you have any additional data or see something I don’t.

And yeah, claiming to have (or not have) qualifications in Internet forums as a way of strengthening your own argument is a very slippery slope that has no relevance to anything. Facts contradicting my own conclusions are probably a better idea.

silencer.5028:

You have answered yourself right there. Tagged the packheart just to get karma reward. Abandoned champ since “its not worth it”, yet still got reward for it. If its not worth it, don’t do it.

“Tagged the packheart”. Also known as… joining the event? I saw it on my map, I ran to it, I did everything I could to help before it ended. there’s nothing exploitative about that. And why would I stay for the completion of Risen Abomination when I’ve already done more than my share of the damage and can no longer earn any rewards for it?

Your solution is that we “just don’t do it”. Does that really seem logical to you? I can help the event and get rewarded for doing so as is reflected by my contribution Medal. But you’re saying that I’ll find out in my NEXT event that I was wrong for contributing and now I should be penalized for the next 30 minutes? Does that honestly seem rational to you? Doesn’t that seem to be delivering mixed messages?

You did highlight a mistake I made in my post, when I said, “beginning to end” I did just mean, “to end”. Of course I run around to events that are already occurring. How else am I supposed to know when they are up? Time them? Why do I feel you’d call that another “hoop”? I look at the map and follow the pings like every other player in the game, that isn’t abuse or exploitation, that’s normal play.

silencer.5028:

…
And, in a grand scale of matters, the DR system which makes sure you do not do what stated above.
…
It quite obviously isn’t.

Man, everything’s really obvious to you, it’s a wonder so many people are confused and upset over something so obvious.

Obviously, I don’t think that the DR aligns with the otherwise abundant philosophy of positive-reinforcement in the game, nor the overarching theme of “play how you want”. If I’m understanding you correctly, you think the karma DR is the intended counterpart to the Medal system – a continued reflection of one’s contribution to the event. I disagree. I think there’s a lot of mixed messages and we need clarification from the company.

I too would pay to the have the game I initially paid for back instead of this pathetic abomination that is a poor imitation of the game I put down $60 on and only got to play for 2 weeks before this garbage was put in.

I can’t even comprehend what the developers are thinking. They are indeed punishing people for normal play. There have been a number of reversals on the original game design and they have all been to the detriment of players AND the game.

They advertised a game with no grind. All was good. Then they jacked up prices and time commitment on everything worth perusing, forcing players to grind to chasing carrots, which they said they would not do. Many of us love the game, so we shrug our shoulders and start to grind for those carrots they’ve decided to make us grind for. Then, they start to punish us for doing the grind they have forced us to do? Ok, yeah, that makes sense.

The ultimate betrayal is the tightening of diminishing returns to the point that it is having a clear impact on people just playing the game the way it was originally intended, before they introduced the need to grind.

I’m sorry, but this is just completely wrong and could completely destroy the game, the first game since WoW with the real potential to grab a huge portion of market share and hold onto it and grow it over time.

I’m fine with DR for sitting and farming the same spot for more than an hour or repeating the same DE more than three times in an hour. However, I should be able to spend as many hours as I want roaming and playing the game in a normal fashion as I desire, with out triggering any sort of diminishing returns. I should be able to sit down for four or five hours to complete a zone, killing things along the way and doing all the DEs I encounter, with out DR.

If someone wants to play 12 hours a day, they should be treasured as a dedicated fan, not punished for being an avid player. That the DR is effecting people who play much, much less than that just shows how insanely absurd the DR system is.

Is the game too popular? Is that the point? I just don’t get it.

As to Bots, which one would presume are the reason for DR in the first place, most farmers/spammers rely on stolen accounts to be viable. Why not actually deliver on the security promises made a couple weeks ago? Where is Google Authenticator support? Why weren’t authenticators available at launch? Why haven’t you implemented the forced password changes with the extended password blacklist in place?

Also, farmers need people to “need” more gold than they can earn through normal play in order to have a market for their illicit services. Don’t you realize that the insane costs for End Game Gear, (Yes, despite promises, you have created a massive end game carrot on a stick gear grind for this game) has actually created a demand for illicit gold that never would have existed if you had stuck to the original design for the game?!?!?!? The costs are so insanely high on so many things that the legal gem for gold exchange isn’t even viable for someone who might be willing to pay you for a bit of a short cut.

None of that makes illicit gold buying right, but the fact remains that you took a game that shouldn’t have even had a market for illicit gold buying and created a market for it! DR for normal play will drive many players from the game and others, figuring they have nothing to lose, since the game has made it impossible to earn things they want through normal play, will take the risk of buying gold from RMT sellers, seeing it as the only way.

Bad decision on top of bad decision is just making things worse, not better, while risking the loss of a huge chunk of fans, while also giving those against the game the ammunition they finally need to knock the legs out from under the game.

Give us real account security protections. Force the password resets, with the extended PW blacklist in place, as promised. Go after actual botters with better analysis tools and more properly trained staff. This may cost more than some piece of DR code, but it goes to the source of the problem with out punishing actual players for playing the game!

I’ve been playing the heck out of this game, but I’ve also been spending more than the $15/month I would be paying for a subscription fee with another MMO. Do you really want to drive people like me from the game, when your entire business model relies on people like me playing and paying?

There is no inflation any where in sight in this game, beyond the end game cost inflation you have implemented. Even with all the botters, crafting mat costs are still high, to the point that I wonder how the economy would even function with out the influx of mats from farmers.

Go after botters, not players. Examine the impact that the “wrong turn” you made in creating an end game gear grind has created and consider reversing course and removing the “need” you’ve created for RMT gold for some players who would otherwise have not even been tempted. Get authenticators and the new blacklisted password reset in place to drastically reduce the incidence of hacked accounts, which are the life blood of illicit farmers. Finally, stop punishing legitimate players for playing the game!

i got it!!! make 2 80s and jump in the straits and just rotate grind then boom 2 toons with lots of karma….

silencer.5028:

Again, there seem to be several triggers that become pretty clear when you look at the reports of it popping. Neither does it seem complex nor unpredictable to a certain degree if you look at it, barring any bugs. It quite clearly starts stacking percentage decreases of rewards once you meet certain conditions. Those conditions seem to be related to two major variables:

-Amount of Dynamic Events completed.

-Time taken to complete them.

Are there any more factors determining it? Probably. I do not remember claiming otherwise anywhere. Nor claiming I know exactly how it works. Based on all the collected data, these two things seem pretty certain though. Feel free to correct me if you have any additional data or see something I don’t.

And yeah, claiming to have (or not have) qualifications in Internet forums as a way of strengthening your own argument is a very slippery slope that has no relevance to anything. Facts contradicting my own conclusions are probably a better idea.

Here’s the issue with this. We have no way of knowing what triggers the bugs. This makes the system unpredictable. Why is my normal play getting caught by the DR, while some people have already been able to get legendary weapons? How come after 2 weeks of playing Orr, I have collected only 3 tier 6 fine crafting materials, while others are able to obtain enough tier 6 fine crafting material in a few hours for a full exotic set?

As long as we don’t know why these things happen, the system is unpredictable. At least if I knew what was causing the DR to erroneously kick in for me, I could avoid it.

sanadin.8317:

silencer.5028:

You have answered yourself right there. Tagged the packheart just to get karma reward. Abandoned champ since “its not worth it”, yet still got reward for it. If its not worth it, don’t do it.

“Tagged the packheart”. Also known as… joining the event? I saw it on my map, I ran to it, I did everything I could to help before it ended. there’s nothing exploitative about that. And why would I stay for the completion of Risen Abomination when I’ve already done more than my share of the damage and can no longer earn any rewards for it?

Your solution is that we “just don’t do it”. Does that really seem logical to you? I can help the event and get rewarded for doing so as is reflected by my contribution Medal. But you’re saying that I’ll find out in my NEXT event that I was wrong for contributing and now I should be penalized for the next 30 minutes? Does that honestly seem rational to you? Doesn’t that seem to be delivering mixed messages?

You did highlight a mistake I made in my post, when I said, “beginning to end” I did just mean, “to end”. Of course I run around to events that are already occurring. How else am I supposed to know when they are up? Time them? Why do I feel you’d call that another “hoop”? I look at the map and follow the pings like every other player in the game, that isn’t abuse or exploitation, that’s normal play.

silencer.5028:

…
And, in a grand scale of matters, the DR system which makes sure you do not do what stated above.
…
It quite obviously isn’t.

Man, everything’s really obvious to you, it’s a wonder so many people are confused and upset over something so obvious.

Obviously, I don’t think that the DR aligns with the otherwise abundant philosophy of positive-reinforcement in the game, nor the overarching theme of “play how you want”. If I’m understanding you correctly, you think the karma DR is the intended counterpart to the Medal system – a continued reflection of one’s contribution to the event. I disagree. I think there’s a lot of mixed messages and we need clarification from the company.

I am pretty sure we have ran full circle now, which is quite normal for discussions of this type in an MMO, so I won’t do another circle again. I think I understand where you are coming from and disagree with your points, but well yeah, I think I’ve ran out of ways to try and explain my line of thinking, we can agree to disagree, I’m sure. Both our points have been made many times over and reinforced, but I don’t think I can think off anything to add that I haven’t said already.

silencer.5028:

I am pretty sure we have ran full circle now, which is quite normal for discussions of this type in an MMO, so I won’t do another circle again. I think I understand where you are coming from and disagree with your points, but well yeah, I think I’ve ran out of ways to try and explain my line of thinking, we can agree to disagree, I’m sure. Both our points have been made many times over and reinforced, but I don’t think I can think off anything to add that I haven’t said already.

Haha, man, I almost wrote something very similar in my last response to you. I also see where you are coming from, despite the general disagreement. /agreedisagree accepted.

Can someone clarify EXACTLY what the problem is? I just see people saying they get DR and how they hate it. Yet didn’t Anet say it was implemented to stop players from abusing game mechanics? I guess I just have yet to see anyone clarify exactly what they are dong to get DRs. I’ve yet to see DRs once and I’ve been playing since early access. If the system is to stop abusing game mechanics, then why is this so bad? From a rationale standpoint I just do not understand the outcry.

If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.

i get dr from going to the straits i do gren/arch mage/ lyssa/giant/chopper/mel/aco and repeat its a huge circle and eventually it causes me to go into dr mode.. sure i could go some where else but i work smart not hard if somethings working and its efficient im doing it its not efficient to use way points to travel all over just cause im in DR it eats money and quick

Irishbrewed.6537:

Can someone clarify EXACTLY what the problem is? I just see people saying they get DR and how they hate it. Yet didn’t Anet say it was implemented to stop players from abusing game mechanics? I guess I just have yet to see anyone clarify exactly what they are dong to get DRs. I’ve yet to see DRs once and I’ve been playing since early access. If the system is to stop abusing game mechanics, then why is this so bad? From a rationale standpoint I just do not understand the outcry.

If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.

Irish, if you look back at some of my posts / threads, you can see a good chunk of information on this.

The issue I have with the DR is that, even though I am not farming, I am getting hit by diminished drops. I don’t farm DEs, don’t grind the same mobs over and over again, yet whenever I play Orr, I get severely reduced drops (either nothing or porous bones). This is the result of playing the game exactly as is intended. It is incredibly frustrating and really hampers me from playing in any meaningful way.

Everyone asking for proof of DR please review Edenknight’s post. I know that area well. It is in the Norn Wayfarer Foothills area. I played there in beta a lot and also have a Norn alt. The area where Edenknight was is a homestead. It is a DE chain. The events culminate into a major boss battle.

The events pop almost one after another. Also, there is only one other event north of the homestead and a heart. So if Edenknight was farming karma, it would have been a poor location choice. The DEs related to the homestead start up about every 15-20 minutes.

So tell us someone please, why does DR kick in during low level DEs that are built to happen one after another. How is this acceptable?

This should really upset the Arenanet team. You have photo evidence of a low level player getting diminishing returns. Do you really think that new players will stick around when they notice that? Do you think they will speak well of your game after experiencing that?

If I had experienced this type of karma drop when I did those events in beta, I might not have bought this game. Why? Because I would have thought, “I am just playing the game. Why I am receiving less for doing that?”

I loved those events and would come back often to do them again. Is that wrong? Is that not the way to play? And for those saying its farming, nope. That area is not the best one to farm since there are so few DEs in the general area. I went back to play them because I like them.

Somewhere in all this mess Arenanet has forgotten their mantra which I love. “We built a game for people to have fun.” If fun for me is repeating events, so what? If fun for another is farming, so what? If fun for another is doing an event as fast as possible, so what? How is this hurting anyone or the game?

Irishbrewed.6537:

Can someone clarify EXACTLY what the problem is? I just see people saying they get DR and how they hate it. Yet didn’t Anet say it was implemented to stop players from abusing game mechanics? I guess I just have yet to see anyone clarify exactly what they are dong to get DRs. I’ve yet to see DRs once and I’ve been playing since early access. If the system is to stop abusing game mechanics, then why is this so bad? From a rationale standpoint I just do not understand the outcry.

If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.

This is why I have been asking people to start uploading videos with examples of DR triggering.

I am in the same boat- I play what I consider to be “normally”, and have not as yet run into the DR code. Many other people are saying they are also playing “normally”, but DO seem to trigger it. I’d like to get a look at some footage, and see what it is they are doing differently.

I see this as something that can only help EVERYONE. It will allow us to analyze what is causing DR to trigger, which will allow us ALL to figure out ways to maximize farming (and fun!) while still avoiding the DR.

I will even take some video of my own play, so that too can be analyzed to see what it is that I’m doing or not doing to avoid the DR. It may be a bit before I can get it uploaded, but I’ll start recording tonight.

Absolutely horrific system.

Why?

It creates nothing but bad feelings, mistrust, and further expands the already vast chasm between ArenaNet developers and customers.

You need to change DR so it kicks in after 8 hours of play, counting from midnight server time. That means players can do whatever they want for 8 hours a day, in GW2, and there will be no anti-farming code, no reduction in loot, no reduction in xp, no reduction in karma, no reduction in ANY reward of ANY kind. Period. For the first 8 hours.

After that, do what you want.

Just consider this for one second, ArenaNet: Your current systems are preventing you from acquiring new customers. You are intentionally, by design, and with forethought contributing to your own financial harm with any kind of Diminishing Returns / Anti-Farming code in your game.

I will repeat myself so there’s no misunderstanding:
For the first 8 hours of play for each character, after midnight Dallas time, there should be no Diminishing Returns, nor any Anti-Farming code effects in play for each character.

Ban the botters, fine. Do not punish your existing customers, nor new existing customers. Stop with the punitive mechanics. It was bad game design 10 years ago, it’s still bad game design.

Also, you need to scale ALL XP AND KARMA rewards to the real level of the player. You already do it for loot, just add XP and Karma and you’ll have a truly innovative system instead of a half-baked hybrid scheme of fail.

Ossus.9231:

Irishbrewed.6537:

Can someone clarify EXACTLY what the problem is? I just see people saying they get DR and how they hate it. Yet didn’t Anet say it was implemented to stop players from abusing game mechanics? I guess I just have yet to see anyone clarify exactly what they are dong to get DRs. I’ve yet to see DRs once and I’ve been playing since early access. If the system is to stop abusing game mechanics, then why is this so bad? From a rationale standpoint I just do not understand the outcry.

If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.

Irish, if you look back at some of my posts / threads, you can see a good chunk of information on this.

The issue I have with the DR is that, even though I am not farming, I am getting hit by diminished drops. I don’t farm DEs, don’t grind the same mobs over and over again, yet whenever I play Orr, I get severely reduced drops (either nothing or porous bones). This is the result of playing the game exactly as is intended. It is incredibly frustrating and really hampers me from playing in any meaningful way.

So how do you even know its DR? Do you get a debuff or something? Or do you guys all know that if you do “X” you get “X”? I thought a lot of players were just mob tagging and “gaming” the system. Does it not work like that?

I wanted to inject something, because it’s very relevant to the entire concept that players need to be prevented from advancing too quickly, or playing too much.

I hit the level cap with my Elementalist at around the 135 hour mark. I have now logged almost 245 hours with that same character. I haven’t touched a dungeon yet. I have only done a little WvW and even less sPvP. I have never sat in one place grinding. I’ve bought or crafted the more easily available Exotics as I’ve been able to afford to during normal play, currently two accessories short of a full set of exotic armor, accessories and three exotic weapons.

I haven’t played to pursue the End Game Gear Grind. I’ve played to have fun enjoying the game world. I still only have map completion in the 60s. I play the game like it’s one massive Skyrim and have been having a blast doing so.

The original design was correct. The entire game is “end game” There is no need for an “end game gear grind”. It doesn’t matter one spit that I hit the level cap in two weeks, or that I have over 365 hours of total time played on my account. I was still having a blast playing the game as it was originally intended!

The original design worked! I can not say it too many times or stress it enough.

What ever panic mode the developers got themselves in over people getting “too quickly” to the level cap or logging hundreds of hours, well, they need to just quit it! There was nothing, I repeat nothing to panic over. Nada!

The original design worked! Go back to the original design concept and get off of the two generations gone concept that you need an end game gear grind with this game!

Creating a gear grind was a completely wrong turn for the game. You created demand for RMT gold that never would have existed if you had just had faith in the original design. Making the End Game Gear Grind even more difficult, by implementing a DR system that effects real players, is just digging the hole even deeper. Stop it!

The game does not and never has needed an End Game Gear Grind. Period. There doesn’t need to be ANY artificial limitation on a real player’s ability to play as many hours a day as they desire. Period.

The game, as originally designed, is and was good for several hundreds of hours of play with a single character and the replayability and fun factor was indeed large enough to allow people who played one character for 300-400 hours to embrace the idea of doing so again, and again, with additional characters!

Stop the “OMG, people are playing the game too much and hitting the cap too quickly” panic. It’s a relic of the past and was irrelevant to the game, until you MADE it relevant by creating a massive grind where NONE was needed!

The Original Design Worked! Stop finding ways to break it, wound it or kill it!

Some of your players have made the paradigm shift, why are some at Arenanet failing to see the paradigm shift the game’s design created?

Tallenn.9218:

Irishbrewed.6537:

If someone could clarify what exactly they are doing when they get DRs it would be greatly appreciated.

This is why I have been asking people to start uploading videos with examples of DR triggering.

I am in the same boat- I play what I consider to be “normally”, and have not as yet run into the DR code. Many other people are saying they are also playing “normally”, but DO seem to trigger it. I’d like to get a look at some footage, and see what it is they are doing differently.

The people who were going for a legendary were getting 70k+ karma per day, some were getting 120k karma in a day easily when using a karma booster.

these people are not doing anything differently than what people were doing during every single BWE and the stress tests

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.

Using the exact same method people were using to farm legendaries, the DR kicks in after getting about 4k karma, and you stop getting karma after another 500 or so.

So instead of getting 70-120 karma per day, which arenanet never had any problems with at all, you now get 4500 karma doing the same things.

I really don’t think this change was meant to affect regular players, it was meant to affect bots and exploiters but someone put an “if” where an “else” was supposed to be, and then they just pushed it live without properly testing it.

Lets just hope it doesn’t take 3 weeks to fix this like the dungeon patch did…

Fiontar.4695:

I wanted to inject something, because it’s very relevant to the entire concept that players need to be prevented from advancing too quickly, or playing too much.

I hit the level cap with my Elementalist at around the 135 hour mark. I have now logged almost 245 hours with that same character. I haven’t touched a dungeon yet. I have only done a little WvW and even less sPvP. I have never sat in one place grinding. I’ve bought or crafted the more easily available Exotics as I’ve been able to afford to during normal play, currently two accessories short of a full set of exotic armor, accessories and three exotic weapons.

I haven’t played to pursue the End Game Gear Grind. I’ve played to have fun enjoying the game world. I still only have map completion in the 60s. I play the game like it’s one massive Skyrim and have been having a blast doing so.

The original design was correct. The entire game is “end game” There is no need for an “end game gear grind”. It doesn’t matter one spit that I hit the level cap in two weeks, or that I have over 365 hours of total time played on my account. I was still having a blast playing the game as it was originally intended!?

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.

I played GW1 for over 7000 hours and was still having fun. Right now I have 5000 kills in WvW, approaching 100 tournament wins in SPvP, I have 2 level 80 characters, I completely every path in every dungeon, most of them several times. I did them even though a BUG with the DR was giving me 6 tokens and 2s instead of 60 tokens and 26s, why? Because they were fun. I explored the whole world and saw everything it had to offer, I did every single event and heart in the game at least once, I explored jumping puzzles and went into every nook and cranny to discover cool new things and learn more about the lore. Am I getting bored with the game? Hell no. With things the way they were, I was looking forward to another 8000 hours of playing the game at least.

But now I’m constantly being slapped in the face by DR telling me “STOP PLAYING THE GAME” and “GO PLAY A DIFFERENT GAME” and every time it rears its ugly head it sounds a little more convincing than the last time.

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

“This mirrors United States politics well, doesn’t it? The people who can’t put in the amount of time don’t want to have work as hard as those people who DO have the time, but the people WITH time don’t want to be punished (or taxed) for trying hard. Insane! "

Abrexus.2910:

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

Lol I read your post on page 2, your personal life mimics mine.

So how do you know your getting diminished rewards? I’ve leveled for hours and never noticed it. But I don’t watch xp like that I just play so I might be missing something. Do you get a visual debuff or you just get less xp or something?

People need to understand that the DR affecting events done by normal play is a (admittedly terrible) bug and not intended (just with Occam’s Razor).

Irishbrewed.6537:

Abrexus.2910:

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

Lol I read your post on page 2, your personal life mimics mine.

So how do you know your getting diminished rewards? I’ve leveled for hours and never noticed it. But I don’t watch xp like that I just play so I might be missing something. Do you get a visual debuff or you just get less xp or something?

It’s easy enough to notice for events. You will start getting drastically reduced event rewards (with the badge) until it eventually gives you 97% less than the normal reward. Just watch for the decreasing numbers. It is quite easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers though, or don’t know how much a gold badge contribution should reward you with.

For loot it’s a little harder to tell, but generally you have hit it when mobs stop dropping stuff altogether and/or only drop Junk Items (not even white armor/weapons, literally Junk Items ONLY).

Why do I get the impression that all the threads about this have been deleted/locked and everyone told to talk about it here so its out of the way, so no-one can see it?

Feels like its being swept under the rug. I really hope we get an answer on the subject soon. I’m starting to lose interest in playing knowing that there’s an invisible system in place to limit what I want to do in game.

@Morgoth, well combined with the general deafening silence from ArenaNet on this issue, your impression doesn’t seem much of a stretch at all.

It definitely does seem like they don’t care about how people feel about DR and are just sweeping it under the rug in the hopes that we’ll all forget that the game is screwing us out of rewards during normal play after 20-30 minutes.

Irishbrewed.6537:

Abrexus.2910:

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

Lol I read your post on page 2, your personal life mimics mine.

So how do you know your getting diminished rewards? I’ve leveled for hours and never noticed it. But I don’t watch xp like that I just play so I might be missing something. Do you get a visual debuff or you just get less xp or something?

I first noticed it when doing the fire elemental boss in Metrica province. It was quite an epic fight actually and we finally finished it, but instead of the normal 400 to 500 exp I was getting I got 34. The only reason I even noticed is because the event was so epic I took note to see if the reward was any more than the normal amount. This was the first time I noticed the issue. It isn’t uncommon for me to close the window without paying attention, but since then I have been keeping a close eye on all the rewards.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Irishbrewed.6537:

Abrexus.2910:

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

Lol I read your post on page 2, your personal life mimics mine.

So how do you know your getting diminished rewards? I’ve leveled for hours and never noticed it. But I don’t watch xp like that I just play so I might be missing something. Do you get a visual debuff or you just get less xp or something?

It’s easy enough to notice for events. You will start getting drastically reduced event rewards (with the badge) until it eventually gives you 97% less than the normal reward. Just watch for the decreasing numbers. It is quite easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers though, or don’t know how much a gold badge contribution should reward you with.

For loot it’s a little harder to tell, but generally you have hit it when mobs stop dropping stuff altogether and/or only drop Junk Items (not even white armor/weapons, literally Junk Items ONLY).

I will have to try watching for it I guess, thanks. But even then I’m not sure it bothers me too much even if that’s how it works cause I seem to be progressing at a fair rate. Isn’t it just the RULES of the game? Why can’t we just play by the rules? I guess that’s how I’ve alwaysed approached video games! Yeah I mean I can see where it might suck for some but it doesn’t really hurt the game expirence overall, still a really enjoyable game regardless of those rules. To each their own I guess.

Thanks again for helping

I’ve been really impressed with ArenaNet until now. Every decision you make, you will have people that agree, and people that disagree. But the bottom line is that communication is key.

Communication from ArenaNet has been top notch until now. With this DR stuff, they have completely and utterly dropped the ball. If I was them, I would start communicating the thought process behind this… and honestly I think we deserve an apology as well. But then again, that’s just me.

Plague.5329:

Here’s my biggest advice: the player’s everyday experience with the game is paramount – far more important than the global game economy will ever be.

The global game economy affects the player’s everyday experience, too, though. So if the DR is in place to help protect the game economy, they are trying to protect the player’s experience. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but it’s simplistic to think that the player’s experience will be unaffected if the game economy goes south.

Irishbrewed.6537:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Irishbrewed.6537:

Abrexus.2910:

I just want to restate that as a level 20 player with limited time (see my post on page 2) it not only affects karma, but I also get a dramatically reduced exp reward. This is making my limited playtime a nightmare to even try and get to 80 and embark on this “legendary” journey.

Lol I read your post on page 2, your personal life mimics mine.

So how do you know your getting diminished rewards? I’ve leveled for hours and never noticed it. But I don’t watch xp like that I just play so I might be missing something. Do you get a visual debuff or you just get less xp or something?

It’s easy enough to notice for events. You will start getting drastically reduced event rewards (with the badge) until it eventually gives you 97% less than the normal reward. Just watch for the decreasing numbers. It is quite easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers though, or don’t know how much a gold badge contribution should reward you with.

For loot it’s a little harder to tell, but generally you have hit it when mobs stop dropping stuff altogether and/or only drop Junk Items (not even white armor/weapons, literally Junk Items ONLY).

I will have to try watching for it I guess, thanks. But even then I’m not sure it bothers me too much even if that’s how it works cause I seem to be progressing at a fair rate. Isn’t it just the RULES of the game? Why can’t we just play by the rules? I guess that’s how I’ve alwaysed approached video games! Yeah I mean I can see where it might suck for some but it doesn’t really hurt the game expirence overall, still a really enjoyable game regardless of those rules. To each their own I guess.

Thanks again for helping

The rules changed two weeks after launch, after all 3 beta weekends, after we paid the game. That is not OK.

Mods suggested I post these questions from my thread in Dynamic Events here…

“I pose these question to ArenaNet about rewards for Dynamic Event (DE) rewards.
Why do you have the diminishing returns (DR) system for Karma impacting players across multiple maps?
Is one of your goals with Karma DR to simply slow the rate players, who are actually at their machine playing, receive karma?
How do you want for people to play DEs in order to not be effected by DR systems?”

Szin.1250:

Plague.5329:

Here’s my biggest advice: the player’s everyday experience with the game is paramount – far more important than the global game economy will ever be.

The global game economy affects the player’s everyday experience, too, though. So if the DR is in place to help protect the game economy, they are trying to protect the player’s experience. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but it’s simplistic to think that the player’s experience will be unaffected if the game economy goes south.

It’s kind of moot if their “protection” of the economy forces players to quit playing or receive nothing for their effort. If people are simply quitting, they’d never even experience the inflated economy anyway. The DR as it stands heavily encourages people to stop playing the game.

marianitten.1247:

The rules changed two weeks after launch, after all 3 beta weekens, after we paid the game. That is not OK.

This. This SOOO much. They sold us on GW2 without this rubbish throughout the BWEs and prepurchase time. Not one time ever were players expecting that they would stop receiving loot and rewards from events after 20 minutes of normal play.

Further, this system wasn’t announced at all, simply silently put into the game.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want the game I paid for back, not this pale imitation that was swapped in under our noses.

I would not have bought GW2 if it had been advertised as having the current DR systems in the game, and it is EXTREMELY SHADY of them to have sold us on a game WITHOUT DR just to go and SILENTLY IMPLEMENT IT TWO WEEKS AFTER RELEASE.

That is the epitome of a bait and switch and I am not okay with it.

I had a post instantly taken down in this thread, so we are def being watched by someone. There is not much else we can do but keep this thread alive and going in hopes of a devs responce.

Btw I totally agree, all posts are being locked and transfered here. Why here? Why not where it will get the most visibility and pertains to the most?

THE DYNAMIC EVENT SECTION

Szin.1250:

Plague.5329:

Here’s my biggest advice: the player’s everyday experience with the game is paramount – far more important than the global game economy will ever be.

The global game economy affects the player’s everyday experience, too, though. So if the DR is in place to help protect the game economy, they are trying to protect the player’s experience. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but it’s simplistic to think that the player’s experience will be unaffected if the game economy goes south.

The ingame economy will be protected with a good antibot system. The DR just punish gamers, because botters doens’t sleep, doens’t stop… they can do the exact task for days, weeks, any DR is going to stop them.

They just need to pust ONE people to travel across maps, accross server. When someone report a botter, he transport there. Is not hard. Any “magic” algorithm is going to stop botters. They live from this, they even know the game more than anyone. If you put a rock in the road, they just move to another place.

marianitten.1247:

… The rules changed two weeks after launch, after all 3 beta weekends, after we paid the game. That is not OK.

Correct. It’s not OK. It’s fraud at worst, or bait and switch at best.

Try to keep the discussion focused on Diminished Returns…This is the thread that Arenanet is going to monitor and respond to. They aren’t going to stay silent, just please keep it civil so they can respond with how they feel and not close this thread. It’s not about your disappointment with the product, or how you are going to quit. It’s about DR in the game, and how it positive or negatively affects the game. I’ve done quite a bit of derailing as well, so I’m not completely innocent, but if this is the thread they will read, we should keep it as fluff free as possible.

Xagar.6512:

People need to understand that the DR affecting events done by normal play is a (admittedly terrible) bug and not intended (just with Occam’s Razor).

Oh really? You know this how since there hasn’t been a SINGLE posting by a GW2 employee on the forums in regards to PVE not related to dungeons.

This is what has almost every person that is venting on this forum is upset is due to the absolute lack of response in any shape or form to understand what is going on. What triggers it and why it’s there. They were transparent on the dungeon, why so quiet on this front?

Weeks go by without a response.

Silence is acquiescence

To assume it is a bug at this point with this amount of time passing and with this amount of uproar and using Occam’s Razor would result in stating it is not a bug.