Guild Wars 2

Revised Suggestion: Move the Ambient Creatures in Rata Sum to the home instance.

Original Post:

No prizes for guessing why. It basically boils down to two questions:

1) Am I more entitled to kill an ambient creature for my Weapon Master achievements than someone who is using Maize Balm against creatures to farm Halloween Bags?

Answer: No.

2) Am I more entitled to use Maize Balm against ambient creatures to farm Halloween Bags than someone who wants to kill ambient creatures to get the achievements for a certain Weapon Master?

Answer: No.

The only way it can be solved without ArenaNet taking sides is to remove the ambient creatures altogether, so both sides have to get their ambient creatures elsewhere. We need an environment where people are respectful of each other.

penelopehannibal.8947:

No prizes for guessing why. It basically boils down to two questions:

1) Am I more entitled to kill an ambient creature for my Weapon Master achievements than someone who is using Maize Balm against creatures to farm Halloween Bags?

Answer: No.

2) Am I more entitled to use Maize Balm against ambient creatures to farm Halloween Bags than someone who wants to kill ambient creatures to get the achievements for a certain Weapon Master?

Answer: No.

The only way it can be solved without ArenaNet taking sides is to remove the ambient creatures altogether, so both sides have to get their ambient creatures elsewhere. We need an environment where people are respectful of each other.

But what if I am killing ambient creatures in godslost swamp and you show up and want to use maize balm there. Does ANET need to do the unbiased thing and remove ambient creatures from the swamp? Seriously, what would this accomplish?

Would this not just move the conflict to the next-best-place? I’m not sure what would be accomplished by removing ambients from that particular spot.

To answer both your questions:

The ambients in this particular spot are more bunched together than ambients in other places, which is why I think people farm it there.

In places such as Godlost swamp or that diseased area of Bloodtide Coast, the ambients are spread over a greater area, and whilst I do neither Maize Balm farms or Weapon Master farming (I’m against farming as a general rule anyway) I’ve noticed these areas that are sometimes used do not have any arguments in /say chat.

Quite the opposite in Rata Sum. After I posted this log, I decided to take another look at the Rata Sum spot. And much to my surprise (/sarcasm), people were arguing again. I tried to recommend both parties to go separate ways (Maize Farm to Bloodtide & Weapon Master to Godlost) but both seemed adamant on staying where they were.

I suppose another idea would be to perhaps move the ones from appearing in Rata Sum to an area in an instance, so only party members could go there.

I think it’s reasonable that there should be no combat in cities at all. Make city ambients into green mobs.

Simpler solution: make the balm only work during Halloween.

When it comes to ambient griefing, it all comes down to who was there first. I’m surprised ArenaNet even bothered with that one person. One of the farmers was probably a GM. It’s not like a warning wasn’t given however, so feel free to do whatever you want with the critters until warned.

Have waited a very long time for my turn to do achievement at that spot in Rata Sum but it is always farmers there. I would like to be able to advance with my torch but it is impossible. I do hope we can find a solution so we can share the place.

This thing is still going on? I would have thought since you can only make one balm per day that this type of farming would have died down a bit.

Anyway, to add to my original suggestion, I recommend the ambients be moved to the Rata Sum home instance, so only party members can join, whether it’s for the Maize OR Weapon Mastery.

Edit Changed the spelling mistake of ‘originally’ to ‘original’.

Or you know instead of whining about it you can just move to a different instance of the city… Also not sure what this would solve… or why it is even a problem.

Is there a reason you can not group up and get your weapon achievements at the same time as the farmers? Wouldn’t it go faster for both of you… AND earn you money if you grouped up with them instead of whining on the forums about them?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Or you know instead of whining about it you can just move to a different instance of the city… Also not sure what this would solve… or why it is even a problem.

Is there a reason you can not group up and get your weapon achievements at the same time as the farmers? Wouldn’t it go faster for both of you… AND earn you money if you grouped up with them instead of whining on the forums about them?

When I originally posted this, which was about a month ago, it was a serious problem as some players were fighting over their ‘rights’ to kill or transform ambient creatures.

I don’t know how much of a problem it is now as I’ve never taken part in either side’s way of farming even back then, let alone lately. But I have mapped Rata Sum with several of my characters at the time, and the language on some of the people was atrocious.

Yes, you can report and block people as I have done, but that doesn’t solve the root of the problem. People shouldn’t be using horrible language in the game in the first place.

Moving the ambients WILL solve the problem, because only the people in the party would be where the ambients are if they get moved to the instance.

As for your question about those who use it for weapon master, I believe you have to be the last hitter on an enemy for it to count towards your weapon master achievement.

Ambient Killer?

1. Choose Vigil as your Order.
2. Play this mission. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forewarned_is_Forearmed
3. On entering the sewer, stop.
4. Press #1 continuously.
5. ??
6. Profit!

I don’t have the personal storyline “Forewarned is Forearmed” and I don’t have any free slots for new chars.

The suggestion to move the Lightning bugs in Idea Incubation lab to home instance would solve the problem.

As ArenaNet probably gets a lot of reports about the conflict I hope they take action. Lets hope it will be soon as this is unpleasant for both farmers and achievement hunters.

I hope ANET makes the ambients there into friendly critters that are unkillable, like they are in every other city map. That makes more sense.

penelopehannibal.8947:

We need an environment where people are respectful of each other.

These environments do exist in game; if that’s not your experience, I’m sorry.

Right after the Halloween events ended, I went to the Queensdale swamp shack to maize balm some ambients. Someone was already there, and said they were cool with sharing. We worked together to balm/aoe them, and ended up with way more bags than we would have solo.

I’m not opposed to your suggestion at all, though there may be more important issues to address. What you may want to try if you end up in a map with sour people – rep. a different guild (or none) and exit to character select. When you log back in, hopefully you’re in a different instance with nicer people.

GuzziHero.5104:

Ambient Killer?

1. Choose Vigil as your Order.
2. Play this mission. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forewarned_is_Forearmed
3. On entering the sewer, stop.
4. Press #1 continuously.
5. ??
6. Profit!

I thought there was no loot from anything in the personal story instances any longer?
If this works it certainly would solve the issue. I have only used the maize balm once to complete the achievement and still have a stack in the bank.
I have refrained from using it because of the issues it causes on both sides.

I wouldn’t mind those ambients moving, for a completely different reason: That used to be a nice RP spot, safely far away from inflicting spam on others or getting tangled up in theirs while offering a nice view and a lot of Asura ambiance. Last time I and my guildies went there to break in our new Asura alts, we got mocked, harassed, and griefed. One person even boggled at the idea that RP existed in an MMO and called us names for doing it. Thanks, Megaserver.

Note that we were not in any way attacking the ambients or talking to the farmers or demanding they leave. We just did our own conversation and they went ballistic.

Guhracie.3419:

I hope ANET makes the ambients there into friendly critters that are unkillable, like they are in every other city map. That makes more sense.

Thanks, ANET!

Infernia.9847:

GuzziHero.5104:

Ambient Killer?

1. Choose Vigil as your Order.
2. Play this mission. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forewarned_is_Forearmed
3. On entering the sewer, stop.
4. Press #1 continuously.
5. ??
6. Profit!

I thought there was no loot from anything in the personal story instances any longer?
If this works it certainly would solve the issue. I have only used the maize balm once to complete the achievement and still have a stack in the bank.
I have refrained from using it because of the issues it causes on both sides.

I have a character at that mission and it does NOT work with the maize balm.

I do use it for weapon master achievements though.

It’s pretty simple, if players are stepping on each others toes, then there’s simply not enough room for them. The simple solution is for the Dev’s to provide enough room for the players. In this case, room equates to the amount of viable places with ambient clusters. Moving Ambients to the home instance at least makes the farming capacity scalable to demand. Unlike the mega server which requires far to many players before it begins scaling.

Heck, I’d even BUY GEMS to place a good few clusters of ambients in my home instance.

Well, I never finished my warhorn mastery, and now I know I never will.