Guild Wars 2

I for one am very against the zerg that runs in low lvl areas. I personally play on Anvil Rock. I love most of the people in the server and have some great friends in the server. But I feel that the low lvl zerg is killing our server. For some reason the only zerg that runs is in Queensdale. This has created a huge problem. unfortunately it is becoming more apparent every day that new players are coming into game and just leveling all the way to 80 by running the champ train in queensdale. It is easy to see because of the lack of skill at playing the character class they are. Our WvW is suffering because of it. Not to mention our lack of ability to actually complete hard bosses such as taquil.

While in GW2 each class is viable on its own for the most part, they do have differences that come into effect in dungeons and bosses. We are now left with a considerable amount of people who don’t fill there role in groups.

I have personally tried to get the train going in frost gorge quite a few times. But since queensdale is the norm on Anvil Rock its just a losing battle. Everyone wants to just lvl from 2-80 in queensdale zerg.

I am not trying to speak ill of the people of Anvil Rock, but i believe our server is just going down hill and the queensdale zerg is the cause.

My idea for solution would be. Maybe only have Champs in HIGH LVL zones. Like maybe only lvl 70+ zones. This way it atleast makes people learn to play there character instead of just riding the zerg all the way to 80. I see no reason for the champs in the low lvl zones. At very least make it a complete random spawn on champs there. Like have it to where they could actually spawn ANYWHERE in queensdale instead of same spot each time.

I am just frustrated, I like my server and my friends in it and dont want to move. But I feel like Anvil Rock has just lowered its standards and is filling up with zerg babies.

What are your guys thought on this and do you see any fixes for it?

How odd. This isn’t the case on my server, there’s a Queensdale zerg but players are everywhere and WvW and dungeon fine.

Here we go again…

So you personally don’t like the champ train so you don’t want anyone else to use it either?

Foe Wig.3095:

I for one am very against the zerg that runs in low lvl areas. I personally play on Anvil Rock. I love most of the people in the server and have some great friends in the server. But I feel that the low lvl zerg is killing our server. For some reason the only zerg that runs is in Queensdale. This has created a huge problem. unfortunately it is becoming more apparent every day that new players are coming into game and just leveling all the way to 80 by running the champ train in queensdale. It is easy to see because of the lack of skill at playing the character class they are. Our WvW is suffering because of it. Not to mention our lack of ability to actually complete hard bosses such as taquil.

While in GW2 each class is viable on its own for the most part, they do have differences that come into effect in dungeons and bosses. We are now left with a considerable amount of people who don’t fill there role in groups.

I have personally tried to get the train going in frost gorge quite a few times. But since queensdale is the norm on Anvil Rock its just a losing battle. Everyone wants to just lvl from 2-80 in queensdale zerg.

I am not trying to speak ill of the people of Anvil Rock, but i believe our server is just going down hill and the queensdale zerg is the cause.

My idea for solution would be. Maybe only have Champs in HIGH LVL zones. Like maybe only lvl 70+ zones. This way it atleast makes people learn to play there character instead of just riding the zerg all the way to 80. I see no reason for the champs in the low lvl zones. At very least make it a complete random spawn on champs there. Like have it to where they could actually spawn ANYWHERE in queensdale instead of same spot each time.

I am just frustrated, I like my server and my friends in it and dont want to move. But I feel like Anvil Rock has just lowered its standards and is filling up with zerg babies.

What are your guys thought on this and do you see any fixes for it?

My thought is that you should do what you wand and let others do what they want. They can champ train and you can avoid it. Problem solved.

The reason because bots and gold sellers don’t last long in Queensdale is because the champ train.The vermins still try every friday until monday.

Lord Kuru.3685:

So you personally don’t like the champ train so you don’t want anyone else to use it either?

While I disagree the champs should be removed (I am from Anvil Rock all the same)you must be trolling him. He even suggested that he would enjoy doing such a “train” in Frostgorge Sound on Anvil Rock. Thus, he didn’t say anything of the sort you mentioned, but rather than a few new players don’t get to learn their Professions because of the way “zerging” usually works.

IMHO, the true problem with his statements is that there are a lot of assumptions-some players may be old players leveling their new characters fast, and the new players that leveled this way will just have to pay the price for choosing to power level this way. Power leveling won’t go away just because of this so-called train being removed, and there’s no harm in letting others power level (play how you want, and all of that, which is valid.)

The problem with Anvil Rock is not the Queensdale “champ train” but that there aren’t enough players that do PvE map events and exploration, things which to me are quite fun, but seemingly otherwise to most people on AR. Anvil Rock is better now, actually, even on WvW. The reason it is seemingly going “downhill” (which is arguable) is because not many people care to play PvE, not solely any train trend.

Other problems that may arise from “the train” is people being rude to others for killing a champ “out of rotation” (as if they owned the map as an instance), etc. but as far as I’ve noticed that is not a big problem on AR, and there aren’t tons of players doing said “train” EVEN on Queensdale (I know I don’t do it, save for the Troll and few others when I am in the area, which isn’t often). As far as AR is concerned, I don’t see it as a huge problem myself, though I mean no disrespect to the OP.

It is fair to say that, sadly, a new player’s view of the game will be very different from server to server, and I wish there was a way to minimize that potential problem (say, a new player on Tarnished Coast won’t have the same “this game is dead” experience than another starting a Charr character on Anvil Rock, for instance.)

People run these champ trains because it’s the most rewarding thing there is currently. Running in a loop, over and over and over again, killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end.

Think about it…THIS is the most rewarding in game at the moment. Kind of depressing, no?

Dark Catalyst.1028:

People run these champ trains because it’s the most rewarding thing there is currently. Running in a loop, over and over and over again, killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end.

Think about it…THIS is the most rewarding in game at the moment. Kind of depressing, no?

Why do it if it’s no fun for you? Seems to me you are punishing yourself just to “maximize” gold per hour ratio. I understand if anything else in the game also isn’t fun for you in particular, but I certainly also don’t find the “train” fun and avoid it myself. Plenty to do in this game that is rewarding-perhaps you can tone down the min/maxer in you regarding gold per hour gains.

Players that love to maximize gold in this way are often paying the price for doing so. I bet 100% of them aren’t really enjoying it or doing it for fun, but more as a money-making chore (money which isn’t real, and has no true purpose in being acquired-online prestige is overrated.)

Also, some players may be actually having fun doing these things. People are different. Some people actually had fun doing CoF 1 runs back then, even if it never was my money-making cup of tea.

Star Ace.5207:

Lord Kuru.3685:

So you personally don’t like the champ train so you don’t want anyone else to use it either?

While I disagree the champs should be removed (I am from Anvil Rock all the same)you must be trolling him. He even suggested that he would enjoy doing such a “train” in Frostgorge Sound on Anvil Rock. Thus, he didn’t say anything of the sort you mentioned, but rather than a few new players don’t get to learn their Professions because of the way “zerging” usually works.

IMHO, the true problem with his statements is that there are a lot of assumptions-some players may be old players leveling their new characters fast, and the new players that leveled this way will just have to pay the price for choosing to power level this way. Power leveling won’t go away just because of this so-called train being removed, and there’s no harm in letting others power level (play how you want, and all of that, which is valid.)

The problem with Anvil Rock is not the Queensdale “champ train” but that there aren’t enough players that do PvE map events and exploration, things which to me are quite fun, but seemingly otherwise to most people on AR. Anvil Rock is better now, actually, even on WvW. The reason it is seemingly going “downhill” (which is arguable) is because not many people care to play PvE, not solely any train trend.

Other problems that may arise from “the train” is people being rude to others for killing a champ “out of rotation” (as if they owned the map as an instance), etc. but as far as I’ve noticed that is not a big problem on AR, and there aren’t tons of players doing said “train” EVEN on Queensdale (I know I don’t do it, save for the Troll and few others when I am in the area, which isn’t often). As far as AR is concerned, I don’t see it as a huge problem myself, though I mean no disrespect to the OP.

It is fair to say that, sadly, a new player’s view of the game will be very different from server to server, and I wish there was a way to minimize that potential problem (say, a new player on Tarnished Coast won’t have the same “this game is dead” experience than another starting a Charr character on Anvil Rock, for instance.)

I apologize to those who got the wrong idea from the post. Yes, people can play anyway they choose. and have the right to do so. I am just personally finding that more and more lvl 80’s are showing up that are not aware of how to play game or do anything in it. I encountered a person just the other day who was lvl 73 and honestly had no idea how to be able to add more than 10 trait points to a line. Because they didnt know about buying the manual. That is sad.

I just personally feel that if there were no champ trains in low lvl areas, and only in even mid range lvl’s and up would be good even if it was start at lvl40 area zones. Atleast that way you have to lvl the first 40 in doing hearts and discovery and just learning about the game. I believe that the end would result to better quality of PLAYERS… not necessarily people but better players. Not to mention it really is faster to lvl by doing heart missions and discovery and such.

Like I said this is just my 2 cents, There is no need to troll me. I would just like to know what other ideas people have that would actually improve the quality of players.

Star Ace.5207:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

People run these champ trains because it’s the most rewarding thing there is currently. Running in a loop, over and over and over again, killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end.

Think about it…THIS is the most rewarding in game at the moment. Kind of depressing, no?

Why do it if it’s no fun for you? Seems to me you are punishing yourself just to “maximize” gold per hour ratio. I understand if anything else in the game also isn’t fun for you in particular, but I certainly also don’t find the “train” fun and avoid it myself. Plenty to do in this game that is rewarding-perhaps you can tone down the min/maxer in you regarding gold per hour gains.

Players that love to maximize gold in this way are often paying the price for doing so. I bet 100% of them aren’t really enjoying it or doing it for fun, but more as a money-making chore (money which isn’t real, and has no true purpose in being acquired-online prestige is overrated.)

Also, some players may be actually having fun doing these things. People are different. Some people actually had fun doing CoF 1 runs back then, even if it never was my money-making cup of tea.

For many people, the game is not champ training but rather we champ train so that we can play the game — this has been especially true since the advent of the Ascended grind. It’s like having a job within the game.

I am primarily a WvW player, I used to level WvW toons in WvW. Now I champ train because I desperately need the middle tier mats for Ascended gear for my other toons. Is it fun? Overall, no.

RNG in this game pushes you towards making gold and buying on the TP because you can see consistent progress making gold. On the other hand poor droprates makes farming almost any item in this game becomes an exercise in frustration.

IMO this is a serious issue with the game.

I didn’t notice a real change in PuG before or the Queensdale champ farm. Some people were terrible back then, some people are terrible right now and they don’t see any reason why the should become better at this game (a lot of the times, they don’t even know how bad they are until they are stuck on a platform during the Marionette with 4 other bad players and they wipe and blame each other).

To the op, I respectfully ask that you read and add to the MANY threads that have beaten this subject to death instead of creating another redundant conversation.
I’ll report and ask the mods to merge it for you.

Blude.6812:

To the op, I respectfully ask that you read and add to the MANY threads that have beaten this subject to death instead of creating another redundant conversation…

^This.

/obligatory 15 char

Just for asking, how many hours does it take to level from 2-80 in Queensdale Champ train?
Or, simpler question, how much time does it take to gain a level through Champ Farming in Queensdale?

if your server is karma training in WvW, then leveling in WvW is faster….

My vote is to leave it the way it is. A lot more people will be upset over changing it then leaving it as is. If you don’t like it don’t do it.

1. I have no idea what Anvil Rock is like.
2. I’ve been on two servers and guested to a couple of others; on all of them, there were plenty of level 80’s being downed at the final Dwayna event (my benchmark for whether someone knows how to avoid damage) and plenty of people playing poorly in all areas of the game; the worst was the player who could not find the wisps in the swamp fractal — and I happen to know he rarely, if ever, participated in the QD train
3. There have been plenty of L80 players who did not know their profession long before the QD train became a thing
4. Virtually everything emphasized in patches by ANet since November, 2012 has promoted herd content; the QD train is herd content, though it’s not hard
5. removing Champions from lower level zones would in fact be contrary to the Manifesto; players should not have to wait to get to higher levels to see Champion mobs, and removing them from lower level zones across the board would do just that

Sorry. You have not made a cogent case for the QD train being responsible for the problem you’re observing. An alternative hypothesis might be that skilled players have left the game due to lack of challenging content — although I’ve no more data on that than you’ve presented to prove your hypothesis.

Another solution could be to take all champs on 1-15 level zones and downgrade them to Elites.

leave champs where they are, you’re bother because you can’t take the train where you want to, guest another server and do it there.

World bosses like Tequetal, that’s different. Again, I don’t see the problem with them being in lower level areas, but they do need to make adjustment for lower population servers. But again, different point and not champs.

RedStar.4218:

I didn’t notice a real change in PuG before or the Queensdale champ farm. Some people were terrible back then, some people are terrible right now and they don’t see any reason why the should become better at this game (a lot of the times, they don’t even know how bad they are until they are stuck on a platform during the Marionette with 4 other bad players and they wipe and blame each other).

This, doing my first dungeon made me see how important it is to dodge/block, but you can’t really learn those things til you try them out.
If experienced players have an issue with n00bs, try teaching/explaining. I think most are open to listening/learning. Giving out to them for “being useless n00bs” (which you see alot) won’t make them better players.

And then of course there are some that don’t won’t to learn, but I think most are willing to listen, if you don’t go on the attack first.

Taygus.4571:

And then of course there are some that don’t won’t to learn, but I think most are willing to listen, if you don’t go on the attack first.

New players are generally willing to learn. Older players aren’t because they think they know everything and feel insulted when you told them that what they have been doing in the past is bad.

When I see a level 35 ranger in AC with barely 400 AP I barely cringe because he might die a lot but we can teach him. When I see a level 80 full signet warrior with 10k+ AP using a long bow during the first fight I know that sooner or later things are going to get annoying.
Then again, when you put “no stack on Spider” it eliminates a lot of players with terrible attitude. (Some slip through, stack and then tell you “are you dumb ? STACK !!!!!!!!” followed pretty soon by “WHY YOU KICK ME ? I’M GONNA REPORT”)

(And if you are wondering why we don’t stack on that Spider : it’s to not get worse at this game so that when a new thing comes out, we aren’t totally lost until Dulfy or someone else comes up with a complete guide).

Foe Wig.3095:

I apologize to those who got the wrong idea from the post. Yes, people can play anyway they choose. and have the right to do so. I am just personally finding that more and more lvl 80’s are showing up that are not aware of how to play game or do anything in it. I encountered a person just the other day who was lvl 73 and honestly had no idea how to be able to add more than 10 trait points to a line. Because they didnt know about buying the manual. That is sad.

Thats actually a problem with the game and not with the champs trains. The game takes almost no effort to explain what you can do or what you can not. When i first started playing if it wasnt for guides that i searched for i wouldn’t know that you could add more than 10 traits to a line by purchasing those books/manuals. And i didnt train by doing champs trains as i find it a boring way to level and i actually like our quest system, Story line and WvW. I was so confused when i started playing this game (and i’ve played a lot of mmos) because there are some basic things that are really different from others mmos that the game simply doesnt explain

I am also an Anvil Rock native and tend to agree that the train is not ‘killing’ our server. However, considering most of the players I have met/talked to/argued with tend to be spvp players might be part of the issue.

There is no one thing that is hurting our server.

The pve world is huge, and pve players aren’t all necessarily going to congregate in the same places. Some will being doing dungeons, some will be in the champ train, some will be doing quests or clearing maps, others might be doing guild stuff.

You have 2 additional modes that split people up further. In the beginning, Anvil Rock got designated the ‘unofficial pvp’ server and that’s where a lot of the spvp people went.

Then came the first several months of server hopping. So people could find their guilds. So people could get on the winning wvw server. Etc and so on. Since wvw was a big thing, and Anvil Rock was not a ‘wvw’ or ‘pve’ server, those types of players left.

It’s been downhill ever since. The wvw or pve heavy people/guilds opt to leave rather than trying to influence the growth of such a population on our server. Because its easier to go that route.

Cliff note version of this post:

“It’s my way or no way at all”.

People said it before I did, but once you log into Lornar’s Pass and see a chat message “Where is the train?”, you know something’s wrong with Queensdale train.

PvE Map content is pretty dry in AR but not soley do to Queensdale. WvW has picked up a slight bit, and a few PvE coms are even starting to run world bosses again, though still nothing compared to other servers. (TC, BG)

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Another solution could be to take all champs on 1-15 level zones and downgrade them to Elites.

Actually, it’d be nice if certain Champions (event spawns) were tweaked this way. But it magnifies in Queensdale – I can’t recall another 1-15 zone which had as many Champions in a dense gathering.

I would like to see event Champions in other maps be downgraded so they can actually be removed by the one-or-two players still in maps. How about that Champion Flame shaman in Plains of Ashford near the tar lake?

The Queensdale train doesn’t bother me so much, mostly because if it didn’t happen there it’d just move to WvW. (For better or worse.)

RedStar.4218:

Taygus.4571:

And then of course there are some that don’t won’t to learn, but I think most are willing to listen, if you don’t go on the attack first.

New players are generally willing to learn. Older players aren’t because they think they know everything and feel insulted when you told them that what they have been doing in the past is bad.

When I see a level 35 ranger in AC with barely 400 AP I barely cringe because he might die a lot but we can teach him. When I see a level 80 full signet warrior with 10k+ AP using a long bow during the first fight I know that sooner or later things are going to get annoying.
Then again, when you put “no stack on Spider” it eliminates a lot of players with terrible attitude. (Some slip through, stack and then tell you “are you dumb ? STACK !!!!!!!!” followed pretty soon by “WHY YOU KICK ME ? I’M GONNA REPORT”)

(And if you are wondering why we don’t stack on that Spider : it’s to not get worse at this game so that when a new thing comes out, we aren’t totally lost until Dulfy or someone else comes up with a complete guide).

I remember a long time ago, me and friends used to do the AC spider “normally” all the time quite successfully. While I am not necessarily against the stacking thing, it was fun however slightly longer it took.

Nowadays, I would fit in any party, whether they want to stack on it or not, though I miss the old days when it used to be a more challenging encounter.

Add account-wide diminishing returns when the champs are done too frequently. Or make them spawn less frequently when being farmed in rapid succession. Yes, I said it, and the other 1000 events in the game thank me.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

People run these champ trains because it’s the most rewarding thing there is currently. Running in a loop, over and over and over again, killing the same 4-5 champs for hours on end.

Think about it…THIS is the most rewarding in game at the moment. Kind of depressing, no?

The Queensdale champ is not the most rewarding farm in the game right now (by far); that’s a tossup between dungeons, the FGS farm, or farming the world boss train on several alts. The folks who run Queensdale are usually lowbies, people trying to powerlevel alts (there are better ways, though; do the centaur chain in Harathi once you hit that level), and highbies trying to finish their event/champ daily and monthly cheevos, or people grinding karma.

It’s also difficult to nail all champs in one round because of spawn time if you stick to the usual rotations; some will always be sniped, so it’s more often 3 per round, not 5.

People get upset about the queensdale champ farm for reasons that aren’t real, but they’re what they’ve heard from others. Most high-level people running it are doing it for the events and karma, though, NOT gold. (As to why the highbies are not in FGS— the champs there are not tied to events. If you want to farm gold and mats, you go there; if you want to farm events and karma, you go to Queensdale. And there’s NO reason to remove it over that, because there aren’t enough karma farms in the game.)