Guild Wars 2

Those trebuchet blasts have to stop.

Tried getting the Tower Shard with a small group.
Disaster.
Constantly interupted and KD’ed by those blasts, trying to survive the (very) high amount of centaurs.

Those blast are not a solution, Anet, they r a nail in a coffin.

Yeah, this make a not very popular leather farm much less appealing. Anet felt that something had to be done. And at least they didn’t nerf engineers or turrets.

I saw four Anet employees last Tuesday checking out the camp and surrounding area. But I saw no Anet employees with any of the groups I was with that went up the hill, trying to see how the legitimate and intended farm was impacted. Has anyone had an Anet employee in any group actually going up the hill? I think that they need to take a look at how their solution impacted the intended leather farm. And especially the high Sage Event at the top. They’ve added a significant amount of difficulty to legitimate play in the area.
<edit: clarification>

I went to the place and checked it out yesterday, and it felt bad. I fear this will be a completely dead area soon. I participated in a few hill runs before, but the whole Engineer Episode made this place ugly. It feels like Microsoft’s Edge browser, which has Internet Explorer’s foul odor sticking to it forever.

I thought the Trebs were only supposed to be below where the engi farm was.

Ayrilana.1396:

I thought the Trebs were only supposed to be below where the engi farm was.

Well, then the engis would just move a bit, wouldn’t they?

And they did. Within the first hour after the change, they put together a group that went up the hill all the way to the stop, testing at points along the way. So Anet showed unusual foresight in making the target area go all the way to the top of the hill.

A particular phrase immediately comes to my mind: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

It seems now that some folks got what they wished for, they still are not happy.

Necrotic.7820:

A particular phrase immediately comes to my mind: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

I think it’s more along the lines of “The Monkey’s Paw” than people specifically wishing for trebs to end the engi farm.

Necrotic.7820:

A particular phrase immediately comes to my mind: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

It seems now that some folks got what they wished for, they still are not happy.

Yea, people complained about the engis but at least the engis couldn’t walk away from their computer for hours like necro or ranger farmers (without some kind of “botting”). Now look what we have – much better.

I bet they could upgrade the Trebs with some Ley-Line tech to fire all the way to Bitterfrost if they wanted to.

lokh.2695:

I bet they could upgrade the Trebs with some Ley-Line tech to fire all the way to Bitterfrost if they wanted to.

^ This right here. I question the decision making that made leather farming necessary and then punishing those who do it. All the while still ignoring the farming that is even more AFK than engineers ever were.

Make up your mind Anet.

Cercie.1025:

lokh.2695:

I bet they could upgrade the Trebs with some Ley-Line tech to fire all the way to Bitterfrost if they wanted to.

^ This right here. I question the decision making that made leather farming necessary and then punishing those who do it. All the while still ignoring the farming that is even more AFK than engineers ever were.

Make up your mind Anet.

Consistent inconsistency is perfectly normal around here.

Cercie.1025:

lokh.2695:

I bet they could upgrade the Trebs with some Ley-Line tech to fire all the way to Bitterfrost if they wanted to.

^ This right here. I question the decision making that made leather farming necessary and then punishing those who do it. All the while still ignoring the farming that is even more AFK than engineers ever were.

Make up your mind Anet.

Two steps forward, one step right off a cliff. That’s the ANet way.

Palador.2170:

Cercie.1025:

lokh.2695:

I bet they could upgrade the Trebs with some Ley-Line tech to fire all the way to Bitterfrost if they wanted to.

^ This right here. I question the decision making that made leather farming necessary and then punishing those who do it. All the while still ignoring the farming that is even more AFK than engineers ever were.

Make up your mind Anet.

Two steps forward, one step right off a cliff. That’s the ANet way.

And there is no way to admit a mistake

I wouldn’t mind if the reward was upped now there is more risk involved going up the hill.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

Has anyone had an Anet employee in any group actually going up the hill? I think that they need to take a look at how their solution impacted the intended leather farm. And especially the high Sage Event at the top. They’ve added a significant amount of difficulty to legitimate play in the area.
<edit: clarification>

Arenanet employees playing their own game. Nice joke.

I feel sorry for all the newer players who haven’t even made it there yet. Makes you wonder if they will even bother. I know I won’t.
Shame Anet won’t do something about the real AFKers that populate other maps. And by that I mean a proper solution – please don’t carpet bomb the whole of Tyria!!!!!

Ragnar Stormcaller.6253:

please don’t carpet bomb the whole of Tyria!!!!!

You have ten seconds left

This was already dead enough outside of Engi farming before, now it’s just not worth even trying.

In fact I’d go as far as saying that ideally we get the farm removed and the area re-used for something actually fun, like a meta-chain resulting in a “Chest of Leather” which you can then select the tier of or something. The idea of a group-only mass-farm clearly didn’t work.

This appears to have scared engineers so badly they took their turrets all the way to Krennak’s Homestead in Wayfarer…you know, the little grawl battle that is a pre-event for the Frozen Maw world event. The event where it’s difficult to score a hit on a grawl anyway whenever Wayfarer events are a daily as they were last night. Yes, that event. Packed with engineer turrets. Which annihilated the grawl before they could utter a single “Ooot, ooot”.

A guildmate reports seeing similar clusters of turrets at other world events in recent days. He thinks it may be a form of protest.

Anet, we may have a problem.

During the first year or so of GW2, I don’t remember when exactly, I watched a stream of a group of developers playing through a dungeon encounter. They were dying left and right, wiping, and all the while laughing and having a good old time. This was paradoxical to me as I play so as not to die. And, I took it to be a bad omen about how the game would evolve. And it has.

Death should always be instructive. It should be a lesson about how to improve. In challenging games, e.g., Dark Souls, the first thing you learn is to think about what you are doing and you don’t run blithely around corners. When you die you should be able to learn a lesson that will allow you not to die next time.

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

But, like I said, I saw this coming from the beginning. It never surprises me.

Yes, looks like a form of protest, not sure it’s a smart one.

Thing is, you can always find ways to exploit, spoil and grief in games. I wonder already if some people let the Triple Trouble event fail deliberately. I don’t see why else some people would keep running bombs, filling up the blue container and kill the abomination while everybody else shouts in chat that they need to stop. Each of the three worm head events can be manipulated to fail.

It’s fairly easy for a small group of players who enjoy griefing to let that event fail, and we all know these people exist.

If some people really create harm by protesting that way, I think ArenaNet needs to clamp down on them swiftly and transparently.

“Look, this is really harmful farming, not the Centaur farm!” is probably the message.

Tanith.5264:

This appears to have scared engineers so badly they took their turrets all the way to Krennak’s Homestead in Wayfarer…you know, the little grawl battle that is a pre-event for the Frozen Maw world event. The event where it’s difficult to score a hit on a grawl anyway whenever Wayfarer events are a daily as they were last night. Yes, that event. Packed with engineer turrets. Which annihilated the grawl before they could utter a single “Ooot, ooot”.

As an engineer, I’ve always deployed turrets at poorly scaled world events such as some of the Maw pre-events, because the turrets react a lot faster than I do. It gives me the best chance of getting a hit in, and thus event credit. When you have thirty players trying to get a hit in on three grawl, you do what you must.

Raine.1394:

During the first year or so of GW2, I don’t remember when exactly, I watched a stream of a group of developers playing through a dungeon encounter. They were dying left and right, wiping, and all the while laughing and having a good old time. This was paradoxical to me as I play so as not to die. And, I took it to be a bad omen about how the game would evolve. And it has.

Death should always be instructive. It should be a lesson about how to improve. In challenging games, e.g., Dark Souls, the first thing you learn is to think about what you are doing and you don’t run blithely around corners. When you die you should be able to learn a lesson that will allow you not to die next time.

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

But, like I said, I saw this coming from the beginning. It never surprises me.

You learn the same things from Dark Souls, or in any game for that matter, as you would in GW2 as far as deaths go.

If you die, you look at what caused it and then how to either avoid or mitigate it. Avoiding combat as being the only lesson to avoid death is false.

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

Get sniped while flying to the Octovine with bombs? kitten, better hit the dodge button next time to get stealth. Fell into the lava through the gap of the bridge in the Volcanic Fractal? (I’m always looking who falls in pugs to see who’s new to it) Well, next time you know when to jump. Kill yourself because the boss used reflect? Sure enough, next time you stop firing when his shield goes up.

There are uncountable examples that provethat combat in GW2 teaches you how to fight. Do you have examples of the opposite?

Faaris.8013:

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

Get sniped while flying to the Octovine with bombs? kitten, better hit the dodge button next time to get stealth. Fell into the lava through the gap of the bridge in the Volcanic Fractal? (I’m always looking who falls in pugs to see who’s new to it) Well, next time you know when to jump. Kill yourself because the boss used reflect? Sure enough, next time you stop firing when his shield goes up.

There are uncountable examples that provethat combat in GW2 teaches you how to fight. Do you have examples of the opposite?

I’m not saying that there isn’t well designed combat in GW2—at all. I was addressing the OP. In GW2 there are times when your only mistake, and a fatal one at that, is entering combat. This is actually markedly different from other games I have played.

Raine.1394:

Faaris.8013:

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

Get sniped while flying to the Octovine with bombs? kitten, better hit the dodge button next time to get stealth. Fell into the lava through the gap of the bridge in the Volcanic Fractal? (I’m always looking who falls in pugs to see who’s new to it) Well, next time you know when to jump. Kill yourself because the boss used reflect? Sure enough, next time you stop firing when his shield goes up.

There are uncountable examples that provethat combat in GW2 teaches you how to fight. Do you have examples of the opposite?

I’m not saying that there isn’t well designed combat in GW2—at all. I was addressing the OP. In GW2 there are times when your only mistake, and a fatal one at that, is entering combat. This is actually markedly different from other games I have played.

Examples?

Faaris.8013:

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

People learn at Golem? Hard to believe. Too dead people on a consistent basis. GW2 would be growing at an incredible rate if it was getting that many new people all the time.

Khisanth.2948:

Faaris.8013:

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

People learn at Golem? Hard to believe. Too dead people on a consistent basis. GW2 would be growing at an incredible rate if it was getting that many new people all the time.

Well there will always be those that feel doing (and failing) the same thing over and over will eventually yield different results.

Faaris.8013:

(snip)
People will exploit anything possible, and often, actions have unintended consequences. When they do, you fix the situation. If your fix doesn’t work, back to the drawing board. And that’s probably what the devs are doing right now. If a proper fix is not feasible, abandon the project.
(snip)

No, no, no. Actions ALWAYS have unintended consequences. WRT the Engi farm, the question is, should it have been foreseen? Nowhere else in the game that I can think of do you consistently have as many mobs that respawn that fast, so Anet didn’t have any experience with that combination of mechanics. So they get a point for lacking experience with the combination, but they lose a point for apparently not brainstorming about the consequences – and the possible counters – of that combination.

Were there technical limitations to encasing that entire area with an invisible field that damages only turrets at a rate which makes them last only 1-2 min?

Civilis.2547:

As an engineer, I’ve always deployed turrets at poorly scaled world events such as some of the Maw pre-events, because the turrets react a lot faster than I do. It gives me the best chance of getting a hit in, and thus event credit. When you have thirty players trying to get a hit in on three grawl, you do what you must.

Ditto. Drop the two long range turrets, and break out the flamethrower for some easy AoE. It’s really not any different than Guardians spamming Staff 1 as they run wildly about, hoping to score a hit. You do what you have to in events like that to score your event credit.

Can someone explain why this turret farm (?) was an issue?
Did they get rich?
Did it over saturate the market?
Did it cause grief?

100% honest no troll question, I play wvw so I’m not clued up on pve matters.

Ayrilana.1396:

Were there technical limitations to encasing that entire area with an invisible field that damages only turrets at a rate which makes them last only 1-2 min?

Other than the fact that it wouldn’t have stopped the farm, only changed it?

Take away the turrets, and it will be necro minions. Or ranger pets. Or just a bunch of Guardians with Staff skills and maybe even the occasional spirit weapon. (And before you laugh, have you seen what happens when a bunch of Guardians are using Staff 1 together? Overlapping, rapid fire AoEs with burning does wonders.) Or staff Elementalists. Or whatever.

The problem is that the area is an ideal farm spot, and players will use whatever they can to make an efficient farm out of it. Take away choice 1, and they’ll simply go to choice 2. That’s the real reason why they used the “solution” they did. It’s no longer a good farm spot at all, so problem solved.

Faaris.8013:

You are a bit hard on ArenaNet on that one. You cannot always predict what people will do, even if you spend months think tanking about it. At some point, you have to just do it and see what happens, and this is not a real life policy that impacts the well being of people, this is a game. If not here, where else can you implement something, watch how it goes, and then adjust? Certainly not in government regulation policies, although I see the Trump Administration doing just that.

People will exploit anything possible, and often, actions have unintended consequences. When they do, you fix the situation. If your fix doesn’t work, back to the drawing board. And that’s probably what the devs are doing right now. If a proper fix is not feasible, abandon the project.

When the Chinese government wanted to make streets safer, they created a policy that allowed drivers to report other drivers for traffic offenses with video footage. You can film other drivers and send in the video as proof of the offense. And to provide an incentive for people to do just that, the government rewards snitches with money. All of us can probably imagine what happens now on China’s streets, the Chinese government didn’t ^^

Of course some people started using dash cams and provoke reckless driving, like blocking three lanes on a motorway to make people pass them on the right side, film it and get the reward (and the government gets the fine, so everybody wins except the poor people who get scammed). The result of that policy is horrible for road safety, the exact thing it was supposed to improve. There are many of these cases in the real world, which have real impact on people. ArenaNet didn’t think about turrets when they created the area, so what? They are trying to fix it, that’s how it works. And they are quick with it. If you want things to happen quickly, you have to live with not so perfect solutions. In Europe, government advisors would sit together for weeks or months before a policy like the Chinese one gets implemented, to make sure they thought about every possible impact. But then, China is the best place to experiment these days because they don’t do that. They will put self-driving cars on the streets and see how many people die, then adjust. In our world, we will test them for years before we let millions of them on the streets.

Sorry for wandering away from the topic: you cannot have things implemented fast and perfect at the same time. If ArenaNet think tanks for ages, people complain because it’s slow, if they do things fast, people complain because things are not perfect.

I agree with the spirit of this post completely. However, I don’t think it actually applies here. Anet is not a new company, this is not their first game using massively multiplayer mechanics, and MMO’s in general have dealt with problems and solutions of this exact nature for awhile now. If they were experimenting with brand new mechanics and ideas I agree they deserve some room to make mistakes and improve. But this is a loot farm (common MMO theme) they designed, not a player exploit. They should have foreseen classes with AI assistants (pets, minions, turrets) would be able to exploit it further. Strike 1 for Anet, other companies have gone down this road and made the same mistakes many times. They then address the issue by adding an overly punishing mechanic that makes everyone suffer, those who were abusing the farm and those that were not. They should have instead looked at the original design on the farm, tweaked that, and iterate on the changes there until they got the result they wanted. Introducing a new mechanic to patch over problems with the first, because if this doesn’t address the issue as intended they will probably just continue to add bandaid gimmicks instead of fixing the root issue. Strike 2. The issue also ends up pitting the players against each other in a game where we are all supposed to play together. You see engineers, rangers and necros worried that the farmers amongst their number are reflecting badly on the rest of the group, and start policing each other so that they don’t get nerfed by Anet. You get people that play other classes upset that it isn’t fair that they don’t have similar mechanics to afk farm and express anger at the players of those classes. In both cases it is Anet that designed the mechanics of the classes, they give people that chose those classes certain certain options for play, then punish certain players for then choosing to use some of those options. Strike 3 for Anet.

This problem is one of the most basic issues in MMO’s with some degree of player driven economy. If Anet can’t sort it out they probably are not suited to develop MMO’s.

I’d like to know how Anet thinks anyone playing outside of US prime time is every going to get the Shard or the Watchtower PoI now. I tried to help people get up there, tagged up and all…and we were five. And that’s after putting our group up in LFG and advertising in map chat. Needless to say, we didn’t even make it halfway up the hill.

I agree that something had to be done to change the leather farm, as it also prevented people from going up the hill – saw enough people asking for help and being laughed at by some sad individuals – but the current carpet bomb solution is the worst kind of game design I’ve ever seen in 20 years of gaming.

Napo.1230:

Can someone explain why this turret farm (?) was an issue?
Did they get rich?
Did it over saturate the market?
Did it cause grief?

100% honest no troll question, I play wvw so I’m not clued up on pve matters.

They did not get rich, though it was fairly low risk for the rewards gained, if there was a good farm going to join. (Though you might get killed on the way there.)

It didn’t mess with the market, really. The real prizes in that area are in a spot up the hill, the farm was just producing normal loot for the zone.

It did cause a small amount of grief for those trying to pass through the area, or so I’ve heard, by scaling up any events in the area. I’m not sure I buy that, but I can’t deny it either. However, some people felt that it was too easy, and the Engineers there were really AFK while their turrets did all the work. Also, apparently some people at the farm were being jerks, and while these people were few and far between, they did add to the bad reputation.

(For the record, you can’t go totally AFK and let the turrets do the work. They’re not that tough, and even if they’re not destroyed they don’t last all that long. But you don’t need to pay as much attention as you do during “normal” play, either. So the AFK accusations were half true, at best.)

Faaris.8013:

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

Huh, before the answer many people came up with was “ranger longbow at 1500+”

Moonyeti.3296:

… The issue also ends up pitting the players against each other in a game where we are all supposed to play together …

I think that is the main problem.

Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946:

Nowhere else in the game that I can think of do you consistently have as many mobs that respawn that fast, so Anet didn’t have any experience with that combination of mechanics. So they get a point for lacking experience with the combination, but they lose a point for apparently not brainstorming about the consequences – and the possible counters – of that combination.

You mean besides all the other previous incidents of people AFKing with pets and minions? Those were happening long before Lake Doric came out.

They should have just added some leather gathering nodes around the maps instead of adding content that nobody going to do due to badly designed mechanics and terrible drop rates. Even if farm was ok, it by far didn’t solve any issue with leather being stupidly overpriced. Hardened leather section = 30 silver. I have to win a ranked match (that is 15 min at least) just to make enough gold for one section. Honestly, wth were they thinking.

Palador.2170:

The problem is that the area is an ideal farm spot, and players will use whatever they can to make an efficient farm out of it.

This so much. The problem wasn’t Engi Turrets, or whatever, the problem was that ANet wanted us to farm, by mass-grinding, but then doing so without going braindead and leaking your jellyfied brain out of your ears seems to be a problem in turn. :<

Cynz.9437:

They should have just added some leather gathering nodes around the maps instead of adding content that nobody going to do due to badly designed mechanics and terrible drop rates. Even if farm was ok, it by far didn’t solve any issue with leather being stupidly overpriced. Hardened leather section = 30 silver. I have to win a ranked match (that is 15 min at least) just to make enough gold for one section. Honestly, wth were they thinking.

It wasn’t going to do anything to prices if not enough people farmed it. Since it was more efficient to farm gold, which can be said for most things in this game, players would do that instead of the leather farm.

Adding nodes would add too much supply without any effort. Well, actually, maybe it could work if they did some gauntlet that relied on personal skill to access the nodes along the path which players couldn’t bypass with mesmer portals. It would of course need to be timegated.

Ayrilana.1396:

Adding nodes would add too much supply without any effort. Well, actually, maybe it could work if they did some gauntlet that relied on personal skill to access the nodes along the path which players couldn’t bypass with mesmer portals. It would of course need to be timegated.

and then it would be yet another failure. Reminds me of the blooming passiflora node in ember bay guarded by at least one veteran bristleback along with a bunch of non-vets

Khisanth.2948:

Ayrilana.1396:

Adding nodes would add too much supply without any effort. Well, actually, maybe it could work if they did some gauntlet that relied on personal skill to access the nodes along the path which players couldn’t bypass with mesmer portals. It would of course need to be timegated.

and then it would be yet another failure. Reminds me of the blooming passiflora node in ember bay guarded by at least one veteran bristleback along with a bunch of non-vets

Well adding nodes, which are easy to access, would introduce too much supply and tank the prices.

Khisanth.2948:

Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946:

Nowhere else in the game that I can think of do you consistently have as many mobs that respawn that fast, so Anet didn’t have any experience with that combination of mechanics. So they get a point for lacking experience with the combination, but they lose a point for apparently not brainstorming about the consequences – and the possible counters – of that combination.

You mean besides all the other previous incidents of people AFKing with pets and minions? Those were happening long before Lake Doric came out.

Considering the part of my previous statement that I have highlighted, I fail to see the probative value of your point. Please elucidate.

Carighan.6758:

This was already dead enough outside of Engi farming before, now it’s just not worth even trying.

In fact I’d go as far as saying that ideally we get the farm removed and the area re-used for something actually fun, like a meta-chain resulting in a “Chest of Leather” which you can then select the tier of or something. The idea of a group-only mass-farm clearly didn’t work.

I agree – replace this disaster with better content.

Napo.1230:

Can someone explain why this turret farm (?) was an issue?
Did they get rich?
Did it over saturate the market?
Did it cause grief?

100% honest no troll question, I play wvw so I’m not clued up on pve matters.

Some people claimed that it did cause grief somehow but I couldn’t see how. They said it somehow undermined the leather farm of people running up the hill, but others said that the engis actually made running up the hill easier. So I can’t see the problem with the engis other than they weren’t doing it the way Anet wanted.

Moonyeti.3296:

… They should have foreseen classes with AI assistants (pets, minions, turrets) would be able to exploit it further. Strike 1 for Anet, other companies have gone down this road and made the same mistakes many times. They then address the issue by adding an overly punishing mechanic that makes everyone suffer, those who were abusing the farm and those that were not. They should have instead looked at the original design on the farm, tweaked that, and iterate on the changes there until they got the result they wanted. Introducing a new mechanic to patch over problems with the first, because if this doesn’t address the issue as intended they will probably just continue to add bandaid gimmicks instead of fixing the root issue. Strike 2. The issue also ends up pitting the players against each other in a game where we are all supposed to play together. You see engineers, rangers and necros worried that the farmers amongst their number are reflecting badly on the rest of the group, and start policing each other so that they don’t get nerfed by Anet. You get people that play other classes upset that it isn’t fair that they don’t have similar mechanics to afk farm and express anger at the players of those classes. In both cases it is Anet that designed the mechanics of the classes, they give people that chose those classes certain certain options for play, then punish certain players for then choosing to use some of those options. Strike 3 for Anet.

This problem is one of the most basic issues in MMO’s with some degree of player driven economy. If Anet can’t sort it out they probably are not suited to develop MMO’s.

Excellent post.

Palador.2170:

(For the record, you can’t go totally AFK and let the turrets do the work. They’re not that tough, and even if they’re not destroyed they don’t last all that long. But you don’t need to pay as much attention as you do during “normal” play, either. So the AFK accusations were half true, at best.)

About half the people I play MMOs (all MMOs, not just GW2) with do something else while playing. Either watching movies, videos, etc. They do this while actively participating in dungeons (quests in other MMOs). So if people have a character standing in one spot killing something over and over while eating lunch or watching videos, who cares except people who are jealous?