Guild Wars 2

Now that your main content is zone-wide metas taking 2hr or so you can’t keep releasing patch after patch and forcing our games to restart, it destroys an entire evening’s gaming, twice now we’ve lost meta completions in only a handful of hours.

I’ll now lose a second VB meta due to this.

Either bundle up the fixes to ONE patch a day at most or increase the 1-hour force disconnect!!!

Last patch note say fix a server crash. Should Anet not fix crash and wait for next day?

They should be taking the Metas into account. Pull a server population and Meta % track, If less then 10% of the players are going to be affected then sure push that 1 hour reboot button. Otherwise, schedule it for after the majority of the players are done.

its really not rocket science.

So, let game breaking bugs, exploits and people who are locked out of game wait till the next day?

There were a number of people who were locked out of the game before this last update. The previous update fixed Masteries for people who couldn’t get basic glinding because the game was either asking for 4 billion mastery points, or refused to use the one they had.

gosh thats a shame op, maybe you should try any other game. they all have server maintenances during which you literally cannot play for hours.

I am fairly certain they CAN force the restarts. Whether they should is a different question.

well the one thing that gets me is the forced restarts. Sure if they need to bounce SQL connections or server clusters that makes sense. But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs? If we can play the game after an update for an hour before needing a restart, why cant that be 6 hours or 8 hours? Since it affects each client seperately (on close or crash, or logout you need to update to log back in)

sirsquishy.8531:

well the one thing that gets me is the forced restarts. Sure if they need to bounce SQL connections or server clusters that makes sense. But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs? If we can play the game after an update for an hour before needing a restart, why cant that be 6 hours or 8 hours? Since it affects each client seperately (on close or crash, or logout you need to update to log back in)

so that those players cannot continue exploiting the exploits they just fixed.

well i mean, thats only 1 reason that isnt always applicable, but its a really good one. and its a good basis for protocol.

insanemaniac.2456:

sirsquishy.8531:

well the one thing that gets me is the forced restarts. Sure if they need to bounce SQL connections or server clusters that makes sense. But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs? If we can play the game after an update for an hour before needing a restart, why cant that be 6 hours or 8 hours? Since it affects each client seperately (on close or crash, or logout you need to update to log back in)

so that those players cannot continue exploiting the exploits they just fixed.

well i mean, thats only 1 reason that isnt always applicable, but its a really good one. and its a good basis for protocol.

Sorry but its not. If an Exploit that is game breaking is being patched and thats the reason for the forced update + restart, there are much BETTER ways to handle it. Such as an in game warning for anyone with logs that is currently doing the exploit to cease or they get banned.

Why make the legit players who are in a Meta suffer cause of the 5% who are exploiting?

yea, that makes all the sense in the world…

sirsquishy.8531:

But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs?

During the restart window, the number of map instances basically doubles. They likely want to minimize that stress. They should however increase the window for HoT maps based on the meta cycle, but only if the map is and stays populated.

Healix.5819:

sirsquishy.8531:

But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs?

During the restart window, the number of map instances basically doubles. They likely want to minimize that stress. They should however increase the window for HoT maps based on the meta cycle, but only if the map is and stays populated.

see, there are ways to handle these update+restarts that they are not taking into consideration.

I do like the idea of forcing restarts on HOT based maps longer then 1 hour though. While I have not been hit with the restart during a meta, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to log back in if i were.

Of all the things I’ve seen people complain about… My god no wonder the devs are hiding on reddit.

This restart was due to a bug(server crash apparently) that kept
players on loading screens unable to join maps.
Should they not fix it,because a game restart and a client update that
took a few seconds is such a big deal?
That is a rhetorical question.

Make the event maps get 2 hours instead of 1 if needed and most problems should be avoided.

Or else make sure all for the active meta event cycle is able to finish the bosses. Most events are finished within 1 hour. You get 1 hour anyways before maps close.

Yes, got booted out of a VB t4 map 3min47s before getting my 15 crow bars. Anet this is a joke and I want my crow bars.

sirsquishy.8531:

Healix.5819:

sirsquishy.8531:

But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs?

During the restart window, the number of map instances basically doubles. They likely want to minimize that stress. They should however increase the window for HoT maps based on the meta cycle, but only if the map is and stays populated.

see, there are ways to handle these update+restarts that they are not taking into consideration.

I do like the idea of forcing restarts on HOT based maps longer then 1 hour though. While I have not been hit with the restart during a meta, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to log back in if i were.

It is possible to make the restart times longer than 1 hour. I was in a story instance and got told that I had 3 hours before my game would restart. My story level was not Arah.

This is probably the best option. To make the HoT maps have a longer time before they force a restart, but doesn’t give exploiters unlimited time to exploit.

Just increase the timer to two hours on HoT maps. Problem solved.

This is why I’m a supporter of weekly scheduled maintenance.

sirsquishy.8531:

insanemaniac.2456:

sirsquishy.8531:

well the one thing that gets me is the forced restarts. Sure if they need to bounce SQL connections or server clusters that makes sense. But why force players to restart when its not needed unless they need to get the update to fix their immediate needs? If we can play the game after an update for an hour before needing a restart, why cant that be 6 hours or 8 hours? Since it affects each client seperately (on close or crash, or logout you need to update to log back in)

so that those players cannot continue exploiting the exploits they just fixed.

well i mean, thats only 1 reason that isnt always applicable, but its a really good one. and its a good basis for protocol.

Sorry but its not. If an Exploit that is game breaking is being patched and thats the reason for the forced update + restart, there are much BETTER ways to handle it. Such as an in game warning for anyone with logs that is currently doing the exploit to cease or they get banned.

Why make the legit players who are in a Meta suffer cause of the 5% who are exploiting?

yea, that makes all the sense in the world…

i dont think i can take you seriously lol

sirsquishy.8531:

They should be taking the Metas into account. Pull a server population and Meta % track, If less then 10% of the players are going to be affected then sure push that 1 hour reboot button. Otherwise, schedule it for after the majority of the players are done.

its really not rocket science.

Here’s a rocket science… not all metas start and end at the same time, there will always be people in a middle of a meta at any given time of the day, waiting for people to end meta is a loop that would never end, because when you finish your meta someone is in the middle of theirs.

On maps that have 1h+ long metas you can increase the delay for long enough for the meta to end (in case of current HoT maps, 2 hours should be enough). Considering that you are doing that already for dungeons and fractals, this should not be an issue.

…or just, you know, don’t create such long (and map-wide) metas in the first place (though it might be a bit too late for that).

I can confirm – my ice cubes are definitely spewing!

Astralporing.1957:

On maps that have 1h+ long metas you can increase the delay for long enough for the meta to end (in case of current HoT maps, 2 hours should be enough). Considering that you are doing that already for dungeons and fractals, this should not be an issue.

…or just, you know, don’t create such long (and map-wide) metas in the first place (though it might be a bit too late for that).

Or, you know lose ONE meta out of the day so they can patch a bugfix.

where is all the cheese that goes with all this whine??

seriously, in all fairness, please let ANET fix their game so that all can play.

seabhac.5346:

where is all the cheese that goes with all this whine??

seriously, in all fairness, please let ANET fix their game so that all can play.

Its in my sig.

well played sir!

Wow…

It’s like people who complain when the store closes.

“What do you mean you’ll be open tomorrow morning? I’m in the middle of shopping!”

I’ll take minor interruption to me gaming for a restart that pushes a fix through than have to have the game go offline once a week for 2-10 hours for maintenance. This game has like some ungodly amount of up time. I think last count I remember there down time for maintenance and other things totaled LESS than three days for over 3+ years. The minor inconvenience of having to restart your meta or whatever is a small price to pay for such an awesome set of tech they have that allows their MMO to be up almost 100% of the time.

I would rather see the meta redesigned to only take one hour so it would fit within one hour forced restarts than see ANet give up on ever patching the game ever again (because it’s always going to inconvenience somebody whenever it patches).

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re sorry about any inconvenience that you experienced with the bug fixes and related restarts. We had some significant issues that we needed to address. Better to have a forced restart — as irritating as it may be — than have players unable to join the game, or locked on an endless loading screen, or having their refrigerator start spewing ice cubes whenever they enter Rata Sum.

Ok, I joke about the latter.

But seriously, we are sorry, it’s just a necessary thing to make the experience better for everyone.

Why doesn’t ANet just keep track of who was in the map and their participation status so that when they reload into the game they can go back to where they left off, instead of just getting screwed? The server could keep track of it in a sliding window of say 5 or 10 minutes, and that would reduce the inconvenience to your players immensely from updates, client crashes and disconnects.

Gaile Gray.6029:

or having their refrigerator start spewing ice cubes whenever they enter Rata Sum.

Please, for the love of all that is Holy, make this is actual glitch, and lock it to my account for eternity. This would highly amuse me.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just increase the timer to two hours on HoT maps. Problem solved.

There isn’t a separate server for HoT. It’s all maps or no maps. And if you don’t kick there will be players who will never leave.

Now the force restart nuking your login, that needs to be fixed unless people think that’s ANet being passive/aggressive with the stubborn few.

These servers operate on layers, each layer has a different timing occurring for its meta events. The meta events themselves are triggered by various things at different times across all layers. Which layer are you recommending to be the primary to which all other layers are subject to comply? Should the updates be postponed indefinitely during high volume hours?

I don’t really see why your complaining.
Compared to some MMO’s the downtime is short.
You lose ONE meta, which is not that big of a deal.

Behellagh.1468:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just increase the timer to two hours on HoT maps. Problem solved.

There isn’t a separate server for HoT. It’s all maps or no maps. And if you don’t kick there will be players who will never leave.

So you’re telling me that it’s impossible to flag active HoT maps and give them a two hour timer? I wasn’t suggesting an infinite timer where players would never have to leave the map. Just an additional one hour so that those that have issues with how they are now will be able to have enough time to complete their meta events.

I’ve been playing mmo’s since DAoC and played every big name mmo out pluses a lot of other ones. Let me tell you this hands down best game when it comes to patches and down time. Most other mmo’s do there maintenance on Tuesday and are down for 3 to 6 hours. That’s just for maintenance forget big patches that’s like 12 to 24 hours of down time. So before you cry about missing 5 min (or 1-2 hours for meta but you’re still back in game playing in 5 min) go play a different mmo and you will cry on Tuesday’s lol.

Blindfoldedchaos.9265:

Meta events are a pain to set up? Seems like you have problems there, ether off times for your server, not using the LFG for taxi’s or that in itself is too much work.

I just had entered a map that was going for T4. We’re talking prime time here. So we started. And get the update notice. Ok, can happen, we all update and will try again after the patch. Patch happens, we all return and do our best in the time we had left. We finally get a hair from T4. No matter, we’ll just do it the next cycle.
The next cycle is busy, and again the update notice. And thus another try ruined.
And that’s were the irritation comes from. Bot because two cycles were ruined, but two cycles in a row were ruined. On prime time. If both updates had been in one cycle, I doubt OP would have made the post.

And the one “complaining” about the 14 crowbars, I agree, those are not important. But there are also rewards that you’ll only get from a T4 map. And I personally have only seen a T4 map twice. I don’t play Hot that often, and thus it’s highly annoying if you decide to play Hot maps, your plans are interrupted like this.

Yeah this could be somehow annoying. But i prefer this over a maintenance of approx 3 hours ( read 5) where you can not even log in. Imagine that, instead of missing one meta you will be missing 3!

Qugi.2653:

Last patch note say fix a server crash. Should Anet not fix crash and wait for next day?

I admit that I posted this before I found that note, however I would still argue that a problem is either a real emergency in which case it needs dealing with ASAP or it isn’t in which case, given the typical two-hour content cycle Anet are now in love with they need to extend the 1-hour kick time.

Before HOT 1 hour was fine, you didn’t lose all progress in something over that period of time, HOT changed that and Anet’s policies need to take that into account.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re sorry about any inconvenience that you experienced with the bug fixes and related restarts. We had some significant issues that we needed to address. Better to have a forced restart — as irritating as it may be — than have players unable to join the game, or locked on an endless loading screen, or having their refrigerator start spewing ice cubes whenever they enter Rata Sum.

Ok, I joke about the latter.

But seriously, we are sorry, it’s just a necessary thing to make the experience better for everyone.

This sort of things happens all the time when players DC.

How about instead of designing more and more maps like this, they fix the root cause of the problem and ensure that when a player leaves a map – they are able to rejoin it within a short fixed period without losing progress.

If they can let us wait 1 hour then surely they can let us wait 2 hours instead?

That way the people affected can patch immediately, and the people in the middle of a meta event can finish it.

This seems like a very simple fix with no downside. I don’t understand the opposition to this…

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re sorry about any inconvenience that you experienced with the bug fixes and related restarts. We had some significant issues that we needed to address. Better to have a forced restart — as irritating as it may be — than have players unable to join the game, or locked on an endless loading screen, or having their refrigerator start spewing ice cubes whenever they enter Rata Sum.

Ok, I joke about the latter.

But seriously, we are sorry, it’s just a necessary thing to make the experience better for everyone.

I wish people would stop piling on the OP whose complaint is valid, and also thinking backwards – the issue ISNT the reset – the issue IS the 2 hour locked in map timers.

Its just completely unacceptable to have players invest 2 hours into the game only to get kicked before the end and lose their contribution.

‘we are sorry, it’s just a necessary thing to make the experience better for everyone’
Its it ‘necessary’ to have a Skinner Box timed map for ALL HoT maps to make the experience better?

No.

I haven’t played HoT maps since the first week of Dec after getting kicked from a few maps – at least if they had actually given people random loot rather than stopping everything from dropping loot you could have had something to show – but No, they decided to lock the tiny amount of loot there is into meta event completion.

Reason 4568 why Meta Map Timers are a piece of kitten…

Some games you can not play for hours a week, I’m looking at you WoW. I make it a rule, to never expect a problem free gaming night patch night. I’m guessing this is your first MMO. Or if you have been playing GW2 for a good length of time you should know how ANet rolls and you should be use to it..

Rococo.8347:

Reason 4568 why Meta Map Timers are a piece of kitten…

You may be pleased to know that on Friday’s livestream Colin acknowledged that the timers and 2 hour metas were not suited to the design desire to have this be a game you can play for just a short while and progress. They are looking into fixes for that, perhaps as early as the Spring Update in a few months, while trying not to lose the good parts of HoT metas.

I’d rather fixes be fixed than delayed for events :/ it sucks sure but I’d rather a smoothly running game even if you have to give up metas the first few days.

Although in the past there has been bugs that are so basic you could see them from just going in and attacking a golem so polish, tests, and fixes before release would be appreciated.

I’m hoping we get a patch soon that fixes Nevermore Collection 4. The joy of that collection has turned sour with the final item being bugged.

They still haven’t fixed the disconnects. Entire maps dc’ing screwing over the meta. Or, dc’ing on one map and log back in to Lion’s Arch instead of where I just was. I normally have 0 issues, but since the lunar new year event started, endless error 7’s and 58’s.

Offair.2563:

Yeah this could be somehow annoying. But i prefer this over a maintenance of approx 3 hours ( read 5) where you can not even log in. Imagine that, instead of missing one meta you will be missing 3!

You are talking as if this was the only alternative, while one already exists, and just needs to be adjusted correctly. We are currently getting 1 hour leeway before getting kicked out of game (3 hours if in dungeons), which is supposed to be enough to finish everything we have started. The problem is, that times were made with core in mind, and weren’t adjusted with the introduction of 2 hour long metas in HoT.

As it is, this mechanic is out of synch with the game. Either it needs to be adjusted so it is long enough to finish HoT metas in that time, or the metas need to be shortened to be doable within the current 1h timer. Personally, i’d prefer the second.

Donari.5237:

Rococo.8347:

Reason 4568 why Meta Map Timers are a piece of kitten…

You may be pleased to know that on Friday’s livestream Colin acknowledged that the timers and 2 hour metas were not suited to the design desire to have this be a game you can play for just a short while and progress. They are looking into fixes for that, perhaps as early as the Spring Update in a few months, while trying not to lose the good parts of HoT metas.

Wish that was something they realized during the design phase and not months after it went live.