Guild Wars 2

The way Passed-Out Skritt interact with the heart completion creates opportunity for players to effectively grief anyone else attempting to also participate in the heart by providing full credit as soon as you wake them up. If you’ve gone out to Ember Bay and have seen a bunch of Grouchy Skritt just standing around, it’s because people have figured out that you don’t actually need to fight them at all for full credit; just wake them and run away.

I say it’s tantamount to griefing because those engaging in this activity know full well that not attacking the Skritt means anyone else who wants the heart completion, and wants to fulfill some of the requisite completion bar through Passed-Out Skritt, must take care of the grouchy ones before they reset. Those fighting the grouchy get zero credit for that part of it.

Giving full credit to those who wake the Skritt into a grouchy state seems incorrect. Shouldn’t the credit only be given once you’ve pacified the grouchy Skritt?

Agree, it a shame that can’t be bothered to take a few swings at a grouchy skritt. I don’t think most are purposely griefing though. Changing the full credit to include pacifying a grouchy skritt would be a welcome change though.

In my view, it’s not even close to griefing. Players are just doing the heart as efficiently as they can, probably because they just need to trade with the heart NPC. I’ve done it myself, usually en-route to one of the other heart objectives. The task says to wake them and, tbh, I didn’t even know they don’t reset until the grouchy ones are dead.

Maybe a good improvement would be to have the hearts repeatable as they are now but have the vendor as a one-time unlock so you can go back to them without having to do the hearts each day.

Killing the infinite stream of destroyers is much faster than running around to wake up skritts …

The description does not say to fight them it just says to wake them.

This is yet another example of ANet failing to predict that a lot of players just want the rewards of playing content and will take the path of least resistance to do so. No credit for pacifying? Leave it. It’s not in most cases griefing, it’s just people being people. Easy solutions?

1. Credit for both waking and pacifying.
2. Credit for pacifying, not waking.
3. Woken Skritt don’t become grouchy.
4. ANet throws the Skritt in a lava pool and people just kill the Destroyers for credit.

It’s not griefing; it’s just annoying.

Griefing is when someone intentionally acts to make things harder for others. Rousing skritt is an action that progresses the heart for those who-need-a-mint; pacifying a grouch has no impact, so it’s not worth anyone’s time.

Besides that, it’s nearly trivial to avoid grouchy skritt, so there’s very little effect on others.

Should the mechanic be changed? Absolutely. But let’s not over-dramatize the situation by accusing people of griefing when, at worst, they are just trying to save themselves some time.

Nearly all the hearts in the zone have a similar annoying aspect. Lots of ‘hostile wildlife’ whose deaths don’t contribute to the heart or actions that contribute so little as to be a waste of time.

Khisanth.2948:

Killing the infinite stream of destroyers is much faster than running around to wake up skritts …

Yes, but it’s even faster if you wake the odd Skritt as you are passing…