Guild Wars 2

There is quite a good number of Dry Top events that seem widely ignored even in organized instances. Either the mob does his mechanics way too quickly/often or the timer is nonsensically short. Would be nice to see some of the lesser used events polished up a bit. Don’t really see the benefit in having several of the events around Dry Top near guaranteed failures like Dust Monster and Tootsie. They both spam their mechanics so fast that it’s completely impossible to kill them in 10 minutes with less than a full blown zerg, even though they give the same bad loot as everything else.

tootsie is quite easy
sure without cc … not so much
but u have… like 5 seconds to cc him?
correct me if im wrong but 3seconds are okay as well

ive done him with 5guys a lot of times in the past when our guild hosted t5 (back then)
you just need to organize and not all f you waste a cc on his first attempt to run away
(teamspeak helps a lot here)
other than that u could specificly trait/build for him to get a ton of ccs
two warriors with kick hammer etcetc and yo ucan just faceroll and itll most likely work

giant which takes a loong time and dust monster which spawns so late that most groups need to be on position to start next event sure are problems that should be fixed/changed .. someday

Tootsie is fairly easily done with 5 – 10 people. You just need to have CC’s ready for her take-off.

Dust Monster is rarely done because a lot of players just keep on attacking the Monster without bothering to kill the Imps first. Coupled with the fact that it spawns quite late in the sandstorm means that if people do decide to kill the monster, they often run overtime and it hinders people from getting a proper headstart on the next round of events.

The Giant either needs his rewards to be buffed or his scaling toned down a bit. As it is, if you don’t have at least 20 – 30 people at him, you can forget trying to kill him. On an extremely crowded map, if the zerg shows up after killing the Skritt Queen it’s still possible to kill him within 3 or 4 minutes, but even then it can be a bit of a close call. (And then you run into the same potential pitfall as the Dust Monster, where people spend so much time trying to take him down that they don’t get ready for the next round.)

Hi Regina,

My critique of Dry Top is with the tier system.

I really love to play in Dry Top, but as I find time goes on, it becomes more and more less populated, and it is harder to find an organized map with commanders.

The first problem is that there is no need to grind more geodes. Players have already bought most of their recipes, so they really have no need to spend more time in the map.

The second problem is that players don’t want to organize. They just want a ferry to t4/t5. So when they are inside a t1 or t2 server, they don’t put any effort whatsoever into organizing. This is a BIG problem.

Considering this is a level 80 zone, it competes with Cursed Shore and Frostgorge Sound as the “endgame” zones players farm in. So why not add a farming incentive?

I suggest adding a reward for completing each tier. Perhaps champion boxes, like Boss Blitz? The Queen’s Pavillion proved that format could work well, and I imagine earning champion boxes each tier would be a good incentive.

Tier 1: 1 Champion Box
Tier 2: 1 Champion Box
Tier 3: 2 Champion Box
Tier 4: 3 Champion Box
Tier 5: 4 Champion Box
Tier 6: 5 Champion Box

Total over 40 mins of paritcipation: 16 champion boxes.

Of course, players have to participate in events to actually earn credit for the champion boxes. Let’s assume players must complete 1 event for each tier.

Consider this mechanics approach to the zone as two formats:
-Clear Weather Dry Top focuses on farming Champion Boxes through leveling the tiers and the champions themselves.

-Sandstorm is focused on event farms, such as clearing Dust Mites and Haze.

Those events I remember as being particularly egregious :

Rescue injured Zephyrites from the Inquest inside the mine and escort them outside

• Spawns units right on top of each NPC you are supposed to protect, and their damage scale out of control with very few players.
• Too many players and the mobs instantly kill the NPCs, too few and you can’t get to all the NPCs in time.

Rescue the captive Zephyrites

• Constantly spawns tanky veteran mobs that take forever to kill, preventing you from getting it done in time
• Additionally, for some reason you have to be inside that cave to be notified of the group event which follows it, too many players do not even know this event exists and have never done it.

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

• Serene is just as slow as mollasses in the dead of winter. Speed her up a bit so people don’t feel like they are sacrificing an unreasonable amount of time.

Drive the Mordrem from the Vine Planting area

• Far too many mobs in far too tight of clusters for any single player to handle.
• Clearing out the Ley Line Hub is a much better example of reasonable mob allocation on the same type of event.

Tendril Spawns

• The combined burst damage of the large vines throw attack, and the small vines emerge attack, instantly down just about anyone, and if you aggro too many little vines, happens to often to dodge frequently enough.

Defeat the light-infused Inquest Golem

• You can’t kite it, you can’t tank it; and unless you’re a dodge spam thief, ranger, or mesmer you can’t dodge all its attacks. It needs to deal less damage on its attacks or attack less frequently.

In addition to balance, the area itself could use better allocation of the end reward events over time. Certain events are almost never done because you miss more doing them than you gain. Players are just pulled in too many directions and clear habits are already forming that set certain content by the wayside.

Examples:
Champion Sand Giant

• He essentially drops three champs worth of loot and takes nearly the entire duration of the storm to take down, while more than three champs spawn in much less time.

The Dust Monster

• A nightmarish example of both problems.
• It spawns while the dust twister is still up and at the same time as Haze, the dust twister gives good rewards for a reasonable time, Haze is also one of the best farm events in the area. Additionally, it drags in to the beginning of the next phase, meaning you get a poor start on that phase just to finish him.
• It respawns its minions, and therefore invulnerability, at a rate which seems to completely disregard the amount of players participating. There is just too much to do at the end and of the storm and the beginning of the calm, and it never attracts enough players.

Zaxares.5419:

Dust Monster is rarely done because a lot of players just keep on attacking the Monster without bothering to kill the Imps first. Coupled with the fact that it spawns quite late in the sandstorm means that if people do decide to kill the monster, they often run overtime and it hinders people from getting a proper headstart on the next round of events.

The imps going invulnerable really doesn’t help.

If sand giant was in a format that took just a bit less time to whittle down, I would be thrilled. Nobody ever seems to want to do it as is because it takes so much time. Other than that, I don’t know of many problems I’ve run into.

I would say that giving champ boxes per tier of the zephyrites would also be a great idea, it gives farmers somewhere to go that benefits everybody.

I still would love to see the reward tier be shared across all instances of the map, so that we’re truly all working together instead of just lumped into a random sampling that may or may not have the drive to succeed.

If you use the right math to apply averages, weights, and suchwhat, balancing it out should be feasible.

Conncept.7638:

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

• Serene is just as slow as mollasses in the dead of winter. Speed her up a bit so people don’t feel like they are sacrificing an unreasonable amount of time.

Actual move speed aside there is an environment issue. Between one of the crystal(I think it’s 3rd and 4th) she makes a big loop because of pathing issues.

The giant used to be fun but i haven’t seen anyone bother to do it in a long time since the reward to time investment ratio is so bad.

Tootsie is one of the best events around. An excellent fight which teaches timing and the use of cc. I wouldn’t like to see it changed. Colocal I also like. You will feel punished by it, but also, avoiding death is relatively easy if you pay attention or use the right skills (not something I achieve often, but at least I know it’s my fault when I die).

Dust Monster. Yeah…I never see this fight finish. I hate this whole timer obsession the game picked up post Guild Bounties. It serves little purpose but to frustrate players sometimes (it really has to change in Guild Bounties, but thats another debate). Finishing this mob off in 10 mins when it goes invulnerable most of the fight whilst adds are up makes it too long.

Giant. Love the fight, but you need 10+ mins for him. The rewards aren’t worth people’s time by a very long way. Like most legendary bosses, he should have an improved loot table. Exclsuives, higher rate of ascended etc. Karka Queen is quicker to kill than him and with all the events going on around him, it’s more rewarding to do those and ignore him. Improving the rewards, adjusting his health, adjusting the timing of other events around him, making him spawn less often are sugegstions I would put on the table.

Most of the events have great mechanics, but timers are a problem in places. I will never be convinced they are required (for that matter why does Giant vanish into thin air when sandstorm goes…surely he’s even easier to spot???). If keeping timers is essential, then look at whether the right timers are in place Vs health. Giant and Dust Monster clearly are skewed atm.

Hope that makes sense, last post before I fall asleep so didn’t proof read

Hmm, question. What do people feel about the idea of having the sandstorm events spawn only once per hour, but the harder events give more Geodes/Sand + possible Lockpicks? This way, there’d be less emphasis on farming respawning profitable events like Dust Mites and Haze, and more time to do events like Giant and Skritt Queen (with now bigger rewards).

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Could you be specific as to which events you’re referring to, and how you feel they could be improved?

It would be great if a list could be put together with a brief comment about what balance changes people feel would improve a particular event.

Cheers.

When episode 1 was released and the first part of Dry Top opened up there were a lot of complaints and suggestions about it.

The major complaints I’ve seen: The jumping puzzle and getting to the diving goggles is too hard for a lot of us. Personally I’ve only been able to get up there twice and managed to get the JP achievement. But I’ve never been able to get to the diving goggles. Each time after that when I try to get back up there I always fall to my death (ironically I land next to the small pool of water). Part of the problem is that the aspect crystal expires after you make it to the top but before you can even figure out where to jump up for the goggles. Which brings me to another common complaint.

Having to use aspect crystals to get around drytop. Some of the jumps and leaps are too tricky for some players and often times the crystals don’t even work right. For example using lighting pull will throw you only halfway to where you placed the target causing you to miss a platform and suddenly fall straight down. The assisted leap crystal will launch you at an angle instead of straight up, even if you’re standing in a spot that looks perfectly level.

In the Uplands section there is a legendary giant that is extremely hard to kill. 5 or 6 players have a tough time taking it down and when more players show up, the giant scales with the amount of players and it ends up taking around 30 or so people to take it down, on top of there being a time limit.

Various events to complete are too difficult and you’re not able to do some of them due to time running out and the sandstorm starting/stopping thus ending any events you were in the middle of or couldn’t get to. Because of this it’s hard to get enough players to get the zone to tier 4 or higher and often times players try to find a “ferry” to a high tiered instance so they can purchase certain items from the vendor that aren’t available at lower tiers.

SILKY SAND! What bookah thought that up? At least half of the time I get NOTHING from it and when I do get something it’s only a single geode. No lockpicks. No equipment. Nothing but a single geode if I ever do get something from it.

The fossilized bug things you have a chance to get from locked chest that you trade in for materials that are required to craft the amber equipment recipes. The drop rate on the bugs is very low according to players but it’s the only way to craft some of the items you can get recipes for from the Dry Top vendors.

All of this has been debated, and more, with each new open area of Dry Top. Sure there were a lot of complaints and some ranting, but there was a lot of constructive feedback on it also. And you’re coming in here giving off the impression that Anet wasn’t away of any issues at all about the map. If you bothered to actually read the forums you would have known from the beginning there were issues.

IS THAT SPECIFIC ENOUGH FOR YOU?! Unlike you I actually read the forums to see what other player’s thoughts are. I usually don’t comment much, but I stay posted on what’s what, which is what you should be doing.

Concept’s List:

Rescue injured Zephyrites from the Inquest inside the mine and escort them outside

Agree. This one seems to scale very badly. Its almost impossible to accomplish in its present state. I do remember successfully completing it early on, but that was either a fluke or something changed.

Rescue the captive Zephyrites

Disagree. I soloed this today on my thief. Its quite doable and it really does not take more than 3 people to do it.

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

Agree. This one has serious pathing issues. I get that she’s Serene and therefore wanders about serenely but the joke was annoying the first time. Hasn’t improved with age. Players doing this event are making a sacrifice.

Drive the Mordrem from the Vine Planting area

Partially agree. The mobs do respawn quickly and the density is high. But this is doable with 3-4 players. The respawn can help – I remember that I did solo it once by killing mobs at the entrance and not pushing into the canyon hardly at all.

Tendril Spawns

Disagree sort of. Not getting hit by the AOE while kiting and ranging the roots works. However, I’ve found that unless I have good Bloodlust stacks I cannot solo complete this with my thief before the roots respawn (very very close but not quite) – if I go ranged on the roots. Mix in some careful melee on the roots and its doable solo with zero bloodlust. Biggest issue I’ve seen is players either not noticing a root and killing the tendril causing it to respawn and the bonus to be lost, or a player(s) who simply don’t know how to get the bonus and go after the tendril first (or they are trolling the event).

Defeat the light-infused Inquest Golem

Disagree. Definitely a pain though. Solo’d him on my thief – not fun but he quite killable. Three or four players and he’s dead in less than a minute (maybe 2 tops).

Champion Sand Giant

Agree. As I put it in Dry top map chat recently “pain in the kitten + crappy loot = don’t bother.” I’ve seen him killed very quickly though on t6 map that I suspect was hard capped but most maps have to spend way too much time on him for too little reward. It might be possible to use a lot of reflects to end the fight more quickly but you still have crappy loot regardless.

The Dust Monster

Agree. Worse than the Sand Giant. If they put some kind of achievement on this one maybe people would do it but as it stands now don’t bother.

I Think these events (all of them) will be easier to see highlighted with commanders when the commander tags become account wide. I Always tag up whwn I’m on an event, no matter if it’s a less or more popular event. The only one I actually try to avoid is the dust monster due to its “hard-to-kill” ability.

I would agree with:

— Rescue injured Zephyrites from the Inquest inside the mine and escort them outside
It seems like no matter what size the group is that attempts this event, it always fails. I admittedly have always been there either when there’s only a few people or when there is a large group (at least 10), I’ve just stopped trying to bother.

— Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash
I agree, she does have some pathing issues, as do some of the inquest, and she is a little on the slow side, perhaps a small speed boost when she collects a crystal could remedy that.

— Drive the Mordrem from the Vine Planting area
I think this event does have some slight issues, I always seem to pull at least 3-4 mobs somehow. The husks have fairly high aggro ranges. It’s a death sentence if you dont have a few people with you (3+ as mentioned).

— Champion Sand Giant
An issue of time spent vs. reward. Normally in the time it takes to finally down him, you could complete: 3-4 champions and multiple smaller events.
I also wouldn’t mind seeing the sand giant do some more unique things, unlike the few other giants out there. I know he does little dust torndoes, but that’s it — he throws boulders, fears, stomps like every other giant.

— The Dust Monster
May be overtuned? The few times groups ever bothered to fight him (and beat him), it seemed like his adds took forever to kill. (I can’t fully speak about this boss though, because I don’t know if itsa lack of players caring or not)

SSGroguey.5841:

— The Dust Monster
May be overtuned? The few times groups ever bothered to fight him (and beat him), it seemed like his adds took forever to kill. (I can’t fully speak about this boss though, because I don’t know if itsa lack of players caring or not)

The summons must be kept close the champ otherwise they leash and get the invulnerable buff. If whoever has aggro isn’t able to stay within range you will be wasting all your time trying to kill invulnerable summons so you can kill the invulnerable champion. Even when not invulnerable they seem like the tankiest pile of dust in all of Tyria.

Single random note:

I’d appreciate the Tootsie fight more if there were more conveyance. It’s not often I can bring a hammer to a boss fight and feel like it’s actually doing something, but I never got any actual indication, other than actually beating the fight.

Conncept.7638:

Those events I remember as being particularly egregious :

Rescue injured Zephyrites from the Inquest inside the mine and escort them outside

This one should be no trouble at all with a small to large group. The key is to have classes there who can heal the Zephyrites as well as speed them up. It is impossible to solo however.

Rescue the captive Zephyrites

This event can be soloed but it take a while. 2-3 people can finish it easily. You don’t need to kill the Inquest, just the cages.

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

• Serene is just as slow as mollasses in the dead of winter. Speed her up a bit so people don’t feel like they are sacrificing an unreasonable amount of time.

Agreed. This one takes a long time. And because of the location it is rarely done anyway outside of organised T6 maps.

Drive the Mordrem from the Vine Planting area

• Far too many mobs in far too tight of clusters for any single player to handle.

If you are approaching it from the Oasis side there should be no issues. If you are jumping down from the waypoint then yes you might drop in the middle or 2-3 groups.

Tendril Spawns

• The combined burst damage of the large vines throw attack, and the small vines emerge attack, instantly down just about anyone, and if you aggro too many little vines, happens to often to dodge frequently enough.

Disagree. One person can solo these events quite easily. Move and dodge and you should be fine, I’ve done these events solo many times.

Defeat the light-infused Inquest Golem

• You can’t kite it, you can’t tank it; and unless you’re a dodge spam thief, ranger, or mesmer you can’t dodge all its attacks. It needs to deal less damage on its attacks or attack less frequently.

I agree it is very hard to solo this one. It does block a major passageway though so unless your map is empty someone will come along to assist with it soon enough.

I actually find soloing the light-infused golem easier and less aggravating (because it blocks off less of the map) than trying to solo the mordrem events. This might be because the professions and builds I’ve tended to go up against those events with have generally been ones that are well-suited to fighting a single nasty enemy, though.

Charrbeque.8729:

SILKY SAND! What bookah thought that up? At least half of the time I get NOTHING from it and when I do get something it’s only a single geode. No lockpicks. No equipment. Nothing but a single geode if I ever do get something from it.

The mechanic is silly from a logical perspective as well. A single pile you can do nothing with, but get ten piles and apparently if you merge them all into one big pile and sift it you might get something? Wouldn’t it be easier to sift through the small piles on an individual basis rather than wait until you get a bucketload (or whatever quantity ten piles actually represents)?

Charrbeque.8729:

IS THAT SPECIFIC ENOUGH FOR YOU?! Unlike you I actually read the forums to see what other player’s thoughts are. I usually don’t comment much, but I stay posted on what’s what, which is what you should be doing.

Like piles of silky sand, the community reps have a lot to sift through. Making their job easier means they’re more likely to see what you want them to see.

A generalised form of the Moist von Lipwig doctrine might be relevant here – never make it hard for someone to do the thing you want them to do. (The original is “Never make it hard for people to give you money!”)

Lasica.5068:

Tendril Spawns

• The combined burst damage of the large vines throw attack, and the small vines emerge attack, instantly down just about anyone, and if you aggro too many little vines, happens to often to dodge frequently enough.

Disagree. One person can solo these events quite easily. Move and dodge and you should be fine, I’ve done these events solo many times.

Condition builds work wonders here (don’t bother posting the typical “zerker-meta-is-the-only-way-to-go” comment thx).

Try this if you have time.

IMO:

rescue zephrytes from the the asura cave needs better notification. people OUTSIDE the cave anywhere in PROSPECT VALLEY need to be able to see the notification. typically, i see people race the inquest to gather all the “flags” in that field near the quicksand river, and then everybody leaves the area because the rescue event waits 5 minutes before it triggers. it needs to trigger immediately after winning the race to gather “flags” (crystals or whatever that you place into the barrels)

Champion Sand Giant and Dust Monster in their current state are essentially Mega-World-Bosses-Events with basic [Group Event] loot.
~i agree the loot needs to be upgraded to Mega-World-Boss loot.
~adding 4 or 5 achievements each wouldn’t hurt either.
~other option is to nerf the fights down to standard [group event] levels.

Those are all the well-established events. How about comments on the new ones?

I think the new ones are generally well balanced.

- Rustbucket is pretty straightforward.

- Defend the camp from Skritt Thieves may need a bit of tweaking, as it scales up rapidly. When you have upscaled Champion Skritt Thieves, it’s pretty dang hard to kill them before they escape with the supplies. Maybe cap their upscaling to be Elites at most.

- Escort Ewan is fine.

- Gather Beetle Remains for Soup is fine, once players learn how to deal with Beetles.

- Experimental Inquest Suit is fine.

- The Giant Beetle event during the sandstorm is also fine, once players learn how to stand in front of it. However, perhaps it should spawn a bit earlier, as it’s generally ignored by players due to its late appearance (they’re all already busy doing another event).

Conncept.7638:

Protect Serene as she recovers crystals lost in the crash

• Serene is just as slow as mollasses in the dead of winter. Speed her up a bit so people don’t feel like they are sacrificing an unreasonable amount of time.

I’ve noticed a problem relating to general AI pathing with the Serene event, you may have noticed this AI behavior elsewhere:

1. NPC is walking on some preset path, e.g. for an escort event
2. Enemy appears and aggros NPC
3. NPC walks over to fight enemy
4. When enemy dies, the NPC does not head to the nearest path point relative to its current position.
5. Instead, the NPC will first walk back to the point where it was initially aggroed.
6. Only after reaching that original aggro-departure point will the NPC continue on its prescribed path.

This is problematic given the terrain in the Serene event and her slow movement speed, she ends up doing a lot of redundant walking.

I think changing the event so that Serene never attacks the enemies that spawn would improve the event; she wouldn’t keep getting dragged off her path.

Tootsie is ok, but you need to save your interrupts. Of course, if you’re a S/P thief, you’ll never fail unless you die.

Serene has really, really bad pathing. T6s are built on the blood and tears of Serene soloists, who get no champ box for the effort, but a hell lot of headache. Most other events aren’t half as annoying.

Giant has too much HP that he’s skipped frequently. The mechanics are fine but the HP bagging is overdone.

Light golem himself is fine, but the 4 turrets on the cliffs surrounding him are not fine.

The Ley Line event has too many mobs.

Tendrils are easy, just AoE a lot. If you’re melee cleaving without either blindspam or invulnerability, you’re doing it wrong. Thief in SB mode can solo this with no risk within 40-55 seconds.

Rescuing downed NPCs is very badly done. At the moment it’s Battle Standard or go home. Centaurs should res the NPCs MUCH faster than they do at present, and the NPCs shouldn’t be allowed to be resurrected by Battle Standard, Nature Spirit and whatnot.

Yesterday Grit appeared above where the Broodmother spawns. We were actually making progress on the adds and Grit until Tootsie showed up and then she hung up attacking Grit the adds and us and not breaking away at all. You could not seem to damage Tootsie either and then the Broodmother came over and it was one vast melee with the three fighting it out with more adds spawning as it went. It was absolutely impossible to complete this event much less damage any of the three.

If it happens again I have to make sure to take a screen shot because you really had to see it to believe it. I was laughing at how wild it suddenly got but not happy that it was so impossible to even attempt to take Grit down.

*edit
Happened again today, though we had more folk and managed to finally take Grit down.

draxynnic.3719:

Charrbeque.8729:

SILKY SAND! What bookah thought that up? At least half of the time I get NOTHING from it and when I do get something it’s only a single geode. No lockpicks. No equipment. Nothing but a single geode if I ever do get something from it.

The mechanic is silly from a logical perspective as well. A single pile you can do nothing with, but get ten piles and apparently if you merge them all into one big pile and sift it you might get something? Wouldn’t it be easier to sift through the small piles on an individual basis rather than wait until you get a bucketload (or whatever quantity ten piles actually represents)?

My mental head-canon for that is that you’re compressing the sand into the lockpicks. Get nothing? You failed. Get a geode? You failed on the lockpick, but your work “survived”. Get a lockpick? Congrats! You succeeded your compression attempt!

Otherwise, no, doesn’t make sense.