Guild Wars 2

Lately there’s been an increase in content in which the way your map as a whole performs causes huge differences in the personal rewards each player gets. In the Pavilion, even after the loot changes, if you were doing Gold runs on Boss Blitz, you’d earn about 560 tokens per hour, 21 Master+ items, and 70 loot bags. If you were doing Bronze runs in that time, you’d be making no more than around 120 tokens, 9 Master+ items, and 18 champ bags. That’s a HUGE difference. HUGE! This is a double dipping effect, since not only is a gold run winning more rewards on each successful completion, but it’s also completing the event more times per hour.

On this current event, not only does a Tier 4 map offer significant discounts off the amount of geodes needed to buy things, but you also earn a lot more geodes over the course of playing it, since you are completing more events and achieving more bonus and unlocked objectives. This is double dipping too, cheaper prices AND more resources to spend if you get on a T4.

Now in the abstract, there’s nothing wrong with this, better performance = better reward, makes sense. The problem is, the game’s architecture is HORRIBLE for managing this sort of thing, because players have almost no choice as to whether they end up on a T4/Gold map, or a T2/Bronze map. You just load up and hope for the best, chances are you’ll get the latter and there’s little you can do about it.

During the Pavilion, there was one method of controlling this, but it was a bad one. If you could find someone else who was on a gold map, you could join their team, and then keep spamming, and spamming, and spamming the “join in pavilion” button until eventually, maybe, you could join them on that map. This mean most nights were spent with 5-50 minutes just standing around, spamming join, and that’s if you were LUCKY.

For the new event, there does not seem to be any good method for controlling which map you end up on.

So this sort of thing needs to stop. Give players awards based on individual events, the ones they personally participate in, not these massive map-wide meta events that are relatively easy if you’re lucky enough to get onto a well organized map, but more or less impossible and pointless if you end up on most maps. Make it so that each player’s rewards are based mostly on how well that player performs, rather than an aggregate score of dozens of players. I’m not saying that events themselves should not require team work and coordination, just that the reward differences should not be so massive, and the scope of the events should be contained to within a small area and time scale, rather than covering the entire map for an hour at a time.

If you do insist on keeping these map-wide meta events, then you need to do a better job of accessing them. There needs to be a way that players who want to play on a Gold Run/T4 map can do so, EVERY time, the instant they log in, rather than having to spam join for a half hour to get into one. You should just be able to choose “I want to do a gold run map” and instantly join one, never ending up on a bronze run/T2 map. If you can’t guarantee that then how can you expect players to put up with it?

I only have so much of my day during which I can play GW2, and during that time, I want to be doing something fun the entire time. I don’t want to log in only to spend tens of minutes staring at the screen and spamming a join button before I can begin to have fun, or leave a character AFK in a map for an hour before a fight like Teq or the Wurm to maybe get a decent group involved. It’s a simple test for new content ideas, really. Just ask yourself “can a random player just log in, and instantly and ALWAYS be a part of the ‘good run,’ with his reward being based on his own efforts to complete it?” If not, back to the drawing board with it.

So basically you find it unfair that people who work together get better rewards?

Ayrilana.1396:

So basically you find it unfair that people who work together get better rewards?

Or if you decided to be reasonable you might say that OP thinks it’s backwards that getting the rewards is nothing more than a matter of how many people are participating and therefore the barrier to getting said reward is finding a map that has enough participants.

The bazaar events tended not to reach gold most of the time and very little effort was actually required on the part of players, making it fairly clear that the only reason why map-wide events fail or only achieve partial success is that not many people are participating.

So basically you find it unfair that people who work together get better rewards?

No.

And more words because filters.

Coldtart.4785:

Ayrilana.1396:

So basically you find it unfair that people who work together get better rewards?

Or if you decided to be reasonable you might say that OP thinks it’s backwards that getting the rewards is nothing more than a matter of how many people are participating and therefore the barrier to getting said reward is finding a map that has enough participants.

The bazaar events tended not to reach gold most of the time and very little effort was actually required on the part of players, making it fairly clear that the only reason why map-wide events fail or only achieve partial success is that not many people are participating.

I had been in many full maps for CP and the reason most lost out on gold was because of a lack of coordination. So many tried to Zerg it and scale up the bosses. Dry Top maps have had the numbers but they don’t make tier 4 due to not coordinating the events.

If you want to get the top tier rewards, find a map, pull people in that want to cooperate, and then coordinate out who does what. That’s essentially how all of the people that do top tier maps do things.

Who wouldn’t want to log in and choose the highest reward map? I’m not sure how they would implement your ‘logging in and choose Gold rewards’ suggestion. I’m not against being placed on a co-ordinated map, but is there a question when you log into a map? Would many people choose the ‘I do not want good rewards’ map?

Another event that I’ll have to [TTS] it.

I feel bad because I’m not the most active member and usually get kicked for being inactive but then events like this come and I have to sign up again.

You can just open LFG and find a taxi, or make a group looking for a taxi. Whenever I’m in a t4 shard, I always try to taxi pugs in using LFG.

Not the best system, but it works. And it’s not that big of a deal. I know they’ve been improving the megaserver sorting system behind the scenes, so it won’t be long until we get priority for higher tier maps.

Ideally, every map should be able to get t4, but that’s not gonna happen considering the majority of players. People don’t like to work hard in this game. So you’re gonna have to find other players that do want to work.

I had been in many full maps for CP and the reason most lost out on gold was because of a lack of coordination. So many tried to Zerg it and scale up the bosses. Dry Top maps have had the numbers but they don’t make tier 4 due to not coordinating the events.

Yes, it’s not just the numbers, it’s the coordination, but ANet has not given the player the tools to ensure that you easily end up on a coordinated server. You can blame the other players all you like, but you can’t force other players to coordinate, and if you, as a player who is willing and able to coordinate, end up on a server that is mostly people with no interest and/or capability to do so, then you stand no chance at getting anything out of your time spent in the game.

I’m not saying that they can’t have goals that require player coordination, I’m just saying that if they do have such goals, then they need to make 100% sure that any player that WANTS to coordinate is able to do so without the hassles of map changes, purges, and join spamming. I mean, during the Blitz I was doing gold runs, but I popped a Birthday Boost partway through, 24 hours of boost uptime, and yet I probably ended up wasting half of that time just standing around in the center trying to join in on people who had an active map, while the map I was in was stuck in Bronze the entire time.

That is NOT game design that is working well, however you might try to spin it.

I’m not sure how they would implement your ‘logging in and choose Gold rewards’ suggestion.

I’m not exactly sure either, but until they have a solution, they should not implement maps with goals that allow you to not ‘log in and choose Gold rewards.’ I’m not saying I have the complete solution to this one, I’m just pointing out that they have a problem, it’s their job to fix it, but I’ll help however I can.

You can just open LFG and find a taxi, or make a group looking for a taxi. Whenever I’m in a t4 shard, I always try to taxi pugs in using LFG.

And then we’re back to join spam.

Ok, here’s at least one solution they need to implement ASAP. Remove join spam. Bring back the queues. Make it so that instead of having to hit “join→ok” a thousand times before the map actually loads, preventing you from doing anything at all productive with your time, make it so that you can hit “Join your party member in the map” and then it puts you into a queue. The when your number comes up, you get in, done.

In the meantime, you can run around the map you’re in, doing whatever there is to do. Ideally you could even queue up form other maps, and hop around doing any ingame activities until your queue pops.

Ideally, every map should be able to get t4, but that’s not gonna happen considering the majority of players. People don’t like to work hard in this game. So you’re gonna have to find other players that do want to work.

I don’t think it’s at all fair to blame player laziness. I’ve been on plenty of maps where I’ve seen people scurrying around, running events constantly, and still only barely gotten T3, if that. Getting T4 requires a ton of people that are all focused on that goal, knowing when every event is up and completing it in minimal times, with bonuses.

When players fail to get Gold or T4, it’s less often because of laziness, and more often because ANet screwed up somewhere in the design, allowing things to scale poorly, or not training the players in the proper tactics. T4 in Dry Top, for example, would be much easier if EVERY event were visible on the map at all times, so you would always know what’s up without having to be near it or requiring pony express. The “this boss is up” messages are a nice step, but only account for about 1/3 of the potential events in the zone, and don’t last long on screen.

I couldn’t agree more. I love the system of “perform better, and get better rewards” but the system in which we have been thrust into doesn’t allow us to actually form a map to our liking very easily.

I’d very much like a gemstore item to open up our own maps of these locations, these would not allow people in except through being pulled in by a group member.

This way guilds/organizations/even LFG could be used to get people in who want to work together leaving those who want to just log in and do their own thing to do just that instead of forcing both groups of people into the same sets of maps.

The only part I disagree with is that I think ANet has done an excellent job of making t4/golds accessible with proper effort. The problem is when you have a system set up that expects so much out of every player and many players simply don’t hold their own weight it becomes an issue. If they didn’t do this then the content would simply be too easy and there’d be no point to scaled rewards as everyone would hit the top without trying. The problem is you have situations where say 2/3 of the map is organized and trying, some doing above par and some just holding their own. But then you often have another 1/3 of the map doing more or less nothing, just trying to get their own things done, but the system has to count them as a participant because they are there. So the 2/3 has to carry that last 1/3 and well… sometimes that’s a bit too much to ask.

I really think if we could have our own maps to control things could be much smoother. Anet could make some money by charging a decent amount of gems for it. And Ideally I’d have it be a time based thing (24 hr, 3 days, 1 week maybe as options) and let the map creator purge it clearing the whole map and restarting it when they feel like it so we have the power to deal with griefers.

It’s also worth mentioning that the difference in rewards for T3/4 Dry Top isn’t that remarkable. The gold cost for the recipes and items remain exactly the same at all tiers; only the geode cost goes down. So for Dry Top, at least, it’s not of absolute importance to achieve the higher tiers. If you’re just after all the cooking recipes, you can simply get them at T3. It’ll cost you a bit more Geodes, but you’ll probably get that in your repeated farm attempts to reach T4 anyway.

I really think if we could have our own maps to control things could be much smoother. Anet could make some money by charging a decent amount of gems for it. And Ideally I’d have it be a time based thing (24 hr, 3 days, 1 week maybe as options) and let the map creator purge it clearing the whole map and restarting it when they feel like it so we have the power to deal with griefers.

“Private maps” would work out fine for those who had access to them, but would ruin the game for everyone else. Anyone who didn’t want to be part of a large guild would be completely locked out of most content because any players worth having around would migrate to those maps and everyone else would be left in also-rans. They need a solution that works for ALL players that are willing to put in the effort, not just those in the right guilds.

One thing that came up during Blitz discussions about “AKFers” was that some people wanted the ability to kick AFKers somehow. I think this would likely be abused, but there might be a compromise. Instead, the system should track you as being “AFK” after a minute or two of inactivity. If you are AFK, then 1. you do not scale up anything nearby, ever, and 2. you get no credit for anything nearby, ever.

This would mean that players would have to participate, but that if they weren’t participating, then they wouldn’t in any way harm your experience. Also, whatever the cap on a given map, the content would scale to the point that even if only half the map is participating, they can complete all the objectives (but it would be little easier if every single player on the map were participating). Only those who play, can win, but those who are playing wouldn’t be punished for those that weren’t.

Likewise, challenges should be based on active participation, not DPS checks. The Blitz was far too susceptible to having uplevels and mis-geared characters unable to pull their DPS weight on several of the bosses. The challenge should be in staying alive and avoiding attacks, not in bringing the health bar down in time if you do.

It’s also worth mentioning that the difference in rewards for T3/4 Dry Top isn’t that remarkable. The gold cost for the recipes and items remain exactly the same at all tiers; only the geode cost goes down.

It’s not as big a deal as the Blitz, certainly, but it is still a step in the wrong direction, a sign that they’re still designing content of this type, without yet implementing the tools for players to manage them. I highly doubt they will ever “fix” Dry Top, they’ve moved on to other projects. This is more about fixing whatever content they still have time to mess with before release.

I fullheartedly agree,

Dont give us things we cant do for ourselves and are dependant on the
“I play how i want play” people.

It would be fine if everyone would get an option ‘do you want to coordinate with your server?’ and it should scale up accordingly.

Some people dont understand english, some people literally dont care, and some people ‘NEED to play how they want to play’

What good is a coordination event if not even half of the people partake?

I would agree, mainly because the past two updates have both included this sort of mechanic. They need to move onto something new and exciting as there is only so many ways you can do this type of content.

Coldtart.4785:

The bazaar events tended not to reach gold most of the time.

Do you mean the pavilion? Because yes, that required an organized group but really, if you knew 5 other commanders you could easily remote-control the zone and set it to gold-farm-status. You just needed the commanders.

The bazaar itself, I’ve never seen the events not go gold in the first ~2 weeks until people were done with it. Not even in the empty morning hours.

The bazaar itself, I’ve never seen the events not go gold in the first ~2 weeks until people were done with it. Not even in the empty morning hours.

The Drinks one would usually get gold but in the hours I played the Yak races often capped out at silver, just because not enough people participated. It really showed the difference between events where a few players could try extra hard to pull things through (since you could captures as many as a dozen or so crystals each), verses one in which nobody was allowed to contribute more than any other (each player could only cross the finish line once, and if not enough players did, everybody loses).

Basically, what we have here is as follows:

Gold/T4 server: “This game is awesome! I’m so happy that I can play with a coordinated group of players”

Non Gold/T4 server: “This game is broken. Why do players have to coordinate in order to get the best rewards? Please fix this so I can get the maximum rewards when I log in.”

The main problem here is that there are so many players who want to get the best stuff, but don’t want to take the time to organize or coordinate themselves. These types of players are prevalent in all MMOs. We call them leechers. So if there are 1,000 players who all want to get the max tier rewards, and 50 are willing to work together, the other 950 players all try to tag along because now there’s a group. Once the map gets hard capped, the remaining players complain instead of trying to fill a new map with each other.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The main problem here is that there are so many players who want to get the best stuff, but don’t want to take the time to organize or coordinate themselves. These types of players are prevalent in all MMOs. We call them leechers. So if there are 1,000 players who all want to get the max tier rewards, and 50 are willing to work together, the other 950 players all try to tag along because now there’s a group. Once the map gets hard capped, the remaining players complain instead of trying to fill a new map with each other.

Not really, the way it is designed it doesn’t make it easy to guide players into getting T4. To do it you need to complete events across the entire map that spawn in a variety of different locations and although they are at set times most people don’t even know where all the events are. A well designed game should not require players to study up on event spawn locations and strategies to complete. That isn’t fun and most people just won’t bother.

The Moa for example needs someone who can consistently stun her (a thief for preference, but a couple of other classes can also do it). And that event goes off every 10mins, so what if the person stunning her goes elsewhere in the meantime, the event now fails. In fact, I’ve rarely seen the Moa event succeed more than once/hour unless I’m personally there on my thief ensuring she is stunned.

The event in the north mine to encourage the Zepherites to escape, almost impossible without a number of people there at exactly the right time because they die too quickly. Even the one in the south mine to rescue the Zepherites from cages often fails because too few people turn up, or they all concentrate in one area instead of spreading out.

Instead what you get are people that move around the map doing event after event but without a visual guide on where to go (e.g. commanders who tag up to show where people need to go) it will rarely get to T4. Most of my attempts at organisation (with no commander tag of my own) get to T3 which I’m satisfied with, but if you gave me 3-4 people with commander tags who are willing to listen to me I could get to T4 all day long because there would be a visual guide for players to go to locations.

This was my problem with the pavilion as well. The events were designed for players to split up and tackle each boss at the same time, but it’s human nature for people to congregate together and the design of the map didn’t separate players into different areas. Had I been designing that area I would have got rid of the gold requirement to spawn them altogether and had 6 separate circles that a minimum of 5 players had to stand in to activate the event. Each circle would lead to a ramp down into the area where the boss spawned. That’s all that would be needed and players be guided into the right strategy without forcing them.

Now take the current map, there is nothing that guides players to the events they need for T4. It relies on players knowing where the events are and when they spawn. Now I’ve read a guide so I do know the spawn times for each event and where each of them is, but is it reasonable to expect everyone to know that? No it isn’t. You can’t force players to study to have fun, but as a consequence of this a map without significant organisation will fail to reach T4.

That said, I think the current map is a lot better than the Pavilion because it doesn’t get harder when you fail to reach the T4 level you just get less rewards. The Pavilion was significantly easier if you could kill all the bosses at once than it was to take them down one at a time which is doubly punishing those who can’t get the gold level with less rewards and a tougher fight. That was a poorly designed event, with the current map I see T4 as a bonus to rewards you are already getting anyway so it’s not really punishing people who don’t get T4, so it is a big improvement.

Lasica.5068:

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I’m sorry, but all I’m hearing is “it’s too hard”. The game is designed to guide to through the story mode, and lead you through the important areas. The current design also informs you of dynamic events, and gives clues as to what you need to do to succeed. The game isn’t mean to guide you to the best rewards because it’s there. If your map doesn’t have the right people in the right place, who all know what they’re doing, then you don’t deserve the highest rewards.

Just like you don’t deserve a Tequatl kill just because he’s there. Just like you don’t deserve a Great Wurm kill just because he’s there.

Certain groups took the time to learn the mechanics of each event, and the requirements to win. The game is not broken simply because a bunch of organized players can do something an unorganized lot can’t do. On the contrary, this is working as intended. You want Gold/T4 rewards, everyone on the map needs to earn it.

I think the problem here is mixing people that doesn’t care about the T4 with people that want to work for it. there should be a way to choose better.

Lonami.2987:

I think the problem here is mixing people that doesn’t care about the T4 with people that want to work for it. there should be a way to choose better.

Realistically they’d just need to overhaul the scaling.
The meta should only require 30-35 people actively working towards it to finish T4.

But, if more people work on it, it should smoothly scale in difficulty up to a hard-capped map of 150 people all working on it.

The main problem here is that there are so many players who want to get the best stuff, but don’t want to take the time to organize or coordinate themselves.

The main problem is people who are on the latter group, and are NO DIFFERENT THAN THE FORMER GROUP, and yet are not getting the same rewards because they just happen to not be on the same map.

I was doing gold runs in the pavilion every day of the last month. I was running them for about an hour or two per day, I wound up with almost two stacks of each type of Champ bag, I know pretty much everything there is to know about doing gold runs.

And yet still, on the last day of that patch, it was a huge hassle to make it happen. I had to hook up with people who were already running a good map, I had to join one of their groups. I had to spam “join on member” for maybe a very short time if I was lucky, but sometimes over a half hour of my time, doing nothing but a very tedious and repetitive task.

And then sometimes those gold blitz maps broke down, started getting lots of silvers because people started going AFK or were replaced by people that didn’t know the drill, and yet all the people who left, the same “worthies” that had been getting gold before, started to get silvers. So then the people involved had to find a new map, which was a complicated process that typically took 30+ minutes to perform, then a few trial runs that often went silver before we were back into gold shape. It was a HUGE waste of time, and that was when everything was working “right.”

Now, you can say “when Gold Blitzes are working they work well,” and that is true, but don’t try to chalk it up to the people involved being a better class of people. They are just people that happen to be on gold blitz maps. Those same people on a bronze map would be hopeless.

I’m sorry, but all I’m hearing is “it’s too hard”.

I know the air might be a bit thin on top of that high horse, but you’re missing the point. This isn’t about “it’s too hard.” Liadri is hard. Never managed to beat it. I’m fine with that, it’s a personal challenge and it’s hard, Fine. Nothing about gold blitz or T4 is particularly hard at all. I mean, some of the events are moderately challenging, but none that I would classify as “too hard.” The only difference between T2 and T4 on the Drytop map is not skill or effort, it’s just luck. Plain and simple luck. “Are you lucky enough to end up on a map with people who are willing and able to reach T4?” If yes, then you’ll get T4 easily enough. If not, then it’s impossible, no matter how awesome you are. There is no particular skill to the outcome, it’s random chance. You can no more reasonably say that Dry Top is “too hard” than you could say that coin flipping is “too hard” if you lose a flip. Nor can you reasonably claim to be awesome because you won the coin flip.

I know that Anet is really trying to push open world content, but when the only instances that are succeeding are the ones taxi’ing members in it ceases to be open world content. At this point this content may as well be instanced. OP you’re absolutely right. None of the open world encounters in this game are difficult on an individual basis, and yet despite doing everything right I’ve found myself time and time again failing at Tequatl, Marionette, Assault Knights, Boss Blitz, etc. because I happened to be in a map where the majority of the people didn’t share my mindset. How is it fair that my reward is determined by the people in my map when I have no control over who those people are?

If Anet is deadset on promoting open world content they must do a better job of incentivizing individual contribution. Many players at these events have no motivation to give their full effort because the rewards are tied 100% to groupwide success. As a result you see people afking, refusing to res, autoattacking, etc. However, if a percentage of the reward were determined by individual contribution you would see players doing more to help out at these events. And even if the group as a whole were to fail, you would at least have the players contributing the most towards groupwide success be rewarded something for their efforts. The funny thing is that a system like this is already in place (the reward medals for dynamic events), but it’s so easy to get a gold medal that it’s completely meaningless.

At the end of the day I think that the best course of action is for ANet need to implement better tools for us to organise ourselves with.

Ohoni.6057:

I really think if we could have our own maps to control things could be much smoother. Anet could make some money by charging a decent amount of gems for it. And Ideally I’d have it be a time based thing (24 hr, 3 days, 1 week maybe as options) and let the map creator purge it clearing the whole map and restarting it when they feel like it so we have the power to deal with griefers.

“Private maps” would work out fine for those who had access to them, but would ruin the game for everyone else. Anyone who didn’t want to be part of a large guild would be completely locked out of most content because any players worth having around would migrate to those maps and everyone else would be left in also-rans. They need a solution that works for ALL players that are willing to put in the effort, not just those in the right guilds.

One thing that came up during Blitz discussions about “AKFers” was that some people wanted the ability to kick AFKers somehow. I think this would likely be abused, but there might be a compromise. Instead, the system should track you as being “AFK” after a minute or two of inactivity. If you are AFK, then 1. you do not scale up anything nearby, ever, and 2. you get no credit for anything nearby, ever.

This would mean that players would have to participate, but that if they weren’t participating, then they wouldn’t in any way harm your experience. Also, whatever the cap on a given map, the content would scale to the point that even if only half the map is participating, they can complete all the objectives (but it would be little easier if every single player on the map were participating). Only those who play, can win, but those who are playing wouldn’t be punished for those that weren’t.

Likewise, challenges should be based on active participation, not DPS checks. The Blitz was far too susceptible to having uplevels and mis-geared characters unable to pull their DPS weight on several of the bosses. The challenge should be in staying alive and avoiding attacks, not in bringing the health bar down in time if you do.

It’s also worth mentioning that the difference in rewards for T3/4 Dry Top isn’t that remarkable. The gold cost for the recipes and items remain exactly the same at all tiers; only the geode cost goes down.

It’s not as big a deal as the Blitz, certainly, but it is still a step in the wrong direction, a sign that they’re still designing content of this type, without yet implementing the tools for players to manage them. I highly doubt they will ever “fix” Dry Top, they’ve moved on to other projects. This is more about fixing whatever content they still have time to mess with before release.

CP showed us that you don’t need to be part of a big guild to get into an organized situation. There were a dozen+ folks who used the TTS TS server but weren’t even part of TTS that were leading boss blitzes daily. It was pretty great. The issue was when griefers or too many AFKs ruined a map we had to spend a good 30-1hour juggling maps and finding a new one. It simply seems to me that they’ve hindered the players ability to organize while also requiring that we do so. Megaservers pushes us all together and says “deal with it”, but then we get these events, which I like, that ask us to perform tasks as a team. It’s just frustrating.

Fixing the AFK problem doesn’t change the leacher issue. The guys running around picking up cactus tagging the event then moving on, etc. Remove credit for an event after so much time? ok, those who die to Colocal Queens one shot no longer get the reward, but leachers just learn to tag at the end of an event. There’s no great fix. Which is why I’d like a little more power put in the players hands to actually be able to organize things themselves. Previously we had the ability to guest to lower population servers at the very least, but now it’s all guess and keep trying to find an empty map to have people jump to and hope they can get in. It’s very annoying.

Sometimes I want to just do my own thing, well if I do my own thing I get in the way if someone is trying to organize people. I don’t want to be in the way but i also don’t want to have to listen to them barking orders. At the same time sometimes I’m in for an organized map and it’s frustrating seeing people do their own thing possibly screwing others over. I can’t help but feel that there should be some way of physically splitting the community that is already split philosophically with the power in our own hands.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lasica.5068:

~~~ snip ~~~

I’m sorry, but all I’m hearing is “it’s too hard”.

Yes, it is ‘too hard’ – too hard to coordinate the whole map without reading up on where the individual events spawn and when, and getting enough people do go to the right places at the right time – because it is just not intuitive.
I am perfectly fine with events requiring coordination – so long as the game shows you the way to succeed if you just care to look. I adored the Marionette events, which were very easy to coordinate and explain, yet had a hardcap of players required to have a decent chance at succeeding (who had to have some idea of what to do, but could learn that from other players or from reading the boss-info on the bosses). There was no guaranteed win here, yet most people agreed that they were very much doable. Most of all, the majority of coordination required was intuitive.
The Boss Blitz (in part due to the fact that it was already there last year and worked differently then) and the Dry Top ‘events’ are not.

And really, why would every player always work towards gold – maybe they are just following the story, or trying to get the diving achievement, or find the legendary lama, or all of the coins, or enjoy the landscape?

A selection mechanism of some kind which asks you if you just want to hang around or if you want to work towards gold would really be kind of cool. Even better if it’d kick you out if you weren’t participating in any event for a specific length of time (say, 7 Minutes).

There’s a lack of feedback for individual players about their contributions. A bigger problem is that there isn’t much in the way of proper tools players can use to join up together. My time in Dry Top so far has been fairly casual and I don’t care if we only get T2. Why should people who want T4 get stuck with me? And if I wanted T4, why should I get stuck with people who don’t really care?

There is also a lack of feedback for players about their individual contributions, and players who don’t contribute are rewarded just the same (in terms of map rewards).

The first solution that pops into my head are raid sized parties where people can group up and start new maps if needed.

I have no idea how the tier system in Dry Top even works. Though from reading this thread I can guess its something to do with everyone on the map doing X amount of events within a certain period of time or something.

All I know is that I’ve never seen it go about T2, and about 80% of the time I log into the area its not even past T1. I’ve yet to see any attempt at organization or even event call outs for the most part. I see an occasional “Champ X up” in map chat and that’s about the extent of it.

Ohoni.6057:

I know the air might be a bit thin on top of that high horse, but you’re missing the point. This isn’t about “it’s too hard.” Liadri is hard. Never managed to beat it. I’m fine with that, it’s a personal challenge and it’s hard, Fine. Nothing about gold blitz or T4 is particularly hard at all. I mean, some of the events are moderately challenging, but none that I would classify as “too hard.” The only difference between T2 and T4 on the Drytop map is not skill or effort, it’s just luck. Plain and simple luck. “Are you lucky enough to end up on a map with people who are willing and able to reach T4?” If yes, then you’ll get T4 easily enough. If not, then it’s impossible, no matter how awesome you are. There is no particular skill to the outcome, it’s random chance. You can no more reasonably say that Dry Top is “too hard” than you could say that coin flipping is “too hard” if you lose a flip. Nor can you reasonably claim to be awesome because you won the coin flip.

So if it’s not hard, why aren’t you getting T4 maps all the time? The only reason people complain is that they can’t get into a group that’s organized and knows what they’re doing. If you’re a solo player looking for a group, and the group already has 200 people trying to organize, I would say the priority goes to the group. If you manage to get into the map, great! If not, find another one or gather friends and guildies to try and start one yourself. As for the comparison between finding a good map and flipping a coin, that’s a bit much. You have no control over where the coin lands, where as you do have some control over which map your T4 group uses.

The only real issue is the Megaserver mechanics. This was one of the worst things Anet could have done in terms of coordinated group play. Megaservers help the Casual players, since they’re a majority of the playing population. If Anet were to try and solve this issue, they’d have to allow for personal server shards. The good thing is that the organized groups would benefit greatly with private maps. The huge downside to this is Anet would be allowing groups to exclude players from content. In that case, there’d be a lot more Casual players unable to do high tier events because a bulk of them will be in normal maps. I’m all for personal shards, but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

I feel like people exaggerate when they say that private maps would exclude people. CP had TTS creating a new teamspeak just for random people to organize runs. I’m not part of TTS but I used that channel to much success (outside of spending far too much time clicking “join pavillion”). Let players, guilds, and organizations work towards success, stop letting players get in the way of eachother, it’s annoying. THere’s already a philosophical divide, let us actually divide up between those who actively try to get into an organized situation and those who want to just do their own thing.

Jerus.4350:

I feel like people exaggerate when they say that private maps would exclude people. CP had TTS creating a new teamspeak just for random people to organize runs. I’m not part of TTS but I used that channel to much success (outside of spending far too much time clicking “join pavillion”). Let players, guilds, and organizations work towards success, stop letting players get in the way of eachother, it’s annoying. THere’s already a philosophical divide, let us actually divide up between those who actively try to get into an organized situation and those who want to just do their own thing.

You must not understand the implications to what a “private map” would do. The whole reason for the private map or shard is to exclude players. Why would you pay money/Gems to have a personal map, only to open it to the public? If this were a TTS group, I would give preference to guildies first, meaning all pugs would be left out. Why? Because if you have 200+ TTS guildies wanting to do a map, and the map only has room for 150 players, there’s no room for everyone. That’s why Anet would probably not do personal shards, even though it would be profitable.

Oh, and having a Teamspeak server is not the same as having a server shard in game. Feel free to come into the TTS TS anytime though.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Jerus.4350:

I feel like people exaggerate when they say that private maps would exclude people. CP had TTS creating a new teamspeak just for random people to organize runs. I’m not part of TTS but I used that channel to much success (outside of spending far too much time clicking “join pavillion”). Let players, guilds, and organizations work towards success, stop letting players get in the way of eachother, it’s annoying. THere’s already a philosophical divide, let us actually divide up between those who actively try to get into an organized situation and those who want to just do their own thing.

You must not understand the implications to what a “private map” would do. The whole reason for the private map or shard is to exclude players. Why would you pay money/Gems to have a personal map, only to open it to the public? If this were a TTS group, I would give preference to guildies first, meaning all pugs would be left out. Why? Because if you have 200+ TTS guildies wanting to do a map, and the map only has room for 150 players, there’s no room for everyone. That’s why Anet would probably not do personal shards, even though it would be profitable.

Oh, and having a Teamspeak server is not the same as having a server shard in game. Feel free to come into the TTS TS anytime though.

I feel it’s more to exclude a philosophy than the players themselves. If you don’t care to work together, and can’t bother to join up into some kind of organization running it on a private map, then you probably wouldn’t bother to actually work with the groups running it. It’s that philosophy of gameplay that I’d like to be able to avoid when trying to do organized stuff.

Personally I could care less about dry top, when I do it it’s just for fun, I’m not interested in farming this like I was CP. So when people start barking orders or calling people names it’s very annoying. So on the side of someone who simply doesn’t care it’s annoying to be in the same map as people that do.

On the flip side, during CP I did care, and it was very troubling seeing half a map at wiggins afking on the wall while they leached credit from the people actually pushing to do things the fastest they could.

It’d be nice if the players could separate themselves.

So I guess it is about excluding players, but it’s not “hey I don’t want to play with Jim” it’s “i don’t want to play with people who aren’t putting in at least a little bit of effort” Or the flip “let those people have their own maps, I don’t want to deal with them calling me names for starting an event early because I’m just doing my own thing and I don’t want to have to worry about that kind of thing right now”.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lasica.5068:

~~~ snip ~~~

I’m sorry, but all I’m hearing is “it’s too hard”.

Maybe you should work on your reading skills then. Denying his arguments without properly answering to them is of no interest.

“You must not understand the implications to what a “private map” would do. The whole reason for the private map or shard is to exclude players. "

You must not understand what “open world” means in ANet mouth, as they already explained their thinking.

Things lacking are basically a queue for joining / a guide (events shown on whole map, indicating number of people at the event, etc.). There is none of that. The event is not hard, it’s made hard. Completing it without proper tools and with tools so we could actually do something productive without needing a freaking teamspeak would be day and night. Plus it’s boring aswell since it requires you to complete it again and again for the rewards and the events in themselves are not quite fascinating.

But all you’ll read is it’s too hard

A list of available servers (megaservers/shards/districts whatever you want to call them) with the WvW queue system would fix all this. Relevant data for the list would be meta-event status and number of players queued.

This would allow players to continue enjoying the game while waiting for a map rather than spamming the join function for an unknown amount of time. It would also allow players who just want to gather some nodes and do story or explore to select a low population map for their needs.

I don’t want to see a reduction in the type of content which requires and benefits from organization. It’s incredibly fun for many people and adds a new layer of challenge to PvE.

I like the idea. But I just wish it wasn’t so determined by luck from getting into a good map. Especially now with the megaserver.

Spamming “join in” for hours isn’t really my idea of having a good time.

AnAspieKitten.5732:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Lasica.5068:

~~~ snip ~~~

I’m sorry, but all I’m hearing is “it’s too hard”.

Maybe you should work on your reading skills then. Denying his arguments without properly answering to them is of no interest.

“You must not understand the implications to what a “private map” would do. The whole reason for the private map or shard is to exclude players. "

You must not understand what “open world” means in ANet mouth, as they already explained their thinking.

Things lacking are basically a queue for joining / a guide (events shown on whole map, indicating number of people at the event, etc.). There is none of that. The event is not hard, it’s made hard. Completing it without proper tools and with tools so we could actually do something productive without needing a freaking teamspeak would be day and night. Plus it’s boring aswell since it requires you to complete it again and again for the rewards and the events in themselves are not quite fascinating.

But all you’ll read is it’s too hard

Perhaps you should comprehend the purpose of my post? I was saying that Anet would be against allowing private maps because it’s a way to exclude players from the “Open World” content. Your post is akin to a scientist arguing with a child that the speed of light is not instant, but rather has a defined speed.

Charming Rogue.8071:

I like the idea. But I just wish it wasn’t so determined by luck from getting into a good map. Especially now with the megaserver.

Spamming “join in” for hours isn’t really my idea of having a good time.

Create your own map for doing it then just like those in the map you’re attempting to spam join did.

One day, while Crown Pavilion was active, my guildies and I were bored. We decided to host a Gold OF.

We did just that. For hours we tagged up and coordinated Gold-Run after Gold-Run.

OP is looking at this the wrong way. As if there are two options; you either get lucky with a Gold OF or you get unlucky in a non-Gold OF. It’s not the case at all and you present yourself as a helpless person devoid any drive.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

Again your options are not (1) Be Lucky (2) Give up. There is always that option of (3) Fight for what you want. Of course C is harder so many feel content to blame their misfortune on their luck instead of taking some personal responsibility for their situation. No one owes you a Gold OF. The only one who really wants you to have one, is you….so go make it so.

My two cents on GW2 and life. Enjoy.

Saint.5647:

One day, while Crown Pavilion was active, my guildies and I were bored. We decided to host a Gold OF.

We did just that. For hours we tagged up and coordinated Gold-Run after Gold-Run.

OP is looking at this the wrong way. As if there are two options; you either get lucky with a Gold OF or you get unlucky in a non-Gold OF. It’s not the case at all and you present yourself as a helpless person devoid any drive.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

Again your options are not (1) Be Lucky (2) Give up. There is always that option of (3) Fight for what you want. Of course C is harder so many feel content to blame their misfortune on their luck instead of taking some personal responsibility for their situation. No one owes you a Gold OF. The only one who really wants you to have one, is you….so go make it so.

My two cents on GW2 and life. Enjoy.

And if you can’t get your whole guild team into the map you’re on? Do you find a new one? What if after 30 mins of trying you find one but have 5 people unable to get in? do you keep trying or say “tough luck keep hitting join”?

What if a griefer comes in and continues to train one of the teams just for his own pleasure? How do you deal with that?

I’m all for the “put in the work” attitude, but there are very real issues that need to be resolved.

Jerus.4350:

Saint.5647:

One day, while Crown Pavilion was active, my guildies and I were bored. We decided to host a Gold OF.

We did just that. For hours we tagged up and coordinated Gold-Run after Gold-Run.

OP is looking at this the wrong way. As if there are two options; you either get lucky with a Gold OF or you get unlucky in a non-Gold OF. It’s not the case at all and you present yourself as a helpless person devoid any drive.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

Again your options are not (1) Be Lucky (2) Give up. There is always that option of (3) Fight for what you want. Of course C is harder so many feel content to blame their misfortune on their luck instead of taking some personal responsibility for their situation. No one owes you a Gold OF. The only one who really wants you to have one, is you….so go make it so.

My two cents on GW2 and life. Enjoy.

And if you can’t get your whole guild team into the map you’re on? Do you find a new one? What if after 30 mins of trying you find one but have 5 people unable to get in? do you keep trying or say “tough luck keep hitting join”?

What if a griefer comes in and continues to train one of the teams just for his own pleasure? How do you deal with that?

I’m all for the “put in the work” attitude, but there are very real issues that need to be resolved.

The same can be said for any map including the coordinated ones.

Jerus.4350:

Saint.5647:

One day, while Crown Pavilion was active, my guildies and I were bored. We decided to host a Gold OF.

We did just that. For hours we tagged up and coordinated Gold-Run after Gold-Run.

OP is looking at this the wrong way. As if there are two options; you either get lucky with a Gold OF or you get unlucky in a non-Gold OF. It’s not the case at all and you present yourself as a helpless person devoid any drive.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

Again your options are not (1) Be Lucky (2) Give up. There is always that option of (3) Fight for what you want. Of course C is harder so many feel content to blame their misfortune on their luck instead of taking some personal responsibility for their situation. No one owes you a Gold OF. The only one who really wants you to have one, is you….so go make it so.

My two cents on GW2 and life. Enjoy.

And if you can’t get your whole guild team into the map you’re on? Do you find a new one? What if after 30 mins of trying you find one but have 5 people unable to get in? do you keep trying or say “tough luck keep hitting join”?

What if a griefer comes in and continues to train one of the teams just for his own pleasure? How do you deal with that?

I’m all for the “put in the work” attitude, but there are very real issues that need to be resolved.

And thus we’re back at why the Megaserver mechanic is bad for coordinated group play. But the solution to that isn’t necessarily for Anet to offer private servers, as I’ve also stated. Since the Megaserver helps a vast majority of Casual players, we minority players with large coordinated groups need to live with it.

Many players at these events have no motivation to give their full effort because the rewards are tied 100% to groupwide success. As a result you see people afking, refusing to res, autoattacking, etc.

And the thing is, you can’t blame people for not giving 100%, 100% of the time. I certainly don’t want to. Of course I feel compelled to sometimes, to not let others down, but that’s part of the problem. I mean, if I’m in Dry Top, it’s not always because I want a T4 run. Maybe I’m moving between story modes. Maybe I’m shopping at the unique vendors. Maybe I’m collecting coins. Maybe I’m grabbing available harvest nodes. Maybe I’m opening chests during a storm. There are numerous things to do that have nothing to do with getting a perfect T4 run, and players should not be blamed for doing those things when ANet created those distractions.

Even the Pavilion had a few distractions, like the Gauntlet, which reasonably lowered the Blitz participation rate below 100%. It would be nice if players could join a “serious” map, run that content for a bit, but then pull back to an “unserious map” as easily as hitting a button, get some of the “non-serious” tasks done or go AFK for a bit without messing anyone else up, and then hop back on to a “serious” map without any waiting time.

It’s also worth noting that I don’t like the content that is based on 30-60 minute timers, because that basically forces you to stick around for that entire time doing one activity, not doing any other activities the game has to offer. Ideally the Dry Top reward chains would only be on a 10-15 minute interval, allowing you to pop in, do a chain, and then pop back out to do something else.

CP showed us that you don’t need to be part of a big guild to get into an organized situation. There were a dozen+ folks who used the TTS TS server but weren’t even part of TTS that were leading boss blitzes daily.

Including myself. They were great folks, by and large, but that sort of hullabaloo just shouldn’t be necessary. It should just work using the tools ANet provides, you shouldn’t need access to outside organizational tools.

Previously we had the ability to guest to lower population servers at the very least, but now it’s all guess and keep trying to find an empty map to have people jump to and hope they can get in. It’s very annoying.

One thing that would be nice is a “change map” button, rather than just entering and exiting the zone and trying for the best, you should be able to just hit a single button and load a different map than the one you’re on. Ideally it could be more like other “megaserver” games, where you can just see a full list of the available instances, and just pick the one that you want.

One other issue with Dry Top is that if you load up a new map, how do you tell how good it is? I mean, if you load one right as the clear phase begins, it could be ten minutes or more before you have any idea how well you’re doing, and by then it would be too late to try a different map with a reasonable chance of it being a good one. There’s no way to really tell whether your map is a good one until the sand phase begins.

I have no idea how the tier system in Dry Top even works. Though from reading this thread I can guess its something to do with everyone on the map doing X amount of events within a certain period of time or something.

There’s a good Reddit thread about it, but the short version is that basically you need to be doing ALL the events in the zone, of which 2-3 of them spawn at any given time, and complete as many bonus objectives as possible (like preventing the Inquest from scoring a single point in the crustal game), the reward being that the higher the tier, the cheaper the stores are, AND the more loot you get from each event completed.

So if it’s not hard, why aren’t you getting T4 maps all the time?

As I said, luck. The difference between success and failure does not always have anything to do with difficulty. Chess is difficult, Snakes and Ladders is not difficult, but you can lose at either, because while the former takes skill, the latter takes luck. That doesn’t not make it difficult.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

If that actually worked for you then you were VERY lucky. Even on coordinated TTS runs, where they hand picked an empty map and stuffed it with their own people, they would tend to break down over time, going from gold runs to barely silver, to bad silver, a problem they could only solve by abandoning that map entirely and finding someplace else. If you were able to take a bronze map and whip all the players there into gold shape then you were lucky enough to end up on a bronze map with very unusually malleable and engaged players.

Honestly, I don’t mind working hard for the time that I play, but I do mind wasting time. I can’t play for 4+ hours per day most days, and solutions that involve “failing” for an hour or more to get things “into shape” don’t work for me. I want to be able to log in and instantly get started on a successful run. I’m willing to do my part to make that happen, to be working 100% of the time towards that goal, but if the content is designed in such a way that it takes a half hour or more of just standing around on the map to “get set up,” or if it requires repeatedly failing content for a half hour or more to “work the kinks out” each night, then I see that as being a content design failure. Assuming I know what I’m doing myself, I should be able to jump right in within minutes of logging in, and succeed on that very first run.

Ohoni.6057:

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

If that actually worked for you then you were VERY lucky. Even on coordinated TTS runs, where they hand picked an empty map and stuffed it with their own people, they would tend to break down over time, going from gold runs to barely silver, to bad silver, a problem they could only solve by abandoning that map entirely and finding someplace else. If you were able to take a bronze map and whip all the players there into gold shape then you were lucky enough to end up on a bronze map with very unusually malleable and engaged players.

Honestly, I don’t mind working hard for the time that I play, but I do mind wasting time. I can’t play for 4+ hours per day most days, and solutions that involve “failing” for an hour or more to get things “into shape” don’t work for me. I want to be able to log in and instantly get started on a successful run. I’m willing to do my part to make that happen, to be working 100% of the time towards that goal, but if the content is designed in such a way that it takes a half hour or more of just standing around on the map to “get set up,” or if it requires repeatedly failing content for a half hour or more to “work the kinks out” each night, then I see that as being a content design failure. Assuming I know what I’m doing myself, I should be able to jump right in within minutes of logging in, and succeed on that very first run.

There is no high level content that you can just stroll in and complete that easily. Coordinating the timing and mechanics of events takes time. It’s fine that you know what to do, but you can’t control the other 149 people on the map. That’s why larger groups need to assign sub-leaders in different areas, and even sub-channels in voice-comms. The requirements for the highest tier rewards are set in stone. Miss one single event, and you only get T3.

Not wanting to take the time to coordinate is not a problem with the game, but rather a personal one. If you have limited time, just do whatever you can, and be rewarded with what you can get. So if T2, or T3 is all you can get in your map, be happy that you were rewarded with something. If you feel you deserve more, then set aside your personal issues with waiting. and prove you should get it by working with everyone else on the map.

There is more to organization than simply sitting in the boss’ chair or activating a blue tag over your head.

There are very few places where you will predominantly find people who are both willing and able. Most people are a mix between the two.

You will work with willing and able people; these are your go-to folks. You will work with people who are willing and unable; these are people who will need to learn their work and whose enthusiasm should be kept alive and rewarded. You will work with people who are able but unwilling; these people most test your abilities as a leader because these are the ones you need to motivate on a personal level.

Of course there are unwilling/unable people as well. They are not the majority in the day-to-day and I highly doubt they are the majority in game as well. Remember that putting on the role of a leader does not make you a good one. You’re always going to be griefed by a few. Don’t let that deter you but managing people effectively is not easy. If it was, everyone would do it comfortably.

To bring this back into focus for GW2, you should be actively engaged in your OF and assessing its status after each round. Just throwing on a blue tag isn’t going to cut it.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Jerus.4350:

Saint.5647:

One day, while Crown Pavilion was active, my guildies and I were bored. We decided to host a Gold OF.

We did just that. For hours we tagged up and coordinated Gold-Run after Gold-Run.

OP is looking at this the wrong way. As if there are two options; you either get lucky with a Gold OF or you get unlucky in a non-Gold OF. It’s not the case at all and you present yourself as a helpless person devoid any drive.

You have an option of improving the OF you are in and bettering it for yourself and the others around you willing to stick around long enough to make it worth being a part of. Do this, and people will then flock to your OF.

Again your options are not (1) Be Lucky (2) Give up. There is always that option of (3) Fight for what you want. Of course C is harder so many feel content to blame their misfortune on their luck instead of taking some personal responsibility for their situation. No one owes you a Gold OF. The only one who really wants you to have one, is you….so go make it so.

My two cents on GW2 and life. Enjoy.

And if you can’t get your whole guild team into the map you’re on? Do you find a new one? What if after 30 mins of trying you find one but have 5 people unable to get in? do you keep trying or say “tough luck keep hitting join”?

What if a griefer comes in and continues to train one of the teams just for his own pleasure? How do you deal with that?

I’m all for the “put in the work” attitude, but there are very real issues that need to be resolved.

And thus we’re back at why the Megaserver mechanic is bad for coordinated group play. But the solution to that isn’t necessarily for Anet to offer private servers, as I’ve also stated. Since the Megaserver helps a vast majority of Casual players, we minority players with large coordinated groups need to live with it.

True, it’s not the only answer, I like the district idea people have posted about. Seeing a list of maps and their populations and being able to queue for them if they are full. Someone who is PUGing may decide to queue for the maps that are doing well. Someone just trying to do their own thing may look for a lower population one so they aren’t bothered by people trying to organize. Large groups could pop into empty maps. It should work pretty nicely, though it’d probably still be tough to find a completely empty map which sometimes is needed in the case of CP and large groups (my guild ran with like 70 the last time we did it, ended up getting 65 in iirc which was pretty cool) And sure, we “need to live with it” but it sure doesn’t make me want to drop $$ in the gemstore.

I can get behind the GW1 District dropdown box idea. That’s the only difference between the current Megaservers, and GW1’s town districts.

There is no high level content that you can just stroll in and complete that easily.

But there should be. And again, your definition of “easy” is not the same one I’m using. I am NOT arguing that you should just be able to faceroll content, that it should not take effort, skill, and perhaps practice to be successful at it. What I am saying is that once you know everything there is to know, once you have YOUR skills on point, you should be able to engage the content, do your best, and win without a bunch of standing around or set-up hassles.

I’m not arguing that I should have gotten a gold Blitz run on my first try, first day, but within a couple days of the last patch I had Blitz DOWN, I knew all the skills I needed to know to do my role perfectly (or at least close to it). I was not any better at it in week four than I was by the end of week one. Even still, the last day of the patch it usually took me the better part of an hour of tedium and poor gameplay before I could be in the position to put any of my skills to use. As soon as I was in that position, gold, gold, gold, gold, for an hour or more until I decided to leave, but the hassles of setting that situation up was NOT a fun use of my limited gameplay time.

I believe that ultimately, rewards should be based on the tactical level, rather than the strategic. The rewards that you, as a player, achieve, should be based on the work that you, as a player, put in. So for example, instead of having a zone-wide meta-reputation that is based on the efforts of players you’ve never met on the other side of the map, the reputation should be based on the events YOU participate in. If YOU complete a half-dozen or so events over the course of the chain then YOU have tier 4 access to rewards and vendors, and maybe someone who was doing Lost Coins at the time would only have T1 access. You still need to play alongside the other players to make the most of the events, to complete them as fast as possible, but the rewards you get are based on the work you put into it.

If they want to have a zone wide meta, then just have it be a pride thing, a “good job guys, you completed ALL the events, here’s a fireworks display!” pat on the back, rather than a material reward that creates a practical imbalance between those who complete it and those who don’t. It’s like speed-running Tequatl. You don’t get any bonus loot if you complete Teq in the fastest time possible, and well that you don’t, but it’s at least bragging rights to try and that’s fine.

Ohoni.6057:

But there should be. And again, your definition of “easy” is not the same one I’m using. I am NOT arguing that you should just be able to faceroll content, that it should not take effort, skill, and perhaps practice to be successful at it. What I am saying is that once you know everything there is to know, once you have YOUR skills on point, you should be able to engage the content, do your best, and win without a bunch of standing around or set-up hassles.

You’re mistaking the difference between solo content, and group content. If you have the skills to succeed at solo content (ala Liadri), then yes you deserve to be able to go in and succeed. But if you have the skills and knowledge to your part in Group content, now you’re just one piece of the puzzle. There is no “i” in team.

Just like with the Great Wurm. I know what to do, but I can’t go in by myself, and solo down all three wurms. You need people in the correct spots, who all know what to do.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ohoni.6057:

But there should be. And again, your definition of “easy” is not the same one I’m using. I am NOT arguing that you should just be able to faceroll content, that it should not take effort, skill, and perhaps practice to be successful at it. What I am saying is that once you know everything there is to know, once you have YOUR skills on point, you should be able to engage the content, do your best, and win without a bunch of standing around or set-up hassles.

You’re mistaking the difference between solo content, and group content. If you have the skills to succeed at solo content (ala Liadri), then yes you deserve to be able to go in and succeed. But if you have the skills and knowledge to your part in Group content, now you’re just one piece of the puzzle. There is no “i” in team.

Just like with the Great Wurm. I know what to do, but I can’t go in by myself, and solo down all three wurms. You need people in the correct spots, who all know what to do.

Ohh no? XD