Guild Wars 2

If it isn’t about solos, why are people even complaining about arah.

Does that minor change all of a sudden make 5 man party incapable of getting pass lupi?

You dont’ even need to melee the boss. And in a 5 man party you might get aegis or vigor reflect, etc from other people. and some time you can hide behind the boss, so you should have enough of the dodges.

The only reason I want lupi to be fixed, is so I can learn to solo him. I couldn’t solo him before, chances are I can’t now too. If it’s for 5 mans, I honestly dont’ care about the changes.

If people are really telling me it’s about 5 man parties. How many people complaining are not arah soloers.

Nyx.7342:

The reason people care so much is not about solos.

If you cant tell me you dont’ solo arah. I’ll just shut up and move on. Because my guess is most people complaining are probably arah soloers.

laokoko.7403:

Nyx.7342:

The reason people care so much is not about solos.

If you cant tell me you dont’ solo arah. I’ll just shut up and move on. Because my guess is most people complaining are probably arah soloers.

I dont solo arah. Haven’t done it in over a year.

and you are right tho most people here probably don’t like the change for solos, but again this isn’t about asking them to change a dungeon its to fix an unintentional bug, so i still don’t get why you are making the argument that they shouldnt balance for solo’ers. My group of pvp and wvw friends don’t do arah at all anymore because they don’t like one shotting and its even harder to get past lupi for them than it was before. So it does affect people who play in groups

Gaile Gray.6029:

your impatience

I find it very interesting that you see this as the community being impatient rather than Anet having issues with communication (or lack thereof).

This means there is an extremely wide gap between Anet’s and the community’s stances on how much communication is expected.

Such a derailment.

Appreciate the candid commentary Lauren! And Gaile, we’ll try to be patient, it’s just this fight is to many of us the crown jewel of the content we enjoy, so please forgive us if we’re a bit overly passionate about it.

I am curious the plans, namely if it was intentional or just a bug. I’d love to see a comment along the lines of either “yes it’s a bug, please be patient as we find the best way to address it” or “We’re looking at making Lupicus a better fight, this was something we thought would make it so, that doesn’t mean we won’t remove it if that opinion changes. Please be patient as we work on it as in the end we hope to have a fight you will all enjoy more” No promises have to be made, just a general idea of the thinking would help clear things up for us and be appreciated.

But, honestly, just happy to see the red posts, it confirms that you’re aware and still looking into it, which is great

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

tl;dr I will keep fighting the good fight on your behalf.

Thanks!!

Just a reminder, this is still a bug. Also, I believe that is a similar issue to Mai Trin’s random teleport shots to the other side of the arena where no one is as well as Abomination in P2 (his rock). Seems like an AI tracking issue across the board.

bumping

Just a reminder that this bug is still an issue and needs to be addressed.

It has been nearly two months since Lupicus’s Necrid Bolt has been changed. While I do understand and appreciate the fact that it takes a lot of work to fix bugs like these, I would appreciate if we could get an official response relatively soon regarding at least whether or not the change to Necrid Bolt was intentional, and if it was not, the future plans regarding Necrid Bolt.

Still have to be fixed. Unintentional changes are not new features and should be canceled. Nothing to discuss or argue. It has been 2 months now, we’ve been patient enough.

I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of more challenging, changing content. The fact that it’s a bug is a bummer but i would stand behind this being a permanent intended change along with a nerf to reflect damage on lupi. Maybe even unpredictability in phase 1 phase 2 phase 3. Make it all one crazy random phase. I don’t like the idea that it’s bugged but i don’t want it to be such a joke of a fight anymore either. Sometimes we’ll even let him eat grubs to make it more of a challenge. I would even support the idea of scaling dungeons like fractals.

Back to the top you go you naughty thread

Kelly.5293:

I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of more challenging, changing content. The fact that it’s a bug is a bummer but i would stand behind this being a permanent intended change along with a nerf to reflect damage on lupi. Maybe even unpredictability in phase 1 phase 2 phase 3. Make it all one crazy random phase. I don’t like the idea that it’s bugged but i don’t want it to be such a joke of a fight anymore either. Sometimes we’ll even let him eat grubs to make it more of a challenge. I would even support the idea of scaling dungeons like fractals.

If they want more challenging content they should develop more challenging content. Arguably ruining existing content is not the best way to do it.

I wish to inform the necessary individuals at ArenaNet HQ that this change in behavior is still affecting the live servers, and we have still not received any word whether the change is intentional or not.

It would be greatly appreciated by the remaining dungeon enthusiasts if anyone at ArenaNet with the appropriate knowledge would be so kind as to shed some light on this change, as we have been waiting for information for several patches at this point.

It would be a nice gesture towards the oft-neglected dungeon community to simply comment on

1) The reason the change occurred, and
2) The current options being considered by the development and design teams.

If it’s going to stay as-is, so be it — just please let us know. We’re not demanding a change or fast action on your part — we understand that creating new content is a higher priority than maintaining existing content and HoT development is exhausting ArenaNet’s limited resources. We simply want to know what’s going on with our favorite boss in the game.

dlonie.6547:

I wish to inform the necessary individuals at ArenaNet HQ that this change in behavior is still affecting the live servers, and we have still not received any word whether the change is intentional or not.

It would be greatly appreciated by the remaining dungeon enthusiasts if anyone at ArenaNet with the appropriate knowledge would be so kind as to shed some light on this change, as we have been waiting for information for several patches at this point.

It would be a nice gesture towards the oft-neglected dungeon community to simply comment on

1) The reason the change occurred, and
2) The current options being considered by the development and design teams.

If it’s going to stay as-is, so be it — just please let us know. We’re not demanding a change or fast action on your part — we understand that creating new content is a higher priority than maintaining existing content and HoT development is exhausting ArenaNet’s limited resources. We simply want to know what’s going on with our favorite boss in the game.

If you read what is in this post it seems like it is not meant to be there and it is a bug. I think they have some pretty long code and it is easy to change the wrong thing so said it would be nice if they were to fix it back or fix gaurdians one-hit because there is no point in making this chance if ppl just one hit him any way. In my opinion it is a very poor way of making “hard content” to just do so all attacks almost one hits you if it was intentional.

To fix this, they only have to add invisible walls to prevent the oneshot and add minimum range to the skill. Takes max 30 minutes with testing.

By adding a minimum range to wall of reflection – you risk bugging many things (e.g. casting wall via skill bar will drop on the guardian itself : range = 0). I think you understimate the amount of effort required to change this.

Have chatted with many ANET on this (and Lupi mechiancs) – and its not an easy fix as you may imagine.

TPMN.1483:

By adding a minimum range to wall of reflection – you risk bugging many things (e.g. casting wall via skill bar will drop on the guardian itself : range = 0). I think you understimate the amount of effort required to change this.

Have chatted with many ANET on this (and Lupi mechiancs) – and its not an easy fix as you may imagine.

Is it hard enough to take this long? It’s been a month+ since necrid bolt was messed up and it’s been months since people have been one shotting.

TPMN.1483:

By adding a minimum range to wall of reflection – you risk bugging many things (e.g. casting wall via skill bar will drop on the guardian itself : range = 0). I think you understimate the amount of effort required to change this.

Have chatted with many ANET on this (and Lupi mechiancs) – and its not an easy fix as you may imagine.

I would say it was pretty spot on. It might take an hour if an intern does it.

To fix oneshotting, all they have to do is to prevent putting the Wall of Reflection on the wall. To do this, they either have to make walls around Lupicus higher or add there invisible walls. They have done this many times before and adding geometry is an integral part of creating maps. I would say this is a pretty trivial change.

To fix Lupine Blast / Necrid Bolt hitting on melee, all they have to do is to give that skill a minimum range. There are numerous examples of this (for example Spider Queen change) so I’m pretty sure it’s just a single value on some file / database. I would say this is a pretty trivial change too.

What’s the biggest problem then? Priorities.

Your’ making too many assumptions on how the engine has been built and the work involved in testing.

Having spend many years in IT – a simple one line fix can easily consume 200-300 hrs of testing depending on the code branches affected and the nature of the problem being tested.

I think a little more respect to the hard people working at ANET goes a long way.

Except these are content fixes, not code fixes.

Wethospu.6437:

Except these are content fixes, not code fixes.

How do you fix content without changing code?
How do you ‘test’ content after you change code?

Content is an asset file – e.g. a picture.
Code is how content works: e.g. putting together pieces of pictures moving in different ways (e.g. a weapon with animations for example – similar with a boss and moving joints).

I really cant believe how people are kittened because they cant solo a dungeon……
Maybe try and play it ranged? Why noone mentions the fact that the problem with Lupi
ranged attack hitting melee is that the fact that guardians(most usual) cant solo/glich trow him out of the graphics….
The game is perfect,we are too bad learned and want everything as fast as possible…
Do a dungeon path the normal way, DO LUPI the normal way ,DO ARAH the normal way….DO play the game THE NORMAL WAY!!!
Its the most frustrating thing to have to spend 150gold just to have META…..WHY I HAVE TO PLAY META!?
Arena net since you are monitoring this thread….I am not forced to a specific playstyle right? RIGHT?
Why then everyone is asking and accepting only metazerkers in theirs groups
I feel that i express the voice of the majority of the players when i say this….We are forced to play meta because everyone is asking for meta…They dont want to get valkyrie,nor knights,nor soldiers…JUST META BERSERKER…
In my opinion,dont fix lupi,make all dungeons unprogressable unless everything alive in them is dead….thats how u make it properly in my opinion….
Make the dungeons a true challenge….it will bring an unrest in the beggining but then it will all be ok….noone will complain about how the content isnt challenging enough,nobody will complain about gold,nor the market…it will all become the normal way….
Thanks for reading to my post, its not a rant,its not something to say to me that i should change a game or stop playing…
I love this game and i want to see it thriving and people to stop saying in LFG: Arah P4 ZERK META Ping gear check….
Its my opinion and i think a big portion of people thinks that as well…i hope you will respect it even if you dont like it.
Thank you.

Salonikios.3154:

I really cant believe how people are kittened because they cant solo a dungeon……

It’s not that hard actually. My pug group wiped yesterday bc guardian failed one shot and a war and i had to duo him from p2 to end. Was pretty easy actually.

TPMN.1483:

Wethospu.6437:

Except these are content fixes, not code fixes.

How do you fix content without changing code?
How do you ‘test’ content after you change code?

Content is an asset file – e.g. a picture.
Code is how content works: e.g. putting together pieces of pictures moving in different ways (e.g. a weapon with animations for example – similar with a boss and moving joints).

Ok i can understand (not really) that the wall exploit might be hard to fix. But necrid bolt was working fine before the bug. Is it really that hard to fix something that was working before? Or rather does it take this much time? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume in most scenarios this isnt a month+ fix.

1) Depends how hard. It is to isolate the code which caused the problem
2) is it shared code ? Is it being used elsewhere — eg did they reuse a module for new HoT Beta content?
3) how to create the test strategy for this piece once it is fixed. If it is shared code ²multiple things may have to be tested.
4) how long does it take to validate in dev, uat before working out what date it is feasible to push to live servers.
5) what is the priority of the BUG compared to other potentially worse bugs? (Eg client or server crashing)

I could tell you many story’s on how it can take a room full of indivudals to agree the definition of a single word for a project. This I’ll save for another day.

Funny thing is some may consider the fact that the bolts don’t hit when in melee (past state) to be an exploit -Just like AC Spider Queen.

Tbh – the more people protest, expect a fix and say it’s easy without any knowledge of the code base or how anet test the longer I would personally be inclinded to fix it given there are other bugs which right now include fotm crashing an entire instance (thermanova).

We have to be patient wait to find out which table the bug is on the universe – only then can we be happy when one day we have a bug squashed after a long time in an expected way.

TPMN.1483:

Wethospu.6437:

Except these are content fixes, not code fixes.

How do you fix content without changing code?
How do you ‘test’ content after you change code?

Content is an asset file – e.g. a picture.
Code is how content works: e.g. putting together pieces of pictures moving in different ways (e.g. a weapon with animations for example – similar with a boss and moving joints).

I would fix the content by changing the content. If I have a weapon with a wrong texture, I would modify the texture instead of making a code which would alter it.

Testing is simple when you only change content in one encounter. Teleport to Lupicus, use god mode and verify that Wall can’t be placed on wall anymore.

One basic thing of game developing is to split the engine and the content so that the game designers don’t have to understand programming or even see the code when they create maps and encounters. I would be really surprised if Anet doesn’t have any kind of a map editor.

That said, they don’t even need a programmer to fix this, just a designer.

Be patient give them time..

It took about 5 months for them to locate a bug where pressing B on the PVP Scoreboard resulted in massive FPS drops and stutter during a match.

There are many bugs which are more important than this one – IMO.

We dont know how the code is or what it would affect- especially unless we are privvy to a lot of NDAs. Even those with this information would not be at liberty to say too much. One change of code (which is often shared code with other places) – often means that other things are affected in adverse ways. Testing is not as simple as you make out – even for a necrid bolts hits at melee problem.

I’m struggling to work out if you are trolling this tread asking for a ‘Ensure wall of reflect cannot be placed on wall to disable a one-shot’ rather than the fix ‘Lupicus Necrid Bolt hits at melee’ problem.

My advice – take it or leave it – is to let anet have time to prioritise fix and decide what they are going to do in there own time. Be patient.

Lets put it this way… if you go into a Restaurant and start complaining loudly about poor service or how your server looks before your food arrives you could find additional free extras that you are unaware of delivered that make you very ill.

They need priorities, not time. More we keep poking at them, more likely someone does something about it.

I’m pretty sure it didn’t take 5 months of work to locate that bug. Anyways, this isn’t a bug. This is a content fix. Lupicus overshooting was a bug which they fixed.

I don’t know about their code but I know this isn’t about the code (as I have said like 5 times already).

Both can be fixed easily so not sure why it’s trolling. Is it because of the cliche that every software related issue is a massive bug and takes heroic effort to fix or because of the cliche that every forum poster is an expert on IT field?

And then someone gets fired or that restaurant gets closed down.

I agree with Wethospu. Necrid bolt hitting in melee isn’t a bug, but its a bug fix. It made no sense for him to be using that attack when there is no target at range, and hitting nothing. Now he still uses it, but it hits its target. That was probably a faster fix than making him use melee attacks as auto-attacks (kick/swipe in all phases), though allowing his other melee attacks more often, and in all phases, would make the fight more interesting.

WoRsploit on the other hand is something that needs to be fixed, and should’ve been a higher priority than fixing necrid bolt. It shouldn’t be possible to take off 75% of a boss’ health with one skill. This goes for coordinated feedback also. I don’t think they should make his attacks unblockable, but make it so it takes little damage from his own attacks.

Lastly, while making Lupi a tougher fight is good in that it makes all Arah explorable paths harder, I think they need to look into making the other Arah bosses better… Maybe give Ancient Ooze a rapid fire projectile attack (or allow it to use the attack that it uses when it splits, throughout the whole fight, as an additional attack), and place a dozen risen illusionists on the safespot, and any safespots discovered in the future. I’ve gotten into the habit of luring those 4 risen at the start of the room after Ancient Ooze to the safespot, in case anyone gets the idea to try to safespot my “NO EXPLOITS” lfg discription group. Tar will already be getting more interesting when the burning changes come. But, I think the end bosses especially need to be modified to be much tougher.

Rainmaker.7594:

Maybe give Ancient Ooze a rapid fire projectile attack (or allow it to use the attack that it uses when it splits, throughout the whole fight, as an additional attack), and place a dozen risen illusionists on the safespot

You are aware that if they wanted to put mobs on all of the Ooze safespots they’d need to fill its entire leash range with mobs, right?

You can literally safespot AFK kill Ooze from anywhere, lol.

Bumping

This issue still needs to be addressed. By addressed, I mean a quote saying “Yes this was intended/No this was not intended, expect a fix in 2 years.”

Rainmaker.7594:

I agree with Wethospu. Necrid bolt hitting in melee isn’t a bug, but its a bug fix.

But see the problem I have with this claim is that the people who designed Lupicus obviously had to test him in all phases before releasing him. Surely they would have tested his swipe by going in melee range to see what happens, and had any ranged autoattacks happened they would have noticed it and probably made them hit before releasing it to begin with… if that is what they intended that is.

That never happened and Lupicus has gone on for years with his autoattack having a minimum range, so regardless of whether or not it makes more sense for him not to use the attack if it won’t hit you, I don’t see how this could be a bug fix.

I also sincerely doubt they intentionally changed anything with Lupicus. If they wanted to make his autoattacks hit in melee out of the blue like that then surely they had some time on their hands. Why wouldn’t they also make sure his teleport skills + bubble work as intended while they were at it? Why did they choose not to do anything about the wall on wall ’sploit?

Same reason they fixed the wp in p1&2, but didn’t fix the same extra wp showing up in p3&4. I don’t know what that reason is though. Let’s also keep in mind that they only address dungeons a couple times a year – I don’t expect to see any other changes until HoT.

I would say there was a little bug with projectile tracking algorithm which made it calculate height difference incorrectly. In most cases projectiles start from the same height or have long distance so a minor overshoot doesn’t matter. But with Lupicus projectiles always have a height difference. Closer you are, more dominant that height difference becomes.

Then they probably made a tall/huge enemy in HoT and noticed something is wrong. But this is all speculation.

Dunno Rainmaker because it’s fairly easy for the extra waypoints to go unnoticed in my opinion. I didn’t start noticing them until months into doing Arah daily, long long ago until one day after I waypointed I saw two tar waypoints.

Lupicus on the other hand… it’d be pretty difficult not to notice something wrong with his autoattack missing in melee range had it been intended to all along. I dunno. That part still is weird to me

@Wethospu – Ah, actually that sounds like it was very likely to be the case. Speculation or not it was a pretty good explanation.

You very well may be right :P

Hey Lauren, it’s been about a month since we’ve heard from ya. Anything new to report from your side of the wall?

Thanks again for doing what you can to help us out, it’s very appreciated.

(This isn’t directed at either Gaile or Lauren, but feel free to put it in one of those emails you send out. Maybe hearing about how this affects customer perception of the company will make your poking more forceful?)

Seeing how situations like this are handled are all we have to gauge how the HoT content will be maintained. At this point, even if HoT launches with content I’d like to play, I have pretty much zero confidence that the content will be supported or maintained post release.

We’re just asking for some simple information. Was it intentional, and do you plan to revert it?

If these simple questions cannot be answered months after an undocumented change in behavior manifests, that’s a problem. Aetherpath was released, flopped, and ignored. Alphard was broken, and no one at ArenaNet ever even acknowledged the problem, much less let their paying customers know what was happening. It was just randomly fixed out of nowhere about 6 months later. Waypoints wouldn’t spawn in Arah path 1 for years. The personal story had chunks missing and episodes out of orders which led to massive continuity issues, and this wasn’t even acknowledged for something like what, 8 months?

These aren’t small, one-off bugs. These are significant defects in your product that get ignored for long periods of time.

Why should we expect HoT content to be any different?

If you want 3 year old + content to tide us over, be the stuff we occupy our time with, then it should be treated as such. This is not some little quirk in a level 30 personal story mission, this is (one of) the most iconic boss encounters in the game, and something many dungeon players encounter as part of their daily routine. Having a significant balance change like this come in undocumented, it warrants some explanation. Even if its just “This was an unintended side-effect of some tweaking we did to projectile tracking on larger enemies in HoT, but in the case of Lupicus we feel the change was for the better.”

As above this is not targeted Gaile or Lauren, but the people who are preventing them from talking on this issue. So they can understand how little we are asking communication wise, and why its an important issue to us.

Another quiet reminder that this issue still needs to be addressed, please and thank you =)

laokoko.7403:

If it isn’t about solos, why are people even complaining about arah.

Because bugs should be fixed. Big or small, breaking or no. Not every bug warrants the effort and cost, but ideally all SHOULD be fixed.

Sariel V.7024:

laokoko.7403:

If it isn’t about solos, why are people even complaining about arah.

Because bugs should be fixed. Big or small, breaking or no. Not every bug warrants the effort and cost, but ideally all SHOULD be fixed.

And for many of us, it’s not even about seeing the behavior reverted. We’d just like to see ArenaNet at least let us know if they intend to revert it or not.

This just shouldn’t take months….

Necrid Bolt still needs to be fixed…

This still needs to be fixed.

(Maybe pre-purchasing the HoT ULTIMATE edition will fix it?)

ivoboon.2034:

This still needs to be fixed.

(Maybe pre-purchasing the HoT ULTIMATE edition will fix it?)

Well since we are purchasing the base game again….can we at least get the bugs fixed in it?

Nyx.7342:

ivoboon.2034:

This still needs to be fixed.

(Maybe pre-purchasing the HoT ULTIMATE edition will fix it?)

Well since we are purchasing the base game again….can we at least get the bugs fixed in it?

No, since you get the base game again, you get twice the bugs.

Lauren Kamieniecki.6245:

Actually I didn’t mean that sarcastically, well the “dot dot dot” part is but that’s more me stuck working in the system and not directed to anyone on the forums.

I have been poking about this fix for a month now or so internally now. Been asking to get someone in here to talk to everyone about this bug and what’s up with it but as of yet no dice. I am doing everything I can to get this resolved or some explanations for you guys.

But yeah, I have some extremely tied hands and poking with my poking stick is about all I can do because I don’t control development or production schedules or design decisions. I do take screenshots of comments and paste them into some internal emails though… And the # of live reports, and the forum links, etc. I can make a huge ruckus when it’s needed, but in general everything I do is behind the scenes and I don’t take credit or spill the beans on what occurred to get it to that point.

While I have all the answers, really I am the next thing to a walking encyclopedia of the GW2 bug DB at any time, I can’t really go around shouting what is happening one way or the other because it can change daily… and letting some things I know be known would probably result in my not working for ArenaNet anymore. That’s something that would be kinda poopy and I would like that not to happen, so I avoid it and instead just say slightly nebulous things like “soon” when I see a fix coming for the next release. One day that “soon” will have some real intent behind it. Today actually seems like a good day to “soon” some threads so…

Also yes, reading and responding on the forums is not actually part of my job. I got to a point where I just really didn’t like how you guys felt ignored in this forum and I’m trying to do something about it. I tend to only post positively and I won’t respond to all threads.

tl;dr I will keep fighting the good fight on your behalf.

I like you, will you marry me?

I think we need to replace her poking stick with a whacking stick

If that doesn’t work, we can start adding nails.

laokoko.7403:

So I have no idea, how so many pros get stuck on LUPI now in 5 man group.

I agree, there are people that still solo Arah even with Lupi’s melee bolt. Its still possible to solo Lupi, On the other hand, you have people saying the game is too easy too casual. So, I can see why its difficult to balance the two extremes. Too challenging people don’t want to do content and not challenging enough..people will leave calling the game casual.