Guild Wars 2

First of all, this isn’t just some angry rant. Or it kinda is, but I waited long enough to be absolutely sure this wasn’t just some one-time thing. You know what they say: “Once is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern.” Meaning if it happens once, it’s just an accident. If it happens twice in a row, it’s a weird coincidence, but if it happens three or more times in a row, there’s more too it than that. So after over a week with the same thing happening over and over again? Definitely a pattern.

So what am I talking about? Insane enemy respawn rates. Two of the biggest issues are these:

1. I fight a single enemy. Just one. There is only one enemy there. There is no way there can be a second enemy there. The enemy I fight runs out of hitpoints, gets the die-animation, and I loot the corpse. Then I turn around… and two seconds later, I’m attacked from behind with an enemy with very few hitpoints left. I am 100% sure I only fought one enemy, and I even looted its corpse, so where did this other enemy come from? And why does it only have a couple of hitpoints left? My best guess? The enemy somehow had regeneration, and the regen gave it a few hitpoints after it “died”, making it come back to life. Sounds strange, but this has happened so often with so many types of enemies that it’s not a coincidence, or a simple bug. There’s a pattern here. Something is bringing these enemies back to life. Too bad I can’t loot them twice, though.

2. Fighting two enemies at once? You’ll be here for a while. Simply because I kill one enemy, then fight the other, then fight the first enemy all over again. It simply respawns after a couple of seconds, and often during the fight. Hell, there have been an occasion where an enemy respawns while I’m looking at its corpse. Either the first one respawned nearly before it died, or a second enemy spawned out of the blue half a second after the first one died. Either way, it’s ridiculous.

There are more issues with enemy respawn rates I don’t like, but these two are by far the worst. I rarely even fight just one enemy at a time anymore, as a second (and often third, fourth and fifth…) spawn out of the blue during the fight. Call me crazy if you want, but this is something quite recent. My lvl 80 Mesmer, lvl 50 Guardian and lvl 41 Warrior never had any issues with this. It’s something I’ve experienced only the last two or three weeks. Plus, I’m trying to level up every class to 40 to get rare gear, so I stick mostly to the lower-level areas. I can’t even blame higher level areas for this.

So that raises the question: What is going on here? Are you guys noticing the same thing?

Do you have a specific enemy as example? Never seen this. On my Necro I usually gather up 10ish mobs (if there are that many) and wellbomb them in a couple of secs. They dont come back. Unless I want them too.

These respawn bugs exist as long as i play the game.

I haven’t noticed any change in enemy respawn rates. I haven’t noticed any foes suddenly returning from life with a few hit points.

Where are you seeing this? I’m sure plenty of us armchair coaches on the forums would be willing to get out into the field to try to confirm your observations, if you tell us how we might go about replicating your experience.

It could be a client-server communication issue.

mtpelion.4562:

It could be a client-server communication issue.

Yes, that could explain the symptoms:

• OP’s computer thinks foe is in location X, reports a hit at that location; foe dies.
• Server thinks foe is in location Y, reports a miss.
• Client talks to Server and realizes, “oops, better fix that” and reports (correctly) that the foe is still alive.

Well, good news is this thread was moved to the Bug-section, so I guess it’s a bug. IIf it helps, this is especially a problem with my gun/shield Engineer.

As for specific example, I could give you lots of them, as it happens all the time. Most recently, though, is the bandit camp in the north-east of Brisbane Highlands. You know, the “run past raptors to get to bandit camp” heart event. I somehow finished that event, but nearly gave up. A few reasons why:

1. I ran past two raptors on the way there. Just two. When I ran back, I was chased by three raptors and two spiders, as well as the six bandits that followed me from the camp. I had to run all the way into the friendly camp before the enemies gave up chasing me.

2. I could clearly see a bandit standing all alone in an open field, so I took a potshot at him. Two seconds later, I was surrounded by six (!) enemies, including one from behind. How he could possibly have gotten there without me noticing is beyond me. Keep in mind this was an open area, and I didn’t get past any bandits on the way there. One lone enemy? Nope, here are six of them. Sigh…

3. The best one, though? I fought a bandit on top of a hill, near some tents. For whatever reason, the bandit disappeared for a while, and a second appeared. We had a nice fight, but I eventually got killed – only for the first enemy (still with very few hitpoints left) coming out of the tent to fight me. He had literally been hiding in the tent until I died (or was laying on the ground, anyway), then he decided to finish me off.

A new notes, though. As I’m an engineer with a gun and shield, I do have a few skills that attacks several enemies. Shield bounce, gunshot bounce, grenade field, those things. But I was aware that they are AoE-skills, so I’ve tried to use them as little as possible, just to make sure I didn’t hit any other enemies by accident. They still keep on coming. In the bandit camp, my tactic was find the nearest enemy, shoot him until he died, then run away from the other enemies who spawned during the fight. It never failed. Whether there were one or three enemies at the start of the fight didn’t matter. There were always six or more by the end of the fight. Where they came from is beyond me.

And yes, this could in theory be a client-side problem, but it’s mainly a problem with the Engineer. My mesmer, guardian and warrior never had this issue, and they are all high level. If it was a client side problem, this should have been a big deal with these three as well, but it’s not.

My solution so far? Stop playing the engineer and try a new class. Sucks as I love the engineer, but I love a bug-free game more, so…

Short story: this doesn’t sound like a bug. I think you are just running into normal spawning, summoning, localized foe behavior and getting swarmed. Everything you’ve described so far happens often outside of the L1-15 zones.

What build are you running? Could it be that you’ve dropped a turret that aggros foes from farther away than you expect?

Detailed responses to some of your comments:

BattleCat.2098:

Well, good news is this thread was moved to the Bug-section, so I guess it’s a bug. IIf it helps, this is especially a problem with my gun/shield Engineer.

It was moved to the ‘bug’ forum because of your description, not because the forum moderator agreed (or disagreed) about whether you were accurately identifying a coding issue in the game or something else.

BattleCat.2098:

1. I ran past two raptors on the way there. Just two.

Some foes will spawn others. Some will call out to others in the area. And still other times, other players have killed off foes ahead of you and those foes respawn at the worst times.

BattleCat.2098:

2. I could clearly see a bandit standing all alone in an open field, so I took a potshot at him. Two seconds later, I was surrounded by six (!) enemies,

Same as above. Just because you only saw a single bandit doesn’t mean s/he was the only one nearby. In Brisbane especially, bandits seem to be hiding in bushes waiting for you to try to pick them off, which they use as an excuse to gank you.

BattleCat.2098:

3. The best one, though? I fought a bandit on top of a hill, near some tents. For whatever reason, the bandit disappeared for a while, and a second appeared.

That, too, doesn’t sound that unusual.

BattleCat.2098:

And yes, this could in theory be a client-side problem, but it’s mainly a problem with the Engineer. My mesmer, guardian and warrior never had this issue, and they are all high level. If it was a client side problem, this should have been a big deal with these three as well, but it’s not.

You’re right that, if you never experienced this with other professions, it’s unlikely to be related to client|server issues.

I don’t have a good explanation as to why you experience this with engineer and not your other 3 profs. I’ve played all four in Brisbane and I also had a harder time with engineer. Then again, I’m terrible at playing engineer, so maybe that was why.

Thanks. As I said, I have a gun and shield, so there are a few AoE-skills that could draw more enemies. But I’ve been very aware of this, so I’ve avoided using those skills, to make sure I’m only fighting one at a time. Or at least, I’ve been trying to get one at a time. Or less than five at a time, anyway. And no, I don’t use turrets. I use the occasional minefield, but that’s it.

As for enemies spawning others and/or calling for help, that doesn’t explain things either, sadly. I’ve been to that part in Brisbane many times with many characters, and it has never been an issue. Furthermore, what about Skrittburg, where there are no places for anyoen to hide? Take a destroyer, for instance. I could clearly see there were just one destroyer. There were nowhere else for anyone to hide, and no destroyers close enough to help out. Even so, when I attacked it, I was quickly surrounded by seven destroyers. I killed one, then was left with only eight more… This isn’t even a one-time thing. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve decided to quit playing the engineer entirely, and are considering taking a break from the game, and hope the issue is solved the next time I play.

In fact, I said in the first post that I’ve deliberately waited to make this post, so I would be 100% sure this isn’t just something I’m imagening. I’m not making any of this up, and it’s not a rage-quit post. I’ve done my research, and I’m calm when writing this.

There is a situation in this game where it will have an area that will be coded to have for example 5 enemies but only 3 spawn points, so enemies instantly or quickly respawn (even behind you) as you clear them out, but not infinitely. This may be some of what you’re seeing.

BattleCat.2098:

In fact, I said in the first post that I’ve deliberately waited to make this post, so I would be 100% sure this isn’t just something I’m imagening. I’m not making any of this up, and it’s not a rage-quit post. I’ve done my research, and I’m calm when writing this.

I wasn’t trying to suggest that you were making stuff up. I’m trying to suggest there are other possibilities besides a change to the game’s mechanics or a bug. Destroyers in Brisbane and also in Lornar’s will spawn rapidly in certain spots and not in others. I notice more on some characters because I’m slower killing off the first set or slower running past.

Of course, it’s possible that something has changed and that it’s relatively subtle, so folks such as myself aren’t able to replicate your experience.

I went back to the game today on my Engineer, to see if things were any different. I went to Skrittburgh, where you are supposed to fight the destroyers. It went like this:

- I could see two spiders ahead, so I fought both at once. Easy peasy.

- A couple of steps ahead, I saw another spider. I took a shot at it… then got attacked from behind from another spider. It had just fought two spiders there, so where could the third one (the one from behind) possibly have come from?

- I tried to revive some NPC a few seconds later… and got attacked by a spider. And seconds later, another spider appeared.

- After killing them, I went back to reviving the NPC. Then got attacked by two spiders after a few seconds.

- Having killed those two spiders, I decided to head back. Then… got attacked from behind. By three spiders.

This is just ridiculous. This wasn’t an issue on the mesmer, guardian or warrior (in the same area, at the same level), so I’ll just assume it’s an engineer bug. Guess I’ll just have to try a new class. Oh, well.