Guild Wars 2

It’s the same cost for everyone.

Stay in the PvE to save money farming DEs and whatever else, then move to WvWvW. Don’t go there with nothing. I went after saving 10g. I could make 1g – 1.5g a day (anyone at 80 really should be able) then so I was ready in a week.

Not to mention you’re going to need cash for upgrade, siege plans, all the stuff.

Die less in WvWvW. Admittedly with the invisible characters/rendering issues this is even harder to achieve, but that’s a broken aspect of the game that will be fixed and affects everyone who plays, including your enemies.

I read forums, blogs whatever about people playing in WvWvW. I learn how to die less.

A great way to die less is to not get isolated when there’s a group and stick right in the heart or to the back of the zerg. If there’s a mass enemy zerg there’s nothing you can do, except maybe pre-empt it and run away.

If you do stick with the zerg and you take over camps, keeps, garrisons and/or defend them, some of these can drop you big silver in one hit. So stick with them or commanders.

It takes a certain amount of skill to keep an eye on the chatlog, an eye on the map to see where your group is and an eye on your skills/pet/whatever else. However, if I can do it, you can too. Once you’ve mastered that, you’ll die significantly less.

There’s not many people I speak to that complain about this aspect of the game. I think the fees are fair. Maybe slightly less, but nothing drastic.

TL;DR Save up some gold. Die less. Stay with the zerg until you’re confident to roam alone or in small groups. Learn your role perfectly. Learn how to multitask looking at lots of different sources of information, so you can fight, see where your allies/enemies are and see the map. Die Less = Lower repair costs.

Good luck.

EDIT: Like tkalamba says above you also accrue battle tokens in WvWvW. They can be used for other purchases that could take away the burden on your financial resources.

Everyone on this thread seems to have not mentioned emotes.

/dance (on your head), /laugh at your corpse or the worst /sit (teabag) your head – can be very demoralizing after you were hounded across a zone by a 20+ mob as an idividual. I do accept it’s part of the game and just get up, brush myself off and get on with it.

It is war we’re talking about here, after all. Don’t expect people to be nice.

So yes, you can goad and be “greify” to people, just there’s a layer of anonymity added.

I do rememer what people look like and stand out “killers” or “leaders” of the oppo look like and yes I constantly have mini vendettas with enemies every day.

I do run into the same people on a daily basis.

If someone uses ingenious (thieves aside as they’re broken) methods or tactics, stealth, cunning, whatever to beat me, then I just grimace and tip my hat to him.

I make myself hard to kill and I respect anyone who can take me out.

Server and personal rivalries do exist and if I see an enemy colour and they’re isolated or I think I can take them – IT’S ON – and I do feel that mob mentality. It’s almost an impossible urge to resist. I love it! I also realise people will feel this against me.

Such a shame I can’t effing see anyone to respect them anymore. I am blind now in WvW and ANet don’t seem to want to fix it.

Ok, not going OT here .

TL;DR Expect rivalry. It’s war. Idiots exist everywhere. You can grief with emotes.

WvW is the only reason I log in.

I am leaving if this isn’t fixed.

Thanks.

Yours Sincerely, Everyone.

Gerik.8096:

tolunart.2095:

Gerik.8096:

Lol at the DR vs Time arguement…yes that is what a DR system IS…you get DIMINISHING returns the LONGER you play…
Now some people look at this and say “UNFAIR!! You are not rewarding my efforts!” Well, they are…just with diminishing returns…but these are also the same people complaining that they can’t play their “way” and that if they wanna ruin their lives (and the game) grinding the same dungeon for 18 hours a day they should be allowed to when really they just have too much free time on their hands and don’t realize that when reward is proportional to time spent and time is a colossal figure reward is blown massively out of proportion.
..

Traditional MMO: Time spent in game = $$$ given by players to MMO company.

B2P MMO: Time spent in game = $$$ spent on upkeep by game company.

There is nothing inherent in GW2 that makes it attractive for Arenanet to give you reasons to log more hours in their game than any other game on the market.

The cash shop means that there ARE reasons to create a more interesting world to interact with so that you are encouraged to buy gems to do more things in the game.

People are used to the “keep them logged in as long as possible” mindset, and changing your focus is a lot easier for someone like me, who doesn’t want to play that way anyway, than someone who embraces it wholly.

Arenanet tried to create an expansive, interesting world that players can continue to interact with long after reaching level cap. What happened was a minority of players rushed through this world and said “ok, I’m 80, where’s my raid?”

The rest of us are enjoying the journey. The gamble comes when we find out if there are enough of us to support the game and expand it after the first group gets bored and leaves.

So…someone is actually agreeing with me?
I think you’re right when you say Anet is not following the “keep them logged in as long as possible” mindset. They are certainly not a company that’s interested in keeping everyone playing for as long as possible simply to make money off them. When viewed on a day-to-day basis those players logging thousands of hours more than any other player doesn’t help Anet…unless he’s also spending thousands of real dollars on gems, but the servers will still be running (hopefully) for years from now. Like you said, and I can’t agree with you more on this point, the players who have already “beaten” the game are a minority and probably the same bunch of kids who stormed through Diablo III in less than a week then ruined the game’s rep by whining about it so much on forums and through every form of media they could get their grubby hands on that it went belly up in just a month.
They probably came from 4chan.

Lucky lucky tolunart. Looks like you’ve made a buddy buddy there!

Happy days!

SMH

Enola B Twenty Nine.2631:

I have not been on this forum since launch. Been having too much fun in the game. Lots of bugs, I just move on to something else. Still a lot of areas and things to do that are not bugged. My guild stays full and our sister guild of a similar name with same tag just keeps growing. The complaints i see in guild chat are bug related and most people seem to be having fun still.
On friday i crafted my exotic ranger armour. I spent about 12 gold on stuff off the BLTC, though this was money from playing the game. Little organised farming has been done except i have run mine/log/harvesting nodes at times. I have two level 80’s which is probably why i have so many crafting materials as well.
The point of this is, i know about nerfing of drops, and I do notice it, but I am completely blown away by some of the hate I see due to it. I am very surprised as I don’t really have any issues, and i don’t see the same levels of frustration that some of you are facing.

If you haven’t read the rest of the forum to see how the frustration isn’t even slighty restricted to those posting in this thread and if you didn’t read that DR and botting are inextricably linked then I can’t help you if you don’t understand when you didn’t inform yourself.

You don’t have a problem =/= No one else has a legitimate problem.

You and your guild is having fun =/= Everyone else is having fun.

As has been said ad infinitum.

I’ll post right here all the quotes I can find about guild numbers drying up alarmingly, for other people. I’ve got them here if you’d like to see them.

I’m glad you have such a lovely unaffected gaming experience. I’d like to have that too. I’m jealous, if anything.

From reading the forum and talking to people it would appear to me you’re in the minorty.

Read and see for yourself or don’t and stay uninformed. That’s your choice.

Moreover, if you’re purposely ingnoring the bots then I don’t know what else to say.

You must be 80 with your Exotic gear and all and if you can’t see the DEs in Cursed Shore is a massive massive problem than you can’t have been there recently.

“Don’t stay in the Cursed Shore area” is not a valid argument to this. It’s an open world where people should be able to stay and visit where they want, when they want if they’ve earned it.

Cribbage.2056:

Ronin.8095:

I quoted you as I agreed that we need to stop “playstyle” discussions and forcing other people to bend to our will when it comes to playing a game. It’s not a good idea. You’re right.

I then went on to discuss the method and pitfalls of DR (there are no merits.)

I also talked about how it’s relevant to botting and how the two are inextricably linked.

If you don’t like me quoting you to agree with you and elborate on your point and add other points of my own, I don’t have to. If that’ll make you feel better.

I didn’t say you either opposed or supported it and frankly, I don’t really care.

Didn’t say I didn’t like it, I said it wasn’t sure why you did it. You could have explained and left it at that. Sometimes people just want to discuss things with you and are not looking for a fight. I know, GASP right?

As for your view of the merits, I disagree. A well implemented DR system could pave the way for a game without bots or farming, which is the game I would like to play in.

Your comments about method I do agree with. It seems this incarnation of DR is either (depending on who you believe) hurting the botters but also hurting the players, or hurting the players and just forcing the botters to bot a different way.

Bottom line is, the DR we have today is not satisfactory. We probably only disagree on how dis-satisfactory it is.

Can you stop interpereting literally everything I say as someone wanting to pick a fight with you.

You seems to have issues with people who “just want to discuss things with you”.

You seem to not be congniscent of what a fight is.

I’ve not been angry or losing my cool at any stage. I pride myself in that. I try to remain cool and collected and put my point across reasonably.

If you’d like to point out where I’ve been picking a fight with you, I’ll gladly address what you perceive as aggression on my part. You won’t find anything though.

I’m not tryng to do that and I’m not exhibiting the properties of someone who is trying to pick a fight.

I answered the question you asked me. I don’t have to do that. If you’re going to react like I’m trying to antagonize you every time I do try to talk to you then I’ll just stop.

People simply answering you, even if they’re agreeing or disagreeing with you, does not a fight make. I call it discourse.

You’re too hyper-sensitive and that makes me not wan’t to dicuss with you in fear of upsetting you and making you thinkg I’m attacking you.

I’m not. I’m not trying to attack anyone.

I like to think I state my case in an articulate way.

I could fling monkey poo around if you’d prefer I did that. I prefer to be stable and sane if that’s all the same with you!

If people want be touchy about everything I can’t help that.

T o R u S.6325:

The best way to resolve this issue is REPORT all devious activitys, i do all the time every two or three days i usually get someone spamming me to buy gold ect, i just hit report it takes a few seconds then leave it to admins to resolve it. if we all did it who knows we might just beat them..

Wrong in just about every way. That complacency is damaging.

People are reporting and are even telling you in this thread that it’s massively ineffectual.

What. You. Are. Suggesting. Does. Not. Work.

That’s the very point of this thread. If you’d read any of the posts, you’d know that.

They are seeing the same bots they reported (upto) 4 weeks ago. I’ve seen bots on the 3 servers I have been that have been there for over 2 weeks.

There’s no possible way the reporting system works.

Sure reports are sent, but from what I can see, no staff from ANet can be logging into to the game to check on what it’s like.

If they were, they’d be shocked. I can only assume they take the current data on bots based on the reporting we give them.

There’s no way they’ve seen what it’s like. I would not allow for that to stand in my game. Not the kind of infestation I’ve seen here. It’s far worse than any other title I’ve played at this point.

Your average gamer isn’t conscientious with regard to bot reporting like you. Most people are actually apathetic. They don’t care and don’t report.

It doesn’t work and if they proceed with this highly ineffectual system and just ask us what’s happening and don’t actually go in-game to see, well then they’ll only have themselves to blame when the problem gets worse.

Task force with real eyes on the game and the ability to ban on the spot. Or lots of bots.

There’s no middle ground.

A task force takes money, time, effort, hiring. However if you can’t find a budget for this after 2,000,000 box sales and daily in-game store sales then you’re a laughing stock in my book.

RMT is not new to gaming. It’s been here for a long time. To not have any real and effective way of dealing with the problem, in this gaming climate, is a massive oversight on ANet’s part.

Lol, report them. You didn’t even read anything here did you?

I quoted you as I agreed that we need to stop “playstyle” discussions and forcing other people to bend to our will when it comes to playing a game. It’s not a good idea. You’re right.

I then went on to discuss the method and pitfalls of DR (there are no merits.)

I also talked about how it’s relevant to botting and how the two are inextricably linked.

If you don’t like me quoting you to agree with you and elborate on your point and add other points of my own, I don’t have to. If that’ll make you feel better.

I didn’t say you either opposed or supported it and frankly, I don’t really care.

Cribbage.2056:

If you want the rules to work one way and I want them to work another, one of us is going to lose out.

So, if I want a game with DR and you want a game without DR, one of us is not going to get what we want. At that point, it’s not helpful to start telling me I’ve “dictated the way you play” because the only way to get what YOU want is to dictate the sort of game I am playing in to me.

So we need to keep this discussion on the merits and methods of DR, and try to leave out all the “Stop telling me how to play” comments, which are redundant.

I’ve seen a few posts saying they don’t mind DR and really I suppose I actually fall into that category myself.

It doesn’t affect me if I circumvent or play in a way I don’t want to. I can get around it, yes.

The problem is, it’s not that simple. The DR is the reason bots are in DEs right now.
I don’t see how you could deny this.

Either way, how many times do I have to say read your own forums for cases of people actually being ‘punished’ by the DR system and just how bad the bot problem is getting.

The argument, forums aren’t a representation of the gaming community’s opinion is the argument of someone with no argument left to give. It’s the last resort. Like invoking Hitler.

Infact, it is, exactly a representation of exactly what’s happening to gamers and their opinions. Seeing as they are posting their experiences.

I’ve bothered to quote people in this thread, even if you can’t be bothered to read for yourself.

When you read (and I mean extensively read) the problems I have, that are multitudinous, you can’t avoid it. It’s right there – in black and white.

If you choose to ignore this, so be it. It won’t make the problems go away and the the voices will get more numerous and loud.

It’s that kind of bury-your-head-in-the-sand and make-it-all-go-away attitudes that end up having the worst effects.

It’ll get to a stage that the damage starts to get too great and can’t be reversed. Mainly because everyone’s choosing to look and not see the massive pink elephant in the room.

The dainty little arguments about play style should stop, you’re quite right.

There’s infinitely more pressing problems than how other people want to play this game.

How about being able to actually play the game before I apply any style to it? How about I’m allowed to do that?

And no I don’t mean farm at break-neck speed, have a legendary yesterday and get my T3 Cultural g-string – I mean I’d like to enter a DE in the Cursed Shore area that isn’t totally infested with bots.

Telling me to just move from that area, go explore or leave the game entirely isn’t a reply I’ll even bother warranting with a response.

It’s part of the game I should be allowed to play. I’d take it with the DR right now.

The fact is, on the 3 servers I have tried, I can’t.

I won’t log in until this is fixed.

People seem to continuously accuse me of wanting the game to fail. You can be a critic and genuinely have the game’s best interests at heart.

The reason I talk so much about it, is because I really like what it’s trying to do.

The other reason is that I’ve seen big titles die in months. More than once. The signs you have here right now with bots and their impact on the game, is getting very serious.

The DR and botting will change, whether you tiny remainder of supporters want it or not. One causes the other and makes the problem worse right now.

If you want to tackle botting, you’re going to have to tackle DR.

^I’ve done some research and I agree.

tolunart.2095:

The game is set up to support my style of play.

The game is not set up to support min/max style of play.

If you want to play min/max you will be disappointed.

I’m not telling you that you can’t do it, I’m telling you that you will be disappointed with the results.

And I’m telling you it’s going to have to change as you won’t have a game left to play.

ravinhood.3981:

Vizier.3164:

And thats just awesome, cause i currently have only 3 days a week that i can really play (farm). And after just an hour of farming in orr i am getting screwed with DR… :@
How is that fair? Dusk is on the kitten TP for 150gold! Do you want me to buy gold from the bots or something? Cause i am sure as hell not spending my money on gems unless they go down in price, allot.

You get rid of bots by making gems so cheap that its no longer worth for them to bot. Now you are just screwing your playerbase.

I am rather annoyed and bored with this game right now, witch is really ashame, its been a great start, but after getting a full t3 cultural gear set, and doing world completion, now what am i supposed to do?
Dont like pvp, cant play wvw cause obviously you dont like my amd cpu, wont do dungeons cause i keep getting the permanent dr bug, cant even dream of affording a legendary… :@

So now what?

/rant over

Ummm you could stop playing so much. An hour a day at most, wait a week an only play on the weekends a few hours 3 max. I’ve been playing since the start and I’m still only level 38. More fun taking it slow and enjoying the ride instead of pressing the gas peddle to the floor at 100mph or more.

Umm, you could stop telling me how quickly or slowly I play the game. Not everyone experiences or wants to experience a game the way you do.

To push the way you play on other people, is never a good idea.

If you want to take it at a leisurely pace. That’s fine. I’m not going to tell you to change. I’d appreciate if you left my style of play alone too.

All these critiques on “playstyle” take a backseat to the massive problems that are in the game.

All evidence of this is right here in this forum. If you’re all too lazy to dig these examples out, I can do it for you! This post is going to get very long, very fast with quotations from other gamers.

“Playstyle” is the least of everyone’s concerns and is just a distraction.

Take a look at the real issues. It’s also your game they’re affecting.

tolunart.2095:

If you don’t like the way I play, I couldn’t care less. It’s my game.

So that’s applicable for you, but not for other people is it? From what I can read from your replies here, when I say that, I’m wrong. You push this point home and it’s fine is it?

See this kind of imbalance makes it nearly impossible to have a reasoned discussion with people about the game.

It’s one rule for you and one rule for others.

I could say exactly what you said there and easily use it to defend my position to play any way I see fit and not be punished for it.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. READ. YOUR. OWN. FORUMS.

It is affecting lots of people in very innocent ways, none of which is to do with “playstyle” or any of these other smoke and mirrors you want to try to put up.

All you’re doing is deflecting away from the real problems.

Bots are proliferating. Destroying the DE environment. People are started to get annoyed and not just annoyed – voiciferous with their annoyance.

Acknowledge there is a problem and you might be able to fix it.

Or carry on being deluded and end up having a gaming that literally is “just for you.”

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

But if a game causes problems only when you foist your own style of play upon it, is it not you that’s causing the problems and not the game?

The game is a somewhat rigid structure – it doesn’t change very often, and when it does it requires a lot of effort on the part of Anet to do so. Changing one’s play style, on the other hand, requires little effort and in the end results in a lot less foolishness like this thread and the whole kerfuffle over DR, which I have yet to experience, being level 80.

I’m not trying to do anything different than I’ve done in 10+ years. Anyway, my point is that I refuse to play the game, not really because of the DR, mainly as DEs are infested with bots.

The argument “which I have yet to experience” is a very redundant one when this forum and the whole bug forum is full of innocent people, with innocent play styles being unfairly punished in PvE, Dungeons, WvWvW. I’ll cite the 50+ genuine posts if you really want me to.

Or you could read yourself. You can’t have done that or this wouldn’t be your response.

Just because something it not happening to you does not mean it’s not happenig to other people.

I don’t have AIDS. It doesn’t mean there isn’t an AIDS epidemic in South Africa affecting greater than 5% of the population, does it?

It’s nothing at all to do with play style and, why oh why, is everyone trying to alter my playstyle? Could you please stop?

I’ll play as quickly, as statically, as hardcore, as softcore, as frenetically, as lazily as I want. I should always have this option.

The last problem ANet has is my playstyle. In their attempts to curb my playstyle or alter it, they’ve really implement some ideas that have damaging and lasting effects on the game.

It’s definitely not me doing that. I’m not even playing.

The DR really doesn’t affect me that badly. It has affected me. With a little application I can circumvent these problems, but there … right there… having to circumvent? That’s never good. Anyway, I won’t really going into the DR thing in great detail anymore as it’s not a small amount of people saying it’s an issue.

Those for DR and in a very tiny minority and are make a very bad argument for its inclusion. Namely saying we’re to blame for the inclusion of things like DR.

Gehenna.3625:

Snip

Sure, Gehenna, tell us what we all want. I’ve always wondered what I’ve wanted as a gamer and now I have you to tell me.

Aren’t I the lucky one!

Open your eyes read the forums and see that the game is heading in a really bad direction fast.

Or don’t and continue on this delusional path you seem to want to go down. It’s not going to end well.

It’s kitten comments like these from my fellow users that really start to concern me.

Botting is ridiculous at this point – I’m not just seeing it in the usual areas, like Cursed Shore, but in the beginning areas as well. Queensdale has an entire crop of bots, including multi-box bots, that are not just making it difficult to participate in dynamic events, but are also destroying any possibility of using the Trading Post to make money in-game.

Between bots flooding the TP and TP hackers pounding it with buy orders, it’s getting to the point where it’s nearly impossible for a human to play the game and succeed. They’re killing your game.

Bots I’ve observed and reported continue, day after day, to show up and perform their repetitive damage. Without quick and decisive action, your game is going to be slowly dismantled, as bots will make it impossible for humans to play competitively – I’ve watched other games grind to a halt for months because of botting, like Aion.

Please, you need to step up your response time. A bot can do significant harm in this game in a matter of hours – you can’t take days to respond.

(Taken from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/page/5)

That is just one of many.

Go and read for yourself. Do it. You’ll learn something. If you can’t see it game yourself then you’re not wanting to see it. You’re wilfully ingorning it, which is equally as damaging.

It’s not going to go away so coming up with small band-aid fixes like “put more effort in to do more events” is not helpful in any way.

You want to play with this mess, go head, that’s fine.

You’ll find the rest of the community won’t be there for much longer with you.

I can say now ANet are the worst development studio, I’ve ever paid money to, at dealing with RMT.

No preparation (DR came after release) and no fore-thought whatsoever about creating a game that was tough for bots to capitalize upon.

I don’t understand how any of this was allowed to happen in the first place. I don’t understand at all.

Again, I encourage you to read your own forums. It makes for some very eye-opening revelations.

Go ahead, say I’m alarmist, say it’s not a serious issue now. Say it’s not getting worse. Continue to deny everything. You’re only making it much worse and encouraging ANet not to act swiftly.

Smackjack.5071:

THIS EXACTLY.
What SUCCESSFUL game currently on the market has an Anti-bot-code that effects normal players for playing the game? Is innovating the industry implementing a system that clearly does little to stop the problem it was created for?

The main fact is that Anet made this game and would want to keep its playerbase fairly happy (look at what complaining did to the dungeon token system), if they kept this DR system, people will NOT STOP COMPLAINING. This is a fact. If they removed it, how many people would actually be complaining?

It affects you if you do those 4 events in a circle for a hour. Maybe you should try to put some’ effort into it and go for other events or w/e from time to time.

You ‘should’ do this and you ‘should’ do this with the game.

The only thing we ‘should’ be able to do is play the game on our own terms, within reasonable guidelines. A proliferation of bots and nothing to keep them in check matched with a DR system are not reasonable guidelines.

Please can every stop telling us how we have to play this game? You don’t want to let us choose how quickly, how boringly, how intricately, how lazily we want to play the game on our own terms? Fine, it’s not a game anymore.

No other community or developer has tried to force alterations in my play style ever and nor should they be allowed to.

If it’s just a suggestion you can keep it. It’s not helping the real problems. It’s just ignoring the serious problems in the game and that’s going to have a detrimental effect.

Sadly disabling the mailing system isn’t an effective way of stopping RMT from sending gold when you have an auction house or trading post.

They’ll just use that as the medium and factor in the posting fees.

I’ve seen items on the TP that really shouldn’t be as expensive as they are.

You need a dedicated team to actually be in games and looking at them.

ANet can’t have logged into the game in a long time. Go to any server now and go to the “trinity of WPs” in Cursed Shore and on some servers, the bots are starting to out-number the real players.

If you’ve logged in as a dev or management or even just junior staff and had seen this, it would be incredibly alarming.

I can only assume they’re not even slightly aware of the problem, even though they profess to be with their ineffectual forum stickies.

They created this mess. Their design of the game is why bots are increasing. They created THE perfect environment for them.

DEs that just start over and over automatically? Are you mad?
An automated system to keep the automatons in check? Are you mad?

You can’t just throw this massive blanket of DR over the game and think that’s going to suddenly become Kryptonite to all the RMT companies. They’re devious, cunning and very ingenious about breaking a game or bending it to their will. DR is basically treating the whole RMT issue with contempt.

There’s no way you’re taking the problem seriously with these poorly thought-out ideas.

Don’t create automatically starting dynamic events and then be surprised when it’s overrun with bots.

It’s like making an aeroplane out of glass and wondering why it smashes on landing.

Fix the mess you created ANet, as it’s not going to get better, it’s going to get worse.

The posts I am reading over the forum about these issues from players across all servers is painting an even worse picture than I thought.

I urge all the potential nay-sayers to do a bit of reading and see how prolific the problem is, or failing that have a look in the game yourself.

I have looked and I have seen it and it is really off-putting…

And the defenders of the game say “Oh, but give it time. It’s a new fledgling game. They’re working on it.”

Time will only serve to make the problem worse in the game’s current state. It’ll be a dead fledgling game if there are more bots than players. They should have never have created the perfect environment for bots in the first place. Let alone having to be fixing it now.

It’s an oversight of epic proportions.

Think about a DE for a second. How it works.

It’s an event that awards lots of karma points (at later levels) and can be easily exploited for it’s gold (as you get close to 2s at 80) by bots. They have the time to be there all day.

A DE just starts. It needs no human intervention. If you’re in the right place and swing your weapon around a bit within a given timeframe you get reward.

If I could devise a system that would perfectly cater to a bot, it would be the DE.

What would be a great idea to combat bots in a DE is to have an NPC that starts it ask you the kind of question only a human could answer. You won’t be redirect there won’t be captchas.

It’ll be a quick easy riddle with answers that change. Or it can be a multiple choice to get the DE started for you, or allow you to benefit from it. The point is it needs to be randomized on a daily basis, to prevent botting on learning how to break this.

If they’re getting no reward they’ll soon leave.

As DE is set up now, it’s all their Christmases come true and they’re drawing large amounts of gold out of the economy right now, this way.

It’s such a massive oversight to deisgn events like this and play right into their hands. What were ANet thinking?

The scourge that is RMT has been around for a long time It’s not like it’s a new thing.

If they never considered what effects it would have on their game and how DEs like these can mainpulated I’d really like to know why. I saw the flaw with this instantly.

Not to mention the fact the bots are pushed into the DEs by the DR system.

That’s a whole other can of worms right there.

The real problem here is that the community of ANet supporters here are so touchy and precious, that you cannot have a debate about the serious game failings (as we perceive them.) reasonably, as I’ve found out.

It’s the ultimate exercise in futility.

Why do people post on forums? Do we really have to answer that question for you?

Ok, I will.

If you’re in a community and you think something is wrong with that community or in our case the product that community is connected by, you’d like to know other people are having the same frustrations and concerns.

With a community or a group of other people that are reasonable and like-minded you have a much louder voice and you can start to effect big change on an official forum.

It takes people. Like-minded people.

Talking one one one, or phoning, email, tweeting ANet is another massive exercise in futility.

Making it a hot debated topic that’s being discussed by everyone on a forum is a way to get the problems noticed and dealth with in a much more efficient way.

Power in numbers.

Don’t think ANet won’t listen if enough people start talking about certain issues with the game, they will and for anyone to say otherwise is folly.

I want them to listen as I genuinely want to play the game. I really like it, but the game is trying to do everything in its power to push me away.

That grates. It really does. If I could pay a sub and ensure it would go someway to alleviate the problems, I would.

These problems aren’t minor “launch bugs” that can be waved away with a hand, they’re serious flaws in the game.

Take the DE as being the perfect environment for a bot for example. When you think what a DE is and how it works, it’s almost that it was considered with bots in mind. It 100% caters to their needs. It does not require any human intervention to start, it just starts. If you’re in the DE cachement area and perform some action in a given timeframe, it’s a Karma river. A karma torrent and eventually a karma flood if you have enough bots. Which they do. No RMT company only ever had one bot. You need as many as possible to maximize profit.

That’s just another massive oversight and design flaw which means that bots infest DEs right now and as the other ones (like Arah and Grenth) are bugged on an off constantly. Yeah it really starts to annoy people. It’s really no surprise.

Add to this the fact that the DR system is a direct cause of pushing the bots into the DEs it’s blood-boiling.

DR and DEs are not meant for us, it seems. As they are in their current state, the bots are very welcome to them. It’s just horrible as a player.

People like tolunart will always be there to dismiss anything you say as rant. Even if it is well constructed thought out, calm, collected and is making a valid point.

Infact, defense of such serious flaws to such a degree ends up having a negative impact on the game. It’s damaging to not be able to admit there’s some serious questions that need to be asked about lots of areas of the game.

Certain things are so poorly designed and thought out, I find it believe is comes from a development studio with pedigree, who have worked on the title for x amount of years.

The game really doesn’t reflect that.

When you want, and ANet want to accept these problems and see how damaging they are for the game, then maybe some headway can be made and things wouldn’t look so bleak right now.

If you take a spare 10 mins reading around the forum (and that’s just a tiny fraction of the game’s populace) you’d see the posts that are concerned about the game’s future far out-weight those to the contrary.

Why are we trying to have something done about it?

We like the game. We invested time and money in it and as paying customers we deserve some quality control.

If you can’t get your head around any of these very salient points are just here to attack everything we say, then we’re not going to get very far are we.

Simply brushing-off everything you read as a rant, or immature when it clearly isn’t and is just constructive criticism in blind defense of your game is a really damaging thing to do.

It allows for no quality control and feedback and Dev teams can be very ego-centric and think only they know what’s best for a game and its community.

The problems I have cited show to me, at least, that they don’t know and have actually devised/programmed systems that are going to end up causing lasting damage.

I’m not saying the ship is sinking, I’m saying watch that iceberg over there. There IS a difference.

The main one being – I care about the game as much as you do.

NynjaSquirrel.1307:

So – I provide valued and useful evidence of botting and it’s dismissed instantly as it’s not the approved method of reporting. Well, I’m sorry if I’m trying to improve the game, and the community, for both myself and my fellow gamers. Arenanet needs to take swift and very public action against these botters, as competing with these drones for mobs, events, WvW and resources is turning players off the game. If the same swift response was applied to policing the actions of bots as the rigid adherence to forum guidelines, we’d all be a lot happier.

Well said that man!

As Jon Stewart would say… BOOM! BOOM!

The fact is ANet will need to spend money to eradicate, or at least battle this problem.

Nothing other than a dedicated team or task force who monitor the game in real-time is going to suffice. It just doesn’t work this way and never will.

You definitely can’t have an automated system watching out for the automatons. It’s totally ridiculous. It doesn’t even ban them, it simply just moves them to other areas of the game. Normally right in my way.

What frustrates me more is that DR is the mess we’re landed with and is ANet’s alleged attempt at stopping bots from proliferating.

It’s not working and was never destined to work from the start. If you prevent a bot from abusing one resource or one mob or one item or one area, they just adapt and move elsewhere. You have to catch them and remove them from the game entirely.

ANet’s system of checking does not move inline with this and the bots continue to multiply, except now they’re not even being monitored or regulated.

It would take some ANet staff just one afternoon of going on servers and looking at the Cursed Shore’s trinity of WPs. There’s no way they would not be shocked by what they see.

Moreover, the DE system is a botter’s dream. It’s so well designed and catered for them I have a hard time believing it’s not intentional. We’re all aware of the symbiotic relationship developers and RMT companies allegedly have these days.

A DE needs no series of clicks or human intervention to ensure it’s started. It just starts. Ensure your bot is placed in that area and ensure they attack mobs in a given timeframe and you’re set forever.

It’s shocking that a system like this was allowed to be designed. It is so fundamentally flawed.

It won’t last.

Either ANet won’t spend the money to deal with the problem using real people and a real task force.

Or they’ll continue to delude themselves that an automated bot restriction system (DR) is a big enough measure to combat the problem. Which is clearly isn’t.

It’s going to start having irreperable damage soon.

I can’t see how the money’s a problem, hiring a team to deal with serious bot proliferation can’t be difficult after shifting 2,000,000 copies at ~$60 a box.

I make that to be in the region of $120,000,000. Not to mention the in-game store sales.

If ANet haven’t budgeted for bot removal, knowing everything we now know about bots, I’d like to know why.

It’s not like RMT is a new thing. It’s been around for decades.

From my perspective it’s a lazy and ill-conceived attempt at trying to have an automated system that will look after their bot problem for them.

All it has done is make the bots more numerous, push them into other places and force them to become more cunning. That really isn’t what we need as players.

If there’d been real people that could go to a character, once a report threshold had been reached, Turing-test that character and perma-ban them instantly if they’re exhibiting the properties of a bot. The problem wouldn’t be the mess it is now.

And it is a mess and it’s only going to get worse, unless an effective system is introduced to combat it.

Talk about over-reaction on people’s part here to a word, even when people are trying to have a level-headed discussion about it.

This is why we can’t have nice things Vermillion.

You can see most of the reasons right here in your thread. Sad, isn’t it?

DusK.3849:

Ronin.8095:

And I never used the word fanboy up until DusK went a little crazy.

Ronin.8095:

I’d also like this mental fanboyism to dry up as quickly as I’d like to see the people out to make a mockery of the game disappear.

I’m sorry, you were saying?

Alright, I see I did use it once. I see that now. I stand corrected.

I used it probably as the OP did right from the get go. I see no one shooting him down in flames.

I tried to be reasonable from the start. It just doesn’t work.

It’s a totally futile act.

EDIT: I used the word “fanboyism” only and in the right context and not just as a generalization about all gamers who like the game, therefore in totally the right context.

You’re getting all agitated just because I said it. That’s still strange. It’s been said by many others.

You just chose to target me, for whatever reason.

I don’t stand corrected, now I’ve read what I said and if you read what I said, I definitely did not call anyone a fanboy, I spent all of my time not calling people fanboys.

You’re manipulative and you almost got away with it.

Read what I said. Other people will and see what I’m saying now is true.

DusK.3849:

Uh, Ronin, you made a post about how a lot of “fanboys” are doing the same damage to this game’s image as the smear campaign, I made a post noting that many people being accused of fanboys are not actually fanboys but are instead explaining the holes in many hater arguments, and you accused my post of being some example of what you were talking about.

Do you even realize that you proved my point by insisting that my rational, thought-out comment was an “unecessary reaction”? I guess a better question would be, how could you not realize it?

No you made a generalization I made about you. It’s right there in text on this page. You trying to refute that is not only incredibly infuriating but also quite bizarre. The OP is talking about fanboys and fanboyism right from the very start.

Read what’s being said. You’re not doing that.

Stop thinking and talking for me.

I was answering Vermillion, I wasn’t asking for your input or for you to be the living embodiment of any of my generalizations. I really don’t want that.

Please stop it now.

Sin.8174:

DusK.3849:

Most of the people the GW2 haters on this forum accuse of giving “unreasonable and unquestioning love” are simply people pointing out flaws in their arguments. I get accused of such “rampant fanboyism” pretty often simply for presenting a reasonable disagreement to what is more often than not unjustified hate towards the game.

I guess the moral of this story is that, if someone hates the game, don’t explain why their viewpoint’s wrong, or “ur a rabid fanboi”.

Totally agree here. I read the forums every night before bed, and every day before work. I know the usual suspects that post around here… and I’ve read your posts quite often. Your posts are normally on point, giving reasonable justifications, and staying level-headed. Then you see someone come in going ‘Pfft. Another fanboy!’

Like… really?

Anyone that likes the game, or tries to see things from another point of view is a fanboy I guess. I’m sick of the word. it’s overused and frankly.. reminds me of something you’d hear coming from the mouth of a nerdy cartoon character that’s fat, with a nasally voice, and a ponytail. It makes me deeply depressed for the ‘new’ generation to grow up next.

Dude!

The OP who is in favour of spreading the love for the game, quite rightly, is using the word fanboy from the very first post.

Didn’t you read it? He’s said it numerous times actually.

And I never used the word fanboy up until DusK went a little crazy. Not once. Read up above this and check.

So, the word I didn’t say but the OP, who is defense of this game, is over-used and sickening your hopes for the new generation is it?

Maybe you better take this up with Vermillion then. It seems to me it’s pefectly thing for him to say in this thread, if it’s making a point or opinion you agree with.

Well that’s unsurprising and not very interesting.

DusK.3849:

Oh look, I presented a reasonable viewpoint and I’m being called a fanboy.

Now who’s point is proven again?

No you’re being crazy DusK. Sorry you are. You’re being unreasonable and crazy now and I don’t know why.

I said in the first line of that post “No DusK, I didn’t mean you.”

You immediately took “No, I didn’t mean you’re a fanboy” to mean “YOU’RE THE BIGGEST FANBOY IN THE WORLD.”

Why?

I’m trying to say I don’t think you’re being like that and you’re bringing the crazy out on me.

You made what I was saying about you in the first place. I didn’t. You made it apply to you, that because I was talking about people having blinding unquestioning love, that I must have been talking about you.

I wasn’t talking about you, I tried to make that much clear. If you think every imaginary person I talk about is you, then you obviously have some much deeper hang ups about this that I don’t know about and don’t really want to get into.

That’s what was unreasonable. Not the fact that – YOU THINK – I think you’re a fanboy, which I don’t and never would say.

Dial it down man, please.

Fine, fine. Have your big love-in thread. I won’t cramp your styles.

Sin and DusK’s most recent posts are the reason there’s such a divide here Vermillion, if you must ask.

It’s that kind of preciousness and sensitivity that breeds such highly strung posts. It’s right there for you to read.

I was talking as a generalization but in his head it was all about him. That ego-centric way of approaching a general conversation won’t ever allow for any normal form of discourse.

Have fun!

DusK.3849:

Most of the people the GW2 haters on this forum accuse of giving “unreasonable and unquestioning love” are simply people pointing out flaws in their arguments. I get accused of such “rampant fanboyism” pretty often simply for presenting a reasonable disagreement to what is more often than not unjustified hate towards the game.

I guess the moral of this story is that, if someone hates the game, don’t explain why their viewpoint’s wrong, or “ur a rabid fanboi”.

No DusK I didn’t mean you but it was that kind of unecessary reaction you just made that I was talking about.

Thanks for going a small way to making the point for me.

I’ve never once accused anyone else of being a fanboy on this forum. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist and I can’t use the word or that I think that there unquestioning, unerring love can be such a bad thing.

I’ve been out-crazied and shouted-down totally unreasonably many times in many games by people who just can’t see that there’s problems or one kind or another, let alone admit they need to be fixed.

It’s as much a problem as people being nasty about it.

I’m simply saying it’s very very easy to make a total mirror argument to yours and it be as equally as damaging for the game.

It’s happening right now on the forum. Not in this thread as I always like reasonable discussion and you’re asking a valid question.

I’m not making some clever premise up to try and look clever. It’s really happening.

I can’t see how you would know for a fact that prospective players are being turned away or how you could even quantify such a thing.

However, I definitely agree that people talking ill of the game (where it’s unreasonable and unwarranted) in a public forum is definitely uncalled for. I would not do that.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have a balancing force that would swear blind the second coming of Jesus wasn’t a man, but a small box or digital download from ANet.

I’d also like this mental fanboyism to dry up as quickly as I’d like to see the people out to make a mockery of the game disappear.

At least the naysayers will get bored quickly and go somewhere else. The crazy deluded fanboy (and I am really NOT pointing fingers at anyone, but you all know what I mean) is here forever. Great.

No hatred from me. I respect other people’s decision to play this game, as is their right.

What I will say in reply to your post, whilst you are clearly not a fanboy or exhibiting any properties of fanboyism. There’s a massive amount of people who do the opposite of what you’re saying and give unreasonable and unquestioning love to the title here on this very forum.

The kind of blinded, wayward admiration I only see in the followers of faith healers and the like. Way more fervent than that though.

You try and critically, rationally and normally dicuss your perceived fault with their game and it quickly becomes ape poo city with them literally losing it with even reasonable arguments you try and put forward.

It’s equally as easy to make a complete counter-argument opposite to what you’re saying and this also provides a negative image of the game to those that are sitting on the fence, as you say.

So I ask this: why do people feel it is necessary to act so foolishly in love of a game, which at maximum, hs drained them of a (refundable) $60 and a few hours of their time. As I said, the amount of blind unquesitoning love is astounding, and I’m simply wondering where this is coming from and why.

It’s far from the one-sided picture you seem to be trying to paint here. Whilst salacious unecessary discrediting of a game is uncalled for and wrong…

Deluded, rose-tinted whiteknights that never allow you utter a word of any kind about their game are equally as unhealthy.

I don’t really get your point as it is as double-sided as a coin.

I don’t see how a small task force of say max. 5 people to monitor all servers is ever going to make a dent in…

Hold on. 2,000,000 x ~$60 = One-Hundred and Twenty Million Dollars!

Yes, I can’t imagine where they’ll get the cash from. The mind boggles.

Sorry, poor excuse.

Glad we can agree on DR although I did notice you’d been saying this the whole time anyway.

I appreciate your analogy to the Grecian Lernaean Hydra, with the 5 bots popping up for every bot you cut off. Except the Hydra had infinite head regeneration properties. It’s weakness was that it could be overcome when it had only one head and you cauterized the others, so it’s a really odd analogy.

I’ll flip your own analogy back on you. Accounts are a finite resource and RMT companies are never going to pay $60 for them. They’ll eventually only have one head (account) left. If you’re pro-active in dealing with the problem and do it in real time.

IF you employ someone to start cutting the heads off now. You’ll make some (excuse the pun) headway.

Wait too long and it’s going to be come an inextricable problem.

Please don’t talk about finances with ANet, when I know over 2 million people have paid for a box in the last several months or year (including pre-orders.) That is outlandish talk there.

$120,000,000 before in-game store sales and paying people (and it wouldn’t be a lot) say circa $20,000 a year, maybe $25k.

If this is a problem then there’s some priorities seriously misaligned here.

Red Falcon.8257:

The OP is a great post.

I’m not sure how wow players don’t realize they’re being treated as cows to milk, using all the shadiest marketing strategies to pretty much force them to continue paying, paying, and paying again.
The game’s new content beyond vanilla is just a clone of the previous, new gear treadmills and that’s about it.
And it is even outclassed in its own genre by Rift, the only reason one would play wow would be if he was too tied to his invested time and money and/or lured by blizz’s market strategies.
From an adult point of view, it’s a cartoony, simple game for kids that’s been turned into a mental chain to keep people playing.

Glad to hear some people like the OP made it out of it.

You’re exactly being treated like a cow with GW2. It’s no different at all. How is it different? Except you’re just a cow that’s being treated with much shoddier hay over here, from what I can see.

They’ll fill up the store with pretty crap eventually and employ all the same underhand strategies. The want for them to make money out of you is only ever going to make you a teat for them to pull on.

“Bots are not a simple fix” That statement is true. Although it is easier than you’re saying it is. Quite a lot easier, in fact.

You employ real people to monitor the situation. Enough flags come in, in a given period, you investigate, talk to the character, move them, things like that. Turing test them basically. If the bot controller is lucky enough to be there at the time, then they get away with it. 90% of the time they won’t be there as the whole point of a bot is that it’s autonomous (to a certain extent.)

If it’s evident they’re abusing the system at that point. Bang. Gone. Other games do do this and it’s effective.

This costs money. Not a lot of money but more money. You budget for this before you even devise the game and have a real solution to the problem.

DR was rolled out after release and no one knows what it does. That really sounds shady to me and is really like someone applying a band-aid to their jugular vein being severed.

I’ll repeat myself, the DR does nothing to alleviate the bot problem, it only seeks to encourage the rampant creation of more bots to farm the same amount (as no one’s taking them out of the game) and those bots are now crowding out DEs which is really annoying me.

A DE, as another poster said, is a bot’s paradise. It has no event starter. It just starts by itself. If you’re in the area and perform some actions you’ll get some bonus from it. Logistically, it’s a botter’s dream and incredibly poorly thought out by the dev team. An event that needs no series of button clicking or mini-Turning test to intiatie. That’s quite mad in this day of sophisticated automation and macros. It’s a really really badly thought out system, when you look at it from a botter’s perspective.

Anyway, the way they’re going about fixing the problem of bots is really backward. It’s only exacerbating the problem. Can’t you see this? It’ll end up costing them vastly more than an active task force will in the long run.

Why? It’s totally unecessary they’ve way they’ve approached botting in this game and makes no sense whatsoever, any way I try to approach it.

It’s like they’ve never made a game before in this regard. Let alone tried to prepare correctly for the scourge that is bots.

DR? That’s really your solution is it? Puh-lease.

What does " I found myself worthy to play a great game" actually mean?

It sounds like you directly lifted that from a Nigerian 419 email scam.

I found myself worthy of making glorious contact with you to offer your esteemed services for the placement of $11 million dollars. Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard that line before somewhere. I’ll figure it out. Please tell me if you know what you mean, as I really don’t though.

Oh, welcome to the forum, btw.

Ok, let’s both be unrealistic for a second:

A unicorn ate my baby.

Kailthir.6384:

Ronin.8095:

All of what you said does not stop making the DR the most ridiculous and shambolic idea to ever come out of ANet does it?

I agree DR is ineffective, and hurts the legimate players

People are already leaving as GW2 is far from being “that good”. It’s not very good at all.

This is pure speculation and conjecture. If you have the numbers please post it and your source, otherwise it is just plain assumption

Bugs. Not slight launch bugs. Severe gameplay affecting bugs that are left in the game for days and there’s one I’ve noticed for over a week. Not acceptable. Skillpoints, hearts, DEs, there’s more.

I have only ran into “1” bug in over 160 hours of play. Was a skillpoint in WvW. 2-4 hours later it was fixed. Maybe I am just lucky

A 1-80 XP curve that takes 1 week of moderate play and 2-3 days of hardcore play to achieve? What where they thinking? You’re setting yourself up for a fall there.

Like I said earlier I have over 160 hours logged. think it closer to 180, anyways… I am still Level 68. There is so much to do. The world is so big that I get lost in exploring. Just because some people rush to 80… and yes doing it in 3 days to a week is rushing, to say otherwise is an out right lie. When you rush to 80, you bypass the whole game. Not Anet fault you are not bored, that is the players fault.

WvWvW has left me with 2 hour queues.

Really? I have never waited for more than 20 minutes. Again i must be lucky

Dungeons are a novelty after this first few times and are extremely grindy, for a game that “is not about the grind.”

Will confess I have yet to try a dungeon. Am having fun doing all the other stuff. But I will get to it eventually.

DEs. Forget trying to tag a mob. Mindless zerging is now the standard format for group play is it? When did this memo go out? I want my copy so I can say ‘NO!’.

There is no tagging. You help to kill it, you get credit, plain and simple. I don’t understand your issue.

Punitive waypoint travel costs. So I have a friend who needs my help, several times in one day or someone calls out to me to raise them in a given area, and I need to port there. Charging me almost 2 silver within zone and up to 5 out of zone is fair is it? Not even slightly.

Now I do think that this a small issue. WP cost should be because of distance, NOT level. Does a taxi driver look at your paycheck and position in the company to figure out how much to charge you? Not he charges you for the distance traveled

I made a really bad mistake purchasing this game in its current state. I wish I hadn’t.

I am sorry you feel this way. I also hate it when I buy a game and dislike it. I think everyone does. Might i suggest moving on to a different game that perhaps you enjoy?

I do hope it gets better, there’s lots of potential. It’s a common theme for devs not to listen to their playerbase at all.

So far I think the DEVs in this game have listened alot and fixed alot of glitches/bugs that some people reported. What I am glad they don’t do is compromise the integrity and soul of the game, by caving into peoples demands to make the game more like (fill in the blank) other MMO’s.

If they had they’d have known the DR was a real no-no. They didn’t and the kittens have hit the fan now

I think your overreacting quite a bit with the doom and gloom.

You are entitled to your opinion, and I am entitled to mine. You asked for feedback on your points, so I gave you some. I agreed with you on 2 of your points: WP cost and DR.

I didn’t ask for feedback, but thanks for giving it.
Yes you’re entitled to your opinions. Quite right.

fen.3102:

You beat the game? You win! Next! I don’t even know what DR is or t3 cultural armor, and I play almost every day since launch. Still lvl 71 or so. Not even close to 100% map completion but I’m not going for that. Games don’t last forever when you play em 12 hours every day.

Maybe you should take the time to real and learn what this terminology means then.

It won’t make your post look so out of place.

No one’s gloating about finishing the game. You’ve totally misunderstood.

You’ve probably been affected by *D*iminuishing *R*eturns, the fact you don’t know what that is, is fine. Don’t come to a thread talking about it if you don’t though. It makes you look silly.

T3 Cultural Armor, is probably some form of armor, I’d imagine. You know what with the word armor and everything in it.

Seriously mate, do some reading then opine on a forum after, it’ll save you lots of trouble in future.

I’m still laughing about the “I am who this game was made for!” line.

So funny.

Is the sun shining up there denyitbattle, on that 3 million foot high horse you’ve become stuck on.

(Still giggling.)

kittenido.8436:

Maybe its just me but my opinion is that some if not many of those who are complaining that DR is ruining their game. I think they are the botter them self and its effecting their ability to bot.

It’s just you.

You haven’t done any reading about the subject even on these very forums and it shows in what you just said.

Just because the DR is not affecting you doesn’t mean it’s not affecting other people in game-breaking ways. If you’d bother to read and learn about it, you’d already know this.

But no, don’t bother to do that….

Just say whatever rubbish is in your head if you think it makes sense.

We don’t want to be a bot and the DR isn’t even affecting bots right now. ANet are making this game a haven for bots!

If you can’t see this you’re sadly deluded.

@joe

DR does not affect botters at all. It forces them to create more accounts to get around the DR.

It affects us only. Which makese no sense at all.

Why run the risk of annoying your player base? The annoyance is two-fold as it encourages bot growth, does nothing to curb their activities, pushes them into other areas of the game like DEs and all of these things really do have an impact on the game.

If they’d never even addressed the problem of bots and just left the game alone, they’d have less of a hole to dig themselves out of than they do now.

There’s no way a blanket policy that affects all players in all instances across all servers is ever going to work as intended. It will amost definitely have unintended and nasty side-effects, which is exactly what we’re seeing now.

You want to deal with bots, you pay for the staff, you check them on enough reports in-game and in real time and you ban them on the spot if they exhibit the properties of a bot to someone who is employed by ANet.

It’s not a fantasy scenario, it’s a real one the other dev teams have used to great effect. The only problem is it costs money. Ah yes, money. We don’t want to spend of that now, do we ANet?

Anyway, here’s some more proof of the DR hurting non-farmers…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-post-that-you-must-read-before-you-complain/first#post298258

“All DR does is hurt the legimate players. I entered a personal story, the cave complex was like 50% grubs. I killed 1 of them and got the red lettered message to come back later. At first I thought my account was being hacked, or that I was glitched. So I went from scared to irritated. Thought I wouldn’t get credit completing the instance. Then i realized that i was not getting any XP as well as loot… 50% XP and loot from an instance…gone???? Not fair to legimate players. Not cool at all.”

There’s lots of more cases like this if you’d do some research and look at other forums. Like the bug forum right here. You want more examples, I have more, don’t make me quote them and make even longer posts than necessary!

So no, it’s not an inarguable point joe. It’s a very arguable point that it affects the innocent, non-farmer just trying to go about his normal GW2 business.

You want more proof, have a look at other places in the forum it’s on just General that exists.

Do your research. It will help you more in coming to a resonable conclusion about what the “substantial people complaining about DR” are actually complaining about.

It seems to me you haven’t even bothered to see what they are complaining about at all and then seem to want to force over some inarguable point.

Have a read first. You might see things differently.

EDIT: Heathenite right below you has said the mechanic is crippling his attempts to gather the mats for his exotic. So there’s another example right there for you. Oh no that’s FARMING. Sorry, naughty! You’re a naughty naughty Heathenite for wanting to upgrade your gear.

When in the kitten did “farm” become such a dirty word? It isn’t and never has been. It’s just the process of collecting resources from the world, hence the word “farm”. Farm has no direct implication of nefarious actions and never will.

Sahriah.3792:

Oh god really. Ronin. Have you ever played any game on release? Anet are doing a way better job then most companies have done. Of course the bots and spammers are swarming this game, because its immensely popular. Blizzard hasnt fixed Gold spamming in 6 years in WoW and yet people expect Anet to fix it within 3 months of release.

God people have no brains

Who are these “god people” and why do they have no brains?

Can you be reasonable and not start your posts with accusing other people of being stupid. Even if you do insist on calling them “god people” for some reason.

I haven’t called anyone stupid and am just stating the flaws in the game as I see them. I’m allowed to do that. This isn’t the NO CRITICISM EVAR forum. It’s a forum. You seem to need a lesson in what a forum is. It’s a place for a discussion of opinion and ideas.

If you don’t agree with my opinion, that’s fine, but I won’t have you calling me brainless. I’d have thought the language I use and the way I try to articulately state my case would show that I do, in fact, have a brain.

Anyway, the very fact, as you say, that so much of this comes right after launch does not inspire with me confidence. It’s not a case of, sure tinker around until you’ve fixed it. It’s a case of don’t take my money, give me a F2P and I’ll pay you for the game when you’ve got something that resembles playable. There was the R&D, planning, development, alpha and beta phases. They were all pointless were they?

I think this was rushed to coincide with MoP. I shouldn’t have to suffer because of their insistence on trying to keep up with the Blizzards.

I’m not asking them to fix the bot issue and you only addressed one of my seven or so points. That of bots. I don’t care in the slightest if this game has bots, they never affected me and I’d never interact with them.

They might have an effect on the economy that drives prices up or even down for me. It’s negligible enough not to care.

Do not and I repeat do not have a war with the botters that has an immediate and negative impact on your money-paying customers who want to play the game in a legitimate fashion. It’s really bad company policy.

ANet have said officially that DR is combat botting. That’s the line. Well it’s not working at all. Botting is a serious problem. It’s endemic in all MMOs. RMT isn’t something new that’s just arrived. It’s been around for over a decade. Punishing everyone but the bots for this is a really bad idea. Prove to me that it’s not and I’ll change my mind.

Anyway bots is just one point of many and one that I’m not even that bothered about. The measures they’ve put in to try and stop it are risible and pathetic. That much is true.

There’s lots of other issues I have pointed out. Which I should be allowed to do.

Go ahead and have a culture of no feedback and make it so no one can say the game’s bad if they think it is.

It’s really unhealthy and will lead to a world of braindead/brainless people very quickly. Not god people, just ordinary people.

All of what you said does not stop making the DR the most ridiculous and shambolic idea to ever come out of ANet does it?

Read the forums mate, specifically the bug one, and see them lighting up with people being affected for trying to play the game in a legitimate fashion. It’s not right and is a source of serious disruption to people’s playing styles.

It’s important you understand that massive mistakes and poor game policy choices will lead to the very fast demise of a title.

I’m all for the community as a whole idea, but not if that community insists on trying to kill itself. I don’t agree with that at all. It’ll try to stop that from happening.

People are already leaving as GW2 is far from being “that good”. It’s not very good at all. It’s a mess.

Bugs. Not slight launch bugs. Severe gameplay affecting bugs that are left in the game for days and there’s one I’ve noticed for over a week. Not acceptable. Skillpoints, hearts, DEs, there’s more.

A 1-80 XP curve that takes 1 week of moderate play and 2-3 days of hardcore play to achieve? What where they thinking? You’re setting yourself up for a fall there.

DR. If you can’t see it’s a problem from this forum and the bug forum, you need to visit an optician.

WvWvW has left me with 2 hour queues.

Dungeons are a novelty after this first few times and are extremely grindy, for a game that “is not about the grind.”

Bots. They’re increasing exponentially. The DR is supposed to be implemented to stop this, which is an outright lie. I’m getting around 5-10 spam messages in the chatlog to 1-2 mails a day now, a vast increase on what I had before.

DEs. Forget trying to tag a mob. Mindless zerging is now the standard format for group play is it? When did this memo go out? I want my copy so I can say ‘NO!’.

Punitive waypoint travel costs. So I have a friend who needs my help, several times in one day or someone calls out to me to raise them in a given area, and I need to port there. Charging me almost 2 silver within zone and up to 5 out of zone is fair is it? Not even slightly.

I made a really bad mistake purchasing this game in its current state. I wish I hadn’t.

I do hope it gets better, there’s lots of potential. It’s a common theme for devs not to listen to their playerbase at all.

If they had they’d have known the DR was a real no-no. They didn’t and the kittens have hit the fan now.

@Gehenna

I’d appreciate it if you addressed the point that it’s affecting the legitimate players and the proof I gave you for this.

There’s more proof if you want me to throw it your way.

I’d stronly encourage you to look in the bug forum to see the total mess and cluster kitten that the DR has created.

You’re talking from a standpoint of no research and it’s not helping you in any way.

DR was never mentioned in my build up buying the game and I came to the GW2 party after it was implemented.

Owing to my experiences with SE, if I was told, even in one short sentence that it had DR, I would have not made the purchase.

It’s that simple.

Soulwatcher.2604:

Ronin I think the main problem is people have no idea what DR is. I went from making 7 gold in around 4 hrs to barley making 3 gold in almost twice the amount of time. Anet said the game is not about the grind then why is it taking me twice as long to make 60% less money!

I don’t think ANet know what they want themselves. It seems to me this has been rushed and as a former FF player, you’ll already know what this feels like, much like I do.

It’s a veritable mess. I agree with you mate, as you already know and I’ve been affected by the DR myself.

All the other instances of it affecting other people that have been reported by players are in the bug forum a few clicks away. I wish people would educate themselves.

There’s no MMO that’s never going to be about the grind in one capacity or another. They are not mutually exclusive. They will never be.

The last thing a game developer should ever do is tell their playerbase how to play the game and then tell me they’re doing it to keep the bots away.

No you’re not keeping the bots away from me at all. You’re just dictating to me how I should play and I don’t like it at all.

The DR wasn’t implemented for these reasons anyway, it was to cover design flaws, then it was passed off as anti-farm, anti-bot.

Anti-farm. When did farm ever become a dirty word? It’s just the collection of in-game resources. I don’t see why people want to curtail this action of mine!

Anyway, the difference with us and current GW2 players is that we’ve had the bad and enfuriating experience of seeing DR implemented in another game and literally destroying it, right infront of our eyes.

It hasn’t happened to most of these folks here. It’s not a particularly fun process to go through.

I’m hoping ANet aren’t as ignorant and difficult to persuade as SE were.

Although the response I get from the GW2 community and “whiteknight” defenders is that ANet will never bow to pressure nor be cowed into changing their game.

That’s a really really foolish stance to have. It’ll come back to bite them and bite them hard if there’s any truth in it.

Also, FFXIV hurt SE’s stock so badly they had to scrap XIII-2 quietly and put all the resources for that into XV for the PS4.

It’s been quoted in many Japanese game magazines that it’s SE’s last roll of the dice. They mess this up and it’s lights out SE forever.

I for one, won’t shed a tear. Squaresoft died ages ago and XI was the only really decent thing to come out of the Enix mashup and it was all Squaresoft foundation and Enix money. I had 6-odd years of glorius fun with that.

Be warned ANet. It’s a rocky path you’re starting on and we’re not making any of this up. It’s all happened before and these are real similar events that have happened to similar dev teams.

Gehenna.3625:

Is DR so restrictive? Perhaps to some but only if you play a certain way that doesn’t even fit in what this game was advertised.

This statement is simply not true. Are you repeating it over and over that if you say it enough times, it will become true?

I’ve already said that there’s lots of people who are legitimately affected by DR that aren’t trying to even stay in the same place or “farm”.

Here’s an example for you…

By Shiren in the post …

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/On-Botting-and-What-We-re-Doing-About-It/page/5#post297302

And I quote…

“IT’S BUGGED!!!! People who are not exploiting/botting/grinding/farming are getting hit by it. It is bugged. I did Twilight Arbor explorable (two different paths) for the first time EVER today and the first path I got 15 tokens when everyone else got 60, the second path I got 6 tokens (and only recieved one of them) when everyone else got either 45 or 60. The DR code is bugged, it is triggering on people who have never ever done the dungeon before, let alone meet the minimum requirement for it.

Read the bug forum, this has been reported several times by several people since the last update. It’s a real bug and it’s hurting a lot of people. Running a dungeon trying to get this armour and getting 6 tokens is an INFURIATING experience. It’s not fair and it’s absolutely unacceptable to say that stopping speed clearers is worth throwing honest hard working players under the bus with an untested and buggy DR code.

If it doesn’t work properly and it’s hurting some players, it shouldn’t be in the game at all. Let the exploiters run free until you can deal with them WITHOUT hurting other people.

September 29, 2012 22:40"

This is just one of the many examples I could find for you.

Actually, you can find them yourself if you read this very forum.

Your insistence on not doing this and trying to make a point without doing that doesn’t help you at all.

I’ve said it a lot of times today and I’ll say it again. It impacts people who are trying to play the game in a non-abusive and legitimate way.

It was implemened after the release to cover a desgin flaw that was not spotted in the beta. It was never part of the build up and advertising. It was then passed off as a measure to combat botting.

You show an advert or some press releases that mention this and I will give you real spendable money in return. I promise.

The release was rushed to keep up with the Joneses (or Blizzard with MoP) and if this is the best they can do, a DR system, don’t expect the game to have a large active population for much longer.

All the reasons why and the bad side of the DR and the people saying how they are affected are in this very forum if you bother to look for it.

You don’t want to do that. Fine. Don’t bother trying to talk like someone who has done any research then.

I’ll wait until you’ve done some reading about what other people are saying, then I’ll take you seriously.

You’re quite right Kim.

I’ve read around the forums, I’ve seen what people are saying. The whiteknights haven’t.

If you were to see the amount of DR related threads and also the threads about DR that go into detail about how it affects legitimate play, say in a dungeon or on the WvWvW field, it wouldn’t take you very long to realise it’s a seriously unpopular idea that has serious implications.

SE would not take any responsibility for the total mess they’d made of FFXIV. The board at SE made all their devs fall on their swords and hired a new team. That really happened. Not the actually falling on swords bit, but I thought I’d use a nice Japanese-related saying! They genuinely lost their jobs though. It was harsh, but it’s to be expected if you’re going to belligerently ignore your players in such a rude and blatant way.

SE had to switch immediately from a subs model (they weren’t even charging subs in the fear they’d lose everyone) to a F2P for something like 8 months while they grappled with the problem. By the time they’d hired the new dev team and fixed the serious problem, being EXP DR. it was too late. The population had died, never to recover.

Not only that it will have lasting damage on the franchise and will be the last FF titled MMO we’ll ever see, I strongly suspect.

It’s still going, but every NA or EU player I started with does not play anymore.

It’ll be the same here, but rest assured, when it affects money and only money, the DR will be altered. That’s what SE were scared of most.

Forum pressure, even general player backlash and pressure is very ineffectual if we talk to ANet about it.

Talking with your wallet or everyone speaking with their wallet is much much more effective.

The difference here is that ANet have made us all pay upfront. I’m sure they’ve made serious plans with their store earned income, for further investment and business development, when they get hit here, then we’ll see changes.

I doubt anything we ever say will ever make for a policy change in the game.

It’s just not how this industry works. The customer is never right and they know what’s right for the customer.

Until they realise they made a massive mistake and they didn’t actually know what was right for the customer and probably should have listened from the start.

It’s happening here, right now.

I’ve already stopped playing and am monitoring the forum to see what the general consensus is too.

If there’s some form of indication ANet realise they’ve made a massive mistake then I might reconsider. I highly doubt this, as I’ve been assured by the “WhiteKnights” that ANet stick to their decisions and don’t respond well to pressure by the community.

I bet they respond well to not having any money or profit, though.

The amount of times I’ve read the phrase “dwindling guild population” or similar is shocking.

The game’s a month old!

DR, too many bots, 1-80 in under a week on moderate play time, little to fill your time with after that, WvWvW waiting times, little in the way of Dungeons to keep you interested.

Yup, I made a mistake buying this game in its current incarnation. That’s not to say it can’t be fixed.

I doubt it will be, but I live in hope.

I’ll be watching its progress though, that’s for sure.

And I’ll be coming back to the forums tomorrow.

Shame about the game though.

I’ve literally spent 6 hours on the forum and 0 hours on the game today and I’ve had way more fun.

DusK.3849:

Yak’s Bend keeps putting me in LA overflow. Apparently, that must mean the game’s dying.

No, it means the game can’t even handle all the bots right now.

Good luck, then I don’t know the answers. If you do find out more then be sure to post them!

Sorry if I sounded patronising or condescending explaining about emoticons. I genuinely didn’t know you wanted the specific ones for this forum. Apologies!

@Gehenna

You haven’t said anything that’s factual. It’s all either speculation or assumption.

Here’s a fact.

DR isn’t easing the bot problem. It’s getting worse. It does not make it harder for them in any way.

They’re increasing. I already said this. If you can’t see the evidence of an increasing bot population then you’re not playing the game.

Now there’s a copper attached to my spam mails. Oh and I had 7 spam mails in the past 3 days compared to 3 all last week.

All it is doing is affecting peole who are trying to play the game legitimately. Again your insistence that it only affects people who exhibit the properties of a bot is not true.

I don’t have the time to collate all the forum posts that corroborate this, but they’re there if you wanted to look for them.

I never said I wanted to grind myself silly. I’d definitely appreciate you not putting words in my mouth.

I said if I wanted to grind myself silly, I could. If I wanted to run around the whole of Tyria in just my pants singing “Mustang Sally” I could do that too!

Forcing people to play in a specific playstyle is never a good idea.

You also realise most of the mobs in the Cursed Shore are some variant of a risen with the exception of elementals and event bosses, champs, veterans (and even most of they are risens). DR added to this fact isn’t a logical thing to do.

Anyway, I don’t need you to tell me I have to put up with the DR and just take what you say on face value.

I’ve read the forums, I’d urge you to do the same. You are distincly in the minority. Probably because you’ve managed to convince yourself it’s an OK thing to have. It’s not. It’s quite an unhealthy thing to have.

It’s a really really unpopular facet of the game, that was never in it from the beginning. It was an after-thought. A band-aid. A rubbish rubbish band-aid.

All your talk of 2 years of planning is fine, but I don’t remember any talk of DR in that build up. Do you?

You’re entitled to your opinion and I totally respect that.

I’m entitled to leave and ask for my money back when something as disappointing as diminuishing returns gets implemented in an MMO.

I’ve been in a decent MMO before when it was implemented, it imploded shortly thereafter and the devs, as it was imploding, swore blind that nothing was wrong and everything was fine. They got fired at the end of that month and a new dev team were brought in to try and save the game. It was too late, the irreperable damage had been done by that stage.

It’s not just hot air here. I’ve watched it happen from inside another MMO and the same symptoms are evident here.

Continue to play if you like it. I’m pleased you like it. Genuinely, I am.

I don’t like it and want my money back if this is going to be the status quo. It’s wrong and has no place in MMOs in my opinion.

If they bothered trying to spend money to get rid of the bot problem, it’d be significantly reduced. That is never going to happen.