Guild Wars 2

It’s easy to blame the players for mindlessly zerging, but let’s look at how this works for a bit.
The thing in guild wars that tells you where the action is and what you should be doing is the meta event text on the top right and the indicator for it on the map. Upon starting to play for this living story part they are told to go to two places by the game, bazaar and pavilion. Upon getting in pavilion they see the text on the top right that tells them they should help, as a group, to kill bosses, and the indicators on the map of where those bosses are telling them “come help kill it!”. If the only one left at the end is boom boom, then the only indicator they have for this game is telling them to go there. That’s the same indicator they have been following for the whole duration of this game, and the same tactics they have been doing the whole game, because as many things as you have against zerging, it is true they are forced to accept that it is the most profitable strategy at some point in the game. I have tried playing alone or looking for small groups, but when you start doing world bosses you see that zerging is certainly profitable and the optimal way to go at things a lot of the time.

And yes many people are upleveled, that is because the current content asks of all players regardless of level to join the pavilion and then uplevels them while giving them the boss indicators they have been following in the game already, what are they supposed to do? Yes some people don’t carry zerker gear to cover the 20% upscale, nowhere in the game is it mentioned that game mechanics are designed around zerkers for them to follow it, yet they are (or rampagers, conditions work, but if someone plays tanky for fun then they are working against the event because of its mechanics). And yes some people will target other mobs, if they don’t know about upscaling they will think they are helping since they see the bandit adds attacking players and no one stopping them.

So, what are the things advising them against it?
The map chat, something that is turned off by default. It’s worse here in europe because even if it’s turned on, all languages but your own are turned off by default, including english.
So, what’s the in game mechanic telling them not to zerg? That is scaling, a mechanic that is never once referred to in game and a mechanic they have to do out of game research to find out. Basically, what is ruining the event is either default mechanics of the chat or the fact people want to play casually and not study about the game out of it (generally you don’t study a game, you play it, for fun), which should at least not ruin the experience for people.

Will just add here that this event gave me newfound hatred for noobmanders. Every time I get in a map and see only 1 commander tag, standing in front of kurai before the event starts I know things are bound to go horribly. It gets worse, I’ve seen people with the only commander tag of the map asking for no more people to them, yet keeping the tag up, I’ve seen wiggins left as last boss a while before silver expires, the fight going well previously, people asking no more people on it, and then two commander tags appearing on it. Told a commander not to come because they were scaling, only to receive the sarcastic response that he didn’t know tags scaled. I’ve seen a commander that through several runs would just not respond to anything he was told and not type in chat anything (map chat turned off maybe) and would just drag people around to zerg. We were actually doing boom boom just fine, was at about 40% and then the commander’s group kills the boss next to her, we start typing in chat for people to stay away, yet the commander just rushes in. We move to shurrak to avoid the zerg, same thing happens, boom boom was already low so at some point before we killed shurrak she dies, then commander brings over the zerg to shurrak. In the end, the meta-strategy became fighting the boss at the opposite side of the commander to reduce the chance he would come in and ruin the boss fight. Is it the zerg’s fault there for following the commander? Ok, tell them not to go to the boss indicator, that’s game controlled, commander tag is human controlled though, if it’s up on the map people are telling you you are needed there. I wish there was a way to vote away commander tags. Yeah, sure, they paid for them, but it is affecting the gameplay experience of everyone on the map, doesn’t matter if they paid 100g, 1000g or 1000$, they should have no right to misuse it and ruin the experience for everyone.

Kashrlyyk.5364:

It baffles me to see players not only defending this most kittened game design ever but actually insulting other players. THE ONLY THING SCALING SHOULD DO IS PREVENT BOSSES FROM DYING TOO FAST!

Indeed. The scaling system is supposed to be a background process, not an obstruction that the players have to take into account. It should be behind the scenes, making sure bosses don’t die too fast, and offer a proper challenge for each group size. They should not make battles drag on for way too long, because there are too many players. That simply means it isn’t working right.

All this event requires is the map chat though. The other stuff you mentioned are just optionals that might make the event smoother. Considering there are many maps now that are organized and gets Gold after Gold, it kind of does reinforce their philosophy, without even vocalizing how effective it is already.

As for the OP, I think you should try to look for LFGs that ferry people in, than starting your own LFG that wants a ferry. Some maps clearly isn’t as organized as others. And if you aren’t getting a Silver or Gold first, that’s the cue to leave for another one.

Most of the bosses require similar skills you have to bring:
Kuraii – Bring stability/break stun moves. Try to be behind him to avoid AoE arrows.
Pyroxis – Usually have a group with Reflect Projectiles that ranges him safely on some hill. Good with Guardians and Mesmers.
Sparcus – Another boss that needs Reflect Projectiles and Stability (if you’re meleeing). There’s a platform that’s safe and never get targeted by Sparcus’s teleports.
Shruakk – Has tons of birds around him that does heavy retaliation damage. Use single target weapons only and throw Bird Feed AWAY from the boss.
Wiggins – Again needs reflect projectile moves for his normal pistol attacks and break stun if it does hit you. Usually the group lures him to a ramp and ranges him safely. You also need to make sure to run after him every 25% as he goes back to the middle.
Boomboom Baines – The only focus here is to call out and destroy Healing Turret ASAP. This is the only group that should only have DPS classes/lv80s to maintain with everyone else. Make sure to kill ads at the beginning of the fight and dodge the Big Bomb AoE she throws occasionally.

Woljnir.7810:

The turret is not passed on. That’s why uncoordinated zergs leave her for last. People just don’t listen or assume she passes on the turret.

For Boss Blitz, you have to look at the meaning of the wording: it’s supposed to be a blitz, where all bosses are fought together by smaller groups. Not this go from boss to boss crud that seems to be the only way people think they can do this. Boom Boom Baines is fine. The concept behind the event is that a smaller group face her as part of a larger zerg fighting everyone else simultaneously. When the whole map converges on her, her turret goes to level 84. When it stays level 80 it goes down fast and she doesn’t heal for 5 hours before it is finally destroyed. For all it’s faults and claims of poor design, it’s not ANet’s fault people can’t organize to do the event the way it should be and do their own “train” method of Boss Blitz.

It actually is ANet’s fault people can’t organize to do the event the way it should be done. Here’s why: They’ve done nothing to facilitate the organization required for this event. That is bad design.

It’s bad design that the UI doesn’t show the boss health bars. It’s bad design that there’s literally no way to moderate how many people can go to a boss. It’s bad design that we can’t form up in actual raiding groups. It’s bad design that map chat is the only tool we’ve been given.

This fight would be fun and plenty worthwhile as instanced content. But it is bad design, and the excuses you’re making for ANet is giving the impression that this sort of design philosophy is okay, when it really shouldn’t be. I’m usually really happy to look at an issue from both sides, but I am genuinely baffled that anyone can try to defend this event.

Astralporing.1957:

Jerus.4350:

Axialbloom.8109:

Lankybrit.4598:

I had no idea what I was doing. And when we were on the last boss (Boom Boom I think), people were saying – get off the boss, it scales you know. I was surprised, because don’t World Bosses scale too, and no one says get off those.

The scaling is a massive exponential curve, insted of a linear one. It is completely messed up.

Is it?

See when I go with a small group, most of us are strait out of dungeons in our full DPS setups really to burn the bosses down.

In the zergs though, how many people are in their DPS setups? is it a fair comparison to take a zerg that is 25% zerk, 25% PVT, 25% clerics/whatever, 25% condi which override eachother. And compare it to a team of 100% zerk.

Yes, it is.
Last time i have done Boom Boom in a small group, it consisted of 3 bunker guardians, a condi necro, and a bearbow (who might or might have not been a zerker). Scaling for that number allowed us to burn Boom realy fast, with enough time to spare for gold, that we could take it easy. Put 15 people in that fight, and everything suddenly starts to slow down, as not only the boss’ hps get inflated, but bursting down the turret takes much longer (and it heals for more). Get a zerg here, and it becomes a massive pain.

mtpelion.4562:

If you were there at the beginning of the Boss Blitz, then you should be in one of the fighting groups.

Assume that there are all 6 groups, and that all are already full (in most “gold” zones i was, “full” was considered to be an 8 player group, 10 at most, as scaling starts to get bad after that, and every additional person is only a hindrance). What in that case the over-the-limit player need to do? If your answer is “afk in the middle” or “go gauntlet”, then the design is wrong.

Or, explain to group that 12 per boss is actually the preferred number.

In my experience groups tended to use the 10 =full rule, because there was always stragglers who dont listen.
In general though there was 1-2 bosses with less than 10 players.

What does that tell you?

A full pavillion does not mean every boss will be full and I’ve yet to see people being told to sit in the middle before blitz has started/during organisation.
What I have seen is “2 go to boss y”. And people reminding others that we want b/n 6-12 per boss.

Obviously during an event if you log in, you may be told to wait in the middle. This is because its hard to count players during an event.
The real issue with pav, is people who dont read map chat or dont care. People who want to zerg because its “fun”. people who still ask “which boss first”. People who see a boss start to zerg and nobody leaves because of the “i dont want to, you leave syndrome”.
And finally lack of any map organisation by anet. (people counter/all boss health viewable.)

Why was this not an option?

Instead of a few people who have the sense of calling for organization only to have the zerglings ignore them and zerg off anyway.

Instead of being lucky and getting into a map that do pull off organized events, which are a harsh minority.

A lobbying system would have helped where during the blitz the areas are sealed off and the entrance is through an npc with a head count and maybe a limiter.

My explanation of why the Queens Pav, fails for me.

I go in, try to join in.. “Go away we have enough you’ll make it scale.. Go stand with the rest in the middle..”. I’m not a wallflower, I came to do my part, according to them my part is to sit in the middle and don’t bother them. Too many or not enough was the rule of the afternoon it seems. After over an hour of the bosses resetting because it took so long I left, as did most of the others. I really enjoy the Festival, but the QP, well it could be removed today and I wouldn’t care. I understand that isn’t very fair minded. I guess after all the anger, and hate talk and complaining in the QP it left me in less than a charitable mood. I don’t know what constitutes a failure in Anets mind but in mine, the QP is. IT brings out the worst in people. Why was it made so difficult? This is an MMO, but they only want groups of 10 to 15 on each boss? They add mega servers then make content that requires small groups. Doesn’t make sense. Even the pros I see in chat in the keep etc.. said they were leaving game. They said they have given the game too many chances. They could have made it competitive but not impossible. The Aspect festival is so happy and inviting, the QP.. is horrible.

somsom.5201:

If you want good rewards, then you have to work for it. No more Queensdale afk #1 all day spam anymore(which is good).

Seriously, just go put “LF taxi Blitz” into the LFG tool and I guarantee you’ll find a group willing to taxi you within a few minutes. Or if you’re a commander: put up “LF more commanders for Blitz”.

so just because you put LF taxi Blitz in lfg, that makes it better than 1 spam?

if that’s the way it suppose to be, just let us create instance raid. and stop with this open world non sense, since it’s turning into an instance raid anyway, with very lacking organize tool to keep people organized.

There are two big UI tools that need to be added to make the Crown Pavillion more bearable, even though the refusal of people to learn individual bosses (Even through Trial+Error) makes me lose faith in humanity.

1. Boss health meter on ALL bosses (And Healing Turret for Boom Boom), that anyone in the arena can see at all times.
2. An NPC info-kiosk who gives general overviews and broad strategies for handling each of the bosses. The trial-and-error should come from applying the information given, not gathering it.

The big one, though, is:
3. A listing of the number of players on each boss. It’s impossible for players to self-organize and distribute themselves when there’s no source of information telling them where to go. Between terrible visibility from the overview platforms, cluttered arenas, and short draw distances, by the time people figure out whether the boss they’re headed too needs help or not they’ve already contributed to the scaling and can’t back out until it’s dead. Giving a board showing how many are on each allows people to communicate and organize more readily, while allowing new-to-the-area players to hop into where they’re needed.

Tspatula.9086:

…At the very minimum, the health of all 6 bosses could have been displayed, giving the tiniest hint that there might be a reason why you might need to know it…

This simple display would probably make the greatest difference. Not only would it be a clue as to what should be happening (with the tooltip to bring down all the bosses within x time), it would allow players dropping in or moving between bosses to know where to go. If one is dropping like a rock, go to another.

The various world and guild missions that have multiple aspects to them have this function, it’s in the game system. It would be something they should be able to do fairly quickly to save this festival event.

runeblade.7514:

Mechanics require organization but it has no tools to encourage organization.

Therefore, instead of a 10 minute run, it will take 45 minutes- 1 hour to complete.

This is indeed the biggest problem.
Also, I think the general idea is wrong. I think it should always end after ~7-8 minutes, and reward according to the number of bosses killed. Zergs would only get 1 or maybe 2, organized teams get 5 or usually all 6.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Please explain why.

Mechanics require organization but it has no tools to encourage organization.

Therefore, instead of a 10 minute run, it will take 45 minutes- 1 hour to complete.

Its a total mess isnt it?
If the event information on top of your screen had the 6 bosses status bars and a number next to each bar representing the total players in that boss area, it would be so simple to organize.
Unfortunately, we have to do that using map chat. But some people, specially here in Europe, dont understand english. And some don’t even read map chat.

Rouven.7409:

Hexyn.8462:

I think the mechanic is fine, it’s very similar to the marrionette. What could be improved is the tools available to the player to see the status of each quadrant.

e.g. all health bars visible to all players in the event notifier. and perhaps a visual scaling “enrage” symbol that indicates which bosses are scaling up and by how much.

This would help the casual player understand what is going on and reduce the pressure on specific guilds organising a successful attempt at the event.

While I like an increased visual of what is going on, I still don’t like the idea of “o.O., there are probably too many of you, decide who leaves – and heh, if you where just on your way here, turn around now you will not be welcome”.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not even talking about drama or anything. But does that not sound like the most lame thing you’ve ever heard? “Yeah, in GW2 there are events and bosses now, but you have to have to make sure that the others want you there, because if there are too many players it gets too hard and makes the event stupid.”

It’s one thing to say “we have XX-man raids”, it’s another to say “open world, everyone welcome, but just not too many, eh?”.

I don’t know how to put this better – it simply feels not GW2.

This. So much.

I have no problem with this type of coordination in instanced raids. But when it’s limited time open world content, guess what? Everyone wants to play. And it sucks to have to constantly discourage people from playing. Say whatever you want about Marionette, but at no point did anyone ever have to say, “Stop hitting that boss and sit in the middle doing nothing, otherwise this will take over an hour and you’ll get some greens to show for it.”

Hexyn.8462:

I think the mechanic is fine, it’s very similar to the marrionette. What could be improved is the tools available to the player to see the status of each quadrant.

e.g. all health bars visible to all players in the event notifier. and perhaps a visual scaling “enrage” symbol that indicates which bosses are scaling up and by how much.

This would help the casual player understand what is going on and reduce the pressure on specific guilds organising a successful attempt at the event.

While I like an increased visual of what is going on, I still don’t like the idea of “o.O., there are probably too many of you, decide who leaves – and heh, if you where just on your way here, turn around now you will not be welcome”.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not even talking about drama or anything. But does that not sound like the most lame thing you’ve ever heard? “Yeah, in GW2 there are events and bosses now, but you have to have to make sure that the others want you there, because if there are too many players it gets too hard and makes the event stupid.”

It’s one thing to say “we have XX-man raids”, it’s another to say “open world, everyone welcome, but just not too many, eh?”.

I don’t know how to put this better – it simply feels not GW2.

Well, I’m limping along with my meta, thanks to no more meta dailies, and I’m seriously wondering if I’m going to make it at all.

It feels really bad to be the one in map saying, “Hey, you guys, don’t go to this fight. You can help more by staying out of it.” It also feels bad to see people going to the fights anyway and watching time tick away because of the scaling up. It is just stupid to rely on the player base to self-police open world content. At least in a dungeon you can kick people who are willfully blowing the fights.

It can take as few as 8 people to change a 6-minute gold into a 57-minute bronze. That’s unreasonable. And it’s been out almost a week, now, with absolutely nothing to address these issues. Given how well-loved the event was last year, this is a bitter pill to swallow.

Marionette was such a great design for open world content that required organization. This is terrible. I know I keep repeating myself, but I’m just so sad that the response from Anet has been so underwhelming.

I really appreciate the changes that were made to the gauntlet areas. Almost all of the issues I had with it the last time round have been addressed:

1. The dome around each arena was removed, which made spectating easier and also prevented a whole bunch of camera problems towards the edge of the arenas. My Charr thanks you for being able to fight Liadri, not the camera.

2. Medic at each respawn really cut down on the die, WP, run back, retry cycle so it felt like I was spending more time doing the fights than wasting time running back and forth. Also, removing the WP cost (in addition to the already removed repair cost) makes it so that it doesn’t penalize more casual players (who are also more likely to die) and encourages them to try more. Kudos.

3. I see people still complaining about the lag from the zerg, but that was not my experience. Maybe it’s because the Boss Blitz is just less popular than the old loot train in the crown pavilion, or maybe the servers I was on just had lower populations, but it was nowhere near the previous frustration fest where rubber banding or skill lag were about a third of the deaths.

Regarding the structuring of the Boss Blitz event, I’m a little conflicted. The good:

1. More interesting boss mechanics. Even though I hate Shurakk, it’s nice to see different requirements being emphasized, and it’s a nice way to discourage the zerg mentality of there’s one optimal build for everything in PvE.

2. There’s a spectrum of success for the event. Stuck in a PUG server? You can still do it with fewer rewards, and there’s nothing stopping you from trying again.

The less good:
1. The loot is definitely nerfed, but that’s been pretty systematic across the board (elimination of champ trains in queensdale etc.) so that’s not a blitz-specific issue. If you’re on a coordinated server it’s still totally farmable though (~10 bags every 10 minutes or so) and it seems like the donation trigger is designed to balance this out economically? ANet probably has the data to determine whether it’s working as intended but it suggests an uncomfortable design where the hardcore who can farm the event have yet another way to get richer and most casual, less-coordinated players are stuck paying for an unprofitable event. Anecdotally, everyone I know is either avoiding the pavilion because it’s a boring grind, or doing it constantly because of all the bags. There’s weirdly no middle ground here.

2. The incentive for doing it “right” doesn’t seem to be there. There’re all kinds of factors here, like the PvE population generally believing that PUG coordination is “too hard”, to folks not understanding scaling, to there not being a specific achievement for the gold success (seriously, how many people stuck around for the LA triple threat one just for the achievement?) I’m not sure what can be done here, but better loot doesn’t seem to be the answer.

3. A lot of the event structure is poorly indicated. Most reasonable players will have to learn by failing (standing too close lava wall = instadeath, grenading shurakk with hawks = instadown) Maybe I’m spoiled by Wildstar at this point, but there’s a mess of stuff happening in a large group of people that makes it unclear what you’re doing wrong. Also, unlike marionette where it’s pretty clear who doesn’t know the fight and need to be taught, the unstructured nature of the event makes it tiring to figure out who’s killing kuraii first and spawning knockdowns everywhere, or to tell folks not to converge on a fight to scale it up into a 20 minute zergfest. (No, really, please don’t come to Boom Boom)

4. Megaservers. Well, this would probably still be an issue with folks squatting in the old regular servers, but now it seems you have to know someone to get into a server that’s coordinated, and failing that, no one bothers. Maybe LFG needs some way to spawn an instance with PUGs who all indicate an interest in running a coordinated event? Like a raid channel that can create an instance once the required population is reached. It would reduce the problem of herding cats to at least herding cats who have expressed an interest in being trained.

Overall, how much I like Boss Blitz specifically is less important than the general direction I think it portends, and in that sense I think it’s successful. There’s some interesting things being tried here.

There are a couple of things that bother me about this event. The first is this mindset that Anet and some of the players have of “the masses need to learn how to play properly/we need to teach you how to play better.” There are lots of resources in game and outside the game for improving your play. The players that want to get better will do so regardless of this type of content being presented to them. On the other side, there are players who just want to log on for an hour or two and have fun playing a game. They don’t want to min/max their build, they don’t want to spend 15 minutes going over strategies, they just want to play; and trying to force them to “learn” could just easily cause them to quit playing as it could cause them to improve.

Then there are the problems when these two different groups of people are thrown together in the same instance. Neither group’s playstyle is “right” or “wrong” but they have different goals and don’t work together well. Eg: there are a couple of 5 man groups in the pavillion that want a gold or silver reward and take down 5/6 bosses quickly, but a 50 man zerg spends an hour on Boom-boom. The small groups get a bronze reward even though they were working hard for gold, and the large group has to put up with a dozen snide remarks and insults.

This brings me to my last point, “Why does Anet keep putting this kind of stuff out in the open world?” People are already effectively creating raid instances by fiddling around with the taxi system. If we’re going to keep getting content which requires above average levels of teamwork and coordination, why can’t we just get proper raids where we have control over who gets in rather than trying to organize PUGs or get a taxi to an organized instance?