Add playstyle preferences to weight the algorithm that the megaserver uses to determine who goes where.
A good theoretical solution, but more practically:
I don’t believe Anet is capable of writing an algorithm that can do this properly. Even now, party members aren’t being sent to the same megaserver instance. It’s just too complicated for Anet to handle.
These would be the same as normal megaserver shards, but with a map cap of about 30 people. They would be entirely opt-in: you would have to a) know they exist, and b) select the ‘low-pop’ option to be placed in one.
Reasons:
1) Gameplay: massive zergs are good for some things, and a lot of players seem to enjoy them. But having massive amounts of players around isn’t fun for everyone, all the time. Most exploration and event stop being challenging with more than 2 or 3 players. Moreover, exploration is terrible if all the events in the zone are done, and there are 10 or more players at all the remaining ones.
2) Performance: I, and a lot of other players, don’t have brilliant PCs or internet. Having every map full all the time has massively increased loading screen times, the likelihood of lag, and so on. Being able to zone into a play on a map with fewer people makes the game perform much better. It is, however, no longer possible on the megaserver.
Cons for Arenanet:
None. As it is a megaserver system, the server resources would be directly in proportion to the amount of players who choose to opt-in. If not many players want to play on low-pop shards, then barely any system resources will be used. If lots of players want to use them, then Anet will know they are popular and that is was an good decision to implement. Moreover, it increases player choice, which will always make more players happy. In no way would it decrease enjoyment for players who like full maps.
One of the main features of megaservers — for Anet — is fewer map instances and thus cheaper running costs. Low population instances goes against that.
They’re expensive for what you want to do with them because they weren’t designed with that in mind. Their purpose is actually to extract infusions off of ascended gear. Those infusions can run into the hundreds of gold so people who need to recover them can be gouged for those prices.
Anet likely never even considered that extracting runes would be a problem after changing the behavior of transmutation crystals. Thus the lack of solution to this issue.
EoTM was a test for megaservers. The anonymity of players and thus lack of community caused it to fail miserably. Unfortunately Anet didn’t learn anything from this and the same thing is happening with the megaservers right now.
I know someone who got hacked a week ago. Email was absolutely positively not compromised. Laptop was clean. PC was never used for anything other than Guild Wars 2: not web surfing, not email, nothing. Email authentication was on, but no email was ever received when hackers: logged in, changed password, and activated mobile authentication.
Who knows what they will do, but I think there are 3 strong indicators that they will not break ties:
- They did not break ties in league 1
- The reference to Glicko is only in the match-making section not in the reward section. (and for matchmaking breaking the ties is unavoidable.)
- Their leader board lists two on place 2) and three on place 4), why should they break ties in the end, if they do not in their league-info page?
These are good reasons. Especially their precedent from the last tournament.
Beside these indicators there is even a strong argument for not breaking ties:
It does not cost them a penny to give out a few hundred tickets more due to ties, but it will generate a kitten-storm on the forum (including rage-quits), if they do break ties.
Not so sure about these reasons. If they give fewer tickets, they probably predict more people for the third tournament. As for generating rage in the WvW community/forums, I seriously doubt they care.
The only problem I have with megaserver system is that Tequatl is literally impossible to do now on Desolation, and all temples in Orr are uncontested almost all day. So that kinda sucks the fun out of it, if you can’t really do those events. I really hope Anet can somehow fix this. I really want to run temple events again…
But overall I’m pleased with it.
There’s no such thing as “on Desolation” anymore. Rather, “on the random megaserver instance I got put into”
The RP tag will only work if the megaserver does not, by any circumstance, mix servers with different languages. I’ve heard people being mixed up with german and french roleplayers, which, breaks the immersion for all three.
It’s really weird and awkward to go into a bar and half of the crowd speak a completely different language, with their own stories. Someone from the german server might even run that bar whilst someone on Piken Square does the same.
Personally, seeing as Anet said that megaserver was not a feature they went for to save money and resources, and even admitted that running a server is cheap, then my wish (as it will likely never happen) would be that they opened up 1 new server tagged as “Roleplay” for both EU and NA that isn’t affected by the megaserver, where a set of roleplay policies are used and anyone harassing or disrupting RP can get reported.
Either that or turn Piken Square and Tarnished Coast into it. I prefer the former idea, as it would be better to create new servers seeing as some people call those servers home as much as us RPers, and shouldn’t suffer getting the megaserver cut off from them due to our sake.
Only problem I see is that it might attract other people who want to use it to get away from the megaserver aswell, like guild missions, world bosses and such. Those issues needs to be addressed first.
Anyway that’s a wishful idea I believe would solve the RP problem completely.
One server per region would lead to the same problem, with mixed up languages and stuff. Plus, Anet would never grant us a RP Server with special rules. We don’t necessarily need one anyway. If the system that is currently running in DR would be expanded to the whole world (instead of posting the usual ‘Yeah baby we did it!’ postings like Anet does) a lot of problems would be solved.
What we do need indeed, is a way to report people if they willingly disturb or harrass RPers. Okay, currently we can report them for harrassment, but we can’t for trolling, which in fact ISN’T a playstyle, unlike most trolls claim it was. We don’t need special RP rules, we’re no better, but no worse than any other player that plays the game.
But we need protection, there is no reason why we would have to suffer under such infantile individuals. Just as much as Guildleaders should be able to report people who willingly disturb a guild mission, and organisatiors should be able to report people that try to ruin a Teq or Wormkill, like sPvPers should be able to report people for just leeching, standing around and doing nothing during a match and so on.
In short, next to scamming, selling gold, or harrassment, we definitely need an option to report people for griefing/trolling, and a support that frequently punishes people for doing so.
We do not hurt anymone while RPing, but people who willingly ruin the game for others with their behaviour DO hurt others, and this needs to be punished consequently.
There’s no way Anet would be willing to put in the resources to do this kind of policing. The WvW population is probably bigger than the RP community and it’s plagued by trolls and griefers — nothing is ever done despite report after report.
EoTM is what happens when you fail to acknowledge the existence of communities. It’s surprising that Anet basically tested the megaservers with EoTM but learned nothing.
that silly extractor is way too overpriced…. if i’ve spent 60g on runes, now I need to spend 1300 gems which is far more than 60g to get my runes back…. that’s so stupid, I’m wondering if ANet is just trolling
The extractor is for gouging those who need to recover agony infusions from their gear. Trolling would mean they actually thought about WvW before coming up with the price.
It has never been fully random. In out-of-tournament play, server ratings are tweaked by a small random amount, resulting in a slightly randomized ranking. Colors are assigned using those rankings.
So if there’s a big ratings gap between your server and its neighbors, there’s a big chance it stays the same color week after week.
Anyone tried these runes for the Aegis? You can combine any signet with Signet of Inspiration (can’t do it with just Inspiration) to give your phantasms aegis right before a boss’ big attack to keep them around for an extra cycle.
So it can maybe be useful for bosses that use an infrequent big AOE attack. (For example Tazza in SEp1 or the Risen Abomination in Arah).
The opportunity cost: it’s a toughness rune, so you’re going to lose DPS compared to the commonly used runes/orbs.
They already tried megaservers for WvW. It’s called EoTM. Which is now a refuge for karma trainers and PvEers trying to get their WvW daily. Complete disaster.
If you use a big-name email provider (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo) you can look at email access logs (search Google for how to do this — you generally just have to log in to your email account and follow a couple links).
The purpose of these logs is for security. They are there so you can see who has accessed your mail. Thus, they are designed to be unalterable by you or anyone else who has logged into your account (check that this is true for your email provider — I’ve checked that Gmail and Yahoo mail state this explicitly).
If you check these logs and see an unfamiliar IP address, then your email is very likely compromised. You’ve got serious problems then.
If you don’t see an unfamiliar IP address, then … make your own conclusion.
By the way, if you didn’t have mobile authentication set up for your gw2 account, check to see if it has been set up by the hackers (to their own cellphone). You’ll absolutely want to make sure that’s removed when you get your account restored.
Without running your own email server and looking at the logs yourself, how can you be sure of that? How far do you REALLY trust your email provider to tell you if someone logged into your account?
Just as an added suggestion, change your linked email account.
If your email provider is Gmail or Yahoo mail or one of the other big ones, I would trust them:
The purpose of letting you see these logs is precisely for security: so that you can check whether your account has been accessed by someone else (both Gmail and Yahoo mail say exactly that).
Given the size of these companies, if these logs are not honest or can be manipulated, the consequences are enormous.
(created before the patch, thankfully) and it’s made me realize something else that is now nagging me about the new level distribution—it’s not even internally consistent. You get a point or points every six levels (because apparently that’s totally less confusing for new players than getting one every five levels, right?) until level 78. Then you get your 13th and 14th points at level 80. So the new progression is not only less organic and intuitive than the old one was (or a single point in the new system at every level starting from 15 would be) but it doesn’t even resolve itself smoothly.
This is a pretty minor thing, but it just continues to beg question of why fix (to use the term VERY liberally) what was not only not broken, but working excellently before.
Both these points.
Plus, this trait-hunting system is analogous to skill-hunting in GW1. However, in GW1, much more thought was put in. Each skill was attached to different boss. Each boss was of the relevant profession. Here, we just have a very generic system.
You want trait VI in trait line 5 as a Guardian? …Do 100% complete in Frostgorge Sound. As a Ranger? The same. As a warrior? The same. Very sloppy and lazy.
An RP tag won’t work. I’m assuming it works like this: if you put up the tag, you’re sent to the same megaserver instance as others with the tag.
It won’t work because everyone will use the tag to get into the same instance with friends/party members/guildies. If I want to be in the same instance as my party, we pop the tag. If I want to be in the same instance as my friend, we pop the tag, if I’m doing a guild mission, we pop the tag. Everyone will use it.
And everyone popping the tag is equivalent to no one popping it.
Megaserver system is great but should work like districts in GW1, allowing manual selection of servers. No need to reinvent the wheel when you already had a great system going in the first game.
Districts reveal how many players are in the game (or at least an estimate). I don’t think that’s information Anet wishes to divulge.
That’s the only thing I find annoying – especially with stealths and illusions. Spotting the mesmer is easy – only takes a second. Cycling through targets to reselect them is tedious. I believe it’s the very poor archaic targeting system that has held this game back.
Thinking about it, I must be kittening annoying to fight!
It’s this. Half the time you’re fighting the UI and that’s really frustrating.
Cycling to target is awful because the target selection makes no sense and is unpredictable… If I could easily see that in three button presses, I’d cycle to the desired target, that’d make things a lot easier.
…and clicking on target often fails even when your mouse is directly on the target.
It’d be cool to have a trait/skill/whatever that gives 1 second invulnerability for illusions upon activation (preferably where you can choose when to activate).
How sadistic are you guys? You have to kill the pretty trees and dogs! You know Vick went to jail for abusing dogs! I find the senseless slaughter you suggest sickening!
I make a point to kill the least amount of things as possible, only those things that are a threat to others. Then I mercifully run past everything else hoping that it will not force me to harm it.
And here I was thinking Lilith was nice and liked pretty things… but no, if you can get a few oranges and some scrap fabric then it’s ok to kill the pretty things…
LOL. This is a good point. Why kill things unnecessarily? Isn’t that bad? Shouldn’t we kill only enough to achieve the final goal in the dungeon?
I think the end dungeon rewards should be higher the fewer mobs we kill: remove 5 silver from the end reward for each creature murdered in the dungeon.
Open world play leaves you woefully unprepared for dungeons. Once you learn the basic mechanics of each dungeon, they’re fine. Watch some videos or find a dungeon mentor to teach you (there are many in this forum).
If you don’t like stacking/skipping, say so in your LFG and you’ll get to play with like-minded people … let all the others play the way they want to play just as you would like to play the way you want to play.
As for WvW: Ascended gear and Applied fortitude/strength give WvW veterans an enormous advantage over those who are upleveled. And the worst part is even when you hit level 80, you need to put in some serious grind to get these for your toons.
We warned Anet about both these features. They didn’t listen.
Play what you want… but Necros are quite different from GW1. You can play powermancer or terrormancer (in PvP/WvW/PvE open world solo only — condition cap means in PvE if there is more than 1 condition player, you get very low damage), that’s about it.
You can faceroll any open world PvE content in this game with any build. There are very few builds in this game compared to GW1 (just look at the skill system). There’s really no farming to speak of, certainly not in the style of GW1. The best moneymaker is speed running dungeons: the Warrior has a couple meta builds, necros need not apply (they have by far the worst support in this game).
We just had a server merge (called “megaserver” by Anet) so you’ll see lots of people around. New content is pretty much all temporary (2 weeks to a month generally) and who wants to watch videos of content that’s gone… perhaps that’s why videos don’t get high view counts.
I just noticed you use yahoo mail. Yahoo mail has access logs you can look at (search Google to find out how.. you just need to follow the right links once you’re logged in).
These logs tell you the all the dates and IP address where your account has logged in. Their purpose is for account security so they are unalterable. Even if hackers got into your email, they could not alter these logs.
So if you see unfamiliar IP addresses in these logs, then it’s very likely your email got hacked.
If you don’t see unfamiliar IP addresses, then either you were hacked before the earliest date on these logs (I’m not sure how far these logs go back), or ???
Used to log in and do 8 or 9 events for the night, never the same order 2 days in a row. It felt like I had freedom to choose the way the night went with what events I did. Now I log in and do the exact same bosses in the exact same order and it’s so crowded that even doing those are no longer fun.
Anet has a hard enough time balancing the game at max level. But to have to balance downscaling as well? I don’t think Anet can handle it. One-shotting everything you meet as a downscaled 80 is fun for a bit, but it gets boring really fast.
IMO some of the lower level zones should be converted to Level 80 zones.
Anet grossly underestimates the importance of community. Now, with people dumped into random megaservers (people in the same party aren’t even getting into the same instance), this new anonymity is bringing out the troll in lots of people who used to be well behaved.
Same thing happened to a friend of mine: his email logs were clear of any suspicious logins and his computer was clear of malware (not only that, his gaming computer was never used for anything other than GW2 — no web surfing, no checking email, no other games, nothing.)
Yet, without email access, the hackers entered the game and stole his stuff.
Did the hackers turn on mobile authentication? That seems to be pretty common.
If your email provider is from someone big like Gmail or Yahoo, you can look up the access logs (Google search will tell you how). The purpose of these logs is account security so they cannot be altered by you or anyone accessing your email account.
If you see a suspicious IP address in these logs, then there’s a good chance your email was compromised.
Most large email providers (definitely Google and Yahoo) allow you to see unalterable access logs. A quick google search will tell you how to find these. These logs are for account security and can’t be modified by a hacker.
If you see a suspicious IP address in these logs, then your email likely has been compromised.
If you don’t see a suspicious IP address and your email provider is someone as big as Google or Yahoo… make your own conclusion.
So the megaserver move was done in order to loosen up cloud loads and give more resources to some high-intensive maps? Huh. If that’s the case, then people should be seeing less skill lag in WvW.
It’s done to loosen up cloud loads, …to save money… not to give more resources to other parts of the game.
If you use one of the big email providers (gmail and yahoo for sure) you can look at recent login activity to see if your email has been accessed by the hackers — a quick google search will tell you how to do this. These records generally can’t be altered.
If these records show suspicious activity, then that’s good evidence the hackers got your email and gw2 password.
If these records don’t show suspicious activity AND you had Email Authentication turned on then …. ?
