Guild Wars 2

FYI: An increase in the number of disconnections since the recent WvW server reset is also being discussed in the German forum .

As already posted yesterday I continuously encounter network errors (5:11:3:157:101) when loading a map. Since today, I also encounter an “Connection failed” error (26:11:5:506) every other time I try to log in.

I also noticed that it seems that I am able to load my alts (which I haven’t played for some time) without any problems. Yet, when I try to switch the map the receive a network error (5:11:3:157:101) and from that point on the character is also “corrupted” to throw 5:11:3:157:101 and 26:11:5:506 just like the other characters.

It seems to me that this can no longer be explained just by packet losses of individual ISPs .

PS: my server is Riverside [DE] in EU

~MRA

By accident I found this old post by Matt Chernicky which seems to describe my problem. (It is incomprehensible to me why I was’t able to find that post using the forum’s search function. This post should have been a clear match.)

You can also try to follow his advise to learn whether you are suffering from packet loss here.

~MRA

Hi.

I encountered a new error code today (well, at least it was new to me):

5:11:3:157:101 — Network issue. Failing to get connected to Guild Wars 2 may be caused by the routeur or by a network server failure. If the problem remains, please contact the online assistance.

At first I was able to log in, but the error kicked me every time i tried to access the Eternal Battlegrounds. Now this happens every time I try to log in (while loading the map).

I did not change anything on my network configuration (although i cannot speak for my ISP). When I logged in to the forum/game client today I was forced to revalidate my IP address (which should have been already validated) through the email authentication service.

Any advise an what to do beside “wait until the internet recovers”?

~MRA

Death Reincarnated.3570:

It’s resilient because it has employed Mr. DR to manage its bank accounts.

DR = Death Reincarnated?

Well, if it helps, why not? After all, this isn’t either economics research nor the Ney York Stock exchange. It’s a game, and games have their own rules.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

A single ‘actor’ can infact be a group working together. A single person would not be able to manipulate the market to a large extend (unless that person was a millionaire), however, a “mafia” type group could potentially do so.

Maybe. But beside the ‘botting mafia’ (The Donbot?) I still haven’t seen evidence that this is happening to any significant extent.

~MRA

Cain.1278:

Ah, so it is manipulated then. Thanks for confirming.

Of course it is, as is every market. You are manipulating the market if you offer an item at 1c less than the competition. “Manipulating the market” is essentially what every actor in the market does.

The real question is to what extent a single actor can influence the mass-manipulation-fest we call market for his advantage. And here I agree with John Smiths assessment that the GW2 market seems to be pretty resilient to that sort of manipulation.

~MRA

Shikigami.4013:

If you are not just being sarcastic, but seriously consider that out of many hundreds of thousands of players you might be (or become) one of the top 200 people to use those picks, then it may actually be a good idea to refrain from doing that

Wise words.

~MRA

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

It’s not an issue of the Test sever having different data, it’s not being able to determine how the event got in a bad state.

That’s an understandable problem, but I am a little bit astounded that you cannot reproduce how (and at which step) an event got stuck on each individual server from your logging data.

You seem to have pretty accurate logging data when it comes to economic exploits or misbehavior of players. In my opinion, you should have at least the same amount of data for the DE system (which, after all, can be seen as one of the key pillars of your game). And the (still) numerous events that are stuck for all the different reasons are, in my eyes, the one big problem of GW2 PvE. Save the merchants from the Bloody Buccaneer kidnappers anyone?

Hence, I’d encourage you to have such a DE logging system implemented (or improved). It should be a relief for your work, and you shouldn’t have to rely on our flawed observations on when what broke how.

~MRA

Victros.8154:

I’m just returning to GW2

Welcome back!

Victros.8154:

The problem is, I’m finding myself facing multiple foes my level or higher when I’m trying to complete things. Sometimes as many as 5 or 6. How am I supposed to take on that many mobs at once? Am I doing something wrong? Thanks!

Usually (with the exception of a a small content gap I experienced around level 15-25 on all my alts) there are plenty of options to be at least some levels ahead of your area. Don’t forget that exploring poi’s and vistas, gathering, and crafting does contribute a large amount to your XP income (which is, in fact, usually more relevant to leveling than the small amount of XP from killing mobs). Also, never neglect the personal story since each story step is worth approximately one level.

Having said that, it easier to engage enemy mobs on a higher level. But they will always pose some challenge, so don’t rush in blindly. Take your time, maybe pull the mobs individually, learn what skills the enemy uses, prepare, stay mobile, and generally dodge a lot, and you should essentially never have a problem facing even groups of enemies. CC skills like barriers, pushbacks or snares are also great for staying alive when surrounded. Also, don’t skill/equip just for damage in PvE, since it is the way of the glass cannon to just die if your all-out-attack fizzles. If a group turns out to be tough, think out of box, like using hit-and-run tactics to wear them down one by one, use the terrain, or look for ways to avoid them altogether.

Victros.8154:

Thanks for all the help. How are you guys soloing event champions? Are you kiting?

Given some time, nerve, and tactics, it is tedious yet possible to solo champions, but I wouldn’t generally advise it. Look for one or two players to help you out, and the fight will be way more fun. I rarely stand still at all when playing, so yes, I am kiting.

Veterans are generally soloable and usually not that much harder to kill than a normal mob.

Nappychappy.7046:

No they don’t they never have, that was just big talk pre-launch, they don’t even scale really in huge zergs and if they do I can’t tell a difference.

Random mobs don’t scale, but dynamic event content does scale. I’ve seen that all throughout the game. Actually, I don’t know what you are talking about.

~MRA

I am really amazed by the fact that there are still people arguing against what is, in my eyes, the single most brilliant concept for non-trivializing low-level content I have ever seen in a game. In fact, I wish single-player games would adopt this concept.

Think of the answers past games have given to this problem: You have the Baldur’s Gate “clear the map, never care about coming back” concept, you have the Gothic exponential power curve that lets you steamrole anything below your level, you have the Elder Scrolls/Mass Effect levelscaling enemies, which ended up with the games having absolutely no real challenge anywhere in the games. All of the past systems had very serious downsides, and replaying low-level content was rarely fun at all.

In GW2 (for me for the first time) I found that, at any time, the lower level areas where quite as much fun to play as the “level appropriate” areas. Which is, for me, nothing less than brilliant. Please ANet, for the sake of the eternal alchemy, never screw with that system.

~MRA

Fror.2163:

And if yes, do you have anything to counter that?

The end of the free transfers with the upcoming content release will be pretty much be a counter to the mass disloyalty phenomenon we have seen from some guilds in the past weeks. This has lead to a temporary distortion of the ranking system, but given some weeks and the right disincentive to switch servers (such as paying for transfers, but I wouldn’t mind if ANet could include some incentives to stay loyal to your server in the upcoming “progression” release) I assume the problem will kind of go away.

In the mean time, keep your spirits high. I recently had the most fun in WvW when we were doing nothing but defending our only keep for days against the overwhelming opposing forces. We had no chance of “winning” by the scores, but the server showed great teamwork.

~MRA (regularly dying for Riverside since the betas)

Kardiamond.6952:

Grenade heavy build will leave you with A LOT OF PAIN in your finger. Sometime I switch to rifle only because I’m tired of spamming my grenade.

Oh the joy of fighting under water, where you don’t have to spam grenade anymore!

Oh, you are so much right on that point.

I still somehow wish ANet would just change the grenade-1-skill to be an enemy targeted skill with autocast (even if they nerfed the damage in that process to compensate increased accuracy and frequency). For me, it would be so much more convenient to play.

Yet, I am still lovin’ the engi more than any other profession.

~MRA

I couldn’t be more happy. Thank you.

~MRA

Visiroth.5914:

I hope you realize legitimate guild leaders of WvW guilds have been banned with a false positive of being gold sellers. These people had to send in tickets to get the ban reversed. So no, ANet’s process of determining a real player from an RMT is far less than perfect.

True. Essentially, every pattern recognition technique is only “probably approximately correct”. It takes a lot of fine-tuning to simultaneously minimize the number false positives and false negatives at the same time. Given enough (high-quality) training data, you can get better and better, but no system will ever be perfect.

~MRA

Dee Jay.2460:

And yet so called “experts” are known to give less reliable predictions than amateurs.

aw, man … No, they are not. Please, don’t be silly.

~MRA

SteepledHat.1345:

Complete data…. I guess you mean mostly complete or more complete than in reality.

I guess he means that they log and store each an every action taken in the game. Which would be smart move to do, since you can choose to mine the data for whatever reason later.

SteepledHat.1345:

But how do you sort legitimate trades from gold sellers moving gold or players shifting funds.

They can utilize pattern recognition techniques to sort out malicious from legitimate actions. If they have enough data, the observed features of these actions should be significantly different. You should keep in mind that gold sellers, to be a business, have to repeat certain activities over and over again to do their “trade”. This is very distinct from a legit player that occasionally shifts funds.

~MRA

Sligh.2789:

I am sorry of this is off topic, but maybe the reason that developers see no reduction in drop rates from veterans and champions, and the drastic drop in “drop rates” in general discussed in many other forums be related to the fact that they are looking at test servers instead of live servers?

Very unlikely. The dev team has stated time and again that they are doing data mining on the live servers. The reason that developers see no reduction in drop rates is most probably that they do have actual data on drop rates instead of just subjective anecdotal evidence. (And, yes, this seems off-topic.)

~MRA

John Smith.4610:

The entire set of reasons would be a very interesting discussion…Well for me at least

I agree, and I guess many readers of this forum too. This is the main reason why the OP and everybody else is so interested in learning more on the data of the game that you have and that we can only speculate on. So, please, drop us a little fancy chart once in a while…

~MRA

Bulldozer.5973:

But the game was already released and has sold most of its copies. Why would they want to dump more resources into improving a game that has already sold its copies and has very little potential for increasing revenues when they could just dump their resources into GW3 or whatever other release they are planning in the future?

You are misunderstanding the monetization strategy of GW2. This game isn’t designed as a throwaway game like a FIFA or the latest Assassins Creed, where next installment is always just a year away. Instead, the idea is to build GW2 as a platform, make it popular, and keep selling DLC, add-ons, cash shop knick-knack, and whatever for the next, say 5 years. There won’t be a GW3 anytime soon. “Dumping more resources into improving the game” is the only option ANet has to make this game a successful investment.

~MRA

Avitarus.1865:

And to the guy who says dye drops “regularly” in PvE: Your definition of “regularly” is certainly different from mine. I regularly get Porous Bones. I rarely get dye. Hell, I get yellows more often than I get dyes, and I hardly ever get yellows!

Well, they say that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

At least I would argue that dye drops are frequent enough to keep the trading post prices of dyes fairly low. With only a small number of outliers, they usually cost

• below 1s for common dyes,
• below 10s for uncommon dyes,
• below 1g50s for rare dyes.

Even a player who never farms because because he finds it boring (e.g., myself) can easily acquire enough coin to buy all common/uncommon dyes necessary to give his toon the right look. As for the “gotta catch ’em all” with respect to the rare dyes, I still believe that they are called “rare” for a reason.

~MRA

Rubykuby.3427:

Except the golems are kind of gone before you can kick them out, MRA.

Ok, I see (should have read the OP more carefully). But if you seriously leave your golem long enough unattended for the culprit to run off, then this loss is maybe very well deserved. The same holds for your cabriolet, too.

Anyways, the wiki states that one actually cannot kick other people from a golem suit.

~MRA

All other siege equipment kicks the current user if the creator tries to use the device. If the golems are not working in the same way I’d say they should. (I never built/used a golem, I am more the arrow cart/ballista guy.) Since the system is already in place for other siege equipment, it shouldn’t be all too complicated to implement either.

~MRA

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m fairly new to the game so this topic has probably been brought up before, but what is the logic for dyes not being account wide? Like many new players, I made a character I wasn’t that thrilled with so I started working on an alt. Shock and bewilder when I discover all those dyes I used aren’t available on my alt?!

Is this something that could change in the future?

The dye system has been changed several times before release (well, you know, ANet loves to iterate). In the initial concept they were account wide, as has been posted by Kristen Perry in a blog post in 2010. Also, in the first beta, dyes did not drop as “bottle”, they were grown from seeds in your home instance. Growing seeds would take 24 hours (IRL), but you could speed up this process by buying an item from the cash shop.

At time of the second beta, they changed how dyes were acquired. They now were dropping directly as unidentified dyes, they unlocked colors for a single character only, and they were non-tradeable (account bound, IIRC). This means you could not even get rid of excess dyes on your account. Naturally, this led to an outcry in the community, so they changed the dyes to be tradeable.

Also, while dyes are still unlocked on a per character basis, they introduced actually many ways to obtain dyes in the game: the drop regularly in PvE, if you are a cook you can craft them, you can gamble for dyes in the Mystic Forge, and otherwise you can buy (and sell) dyes at the trading post. And in case this is still not enough, you can also buy dye packs in the cash shop.

As much as I complained during the second beta (and although I am an altoholic), I found the dye drops to be plenty enough such that I have only bought a single dye pack in the cash shop so far. I find the dye system has proven to be a fair system, and I don’t see Anet changing anything on that front in the near future.

As an aside, please don’t let to the many conspiracy theorists in this thread discourage you. They need to blame Nexon, the cash shop, super-greedy-greedy ANet, or whatever boogie man they chose to crucify on a regular basis to be happy. Maybe some people are also just disappointed that it is about 4 month into the game and they still do not have a collection of all rare dyes yet. This is, of course, is just based on a grave misunderstanding what the word “rare” actually means.

~MRA

Slamz.5376:

“No new maps anytime soon” is the worst news of all.

WE HAVE TWO MAPS.

Is WvW supposed to be a major feature or not? If it’s a major feature, why are there only two maps??

Fleshing out WvW with more map variety should be their top priority. I mean if I were king, I would make 1 unique map for each server’s borderland. If we fight Crystal Desert, their borderland will be a desert with crystals in it. If we fight Fort Aspenwood I expect there to be a really big fort. Ehmry Bay would have a bay in it.

I think lack of map variety will kill WvW quicker than lack of rewards. Who cares about rewards when we’re bored of the same two maps over and over?

Yeah, right. Other games, like, say, league of legends would never have survived a week if they would have had ONLY TWO MAPS!!!1!

(irony off)

As much as new content is appreciated, I would rather prefer improving the gameplay on the existing maps over adding new ones. Beyond the technical problems (culling, exploits, you know what i mean) I would pretty much like to see additinal (WvW-meaningful) content that makes the maps more lively. Break-out events were a great addition, I’d like to see more dynamic elements to shake things up.

And since queue times have been gone down significantly, there is no longer an immediate need for more maps. At this point, new maps would only spread out the population and lead to more imbalanced populations on each map.

Also, I have to say that I very much like like the asymmetrical layout of each individual Borderland (by this I mean that two teams are in an attacking position, while one is the defender). This leads to some pretty interesting situations, like battles between the attackers over the control of the small Island between the south keeps, while the defender has different roles to play. Such a setup is only viable if you let every team be the defender somewhere (hence three “copies”).

~MRA

Undercutting by a large amount is only feasible if there is a large gap between sell offers and buy offers. So, obviously, the market hasn’t agreed on a reasonable price yet. In that case, maybe a drop in the market price is exactly what is needed to raise demand. Otherwise, demand will most likely consume the “special bargain” priced goods almost instantly and the lower price plateau will never have a chance to stabilize.

All in all, this seems to me to be just another discussion spawned by a huge over-estimation of the impact of a small number of actors on a global market. Just my 2 cents.

John Smith.4610:

This looks like a place for Game Theory

Please, John, don’t scare the kids.

~MRA

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

-Culling is being worked on —> what more can you want?

Well, obviously: – Culling is being worked on and will be resolved really, really soon

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

So really a positive interview all in all. They are working on a lot of things in WvW and everyone who actually watched the clip should be able to get this.

Beside that, I completely agree with your assessment.

~MRA

Tajz.9826:

And when i asked those 45 players why dont they WvW, They said because well it’s fun but THERE IS NO REWARD, thus no point to play, WvW is waste of time, i better go dungeon for more gold.

I really weep at the thought of the reaction of such players when, say, their 10 year old nephew asks them to play a round of this new board game he just got for [insert favorite gift-giving holiday here].

Do your guildies really never do anything just because it is fun? That’s sad.

~MRA

Sansarah.3076:

Haven’t seen a constructive dev post in wvw for ages.

If you really missed them, you may start looking here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/Habib-Loew-6239/showposts

~MRA

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Oh, and yes it is a resource node. You guys just kind of lied about not adding it to wvw.

Well, technically it isn’t. And I don’t think anybody lied about anything, such accusations are just rude.

TWMagimay.9057:

Wouldn’t it be better to just tweak the spawn locations(like, not inside structures or near edges) instead of removing them altogether? Not that I care much about them staying in wvw, i’m not stupid enough to go farm presents there when I have perfectly good pve maps for that….was just wondering…since your issue seems to be with where they are…

It would certainly be sufficient to solve that particular problem. However, potential problems can be introduced by any well meant mechanics change, so I would rather like to see ANet just not carelessly introducing any festival mechanic in the first place. For many good reasons they would never dare to introduce festival mechanics into sPvP, and while WvW is of course a PvP/PvE hybrid, I’ve seen many people in WvW taking offense on any “not actually contributing to the battle” mechanic.

Heinel.6548:

It’s annoying enough that there’re people asking for mesmer portals inside the JP every 3 minutes using our already busy team chats. Don’t add any more distractions that has nothing to do with anything. If people want to hunt skritt, they do it in PVE, not WvW.

This, quoted for truth.

~MRA

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Is it really causing that much of a problem?

Not “that much”, but to some extent, yes, it does.

For instance, I am pretty annoyed by the following design faux-pas: In Stonemist Castle, Mysterious Present boxes drop right on the mortars on the top level of the castle. Some kitten player will inevitably click on the boxes to let them explode, which a) sets a number of mobs free in the castle to which distracts the defenders and b) launches the player operating the mortar and, thus, interrupts the defense. In fact, I have been launched to my death twice (SM top floor to courtyard in less than 2 seconds) by those kitten boxes.

I understand that it is well meant to provide WvW players the same access to the festivities as any other player in the game, However, I would really appreciate if the event changes to WvW would be purely cosmetical (decorative snowmen, Wintersday trees, candycane poles, you name it) with no influence to the gameplay mechanic whatsoever. Keep the game mechanic changes in PvE. According to what I have read in the chat channels, I am under the impression that this would be also appreciated by the majority of the WvW community.

~MRA

FourTwenty.4268:

how is this an issue in MMOs(ive seen this issue with laggy open world pvp before), but not in an FPS?

Well, to be fair, there aren’t that many FPS games out there that allow 500+ players per map. And the ones that do are particularly designed around that feat.

covenn.7165:

Simply put, bad design.

Galrukh.6532:

It is 100% bad design.

I would’t call this an indicator of bad design. It seems to me that the culling problem is rather an unfortunate heritage from the old GW1 engine, which was designed to handle just 8 players per map (and a few dozens at towns and outposts). When you tweak and expand an existing engine into directions it wasn’t designed for, you sometimes hit limits and boundaries that need a lot (a lot, a lot) of work to circumvent.

I just hope that ANet realizes that much of the actual pain with the engine problems could have been avoided by running an extensive open beta testing period for WvW (instead of just three weekends). The problems with the engine would have been detected much earlier, the team could have started fixing them much earlier, and the community would have exhibited much less whining and ranting since “meh, it’s just beta”.

~MRA

Great news! I am happy for each and every change you announced. And I have always been a sucker for more meaningful events in WvW. So I am hoping that there will be even more dynamic events in the February patch, or further down the road.

~MRA

Grizledorf.5290:

Is there any chance to get another make over kit ? He looks horrible. It was 6 gold I don’t have 6 more gold, please help.

Grizledorf.5290:

Please, I can barely even bring myself to play my toon looking the way he does.

Seriously, if bringing back your old appearance is of such an importance to you, you should consider just buying the kitten 350 gem (= 4.35 USD) Total Makeover Kit through the cash shop. After all, nobody forced you to change your look.

~MRA

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

Problem: Patches are not being tested.
Solution: Test your Patches.

I am pretty sure ANet does some amount of internal testing for patches. Please be aware that more tests inevitably lead to even longer response times from ANet. And also think of what this would mean to many people crying out for hotfixes instead of patches (“Any luck seeing it within the next few hours?”), where hotfixing essentially means fixing immediately without much testing.

Also, if you look at the problem at hand, Robert Hrouda’s comment indicates that it seems to trigger only in very specific circumstances. Such problems tend to slip through internal testing quite occasionally (and thats the reason why beta testing can be very effective).

Xarog.3172:

Please consider adding a test client and a test server where players can copy their characters in order to test patches before they go live. I am sure that there are more than enough players willing to test the fixes so that silly mistakes get fixed before they get ported to the live servers.

I am not sure how this would fit into the given WvW, overflow, etc. server architecture, but I think this idea has its merit.

~MRA

Mark Katzbach.9084:

This feature already exists. See the up and down arrows next to my name? When there is another staff post in a thread, the arrow will not be grayed out and will be clickable. You can use the arrows to navigate to the next and previous staff posts within a thread.

That’s true, but you still have to seek a dev post first by scanning through all the postings. There are numerous topics with multiple pages, and finding any dev post at all can be quite cumbersome from time to time.

Hence, I ‘d say the OP’s suggestion has its merit.

Also, when viewing a topic, there is no visible indication whether this topic contains a dev post at all. I kind of remember that there was such an indicator when the game was in beta stage, and I wish it was still around.

~MRA

i slaughtered the undead untill the wraith came up at the beach, apon killing him it triggered the cutscene with the asuran NPC, then tells me i have two objectives, to slaughter to gain power and speak to trahearne and the asuran NPC, they however, and constantly in combat with the undead that keep coming out of the water

I encountered the same bug yesterday. I also killed the wraith pretty early (actually didn’t realize it was the boss until i slew it since the beach was full of numerous mobs). Once the wraith was down the conversation triggered and I was in the final “make your decision how to proceed” step in the mission. The beach, however, was still full of mobs to fight, and I am also pretty sure they were still respawning (but this was hard to tell in so much chaos).

After additional ~five minutes of (tough, tough) fighting, me and the lionguards were gaining the upper hand and the mobs finally stopped spawning. Only then I could rez and Gixx, make the decision, and finish the mission.

~MRA

(edit:) Obviously, it must have been the Mad King’s wicked influence that kept the risen spawning and spawning.

I did notice that water buckets were not working for me when I was standing “too close” to the target object. This was a little bit annoying but still easily fixed by, well, positioning “not too close” instead.

It’s a minor detail, but still something that might be worth fixing some day.

~MRA

DevonCarlson.7036:

there is no way to re-play your opening cinematic

I’d like to encourage you to consider providing a “replay cinematic” option through the (say) hero panel. By this I mean any cinematic a character has “unlocked”, including the faction choice, dungeon story mode cinematics, and whatever else.

I know that there are more important issues at the moment, but the cinematic’s art style is so well done and GW2 lore is so much fun to watch, so please don’t hide them.

~MRA

BakaOniiChan.9564:

How is volatility and deviation determined?

If you are able to endure math you can find all details in this document:

http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf

It’s not particularly easy to explain Glicko2 without doing the math, but Mark Glickman’s gave some pretty catchy outline in his own words:

• Ratings Deviation: “The Glicko system [computes] not only a rating, which can be thought of as a best guess of one’s playing strength, but also a ratings deviation (RD) […] which measures the uncertainty in a rating (high RD’s correspond to unreliable ratings).”

• Volatility: “The volatility measure indicates the degree of expected fluctuation in a player’s rating. The volatility measure is high when a player has erratic performances (e.g., when the player has had exceptionally strong results after a period of stability), and the volatility measure is low when the player performs at a consistent level.”

~MRA

vjek.4270:

However, it has been my experience that when your average customer runs into such roadblocks, they simply stop playing.

I am a very average customer, too, as well as an Asuran Engineer with the Infinity Ball background. And I cannot confirm that this mission was particularly “roadblocked” for me. I cannot even remember having experienced any difficulties when playing this mission (there were other situations that were way more memorable in that way).

I did not use any particular strategy either. I guess I just played a “cautious chicken” as always: I dropped my turrets early to give the mobs something to chew on, kept my distance to the enemy, and played the general dodging game to get out of harm’s way while wearing down the enemy from the distance. I can’t remember whether I was using flamethrower or grenade kit at that time (to counter groups of mobs), but it might be possible.

~MRA

Winespring Brother.2970:

/bug to report in-game.

Oh … right … way too easy to guess. Thanks!

~MRA

Danikat.8537:

When using the in game bug report option …

Wait — there is an in-game bug report option?!? I was desperately looking for that, where do I find it?

Using the report UI window during betas was way more convenient than posting bugs here at the forums …

~MRA

Dynamic Event: unknown
Objective text: unknown
Date when encountered: Oct 17, 20:45 UTC
Map: Gendarran Fields
Server: Riverside

Description:
- Lionguard Hroda is standing at the trading post in Traveller’s Dale with an event shield icon atop her head, but there is no event going on.
- Talking to her doesn’t start anything eventy either

~MRA

The great thing with event chaining is that it allows for us players to fail an event without “losing face”. Once a fight is lost, there is always the chance to regroup and counterattack.

Actually, the only other game I remember that allowed players to fail and live with the consequences is Wing Commander 1 (yes, this one is for the grampas out there). In WC1, there were always two follow-up missions: a loosing scenario and a winning scenario. Only if the player lost a certain number of mission the campaign was lost entirely. But there was always a chance to make up for lost missions and eventually win the campaign, and the game even told a coherent and unique story along that way.

It’s a little sad that ANet won’t allow us to loose events a little bit more often to keep the event chains fresh and … well, let’s say, “dynamic”.

~MRA

John Smith.4610:

Out of curiosity, how many feel that a 100% free market would be a good idea?

Well, I don’t.

(But, then again, I come from the socialist EU with their social market economy. We even have universal health care! This, of course, can only mean that I have been brainwashed by the communist propaganda of my tenured professors at the university.)

I appreciate that you try to discuss this topic in the light of a real world economy. However, such a discussion will always be flawed right from the start since the production of goods in a game is so fundamentally different from the production of real-world goods (‘creation out of thin air’ versus ‘consumption on non-replenishing resources’). Hence, as tempting as the suggested discussion might be, I don’t think it will lead to any meaningful conclusions.

Please don’t try to make GW2’s economy a copycat of the real-world economy. Instead, try to make GW2’s economy a working (aka ‘more or less stable’) in-game economy.

~MRA

(edit:) And all of you who think that your concerns and doubts with the current system are the results of the machinations of a malevolent actor who built a system to specifically harm you, with no other explanations possible, please look up here .

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You have to remember that not all events are just “happening” instantly.

Some require talking to NPCs as well. If no one talks to certain NPCs, then those events will never start. And not all event NPCs have circles over their head. Some have hidden dialogue that will lead to an event if you have a conversation with them.

I agree, there are many subtleties in the world of GW2 that can easily be missed. In fact, whenever I find one of those, I enjoy the game the most. And I really try to be not that kind of player that is just running for the exit of a zone on the fastest possible route.

However, can these obvious/hidden player triggered events really make up for the (subjective) feeling that the world isn’t as dynamic as it could be with the existing game mechanic? For me, the idea that the world does not idly wait for a hero to come along, but has dynamic of itself, has always been the strongest part of the concept of GW2.

~MRA

score 2012-10-13, 12:22 UTC

First of all, this is not intended to be a whining/rant/whatever blahblah post. I love the game with all its flaws and problems, and I have a lot of fun playing it daily. I just have a question I like to hear other players (or maybe a devs?) opinion.

The only thing that troubles me when playing PvE is that I can sometimes explore for 30 minutes or more and never encounter a single dynamic event, especially in level 30+ areas. I never had the slightest doubt that dynamic events are far more entertaining than traditional checklist questing. However, for DEs to be fully immersive, you need the constant feeling that “somethings going on”. And this is a feeling I am missing from time to time.

So, why is that so? I have seen that many event chains have been stuck due to bugs, which of course has an impact on the number of perceived events. I also have the feeling that the event rotation pauses have been prolonged significantly since the betas. There are numerous events that I have seen or played multiple times in the betas, yet I have never seen them since release. And yes, I have taken my time in lower level areas. Also, I have yet to experience an event chain to move back-and-forth. Usually, I just see them at the “good end” of the chain, with the enemies never facing a chance of pushing the chain back unless there is absolutely no player around (aka never).

I also did a little bit of counting and checked how many events are actually listed in the official wiki . Of course, the wiki is still missing a lot of information, but I have some confidence in the wiki crowd that they do have listed a high percentage of everything by now. According to the wiki, there are currently 788 events in the game. What is also interesting is that while the starting zones list a fair number of events (50-60), higher level zones seem to have way fewer events (20-30). For the promised 1500+ events every of the 25 zones would need to have as many events as the starter zones. I attached a screenshot of my count.

So I am asking myself how many dynamic events actually made it into the game? Did ANet have to cut a number of events in order to meet the release date, or are they maybe postponed to be added as free content updates later this year? Are we players still missing (for whatever reason) events that are actually in the game? Or are 1500+ events in the world, but they are simply not enough to fill the huge area of the 25 maps? Or am I the only one feeling this way?

~MRA

Chronologist.9782:

You played WoW for 4 years and you think end game is sitting in Orgrimmar?
You love endgame for GW2 at lv.72?
You played ‘all’ your characters for 300 hours and at lv.72?
You don’t think in GW2 you have to farm marks/badges?
I don’t think we’re playing the same game

I don’t know about WoW, or what this “endgame” is supposed to be, but I have been playing my six alts for 280+ hours since headstart (my eldest being 56), and I can confirm that I enjoy the game just as much as the OP. Seems that I was actually playing the same game as the OP. (I just wish it wouldn’t be in such a bug-infested state.)

Manji.3801:

@ ANET: Please don’t get discouraged! I love this style, keep on with your plans!

This. (Except, well, you know: less bugs, please.)

~MRA

CattivoUomo.7198:

I wanted to start a discussion on how to make WvW fun again for everyone.

If you just wanted to start another discussion (the 357th addressing this topic, I guess) then why did you start the thread in Q&A mode? I am pretty sure that your post isn’t a question that can be given a definitive answer.

~MRA

(edit:) No offense intended, I just wish people would start using the Q&A mode the way it is meant to be used.

It seemed to work fine in Beta. These problems have come more about since the recent patching.

Not completely true, the “invisible enemy problem” has already been active in the betas. However, there were way fewer situation when you might have experienced it (fewer players online, less overall server load, “less complicated character models”, etc). I remember noticing it one or two times, and only for a few seconds each time.

However, ANet was also continuously raising the number of players per map during and after the betas, which may be a reason that wee see the problem more often now than in the betas.

Is this a limitation of the engine or just something that needs tweaking in the coming patches until it’s fully fixed?

Well, the tweaks in the patches are actually tweaks to the game engine, so I’d say the answer is yes to both.

Programmer Habib Loew addressed the problem in this post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/The-real-problem-here-is-invisible-enemies-Give-their-algorithms-time-to-match-servers-properly/page/4#post356817

I read the post as: It will likely be fixed in the future, but don’t expect a fix anytime soon.

~MRA