Guild Wars 2

I only put your idea in the spotlight because it was in the other thread and I didn’t want to miss that idea in this discussion. There certainly may be other approaches we could use to formulate a party leader system.

The big questions, however, are things that need to be addressed and we’ve gotten some feedback on already. A lot of people have said “give us proper party leader controls” over the months but haven’t really qualified what they want or what problems they actually want to solve.

I think I can safely say the big issues we want to address are:

1. We want to minimize the likelihood that path sellers will get griefed and kicked out of their instances
2. We want to minimize the likelihood that groups will kick others out and either sell their slots or invite their friends to leech the spots. I distinguished this from the first bullet because both need to be specifically addressed.
3. We want to provide an architecture for players to more easily group up with others looking for specific sets of qualifications to avoid situations where players may be kicked.
4. We want to achieve this without creating a situation where a player is “immune” to being kicked from a party if they mistreat others or go afk forever or whatever.

I think those four bullets cover the major issues we want to address. The third I think we can address with a proper filter system like we discussed in a previous topic, or possibly there are other solutions.

A party leader system could be implemented that might limit the issues seen in bullets 1 and 2, but we want to be mindful of problem 4. Making someone immune to being kicked is taking steps backwards. This is why I think there may need to be an opt-in if the party leader is immune, or if that’s even a valid idea at all. I do agree with phys.7689 that if we can prevent griefing, then it is a worthwhile pursuit. The key is that we don’t want to unnecessarily divide or impede people forming groups at the same time.

cthaeh.2168:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Only the leader can kick people and it doesn’t require a vote kick.

This is such a terrible idea. You want to give more power to toxic players? You need to outline the problems you are trying to fix before offering solutions.

Exactly. So what are the problems you would want to fix about the party system we have now? That is a major part of the entire point of the thread!

Tree.3916:

IMHO I don’t think any changes need to be made to the current party system. The real problem is lack of accountability of people hijacking parties. Solution, add a “Griefing” option in the reports menu and let internal GM’s take care of the issue.

This is a valid point as well! If a lot of people feel this way, then I can report that to ANet as well. I’ll go through all posts in more detail later today after work.

I went ahead and made another topic to really guide the discussion; I think this is something I’d like to eventually report to ANet so I wanted a more controlled format.

This is a topic that a number of players have claimed that they want, but we’ve never really gotten a set of requirements for. Let’s talk about this and see where it leads.

TurtleDragon.3108 provided a good starting point for discussion in another thread where this appeared as quoted below:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Ideally, I think there should be options for people to get into instance groups. An automated one and a modified version of the existing LFG system

1. Automated group finder with heavy vote kick restrictions and no real “leader”. The option for new players or when you just don’t care about getting a zerker group for CoF p1 or w/e. You get a debuff that prevents you from using this option if you rage quit while the party is full. You can not initiate vote kicks in combat, or after the final boss has been killed.

2. The current LFG system modified to request party invites instead of automatically joining the group. The party leader will see a list of people who applied to join the party and can see their gear. Only the leader can accept join requests and invite other people. Only the leader can kick people and it doesn’t require a vote kick. This is the option to join if you want join a zerker meta p1 speed run or clerics only run or achievement run etc.

What do you all think?

EDIT: Keep in mind that this is not bringing the old system back. The old system had an instance starter, who if kicked would eject everyone from the instance. What we’re talking about here is a proposed new system that would enable greater control over who can kick and so forth. I also think, in addition to this system, we would want some kind of opt-in for the party leader system and it shouldn’t be the default. ie. A party leader could forfeit party leader control over a team and it would function as we have it now.

I would expect different new Fractals entirely rather than the Abaddon fractal. I genuinely feel that ANet will try to keep the outcome of the player vote relevant as to the direction of the game.

A party leader system is something that a lot of players talk about, but no one has actually defined in any appreciable way. I think I’ll probably start a discussion topic and see what it is that people would actually want from such a system.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

Since i got kicked after 3rd fractal along with 2 people i just check LFG every day and report every group selling paths both for gold selling and lfg system abuse. Lost all enthusiasm for dungeon runs – i might get kicked no matter what and all my efforts would be wasted.

The worst part about what you’re doing is that because you’re wasting GM time on false reports, people who are actually getting abusively kicked aren’t getting the GM attention they need. Because you falsely report players, you’re actively helping the very activity you are reporting players for.

I would not expect the Abaddon Fractal to ever happen. The community chose Ellen Kiel, so we got what we asked for and that’s all we get.

For instanced PvE:

1 Staff Elementalist
1 D/F or S/F or S/D Elementalist
1 Warrior
1 Thief
1 Guardian / 1 Mesmer (Depending on Path/Fractal)

For open-world PvE:

1 Me
0 Everyone Else

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m still hoping GS 5 is a pure DPS well of some kind for purposes of trait interactions.

I’d rather see Mark of Pain

OoooooOOOOooooo…. Sold.

This was the first WTS where I felt that I really liked all of the teams. Eurantian made some killer Ranger plays and really showed what the class can do, Heaven and Earth showed real improvement from our Chinese friends, Abjured came in and showed strong, and Orange Logo trained hard, had an epic comeback against TCG in the European qualifiers, and went undefeated in the WTS itself.

These teams were respectable, strong at representing their nations, and very talented. I really enjoyed watching all of the games, and really enjoyed the production and competition.

No one deserved this tournament win more than oRNG, and I say that as a proud American. Great job, and I hope you win many more in the future.

I’m still hoping GS 5 is a pure DPS well of some kind for purposes of trait interactions.

You gain very little actual DPS from the Precision of Rabid because you have no Ferocity, and Barbed Precision is a minimal DPS gain. The Power from Carrion allows things like Putrid Mark, Life Blast, and Life Transfer to become viably threatening even though your primary source of DPS is condition damage. Additionally, with all of the passive condition damage that Celestial builds are doing, you gain a good buffer against that by using Carrion for its Vitality.

Lastly, in the off chance some pub Ele on the enemy team is using Diamond Skin, you can actually punch through the top 10% to kill the thing. (Yes, this has been relevant to me before)

Becka Williams.4978:

I don’t see how level 40, with 1 instability, is harder than 39 with 9 instabilities. To be honest, stacking instabilities is a terrible idea. I still think my idea, random instabilities as gambits is the best way to prevent people from avoiding them. I also don’t know why people care about how others play their fractals. What’s the difference if people roll swamp?

Level 40 would have 10 instabilities, not 1. It’s the same tier as L39. L41 would definitely be easier than an L40, but you couldn’t do an L41 if you wanted the L40 tier rewards. That’s the point! Anyway, of course they’d have to be rebalanced. L40 would be infinitely harder than L50 in its current form due to a combination of some of that tier’s instabilities. It’s the principle I want peoples’ feedback on.

Fixing broken forum… again.

Dave.2536:

It may not be enough just to make them virtually all the same.

Fractals can be categorized into A, AB, B, BC, and C, depending on which levels you can get them.

As swamp is an “A”, people would still favor it over an “AB” like Ascalon or Uncategorized. This is because if you start at with an AB, your chances of rolling a BC for the second one are now higher than before, coupled with a lower chance of getting a BC for the third fractal.

This is a very good point that we haven’t talked about yet. Assuming they stay random for purposes of discussion, do we actually like that some fractals can be had at both the first and second level? What about the ones that you can get at the second and third level?

Currently we have:

1. Water, Swamp, Ascalon, Uncategorized
2. Uncategorized, Snowblind, Ascalon, Molten Furnace, Cliffside
3. Aetherblade, Grawl, Thaumanova, Dredge, Cliffside
4. Solid Ocean, Molten Boss, Mai Trin

Would it be better if a fractal could only show up ever once? An example might be as follows:

1. Water, Swamp, Molten Furnace
2. Uncategorized, Snowblind, Ascalon, Aetherblade
3. Grawl, Thaumanova, Dredge, Cliffside
4. Solid Ocean, Molten Boss, Mai Trin

I think these are closer in terms of length insofar as events and/or difficulty across the different fractals. This also prevents the situation you referred to, Dave, where getting Ascalon for first fractal would make Cliffside for second fractal more likely, and so forth. What do you all think?

spoj.9672:

Funny you should say that. While i do agree especially as the extra effect is chill. The guardian actually has fairly high coefficients on its greatsword auto. And that gives might on the final hit. It does about 1.12 cps. Which is really not much lower than the guardian sword auto which is 1.24 cps. Obviously sword has a better damage mod trait though.

Basically guardian greatsword has the highest coefficents of any greatsword currently. Id expect necro to have about equal or slightly lower to be honest. We have less damage modifiers so we can maybe expect slightly higher coefficients on some weapons. Although we can only see evidence of that on the dagger so far.

Interesting! I wasn’t aware that the Guardian GS was so high. Maybe we could get some pretty good AA coefficients and have a solid all-around weapon otherwise. I’m really hopeful that the GS will be enough to boost our DPS to get us comparable at least to Warrior level DPS. We can’t get by with Guardian level DPS without the kind of support they provide.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

His job as a forum specialist is partially to represent the dungeon community as a whole he is neither allowed to be pro zerker meta or pro PHIW, he cannot take sides period and must represent us in unity. He is not suppose to support anyone’s opinion or have one himself.

Anet is neither pro zerk or anti or pro trinity or anti or pro PHIW or in order to maintain a non discriminating image. Rising Dusk can either absorb this same prime directive or step down so he can engage with whatever he wants. He lost those rights the moment he volunteered.

This is actually incorrect. The only thing I am not allowed to do is attempt to influence the development team to make changes based on my opinion in my reports. I am fully allowed, and encouraged, to have an opinion for purposes of discussions. As a matter of fact, in talking with the ANet correspondents I speak to, my having an opinion but not being offensive about it is a major contributor as to why I was chosen in the first place.

If you feel this is inappropriate, I encourage you to email forumspecialist@arena.net about it and explain to them why you feel specialists having an opinion for purposes of discussion is inappropriate. If they agree with you, they will speak with us, and you’ll see changes happen in the way we respond to topics. That all said, this sort of discussion is not really appropriate here. Please PM me if you’d like to continue chatting about it.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Mind linking where u saw the necro using the greatsword & what it was doing ?

Here.

spoj.9672:

To put it into perspective they would have to do something like 1.1, 1.1 and 1.4 for the chain. Thats ridiculously high.

They certainly won’t considering that the attack chain finishes with a chill. If it had no other effect, I might accept really high coefficients, but because it does have an effect I expect pretty mediocre ones.

BarnabeJonez.6023:

That record heavily involves the use of Mesmer’s portal and FGS for mobility. Yes, the DPS difference is there, but it’s hardly the only difference between us and a record run. As Iris Ng posted, this is better compared to other casual runs, not to record setters.

That’s certainly true. Ultimately, whatever gets you and your friends to enjoy the run more is what matters. Since you’re all friends and you’re fine with the loss of DPS, it’s all good.

I, honestly, think this is more impressive than a 1 second better time implies. He did this with an Ele, whereas I think a Thief actually has a huge benefit here with Pistol Whip DPS, Signet of Malice healing, blind spam, and major teleport wins across the path.

Great job, approved!

I would really love a Portal-range Flesh Wurm.

Other styles certainly are viable! I agree with that. That said, your video also clearly shows what it does to your team net DPS since the all-time record is under 3 minutes and yours is over 8.

I remember when Dhuumfire was first buffed. I had a really epic encounter in WvW where I solo defended a tower against around 30 players who all trickled in 1-3 at a time. It was pretty magnificent, but it was that day that I knew it wouldn’t last. At least I had as much fun as I did while it lasted.

So it seems like there is a fairly divisive split in opinion between random fractals and chosen fractals. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, which have also been discussed. As I said before, I personally fall into the category of liking random fractals for the full series, but having the option to choose to play any single fractal by talking to Dessa for purposes of speed runs and practice runs.

As for the non-boss components of each fractal, it seems that the general consensus is:

• Smarter mobs, featuring coordinating skillsets closer to the Mordrem or Toxic Alliance
• Additional orbs in higher tiers for Swamp (4/5)
• Mob patrols in Ascalon and other Fractals (Water, Uncategorized, Snowblind, etc)
• Mobs having some revealing effect around them when out of combat to force better timing if stealthing past

I will say that I feel that progression is the most important component in the levels being divided as they are. If they dialed back the number of levels in Fractals, it might make some people happier, but I think it would hurt the Fractal community overall. Now maybe instabilities aren’t the best way to do that in their current form, but maybe they are. I once proposed this a long time ago and am curious what you guys think of it.

What if instabilities were still a thing, but they stacked based on what level you were on. So for instance, L31’s instability was active when you do L31, and L31 and L32’s instability were active when you do L32. So you couldn’t avoid instabilities by doing higher level fractals within a tier. Once you hit the next tier, the list of instabilities reset and you had the next tier’s instabilities. This would at least prevent people from skipping instabilities, and would also avoid the situation where L40 is easier than L39.

As for Eco’s question, I think the only way to make rolling swamp not a thing would be to intentionally slow it down. The problem with just making the other ones more rewarding is that people will naturally gravitate towards rolling for the first fractal that is most rewarding for its average time investment. To actually solve the problem of rolling altogether, the average time spent on each first-tier fractal has to be virtually the same.

This is a great discussion so far! Thanks for all the insight into your thoughts everyone!

It actually takes an annoying amount of time to approve a new guild with new players and new characters for records that will undoubtedly be beat should anyone actually try with a proper team comp. It’s on our radar, though, don’t worry about that.

Yeah it’s why the approvers have been kind of ignoring them until there have been big jumps. Still, this sort of competition is probably the most exciting thing for speed clearing players, so that’s really awesome.

Approved as the Ele record, although Deathly did beat this for overall record.

Was going to approve this, but Deathly already beat it. Sorry. ;-;

Approved. Big improvement from the previous record, good job!

Wethospu.6437:

I clarified the rule to:

Party members may not switch character or re-enter the instance.

I’m okay with this; it seemed to be the general consensus anyway.

I still get 1 at least every 2 L50 Fractal series I run. A few times over the past few weeks I have gotten 2+ in one run.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

But what should a player use to report a griefer/siege troll? There is no choice on the /report function for that if I remember correctly.

As Michael said, always report these guys for botting. It is the best way to get a GM to the location ASAP to evaluate what is actually happening.

I recommend always playing ranked. Dive into the tougher competition and strive to get better. You will learn more playing against better players, and in turn will become better yourself. The matchmaking algorithm will also do its best to pair you with people reasonably matched against your own skill, unlike practice mode where everyone faces everyone.

This isn’t even considering that ranked has the best competitive assortment of maps, and the generic player models work there so you can actually see what smallest-scale Asura on your enemy team are doing.

Faux.1937:

Roll Urban and kill all the groups past Dulfy.

Do this repeatedly; it’s very easy. You can even solo everything very easily if you run along the right side of the first area to keep your NPCs from getting distracted.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Ticket: #1288143

It should be a fairly straightforward ticket, but it has been three days. Thanks in advance for looking into it!

I got a response today, so don’t worry about this. Thanks!

ShadowRX.9024:

Well i think it should not be allowed to leave dungeons because of the npcs. Why try to wp to move npc when 4 people can relog? In my opinion that looks bad and it destroys some tactics completly as oh wait lets just relog so the npc teleports…

Personally, I’d think that waypointing would be faster because you don’t have to deal with two loading screens minimum, so if you chose to log out you’d be sacrificing precious seconds.

That said, I think if this is the belief held by a number of the participating guilds, it’d have to come down to a vote at a meeting.

Fixing broken forum page.

Alright, some really good posts so far, so thank you for that!

Firstly, I’ll say that I personally as a player fall into the camp that agrees with Nike, and I personally like the random Fractal approach we have right now. It is part of what Fractals were designed around, and is part of their replayability for me. It keeps what might otherwise be a monotonous task of completing a Fractal series enjoyable because I at least get different experiences each time. Also, I would never pick Cliffside if I were given the option to avoid it (it’s too long), and I would pick Grawl every time.

As for rewards, I am very familiar with the problems there and am definitely on board with the notion that the hardest content in-game should be the most rewarding.

As for selecting Fractals, I agree that being able to play a single Fractal of choice for practice and not for a full series reward is a great idea. This is important both for the speed running community that needs to be able to select a Fractal for purposes of clearing it, but also for practicing with friends new tactics. Based on discussion here, I think a good approach would be:

• If you run a normal series by entering the Portal in the Mistlock Observatory, you will still encounter 4 random Fractals and will get the end rewards as normal.
• If you talk to Tessa and have her teleport your team to a specific Fractal, you will get that Fractal only and then be returned to the observatory, and the only rewards you get is the end chest at the end of that specific Fractal.

As for challenging higher tiers, there seems to be a lot of support for Nike’s proposal, taking ultimately the following form:

• Higher tiers introduce new boss mechanics with increasingly supremely difficult challenges that teams will need to overcome. (I will link to Nike’s post)
• No new mistlock instabilities at higher levels. (Maybe it could be like L50’s instability at every level thereafter)
• Add a collection achievement and title for completing every Mistlock Instability from 30 to 50. They could have each level give a unique ‘token’ item that contributes to the collection to do this.

Besides these things, what do you think should happen to the normal encounters throughout the Fractals (not the bosses) at higher tiers? Everyone opposes more HP, more damage, and more mobs, so what else would you like to see? I don’t think more events / paths are appropriate because that requires a lot of terrain/scripting work, but maybe there’s something that could be done.

Honestly? The rule doesn’t explicitly disallow leaving the dungeon, so I think it’s fine to leave the dungeon. I can’t think of any abuses that would result from leaving the dungeon that would actually benefit players, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I mean you could death-res at Mai Trin fractal, but that would be slower than not dying at all, so that should be a non-issue.

Ticket: #1288143

It should be a fairly straightforward ticket, but it has been three days. Thanks in advance for looking into it!

To the OP, all I can say is that they have to play someone, and if they wait in queue long enough matches against lower ranked individuals are inevitable. The best thing to do in situations like this is to try your best and do and learn what you can.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I am asking why you would want a Necro in your group. I am gathering data.

In PvE, I would never want a Necromancer in my group with the sole exception of Epidemic at the Triple Trouble Wurm world boss.

In PvP, I would want one, maximum, Necromancer in my group for condition burst and spike boon removal.

In WvW, I would want Necromancers in my zerg for AOE boon corruption and AOE damage in general, and I would want a Necromancer in my small roaming group for condition pressure and boon hate (similar to PvP).

Shiyo.3578:

I wonder if anyone from anet knows about this exploit for completing path 2 and 3 at the same time?

Email it to exploits@arena.net then. Do not post about it here. Please remove it from your post or this thread will be deleted by a moderator.

[VZ] is still recruiting!

We’re always on the lookout for people who might make good friends for us! We’re super casual with basically no requirements, but we love playing together and we operate like a close group of pals. If that sort of environment sounds good to you, consider talking to one of our officers and learning more!

captainteemo.6537:

I’m a little surprised a report went in but a new discussion thread was never really created? Though since there’s a back log of hot topics I’m sure there was plenty to provide them.

@Rising Dusk. Maybe a brief summary of what was addressed?

Topics I’ve covered with Anet are as follows.

• The Party Kick System
• Fractal Rewards
• New, Instanced PvE Content
• LFG Filters
• Community’s Response to HoT Changes

I’ve also addressed the topic of Ascended Rings being a problem as part of Fractal Rewards (either allow them to be merched for higher value, salvaged, or both, possibly with a collection), and so forth.

As for progression, what would everyone like to see from higher levels? I recognize everyone wants new fractals already, but what else besides that? We all know of the mechanic shift from levels 1-9 and levels 10+, and also the new mechanics we see at level 50 for some fractals. Are those changes things you like? Would you prefer more things like that, or another avenue for that sort of thing?

Gambits had a fair bit of discussion a long time ago and had some positive support, but it’s been awhile. I sort of like them because it allows you to tailor your own difficulty. What if the current instabilities became the gambits? Would that work, or would you prefer something else?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Update: We got two very solid reports from RisingDusk, to whom we want to extend a huge note of thanks. Each report has been routed to the development team.

You can rest assured that RD understands your concerns and is expressing them very well, including tasty quotes from some of you. (I use that comment with a freely-confessed goal: to inspire more and better “tasty quotes!” )

Hooray! Glad to hear it!

For everyone else here, my first report included as one of the discussed topics Fractal Rewards. There have been a number of discussions lately about it, and I feel I have captured the community’s feelings on them (as well as all possible solutions to the issue) sufficiently.

One topic I have not yet addressed to the developers, however, is the idea of Fractals progression and difficulty. My goal for fractals progression discussion was to do a “mini-CDI”-like thread where we discuss different aspects of the progression system and what we like and don’t like, and then I report it all to ANet. Some people in this thread seemed to have taken that as my hosting a CDI, so sorry for any miscommunication there! CDIs will only be happening at the discretion of Chris Whiteside and other ANet game designers.

As for fractals progression, the first thing we have to discuss is what we have right now. What does everyone think about the Mistlock Instability system? Does it feel challenging enough or does it feel gimmicky? Would you prefer a system more like the the Queen’s Gauntlet where you add gambits and the rewards increase proportionally? Any other ideas?

Fixed. It’s been a long day.

If you look at both POVs it appears, upon closer inspection, that he doesn’t actually do it. He seems to try to do it, but doesn’t succeed, so it doesn’t break the rule. You can see it more clearly in the Warrior POV. In the Thief POV it’s hard to see.

I welcome other approvers to look at it closely to determine. This is a few seconds before it happens in both videos:

http://youtu.be/-KPkkioxTXo?t=3m35s
http://youtu.be/tvl5OrQlbo0?t=3m35s

Approved. Good job!