Guild Wars 2

We have managed to kill Teq post-patch with the consumable nerf with a perfect defense – it’s certainly possible at non-reset times !

With more practice this will become easier as people learn what skills to bring to the fight (DPS Zerg) to improve the overall DPS sustained rate. As people learn that zerker armor is probably not the best (Teq is a structure and crit hits cannot be landed) – PVT armor will become the norm to achieve a high level of consistent sustained DPS without dying.

This is now placing more reliance on killing fingers, good turrert operaters (East) to ensure buffs are given to the DPS Zerg at the right time.

If the portal gate entry stopped and then an appropriate scales boss appeared after a few seconds it would allow for a fair encounter and fix a whole number of scaling Ian’s loading issues this event currently has.

Hi All,

1: Scaling on rings inside after gates
The scaling and people distribution when people port inside to the rings is sometimes very unbalanced.

This can result in fails which should not be happening.
Each circle area usually has a champion.

With 20 people entering a gate this should create an even distribution of 4 people/circle.
This can be difficult to fight a champion as teams are often split up.

I have seen instances where 7 people are on one circle and others have only 2-3 which generally will result in a fail. The distribution of people needs to be even to allow the event to succeed. If there are few people in one circle – having a champion makes it near impossible to succeed – a elite or vet should be present (not a champ).

2: Gate Entry
This is currently lagging out – press F to enter.
This needs to be automatic entry when running through a green gate.

This would improve the chances of people getting inside to kill the bosses inside.

Many Thanks for reading !

The overflow is not the problem.
The problem is people in a zone not listening and results in a fail – this applies to both main maps & overflows.

Hopefully they number of people willing the just Zerg along will reduce in future as they realise they have to do more than just stand still and spam a few skills.

Hi Anet,

Thank you ANET for the consumables nerf at tequatl.
I love this nerf !! (I really do – you listened a prior post I made which got deleted !)

When running an EU Group on a NA Server were always able to BBQ that Tequatl dragon with very few consumables (about 12 fire embers tops often spawned during the whole match a month ago).

The consumables made it a DPS Race – minimising any strategy required between the ‘STUN’ (or as other players called it ‘Burn Baby Dragon Burn phase’ – due to embers being used) and the next battery phase.

Many of the kills at server reset times relied heavily using Firey Embers and made it a trivial fight with > 6-8 mins left on the clock. One Fiery Ember / 30 mins is a perfect answer !

This now is going to rely on people to work together more to kill this epic boss – I love it !

Please accept a massive thank-you from everyone for finally making this battle more epic, rewarding and awesome.

If we could have it scale better (for a slightly smaller zerg) would even be more awesome !

Please don’t complain – I can see how this is going to foster greater co-operation and team-work. Rather than the ’I’ll AFK’ for 1 hr as we’ve got plenty of embers its reset time, so we’re going to kill it – it now becomes we got to do this right (e.g. stack on the DPS Pin for buffs or the time will run out etc).

Thank you !!
Thank you !!
Thank you !!

As with all online games ‘lag’ will always be an issue. The one-shot kill /wipe unless you dodge is annoying for higher lag scenarios. Not much can be done to change that.
The only thing I can suggest here is watch the boss and look for those early tells/signs of big single hit incoming (most of them have several seconds of build up or a sequence of skills they use- it’s not random).

That’s why you are limited to so many dodges/it’s on a slow regen.

Dodge is meaningful – ‘you dodged that bullet/arrow’ = you got clean out of the way just in time (no dmg taken – makes sense). Having dodge just be a % reduction of dmg you might have taken removes the purpose of dodge. It would mean that people with heavy armor can take even more dmg compared to light/medium further causing more imbalances.

There are normally some skills in each char class which are ‘un-dodgable’ – there are limited for good reason.

Picture: (As Attached)

White Text (1-6) = Turret Numbers. East = 1-3, West=4-6

The Basics:
East Defence Groups
S- Shipwreck Defence: max 5-6 people. Keep Aggro in Red “S” box and away from turrets. Pull agro always into middle of shipwreck. Ensure enough healing here with thief (shadow refuge / blinds) + mass res to keep agro without being killed as a team. Concentrate on Adds before killing any champs which may spawn.
Theifs, well necros (limit fear usage at this stage- save for battery defense), engineers work well here.

WP – Waypoint Defense: Max 4 people.
Kill any spawns (krait) and ensure abominations are priority target so they do not blow up lazer when it appears. Thief (shadow refuge, mass blinds) and Mesmer (clones) in this group works well. Ensure there is someone in group with mass healing (eg Ranger) and someone with mass res skills. Ensure agro does not move from red “WP” box to turrets 1-3.

Finger killing groups: 1 Mesmer,1x Thief + 1 other In each and kill fingers fast (high DPS – eg Zerkers)
Help Repair turrets as needed to keep them at high health.

EF – East Finger Killers: Max 3 people. Initial spawn is between turret 1-2.
WF – West Finger Killers: Max 3 people. Initial spawn is between/in front of turret 6-5.

West Defence Groups
WJP- West Jump Pad: Max 5 people. Stand between both jump pads behind turret 6 and kill spawns. If necessary send two people from this group to help group “F6” if they are overrun. Concentrate on keeping spawns away from turret operators. Ensure someone in this group has mass heal and res skills.
F6- West Forward 6: Max 3 people. Thief and Mesmer in this group. Kill krait spawns that appear well in front of turret 6- continuous popups with 1 vet.

Skills/Equipment
Thiefs : Daggerstorm (elite), Shadow refuge, smokescreen, hide in shadows, sigil of shadows (for blinds)
Shortbow (Cluster bomb, poison field)
D/D (for skill 3 which gives aoe dmg)

Engineers : Supply Crate (elite), healing turrets, bomb kit/ mine kit (blinds, cripples etc)

Necros : Well of healing, Lich Form, chills/blinds/bleeds. Limited fear when necessary to help save team.

Mesmers : Feedback, Timewarp, temporal curtain (for pulling foes away and moving from battery).

This should hopefully be a good start to helping you understand the various defence groups.
If you can lead any of these groups – please add your name to the thread indicating which you can lead.

Many Thanks

Hi All,

ServerTime: Noon (Organisation Starts) [UK Time: 8pm/France: 9pm/EST: 3pm)
Server: Jade Quarry

I encourage you all to look at the following information if new to Teq (or just generally on how to improve/optimise the fights):
http://dulfy.net/2013/09/21/gw2-tequatl-the-sunless-strategy-guide/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/tequatl/GUIDE-Tequatl-the-Sunless

This gives information on what builds to bring or other things to do during and in the fight.

Information about strategy will be posted in this thread.
We usually get the kill done – need people to help organise this event (as its a Non-Reset) kill.

Many Thanks,

I think we should discuss that in the CDI Process Evolution Phase 2 which will start on Wednesday 22nd. Among other things we need to chat about what topics to discuss in the next CDIs and how to go about choosing them. I would personally like to have a week long PVE CDI on Fractals next (Running in conjunction with a PvP and WvW CDI) but we should discuss it as a group first.
Chris

—Page 65 CDI Threqd horizontal Progression.

There is hope yet?

Why is it potentially connected to gw2?

All US Server traffic goes via US ISPs – if these throttle or slow down the link spped because your ISP or ANET has not paid extra $$ for this type of traffic your gaming experience will have more lag. Your gaming experience will be affected.
Anyone connecting from outside the US to US based services could also be affected (e.g An Australian gamer playing on a US based service – eg GW2 US Servers).

The same also applies for external voice communication systems that you may use outside of GW2: Teamspeak, mumble, ventrillo, Skype – unless you pay your ISP extra this traffic could be throttled to the point it is unusable.

At an extreme example:
It’s basically like driving down a freeway (or motorway) and all your traffic is stuck in the slow lane unless you pay extra to use the other lanes for each type of service. You have the 10-40 lanes available (10-40Mb) and empty but you are being throttled to the slow lane 1MB (and high latency) unless you pay for each car type (ventrillo, gw2, video streaming, web pages, FTP, private VPN). The ramifications of loosing the net neutrality argument are massive and will hurt consumers of internet in a massive way.
It also means the costs you experience will go up massively to have the same performance you currently have.

This is what could happen without net neutrality.
The bandwidth should be available from ISPs – it costs them no more to provide the available bandwidth that you have paid for (given under your contention ratios/SLAs etc).

“Organization takes less than 10 min if ppl are not afk which normally they are because they have to be parked there for so long to have a chance to do it.”
I wish !

Even with non-afk people many are not prepared to volunteer for roles for fear of doing them wrong or messing up. A lot of these people DC – it would be nice if the AFK timer was shorter (it’s about 20-40 mins) I think. This would help a lot during the organisation of things like TEQ. Requiring people to be active in the map. E.g. 1 hr before any world boss spawns – mX afk time is 20 mins. 30 mins before he spawns is it 10 mins. 15 mins before he spawns it is 5 mins. This would help ensure people are actually there.

The best I have had is all roles filled and organised within 30 mins. If you have a regular crew that is dedicated to TEQ all the roles are pre-filled before they even travel into the Map (organisation is done offline before the battle).

The big issue here is people think being in the DPS Zerg is the answer and they will afk till the last minute. It does seem really unfair on the 20-30 who are filling defense/turret roles who are doing the majority of the hardwork.

Right now these battles are relying on too few people to try to get people organised and try to get people in defensive position.

I don’t know if this is a symptom of the game where no other world boss or dungeon requires proper co-ordination. Most things seem to be a simple stack and smash Zerg fest (brainless). The sooner all other world bosses are upgraded requiring co-ordination the better – I think this is the only way people will start to think and learn.

If this event properly scaled we would have less issues with overflows and on quieter servers.

Hi All,

Please be aware that this method of debugging network issues has major flaws.
The flaws of measuring ICMP Packets (pings) to measure lag – are well known and numerous these are:
1 ISPs (intermediary) – will randomly drop ICMP Packets on a network. This will then report incorrectly in ping plotter or tracerts commands as dropped packets.
We will see randomly high levels of pings or other such items which does not actually reflect the state of the traffic itself.
Level 3 networks are well known for dropping high numbers of ICMP packets especially cross-country this helps prevent DDOS attacks and is often turned on.
2 The actual game traffic does not travel via ICMP ports so we are looking at something else than the actual traffic itself that is being sent.
3 ICMP Packet analysis only works on a network you fully own to give reliable results and is likely to only work for the first few hops of any network traffic. If you are not seeing any packet loss on the first 2-3 hops then it is probably something else that could be causing the issues.

I even have information supporting this from my ISP which I have sent in prior support tickets to ANET and why this method is completely unreliable. We tried to see if level 3 has a problem between Dallas and Washington as a hop- it turned out that Level 3 routinely drop ICMP packets and the other traffic (game traffic is unaffected).
If possible could we migrate to analysing actual traffic (to/from and if the traffic does not reach it’s destination) with a free network traffic capture system: http://www.wireshark.org. TCP traffic which this game uses relys on synchronised Qued in-order communications if one item fails (or the packet is rejected by the destination) we often experience in-game lag.

Why do I suggest this?
This gives every piece of traffic a start time, end time, ISP priority (QoS), duration in transmission (delta time – can be used to measure real lag), acknowledgement of receipt and a much more detailed analysis.
I have numerous pingplotter graphs which look okay (in various areas of the game), but a more detailed analysis of the actual network traffic highlights some major issues are being experienced in the back end (usually packet is rejected from being recieved by server at high load or a desync event has happened).

I know this is more complex than a basic level 1 network diagnosis – but without looking beyond ICMP it is unlikely we will get to the bottom of these lag issues.

Typical types of “lagging”:
1) I have had numerous times when party chat will be delayed for up to 10 mins. Other types of actions are fine : “say” or “map” – just massive lag on one type of chat or whispers. This is usually on a different IP – so we cannot do any diagnosis unless a full network trace is used.

2) Skill Lag – this has often been map or server wide. This is definitely ANET server side when I have an entire team reporting it within a map (>20) on a seep rare voice comm system.

3) Random individual lag – Lag spikes can also affect one person (not ISP) related. This seems to be more prominent around server reset times – such as whilst in a dungeon.

4) Forum timeouts/cannot login: Server forums seem to get overwhelmed at times. Long loading times and errors can make it look unstable.

Happy to discuss further but more and more I delve deeper into this it looks like problems on ANETs side and not my ISP.

Good luck ANET in fixing the numerous issues and slaying this Lag Dragon !

" I go to sparkly fen 55 min before its time and I thrown into overflow and cant join my party on main even if i spam the join option during all that time."
Many people at reset que for over 2 hours to get into the Main map- you are leaving it too late.

If more people were prepared to learn this fight and the defence roles it should be possible to organise within 20 mins and at non-reset times.

The current meta for high level zones is 3wars+guardian+other (FoTM) or 4wars+1other(many dungeons). Mostly all are running zerker.

Zerk wars seem OP (Due to heavy armour and high HP) compared to a zerk Ele (or thief with lower health pool, very squishy armour).
Many foes can one-shot the Ele or thief (12k HP), the War (~20K-30 KHP+) will take 2-4 hits before he feels any damage.
A balanced FoTM team at high levels (>2-4 hrs), zerk war based team (1-1.5 hrs).
Why is this the meta? One shot mechanics which kill other professions instantly (unless they are running full PvT) leaving the warrior still alive (regardless of armour).

This just doesn’t seem right- it kicks most other professions to the side.

The TA Aether path (which few people do)- Is a fab example of how a team has to work together and properly punishes full zerker.
It also requires less stack and spank mechanics to win.

Funny thing is I don’t see too many full zerker teams even attempting this place – this dungeon is more about harmony in the team build, positioning, dodging and split/stack during actual fighting of bosses. It’s not that it couldn’t be done with zerker bars it just wouldn’t necessarily be optimal when bringing other professions into the dungeon.

The one important thing to remember is theifs : These are designed to be zerker ish without too much zerker amour.
They easily get a high %crit damage change without too much effort – they are designed for short burst high dmg ratio but are exceptionally squishy.

The challenge is balancing all of this so other playstyles are viable without completely nerfing one class to the dust.

I do feel sorry for those that have bought all the ascended zerker armor – but hey we know builds, bars and the meta changes over time, it always will. If you have been running zerker quick in most places – you already have a massive cash advantage compared out other players – go farm the money fast so you can get another set if needed before you get nerfed?

Being able to solo dungeons due to running zerker and understanding all the mechanics of a place tends to also lead to nerfs to that dungeon over time.
We only have to historically look at GW1 UW path (~30 mins solo, or then 2 man 30 mins then required a full team to get it done in 30mins due to Grenth final boss being added).

It’s been great people have shown off there skill (Solo all dungeons, or fast zerker kills everywhere)- but you actually encourage ANET to increase the difficulty or make that build non-viable over a period of a few months. I’m pretty sure ANET has target times for how long areas should take (min-max) and if the (min) time required is being beaten by the majority of the player base playing one meta type it has always been changed or looked at (usually takes a few months before a change would hit).

Perhaps this is the reason why many players opt for celestial armor if they are only going to have one armour set to try to mitigate any changes that may happen over time. They know the optimal build will change over time and this helps mitigate the cost of buying many armour sets in a lifetime which almost gets them to that optimal build (it’s close enough).

Did an EU TEQ kill recently with > 6 mins left on the clock on the NA Jade Quarry server and perfect defences !

Hi All,

Please be aware that this method of debugging network issues has major flaws.
The flaws of measuring ICMP Packets (pings) to measure lag – are well known and numerous these are:
1 ISPs (intermediary) – will randomly drop ICMP Packets on a network. This will then report incorrectly in ping plotter or tracerts commands as dropped packets.
We will see randomly high levels of pings or other such items which does not actually reflect the state of the traffic itself.
Level 3 networks are well known for dropping high numbers of ICMP packets especially cross-country this helps prevent DDOS attacks and is often turned on.
2 The actual game traffic does not travel via ICMP ports so we are looking at something else than the actual traffic itself that is being sent.
3 ICMP Packet analysis only works on a network you fully own to give reliable results and is likely to only work for the first few hops of any network traffic. If you are not seeing any packet loss on the first 2-3 hops then it is probably something else that could be causing the issues.

I even have information supporting this from my ISP which I have sent in prior support tickets to ANET and why this method is completely unreliable. We tried to see if level 3 has a problem between Dallas and Washington as a hop- it turned out that Level 3 routinely drop ICMP packets and the other traffic (game traffic is unaffected).
If possible could we migrate to analysing actual traffic (to/from and if the traffic does not reach it’s destination) with a free network traffic capture system: http://www.wireshark.org. TCP traffic which this game uses relys on synchronised Qued in-order communications if one item fails (or the packet is rejected by the destination) we often experience in-game lag.

Why do I suggest this?
This gives every piece of traffic a start time, end time, ISP priority (QoS), duration in transmission (delta time – can be used to measure real lag), acknowledgement of receipt and a much more detailed analysis.

I have numerous pingplotter graphs which look okay (in various areas of the game), but a more detailed analysis of the actual network traffic highlights some major issues are being experienced in the back end (usually packet is rejected from being recieved by server at high load or a desync event has happened).

I know this is more complex than a basic level 1 network diagnosis – but without looking beyond ICMP it is unlikely we will get to the bottom of these lag issues.

If pingplotter reports packet loss on the first 1-3 hops: the best thing you can do is turn your router off for 5 mins and restart it. Then retest again.
Happy to disucss this further.

I don’t think it’s that- we need ANET to increase the difficulty of many of these world bosses to not be a simple Zerg fest auto-attack.

The loot now dropping if many people turn up is so small it’s almost not worth doing many world events unless the Zerg size is smaller. Diminishing returns as increased numbers of players turn up as there are not enough additional foes that can be killed.

(E,g. Shatterer with a party of 15-20 will get more loot overall than a Zerg of 80).

I find the statements coming out recently tend to show that little has been understood by how the changes have affected player runs.

FoTM 49/50 will continued to be run so players skip all lower fractals – it’s just a AR gear check (gold sink). These players will eventually reach lvl 50- without experiencing any mistlock instabilities. It is as before – I don’t see any justification for the reset now or moving forward as higher levels are introduced if the same type of pattern continues (AR checks at every 10 levels).

I am concerned that there is a disconnect between how the players actually play the game and what is perceived by how it looks like it is being played.

Elephants never forget.
People also have long memories.

The CDI thread said that he would look into it.
I have very little reason now to go into a FoTM with the mess they left behind.

It seems the best builds still are 2x War, 2x Guard + 1 other now.
Previously there was a lot more versatility in the groups and many more runs being done.

The leaderboard was a pretty naff idea- race to the top (doesn’t indicate any form of skill). People will always find the easiest and shortest path (eg WvW zerging, PvP points etc – it’s all been seen before). I did sets the original suggestion for this in the suggestions forum a long time ago and dismissed it as a bad idea – but suspected ANET might try to implement it as it was suggested by a player. (Reminds self: not all suggestions turn out to be great real world ideas).

FoTM seems pretty dead now unless you are doing a guild run – something needs to change. The whole infusion change creates an even bigger barrier than was there before (70 AR is the safe level of agony for a FoTM 50 run which is just another gold sink).

All of these changes were mentioned on the forums before release- perhaps Discussion is required with the players about some concepts before things go horribly wrong.

Definitely not good value.
Designed for impatient people or new players only.

The boosts/buffs and items included are not worth it at that price.

I have personally found that’s it’s been worth farming mindlessly for keys / scraps (lvl a char to lvl 10- in about 15-30 mins) and to not buy them from the BLTC- if you are interested in keys.
I don’t support ANET by buying keys off the TP – it’s just something which I don’t see as good (it’s a deliberate cash drain from players with horrible RNG for very poor rewards).

Although some of the skins may be pretty – this will annoy those who have listed already on the TP. I already have so many buffs from daily rewards that I have not used there is no compelling reason for me to get keys. The drop rate is also bad in-game for keys (not cool – it makes it look like another deliberate grab for players cash) and the gold-gem exchange rate makes these ticket scraps stupidly expensive via RNG keys.

At this time it seems easier to farm this gold and buy the weapon directly than bother with buying (or making new chars) for any skin that may be required.

The high requirement of ticket scraps required for any tickets is just overkill – and has put me off any if these weapon skins (on discount or not). After a year I only have 6 scraps – via key drops (rare) and a few personal story keys.

I wish my fellow Tyrians luck opening those boxs – it’s just not for me.

Most client PCs would not be able to handle 600 characters rendered in a small spot actively doing stuff.
It’s an exponential requirement of network traffic, server side resources, client side resources which occur. I cannot support this idea of 600 people trying to Zerg this boss or others given how most people are already running on low settings so the PC does not crash or find they cannot see characters (as they have to turn down model limit).
It can be bad enough right now with the spam chat in map – and these are additional problems that could be introduced amongst others.

For the Karka Queen: if you land in an overflow you can get Karka down with only about 10-15 players in the map and roll through all the pre-events pretty quickly. You will probably end up getting more loot from the pre-events in an overflow than in the main server. If you need more departs and advertise in LFG to get more into the overflow as necessary.

I understand the frustration – but most events as Far as I can tell are organised for about 10-40 people (except Teq). You will start to miss out on loot if > 40 people are there as you cannot tag enough of he enemies that appear in quest chains,

“I went to our own server event 30 minutes early tonight, and still got kicked to overflow.”
- most players get to the world boss event like Teq 1hr+ before the spawn to help participate in the organisation so a successful kill can be achieved.

I know of instances where people are queuing for over 3hrs (at weekends) to ensure that they are in the main map for reset kills. The map generally soft-caps for my server 1.5-2 hrs before Teq actually appears on a weekend.

The limits are in place for a number of reasons – mostly client side (to ensure players do not disconnect or completely lag out with the high gfx and network traffic that results form a Teq kill).

If you land on an overflow 30mins before the actual battle – it’s probably cutting it close to organise a kill (unless they are nearly fully organised). If everyone pulls together in that overflow it is perfectly possible to organise a successful kill – I have seen overflows succeed if people help out.

I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to turn up 1hr before the Teq kill if you really want to take him down.

The main problem is that many people want to be carried and only have played a DPS Zerger and have no interest in playing any other position which is just as important for the kill.

The other solution is to start organising non-reset kills and building that Timeslot up so it works for a group of people. You then put less pressure on making the reset kill and have another chance if you miss the reset kill.

The more people realise overflows can kill Teq with a bit of organisation and pull together and start working together as a team instead of AFKing the higher chance of success that overflow will have.

Wait till WvW Season 2 starts – then I’m pretty certain positions will change a little.
It should improve the chances of rotating your Worlds colour.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Borderlands-Rotation-Reset-time – will give you info to know when your server will rotate in advance it’s colour.

WvW mapping is a case of waiting for rotations to make it easier.
I have once waited a few months between a rotation until I could quickly go in and complete an area on a map – and then I completed it on multiple characters quickly during that week.

The amount of time spent in the map when rotated should be low compared to the time required in the PvE Maps.

I play on a T1 server and these strategies do work even in prime time.
If you have been killed recently – there is no second bag for getting killed again (with tin a short time limit).

With the EB map – you have to wait for rotation (can take several weeks sometimes on a T1 server) so you get into the keep your server owns when your map rotates. It’s much simpler than trying to break into the enemies keep. It may take a while before you rotate to the right place on the map to be able to do this so you can get each keep/tower.
Running from your spawn spot to the your keep (should be a short distance).

The trick in EB and borderland maps is to cover the 1/3 of the map closest to the starting waypoint that your server owns.
That usually will be at least two towers, a keep and a couple of supply camps each rotation.

It’s far harder and longer to complete PvE mapping (time spent/effort) than mapping WvW maps.

SiegeHawk: “PvE for sissy’s” is just an insult – it’s not an excuse for WvW pride either (no matter how you disguise it).
I play both PvE and WvW – and there are plenty of harder aspects to PvE that can be far more challenging than WvW.

Try dancing on the spot -
Waving at the enemy or something’s to show you have no intention of fighting.

You might be surprised – they could just let you pass without fighting.
They might kill you once but if you keep running back there they don’t get any points for a second kill later on (within a couple of mins).
Sometimes ask in map- say ‘hey I need this last bit for my mapping – can anyone help me out real fast?’

Some nicer WvW players may help you get it real quick!
Why? They want you off the map so they can get a WvW person into the map so they can fight a bit more for the world. You might get really lucky and have an escort of 50 people help you out !
(Stranger things have happened !)

It’s generally easier if you are not trying to run into there corner of the map (where they spawn). If you are wait for a map rotation.

“What about those who are not on low population servers with no friends? Pretty much the only way if no one helps them out is to wait for the rotation, and even then, there’s a potential chance that there will be certain areas they can still never reach.”
So if you are on a higher population server – you only have to check out the maps every once in a while- the areas which are volatile like Stone Mist (for example) you could also use something like an external web service which shows exactly what your team has capped. There are plenty of website which will let you know what you have capped – just pop into WvW when you know what you are missing.

The WvW maps are the easiest to map by far.

For the PvE Maps – try guesting for a few days to a higher population server.

Quite often there are guilds hanging around in LA who will allow you to guest to there guild for Guild Missions (you might see an advert).

Or perhaps get your guild to start doing them at a pre organised time and invite people in temporarily from other guilds?

Can we have more skimpy armor – I honestly don’t think there is enough!

We used to have a tattoo armor set in GW1 on monks- would love to see something like that introduced again.

WvW exploration is easy !!!
You just wait till the map rotates – you usually can map at least 2/3 of your home borderland. Over a period of 4 weeks you should have it all done- with only 1 hr/ week in WvW.

The only harder bit is waiting for EB Stonemist for a final bit- that can take some time.
It doesn’t even require you to capture or participate in WvW to get this completed.

If you don’t understand this then I think you are doing Something wrong.
This is why I don’t support only having WvW to get a gift of exploration under any circumstances (it’s too easy- and will lead to exploitation!).

There are plenty of dead hours in WvW – the mapping achievement can be done quite quickly. The only difficulty is that you may have to do it over several weeks and not all in one session (on a T1 server) a % of the map each time.

I would be surprised if you could do all the PvE mapping in a single week.
I honestly don’t mind seeing the few people mapping in WvW at least this way some PvE players get to see what WvW is also about. At least if they are mapping in WvW chances are they have a decent level character already with reasonable equipment.

I don’t think players who do WvW exclusively should be able to earn a legendary just because they have mapped WvW (it honestly is too easy to map that zone).
It’s a much harder challenge mapping straights of desolation, cursed shore and Malchors leap.

The whole point of the gift of exploration is it is meant to take time- if it relied on WvW mapping only this could be done in <24 game hours (WvW mapping is like 2hrs/map x3 on a good day). The PvE world has many more maps and this split would just move even more people from PvE into WvW to get a gift of exploration.

Many players would create new characters (lvl 1) just to map WvW for the gift of exploration and this would annoy the WvW crowd more – as truly squishy people would be there with no real armour. This would cause a lot more griefing than there currently is.

I honestly believe it is good for the WvW people to experience the PvE maps – I understand they may not like it. But if they want there legendary they should prove that they have completed the harder bits of PvE such as Balthazar (for that annoying skill point), Lyssa, Grenth etc.

The whole concept of legendary is that you have helped the world out (PvE and WvW) not just one aspect of gameplay.

The other problem I have also seen with this particular event is that sometimes on certain maps (Frostgorge is a good example) it is impossible to get certain spawns killed as the enemy doesn’t appear easily or is hidden,

In other maps the spawn might require a long run to navigate terrain to kill a few remaining foes which can sometimes significantly reduce the chances of success. I think all spawn spots should be rechecked that they don’t bug out – especially where there may be deep water nearby,

How would you propose scaling would work better for an event where a large Zerg rolls In when the event was started with a much smaller team?

Let’s use shatterer as an example here.
Currently:
There is no point in defending the mortars by the NPCs and everyone just stands in one spot and pretty much auto fires skill 1. There does not seem to be any scaling dependant on the number of people in the map.
It doesn’t require any organisation or real team work.

Question:
How would the event initially scale with 20 people in the map and scale-up when an additional 40 people arrive in the map?

New mechanics:
With 20 in the map?
- it is necessary to protect one mortar and some of the NPCs must be kept alive whilst other people go and directly DPS on shatterer? (Requires a small team of 5?)

When 60 additional people arrive in the map near the boss area?
- Multiple mortars need to be defended and the mortars are required to keep the DPS Zerg on the dragon alive and use the mortar skill on the dragon. The health pool of the dragon scales up in-line with the additional people that have just ported in (after a minor delay so they have time to get into position).
Possibly add a skill on the mortar which stops the dragon from gaining an invincibility buff (or flying away requiring the mortars to be used exclusively with Max power to get the dragon back on the ground). This would make the fight seem more alive and ensure the mortars are used during the battle and those using them are kept alive.

Credit would also be given if you were defending the mortars or using them during the event (heal or dmg).

Does something like this sound workable or would something much tougher be required to promote team-work and different groups to co-ordinate to achieve the kill?

I have used Shatterer as an example – but the same ideas could apply to things like Karak Queen, Wurm, Golem etc – requiring something more than just Zerg rush the boss or spam a single skill.

I do understand the difficulty of Tequatl – could do with some better scaling (hence the exclusion of this bosses mechanics which take some degree of planning before he arrives – There is a good thread in this dynamic events called “Tequatl Fix” which discusses how this boss could better scale).

I don’t think it’s easy to find the right balance on how to scale up bosses so they can be completed given a certain number of people. I am interested in this so both low population servers have a realistic chance of being able to kill world bosses if they can understand the mechanics without it being a pure number count of people in a map.

If we can give any positive ideas back to ANET before they buff everything on how scaling could work better and improve some of the world bosses so they are not a mindless Zerg-fest would probably be appreciated.

This way we would also have some input into the ideas that may be currently working on.

WvW map completion can be done in a few hours on a low population server – with a few friends. No real challenge there compared to PvE Map completion/exploration which is much harder.

Unfortunately I don’t agree with this change.
I do however understand the difficulty of completing WvW Maps to 100% in busy T1 servers – the only workaround here is to wait a week till you change position (colour) and go explore a bit at a time.

Hi all,

Bit of an open topic this one – I currently feel that most world bosses are a Zerg feat and simply too easy requiring very little team work and it’s just a Zerg fest.
They just don’t feel like anything awesome or requiring proper co-ordination.
I am watching people jump from one world boss to another for guaranteed rewards with requiring very little effort (auto attack skill 1 in most cases and go AFK )- it’s a stack and spank job in most cases in a single spot (even with increased health/limited time limits).

I believe Tequatl is the only exception to this.

I know ANET has promised to increase the complexity of all other world bosses to Tequatl level – personally I think this would be a good thing if the difficulty scales with the number of players around.

Well open to you- probably a good time to voice your opinions on this before the best round of buffs to existing world bosses.

//not signed.

I have recently seen many bad ethos items to Teq – such as guilds selling slots to kill Teq or join there guild. This would escalate to a worse level if this was the case.
You would get guilds forming with around 20-30 core people selling slots to do these high end events in a known location.

This would help fragment the whole concept of PVE and community world based server level gaming.

The whole concept of exclusive maps for guild members sets a very bad example in my opinion (esp in PvE or WvW)-too many negatives.

Guild exclusive maps =/= PvE events which are meant to be based at a world level.

Maps for true style PvP Guild Wars (like GW1) however I can support – but these still would not be guild exclusive maps. They would be for wars between guilds as a competitive style of play with the ability to win exclusive rewards from the style of play.

Okay here is the fun:
It is designed to be anti-zerg – a Zerg mentality will guarantee failure of this event

So how on earth is it possible to win?
Each spawn of mobs is designed to be attacked with about 5-10 players (Max) – through all phases until Scarlet appears. If there are more players than this the span scales up and tends to take a lot longer to complete the overall event sequence.

Phase I : Clockwork – it’s essential that each spawn is attacked simultaneously and all baddies are cleared to lower the counter.
Why this number of Max players/spawn?
-> Champions start to appear and more baddies on the map which take longer to clear.
I have seen groups of 3 take out a single spawn effectively and progress events quickly.

Phase II: Dredge – once again each spawn should have a maximum number of players around it. Unfortunately people want to Zerg the few champions at this stage so this often results in missing the aether stage. The idea is to get as many different groups killed at the same time to prevent a single group scaling up.

Phase III: Aether Pirates – This is where it often goes horribly wrong and all the pins will concentrate on a single spawn. This results in many champs [up to 3-9] appearing (depending on numbers of players in the single spawn). What should be happening here is players should be taking down multiple groups on the map simultaneously.

If these groups are killed simultaneously as they appear with small teams (up to 10- I prefer groups of 5/spawn) – scarlet should appear for the final kill.

Now the big question is Why do players want to Zerg to make this event fail?
1) Twisted Clockwork Drops – bigger single Zerg = more drops/more tags (Price of these drops is now very high)
2) Champ Boxs – bigger single Zerg = more champ boxs (Especially pirate phase).
3) People have been conditioned to play “Follow the Pin” and champ box train (Frostgorge etc) – and these events need a different strategy.

How could this be fixed?
1) Do we need to increase the end reward – eg exotic % chance chest like Tequatl?
This might revitalise the event and get people interested in doing it again as designed.
It is an event which requires people on the map working together independently until the last final stage to guarantee the “win”.

This is only one suggestion I have to get people doing the event again which takes a long time to complete.

I suspect even “high population” servers have been failing this event for a long time – due to many of the reasons above.

With a good group this should be doable in about 40-45 mins.
It’s one of the few dungeons where you really want to work together and balance skills for the team (not individually).

The classic zerker bars with stack and spank tactics don’t work – this was part of the aim for this dungeon. I honestly hope more dungeons become like this so it actually requires team work and co-ordination.

I’m tending to run WvW tactics here – combo finishers to stack things like might etc just before pulls to make this fight fast and easy.

Thank you to everyone who turned up tonight and helped organise the groups.

I think we had everyone in position within the first 30mins of the organisation phase – fantastic team work and effort from everyone who was there.
It was a nice kill having > 3 mins left on the clock tonight – good job all with lots of new people still learning.

It shows Teq can be done if planned correctly at non-reset times without having to be in a specific Teq killing guild.

FYI – This event is back up and running.
I would encourage people to arrive on time as the Map does frequently hard-cap.

Arriving for the start of the organisation phase allows us to ensure everyone is in place and explain more info to people what to do for anyone who is new to this fight.
Please help organise/volunteer if you have been turning up regularly.

Many Thanks

Perhaps not enough people are doing it after the fractured update?

The number of party’s looking for groups (FoTM) post-fractured has gone down significantly – not a good thing. This could be the only mechanism left to try to put people back into FoTM.

Hi John,

Please be aware that this method of debugging network issues has major flaws.

The flaws of measuring ICMP Packets (pings) to measure lag – are well known and numerous these are:

¹ ISPs (intermediary) – will randomly drop ICMP Packets on a network. This will then report incorrectly in ping plotter or tracerts commands as dropped packets.
We will see randomly high levels of pings or other such items which does not actually reflect the state of the traffic itself.
Level 3 networks are well known for dropping high numbers of ICMP packets especially cross-country this helps prevent DDOS attacks and is often turned on.

² The actual game traffic does not travel via ICMP ports so we are looking at something else than the actual traffic itself that is being sent.

³ ICMP Packet analysis only works on a network you fully own to give reliable results and is likely to only work for the first few hops of any network traffic. If you are not seeing any packet loss on the first 2-3 hops then it is probably something else that could be causing the issues.

I even have information supporting this from my ISP which I have sent in prior support tickets to ANET and why this method is completely unreliable. We tried to see if level 3 has a problem between Dallas and Washington as a hop- it turned out that Level 3 routinely drop ICMP packets and the other traffic (game traffic is unaffected).

If possible could we migrate to analysing actual traffic (to/from and if the traffic does not reach it’s destination) with a free network traffic capture system: http://www.wireshark.org. TCP traffic which this game uses relys on synchronised Qued in-order communications if one item fails (or the packet is rejected by the destination) we often experience in-game lag.

Why do I suggest this?
This gives every piece of traffic a start time, end time, ISP priority (QoS), duration in transmission (delta time – can be used to measure real lag), acknowledgement of receipt and a much more detailed analysis.

I have numerous pingplotter graphs which look okay (in various areas of the game), but a more detailed analysis of the actual network traffic highlights some major issues are being experienced in the back end (usually packet is rejected from being recieved by server at high load or a desync event has happened).
I know this is more complex than a basic level 1 network diagnosis – but without looking beyond ICMP it is unlikely we will get to the bottom of these lag issues.

Happy to disucss this further.

Wait till they release legendary armor;)
250 dragonite ingots/250 bloodstone bricks piece etc sounds perfect for something you can change stats on.

Silk (rare) in real life has always been a very expensive material > cotton (common).
I personally have no problem it hitting 3-4silver/scrap.

It’s one of the easier farmed materials when compared to cotton, linen etc.
When prices start to go AWOL for lower priced goods (linen, cotton etc) – people will go play the lower level areas again which is a good thing – even if it is for map exploration.
It helps spread the population out across the maps rather than concentrating in a few areas (eg Frost departing or world boss farming).

It’s amazing know much gold you now earn completing a map, doing those hearts and mining a zone out whilst you go. Makes it really worth trying to get your 100 map completion now.

Would agree with this one on the bells (wintersay).

There is a 3min free play after the songs – I like to listen to what others play and that inactive timer pops up very quickly.

That’s why I think this thread should just be deleted it has all been discussed before or add to the existing threads in the BLTC area.

Take a screen shot – send a support ticket in.
They will prob be forced to rename the guild I expect.

It’s what used to happen in GW1

It’s called demand vs supply.

There is no such thing as flipping for fast profits – I know this from exp.
People who buy goods which are undervalued and put up for a higher price are actually helping the economy in a number of ways – this thread topic has been discussed multiple times in BLTC section and that is where you will find great discussion on it.

I see this suggestion of making stuff account bound on purchase and I don’t think people understand often the ramifications. Positive and negative fully of what is suggested. It should not be the case – I am willing to discuss this further in the BLTC threads where this should be.

RMTs are banned en-mass at particular times – just wait they get dealt with as many other threads have stated.

I see nothing new in this thread which has not been raised before and discussed at length.

Hi All,

Thank you everyone who came last night – another good kill with lots of new people doing this event for the first time.

Please find an update for the holiday schedule for the EU Timezone kills on a NA Server.

Holiday Schedule
22nd – This will be the last TEQ Kill before a short break for time with family and friends (TY to everyone for the kill tonight: > 3 mins left on the clock again !)
23rd – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill
24th – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill
25th – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill
26th – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill
27th – We plan to be BACK for a TEQ Kill !
28th – We plan to be BACK for a TEQ Kill !
29th – We plan to be BACK for a TEQ Kill !
30th – We plan to be BACK for a TEQ Kill !
31st – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill

1st – Holiday: We will not be organising a TEQ Kill

2nd – We plan to be BACK for a TEQ Kill !

We would also like to train new commanders to be able to organise this event for the JQ Server – so we have a larger pool of people who can organised this event at this time slot.

If you are interested in learning more – please PM me (via forum or in-game).

Many Thanks