Guild Wars 2

Serelisk.6573:

Ohoni.6057:

The new Crown Pavillion is working exactly as it’s supposed to. Those who’re willing to put in the extra effort to coordinate with their guild, server community, or game community at large can set up a farm for themselves where they can reap 8 champ bags and 50 festival tokens every ~20 minutes or so.

Which is bad for the game. This is not that game. There are other games that are about hardcore raiding kind of activities, this IS NOT THAT GAME. This is a FUN game, it’s one where you should be able to log in, enjoy yourself, and be rewarded, not one where the encounter becomes an hour long slog with NO rewards at the end of it because the server you happened to log into didn’t have six commanders and a bunch of well informed and organized players on it. I’ve spent about three hours running Boss Blitz, participated in about 9-12 boss kills personally, spent about 20-25 silver on WPing after death, and only ever seen about 4-5 tokens and 1-2 tickets in return for my efforts, NEVER a completion reward. It is probably the least satisfying time I’ve ever spent playing this game, and it absolutely ruined a night in which I did a lot of other very fun things that would otherwise have made it a great night of GW2.

Joining these communities is actually easier then most think. GW2Community for example. Just google it.

I Do Not Want to join a community. I could join a guild, I have no interest in doing so. I want my community to be whomever is on when I log in, I just want that to WORK, and that is on ANet to provide. I do not want content that requires coordination, the event itself should enforce whatever coordination it requires, not just fail you if you don’t provide that coordination yourself.

You do not have to join these communities, you just have to coordinate with them. All this requires is the barest amoutn of communication between you and others on the map.

You’re making this out to be like a hardcore raid when it’s not, you just need to be willing to work together with other people. With more effort than it takes to just stand next to them.

and you’re making it out to be way simpler than it is.

Being willing to cooperate helps, yes. But first you gotta find an instance either largely dominated by a mega-guild. or somehow luck into a instance with 30-40 other people willing to coordinate.

Mastruq.2463:

Well the point of the game is to make people spend money on gems to convert into gold. If the items were cheap enough to buy several with the gold you played for, they wouldnt get your money. I’m really not sure what you were expecting.

perhaps we were expecting them to treat the game less as an endless money-devouring siphon and more like a game with a playerbase?

I mean, games like league of legends dont tend to treat their players like dirt for not wanting to buy craptons of stuff from their real money system

Serelisk.6573:

The new Crown Pavillion is working exactly as it’s supposed to. Those who’re willing to put in the extra effort to coordinate with their guild, server community, or game community at large can set up a farm for themselves where they can reap 8 champ bags and 50 festival tokens every ~20 minutes or so.

and everyone who doesnt have access to those resources for whatever reason can do nothing but give up because the large guilda and ’server communities" dont give a flying kitten about us.

Freeelancer.2860:

Getting ~50-80 champ bags and 300k+ XP on top of some 10k karma, 100 tickets and 200 tokens per hour.

I’d be constructive and give out some easy tips, but that’d ruin the tone of the thread.. So instead I’ll cry with you

lemme guess. You have a large guild or a lot of people with a teamspeak server? because every attempt I’ve seen simply coordinating whoever was there has ended in an hour long bronzefest.

so in short. Unless you have some magical and epic strategy for causing this event to not suck for those of us who dont want to join TTS, kindly stuff the holier-than-thou preening.

and the chinese will never notice because compared to the grindfests chinese MMOs tend to be, GW2 is merciful.

Zanshin.5379:

6 commander tags.

and how do you propose evenly dividing people between these tags via nothing but the existence of said tags?

Sorann Peace.9056:

There was a time when it didn’t feel forced. It only started feeling forced recently. Back during Dragon Bash, Queen’s Jubilee, the original Bazaar update, etc. the voice acting felt much more realistic. Or do you disagree? It only started feeling forced since the ending parts of the Battle for Lion’s Arch to me.

perhaps I just have a low tolerance for silly concepts like “totally not the slightly hipper and younger and edgier destiny edge”

Gyler.8150:

If you are zerging, you are doing it wrong. Groups of less than 12 people is ideal.

if you can get 6 groups of 12 without them all being in guilds and somehow getting an instance all to yourself, you have way more patience than I do.

You say this like much of any of the voice acting we get doesnt feel forced.

Will.6210:

If done incorrectly, with trivial effort, the Boss Blitz yields trivial rewards. If done correctly, with non-trivial effort, it yields non-trivial rewards, relatively speaking.

Also, the achievements are super easy. Y’all can’t fight veterans?

curiously enough, not everyone is a level 80 in the shiniest and deadliest of gear or capable of fighting 3-5 veterans at a time that respawn as fast as you cna kill them.

Nokaru.7831:

Summary of GW2 community:

ArenaNet releases a patch:

• “ermagod, ANet only releases zerg content. Zerg, zerg, zerg. 1,1,1,1,1,111111to win. Wow anet, fail”

ArenaNet releases another patch:

• “ohmahgod, ANet is forcing us to split up?? this is bs, I want to farm. Farm, farm, farm. FAIL anet.”

Its almost like the community has multiple groups of people with differing opinions.

Asmodeus.5782:

timmyf.1490:

Also. That you think Massively Multiplayer is the same as Zerg is a little troubling.

“A little”. Whenever I see this argument, I wonder what MMOs taught those people this lesson.

I’m just as troubled when content like this comes out that practically reads ’small guilds and solo players dont deserve to have fun"

Ayrilana.1396:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You must be kidding…

After they introduced the grindiest grinds ever in a western AAA MMO (noone likes to grind they said), vertical progression (even casuals should have BiS they said), most of the events are watered down to press 1, 1 and 1 again (boring they said), you still think they would give a kitten about what they said in the past?

That is a lot of faith you got there.

Perhaps you should gain some experience/knowledge by playing other MMO’s than just this one. You would see that all of them have a grind and GW2’s pales in comparison to some of them.

And yet, most of them tend to reward you with a lot more than sidegrades and cosmetic skins.

Leap Of Faith.8263:

NTDK.4897:

6 champ bags? that’s it? (i wont count the greens)

bottom line: not worth it

try it once (if you want to) and then say worth it
your answer might change there.

Not all of us have an on-demand access to enough people willing to coordinate.

so basiclly “this event is fun..if you have a large dedicated PVE and or PVP guild with a voice server and raid leaders”

timmyf.1490:

The Queen’s Pavilion will be great once all the people who came to zerg up, mash 1, and collect tons of loot leave.

it’ll be great. But only for those people with a large enough guild to coordinate it to any decent degree. if you’re a solo or small guild player, just plain dont bother.

Faerun.3091:

So playing in zerg where you just spam #1 skill is fun?

Okay….

certainly more fun than being practically forced to join a mega-guild to have a prayer of completing the event.

Not to mention the way the event is currently designed, it might as well say “if you’re a solo or small guild player, then we designed this event specifically to make your day terrible”

A Massive Headache.1879:

uh just throwing this out there, you’re not supposed to zerg this. gold gets you 8 bags and 50 tokens. and 22 tickets. I mainly do it for the tickets. it’s great fun when there’s organization to the server

were all aware of that, you realize.

The problem is organizing people in a game that largely functions around zerging around a commander is like trying to pull teeth with pliers.

CC Danicia.1394:

Hey all, just a quick note. Earning higher tiers of reward in the Boss Blitz in the Queen’s Pavilion is a great way to earn Festival Tokens, and Queen’s Gauntlet tickets – the rewards that the other activities within the festival give as well. If you check your inventory, you should see the tokens & tickets you have received.

and leave it to the company to give us a non-response.

mtpelion.4562:

wingofbenu.4316:

mtpelion.4562:

CrazyDuck.4610:

Just buff the end loot when finished killing all the bosses, there everyone’s happy.

The loot is already pretty good if you do the event correctly. Buffing the loot is not the answer, doing the event the right way is.

Good luck with that given how on my server at least, the pavillion is now a ghost town.

That should make the events easier, actually.

if you have a large guild or a large group of friends, sure. I have neither.

mtpelion.4562:

CrazyDuck.4610:

Just buff the end loot when finished killing all the bosses, there everyone’s happy.

The loot is already pretty good if you do the event correctly. Buffing the loot is not the answer, doing the event the right way is.

Good luck with that given how on my server at least, the pavillion is now a ghost town.

Omg Im Target.3095:

phys.7689:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Last year, the Pavillion awarded far too much loot (because it coincided with the introduction of champion loot bags). This was a BAD THING, because it caused severe inflation in the game economy.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by regulating the loot from the Pavillion’s frequently-spawning champions.

Last year, the Pavillion champions were most efficiently defeated with a single massive group of players that took down the bosses one at a time, and never had to pause in between. This is a BAD THING, because killing the same series of pushover bosses over and over again with 150 players at once was not challenging, and gave out too many rewards. It actually discouraged play skill.
ArenaNet is currently preventing that from happening again by encouraging players to split up during the Boss Blitz. Yes, a single zerg will spend 30 minutes killing all bosses one at a time. If players split up, the event can be won in a shorter time (because the bosses don’t scale up as far), and the reward will be bigger. In other words, it rewards smart play rather than follow-the-other-lemmings.

So in short, the REAL PROBLEM was last year’s event for being too easy and too generous.

the real problem is this years event doesnt compete with most other means of playing the game in terms of reasons to do it, however it is a lot more difficult and risky in order to get less actual results.

lets take a look at marrionette, it also had very few drops from enemies, but, you got exp, you drops which allowed you to open chests which usually had rares and special chances for special recipes, the further you got, the more guanteed look you got at the end. for spending 15-30 minutes, you got rares, loot, chances at special items. If you beat the full event, you got much better loot for that same time frame, and more chances to open more chests.

the reward design encouraged winning, and at the same time encouraged participation, the minimal reward wasnt horrible, and the maximum reward was pretty good.

this time the minimal reward is a loss, the maximum reward appears to be 2 champion bags and some greens. thats pretty bad for 20-30 minutes of organized gameplay where the minimal reward is a loss.

its essentially a problem with reward structures. Reward structure is a major part of designing a game, you cant divorce the two.

I wouldn’t really call it organized if it takes 20-30min with only 1 zerg. If 6 groups participate, it’ll take only more than 5min with gold, which is acctually fair. So the crown pavillion rewards the players if they play organized.

However, even if you get gold, the rewards arent really worth the work it takes to coordinate 6 teams.

Lévis.5489:

Wasbunny.6531:

I usually don’t actually care about loot but…I mean wow. I fear Crown Pavilion is going to be empty tomorrow with no hope of anyone completing the event.

The mechanics of the bosses are pretty cool, and I love a challenge but holly potato muffins they are loooooonnnggg. So much hp. And then to get a couple blues and a green in the end…well, I just hope this is a bug.

They are total chumps if they are not juiced up by too many players trying to kill them. The pavilion’s bosses are supposed to be done with a group at each of them, and no more than 10-15 persons per bosses.

But good luck getting that to happen , I remember I tried a few times today..and our best effort resulted in 50 people at one boss and 3 at another,

Unloveableone.6082:

Or you could complain about not being able to zerg faceroll for loot instead of enjoying it.
Whatever floats your boat.

enjoying what exactly?

screaming at 50 other people when they refuse to group into anything except a zerg no matter how much you beg and plead?

Larynx.2453:

wingofbenu.4316:

Aberrant.6749:

Killface.1896:

Zerging is no fun at all….

Agreed.

because you know, this is event is /fun/ because of its lack of zerg. nevermind the paltry rewards and it practically punishing you for not having 60 friends you can coordinate over a voice server to get it done in any decent length of time.

Bad content with bad rewards is not fun.

Is that better? Zerging is still not fun, but at least there’s a point to it.

Thats my point, yes. Its nice I suppose that they figured out how to stop zergs. They apparently idnt put any thought into making it worth our while to do so though.

Larynx.2453:

Autoattack AFK in a zerg is very dynamic and interesting gameplay…

When someone can literally tab out for 30-60 seconds at a time, not die, and do 90% optimal performance, you done messed up somewhere.

and when you need to somehow get 60+ people on a megaserver to follow orders to get it done right, despite a complete lack of tools to effectively communicate to all of them, for a small amount of rewards, you’re asking for failure.

Unloveableone.6082:

You must be new here.
Because this isn’t new, but two events brought back from early last year.
And quite frankly, they’re pretty amazing.

No, theyre half of what those events were, but nerfed into the ground lootwise and with a couple new events slapped onto the other one to make it look like they spent more than 5 minutes retuning it,.

Teon.5168:

wingofbenu.4316:

No, I havent, but thats what I’ve heard the average drop is for gold. I’ve tried to help organize groups. we succeeded in getting 3 people to attempt going to a second boss while the other 45+ zerged despite our best efforts. Then I gave up.

Well, then, you’re in my boat…..just hearsay so far. I would imagine it will take a well coordinated zerg of at least 12+ people to do the champions all at the same time, get the highest reward in the littlest time possible……then it might be worth it. Altho, imo, the challenge alone would make it worth it.

Meh. it wouldnt for me. I was excited to come back and maybe reignite what I loved about this game. Instead I find an event that by design pretty much is inhospitable to a low level character due to the absolute lack of exp and huge amounts of damage, and requiring coordination a single guildless asura cant create.

Nokaru.7831:

Donating coin does not activate the Blitz; it accelerates it. It will progress on its own.

and then once it activates it grinds to a halt for the next hour or so until it finally gets beaten

Vael Victus.2654:

I usually try to see things in a positive light, especially with new releases, but I’m rather baffled here. Right now I’m in an instance where we’re killing Boom Boom and we still have 5 bosses to go. I’ve watched the past 15 minutes go by with her health dropping about 20% total, between her healing and just have waaaay too much HP.

I don’t know what the intention is behind Boss Blitz, but it surely isn’t having fun. For now I’m autoattacking while playing on my phone.

syupposedly you’re supposed to fight 3-6 bosses at once so they dont scale up too much via sending in 3-6 coordinated squads of heroes. In practice, good luck.

Aberrant.6749:

Killface.1896:

Zerging is no fun at all….

Agreed.

because you know, this is event is /fun/ because of its lack of zerg. nevermind the paltry rewards and it practically punishing you for not having 60 friends you can coordinate over a voice server to get it done in any decent length of time.

No, I havent, but thats what I’ve heard the average drop is for gold. I’ve tried to help organize groups. we succeeded in getting 3 people to attempt going to a second boss while the other 45+ zerged despite our best efforts. Then I gave up.

hoiw many loot bags did you get?

The problem is. even if you do split properly, its not worth the effort. at best you’re gonna get 4-5 loot bags with greens in them, and nowhere near as much gold as you put in to start it.

If the rewards arent commensurate to the effort, why bother?

Hardly. The problem with getting a proper split is simple. Even if you tell everyone “go to X boss”, theyll assume someone else will go, and therefore NOBODY goes.

even if you do get gold time, the amount of loot dropped likely isnt enough to make up for the cost of starting it. In short, even with a perfectly coordinated raid, its probably better to go to orr.

I’d point out stories that are dark for no reason except to be dark as just as boring, and tend to be the sort of crap only enjpoyed by early 20-somethings who think mature story = blood, death and violence

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Quack Shooter.

The next LS is a Duck Hunt-style SAB update!

with the dog as the final boss.

mtpelion.4562:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Because marketing in videos games is pretty much the same thing that waging world wars.

Hate to break it to you, but your main concern is a fallacy. This is known as a “Slippery Slope” argument and it is illogical.
No it isn’t.

You are arguing that Kenya will invade Poland because they are having a recession.
Your entire argument is fixed on the justification that Germany invaded Poland because they had a recession and now everyone who has a recession will be invading Poland.

That is an example of your argument, with only the terms being changed.

You are arguing that ArenaNet will go P2W because they are adding a new gem store exclusive. Your entire argument is fixed on the justification that “insert other MMO company” went P2W after adding new “gem store” items and thus every MMO company will go P2W after adding new “gem store” items.

Your entire premise is a fallacy and is illogical.

er. slippery slopes are a fallacy at times, sure, but that doesnt mean all slippery slopes are a fallacy. Anyone who’s observed games like DDO or LoTRO can tell you their f2p model has gotten progressively more abusive and money grabbing as players have taken any slight overreach theyve tried and continued buying anyhow.

Ravious.4269:

Also in Royal Terrace I get to clink glasses with classy players that want to support Guild Wars 2 rather than complain about equality and communism and the like, old sport.

ah communism, the standard accusation of anyone who thinks Ayn Rand wasnt a hack.

VOLKON.1290:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

VOLKON.1290:

To give people the option to pay 300 gems every two weeks for a more exclusive place to do things at? You’ll use it or you won’t. Others will or won’t. How is this an issue?

Because LA offers the same things as the Royal Terrace. Why do we have to pay to get access to content that’s free to use in the first place?

Guess what… you don’t.

You don’t have to pay a dime. Not at all. You have the option of doing so in a more exclusive place than the merchants district in L.A. Me? I’ll be sticking in L.A. personally. It’s comfortable and I like it. But if someone chooses to use the Terrace instead, more power to them and may they find the relative peace worth the investment.

Now… here’s something you didn’t think about. Actually I’m the only person outside ArenaNet to think of this. (Prior statement cannot be verified, so hush.) When culling is removed L.A. is going to be chaotic. You’re going to see EVERYONE. I think, in that case, it may be worth considering a more quite place to chill, craft a bit, get things done, for some at least. When culling is gone in L.A. it may very well be worth spending the gold (or cash) for the gems for a little elbow room.

I dunno. Thats pretty much how it starts on every f2p game.

convenience options. people wave away complaints as “You dont have to buy it, its just for convenience” and then they go a bit further the next time,. and then a bit further. until they finally realize they can push anything on consumers they kitten well please.