As far as I can tell there are a couple challenges we are trying to overcome. First, we are trying to teach the community a new skill: self organization. And Im happy to see that in the aggregate, they ARE learning. Im sure as this process continues we will find better ways to accommodate the communication structures that will emerge.
It scales quite a bit. The more people there are in a lane will change the number of vets and champs that spawn, and the platform bosss HP scales based on how many end up on the platform.
While I enjoy the coordination necessary for this, I still think it's a bit too much: it's pretty much impossible to get that much coordination with random people.So there is scaling, meaning there is no excuse unless they got the scaling off, which people will now move their complaints to.
Also, while this kind of coordination is great in the form of TTS, it would be better if more guilds like them formed. If we had more server specific boss kill guilds, I'd even consider joining one. But I'd also need to be able to join more guilds at a time.
and the realization that any one of the five podiums could fuck up at ANY time!
Any of the four podiums. I was on one of them, so obviously there was no way that one could fail.
Actually I would extend that to any podium with GAF on it.
Stop making me feel less special in my personal narrative context, geeeeeeeez.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug in which enemies continued to spawn after the event Take Severed Breach back from the Flame Legion had completed. The time before this event restarts has been increased.
- Wintersday Gifts will no longer drop in World vs. World.
- Fixed a bug in the story step A Grisly Shipment that prevented it from advancing.
- Fixed an issue in which the Cobalt Wurm would sometimes begin the encounter in its vulnerable state.
- Fixed an issue in which the Triple Trouble timer would sometimes not start correctly.
Guys, are you less, about the same or more excited about the next living story update after doing this one.
I haven't played in awhile but I'm kind of tempted to jump back in just to see this conclusion. But I missed most of the plant/tower event and I hate missing chunks of story stuff. Pretty torn.
You didn't miss much. She just got some toxin from the plant but we don't know why she needs it. We just destroyed the tower and the result can be see in kessex.
If you want to get most out of LIving Story or just know about the conclusion, this is the best time for anyone to get back into the game.
Toxin is for poisoning the Elder Dragons. Just you watch!
If she ends up becoming the evil person who is just evil because they are trying to save the world then ANET has only achieved at making a much more hated female Traherne.
You didn't miss much. She just got some toxin from the plant but we don't know why she needs it. We just destroyed the tower and the result can be see in kessex.
If you want to get most out of LIving Story or just know about the conclusion, this is the best time for anyone to get back into the game.
This is good to know but I'm kind of a stickler for knowing the specifics of things. Maybe I can find some play-throughs or something though.
More. The February updates were internally described as "bonkers"Guys, are you less, about the same or more excited about the next living story update after doing this one.
I cannot wait for next one.
I'm away at the cottage this weekend so I won't be able to participate in Wurm and Marionette fights, so I hope no one beats the Wurms till I get back on Sunday.
I absolutely reject the notion that "randoms" cannot learn and adapt to be successful under these conditions.
I blame the community at large for pushing Berserker gear as the best stat distribution than I do randoms not knowing the fight.
Agreed on all counts Hawk. It really blows me away that people are asking for ANet to just instance any challenging content because that will somehow make it so they can do it faster than the current setup. If you are going from Marionette to Wurm every hour then you have ~30 minutes of downtime between encounters. Not only this, you just merely show up and either are in the main flow ready to go or are in a packed overflow ready to go. If they instance it, you would then have to find X(100+?) people, no one would use the open world LFG section and so you'd be stuck using chat to find those 100+ people. Let me tell you, finding 40 people to do a raid in WoW back in 2005 was hard enough, 100+ people would be a damn nightmare without some form of automation.
Every MMO these days shoves their players into instances and just kills any sense of Massively Multiplayer. Even worse, people just sit around in cities waiting for their UI to come up so they can go do X piece of content. THANKFULLY, when I asked Colin about the idea of instancing world bosses, he said nope absolutely not going to happen. He said "I would cry if we ever did that." Open world content is something the genre has lacked for a VERY long time and it really helps that GW2 is the very first MMO to have a completely co-operative PvE experience. That's what happens when you don't design your game around a P2P business model for the sake of more monthly subs but instead wanting people to have fun when they login.
I do not know how easy it is to do this on ANETs part but I wonder how easy it is to give overflows a #, so that you could use the LFG to ask for people in the specific overflow. I think if overflows had numbers people would be less likely to try and leave.
They could re-implement the district system from GW1 while in overflows so people know which instance they were in which would help with organization. So there would be Overflow 1-15 or whatever.
I'm starting to suspect there may be some fundamental nature to the structure of their virtual servers and how the overflows are allocated/deallocated, that may prohibit and easy District number system like GW1 had. But that's just conjecture.
Jirraaa are you coming to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVA
Hellooo,
Particlar here, one of the commanders from Desolation who have been doing attempts on the Great Jungle Wurm since patch day.
Commanders to note are:
Particlar
Arathorian
Mouse
Mkkoll
Herm Wotts
Luquatic
Shuyin Sourunji
Light Binding
Stally
LOTS more together with all amazing players on the teams
We finally managed to kill all the wurms today at the 20:00 attempt.
Since we got A LOT of question on what tactics we use, I'm doing a short writeup here. I'd love it if the other commanders can add what I miss over here (I'm mainly focused on Amber).
The tactic we've used from the start have been three evenly splitted groups to focus on one wurm each.
Every person in the server get into a teamspeak server where we split up in three different channels for the different wurms. This is so we can keep narrating the zerg during the fight loudly without disturbing the other commanders.
We have set up whisper lists between the commanders so we can easily make split desicions over the complete map. This is vital for the timing of the wurm killing since every wurm have a long setup time before the dps-phase.
Amber Wurm:
Total group size: 50
Here is our most unique tactic. We face this wurm pretty much like a guild would run in WvW.
We have around 50 offensive specced players running as a group the entire time. We are very organised with timed water fields, chill's and cripple on the Husk's etc.
We have a simple rotation.
1, Kill Abonomation get eaten etc. 2, Kill phase 3, Kill ads all over the area for 30 seconds.
If not enough people got eaten so not enough of harpoons could be collected, we chose to take it slow and clear the ads. Even though we have half of the zerg without the "Upset Stomach"-debuff we run around the area and clear the ads waiting for everyone to lose that debuff
It is veeerry hard to explain it since it's the most hectic and fast phased battle. The video linked below should give you the general idea of it.
Video of the kill on this perspective soon.. ... it's very slow[1]
Crimson Wurm:
Total group size: 50
This is the most passive fight.
We have 4 good condition geared players to team up with the sole purpose to focus the Husk's that spawn around the area. Every other person in the group have berserker gear to put as much offense as possible during floppy head phase
Once every color is filled, everyone stack melee'd to the wurm on the double damage spot. Wiggle your character around until you find it.
Picture soon..
Cobalt Wurm:
Total group size: 50
About 5 parties are formed up, mainly of guardians and thiefs to run the kegs. This is to keep the stability and swiftness up on the running group.
As in Crimson we have 4 good, fully specced, conditionmancers. These sole job are to focus on the Husks since conditions are vastly more effective against them compared to physical damage. All other players are speced as offensively they can, full berserker geared.
The rest of the team are focusing on killing the ads around the area.
Once keg runners get their work down everbody stack on the same double damage spot. Wiggle your character around until you find it.
Picture soon..
Tower of Nightmares: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No0TOOk7qqA
Nightmare Within (Final Instance): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CMjdis7_q8
Summary up to Nightmare Within from Woodenpotatoes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1m49coki9M
After this it was just the Fractal update and the Wintersday update.
Wonder if SBI is going to try use the one wurm at a time tactic with massive zerg or try and follow Desolation's tactics. I wont be able to try out any wurm runs till tomorrow because of crappy internet.
In the never ending quest to improve our design and find ways to please as many people as possible were always digging into constructive criticism. We have not perfected the recipe for an open world boss event, probably because were pioneering new territory here.
As far as I can tell there are a couple challenges we are trying to overcome. First, we are trying to teach the community a new skill: self organization. And Im happy to see that in the aggregate, they ARE learning. Im sure as this process continues we will find better ways to accommodate the communication structures that will emerge.
Secondly, from both a technical and player-experience perspective, its best to break up zergs as much as possible. Thematically keeping everyone feeling like they are contributing to a common cause from multiple locations, and still feel heroic is an interesting challenge to balance. Always looking for new ideas on this issue!
Poster:distribute players by parceling them out one platform at a time like a poker dealer rather than selecting platforms for them randomly? Really? As a programmer myself I was astonished when I found out that it was possible to have 5 on one platform and 1 on another. I mean, this is really basic stuff!
Josh:Having 5 on one platform and 1 on another could only be a very edge case requiring several people to drop out at the right moment. Our script does exactly what you said, poker dealer style.
Poster:let people on platforms who have already completed help out with other platforms
Josh:We tried really hard to get this in. Every solution we came up with had technical constraints.
Poster:lengthen the timers a bit
Josh:The timers and mob HP were balanced and rebalanced several times in an attempt to find a sweet spot that would ensure people couldnt faceroll the event, but wasnt so difficult that no one could do it. Everyones mileage will vary. And as with any group activity, virtual or real life, there is luck inherent in that. Some people hate that dynamic and some love it. If someone has an idea about how to ameliorate the inherent luck factor in group events, please speak up!
Poster:make it easier for parties to be in the same overflow where theres actually enough people to win
Josh:I know there are people working on various solutions to this problem.
Poster:have the event scale in difficulty based on the number of players
Josh: It scales quite a bit. The more people there are in a lane will change the number of vets and champs that spawn, and the platform bosss HP scales based on how many end up on the platform.
Josh Foreman posted this on the forums
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...d-these-new-events-at-first/first#post3545393
Are you on GAFGuild?
Man, dead bodies are really finicky to pose. #context
Task for this weekend is starting on some new tracks for GW2. Gonna be epic, you guys!
Never wanted to join?Nope
Nah I'm in pretty great guild already on EbayNever wanted to join?
I also won't be at the fever tonight guys. I'm tightening up the Alpha for Apexicon's next kickstarter starting in February.