Suggestion: make it harder to grief the octovine meta.

I've been thinking about it and in its current state it is far too easy to just rapid burn on east to fail the Meta for everyone.

My idea was this: what if the timer only regenerated dead vines or the side who started it?

90+ dead Octovines for me (about to get the achievement). I've never had the event get grieved or failed.

Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

@Cyninja.2954 said:90+ dead Octovines for me (about to get the achievement). I've never had the event get grieved or failed.

Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

Sometimes yeah, I've seen it fail a fair few times on NA, and it attracts trolls.

@Cyninja.2954 said:90+ dead Octovines for me (about to get the achievement). I've never had the event get grieved or failed.

Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

Can't say I recall any eu grieving and I've prob done a couple of hundred. Not to say it doesn't happen of course

It's not "griefing", it's "emergent gameplay".

It's not grieving. It's just the east having the easiest barrier-cancelling mechanic coupled with people not reading chat.Incidentally, most of the fails i have seen were a result of east burning vine down to 5% fast, and then going afk while waiting for the rest to catch up and missing the last burn.

@Astralporing.1957 said:It's not grieving. It's just the east having the easiest barrier-cancelling mechanic coupled with people not reading chat

Maybe on the rare occasion that might be the case, but it is grieving when its a guild of 20 players all burning down east out of pure badness then bad mouthing and abusing others in map chat about what they just did, and too bad meta failed.

This is the unfortunate side affect of open world content that requires people to split up into groups to complete 1 main event.

Maybe at East it should be increased to 50 bombs to beable to attack the vine, this would slow it down some.

@Ok I Did It.2854 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It's not grieving. It's just the east having the easiest barrier-cancelling mechanic coupled with people not reading chat

Definitely report that, since such behavior explicitly violates the code of conduct, and encourage everyone else in the map to do likewise.

But yeah, whenever a game mechanic depends on the kindness of strangers, human nature finds another opportunity to reveal itself.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

Aside from the Reddit post (where some people claiming to be participants said they've only done it 4-5 times), I haven't heard of the event being griefed by people burning any particular lane quickly. And technically, it doesn't prevent success; it just makes it take longer.

(For what it's worth, the participants claimed they did it to encourage people in the other lanes to do better, but for some reason, they can't see that cutting off your foot due to an ingrown toenail isn't going to make you run faster. Or more comfortably.)

I have seen (and heard about) two other forms of griefing (and I'll mail them to you, @Cyninja.2954, so as not to give anyone ideas). But they are (a) rare and (b) done by individuals.

Put another way: I'm sure it happens on EU and NA, but not often enough that it needs a new mechanic to address it. Report the relevant people formally, via email or support ticket (the better to offer details like time|date, IP, who, how, and screenshots).

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

Yeah thanks IWN, as mentioned I had always put that down as people being inexperienced.

I've seen east get burned down to fast 2-3 times over my time doing the event. Never totally failed it though. That's why I was wondering if event failure was actually an issue for people.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Yeah thanks IWN, as mentioned I had always put that down as people being inexperienced.

I've seen east get burned down to fast 2-3 times over my time doing the event. Never totally failed it though. That's why I was wondering if event failure was actually an issue for people.

As best I can tell from reading the reddit thread, the kill-east-fast group has done it 4-5 times and only one of those (according to folks claiming to be part of it) failed. I didn't see any counter claims suggesting it failed more often.

Of course, it's horribly frustrating to be trying to finish your lane and have progress reset substantially every two minutes. The organizers seem to expect that (a) everyone participating is been doing this for as long as they are and (b) the reason for being slow is due to people not putting their best effort (e.g. some going AFK after the initial burn). Not sure how forcing a reset every 2 minutes is going to help newbies learn ( and there are always a lot) or encourage AFKer to fully participate.

By the way: the best way to discourage griefers and trolls is to deal with them silently. Do not feed them by making a big deal; those who troll do so specifically to get a reaction from their victims. They will eventually get bored if there's no response, and find some other way to entertain themselves.

Report the behavior to ANet, without enough details that it's easy for their staff to verify the details or catch them in the act. And let the studio deal with it. Of course it's frustrating; that doesn't mean the problem goes away just because we rant or rave about it.

tl;dr don't give them the attention they don't deserve

I still think it's enough of a problem to warrant a small mechanical change like this. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often with how easy it is. I don't think it'd be hard to implement either.

Imagine if people in that guild were paid by other mmos like bless/wow to grieve. They want thier players back xD

@Cyninja.2954 said:90+ dead Octovines for me (about to get the achievement). I've never had the event get grieved or failed.

Then again I play on EU. Is this really that big an issue on US or at all?

I have heard that about other events as well. It seems the EU servers are better to avoid griefers than the NA ones for some reason.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:By the way: the best way to discourage griefers and trolls is to deal with them silently. Do not feed them by making a big deal; those who troll do so specifically to get a reaction from their victims. They will eventually get bored if there's no response, and find some other way to entertain themselves.

Report the behavior to ANet, without enough details that it's easy for their staff to verify the details or catch them in the act. And let the studio deal with it. Of course it's frustrating; that doesn't mean the problem goes away just because we rant or rave about it.

tl;dr don't give them the attention they don't deserve

This is one of the biggest myths in internet culture. You don't need to have a reaction for a troll to feel the thrill of trolling. They know what they are doing and they know the effects, and even if they get no feed-forward they are still satisfied with their actions. Trolls are mean, not stupid; they have the wit to recognize the impact of their actions.

I was a moderator for another MMO for awhile. I've seen people make 15+ alternate accounts just to stalk and yell obscenities at other people. I've seen people rant for 4 hours continuously while their chat was muted. I've seen people engage in 6-month long campaigns just to spite a single individual.

This thread definitely gives me some ideas for next weekend metas.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:By the way: the best way to discourage griefers and trolls is to deal with them

silently

. Do not feed them by making a big deal; those who troll do so specifically to get a reaction from their victims. They will eventually get bored if there's no response, and find some other way to entertain themselves.

Report the behavior to ANet, without enough details that it's easy for their staff to verify the details or catch them in the act. And let the studio deal with it. Of course it's frustrating; that doesn't mean the problem goes away just because we rant or rave about it.

tl;dr don't give them the attention they don't deserve

I'm sure there are exceptions to the general rule, as there are with any generic approach. There aren't ever going to be enough mechanics in GW2 to prevent crazy people from doing crazy things. There are, however, all sorts of people who get bored and are looking for ways to spice up their time in game. Placing Bobble-labs and so on gets old, too, if there's no reaction. Someone creating 15 alt accounts isn't going to be stopped by a little thing like changing how Octovine works. But someone looking for a momentary thrill isn't going to repeat their actions if they aren't getting any public reaction.

And even in the case of the 4-hour ranter, they aren't more likely to keep yelling if people don't yell back.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:By the way: the best way to discourage griefers and trolls is to deal with them

silently

. Do not feed them by making a big deal; those who troll do so specifically to get a reaction from their victims. They will eventually get bored if there's no response, and find some other way to entertain themselves.

Report the behavior to ANet, without enough details that it's easy for their staff to verify the details or catch them in the act. And let the studio deal with it. Of course it's frustrating; that doesn't mean the problem goes away just because we rant or rave about it.

tl;dr don't give them the attention they don't deserve

These aren't the exceptions. They are the general rule. For decades now we've been saying "ignore them and they'll go away" and it doesn't work. Ignoring a troll just produces a bolder, craftier, and more dedicated troll. Pretend they don't exist, and they'll scream louder and louder to prove that they do. People will scream into a void endlessly because the act of screaming is fulfilling enough, even if nobody responds.

Since trolls are going to do what they do regardless, then why not complain about it? It makes us feel better, and more importantly the rash of complaints alerts Anet to the problems the game currently has (particularly the lack of a reporting system for handling disruptive spiteful gameplay). The only reason that LFG abuse is now listed in the report options is because people complained about it.

I personally feel the developers should not waste time on things that should be handled by the GM team. They are griefing by definition of CoC #1 and patrolling the event with 4 GMs can already do wonders on this.

Also keep in mind, that if you develop the game around a portion of the player base doing their best to destroy the game, that portion of the player base will achieve their goal. You cannot make entertaining gameplay that requires team effort without risking the chance that someone will make a mistake or purposefully throw the event.