Propaganda Balloons event

[Guest]

Anyone have any tips for sniping these things? I struggle with the action camera anyway, but it doesn't seem to work here like it does in other events. Elsewhere there's kind of a limited "homing" effect - if the dot is highlighting the target when you click fire it will make contact, even if the target has moved. Here if you highlight a balloon and fire, you always miss. if you try to "lead" the target it mostly misses too; unsure if that's timing on my part, erratic movement of the target, range issues, or something else. And if you DO manage to make contact, the balloons take 2 hits, so by the time you reorient and fire again it's gone/you miss and then it's gone.

I have done this event probably 4-5 times and have 3 balloons shot to show for it. Anyone figure out how to master this thing?

[Linken.6345]

Fly up on a high roof or ledge easier to hit after balloons have past you moving away.

[Deadly Moonshiner.1354]

At fort, go on the north wall (where the door is) and position yourself so the balloons are coming directly towards you. Then you can target and shoot them easier. If you're lucky there won't be many people there so you can shoot more balloons down per event.

It is a bit annoying that the event counts only hits that destroy the balloon - that encourages people to wait until someone shots the balloon first and then to destroy it - it is almost like stealing a kill.

[Blueberry.8095]

I feel like they should:

1. Slow down the balloon's travel speed, it's already hard enough to aim it with high ping let along destroying them before they flew off.
2. Make the riffle able to 1-shot the balloon, that way, you don't have to re-aim it for the 2nd time only to see it already flew off the "border".
3. Make the event last longer, so more players will get their chance to complete the event.
4. Make it like the 1 in Grothmar, each player gets their own balloons, on timer instead of reaching the quota, so we aren't "competing" with each other and have enough time to take down as many as we can to destroy within the time limit. If the quota is reached before the time ends, don't finish the event, instead, let it continues to run until the time expires.
5. Instead of the very tiny white dot, perhaps use something more "visible"? Right now they sorta blends in too well with the background.

*Edit: just found the 6th problem aswell.6.The shooting range is too short, it needs to be increased: weather you're standing on the ground level, or on the higher ground, if the balloon is a bit further away, it won't take any damage even if you aim right, therefore it's hard to aim ahead of time even if it's flying towards your direction.

7. Adjust the location of the riffle and the npc at Fort Defiance, they're currently too close to each other and I always missed the riffle rack and talked to the npc instead, ended up taking few tries to pick up the riffle.

@Deadly Moonshiner.1354 said:It is a bit annoying that the event counts only hits that destroy the balloon - that encourages people to wait until someone shots the balloon first and then to destroy it - it is almost like stealing a kill.
OMG, it makes so much sense now! I felt like I've tried everything I could aswell but best I can get is 1 every few runs... so most of the time I got zero and I thought I've aimed them right, so this was a kill steal thing... They really should change it, it's not fair!

P/S: I highly dislike that action camera thing... I hope no future events uses this feature.

[Aaralyna.3104]

@Deadly Moonshiner.1354 said:It is a bit annoying that the event counts only hits that destroy the balloon - that encourages people to wait until someone shots the balloon first and then to destroy it - it is almost like stealing a kill.

Oh my, this made me realise why I barely got any count (next to the many misses despite aiming same as in the Grothmar event).

[Lexi.1398]

The shots won't auto correct to the target on this event, yes, so you need to factor in projectile speed when you take a shot. For me, i always look in one direction only and shoot the balloons that come from that one direction, usually focusing on a specific balloon that i know where i should shoot to hit it.

[Donari.5237]

I have found that I can fairly reliably hit the balloons by leading them when I am along the line of travel. If they are moving perpendicular to me, I mostly miss. It does feel like there's only time to hit a handful of them before the event's done, though, and the event doesn't seem to happen very often even when I bounce back and forth between Fort and Overlook searching for it. Maybe once a meta? Given the hours that go into a meta and the super short window to maybe get 5 balloons, this is definitely a longer term achieve. Obviously we have to control the area for the event to spawn, but I'm not sure what else triggers it.

Just 20 or so balloons to go for me ... maybe I'll have it done before the next release.

[Jimbru.6014]

The action cam in GW2 is terrible. The little white dot is too obscure, and the balloons move too fast.

[Blude.6812]

After coming here to find out what I am doing wrong, it seems I wasn't. Just bad luck and timing participating in a badly designed event.

[Cuks.8241]

You just have to aim properly and account for the projectile travel time. So you have to lead the balloon with the cursor based on the trajectory.

[Memoranda.9386]

I didn't think it was that bad as far as aiming, since you just lead the target. Agree that the pointer isn't really visible enough.

A lot of the problems would have been reduced if the event scaled better (more "kills" to fill the bar), single shot kills (instead of 2 hits per balloon), and if the balloons worked like Grothmar (not competing with every other player).

It seems to be that credit was shared per, so if you hit it once, you were given credit. After trying to kill each balloon myself, I gave up and started to hit as many as possible. Doing that I went from 3-4 to 7-10 per event.

This event was one of my favorites, even with all the issues.

[aspirine.6852]

Its quite easy and I do like the event. Wish it was a bit longer, but since it is so easy it's over in a breath. :/

[Guest]

Ok, having done this event a lot more, I have noticed a few more things that might help others (in addition to all the helpful advice here already).

One, it's nearly impossible to hit balloons moving away from you or sideways, even trying to gauge the lead. It's much more reliable to hit them coming toward you - I suggest only aiming that way.

Two, the advice to get up higher is solid, but be aware that a lot of the high places will cause you to be out of range or something and get a "miss" pop no matter what. I find that just getting to a clear-ish vantage slightly higher than the ground (fence or short house) is enough of an improvement.

Three - you can't hit a balloon if you don't get the red highlight over it, no matter how accurate the shot. Very different from grothmar, where the targets are smaller and farther away but you can still hit them. Here it looks like you have a sitting duck and you will whiff if it hasn't entered the proper range. Also, despite the apparently large size of the balloons, the strike zone for a successful hit is much smaller.

Other than that, I concur on the many issues with the event - the target dot is very hard to see and action cam mode in general hard to use. The scaling is terrible, if it scales at all - I think it's 10 balloons no matter how many players are there. I can't confirm whether you get credit if you only get the first hit, but I think maybe not. It would be much better if it worked like Grothmar - players get their own balloons, it scales properly, one hit to kill, a bit of autocorrect on the shots, and more accurate/longer shots in general. They've already done this successfully so I'm not sure why this later version works so poorly.