Lab farm

[alphafert.6730]

Yesterday I found a really nice farm where players listened & stuck with the com. I spent about an hour & left with a few stacks of bags. Today every farm I was able to join had mechs & turtles even after com would ask for only auto. I spent about an hour & left with less than a stack of tot bags. I nerf my build but run a short bow thief so tagging shouldn't be an issue. I don't understand selfishly playing an mmo especially how loot drops in gw2. 

[Randulf.7614]

It’s a festival. It’s fun filler content and no instance is governed or owned by a commander’s rules. I totally get the requests some make and the arguments made, but ultimately it’s designed just to be a bit of a mess around in a maze and people shouldn’t have to go in stripped of their clothes and the horse they rode in on just to have a bit of fun during a time of year designed for exactly that purpose.

Im not advocating for trolls or selfish players, but there should be a realisation that in a public instance, people are also there for fun. Especially with so many new players experiencing it for the first time and not caring about maximising loot efficiency 

Every year it’s “don’t use this, don’t do that, don’t attack this”, that I wonder if we’ve lost sight of the fun aspect

Edited October 20, 2022 by Randulf.7614

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

There are no rules on how to play in the Labyrinth, if someone wants to nuke everything they can, you aren't forced to run around AA-ing everything.

This is why you play Herald.

[Silvia.9130]

If it can comfort you, it's totally worthless to farm lab right now. You'd get double the amount of gold per hour even with a chill RIBA in silverwastes. That's about 15g/h, laby right now it like 7g/h and it's going to get lower. (Talking about selling the bags.)

[Khisanth.2948]

8 minutes ago, Silvia.9130 said:

If it can comfort you, it's totally worthless to farm lab right now. You'd get double the amount of gold per hour even with a chill RIBA in silverwastes. That's about 15g/h, laby right now it like 7g/h and it's going to get lower. (Talking about selling the bags.)

So it is around the same as mining rich ore nodes

[alphafert.6730]

I already ditched it for my node farm. Focused I can pull 15+ gold/hr doing that but it's something I enjoy. 

Above stated fun & even new players. It seems the fun of a few outweighs the squad. As for new players it is like event dailies on lower maps, I doubt they will enjoy chasing a com only to be able to tag the bigger spawns. 

 

I just noticed this as part of a shift in the community. When I started through around pof higher level/mastery players were nothing but helpful. It felt like the goal was pushing for the experience of all.  There were always a few that didn't pay attention or cooperate but it seems that is the norm now & with certain additions to the game those players can have a greater impact. Same as developer decisions can drive off players, so can a community. 

[Cuks.8241]

I ditched festival grinds years a go and I am not vanilla player. First of all the gold gain is decreasing steadily each year because everyone seem to go harder on the grind each year and the market is over flooded with festival stuff which less and less people need. And second do I really want to grind the same map for weeks for a little higher gold gain if I could just play the modes I like and still earn gold without even noticing it. 

As for the lab rules. In my opinion if a commander advertises a certain set of rules they should be respected. There are plenty of different maps and commander and you should find one you like. Personally I liked no trinkets and no mounts including bosses. The first two are actually win, win. You get to tag the most mobs = more gold and you dont need to keep up the frantic pace and race everyone for the tags. The bosses I like just because they break the pace a bit so I dont die of boredom after 1 lap.

[Labjax.2465]

Mechanist... sigh. On the one hand, I'm glad it has provided a low intensity option for those who need one and I wouldn't want people who need it for that to lose it. On the other hand, its bright green constant presence is annoying. And any time there is content where holding back matters, you can bet most mechanists won't, probably just because they aren't thinking to pull their pet back. Any time I'm at a TM and a mechanist shows up, I know it's going to start dying like 3x as fast.

But also... lab farm and other content like it is revealing of a problem this game has long had in some areas, where going all out is actually the opposite of what you want to do. And it's very confusing on an instinct level. In most content, it's fine to go all out, in fact some people might talk kitten if you don't. But then there's content where if you don't stick to the bare minimum attack contribution, you are now the troublemaker. It's very bizarre. And part of the problem with it relates to builds and gear and being flexible. "Just auto attack" works really well for tanking your damage on some builds, but in other cases, it means still doing the bulk of your max DPS.

Lab farm is even inconsistent within itself, in that the door bosses can need quite a lot of damage from a full group to take them down, but the regular spawn mobs die in a few hits (which I assume is why some farms focus on tagging and ignore those doors?).

On a surface level, the obvious solution is scaling, but in practice, I don't think it is simple or they would have tweaked it by now in areas of the game where it matters. They could scale regular spawn lab farm mobs, for example, based on how many people are in the instance when they spawn, so they die harder. But then if you are roaming around at all and happen to be a poor sap in a full map, you're going to struggle to kill anything. Event mobs are generally way easier to handle in this way, though even they have problems in some areas of the game, on account of (for example) not wanting level 80 squads doing farms in lowbie zones that ruin things for new players.

[Infusion.7149]

Lab farm's trash mobs are the exact opposite of content that should be introduced in GW2. It rewards players for playing poorly, and even Snebzor has stated this in the past.

It's the only location in the entire PVE game where doing LESS DPS is prized , people are forced to take off damage gear or they draw ire from squad, and players are shamed for doing "too much damage".

The game has constantly rewarded the lowest skill content up until challenge mode fractals locked 99/100CM infusions to accountbound. Think about it : where are 5k-10k gold infusions from? Openworld metas, not strikes or raids or PVP/WVW. Where is the highest gold per hour? Openworld running in a circle unless you can do T4 fractals at a quick rate.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It's the only location in the entire PVE game where doing LESS DPS is prized , people are forced to take off damage gear or they draw ire from squad, and players are shamed for doing "too much damage".

 

Not the only. There's Daily Event Completer. Also [FAST] counsels members of their farm trains to be read for the Light Tagging order from their commanders.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Not the only. There's Daily Event Completer. Also [FAST] counsels members of their farm trains to be read for the Light Tagging order from their commanders.

[FAST] builds use full zerk/viper though

[Vilin.8056]

3 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Im not advocating for trolls or selfish players, but there should be a realisation that in a public instance, people are also there for fun. Especially with so many new players experiencing it for the first time and not caring about maximising loot efficiency 

Every year it’s “don’t use this, don’t do that, don’t attack this”, that I wonder if we’ve lost sight of the fun aspect

This.

Why must a casual festival event be dominated by the few veterans who solely pursue gold/hour, all the way down to what other players should choose their class or gear their characters? Keep in mind that when it comes to the boss battles, it's also mostly the engineers pulling their weight while a shortbow thief is practically leeching.

I also disagree with the new player experience, as new players don't set up their character to maximize loot rate, but instead come to the labyrinth to enjoy quick leveling their character and masteries. Slowing down on each gate event would be the last thing on their wishlist.

And most importantly, the way how op described how the game should be played, is seriously devoid of fun.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[alphafert.6730]

1 hour ago, Vilin.8056 said:

This.

Why must a casual festival event be dominated by the few veterans who solely pursue gold/hour, all the way down to what other players should choose their class or gear their characters? Keep in mind that when it comes to the boss battles, it's also mostly the engineers pulling their weight while a shortbow thief is practically leeching.

I also disagree with the new player experience, as new players don't set up their character to maximize loot rate, but instead come to the labyrinth to enjoy quick leveling their character and masteries. Slowing down on each gate event would be the last thing on their wishlist.

And most importantly, the way how op described how the game should be played, is seriously devoid of fun.

I said I nerfed myself.  There is a difference between maximizing loot & a few players killing the majority of the mobs. New players in this scenario can't get the xp or loot & at that aren't likely to have fun either. Sorry if being considerate of those around ruins your fun. 

[lezbefriends.7516]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Lab farm's trash mobs are the exact opposite of content that should be introduced in GW2. It rewards players for playing poorly, and even Snebzor has stated this in the past.

It's the only location in the entire PVE game where doing LESS DPS is prized , people are forced to take off damage gear or they draw ire from squad, and players are shamed for doing "too much damage".

The game has constantly rewarded the lowest skill content up until challenge mode fractals locked 99/100CM infusions to accountbound. Think about it : where are 5k-10k gold infusions from? Openworld metas, not strikes or raids or PVP/WVW. Where is the highest gold per hour? Openworld running in a circle unless you can do T4 fractals at a quick rate.

It doesn't make them play "poorly", it makes them play differently. Adapting to situations is a skill.

[Labjax.2465]

Just now, alphafert.6730 said:

I said I nerfed myself.  There is a difference between maximizing loot & a few players killing the majority of the mobs. New players in this scenario can't get the xp or loot & at that aren't likely to have fun either. Sorry if being considerate of those around ruins your fun. 

I mean, I think it's valid to consider that for some people, the effectiveness/efficiency of it doesn't even occur to them. But also, this should not result in competition of priorities. Normally, this game's open world is designed such that people approaching it as effectiveness and people approaching it as an adventure (for lack of a better word) can work in tandem without even trying to and without conflicting with each other. The exceptions tend to result in people dividing the playerbase into a dichotomy of those camps (no continuum/overlap) and getting mad at the other camp. I mean, I'm dividing them up to make a point, but I doubt it's anything like that simple.

[Infusion.7149]

4 minutes ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

It doesn't make them play "poorly", it makes them play differently. Adapting to situations is a skill.

If you have to explain to anyone and everyone that never went into the labyrinth why you are requesting they take off all their accessories and "just tag" it is bad design. It's doubly bad when the boss fights require actual DPS to not be a slog.

It would be a skill if everyone in squad was on board with it. What you end up with is people that are going full zerk ascended/legendary paired with people on uplevels or half geared. It won't really be as profitable for the people that labyrinth would be able to help gear as they would not have all the Magic Find bonuses of more veteran players.

Arenanet really should have shifted more magic find bonuses to the bosses and added additional bosses with mechanics instead of just having a bunch of mobs for people to whack.

[Silent.6137]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Where is the highest gold per hour? Openworld running in a circle unless you can do T4 fractals at a quick rate.

Undoubtedly one of the easiest but there are areas, aside from Fractals, that are better.

9 minutes ago, alphafert.6730 said:

 New players in this scenario can't get the xp or loot & at that aren't likely to have fun either. Sorry if being considerate of those around ruins your fun. 

For new players, it is better if they just team up with one or two others and just do the inner circle. Or even solo. Look for maps with no tags. There's always a few players on most maps who will just farm there.

If you're always trailing far behind or not getting the hits, joining a fast running squad is just a waste of time. Expecting everyone to be considerate will be asking a lot too much especially in a big squad.

[Vilin.8056]

1 hour ago, alphafert.6730 said:

I said I nerfed myself.  There is a difference between maximizing loot & a few players killing the majority of the mobs. New players in this scenario can't get the xp or loot & at that aren't likely to have fun either. Sorry if being considerate of those around ruins your fun. 

It doesn't matter whether you nerfed yourself, you're still entitled yourself to dominate other players by drawing lines on what they are supposed to be doing, in an attempt to maximize profit on your leech build, while taking new player as your cover to critize the whole community.

Before you start judging how I am inconsiderate of others, I primarily enter the instance as a heal scourge with barrier, speed revive, projectile block and boon rip to help squads having easier time against bosses, since years back when lich was considered difficult. I never made toxic comments on thieves running leech builds shooting autotargeting projectiles ahead of me whenever we march between between doors, while they absolutely making no contribution to boss fights.

New players leveling characters prioritize on mobility to reach event completion in time for the event exp instead of exp from monster kills, because they were never optimized for kill rate in the first place. Your problem is not their problem.

Casual festival games are supposed to be chaotic fun by design, the majority of us accept that. The last thing we need is more MMO politics.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[lezbefriends.7516]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you have to explain to anyone and everyone that never went into the labyrinth why you are requesting they take off all their accessories and "just tag" it is bad design. It's doubly bad when the boss fights require actual DPS to not be a slog.

It would be a skill if everyone in squad was on board with it. What you end up with is people that are going full zerk ascended/legendary paired with people on uplevels or half geared. It won't really be as profitable for the people that labyrinth would be able to help gear as they would not have all the Magic Find bonuses of more veteran players.

Arenanet really should have shifted more magic find bonuses to the bosses and added additional bosses with mechanics instead of just having a bunch of mobs for people to whack.

How is that design any worse than telling people to follow commander and spam auto-attack (not the mad labyrinth, but everything in the game)?

[Infusion.7149]

56 minutes ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

How is that design any worse than telling people to follow commander and spam auto-attack (not the mad labyrinth, but everything in the game)?

I don't know why you're trying to derail the topic, which is people asking for trinkets to be off in labyrinth. I don't do openworld that much admittedly, but I can't remember anyone ever stating "AUTOATTACKS ONLY PLEASE" in squad chat as a commander on say Auric Basin , Drizzlewood, Dragonfall, or Tangled Depths. They might tell people to hold to kill more than one boss or vine at the same time on the other hand. Certainly not in any instanced content ever did anyone say "autoattacks only" even if there was a Dhuum kill with autoattacks only for meme purposes.

So in that sense labyrinth is indeed worse. Arenanet could have added more bosses with mechanics and upped the loot for those bosses to incentivize people to interact with them. The fact that the trash mobs drop anything more than trash and bones is already quite generous of them.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Linken.6345]

41 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I don't know why you're trying to derail the topic, which is people asking for trinkets to be off in labyrinth. I don't do openworld that much admittedly, but I can't remember anyone ever stating "AUTOATTACKS ONLY PLEASE" in squad chat as a commander on say Auric Basin , Drizzlewood, Dragonfall, or Tangled Depths. They might tell people to hold to kill more than one boss or vine at the same time on the other hand. Certainly not in any instanced content ever did anyone say "autoattacks only" even if there was a Dhuum kill with autoattacks only for meme purposes.

So in that sense labyrinth is indeed worse. Arenanet could have added more bosses with mechanics and upped the loot for those bosses to incentivize people to interact with them. The fact that the trash mobs drop anything more than trash and bones is already quite generous of them.

I say it every week in wing 5 when killing broken king.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Linken.6345 said:

I say it every week in wing 5 when killing broken king.

You could just as easily tell them to slow DPS , take greens, or run more AOE heals.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Linken.6345]

20 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You could just as easily tell them to slow DPS , take greens, or run more AOE heals.

True but how slow dps do I want it?

It is just easier to say just auto attack and then they know how slow I want it.

My point was you said you never seen it happen so I informed you that atleast in my squad it do and Im sure it is not the only one.

[Infusion.7149]

4 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

True but how slow dps do I want it?

It is just easier to say just auto attack and then they know how slow I want it.

My point was you said you never seen it happen so I informed you that atleast in my squad it do and Im sure it is not the only one.

There's a difference between the whole squad autoing and just the DPS players. Also it isn't even a strong strat if you have power mechs that leave their mech on autoattack with autocast skills.

Last I checked the target is 10K DPS for BK

Edited October 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Vilin.8056]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

True but how slow dps do I want it?

It is just easier to say just auto attack and then they know how slow I want it.

My point was you said you never seen it happen so I informed you that atleast in my squad it do and Im sure it is not the only one.

In Wing 5 BK we synchronize dps rate by observing the speed in which the green circle spawn, that's a observable in-game mechanic instead of loot count of an anonymous.

Also you're referring W5 Raid as to how we supposed to play Madking's Labyrinth, how much sense does that make?

Edited October 21, 2022 by Vilin.8056