Will the Skyscale Fireball skill ever be changed to prevent semi-afking/leeching events and metas? [Merged]

[Omega.6801]

20 minutes ago, Palador.2170 said:

Small question, as someone that does sometimes fly in with a skyscale and lob a fireball or two before landing: 

Do you consider it a problem if the person fireballs, then lands and joins in normally? Or if they land the skyscale and keep launching fireballs from on the ground?

I have a couple of characters that I'd consider "not that great", and like that I can at least use skyscale to bridge the gap, somewhat.

I'd say shooting a few fireballs while landing and then joining normally is no issue at all. What upsets people are the players who camp the skyscale during the whole event, shooting a few fireballs for participation, then going afk until the rest of the players have killed the boss.
Also, even a "not that great" character will probably add more to the fight than a player shooting a fireball every 10 seconds.

[Sobx.1758]

4 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

When someone dies, they should respawn and come back to the event to actively participate in it. That doesn't change anything about the fact that leeching is still leeching and players should actively participate instead.

 

29 minutes ago, Palador.2170 said:

Do you consider it a problem if the person fireballs, then lands and joins in normally?

No

29 minutes ago, Palador.2170 said:

Or if they land the skyscale and keep launching fireballs from on the ground?

Yes

[Zalle.5468]

4 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

And how does eliminating the fireball pewpew address those underlying issues . . ?

Gotta start somewhere, also the fireball isn't a direct problem of the participation system and its flaws... But it is part of what makes it so bad/outdated

[Gop.8713]

Why not start by addressing the problem instead? What is your proposed solution . . ?

[Randulf.7614]

I do not want to see any nerfs to the fireball whatsoever - I enjoy using it, although I'd never let an event fail because of it. I have not yet seen this issue in game, but taking away or nerfing the fireball will do nothing to counter it if it exists. The sort of rare player who shoots once/twice then afks is going to do it no matter what the tool they have. Theyve just migrated from long range weapons to the skyscale. They're going to do it regardless, so punishing the vast majority of sensible players is not something that should be on the table as a point of order.

There are underlying issues to participation they should look atbut removing or changing a fun skill players have earned seems like a very wrong approach here unless we start seeing events fail en masse because of it. And that def isn't happening

[Gop.8713]

It would have been better if you'd let them figure it out for themselves. I feel confident they would have gotten there eventually . . .

[Ashen.2907]

7 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

Event scaling adjusts down for dead characters. The event will scale up for players present but that upscaling will fade if they stay dead, not participating. Someone who is attacking, with a skyscale fireball for example, will continue to scale an encounter up even if not contributing significantly to victory conditions.

[Zalle.5468]

1 hour ago, Gop.8713 said:

Why not start by addressing the problem instead? What is your proposed solution . . ?

Forcing faster respawns like WvW does currently is a good solution, especially since it's a system already implemented into the game. Skyscale fireball, no comment. Make the timer for COMPLETELY losing participation (event text greys out) in events shorter and increasing the activity requirements to match powercreep and general playerbase getting better over time. This would also somewhat help new players towards improving without external tools/ressources if they get Gold on an event when they usually get Silver or Bronze because they did more damage/didn't walk back after dying. If we're making Gold tier rewards actually challenging and not the default I think it'd be worth to up the amount of XP/karma you get from it, not sure if upping the amount of gold earned  would be a good idea because I'm nowhere near good at playing with money in this game. Other metrics dictating what tier of reward you get could be something like, boons applied/healing done, time spent alive consecutively, CC applied and mechanics done. For solo events I think the current system is ok (?) I don't really see anyone leeching those type of events because of how fast they are and because skyscale leeches are almost exclusive to meta/group events, from my experience

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

They can make it so enemies are invulnerable to fireballs in all new content.

[Gop.8713]

26 minutes ago, Zalle.5468 said:

Forcing faster respawns like WvW does currently is a good solution, especially since it's a system already implemented into the game. Skyscale fireball, no comment. Make the timer for COMPLETELY losing participation (event text greys out) in events shorter and increasing the activity requirements to match powercreep and general playerbase getting better over time. This would also somewhat help new players towards improving without external tools/ressources if they get Gold on an event when they usually get Silver or Bronze because they did more damage/didn't walk back after dying. If we're making Gold tier rewards actually challenging and not the default I think it'd be worth to up the amount of XP/karma you get from it, not sure if upping the amount of gold earned  would be a good idea because I'm nowhere near good at playing with money in this game. Other metrics dictating what tier of reward you get could be something like, boons applied/healing done, time spent alive consecutively, CC applied and mechanics done. For solo events I think the current system is ok (?) I don't really see anyone leeching those type of events because of how fast they are and because skyscale leeches are almost exclusive to meta/group events, from my experience

See now some of these are good ideas, bc they actually address the problem instead of just complaining about a symptom. Taken one by one . . .

1) Forcing respawns. The wvw timer is five minutes. Is that your suggestion for pve as well, or would you advocate for a shorter or longer time, or does it matter? WvW respawns you at your spawn wp. Would you suggest a particular respawn point in pve? One per map? Or just whichever is nearest? Will a forced respawn still cost the wp fee? Will a player still be force respawned if they are in the process of being ressed? Of all the solutions for afk/leeching I've seen in the forums, this has been the only one I can really get behind a hundred percent. I can't think of any real downside, tho I'd like to hear them if anyone has any . . .

2) Losing participation faster. Anet has fiddled with this before, and it's proven difficult to get right. Remember losing participation during the event in amnytas? There's been a lot of that. What if you do the 'right' thing and fly back from a wp when you die (or are force respawned) but the boss dies in the interim, just tough luck? Do you believe that if the timer was shortened, ppl who are inclined to leech would suddenly be engaged, or do you think they would still just sit there watching second screen waiting for the lost participation message? I don't like this idea bc I don't believe it could be implemented effectively . . .

3) Increasing participation requirements. The problem here is this is the open world. It's supposed to be accessible to everyone, it's not supposed to be challenging. An event can be challenging for a group to complete, sure, but any random player should be able to happen along and learn by doing while still getting whatever rewards everyone else gets. This is a cornerstone of gw2's concept. Punishing new or casual players in an effort to sweep up leechers isn't a good policy. I wouldn't be totally opposed to an 'extra' tier of rewards for players who do contribute at a higher level, but it would have to be of the 'meaningless' xp/karma variety and I don't believe that would do anything to motivate leeches either . . .

So the only one of these suggestions that I see as constructive is forcing respawns, and that would only impact a very small percentage of the truly afk leeches. By and large ppls who are motivated by how much they can not play the game would just swap to minonmancer/mech/engi turret etc builds with highly defensive stats to increase their survivability. And that's the problem, we're trying to find a solution that addresses ppls who are willing to put a great deal of energy into not playing the game without impacting the ppls who are actually playing it, an impossible task . . .

[Surelia.2651]

Please.   It is not an impossible task.  This is literally the only mmo i have played where this leeching thing is going on day in day out, and so many people gripe about it.   Solutions are pretty obvious.  There is simply zero willingness to implement any of them. 

[Gop.8713]

pls share . . .

[Lyssia.4637]

1 hour ago, Gop.8713 said:

3) Increasing participation requirements. The problem here is this is the open world. It's supposed to be accessible to everyone, it's not supposed to be challenging. An event can be challenging for a group to complete, sure, but any random player should be able to happen along and learn by doing while still getting whatever rewards everyone else gets. This is a cornerstone of gw2's concept. Punishing new or casual players in an effort to sweep up leechers isn't a good policy. I wouldn't be totally opposed to an 'extra' tier of rewards for players who do contribute at a higher level, but it would have to be of the 'meaningless' xp/karma variety and I don't believe that would do anything to motivate leeches either . . .

I agree completely, but hand in hand with what you wrote is that this would also simply exacerbate the problem I see far more often with Skyscale fireballs, which is high-level characters using them to blast out of existence an event in open world before characters leveling in a zone appropriate to their level can even get close.  I know Anet has been handing out instant level 80s with new expansions, but, as someone who regularly plays with my one daughter who just likes leveling and her sister, who is trying to level her first character for the first time, this gets obnoxious very, very quickly.  I'd far, far rather see leeches.

Edited July 4 by Lyssia.4637
Some attempt at clarity

[Hsanrb.1570]

Easy fix for this, start giving mobs (and some meta events) homing one shot abilities directed at people on skyscales so they get demounted, fall to the earth and get defeated (not downed) status. Preferably with some DoT so that you cannot just glide/remount upon falling. Only other way to fix this would be to move people into cave systems or inside solid fortifications in which skyscales can no longer hit mobs inside.

They could completely rewrite the damage formulas for skyscale, or reshape the equation so that skyscale damage is siege and give certain mobs siege protection so fireballs do zero and therefore aren't contributing to events, but most events have mobs who will be burned so this would only impact success/fail and not gold/silver/bronze.

 

34 minutes ago, Surelia.2651 said:

Please.   It is not an impossible task.  This is literally the only mmo i have played where this leeching thing is going on day in day out, and so many people gripe about it.   Solutions are pretty obvious.  There is simply zero willingness to implement any of them. 

Leeching is not just an MMO thing, in order to leech off other peoples work, someone must carry their teammate to victory. Why bring 8 people, when you can do something with 7 and have someone make a contribution for a free clear. Not TOS friendly in most games, but Guild Wars 2 is probably not the only game in which people can get credit for activities with zero input by the user. Just look at JP's anytime its a weekly event... bet you find a free portal to that quick 50 AA. Have you participated in a Twitch drop program for ANY videogame? Sounds like leeching for free loot to me 🤣

[Lyssia.4637]

6 minutes ago, Hsanrb.1570 said:

Just look at JP's anytime its a weekly event... bet you find a free portal to that quick 50 AA.  Sounds like leeching for free loot to me 🤣

Hey, now!  I ALWAYS tip my JP taxi very generously, and every time I use their services!  😁

[zeyeti.8347]

15 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

Okay, so what's the advantage of having a player lie dead on the ground waiting for the event to end over being on their skyscale using fireball . . ?

have you seen the damage output of fireball afk skyscale ? full minstrel players does more damage than that , it was supposed to be used on some metas like amnitas for cleaning tentacles below the tower , ppl  doing the afk fireball spit are scaling the boss hp way more than they help, get on the ground and deal some damage !

i know a guildmate who does multi account metas with reaper afk axe and minions , stlill able to be on the arcdps top 10 (with 3 accounts) , so you can afk if you want , but do it efficiently , not lazy way with skyscale ...

Or i don't know build up a mecha , play with rifle and afk on the boss far away , you will still have competitive damage , but that fireball feels like a water pistol against a wall...

[Sobx.1758]

17 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Event scaling adjusts down for dead characters. The event will scale up for players present but that upscaling will fade if they stay dead, not participating.

I think that's the first time I hear that, source?

[Randulf.7614]

22 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I think that's the first time I hear that, source?

I'm curious too. I've heard this a lot over the years, but I don't know the source of the claim

[Ashen.2907]

50 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I think that's the first time I hear that, source?

Unfortunately I no longer have the link as this was explained by devs on the old forums years ago. Because I dont have the source do take it with a grain of salt.

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Unfortunately I no longer have the link as this was explained by devs on the old forums years ago. Because I dont have the source do take it with a grain of salt.

The only thing I saw is the information about event scaling up even if the players are nearby and don't participate in the event. There was no mention about dead players, so the question remains if the game treats dead player characters as player characters and I'd be willing to guess that it does -but it's still just a guess.

Edited July 4 by Sobx.1758

[Healix.5819]

7 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I'm curious too. I've heard this a lot over the years, but I don't know the source of the claim

It's old info. Originally you had to be actively participating to scale an event. Problem was, bosses were being instantly killed by large groups before they could scale, so around the middle of season 1, scaling was changed to simply factor everyone within the area.

[Sobx.1758]

Wiki lists this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/38pdks/controlled_event_scaling_test/

Quote

TL;DR;

• scaling is (still) entirely ranged based, no matter if people afk for minutes they still participate

• downscaling happens immediately when players move away

• dead players keep the boss upscaled, downscaling happens immediately when they waypoint away

[Liewec.2896]

honestly i'd like to see MORE mounted combat!

the fireball is a very cool mechanic, as is siege turtle.

[Randulf.7614]

1 hour ago, Liewec.2896 said:

honestly i'd like to see MORE mounted combat!

the fireball is a very cool mechanic, as is siege turtle.

Yep. Griffon rapid fire cannons with crystal shard ammo. Or raptor and throwing a spear at a target

Id take an ill tempered skimmer with laser beams attached to its head 

[Zalle.5468]

On 7/3/2024 at 9:49 PM, Gop.8713 said:

See now some of these are good ideas, bc they actually address the problem instead of just complaining about a symptom. Taken one by one . . .

1) Forcing respawns. The wvw timer is five minutes. Is that your suggestion for pve as well, or would you advocate for a shorter or longer time, or does it matter? WvW respawns you at your spawn wp. Would you suggest a particular respawn point in pve? One per map? Or just whichever is nearest? Will a forced respawn still cost the wp fee? Will a player still be force respawned if they are in the process of being ressed? Of all the solutions for afk/leeching I've seen in the forums, this has been the only one I can really get behind a hundred percent. I can't think of any real downside, tho I'd like to hear them if anyone has any . . .

2) Losing participation faster. Anet has fiddled with this before, and it's proven difficult to get right. Remember losing participation during the event in amnytas? There's been a lot of that. What if you do the 'right' thing and fly back from a wp when you die (or are force respawned) but the boss dies in the interim, just tough luck? Do you believe that if the timer was shortened, ppl who are inclined to leech would suddenly be engaged, or do you think they would still just sit there watching second screen waiting for the lost participation message? I don't like this idea bc I don't believe it could be implemented effectively . . .

3) Increasing participation requirements. The problem here is this is the open world. It's supposed to be accessible to everyone, it's not supposed to be challenging. An event can be challenging for a group to complete, sure, but any random player should be able to happen along and learn by doing while still getting whatever rewards everyone else gets. This is a cornerstone of gw2's concept. Punishing new or casual players in an effort to sweep up leechers isn't a good policy. I wouldn't be totally opposed to an 'extra' tier of rewards for players who do contribute at a higher level, but it would have to be of the 'meaningless' xp/karma variety and I don't believe that would do anything to motivate leeches either . . .

So the only one of these suggestions that I see as constructive is forcing respawns, and that would only impact a very small percentage of the truly afk leeches. By and large ppls who are motivated by how much they can not play the game would just swap to minonmancer/mech/engi turret etc builds with highly defensive stats to increase their survivability. And that's the problem, we're trying to find a solution that addresses ppls who are willing to put a great deal of energy into not playing the game without impacting the ppls who are actually playing it, an impossible task . . .

Apologies late answer, life happened.

I think the respawn timer should still be 5 minutes, after which your body would despawn and your map be forced open until you find a WP to respawn at, it would still cost gold but should cost nothing if you can't afford it. (Not like anyone has ever been not able to pay WP costs ngl). You would lose participation even faster while fully dead to incite people to respawn and get back into it.

And I think upping the participation requirements should only be of major issue to Gold tier rewards. Getting Bronze or Silver for participating in an event should not be difficult. I do believe that Gold rewards should be for players who played the event "better than the rest". Maybe a top 33% of the players who participated or something.