[BUG] Domain of Istan is still bugged - Akili & Books No Champions

[tinyasian.8941]

Dear Arena Net,

I would like to report a Bug in Domain of Istan. Since the Halloween patch, the two events - Akili and Books event no longer spawn any champions, even though the map is full with more than 50 people (a full squad) participating in them.

This issue has been discussed in this https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/58244/has-istan-just-got-stealth-nerfed and as pointed out by Gaile Gray, Arena Net would not change anything without posting about it.

I believe that many people are aware of this, however most must have decided to wait until after Halloween to see if the Bug will disappear of its own. I have spent a lot of time there lately after the Halloween and I can confirm that there are still no champions spawning. So the bug never disappears. :anguished:

Domain of Istan is one of the places where you can experience a robust community of a MMORPG and I really hope that Arena Net could look into this. :+1:

Thank you.

[Kumbaya.4689]

The official names of the 2 dynamic events are "Defend Akili while he recalibrates mirrors around the Astralarium" and "Stop the book-burning raid on the Astralarium library".

[Jeffrey Vaughn.1793]

It's worth noting that there aren't any champions (or veterans) explicitly set to spawn during the events, but they are both set up to "promote" some of the event spawns as they scale up. There's a random chance that some of the event spawns will spawn as champions or veterans when they appear, but it's not guaranteed.I did notice that the "Defend Akili" event does have a lower chance of "promoting" spawns than it should, and will fix this in a future content update. The other event doesn't have the same issue.When I manually scaled up the event I had both champions and veterans spawning, and I didn't see any other issues with the way it's set up. Note that the decision to "promote" a creature is made when it first spawns, so it's possible for the event to scale up after some of the creatures have already spawned.

[tinyasian.8941]

There's clearly an issue here otherwise nobody would talk about it before even this thread. All the events have champions, elites and veterans spawning however the rate is so low, and close to even zero compared with pre-halloween. You can do it for like 10 times and only that one lucky time when you get one champion, the rest of the times, you get nothing. It kinda hampers the mood. :(

I hope Arena Net could look into this. :) Thank you!

[Shivvies.3921]

@"Jeffrey Vaughn.1793" said:It's worth noting that there aren't any champions (or veterans) explicitly set to spawn during the events, but they are both set up to "promote" some of the event spawns as they scale up. There's a random chance that some of the event spawns will spawn as champions or veterans when they appear, but it's not guaranteed.

I understand it is not guaranteed but we do have a statistically significant comparison data here. I'm not saying 3-5 events with no champs make a conclusion. We're talking people completing hundreds of these events without seeing numbers of champion we're pretty much accustomed to see. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it might be FIXED even, if it was spawning way more than intended for instance. However, something has changed in the amount of spawns without question whether it can be seen easily when you look under the hood or not.

I did notice that the "Defend Akili" event does have a lower chance of "promoting" spawns than it should, and will fix this in a future content update. The other event doesn't have the same issue.

It might be connected to something else then. I'm not assuming I can glean into the inner workings of how events work under the hood but either the book burning event was not working as intended before Halloween or now. Before the Halloween event, with full squads, you'd get about 4-5 champions in books (without fail) and 10ish in Akili defence event.

When I manually scaled up the event I had both champions and veterans spawning, and I didn't see any other issues with the way it's set up. Note that the decision to "promote" a creature is made when it first spawns, so it's possible for the event to scale up after some of the creatures have already spawned.

The way community does these events is there are at least 15-20 people during first spawns (some still collecting things from the last event) and then usually 40+ people are at the event area killing things. Commanders direct people in manners known to the community to be the optimal in spawning champions as those are a significant component of income from Istan events. The reason I'm stressing this is to convey that we do know how to get a good amount of champion spawns in these events as regular Istan people, not to contradict you or anything.

In brief, I do believe we have enough data to derive not only correlation but also causation between Halloween content update and (significantly) lower champion spawns in these two events. Halloween is now "turned off" but I'm pretty certain the build did not change since then.

Cheers!

[tinyasian.8941]

Update:

9 November:-Forced to change to new map by the system, due to low number of players, even though we had a full 50/50 squad and other players.

-Akili and Books spawned champions in the new map when we did it for the first time, still lesser than before. Only 2 champions for Akili and 2 for books

For the next 5 hours, no champions were pawned in these events.

---

At this point, it doesn't even feel like low champions spawn. They only spawn for the first time when we changed the map, for the next 5 hours I was there, waiting for Great Hall and Pala events, everyone else who still did the two Akili and Books events religiously remarked that there were no champions at all.

[tinyasian.8941]

With the new patch coming in, can anyone confirm on the spawn rate of the champions for Akili and Books? Has it reverted?

Am going to check it myself like 7 hours later. Haha!

[Blocki.4931]

@tinyasian.8941 said:With the new patch coming in, can anyone confirm on the spawn rate of the champions for Akili and Books? Has it reverted?

Am going to check it myself like 7 hours later. Haha!

My friend told me that he was on the map on two different occasions today and they spawned champs perfectly fine again.

[tinyasian.8941]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@tinyasian.8941 said:With the new patch coming in, can anyone confirm on the spawn rate of the champions for Akili and Books? Has it reverted?

Am going to check it myself like 7 hours later. Haha!

My friend told me that he was on the map on two different occasions today and they spawned champs perfectly fine again.

That sounds hopeful. Is this after the patch?Can't wait to check it out later. xD

[DarkMonk.4531]

Typing right from battlefield: first Akili and Books had some champs but subsequent events didn't spawn champions for a full 50-man squad.

[Kahamatabine.5039]

I agree. Since halloween patch nothing has been fixed. Defend Akili only spawns some champions on new map, after that is 0.

[tinyasian.8941]

Update:

As of November 13, no champions spawn for both events. Only 1 champion after doing the books event for 10-15 times.

At this point, I feel like it's already nerfed. Just that no official announcement is made for some reasons.

Still, I hope that after sorting out all the bugs with the runes and sigils, something can be done about this.

[nelltwo.1237]

Just ended my daily 7 hours run farm with 50 pple squad : got champs at our 1st akili and books then all others next events = 0 champs . i guess nothing fixed with last patch and it's like that since halloween patch .

[Shivvies.3921]

Yes. I'll echo this.

It seems the issue works like this:

• If you are in a new map via volunteer merge or after a build drops, first time you run Defend Akili and Preserve Books events, the champion promotions happen as expected. By "as expected" I mean "as we have been accustomed to through our collective thousands of hours of completing the said events."

• Once you cycle through them once, there is nothing wrong with Great Hall Assault, Palawadan Assault and Corpse Caravans but these two events revert to a state of never promoting enemies to champions. This is not a "fluke events where no champion promotions happen once or twice" OR a case of "doing the event with an inadequate number of people." I am talking about full 50 people squads never seeing even one champion promotion in these two events for hours on end.

This has been the case since the Halloween build was distributed.

EVEN IF this was intended and the champion enemy promotions were intended to be cut back -which is fine, I do not care about devs not communicating every little change they make to preserve balance, really- this does not seem to work in a uniform manner. I simply do not think it was intentional to completely remove the champion promotion of the enemies after the first run of an event on a fresh map especially considering the initial dev response above.

Please let us know if this is being looked at.

Cheers!

[tinyasian.8941]

Still no champions spawn.Still hoping that this would be fixed.

[DayLeeKnight.6398]

I can also confirm that there are no champs spawning on both akili and books, no matter how many people try to upscale the event or how often you try it.

[Jeffrey Vaughn.1793]

Are veterans and elites showing up?

[Sneakyy.9157]

@Jeffrey Vaughn.1793 said:Are veterans and elites showing up?

Yes.

[Sylvari.2953]

Even GH was bugged for my squad today, we destroyed the gate and when we had to kill mobs the progression bar was stuck at 1%, we could not trigger Sutekh.

[Sprymazi.6472]

Can confirm as well, Aki and Books are not spawning champs as they used too. I've done at least 6 events and for Aki there were no champs at all and at one time Books spawned 1 champion. They used to consistently spawn at least 5-6 champs per each of these events. Done 100's of hours of Istan and this is not a coincidence.

I suspect this has something to do with the Halloween events' (spawn rate) still being enabled.

[harry.2371]

Agreed, both events usually spawn max 1 champ. Important to fix since many of us who play daily have Istan farm as part of our "daily" routine.

[phs.6089]

@Mea.5491 said:Even GH was bugged for my squad today, we destroyed the gate and when we had to kill mobs the progression bar was stuck at 1%, we could not trigger Sutekh.

That happened, you squad missed of 'feared' a single mob into walls, solution is go around the GH and AOE walls

[Jamall.8927]

Soo still no answer about the bug? Because I understand if the champs spawned 2 times out of 10 events and that would be out of pure promoting system but no spawns for a whole day or two? That's not normal to say the least.

[tinyasian.8941]

@Jamall.8927 said:Soo still no answer about the bug? Because I understand if the champs spawned 2 times out of 10 events and that would be out of pure promoting system but no spawns for a whole day or two? That's not normal to say the least.

To be more exact, no spawns for more than a month already! The only time they come out and play is when you land in a new map and they spawn for the first time. Even then the number of champs is greatly reduced.

[tinyasian.8941]

Anyone can confirm if this has been rectified? Gonna follow up every week. Heh. Can't login to play at the moment.