Why should we do events when Players just afk-leech off of us>

[Gop.8713]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Gop.8713 said:This seems like a nonissue. I can see why leeching would just kind of bother ppl on general principle but it doesn't actually hurt anything . . .

If there is no scaling up the event, that's true. However, it still causes bad vibes ^^

In WvW, you sometimes have people who just tag a camp or guard and then move on to the next, to let others actually finish it and get more rewards per time. More than once I moved away too when I saw this, and sometimes they returned to finish the task. Apparently, they needed the rewards more than I ^^

So no issue then . . .

[kharmin.7683]

@ChronosCosmos.9450 said:

It bothers me because everyone else is putting in effort to do the event while they leech and afk in an event that is meant for group play. They're being lazy and leechign off of everyone else.You advocate for change because something bothers you. That is not a sufficient reason. There is no advantage to be gained by anyone (or disadvantage for that matter) within the status quo. Whether or not someone is AFK does not affect your ability to play the game.

It's similar if I were to ask you to pay for my mortgage while you live somewhere else.Not a good analogy.

[Ototo.3214]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@VDAC.2137 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"ChronosCosmos.9450" said:There is a flaw in the participation system. It rewards players for afking and auto-attacking. Please put a damage requirement for the rewards but don't make it high so that people can't just afk and leech off of the efforts of others.

There are damage requirements already. In fact, sometimes people who think they are participating aren't doing enough damage to reach the threshold for credit.

Put another way, if someone gets credit for an event, then they were participating.(Save for a few bugs that affect this or that; those don't have much over impact though.)

Do you know whether this applies to world bosses as well as metas? I’m practicing comm and wore minstrel’s gear to make sure I stayed alive to coordinate and to drop heals and stability. Between that and being focused on keeping track of HP and debugged, I’m sure I didn’t do much damage. Now unfortunately I dc’ed before the very end and didn’t receive credit. I had assumed it was the dc (although I still got credit when I dc’ed during a Bloodstone Fen fight and I was pre DPS there.

If you DC'd all bets are off. There's a lot of things that the game tracks and some of them are remembered if you come back right away, some not. I don't think there's any substantive research that would allow us players to offer a reasonable rule of thumb for it.

Minstrels by itself shouldn't be an issue, if you were commanding from inside a squad (rather than as a mentor), since you'd get credit for their damage. You wouldn't have to do 'much' damage.

Since you've DC'd at least twice recently during big fights, my recommendation is turn some/all of your settings down before a meta. On my old PC, there were three fights in the game that crashed my game regularly, including Karka Queen, which I was joining daily at the time. I got in the habit of pressing [F11] after the last camp was cleared, choosing "lowest settings", and voila, no crash. (Some people can just choose 1-2 settings to tick down for the same result, notably how many player models or player details or both. Also good: turn off reflections. That uses a lot of processing power.)

(And of course, it's worth trying to troubleshoot why you are DCing. That's something Support can often help with. In my case, it turned out my hard drive's data cable connector had melted, and was hanging on by its nails. Replacing the drive did the trick.)

I could be wrong cause I never really looked super far into it, but I've heard people say there is also a like...tag cap on some mobs. This was supposedly an issue when istan was the hot farm of choice, where the champs had a limited number of people that could tag them and get rewards. This meant that even if you started hitting it when it was at 50% hp and did the minimum damage requirement for credit, if enough people had already tagged it to "cap" you got nothing. If that's true, could be why people don't get credit on events despite being in the squad, but you needed quite a few people tagging one thing for it to be noticeable and is mainly anecdotal evidence people present for it.

[Thorstienn.1642]

I vote everyone afk auto-attacks. Most Metas are so fast with the zerg around they dont feel very impressive. It's harder fighting many HPs than it is doing most Metas (unless it's an HP pain train).

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

It might not be fair or just if AFK or lazy people get the same loot as the actively-engaged. That doesn't mean it's a problem for the community.

@"ChronosCosmos.9450" said:

It bothers me because everyone else is putting in effort to do the event while they leech and afk in an event that is meant for group play. They're being lazy and leechign off of everyone else.

This is sometimes called the "free rider" problem. That's an issue in economics, because people there are actual financial effects. In this game, the loot you get is not affected by someone leeching: you get max loot based on your contribution.

I am more concerned about (what I call) the "costly rider" problem. That's when someone makes it harder (intentionally or, more likely, accidentally) for everyone. A minor example: guardian GS-5 pulls foes in a nice ball and scourge F4-fears them away. A middling example: people who start a bounty before the squad arrives, reducing the time available.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Ototo.3214" said:I could be wrong cause I never really looked super far into it, but I've heard people say there is also a like...tag cap on some mobs.Technically, it's not a "tag cap." It's instead a combination of the things I mentioned above.

For example, if 50 people do 100 damage, that's 50k total and the (50000-health) creature is dead. The 51st person can't get credit, even though the game might show damage (because there is latency between their initiation of their skill and the server registering the 50k damage).

With only anecdotes, it's hard to say for sure what happened in Istan originally... except it's literally what happened in every meta in the game since launch. It happened in Orr in 2012-3 and again in Orr when legendary precursor collections began and again in Orr after the golem backpack. And again in Orr... well you get the idea.

I have yet to see someone describe their experience where it couldn't be explained by the combination of minimum thresholds, slow skills, and in-game latency exacerbated by the amount of people at the event, compounded by being unfamiliar with reward-optimization.Put another way: the people I know who have no trouble getting quick, high-DPS, high-cleave (AoE) damage always got credit; the people I know who missed credit weren't as fast or as cleav-y or as high in damage (or some combination of the above).

[Adry.7512]

That’s the problem with games that have zero to barely any solo content.

[Mieh Hammond.8903]

@"ChronosCosmos.9450" said:It bothers me because everyone else is putting in effort to do the event while they leech and afk in an event that is meant for group play. They're being lazy and leechign off of everyone else. It's similar if I were to ask you to pay for my mortgage while you live somewhere else.

I'll simply offer that, because games are made to be fun, comparing team events to the obligation of paying a mortgage seems counterproductive. That said, I understand some people enjoy the feeling of meeting obligations in a fantasy world.

Any negative feelings stemming from the idea of "leeching" seem rooted in these beliefs:

1. performing effectively in an event is a service;
2. event participants are obligated to share in this service; and
3. "leechers" diminish the satisfaction of providing the service, breeding resentment.

For anyone who experiences this kind of resentment, there's at least two possible solutions the player can control themselves:

• Focus on playing with guilds or friends that share your beliefs.
• Try a more self-satisfying play style.

[JustTrogdor.7892]

One thing Anet needs to do is make a mandatory break bar tutorial. Once per account the first time logging in on a L80 character. The more time I spend in large groups the more clear it is that a significant portion of the player base has no idea what it is and how to deal with it.

[alcopaul.2156]

Soulbeast 1-1-1-1-2 (goto 1) is all you need.

[Ototo.3214]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Ototo.3214" said:I could be wrong cause I never really looked super far into it, but I've heard people say there is also a like...tag cap on some mobs.Technically, it's not a "tag cap." It's instead a combination of the things I mentioned above.

For example, if 50 people do 100 damage, that's 50k total and the (50000-health) creature is dead. The 51st person can't get credit, even though the game might show damage (because there is latency between their initiation of their skill and the server registering the 50k damage).

With only anecdotes, it's hard to say for sure what happened in Istan originally... except it's literally what happened in every meta in the game since launch. It happened in Orr in 2012-3 and again in Orr when legendary precursor collections began and again in Orr after the golem backpack. And again in Orr... well you get the idea.

I have yet to see someone describe their experience where it couldn't be explained by the combination of minimum thresholds, slow skills, and in-game latency exacerbated by the amount of people at the event, compounded by being unfamiliar with reward-optimization.Put another way: the people I know who have no trouble getting quick, high-DPS, high-cleave (AoE) damage always got credit; the people I know who missed credit weren't as fast or as cleav-y or as high in damage (or some combination of the above).

What people were describing wasn't so much the thing was almost dead and they tagged it at the end to not get credit (a champ bag), but that the thing they were hitting had quite a bit of HP left and it seemed that because X number of people had already tagged it before them, it didn't matter if they whaled on the thing for 20k damage until it died, they got nothing when it died if they didn't start attacking it asap. Like only a certain number of people are allowed to obtain loot from 1 particular mob, despite everyone being in the same squad. That just doesn't seem like latency to me? Unless I'm not properly understanding the things you listed. It was weird but I swear I've only heard it happen in Istan which...was nerfed so you can't really test it anymore. But that was just for getting rewards from a champion spawned during an event, not the event itself. Probably irrelevant now though it wouldn't be the first time false rumors spread around like that.

On the actual topic of the thread though, I don't see a reason for the event credit requirements to change. Quite a few metas kinda require you to move around and dodge to avoid things that would otherwise kill you. They changed some of the world bosses to prevent the weird stacking where they thought was necessary. And it's not like someone putting in minimal effort is affecting my loot if we complete the meta. I do kinda hate when tons of people die at an event and refuse to waypoint though, leaving their corpse there to hog my interact key when I'd rather res the downed player or pick up the chest under their corpse instead of them. But it's not a big deal.

[Sarpan.9074]

It's annoying, sure, but I don't think it affects my play or rewards except if additional players cause an even to scale up and they're not contributing. Not sure how to tell if that is happening or not.

FWIW, surprisingly, I see this a lot with commanders calling out events then just sitting there while most others participate.

[Ashen.2907]

In most large group content the effect of individual participation on event outcome is essentially nil. The difference in impact on outcome between you making best effort and you semi-afk while your pet attacks or you autoattack is virtually nothing.

Why would ANet punish someone foe doing no less than you?

[Tinker.6924]

Gw2 folks take price in how they are a helpful community and avoid the elitist, toxic bs in other games. It's been my experience that its true but then you have folks like the OP that spouts toxic, elitist bs that the rest of the community tries hard to avoid. A shame actually.

[Leo G.4501]

@ChronosCosmos.9450 said:

@"Jojo.6140" said:That would go against the whole game-philosophy in the open-world. It was always that way that people dont get rewarded for their individual performance, but for participating and tagging along. Would be a really bad move to push people into more damage-oriented playstyle/builds who doesnt want it but would have to in order to get the rewards.

Apart from that, it would also be a problem for support and healing roles, as others have already mentioned.

But what id like to know: Why does it bother you that some people are just standing there auto-attacking or whatever? Its not that they steal your loot or have otherwise a bad impact on your experience, do they?It bothers me because everyone else is putting in effort to do the event while they leech and afk in an event that is meant for group play. They're being lazy and leechign off of everyone else. It's similar if I were to ask you to pay for my mortgage while you live somewhere else.

The answer to the thread is "Because it's fun".

You're obviously not having fun so stop doing the events then. If you're mainly in it for the loot, perhaps you should consider that you're not playing for the right reasons and reassess the whole of the circumstances.

[casualkenny.9817]

Some egs to consider:

1) ppl afking at teq laser - they cause champs to spawn at the wp (instead of vets), which can overwhelm the 1-3 volunteers for that defense spot in an overflow map. They afk there till the last phase, when they finally go to tag. Once, I shifted from NW def to NE because the South turrets were being overrun, and it was really miserable trying to solo the 3 champs - thanks to the afkers at laser.

2) ppl afking at AB East, not helping to bomb octo, some not even helping to attack after tagging

3) ppl sending summons/pets to fight mat, then hiding in safety, while causing mat to dash around and the fight goes from a potential fast 1.5min to 5-10 agonising min.

4) 90% of people slacking at shadow behemoth, while a handful run around to clear the portals.

It's a fact that OP has a point, that there are selfish people in the game. This isn't about elitism, nor just about begrudging that ppl get free meals. Those are ppl who truly are selfish, and whose presence does cause scaling that players have to cover for, and selfishness begets more selfishness.

@op, just let it be. Like some others have pointed out, there's no simple solution to this issue. Any 'solution' is likely to cause different unintended problems. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease

[Chichimec.9364]

@casualkenny.9817 said:4) 90% of people slacking at shadow behemoth, while a handful run around to clear the portals...@op, just let it be. Like some others have pointed out, there's no simple solution to this issue. Any 'solution' is likely to cause different unintended problems. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease

Hmmm, in the last 545 days I've played this game for 3,593 hours. 99.99% of those hours have been focused on my own game play, not on monitoring how other people play the game. In big zerg battles I rarely notice what other folks are doing or not doing. When I do notice something, I don't automatically assume I know the reason for another player's actions or lack thereof. casualkenny's example of the Shadow Behemoth's portals is a good case in point. As I enjoy running around the core Tyria maps playing with different professions and builds, I key farm every week, not so much for the BLC keys but as an excuse to create and run new alts. So I do the Shadow Behemoth fairly regularly with a wide variety of builds. If my alt that week is durable, I'll run around helping to clear as many of those portals as I can. If the alt is squishy though, I'll stay near the main group, only attacking the closest portals.

Another example is the Claw of Jormag battle. For some reason, even my most durable alts taking a beating during that event and I have to pull them back from the battle occasionally to give their health time to recharge. Once their health is full again, I'll jump back in the fray. That's one of the .01% of the time I've noticed what other players are doing. When I run back to the tents for a breather there are sometimes other players hanging back there too. I figured they were recharging like me but I didn't stick around to monitor if they were "leaching" or not. Even if they are afk leaching, tagging Jormag once and sitting out the rest of the battle, that wouldn't affect me at all. I'm doing that event because I think it's fun. If they scale up the event making it harder and longer, they are actually just making it more fun for me. =)

I also don't put negative connotations on spamming the 1 key. As I'm an old, slow, clunky player, one who will be turning 70 this year, intricate rotations are beyond my capabilities at this point. My most durable alt is is a Herald with a full kit of ascended soldier's gear, running with a hammer and sword/sword. That's the alt I use for HoT and PoF maps. The rotation is simple. Flip on Vengeful Hammers and use Hammer 1 for ranged combat and Sword 1, 2, 3 for melee. That works well for me and allows me to contribute to the zerg by doing a reasonable amount of damage while also being durable enough to do a fair number of combat revives. On the core Tyria maps, which are a lot more forgiving, my favorite alt is a scrapper with a marauder kit doing a nice amount of condi damage while also offering a lot of support to the zerg. I still spam Flamethrower 1 a lot but also make use of 7-0 and the F keys as needed. Oh, and I'm currently learning how to run a Tempest, my squishiest and most complicated alt. I do spam 1 a lot on that alt but the electric animation for the Air dagger is so cool that it's hard not too. Now if anyone bothered to watch my game play, they might sneer at how much I use the 1 key. That's fine with me. I'm playing in a way that I enjoy. Others are entitled to their own opinion but what they think is no skin off my nose.

And finally, I suspect that casualkenny's last comment is spot on. "Just let it be...Any 'solution' is likely to cause different unintended problems."

[Eddbopkins.2630]

I think it should count actions per minute. If ppl are afking by pressing one thats is very little involments in keyboars strokea, but if they do action per minute then any healer and any dps class will have substantial requirements.

[Daishi.6027]

Make the content harder so you can't just afk.

But legit, I don't really care what other players do unless you ruin PvP games.(At which point I may laugh sometimes because I find it funny, and kinda given up caring if people play it properly.)

[ScyeRynn.4218]

It's fine. Leave it alone. Stop worrying about how other players play and just play your own game. You want organized teams? That's what Raids, Fractals, Guild Missions, ect. are for. There are many, MANY other more significant things that need to be taken care of in this game and this is not even worth discussing. Lock this thread and move on.

[Evil.1580]

I like to afk from time to time and still get a credit, just from single tag or very little participation.However, sometimes other players do the same while me and the rest are finishing the job and I don't mind this.At the end, the goal is complete and we can move to the next one where another player will AFK.This system allows more casual gameplay because we are literally "helping" each other and moving forward together, as a community, and not as solo individuals.People should learn how to give a fuck about their own gaming experience and then they will be happy.

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

Yeah it sucks people do this all the time. But dont let it stop you. I just dont res them. Let them wp and run back for that chest. This behavior doesnt bother me at all since we all get the same loot.

[Kameko.8314]

All I have to say is… domain of kourna meta. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you will see why they don’t do dmg participation

[Skotlex.7580]

@"Daishi.6027" said:Make the content harder so you can't just afk.

I think that, if there is an issue with meta events, it's because the scaling is poor and most meta difficulty goes to a slum with a sufficiently large zerg.

For example, look at palawadan, ever tried that meta with a small group (~10 people)? The degree of difficulty is orders of magnitude higher than having a full squad.

I would think that even Anet doesn't really wants most meta events to devolve to "afk leeching", but the way event scales is just not good enough.

I don't think enemies need more HP or more damage to their attacks, but I would suggest that there's a need to make survival more significant in events regardless of scale. Things like this already exists for a few events, for instance, I'd like to see players try to afk through Chak Gerent donuts. :D Large aoes which are well telegraphed and can't be healed through, yet which aren't lethal for people with "average reflexes" (nothing harder than the challenges we already face in story segments) would be sufficient to wipe out afkers, and in turn that would help to keep the scaling low as corpses don't count. :P

One last change which I would consider essential: remove target caps from champion attacks. Safety in stacking actually does a lot more for survival than just the heals dispensed in a larger group.