Curse

Shiro Katagari · Sep 29, 2007, 12:12 PM // 12:12

=HT=Ingram:
Yes, the runners highlighted a way to get good rewards with minimum effort, and frankly I don't mind the keg-nerf in the slightest - didn't use them myself, so maybe that's why.

The issue (I feel) is more that the response didn't deal with the issue. Runners would do the dungeon by avoiding all combat up to Magmus, and then keg-spamming/rezing/repeat until everything was dead. The keg-nerf dealt with the keg-spamming quite effectively and I applaud it - it was a no-skill/no-brain effect and we're better off without it.

But the run down there is still every bit as straightforwards as it always was. Sure, you have to chuff a bunch of skelks by the doors, but really that's nothing. You still don't have to deviate off the path, you still don't have to deal with any bosses - nothing. Instead of making the run to Magmus more challenging, which would have dealt with the 'running' issue, they instead buffed Magmus himself to ungodly levels.

Magmus himself was *never* the problem with the HoS running. Getting to him and using Bludger to kill him and his minions was the problem. I can't claim to know Magmus' stats, but I'd say around 1200 HP, 120AL, +60 vs Elemental seemed about right before the buff. Sounds like a reasonably solid boss to me. But now.... now.... now he's some kind of deity-level uber-Ooze with *at least* 10,000 HP (probably more, I completely lose track against him now). Insane.

Is he still killable? Yes, eventually, and with luck, and with more effort than I had to put into the Lich and Shiro (no relation) combined. Good grief, I took the Great Destroyer without breaking stride but this squidgy little play-doh reject now makes ole' GD look like a Juvenile Termite!

As I've said before, I'm not against the idea of a strong challenge, but challenges need rewards, and the way it stands this one just isn't worth it.

Peace.

Shiney T · Sep 29, 2007, 01:30 PM // 13:30

Wow. What. The. F**k.

I'm not going to complain about the chest run - I never did it.

But the quest is now almost impossible, for me anyway. I'm not the best player, hell not even close. I play this game casually. I'm on a slow-ish computer.

60% DP before I even get to Cyndr. Mainly because of the new monsters added in are right on a spawn and caster hench or heroes tend to die. I kill one Skelk, and all the 7 heroes/hench are dead before we get a chance to kill another. What makes it worse is that there is 2 groups that generally stand there after you have agroed them and they don't leave in time for you to spawn. YAY more DP.

I use my armour of salvation before I fight Cyndr thinking I will stand a chance, but no. Pyroclastic shot = Partywipe at 60% DP with Armour of Salvation. All 8 dead as soon as they spawn, and i've tried in a PuG and with H/H.

Before you quote me and say it's my fault for being shit at the game, I know I am, and there is plenty people I have seen that are at the same skill level as me. Don't waste your time.

What the hell Anet? Wow ...

korcan · Sep 29, 2007, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord dragon

DOA in hard mode and PVP are the only real challenges left for me in the game. GWEN is endless farming for points to buy reskined armor (already have elite armor) or consumables. No money in it. No fun in it. No challenge in it. DOA is a challenge for me still. Not many areas are anymore.

So, what you consider grinding in DOA I consider a challenge. What others consider a challenge in GWEN I consider endless dribble with no challenge in it.

doa hm might be a "challenge" the first time you attempt it but like everything else in pve, once you become familiar with an area the "challenge" is no longer there and the activity becomes repetitive grinding.

since there really is no "challenging" areas to pve, you seem to equate fun with making money. thats fine, to each their own. but to say youre going back to doa and then to end your post with "i shall not grind..." is being hypocritical.

Sheriff · Sep 29, 2007, 05:29 PM // 17:29

You know what's ironic?

ANET's nerf is actually killing PUGs. So many people never PUG outside their guilds except for runs like these.

By getting rid of these runs, ANET is "throwing" these players back to their H/H teams.

ANET, you are killing your own game. You are truly clueless.

Davros Uitar · Sep 29, 2007, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheriff

You know what's ironic?

ANET's nerf is actually killing PUGs. So many people never PUG outside their guilds except for runs like these.

By getting rid of these runs, ANET is "throwing" these players back to their H/H teams.

ANET, you are killing your own game. You are truly clueless.

Hmm - a few good points there. But tell me, in your opinion was teh popularity of the PUG runs driven by greed or fun? There will be a few that were motivated by fun, but the realistic bet is that the popularity was driven by the lure of some shiny lucre at the end.

What is stopping people from PUGing it now?

Answer is that it got harder to do. You can no longer let one guy run the mission and spam kegs while no one else moves a muscle. Now that HOS PUG has to rely on team work and builds and skill and such. One of the reasons that people don't PUG much is because you are putting your "life" in the hands of the gaming public and you have no idea whether they will drop the ball. NO enough trust flooding about the servers - why have some nasty tank scream at you that you can't heal - why suffer when someone up and rage quits (mind you - my best PUG's have been when people kept on going after multiple rage quitters).

So I agree with you that the nerf has killed the PUG phenom that was the HOS chest run. But I disgree that this particular nerf was a bad thing. I share your concern for the PUG which has died a horrible death, but I don't think that is solved by the developers legislating that there will be a formally approved and easily grasped basket of goodies in the game to encourage PUG at the expense of all other content. Surely you must realise that if a game gave us everything we desired on a plate at the very start, then the game would soon have no meaning - no goals, nothing to play for etc.

Sheriff · Sep 29, 2007, 07:42 PM // 19:42

Davros,

You make a few good points yourself. The thing is, the PUG has died for many reasons and we shouldn't go over all of them here.

I will mention that two reasons (not saying they're the 2 most important ones) people prefer H/H over humans is that a) H/H don't ragequit b) H/H are more "reliable" (in terms of not lagging out/running off/misclick, etc)

In a "collective run" like the HoS run, a PUG won't suffer too much if one, two maybe even three humans ragequit or get themselves killed due to human error. On the other hand, if a PUG is formed to actually fight all the way, if we don't consider the fact that it might take ages to find the right party combo, usually one ragequitter is enough to put the entire party in jeopardy.

As someone mentioned before, the HOS PUG is one of the very very very few PUGs that were consistently being formed in GW:EN. Killing it is a very very very bad idea that doesn't help Guild Wars at all.

=HT=Ingram · Sep 29, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Well the other factor is I can't get a group organized to go get magmus... Only thing in HoS people seem to want to do is go to get the chest... Which is still a breeze really, you just are fighting your way there instead of running past everything...

And then once at magmus. He is just so hard to kill... I mean you can spike him and spike him forever and not do 1 dmg point to him. so the only thing to do is keg him and that is significantly harder now. and almost impossible on your own.

Personally I think if he remains the way he is he should at the very lest be upgraded to an elite quest... With a better chance at his green if he is killed. Then maybe we can get some groups going down for him as well... Instead of just Diamond farming the boss chest on from the Wurm.

Tarzanboy · Sep 29, 2007, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheriff

I will mention that two reasons (not saying they're the 2 most important ones) people prefer H/H over humans is that a) H/H don't ragequit b) H/H are more "reliable" (in terms of not lagging out/running off/misclick, etc)

I dislike PUGs for different reasons, but that would be another discussion.

Quote:

On the other hand, if a PUG is formed to actually fight all the way, if we don't consider the fact that it might take ages to find the right party combo, usually one ragequitter is enough to put the entire party in jeopardy.

Very true, but is a run group, more or less one for HoS, really a true PUG? 1-2 runners with 6-7 people doing nothing until the end (if they ever do anything at all) qualifies as a PUG?

Rather than simply sniping about how this ruins everything, what would you do, aside from the reinsertion of barrel spam, to reintegrate the "PUG" aspect into HoS?

Cheers,
TB

Wrath of m0o · Sep 29, 2007, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Actuall this chest run was the most enjoyable PuG group's i had ever been in.
Everyone that was in our groups were hardcore players, all with excellent builds. While it was the most fun i had ever had in GW history (mabe except the trader reset) the smartest players in the game were here.
I completely crafted two destroyer weapons for 5k, well except for a few granite a guildy helped me with..Thanks Vega!!

We knew this was getting Nurfed, thats why we got as many runs in as we could, and continued to stay after the new build came out.
If you missed out on this run, i feel bad for you, but like alot of stuff in this game, if your not on top of your game while its hot, you miss out.

Met lots of new friends on this run..sad to see it go. It was just too good to be true.

On another note, if your looking for Diamonds to go with your Onyx..
All my Free Treasure in Nightfall was reset, i spent 3 days running chests with my 8 characters for a little over 160k platinum, a ton of Golds and max mods, and i think like 12-15 diamonds.
Looking for a new run?
Wiki Buried Treasure

fujin · Sep 30, 2007, 02:24 AM // 02:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrath of m0o

Actuall this chest run was the most enjoyable PuG group's i had ever been in.
Everyone that was in our groups were hardcore players, all with excellent builds. While it was the most fun i had ever had in GW history (mabe except the trader reset) the smartest players in the game were here.
I completely crafted two destroyer weapons for 5k, well except for a few granite a guildy helped me with..Thanks Vega!!

We knew this was getting Nurfed, thats why we got as many runs in as we could, and continued to stay after the new build came out.
If you missed out on this run, i feel bad for you, but like alot of stuff in this game, if your not on top of your game while its hot, you miss out.

Met lots of new friends on this run..sad to see it go. It was just too good to be true.

On another note, if your looking for Diamonds to go with your Onyx..
All my Free Treasure in Nightfall was reset, i spent 3 days running chests with my 8 characters for a little over 160k platinum, a ton of Golds and max mods, and i think like 12-15 diamonds.
Looking for a new run?
Wiki Buried Treasure

Thanks for reminding me

And a little curious, what kind of items did you get from the Locked Chests on the way?

Wrath of m0o · Sep 30, 2007, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Um, unfortunatly..
I rarely open Locked chests unless im in an elite area, so i didnt open any of them on these chest runs.

xcenic · Sep 30, 2007, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by WoodyDotNet

Maybe if they spent less time nerfing and a little more time fixing the broke-ass H/H AI the game would be more fun to play.

damn right my dear breather, they spent more time nerfing and stoping the only thing what we cant enjoy in this crappy "expansion"

greyhawk · Sep 30, 2007, 04:22 AM // 04:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by xcenic

damn right my dear breather, they spent more time nerfing and stoping the only thing what we cant enjoy in this crappy "expansion"

you bitch about everything about gwen, if you dont like the game dont play it, it is as easy as that.
i am not going to get into anything with you, not worth the time but i felt like some one should say a few words.

i have noticed that you do a lot of bitching when they "nerf" certian areas, they are fine tuning the game. every single game i have ever played gets tuned like this to fix issues they never for seen when making the game. the kegs drop rate and slavers exlie taxi were just 2 things they fixed that were bugged, now that they work fine people will bitch cuz they dont get easy items and money. what ever , they fixed it to make it work the way it was suppose in the first place.

PS they do need to Fix the Ai of heroes, tho they might have done this to make players accually play together instead of solo with H/H

lord dragon · Sep 30, 2007, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by korcan

doa hm might be a "challenge" the first time you attempt it but like everything else in pve, once you become familiar with an area the "challenge" is no longer there and the activity becomes repetitive grinding.

since there really is no "challenging" areas to pve, you seem to equate fun with making money. thats fine, to each their own. but to say youre going back to doa and then to end your post with "i shall not grind..." is being hypocritical.

I guess the difference for me is instead of hitting C, spacebar endlessly without the chance of loss is no challenge. In DOA (hardmode) there is a chance of loss. The rewards are much greater too for the challenge. So the excitement for me is to see if I stay alive and get what I want. In GWEN, I neither get the challenge or the reward as the drops are terrible (already discussed, not gonna bring it up again) and requires no thought to do it.

So, to some, GWEN is a challenge I guess. For others, like me, there is no challenge. If you consider point grinding a challenge, then GWEN is for you. For me, point grinding is endless dribble without the challenge in it, or the reward for the challenge. Until that changes, GWEN offers me nothing now.

It did offer a lot of laughs with alliance/guild, but they nerfed that. So it is back to doa for me until such time that they actually put a challenge in somewhere in GWEN or another area. I don't seem to play as much now as other games are starting to get my attention, but, I will not discuss another game here. I don't think I will be in the line to get GW2 after seeing the GWEN offering until I see the reviews out from a lot of reviewers. If it is endless dribble grinding for nothing, then I will pass. If it offers real challenges, then I will consider it.

Anet had a customer that blindly followed them through expansions. I liked the offering up until now. But, as with everything, once you disapoint a customer, they have a tendency to tell everyone they know about it, and you have to work twice as hard to get them to consider you again. Unless you have a monolpoly of course, and GW doesn't have that.

It is unfortunate as the other 3 were definetly good to great.

Please remember...

I must not GRIND. GRIND is the mind-killer. GRIND is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my GRIND... I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

SlippyJack · Sep 30, 2007, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Farming is fun for me. What else is there to do in Guild Wars other than that?

All the campaigns have been beaten, vanquished and replayed.... Hall of monuments is filled with crap... Now what?

Give me a break and nerf the nerfing...

oh and:

Quote:

Originally Posted by greyhawk

you bitch about everything about gwen, if you dont like the game dont play it, it is as easy as that.

Your $40 is more important than everyone elses? If someone buys the game, they have a right to complain.

Davros Uitar · Sep 30, 2007, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Lord dragon,

Your logic escapes me - is not toughening something up indeed making it more challenging? Did they not then do something you supposedly want to see happen, and to one of your fav areas?

Sorry if I keep seeming to have a go at you in this thread, so I will end that with this post so that you don't start thinking it is personal or anything. It's not intended personally - I find myself drawn to comment whenever I find the logic particularly hard to swallow. Surely you are either against something tougher or for something tougher. You seem also to like highly repeatable things but are against repitition. The only consistency I see leaks through behind the words and implies a tie to rewards rather than the things you argue for (ie less repetition and harder gameplay). That is why I have taken the position I have.

I guess I should stop grinding away at these points.

Please remember...

I must not .................................................. ............

Uber Mass · Sep 30, 2007, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord dragon

I guess the difference for me is instead of hitting C, spacebar endlessly without the chance of loss is no challenge. In DOA (hardmode) there is a chance of loss. The rewards are much greater too for the challenge. So the excitement for me is to see if I stay alive and get what I want. In GWEN, I neither get the challenge or the reward as the drops are terrible (already discussed, not gonna bring it up again) and requires no thought to do it.

I totally agree on the challenge part... DoA makes it a challenge cuz whipe is fail... Did full runs in DoA HM mostly succesfull but some failed in foundry..This part im defo missing in EOTN maybe they add this challenge in HM update soon im hoping for it...

I cant care less for the nerve of HoS chest runs.. simply its a bug like the Slaversbug wich is nerved earlier... So kudos Anet good one now add HM please

intimidator89 · Sep 30, 2007, 07:57 AM // 07:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by =HT=Ingram

For the record HoS does not have a chest when killing magmus. its a boss kill and a skill cap. and he is near impossibile ot kill. indeed I doubt many will be able to kill it, certainly not alone. not now... maybe 3 or 4 people... we did it with 6 and it was a real pain in the ass to do as we all had to stack up kegs and attack at same time then wait again till everyone had a keg and do it again. anything less he just regens back to full health. between keg spawns.

and No there is NO chest to exploit when doing this. Just a potential green drop, and a Skill cap.

Did they change this too? I killed Magmus several times on the HoS chest run and a reward chest always spawned. It dropped diamonds, onyx, greens and golds. I got a platinum bow and staff, both were high req though. Most of the gold drops were merch fodder tho. Most times, there was also a locked chest to loot afterwards as well. Any green drop came from the chest. I got all but the Aegis on my earlier runs. So I bought the Aegis for 2k for my paragon, but I'm sure they will all go up in price now.

The boss and his mobs were not a cake walk with the old keg spam method. Many times I saw a full party spamming kegs when Savannah Heat hits and wipes out 6 out of 8 of us if you don't move quick enough. If the last two are good they can kill off some oozes before they die and we all rez to try it again. Once or twice we did have someone that could finish off the mob solo but that was rare. With the new keg delay, I doubt a full party can kill them with the kegs at all.

The first nerf added 2 skelks. We still ran it with some delay. Then they added 2 corrupted skelks and delayed the kegs. After the three of us leaders on the run kegged the skelk and died, everyone res'd and we tried it again but to no avail. Even if we did clear em, we noticed with the dramatic delay that there was no way to beat all the oozes. So died the chest run.

As for the run, it was the most fun I've had on GW for a while. PUG heaven. I will miss it sorely.

EOTN is dead with just some trading and 1 or 2 people looking for groups. There wasn't even anyone trying to do the HoS quest much less a chest run.

Shiro Katagari · Sep 30, 2007, 10:52 PM // 22:52

So, less whining from me, more activity this time - I did the run again (regular party, H&H, just a little before GWG updated the server), fighting my way down like a good honest tomb-robber, and this time I recorded the relevant stats.

Time taken (from leaving CTC to Magmus' chest dropping): 41 mins

Actual gold acquired: 63

Items acquired:
1 vial Brown dye
White Talon Daggers (96g)
White Flame Artifact (61g)
Armour 33 (Pyrebound Insignia, Minor Command rune)
Armour 34 (Brawler's Insignia, Minor Curses rune)
Blue Bronze Scythe (36g)
Blue Lesser Dark Scimitar (78g)
White Crimson Claw Scepter (55g)
White Evil Eye Staff (53g)
White Hypnotic Scepter (51g)
White Righteuos Maul (54g)
2 Blobs of Ooze

Total value of Merch fodder: 484

Place your own values on the runes and dye

And the chest drop itself was (drum-roll)...
- Adamantine Shield (Armour 16, req 9 Tactics)
- Health +28
- 'Pure of Heart' Inscription (reduce Poison duration by 20%)

So, max gold inscribale shield, but worthless mods - have to check if the skin itself is worth anything, otherwise it's a 360g merch.

41 minutes for a chance of a decent drop from the end chest - and it *is* just a chance, Magmus is a tough cookie and can easily stomp a party into an untenable position. The last 19 minutes or so of the session was dealing with him and his squidgy buddies.

If we arbitrarily say that Magmus' Staff (for example) will drop for you 1 time in 20, then that's 13 hours and 40 mins I would have to spend in order to get it. 20 runs with:
- 500g per run from Merch fodder and coin drops
- 500g per run (on average) from the end-chest run (except on the last run)
- 30k(ish) from Magmus' Staff
Potentially 50k's worth of stuff for 13-14 hours work.

So is it worth it? Well, that's a hard call... and I think that being a hard call means it *is* worth it. If it was clearly worthwhile, then people would run it at the expense of experiencing other parts of the game (as we know they - and I, for the very end of it - did). If it was clearly too much for too little, then everyone would shun it and this part of the game may as well not exist.

Of course, there are caveats. For a start, I've just guesstimated that you'll get a 30k+ drop one time in 20... I may be so far off there it's not funny! But I've run it 9 times in total, and gotten 2 green drops (Magmus' Staff and Cyndr's Heart) so equally I could be off the other way.

Also, even if my guess reasonably accurately portrays the drop ratio, there will be those for whom getting 3.5-4k an hour simply isn't a valid use of their time. Well, good luck to them - for me, it's a good figure. I couldn't bear to do consecutive runs there myself, but when I finally build my total up to around 20, I don't think I'll look back on the runs as wasted time. I hope not, anyway!

Now, saying 'Ok, I'm satisfied with it' is, I know, at odds with my previously stated stance - whatever, I've studied it more, made some guesses, thrown some gut feeling in there, and given the whole thing a gallic shrug. Everything still isn't perfect. I worry that you have to be a little too focussed in how you are able to kill Magmus, removing some freedom (and therefore, potentially, some fun) from a dungeon that otherwise isn't as 'intense' as other places of equal reward.

And there is still that CONSTANT PAIN whereby Heroes take a share of the drops but I STILL have to equip them and get runes for them out of MY drops! Acolyte Jin's probably got so many Golds and Greens by now she could build a house out of them! But she still makes me give her my Forgotten Flatbow... *sniff*

Anyway, that turned into quite an essay... thanks for reading, go pour yourselves a drink now and take a rest!

Peace.

HawkofStorms · Oct 01, 2007, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uber Mass

I totally agree on the challenge part... DoA makes it a challenge cuz whipe is fail... Did full runs in DoA HM mostly succesfull but some failed in foundry..This part im defo missing in EOTN maybe they add this challenge in HM update soon im hoping for it...

I cant care less for the nerve of HoS chest runs.. simply its a bug like the Slaversbug wich is nerved earlier... So kudos Anet good one now add HM please

Still, most people HATE DoA. I mean, statisitcally speaking, the number of people who like to farm DoA is fairly small. There are a few people who like the challenge. Let them have DoA and stay there.
The average player doesn't like the insane difficulty of certain areas that require Vent/TS and an exact wiki copied build to succeed.

GW:EN could be harder, or maybe even add/have one or two areas that are as difficult as DoA. But if they made the entire expansion like that, a.net would anger a large part of their player base.