Curse

Lady Lozza · Nov 11, 2008, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Survivor, hard? I have legendary on all of my characters created after the title was made (5) without directly farming XP. I have only failed once on my rit who overaggroed a few HM groups in factions. As long as you aren't stupid you can practically AFK through PvE all of the time in NM and 80% of the time in HM.

When I suffer no lag then keeping a survivor alive is indeed very easy. The problem comes that a 5 second lag spike was enough to kill my ele in Boreas Seabed, the client reported only 300 damage on a full health bar of 510, and she was dead. Lag obviously didn't report the health drop in between. I had 2 monks, one who I was forcing to cast PS on me continuously. Yet in that 5 seconds of lag where I had no control at all, it must have wore off to allow me to take enough damage to kill me.

Sunjiang District, similar circumstance. 530 health, killed in the lag.

These missions were NM. I've taken survivors through vanquishes and had no problem keeping them alive. I don't play survivors on PvE weekends and I don't play them when I can tell that there is discernable lag. These are unpredictable lag spikes that prove fatal. Lag spikes that many players don't experience on a regular basis. Survivor is more about luck than skill for those who don't live within spitting distance of the servers. Which is my point.

Killroy is not an option for people in such circumstances, because the chances of them suffering a lag spike during the part where they need to be "Standing up" is far too high when measured over countless runs. If they close off something like HFF, they should close off Killroy too. Force EVERYONE to play the game for their title. It will still be more about luck for those who live far from the servers, but at least it will have everyone playing the same game.

DarkNecrid · Nov 11, 2008, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Also I honestly can't wait for this update, it's gonna be lax on the PvP side, but it's a good sign that Anet is really going to try and fix the problems of the game one step at a time, and that's great.

slowerpoke · Nov 11, 2008, 12:32 AM // 00:32

leeching faction, xp or gold is not challenging

MisterB · Nov 11, 2008, 12:41 AM // 00:41

All that they would need to do is change or add the quest objectives in Securing Echovald Forest to include killing X number of Luxon scouting parties. If they did that, the heroes could never complete the quest for you, since they don't trigger spawns. May as well do the same to Scout the Coast, if they go that route.

It doesn't follow that changing HFFF requires a change to Frontis Irontoe's dungeon.

Shayne Hawke · Nov 11, 2008, 12:43 AM // 00:43

I'm a little disappointed to see HFFF go, but since it's being replaced with supposedly less grindy gains and tackles the botting issue, I'm still pretty excited to see what's going to happen on Thursday.

rohara · Nov 11, 2008, 12:45 AM // 00:45

cool, can't wait to see what changes. i don't give a rat's ass about HFFF since i'm not a robot, but i'm interested in seeing faction rewards buffed in ab/urgoz/the deep/fa/jq/wherever. increase of kurz/lux faction cap per level would be freakin sweet too. *crosses fingers*

2+ years of ab/fa here, and factions completed on 9 chars and i'm just shy of r7. my head spins thinking i'm barely 1/10th of the way through the title. srslywtf.

Kook~NBK~ · Nov 11, 2008, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Gee... All I said was that killing HFFF runs would remove ONE of the easy methods of getting survivor.

[SPECULATION] As to Irontoe's lair; It has just occurred to me that, to remove another easy method of getting survivor, they could include a change that makes KO's count as deaths.

I only bring this POSSIBLITY up because it would really suck for a survivor character to go in there after the update, get KO'd*, and unwittingly lose their title hopes.[/SPECULATION]

*Edit: For those who didn't get my meaning, I meant knocked down, just got my terminology mixed up.

Lady Lozza · Nov 11, 2008, 02:44 AM // 02:44

Failing Irontoe's Lair does indeed count as a death - it only doesn't count as a death if you manage to standup in time. On a laggy connection this becomes more difficult than you might imagine.

ALF71BE · Nov 11, 2008, 02:45 AM // 02:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kook~NBK~

I only bring this POSSIBLITY up because it would really suck for a survivor character to go in there after the update, get KO'd, and unwittingly lose their title hopes.[/SPECULATION]

No, that's what you call funny.

Issac · Nov 11, 2008, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Wonder how "easy" it's really ganna be.

germanturkey · Nov 11, 2008, 03:33 AM // 03:33

unless they make it 100k per donation, i don't see how they can make it go any faster. i also don't think they'll get rid of hfff, but rather make other means of faction gaining more worth while. (but i don't see how they'll be able to top 200 faction per minute..)

i might have to grind out 40k tomorrow hfffing..

FengShuiDove · Nov 11, 2008, 04:00 AM // 04:00

My only concern is that whatever new and improved method of faction gain will be essentially replacing HFF will not be as *consistent* as HFF is. One hour = 20k towards title, no questions. Currently you can get 10k faction in 30 minutes if you get lucky in AB, but it's miles from consistent gain.

o and plz incrs K/L fact cap directli proportnl to ttle rank kthx.

Lady Lozza · Nov 11, 2008, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Germanturkey, Lindsey has been saying that hfff will not be bottable. I'm not sure how it will become "unbottable" however the most likely solutions that I can think off will also make it "un-hero-able" too. So it will likely kill off hfff, instead going back to fff which only town holding, farming guilds invest in.

I've no doubt that the hit to hfff is not just because of the faction, but because of the gold involved as well - who knows what they think of the survivors farming the quest. So the only way they can hit the larger proportion of the "botting" population at Lutgardis, without removing the quest or changing the quest to become un-hero-able, would be to remove both the faction and the gold reward from the quest.

I'm sure this would make it unreasonable for many players, but it wouldn't make it "unbottable", just not worth botting.

It is hard to say what exactly is going to be done because Lindsey has just being throwing words around. My reading of "unbottable" however, is that the quest will not be possible by just clicking flags on a map and collecting the reward. And yes this will change things for survivors attempting to farm the quest with heroes for xp.

enter_the_zone · Nov 11, 2008, 04:25 AM // 04:25

So, bang goes HFFF, and oops, there went e/a UWSC as well.....

For an update that was supposed to reduce grind, they'd best have slashed the sweets and booze cost at Canthan Merchants to 100g each... otherwise I'll be trying to get enough money to max those forever.... or more likely, I'll just say "screw GW then. Oh and GW2 can go brutalize it's own rectum too." and find something else to play. Really, looks like a good job on the degrinding so far, I don't think.

A11Eur0 · Nov 11, 2008, 04:36 AM // 04:36

This new update better increase the amount of AB's occurring at once. Because if it becomes easier to gain faction through AB than HFFF, people will swarm AB and nobody will get a game.

Lady Lozza · Nov 11, 2008, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Actually, enter the zone, you bring up a point that I had not thought about. While sweet tooth and party animal, and to some extent drunkard are not grindy titles to max, the money required to pay for the title is. Taking sweet tooth as an example, solely BUYING creme brulees at 200g from the trader (worth 3 points I believe) it would cost roughly 667k to max the title. This isn't the kind of money that a lot of players have hanging around.

If you choose to farm items for winter's day collectors you would need 30,000 of the item, 120 stacks.

You could always farm raptors for the drops themselves, but in the end effectively you have to grind for this title. Removing a steady income like that of hfff makes goals for other titles more difficult. I don't condone botting in any way, shape, or form, but there are players who do the hfff without bots. Even if other methods are going to net more faction, I doubt those methods are going to net the same amount of gold for time spent.

I suppose the long and short of it is that removal of hfff while it might not affect the kurzick title, may very well affect other money-sink titles - so even though the "grind" for alliance titles is removed, the "grind" for others is increased.

upier · Nov 11, 2008, 07:49 AM // 07:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Lozza

Luminarus, I disagree slightly. With the lag that has been inherent in the game recently, survivor to "old fashioned way" ie playing the game, is becoming more difficult. Or perhaps rather I should say not more difficult but more a matter of luck. The greater your distance from the server, the greater the chances are that you will suffer lag large enough to end in your character's death. I have had this happen to survivors many times.

By making HFFF difficult to do (presumably if it is unbottable, it will no longer be heroable) it takes away the only sure method that players who suffer lag due to distance from server have to reach that final 200-300k xp without killing monsters for 1 xp 200-300k times (and even that can be dangerous at times).

Some players will still be able to use killroy. Some players will have the help of their guildies because they are all in the same timezone and it is easy to get help. But some will not have easy access to any of this.

Survivor should be a challenge. It should be about skill. However everyone knows it is no longer about skill. It is about luck, part of which is dependent on a decent (and short) connection to the server.

My connection to servers in my country is fantastic. I get single digit pings to many of the TF2 servers. I've never seen a ping of under 200 to a GW server, and likely never will. When it lags it's enough to kill a survivor either in Killroy or in what would be considered a fairly simple PvE mission.

If the game is supposed to be about skill, why should luck and physical location be rewarded?

I don't disagree with HFF be coming redundant, unbottable, unheroable, impossible, what I disagree with is that killroy will still be a viable method of getting the survivor title. If they are going to remove one method of farming this title, they also need to remove the other.

Wurms outside of Boreal.
They are all melee but unable to move.
Safe.

Plus you get Norn points.

sindex · Nov 11, 2008, 08:14 AM // 08:14

I can see it now they kill the constant grind for the overall title. They then could add in Realm of Torment like creature(s), grouping, and environmental effects in certain areas, which kills the idea of farming there all together. It’s a perfect half-and-half problem solved. Oh, but I can see many people having problem with the difficulty in these regions, and the reward for finishing Factions not quite as worthwhile as before. Hmm, quite a query to ponder at, but it will be entertaining to see it in action.

killerbot3009 · Nov 11, 2008, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Lozza

By making HFFF difficult to do (presumably if it is unbottable, it will no longer be heroable) it takes away the only sure method that players who suffer lag due to distance from server have to reach that final 200-300k xp without killing monsters for 1 xp 200-300k times (and even that can be dangerous at times).

you do know that you can always do some quests and stuff to get that last 200-300xp. i got Leg survivor on my necro by doing UW SC and collecting Quest rewards. was by far the fastest way top do it, getting from lvl 20 - r3 in just 3 days. so there will be ways for people to do Leg survivor, maybe leeching runs in UW and paying for cons sets and paying all players some cash after getting r3 or something, i am planning on getting some people together for this as i think it will be a very quick way of getting the title for less exp players.

Binary · Nov 11, 2008, 10:46 AM // 10:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by beserk

Ah well, ppl leeching HFFF for survivor are screwed.

Yeah, this is just great. I just came back from a break of ~a year, and I decided to get a Legendary Survivor title.. and guess what, goodbye HFFF!