Frustrated with Instanced Missions

Why do people call missions like Minister Cho's Estate "quests" and quests like Pest Control "missions"?

To the OP: I dislike people who think they can win everything on their first try. It's called learning from your mistakes. It took me two months to beat Factions with my Ranger the first time I ever tried it. If you're expecting to do everything in under fifteen minutes on your first try with minimal effort, then I don't know what to say.

Troll is troll is troll.

Sounds a little troll'ish but here goes......

instanced areas is freaking great. No ganking, no kill steal, and when you complete a quest you actually see a difference in the world.

All these will persist in gw2, and it is already very common info that gw2 wont be instanced based, even though there will still be some areas.

you whine because you get punished for failing? welcome to gaming, you're gonna hate it....

Alright, first off,
Thanks for everyone's comments, good and bad. I have been playing GWs now for 2 years, and I didn't mean for this to come off sounding like a troll post. I know you have to add NPC players to play with, thats how I pretty much play the game. I was playing GWs Factions with my Ele/MK, at lvl 10 1/2, but the area I was referring to in Haiju Plains (the place in Saitou Harbor) is bombarded with 10-15 lvl 12-14 winged birds. (I dont remember their name atm)

I know this part can be difficult to handle, but my gripe is with the fact that there is no way to get rid of the death penalty (to my knowledge) unless you either complete a mission or zone back to the town. (meaning you have to start that instance all over again) This ties back to it being difficult to finish missions when your health bar is cut in half (or as I stated in this threat, they kill the NPC you need to speak too upon completion, who should not be fighting in the first place) and you have to zone back to town and start all over again.

My biggest thing with the instance or (Co-Operative missions they are called), is you get really far in, then die a few times and your health, now halved (or the dead NPC) forces you to have to zone back to town and redo it all over again with my team of NPCs.

(Thanks to the person who pointed out the mission for me too, yes it was Too the Rescue)

I guess I was a little peeved that if you do die and get far into a instance or CO-Op mission, you have to zone back to down and start again and everything is back to the way it was. (monsters included) I wished your progression was kept as is and the monsters you have gone through remained dead, but, its as people have said, its just a challenging aspect of the game you have to learn.

In a way, one thing I will agree with everyone on is the 'no kill stealing' aspect of this game. I could only imagine the carnage if fanboys were running around doing it just because they are bored.

I'll give it another try later and this time, won't post something here right way after being peeved with a certain instance. (my mistake!)

Thanks again guys for your opinions, appreciate it,

Mercblue22

To be perfectly honest, you sound like a very green newbie. You just need to get some experience and learn the game better. Then you won't be complaining about Death Penalty, because you won't be dying in low level areas.

First, it's hard to understand what you're talking about. Where the heck is Haiju Plains? I've never heard of it. Seitung Harbor leads into Jaya Bluffs that's filled with Yetis and Tenju. The Tenju are probably the lvl 15 birds you're referring to.

Next, this isn't a mission. Missions don't allow you to rez. If you are doing a Mission then name the mission you're trying to complete. If not then describe or name the Quest you're trying to complete. The only 2 missions on Shing Jea Island are Minister Cho's Estate and Zen Dajun.

You can remove death penalty. There are lots of candies in the game now that will remove death penalty. We just had a 3 week Wintersday festival that showered everyone that participated in DP removing Candy Canes. If you didn't get any of them then ask your guild mates or buy some from other players in town. You can buy them extremely cheap right now. They aren't your only option though. There are several other DP removing items in the game. Check wiki for a full list.

What build are you using? Post it and let us critique it. It's likely that you're simply using an ineffective build. Also post your armor stats with the runes and insignias you've added. If you're still in starter armor, it's time to upgrade.

Bottom line is that no mission or quest should be an "hour+ long". Missions can be completed in a half hour to an hour by an experienced player. Newbies will take longer, but that's just until you learn. (Elite areas are different. Those can be 3-4 hours if you aren't using SC builds but we aren't tackling them yet).

In summary, don't gripe about Death Penalty and no way to remove it. There are ways to remove it, but it's better not to constantly die in the first place. Figure out what you're doing wrong and fix it. If you can't then ask for help identifying the problem and possible solutions from the community here or from your guild.

I'm like 9/54 Tyrian Vanquisher at this moment, and so I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one particular point!





(at least i have onlinestopwatch.com and many many stacks of absinthe from halloween and eggnogg from wintersday to keep me company. alehound here i come!)

Gaining experience points removes death penalty at a rate of 1% per 75 xp. Morale boosts from killing bosses removes 2%. There are also the mentioned consumables.

The part about instancing you don't like, namely being punished by death and being sent back to town or forced to restart is designed to instruct you how to play. If you are dying repeatedly, you are doing something wrong, and you should change your build and tactics to counter whatever is killing you or causing you to fail.

Also, you can /kneel at res shrines in Factions and NF and buy "Favor of the Gods", which gives you a 2% morale boost, as well as other boosts to your abilities (assuming the world has the favor of the gods at the time).

I agree and really hope we are correct in thinking its the best of both game styles.
Reading some of the negatives has lead me to watch the gw2 clips again and read all the info and I am a little worried about one point.

They say you can either take the full missions from an npc and go do it for the full reward sounds ok so far.
Others can join in either with the same mission taken or just turning up to join in still sounds ok.

The opposition scales up depending on how many allies are there and bosses may get extra attacks. hmm I see a possible problem.
Suppose I take the mission and then ten people come on my side then back off to watch me get battered by the now larger enemy force.

I hope they have that covered.

I am still buying the collectors edition of GW2 as soon as it comes out.

Game has GW2 listed for preorder for around £35 I hope thats not just smoke and they know something I don't.

I'm excited about a larger, persistent world. I quite enjoy running into people out in the wilderness and saying hi. Maybe throwing 'em a buff or two.

Just as long as the good farms are all inside of instances. I'd hate to see the raptor cave in a persistent world. Ugh.

this is guild wars .. and its mmo

so join a guild and..ask your guild-mates help u

You're playing the wrong &%^&@# game if you don't like instanced play. It's not going to change. Ever. Deal with it or uninstall.

to this i agree

besides, i really don't wanna be doing quests/missions and have like 100 random peeps running around my screen, i get enough of that at the outposts

also, i would REALLY hate to be doing missions/quests involving killing certain mobs, but some group of idiots decide they wanna farm said mobs and won't let me complete my mission. OR i could keep other players from completing their missions by killing their mobs.

so yeah, if you don't want instanced gameplay, log off and go play something else

'nuff said

Consumables. Look into them. Read here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Death_penalty

Pay close attention to the Removal section.

It's not difficult to have the game monitoring actual involvement, rather than just a toon being planted locally. If people are standing around and not engaging the focus of the dynamic event, then they're not actually involved in it... and I can't imagine Anet hasn't already taken this into account and coded the game accordingly. What they've shown us so far regarding GW2 demonstrates these are not stupid people... and the fact that GW itself has very specific penalties for leeching, I can't imagine they're going to allow it by default in GW2. I believe the mechanics will exist for that to be prevented, and that the foe scaling will also reflect ACTUAL involvement, not just # of toons present/in-range.

Please try to remember the name, so we can see whether you've grabbed a wrong quest, too many badly interacting quests or whatever. You're generally not supposed to get outnumbered AND outlevelled in GW.


Actually, that is the point of death penalty. If you only die once or twice, it's not a big deal. If you keep dieing, you're doing something wrong. In that case, you're better off going away and trying again.

This is not actually a matter of instanced gameplay. Look at the way other MMO games handle death, and you'll see that things like running back to the corpse from a graveyard, taxing your gold and similar all amount to an identical effect - dieing sucks in the game. GW2 is specifically adressing this by introducing the "downed" state.

Don't we all know it... my keyboard has suffered a few whacks out of frustration...

I can't imagine playing a game that has kill stealing, spawn camping and so on...

Never post within 15 minutes of failing something, a good rule of thumb


Cheer up. You can always grab a friend and have him drag his heroes with you Or even just lend them to you - enter instance with you, friend and heroes, friend leaves, heroes stay and follow you.

DP can be a bit of a problem to a newish player but there are ways around it.

Some places around that lagoon can be tough to the uninitiated I remember it well as I farmed a good part of my first 100k there.

There are a couple of difficult places and missions.
You have the island in the lagoon which has a boss on it he can prove troublesome unless you draw out his allies with a bow and kill them a couple at a time.
They will follow you a long way esp if he is with them so if in doubt run.

Another island on the eastern side has a ritualist boss and its a very unforgiving place to be do not go there unless you have a full party and are prepared to again pull his forces slowly.

Finally there is a large mob on the east side of the lagoon and also patrolling nagas getting in the way.
It can be cleared esp if you have a minion master constantly producing an army of undead to tie them up.

I have had a almost party wipe here and the remaining minion master clearing the area out solo.

The rest of the lagoon area is comparatively easy though the exploding afflicted can be annoying in large numbers.

Go slowly fight when and where you want to not just charge in and moan cos your dead.

Hmm, so its prolly gonna be a summary of things that went bad / need improvement.
The instanced areas being only one in the summary.

One big issue on Shing Jea island is doing primary missions and quests to fast in regards to leveling your character.

As others (may) have said, if u end up with -60% DP, somthing else is prolly wrong.
Though, i have to say the only way i managed to eventually have gotten through some nasty missions/quests was with (indeed) using DP removal consumables.

The main thing i dislike about instanced areas/missions, is a server disconnect that ends up having to start again.
I do have to admit, in general i prefer being able to safe any game progression anyware in the game.
But i also get its just not doable for a game like GW.

No offense, but I am having a hard time understanding how someone can play the game for two years and still not be aware of some of the very basics. Like the difference between a quest and a mission, the nature of DP, or even the common profession abbreviations (Elementalist/Monk is usually written as E/Mo).

I think you would be most helped by doing some light reading at the official wiki. (/wiki in game gives you a list of all quest/mission/skills etc you recently encountered)

Links to start with:
Mission
Quest
Death Penalty
Elementalist guide

I also really think you should try to get yourself into a Guild for company, help and advice.

Finally, I agree that your trouble are not due to the instance, but the fact that you rack up 60% DP to begin with. Tell us the quest you are having trouble with, your build (including attributes), what henchmen you add, and your armor. One rule of thumb is; Dont split up into more than two attributes unless you know what you are doing (maybe even just one before reaching level 20), always bring a healer hench (two once off noob island), and get better armor once you start dieing a lot.

No it isn't you shouldn't go around calling people a troll look at his join date he just started playing probably.

Sup guise yesterday i bought an fps which was advertised as an fps and i knew it's an fps so i install it and bam it's in FIRST FREAKING PERSON
wtf!?

Failure is part of the learning process. Guild Wars is unique in comparison to many other MMOs out there, in so far that the developers call it CORPG (Competitive online role-playing game). Therefore DO NOT expect you can apply previous knowledge of MMOs to Guild Wars. My advice is reading through the bountiful amount of resources (official and unofficial guild wikis, pvxwiki, gwg here, etc.) with a bit of patience.
Since the game is 5 years old, you don't find as many newcomers, so it is usually difficult to get a full human party. Those who have played GW for a while (and have Nightfall and/or Eye of the North) will often add heroes and henchmen to skip the party-making step.
Regarding heroes, they can be MUCH better than henchmen. Their builds can be customized according to your preferences and the mission's requirements. Personally, I've equipped all my main character's heroes with insignias, runes and weapons - but that is optional. Since I know the missions, it doesn't matter much what I take anymore (for NM, at least).
Also, GW Factions is a bad campaign for starters (see here why :http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...buy-id2249.php ).

That being said, I love instances <3 <3 They encourage team play instead of a high level killing boss X for you and they help build a wonderful storyline through cinematics (because reading quest logs is so terribly boring!).

but he's been playing for 2 years.

to OP,

Go play WoW, there its nice and 'NOT instanced', often as soon as you reach the boss you wanted to kill, someone 20lvls higher then you kills the boss before your eyes, making you wait for ages untill the boss respawns, having to kill everything in your path once again just to get out after you have killed the boss yourself.
It sounds like you require others to clear a nice path for you.

GW is fine as it is.

I agree with you sooooooooo much they should just take out instance missions and make everything persistant so then I can just come alone during your mission and PK you and you'll never complete the quest. hahahahah I love PKing boy did I PK a lot in Everquest. I PKed so much there was a bounty put on my head and death threats in real life. hahahah Of course I knew it was all mouth cause that's what the majority are in these games is just mouths and could never stand up for themselves in real life.

I really hope that if anyone from ANet reads this thread they just fall about laughing.

Ah, yes, that's why GW2 will feature a persistent world, aka non-instanced.

There will be a lot of instancing in GW2 as well. The entire personal story and the dungeons are instanced.

If your gonna point out mistakes, get Yours correct first.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2
"There will be changes to the instancing system used. Persistent areas, similar to those traditionally used in other online multiplayer games, will be introduced to Guild Wars which may allow players to meet and interact while exploring. Instances will still be used to further storytelling within the game and for missions and dungeons."

What you call garbage is one of the most cool things in GW. Instance means no one will interfere with my game, and that is perfect.

Its better suffer a -60% DP for a short period of time than drop precious gear and loose experience that you need hundreds of times more time to regain..

Yes it is one of the best things about GW but its also a bit of a double standard as far as some of our player base goes.

When people started asking for more heroes etc there were many who said why on earth should you want to take a multiplayer game and turn it into a solo game.
Now when GW2 is described as having a persistant world players are saying that is bad and we should have an instanced world.

I know you cannot please all the people all the time but it seems the GW2 team are attempting to do just that.

A game where you can play solo but where others can join in at any time.
While at the same time having a personal storyline that is instanced because everyone's storyline is different.

Sounds almost perfect wonder what the catch is.

1000's of DLC to be purchased from $2.99 to $10.00

you shouldn't talk about yourself like that bro

Right, that was me being stupid. Sorry about that.

If you are still struggling OP then drop me a PM here and I'll do my best to see if I can offer some ingame help.

GW2 will have a huge persistent world...but you'll never be denied a quest reward because someone came through 2 minutes before you and cleared out all of the wild boars you need to kill. Instancing was used in GW1 for two reasons: it makes it much easier to tell a story when your actions appear to have real consequences around you and every NPC treats you like you are the center of attention, and it makes it impossible for other players to disrupt your experience if you don't want them in your party. GW2 is trying to continue with these goals, while also adding a persistent world to the mix.

As for griping about DP: the solution is to not die. Not trying to be snarky or an ass here, but the fact that DP is a fairly substantial penalty should tell you something that you don't seem to realize, which is that if you're dying often, you're doing something wrong. DP is both a heavy penalty, and a light one; it's very debilitating when you get it, but it goes away entirely if you choose to "try again" from the last outpost.

If you've been playing for 2 years and you're still hitting 60% DP on low-level quests like this, you should take a good long look at how you're playing, because it should not be this difficult. Party up with friends, guildmates, or people from Guru who know what they're doing, and take their advice. That is, of course, assuming you want to get better; I've met plenty of people who aren't interested, which is perfectly fine, but those people don't come to Guru complaining about how instances suck. =/

For someone who has been "playing for a couple of years", I'm dismayed at the lack of understanding of the basics of the game you're showing. I'm guessing that while you may have had the game that long, you haven't been actively playing during most of that time.

To sort out trouble:
1. Did you upgrade your armour at Seitung Harbour (or indeed, have you upgraded at all since creating the character)? That's the second-last armour upgrade you'll need - and given the jump in enemy level in Jaya Bluffs you need something better than the starter armour, particularly if you're struggling. From the wiki: "In broad terms, every gain of 40 points of armor rating cuts 50% of non-armor-ignoring damage and every 40 points lost of AR doubles that same kind of damage." The armour at Seitung is AR 45 for an ele - which is 40 points above the ele starter armour (max = AR60 for an ele).

2. What henchies do you have?

3. What skills do you have? How are your attribute points spent?

4. Level 10 - particularly if you're not very experienced - is a little low to be heading into Jaya. You may be better heading back to Ran Musu Gardens and heading into the Minister Cho's Estate explorable area to gain a couple of levels first - the enemies are around your level for the most part (8-14, with some animals at 5). For that matter - have you done the Lost Treasure quest? If not - you really need to, as that gives you an additional 15 attribute points = more combat power, as well as another 4k xp to level up further.

5. DP is removed by gaining XP (as well as those consumable items mentioned before). Killing things, getting quest rewards, etc - anything that gains xp - will "work it off". It's a guide as to how you're doing in the area...and if you're getting to 60DP, you're often better off heading back to town to change what you're doing (i.e. different skills, different henchies, whatever) and starting over than trying to continue with something that clearly isn't working for that area.


I love instanced areas - I love the freedom to just take my time or race through, to not have to compete with other people for the things I need, to know that when I've killed something it'll stay dead while I'm there - the path behind me is (usually) safe (barring patrols I missed), etc. The only things I don't like is the inability to invite someone to join you when you're in them - if a friend logs in you have to restart your instance to be able to party up together - and the inability to switch around skills/attributes to address a problem you find with your build.

This is honestly a mixed bag for me for a number of reasons. On one hand, I greatly enjoy instanced because it allows me to solo. I'm an old player who is not up on the 1337 speak so these days I find it very hard to find a positive sociable group. Also, a positive I've found in instanced missions and quests (as compared to other games I've played. yeah I'm looking at you EQ and WoW) is that I don't get kicked because of large server traffic.

My frustration with instanced missions and quests comes in right where you brought up. Soloing quests with Heroes and Henchies only goes so far before they have developed quests that are simply impossible to do without a strong group of individually thinking players. Best I can say is good luck and Happy Hunting. As I've read, instanced will likely be in Guild Wars 2 at least in part.

Some of the factions missions are kinda poor, in that you often wait 60 seconds to *maybe* group with some other nub, who (if he joins) manages to sink you, or keep you from getting master's...

As to NM factions missions and dieing so many times that you're at -60DP - maybe you should rethink your build/heroes/henchmen/strategy. Except for the very last factions mission, they are all quite easy to complete (not for masters of course).

EDIT: Instanced? LOL, nub - the whole entire game is instanced, as is any other MMORPG. It's just that the subscription MMORPG's let anyone join *ACTIVE* instances (of limited quantity)...