Guild Wars 2's Biggest Crisis

[@kesamek8537]

People said DX11 wasn't possible. People said player housing wasn't possible. People said chrono being playable again wasn't possible. Most people don't understand what is possible. ANet could make API 2.0 if they wanted to.

[@hanneskarlbom6644]

Don't forget gliding and mounts. They said for years it was impossible.

[@TheRetifox]

It's favourite excuse of every MMO player, and dev themself "We can't do X thing, because it's impossible to implement/Spaghetti code doesn't allow us"

[@dajooo9055]

​@@hanneskarlbom6644the reason should be obvious. They planned gliding and mounts and won't spoil any player. That's something different

[@hanneskarlbom6644]

@@dajooo9055 for several years, pre-HoT?

[@dajooo9055]

@@hanneskarlbom6644 sure. The main new feature was the glider in HoT and 3 years is a normal amount of time for a dlc in the size of HoT. As well as for path of fire.

[@emanate0]

nothing kills a game faster then cheaters running around unpunished. i've seen it before

[@Ficohaker]

Been like that since launch lol, and yet we are still here 12 years later

[@hayate2333]

Cheaters ? Where? never seen them in wvw at all (irony). And those who abuse sword 2 exploid in keeps and towers. Even though it gets reported for years. Still anet never fixed it or dared to change /disable the skill. On the other side they were really fast on that with mesmers and elementalists. Thats anet for you :D

[@decampo123_nl]

Bad content is another game killer

[@WakoDoodle]

Perfect example is TF2. It almost died due to bots ruining it; barely anyone was playing the normal servers. Cut to a few weeks ago where they started banning bots and a few days ago, a system to help them ban bots more and suddenly the game went from dying to suddenly coming back to life. If they find a way to and manage to get rid of the bots in gw2, loads of ppl will come flooding back.

[@Ficohaker]

@@WakoDoodle The amount of bots in meta events is also insane, people multibox with full on macros that play the game and you have 10+ accs just farming metas. There isn't a lot of those bots, but they do exist

[@elocfreidon]

I just want boons and condis organized and prioritized properly. And to be able to interact with the UI with keybinds or even a controller.

[@ihip.ng.habagat-p7x]

The cost for your proposal for API 2.0 is not that great. Developers can, and are usually, hired on a per project basis. Depending on the number working on the API, and their competency level, this endeavor does not take that long. However, the decision to actually act on this perceived problem is another matter. I believe that decisions on third-party programs, among other things, are heavily influenced by internal politics within ANet. The "bureaucracy" that has developed over more than a decade within the company does not help either. Attitude towards third-party programs is just a symptom of this malady.

[@DanilloMagalhaes]

the ego issue of "i wont allow ppl to percieve a third party can make my game better than i do, this will never be official ingame content/feature"

[@h4z31nut]

@@DanilloMagalhaes Agreed. The true cost of these APIs would be admitting that their stance on 3rd party tools always has been a mistake.

[@Xetelian]

I just want a color blind mode for red color blindness for dodging the circles

[@com-lj1wh]

are you the guy that said exact this in fractal a few days ago?

[@Xetelian]

@@com-lj1wh No I haven't played in fractals since thorns, but I'm glad people other than me have mentioned how hard it is red on brown or red/green in general

[@TamalPlays]

associability options should be a must.

[@chrischimera1999]

These circles blend in ngl hard af to see sometimes

[@snowdropfox5754]

The real question is why there are bots to farm outdated and useless content like Cerus CM, but not a single onion farming bot. Botters, do better. Smh.

[@91Dream]

Ty Nike, for sticking around GW2 community for all these years! :)

[@droiid6547]

tbh I do think gw2 is now funding gw3, or whatever this other game is, the main guys are quitting gw2 dev and starting on the unreal thing

[@YouTubeChillZone]

The game has been bleeding out for many years now, there is no point in playing

[@droiid6547]

@@KZbinChillZone soto beat post hot xd, (anet said it)

[@Frostfeet1994]

​@@KZbinChillZoneanother doom and gloom just what the community needs

[@voilvelev6775]

@@KZbinChillZone objectively incorrect opinion, but ok.

[@mormegil231]

Anet can absolutely tell the difference between using a bot and just using a DPs meter by monitoring character behavior and you can tell from the false positives. Like last year they mistakenly banned turtle taxis that their monitor tools misjudged as porting seeing the constant WP movement of two people Anet policy is pretty typical. They give you guidelines to tell you he obvious benign stuff are fine but also abstract enough to be able to ban any 3rd party program if it ever becomes a problem Arc DPS , BlishHud and Nexus are unrelated to the cerus bots. Bots are clearly not allowed by the current policies, they exist outside the typical addon environment and they would exist even if addons are were banned and everything was API based and it would be equally tough to detect as it is today.

[@Midaspl]

You can inject your position into the stream for longer than I am playing and they have never done anything about it. What's funny is that memory reading ban would stop addons from working but not TP hack, cause it can take position from API (like Taco/BlishHUD pathing) and just send the packet without reading any memory.

[@rahzaelfoe3288]

@@Midaspl Yeah, tp hack is a problem of letting the client dictate the position of the player. I understand there are round-trip latency concerns with having to get every movement approved by the server, but the server should at the very least be doing some sort of bounds checking on character movement and have the authority to reset a characters position in cases where something has obviously gone wrong.

[@shogenx]

to be fair ive always been heavily against dps meters in the game and id be happy if they just fked memory reading off to oblivion

[@user-zn1db9fe5w]

That's why ff14 is doing this on the good way

[@Frostfeet1994]

​@@stronghandhansondoesn't mean someone is bad it really just comes down to what someone prefers. I always pushed in wow and always parsed well but I still don't enjoy the dps addons

[@DanilloMagalhaes]

they could just partner with the addons they and the comunity truly want, make them ingame official and ban everything else. and if ppl want new addons they need to go throught the official third party guys and aproved by anet

[@grimonce]

The problem is, right now they don't know for sure which memory parts should be allowed for reading and which should be blocked. This requires dev time to investigate as well imo.

[@13l98]

how do you see the exact hp numbers of a boss. Give us that Addon

[@cudanny]

As a Blishhud user, I'm surprised to hear you have a problem with it. Whilst I don't use all the modules, which one do you think were the questionable ones?

[@TheMoonlightOf0515]

I agree, but the studio has never cared enough for this to be relevant to them in my opinion. Corrosion of in game achievements by cheating really hurts a game, but I don't know if people even care enough, they probably just want more gemstore mounts.

[@r3ndrock]

Native dps meter and gear check, ban all third party addons.

[@joyboy6067]

Sadly the majority of players hates the idea of native dps meter,because to them its a "toxic" tools lmao

[@Vandakai]

@@joyboy6067 People will always dislike things that show the world they suck and have been carried the whole time they have played a game.. Reason why the "Git Gud Scrub" has always and will always exist.

[@joyboy6067]

@@Vandakai thats actually what make it sad,like i totally understand that some peeps just wanna log in and chill in opw,press random button and win,i get it,but going out their way in the forum and calling tool that they'll never use toxic it just.....

[@SmotheredDreams]

Nah man, I like my radial mount tool and also being able to search all the items through character inventories.

[@MangyB4033]

@@Vandakai Eh I don't mind carrying people. I don't need DPS meters you just need to make sure everyone knows how to play the game. FFXIV does fine without one because most people are willing to learn if they're doing the content in the first place. You're just crying because you need someone to blame.

[@DeanCalaway]

I agree, with everything, but as you mentioned, it would cost money and Anet is not about to do that.

[@chrischimera1999]

They got enough money from the swimsuits and blissful skirts lol

[@towelcat]

i just want fastload, a dps meter, and a couple overlays for map comp man...

[@ovojayledge]

Check out taco for map comp

[@BlkMagik]

​@@ovojayledgeI'd recommend BlushHUD over TacO tbh

[@Frostfeet1994]

You can get a DPS meter from addon manager

[@MrmellowH]

​@@ovojayledgeblish has all of that combined.

[@ovojayledge]

@@MrmellowH oh cool ill check it out

[@jacoboglopez9744]

IMO best quality of life integrations in game could be: Mounts wheel for changing easily and fast, events timer (not having to look at the Wiki), queues for LFG content, and a DPS meter for hardcore PVE players where you really need efficiency of the group. Also, it could be great if we could have technology like DLLS or FSR to help achieve better FPS because right now even having a great computer, some zones just kills your frames. Before you say anything, yes I use Blish HUD for mount and events timer, in addition to other useful things there, but they should already be in-game and not with external tools. I also use Lossless scaling with FSR and I've seen some improvement in my FPS, but right now I need to open GW2 and 3 other programs to get everything I want/need.

[@MichaelS5400]

Always the optimist Nike

[@Kevlord22]

I am not fan of addons to be honest, like wow is crazy with it. What is "needed" should be provided by the developers.

[@TobiasMamontow]

The existing API is just a web API. An API with live data needs more reads in a specific time frame. The other thing with allowed access even to memory could be registering Add-Ons and giving hashes. That maybe could be automated. But then everything else could be banned. BTW: you could do memory observation using a rootkit erm driver. See blizzard vs. Hoglund

[@TobiasMamontow]

Or a recent Falcon

[@battlebots1]

I don't always agree with NikeTakesTM but big agree on both the problem and suggested solution here.

[@Unwise]

It isn't a necessary addon. Look at WoW today, you don't even get invited anywhere if you're not at the top of the list for your previous raids. People are killing MMO's this way.

[@NikeonaBike]

Nobody is excluding anyone from LFR raiding for bad dps. If you want to go into more competitive levels of difficulty you need to play better. So what is your complaint? You want people to be forced to play with bad players in harder content? Is that fun for anyone?

[@SayuIchi]

I don‘t think this will really solve anything. The rules already stand. And more than a rule change and enforcement wasn‘t really advertised here. The software and knowledge to reverse engineer the game now already exist. A basis is build. Sure you can make a statement that it’s no longer allowed, or rather will be enforced more strictly, but you cannot easily control it. You can, but will still get false positives. Reshade is injected via a DLL for example and used by many. And if they introduce an invasive anti-cheat that’s gonna be a big red flag for many people. And a last straw for me. On the other hand no casual cares too much about LCMs. I think many a raider would shrug at the LCM if you exclude the hardcore raiders because of the absurdness of its existence. But what to expect if nobody playtests the content without cheats active. My disappointment with Cerus (and Dagda) is big enough to welcome any way to show ANet how bad it is designed. They could instead maybe not create a fight as linear as Cerus. I called it shortly after release, telling my static this fight might as well be played by a script, you just do the same thing again and again, nothing interesting happens. On the other hand your usual botting existed since at least 2017, when I started playing, at JPs and gather spots or even mob drop spots. The game allows for specs that can afk farm.. so who cares then. You will also loose out on a variety of possible QoL that you might not even know yet you care about, which really is the beauty of having a active, fan controlled, third party ecosystem. The latest example I can think of is something called fastload. We have 2 members in our static with older PCs. And this fan created piece of software lets them accept those old dungeon pop ups they reintroduced in strike missions before everything else loaded. Saving us all several minutes every evening. And that’s a new piece of software, it might get better over time. And other games show how much untapped potential the community has for QoL improvements. From character switcher, to try-on directly in world not in menu. To a item information overlay so you don‘t have to tab out into the wiki as much. To a way to find items on your account. You wanna port to Lions Arch? Let me open the map on the correct layer when inside the Mistlock. It also enables more accessibility features like bigger fonts in tooltips or chat, different colored tell markers. More customization of controls. Maybe controller support (dunno might already work)? GW2 in VR? Making nice camerashots like Teapot did for a raid tourney trailer using a provided tool, afaik/remember. While I don‘t think it’s good to let people bot a fight or really bot in general, you will definitely lose a number of people if the tools are already in use. And if people go as far as creating those tools free of charge. Maybe your game, its recent design, is the problem. Maybe you should stop creating Grind War’s 2 and add some engaging meaningful content to Guild Wars 2 that needs you to think and not just follow looping commands.

[@NikeonaBike]

holy essay

[@theBEATdude]

I think overhauling the API and flipping the script of the TOS at this point is beyond the scope of ANet's purview for GW2. Esp if they're actually focusing on GW3, and committing to the meager scale of future GW2 content, large scale and community centered projects probably just aren't worth the trouble, especially ones where the end goal is to be able to ban swathes of the playerbase, even if they are blatantly cheating.

[@kirbygw2631]

I understand the idea but would it really change anything? Anet still has to investigate with a "spy-software" if the DLL is using the official api or some other illegal software invocations.

[@NikeDnT]

theoretically if they had a new API with real time combat data, it could exist independently of the game and wouldnt require a DLL injection or memory reading

[@SubiqT]

Best take I've heard on this

[@xecor4450]

how does that convert into benefits for anet monetarily.

[@NikeDnT]

how does what?

[@Mkarn321]

How do you get the percentage of the boss on the health bar?

[@n1cemaiden879]

Pretty sure that's an in game setting Edit: nvm if you mean the ones on the wing 1 bosses. I watched on my tiny phone screen and misunderstood

[@-XTC-]

With a non approved addon. Basically with things he is complaining about

[@13l98]

@@-XTC- yeah this dickhead literally using things that read memory. He’s probably using an ACR that reads a boss full hp in numbers instead of only the percentage

[@rvbmedeiros]

Indie game developed by an indie company

[@Ebp90]

Basically the same thing that happened with old school runescape

[@extrajudicialgaming]

Which blish modules do you view as controversial that you refer to?

[@NikeDnT]

GW2Timers, to name one.

[@extrajudicialgaming]

@@NikeDnT understood, I disagree with you on that one but it’s a fair place to draw a line if that’s your position.

[@extrajudicialgaming]

@@NikeDnT what is your opinion on pathing?

[@NikeDnT]

@@extrajudicialgaming not familiar enough with it to say

[@extrajudicialgaming]

@@NikeDnT gotcha, pathing is just taco in blishhud. The reason I ask is what I assume is the more controversial part of timers is the combination of timers with pathing. Otherwise timers is the same as having a stopwatch on a second monitor

[@TheAnimeSounds]

forget it, anet is too scared, weak, too inclusive to take proper side and make a swift decision. Everything has to be rainbows and sunshines unfortunetly, just take a look how story looks like "power of friendship" and other bullshit. So as much i would like to see changes proposed by Nike...lets be real, simply it wont happen. Just look how trivial things are handled... yea, not gonna happen.

[@BlackWipeout]

We don't want the WoW addons situation at all. Try play WoW without addons in raid for example, it's impossible because Blizzard make this raid knowing what the addons make. Players are too assisted by addons now. GW2 and FF14 made the right choices for me.

[@dedeath]

careful, they might hurt 1k dps players feelings if they add a dps meter...

[@Jijiweepee]

Let them be hurt

[@MrChester114]

Maybe I'm dumb but your solution makes no sense to me at all. What do you mean by API? REST API? If so then how would one build a DPS meter with such an API? Each request takes time and the more users you have the more time it takes. Memory reading is almost instant. That's why DPS meters are so fast in showing you the data. With an API it would be slow as hell and very costly for Anet to proces all the requests. It might not even be possible since thousands of users would send a request every second to get the DPS numbers. This is essentialy DDOS attack on their API lol. Also even if Anet provided this API (which is stupid imo) or better some SDK for building addons how do you want an addon without DLL incjection? How do you put it in the game without injecting your code into the game code? There is no way around it so it doesn't even solve the false positives you mentioned. Peace out.

[@AraliciaMoran]

An API is not necessarily a REST API (or any kind of web API). It's just an interface between some kind of internal process and data, and the outside. It can take many many forms; for example OpenGL and Vulkan are APIs that lets a program interact with a computer's GPU. In the case of GW2, we have the Web API, which is very useful for querying information from outside the game, but is not usable for any kind of live data; but we also have the MumbleLink which, while too simplistic to be really called an API, already provide live data about the game. It would be completely possible to have some kind of API on the side of the game client (and not a server-side API) that would be able to provide live data on demand, and depending on the data given, memory reading would be unnecessary for legitimate (allowed) third party applications. Heck, I know of a MMO that doesn't even bother with an API and just dump combat logs in a file during combat itself; this game's dps meter just uses that file and doesn't bother in any way with memory reading. That's ultimately one of Nike's point in this video: if the combat data was available without memory reading, they memory reading of any kind could be actionned on as breaking ToS. On the subject of building addons without DLL injection, it can definitively be done provided we don't need to do any memory reading nor alter the game visuals. There is one way that's applicable out of the box, and that's to create an overlay that displays itself on top of the game window, rather than inside it; this is the method used by BlishHUD, and it doesn't need any kind of DLL injection (this is also the reason why some of its modules -like Pathing- draws objects above interface elements that should logicaly be drawnd behind the interface : because, as an overlay, they are always drawn above the game window. Another method that works but would require ArenaNet to make some decisions and do a lot of work is for them to give access to part of the graphical interface to third party code, but at that point, you're so close to having full Addons support that it'd be better to just go with that.

[@KumaNoKimi]

taking into consideration that ANet may not have the finance to make the optimal correction to this issue, how many people do you think would leave the game just because they couldn't use any addon?

[@YouTubeChillZone]

A very large group. I've been on several discords over the years and when arc didn't have an update people wouldn't come into the game

[@MaciekRoQuu]

Have been using dps meters from the moment they got realesed and i wouldnt say not having real time dps reader would be an issue. Right not what would hurt 100 times more would be getting rid of logs and i am not so sure they can operate without the dps meter. The EoS and legendery cerus is impossible to achive without this tool.

[@Nitidus]

When I last played earlier this year, I used Arc and Blish A LOT. It provided me with so many QoL features that I wouldn't have been able to go back to "vanilla GW2" at all. It made the game so much more fun and enjoyable. Since then, I've missed all of the controversies. Blish didn't provide anything "illegal" at all at the beginning of the year. No idea what happened. Regarding ANet, while I 100% agree that it's worth it, I suspect they might simply not be able to afford the initial investment. Especially since the payout would only be long-term.

[@farlonfarmelon]

Can't wait for Janet to drop the ball again on this one.

[@VoXeR91]

I feel like they must be able to make tools that figures out what is sniffing and fetching data from the GW2 client and get a list of what is ok and not ok. Can't be that hard, right?

[@mizumisa6620]

Why not just make their own built in dps meter and ban all 3rd party software use(e.g. Arc/blish) ?

[@NikeDnT]

they could, but arcdps has a lot of features people cant live without, like logs, boon table, CC meter. Anet's own dps meter does not have any features nearly so developed.

[@nathanzorndorf8214]

How would an API 2.0 guarantee no false positives in determining whether botting software is being used? IMO they need to implement a machine learning algorithm to distinguish between control inputs that are human generated vs software generated. Like a CAPTCHA but for gaming. I’m surprised there isn’t a third party that hasn’t already developed this type of software that Anet couldn’t just purchase a license to use. Maybe that does already exist (I haven’t google searched it). If so, Anet wouldn’t have to hire engineers and develop their own bot identification software. Bc it’s mainly botting that is the problem here right?

[@NikeonaBike]

A 3rd party program that makes API queries of real time combat data (or whatever other features they want to give it) is a lot different than an injectable DLL that reads memory. The former wouldnt be caught in a sweep of memory readers since its getting its info from a totally different and official place.

[@two-tonedbandit9348]

Nah ANET prefers to just quietly ban the offenders and not make an in game program that would "promote toxicity."

[@xxAoPxx]

At the end of the day, it's an investment that has to be worth it to them because of the goodwill that is tied to it. All things considered I think it is fair to call the GW2community ferociously loyal, to the point of being cultishly so, but even that has to have limits. It doesn't matter if we're talking hacks in the competetive modes, full automization in endgame PVE or TP manipulation, when logging on ultimately does not promise an enjoyable couple of hours but instead an exercise in futility, most people will just stop doing that. It happened to other games and franchises with loyal communities, it is bound to happen here. Personally, I'm a good 20k hours into the game playing several accounts but haven't made a decision about Janthir yet. Them not acknowledging the magnitude of this issue may well be tipping the scales for me, ngl.

[@etzbetz]

Would love to have a proper ingame addon api.. just dont see it. Of course they can make it, but I dont see it, after all the stuff ive seen in these years.

[@PinchOfLuck]

Anet will never invest in this. Currently, any exploits there are are contained and do not influence others on a large scale. Nor do they influence economy on a large scale. As long as they remain minor annoyances, Anet will NEVER cough up the money to change the API and other backend services. Too much of their other systems and tools rely on them. They would need to change those as well. Like I said, as long as these "annoyances" remain minor, no matter how egregious, they will let it slide.

[@NikeDnT]

fact that theyve tried to stop AFK farmers tells me they are conscious of that problem, and its not hard to see how botting operations wouldnt be on the radar

[@YouTubeChillZone]

Funny, because that's the main reason why this game has a reputation that it's not worth starting.

[@PinchOfLuck]

@@KZbinChillZone Yet is has more than a decade worth of content. So it is worth starting. There is shit in there that will keep you busy for at least a year.

[@uniquename111]

Arena Net look at VALVE when they ignored bots in Team Fortress 2 for so many years. In the end it was the bots that run the game and not VALVE. Only now many many many years later they are touching it and trying to fix it and banning bots left and right and gaining a lot trust back that was lost. Don't follow VALVES example of ignoring bots. It will never end well because in the end bots will destroy your game and people do not want to play with bots.

[@wearecovenant2846]

If you ask me id say they should just cut the ropes and forbid EVERY 3rd party program WHILE putting more resources into making one game intern addon themself asap containing everything people want within idk maybe a month at worst. Wipe the board, deny anything from outside on the board, implement stuff on the board you want to be in the game while denying unwanted things, easy. Would also be the most time and cost efficient solution. They could even take the base from currently popular addons and just polish them, its rly not that hard.

[@wuzzle5261]

There's already a legendary cerus cm bot? And it runs as a .dll? That's kinda fucked.

[@lm4122]

stupid balance and low effort gameplay is what allows bots to be that perfect, Anet will change nothing, the more spam friendly the game got the better the bots started to be more efficient.

[@DreamingDolphing]

I don't think there's a problem with that in GW2. The most complex and interesting plugins still can't take information directly from the game, they need to hack it and arenanet doesn't want to do anything about it. This is very different from WoW or TESO, where you can change literally everything on the screen and the game lets you do it easily without hiding the information.

[@NikeonaBike]

This is a video about the problems posed by hacks getting out of hand.

[@DreamingDolphing]

@@NikeonaBike Well, banning dll injection is a good idea and at the same time give a legal way to get the necessary information about dps, but it's a pity that anet does not listen to the players.

[@Frostfeet1994]

​@@DreamingDolphingblame ncsoft not anet

[@_bits_and_bytes]

I started playing around 2 years ago and I couldn't believe you had to make addons by reading memory. I like Nike's take on this and I hope anet is considering something like this

[@consumer5879]

Why don't just Anet make their own DPS meter and make it only available at the Gem store. It's fast money for them

[@YouTubeChillZone]

Because there are idiots working in this company🤣

[@Dumat1479]

Anet will never spend money on smth like API. They have 1 guy who works with API, and this is just his side job or maybe just a hobby. The idea of Anet investing money into API is like an idea of Anet investing money into a new engine for the game and porting it to this new engine. I don't think Nike actually believes Anet will do it (hire API people), but if Nike really thinks it is possible I say Delta shared some copium with him.

[@lee98210]

Botting on MMORPG? It boost the online player counts, is it good for anet...

[@YouTubeChillZone]

This game never gives you data so it doesn't help you in any way

[@tgzmrhat]

But they are still making money and have the potential to continue to make millions for years. Amazon did nothing to stop bots on their game and it destroyed it so if arena does nothing the game will die

[@freedomvoice4u]

met some haker in pvp yesterday, bad experience

[@JH-vb1wo]

I have people telling me to download ad ons all the time and I always say nope not gonna risk it. Over 2 thousand hours in the game so I’m not chancing it. I’ve been seeing a ton of afk farmers lately and their add ins are getting slicker. When your near some afk farmers they will magically disappear in a short amount of time and it’s by design. Because I’ll load back into that same map that same day or whenever and the same person is at the same spot afk farming. Lots of afk farmers at sandswept isles

[@rada5486]

yep, Just add a dps meter and ban all add on's. A few UI improvements wouldn't go amiss, that tiny little slither of a box for selecting between skiff, wp, fish etc is bloody ridiculous, and please let be change where the loot drops go so its not covering map lvl select... I'll stop there before it turns into a rant... cursor choices please, it was crap 12 years ago and still is.

[@Genervilz]

Maybe some of you aren't into the world of cheats, but I've been playing since almost day 1 with cheats that allow you to fly and do many other things. Although actually the times in which I have personally used these cheats are sporadic, which could be counted on the fingers of one hand (even though I always had them active). In my group however, there were several people who actively used them, even to cheat some raid mechanics, and no one has ever received a ban.

[@YouTubeChillZone]

And that's the problem

[@RockoGoblino]

Wait.. I didn't know that about an automated program for Legendary Cerus KEKW. Good vid Nike.

[@Ham68229]

This is why I refuse to use the 3rd party software that DarensGW2 seems to be pushing quite a bit of late on youtube. Thank you for your input on this.

[@tasgw2351]

Nothing to disagree here

[@symp650]

great video nike as always

[@yansolo3701]

They should just give a dead-line and then ban all addons - problem solved. They should add colourblind mode and other accesability stuff, but is even a dps meter needed? Not sure why

[@NikeonaBike]

If you don't give people good tools to evaluate themselves and others, they will use flawed tools that will be far worse for the social experience in game.

[@yansolo3701]

@@NikeonaBike ah okay - i personally play gw2 without any tools and would sometimes just wish to be able to resize the ui a bit more, so I can see stuff better. But you probably right about this. Maybe its just in my guild a bit more chill

[@NikeonaBike]

@@yansolo3701 For example, lets assume the commander of the raid group was a wannabe elitist. would you rather he kicked the person who was doing very low DPS, or kick the person who had the lowest AP? I'd rather that if somebody was getting kicked, that it be the person who deserves it rather than going back to BS like killproof or Achievement Points.

[@Jijiweepee]

Or even worse, simply kicking players based on the spec they play. Back in the old days, people were kicked from dungeons simply for playing necro or ranger. DPS meters at least give evidence for those players to prove that they are pulling their own weight and fight back if necessary.

[@Ficohaker]

Blish was way too much for gw2, taco was already a lot, but it was a tame hud that helped you not watch and read guides rather have them in game for wase of use. Blish imo is way too much for the game

[@naek8629]

I've work on some API for a company, I'm not an expert, so maybe there is a solution but a real time meter sounds like a huge performance issue for an API. If there is a solution I'm interested to know it tho

[@FrozenPear]

Nike doesn't mean a generit type of web/rest/whatever API. API that he meant is low level game client side api that your "plugin" can interface with. Kinda simillar to moding interfaces in other games, where game developer officialy exposers methods to access certain part of game data/memory and probably some methods to render stuff inside of game's GUI. Basically what arcdps does but on official and standarized level - without gray zone of which data can be read and how stuff can be rendered in-game.

[@mvga2687]

Take a step back. We can't even customize the UI, hell, can't even move chat window around the screen. For anet to restrict addons would mean they would have to provide at least HALF of the features and QoL that people write and support for free. Possibly even more things like LFG remake from ground up, advanced filters, community tools, KP locking... list is very long. Anet would spend next 3 years doing only that considering their avaliable resourced. They increased frequency of expansions which alienated a lot of people. Getting that 3 years of content drought may be catastrophic in already rapidly declining population too. Not to mention confusing/annoying casuals when the entire game's UI would frequently get updated in chunks. People are stupid and impatient; with their 7s attention span they will get frustrated and quit. I doubt current anet is in for the ride like that. Though we had worse before so who knows..

[@YouTubeChillZone]

They had 12 years to do it, so of course they won't do anything about it. I'm glad the issue has been raised, but we have to be realistic

[@NitroAimBot]

Cerus lcm bot, do u have a video to prove it? @NikeDnT

[@NikeonaBike]

yes

[@josiahspencer1986]

Get rid of add-ons and Anet just add there own dps meter. Prob fix. All other mod/ 3rd party add-ons will get you a ban.

[@diobrando5974]

I kind of agree and disagree. Bots has been a part since a goddam release😂💀 Like google autocraft GW2 software, and you’ll find websites from 2014... Honestly, I don’t think the issue got suddenly worse in 2024, and for some reason it didn’t arise in 2014💀

[@nd6886]

Thanks for the informative video! Gonna go download that bot now. :)

[@Djynni]

I hope they aren't just going to address all this in "GW3" and abandon GW2 as-is. I like GW2 and would be upset if they just throw away all my effort in this game by allowing it to fall to hackers and botters.

[@anonymousbloke1]

GUILD WARS 3 AHAHAHAH BRO WHAT

[@YouTubeChillZone]

GW 1 had exactly the same problem, so it will be the same here. If you still enjoy the game, play, but don't count on any changes because there won't be any. I stopped supporting this company many years ago, all I do is pay the lowest price for expansion if there is any and that's it let it burn

[@australienski6687]

GW2 is already on life support. Each expansion gets smaller and smaller. At least they're not charging full price for it now.

[@matex2207]

I would just permanently ban dps meter users as well, who cares if you used it for 1second only bye to your account.

[@NikeonaBike]

good thing you're not in charge!

[@artrayus3]

Who would carry you then?

[@xLeopanther]

Getting rid of a large part of the active playerbase sounds like a great business model :D

[@matex2207]

@@xLeopanther it is if the active playerbase is at large responsible for no playerbase growth, besides its not like everyone would stop playing without it either.

[@semitangent]

I don't know, most of the argument seems to be built upon these mysterious and hard to detect hacking modules (for Blish, if I understand correctly?). This does not convince me, since apparently I'm not "in the know" about these supposed hacks and honestly I fail to see how a memory *reading* addon can cause these deep game inputs you allude to. Sure, there will always be some sort of hacking tools in the appropriate forums, but for these the quality varies wildly and I believe they are detectable through other means. All in all, quite the pessimistic opinion, but does not convince me of being the "Biggest Problem".

[@NikeonaBike]

Do you expect me to link to exploits? Do you expect me to show footage of hacks in the video?

[@semitangent]

@@NikeonaBike Link? No. Footage? Sure, if that is what you argument rests upon. I find it hard to argue that hacks and exploits are, as you say, the biggest crisis, when apparently they are not widespread enough to be noticed by players, be talked about on Reddit or be mentioned on the forums. Either you want to point to some glaring strategic mistake, then you should deliver the goods or you just would like to voice an opinion without proper underpinnings. Both things are fine, but I don't think spreading rumors will improve anything.

[@NikeDnT]

x.com/NikeDnT/status/1814733455718293908

[@semitangent]

@@NikeDnT Ok wow, I honestly did not expect that. I do understand your hesitation in giving these people any more publicity. So these ACRs are Blish modules? If that is the case, that really puts Blish as the platform in a weird spot...

[@NikeDnT]

@@semitangent Its not blish. its an independent hack. I'm looking more into how it actually works and if I learn different ill reply again.

[@agaaga7748]

Anet is sleeping, hope they wake up

[@YouTubeChillZone]

Ice brood Sage showed that nothing new will be created in this game after 5 years since then, there is no point in counting on changes

[@Frostfeet1994]

Ncsoft is the problem

[@drizztds]

The game was better without addons. I discovered more on my own and not just had a line that I blindly followed. DPS meters do more harm than good, people start ignoring mechanics just to make more DPS, and in the end we all have the same gear anyway, it's not wow where people have different gear.

[@jonasalmstrom4986]

"Same gear" there are many prefixes, and there's a large difference between them. For many people, including myself, dps meters are important so you know where and how you can improve.

[@australienski6687]

I wouldn't be against a DPS metre that only worked outside of groups. That way people can learn to improve without it becoming a gatekeeping tool.

[@bbernotus2354]

GG maybe implement it in gw3

[@Shaijn815]

Isn't this an easy fix for anet? They could release the in game DPS meter. Change the terms regarding add-ons reading memory and warn that after a 2-3 months using addons that read memory could make you susceptible to a ban wave.

[@NikeonaBike]

Unfortunately the in game dps meter is now way behind what players expect feature-wise. No logs, specifically, is highly problematic. Without logs a lot of the value is gone, and the ability to have third party sites like wingman that parse the whole community's logs goes away. I think people would be really unsatisfied with that now. But I would probably agree had they just made that dps meter public in 2015 and banned anyone using injectables, theyd be in a better place today.

[@heraldofthemetalgods2620]

I do enjoy some doomer GW2 content.

[@papaigigitu]

Unlike the pvp hack and duplicate items, in this case you are doing a superficial analysis. It’s not based on data. What percentage of people use it? What impact does it have on other players? A deeper analysis is needed before saying that it will generate a crisis.

[@papaigigitu]

Its my opinion.

[@progamasEjogos]

Yeah like, if the bot is raiding like a god, the other members will just don't care about it, it is better than a troll, if it was like a hit kill hack, pvp win hack, immortality hack, gold dupe, etc etc i would be more concerned, the pvp teleportation is sad, but i never saw one anyways, for now things appear to be normal no "crisis " imminent

[@bamjo9]

Didn't know that these third party sw were reading from memory. I thought this was internet packets inspection and screen recording.

[@Killswitch1986]

Nothing kills a game faster than then shit crafting and time gated horshit

[@australienski6687]

Nah

[@aidonis98]

Or, they could ban all third-party software outright. My guess is they give a six month heads up, after that too bad so sad. They aren't going to spend the money on the API.

[@rain8478]

All this because we couldn't have a native dps meter

[@NikeDnT]

Bad choices and good choices compound like interest.

[@mashvids1018]

Your very right I think alot of people need to see this video I am a pvper Ppl know me as Cpt Mash Potato on N.A server I have been trying to warn people for ages being a long term player recently I have reduced how much I play to minutes a day because of this

[@drax9000]

Cuplé month i don't play this Game ,i feel so Beter ,tired of pvp meta and grinding and farming for ever ,biye arenanet biye gw2 ,i Will never Buy a single expansión or play Your psicólogy Game desing to get mi money

[@TheCUTTERbyPHOENIX]

Peoples ... Always think "It's simple, just do this, just do that" etc.. No you're not in there, you don't have the slightest information regarding what it is possible to do, and yet, shifting the focus cost way more than anyone can anticipate.. good games were lost because devs wanted to please their communities by shifting away things in place and working, instead of debugging mechanics in place of proven parts of the game or adding content, to keep the feels of up-to-date game afloat and keep bringing new players in ... targeting things in the base is not ideal, it's a dumb thing to do and nobody will do that ever anymore, period.

[@JohnAlterat]

dps meeter - cancer of any game

[@BrendanCS]

Nike tells it like it is.

[@muttBunch]

I got a week suspension just for writing in C# a simple clicker that fired every 45 seconds to attack a single NPC to kill it and loot it. Mind you, this was no where near any sort of in game related events

[@Aesthesia69]

Long video and not much of substance said. Nike is about a decade too late on this issue.

[@Midaspl]

I think the opposite. The API 2.0 will never be good enough for what you'd want it for. What they should do instead is propper server-side validation and behavioral analysis. No need for invasive clients, no need for coding advanced APIs. I don't care if someone modifies UI or sees actual boss HP. Those should be in the game without need of mods TBH. However, when you can inject your position into data stream to make a move noone wold be able to do normally, that's where it gets ridiculous. If someone makes move like that - ban. Someone did perfect rotation exactly to the milisecond, for few consecutive bosses - ban. It should be just that. BTW, reading memory ban will not stop TP hack cause you can make it without any read.

[@sundead3770]

Oh man it really doesn't stop does it? Since release one shitshow chases the next and the periots of peace and satisfaction in the game are so few and far between I can't even remember many at all. It feels like GW2 was doomed from the start looking back over the decade.

[@NikeDnT]

Every game is like this, GW2 isn't special. Its always one PR crisis to another in every game.

[@LevityRhodes]

I resist DPS meters in FFXIV just like I resist them in guild wars 2. I've been using DPS meters in WoW since wotlk and I've never enjoyed using it, nor do I wish WoW to add an official DPS meter integrated into the game, either. Being able to track your own DPS is fine for self-improvement, but I hate giving other players the power to pinpoint exactly WHO is slacking, who is dragging the rest of the party down, who needs to get kicked. I find the DPS meters only add toxicity into the mindset of players once they can see that they are doing better OR worse than their cohorts. It's not good for self-esteem, it's not good for party cohesion, and it's not good for enjoyment of the game itself. Never have I actually wanted to know how much damage I'm doing in a boss fight, I have mechanics to worry about. I have a DPS meter in WoW, but I REFUSE to get one for FFXIV or Guild Wars 2 because of how I've been treated and seen people be treated IN WoW. Guild wars 2 has the nicest culture I've seen in an MMO, I'm worried that, as soon as you drag top numbers into the game, it's gonna ruin it. I want it to stay optional and maintain being a pain in the ass to officially install.

[@NikeonaBike]

"Being able to track your own DPS is fine for self-improvement, but I hate giving other players the power to pinpoint exactly WHO is slacking, who is dragging the rest of the party down, who needs to get kicked. I find the DPS meters only add toxicity into the mindset of players once they can see that they are doing better OR worse than their cohorts. It's not good for self-esteem, it's not good for party cohesion, and it's not good for enjoyment of the game itself. " I disagree with this completely. I find the sentiment behind it completely offensive to me, personally. The idea that ignorance is bliss is so small minded, especially when its suggested from someone else that *I* ought to remain in ignorance. If you want to be be ignorant, fine. But telling me that I am better off ignorant is frankly insulting and offensive.

[@juanpunch2793]

Group content is a team effort. If you don't want to contribute don't be surprised when others don't want you in their group.

[@LevityRhodes]

@@NikeonaBike Never once did I imply you specifically should remain ignorant. As I said, I have used and still use DPS meters in my active world of warcraft account. But, judging by the reaction I'm getting, it reinforces toxicity. They have also been misinterpreting what I'm saying to extrapolate the worst. Clearly you are and have been passionate about a DPS meter being added to the game for an extremely long time, so I must have hit a sore spot. What I'm saying is that putting DPS meters INTO the game would send the wrong message, especially to new players. In a game like GW2, what population of the playerbase actually NEEDS a DPS meter? I've been playing GW2 for 10 years, I've never done a dungeon nor a raid. I do PvP and open world content. Why would I need a DPS meter? Why would that need to be a standardized utility?

[@lillithsummers8817]

@@juanpunch2793sounds exactly like what a wow player would say. Vaguely surprised that you didn’t add in, “ not respecting my time “. That game, and its toxic competitive modes exist already ,no need to recreate it. The FF14 model of dps meters for personal tracking and improving fits the bill with a game like gw2.

[@Jijiweepee]

Tell me you weren’t around since launch days doing dungeon runs without telling me you weren’t around during those days. People were kicked on sight for simply playing necro & ranger in dungeons back in those days, even before arc. People were and still are gonna be toxic with out without meters.

[@ordinarycitizen-v5n]

Why would anyone want to keep giving money to ANet. ANet has been so pandering with bad "balancing" decisions, updating the updated updates continuously, a non-existent "reporting" system, macros and blish. NCSoft should shitcan the current personnel at ANet and find better devs.

[@YouTubeChillZone]

They've tried three times, no one wants to work for that snowflake company

[@Frostfeet1994]

You're blaming the wrong company. Ncsoft is the shit company

[@ordinarycitizen-v5n]

@@Frostfeet1994 How so? NCSoft is the parent company, ANet are the devs and they are the ones screwing the game up.

[@Frostfeet1994]

@@ordinarycitizen-v5n ncsoft controls them anet makes the game but everything has to go through ncsoft

[@SILKYSMOOTH30FPS]

GW2 has no problems, stop lying.

[@ThePHOENIXf20]

There is no war in Ba Sing Se

[@nep7164]

If this would be another company and not ANet I would even say that these things are possible to happen at one point But, let's be real here, we are talking about a 15yo game almost, most of the hardcore players already left due to content being too easy/non existent/ANet not caring enough about the whole game aside from Gem store items, and also due to the fact of how the balancing of classes work and not listening to the community at all The botting on cerus isn't something that was not expected, and most likely ANet won't do anything about it until everyone runs around with the purple title, just like how it happened with many things in less of a "serious manner", here I mean that for example back then staff weaver/all boon chrono and other builds do not get punished until they get out of hand, no u can say that yes, it's balance vs cheating two whole different things, but they are not, ANet only takes action in cases where they see it's getting too much, staff weaver would still be alive even now most likely if people don't ask specifically for it in the LFG, all boon chrono would be still alive if people don't cry about chrono being too hard but also being the only option... As long as the cerus botting doesn't hurt the community to a level where people rise up on the forums, nothing will happen, at all So yea, we can wait for years until ANet even realizes that there is a problem, but at that point, will they even be interested in putting more money into the game? I don't think so, even now if you look at SOTO story and the whole thing, you can see that they are just putting things out for content and not quality, they are only trying to appeal to the very casual player-base with all their design choices, and the cerus bots are not hurting the casual players, whatever more, they can buy their purple title for cheaper

[@VendettaPSC]

Listening to people who haven't coded at all in their lives say how easy these things are is always amusing. You make it sound so easy. :D

[@NikeDnT]

never said anything would be easy