Guild Wars 2

This is perhaps a day late and a dollar short but I should like to write this anyway if only because I think it offers a point of view I haven’t yet seen expressed.

I liked the zerg.

There, I’ve said it. Now, that being said, don’t get me wrong – zerging content in general is very frustrating since while it may make the content do-able, it takes away a lot of that feeling of risk, adrenalin, and then the rush of success. However, there is something else that takes that away too – let me tell you a story: My go-to moment for when I knew GW2 was working right is still from beta, when a random Ranger and I, not in a party together, decided to tackle as Svanir champ. We were unbuffed and still learning what worked but the two of us worked for what felt like forever, dodging, trying to hold aggro, and ultimately succeeding after picking each other up off the floor time and time again. It was no doubt an ugly fight. The pros out there would have done it in a quarter of the time solo, I’m guessing. But I don’t care, we had fun! That moment I think we both felt like we could take on a whole other server in WvW and win.

Do you know what the point of that moment was? At least for this discussion it was that we didn’t have to train or prep or practice our ballet steps for the content. We didn’t have to “game” the mechanics of the game in order to be successful. We didn’t need some bluebadge to yell at us about taking our pots, eating a balanced meal, and designating add-handlers to manage the immediate vicinity. We found what worked for us, made it happen, and then left. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that guy again – if I did I expect it was as a red name in PvP as I have changed servers since Beta. But in that moment we tackled the content we found together, did it our way, and left feeling like the real champs, tag on our name or not.

So what does that have to do with the zerg? Well, the zerg was working. It may not have been elegant, but it was an option, we learned about it, and we found that it worked and it suited the reality of overflows, pick-up groups, and casual players chasing that next hit of story. The zerg had its own organization, of a sense, and it allowed players to carry each other. This thread has seen a lot of complaints about AFK leechers but I am actually reminded of content where I, as a mesmer, have helped carry other players through content with portals, temporal barriers, and the like. I didn’t feel like they were leeching off of me, in fact I rather liked that players would help each other through jumping puzzles and past tricky bits. The zerg may have let some player who’s just gotten into the game have a shot at loot and achievements that would otherwise be nearly impossible, which is a great reason for them to keep playing and get involved in the community.

However, there is one, ultimate reason why I think it’s a shame the zerg was feared and punshed:

It was beautiful.

How accurate to the circumstances and how rewarding was it to be a part of that army of PCs charging across the ruined face of a once-loved city? An army to fight Scarlet’s army? An army of righteous (it may be cheesy, but still righteous) wrath, rampaging through the occupying invaders, sledgehammer smashing clockwork alchemical terror-weapons back into scrap iron and making that chunk of civilization a little bit safer? I loved that moment when I first saw the zerg happen and it felt right. This wasn’t a precisely timed commando raid where every group has to get their job right for you all to succeed, this was a hundred bodies or more all saying “we’re done with this, we’re done with finding your tendrils everywhere and trying to fight your plots after they’re already underway. We’re coming for you.” Just to see all those different characters charging away and diving into the water, swimming to the next Assault Knight, kerb-stomping mobs en route as an afterthought was fantastic because it fits the story. That’s what should be happening! People are supposed to be mad about what Scarlet has done, they should be upset to see what this proud city looks like, and they should want to crush everything they find in that zone that looks like Scarlet’s handiwork. To force players to focus on game mechanics, to institute rigid game limits on the ability of people already in the map to participate feels like it numbs the experience and encourages people to farm the assault knight of their choice rather than beat the event and be part of the story.

After having seen the beauty of the righteous zerg it just seems a shame.

Eliminating the health bars of the other knights in the UI to ‘avoid confusion’ has made the battle a little less epic feeling.

There was an awkward period of time after we killed our knight where everyone just stood around waiting…and waiting…and wondering how the battle was going. Sort of anti-climactic not being able to see the progress of the other knights during the battle.

Oh well, otherwise things seemed to work out.

1 out of 5 instances so far have I participated and been able to kill ONE of the 3 knights. The 4 out of 5 have all been failures with no kills. This is no longer fun.

Fenrina.2954:

Katastrofi.5816:

The AFKers are STILL there, but now they’re constantly just dying. Now the NPCs that rez downed players are permanently trying to rez them over and over and over again. Please just eliminate this safe zone altogether… Please?

I’d hate to see the repair bill after that.

Honestly, the fact they’re dying means that isn’t a safe zone. Either people will pick up on it soon or well… they won’t.

Unequip armor?

And if not, 11 silver (or whatever it is for full broken armor) is less than negligible amount of coin. It’s… literally next to nothing. That’s not gonna discourage people who want to get their achievements. Hell, in the Wintersday event one of the achievements was to pay like, what was it, a gold?

All attempts post patch have been successful so far when it comes to killing knights.

Holo is about 66% success. Just got a bad platform.

One small note: Scarlet’s Anti-AFK lasers still fire after the holo is dead. Makes getting into the instance a bit dicey.

cymruvoodoo.3851:

However, there is one, ultimate reason why I think it’s a shame the zerg was feared and punshed:

It was beautiful.

How accurate to the circumstances and how rewarding was it to be a part of that army of PCs charging across the ruined face of a once-loved city? An army to fight Scarlet’s army? An army of righteous (it may be cheesy, but still righteous) wrath, rampaging through the occupying invaders, sledgehammer smashing clockwork alchemical terror-weapons back into scrap iron and making that chunk of civilization a little bit safer? I loved that moment when I first saw the zerg happen and it felt right. This wasn’t a precisely timed commando raid where every group has to get their job right for you all to succeed, this was a hundred bodies or more all saying “we’re done with this, we’re done with finding your tendrils everywhere and trying to fight your plots after they’re already underway. We’re coming for you.” Just to see all those different characters charging away and diving into the water, swimming to the next Assault Knight, kerb-stomping mobs en route as an afterthought was fantastic because it fits the story. That’s what should be happening! People are supposed to be mad about what Scarlet has done, they should be upset to see what this proud city looks like, and they should want to crush everything they find in that zone that looks like Scarlet’s handiwork. To force players to focus on game mechanics, to institute rigid game limits on the ability of people already in the map to participate feels like it numbs the experience and encourages people to farm the assault knight of their choice rather than beat the event and be part of the story.

After having seen the beauty of the righteous zerg it just seems a shame.

This, this, this. So much this. You’ve very eloquently summed up the vague bad taste that this patch left in my mouth. :citizenkaneclapping.gif:

Wasbunny.6531:

Eliminating the health bars of the other knights in the UI to ‘avoid confusion’ has made the battle a little less epic feeling.

There was an awkward period of time after we killed our knight where everyone just stood around waiting…and waiting…and wondering how the battle was going. Sort of anti-climactic not being able to see the progress of the other knights during the battle.

Oh well, otherwise things seemed to work out.

I fully agree with you regarding the health bars. We should have been able to see the progress of the other two teams instead of just standing around like gaping fish and typing ‘green %?’ in chat.

So to me it sounds more like they just pulled it out because they couldn’t get it fixed in time.

Anyone fight the Knights after this recent patch? If so, do you still feel like you’re only doing ~50% of the damage you originally did? Any servers/overflows feel that killing them in under 6 minutes is actually possible now?

Reason I ask is that after the initial ‘fix’ (prior to this patch) all the attempts I was present (including one structured attempt on my own server) fell short by a very large margin.

Also Anet, you want to nerf Zerker because that’s all people use…yet you keep giving us DPS race events and making it so low levels can do it too which hurts the dps even more…YOU MAKE NO SENSE.

cymruvoodoo.3851:

So what does that have to do with the zerg? Well, the zerg was working. It may not have been elegant, but it was an option, we learned about it, and we found that it worked and it suited the reality of overflows, pick-up groups, and casual players chasing that next hit of story. The zerg had its own organization, of a sense, and it allowed players to carry each other.

I agree!! So very much!! It took a few tries but it worked, was fun.
Though it is VERY annoying that people don’t res (what’s up with that? why do they do that?? why do u even play if u don’t play?), this feels like the punishments fall on those of us who do make the effort to kill the knights. Not only do we have to deal with the dead, but cannot replace or need to be calling for more people (I’m not sure if the buff fades at death). The fight now feels hopeless. Maybe it’s that a lot of people is on WvW right now due to reset (when server combination changes, I don’t know the right word, sorry xD)

Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not super strategist, but this 50 people per knight is detrimental to overflows or maps which are not to full capacity, those can’t put 50 people on each knight and are doomed, so they focus on killing one, and then try to assist the remaining ones, usually to no avail.

For an event which will only last for 2 weeks, leaves important items and likely we won’t get to play again, I don’t know if it makes a lot of sense to make it super hard, I understand the zerg killing for events like Tequatl or the 3 Headed Wurm, for which u get time to plan, practise and polish. But in the living story there is not that much time, especially for people who work, or can only play on weekends. This feels like we need to end yet again in a super-top-of-the-notch guild to succeed, I think this was not the idea. On Tuesday, like a poster said on another thread, it was perfect, the event felt quite epic, took a while to figure out (at least in our overflow, which was not full at all), but was fun and eventually worked out.

More to the point, sorry I repeated this on other posts, but the healing issue is not fixed. Just happened in NSP, we had one at 50% and healed full instantly. We lost.

Hope this helps!

Aveneo.2068:

Anyone fight the Knights after this recent patch? If so, do you still feel like you’re only doing ~50% of the damage you originally did? Any servers/overflows feel that killing them in under 6 minutes is actually possible now?

Yes, I’ve noticed the damage difference. A few people have mentioned it. I’m not sure it’s 50%, but something seems off.

I don’t think, baring something TTS, that a 6 min kill is possible.

I for one did not like the Zerg. I experienced Patch Day 1, Fight 1 … and for that first fight, everyone divided between the 3 Knights. Every time after when we Zerged I always quietly wished for that first experience again.

I open with this statement, to make my next point as clear as can be.

I gave cymruvoodoo thumbs up … but it simply wasn’t enough to express my wholehearted agreement with him. It was like he had the words for the feelings I’ve been experiencing the last several days. He said a lot, but I just had to <snip> the following.

“To force players to focus on game mechanics, to institute rigid game limits on the ability of people already in the map to participate feels like it numbs the experience and encourages people to farm the assault knight of their choice rather than beat the event and be part of the story.”

This.

Each successive patch to force a Gamestyle on the population only puts a further exclamation point to this.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

This is one of the reasons rangers have been asking for the ability to run without or actually stow a pet instead of just hiding it waiting for it to pop out at the first sneeze.

As a necro, do my conditions count against me if they are still going when my attunement wears off? As well as for other classes.

(Sorry if some of this is repeated, I tried to edit my previous post but I don’t know if it updated properly, it got stuck and had to quit it)

I forgot to add, while it’s very cool to have fights which require super-organization and are anti-zerg, I’m not sure that the Living Story is the best place to put them. They are great for content like Tequatle and Triple Wurm, which are permanent and give u time to learn, practice, strategize and polish technique. But the LS lasts only for 2 weeks, have different sides to explore, and are supposed, I think, to be accessible to all players. Some people can only play in weekends, some play in hours in which maps are seldom full, it’s unfair to pretend that 150 people are needed in order to succeed at this event; especially in servers which are not particularly populated. Moreover, an event which is key to seeing the final battle with the character which was central to the story for the last year. And an event which drops important items as well. If u don’t do this, you’ll be missing important content, both storywise and loot-wise.

The feeling I get is that in the end you are forced to join a super-top-of-the-notch guild to have a chance, or jump around severs/overflows like a mad person to finally land in an organized or full overflow in order to have a chance at this.

Hope this helps!

Blue still full heals….just did it during current attempt.

Still problems with loot, blue still full heals, so many design flaws…so many code flaws..

Just got done attempting Six Minutes to Knightfall. We got all three of them in under 6 minutes. Lo and behold, to nobody’s surprise, it’s still bugged for the second night in a row.

Just get rid of the achievement, ANet. Nobody will care about 10 measly achievement points.

Ok guys i can confirm that the 6 minute achievement is still not working, don’t bother attempting it just yet

Kabraxis.7801:

Blue still full heals….just did it during current attempt.

Blue will heal if the menders are not stopped as they pass by. Have someone on Mender duty to grab them before they get close to the Blue Knight and it will not heal.

cymruvoodoo.3851:

It was beautiful.

How accurate to the circumstances and how rewarding was it to be a part of that army of PCs charging across the ruined face of a once-loved city? An army to fight Scarlet’s army? An army of righteous (it may be cheesy, but still righteous) wrath, rampaging through the occupying invaders, sledgehammer smashing clockwork alchemical terror-weapons back into scrap iron and making that chunk of civilization a little bit safer? I loved that moment when I first saw the zerg happen and it felt right. This wasn’t a precisely timed commando raid where every group has to get their job right for you all to succeed, this was a hundred bodies or more all saying “we’re done with this, we’re done with finding your tendrils everywhere and trying to fight your plots after they’re already underway. We’re coming for you.” Just to see all those different characters charging away and diving into the water, swimming to the next Assault Knight, kerb-stomping mobs en route as an afterthought was fantastic because it fits the story. That’s what should be happening! People are supposed to be mad about what Scarlet has done, they should be upset to see what this proud city looks like, and they should want to crush everything they find in that zone that looks like Scarlet’s handiwork. To force players to focus on game mechanics, to institute rigid game limits on the ability of people already in the map to participate feels like it numbs the experience and encourages people to farm the assault knight of their choice rather than beat the event and be part of the story.

After having seen the beauty of the righteous zerg it just seems a shame.

Couldn’t agree more.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the story, I love the fights, and I love the sheer epicness of what the Living Story teams have given us.

I feel the underlying game mechanics are thoroughly ruining what the LS teams have done.

They have given us awesome top-notch content. And yet trying to experience it is at least 50% frustration.

Tequatl. Scarlett’s invasions. Marionette. Triple Wurm. Escape from LA. Battle for LA. All these events are great – but they require varying degrees of coordination. Again, the problem is the underlying game mechanics. Large scale coordination tools do not exist in game. The best we’ve got is a blue dorito over someone’s head and a party system for you and your 4 buddies. We have overflow maps that are randomly populated and in the last 3 weeks, you’re just lucky to get into the same one with the other 4 people in your party. The other 100 people you want to play with are spread among an unknown number of maps. A few people in the wrong place, doing their own thing, shouldn’t screw up the experience of a hundred others. People on smaller servers or that play on off-hours should have just as good a chance at doing all content as those on high pop servers in prime time.

We shouldn’t need to “abuse” the party mechanics to ferry people to the same map.

We shouldn’t need out-of-game voice comms to have a pleasant experience.

We shouldn’t need the entire map to participate in an event to win. What happened to dynamic scaling that actually worked?

I realize you’re trying to increase the average skill level of the players. And that’s a good thing for permanent content that we can practice on for months. But they are not learning at anywhere near the speed you’re ratcheting up the difficulty for the 2 week releases. That frustrates everyone who wants to experience it. The average players are frustrated because instructions are very unclear and they keep dying/getting yelled at. The more skilled are frustrated because our success is determined by people who still can’t dodge or do (to us) the simplest things.

Give us the tools we need first. Give us more realistic learning curves next. Then the potential of the LS teams won’t be squandered.

Sariana.2945:

Kabraxis.7801:

Blue still full heals….just did it during current attempt.

Blue will heal if the menders are not stopped as they pass by. Have someone on Mender duty to grab them before they get close to the Blue Knight and it will not heal.

We did…we killed menders when they got near the ramp to go to marriners wp. Blue was at 50% then full healed.

None of their kitten is working as intended and none of their fixes provide adequate solutions.

After doing this and getting the loot when only 2 died and we failed and then again when all 3 died an we succeed i found you still only get the 6 boxes either way yet before when we zerged one at a time you’d get a total of 15 boxes. Shouldnt it reward extra loot for suceeding and getting all 3 down compared to failing and only having one or 2 down?

Arwyn.1675:

After doing this and getting the loot when only 2 died and we failed and then again when all 3 died an we succeed i found you still only get the 6 boxes either way yet before when we zerged one at a time you’d get a total of 15 boxes. Shouldnt it reward extra loot for suceeding and getting all 3 down compared to failing and only having one or 2 down?

While a agree this update sucks and is one of the most bug ridden things I have ever played, this is actually working as it was supposed to. You where never supposed to get drops from all 3 knights as you where never supposed to be zerging them. The fights where supposed to be done by separate groups, and you where supposed to get a drop from the knight you killed.

People from failed knights claimed they got chest when other knight succeeded. That’s nice and motivating.

Haven’t tried the anti-AFK fix; sounds good on paper, but I hope it leaves some space to go out of combat and switch weapons/skills (such as the Portal skill mesmers are using currently to unstuck the constantly falling people; or condi staff to focus with pull for UV-phase).

I do not actually like the “no other knights’ health” thing though. I suppose it was a cut-fix for the empty HP counters, but if you are able to put them back by the next hotfix (the one curing blue HP reset), that would be great.

Or if the HP bar itself is the problem, how about putting available calibration slots for other knights there then? This will loosely serve the main purpose (inform those players who are close to finishing their knight of who needs help). It is not really productive to write % and slots in chat while dodging the AoE.

BTW, having those calibration slots displayed map-wide would be excellent – especially when late for event or if rallying from WP.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

Hahaha. Translation: Necros, sorry we didn’t design this bit for you. We cannot control our minions. Heck, we have one minion that spawns whenever it feels like it (Reanimator trait), and we can’t even get our minions to attack when we want to, let alone get them to not-attack something.

For shame!

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

So what does that mean?

-no elementalists, rifle engineers or melee because they have aoe they cannot turn off.
-no mesmers, necors or rangers because they have pets.
-no professions with conditions, ground target damage over time skills or retaliation because you cannot make them stop dealing damage when your buff runs out.

What does that leave us with? Rifle warrior and scepter guardian?

ThiBash.5634:

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

So what does that mean?

-no elementalists, rifle engineers or melee because they have aoe they cannot turn off.
-no mesmers, necors or rangers because they have pets.
-no professions with conditions, ground target damage over time skills or retaliation because you cannot make them stop dealing damage when your buff runs out.

What does that leave us with? Rifle warrior and scepter guardian?

exactly…. oh wait, aren’t these the most overrated and played classes because they are the ones that seems to fit better this game? yeah they are, and the rest keeps just as limp as it is for the universe of GW2

ThiBash.5634:

So what does that mean?

-no elementalists, rifle engineers or melee because they have aoe they cannot turn off.
-no mesmers, necors or rangers because they have pets.
-no professions with conditions, ground target damage over time skills or retaliation because you cannot make them stop dealing damage when your buff runs out.

What does that leave us with? Rifle warrior and scepter guardian?

Exactly! And this make me angry. Stop designing the game for only warriors and guardians! I am a necromancer dangit! And I have the right to earn these achievements just like any other class. Stop disregarding my class! Stop disregarding the ranger as well, or the engineer.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

ThiBash.5634:

So what does that mean?

-no elementalists, rifle engineers or melee because they have aoe they cannot turn off.
-no mesmers, necors or rangers because they have pets.
-no professions with conditions, ground target damage over time skills or retaliation because you cannot make them stop dealing damage when your buff runs out.

What does that leave us with? Rifle warrior and scepter guardian?

Exactly! And this make me angry. Stop designing the game for only warriors and guardians! I am a necromancer dangit! And I have the right to earn these achievements just like any other class. Stop disregarding my class! Stop disregarding the ranger as well, or the engineer.

Well, guardians have this lovely ability called Virtue of Justice which causes burning on a target. So if it can be failed through conditions (of which I’m not sure if it can, due to the way they phrased it), we have to be careful there as well.

I agree that the other classes need to be given some love. The only thing keeping players from their achieving should be unskillful play, not class abilities and mechanics.

I honsetly don’t get the issue with the In Tune/No More Tricks achievements.

These achievements are way better that e.g. the marionette ones, where you had to fulfill their requrements and then hope for other playsers not to screw up. Here it is (mostly) your own fault if you mess it up.

I did In Tune on my first try on my Engineer with a bomb-build (you know, the one that attacks ~1 second after you press the button, sometimes leaves a pulsating field and also drops a bomb on every dodge).

Here are some tips for In Tune:

• Turn off auto attack
• Always be aware how long the buff lasts
• Disengage when you have 5-10 seconds left
• While you don’t have the buff, just focus on getting the three colours
• As Ranger set you pet to passive
• As Necro don’t slot minions (there are no kills to proc Reanimator)
• As Mesmer shatter your illusions before your buff runs out
• As Engineer don’t slot turrets (in general; except Healing Turret)

No More Tricks is a bit glitchy though, it took me two tries since I didn’t know about the bugged animation. But I’d say its pretty easy if you follow these two tips:

• Don’t walk through the orange fields
• Remember that the scorch marks last longer than their animation (don’t walk through recently vanished marks)
• Also, with one of the recent patches the glitch where you spawn on a mark and get the achievement destroyed instantly is already fixed

It’s strange. The people who are defending the mechanics of this event are the same people upset that some players don’t take the time to learn about all these mechanics….which, until I logged on here and read these forums posts, I had no idea that these were issues. How many other players have no clue, because either the server has no decent commanders who direct the groups, or no one mentions mechanics at all? To the people who run exacting statistics and understand the mathematical formula required to properly trait and equip a toon for each and every event that has ever happened and does happen in the game – do YOU take the time to point this out in a non-condescending fashion? Hell, even a condescending fashion would be welcome on my server (Northern Shiverpeaks). Nobody seems to understand the mechanics of even the Assault Knights, let alone the holograms. In fact, I don’t think our server has made it past the Knights since the 50-man patch.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune

• This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

Bigger, But Not Faster

• This achievement also requires vigilant attention. Watch for the large red Extraction telegraph rings as a warning. Keep your dodges saved for this skill only. A good time to dodge is when you see the Knight jump up into the air; dodge sooner/later than that and you will miss the window and get hit by the Extraction attack.

Is it also my pet’s fault that I can’t get the “bigger, but not faster” achievement? I wasn’t pulled once by the Knight the whole fight, I was there from beginning to end and didn’t get it.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

In Tune
This achievement is also a tricky one, I would recommend you disable your auto attack so that you are precisely controlling when you hit the holograms. Necros, Rangers, Mesmers; watch your minions, pets, clones, and phantasms, their damage counts against you if you are not attuned. Engineers, your turrets fall under that category as well. For all professions, I would recommend crafting your build based solely on damage your character does and not use any summons or sources of outside damage. Again, attention is critical, always be aware of your current attunement and the attunement of the hologram you are fighting.

Kilaelya.1420:

My main is a ranger. The only class that HAS to have a pet in combat (it can’t be hidden). I swear I’ve dodged correctly for “No More Tricks, Scarlet”, but if my pet gets hit does that count against me? Like for the Canach mission?

I should probably just switch to a different character for this.

Why would Anet make an achievement that you have to change your build for? What happened to being able to play as you like? I can’t stand this LW release.

Rengaru.4730:

I honsetly don’t get the issue with the In Tune/No More Tricks achievements.

• As Ranger set you pet to passive
• As Necro don’t slot minions (there are no kills to proc Reanimator)
• As Mesmer shatter your illusions before your buff runs out
• As Engineer don’t slot turrets (in general; except Healing Turret)

You do realize that while for some classes the achievement might be just ‘challenging’ or ‘requires more alertness’, for others its totally biased to the class mechanics itself.

It’s a open-debate but I don’t agree that every time a new event comes out, some class has to restruscture their build because say, assault knights are anti-conditions, or because a achievement gets quadrupled in difficulty because due to your class being forced to have a pet – ranger.

Anet can make these achievs, but at least have the foresight of making them not triggered by stupid things like built-in class mechanics.

I’ll also mention that for No more tricks, the lane fading out but still being there albeit invisible seems idiotic.

This LW update so far:
bugs
bug “fixes”
balance changes
mechanic changes
new bugs caused by mechanic changes

Seriously, every time I join this fight, I have to consult the forum and patch notes just to figure out what is going on.

People only have two weeks to play this content. A large part of the player base has given up due to all this crap. If you want the players to actually experience the “Killing Scarlett” content, its time to remove some roadblocks.

At this point, you should scrap all the nonsense and simplify these fights. Let people zerg the Fem-bots and let people do 100% damage. You might even want to nerf the hologram fight a little bit.

Stop trying to “balance” and start removing roadblocks.

the basis on latest patch is that people attending the knights kill even will be 50 at each and will not die/fall in any circumstance – flawed assumption
people will die, DPS will diminish, event will fail

to have 50 people constantly DPSing the knight(s), there should be more than 50 people at every knight
why? for the simple fact that extra players can an shall replace the fallen, get buffed, start DPS

I still see people that don’t know how to evade the knight’s pull, worst of all, I’ve seen commanders not knowing
and hell, I play this game for about 2 months, but I try to keep myself informed

to my knowledge, on the server I play (Fissure of Woe), we haven’t killed the knights since latest anti-zerg patch(es)

Kaderin.7584:

It’s a open-debate but I don’t agree that every time a new event comes out, some class has to restruscture their build because say, assault knights are anti-conditions, or because a achievement gets quadrupled in difficulty because due to your class being forced to have a pet – ranger.

As an ex-Ranger I feel you, but I’ll be blunt and give you the same advice someone gave me 6 months ago: “Shelve your Ranger untill they get fixed for PvE”

Belive me, I really know how Rangers feel with those kind of achievements (I did “Lair Light-foot” on my Ranger) and I think the condition-reflect mechanic in this environment that is already zerker dominated is extremely questionable at best.

Still, if you want to do this achivement on your Ranger my advice is: “Set your pet to passive”

Kaderin.7584:

I’ll also mention that for No more tricks, the lane fading out but still being there albeit invisible seems idiotic.

And I don’t think anyone else thinks differently. But it is there untill it is fixed (if ever), gotta have to make the best out of it…

Six Minutes to Knightfall achievement is so messed up right now.

I’m lucky that I’m on a fairly large server, so we are able to pull the numbers, but best time I’ve seen there is 10 mins. Last night guested on Desolation (the first server to get wurm kill) and they did about 8 or 9 mins in a fairly organised run.

They should just accept this was a badly thought out piece of content, nerf the knights hp by 30% and reduce their toughness.
OR they need to change the knights so they’re in the conditions weaken them state for the majority of the fight, and switch to the other state for short durations.

Temporary content achievements should not be aimed at the biggest servers and guilds only. You want to make it this hard? Make it permanent and I’ll stop complaining. I thought Unfriendly Skies was bad, but this is 30 times worse

I have some suggestions regarding the achievements…

No more tricks, Scarlet: Add simple red edges around scorch marks in the Prime Hologram battle.

In Tune: Prime Holograms should be entirely invulnerable to non-attuned players and it shouldn’t count as a fail unless they’re hit by an incorrectly attuned player.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

Thank you for your continued reports, I’d like to update that we are currently working on issues with:

• The ‘In Tune’ achievement
• The map wide Health Display for the three Assault Knights
• The ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’ achievement
• Assault Knight rewards

TY for again updating this content. You are all trying and it’s appreciated. May I suggest, JUST MAKE IT EASIER! Honestly, this isn’t supposed to be an “Us vs Them” mentality between the Dev’s and players. Stop trying so hard to make the events fail. Difficulty, in itself, doesn’t add anything to the story.

This should have been an immersed living story ending. Though an extremely high percentage of the attention to and take away from the living story revolves around game mechanics, bugs, and failure rates. The forums should be filled with conversations about the story but, aren’t.

Also, as a WvW player, updating during reset night to tweak preexisting living story content is never appreciated. Not all siege survives updates.

May I add, I do not feel Mesmer illusions should be getting pulled by the Knights.

Also, what the heck is pulling us down in the water??? This is on the east side of the drill and it’s not the Kraits. If a dev added this to just to troll people swimming from Red Knight to Green Knight, that’s going too far. When there isn’t 50 at each, we have to run it! Grrr….

Can we please just remove the stupid condition reflect mechanic from the knights so that all players can contribute, and the achievement actually becomes feasible on normal servers?

I get that someone’s really proud of that mechanic, but basically saying “no” to all non-zerker builds is the worst idea I’ve seen in the game since combat speed.

I get that people afking for achievements is a bad thing, but I think this is a bit much. Scarlet’s laser will target directly behind the Dynamic holo fight. I wish I got a better screenshot of it, but you can still see the telegraph from the laser.

Also, during the micro trinity fight, it appears the micro holos are able to recover hp after getting killed. They still seem capable of attacking. But like the laser, I didn’t get a good screenshot of it.

Edit: I should add the mirco holo issue did not prevent the event from continuing.

I don’t normally post on the forums, but I’m kinda kittened about an achievement. I was going for the No More Tricks, Scarlet achievement, I wasn’t hit by any lasers or lingering effects, towards the end of the fight the group was fighting the last phase and we kept getting hit by the cannon. Reading on the patch notes I saw that you can’t leave combat during the fight to get the achievement. Well I got forced out of combat twice during the fight… I stuck around, treaded lightly and avoided the lasers, but last phase with the cannon falling down on me put me into OOC… What the heck.

I love gws 1 and clocked thousands of hours with it and sometimes wish it could be updated with the same combat mechanics as gws2 and I would go back and replay it in a heartbeat. Gws2 has had it’s moments for me where I’ve fallen in love with places and parts of the story and the thrill of finding something in a secret little cave. I’ve clocked over 3 thousand hours in gws2 already. I guess the point I’m trying to make is I’m a fan who overlooks the minor niggling things as I enjoy the world that has been created for me. HOWEVER for the first time ever I find myself researching what other mmo’s are out there that might be worth considering looking at. I’m not a casual player, this is my game, I play it everyday. Every single day. But this event has left such a bad taste in my mouth it has me questioning my future with this game. I don’t like this feeling. I’ve invested money in the gem store more than I should have or ever intended to and this is what I get? An event that it’s so fundamentally broken that at this stage since launch of the event I’ve managed to get in to the holo’s part of the event TWICE! My friends who don’t want to even attempt to do lions arch any more and they haven’t been through to the end. This event is the single most disappointment since ‘the lost shores’ and every one was able to forgive that event as it was when the living story was in its infancy. This is supposed to be the penultimate season finale of the living story so what is the excuse for how abismal it is? This is the first time I’ve not sung your praises to everyone I know in fact the opposite, this event makes me embarrassed to be a fan and the amount of time it’s taken to recognise the player out cry is extremely disappointing. Gws2 I put you on notice. Come back from this disaster with something amazing and win back my confidence and trust. I don’t want to leave you.

DeWolfe.2174:

Also, what the heck is pulling us down in the water??? This is on the east side of the drill and it’s not the Kraits.

It’s the drill itself. You get too close, you get pulled in. Get even closer, you die.
(the effect is a bit bigger than the wave visual would suggest)

Autumn Frazee.3158:

We are certainly not ignoring the forums, the lack of red posts is because I have been running around trying to get the issues you report fixed as quickly as possible and I have not always had the time to follow up on your threads and let you know!

Because writing “we hear you, we’re checking it, stay tuned for more info, sorry no ETA for now” is so time-consuming. I appreciate you are looking into this and trying to do your work the best you can, but please do not resort to silly excuses.

I’ve been observing LA participation, compared to last LA event, it seems most are just discouraged and have given up. They only go for bosses and don’t even bother with the knights anymore lol.

The fact that the scaling feels so wrong — it feels as if it’s stilll scaled to 50 even though there’s only about 20-30 people in one knight. Great job on this LS. Good luck on the next.

When a large group of players is fighting the Hologram, they should simply win that fight. They should not lose the fight, and have wasted over an hour, just because the timer ran out, and they weren’t DPS’ing enough. DPS checks are terrible!

The main reason a lot of people have stopped doing this final battle, is because every single frickin’ time they waste over an hour on it, only to have the stupid timer run out. They get no reward for their efforts, even though they did nothing wrong. Just a large waste of time it all is. They might as well have stayed in LA and farmed champions.

^ That is bad design.

sry, maybe u wrote it before, but to many pages to read x.X

“Six Minutes to Knightfall”

is this achivment still bugged? i heard from many ppl that some servers managed to kill them in 4-5 mins, but nobody got the achivment.

“Six Minutes to Knightfall” is still bugged, in case the devs did not notice….