Guild Wars 2

I’ll keep this short. There’s a ghost in this picture. Find it. Yes, its up.

Now, consider that you’ve been told roughly where this ghost is, and which scan to use to find it. You’ve used that scan, but nothing has happened. (No, the mysterious/suspicious object did NOT appear even when using the correct scan. Why? Apparently, the mysterious/suspicious object does not appear if the ghost is currently active.)

I found it just fine, creepy ephemeral body and all. Are you sure its not a video card or an eyeball problem?

Do you see the ghost in this picture? Because its right where it should be and you can see it if you know exactly where it is.

Its not a video card problem.

after looking at the picture, i have decided one final statement for you, why the hell do you use the v button?

Follow up. There was another topic on problems with this event. I would have posted there, but that was closed. I’ll just stick with my observations and some suggestions.

1. The ghosts are too transparent and/or lack enough ghost fog to make them visible. As is pretty obvious in the picture (look for the slightly whiter patch of ground over one players shoulder.)

2. Not enough feedback from using the scanner. Notably if the ghost is already active, then nothing at all happens when you use the scanner.

3. The use of four buttons on the scanner seems contrived. Since you can’t tell in advance which scan will be helpful, and since you may well be attacked, the safe strategy is to use all four scans at once. (E.g. should the bog be scanned for etherial, water, air or corporeal? There’s no obvious reason to use one over the other, and if you get attacked while searching (almost certain), then you’ll lose any extra charges you have if you go into combat. So why not just have one scan button? (However, I’ll note that that I wasn’t sure that this was the right approach though – since it seemed possible using one scan hid the results of the previous scan.)

4. Button 5 is confusing. It looks like a chain skill but it isn’t. since the tool tip gives you both ‘mild’ and ‘strong’ versions, which is accurate? And when should you use button 5? All the time? Answer none of the time: because its not actually a skill button – making this the ONLY instance of a non-skill skill button that I’ve seen in the game.

5. The scanner is used to reveal other things — though there is no in-game explanation of this. Even more confusingly, these other things can be in the very area where you’re looking for ghosts. E.g. for old lions arch, I found one hot spot (the pylon), which someone else triggered, then I triggered. And which then was still ‘hot’ even though it was now (apparently?) untriggerable. Just to the side of that hot spot was another hotspot (roughly under/around the broken aqueduct — I spent about twenty minutes in that spot trying to find the next ghost — only to find nothing.

(By the way, confusion in the opposite direction – a haunted door popped up on me while I was using the scanner, so I thought for a while that the scanner was also needed to find haunted doors.)

6. The ‘hot’ areas are very large, especially considering the other problems mentioned here. E.g. the whole bog area seems to be hot.

7. Part of the point of this seems to be a scavenger hunt. But the problem with a limited duration hunt like this is that you can’t really hide information when there are a bunch of other players running after the same thing — most of whom already know what the answer is. So instead of finding the objects yourself, you end up just going into the general area and then looking for where other players are clustered around. Which make it not a ‘find the hidden object’ event, but rather ‘find the cluster of players’ event.

So overall: a frustrating and not-fun quest.

I think that part of what is happening here is that ANet is still working out some of the ‘syntax’ for a quest like this.
1. If I had been given a quest like this in wow, I would have a quest item which I would drop onto my action bar. They sort of do that here, but its not very convenient, since you have to go back to your inventory every time you want to do a scan.
2. Also a wow version of the quest probably would have talked to me more about where various things are. But GW2’s approach is to talk to the player less (e.g. NOT to say ‘Go to Gendaraan Fields and knock on three haunted doors.’ While GW2’s approach has a lot of advantages, its stumbling a bit when it really need to communicate more information. E.g. I should somehow be given more information on the scanner (e.g. that i can find things other than the quest ghosts) and more information on doors (namely that they only appear in certain zones).

Other than that, some concrete suggestions:
1. Don’t make ghosts so darned invisible!
2. If you’re going to use quest items like this, find some way to make them easier to use. (I shouldn’t have to continually go to my inventory to activate it.)
3. Finder type devices like this really should give some clearer feedback that they’ve found something. If someone else has recently found the desired object, that shouldn’t prevent me from getting ‘found it’ feedback.
4. Don’t use a skill slot for a non-skill. (Unless you do that frequently enough that it becomes a normal game syntax.)
5. If the point of the quest is a scavenger hunt, then make the ‘found it’ location vary randomly between players. Otherwise it becomes a ‘follow the group’ quest rather than a ‘find the object’ quest.
6. If you need to get more information to the players (e.g. that haunted doors are in some zones, but not others), find some way to do it. Players should not have to ‘google it’ to know how to play the event.

PS: The Ghost. Nameplate is only visible because I’ve moused over her. Its not apparent from this picture, but her model does become visible when she’s moused over.

in these situations, try to use the alt or ctrl key(cant remember which one is friendly npc’s) it wil show there names of nearby players and npc’s
hope this helps in the future

The whole bog area seems to be “hot”…. the bog area is also knows to be an area that’s exceedingly close to the underworld (portals anyone?)… Geeeee… I wonder why this area is hot for spectral readings?

I guess I am not the only one scratching their head on this one.

Frankly I found the quest description confusing and unclear. Points for “mysterious” I will give it. Perhaps it was intended this way. If so then there will be players like myself that just won’t understand this quest and therefore never be able to finish it. (Fair enough, this is a mmo, no hand holding and I accept that. I love how Anet tries to challenge us more than other MMO Devs do.).

I have tried the scanner in LA as per the instruction in the mail I received when I got the quest, I have yet to see anything when I scan and the results have always been “mild” which is what they always are no matter where I scan… so I read that as a negative. I will try again today and see if I can scan when no one else has done so in that area for a few moments. Thanks for tip.

LeEitge.3720:

in these situations, try to use the alt or ctrl key(cant remember which one is friendly npc’s) it wil show there names of nearby players and npc’s

That’s true and I tried that briefly, before going to options and turning npcs to always on. However, it shouldn’t be nececessary to use obscure interface settings or key actions to find the ghosts. This is a design problem.

NightShadow.1429:

The whole bog area seems to be “hot”…. the bog area is also knows to be an area that’s exceedingly close to the underworld (portals anyone?)… Geeeee… I wonder why this area is hot for spectral readings?

Not sure what your point is. Godslost Swamp which has many more portals to the underworld isnt hot at all. Neither are the Haunted Doors. If the logic is that ethereal locations should be hot, then these places should be. They’re not.

Gardavil.1762:

I guess I am not the only one scratching their head on this one.

Frankly I found the quest description confusing and unclear. Points for “mysterious” I will give it. Perhaps it was intended this way. If so then there will be players like myself that just won’t understand this quest and therefore never be able to finish it. (Fair enough, this is a mmo, no hand holding and I accept that. I love how Anet tries to challenge us more than other MMO Devs do.).

I have tried the scanner in LA as per the instruction in the mail I received when I got the quest, I have yet to see anything when I scan and the results have always been “mild” which is what they always are no matter where I scan… so I read that as a negative. I will try again today and see if I can scan when no one else has done so in that area for a few moments. Thanks for tip.

Quick tips:

• If the ghost is already up, then you dont need the scanner at all. However, the ghost is LA is nearly invisible in many circumstances. Also, if the ghost is already up, using the scanner has no effect at all.
  —* Listen for her emotes as people click on her. Typical young girl emotes (despite being a ghost).
  —* Go to Options: General and check “Show all NPC Names”. That will at least show her name plate.
  —* She is close to the questgiver and doesn’t move.
• If she is NOT active, then activate the scanner and use Ethereal scan. This will reveal a mysterious or suspicious object. Click on that to make her show up. She will stay active for a minute or two.
• You’ll need candy corn to activate the scanner. If you dont have any corn then the scanner doesn’t activate (but also unfotunately does NOT give you a message such as “Needs more candy corn.”
  —* Candy corn can be found in nodes. On the map they (confusingly) look like minining nodes, but the actual node looks like a big candy corn. They’re typically found in the countryside, and farm fields in particular.

• Button 5 on the scanner isn’t a skill only shows you if something might be nearby. Its not a skill, so clicking it does nothing.
  —* If its ‘Mild’ then there’s nothing nearby. Don’t scan.
  —* If its strong, then you can scan. Scanning reveals mysterious/suspicious objects nearby. But these arent particularly large and may be hard to see. And the scanning area is large, you may well see nothing. Clicking on these reveals a ghost, or something else which will drop Tot (trick or treat) bags.
  —* Mysterious objects that drop Tot bags only do so once per day… unless you’re in overflow. (Unless they fixed this.)
  —* Mysterious objects that reveal ghosts will appear as long as the ghost is not currently up.

That’s my quick (and possibly slightly erroneous) understanding of how these things work.