Guild Wars 2

I recently got back into the game, I’ve made it to Auric Basin, trying to level to get my Updraft mastery to progress the story, but it’s proving to be almost IMPOSSIBLE because there’s NO ONE doing the events! Is there some alternative way other than events on this map to progress?

It has taken me over 5 hours to get to 50% of my exp bar today. Oh and I just realized I’ve been training the wrong mastery. I’m at 0% on the updraft mastery.

Ouch.

You don’t have to stay in AB to progress that track, if you don’t want. Any HoT map is sufficient. Maybe see events are getting done in one of the others?

Or check LFG to see if there are taxis going for active AB maps?

I’ve checked the other maps I have access to(Tangled Depths and Viridian Brink), but they are even less active than Auric Basin. I’ll check the LFG, I think it was bugged earlier when I was checking for dungeon runs(everything showed up empty), thanks for the tip.

The map you joined was probably newly created. You can get into situations where you’re stuck in dead maps where new players rarely join because as people leave the previously full maps, new joiners are sent there instead of yours. Since the previous maps never actually empty out, you’re never given the opportunity to volunteer. You could try logging out, waiting ~10 seconds and logging back in to see if you can get into a different one, or taxi.

Alternatively, if you want experience, do daily adventures. They can be a major source of experience if you can manage gold. If you’re efficient, they’re the best source of experience for the time it takes.

Sayrir.4609:

I think it was bugged earlier when I was checking for dungeon runs(everything showed up empty), thanks for the tip.

Lol, not bugged. The dungeon running is gone man. Barely anyone does it anymore. LFG will always be empty for it.

As for your mastery stuff. You need to taxi into organized maps. You can’t just trust you will be put into a decent map.

Sayrir.4609:

I’ve checked the other maps I have access to(Tangled Depths and Viridian Brink), but they are even less active than Auric Basin. I’ll check the LFG, I think it was bugged earlier when I was checking for dungeon runs(everything showed up empty), thanks for the tip.

Sorry to break it to you. You were not bugged. No one does dungeons period, at all. The rewards were nerfed, so you will only find the odd story or maybe a path. As for the No events. you have to look for a “AB Pylon” or “AB t4” map in the LFG. If you don’t see one then you are out of luck. As for Tangled depth it reaches T4 like 30 minutes after the meta event and everyone afk/leaves the map until the meta event is ready again.

HOT shows the severe limitations of the much vaunted megaserver system, a game that relies on a taxi mechanism to get enough players together in order to do the only content available in an expansion (the HOT zone metas) is simply a lousy design.

Oh yes, and hope you don’t get suckered by the griefers who advertise “DS 3 comms taxi” and use it only to find the map’s empty and no commanders at all, they do that for the ‘fun’ apparently.

Check the event timers and go to the one that is closest to its event; also do LFG.

I actually got into a good map now in Verdant Brink. I can’t get to many of the events efficiently because my glider training isn’t high enough, and some I can’t reach at all(including some hero points) because I don’t have updraft training.

Found an adventure(I had seen this earlier, but it wasn’t working because it was ’’locked’’), worked on it until silver(actually first proper exp in hours), then it becomes locked because night time. Tells me I need to help clear the ‘’giant vines to the north’’ to unlock it. Proceed north, no ‘’giant vines’’ anywhere. K.

My head kitteng hurts now.

Kerin.9125:

HOT shows the severe limitations of the much vaunted megaserver system, a game that relies on a taxi mechanism to get enough players together in order to do the only content available in an expansion (the HOT zone metas) is simply a lousy design.

Oh yes, and hope you don’t get suckered by the griefers who advertise “DS 3 comms taxi” and use it only to find the map’s empty and no commanders at all, they do that for the ‘fun’ apparently.

That is not a problem with megaserver. That is a problem with bad event design.

Sayrir.4609:

I actually got into a good map now in Verdant Brink. I can’t get to many of the events efficiently because my glider training isn’t high enough, and some I can’t reach at all(including some hero points) because I don’t have updraft training.

Found an adventure(I had seen this earlier, but it wasn’t working because it was ’’locked’’), worked on it until silver(actually first proper exp in hours), then it becomes locked because night time. Tells me I need to help clear the ‘’giant vines to the north’’ to unlock it. Proceed north, no ‘’giant vines’’ anywhere. K.

My head kitteng hurts now.

Unfortunately, all I can say is “it gets better.” It’s an unpleasant experience grind for a while, until you can get all your mobility masteries, including Itzel poison, speed mushrooms, and advanced gliding.

For now, you might do better staying on the eastern side of Verdant Brink, since the Pale Reaver and Itzel outpost events are out there.

And like Healix said, if you can find an open adventure that doesn’t suck, hit that one up daily. The scrapyard one on the south end (I think?) of VB isn’t too painful, a fairly easy Gold rank, which also gives to mastery points.

You need to check LFG for taxis into meta events to find active maps. Finding an active map otherwise is unlikely. You can check the event timers on the wiki to see when the metas for each event will be starting.

If your goal is to gain as much experience as fast as possible I would recommend making your way through tangled depths to get to dragon’s stand. With multiple boosters, 15% exp food & utility, fireworks, etc you can level up your masteries extremely quickly there, and get some nice loot as well.

Rauderi.8706:

Sayrir.4609:

I actually got into a good map now in Verdant Brink. I can’t get to many of the events efficiently because my glider training isn’t high enough, and some I can’t reach at all(including some hero points) because I don’t have updraft training.

Found an adventure(I had seen this earlier, but it wasn’t working because it was ’’locked’’), worked on it until silver(actually first proper exp in hours), then it becomes locked because night time. Tells me I need to help clear the ‘’giant vines to the north’’ to unlock it. Proceed north, no ‘’giant vines’’ anywhere. K.

My head kitteng hurts now.

Unfortunately, all I can say is “it gets better.” It’s an unpleasant experience grind for a while, until you can get all your mobility masteries, including Itzel poison, speed mushrooms, and advanced gliding.

For now, you might do better staying on the eastern side of Verdant Brink, since the Pale Reaver and Itzel outpost events are out there.

And like Healix said, if you can find an open adventure that doesn’t suck, hit that one up daily. The scrapyard one on the south end (I think?) of VB isn’t too painful, a fairly easy Gold rank, which also gives to mastery points.

“giant vines” sounds like the Salvage Pit.

Drone Race in TD is also very easy but also requires pushing the event chain as well.

the megaserver prompt is driving me nuts, especially when i’m with a group and it pulls me to an empty server lol….,maybe that could be an optional thing ? where if a player finds himself on a seemingly empty server, you click “Find active server” so it’s not constantly popping up ?

but for harder group stuff, what i usually do is throw up a tag, and announce what boss i found, usually end up with a nice party that way since most people are roaming looking for things to do too. “Pug Powah!” when it’s over, i drop the tag and look for the next thing i want to do….or if i find a group on my solo path.

Also, some champs can be easily solo’d by positioning yourself, sometimes there’s a branch or a rock you can climb on and the champ in question only does ground attacks.

it would be way way way more fun if there were more people active, but places like dragon stand are simply unreasonable for one player to do anything other than run from bush to bush hiding and grinding toxic pods.

a lot of the game mechanics are designed to be profitable for groups of people, without those people, some areas are pure insanity and a money sink from all the teleporting you will have to do from constant dying for roaming solo.

masteries, experience and hero points wouldn’t be such a big deal if the population was bigger, i see hp trains all the time on active servers…they just aren’t always active.

i think anet needs a smaller population mode, and keep this mode for when it fills up again. I get it, but ive seen both sides of the picture now, it’s a rush with a group, it’s stressful when alone, not a fun challenging stressful.

Frankly, I’ve had no issues with levelling but I am out of mastery points and I’m not sure where to get more. Do I need to re-run through the story or how are other people getting mastery points these days?

You go into the LFG window and look for the word taxi then find AB or Auric Basin taxis. What time zone are you in? Most times of day should have some taxi groups going throughout the day.

yeah, the mastery points is also stressing me out. The things i’m seeing as requirements are like finishing entire game map, check out every new element they added to game and score silver or gold, or build an entire collection from things that will take me 6 years to get in casual play…i dont want to play fractals, but apparently i have to. what I want to play is wvw, and just have masteries to do stuff when I’m not in wvw …apparently i can’t play how i want, which in a way doesn’t even matter anymore because wvw is pretty much dead at this point.

serious, at this point, i simply enjoy the art and just enjoy gliding around in it, i’ve really lowered my expectations because it’s just a game, it’s paid for and better than watching the presidential debates.

It was a bit of a challenge to get all the masteries, but it really didn’t take that long other than a few very frustrating adventures. I certainly don’t feel I had to do a lot of grinding, but I did burn through all the experience boosters I had. Doing DS with full experience boost makes quite short work of leveling up.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Frankly, I’ve had no issues with levelling but I am out of mastery points and I’m not sure where to get more. Do I need to re-run through the story or how are other people getting mastery points these days?

In your achievement panel, look for the items that have mastery symbol marks next to them. (green for HoT, red for core Tyria)
But in general, yes, you’ll have to do story several times. Especially the tasks that are obnoxious to perform or obtuse in their description.

hot hype is wearing off, this is why people usually do achievements during the first two months of the new contents.

I can find decently populated maps on the weekends, but that’s about it at this point.

Sad when on a Friday night the game is empty.

I recently returned; it’s been entertaining enough but I have to say, there seem to be a lot fewer players in any one zone and there seems to be serious deflation in the trading post… a sign of declining players I think