Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

Sadly we’re not going to be able to launch the new episode “The Head of the Snake” on its intended release date today.

We were hit hard by the Seattle area storm and resulting power outage. We’ve been working to bring everything back online as quickly as possible, but after a series of setbacks, it’s become clear that it won’t be today.

Please accept our apology. We’re going to keep at it through the night and hope to be able to launch tomorrow, but obviously we can’t promise anything.

Mo

Greenleaf Elder.7429:

Power outages are still a major problem in the area. It’s amazing they’re able to work at all.

Matze.6791:

It’s not the weather alone. US infrastructure sucks for decades already. In Seattle they seem to have outages all the time.

You know, I love the Pacific Northwest, but what you said really struck me. I’ve lived in another state and another country on a completely different continent, but never have I lived where there are so many bloomin’ power outages! I don’t know what it is, except that the Puget Sound region gets a lot of wind and we have (thank goodness, it’s what drew me here!) a lot of trees. So a branch goes down in Puyallup (try saying that if you aren’t a PNW resident ) and a house in Renton or Issaquah (try that one, too, just for fun ) can find itself in darkness.

Anyway, I know this is off topic, but don’t worry, I’m not directly working on the patch, so my posting to mention our region’s electrical anomalies isn’t taking away from the update!

This is about the dev chat, not the release of the update. We wanted to adjust the day for the dev chat so that we can get the most devs possible involved. The work to get the release ready continues, and will continue until it is out.

As you’re probably aware, the ArenaNet studio experienced a weather-related power outage that impacted the release timing of our February 7 update. The team is working hard on getting the build in order and out the door as soon as possible.

In light of the situation, we’re going to postpone our Reddit dev celebration. It’ll take place on February 8th in the afternoon Pacific Time. We look forward to seeing you in the game when the build goes live, and in the celebration tomorrow!

Ayrilana.1396:

She’s likely keeping it locked until the update releases otherwise you’ll have random posts that don’t have anything to do with the actual thread topic.

Similar to how Amazon locks down reviews for products that have not been released yet. Kind of hard to give reviews for something that isn’t available just as its kind of difficult to give feedback on something that hasn’t been released yet.

Exactly. We had half a dozen off topic posts, and who wants to read through those to get to the real deal? I locked it and will unlock when the episode is live. Thanks for figuring that out and posting.

You guys hit the nail on the head: A power failure has a reverberating effect on things. It takes some time to power everything up after a outage, and the time lost in inaccessibility to the servers and the build can roll out to cause delays longer than the simple period of the outage. By that, I mean, if the power goes out for 10 minutes, recovery takes longer than that 10 minutes.

The team is continuing to work on this and thanks for your patience. (And your chocolate )

This sounds like a bug. Thanks for the heads up, and we will take a look.

Sorry, I don’t think there are any plans to release the update notes until the update is live. But honestly, considering how s-l-o-w-l-y the forums are loading now, they may not bear the additional strain brought about by offering a preview!

As we’ve said, there was an outage yesterday and we’ll have the release of Episode 4 and all the other update goodness out to you as soon as we can.

I’ve placed the official feedback thread this time in the GW2 Discussion sub-forum. It’s a bit of an experiment as to whether it’s best to have it in the main forum that folks visit, or in this more purpose-built forum for Living World.

Find the new thread here. Thanks for contributing!

Might be a good time to remind you that if you didn’t “bank” Episode 3, do so now, before Episode 4 launches.

Mea.5491:

They’re 50 mins late.

Please remember that releases are not on a set schedule by a specific hour. While an individual forum member might point to their anticipation of a specific time for a release, in fact we announce a day and not an hour.

So please hold tight and we’ll see you in Head of the Snake soon.

Pssst — just a reminder: Please don’t post until you’ve played.

[[This message will self-destruct later, in an attractive, bloodstone-colored puff of smoke.]]

Hey all,

As you know, Episode 4 of Living World Season 3 — Head of the Snake — releases today. As always, communications team members will be gathering feedback from players on all aspects of the release and will share it with the entire studio. Members of the dev team also will be reading your thoughts, as well.

This is our official feedback thread, as we’ve created for each episode this season. And as normal, we’d like to use this thread to gather your high-level input. Sooo…

After you have played through the episode, please share your overall thoughts on Episode 4.

Please keep it to 50 words or fewer in this thread, offering your top-level overall impression here. More detailed analysis or feedback would be more than welcome in alternative threads and you can rest assured such comments will also be read. I hasten to add there’s no need to rush through the content, we’ll be reading this thread for a week or more.

Thank you for sharing, and I hope you have a great time in the game!

02/08/2017 – February 8th Release Notes
LIVING WORLD
The Head of the Snake
Caudecus Beetlestone’s depraved White Mantle faction continues its efforts to bring Kryta to heel. Her Royal Majesty, Queen Jennah of Kryta, requests your presence in Divinity’s Reach—help her root out corruption in the Ministry before crisis strikes.

Lunar New Year
The celebration has ended in Divinity’s Reach, but we wish you good luck and fortune all year!
New Legendary Rifle: The HMS Divinity
A new legendary weapon is now available. Speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch to learn how to craft the new rifle precursor Man o’ War and forge the new legendary rifle, the HMS Divinity.
World Polish

• Players can no longer open more Great Exalted Chests and Grand Exalted Chests by changing map instances after completing the meta-event in Auric Basin.
• Several items involved in the legendary precursor collections can now only be crafted once per account. If these items are misplaced, replacements can be purchased from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs in Lion’s Arch.
• Fixed an issue that incorrectly caused several supply carts in Gendarran Fields to appear lootable when destroyed.

Bloodstone Fen

• Updrafts have been added to the Cavern of Unseen Lights to aid in Bloodstone Crystal Node gathering.
• Decreased the rate at which jade constructs drain bloodstone stalagmites, effectively increasing the duration of the associated events.
• Reduced intersections between ley lines and unbound magic nodes or magical storms.

Thaumanova Rework
The Thaumanova fractal was lacking in many areas, so it has undergone a significant rework. Changes aim to reduce frustration; improve theming, messaging, and story presentation; and generally make the fractal feel more epic and believable. At tier 4, the duration of the fractal should be a bit shorter, and the overall difficulty should be slightly lower while still being challenging.

General

• The audio of the fractal has received numerous improvements.
• Server performance has been slightly optimized.
• Players will now have to complete all four colliders, regardless of scale.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the checkpoint to be reset at the beginning.
• Fixed numerous minor bugs.

Main Hall
The Inquest are fighting for survival against endless hordes.

• Replaced all existing spawns with new ones and added many more.
• Removed all existing portals and replaced them with new ones that spawn via scripted events rather than player proximity.
• Portals no longer pull in players.
• The “Clear out the skritt defending the central control panel” event has been replaced by a new event.
• New dialogue scenes have been added.
• New AI has been added to the Inquest to help them fight more intelligently.
• Jump pads have been added to allow rapid transit between the center ring and the outer rooms.
• The liquid in the lower area no longer applies burning.
• Moved a Mistlock Singularity from the dormitory to a convenient location.

Subject 6 Lab
The Subject 6 encounter retains the same core mechanics, but failing to kill a couple of blue oozes is no longer essentially a reset. Additional scaling has also been added.

• Improved the intro scene.
• Reworked the Subject 6 Clinging Acid attack to be a bouncing AoE.
• Blue ooze will now heal the boss for 6% instead of 25%.
• Blue-ooze health has been reduced by 33%.
• Markers have been added to all oozes to make them more visible.
• Oozes will now instantly heal the boss when they get close, instead of pausing.
• Stronger gold oozes now spawn at 75%, 50%, and 25% at tiers 3 and 4.
• All oozes now die when the boss is defeated.

Dormitory

• Aatxe have been replaced by more interesting enemies.
• Some dialogue has changed.
• Various small bugs have been fixed.
• Added an objective timer.
• Increased the amount of time players have to save Chibb.

Repulsor Lab
The repulsor lab was particularly frustrating for new groups, as it lacked any clear direction and was incredibly punishing. It is now a stealth-based encounter, and the mechanics are clear.

• Reworked repulsor turret projectiles.
  • Reduced the hit box and switched to an effect to match the size.
  • Replaced blowout with a 0.5-second stun.
  • Switched to scaling, health-percentage-based damage.
  • Projectiles will now only hit players.
• Reworked patrol golems.
  • Fixed numerous pathing issues.
  • Switched the aggro mechanic over to a small visibility circle indicated by an effect. Golems will fixate for 15 seconds on any player who enters.
  • Golems have been upgraded to champion rank.
  • Golems will walk at tiers 1 and 2.
  • Golems now die when the event succeeds.
  • Deleted the stationary golem at the first console.
• Improved consoles and barriers.
  • Consoles may no longer be interacted with through walls.
  • Consoles are now numbered on the minimap.
  • Shields are now disabled at the end of the event.
• Safety Shield now has a longer cooldown but cannot overheat.
• Safety Shield’s Repulsor Bolt skill is now instant, and it will instantly break a golem’s defiance bar.
• Safety Shields now no longer use the staff idle animation.
• Getting downed in the repulsor lab will teleport you to the safety-shield room.
• Succeeding at the event will cleanse immobilize on everyone in the room.
• Consoles can no longer be interacted with after the event succeeds.

Cooling Chamber
The cooling chamber was a bit too easy to solo, and it had little emphasis on the cooling rods. Now it is more rewarding of teamwork, while one may still solo it on some professions.

• Cooling rods now have a Heat Shield skill that will block heat damage in a radius.
• Heat damage in the room has increased.
• Cooling rods further reduce heat damage in the room when placed in the Cooling Rod Receptacle. They also create a permanent shield at the receptacle.
• Switched to scaling, health-percentage-based damage.
• A golem will retrieve any cooling rods dropped in the room.
• Cooling Rod Receptacles have gained a map marker.
• A moving flame wall that can be dodged has been added to the room.

Thaumanova Anomaly
The Anomaly boss has numerous attacks that have either no tell or are very difficult to see and react to in the effect soup. The fight can take longer than it should due to high boss health and the fact that players constantly have to spread out. The fight has been reworked to be more interesting and fair. It is challenging but not overly difficult.

• Fixed an issue that allowed the Anomaly to be res rushed.
• The Anomaly’s health has been slightly reduced*.*
• The Anomaly has gained a strong defiance bar that can be broken for a long-duration stun.
• Players now have a special action shield, the Hex Shield, which can protect a platform from disappearing for 3 seconds on a 32-second cooldown. It stacks duration if multiple players use it on the same platform.
• The Anomaly’s base projectile attack, Binding Bolt, has been replaced by a projectile fan attack that is easier to see and react to. Projectile hit boxes have been improved.
• The Anomaly’s hit box has been increased, and it has been centered better.
• The Anomaly’s shield knockback has been greatly reduced.
• At higher tiers, the platform will permanently shrink at health percentages.
• The Anomaly will no longer reflect projectiles.
• Star Smash has had its effect improved.
• Flux Bomb has been renamed to Flux Pulse. Its radius has been reduced from 500 to 300. The Telegraph effect has been added. Damage has been slightly increased.
• Cosmic Instability no longer targets pets and minions, and it will now deal heavy damage to allied players standing within 120 units.
• Players will no longer sometimes fall all the way to the bottom floor instead of being teleported back up.
• The platforms will no longer be targetable by certain player skills.

Aetherblade

• Reworked rotating energy wall traps before the cannon room.
  • Now applies scaling damage based on health percentages instead of standard attacks.
  • Added internal-damage cooldown of 1 second.
  • Fixed a combat-log text issue.
  • Can no longer hurt pets and minions.
  • Applies Electric Shield to the golems for 1 second instead of 3 seconds.
• Reduced the applied agony duration for final energy walls from 6 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Increased the internal cooldown of energy wall damage and agony application from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
• Golem might stacks can now be corrupted and stripped.
• Knockback is now applied at the correct time when Frizz is defeated.

Chaos Isles

• The Brazen Gladiator no longer clears all conditions when gaining Protective Shielding. Instead, Protective Shielding also behaves like resistance.

Molten Furnace

• Molten protectors can now be inflicted with fear and taunted while not shielded.
• Fixed a bug in which a party wipe before the final event could teleport you to the final chamber and stall the instance.

Nightmare

• Fixed an issue in which Ensolyss could use Rampage before his final phase on challenge mode.
• The crush attack Ensolyss uses when he spawns is now unblockable, making Another Goo Puddle easier for guardians to obtain.
• Fixed an issue in which Ensolyss’s defiance bar could be broken right before casting Nightmare Devastation, causing him to cast it when Arkk’s shield is gone.
• Ensolyss’s attacks will no longer knock back or pull pets and minions.
• Fixed an issue in which Siax’s Toxic Blast attack would show the first AoE telegraph for too long.
• Fixed a bug in which the 30-Second Seizure achievement could be completed in longer than 30 seconds.

Snowblind

• Moved the first Mistlock Singularity to a more convenient location.
• The ice elemental boss will now reset if there are no living players nearby.
• Reduced the chill duration for orbiting projectiles from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Improved the spawning animation for the ice elemental and made it visible from farther away.

Swampland

• Fixed an issue in which being downed while holding a wisp during the final Bloomhunger phase would not allow the wisp to respawn.

Uncategorized

• Added a checkpoint at the end of the final jumping puzzle.
• Fixed a bug in which the battery meters would not properly reset after a party wipe.

Underground Facility

• The Rampaging Ice Elemental will now only target players with Ice Spike.
• Fixed a bug that could cause boss fixate to become permanently broken.

Volcanic

• The first cutscene can now be skipped.

Mist Potions

• Single-use mist potions have had their prices rebalanced by reducing relic cost and increasing gold cost.
• Duration has increased from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
• Single-use mist potions can now be refreshed.
• Text has been added indicating that unwanted potions can be turned in to Dessa’s Alchemist in exchange for fractal relics.

Daily Recommended Fractal Rewards

• The Fractal Initiate’s Research Chest has had its resonating slivers replaced by a Large Mist Defensive Potion.
• The Fractal Adept’s Research Chest has had its resonating slivers replaced by a Large Mist Mobility Potion.
• The Fractal Expert’s Research Chest has had its resonating slivers replaced by a Large Mist Offensive Potion.

Daily Achievement Rotation

• The Fractal Daily achievements have been switched from a 14-day rotation to a 15-day rotation so that the same dailies do not occur every two weeks.

Ascended Trinket Salvage

• Ascended trinkets will now yield Stabilizing Matrices instead of +1 infusions when salvaged.

Nightmare Rewards

• The Watchknight Tonic has been added to the Nightmare Rewards tab on BLING-9009 for a discount. It has been improved to function like the Kodan Tonic.
• The Antitoxin Injector Skin, Mini Toxic Nimross, and Mini Watchknight have been added to the Nightmare Rewards tab on BLING-9009 for a discount.
• Pristine Toxic Spore Samples are now awarded for completing the Nightmare Fractal Challenge Mode with a rare chance for a jackpot.

Instability Balance Changes
Toxic Trails

• Added low-duration poison to toxic trails. Poison will make damage from toxic trails more visible while slightly increasing the pressure from them.

Social Awkwardness

• Reduced the damage region radius from 60 to 44 to better match the effect.
• Reduced the applied agony duration of Social Awkwardness from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Instead of damaging your allies, you will damage yourself for a maximum of three hits per second if you are standing near three or more allies.
  • This will allow healers to stack up for heals without killing themselves, and it will punish a player for attacking near allies rather than punishing their allies.

Afflicted

• Reduced the number of confusion stacks applied from 5 to 2.

Last Laugh

• Increased the time before the attack hits from 1 second to 1.75 seconds.

Flux Bomb

• Flux Bomb will not apply damage or conditions to the targeted player on the first tick.
• Flux Bomb will not target the same player within 30 seconds.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a bug in which Fractal Avengers would not properly despawn.

Raids
Bastion of the Penitent
The bloodstone explosion unearthed a portal to a place where few have been and none have escaped. Deconstruct the mysteries and learn the true story of one of history’s most misunderstood figures. Assemble your squad and begin your journey at ground zero or at the Lion’s Arch Aerodrome.
Thanks!
Some members of the following guilds had access to the raid at some stage in development. We’d like to thank them for their time and feedback.

• [Att] Attuned
• [LNR] Latte Night Raiding

General

• Glenna will now exchange magnetite shards for miniatures from any raid wing. This is now located in a new Exchanges tab on her vendor window.
• Skill-fact tooltips have been enabled for all boss skills in Bastion of the Penitent.

Lion’s Arch Aerodrome
New vendor tabs have been added to the Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative in the Aerodrome.

• Exchanges: Miniatures and special items can be exchanged here for magnetite shards.
• Merchant: Sells basic goods (salvage, etc.).

Spirit Vale
Sabetha
The Sapper Bomb skill now ignores snap-to-target settings.
Stronghold of the Faithful
White Mantle portal devices can now be exchanged for magnetite shards at a rate of 250 shards per device. This exchange can be completed by speaking with Glenna or the Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative in the Aerodrome.
General

• Fixed an issue that would sometimes prevent a player from being revived during encounters in Stronghold of the Faithful.

Xera
The Intervention skill now ignores snap-to-target settings.
Items
The legendary precursors Friendship and Endeavor have had their recipes updated to use the new Visionary Inscription. The recipe for the Visionary Inscription can be unlocked by using Recipe: Legendary Inscription, available from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs, free of charge.
Profession Skills
General:

• Racial abilities: The following racial abilities will no longer allow eternal pets when used with Rebound: D-Series Golem (asura racial elite), 7-Series Golem (asura racial elite), Charr Warband (charr racial elite), Snow Wurm (norn racial utility skill), Summon Druid Spirit (sylvari racial elite).

Structured Player vs. Player
General

• Players who reconnect to a match and achieve victory will no longer receive a desertion game result.
• Fixed a bug that caused the minimap on Revenge of the Capricorn to have no fixed position and zoom level.
• Matches where a player fails to accept will rebalance teams after finding a substitute.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Noblesse Oblige mastery to affect PvP and WvW.
• Fixed inconsistent naming convention for the Diviner Amulet and the Seeker Amulet.
• Fix a bug where new accounts had both Conquest and Stronghold game-mode preferences checked instead of the All preference.

Battle of Kyhlo

• The Clock Tower has had its roof removed to improve visibility and camera behavior.
• The side-entrance jump puzzles to the Clock Tower have been normalized on each side and made much easier.
• Buildings and boxes are no longer destroyable by players. A few structures will now be automatically destroyed as the match progresses.
• The spawn locations of siege repair have been moved closer to the trebuchets.
• An additional exit from each side’s bases have been added to reduce the possibility of spawn camping.

Revenge of the Capricorn

• The locations of the archway and bell capture points have been moved to reduce run times and slightly condense the map.

Leagues

• League rating deviation will not increase over time. This prevents players who take breaks from having ratings that are too volatile when they return.
• Lowered the default/starting rating deviation. League placement matches will result in less volatile ratings.
• There is now a minimum game requirement for the league leaderboard that is separate from placement games. This minimum threshold increases over the duration of the season.

PvP Map Achievements
Meta-achievements have* *been added to all Ranked and Unranked PvP maps. Completion of the meta-achievement will award players gold and a title.
Generic Achievements:

• Wins
• Kills

Conquest Achievements:

• Kills while defending
• Capture-point neutralization

Stronghold Achievements:

• Summoning door breakers or archers
• Killing door breakers or archers
• Champion summons

Each map features one unique achievement themed around the secondary mechanic.
Capricorn achievements have returned, and the time gate for the Coliseum achievements has been removed.
World vs. World
General

• On Friday’s reset (February 10), skirmish points will change to 5 for first place, 4 for second place, and 3 for third place.
• WvW portals have been changed so that they now require an interact. This is to fix the bug in which players were sometimes teleported to different maps when using a waypoint.
• The Plush Griffon Tonic has been reenabled in WvW.
• The Reindeer Tonic has been reenabled in WvW, but the third skill has been removed and replaced with the fourth skill.
• The Potion of Ascalonian Mages now functions like a transformation and not like an enhancement. It has been reenabled in WvW.
• The Permanent Portable Provisioner can now be used while moving.
• The Noblesse Oblige mastery has been disabled in competitive game modes.
• The Gift From Scarlet has been disabled in WvW.

Desert Borderlands

• Shrine bonuses have been rearranged and changed in the Desert borderlands. The last shrine bonus for each shrine is now a themed jump pad that will allow players to travel from one shrine to the next. These jump pads will make it easier for players to traverse the area.
  • Shrine of Earth:
    • Activates lodestones that grant protection and stability to allies. This is used to cripple enemies.
    • A sandstorm that reveals all enemies.
    • Asura launch pads that launch players to all the shrines and inside the keep itself.
  • Shrine of Fire:
    • Inferno Hound
      • Increased the movement speed of the hound.
      • Added swiftness to skill 3.
    • The Flame’s Embrace effect allows players to walk on lava. It functions the same as it used to but is now the second bonus instead of the third.
    • Fire tornadoes that launch players to all of the shrines.
  • Shrine of Air:
    • Air jump pads that allow players to jump to high ledges at various places in the keep. No changes were made to this bonus.
    • The Windfall effect allows players to not take fall damage while near the keep. This functions the same as it used to but is now the second bonus instead of the third.
    • Eagle clouds that transform players into eagles so they can glide to each shrine.
• Desert borderlands now has ruins that work the same as they do on the Alpine maps and grant bloodlust.
• The center of the map has been changed so that it is easier to traverse.
• Removed rock walls inside the north/earth keep.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the incorrect team to earn the Windfall effect for a few seconds.

General

• Many items crafted as part of the legendary journey can only be crafted once per account. Misplaced items can be reobtained from Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs if they are required for other parts of the collection.
• The Antitoxin Injector Skin has been added to the laurel vendor.
• Encoded Orders can no longer be used in fractals or dungeons.
• The Permanent Portable Provisioner, Tarrktun Personal Delivery Portal, Black Lion Miniature Claim Ticket, Fractal Reliquary, Ley-Energy Matter Converter, Black Lion Claim Ticket, and Golden Fortune Scrap can now be used while moving.
• All tonics can no longer be consumed while in combat. You will still remain transformed if you consume a tonic before entering combat. This change was made so players can no longer transform to trigger weapon-swap effects while in combat.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• For a limited time, a new set of Devoted weapon skins is available from Black Lion Weapons Specialists for 1 Black Lion Claim Ticket. Black Lion Chest Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems each.
• The White Mantle Appearance Pack has returned for a limited time and is located in the Style category of the Gem Store for 2,000 gems. This pack contains 1 White Mantle Outfit, 1 White Mantle Glider, 1 Immortal Weapon Choice, 1 Total Makeover Kit, and 5 Black Lion Chest Keys.
• The Shining Blade Backpack Glider Combo has returned for a limited time and is located in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• The Mask of the Queen and the Mask of the Jubilee have returned for a limited time and are located in the Style category of the Gem Store for 400 gems each.
• The Ringmaster’s Hat has returned for a limited time and is located in the Style category of the Gem Store for 200 gems.
• The Mini Bloodstone Rock has returned and is located in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 350 gems.

Improvements

• Twelve exclusive hair colors can now be used to dye hair accessories using Total Makeover Kits and/or Self-Style Hair Kits, found in the Services category of the Gem Store.
• For a limited time, avian miniatures are available for 1–3 Black Lion Miniature Claim Tickets and are available from the Black Lion Claim Ticket vendor.
  • Avian miniatures include the Mini White Moa, Mini Pink Moa, Mini Green Moa, Mini Yellow Moa, Mini Blue Moa, Mini Moa Chick, Mini Vulture Raptor, Miniature Raven, Miniature Snow Owl, Miniature Hawk, and Mini Chickenado.
• The Black Lion Chest has been updated to the Lake Doric Chest and can be previewed for a full list of its contents.
  • Two Heavy Crafting Bags have been added as the new guaranteed seasonal item.
  • Only for the duration of this seasonal chest, the Noran’s Safe Room Pass is available as an uncommon drop.

This should be fixed in the next update. After the update, the boss should re-fixate after 30 seconds if the fixate target leaves the instance.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Let us avoid petty fights over grammar, or over anything off topic in general. It is counter productive and only makes it difficult for people to find meaningful discussion.

The next world link is February 24th.

This is a serious subject, and we would like to keep it on topic. That means we expect no name-calling, finger pointing, or other confrontational posts.

If you have been impacted by the results of the investigation and believe that this happened in error, please contact Customer Support to discuss the situation.

Notes:

• We’ve had to remove two posts in the last couple of days from people asking for a second gift. Please read the initial post — at the top of each page — which clearly explains you can ask once, and only once. You may not delete your post, edit your post, or post an additional request. Period.
• If you receive something, please update your post. You don’t need to name names, but at least say you received the thing you requested, or received a smaller gift from one or more people. Let’s make sure this thread shows how much good it is doing!
• REQUIRED: DO NOT DELETE YOUR POST. Whether you have received a gift, or not, you should not delete the post. Update or edit your post, but do not delete it.

There is not a new fractal coming so soon I am afraid! We are working on the new fractal but still have a lot of work to do. It will ship when it is ready

We have received several reports of players participating in activities that are detrimental to the accuracy and fair competition of the Leagues Season 5 leaderboards. After conducting an investigation of the current leaderboards, we’ve decided to take action against a number of accounts. These accounts will be removed from the leaderboard and restricted from playing in rated arenas for the remainder of the season.

Season 6 will have changes to help ensure the leaderboard is accurate and fosters healthy competition. We are excited for the final days of Season 5 to see what people achieve!

If point gains were arbitrary as you describe, then there would be no upper bound on MMR, and you would see people who play a lot with 10k rating at the top of the leaderboard. This is not accurate and just takes us back to seasons 1-4.

The reason you are gaining very little is because you are expected to win all those matches and your rating is already accurate. When you lose a match you are expected to win, you take a decent hit. Your history shows that you can easily maintain your rating, which is good. If you’re already one of the best players, why do you need your rating to continually rise?

I can understand the argument that high-skilled players might want some sense of progression past being number 1, but that is outside the scope of MMR. This is one of the reasons you consistently get more rewards while highly rated.

The API doesn’t currently expose map rewards — the wiki’s got a hand-curated table that that’s querying. That wiki page looks to be POST’ing a form to /wiki/Special:RunQuery/Map_bonus_rewards_query with the parameters

query: true
Map+bonus+reward+query[zone]: “Blazeridge Steppes”
wpRunQuery: “List map bonus rewards”

This corresponds to the following cURL command:

curl -X POST ‘https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special:RunQuery/Map_bonus_rewards_query’ -F ‘query=true’ -F ‘Map bonus reward query[zone]=Blazeridge Steppes’ -F ‘wpRunQuery=List map bonus rewards’

I’m not sure there’s a way to get the data out in a machine-readable format though, I’m not that familiar with the wiki bits.

Here’s an old tracking issue. I’m actually working through fiddly progress bit stuff right now, so it might be deployable in a month or so.

I have a change for this coming in a future release.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Disconnect-2/first#post6479245

Sir Mad.1092:

Gaile Gray.6029:

DoctorDing.5890:

Phew. Although I’m not sure anyone has ever really lusted after a statue of a chicken.

Are you serious? It’s on the Top 10 Most Requested Guild Hall Decoration Lis… Ok, ok, maybe not Top 10, but he’s adorable and some of us want him for sure!

The glorious chicken is the first thing my guests see in the guild hall. Kudos on the decorations, they’re great (and affordable!).

That being said, as the leader (and sole member) of the 10 years old GW 1 & 2 guild “Pigs Can Fly”, I can’t wait till the year of the pig in 2 years (please Anet, make it a pig, not a boar as in GW1, please…).

Well, that’s a cool idea. We don’t want to ham-per your decorative instincts, right? Or… maybe we do?

DoctorDing.5890:

Phew. Although I’m not sure anyone has ever really lusted after a statue of a chicken.

Are you serious? It’s on the Top 10 Most Requested Guild Hall Decoration Lis… Ok, ok, maybe not Top 10, but he’s adorable and some of us want him for sure!

Following up on today’s news about the release of Living World Episode 4 on February 7th, we wanted to let you know that the Lunar New Year Festival will run until the launch of the new episode.

So you have another week to gather those lucky envelopes, participate in Dragon Ball, buy goodies in the Black Lion Trading Company, or add that coveted Rooster Statue to your guild hall. Enjoy!

It averages your ratings. In previous iterations of the league system, a party would be match-made with the highest badge tier.

CMM.6712:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, so I looked, I really looked, but I think I was parsing for “Episode 4” and not the episode’s title, “Head of the Snake.” In the meantime, someone else made a thread, so we’ve engaged Merge-o-Tron™ and we have one big ol’ thread here in GW2 Discussion on the topic of the next episode of Living World Season 3!

Thanks for your understanding of the merged thread, and my apologies for starting an unnecessary new one.

Sorry didn’t mean to steal anyone’s thunder, was just excited and wanted everyone to see. <3 you Gaile!

Are you kidding? No apology needed! You’re on it, and I love that. (I just missed the whole thread, which is on me.) Thanks for posting — it’s great to see the excitement and the anticipation!

Randulf.7614:

Is the info being emailed out this week as well, for both ep4 and the half price offer?

Yes, we’ll be e-mailing. If someone has opted-in for our communication, they will get an e-mail. Thanks for asking. (If you want to forward to friends, I suppose you could do that. We only send e-mails to people who have given us permission to do so.)

Ok, so I looked, I really looked, but I think I was parsing for “Episode 4” and not the episode’s title, “Head of the Snake.” In the meantime, someone else made a thread, so we’ve engaged Merge-o-Tron™ and we have one big ol’ thread here in GW2 Discussion on the topic of the next episode of Living World Season 3!

Thanks for your understanding of the merged thread, and my apologies for starting an unnecessary new one.

We’ll have some info on that in a few hours.

Donari.5237:

There is also discussion starting in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Head-of-the-Snake-Feb-7th/first#post6479806
and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Episode-4-Head-of-the-Snake

Yep. We did ourselves no favors having so many different potential placements for a thread about the episodes. Thanks for sharing those links, Donari.

Check out the trailer for Living World Season 3 – Episode 4: Head of the Snake on the official Guild Wars 2 blog.

Couple of notes:

• The Standard and Deluxe versions of Heart of Thorns are on sale for a limited time, so check out the linked blog post for details.
• If you don’t own HoT, you still can “bank” the episode by logging into the game while it’s live and saving it until such time as you acquire HoT.
• If you want to “bank” Episode 3, log into the game before Episode 4 goes live. I’d suggest you do it now so you don’t forget.
  • BTW, when I mention banking, I think the vast majority of us are going to play through the content when it goes live. But circumstances can differ, and someone who’s unable to play, or who wants to save the episodes for a more convenient time can do so in the ways outlined above.

Please contact Customer Support to allow them to assist you. Thanks.

Sounds like you lost connection to one of our servers. Your friends list and guilds might have also been broken. Your only option is to wait or try relogging.

Rating deviation will no longer increase in future season to stop situations like this.

Victories after gaining desertion status will be granted assuming you are still connected at the end of the match after the next update.

Wargameur.6950:

Khorg.2195:

So….regarding matchmaking/teams… There’s multiple people posting threads on pvp teams in ranked.. yet you guys address everything but that. Can you at least acknowledge that a lot of your player base is upset about this?!?!

It has been addressed already. They recognized there was some flaws in matchmaking and they would change some things during s6.

Evan, I think you said our rating would reflect our skill around ~200 games ( If it’s wrong tell me ). Do you know when the majority of the population reached that threshold ? I mean, in a perfect world, everyone would place themselves in the first quarter of the season then enjoy the game at their level of skill for the rest of the season.

There are changes to matchmaking coming for off-season. I’ve updated the wiki with the changes.

I just checked and it takes on average 43 (+/- 10) games to hit minimum deviation.

I’ve had to roll it back on stage because I am a terrible programmer and it kept crashing.

Then I had to roll it back again since there were further issues causing it to crash.

Then, in the second rollback I did something wrong and the rollback propagated further down then it should have.

Long story short I missed the cutoff for the next release but I’m really hopeful that the release after will be the strongest castle in all of Tyria.

alemfi.5107:

Chase.8415:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I actually just updated the matchmaking wiki to be up-to-date if you’re interested, but I think your question has more to do with rating accuracy than matchmaking. Time of day definitely has an impact as well as day of the week. If we had an infinite population always playing, ratings would be wicked accurate.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

If it makes you feel any better, I’ve also been getting dumpstered this last week. Maybe more people are trying harder towards the end of the season.

Is that true where you get a separate rating for each profession? It would be awesome having a unique rating for each class because I feel stuck in rolling just one class sometimes.

Also, can we get the percentiles of each rating bracket?

Not Evan (obviously), but from what I know, it is tracked, but not used. Tracked so that in possible future adjustments/implementations of the match making, they can use their existing data. (Like queuing with a select pool of characters, or being able to queue from char selection screen etc.)

This is correct. We have them, but do not use them.

Rather than taking time to make a forum topic, may I suggest you simply report (click the flag to the right of each post) and allow us to analyze the situation and potentially change the topic to something meaningful? While we don’t edit the content of a post we will edit a subject line in order to make the forum index clearer and more concise.

Thanks.

I actually just updated the matchmaking wiki to be up-to-date if you’re interested, but I think your question has more to do with rating accuracy than matchmaking. Time of day definitely has an impact as well as day of the week. If we had an infinite population always playing, ratings would be wicked accurate.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

If it makes you feel any better, I’ve also been getting dumpstered this last week. Maybe more people are trying harder towards the end of the season.

Ashantara.8731:

Bump in hopes the devs will see this and fix it soon.

Quick summary:

• infused Mist Band can’t be attuned
• ascended PvP armor (Ardent Glorious) can’t interact with the Mystic Forge for stat change, nor can it be salvaged
• icons for both Mist Band and Mist Amulet are falsely displayed as Bloodstone trinkets

I have a fix for this coming in the not too distant future.

To answer a couple of the questions about the AB Multiloot changes, if you disconnect, you will be able to continue looting the rest of the chests even if you end up in a different map instance, but you are limited in the total number of chests you loot. The restrictions are account-wide.

This mustache creep is crazy

The posted screenshot shows Gold Hoarder has a current value of 72 — which would mean the account has only had 72 copper in it thus far. Lifetime Survivor has a value of 2052 — which (unless you die incredibly frequently) means that the account probably hasn’t done anything except complete the tutorial and gone to a few cities. Gladiator means they’ve only got 500 rank points — which I think is actually the default starting value.

Anyway it looks totally feasible that the account has only ever had 72 copper (and never spent a dime of it).