Guild Wars 2

Moving to the front so everyone sees this.

Please note that we do not allow Match-up threads on the Guild Wars 2 forum. You can read about our forum changes here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Moderation-Updates
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Upcoming-Forum-Changes-to-WvW-Match-ups-Sub-forum

It’s no surprise that the “add more mechanics” idea comes up a lot for difficulty scaling. Not only does it sound really great, it was also the original plan. Unfortunately it’s just about the heaviest approach we could take because it implies that every boss in the fractal needs to be updated and rebalanced for every tier that we add. Assuming 2 bosses per Fractal (and we never added new Fractals), every time we add a tier of difficulty we have to do this 30 times. I’m not saying we can’t do it; I’m saying it would be slow. Much slower than say, adding one or two new Fractals per tier with entirely new content.

What I actually don’t like about that approach is that it has a lot of filler progression. Hypothetical levels 51-60 would effectively all be the same. We thought the advantage of assigning an MI to every level was that it literally made every level unique and also avoids the re-rolling problem that fractal selection has.

Back on randomness/replayability/rewards: I think the intent has always been to make the Fractals a very replayable experience by using random to create semi-unique iterations through the content. But the extrinsic reward motivators work to the contrary, making random unfavorable for optimal gain.

I’d like to see more speculation on middle ground solutions which both add meaningful variety to the Fractals without forcing players to feel like they’re trudging through non-optimal reward paths.

Also, this is all just speculation. I’m not advocating or declaring an official re-work of any system here. Just exploring possibilities for the evolution of this and future content.

Astral Projections.7320:

If you can’t locate them you will need to contact support for an answer. Top of page-Support, then top of page-Submit a request.

Yes, please.

You need to post in the Tickets for Review thread. Thank you.

Addressing a thread directly to ArenaNet Staff members tends to cause disruptions on the forums, and therefore, is not allowed.

Ignavia.7420:

This is a bug they are currently investigating: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/Assault-Knights-Full-Heal/first#post3715103.

You’re faster than we are on linking. Thanks!

Ignavia.7420:

Have a look at this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Color-pools-not-appearing-after-Knights-defeat/first#post3714523.

Thanks for posting the link!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/100-Map-Completion-and-no-gift/page/2#post3715144

Latest Dev response.

Thanks for the assist!

Thank you for the screenshot which describes that you are not playing the game using English text, which is information that is relevant to the nature of the bug. The problem is that having your voice set to use the same language as your text (which does not exist, we do not currently support Spanish VO at all—even though the UI would suggest otherwise), then the game is now defaulting to not playing any voice at all instead of defaulting to English VO.

As a workaround in the interim, please set your audio language to use English (or French or German if you prefer), restart the game client, and you will get VO back.

Instead of removing your thread, I changed the title to be less inflammatory. We do not mind hearing your feedback, but we ask that you are respectful and follow the Forum Code of Conduct when you post it.

Greetings. We have an ongoing thread regarding issues here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Color-pools-not-appearing-after-Knights-defeat/

Autumn Frazee.3158:

We are currently investigating the Attunement Pools disappearing on some servers after they’ve completed the Assault Knights, thank you all for your reports!

The team is now working on a fix for this and will get it out as soon as possible.

Mafetix.9857:

Regarding the blue knight healing: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/Assault-Knights-Full-Heal/

Thanks for linking!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For assistance, you can peruse the Sticky at the top of the page. For individualized help, you can contact CS. Top of Page – Support – Submit a Request. Good luck.

Correct.

Would-be hackers send e-mails to hundreds of thousands of e-mail accounts. They usually don’t know whether you have a GW2 account or not. I know this because for 10 years, I’ve gotten e-mails about my [insert other popular game name] account and I’ve never had an account. Ever.

We get e-mails regularly that say “I don’t play computer games, please stop sending me mails!” I explain that we’re not sending the mails. I further explain that would-be hacker send to non-existent e-mail addresses or to addresses someone used to subscribe to a forum, play another game, enter a contest, subscribe to magazine, or to an address that somehow became public knowledge in another way.

So don’t worry. There’s no issue on our end, and you are safe to simply delete those e-mails (without clicking any links or providing any account info)!

Hey Txema. Make sure you check your audio settings and ensure that your ‘Dialog Volume’ slider is turned up to a level where you can hear NPC chatter and voice-over. If you need to, you can also hit the ‘Restore Defaults’ button to restore all your audio defaults.

If all else fails, try running a -repair command on your client shortcut.

Good luck! =)

If you need assistance beyond that kindly offered by forum members, please don’t hesitate to contact Support. You can do that by clicking “Support” at the top of this page, then clicking “Submit a request” in the upper right-hand section of that linked page. The team should be able to assist you.

For tips on what information to provide in a ticket — mostly intended for security reasons to establish that you own the account — please read this post and provide as many suggested details as possible to expedite the ticket.

Yes please, we’d very much like to help him! Thank you for passing the word along that he should contact Support.

Closing thread as duplicate. We’re aware of the issues. If you see further bugs & issues, please post them in the Game Bugs sub-forum. Thanks!

Closing this thread as we have one open in the Game Bugs sub-forum.

Closing thread as duplicate. We’re aware of the issues. If you see further bugs & issues, please post them in the Game Bugs sub-forum. Thanks!

I’m really sorry this happened to you. Believe me, everyone on the CS Team is very sensitive to the damage that scammers do, and they’ll go out of their way to establish what took place so that the scammer is actioned, up to and including account termination. We can’t give back the items because in many cases they were shuttled off to another account or two, then sold, traded, or given to an innocent party. It seems easy — “Just take back my stuff!” — but the stuff is seldom on the account of the scammer and that person who bought an item on the TP not knowing it was stolen property should not become a second victim — that would not be fair at all.

The devs created the Trading Post to give you a safe and secure means of trading and selling items. I consider TP fees as “insurance that the other player will play fairly” so I don’t try to avoid them. I encourage you and every player to use the TP for all transactions.

Closing thread as duplicate. We’re aware of the issues. If you see further bugs & issues, please post them in the Game Bugs sub-forum. Thanks!

Closing thread as duplicate. We’re aware of the issues. If you see further bugs & issues, please post them in the Game Bugs sub-forum. Thanks!

Closing thread as duplicate. We’re aware of the issues. If you see further bugs & issues, please post them in the Game Bugs sub-forum. Thanks!

As this has been reported and escalated, we’re closing the thread.

We are currently investigating the Attunement Pools disappearing on some servers after they’ve completed the Assault Knights, thank you all for your reports!

I checked with the dev working on this fix yesterday, and he confirmed the below was accurate to the best of his knowledge.

With the March 4th build:

• everyone from this date forward will receive the proper rewards
• everyone who got or gets WC will sport the star in game
• everyone who accomplished World Complete prior to February 18th will receive his/her rewards and star (if not previously distributed) with the build

Customer Support will be:

• giving any missing Gifts of Exploration for those who accomplished World Complete between February 18 and March 5
• distributing without the need for a ticket, but if you have a ticket, that’s fine, too.

So please check those dates. If you achieved World Complete between February 18 and March 5, we will be sending you your rewards but please allow a day or two more to get that taken care of.

If you have issues other than those described, we invite you to submit a ticket so we can review those on an individual bases.

Thanks for your patience with this and remember, we’re here to help if you still need assistance!

The Dynamic Assault Knight’s regenerating health is an issue that we are currently investigating, thank you for your reports!

Thank you for the reports, we are currently looking in to the issue of the Dynamic, Synergetic, and Static Attunement Pools not spawning after defeating the Assault Knights.

Sethlans.7852:

Looked into this yet Gail?

As an agent told you in January, and as you quoted, "On January 15th at 07:49 UTC your account wallet contained exactly 208g 75s 43c. At 08:02 UTC on the same day you attempted to exchange 102g 38s 00c for 1350 gems. This exchange failed and the money was not deducted from your account. At 08:05 UTC your account wallet contained 208g 85s 09c.

Nothing in the game records indicates that the failed Currency Exchange transaction incorrectly debited gold from your wallet."

At this point you’ve decided to empty your account — without responding to the ticket or asking any questions — and that confuses me. I do see that you added notes in your survey, but unfortunately those notes are not seen by an agent and they do not prompt a review. (We say that in the survey and I’m sorry that you missed it.) The unfortunate thing is, if you wanted additional help, the team didn’t know it.

At this point, I will close the thread because the question is asked, answered, and further discussion seems rather moot.

This is not an issue that can be resolved through a forum post. Please update your ticket — simply respond to one of the most recent e-mails you received with the ticket number in the subject line — and an agent will assist you.

Please be aware that we will not provide a “blueprint for cheating” by telling players what they did that triggered a suspension or termination. Even if you are reinstated, our revealing, “Well, you did A, B, C, and D, and that looked like cheating” will go public, will then give cheaters examples of what we track to try to remove them from the game. As much as you want that information, we simply cannot give it to you — for the good of the game.

I know it’s frustrating if you truly are innocent, but we must keep the detection methods confidential. In addition, we must keep them quite close to the line between cheating and non-cheating, or a gazillion cheaters will plague our game. It’s frustrating to us, too, to know that occasionally — and these situations really are very uncommon — an innocent player is actioned. And we’re very sorry when that happens.

If you were suspended or terminated in error, Support will help you. And if you were entirely innocent of wrongdoing, we sincerely apologize for making an error. But do know this: Sometimes, we will give someone a second chance, and in that case it’s up to that player to figure out what s/he did and why that account was actioned to prevent future action on the account. And sometimes, those who post to say they didn’t do anything (and I am not pointing at anyone in this thread, but speaking generally) actually did do something, they simply didn’t expect to get caught. These players would love to have details so they can modify their illicit actions to not get caught in the future.

This is not an issue that can be resolved through a forum post. Please update your ticket — simply respond to one of the most recent e-mails you received with the ticket number in the subject line — and an agent will assist you. Thanks.

It’s not a bug at all, the armor is shiny.

Shiny armors reflect the environment map. So if the environment has a blue sky, it will shine blue. If it has a red sky, it will shine red, etc. Even a blue-ish moon will make it look a bit colder in contrast to other warmer colors in the environment.

I have a few questions for the thread. Sorry I’m a bit late (though I have been reading)!

First, I want to stir the pot on Instabilities. It’s been brought up a few times but never really discussed. In the conceptual phase they seemed like a great way to add replayability to the Fractals. Simple math seems to concur. Even though we built roughly 90 Instabilities, we were only able to ship about 20 because QA had to test approximately 300 configurations of content. That seems like a lot of variety, but obviously there’s some problems. Admittedly, some aren’t very good and they’re sorted in a less-than-stellar manner. They might have been more appealing and/or made more sense had we been able to implement to full plan. But then again, maybe not. I’d like to know what you think. Is this a good system? Does it add to the Fractal experience? Would you rather have 30 new Instabilities or 1 new Fractal? Which ones do you like/dislike? From reading the feedback, I’ve already been gathering some assumptions:

• Additive content is generally well received (extra creatures, environment effect)
• Slightly less popular are combat modifiers (exploding enemies, flanking)
• Stat modifiers are the least interesting. Specifically DPS reducation is a terrible idea.
• It’s more interesting to make builds instead of break them. For example, make condition damage more important than negate it.

Next is the difficulty/progression question. Personally I’ve always felt that the difficulty scaling in Fractals is a bit redundant. After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder? I know this has been commented on, but I’d like to hear some thoughts on alternatives. If not difficulty scaling (or supposing difficulty scaling simply stopped at a certain level), what else would add meaning to progressing through higher level Fractals? How does that align with your goals, whatever they may be (rewards, defeating hard content, discovery, etc).

Finally I have sort of a meta-question which is: what place, if any, does random have in the Fractals? While it’s easy to dismiss it because of the drawbacks, I think it’s important to talk about the drawbacks of not having it (or having another system) would be. Assume we solve re-rolling and make Dredge more reasonable, does random fractal selection add or detract from your satisfaction of playing in the Fractals? Was it more interesting at one time than it is now? Can we compare that with Instabilities, which are very predictable? Imagine if we completely strip random out everything possible and conjure a system where you complete specific sets of combinations of fractal/instability/difficulty to build specific items. Does that entice you or sound like a big grind?

Thanks in advance for reading and I look forward to continuing the discussion.

So excited with the Kas & Jory story. I’ve had that last scene of them as my desktop background for a while now, ever since I screencapped it on my first play through on Dev servers. swoon

And that battle is awesome!

I can’t find it now but there was a post talking about secondary objectives and rewards for completion of said objectives.

We do this with the Grawl Shaman and I would like to see more of this in the fractals.

Essentially stretch goal objectives that add more optional difficulty but reward the players for completing the more difficult content.

The larger the sense of discovery and accomplishment the greater the overall experience in my opinion.

Chris

Actually, I was awaiting confirmation, from Dev before posting. Looks like StarMars was able to get into the game and check it out before I was able to respond to the thread.

So, since it’s dev confirmed and player confirmed, we’ll close this thread.

The code changes were too risky to get checked in and tested properly for the build today. They will go live with the next release build (Note: An actual release build, not a hot fix).

In review of your history, these are the tickets we received:

144029 – Regarding infraction. We had a discussion and the infraction stuck.
158009 – Was a second ticket, created to appeal the first ticket
177605 – You opened a ticket regarding the tickets above, and the issue was resolved.
353845 – Was the 3rd appeal of your first ticket.
179454 – Was the 4th appeal of your first ticket. At this point, we auto-close all other tickets to discuss the first incident.
353845 – Was auto-closed as it was regarding the first ticket.
417012 – Is a new ticket and has not yet been responded to as we do not handle escalations over the weekend. Once we get to your ticket, you will get a reply.

Hi Erithus, Reconnaissance can be completed, you just need to visit two unmarked locations:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Can-t-complete-Reconnaissance-story-mission/first#post3682722

We should have those two spots fixed with markers in today’s build, but just in case they aren’t this forum post lets you know where they are.

timmyf.1490:

Hey guys, I thought I might try summarizing the discussion so far, as it’s reached a length that I think makes it tough for people to jump in and contribute. We’ve seen a few “I don’t have time to read this, but here’s my idea [that has already been discussed]” posts so far.

I’m going to do this differently from the link-heavy versions we’ve had others do here and try to summarize the discussion so far. Hopefully some people find this helpful.

Rewards

Rewards have been a heavy topic of discussion, perhaps the most-discussed topic so far. Opinions on rewards vary, but tend to fall into a few core statements that seem to resonate with the community. Overall, Fractal rewards are insufficient compared to rewards in other game types. Suggestions for improving rewards vary, but include: increasing gold, providing other uses for regular and pristine relics, and adding upgradable Fractal armor (beyond just the backpack).

Time Required, Barriers to Entry, AR, and Dredge

One theme we’ve seen come up a lot, in different ways, is that Fractals represent a relatively large investment of time and perhaps gold. Getting started with Fractals can be challenging as there is not necessarily an easy way to learn the encounters due to the randomness of shard choice. Having 4 Fractals at a time can represent a significant amount of gaming for a group and may exclude players who only have an hour or less to play. Progressing deep into Fractals requires Agony Resistance, but that is bound to a character and can make progressing multiple characters through Fractals difficult and expensive. And worst of all, a quick Fractals run can be sidelined by an unlucky Dredge roll which can take many groups twice as long as other Fractals.

Solutions for fixing these problems vary, but include “saving” Fractal progress so single shards can be done at a time, a Practice Mode that allows groups to choose a single Fractal to attempt, some sort of AR-avoidance mechanism as a group buff or bundle, or even account-bound AR.

Dredge has pages of suggested fixes, but most of them center around reducing the total number of mobs, especially in the “clown car” encounter, or removing one of the 4 “parts” to the Fractal: button, hallway, Champ/clown car, final boss.

Rolling For Swamp

The most controversial discussion so far has been on the topic of “rolling” for the Swamp Fractal. There does not appear to be a consensus on this issue – there isn’t even a consensus that rolling is “bad” – apart from variable rewards depending on Fractal difficulty could be a way to reduce rolling. Some players even suggested allowing the group to vote on the Fractal at every stage.

Additional Fractal Content

There has been discussion surrounding adding new Fractals as a way to introduce new lore into the game or revisit unanswered questions. Suggestions for new Fractals have included using alternate versions of GW1 missions or dungeons as well as Fractal versions of events from the three Guild Wars Novels.

This is my own personal view of what people who might not be following closely should know to “catch up” a bit. There were topics discussed which I left out, some on purpose, others by accident, but I still think this is a relatively representative summary.

Thanks a lot TimmyF. Good work!

Chris

Darkhayle.2473:

I think the dev is referring to the post that spoke about the leaked info, not about anything else on the thread.

That would be correct. Posting information that is “leaked” and linking to sources off the Guild Wars 2 forum which are “leaked” notes is not allowed.

Regular story speculation is fine.

I see what you did there.

Tyops.5894:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.
    • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Respectfully, I think you have this reversed.

We are 18 months into the game’s lifespan and the pet command (F2) still isnt even at an acceptable level of responsiveness. Pet AI is still monstrously bad. I am skeptical that working on AI is a more productive avenue than looking at the aspects or other stow option. Putting other solutions on hold until you fix the AI seems misguided.

I think there should be some pretty strong thought put in to proverbially stop the bleeding with issues with pets, pet AI and all pet related gameplay by providing rangers with some form of an out while you take the time and put in the appropriate amount of effort to fix AI and other issues.

Pets are really really bad.

That is perfectly valid feedback. Like I said though, we do have some changes coming that should help with this. Particularly with the one you noted (F2).

Thanks for your constructive thoughts!

As this is a necro thread, we’re closing it. If you folks would like to have an updated and new discussion of the topic, you can create a new thread for it. Thanks for your understanding.