Guild Wars 2

So the festival has been out for a full day now, and people are already spouting words of doom for this game and how awful everything now is.

Coming from someone who played in the beginning, took a break, and is now back, I don’t understand why people feel this way. This game is much more fun, and is truly growing in the amount of people playing, which can only mean that this game will get better. I’m excited for the future, but all these doom sayers are (almost) getting me down.

It’s because its frustrating.

Look at the queen’s pavilion for example. You try to get random people to follow instructions, organise and learn the boss mechanics, because the content demands it. They unsurprisingly don’t listen.

So you struggle on zerging a super-scaled boss for a hour straight because the randoms are screwing everything up and you can’t do digidy squat about, only to get 3 greens as a reward.

It’s not ‘awful’ or anything, but it just seems there’s a massive lack of planning out.

And it’s both ways. I can see people’s hearts and souls going towards designing the boss mechanics. They’re probably thinking, ‘man, this looks cool, can’t wait til the players see this’, then of course the players tell them they should all be fired. I’d imagine its a downward spiral.

i loved the patch

Xae Isareth.1364:

It’s because its frustrating.

Look at the queen’s pavilion for example. You try to get random people to follow instructions, organise and learn the boss mechanics, because the content demands it. They unsurprisingly don’t listen.

So you struggle on zerging a super-scaled boss for a hour straight because the randoms are screwing everything up and you can’t do digidy squat about, only to get 3 greens as a reward.

It’s not ‘awful’ or anything, but it just seems there’s a massive lack of planning out.

And it’s both ways. I can see people’s hearts and souls going towards designing the boss mechanics. They’re probably thinking, ‘man, this looks cool, can’t wait til the players see this’, then of course the players tell them they should all be fired. I’d imagine its a downward spiral.

Yeah, talk about depressing. It’s like an artist paints an amazing portrait and the king it’s painted of orders a beheading for the way his mustache looks. It definitely is hard to get new players to learn mechanics, but that can’t really be controlled by Anet.

I’m going to try shouting out what we need to do in zergs like “kill turret” to help people learn these new mechanics. I also agree that the rewards are not worth it. The bosses don’t drop gold, and hardly drop tokens. I can understand that they don’t drop gold as it was abused last time, resulting in an economic pitfall, but they should be dropping WAY more tickets.

Arena drops at max 24 per win. If you win every game, that’s almost 100 tokens in 20 minutes compared to just a few for the boss kills which take a half an hour or more.

Because queens gauntlet was the most rewarding event last year and now they nerfed it. You have to pay to do the event and have an organized server or guild to get a just decent reward. If you get bronze reward it is worthless. I think many people(myself included) were really excited to be able to farm mats like last year only to see dissapointment of no loot and exp. On a good note i like the new town events in zephry sanctum although they could use a little more difficulty.

Well you have to admit last year queen jubilee was over the top, it completely ruined the game economy.
The more rewarding events get the less ingame gold has value.

Kirchhoff.5876:

Well you have to admit last year queen jubilee was over the top, it completely ruined the game economy.
The more rewarding events get the less ingame gold has value.

Yes but considering it only drops prices of tier 6 mats once a year at most. I dont see it as such a bad thing. The economy equalized over time and will do so again even after a rewarding event imo.

The only thing I am disliking so far is that one merchant. You can buy a lot of the older backpacks, including the sclerite karka shell and the slikpack. I worked hard to get those, and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

…and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

Try and play the game for yourself instead of “against” others’ cosmetics and I imagine you’ll be much happier.

As you said, those who are picking up skins this time around are working hard, too. That doesn’t make them any less legit.

jspencer.3021:

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

…and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

Try and play the game for yourself instead of “against” others’ cosmetics and I imagine you’ll be much happier.

As you said, those who are picking up skins this time around are working hard, too. That doesn’t make them any less legit.

exactly.. i worked my kitten off to get the slickpack i missed in towers of nightmares, now my engi looks as i always wanted her to look.. how does that affect you in any way shape or form? If its your ego that got a little rust stain it wont rob me from my sleep tonight.. just sayin

I’m in TC and we have some killer coordination going. Almost every time I see people planning out their next runs and calling for assists when a boss isn’t going down fast enough, but we always – ALWAYS – drop down to Bronze tier rewards! No matter what kind of strategy or commander skill or whatever, we cannot get gold or even silver to save our lives. This leads to people just straight up not participating and altogether killing the Boss Blitz activity. I have no idea how people are getting this done on other servers or with other groups, but it is abysmal over in TC.

That’s not to say the gauntlets aren’t enjoyable. I haven’t delved too deeply into it last year but I’m enjoying it now so I’m happy there.

I’m also satisfied with everything else. Zephyr Sanctum gives the same great experience, playing around with jumping and flying around at ease but with numerous and fun variations in the system. Master Sky Crystals are a step up from normal sky crystal hunting and the two activities (albeit pretty lackluster for two repeating events) make people go places they never expected they could.

So yeah, loving this update to the max, but the Boss Blitz is horrendous right now. If there’s something we’re critically missing, tell me so I (along with the rest of the people I play with) can begin to enjoy the Blitz again.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

The only thing I am disliking so far is that one merchant. You can buy a lot of the older backpacks, including the sclerite karka shell and the slikpack. I worked hard to get those, and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

At the end of the day, you’re the only one who feel bad about this. Everyone else are happy to get the last few skins they couldn’t get before because of personal restrictions, either it be final’s weeks, holidays in cuba, or a trip to the hospital for a broken arm. You’re not special because you logged in everyday for 600 days, you don’t deserve them more than someone who COULDN’T do anet’s temporary content. So, Anet, I thank you SO MUCH for bringing these skins back, i’ve been dying to get fervid censer and the zephirite helm THANKS!!

Inguiomerus.1504:

I’m in TC and we have some killer coordination going. Almost every time I see people planning out their next runs and calling for assists when a boss isn’t going down fast enough, but we always – ALWAYS – drop down to Bronze tier rewards! No matter what kind of strategy or commander skill or whatever, we cannot get gold or even silver to save our lives. This leads to people just straight up not participating and altogether killing the Boss Blitz activity. I have no idea how people are getting this done on other servers or with other groups, but it is abysmal over in TC.

That’s not to say the gauntlets aren’t enjoyable. I haven’t delved too deeply into it last year but I’m enjoying it now so I’m happy there.

I’m also satisfied with everything else. Zephyr Sanctum gives the same great experience, playing around with jumping and flying around at ease but with numerous and fun variations in the system. Master Sky Crystals are a step up from normal sky crystal hunting and the two activities (albeit pretty lackluster for two repeating events) make people go places they never expected they could.

So yeah, loving this update to the max, but the Boss Blitz is horrendous right now. If there’s something we’re critically missing, tell me so I (along with the rest of the people I play with) can begin to enjoy the Blitz again.

Your problem is probably DPS and lack of understand of the mechanics of the different bosses. You only want about 10 people per boss to start out with but I don’t recommend going beyond 15 and certainly not 20. It will upscale the boss and potentially result in loss of net percentage DPS as well as taking resources from other boss fights.

For example, you need to keep the centaur in combat. He has a tendency to break aggro when he flees, and he might reset which can turn an easy gold into a silver or even a bronze.

Similarly with Boom-Boom, once the healing turret goes up, that’s instant priority number 1. Also make sure that he is poisoned the entire time.

The destroyer boss Pyroxis’s attacks can be reflected. Ask any guardians, mesmers, thieves or eles to bring skills that either reflect or destroy projectiles. Namely: WoR, Swirling Wind, Feedback, Smokescreen.

The pirate is AoE heavy and he hits hard. He also increases the frequency of his attacks drastically as his health gets lowered to critical levels. If you can help it, you want competent players with the ability to dodge and stay out of blinding fields. Also, having warriors with war banner ready helps too I’d imagine.

Flame legion shaman dude is straightforward, stay out of the fire and watch for his teleport/jump from platform to platform. Cause it hurts if he lands on you.

The ogre is really easy, as long as someone is distracting the birds with birdseed, he’s very straightforward.

Lastly, If DPS is the problem, I surmised that each boss @ ~15 players was balanced around level 80’s with very average DPS ability. A few decent zerker players in each group who can avoid going down constantly can certainly carry the damage for each group (ASSUMING you do not let too many people fight each boss as the upscaling is what will lead to your bronze reward)

Anomaly.7612:

Xae Isareth.1364:

And it’s both ways. I can see people’s hearts and souls going towards designing the boss mechanics. They’re probably thinking, ‘man, this looks cool, can’t wait til the players see this’, then of course the players tell them they should all be fired. I’d imagine its a downward spiral.

Yeah, talk about depressing. It’s like an artist paints an amazing portrait and the king it’s painted of orders a beheading for the way his mustache looks.

Design has a purpose. The purpose of the Event should be “it is fun to play for the players(=customers)” and not “this looks cool for the designers”. If players are happy, the designer should be happy. If players are frustrated, the designers did something wrong.

Anomaly.7612:

It definitely is hard to get new players to learn mechanics, but that can’t really be controlled by Anet.

Yes it can.

Because A-Net is designing the game mechanics they could design something so players were, step by step, “positively motivated” to “anti-zerg” from the game mechanics, but should not learn it the unpleasant way through frustration.

Greetings.

Kirchhoff.5876:

Well you have to admit last year queen jubilee was over the top, it completely ruined the game economy.

In what way? By decreasing the cost of almost everything, and thus making it moe available for the common player? By offering players way to farm once nigh-impossible to get drops like cores and lodestones?
If so, then i want the economy getting ruined even more, preferably on constant basis.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Look at the queen’s pavilion for example.

But you say “For example”.
Example for what?

Because that’s so far the only real criticism I’ve seen, and even then it seems what people mind is the lack of rewards. They couldn’t care any less about the mechanics and the design and whatnot if the rewards where showers of precursors. It’s a classic conditioning-case where people got used to the absolutely insane income of last year, and a large amount of players were looking forward to the event for that, not for the gameplay.

The gameplay is thoroughly upgraded. Bosses telegraph well, have genuinely important mechanics, and allows players to make a large difference in how often DPS has to be lost to get them up again.

For a significant portion of the playerbase, this seems of no important. Low loot => event has to be kitten. Has to. Otherwise it would shoot gold bars out of it’s ears, no?

And that is why player feedback doesn’t get taken serious? Because we are mostly making a mockery of ourselves, wanting to be taken serious by the devs, yet at the same time acting like small kids who had a single toy taken away.

Dehuang.2053:

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

The only thing I am disliking so far is that one merchant. You can buy a lot of the older backpacks, including the sclerite karka shell and the slikpack. I worked hard to get those, and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

At the end of the day, you’re the only one who feel bad about this. Everyone else are happy to get the last few skins they couldn’t get before because of personal restrictions, either it be final’s weeks, holidays in cuba, or a trip to the hospital for a broken arm. You’re not special because you logged in everyday for 600 days, you don’t deserve them more than someone who COULDN’T do anet’s temporary content. So, Anet, I thank you SO MUCH for bringing these skins back, i’ve been dying to get fervid censer and the zephirite helm THANKS!!

I agree completely. Even having earned each of these meta-rewards during the original events, I don’t see any reason why new or intermittent players should be deprived of the opportunity to obtain them. If you really feel the need to let everyone know you’ve been playing the game for a while, just pop your Emissary of the Mad King or Crabgrabber title.

Anomaly.7612:

This game is much more fun, and is truly growing in the amount of people playing.

I think a lot of us would disagree with you on this. The player population has been on a steady decline. Most of the “new” players are really “old” players buying additional accounts. If it “feels” like more people are around you, it’s because our worlds have been consolidated.

Dilyrio.1308:

Dehuang.2053:

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

The only thing I am disliking so far is that one merchant. You can buy a lot of the older backpacks, including the sclerite karka shell and the slikpack. I worked hard to get those, and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

At the end of the day, you’re the only one who feel bad about this. Everyone else are happy to get the last few skins they couldn’t get before because of personal restrictions, either it be final’s weeks, holidays in cuba, or a trip to the hospital for a broken arm. You’re not special because you logged in everyday for 600 days, you don’t deserve them more than someone who COULDN’T do anet’s temporary content. So, Anet, I thank you SO MUCH for bringing these skins back, i’ve been dying to get fervid censer and the zephirite helm THANKS!!

I agree completely. Even having earned each of these meta-rewards during the original events, I don’t see any reason why new or intermittent players should be deprived of the opportunity to obtain them. If you really feel the need to let everyone know you’ve been playing the game for a while, just pop your Emissary of the Mad King or Crabgrabber title.

Let me clarify a little….

What I’m really trying to say is, is it’s sad for those people who made sure to log in during that certain living world, and who sacrificed their time to get a particular skin only to have it come back later in a way that is arguably much more easily obtainable. That’s the main reason I dislike bringing these skins back.

It’s kinda like when people made two spinal blade packs. They sacrificed a lot of time and effort to make two, but after the wardrobe came out, it was kind of pointless. They could have made another much cheaper ascended backpack and then just applied the skin.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

It’s kinda like when people made two spinal blade packs. They sacrificed a lot of time and effort to make two, but after the wardrobe came out, it was kind of pointless. They could have made another much cheaper ascended backpack and then just applied the skin.

Which one is much cheaper (besides fractal one, but that one requires running fractals a lot)?

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

Dilyrio.1308:

Dehuang.2053:

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

The only thing I am disliking so far is that one merchant. You can buy a lot of the older backpacks, including the sclerite karka shell and the slikpack. I worked hard to get those, and someone shouldn’t be able to just grind some tokens and buy them. Granted, it IS 1600 tokens, but still….

At the end of the day, you’re the only one who feel bad about this. Everyone else are happy to get the last few skins they couldn’t get before because of personal restrictions, either it be final’s weeks, holidays in cuba, or a trip to the hospital for a broken arm. You’re not special because you logged in everyday for 600 days, you don’t deserve them more than someone who COULDN’T do anet’s temporary content. So, Anet, I thank you SO MUCH for bringing these skins back, i’ve been dying to get fervid censer and the zephirite helm THANKS!!

I agree completely. Even having earned each of these meta-rewards during the original events, I don’t see any reason why new or intermittent players should be deprived of the opportunity to obtain them. If you really feel the need to let everyone know you’ve been playing the game for a while, just pop your Emissary of the Mad King or Crabgrabber title.

Let me clarify a little….

What I’m really trying to say is, is it’s sad for those people who made sure to log in during that certain living world, and who sacrificed their time to get a particular skin only to have it come back later in a way that is arguably much more easily obtainable. That’s the main reason I dislike bringing these skins back.

It’s kinda like when people made two spinal blade packs. They sacrificed a lot of time and effort to make two, but after the wardrobe came out, it was kind of pointless. They could have made another much cheaper ascended backpack and then just applied the skin.

“Everyone has this skin that I had first”… The kitten wars will never be the same again. Half glass full/empty? You did it then, newer people did it now.. I really dont see the big deal. You cant go to burlington coat factory in december, buy a coat, then go back in march to complain that you saw other people with that coat in march… Actually, you can do that… and you should, plus video it and post it online, then post the link here please.

Joking aside. Let the noobs have their day. You’ve had yours.

Astralporing.1957:

Which one is much cheaper (besides fractal one, but that one requires running fractals a lot)?

Actually, the fractal capacitor was the one I was talking about. But given that making the spinal blades was quite costly (Cost me over 100g), there are other options that would be cheaper, but not by a whole lot.

If you want examples…well, I really don’t feel like going into depth on the exact prices of materials and then calculating how much each backpack costs. But if you’re curious, you can always use wiki, and then look up prices on BLTC

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_Ascended_equipment

Imposter.1247:

“Everyone has this skin that I had first”… The kitten wars will never be the same again. Half glass full/empty? You did it then, newer people did it now.. I really dont see the big deal. You cant go to burlington coat factory in december, buy a coat, then go back in march to complain that you saw other people with that coat in march… Actually, you can do that… and you should, plus video it and post it online, then post the link here please.

Joking aside. Let the noobs have their day. You’ve had yours.

The big deal is that “I was there for that thing at that specific time”. It’s more like if a limited edition Chrysler 300 comes out and is only available in December, but then they bring back the exact same car a half a year later. The cool factor just dropped, because now more people later on can get it.

In the case of the slikpack, when people see it, the’re like “DUDE! You did that super hard dungeon, living world, etc??? That’s awesome!!!!” Now, since it came back, it’s more like “Oh, so you just accumulated a bunch of tokens from the flying dolyak race and bought it…ok….”.

So what I’m saying is, I’m not against everyone having the exact same skin, and I’m certainly not against having all the inexperienced players being able to get an item. But when an awesome item comes out twice when you that it was a one-time deal, you kind of feel let down.

As for my original statement, I still feel like I could have not done any of those previous living worlds, not received any of those items (slikpack/sclerite karka shell), and much more easily obtained them. That’s the main reason why I didn’t like them bringing the items back. I could have received them with less effort (and time, arguably).
———-
Anyway, that’s really the only thing I didn’t like about the festival of the four winds. Bringing back the old living worlds is fine, I enjoyed those, and I still do. Besides, they recently gave us an awesome patch, and that definitely took some work.