Guild Wars 2

Probably the most convoluted and broken thing in the collection: standing around getting hit by random monsters, hoping they will use their beam attack eventually, only for absolutely nothing to happen when they do.

Have tried everything, from facing various directions, being actively in combat with the monster, just letting it hit me, double-clicking the freaking item at various times to see what happens… but even if I face the monster, am in combat with it, and time the click just right to match its beam attack… NOTHING FRIGGING HAPPENS.

It’s stupid enough having to keep my inventory open and eating up half my screen thanks to the terrible UI, but for the stupid item to not even work at all… just… urgh.

Spent a small fortune to get this far into the collection for the Legend, and now I learn that I don’t just have to wait until Tuesday before I even have a chance with The Shatterer, but the Jade Maw’s Eye Lens doesn’t even work at all.

Please fix this ridiculous item, ideally so that it will trigger just by being in the inventory when hit with a beam attack.

I have had this problem myself. I finally did what you did and open my inventory when I am where I need to be to get attacked by the particular mob or interact with the the beam I need, right click the lens to open the tool tip and click on “use” to get it to trigger.

You are not alone in feeling this setup is a mess. I think who ever designed this needs to go back to programming school to learn how to make these things work better without having issues.

A better solution would have been to be able to equipped it. Just like a lot of other things in the game that we can equip and get a limited UI to work with.

I’ve had some things work just fine if they are just sitting in my inventory as long as I have all items required to go along with it.

But this particular setup sucks eggs.

Yes, it beggars belief that a feature that was so long in the making- precursor crafting- can be released into the game with so many things either broken or completely flawed in design, like requiring events to fail that are known never to fail, requiring events to spawn that are known to have been bugged for years, or requiring a boss attack that never happens because of the way that people fight said boss (Shatterer)… when all of these things could have easily been foreseen to be inanely stupid to include right from the start. Add to that the completely ridiculous amount of broken collection items, and… yeah.

Went back and tried the Right-click+Use on the nearest Basilisk in Mount Maelstrom. Still nothing, even with various kinds of timing (just before, during, after) on the beam attack.

So yeah, basically spent hundreds of gold to get this far into the collection, only to find that even with the Shatterer update on Tuesday I won’t be able to complete my collection because of one stupid broken item.

Lady Elvea.2847:

Yes, it beggars belief that a feature that was so long in the making- precursor crafting- can be released into the game with so many things either broken or completely flawed in design, like requiring events to fail that are known never to fail, requiring events to spawn that are known to have been bugged for years, or requiring a boss attack that never happens because of the way that people fight said boss (Shatterer)… when all of these things could have easily been foreseen to be inanely stupid to include right from the start. Add to that the completely ridiculous amount of broken collection items, and… yeah.

Went back and tried the Right-click+Use on the nearest Basilisk in Mount Maelstrom. Still nothing, even with various kinds of timing (just before, during, after) on the beam attack.

So yeah, basically spent hundreds of gold to get this far into the collection, only to find that even with the Shatterer update on Tuesday I won’t be able to complete my collection because of one stupid broken item.

I used the wiki page for these beasts and searched for the lowest level ones that were listed there. I used the Vet Basilisk somewhere in Queensdale…out around the centaur mobs I think it was (I only saw the one after my first mishap, but having his undivided attention worked wonders).

I had my inventory open, with the curser on the lens while I just walked up to the thing and concentrated on making sure I had already right clicked the lens and had the tool tip box open to select “use.”

Did this the same way with a vet windrider as well, used the one on the west side of Brisbane near the gorge where the rich iron nodes are. There is a vet out on the little shelf with a few regulars floating around him. I actually managed to take out the regular ones before confronting the vet. But this might not be possible as they are clustered pretty close together.

Using lower level vets was apparently critical to my success and both worked when I handled them this way. I had to put my pet on passive or he would have killed them before I managed to get the light.

Note to Anet:

Please have this issue with these types of items fixed so that if we have to click on it, they can be equipped in order to more easily access them without having to leap through hoops with our inventory bags. Also make it work so that either the double clicking, right click to “use,” or the skill triggers when equipped.

Having the option to equip it with a specific UI setup might not be viable when you are in combat. So maybe just having the items in our bags trigger automatically when we get hit with whatever skill that needs to be used by the mob.

After all, you have it set so that whenever we loot something that fits a collection, it is triggered automatically…so why not these?

Have gone back and done some more testing… eventually managed to get credit with mobs in Mt Maelstrom.

Problem seems to be with 2 things:

• Crystal stock. The item does not seem to trigger correctly if there is only 1 Quartz Crystal in your inventory. Even though you technically only need 1 per mob type for the credit, having just 1 appears to increase odds of failure.
• Timing/item sensitivity. Since the double-click feature didn’t appear to work at all, I ended up using the even more convoluted alternative of right-click+use. Combined with the above (keeping a stash of crystals greater than 1 every time) it increased the success rate (but still took several tries every time). I’m not sure what part of the beam attack of any of the mobs is considered to “count” for the credit- for the branded woman it worked just before the attack, for others during/after. Apparently some phases of the attacks don’t register so I ended up spamming the item constantly while taking damage from mobs to get the credit eventually. (I.e. take lots of hits hoping that eventually a beam attack would happen that gave credit, after which it was “safe” to attack and kill the mob. For Vinewrath, I stood in the beam attack for almost its entire duration and it still only registered after about 8 tries.)
  For some mobs, like the branded woman and basilisk, you can try again after a kill fairly easily by going to the next mob over or waiting for the quick respawn… but for Vinewrath and the Light-Infused Golem a failure for the credit to register is much more problematic and frustrating. VW at least is guaranteed to do his beam attack at set stages and you can look for an active event map to get another shot quickly, but the Golem might get killed before he ever gets a chance to get his beam attack in (happened to me several times before I finally got it) and as far as I could see it’s the only golem that has a beam attack at all… so you just sit there for 15-30 minutes waiting for his scripted spawn times.

Neither of these things indicate a properly working item, and that’s not even taking into account the obvious design flaw of the open inventory and manual activation mechanic combined with awful overall UI.

So it’s technically possible to get the credit to register eventually, but it’s certainly not working reliably. The sensitivity needs fixing, and quite frankly, so does the overall functionality of the item. Simply having it in the inventory along with a crystal should be enough.

I got the Golem and Vinewrath within the same hour yesterday. I always go to get my rich quartz crystal node from the Skrit Cragrock Palace event and usually the Golem is up and ready to do about the same time.

I just jumped down into the lane and managed to get this done rather easily …of course, using the open inventory, right-click+use option. I realized I needed to stand far enough back to allow him to get aggro but not kill me outright…so I set my pet on passive so the Golem would come after me and not my pet…that would have been a waste.

Got the light almost immediately then had to run for the hills since he took my health down to 1/2 with that shot…but got the light.

Vinewrath was a bit dicey. I was trying to dodge all the mobs in the lane and stay focused on when the beam would trigger and ended up doing this at least 3 different times before thinking I had totally missed it and would have to come back later.

So after I got the zone event rewards, I ported back to LA to empty bags and such, and just happened to check my progress on this. Almost fell out of my chair when I noticed I had actually gotten the light from VW after all.

It apparently popped up under my open inventory bag without me noticing it had triggered, so I missed seeing it. But very happy I got it. Now all I need is 5 more mastery points for Central Tyria to “train” the full bar for the legendary and pickup the “encased” achieve from the Shatterer.

We have a patch tomorrow so I am hopeful for the Shatterer encasement soon. Currently working back through old undone achievements for mastery points so I can “train” the legendary to complete this Bifrost III portion for my legendary.

Anet:

FIX these issues…they make it very frustrating to do these things when they should not be such a problem. So many other things work flawlessly but some of these others fail miserably and need to be fixed so that they also work better.

I did actually see the popup for VW, having conveniently put my inventory on the other side of my screen to allow me to keep an eye on when it would register, if at all. It still took a while of standing in the beam and spamming the Lens though… and that thing HURTS if you do. O.o

I think my above two points are a good place to start looking for bugs. That, and fixing how the stupid item should be used in the first place.

Hi Evan,

Thanks for the info- I’ve managed to get the items eventually with considerable trial and error myself. However, I don’t think the buff works infallibly- as stated, even if spamming Use continuously throughout a fight until the attack is used, it’s possible not to get the credit. The attacks are easy enough to recognise, so if the first three times nothing happens and then on the fourth try it triggers… something is off somehow.

The erratic behaviour of the item may make it a little difficult to reproduce though, but could it be that multiple uses of the item turn it off again? Combined with the absence of the visual clue that the item is active or not, it might be what caused the issue.

That should be easy to address though- making sure the item description is clearer and ensuring that the collection buff shows up when it’s active would fix it.

Thank you, Evan, for the information. However, after looking at all the tool tips and stuff related to these “light collections” issues, I did NOT see anything saying it was a toggle and to “double click” or “click-use” only one time.

Also, I never saw a buff on my UI for any of the times I managed to get the silly thing to work even after spamming the use of the item. So something is not working.

It never worked like you say it is supposed to as I was attempting some of these. I had spammed the thing repeatedly after getting hit before I even got the notice that I got the light. Some clarification for folks doing this really is in order as far as I can see.

I even asked in my guild and several folks there had the same problem. One person even said it took at least 4 different tries before he got the light that he needed from several of them. So it appears the mechanics are not very well setup to work as you say they should.

Hi Evan,

You’re very welcome. I’ve managed to finish the collection now (after some insults re: the Shatterer’s mom to get encased in crystal) and am the proud owner of the Rainbow Stick™, but I’ll add anything I can think of that could help get the collection cleaned up for future questers.

The most problematic encounters for me were Vinewrath, Light Golem, and the Basilisk attacks.

The Basilisk attach didn’t always finish properly even if I just stood there turning cheek after cheek after cheek, and when it did hit me with a beam it still took a number of tries to get credit.

Vineyface just didn’t want to register the first several seconds that I stood in his beam taking painful hits.

Light Golem… his painful attacks and limited spawns, combined with quick death in an organised map so he doesn’t even get a chance to beam me up… Difficult to say if I was doing anything particularly “wrong” or “right” here, since he would usually only get one beam in, if that, before dying.

It’s possible that my spamming the item did more harm than good, but the spamming was a result of the buff not being visible and the item description being less than clear about intended use.

I asked around for tips as I was going through the collection and nobody really knew how the Lens worked or what the best method for credit was- so these two points are probably the main challenge. Probably also the easiest to fix! With the collection completed I can’t go back to do more testing though, to see if I can get the Lens to work with just one use a little before starting an encounter even if I can’t see the buff.