Guild Wars 2

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’m just glad they fixed this for this season. I got stuck in this hell last season and it made me quit for a few weeks. I was stuck in the 50% hell hole where I couldn’t even get out of emerald since every other match was a loss intermingled with 10 match losing streaks with the most awful players imaginable.

This season is much much improved. I was able to get right into ruby with almost no issues, and am still progressing towards legendary.

How is it fixed? What did I miss?

Dear Anet,

The number of one-sided matches is too freaking high. 8/10 of the last matches I played resulted in <250 – >500 scores.

I was given to understand that this would stop a few weeks into the season. It hasn’t. One-sided matches are not a lot of fun for anyone.

Your new system is flawed by design because it is a self fulfilling prophecy. MMR is a prediction you make about a player. You compose teams based on that prediction. Because of that, the result of a match will most likely match your prediction. MRR then gets adjusted accordingly, which makes it even easier to determine the outcome of the next match, and the next, and so on.

I understand you don’t want people being carried to ranks they don’t belong in. But systematically organizing one-sided matches is worse. Not a lot of gg’s out there anymore.

Sincerely,
An unhappy solo queuer

I understand OP’s frustration. My own results are pretty average – currently ruby, played 3 games a day most days. But I do feel a lot of games I played so far during this season were unbalanced. It usually became very clear who was going to win early on and that is not half as much fun as PvP can be. When you’re on the losing end, it is indeed downright frustrating. As many others have pointed out, a score <200 vs 500 should be exceptional in a decent system. Currently, it is far too common.

What the devs have created with the new matchmaking system is in fact a self fulfilling prophecy – based on a single rating players are given either a big chance to win, or a small one. The outcome of the game will, of course, confirm (strengthen) the rating. And repeat. It’s a weird decision that seems to favor only the elite players. Perhaps what they are spending on GW2 alone is enough?

If GW2 is about the journey, why design a system that frustrates at least half your playerbase?

Cyninja.2954:

The price increase for crafting ascended armor is directly attributed to the increased demand from other players.

It was to be expected with the announcement of raids.

Prices have started droping since the major first weeks craze has lifted slightly. As is, the price for crafting ascended armor is now approximately 30% higher than pre HoT and about 60% cheaper then when ascended armor/weapons got introduced (Damaske was 30g a piece back then).

(…)

No, it’s not beside the point. You basically did not care about ascended pre HoT, and now suddenly that you’ve decided that you want ascended for what ever reason, you complain that current prices are not equal to the cheapest prices available.

If you played 10 characters up and had no issue not getting ascended, why is it such a big deal to you now? Just play fractals and you’ll eventually get your ascended armor/weapons for free.

I did care about ascended before HoT. Read OP please.

I did get ascended gear before HoT, but kept a lot more materials, gold and laurels in storage anticipating crafting ascended gear. Those resources used to suffice to craft. Now, more are needed. x10, that is a big deal.

Also, I did not express that I expect highest tier gear to be available for the cheapest price. My issue is not with prices or supply and demand, but with Anet changing the recipes, requiring even more materials to craft the same item. Admittedly, I could have been clearer about that in OP. The rise in prices caused by this recipe change is of course no consolidation.

Valentine.4286:

So OP, you are saying “shame on Anet”, because you(!) feel you missed out again by not making ascended before HoT? ehm, oooookey? kitten it Anet, why didnt you send me a letter!!
But hey, at least its christmas soon the oh so awesome dinner. Highlight of the day

The sarcasm is strong with this one. But actually, yes. A notification would have made a difference for people who had the materials in storage. Such a notification would have caused prices to rise, but I didn’t need to buy.
And merry Christmas to you too I hope your sarcasm didn’t extend to your last sentence! If it did, just hit the wine

To the people advising daily fractals:
Thank you for your advice. (I didn’t know about increased drop rates.) However, I don’t like doing the same stuff every day, especially (daily) fractals. If that is the only viable path to ascended gear, we are being forced to grind! And based on your reactions, it does seem to be the best way.

Anyway, time for a break from GW for me. Like I said, this wasn’t exactly the first disappointment. I play games to have fun, and like this guy said,

ChrizZcE.5981:

Too many other games to play.

More than I have time for!

Danikat.8537:

This is what (other) players asked for – challenging content and meaningful progression, which apparently means requiring increased stats.

I’m not sure this is what people had in mind. Even if they did, the solution isn’t very creative, frustrating for people who put off crafting and not really helping the no-grind philosophy.

Bambu.4270:

The thing is.. you don’t full ascended gear. Exotics is fine. If you really want to gear with ascended then gear your MAIN and/or the one you play raids with. Every other character can do just fine with exotics and some ascended trinkets (these are CHEAP).

So what to get:
Ascended Armor – NO, horribly overpriced for minimal stat increase.
Ascended Weapon – YES, but only for main and raid characters.
Ascended Trinkets – YES, cheap to buy with laurels/guild commendations.

I hear you, I really do. This is what I’ve been doing. But it isn’t top stat. Every time I spend resources on exotics, I find myself wondering if I’m wasting those resources. Because I imagined most of my characters would eventually have ascended gear. That was my goal. This has just gotten a lot harder.

Also, funny you’re calling armor overpriced. I was attempting to craft a set when I noticed the ridiculous price increase.

Zelanard.5806:

So… let me get this straight… Because its expensive to craft, you shouldn’t get ascended gear?
Dude, 20 minutes a day for 2 weeks and I’ve got 4 ascended armour pieces and an ascended weapon…
Quit complaining about the prices and get into the fractals and raids… its a lot easier to get the ascended items now than it have ever been before…

I don’t really understand why you say it’s easier than ever before. But it’s beside the point. I am frustrated because had I known, I would have crafted more ascended gear prior to the release of HoT. I feel like I missed out. And that is happening a lot for me as a GW2 player.

Very disappointed in this as well.

I just found out about this now. Getting highest-stat gear is the a big deal in any RPG, and it used to be a huge goal for me.

I have ten characters. I also love to experiment with builds, like GW1 allowed us to do. Have been doing so since GW2 came out. Different builds require different gear. So while I actually had saved enough to craft several sets of ascended gear throughout the past years, I put off crafting most of them until I found out what I really want. Which is not easy when re-invention and balancing of skills and traits occurs often.

So the prospect of having several sets of top-grade gear just vanished, while the necessity of getting ascended gear is greater than ever (raids). Shame on you, ArenaNet. The pressure to play more, grind more and (what you’re probably after) buy more gems is ever increasing. Are you that desperate? You’ve come a long way since GW1, and you won’t be getting another dime from me. Like so many others, I regret buying HoT. After all, this is one of many recent disappointments.

Who in their right mind thought this would be fun? It’s just a whole lot of walking.

And the jumping rocks with the disabled updrafts – nice touch. More walking back and forth.

It’s getting harder and harder to keep track of how displayed and available titles were obtained. Mist Runner and Mist Treader for example were awarded for WvW Seasons, (if I’m not mistaken) while Mist Walker is obtained in PvP.

A tooltip showing the description of the achievement that awarded the title seems like a simple modification that would add some value to the title system.

This could be displayed in the dropdown of the Hero>Achievements tab, but also when pointing at the title of a targeted player.

It’s not a grindy game. Actually, it’s the least grindy MMO I’ve ever played. There is more than one way to obtain materials. We have a trading post for instance, that offers a lot of items. Among them are materials required for ascended gear. There are even more ways to get gold to pay for those items.

Players always want the most efficient way to get their hands on stuff, and so they start grinding. That is their choice, not Anets. Perhaps players complaining about grinding need to abandon this maximum-efficiency way of thinking. There is plenty of opportunity in life to apply this kind of logic. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re either very young or very lucky. It’s just a bad way of thinking when you’re relaxing and doing stuff for fun. That is still what gaming is about, right?

My point is basically this: GW2 seems to be granting more and more rewards for less effort.

Clearly the new login reward system is a big step in that direction. (Not counting the 5ish Laurels a month, but then again, logging in is not comparable to doing dailies every day and completing monthlies.)

The new daily achievement system, I actually like: more variation, less AP grinding. What I don’t like about it, is that a lot of achievements seem to have gotten a lot easier. WvW Land Claimer went from 5 to 1 captures. That’s a bit of a drastic change. I don’t think 5 was to hard, nor did I have the feeling I was grinding when I was completing it.

This trend has been going on for a while now. The last WvW Season achievement category, for instance, was simply laughable. Completing 4 (5?) WvW events a week is nothing compared to the seasons that preceded it. Even compared to the hardcore dailies we had back then

Enough examples. Bottom line is: with this new daily/login system, I think we have reached a new level. So maybe it’s time to put a stop to that. I realize it’s a delicate balance, but games need to be challenging in order to be fun. Four events a week, one simple capture or simply logging in doesn’t really sound like a challenge to me, not even for beginners.

Geodes and Bandit Crests into account wallet, please!

Add me to the list of people who love Echoes of the Past. It’s probably the best chapter yet.
The story was lovely, seeing old and new facts add up. (Speaking as a GW1 fan and as someone who played through previous Living World chapters.) The last part was visually stunning.
And The Silverwastes… Downright addictive! I love how it’s one big war zone, filled with offensive and defensive missions. Nice incorporation of WvW elements too! I did end up with an awful lot of Twisters in a Jar, though

Ok, thanks.

Can I look up this skill level/rating?

I’ve played about 12 games today. Dragon finishers everywhere. I myself am rank 42. Am I not supposed to be matched up with players around that rank?

Hate it.

I’m sure people who actually do this disagree, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Why not award points to the team that inflicted most damage?

I agree something must be done. 4 out of 9 games I played today were decided by 4v5. Ridiculously annoying. Happy 2 year anniversary, GW.

While the wardrobe was a huge improvement, I feel it hasn’t reached its full potential. Two suggestions:

1. When obtaining a skin, why does it need to be an item that takes up inventory space? Instead, it could be converted into one free transmutation for that skin only. The wardrobe already distinguishes between free-to-apply skins (like the HoM skins, or the skins obtained in achievement chests) and skins that cost one transmutation charge to apply.
One of the wardrobe’s goals was to free up inventory space (so I read) . I think it failed for skin items that don’t have an immediate destination. I actually threw half a bank tab’s worth of skin items away, after a bit of hesitation. I unlocked them of course, but throwing them away meant giving up a free transmutation.

2. Rerolling to a skin an item had should be free. Instead of converting appearances, we should be able to unlock them. Every item should have a list of unlocked skins: its initial appearance, all skins it has been transmuted to and possibly all free-to-apply skins.

Lodius.5392:

I think ascended jewelcrafting should NEVER be a part of the game.

For some of us… like myself… saved laurels for months to get trinkets, and some rings…

While nothing is fair… I still believe this type of change only caters to new players. They don’t have to experience the time gated laurel savings that the rest of us had to do.

Until last month, I had over 500 laurels saved up. For many, many months I did not spend them because I was sure ascended jewelcrafting was around the corner, as promised. I didn’t craft any exotic trinkets either, because I did not want to waste any XP towards level 500.

Just last month, I finally got sick of waiting and of using inferior trinkets on my characters. So now my laurels are spent.

I still want to see ascended jewelcrafting. I think jewelcrafting is pretty much uselsess without it. I haven’t used my jewelcrafting skills since I reached level 400, which is over a year ago. In my opinion, crafting as a way to highest stat gear is its most important asset.

No offense, but not wanting to see ascended jewelcrafting because you want to force players to save laurels like you had to is not a very good reason.

Belzebu.3912:

Keep in mind that there are many stats combination not available as asc trinkets, would be nice for the crafters be able to wear things like assassin, sentinel, dire and so on, asc trinkets.
Sure, the materials needed should be viable to not make craft an obvious bad choice.

In my opnion, Arenanet just didn’t think this part of the game through. First, they introduced the ascended quality by making trinkets available for laurels. Afterwards, they decided to upgrade all crafting disciplines to 500. The second idea (on its own) was a good one, the first was not. I think we could all see the contradiction for jewelcrafting miles away. Why couldn’t Anet?
Still, not having all stat combinations available is an excellent reason for finally boosting jewelcrafting to 500.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

There really does need to be more ways to acquire that gear tier. A way to make it more accessible, rather than more limiting. Stats should be something relatively accessible to all players, no matter how they choose to play (crafting, wvw, dungeons, etc). Skins on the other hand, those should be what requires the effort and skill to obtain.

While I agree with you on the stats vs looks availability and while I like the idea of dungeon tokens being more useful, I don’t think this is a good idea. Not unless all types of gear of ascended quality are made available in the same way.

Trinkets are the only type of gear that are available for laurels in ascended quality, which makes it very inconsistent with all other gear. Like I wrote, the idea to make them available for laurels in the first place was not a good one, in my opinion. The introduction of ascended quality should have gone hand in hand with the upgrade of the crafting disciplines.
Especially when one considers laurels are awarded as a surplus. You get them from dailies, monthlies and achievement chests, which are earned by doing stuff that already has inherent rewards. (Loot, reward tracks, WXP, …) So why make a surplus currency like laurels the only significant way to highest stat gear? (At first, and still so for trinkets.) Obviously, laurels were not intended as a surplus, but as an incentive to play regularly. But since their introduction, crafting has become a significant way to highest stat gear as well, (including the announcement that jewelcrafting would be upgraded to 500) reducing the importance of laurels.

I don’t think there’s a perfect solution here, but Arenanet should start deciding on this matter. Doing nothing and remaining silent is simply frustrating to a lot of players. Personally, I see two scenarios that allow level 500 jewelcrafting:
1. No more ascended gear for laurels, turning laurels into the “surplus” currency that I think it should be.
2. Make all types of gear in ascended quality available for laurels, but only in a limited number of stat combinations. (Like trinkets are now.) That way, pursuing level 500 remains a rewarding goal. This would also allow additional ways to obtain ascended gear, like dungeon tokens. (Like only Fractal Relics are now – another inconsistency!)
In both cases, there are consistent paths to highest end gear of all types, without a dead crafting discipline and without uncertainty about what to save or invest in.

Thanks for the clarification, Bandicoot.

I see this has been discussed at length in the other forum thread. I assumed this was intentional and not a bug because I knew changes were made to counter exploits. Now that I know you lose the stacks anyway on weapon swap… Maybe I should have posted this in the bugs section. No way they made it this complex intentionally.

Well… This sucks. I repeat my question: Arenanet, please fix!

Fate.5914:

I think, you can keep the stack if you have that same sigil on one of the underwater weapons.

Can anyone confirm this?

I know a recent patch changed the behavior of stacking on kill sigils. (Bloodlust, Corruption, …) The stack now disappears as soon as the weapon that holds the sigil is unequipped. Makes perfect sense.

But going underwater is apparently considered unequipping (land) weapons as well. One (accidental) plunge and the stack is removed. That is very annoying, especially when roaming in WvW. I always try to swim on the surface when crossing water, but can’t always avoid going under when entering water.

Arenanet, please change this!

I agree with OP.

From GW2 Wiki:

The expected average damage output is determined by the following formula:

Average damage = Base damage * ( 1 – Critical Chance ) + Base damage * ( Critical Chance * Critical Damage )

So while a chance above 100% sounds absurd, it might still be of some limited use. You may want to consider tuning precision down in favor of another stat.

Oh, good. All topics remotely related to jumping were merged. This pile of messages is very clear and encourages further discussion.

I’d like to see this track as well.

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any living world tracks.

Dean Calaway.9718:

if they introduced a Crit Damage (major) Power, Ferocity

Crit Dmg is Ferocity.

- Killing in Dry Top Does not count towards Daily Maguuman Killer
- Completing the jumping puzzle does not count towards the JP monthly

I don’t know if this is intentional, but I’d expect both to do so.

Zalladi.4652:

It still is optional.

I disagree. You can’t get anywhere without picking up those crystals. True, the worst of it is optional. But discarding all “optional” content in this release that involves jumping leaves you with very little to do. And to earn.

Lydon.1890:

I simply don’t understand the need some people have for being ‘rewarded’ for every little thing that they do in-game.
[…]
What ever happened to people playing games for fun?

To me, it’s about both. Of course I enjoy beating a challenge. When I started gaming, that was the only kind of reward games had to offer Winning a good tPvP match or a duel in WvW can be very satisfying.
But I also like character (account) progression. That’s one of the basic elements every RPG needs, is it not?

Lydon.1890:

I understand that you may not find jumping fun

Well, no, I don’t. And I don’t mean to rain on the parade of people who do. But you must agree jumping is very different from the aforementioned content: PvP, WvW or, like you mentioned, bashing Tequatl. All those activities require usage of core mechanics: skills, builds, tactics, … Jumping does not. And because of that, to me it feels alien in a game like GW2. (Which is why completing a JP will not satisfy me like completing other challenges.) It’s all good when it’s a little side activity, but I don’t think it is in this newest release.

Lydon.1890:

I find it very sad that people are so unwilling to embrace the challenge in games anymore and need some “reward” to keep playing.

I wasn’t trying to insist on more rewards for less challenge, but merely pointing out that jumping doesn’t fit into the rewards logic behind all other aspects of the game – challenging or not. (Personal preference aside.)

That’s the point of the journal, I think. You can replay whenever you want (provided you’ve unlocked the chapter by loggin in or spending gems) and in doing so, get the achievements.

Bubi.7942:

Good thing there wasn’t already a thread on this… or 4 others… or 400 others since release…

Yep, it’s a conspiracy. Or maybe there’s something to it.

Bread.7516:

No, it’s not an average mmorpg. They explicitly advertised this not to be an average garbage mmorpg.

It’s a big leap from there to forcing content on people that throws out every core mechanic out the window, except for, well, jumping.

Having read this topics’ title, the following statement won’t surprise you: I don’t think jumping fits into GW2 very well.
First of all, it’s simply not business as usual for an (MMO)RPG. Period. Don’t get me wrong: I love GW2 for being innovative, and so I don’t think it would be fair to complain about the odd innovation I don’t like. As long as special content like jumping is strictly optional. Like jumping puzzles (JP).
Secondly, I just don’t see how jumping fits into all other GW2 content. Everything in GW2 gets you progress or rewards of some kind. (Achievement progress, loot, currencies, …) Jumping does not. Who can honestly say failing after putting in a decent amount of effort isn’t frustrating? Anyone familiar with the following train of thought? “Make one mistake, and you (often) have to start all over. Again! You have nothing to show for your efforts so far, but give up now, and it will have been for nothing.” That kind of stress is not the reason I play games. I’ve got real life for that.

So, JP are in the game, but optional. Cool, I can live with that. Vistas often require some jumping as well. Usually the difficulty is not comparable to any JP, but there are exceptions. Vistas however, are far less optional than JP. They are required for map completion and the rewards that come with that. POI’s, skill challenges and renowned hearts, all for nothing (very little) if you don’t get the vistas. So, not all that cool, but usually tolerable.

(Yeah, I’m building up to my point. Bear with me.)

Some time after game release, achievement points (AP) changed. Instead of a mechanism barely noticed by anyone, (except by players who wanted to show off. No one required an amount of AP to join a party back then.) they started awarding awesome chests. Cool. (Too bad I’ll never have the AP tied up in jumping puzzles, but ah well.)
I, like many others, started getting as many AP as possible out of each living world (LW) chapter. The fact that the “meta” achievement got you additional rewards, made that all the more fun. So again, cool.

Then, we got the Bazaar of the Four Winds. Twice. I’ll admit getting to the top of the Bazaar wasn’t particularly hard, but it did require an unusual amount of jumping. In retrospect, I think this is where the line should have been drawn. To get anywhere in this living world chapter, GW2 required jumping from ledge to ledge that is reminiscent of Super Mario Bros instead of a MMORPG. On top of that, a lot of AP were tied up in achievements that required reaching some very tough spots. (Collecting the crystals. Still have nightmares about that.) So, no, not cool.

I think the Gates of Maguuma is a promising release, (Nomad’s for the sake of completing our options, the Journal (!), the new story) but, yeah… Jumping is back. More than ever. Again it is required for basics like navigating the map and completing the story. Let’s not even mention getting a decent amount of AP out of this release without jumping.
Two little details are really over the top for me: (pun not intended)
1. On top of the stressful factors of jumping I mentioned above, we already got a taste of jumping on limited charges in the Bazaar. Now, a steep time limit has been installed. Did we really need that?
2. Was it too far fetched to add a jumping crystal at the end of the new JP? To make getting to the goggles a little more pleasant? Considering the goggles aren’t even the end of our ordeal? (There is a very real chance the jump down wipes all your effort getting there off the table.)

So please, Arenanet, keep this stuff optional in the future. Players who like jumping have had their share. And Super Mario Bros. It’s time to consider the many players who are happier not jumping around. You know, the average MMORPG crowd. That is still what GW2 is, right? Or will the next LW chapter upgrade mushrooms to more than cooking ingredients? Just so you know: if you lock a princess in a castle, I’m out.

I got on these forums because I wanted to address this issue myself. Played three matches just now. Two of those were 4v5.

I see some simple and effective solutions here. Anet, why haven’t you properly fixed this issue after all this time? It’s obviously a serious balance issue that takes out the fun for many players. Fixing it can’t be that hard. Need inspiration? Read above.

No good? Then at least change the impact on personal stats and rank points. But don’t just leave us hanging here. For a firm that’s big on “quality of life”, you sure have remarkable way of ignoring major issues.

+1 from me.

Don’t forget the great rank-up chests.

And the biggest favor of all, of course, is not adressing the 4v5 matches. Out of the 8 games I’ve played yesterday and today, 2 were balanced – in terms of number of players, at least. Today: 3 matches, 3x 4v5. Yeah… I’ve got my daily, think I’ll quit now.

Same goes for the Agent of Entropy achievement.

Ok, thanks.

I hope it will be irrelevant. This bug might exist tomorrow on salvaging “regular” items in HotM.

Was cleaning out my PvP locker and spending all Glory, which involved salvaging a large amount of PvP gear. Did most of this salvaging in Heart of the Mists, until I noticed my Monthly salvage achievement did not progress. Went to Gendarran Fields, used the same PvP salvage kit on PvP items, and there the achievement did progress.

I’m not sure if this is intentional or a bug, but either way, it should be fixed. I understand PvP and PvE/WvW daily/monthly achievements are two different categories (until tomorrow), but even (especially) after tomorrow’s update, it shouldn’t matter where you salvage.

By comparison: the (PvE) Mystic Forgesmith daily does progress in Heart of the Mists.

Thanks for this! I’m only r21 but have collected a decent amount of PvP crafting materials and 40k+ Glory. Turns out I got lucky since I already have a few of the paid tournament weapon skins. Now attempting to add to that list. 13 Paid Tournament Tickets to go…

I too want to share my frustrations about getting no significant rewards in pvp. When Glory got removed, an increase in rank points was supposed to fill that gap. While I wasn’t very enthusiastic about that change, I assumed the rank up chests would be compensating for the removal of Glory and match win chests. Until I opened my first. Seriously, rank up chests are a joke, right? They must be. April Fools’? Good one, guys. I’m looking forward to the real rewards for my pvp endeavors since March 18.

If those rewards are not coming, at least admit that the whole Aftermath patch was a mistake. All it did was take stuff out, without compensating in any way. LA is simply empty and pvp is simply not worth the effort.

All economy and mechanics considerations aside, “the final chapter in the first Living World story arc” has been one big anticlimax that could have been easily avoided.

… A story arc that was awesome, by the way. Which makes it all the more a shame.