Guild Wars 2

http://puu.sh/mKCsV/c420c5626e.jpg

Text error.
The person who kicks and the person who get kicked are being switched around.
I let my guild mate test this for laughs.

Small issue.
Very amusing.
Probably worth fixing later.

That’s €35,- for just 5 shared slots.

A feature people who have Account bound items (gathering tools, ascended items, legendaries etc.) basically begged for, for quite a while now. More expensive than purchasing yet another account on the side. And I’m not lazy enough. I’ll just run to the bank, between characters.

I want to love it, but it’s too expensive for me. Aaagh!

Toyed with the graphic settings last night. Prettied it up a tiny bit, without any performance drops – so thanks for that, at the least!

Beldin.5498:

Auruan.2837:

I was told the GW2 Client runs as a 32-bit executable. So for as long as I recall, it did not surpass a 1.8GB RAM usage.

4 GB is the official maximum a 32-bit client can use under a 64-bit OS if its
compiled with large memory aware. However there is space substracted
for system usage and then there is memory fragmentation so in reality
its around 3.5 GB.

People with maxed setting often manage to bring the client to use over 3.5 GB
where the client crashes.

One of thr biggest factors is the amount and detail of shown player characters.

And then there’s this. This sure explains some of the “issue”.
As it stands, I forgot that I’d raised the Character Model settings to take some screenshots with. I put both back on low – making everyone often look awful and pink – but the memory load dropped significantly. And the core temperatures dropped to normal values again.

I guess I’ll just have to deal with the ugly until I can either upgrade my GPU to share in the burden a little, or until Arena Net creates the 64-bit client they dream of. Either way: thanks for the replies!

I was told the GW2 Client runs as a 32-bit executable. So for as long as I recall, it did not surpass a 1.8GB RAM usage.

But for the past three weeks, it’s been inexplicably tapping into as much as 3GB RAM, taxing my CPU cores excessively which causes its fans to go haywire. Framerates sometimes drop from steady 60 to 30 inexplicably. Temperature rose from near idle temps during regular gameplay to +20 – nothing alarming but weird.

I cleaned my PC’s case, cleaned the fans, checked everything, ran a -repair on the client but the problem persists.

Any suggestions on what causes it, or how to fix this?
I don’t like it when my fans pretend they’re a Ferrari.

My PC’s specs:
OS = Windows 7, 64-bit
CPU = Intel i7-4970 @3.6GHz
GPU = AMD Radeon 6850 HD @1GB vRAM
8GB RAM

I play the game on Low/Medium settings to tax my old GPU to a minimum. Framerate locked to 60.

Thanks for the heads up!

Come to think of it, we were doing level 45, where the instability causes Chill fields to appear. Which is probably the reason the NPC’s lagged behind even further than usual. Good to know though. Will leave this here, just in case Arena Net has time to fix it.

Here to report a bug in the Molten Furnace Fractal.

Upon reaching the Weapon Test chamber, the event did not start.
The NPC spoke his dialogue but did not go hostile. The doors never closed. Rox, Braham and Frostbite froze on the spot. Nothing progressed or changed.

Attempting to reset the area by purposefully dying and resetting the NPC’s did not work either.

Please fix. Thanks for your time.

Randomly cannot re-enter Fractals after any form of disconnection.
It creates a new unique instance, while other party members are still inside the other one.

UI bugs out too:
The window relocates itself to bottom left corner, almost out of reach.
The number of the Fractal resets to personal level, regardless of level the Fractal was on.
Keeping the number the same: no effect.
Adjusting the number: no effect.

Cannot enjoy half the game due to the brokenness of the new trait system. Now this bugs out as well. Can’t wait for the next build of the game, because this is neither fun or rewarding. >.>

Evans.6347:

If you don’t need something, getting it for free doesn’t hurt you.

If you get a free cookie, but you don’t eat cookies, does that mean they shouldn’t hand them out to anyone? Maybe someone there was really happy to get a cookie and would be very disappointed if they suddenly stopped handing them out because someone complained that they didn’t want a free cookie.

I know I’m twisting the situation like this, because in reality no cookies are being handed out at all, and some people who saw the advertisement of said cookies were expecting them to be handed out, as a taste, and are now asking why there are no free cookies.

But I still wonder why anyone would deny someone else a cookie, because they don’t want it.

…I’m craving for cookies now.

I think it’s just really confusing the second cookie vanishes into nothingness, if you already owned a cookie to begin with. I mean, I don’t mind that other people get cookies. That’s awesome!
I’d be really pleased if I was given a cookie, too.

I just wonder, why after so many years of purchasing wonderful toppings and decorations for my cookie (gem store purchases), I’m now not given anything to make up for the vanishing cookie! Where did it go?

It’s apparently what upsets most people. The loyalty to the game and the company just isn’t being rewarded, while Arena Net always valued its customers. For most people I heard complain, it’s not even about the monetary value. It’s just sentimental attachment.

Does “including core game” mean that if I purchase Heart of Thorns, I am given two activation codes?

One for the main game, and one for the expansion?
Meaning, that as a long time veteran, I can expand and have a dummy account on the side?

Because if it’s not, and it’s all in a single code, you’re basically forcing veterans to throw a free copy of the game away – ruining 4 fresh character slots – just because we want to expand what we’ve been on playing for years?
Oh, and you then don’t even give us a free character slot anyway.

Just think about it…
It’s not right.

It’s not officially there yet, supposedly. They just messed up… or so I hear.

I bet that right now, Arena Net’s situation mostly resembles this: http://38.media.tumblr.com/e59c51080e14cee56ce93416cf8055c8/tumblr_inline_mksnpoxWQ21qz4rgp.gif

Well. Eh.

http://puu.sh/i1mwS/3800f9116b.jpg
It also broke the character creation in general. Half the Human professions now have norn-sized legs (?!) and their heads break through the ceiling.

I kinda hope this also happens to the Revenants. Just for hilarity’s sake.

Astralporing.1957:

kaat.8237:

Long term goals means no, you don’t get it rightnowimmediatelybecauseIwantitrightnowimmediately. They aren’t impossible to attain. It’s just gonna take time, and all those who want immediate gratification are just out of luck.

This is not a long term goal. Currently it is a “in a several years maaaaybeeee one or two people will get it. Assuming they will be still playing” type of goal. The “most of people that currently are on top 1000 leaderboard will likely never get it” kind of goal. The “yakslapper” type of goal.

And yes, currently they are quite literally impossible to attain. And this isn’t going to change for a looong time.

Yes, this was exactly my point. I don’t mind working toward a long-term goal. I even managed to obtain a legendary, and in the end I thought that was mostly worth it. When it comes to these glorious sets, they just sort of sit there. It’s almost an insult to the artists who produced them: no-one can wear them, and no-one is going to obtain them for at least a year more if the AP system stays as it is.

I’m all for long-term goals. I’m all for life-time goals, like those WvW achievements – those were obviously meant as a goal for people over years of playing, like the Hero rank in the original Guild Wars. But these armour sets? Not remotely comparable. They’re somewhat misplaced and the method of obtaining them could do with a polish.

fellyn.5083:

Are we supposed to be concerned with what’s hard to program or not? Since they added the complete set after the majority of people already chose multiple pieces it’s only fair to let us repick and keep the previous items we unlocked.

I don’t care how hard something is for them to fix, I only care that they implemented it so poorly to begin with. It’s their problem to fix, no matter if it takes 1 day or 1 year.

I’m willing to wait that year, so long as we get a heads up about such updates being planned and worked on. Altogether, I simply agree that it’d only be fair if we can re-choose if they do overhaul the current AP values, or the rewards in general.

Wow, am I glad there’s so much response to this! Took me a while to get back and read it all, but some people have made very good points here.

I like how everyone either straight up agrees or disagrees about this being too exclusive. Also, it seems that most people wouldn’t want an actual alternative means to obtain the set, so much as adding more ways to earn more permanent Achievement Points. Which I think is a really good point.

In fact, that alone is a very interesting point of discussion to me. I love hunting titles and fun achievements in most games I play. It adds some challenge, and the rewards tend to make up for some of the gruesome achievements out there. Except that on Guild Wars 2, it’s become quantity over quality. I would much rather have them shift the Radiant and Hellfire sets to be based only on your account’s permanent achievement points, rather than dailies and monthlies. That way, you get to see more of the game’s world, and you actually have quite a challenge to take on.

As for the ridiculously stupid permanent Achievements: I own a legendary myself. Those measly 5 Achievement Points you get for binding one to your account are really silly. They made me giggle at the time.

Anyway, I want to add one more point of discussion for those who claim that this set is so exclusive. Yes, I agree: it’s a beautiful long-term goal to work toward! But say that in about half a year, the first people are going to obtain the full sets. That’s great! They’ll be really special and beautiful.

What happens after more and more people catch up?
Due to the current system, there is this moment wherein the sets will no longer be as exclusive. Which is why tying them to different amounts of AP, or tying them to specific achievements, may add to how exclusive and unique they truly are and stay.

While my legendary is not unique in any way, I did work for it, and the people I meet are generally impressed by that in a sense. It’s one of those things that are time-consuming to get, and not everyone would want to devote to it. I’m sure happy I got it. The same applies to Ascended weapons, which you have to earn. But Achievement Points in this game often feel like a coincidence, much more now that the majority of people obtained the basic few thousand permanent points. The rest of them grind dailies, and those more often than not just sort of fly your way by doing anything.

There is that moment, several years from now, where everyone and their goat who plays a few hours a week, is going to have at least 30k AP. They’ll all have these sets by then, which is great. But the exclusiveness is… less than great, by then. More food for thought!

Currently in the process of prettying up my characters, and I could not help but notice that the remainder of Hellfire and Radiant armour was put in-game. The sets look amazing! Which they should, given they are currently impossible to obtain fully.

The reason: they require achivement points. This many, to be exact:
Gloves: 3k / 12k
Shoulder: 6k / 15k
Helm: 9k / 18k
Boots: 21k / 24k
Legs: 27k / 30k
Chest: 33k / 36k

(First value is your first chance to pick the item. Second value is when you get it if you first chose the alternative.)

The highest Achievement Point count currently achieved by anyone in the whole game has not even scratched 26k yet. That’s on both NA and EU leaderboards. While this armour is meant to be exclusive, I am of the opinion that maybe Arena Net has taken this a tad too far. I think it would be very nice to see an alternative method to obtain these items, in the nearby future. Or for these items to become available on a lower Achievement Point count.

Don’t get me wrong, I would want the sets to stay exclusive to true veterans and devoted players. But the current extent of that is pushing the limits. It’s going to take at least another year for the most hardcore players to even obtain both the leg pieces. The more casual crowd may be several years away from them, as it stands now.

Adding an active, challenging way to obtain them would be beneficial. Even if the means is going to be a grindfest, then that’s preferrable to the current situation.

Hundreds of laurels? That’s still doable, while requiring (similar) longterm daily hunting. Hundreds of Pristine Fractal Relics? Still more affordable than the AP count, while requiring amazing devotion. Reward them for some insanely difficult Collection? That’d tie right into the new collectible system, eh!

What I’m saying is… a challenge or grind will keep players more devoted. More devoted players, ups the chances of them buckling and buying gems. More gems, is more shinies, is more income. Skritt love shinies! I hear Arena Net do too.

Tl;dr: WTB an alternative/extra method to obtain Hellfire & Radiant sets.

Yes, but those items are not quite memorable and have close to no impact. I cannot name anyone who advertised for his AC run because he wanted a Ghostly Spineguard so badly, or wanted to punch Subject Alpha for the Fibre Splice.

What I was thinking of was a system along the lines of more interesting collectibles, with actual valuable or good-looking items. Thanks for the heads up though!

Hello everyone! Just tossing ideas at the wall here. See what sticks.
I’d like to turn this into a collection of ideas. With feedback from the community. And hopefully, Arena Net will notice and consider things!

There was talk of a lack of a dungeon team on Arena Net’s development side. As such, no dungeons are currently being developed (that we know of), and the dungeon content has become remarkably stale over time.

Here are a number of things I think could be implemented to easily make dungeons more interesting.

• A lack of unique loot per dungeon.
  In many other online games, and RPG’s in general, replay value of certain dungeons and raids comes out of the will to collect certain rare and enjoyable goodies. No final boss encounters in dungeons on Guild Wars 2 currently result in valuable, unique drops. Going back to beat that one boss in that one place? “What boss?” Exactly! No boss is remotely memorable, since they have no value to players.
  Suggested solution(s): Add a collectible weapon or unique item to the final boss of each dungeon path. Make them named items (like greens on GW1). These unique weapons can be part of a Collection, with a unique, fun or silly reward for collecting them all.
  Drop rates for the weapons should not be set at 100%, but nothing under 5% either. This should give players an incentive to repeat certain dungeon paths over time, without it being an impossible task.

• What dungeon shall we do?
  Lot of people have gotten Dungeon Master by now. They still want to do dungeons, but have difficulty choosing from the LFG tool. (At least, I do sometimes.)
  Suggested solution(s): Add an extra button that asigns your full party of friends to a random dungeon (possibly for a bonus reward) they must complete. A queue could be implemented alternatively, to randomly hop into groups with strangers. Keeps the experience fresh.

• Fractals are a waste of time.
  When put next to other dungeons, Fractals generally take much longer. And the worst isn’t that they are long, but they reward the players with less items and gold on average. Especially higher levels are arguably not worth their time.
  Suggested solution(s): Further increase the gold reward at the end, based on the difficulty bracket. From bracket 20 onward, the end reward should be guaranteed. Getting nothing should not be an option, past this point. Add more rewards for Pristine Relics (such as the Fractal skins).

Hey Arena Net, did you know that “But the new players are confused by <x>!” has become a running gag in most guilds I’m in?

This patch was for new players, you say. Here’s the actual situation though:
New players don’t have enough gold to actually get gems.
New players aren’t too dumb to fill in a custom number on their own.
New players won’t care for this until they hit the level cap, at which point they are no longer new players to begin with.

Your whole reasoning for implementing this update is moot.
Yes, it’s nice that we now no longer have to sit there, adjusting half silver values to get that one gem more or less. But it’d require at least a 50, 100 or 200 gem count to be fair.

With that said, can you please get back to working on things that actually need fixing? Like loot charts on your endgame content, such as Fractals? Or re-enabling POI’s, Vistas, utility skills and weapon skill unlocks for lower level characters, so new players don’t fall asleep and ditch the game before reaching level 20? Food for thought, dears. Food for thought.

It used to be that if four cannonballs of any kind were launched with a gap in the middle, you could harmlessly stand in that gap until the next shots were fired. Then I used to dodge over the old AoE’s onto a new safe spot. Rinse and repeat.

Ever since the overhaul, managing that little trick has become impossible. Even if you position yourself square in the middle, the lightning AoE keeps hitting and inflicting agony. This is why I believe there is an animation or hitbox issue.

When next I get this encounter, I’ll try and screencap the issue.

I have encountered another bug meanwhile.

• After a wipe, Horrik and Mai’s aggro does not always reset appropriately:
  They attempt to kill players who are not in the actual area yet, firing and teleporting into the stairwell where the console is located.

Still broken.

I’m not opposed to a challenge, or failing an encounter if a team mate or I made a terrible mistake, but the error margin in this battle has become non-existent due to the ridiculously enhanced mechanics. Would like to see an Arena Net official respond to this, or link me to a response on similar threads that discuss these issues: it’d be appreciated.

Fellow owner of a Twilight here, and I wholeheartedly agree. I can see why it’s tough to make it more apparent as it is now though.
Unlike every other legendary, which glow or shine, Twilight’s aura is dark and doesn’t use any lighting effects to place emphasis on it. It’s difficult to make black stand out: even on white or celestial armour, the contrast is at a minimum.

I’d like to suggest that maybe adding a blood red or dark blue hue to it, along with a (faint) glow effect, would improve the visibility of it, whilst staying true to its dark theme. It needn’t become the beacon that Sunrise is, but it’d be cool to have something visible going on.

The Mai Trin encounter was “fixed”.
I believe she has instead bugged out. Severely.

Compared to the other Fractals final bosses, this encounter is currently too difficult, due to unfair and buggy mechanics.

The issues are as follows:

• Mai Trin’s melee attack’s reach far exceeds her own hitbox.
• Mai Trin’s teleportation skill cannot be dodged: splash damage always lands.
• Mai Trin’s ranged attack cannot be blocked with Aegis.
• Mai Trin’s ranged attack appears unaffected by Protection effects.
• Cannon phase AoE hitboxes are wider than the red circles show.
• Cannon phase’s “electrical” shots hit players before the animation shows they do.

Additionally, several defensive skill effects do not function.
Blocks that are not registered at Aegis are ignored by all sources of damage.
Reflects are ineffective entirely.
Evasion/Invulnerability occasionally does nothing against the damage dealt.

Multiple suggestions for fixes:

• Revert the encounter to its original state. (until a new, proper fixed state is created)
• Fix Mai Trin’s offensive hitbox reach or lessen the pace at which she applies bleeds.
• Allow Mai Trin’s ranged attack to be reflected or blocked.
• Allow players to fully dodge Mai Trin’s teleportation skill.
• Revert the cannon phase to its old state.

I would like to add something of concern to this thread.
Two days ago, I wrote a ticket to support in regards to a flaw in the Megaserver’s “sorting AI”, so to call it. The GM’s who answered, suggested I best post on the forum, as developers often read these topics (even if silently).

So here goes nothing…
There is a Polish roleplaying guild from Blacktide, who are constantly sorted into the same shard as Piken Square (role)players. They have a lovely concept and are incredibly friendly, but they roleplay exclusively in Polish.

Formerly, they had the entirety of the Blacktide server to roleplay on. Nowadays, I am unable to move so much as three steps outside of the capital cities without encountering these people. Due to the language barrier, interaction on the IC level is not possible.

The few times I spoke to them, they expressed a desire to return to their own server. For them. And for us. So that we can all carry on doing what we love the most without interfering with others.

So my issue is as follows:
The Megaservers should prioritise the “home” servers more than anything. Currently, they do not. They sort people by guild and party correctly, but grab “fillers” from all over the place; different servers, different playstyles, different languages.

Additionally, I (and so many others) would most appreciate it if Piken Square and Tarnished Coast were finally recognised as the roleplaying servers that they are. There have been developers who have formerly expressed a desire to officially label these servers as such, and what better time is there than now?

There are the megaservers, which have the coding to sort individual players into shards to suit their needs. Why not let us choose our “preferred playstyle” in the character select menu, so that the game can more easily put us with likeminded individuals? Let us set preferred language, too. It’d solve a lot of issues.

All in all, I can honestly say that currently, the Guild Wars 2 megaservers are in a stage so primitive compared to its original counterpart in Guild Wars (where we could manually choose which channel to be in, by language and region) that it feels as if we’re back in the Guild Wars 2 beta stage.

These megaservers have so much potential, and it’s all going to waste!
Still hoping for an update soon. Fingers crossed…

Perhaps not a “bug” so much as a game mechanic that was (unintentionally) altered with a patch several months ago, but still one I’d like to highlight once more.

The issue is as follows:
The range of every emote, including custom written /e sentences, is ridiculous. They stretch about twice as far as the current range on /say text. This first occurred after character culling was patched and altered about ten months ago.

It was reported at the time – by myself and multiple others, in a nice little thread here – but has not been addressed or fixed since.

Since you recently fixed the way the block list interacts with blocked inviduals’ emotes (for which I’m really grateful), perhaps it is time you take a look at how the emote range functions and how it can be reset to its former glory? It is rather intrusive to see someone sit, dance or laugh half a city block away.

Additionally, it’d lessen some of the roleplaying community’s issues in regards to the megaservers: they’d be able to emote peacefully, without an army of PvE’ing individuals rushing over like rabid hounds from miles away, to pester and bully them for enjoying this MMO in a way different from theirs.

I understand this isn’t high on your list of things to do, but it’d be neat to see something that’s seemingly so small fixed in an upcoming patch. It would be a welcome detail!

Kallandra.2610:

I logged in to Divinty’s Reach this morning. I was representing my guild, and originally from Piken Square.

My friend, also representing the same guild, from the same home server, and on my friend list, also logged in, and was placed in a different instance.

How is this ‘working’ ?

Simple! It isn’t working. At all. I’ve the exact same issue.
I cannot reach my guildies in a single go when within cities anymore. We always have to group up and carefully coordinate who tries to reach who – even then, it is random at large, and the sorting function of Origin Server, Guild, Party etc. seems malfunct.

For giggles, I asked in the Cursed Shore map chat what servers people were originally from. Gendarran, Seafarer’s, Desolation, Piken Square, Underworld – in varying amounts, with multiple people complaining their friends couldn’t access that particular server we were on at the time. Buggy!

The concept of the megaservers as an initiative to keep zones active isn’t all that bad. It’s the execution and the lack of control on player end that makes it unbearable to deal with.

So here we go again, as has been suggested by myself and countless others since the game’s release, and again after this concept was introduced:

• No randomised overflows.
• No “AI-controlled” megaservers.

Just reintroduce the good old Guild Wars 1 District system.

There’s absolutely no reason to try and reinvent the wheel, Arena Net. It worked before, and I’m positive you can mix and match the new megaserver system with the old concepts to be more user-friendly altogether.

Heck, just the addition of a single line of text on-screen somewhere, that states what server a player is on, could make a difference: at least then coordinating to reach one another becomes much easier.

Thank you for that addition. I’d forgotten all about the fact that indeed, a person you have blocked can still put you on their friend list to keep an eye on your comings and goings.

Whilst the few people I have blocked are either bots or rude people I do not wish to run into in dungeons again and the sort, it is an unsettling thought that someone much worse might be able to “stalk” you without you ever realising.

The Block list has been buggy since release, and I think it’s about time this broken feature gets addressed. From wallet to wardrobe, the addition of the LFG tool and so forth, all has been fixed or is on the to-do list: time to add this one to that.

The Block List / Ignore function has been broken since release.
If you ignore someone, you can still read their /emote messages. This occasionally causes awkward situations.

Additionally, trolls can shout from behind the safety of an ignore list.
If X ignores Y, X can still shout profanities at Y. The moment you decide to block someone, the game should instantly prohibit communication altogether to prevent further trolling from occurring.

Figured I might as well report it for a fifth or so time.

VincentDW.9376:

Sigh. I wanted to believe all the times we were told, “just wait until the end to judge, it will get better, we promise!” Well, now it is the end, and now I am judging. Please find a different writer for season 2.

I’m going to hop aboard the bandwagon and nod in agreement here.
While part of the Living Story was said to be experimental, I think we can all agree that the people in charge of character development and dialogues need a… I was going to say nudge, but perhaps a big shove in the right direction is really what they need. A good effort, it just didn’t work out and it’s a serious shame. Such potential gone to waste!

Beware: here be spoilers!

I would like to share a simple overview of what I think stood out a lot.
They are both awful and good, and I think it’s worth noting that I am still interested in the game. I am just mildly awed by the writing team’s approach and their current choice of style, but hope that over time the community’s voice will be loud enough for them to adapt to something more bearable for most people.

So here goes!

General note:
It is a rather small patch.
No-one really warned us about this. Not that I’m aware of. Or any of my friends.
Might be wise to put that out there, to prevent mass confusion!

About the Dead End inn “party”:
The dialogue was rather “simple” and “stiff”. Unrealistic at times.
Most of it currently seems aimed at an audience of people aged 5 to 10, not the game’s rated 12+. Never mind the vast majority of adults playing the game. It’s not the worst, but it could do with a reality check here and there.

The dialogue was paced poorly.
This did not help the stiffness. There were a multitude of extremely long pauses, making it rather unclear if it was over or still going on. Writing issue or programming errors? Whichever the case, it could do with better pacing!

It wasn’t much of a party.
Semantics, right? It was more a meeting than a party.

Marjory has a sister nobody knew about.
…who was uncharacteristically uninterested to find out Jory was alive, after facing off with the biggest villain next to the Elder Dragons, in the burning remains of a city, inside a giant drill of doom. I hope that shows how unrealistic her reactions seemed. Sadly so, since it had a lot of potential! Maybe in future installments?

Everyone emphasises that the Player Character suddenly exists again.
Let me explain this: The past few months, the Player Character has been non-existent. The story moved on without their presence. All lore NPC’s prattled on, ignoring them for a while. Nothing we did as players influenced any outcomes. Suddenly, we’re the heroes again and we get praised. Either involve us all through, slowly adopt us back, or disregard us permanently. This sudden change of heart seemed out of place.

Kasmeer is “the Ditz” archetype taken to eleven.
I really fancy TvTropes! Sorry! In normal terms: Kasmeer is unnaturally daft. She did not register anything that was going on. She is genuinely surprised by the presence of an Elder Dragon, leylines and anything Scarlet. It would be justified, but she has shown moments of incredible clarity before. My suggestion: play a stereotype straight, or don’t go for it. So-so approaches are seldom endearing, and currently it wastes a fine character.

Braham stands on a broken leg?
He may be a mighty Norn. There may not be chairs we can sit on. There might be no crutches he might have used… But was this really necessary? Even if this was done to emphasise he is still recovering, or to emphasise that Rox likes him, or to get the bear grunt jokes going, it’s still rather peculiar. (For shame, create custom chairs for us to sit on, and for NPC’s to use for added realism in storytelling! Gem store item. We’ll love you eternally. Or very long, at the very least.)

To be continued.
Wait, that’s all!?
DUN DUN DUN!
Could we not have had a sneak peek of any kind? Pretty please, cherries on top!
Cutscene over. Back outside.
Or just not. Time will tell.

So that’s my observations for this patch’s story side.
They are most certainly not meant to get anyone’s jimmies rustled! I instead hope to see a vast improvement in terms of character and dialogue writing the coming few months. The visuals are there (minus the chairs, theehee) but the writing is still catching up, eh.
So please! Keep at it, Arena Net! Don’t you dare let your franchise go to waste!

Going to give this topic a nudge, in hopes of more people joining the discussion.

I for one really like the sound of this idea.
My main issue with the spirits is their inability to stay alive. In sPvP they have their uses, but elsewhere they are limited and often die long before anyone benefited fully of their effects. Especially the one that grants swiftness suffers greatly, and serves no key purpose anywhere.

In this fashion you suggest, the spirits become more like a mix between Guardian Symbols and Mesmer Phantasms, rather than the squishy, bizarre crossover of Warrior Banners and Guardian Spirit Weapons they are now.

I’m particularly fond of how well balanced your proposed traits look.
“(Grandmaster Trait) Spiritual Amplification: Spirits are combo fields.” is well powerful, but requiring those 30 trait points whilst having very short fields (akin to Engineer toolbelt fields, which require outstanding timing to use) would balance it out perfectly.

All in all, an interesting idea. I think it’s well worth putting this forward to where some developers might notice it. Even if they do not take in the full idea, having so much as a shred of the concept added to Ranger weapons (to make them less bland) would be a victory!

Hello, and welcome back to Tyria!

This may come across as a tad lazy (it’s stickied, shh), but it’s definitely worth checking out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first
(The second post in that contains a number of builds to check out.)

Since roaming/open PvE generally is low risk, you should have no trouble running one of the builds described in that topic. There’s quite a bit of variety to go for, but the core traits are essentailly always the same.

It relies on blinding your enemies, dodging and dishing out solid damage all around. Lucky for you, greatsword is one of the prime choices in these builds, too!

Lastly, Altruistic Healing has been mostly discarded in the current “meta”. If you are a solo player, and wish to keep that trait line though, the meditations may suit your style better. If nothing else, they are a reliable source of self-healing once traited.

Hope this is of some use! Good luck finding something fun and comfy to play with.

Here’s the instructions on how to run a -repair on the client.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28148006-Repairing-the-Game-Client
It may take some time, as it checks, downloads and fixes any corrupted and missing files.

Hope it works out!

The issue here is more “Warriors have too much health”, as opposed to Guardians having too little. I agree that it would be more comfortable to have about 2k to 4k extra base health, but even without that Guardian is fully playable.

In case it’s not enough for PvE or WvW, try to swap some armour pieces to have some added vitality (Valkyrie for offensive, Soldier/Sentinel for defensive), you’ll find it works out just fine.

It’s a matter of find what’s comfortable just as much as the “learn to play” comments others have left. No sound-minded player is going to boot you for carrying two or three Valkyrie pieces in your Berserker set, or one or two Soldier pieces amidst Knight pieces. Find what’s most comfortable, or even bring the 10% less damage signet if you’re still struggling and have the space for it.

In this case, don’t look at the problem: Look at the solutions instead.
Plenty of ways to work around this.

Thank you kindly for summarising this so nicely, Konig.
I’ve been having mild trouble keeping up the past month or so, and while I heard that it’d all end around March, I had no idea about the other things.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Given the fact that we have heard nothing of Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee’s involvement in the game’s plot after release, I bet they’re working on the next plot after Scarlet.
[…]
clearly little to no forethought was put into Scarlet, no more than a few months at best. But the missing action of at least two major lore writers for the company? Something’s going on in the background.

I hope they are still around and working on delivering something great. After all, Arena Net did learn a lot about presentation and visualisation through all the Scarlet related… “stuff”. Whilst this may be a dark chapter in the lovely lore of Guild Wars… I hope it wasn’t all for naught.

Fingers crossed. Still giggling at the huge woman robot… stampeding. Theehee.

…but all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Ahahah, no. Not really.
Anyway!

You see, when I started Guild Wars 2, I was promised Elder Dragons.
Can anyone explain to me in the simplest possible terms…

Why we are now facing a huge, naked robot woman stampeding in the snow?

In case it’s not clear why I am confused:
Elder Dragons. Giant naked robot woman stampeding in snow. Elder Dragons. Giant naked robot woman stampeding in snow. Elder draaaagons… giant robot woman…
Just say that aloud a few times, and try not to smile.

Just to be safe: I really enjoy this game. I’m glad they’re updating it frequently.
I’m just confused by the “lore”. Or whatever is still left of it. It just doesn’t feel like the same game anymore, and not in a good way.
It has me somewhat confused, concerned but also amused by this point. I’m really not going to stop playing the game because of these things, so long as they stay non-intrusive, and I’m not trying to bash it actively. It’s just so amusing. That is all.

And one more time, for effect: Giant naked robot woman stampeding in the snow.
Enjoy the patch, everyone!

I never suggested I die a lot on my own Guardian. It happens at times, mostly during lengthier fights where others also fall short, be it in terms of DPS or their self-sustain in turn.

It’s just that I notice other Guardians blatantly pick up the meta without taking into account their own capacities first. It discourages some players from wanting to take part in LFG, and the most stubborn ones of them all even go all out Cleric just to stand out. Just to be stubborn.

Which is what got me thinking about how perhaps Guardian could use a (small) sustain adjustment. Not saying we should suddenly have it in every build, but making it more accessible, or even tweaking the other traits in the Valor line may make it more interesting. Any other suggestion is welcome, of course!

As for the Elementalist:
30/30/0/0/10. Dagger/Focus. I mixed Soldier gear with the Berserker gear until I reached a comfortable level of survivability. Vitality/Regen food. Earth has an invulnerability on the Focus. Add Arcane Shield to it and you’ll find that it works fine, even up close. High risk, high pay off, high offensive support in form of Fury/Might blast finishers where it’s due.

It’s just that Elementalist can perform at all ranges with a whole collection of builds that people find agreeable. Again, they have a lot of synergy. Guardians are currently narrowed down somewhat, the Valor line being “selfish”, and some of their traits overall could really use a tweaking.

Altruistic Healing is simply my favourite contender, since it’s a trait that rewards supportive play. It’s not bad, but it could be better without becoming too powerful. It also seems like somewhat of a controversy to be using it by this point, making it all the more interesting to discuss right now.

Noah.4756:

You’re making it sound like every guardian out there is running Cleric healing builds. As far as I know they are the abomination of our class. These traits only shine when you go full support and unfortunately aren’t significant enough to include them in damage type builds. As of now it is better to invest in traits like 15 in Radiance, 15 in honor or 20 in Virtues.

This pretty much sums it up, too. Right now, players only run the extremes.
Either they’re full Berserker, full Soldier or full Cleric (Cleric is more WvW, but some don’t swap for PvE). When I show up in the more comfortable Knight/Berserker, people raise an eyebrow. And woe if you try to prove Guardians can benefit from Valkyrie pieces.

The lack of hybrid building is also partially to blame on the trait layout.
Guardian traits either have great basic traits, and a shoddy Grandmaster set, or an amazing Grandmaster trait, with nothing else to show for prior.
In my opinion, Radiance is our only solid trait line, which can be put to full use in any build. Compared to other professions, one trait line with optimal synergy is really not much.

Altruistic Healing suffers from the latter shortcoming: no synergy with the rest of its line. The selfish Valor traits contradict the purpose of Altruistic Healing completely. It’s the only trait we have that benefits at large from playing supportively, yet to obtain it we must waste thirty points better spent elsewhere. We lose some, we gain some, but isn’t that just a waste?

Let me just add another question:
If Altruistic Healing was toned down to only 33% to 50% of its current healing, and available in Honor for 10 or 20 points, would you opt to pick it? Why or why not?

NoTrigger.8396:

Auruan.2837:

This has little to do with what Guardians were intended to be like.
Any error is lethal. The majority of Guardians sacrifice their self-sustain for more damage, which in turn harms teams in the long run.

sorry but AH harms teams in the long run because its selfish.

Yes, and this is why I think it may be interesting to relocate it, so that it becomes usable without doing “harm” to teams.

Right now, the sacrifices made turn it into Selfish Altruism. If it were relocated to be more easily accessible, and tweaked to not be too powerful, it could give an interesting amount of extra regeneration to secure the Guardian’s survival.

It’s all mere theorycraft, anyway.

Vargamonth.2047:

Altruistic Healing is in a selfish traitline because it’s a completely selfish trait. The guardian is the only one getting any benefit from it.
Not having AH doesn’t prevent the Guardian from providing great support and spreading boons here and there.

In ways the team does benefit if the Guardian in question stays alive with more ease.
I’ve played with Altruistic Healing for months, and recently switched to the cookie cutter DPS build. What I’ve noticed is that no matter my gear choice (Berserker, Knight/Berserker, Valkyrie/Berserker), if the overall damage of the team falls short and battles take too long, I run out of resources to stay alive and eventually I fail to support my team. Altruistic builds don’t suffer that as much, as they thrive on helping team members.

This was most obvious in more tedious dungeons, mind you.
Fractals 30+ (the Dredge are notoriously awful), AC, CoE, Arah and so on.

In multiple pug runs of various dungeons, as my Warrior and Elementalist, I’ve noticed the same happening to other full DPS Guardians. The slightest error can cause them to get downed, especially as fights take longer and their access to blocks and blinds runs out – we usually catch them if they fall, but it’d be nice if they stayed afoot.

This is what prompted the thought that perhaps some version of self-sustain ought to be easier and less selfish to access. Other professions all have easy access to an abundance, and while Guardians have a 5 point Vigor trait, it’s still pretty meager.

Altruistic Healing was the most obvious go-to trait for it, as it benefits from being a social player. It’s just positioned in a selfish trait line now, and perhaps a little too strong if it were moved elsewhere. It’d need tweaking, no doubt.

Which reminds me, I completely forgot to mention something in the first post!
Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus are both Grandmaster Valor traits.
This makes it a 100% yes or no choice for added sustain. (Virtues IX: Absolute Resolution adds very little by comparison.)
The sole reason I can think of why they designed it like this, is to prevent people from obtaining both traits simultaneously: mere speculation, of course. This hints at it needing serious tweaking if they were to ever relocate AH.

Vargamonth.2047:

Noah.4756:

Battle Presence should not be in the Honor trait tree but in the Virtues tree because it affects Virtue of Resolve.

Battle presence is perfectly fine in Honor. That’s the traitline with Healig Power and where most guardian healing tools are.
Moving it to a traitline that reduces recharge on virtues and grants boon duration, when passive VoR doesn’t grant any boon and you’re not going to activate it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’ve actually tested Battle Presence in the past, and if it has not changed meanwhile…
Only the Guardian loses VoR upon the skill being triggered. The party members still get VoR through Battle Presence while your own VoR is on cooldown. With that in mind, you can spread an instant heal, additional regeneration, and only sacrifice your own regeneration momentarily. Shorter if it were relocated to Virtues, perhaps.
This paired with its Master trait Absolute Resolution, would give it some synergy – I’d have to test if that one’s effect also stacks.

So it’s indeed fine where it is, though it would suffer only slightly by moving it to Virtues. I’ll admit that I was wrong: parking it in Valor would do it no good, at all, and lessen the odds of anyone ever bringing it again.

Good things to think about.

Just some thoughts about the trait Altruistic Healing and its place in the current Guardian meta. Note, this is entirely about PvE and its workings.
Simple contemplations of a numpty who doesn’t like her fellow Guardians dropping like flies because the current meta makes them too squishy.

In short:
Guardians.

• Low(est) health pool.
• High base armour.
• High support capacities.
• Mid to high range DPS capacities.

What is Altruistic Healing?
Grandmaster Valor trait XI – 30 points required.
“Applying a boon to allies heals you.”

As you can see, Altruistic Healing fits perfectly with a supporting build, except that the trait line it lies in is not a support line on its own.

The Valor trait line is considered by many to be selfish.
It contributes close to nothing to groups, other than self-sustain at the Grandmaster level.
Altruistic Healing has no synergy with the rest of the Valor traits.

Possible “solutions”:

• Move Altruistic Healing down to Master level.
  The ten traits points it spares are highly valuable and can be used both offensively and defensively, which makes this trait more desirable to obtain.
• Make it the 25 point Grandmaster trait.
  Tone its healing effects down to supply a small regeneration, to balance it out. Five points spared, five points to be put in a less selfish place.
• Move Altruistic into the Grandmaster level of another Trait line.
  The obvious choice would be Honor. It could perhaps replace Battle Presence XII: this one seems more synergetic to Valor’s IV Strength in Numbers. Both use similar “nearby allies” structure to benefit teams. Sadly, neither are exceptional currently…

Why not leave it as it is?
The current Berserker / Glass cannon DPS “meta” build makes the Guardian more akin to a flashy Thief. This has little to do with what Guardians were intended to be like.
Any error is lethal. The majority of Guardians sacrifice their self-sustain for more damage, which in turn harms teams in the long run.

With the heavy “Learn to play. Berserker or get out!” mentality that rules the community, a small tweaking like this can make or break a pleasant gaming experience.

Omgwtfbbq way overpowered!!!
I agree. And I disagree!

For one, this could be implemented only as a PvE exclusive adjustment. I can see that in WvW, where spreading boons is easy as pie, it’s currently in a fair enough place. That’s to say, it sacrifices a lot to gain something very strong in return. In PvE, this is not quite true anymore.

Secondly, Guardians have the lowest base health available. This is especially noticable when put next to their supposedly more offensive counterparts, the Warrior. Add to it that Warriors currently have smoother access to additional regeneration (Adrenal healing, their signet which can be traited etc.), and it seems to me that either the Warrior needs to be toned down, or the Guardian deserves a slight boost.

Finally, Altruistic Healing encourages Guardians to use their boons wisely.
Sure, they can spam them for quick self-heals, but they’ll realise soon they won’t get away with it in more difficult content. Add to it that this trait has perfect synergy with the Hammer and Mace, and voila.

Discuss!
Just bring in those torches and pitchforks! No, just kidding.
I’m mostly interested in seeing what others think of this. Will this rig the meta too much? Would it be feasible, and what other adjustments would have to be made to justify this?

Arena Net has shown interest in lessening the DPS-racing to get back to more strategic play. Giving this trait back its time to shine may or may not help in that.

To visualise Cat Has Ducks’ suggestion:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNAS8dlUgKD3FSHEfIFRWBRa9AgH0fYK0oHvK4QA-jwBBYfERzEBwUBDRL7sIasVNFRjVXDT5iIqGA-e

Lower cooldown on your Wall of Reflection, plus Purging Flames (Reinigende Flammen).
The best thing about Purging Flames it that it heals all conditions on allies, lessens the duration of new conditions briefly and it is a Fire Field. With Hammer #2 you can combo on that to give your group extra Might.

You can always drop Purging Flames again in situations with only a few conditions.

Small adjustment, big help? I might give this one a whirl: looks basic but fun.

Turtle Dragon basically summed it all up in a lovely fashion, but I thought it nice to share this thread about the current meta builds and their damage outputs:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-dps-numbers-for-various-builds/first
The chart fadeaway.2807 made (as found in that thread):
http://s27.postimg.org/nf571pco3/guarddps.jpg

If you check the chart and zoom in, you can find what’s essentially the OP’s build. It’s somewhere just above the middle bracket for damage. Slightly higher with a Sigil of Night in certain instances.

With minor alterations, it easily takes a hop to a higher damage bracket, without sacrificing much self-sustain. I think that might be worth looking into, as several people here already suggested. As much as you are comfortable with that, of course.

All in all, I think the chart more or less indicates this is a solid hybrid build which likely suffices in the majority of pugs. The damage should be high enough to pull through most content, without being too brittle (or inexperienced/clumsy) to jeopardise your party.

So to give you an answer:
I’d take someone with this build who plays it right, over the large amounts of clumsy DPS meta Guardians and Cleric staff spammers any day.

Thanks for the fixed link, NeedCoffee! I did recently update my GPU drivers though. I cleaned the old ones out with CCleaner and TuneUp, double-checked the registry and had it defragged as suggested. Also went through Arena Net’s suggestions for the AMD Catalyst Center settings and so on: they seem to match the ones in your link at first glimpse. Will definitely look into this more.

As for the explanation for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit: much obliged, sirsquishy.
Temperature is no issue though. I actually checked and cleaned my PC’s fans last week and they run smoothly and silently, temperatures are kept in check too. Did that after the first audio stuttering began to show up, come to think of it.

Still, the only application to suffer these framerate and audio mishaps is Guild Wars 2.
And only as of late. I’m almost beginning to hope this is all to do with the holiday season and the Wintersday updates… but we’ll see when this passes if that is so.
One can hope, right?

And in the meantime, I’ll be sure to try and fix whatever it is that’s hampering my PC. Might as well go through it all, for the sake of it. Who knows what this old thing can still cough up, haha. It might just surprise me with what it can do.

Tried to check the link, but it gives this message:
vBulletin Message
Invalid Post specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

Do I have to have an account there in order to access the post, or did you accidentally muck up the link?

Also, from what I understood the 4GB RAM should more or less suffice. I’ve been told by multiple people, including a tech at my local PC store and an Arena Net support team member, that I’d benefit more from an upgrade to a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
Yet, all over this forum, people say the Guild Wars 2 client is only a 32-bit client, and suggest that such an upgrade would thus be mundane. True?

So about a week ago, I began to suffer from random FPS drops and audio hiccuping. After a clean reinstall of the game, several driver updates and defragging my PC, it seemed to be resolved. Until yesterday.

Initially, I thought it came along with having too many processes on at once. Rebooted my PC, turned off some other programs – also disabled SweetFX – and it seemed okay. For an hour.

Even now as only Guild Wars 2 runs, the sound keeps making unbearable crackling and stuttering noises, whilst my framerate wavers between 10 and 60 whilst idling in an empty area.

There seems to be no clear reason why this happens.
Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Just in case, here’s my system and in-game settings:

Windows 7, 32-bit. 4 GB RAM.
AMD Athlon II X3 four55 Processor (3.30GHz)
AMD Radeon HD 6850.
(Note: I am aware this PC is not ideal for gaming these days. Up until recently, however, it ran Guild Wars 2 at medium settings without too much FPS issues allround – WvW excluded. Also: the forum thinks my processor number is leetspeak for someone’s rear, hence the added “four”.)

Graphic settings:
Windowed Fullscreen.
FPS limit: 60.
Animation: low.
Antialiasing: none.
Environment: medium.
LOD distance: low.
Reflections: none.
Textures: medium.
Render Sampling: native.
Shadows: low.
Shaders: medium.
Postprocessing: low.
Character model limit: lowest.
Character model quality: low.
Best texture filtering: off.
Depth blur: off.
Effect LOD: on.
Vertical sync: on.

Audio settings – quality, interval, mixing buffer size – are on default.

I simply want to refer you to the guide that can be found on this very forum.
A good read. And nice for ideas, too.

Eveningstar.6940:

Bad Reasons To Play A Guardian:

• You want to play a passive healer.
  - – -
  If you are not engaging your enemy, if you are not swinging your weapon, if you are not dodging out of blows and smashing something pointy and/or smashy in your enemy’s face, you’re doing something wrong.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-PVE-Guardian-101-A-Beginner-s-Text/first

Basically, Guardians are (passive) aggressive supporters.
They can heal, and should definitely do so where required, but never waste your time on doing just that. Aegis, Stability, Protection are all more useful than tiny bits of healing.

Most importantly: Healing Power scales awfully!

Revan.4653:

The question is: should I drop Virtue and Invest in Honor instead, gaining +300 Vitality and +30% healing.

300 Healing Power is sadly NOT 30% extra healing, as your post suggested.
You need to get thousands of Healing Power to see any increase in your skills’ healing numbers. And the changes are very small. The loss of damage is much bigger, and it’s not worth the trade-off.

Then for traits: the most important thing about Guardian is finding what suits your playstyle, as opposed to traiting into a line purely for the passive stats. Armour can set straight the loss in numbers to some degree anyway.

And to top it off, Cleric gear is also not really feasible.
The reason is simple: you sacrifice another stat for the Healing Power.
Dead enemies deal no damage. Well timed Aegises and good DPS are more valuable than a tiny increase in Regeneration effects.

Just as it says in the title.
Since Monday’s minor patch, my client has been suffering from some peculiar audio stuttering issues. The first time I noticed it, it occurred only during FPS drops, in severely crowded areas. I simply blamed it on Wintersday and disregarded it where able.

Today it has been showing up at random intervals, even when completely idle with 60 FPS in areas devoid of other players – Music, NPC dialogue, spell effects, player instruments: everything stutters at the same time.

I have attempted multiple things to fix the issues, adjusting some settings and putting them back when there was no result. I updated all my PC’s drivers – CPU, GPU, Windows Update etc. – , ran a -repair on the client to no avail, and still the problem persists. If anyone has any suggestions left, do share.

Much appreciated, and all in all a Merry Christmas!

EDIT:
A clean reinstall of the game did the trick. Friend suggested it as a last resort; it worked.
Topic can be closed. Apologies!

You need not type the word “delete”. Only the character name itself, after which you click the delete button to confirm your decision.

Sat browsing this topic, very intrigued by the replies to the original question.
Konig again nails the replies.

Yes, lore matters.
No, a writer mustn’t retcon unnecessarily, nor should he or she ever overwrite existing lore for convenience.
No, I do not believe Scarlet can still be retconned anymore. What we can give her though…

Celestina.2894:

Listen, I actually like Scarlet, but Christ enough is enough Bobby. Either give us a bit of a break from her, or hurry and finish her arch.

I’d love to see her go down in a great manner. A good battle, a worthy ending of a “worthless” villain, like so many people say. Make it worthwhile, and move on to the old lore.

As Dunan Atreides.5436 mentioned earlier in the thread, a lot of things are being buried under the Scarlet hatred. I’m not a fan of Scarlet either, but I really want to try and like the newly released content. The character just distracts so heavily. A shame, since it does have a lot of potential.
The gameplay is still enjoyable, too. And the old lore is still there.

Also adding this one, to highlight one of the main issues I have with Scarlet:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s realistic to have the villain fail every now and then.

If she fails, she lollers about it. She doesn’t care. Or if she did, suddenly turns 180 degrees for no apparent reason to act “cool” about it.
Please, let her suffer a true failure before eradicating her from the story completely.
I know a lot of this was pre-written and pre-planned, for the sake of programming, voice acting and so forth, but… yeah.

Yes. Yes! YES!
If this were comparable to the instruments and had a similar price, I’d easily spend some real coin on obtaining one. Also, an overlapping feature where one can sit down, then play the instrument will be very nice.

Lots of things to do with this. Different styles of seats depending on the race that uses it. Perhaps a heavy iron bar stools for Charr so their tail animations don’t go awry and so forth.

Yep. I’d love this!