Guild Wars 2

The problem is that the Living Story is supposed to be telling a story. The point of the LS is not to provide a drop for precursors or loot, the point isn’t the extraneous, tacked-on titles and achievements, the point of the Living Story is to tell the kitten-ing story.

Nothing destroys the dramatic pacing of a decent story than an annoying slough through a tediously designed boss encounter. EVERY, single boss fight in the Living Story I have seen has been just that. I’ll grant the boss fights have provided variety, but you can figure out the different mechanics in a minute or so, then after that it’s a long, needlessly drawn out encounter that makes you sick of it long before it is over.

You can grit your teeth and grind through these encounters, but they are not anything close to what would be called entertainment. This content design makes getting to the end of the plot a wretched chore, and that destroys any enjoyment in seeing the story. Which is shame because the story does seem worthwhile, but by the time I finish these boss fights I just want to shut off my computer and walk away.

Now I understand that there are those who like sloughing through a long, drawn-out encounter because they consider it ‘challenging’. It’s a long tradition in MMOs and I don’t expect that to change. The baffling thing is that ArenaNet has shown they understood the importance not letting tedious ‘challenges’ get in the way of storytelling. They showed this with the excellent concept of Story and Explorer modes for the dungeons. People who wanted to see the story were allowed to experience that and those who have the time to spend on tedious grind can do that for rewards.

If anything needed this concept applied to it, the Living Story would be it. The writing of the story deserves better treatment than what the content designers are doing to it.

khani.4786:

Maybe Mordremoth will give us something that eats dragonite.

Good idea. That would be more useful for me personally than the Star. None of the options to obtain Empyreals are that appealing for me, so I never have as many of them as I do Dragonite.

Hopefully a Dragonite consumer will be as straightforward to get as the Star and not as annoying as Mawdry II (which I still haven’t gotten).

Carighan.6758:

Yeah, but this kinda means we’ll also get a Dragonite one, soon-ish.

Hear hear. I’m waiting for this.

Talking to other players, it seems like there are those with too much Empyreals and others with too much Dragonite. I’m in the second bunch, since I can’t stand any of the options for getting Empyreals, I’ve always had far less of them than Dragonite.

If they do indeed make a variant for dragonite in the future, I wonder if they’d also introduce another item that consumes bloodstone dust like Mawdrey II but is easier to obtain like the Star of Gratitude.

That would be great if they did. I never made Mawdrey II solely because of the kitten-ing FotM requirement (I despise JPs and movement-based ‘challenges’ when in a group rather than solo when you can take your time and too many of the FotM force players to do that type of content). IMO it would be a good idea to offer another Bloodstone consumer alternative that is as straightforward to obtain as this Star.

I hope there is a Dragonite Ore version soon. There seem to be two types of players, ones with an overabundance of Empyreal Frags and others with an overabundance of Dragonite. I’m in the second camp, I’ve always had to scrounge for Empyreals because I hate every option to collect them (save for the WvW methods).

I have yet to finish Mawdrey due to Fractals apprehension. I should really get on that one day. The dust never stops coming. :P

Same here, I’d rather stick my finger in socket than do Fractals with that annoying JP content, but there’s no other way to get the bloody Pristines. At least when the Fractal daily comes up, that will make getting them quicker and require less time in FotM.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

what if the end of the fractal reward track only offered a box that, has the same RNG chance of getting a fractal weapon skin in the end of a PvE fractal dungeon run?
as in the “daily chest reward” thingie. to make it fair, it would be equivalent to a level 50 daily chest reward chest.
confirmed rewards would be: 40 fractal relics, pristine fractal relic
possible extras due to RNG would be:
Ascended Ring (non-Infused or Infused),
Fractal weapon skin,
Ascended chest,
Endless Fractal Tonic
these above 4 items would be by RNG chance, of course.
surely this would not kitten off PvE players right?

I like this idea very much, but it would appear it can kitten off some players. But this is the Internet, that is to be expected lol. A system that has an RNG for skins and also offers rewards like relics, pristine and normal, would be great to see.

I would like to add that I am both a PvE and PvP player in general and the VAST majority of my time in GW2 so far has been doing PvE. I have done some WvW and virtually no sPvP, although I did enjoy it and my suggestion was based on the general direction that ArenaNet seems to be going in trying to make sPvP more appealing.

My intent was to offer an option because quite frankly I find dungeon grinding and speed runs tedious, boring and dull. I could do them just as I could also chew tin foil but that does not mean I find it fun. Repetitive grinding is just not fun for me. I know it is the lifeblood of dedicated PvE-ers but not everyone wants to go that route.

I will mention that am in SINCERE agreement with the people saying WvW needs more rewards. WvW is a great deal of fun but it simply does not match the rewards that can be obtained through an equivalent amount of time in PvE.

This will be hard to do, I’m afraid, because sometimes in WvW you are just standing there holding a position or guarding a siege weapon or whatever. It’s important that you stand there and hold the position, but I’m not sure how a game can reward the time spent doing that in WvW.

TheFamster.7806

In short, there is no way pvp fractal track can properly reflect the difficulty of pve contents. And before you laugh at “elite pve” players, go win a tournament and actually receive something worthwhile if you are that skilled. PvE players have already proven themselves (those in speed running guilds) through and through with their record runs and guides to helping people, while pvp community generally whined and complained about lack of support/new players when in fact it demeans any newcomers.

I will agree that PvE guilds contribute to the community, but the most active community GW2 guilds I have seen seem to be involved in everything. It is important not to alienate PvE players, and that is not the intent of my suggestions. I would not want to see any changes that alienate a large amount of the GW2 playerbase but the claim that PvE content requires the same the skill needed for PvP gameplay just doesn’t ring true.

You will never see a PvE guild fill a stadium full of spectators to watch them do a dungeon or a raid. High end PvE may require dedication and time but this kind of skill is based on rote memorization because any PvE content only has a limited number of ways it can do anything. One could write a counter AI script (with human limitations of reaction time and such) and it will run through any dungeon, any raid or any PvE content on Earth perfectly, 100% of the time. That can’t be done for PvP against a human opponent (keep in mind, I mentioned the script needs to remain in human physical limits).

We will never see PvE games and guilds drawing in audiences like MOBAs, FPS, RTS and other PvP games because it’s just not that exciting. PvE may require its own form of skill but it still based on rote memorization and audiences know that. They know it is chiefly a matter of learning the hoops and tricks of the PvE content through a repetitive grind. My suggestion was meant to offer an alternative for those who don’t find that appealing.

Very nice sounding improvements. I like the match confirmation requirements and map voting. These will certainly make PvP more appealing.

Also I was very surprised to hear that Hearts of the Mist will have a Bank, TP and Laurel Vendor. I’m really pleased to hear these additions, make no mistake, but won’t this make the player cities much less busy? I suppose the crafting stations and Mystic Toilet will always have people around them, but these changes seem likely to make Heart of the Mists the new main social hub for the whole of the game.

One quick question, we need to be in Heart of the Mists to join the queue but can players then leave the Heart of the Mist if the queue takes a while? Or are you bumped out of the queue if you leave the Heart?

Celtus.8456:

Not happy about the requirement to be in HotM to queue. This doesn’t help to improve PvP growth if less enthusiastic players are forced to sit in the boring PvP lobby instead of playing PvE and WvW while they wait for match. I think many of them will simply queue less. I personally love to roam PvE and WvW while I queue, and I know by watching streams that other players do too.

This was my concern as well and why I asked for the clarification. As long as queues are popping it’s fine but don’t expect players to sit around and wait for extended periods in the Heart even if there is a bank and such. They’ll just drop the queue and find something else to do. Your point about the match confirmation already being enough of an inhibitor is a good one IMO.

Although with the Heart becoming a more active social hub, perhaps this will be less of a problem.

Alternatively, perhaps they could give higher matchmaking priority to players who stay in the Heart, and lower priority to people who leave to do other things but want to stay in the queue?

Expanded wallet is my vote.

After some feedback on my first design, I made another one that can find on the same url: http://archomeda.github.io/gw2improvedwallet/.

Also this is a very cool concept for a UI.

If they are fixing things in the latter half of the PS, I really hope they fix the content itself.

I barely remember any of the specific chapters or the storylines in the Zhaitan parts of PS, because the most memorable thing that stuck in my mind was wanting to throw my keyboard out the window because of the boring, tedious, timesink fights and scenarios that fill the PS.

I remember the idiotic boss that spammed veteran spiders, I remember rolling my eyes and wondering when the Claw Island scenario would finally end, I remember constantly thinking that the PS content is not challenging, it’s just drawn out and tedious.

Maybe some players who like this kind of timesink ‘challenge’. I’m here to say that there others who play the PS because they want to see the story not waste their time jumping through hoops. If they are going to fix things in the PS, if they want more people to actually DO it, they should to fix this.

Simple solution – something that has been in single player games for decades and is already part of GW2’s engine – scaling/difficulty settings. Every single player game for the last 25 years offers this choice to players. GW2 already offers difficulty settings in dungeons with Story and Explorer mode. Since the PS is meant to be an instanced, solo experience with GW2, this would be a logical thing to offer.

I could care less about the changes of PS because after running through it once with one character, I never want to go through any of that content again. Offer an option to make the content less tedious and less of a timesink (and take away the rewards for all I care), and I might be inclined to play it again to see the other branches.

The improvements do sound like they will further help make sPvP more appealing. A good matchmaking system is essential for any PvP game. Emphasizing that solo players can get into balanced matches is something they need to do.

I might be able to convince my friends to join in some sPvP as a group, I assume we can make sPvP groups even if people are on different WvW home servers?

I really did enjoy sPvP when I tried it, but I keep getting ahead of the reward improvement ArenaNet makes to it and end up doing something else. I bored myself to tears grinding Empyreal Fragments through the horrible PvE options, then when I finally got all that I need, they start to offer Emps through a PvP reward track.

Now I’m grinding for Mawdry parts when I would certainly be doing sPvP if I could get them that way (relic fragments to be specific, but I’ve already posted that in another thread).

GW2 continues to seem intent on re-directing me away from playing the way I want, and pushing me back into very specific PvE content, often times PvE content that I’m doing just to get out of the way rather than because it is really that much fun. I hope this update will include even further expansion of the sPvP reward tracks offered as an alternative to tedious PvE grinding.

vincecontix.1264:

Nope no way, it that was to happen no one would every do fractals again.

My suggestion was only that relics (normal and pristine) could be obtained from sPvP, people would still have to do fractals if they wanted the weapon skins from the fractal daily reward chests.

But you have a good point. The forced grouping and content of FotM is so annoying and tedious that it seems likely most players would eagerly go to any other option for the skins if it were offered. I can see that would be a problem.

One wacky solution, and I’m being really crazy here, would be to make fractals so they were NOT tedious and annoying timesinks, and turn them into entertaining content that people would be as likely to pick as sPvP matches.

The only way I would be on board with this is if they gave Fractal players tokens with which to buy Fractal weapons of their choice. If that doesn’t happen then this should 100% not happen. PvP players should not have the ability to earn a skin of their choosing while Fractal players have to rely on RNG not only to get a weapon, but to get the one they want.

As I mentioned, my suggestion was only that Fractal and Pristine Fractal relics would be earned through sPvP, not the weapon skins as the OP suggested but fractal tokens do sound like a good idea to me.

You are quite correct, PvP players should not have the ability to pick weapons while PvE players are relegated to an RNG. Fractal tokens would be a reasonable solution.

And this relates back to the concept of making fractals into something people actually want to do compared to the other content in the game. Knowing that stepping into FotM means potentially wasting a whole evening if you have a bad RNG rolls is not something that is appealing to modern players. It’s the kind of mechanic from old-school MMOs that should be throw into the trash heap with flawed concepts like forced grouping, perma-death and FFA PvP.

With the PvP revamp announcement, I thought I’d necro this thread with a different suggestion – how about a sPvP fractal track that rewards pristine Fractal Relics and fractal relics?

I would play the heck out of sPvP if it meant that I could get pristine relics without needing to set foot into FotM and deal with those kitten-ing, kitten-y jumping puzzles.

I don’t know if they nerfed this fight, the earlier comments certainly sound much like the complaints I had about the final boss fights in the previous two chapters which I did soon after they were released rather than waiting 3 months.

Personally, I found that this Barradin statue boss fight was actually somewhat better than any of past chapter final bosses at this point in LS Season 2(keep in mind I haven’t caught up on the recent chapters yet).

Since I’m playing it three months late, the NPC bugs seemed to be worked out (unlike incredibly annoying Majory and Kasmeer bugs in the Fort Salma fight which I played shortly after it was released)

The NPCs in this fight seemed to know what they’re doing. Rox promptly runs over to heal my character when they went down which is the way ALL party NPCs AIs should be programmed. Rytlock and Smodur aren’t doing Logan faceplants throughout the fight and they nicely handle the other mobs so I can focus on the menders. Once in a while Rytlock even helped with a mender.

The boss still should have had half of the amount hit points since the fight takes twice as long as it should. Unfortunately, because of this the fight goes from “Okay, this is an interesting fight” to “Okay, I understand the hoops, this is just repeating the same thing over and over.” to “When the kitten will this end?” But I found it was still doable.

ArenaNet does needs to understand that making a fight too short is better than making it too long. Now I will admit I have mocked the Zhaitan fight for its simplicity, but it is far, FAR better for that fight to have been simple and completable than being so ‘challenging’ that most people couldn’t finish it.

On that same note, it was VERY good to see that the pre-steps for the Barradin fight could be done without needing to wait for the open world events to run. I was able to collect two of the crown pieces without fighting Bria or the ghosts at Ceran’s machine. The last piece had the event going at the time, but I assume if I had come across the event after it was over, I would still have been able to get the last piece.

THIS is the way all of the open-world requirements should have been designed. I can’t fathom why ArenaNet would follow this sensible course for this part, and ignore it in the previous ones by gating required events the objectives behind actual gates or tedious Modrem events.

Sure, it might be more ideal if all players had absolutely perfect timing and managed to find each of the events exactly when they were starting, but that doesn’t happen and making players wait around and waste their time just because they want to see the next part of the story is not good game design.

GW2 continues to perplex me. It has many good ideas that are successfully implemented some of the time then it completely ignores those same good ideas at other times. I wish I could call it a roller coaster ride, but that would imply some kind of fun was involved with that inconsistency. I suppose I’m still playing because on average, ArenaNet eventually figures out their mistakes and fixes them.

I can only trust that they have done the same for the next chapters of the Living Story, but judging by the complaint threads about the final boss in the recent chapters, I’m thinking maybe I should wait another three months before doing the next chapters.

Xukavi.4320:

What I understand is that after the PS we as the PC kinda left the pact to do their thing and many other commanders stated coming up. Meanwhile we still retain our rank as 2nd in command and were called back into duty with this release or previous release. I think to avoid confusion between the players it would be nice if we were to be designated another rank to show that we are still 2nd in command under the Marshal. A rank that’s something like High Commander of the Pact.

I like this idea! It would indicate that our characters are supposed to be something more than just another of the several commanders running around. I wonder how difficult that ret-con would be. I suppose they can’t go back and change the existing LS content, but they could just start having NPCs (esp. Trahearne) simply refer to our character as ‘High Commander of the Pact’.

I think that would be less jarring than having Trahearne actually come out and say it. That conversation would be a bit weird.

“Hey, I’ve decided to make up a whole new, higher Pact rank for you after our main objective has been gained and you aren’t actually that active in the Pact anymore.”

“Gee, thanks? It would have been nice to have that higher rank when I was hanging around all those other Pact commanders.”

But if we are actually called back to duty with the Pact then the higher rank could be assigned, though Trahearne should apologize for not doing it sooner lol

GamerOnline.3650:

As I recall, I was able to continue my Living Story episode, regardless of the succeeding or failing of the event. It was the participation in it that counted. Never did find a large enough group to succeed.

But yes, one must do what’s needed to advance the story by talking to NPCs, otherwise event participation won’t count.

Wait, you are saying that you never destroyed the Svanir totem? That seems like it is the requirement for advancing to the next cut scene.

I have found that the Svanir gates are locked so you can’t get to the totem, or the totem is not interactive in the aftermath of the event when the gates are open and there are mobs hanging around.

Or was that a bug? A green star showed up on the minimap in the Svanir lair after I clicked on the NPC but I did not find that I could interact with the totem to destroy it when I found the gates open, though the hordes of mobs that were trying to kill my character at the time might have contributed to the non-interactive bug if that’s what it was.

If there is a workaround to this terrible concept, I never saw it clearly explained or pointed out by the game when I was waiting to finally get with a zerg that could complete the event after I talked to the NPC (and keep in mind this was after successfully doing the event but not having clicked the NPC)

I looked up the next chapter ‘Plan of Attack’ and it would appear that the next open world events needed are far more reasonable without tedious Mordred champs/mobs or locked gates/kittien-ing timers keeping players from getting to the objective. I’ve done the Rhell Crankmane and Bria events before and the Cera collection event sounds straightforward. I don’t remember the timers on these events though, hopefully they have been adjusted to make the events continuously available if these are gating the story.

Using these lower level dynamic events makes far more sense for this concept. I suppose it saves on development costs for ArenaNet, which I do not begrudge, and it does put people out in the open world, which is good on paper. But the concept of gating story through open world events is not a great idea to start and the implementation of it in this story chapter has been absolutely wretched.

If dynamic events are going to be gating storylines then don’t pick events that need zergs which know what they are doing, don’t pick events with horrible timers, and don’t pick events that spawn champs especially if they’re those wretched mordrem mobs.

Honestly, if ArenaNet wanted to pick open world events with powerful bosses, why not direct players to the open world bosses that are on schedules? The zerg knows how to do them so players don’t waste their time and can get on with seeing the story which should be the kitten-ing goal of the content in the first place.

I just got experience this kitten piece of game design and it pretty much ruined what initially seemed like the first decently done chapter of the Season 2 Living Story for me. I’m behind on the LS because the content of the previous Season 2 chapters was so rancid, it took me this long to get up the desire to attempt the next parts. I’m already regretting it.

I actually liked the initial instance with Taimi. The mobs were actually reasonable and the content was entertaining, plus it had some nice character development. But then going to the next chapter and needing to do events in the open world/Iron Marches to advance your PRIVATE chapter in the LS was absolutely terrible. And now this chapter requiring the coil event to advance your LS upped this horrible design concept to a whole new level.

The part that really galls me was that when I first went into the zone, I saw the event so I decided to take a detour for fun and try it before I went to the NPC because the quest description doesn’t TELL YOU that is the necessary event. So I end up doing the event, then not getting any credit because I hadn’t clicked the kitten-ing NPC prior to it. So I get to waste my time waiting for it to spawn again, waste my time running with a zerg that failed it, then waste more time for it to spawn again. Yeah, really appealing gameplay there.

It’s a pity, because I did like the story development between Braham and Eir, but if seeing the sorry means going through content design like this, I may need to wait a while to wash the taste out of my mouth before trying the LS again.

You mean this is a suggestion to offer options to GW2 players? What insanity is this?

It’s only taken ArenaNet months to figure out they needed to expand the annoyingly limited methods to get Empyreal Fragments and now that those are finally becoming available in a variety of way, they decide to take two step back once again and make something that is gated by an item that can be obtained ONE way requiring forced grouping.

So what about WvW players. So what about people who detest FotM? So what about actual choice?

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Why do people have such a big problem with 5 easily obtained Pristine Fractal Relics? Having to farm Dry Top events for Geodes is less fun and takes more time, but no one is complaining about that.

You can farm geodes without a group. That means you don’t need pray that your group doesn’t suddenly fall apart halfway through the 2nd fractal run because Tequatl is spawning or some other garbage excuse (already happened to me), you don’t need to worry about completely wasting your time, and you don’t need to worry about all the headaches that is inherent in ALL forced group content.

No one is complaining about farming geodes because they would rather do that than set ONE FOOT into FotM. I’ve managed to get two of the relics so far and all it’s done is remind me exactly why I stopped doing FotM.

lordkrall.7241:

Why do people still keep thinking about these kinds of things as earning/saving money?
They were never supposed to be that. They are simply there for convenience. I for one love having a easy daily gatherer in one (small) place.

According to the wiki this does NOT count toward Daily Gatherer.

If people want to buy it, fine, but I really can’t see the use. Is there really some game-spanning shortage of cloth that people need this? Although looking at the bizarre way that the low level crafting mats are worth so much more than higher level ones, maybe this is intended to try to re-balance those absurd imbalance examples like how cotton is worth so much more than gossamer.

I would like to see Dragon’s Bash return too.

Kitabake.8291:

Kitabake.8291:

Mordremtaffy anyone ;3 ?

yuech, spinachcandy

Heh, I was thinking salads that scream when you eat them myself, but these sound more palatable:
http://fitfoodiefinds.com/2014/08/sneaky-spinach-chocolate-chocolate-chip-muffins/
http://www.ahomemakersdiary.com/2014/07/spinach-and-corn-lollipop-croquette.html

I’m finally getting around to doing the previous Living Story chapters, and I just started Dragon’s Reach Part 1 when I heard something that made me scratch my head. During the meeting with the Pale Tree, our characters are introduced by Lochin in this way:

“Please allow me to present your guest, Destroyer of Zhaitan and Commander of the Pact.”

Technically the intro is correct, just like one might say one is a “Knight of Divinity’s Reach” but it sounded odd since it seemed to imply my character is the actual head of the Pact.

Now I will say that would have been a MUCH better route to take in the Personal Story rather than making our characters into peons to Trehearne and only one of several Pact “Commanders”. I wonder if this was deliberate ret-con effort on ArenaNet’s part to try to actually make our characters seem important rather than replaceable grunts.

I think meeting with all of the world leaders is a good start, although that should have happened back in the original PS. Before our characters ever reached level 80, all of the world leaders should have met and heard about them and decided the player characters deserved attention.

The other thing that made me laugh was being introduced as “Destroyer of Zhaitan”. Again, it’s nice to see ArenaNet finally trying to make our characters seem important on the world stage, but the response of my character to that introduction would have been:

“If by ‘Destroyer’ you mean I was one of a bunch of crew members tagging along on a floating fortress just to protect Zojja’s superweapon (and that I hit ‘1’ a lot to take Zhaitan down) then yes, I am the “Destroyer of Zhaitan”.

Although TBH, that does kind of fit in with the idea that a hero never thinks their deeds are worth all the acclaim they receive. With the Zhaitan ‘fight’ and all of the PS that is certainly the case lol.

Nkuvu.2570:

I just completed the Uprooting Iron Marches portion of the Living Story with my mesmer. It was, in a word, evil.

I just did this LS chapter 3 months after it was released because the content in the earlier chapters was so tedious and annoying, it took me this long to build up enough interest to try it again.

Suffice it to say, this brought back every ounce of aggravation and annoyance back again. And this is actually supposed to be working now? I can’t imagine what the frustration was like when it was broken.

I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to put LS content in the OPEN WORLD but I pray this was a one time experiment. Judging by all of the of bug posts and complaints with the implementation of this concept, the smart thing would be to never see this terrible idea ever repeated again, just like the infamous Southsun Karka event.

I was lucky and found a handful of people for the champ and one person doing the final step. I honestly extend my pity to anyone trying to do this content even later than I did. Have fun soloing it, you poor kittens.

Nkuvu.2570:

Yeah. No argument there, both times I played through the event it was just a ton of not fun.

Pretty much summarizes every piece of content involving Mordremoth mobs that I’ve seen so far.

Sariel V.7024:

I don’t think players would demand that the Mad King’s personal merch outlet remain available through Christmas; the following Thursday after the update should be good enough for everyone to get their cobs traded in. In any case, make sure that there is an EXPLICIT note in one of the patch notes announcing exactly when the merchants would be closing up shop for good.

Why bother when GW2 players have mental telepathy that read the dev’s minds.

Oh wait.

Kasima.8143:

Bhima.9518:

If you make it too hard and too time consuming, your raiding end game could fall into the Wildstar trap of being way too frustrating for all but the elite raiding masochists. We all know how Wildstar is doing in terms of retention regardless of how many of the hardcore raiders in this thread want to move GW2 towards.

This whole argument is a false dilemma. Adding hardcore raiding wouldn’t somehow diminish the quality or the value of the rest of the game as you imply it would. I don’t do Arah because I find it too hardcore. Yet, I’m still playing GW2.

People aren’t going to rage quit the game if Anet decides to ADD content that caters to its hardcore gamers. The non-hardcore content isn’t going to just disappear.

That depends on how much emphasis is placed on the raids. If they become the focus of the endgame content, lore and rewards then that is heading down the path of Wildstar.

If raids are truly optional and ALL raid rewards (aside from cosmetic items) are available through other means, then that may not be an issue.

To get more mileage out of raiding art assets and content, perhaps there could be Story Mode versions offered where players could a toned down version of the raid without getting the same rewards of course. Even solo versions could be possible which would allow all types of players to see the art assets and content rather than hiding it away in instances.

Basically I am talking about a difficulty scale with the players in control of how hard is the content (and thus what kind of rewards/achievements they get) You know, the kind of thing that they have been doing for decades in single player games, yet never sees implementation in MMOs even when there scaling systems in place.

THAT is the kind of thing that will keep casual players engaged. Not focusing on producing content for a tiny fraction of the playerbase which other players know they will never see.

*How would you like to see Raiding function if this activity were part of GW2?

I don’t want to see raiding in GW2. The sentiment expressed by Massively writer Eliot Lefebvre says it best.

“- we as a community are going to look at hardcore raiding the same way we currently look at Ultima Online’s open PvP, as something that MMOs survived in spite of rather than because of.”
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/08/11/the-nexus-telegraph-addictions-that-wildstar-must-kick/

WoW had to constantly tweak and twist their raids until they finally implemented a raiding tool that allows PUGs. WoW has always been the exception of MMOs, and companies that tried to copy WoW have failed. Hardcore raiding did not work in Wildstar, I do not think it will do any better in GW2.

But the comments from Anet developers say that they want to make raids accessible. That is the antithesis to the fundamental function of raids which is a timesink meant to impact large groups of people rather than single players. Now ArenaNet has tried to innovate in various areas, perhaps they can do it with raids.

If they do manage to make raids “accessible” then whatever is created will bear NO resemblance to what has been seen in other games of the past. It will have to be something completely original that throws away the host of flawed mechanics that traditional raiding brings (forcing players to schedule their lives for a video game, time-gating content, gear-requirements, tedious mechanics, etcetcetc)

Best of luck going this route. Personally I would rather see ArenasNet expend their resources on any other content or system.

Since a request for ideas was made, here is the following:

Proposal Overview
Raids without bosses

Goal of Proposal
Traditional raid bosses involve “heroes” whacking the boss on their feet or knees. Very epic imagery. Instead players take on an army.

Proposal Functionality
Just as players in the Tequatl fight have to form groups for the turrets or turret/boat guards, set up a front line with multiple barracks that need to be held against the invading army. Players need to divide up between the barracks and fight off the opposing mob horde. There is no zerg stack, there is no standing in one place hitting a boss in the toe.

Response teams can act as reserves, with a commander needing to monitor which barracks are being held and send in reinforcements.

A visual cue of could show many waves are left. To reduce number of NPCs being rendered, use transport vessels waiting in rows to disgorge their troops in Space Invader like columns. This could serve as a visual cue to the commander for which barracks are killing mobs and which are having problems based on the number of transports left in each column.

All barracks could face equal difficulty mobs or the barracks near the center could face harder mobs. New players would be told to man the flank barracks, perhaps achievements are needed to be able to move to the center barracks.

Variety could be added by mixing up the NPC troops that attack the barracks. Providing siege weapons etc.

Associated Risks
No idea whether this would be feasible. There are large numbers of mobs in the Mad King’s Labyrinth and the game seems to function. I don’t know if spreading out players over a larger front line would help.

So riddle me this batman, I have a level 80 with Ascended weps and trinkets which also means I have a kitten ton of idiotic Bloodstone stacks, so I figured I’d go for Mawdrey II to do something useful with that junk.

Only it seems I need to run Fractals and I’ve hardly have bothered with them since the game was released. I have little Agony resistance and less familiarity/memory of Fractals save that I tried it with my friends and we found some entertaining and other incredibly boring and frustrating. Needless to say, we all stopped doing them.

So now what is the best way to find PUGs to run these kitten things, yet also group with people who can assist with doing them so I’m not constantly re-running them trying to get to the boss chest?

On a side note, not offering an multiple options to obtain components is a serious flaw in this game. I’ve NEVER been a fan of Fractals and needing to grind them just to get these relics will not make me like them any more. This is just like the Dragonstone/Empyreal imbalance, but at least ArenaNet has been trying to fix it by making Empyreals more available through multiple means like WvW tickets and Trick or Treat bags.

This is the philosophy that should apply to ALL components. There should never be a component for things like this Mawdrey II item where there is only a single way to get it. Options are always the most important thing in MMOs, and ArenaNet has fallen flat on doing this more than once.

Maybe it was my recently acquired Ascended gear along with familiarity with the Prince Thorn fights from last year, but this year the Prince Thorn battles felt MUCH less tedious and annoying. This time I actually had fun rather than getting ticked off by the reinforcement spawns. I don’t know if anything was adjusted or if its just my character being better geared.

Regardless, this is how boss battles should be in storyline instances IMO Thorn had unique mechanics but the fight was not stretched out so long that it became tedious and annoying.

Unlike the needlessly tedious content/fights in the first two chapters of Season 2. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to play the rest of the chapters simply because the fights were just so annoying, even though I want to see the story. But with the new chapters coming, I guess I’ll give them a try.

Zaxares.5419:

To be fair to ANet, they actually listened to us and made the “grind” this year MUCH more bearable. Halloween mats drop like rain in the Labyrinth; requirements for old stuff like the Mini Bloody Prince and the Halloween Pail got massively reduced. (It’s actually worthwhile now to buy the Pail as a cheap 20 slot bag if you need more storage!) I spent just under an hour in the Labyrinth last night and I walked out with more than 1500 Candy Corn, plus loads of other loot.

Finally, you also get 3 Candy Corn Cobs for completing the meta and the story, which is enough to get the Hexed outfit for free if that’s what you like. (And if not, spend it on the aforementioned Halloween Pail or just sell the Cobs.)

I agree that the increased drop rate and reduced costs makes the event much more entertaining. The rewards for the event this time around definitely feel more worthwhile.

And I don’t know if it was my recently acquired Ascended gear along with familiarity with the Prince Thorn fights from last year or if the content was actually adjusted, but this year it felt MUCH less tedious and annoying. This time I actually had fun rather than getting ticked off by the reinforcement spawns.

IMO this is how boss battles should be in storyline instances. Thorn had unique mechanics but the fight was not needlessly stretched out to the point of becoming tedious (like what I found in the first two chapters of Season 2, I still haven’t been able to bring myself to play the rest of the chapters, the fights were just so annoying)

Nilkemia.8507:

“Great gears, he’s unstoppable!”

“He has a weakness, but I can’t remember what it is. Keep him busy while I figure this out!”

“When I’m done, he’s gonna have a new weakness : My axes in his face over and over!”

Turns out that the life-steal part of Omnomberry Ghost’s nourishment does damage as well, and can pierce his gimmick invulnerability in the first fight against him. And, it’s possible to flat out kill him this way…except then you can’t finish the instance and gotta restart it. Oops.

It’d be clever if that was intended (since Omnomberry Ghosts do require Candy Corn Glaze as an ingredient, and candy corn is his weakness), but this is probably a glitch/oversight. Still, kinda neat.

That is a neat discovery! And a very entertaining theory. It would be very cool if it turned out going into the instance with candy-corn ingredient food/nourishment would let you damage Edrick, but as you said it’s likely just a bug.

Nilkemia.8507:

In low populated overflows, this thing should either despawn after a time, or not spawn at all. Try to fight it? Die unless you have at least a mini zerg present. Try to run? Depending on the skills of your profession and which spot of the zone you’re in, you probably still die anyway, since most enemies has a cripple/immobilize/pull and will use it at the first opportunity.

It can be frustrating esp. because of the spam cc done by the mobs in the area, which I always find pointless and annoying. Heading to the center is your best bet as others have

TBH if I’m in an underpopulated Labyrinth I just leave for another time. Spending 5x the amount of time to kill the same mobs in the name of a “challenge” (i.e. timesink) is not my idea of fun. Get a large group together and trash the place, now that’s fun.

And when you have a group/zerg, the Horror can be entertaining and having him show up with the Viscount adds a new level to the fight (wouldn’t know about the Lich because everyone I’ve see is avoiding that boring fight and doing ones that are more than stacking in a corner and just standing there)

Gaile Gray.6029:

I see more workers these days, and hey, CrimeDog, that’s one big rock!

Really? There are actually more workers in LA now?

That’s cool but the problem with subtle changes over long periods of time is that no one notices them. This is nice touch but it’s likely being lost on most players. Personally I would go for adding a big group workers in a single are or something more noticeable.

you wanna know why it takes so long?
the workers are so dumb that they don’t even know how to use a tool properly, i even have prove.
they hit rock with the side of the pickaxe, not with the pointy part -_-

That’s awesome

But you can’t blame that poor charr, rock doesn’t bleed and scream when you hit it so how can they tell if they’re doing it right?

People keep claiming this is being farmed, I have yet to see it farmed once during this event.
The thing is that during last year’s Halloween, I was seeing the Lich being taken down. Either something’s changed or players have become more disorganized. So far I have witnessed numerous attempts, all stacking in proper locations (the house or around the corner) and they end up failing.
Players are just avoiding this encounter from what I have seen. That’s fine with me. From what I remember from last year, it was a boring, tedious encounter anyway.

The WvW Fall Tournament page show incorrect pricing on the rewards that can be bought, in particular 50 Empyreal Fragments cost 25 tickets in the game, not 100 for 25 as shown on the page.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/events/wvw-fall-2014/#results

There are probably other errors but I didn’t bother to check, although perhaps the people posting the website pages should.

Graack.2103:

This is a critical feature of the games community-based support software. Please fix it.

I cannot agree with you more. But it has been over 2 years, I doubt we will ever see it fixed.

ArenaNet really should just take down the Search function option rather than keeping that thing up as if it were something useful or even functional.

Removing it would insure that people know they need to use Google or Bing or standard search engines to find anything on these forums.

Armed Silon Il.4597:

I got this along with every other resource in the home instance. Why.

1. Because I can.
2. It gives me daily gatherer in 2 mins
3. I can concentrate on other aspects of the game that I like PvP/WvW (yes I can get daily gatherer in WvW. Although no nodes in PvP)

So for me these items are convenience items which amazingly I find convenient.

PS I get chilli more often than not from the herbs and yams more often than not from the Root veg node

Misinformation like this is something I can’t stand.

You left out the fact that you need ALL of the other nodes to get Daily Gatherer in 2 mins. Deliberately misleading statements like that make me suspect your claim about getting chilis ‘more often than not’ from the herb node, I have it as well and I doubt the RNG is any different for you, but then it is the Internet so why should any kind of accuracy be expected.

Necro-ing this thread just to say that the new crafting UI is a vast, vast improvement. Thank you to the team who upgraded it.

I am so glad I put off crafting any Ascended items until this new UI came out. I don’t even want to imagine what it must have been like for those poor devils who had to use the old UI. Oh wait, I hit 400 in all my crafting skills before this, so I can imagine it.

At least now the UI makes crafting Ascended items into something tolerable rather than an activity where a root canal seemed like an entertaining alternative.

kokiman.2364:

But enough people bought it so they seem to be happy with it. Never touch a running system.

Yeah, you wouldn’t want to improve something so useless that it makes customers never want to buy anything from the Gem Store ever again.

I’ll admit, I should have known better than spending money on this, but I thought just maybe ArenaNet might actually make it useful and provide herbs that their RNG tables make absurdly rare, but naturally I was wrong. Every single day I’m getting nothing but trash from these nodes. So much for thinking I might be able to have some fun again with my cook and explore recipes lacking specific herbs.

And before anyone says just buy the herbs on the TP, if I’m going to do that I might as well just look up recipes on the wiki rather than actually having any FUN with cooking. And I’m not going to waste gold because kitten-ed up RNG drop tables make low level mats like chili peppers 10x more expensive than mats you gather in level 80 zones like Orr.

But as I said, it’s my own fault. I should have known better than to expect this thing to be useful. At least now I know better and I won’t make that mistake of again.

As long as we get the answers in the game and not be forced to research external sources, I’ll be fine.

It seems like ArenaNet is breaking their habit of relying on external sources and realizing the game should be the main source of information to players. Not wikis, not websites, not interviews, not telepathic mind-reading. Angry Joe’s review of Destiny reminded me far too much of ArenaNet’s past presentation methods regarding lore, game mechanics and critical game information in general.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4#t=692

Seieng how ArenaNet has finally implemented tutorial-mechanics to explain game systems., it seems likely they will remember they need to do the same for the lore.

Does anyone know whether the Harvesting Node output is effected by the level/type of sickle you use on it?

For example if I use a Steel sickle on this Basic Harvesting herb node, will I only get harvesting mats found in the drop tables of Young Herbs nodes, whereas if I use an mithril sickle I will get drops from Verdant Herbs nodes? In other words, can we pick what material tables will roll the drops based on the sickle type?

AegisRunestone.8672:

Wow. That looks difficult to forge. I want two for my thief… how long does it usually take to all the materials and forge a single dagger?

I’m one of those stupid people who decided to make double weapons rather than a two-handed Ascended weapon. FYI – each one-handed weapon requires virtually the same material as a two-handed weapon (I think the difference is something like a couple of ores?). So for the same materials and effort as a two-hander, you’ll make a one-handed weapon that only partly equips your character.

How long it takes to acquire the materials varies on your gameplay. I’m a moderately dedicated but hardly hardcore player, after two years I’m finally in a position to make the two daggers.

Because of my gameplay style, Empyreal Fragments were the worst to collect. Others have had issues collecting Dragonstone. ArenaNet has decided that certain gameplay styles will result in a complete lack of particular items dropping for you so you may have to force yourself to do things you may not want to do in order to get these materials. WvW may be better rounded out of all the options, I’m not sure.

Read the wiki and websites. This one of those game systems where ArenaNet fell back hard upon their old habits of requiring tedious, out-of-game research if you want to know what you’re doing. Fortunately, the info is out there, but you get to spend time reading it rather than playing the game.

It’s good to see posts from people who have actually tried the NPE rather than posts by those who haven’t yet are completely convinced how terrible it must be. .

Breasts on female charr to bring in that all-important furry customer base.

Heck, put cat-ears on humans and norn while you’re at it.

I haven’t looked at Cooking since the crafting UI update – is it possible that items like that show up in the new sub-component buttons? But then, if you don’t know the recipe you won’t see the sub-components.

This is really needs to be put back. That hint was one of the only things that actually helped to bring a tiny bit of organization to the incredible mess that is the cooking crafting system.

MithranArkanere.8957:

What we need is a list of recipes in the mystic forge. Including hidden ones.

The hidden ones would show “unknow” but will show the ingredients if we have them in the inventory or the bank. That way discovering mystic forge recipes it won’t be an exercise of frustration, as we’ll actually have some actual clues.

Very good idea.

If players have not discovered these ‘secret’ recipes in two years, then the effort and resources put into those item assets can pretty be considered a complete waste. Additional clues are obviously needed.

The one thing ArenaNet loves is keeping secrets from their players long after they have lost all their charm or entertainment value. There are signs this is changing but the idea of ‘secrets iz kool’ seems so ingrained in the company it will take a while to purge.

Zaxares.5419:

I think it would be silly to remove the Apples from Eda though. She has an APPLE ORCHARD.

Agreed. Although I approve of ArenaNet efforts to provide a much-needed tutorial system but this is not something that would help in that. Even if such items cannot be used by players at that point, they would merely appear as flavor items if they are encountered before the mechanics that use them are introduced. Removing them does not improve clear presentation of game mechanics and if those mechanics are being clearly explained, having simple flavor items like apples from an apple farm will not hurt.

Labjax.2465:

I understand why it bothers you, but from a game design standpoint, it actually makes a lot of sense. By making the restriction account-locked, they can somewhat control the production of the items, keeping them moderately exclusive.

Exclusive? Hardly.. The timegating is a matter of days/weeks, the game has been out for years. Given the time needed for gathering the absurd variety of materials, all this does it make an already obtuse and tedious crafting mechanic even more annoying. Time gated crafting is one of those flawed, old-school mechanics that should have been thrown into the trash but ArenaNet continues to cling to it.

It’s a pity, they have done such a good job removing some of the flaws of past MMOs but that just makes the places where those flawed mechanics appear in the game all the more apparent.

There is also the potential with character-lock for people flooding the market, which means prices go wonky and in that scenario, next thing you know, people are complaining about how the items aren’t worth anything.

What a shame if all Ascended items become completely common and everyone has them. That would mean a complete end to any kind of gear grind and kitten knows no one would want that! Why then, people would only be grinding for cosmetic skins, rather than stats and no game can possibly survive doing that. GW1? What’s that? /sarcasm

Wasbunny.6531:

Wow thanks for this, I was under the impression not being able to get Felicia was dictating Zojja’s usage in the future. This is good news.

So that means the OP is imagining things? I really liked Felicia Day’s voice acting with Zojja too and would be disappointed if they changed the voice.

dybryd.1358:

Yes, it’s so irritating when I find myself unexpectedly in WvW combat with the kitten focus still equipped… my panic button (torch 4) does nothing!

LOL Another reason why I stopped playing my mesmer. Constantly needing to switch weapons became annoying. I got used to finding ways to use the focus, but I did not really like playing that way all the time.

I tried the new trading post last night I did not get the Unable to Sell Error once. Thank you ArenaNet!

Overall the new TP is different and I’ll need to get used to it, but it does seem quite functional and straightforward. It seems more responsive which is very nice, and the lag I feared with the Search as you type function did not appear to be present.

In particular, I liked being able to filter by bags along with the interface actually showing your bags to do that. I’ll need to do more exploring with it, but so far I have to give the new TP a thumbs up!

Oh HECK yes!

Think about it, what is the one thing you do more in the MMO than anything? It’s not combat, it’s not crafting, it’s not chatting. It’s moving.

Even in a game which makes an obvious effect to deal with timesinks, in addtion to the 25% skills AND I still always have skills that give swiftness on all my characters and Runes of the Pack are on them when they’re leveling. It’s probably why I ended up playing an elementalist because they are one of the most mobile classes, but I’ll be using my thief for exploration.

Labjax.2465:

Speed goes to whichever one is highest. So Swiftness’s 33% is the highest you’ll see, making the 25% seem useless while you have Swiftness up. It also may be hard to notice the difference. If you’re accustomed to running at +25%, an extra 8% is hardly noticeable.

When you’re running between events spread across a whole zone or even around cities, 8% is noticeable It’s particularly entertaining leaving others behind which you will manage to do.

Lishtenbird.2814:

You should be happy you’re not a mesmer. We don’t have a speed signet, no out of combat speed traits, and one reliable (but unreliable) source of swiftness on one off-handed weapon.

My very first character was a mesmer but I stopped playing him and this was one of the reasons once I tried classes like elementalist (or even guardian as you pointed out).

I also want to see the city fixed. In particular, I want to see that kitten waypoint near the most convenient bank fixed.

Although I have to say, it would be rather strange if the city simply returned to its past state. It would be very impressive if LA is rebuild with updated architecture rather than the boats and such, but apart from the cost and time, it might not feel like LA anymore. ArenaNet has made a rather unique problem for themselves.

As others have pointed out, the data the OP wants is far too valuable to competitors to allow it to be released. ArenaNet has been around for 13 years. If they had a history of making bad business decisions, they would not have lasted that long. In this regard, I think it’s safe to trust them when they say there was a problem that needed to be fixed.

Now whether the solution they have implemented is such a fix appears to be a matter of considerable debate.

i work in an industry that makes LMS (Learning Management Systems for people not familiar with the term) for companies. Specifically we make training scenarios in virtual game like worlds. I think I know a thing or two about working tutorials into game like environments and this patch is utter nonsense.

It always amazes me when MMOs don’t have tutorials in them. A virtual setting which allows user interaction is one of the most ideal ways to teach! The military, airplane pilots, I’m sure you can list even more fields where virtual learning is used.

I was dumbfounded ArenaNet thought GW2 should launch without any kind of tutorial systems at all beyond annoying pop-up text boxes. I can’t speak for how effective this new patch might be, but I have to think this is the kind of thing that should have been incorporated into the game years ago back during its years of development rather than applied post-launch.