Guild Wars 2

Ferelwing.8463:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

IndigoSundown.5419:

…You can no more predict the future than I can.

Unless you’re a dev or someone who has been testing it… Then you’re spinning it in a “positive” based on what you think it will give you, but ignoring the negatives is a bit much. Seriously though, telling people they’re “missing out”? Yeah, exactly, they are missing out instantly because newer and new players don’t get to start the content with the same choices that older players do. So yeah, you’re right I will be missing out and not because of how much time I’m going to put into it but because I don’t have the gold to play the way I want to and now I have to grind for gold rather than just play the game for the “content”.

Leave him be he is one of those players that claimed nothing was wrong with HoT either and that the tedious, annoying and “challenging” HoT content will boost player base. You can’t argue with self-deception.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Excellent Name.9574:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

The issue is that You are using drop and salvage rates from the demo, which are significantly higher than in the rest of Tyria at face value.

Your information tells us that Rares will now occupy 20% of the drops instead of less than 3% and less than 1% for exotics, You are also counting that he salvage rate will differ to that of Tyria at double the rate. This would completely break the game and the economy which has been pretty stable for over a year now.

Man, do you actually believe they intentionally pumped up the drop rate for the demo for whatever purpose and when PoF launches, they will have lowered it? Like, not because the amount of mats are too much currently (which they may be, it’s a bloody lot) but because it was just a ploy to get ppl to buy it? Really?

The economy is stable, but that doesn’t make it good. New players cannot get into crafting because of the cost of low tier materials, this will help dramatically with that. All those low tier mats are crazy expensive atm.

This is completely false. I never bought a piece of material as it wasn’t needed off of TP while I was leveling up my crafting while completing the game. Drop rate of low tier materials never changed after the loot table has been differentiated for higher level characters on lower level maps and that happened in 2013. The prices on TP are relatively high not because of drop rate but because of the lack of new players and freshly started characters.

Do You even realize what chaos would ensue if the loot table and drop rate in PoF were left that high in the final release? You can’t see further than Your own interest in this case.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

The issue is that You are using drop and salvage rates from the demo, which are significantly higher than in the rest of Tyria at face value.

Your information tells us that Rares will now occupy 20% of the drops instead of less than 3% and less than 1% for exotics, You are also counting that he salvage rate will differ to that of Tyria at double the rate. This would completely break the game and the economy which has been pretty stable for over a year now.

Feanor.2358:

Excellent Name.9574:

Feanor.2358:

Excellent Name.9574:

The solution for me is simple. I built ascended Celestial gear for all weights and it is neither here nor there but I stopped worrying about meta builds and dropping huge loads of cash on upgrading it when the balance changes. With celestial, you still have some ok condi dmg, ok power, ok boons and solid survivability…and no more gold wasting.

And no endgame, too.

Ony if you are doing endgame stuff with the self-proclaimed Elites. Celestial works fine when playing with Your guild. Both, Fractals and Raids.

While this is true, it makes things harder. I guess deliberately choosing to struggle just ain’t my thing.

Struggle? Not at all. Celestials are doing ~15-20% less dmg than meta classes, based purely on stats, but Raids and fractals are group undertaking and skill balance and combinations are more important than personal DPS. The only thing You will notice is that bosses take around 5% more time to beat, not ~15-20% as You are not soloing.

In a balanced game You would not have to make those decisions and unfortunately, GW2 is not a balanced game, nor Anet will ever balance it out since that is the way for them to make money, always keepiing players in chase of the next balance.

Galactic.6453:

Excellent Name.9574:

Mystic or Master Kits to salvage Blue or Green gear

Yeah that’s why I said it makes no difference because you get the same basic mats either way.
Green sigils could gain to rise a bit in price because they’re worth jacks- at the moment. And it’s not like PoF will be the only content ever to exist now, plenty of people will still be doing the HoT map metas and world bosses and whatnot. Regular greens and blues will still be abundant.

If Anet planned this to solve the inventory problem, which I seriously doubt as it does not, it will go live in the entire game, not just PoF otherwise what would be the point? Not only green sigils and rune will rise, all of the materials that I mentioned will escalate. UND gear is just blue until identified.

Galactic.6453:

Excellent Name.9574:

Secondly, the guy is using Silver-matic…how many people, in reality, have this item or find it a viable option?
The entire mechanic is wrong, even if mat drop rate stays at 200% people will want to identify gear, and it is a loss not gain.

Firstly, Silver-o-matics have the exact same stats as master kits or mystic kits and almost everyone uses those.
Secondly the percentages of the kits only apply to rare materials and upgrade recovery, not regular materials so you get the same amount of ore/wood/leather as with a crude kit.

Also whether or not it’s a loss to identify those is entirely dependant on market value and how much the skins are personally worth to you. If ectos are way higher and regular mats are low then it’s profitable to identify. If regular mats are expensive as they are right now then it’s more profitable to straight up salvage them. It’s a way to stabilize material prices and tie them to the ectoplasm supply.

No one and I mean no one uses Mystic or Master Kits to salvage Blue or Green gear same goes for Silver-o-Matic. Salvaging UND means, no secondary salvage, like Runes, Sigils, Inscriptions, Insignias, Ectos, Dark Matter as it is all treated like either blue or green. If You think this will stabilize the market, you are mistaken it will devour it.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Excellent Name.9574:

…I think You are missing a large portion of the information. Unidentified gear is not an add-on to normal loot, but rather a partial replacement of the standard loot. From my weekend approx calc, around 50% of the loot is replaced with unidentified gear. that means, roughly, You are getting 50% less rares, 50% fewer exotics, 50% fewer greens, and 50% fewer blues, unless und gear RNG loot table is different to normal drop. In essence You are losing money, either way, do the identification or don’t. You are talking about the needed Gold sink to keep the price in check, but completely ignoring the surefire outcome of the materials price hike that will come out of this. UND is no-win no-win mechanic.

Sigh. Look at this example.

You are getting 200% or more materials from salvaging the unids.

Also, if you can show me another place I can get a 20% chance for rares at a cost of 1.68s, I’ll be playing there all day.

The mats table is from demo, but so is the loot table that is why /i am reserved on this. Secondly, the guy is using Silver-matic…how many people, in reality, have this item or find it a viable option? The entire mechanic is wrong, even if mat drop rate stays at 200% people will want to identify gear, and it is a loss not gain. either way something will go sky-high if people decide not to identify, exotics, rares, ectos, sigils, runes…will cost a fortune. If they decide to identify the mats will go up and who knows how high.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ferelwing.8463:

…snip…

You’re just thinking about this from the wrong end. It’s just a different system. Rares and exotics are not mixed into the bunch, they do not exist until you ID the trophies that you get as a drop. Imagine they are a chest that has a random item inside and a better chance at getting a rare than you do from drops and that it costs you 1.68s to open them. The beauty is that if you just want materials, you can salvage them directly and get a lot more materials than you do usually, like a LOT more.

Yes, it’s a gold sink, which is required.

If you like keeping your materials for crafting, this is going to be a lot better system as you well get a lot more materials by salvaging the unid.

The RNG happens with your knowledge here too, and you have a far better chance at rares, even with low MF when you ID these unid trophies.’

It absolutely is a “best of both worlds” because now you can make even more materials from salvage, or more gold than previously from selling the unid or salvage them for more rares than you would have gotten from drops too.

You can’t really fix inflation, you can only slow it, this will help somewhat.

It is a call-back to GW1 where people made lots of money selling unid items and others liked them because they could get them cheaper, get decent skins and sometimes make bank with good upgrades. I think however they should have just called them something else so people who don’t understand how they work wouldn’t think they are missing out on anything.

I think You are missing a large portion of the information. Unidentified gear is not an add-on to normal loot, but rather a partial replacement of the standard loot. From my weekend approx calc, around 50% of the loot is replaced with unidentified gear. that means, roughly, You are getting 50% less rares, 50% fewer exotics, 50% fewer greens, and 50% fewer blues, unless und gear RNG loot table is different to normal drop. In essence You are losing money, either way, do the identification or don’t. You are talking about the needed Gold sink to keep the price in check, but completely ignoring the surefire outcome of the materials price hike that will come out of this. UND is no-win no-win mechanic.

Feanor.2358:

Excellent Name.9574:

The solution for me is simple. I built ascended Celestial gear for all weights and it is neither here nor there but I stopped worrying about meta builds and dropping huge loads of cash on upgrading it when the balance changes. With celestial, you still have some ok condi dmg, ok power, ok boons and solid survivability…and no more gold wasting.

And no endgame, too.

Ony if you are doing endgame stuff with the self-proclaimed Elites. Celestial works fine when playing with Your guild. Both, Fractals and Raids.

The solution for me is simple. I built ascended Celestial gear for all weights and it is neither here nor there but I stopped worrying about meta builds and dropping huge loads of cash on upgrading it when the balance changes. With celestial, you still have some ok condi dmg, ok power, ok boons and solid survivability…and no more gold wasting.

IMHO, this business with Unidentified Gear is a potential PoF expansion game breaker and as such a big mistake that can and will cut down the player base even more. Remember the HoT launch and the deafness of Anet during the beta and first several months?

UG does not solve anything and seriously damages the QoL in PoF. People are already kittened off with this, can You think how it will go down when this launches?

Out of 118 posts and ~100 users, 3 said they don’t care if they are losing rare and exotic gear when salvaging without identifying first, 8-10 said that this solves the problem of inventory filling and shuffling completely ignoring the serious devaluation of blue and green gear which comes from the identification price. On account of those salvaged materials are heading into serious price hike. Even from this small thread, it is clear how negative the change has been received by the majority of the player base.

Major issues that are tied to identification…IMHO are:

1. Price
2. Vendor action and location locked
3. Devaluation of gear
4. Does not separate blue, green, rare and exotics
5. Annoyance factor
6. Does not solve inventory problem, just moves it to Heart Vendor and probably isn’t meant as a solution

Return of The Jedi ships Moebuis designs are timeless.

kurfu.5623:

WTF? Does it cost money to ID loot now? Really?

Yes, it costs roughly 2 times the average value of a salvaged item. 1,68 silver.

Feanor.2358:

Excellent Name.9574:

Unidentified gear, why, oh why? It is a redundant RNG throwback to old style action RPGs that serves no purpose in Guild Wars 2, just adds to tedium and annoyance. Please remove it from PoF release.

It does serve a purpose, however. Identifying it isn’t required, you can simply salvage it. Which reduces the inventory clutter dramatically. No more Unusable Weapon of Uselessness polluting your inventory with Minor Sigils of Inadequateness.

I don’t think You understand how this works. Salvaging unidentified gear makes You no profit as you are paying a high value for identifying items and if You are bothered with clutter what was stopping you to fast sell it to vendors? Or not auto loot at all, just loot what has value to You. Besides is anyone prepared to throw away rare and exotic stuff?

Abelisk.4527:

Excellent Name.9574:

RedDeadFred.1256:

I’m happy with it. Saves a ton of space and when I salvage them I don’t have to worry about a bunch of useless sigils clogging up my inventory. You guys are acting like this is anti-consumer, but I’d say it’s the exact opposite. You should never feel tempted again to buy extra bag slots and you can play longer without having to go to a vendor.

IMO, the pros vastly out-weigh the cons.

If this is a solution to overfilling the inventory it is a “Great” one. There are at least several in my mind as I am writing this that would have been far better and would not ask for 1.68 silver for each salvage, basically defeating the salvaging purpose.

It costs 1.68 silver to ID the gear not salvage it.

This is why this system is good—if you don’t care about rare/exotic drops you can just salvage from the get go. If you’re farming your inventory will never get clogged up with sigils and runes, and then you can ID the gear for a chance of getting higher tier gear.

Think of it this way, you have to option to turn the unid gear into mats, or you can play the feelin’ lucky card for a chance at Rare or Exotics. Two options.

You can also save up the gear until you have multiple stacks, from which you can then ID them.

Yes, sorry 1.68 to ID them. But it is that price that is defeating salvaging or IDing them. 90% of the time that would be the value of salvaged material with momentary fluctuations during the release of new craftable gear. So without IDing them You are losing on higher profit or unlocks through rares and exotics, but if You do ID them, then the salvage value of blue and green gear is positive 0 as You will Yourself be paying for Your mats.

RedDeadFred.1256:

I’m happy with it. Saves a ton of space and when I salvage them I don’t have to worry about a bunch of useless sigils clogging up my inventory. You guys are acting like this is anti-consumer, but I’d say it’s the exact opposite. You should never feel tempted again to buy extra bag slots and you can play longer without having to go to a vendor.

IMO, the pros vastly out-weigh the cons.

If this is a solution to overfilling the inventory it is a “Great” one. There are at least several in my mind as I am writing this that would have been far better and would not ask for 1.68 silver for each salvage, basically defeating the salvaging purpose.

It is too early for me to judge the final release, but some things irk me badly.

1. Lack of Waypoints. This is the main reason I mostly avoid WvW, and no mounts are not the replacement or the solution. I feel like I am wasting time running somewhere after death or wrong path.

2. Unidentified gear. Just No!

3. Fire throughout the Story chapter looks bad, really bad and we are fighting the Flaming god of war.

Walhalla.5473:

Ashen.2907:

AncientYs.8613:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Excellent Name.9574:

Unidentified gear, why, oh why? It is a redundant RNG throwback to old style action RPGs that serves no purpose in Guild Wars, just adds to tedium and annoyance. Please remove it from PoF release.

Except it was in Guild Wars since inception.

I like it, personally. Saves space.

Good luck.

but it hasn’t been in gw2 before they introduced it back again with PoF so why?

in core tyria and HoT we didn’t have it and we did just fine..

we also didn’t need to bring it back to life from gw1 imo.. and making them unidentified gear and making us identify them for coins is just no fun..

I think salvaging is enough. I don’t want to have to carry extra id kits in addition to salvage kits..

Cant you just salvage them without identifying?

You can, did it a few times today. Got a bit too much mats out of the gear.^^

Yes, You can, but You’d be wasting rare and exotic gear in the process.

Unidentified gear, why, oh why? It is a redundant RNG throwback to old style action RPGs that serves no purpose in Guild Wars 2, just adds to tedium and annoyance. Please remove it from PoF release.

When I wrote the opening post I fully realised that those were some of my observation and it why I have put an IMHO.

However, personal likes and dislikes aside, what is not up to debate is how devastating HoT has been to player base in all three aspects of the game: PvE, PvP and WvW.

I remember vividly how after the first Open Beta of HoT (earned through random Silverwastes token drop) my guild at that time, mostly made of hardcore players that sharpened their skills in Guild Wars I, had a lively debate on what we thought of Verdant Brink and how it will affect the game if all other maps and their mechanics turn out like it in some way. We were split down the thirds, some of us liked the change, some of us did not and some of us recognised the potential problems these layouts could invoke, often citing the Black Citadel as a negative example, the problems with such long metas without even knowing the mess with masteries and the grind HoT will bring. I’d say more than half of us waited and did not preorder the expansion, partially because of the pricing policy, partially because of the lack content, partially because of the announced changes to Tyria and partially of not knowing what to expect.

After the release, most of those who did not preorder did not buy the game and by the time Anet realised the effect HoT was having and the release of the first batch of changes, the guild with over 300 people fell apart, with most of the guild’s active player base moving away from the game. From what I have gathered and observed our guild was far from an exception and my friends list became grey.

I personally took an 8 months break from Guild Wars and got back into it when the first discount or price drop landed and made HoT available for 23 Euros instead of 46. Quite a few of people bought the Hot in those weeks and started playing through it, but what was noticeable is that players who already played Through HoT were missing from the maps as metas failed on a regular basis without the input from more experienced among us. Maps were busy those few weeks, not particularly efficient but busy. Now, maps are empty during the working part of the week with filling in only in those 15 minutes and mostly in the afternoon leading to meta finals apart from Verdant Brink, which is utterly empty all the time with the exception of days where Verdant Brink is a part of Dailies Rotation.

The minimap is not working well as it does not scale vertically either well or at all. HoT maps are complex almost as the real world would be, but whereas we as human beings perceive real world immersed with all our senses, we perceive game within a rectangular screen, so the map becomes a necessity. Unfortunately for HoT layout, the Guild Wars map is lacking. This could be remedied either through the active annotations on the minimap or perhaps through signposts with clear directions within the 3D world.

10. Tying quaternary content to primary (adventures tied to masteries), the grind for map and story progression, the grind for various collections or advancement, the magical mushrooms supplying vertical lift right where You need them to, unscaling HP points, Guild Halls – time and money wasting nothingness…

I was wondering after the HoT aftermath and the damage it did to the game and player population, will Anet have the strength to forget HoT and move on?

What went wrong with HoT, IMHO, and should never be repeated:

01. Pricing the expansion as the full game for players already owning the original game
02. DLC worth of new content, not worthy of expansion name
03. Rushed and short story mode, with a really underwhelming final battle design.
04. Questionable map design, not the beauty of HoT maps, just usability. Minimap system is not enough for HoT layout.
05. Lack of new character slot for the new profession (remedied after an outcry from players).
06. Killing the casualness of the original Guild Wars 2 in more than one way and thus making maps either extremely hard or right down impossible for solo completion.
07. Nerfing the older content, all in hope player base will be forced to buy into deeply flawed new one.
08. Essentially killing off PvP with tying it to the expansion.
09. Nearly destroying WvW which survival is still up in the air.
10. etc.

Then, what I said stays. There were no WvW server merges prior to HoT, and from what I see WvW has also been destroyed with HoT release.

Are You saying that there was free server transfer at the HoT release? That would explain the server merges then indeed?

IMHO, yes it did and the worst part is that it has permanently damaged the game and user base. I remember having the discussion after the first open beta in with guildies and noted that it won’t be received well on multiple levels (gating, verticality, locked out map areas…). All of these were true and then HoT brought terrible grind to the mix.
Out of 4 guilds I was member of, only 1 survived HoT aftermath.

People just stopped playing the game including myself. I do come back from time to time to Central Tyria to see how Anet is merging servers one after another. There are currently several games that GW people took refuge in and I haven’t heard anyone mentioning anything about going back to GW2

Nothing can fix the HoT I’m afraid as it is unfixable without a complete redesign, lowering grind is but a makeup on an old face.

Unfortunately I share the negative sentiments over the new map and it’s navigation. I think aNet made the same mistake with traveling on the map as they did with the traits last year and we can see how that affected the game, new characters are created seldom and those people that do create them never bother with trait unlocking either through doing the specific events or buying them and thus lowering the character base in the game. Unlocking on this level is wrong for basic content, such is map navigation and here we have multiple unlocking needs. I can’t see it succeeding with the players.