Guild Wars 2

Daishi.6027:

By that logic everyone should be able to turn off everyone else’s weapon skins, gliders, skill effects, minis, trinket auras, and back items, and all legendary effects. Hell should just be able to turn off all players.

So okay, let’s pretend this isn’t a world where skins and vanity slots are pretty much what dictate the endgame.

It still serves a mechanical purpose and visual information has been key in this games since release, holding that back serves no purpose other than to appease pointless stubbornness. Plus that visual information regardless of what it is, is beneficial I can only fathom what the new maps and season 4 has, but why hold back on what is mechanically possible especially when it’s common knowledge the maps are balanced around using them?

In HoT there were fights where you had to glide. If you could completely turn off gliders, laylines, and updrafts or any one of these, simply because you don’t like them… You’re gonna have a bad time, and probably let down everyone around you in a raid. Could you imagine dragon stand with these turned off? It makes no sense to let people do that, and even less sense to give those same people the opportunity to complain because they died for being stubborn.

If it is a matter of PC performance you might want to invest in a better PC instead of PoF.

I’m not that fond of the options for mounts as well, but there will be more, and it only gives you more options for customization.We’ll have special skins, or designs that you can earn and buy. Probably get a magic carpet version of the skimmer for example.

At the end of the day you get to dictate your own customization not other peoples. Some will always be mounted, others will stand stoic on the ground, others will turn themselves into rabbits and run around with giant kites.

If you really can’t take seeing it, then don’t buy PoF. If you really can’t even stand it in core, and HoT maps then well your in for a sad time friend might want to find another game if you can’t stand it.

Except you are ignoring my point. You get to dictate your customization, sure, but you don’t have to be bothered by other people’s customization. In point of fact, there are options to turn off the models for the characters. There have been for years. Because it doesn’t matter to the player if the other players have sparkly bits. If you’ve never seen this option, it isn’t because the choice isn’t there – its because you haven’t gone looking for it.

All you need to see of another player is a generic model, and a generic model of what they are holding. One to know they are there, one to know what their weapon skillset lets them do. Anything more is a choice you are making, even if you are only making it because you haven’t taken the time to look and see if there is an alternative. As for your point about turning off gliders, or making them generic – the posture and movement of the character model tells me if someone is gliding. I don’t need to see anything of the glider. Your point about turning off updrafts and leylines is nonsensical. Its not what anyone asked for, is a mechanical portion of the map, and not germane to this discussion.

If someone using an option to eliminate the visual data of other player’s mounts sees another character move in such a way as is only possible with a mount, they aren’t going to say ‘witchcraft’! They are going to say, ‘oh, guess that one used the raptor because the model just lunged across a gap’. Its not complicated, its not difficult. Its just blotting out useless clutter on the map – in this case, the customized appearance of whatever mount the other player used.

Mounts are big, and yes, a lot of people find them to be intrusive, cluttering, or flat out unappealing. If you don’t, that’s fine. Your customization, and what you are doing, is up to you. But part of that customization should include what parts of other players – what visual information they impart on your screen – is important. Part of not dictating to others their customization is not complaining if that customization means they don’t want to waste their time seeing you as anything but a grey figure, riding a grey generic whatever, or floating in the air. You can turn off or make generic the rest. We better be able to turn off mounts. Especially since they add the least – even gliders impart more important visual information to other players, and again, those are easily figured out by seeing posture and movement. There’s nothing in what mounts visually input that actually matters to another player in PvE.

starlinvf.1358:

They have every reason not to do this as a general unlock. The problem is mobility and combat skills that are built into the player essentially break places not designed to support them. This happened with Tyrian Gliding, and took a concerted effort to integrate it in a way that made sense (Shatterer revamp).

But theres a big reason they never allowed global gliding skills outside of Bloodstone Fen….. they lose control of what players can do with it. And players will make an effort to break the game when given those types of tools.

Look at where they implemented gliding skills. Note how very specific to the event or environment they’re designed to be used. Consider the Dwayna artifact skills, and how quickly it opens up huge portions of the Siren’s landing map that are supposed to be hidden behind minor jumping puzzles, event chains, or story interactions. Now imagine maps that came about before its design. Particularly Ember bay, which isn’t even that old. Look at how gliding changed Drytop.

The fact that HOT is obtained separately is a strong indicator that they’re design for Mobility masteries are specific to the terrain in question. Even just Gliding can easily circumvent a lot of new locations if they’re built to be vertical. So considering we’re now in the desert, they have to exclude gliding from prerequisites, and mounts are the focus of mobility in this new region, and the large world space of PoF maps….all indications point to the majority of the maps being mostly horizontal, with only certain areas dedicated to vertical climbing, that are massively spaced out to prevent players from using gliding to get around the puzzle. What will probably end up happening is most gaps will be even height, or advances to higher ground; and regulate gliding to simply being a faster, safer way to get to the bottom of the puzzle.

Except the hybrid skillset would only be working off what you are getting in PoF. If you are already getting higher with the Springer than you ever would with a hybrid glide mastery, saying that the one breaks the other doesn’t work. The maps were designed with the tolerances of the mounts in mind, and thus they wouldn’t break any easier with these masteries than they would with the mounts themselves. You can argue that the utility might make breaking them slightly easier if they are mastered, but the limits would make that a difficult challenge.

Plus, this adds very little to the map breaking curve. If those mounts are going to go everywhere (and apparently they are) then the map breaking is already happening. Its here, we are stuck with it already. Having these masteries wouldn’t make it any worse. The skillsets are already in the wild. It would just give a secondary method of getting around – which is what we are told is the point of these masteries – while at the same time not being any worse for the problem you are citing.

So. Here we go with expansion two.

But let’s talk about a way to tie it with HoT. Specifically, combining the primary feature of HoT (the glider) with the primary feature of PoF (mounts) in a way that uses both.

First, some bullet points.
-There are more Maguuma Mastery Points in HoT and the Living World Season 3 than there are things to spend them on.
-There is unlikely to be more HoT content.
-Mounts are divisive, but necessary to reach places.
-Mounts are going to be in the game- for better or worse.
-Chances are, heavy modification to anything in PoF is unlikely at this point, so additions have to be easily accomplished on top of the current set-up, without unbalancing the content/exploration.

My suggestion is that there be added a fourth mastery category in addition to core, HoT, and PoF. In that mastery category should be masteries that can only be unlocked and learned by combining masteries from multiple expansions.

For HoT/PoF, this would be glide mimics. Adding skills to the glider is doable- we’ve seen it in game. We’ve seen that the selling point of mounts is that they have special abilities. Gliders already come with a built in stamina bar.

So you have it so the player can learn, with masteries, to do lesser versions of mount abilities. Key word here is lesser – they should not be able to do a forward lunge as well as the raptor, they should not be able to go up as high as a springer, or hover as long as a skimmer. Further, these skills should be tied to the stamina bar, so they can’t just spam them in sequence. However, it would still give the glider something to look forward to in PoF, add a second way of getting to some places in the expansion, and be relatively easy to add. Most of the glider’s motions and animations include things that already would have the proper movements for this, so it is a matter of coding the actual effects. Not a small feat, but recycling fitting animations means it is much smaller than some. More, this doesn’t impinge on the mounts’ utility – they remain better at their signature abilities, and retain their passive movement advantages over gliders. Gliders just become a, for lack of a better term, short range jack-of-all-stats of movement. They won’t get you as far, or do as well, but they do combine multiple functions and can get a job done.

However, these masteries should be locked until players have, at minimum, a high progression in both the glider and the mount masteries. Perhaps not the whole mastery line, but a significant percentage or a threshold of mastery points spent.

This is an additive solution that makes use of everything present and incoming, and not only could help make everyone happy(er) but also tie the expansions together more mechanically, giving replay value and a reason for players who join GW2 going forward a motive to have both expansions, not decide on just one.

The issue isn’t taking mounts out of the game. It’s simply an easy visual fix attached to a toggle that prevents one player (the player making the choice to use said fix) from having to deal with the visual noise of mounts.

I don’t want a mount. I don’t intend to put up with one unless no other option presents itself. No other player’s mount ‘matters’ to my game (whether I can see their mount or not confers no in-game advantage or disadvantage that has been mentioned). Therefore invisible mount or generic mount toggles mean that my game isn’t cluttered, bogged down, or lagged by other player’s mounts. If I can have this, and it doesn’t do a single thing to anyone else, whether they want mounts or not, why shouldn’t it be an option?

Its not about immersion – a player hovering past like an exalted is no less immersion breaking than them reenacting the march of hares, and due to the smaller size and fewer polygons, much less noticeable. Its about visual noise, and blotting out the mount as a visual option (which is the point) should be easy and necessary.

A lot of the pro-mount crowd say ‘if you don’t like them, don’t use them’. Is it so hard to include ‘if you don’t like them, you shouldn’t have to look at them’? Because if it is, if someone is going to say ‘well, you have to see other player’s mounts’ the question becomes – why? What does the game or the player lose if they can’t see the giant bunnies and jackolems cluttering up the screen? The only thing I can think of is the vanity of the people saying that the mounts should be visible. “I have this big thing – you should be impressed by the big thing I have”. No thanks, I’d prefer to see the parts of the game that actually matter to me, and another player’s mount is explicitly not in that category. Even if I end up using a mount, which is unlikely but possible, that still doesn’t change that other player’s mounts do not and will not functionally matter to me, and an option to remove them from my sight hurts literally nothing. Nor will that option hurt anyone else. But it may make a heck of a lot of people happier.

Revenant will have one elite skill per legend. Your guardian… guardians have the signet, the shout, and the meditation elites. Any other elite you are seeing there is likely Mistfire Wolf or a racial, unless there’s a fourth elite I’ve never seen on any of my guardians before and isn’t listed in the wiki.

They have confirmed that the utilities are bound to legend, but I do not recall them mentioning the number of utilities on the legend being limited to what we’ve seen, and that was the question I was asking. If so, this is very disappointing news, since it means that effectively when it comes to utilities revenants are incredibly limited.

Is that the official answer, or just a guess?

Because it doesn’t seem like a particularly good trade, and the rigid nature of the utilities slotted (if you want one, you must have all five) makes it much less attractive than having a larger number of options, even if that number of possible options is less open than other professions. Because rather than two rigid sets of five, it would be better to have two skills you must take [heal and elite] and three out of five utilities per legend. Which is still more rigid than most professions.

Both Hammer 2 or 3 (can’t recall which) and Hammer 5 are blast finishers. Which means you can blast finish twice with a hammer, or use mace, and now that there is weapon swapping on the revenant, it’s very likely that everyone will have one or the other. While not as likely everyone will be running Jalis, it still means that there are lots of blast finishers to go on the dwarven road.

That said, it would be nice to have a baseline speed increase. Which, since at the very least we don’t know all of what Shiro does, and at the most (unless rev ships with less utilities than any other profession, there are two missing from each of the current legends) another legend, or a trait in the fifth line, may give that option. More, Legend Swapping is now becoming instant. Check me if I am wrong, but wasn’t that on a trait before? Which means that trait is now open for a new effect as well.

I apologize if this has been asked and answered, but could not find any such source. But it looks to me as if the Revenant is very low on number of utility skills – four legends with four heals puts it equal to the other professions, four legends with four elites is one more elite than other professions. But four legends with three utilities is twelve utilities – compared to twenty on other professions. We know the utilities have basic swap ability, but so far they only trade with the other two on that legend.

I am just curious if we simply haven’t seen the last two utilities for the three legends we have seen, or if the Revenant really is to function with eight less skills (well, seven, since it has one more elite) than every other profession. Inquiring minds and all that. (I only truly began to really worry about this with the Shiro announcement, when it said last core legend, last core weapon set, since that meant we weren’t going to see the rest fill up with other legends – additional sets may be limited, since you buy for the whole right bar, but I prefer to have more options than less, and thus I am worried)

Not a panic thing, just a question since I couldn’t find anything on this anywhere. If someone does have that answer, providing it would ease my mind greatly.

Found the knockback. It’s on a minor trait in a trait line I no longer had no reason to look in.

I pretty much have given up on turrets until/unless this is altered. They are no longer an offensive capable skill line, and going all the way back to the drawing board is better than having to deal with their new clunky support role.

That’s not quite the issue, Heimskarl. Yes, Healing Power has never been baseline, and this is a combined trait, but the trait it was combined from was Power equal to 7% of Vitality, which was viable. In it’s current state, it… really kinda isn’t.

The new combined trait ‘Instinctive Reaction’ has, as one of it’s effects, gain power equal to 7% of healing power. Healing Power is no longer baseline, near as I can tell, meaning this trait’s effects are potentially ‘Gain Power equal to 7% of nothing’.

I see this as something of a problem.

My main engineer was pure turret. He now is a random assortment. That doesn’t work very well.

Why exactly is deployable turrets gone? Couldn’t put them anywhere an ele or any range fighter couldn’t pick them off, and there’s not much joy in charging enemies to try and place a turret and skitter to the side.

Deployable Turrets, Autotool Installation, Rifled Turret Barrels?

My main engineer is a turret user, and the only two turret traits I can find are pretty bloody useless.

It looks gone. Which is a pity because it makes turrets practically unusable in PvE and WvW for me. My main engineer was turret based, and I basically just gave up and gave him random traits and skills that weren’t turrets and will now ignore him for a bit and hope this gets changed.

Of the seven turret traits, three look totally gone (Deployable Turrets, Auto-Tool Installation, and Accelerant-Packed Turrets), two have merged (Fortified Turrets and Metal Plating), one needs to be tested if it is baseline, but I don’t think it is (Rifled Turret Barrels), and one is now a master trait and otherwise remains a trait I wouldn’t touch for turrets (Experimental Turrets).

For score, that leaves… half of one of the current turret traits in the game that I had used for my engineer yesterday. One and a half traits I wouldn’t use. Because both the turret traits I can see (and maybe I am missing the others, or Rifled Turret Barrels is baseline) are defensive. Four (five, now that Supply Crate counts) of the five (now six) turrets are offensive. To use the four utility turrets offensively, I have to run into the enemy. Where without autotool, they will die faster. Of course, since I have to run into the teeth of the enemy to place them, I am dying faster too.

If you used turrets for anything besides full defense, they are pretty much crippled into an unusable state currently.

Edit: Half of Accelerant Packed Turrets is apparently baseline – the damage, but the knockback is gone. Checked it while stewing over this.

The problem with all this is that we are losing something unique. I said it before, but I wasn’t very specific.

Losing tomes, and it is a loss, means we give up a mechanic that is part of the profession. We won’t be getting it back. Not as a specialization – they may eventually give us a specialization that has tomes, but that’s a specialization. It ties us to a trait line we possibly don’t want, some unknown weapon, and basically is a secondary class. So we will never be a guardian with a tome again. We’ll be a whatever the specialization is called. We’ll have access to what the new limit on trait lines and how elite specializations function with core lines pretty much dictates as 2/3s a guardian, and one third something else. I welcome this for all the elite specializations that exist. It’s great. But to lose something unique, and maybe at a future date get it back by trading away another third of the character, is not a good deal.

Even if the possibility of tomes coming back was a promise, this is still a loss. More, it’s one we’re never going to make up, only pave over. That’s something right there worth regretting. My main guardian has been using Tome of Wrath the vast majority of the time since 2013, because Renewed Focus is pretty much the antithesis of how I play the character and Tome of Wrath worked great at a variety of tasks. The cooldown sucks, and the duration wasn’t anything to write home about either and it still didn’t matter because it is the best game in town. Soon the best game in town still won’t be Renewed focus, “Feel My Wrath” looks subpar and I already have more than enough healing. So the best choice for my guardian is going to be Mistfire Wolf.

If I choose to remain a vanilla guardian, that never gets to change. This is why I do not laud this decision, and if it is still under consideration again ask that we not be subjected to this.

I would like to see Tomes remain, and simply gain lower ranking skills. The main reason most players don’t use them is the very long cooldown. As they are, the Tomes are less attractive for it, despite being extremely powerful while in use. I’ve never particularly liked Renewed Focus and only ever used it rarely on secondary guardians. Losing the elites that I find useful, with a nebulous “We hope to bring them back later” strikes me as a bad trade, and I ask it not be one made.

Subtraction rarely makes the game better, and subtracting Tomes for two elites which look as unimpressive to me as Renewed Focus feels like a poor choice to make.

I really do hope that this really isn’t right, and we won’t be limited to three trait lines (or specialization lines). I don’t use grandmaster, nor have I ever really had the desire to do so, on any of my mains. I instead go for a spread, and I don’t think any of the characters I enjoy playing on have points in less than four lines. It doesn’t make the game better taking that from them, it just means I literally send every character back to the drawling board rather than tailoring in changes I want. This really is a limit on diversity, and the accompanying reward of getting grandmaster traits doesn’t work if I don’t want anything in the grandmaster trait mix, but did want something from a fourth line that is no longer accessable within the changed framework.

I’ve quite enjoyed two years of having diverse builds, and am quite effective in the game with them. I just am hoping that this is just a misreading on the intentions of the developers.

I’d trade everything in this patch that is a bonus to see the level gating leave. I’m not alone. If the community is citing with as much outcry as this that a mistake has been made, then it’s usually an indicator that the changes were not benevolent.

We have a post from the developers that not everything in this system is intended. To date that has… removed level restrictions from two items and made scaling less decidedly dangerous. They haven’t even stated with clarity which parts of this faulty level gating system are intended and which are not, though they imply some of the level ranges are incorrect and there should be different systems in place for veterans or even just new folks who have slogged this poor attempt through a ways. So some of this is expected to leave, be fixed, be addressed. Eventually.

But only some. Which means that this is still a bad idea that we are expected to swallow, just probably not in the dosage shown. Removing bundles was certainly intended, and while none of us thought much of it beforehand, we certainly do now. Picking up feed and taking it to cows was not complex. Neither is ‘entertaining’ them. But one of these makes sense in the framework of the world and teaches skills, while the other one does neither and is strange and illogical on top of it.

Collections are excellent. I don’t mind the new TP. Accountwide commander is interesting, and should be helpful once people get used to it. But in the center of it all is a messed up, damaging system that is wrapped around the heart of a game I rather enjoy, and the longer it is left there, the more life it is going to choke out.

I’m not one of those saying they are quitting. I am not one of those telling horror stories about friends and new players bailing out. But lots of people are. These things are happening. They are real. Mentions from developers that it’s under advisement and some things are being modified are just words, and we have grown far too aware that ANet is quick to promise and slow to deliver. We need more than words. We need action. Big action. We need this to not only not have happened, but to get more rather than less. Or this is going to be a ghost town.

I’m just terribly disappointed that we are at this juncture.

People keep saying that vistas aren’t locked, POI’s aren’t locked. Several things aren’t locked. And it’s true. They are just hidden. But hidden may as well be locked, because the occlusion makes them appear like they aren’t there. The developers are putting something cool away until people have ‘earned’ it, when the earning should be the simple, “What’s that? It looks cool! Let’s go over there!”
The tooltip about it? Great. Lets folks know.
But hiding it is a form of blocking it, even if the block isn’t a lock. Maybe in a focus group getting paid to see the new player experience, this is a thing which helps. But for actual new players, it looks like there is less out there. Who wants to open a game and see… less?
Not to mention the other gating effects. Let’s discuss weapon skills, since those are gated. Who wants to open a new game and see… two skills. One which only heals. The action adventure entry into the game is now less exciting because instead of unlocking power as you go you… have basic attacks. And a heal. And since the heal is nowhere near the basic attack and can’t be moved, well, maybe that even gets missed. So the great introduction to an adventure is… basic attacks.
That’s what level gating is giving us. A lot of new players who see… a game with basic attacks. Even those who don’t walk away right then, they got to hit level 15 to get what they would have had at level 3. Would you want to wait, in ANY game, to get at level 15 the flexibility of having a basic hand of abilities?
Even Go Fish gives more moves in a few moments than the current level gating, and that’s not getting into utilities being backed way down the pipeline and elites locked until halfway through the leveling process.
This is not well done. This is the product of a bad survey conducted on a misfocused focus group combined with trying something new to replace something that was already working great.
And this level gating shouldn’t be fixed. It shouldn’t be looked at. It should not go up for review or debate. This needs to be undone. And if that means losing everything that’s good attached to it, that’s an easy price to pay, because the good attached to this system in no way, shape, or form outweighs the negative, the flawed, and the unfathomably tone-deaf.

I have 36 characters that I count, and three name reservations if we ever get expansions, plus a spare slot. Seventeen are level 80. I know the leveling in this game, and I made character number 36 to try this system from the start, to see the pacing. To try this level gating. This isn’t a minor problem. This isn’t even an adaptable change, as traits were. This is poison in the well, and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

I am not a programmer. I have cited what is wrong is an overly stilted and tedious level gating system which has been handed to us under a masquerade of a ‘leveling experience’. When the problem isn’t a facet but the whole, it’s hard to give much more in the way of constructive repair advice besides ‘it shouldn’t have happened and needs to be rolled back’. The advice of to level in EotM isn’t critique or a fix, it’s a bandage that won’t do anything about the wound festering beneath. More, it doesn’t change some of the nature of the problem, which is so many features are locked out of new characters that they aren’t able to be effective, even in Edge of the Mists.

So if I seemed overly harsh, it’s only because the disappointment this inflicted is that acute. If I seemed to lack answers, it’s because the only answer is to step back.

So this may be a bug only in the way that the entire poorly thought out new leveling system is a bug. Great.
Still reporting it as a bug, because god knows it is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Actually, Zoso, I have very few posts on the forum, do not want mounts, and have never complained about the other things you mentioned either. I have been here since headstart. It’s just really that bad.

Try leveling on a non-level 80. I got no skill points for three levels (Been on a level 70, who is now level 73 Warrior). It doesn’t affect level 80s – several in my guild confirmed this. But apparently on top of all the other nonsense with leveling, skill points aren’t being awarded, either through a bug or a really bad idea. And I am desperately hoping bug.

Birthday scrolls get you about halfway through the process. Still have to climb the rest of the way.

I want to explore a fun, dynamic world and be properly rewarded for it. Not press 1 until I earn enough clearance they can trust me with pressing 4.

The new leveling system is a travesty. It’s unweldy, helps no one, and delays the very ‘sense of power’ they were hoping to instill. It’s unchallenging and borderline insulting, from a game I rather spend a lot of time and energy playing. They did the absolute opposite of what they should have done, which was challenge players rather than limit them.

Much of the rest of the feature pack is great, but the massive, glaring flaw that is this level gating system sits in the middle of it like a hissing wasps nest. This flaw makes it so no one will WANT to have a second character after this, that’s a fairly massive problem. If the goal was to make the world more welcoming to new players, Arenanet should remember that even the basic game comes with five character slots, and they’ve ensured that filling two through five is now a chore rather than a joy, and number one is no cakewalk either.

This in no way removes obstacles to new character entry, either for new players, returning players, or veterans. This just creates more barriers, and not in a fun manner. You don’t remove obstacles by building walls and gates, and you don’t ease a path by adding brambles and pitfalls.

Hopefully this is an error of someone not carrying a one somewhere in their math and not intentional, because this is a very bad idea.

I as well am not getting skill points for leveling, and wonder if this is intentional or a bug.

Superior barracades – have vastly higher health, more damage to jump over, greater length, and enemy stealth near them is disrupted.

As to the jumping over – A: Zerg tactics and coordination are not exactly two things that go together. B: Make it so either a – only your side can jump over your barracades or b – if the other side tries they take damage and either bleeding or cripple (or both, that’s barbed wire on top). As such, it can make a retreat easier if you have a preplaced barracade, especially if they work as a zergbreak (go around or suffer the consequences).

Something beautiful and a price that makes it not worth buying.

Chyanne Waters – Some people don’t want to have multiple characters. Some people don’t want account bound. Calling them pathetic because they don’t play the game in the way you do solves nothing. People complain because they are not happy – and I am fairly certain, from your vehemence on the topic, you were likely complaining when soulbound was the only option. A simple solution is to have both options available.

And if you really want to compare numbers and variety of characters and claim it gives you a more respectable position to argue from, I have more than you do. So if that is the criteria we are arguing on, I get to win. But it really doesn’t matter if you have one character or eight or seventeen. So that’s a non-point, and neither I nor you get anything out of that.

As for the repeated point of ‘Why didn’t you buy it when it was cheaper? You wasted your chance’. A: It’s disingenuous. Those of us who were content and were slowly getting what we wanted got what we could (and whether that was paid for with gold to gem or cash to gem – either way, some times of the year are a lot tighter on either time to spend farming for gold or with spare cash. Saying we should have spent when we had either form of disposable income assumes we had the time or the cash at those spans of availability – many people simply didn’t) ignores the fact that while those who frequent this board (which is likely the same folks who weren’t happy before – content folks are less likely to look up a forum about pricing and changes) may or may not have known something like this was coming, the rest of us didn’t. B: If it was an opportunity, announced or not, then it was a very unequal one as some types of tools were accessible far less than others.

Well, the easiest gradient they have for that is rarity. Two otherwise similar items assigned a different rarity seems to be no problem for the system to handle (as per all the different blues and greens that are eeriely similar). The soulbound gathering tools are rares. Make the account bounds exotic. Use that as the separator. It wouldn’t be all that different from some LS items that have a sellable rarity and an account- or soulbound version that is easier to find.

Whether it is better now is debatable, as is whether or not a function that people don’t want should be paid for if the option to not have it can be made available. For some people, the old 800 is vastly preferable. Maybe our voices weren’t on this forum because we’ve been happy since we got our tools, while people who for whatever reason want accountbound weren’t happy and were vocal here. Account bound is only more valuable if you like being shackled to a bank at the end of any session with the character using the tools and the start of any session with a character not. Only those who do not view this as an unreasonable mechanic will find this change to be of benefit.

These new tools are not the same items as the older ones. Notably, because the old items still exist in the game (when other gathering tools switched over from soulbound to account bound, it was simply done. The player didn’t get options of doing it, didn’t have to take their tools anywhere [not even black lion tools] it was just log in and there it was on everything. The current exchange mechanic means that the two types of infinite gathering tools can coexist because the two types currently do coexist) and thus a way can be made to have both be available in the future.

I would, as mentioned elsewhere, desire to have the option to buy soulbound at 800, so that I can get what I want whole those who desire accountbound can still get theirs at the current price.

Encarton.3985:

So basically what you would like is an 800 gem option in addition to the 1000 gem option for the store. The 800 gem item would be soulbound, the 1000 gem item would be account bound.

I don’t see why they couldn’t figure out something to make that happen.

That’s exactly what I am asking for, yes.

Zilentnight, why are you even in this particular conversation? I do not want a refund, I do not want to take anything from you, and your only point seems to be that I should be quiet and be grateful for others getting something they want, even if it comes at the removal of what I want.

I am glad others got what they want. I still would like to get what I want, and I doubt I am the only one (especially as I have seen others have similar sentiments on this very board) and your logic doesn’t add up as to why what I want would be hard to do (it wouldn’t) or would impinge on you or the rest of the community in a negative way (it wouldn’t).

Decisions are made by ANet, and they do so while looking to make as many pleased as possible within reason. This forum is merely a way to talk things out where they can see it. As for the best interest of the community, nothing I have asked would be a detriment to a single person in the community and a boon to several.

ArchAngelGabriel.4625:

No matter what, someone will always complain

Just because someone is complaining doesn’t mean nothing is wrong.

Just because you are content doesn’t make other’s complaint invalid.

If you don’t care when others are unhappy who will be willing to speak for you when it is you who complain with a valid point?

Zilentnight, for someone who starts with explaining your idioms to me, you don’t seem to understand the one I used. But aside from that, your points.

The price increase to the new item from the previously available ones is 25% (Since it is 200 more than the original 800), and the only improved functionality it has is account binding rather than soul binding. This only matters if you like or want account binding. For the rest of your point to be valid, this would have to hold true. But since you want math, we can do math.

The first cost is time. To change over the gathering tools, assuming I both wanted account binding and was willing to juggle, I would have to end any session I wanted to gather on the characters I wished to gather with at a bank to store and move my gathering tools, and start the next session with another character either already at a bank, or moving to one and then back to wherever it is I am doing things with that character. Which at the very least binds me to a smaller subset of choices, or multiple loading screens to start. Let’s assume a relatively fast computer and this means that anytime I want to switch a character and expect to gather using said tools, I add two and a half minutes to my ending with the previous character and the same as starting with the other.
This is not convenient.

So I either use the basic tools (which is pretty much where I am going to be doing) or I do this extra juggling, with additional load screens. You talk as if the only cost is gems or coin. It’s not, and putting more cost on the alternative just because one item is removed and it’s replacement is given a function that some people don’t want doesn’t mean that people will be satisfied. It just means people more willing to burn the time than the rest of the playerbase will be happy.

As I am unwilling to spend as much time as you are for a convienence turned into an inconvience, we come to your point about price. You state that I would be saving 37% by being willing to do the aforementioned shuffle for two characters. But if not being willing to do so is a truth, saying that I save 600 gems by buying one gathering tool for two characters becomes facetious. Because I wouldn’t buy a single gathering tool for two characters. Pretty much ever. Any gathering tool I purchase, either infinite or normal, I bought for the character who I intended to use it on. Thus the math I get to look at is, with those same two characters, I would now need to either spend 2000 to outfit them for one sort of gathering or 6000 for three sorts when I could have done so before for 1600 in a single line or 4800 for all three types of gathering. That’s a lot of gems. Still the 25% more cost increase you yourself noted. Yes, you could make the argument that, hey, I’d be getting them for account bound and that means extra value. But it’s only extra value if that’s how you are willing to use them.
As it is, I’d be getting the tools for a extra price I don’t want to pay to do a thing with them I didn’t want to do in the first place. Making my current infinites account bound would just mean a hassle leading to other hassles, which is why I have not bothered. Account bound only matters if that is how you desire to use the tools, and it is a hinderance (a demonstratively expensive one, as we now see) if it is outside your intentions.

As to the players who purchased and supported this the first time? And the second? I am one. I applaud that ANet is giving a refund to those that ask, and has offered upgrades to those that want them. I don’t want an upgrade. I don’t want a refund. I am not saying people who are willing to give themselves the extra run-around shouldn’t be able to get account bound if that’s what they want. All I ask for is the option to not pay as much to get soul bound, since that is what I would prefer and it is obviously something that can be delievered.

How I paid for my current infinites – coin to gem or cash to gem – is not germaine to the discussion, but either way I earned the half-way equipping I have done. I am very unhappy that not only am I not going to be able to finish, but by asking if the ability to get soulbound is met not with an answer but with people saying that a unpleasant situation is better for me and not to question it.
Because it’s not better for me.

Everything I have stated is my opinion, just like, despite what you think, same with everything you stated. The recent change made a lot of people happy. Good for them. I am not saying it is fair or unfair. I am saying that I do not want this, and am asking only to have the option to purchase in the future what I could have purchased in the past.
I certainly will not be buying any of the current offerings in this line.

Behellagh.1468:

Sorry, I read all the threads in this board. This was either the first or second place where he bemoaned his plight, by the time I got to his third, I responded somewhat differently.

And it’s not like you haven’t cross posted your complaint about the new tools.

As for your suggestion, I doubt it unless you can drum up similar support for it as the numerous “please make it account bound” threads that cropped up since the very first infinite gathering pick ax showed up. I know you presented your reasons but so many will just tell you to take the few minutes and pass them through the bank. Park your alts at banks or crafting stations when you log off to speed up the process.

A fair point about the cross posting, though I only hit discussions that seemed relevant (I have not posted in the thank yous or the refund threads).

As to the parking – if this is a convience item, then it shouldn’t have to change how I play to make it convienent. That’s just changing what the inconvience is, and that’s neither what I want or what I would pay for. I am not saying account bound is bad. I am asking if I can have my option of soulbound back, and more, I have no intention of account binding my current tools.

ZilentNight.5089:

I cannot believe people will cry no matter what Anet does for them.

First Anet released an amazing convinience item, guess what players complained its soul bound.

Then Anet changed it to account bound, but makes sense for them to increase the price – players cry again.

Then Anet proceeds to issue refunds for players who bought multiple – again kudos to Anet. but wait Now we have more kittening since they find the price a bit too high.
Seriously? whats next?
Do you want Anet to hand it to you for free? let me guess you will still cry about it even if they were to do that.

1. You missed the window to buy the item for 800 gems.
2. 1000 gems is high in only your opinion, for something that is “Unlimited” does not even cost you a small fee each time u gather is quite fair.
3. You dont have to use RL money to buy them, you can easily farm for it doing dungeons, gather T6 nodes, champ farm, various other in-game farming methods and convert to gold. – If you were to make 10g a day which can easily be done in 2 hrs if you are slow. You can acquire a gathering tool in less than a week.

So stop crying and complaining, this is why we dont get nice things.

But I didn’t complain when it was soul bound. I liked it that way. Maybe you did, maybe you saw other people doing so. But the people complaining now are quite likely people who were content with how it was. You also seem to assume that everyone who is complaining wants a refund. This is demonstrably not true, as is your facetious point about expecting things for free. More, your point of ‘go and farm for a week’ is insulting, especially as the theory of the game is you shouldn’t need to do things like that.

The price is high for a new item (and it is a new item – the old item had a different binding function and was priced better) irregardless of the same practical function. Maybe that is my opinion, but it is no better than your opinion that it is not high. Perhaps the reason you can’t have nice things is that you act condescending when someone tries to ask if they can have the things they want – which, again, demonstrably can and have existed (soulbound tools for 800) and no longer do. People shouldn’t get nice things if they advocate the removal of nice things from others.

Appologies if I sound bitter. This change has made a portion of the fanbase happy. It has gone a very long way towards alienating me.

It kind of did seem like you were, since it was the topic of the thread. He wasn’t helping, admitably, but neither were you. Of course, when I first responded, I didn’t know he was hitting all these threads complaining, and you were hitting all of them after him to give him the same link.

I would like the option to buy the new axes in a soulbound flavor for 800, if any developers check this thread.

Make both choices (soul and account) available in the gem store and let people get whichever they like.

Behellagh.1468:

Avigrus.2871:

What about those of us that have already bought multiple sets for multiple characters – you would think buying 3 sets qualifies me for account bound.

… this game is just getting pointless.

Haven’t you heard?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/where-do-i-sell-my-23-unlimited-gather-tools/3193057

Which has nothing to do with what I am asking for. I do not care about account bound and in fact find it intrusive and unhelpful not to mention expensive. I want to know if soulbound will still be available.

mtpelion.4562:

The question becomes, do you value the convenience enough to buy them or are they not worth 1000 gems to you?

Keep in mind that the added value of the items being account bound is not a positive for you due to your choice of only having one character. If you choose to create more characters then that value would be realized.

But the value isn’t realized with more characters. Quite the opposite.

I have lots of characters (seventeen that I will admit to, and twelve at level 80). I want these for convienence. They were worth it, barely, slowly over time and assembled piecemeal since Molten Alliance, for my mains at 800. Of which I now have 7 gathering sickles, 1 gathering axe, and 6 mining tools, all infinites, with 1/7/2 needed to complete my collection. It is a convience we pay for, and account bound is not a thing that makes them more convienent. Needing me to park at a bank and switch out gathering, then go to a bank and equip them on the next character, is not an improvement. It doesn’t make my life easier. It tethers me to a bank a lot more than I would naturally visit one.

This lack of convienence, for an additional 25% cost, means I won’t be outfitting the rest of my mains as I had hoped to. 1000 gems per infinite gathering tool is outside what I consider reasonable. I also won’t be making account bound the ones I have – they are where I want them to be and having them be account bound would be worthless since I wouldn’t consider moving them. So this essentially means that A-Net is losing sales when, as both someone upthread here and I both have stated, there are people would continue to outfit our characters if we could get soulbound versions for 800 who would not for account bound at 1000.

This only adds value to these items to those who prefer to start and end each character session at a bank. To others it just adds prohibitive cost.

I suspect I am in the minority in being unhappy in the account bound infinite gathering tool change. So be it, because I am unhappy. Not because it is a bad thing for some – it is a great thing for many, in fact – but because I quite simply prefer to pay 800 gems for a soulbound tool than 1000 for an account bound (insomuch that, I was intending to finish outfiting my main characters with tools, and now will probably not bother, nor do I have any intention whatsoever of unbinding the infinites I do have).

Can it be an option for people like me to get an infinite gather tool that soulbinds for 800 gems currently or in the future, while others can choose to get the account bound for more? Again, and if this becomes possible, I will cheerfully keep (or accept and use) something that removes the option to account bind my current infinites. I am quite happy with the infinite gathering tools I have, and would acquire more, but I do not want to do a bank shuffle to pass them between my characters, and I don’t want to be paying out 25% more than what I am already to see to the outfitting I do desire.

I don’t really do much WvW. I certainly haven’t – and probably won’t – ever try this with my portals on my mesmer. Only read the topic because I like using the portal in PvE and came in this here forum to do a short complaint on something I ran into in trying to do monthly objectives (which is one of two things that forces me and other PvE purists into WvW, to the mixed emotions of all involved).

By my understanding, people are leaning heavy on portals in some cases. But portals can’t be thrown – a mesmer has to be willing to cast one end, then cast the other. A very simple fix is give a mesmer who has one portal half ready glows. We could make the glow slightly visible even if the mesmer is stealthed.

This prevents the skill from being ruined by ‘fixes’, means that paying attention is rewarded (catch that rascally mesmer! Yar!), and adds another level of strategy. See a glowly target – kill it. Or, well, else.

Also, again, forgive my PvE nature, but orbs have to be run, even if stolen, correct? Now, I usually look at WvW and as often as not, it seems like one side is trouncing the others. Seems to me we SHOULD let the orbs be easily stolen. Heck, make it possible for other classes to nab them. Add a grappling seige that can fire in and snag players or the orb and drag it out. Make whoever is carrying the orb visible on the map, same as a commander. This gives weak sides a way to try and get back in the game, strong sides something to worry about, and turns a bitter seige into a wild run-about game of capture the orb.

Just seems to me to be better overall, that.