Guild Wars 2

What worries me is how you police/distinguish legitimate abuse from innocent instances. I sometimes need to brb while doing the event. Maybe dinner’s ready, I have to put in the laundry, etc. I’ve never been idle during the event for more than 5-8 minutes.

Considering you can’t leave and re-enter the event when you’re back, and the frequency of chances you have to get into the Prime holo fight while you’re playing (you might only have time to sit in for 1-3 instances, and of those, some may not even make it to the holo), I don’t think it is unreasonable to take the brb and come back to the event.

How do you catch legitimate abusers without punishing people who just had to step out for a bit? Completely idling without armor is gross, but I wouldn’t scythe everyone who idles just to catch the (hopefully) few who abuse it.

That being said, if you can, reporting the really blatant trolls isn’t bad (like the no-armor folks). But keep in mind there’s a lot of legitimately innocent people you might catch if you just assume everyone not participating is leeching.

I really like them on the whole. Individually they’re interesting characters (the concept of a necromancer detective is pretty darn amusing and a charming way to bring “noir” into Tyria while Kasmeer was a fun snarky noble even as early as Southsun), but it’s been fun to see them as a couple too, and they don’t always do things together either (the Marionette attack).

Implicit in statements like “I’m not very strict about those scenes or such, but I think ANet should not put it in main story. Keeping it for the interested is some form of questions toNPC is very okay though” is, whether intentional or not, the idea that “this shouldn’t be in the main story but if there were relationships catering to my orientation then those are acceptable by default.”

Unless you’re against romance period, which is fine and I respect that if so, but that wasn’t the impression I got.

Having a same-sex couple isn’t necessarily infringing on your preferences any more than having straight couples infringes on mine. It’s kind of the luxury of being the default choice; it’s noteworthy and off-putting to you if our orientation is in but it’s just the way things work normally if yours is. Your presence only gets questioned if you’re not the norm. :P

Now, mind you, I definitely don’t think every appearance has to focus on them being a couple though; but this was the courtship phase and it was plenty cute. So I’m pretty darn happy with it working out. ^^;

My two cents, any way, and I definitely respect your preferences.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Wolfey.3407:

Chris,
What would you think about introducing special types of pets for Rangers within fractals, mostly as tamable rewards after the boss fight.

Examples:
Jade Maw – Once Jade Maw is defeated, a tamable Jade Crab spawns by the chest.

Molten Boss- Once the molten duo is defeated, a tamable Molten Hound spawns by the chest

Captain Mai Trin- Once she is defeated, a tamable Watchwork Moa spawns by the chest

Special ones:
Aquatic Ruins- If you get the Dolphin path, after killing the giant jelly fish, a tamable dolphin spawns by the chest.

Would give Rangers more pets that we have been asking for
Encourage more rangers to play fractals

I would worry that those Rangers that don’t do Fractals would feel left out. However i think this is a really interesting global reward idea so I will pass it on to the rewards team.

Thanks Wolfey,

Chris

That’s true, though speaking as a Ranger who first joined in GW2, there are already several pets you would potentially feel left out from being able to get because they are HoM-based. So a 100% pet collection is rare as it is already.

Personally I think of it more as a cool incentive maybe – it would be a draw for them to at least experiment with fractals if they haven’t already and a cute reward for ones who do already.

I fractal occasionally, but even if I didn’t, I’d try and put in the time to get to whatever level those appeared at. Stuff like that is a cool concept.

Plus more pets in general would be awesome; I’m still wishing we got a Juvenile Karka Hatchling tank pet in Southsun. :P

MakubeC.3026:

I’m not mad, I’m just:

a. What happened to Canach? Where was he during the attack?
b. What was the deal with Mai Trin? Did she even do something?
c. Why was a Dragon near the Eternal Alchemy?
c. What’s Caithe’s secret?
d. Why did Scarlet ONLY wanted to TAP on the leylines?
e. Why wasn’t the final personal battle a little bit harder? Like, a stronger forceshield.
f. Why is Braham such a troll? (He WAS my favorite character.)
g. What was the marionette test for? She tested us, then did nothing.
h. It was implied that Kasmeer got poisoned in the Tower, yet it was never brought back.
i. Who was building and controlling the Watchknights? Her supply wasn’t infinite and it was stated that they were controlled machines, not robots.
j. Why was Scarlet in the Thaumanova and how is she vinculated to the Fractals?
k. How does Southsun links in with all of this?
m. Where were the the now reunited Destiny’s Edge?

To my understanding all of these question had to be answered by now. And yet, they all remain the same. So yeah, I’m kind of, you know, feeling bad.

Mm, I can’t answer all of these, but what I think is…

a) In the escape, Canach was in the cell at LA until shortly before the miasma timeout. Ellen escorts him and the sheriff out in the airship as she escapes with Magnus. I’ve heard, but not verified, that he is still in a cell but at Vigil Keep now. I was hoping he’d be the Snake Pliskin for the event, but that turned out to be Magnus.

My suspicion is that he’ll be relevant during Season 2, if he’s planned to be relevant at all. Sylvari in general might be important considering Mordey, but he, Caithe, and Faolain are the most recognizable Sylvari to be important. Plus he has the nature/poison training that might be relevant for dealing with the next dragon if those end up being its specialties. Eco-terrorist turned eco-hero?

b) Mai was freed to run the Aetherblades in Eye of the Mist. Arguably this helped further lock down Asura Gate/Mist Warrior support from the other cities/races. She’s still there and her dialogue updated to reflect that she’d still continue the raids there even without Scarlet.

c2) I have my suspicions. It’s kind of a longshot, but:
She might have known something about Mordy's nap or Sylvari origins that she hasn't shared with others because status quo. Scarlet would've known about that too, so it's a big and surprising common ground they could have. I'm hoping she's important in Season 2.

e) I actually would’ve liked a tougher solo fight too. I know she was injured pretty badly, though, so I cut it some slack. Would’ve been a lot more epic if Kasmeer and you had a more uphill battle so you could hear all those cool quotes/taunting they worked in. My first time I broke her shield without even realizing how.

f) Braham was kinda being in character to be honest. He’s very simple and straightforward; big pictures and planning don’t seem like his thing. That fight boiled down to “we won, you lost, why you tried doesn’t matter because you failed and this is over.” Except it wasn’t.

g) I would’ve liked to see the marionette involved in the attack, but she was really testing the laser weapons she used, not the mecha who supported it. She certainly did use that to wreck LA.

h) I think I actually missed this. Curious how it was implied, though!

k) I don’t think Southsun linked up any more than Mad King Thorn did, but I might be wrong. It was an unrelated, interesting event that expanded the world outside of Scarlet’s machinations. I might be wrong.

That’s all the stuff I can answer for sure. I think the Thaumanova fractal was just an early investigation Scarlet made into leylines along with the Inquest. So it laid the foundation for how she knew to look for their leylines to begin with.

I thought it was satisfying in its own way.

Scarlet is an engineer, not a fighter. Fighting her defenses and breaking her concentration is a battle in and of itself. I got a kick out of how increasingly stressed and snappy she got as the fight wore on, because that was the real victory when you’re fighting a mechanical/social engineer. You overloaded her and she lost. That felt like a very legit kind of defeat; not every fight is physical.

The way she breaks down at the end from having to account for too many factors was, to me, a lot more satisfying a defeat than the finisher banner ever could have been.

(Besides, we did fight her directly in the invasions, and it wasn’t all that satisfying then either because it was 200 versus 1. Absent her becoming the Hulk or taking Elixir X, this was a great way to do it)

8/10 initially. Each patch has taken 1 off that score.

The story content is fantastic and I love the concept of the boss fight. The music, presentation, and mechanics were really cool. There were bugs initially, but nothing too unpredictable, and they patched them the first night so the event was very fun that night and the next day.

…Then came the extra patches, rendering the content unwinnable by all but the largest population servers because they didn’t like the way the smaller servers found to beat it, breaking the HP display in the progress, then outright removing the HP display instead of fixing it to “reduce confusion” by making you completely confused how the rest of the event is progressing.

Basically I would gladly trade night one and all of its bugs for what each of the updates has done to it, and my score of the event has fallen drastically as a result. It was a really good event, and I’m grateful for it, but literally every patch has made it worse to run.

Their heart is in the right place, though, and I’m looking forward to Season 2 on the whole. They’ve done a lot more right this year than wrong. Just that this event went from good to nearly unwinnable on my server.

kgptzac.8419:

How the hell did internal QA not catch this? Assuming of course, ANet indeed has internal QA and actually testing kitten before release.

Give them some credit.

As much as it disappoints me waiting until tomorrow before I try this again, it wasn’t actually a bug to begin with. This bug seems to have only cropped up in the current build when they fixed a different bug. Or at least no one was reporting it until the build a few hours ago.

QA can’t “catch” a bug that only arises as a result of what was done in a later patch. It’s more likely an unforeseen glitch with whatever else they changed this build. I’m sulky, but understanding. Hopefully others are too.

Just happened on Ehmry, but only to one platform. Still spoiled it.

Still trying to decide on boots, but otherwise really happy with her.

I’m still leveling mine, so this isn’t her final outfit, but it’s nice to show off how great that Mesmer mask looks on a Charr girl.

It’s the first time I decided to keep a starting gear as part of a character’s end-game outfit. It just looks so cool on her.

(She has one of the more peaceful faces, too, so I imagine she wears it to “look” tougher. Which fits a Mesmer. :p )

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Look, they fulfill a similar role to Destiny’s Edge in the Living Story, that Destiny’s Edge fulfills in our personal story. In that regard they are sort of a Destiny’s edge 2.0, but better written in my opinion. It really isn’t such an odd comparison as you’re making it out to be.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kasmeer, and Taimi are referred to internally as “B-Iconics” (or Biconics) as opposed to our “A-Iconics” or main iconic characters, Caithe, Rytlock, Eir, Zojja, and Logan. They are not a “replacement” for Destiny’s Edge; these characters fulfill a different role in the story. Because members of Destiny’s Edge are so entwined with your Personal Story as well as the over-arching story with Zhaitan, and because the Living World plot lines are taking place at the same time all those other story threads, we couldn’t have the members of Destiny’s Edge splitting themselves between these other areas and what was going on with Living World. This is partly why we introduced these new characters.

B-iconics, A-iconics. Basically a new group of characters similar to Destiny’s edge in set up, but for the Living Story, and not similar in personalities. Basically what I was saying.

I shouldn’t have said ‘replacement’, but they fulfill a similar role. I don’t think it’s strange or unjust when some players call them Destiny’s Edge 2.0.

Except that a 2.0 implies that the 1.0 is old, unnecessary, has been replaced, improved upon etc.

This is just a completely separate group. So yeah maybe calling them DE 2.0 isn’t completely unjust – it’s still wrong.

“Fine, you can be crummy DE 1.0, we’ll be DE A.”

“Or the Mongooses. That’s a cool guild name. The Fighting Mongooses.”

No denigration meant, yeah, I just call them that sometimes too as a matter of convenience. I really like both groups though! Anet’s doing a lovely job with the new characters.

I wish we could see DE throw in some times too, but I get that the personal story needs them to still be in certain roles for new players. I hope that’s not a “for perpetuity” thing though. It’d be nice to see them accomplish some stuff beyond Zhaitan at some point.

Kumu Honua.2751:

With so much active defense, you can facetank warden 3 for the entirety of the platform event. Blind from GS 3, Sword 2, Focus 4. Block from Virtue passive and active and recharge from elite, Retreat, Focus 5, Shelter. Invulnerability from Elite.

So if you are getting 1 shotted by warden 3 you need to adapt or you need to perfect your ability to dodge and position yourself since you have zero leeway.

Thing is, not everyone is a Guardian. And even your Guardian takes 50%. That doesn’t exactly fill any other class with confidence.

Anything squishier than the tankiest class in the game is going to have a hard time.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not user error. But it’s user error combined with oneshot punishing and no effective way to learn. I learn more from dying in 2-3 hits and having time to recognize what I do wrong than I do from “you’re out of position for a moment, bamf, you’re dead and probably didn’t even see what did it.”

I can dodge the AOE circles easily. I don’t have that much trouble with the bombs unless the camera angle gets me and I hit a bomb while dodging AOE circles. Where I die the most is probably the warden himself pouncing on me while I’m dodging the above two and dropping my Ranger trying to distance it in a single hit. And I wear a decent splash of Toughness gear.

I learn absolutely nothing from when I die to Warden 3 because I can’t spot any tell on the pounce and there’s too much stuff happening that all kills you in one hit.

Nevermind all of the times where I die because first responders already triggered the fight and I arrive third with an AOE circle already directly on top of me and get insta-downed. Because that was just a bad design decision easily avoided by having the wardens arrive 10 seconds or so after the first person is in each chamber, giving everyone reasonable time to load before the fight starts. I hope Anet takes that into account next time they do something like this,

Josh Foreman.8250:

P.S. Because several people brought up the idea of buffing the other platforms when one succeeds, I thought I ought to let you all know that this has always been the case. When one platform’s power regulator is destroyed the players on the platforms adjacent get Electrify Aura which gives 60 seconds of protection, swiftness, regeneration, fury, might, vigor and retaliation.

This is a pretty neat idea, but unfortunately it didn’t take into account a pretty big problem: most of the platforms struggling with this are dead long before the adjacent platforms ever get to a regulator. All of those buffs won’t help the platform who wiped 60 seconds ago.

This isn’t to say that many platforms fail; on the contrary, most of ours on Ehmry fail with 4/5 regulators downed and we fail the lane due to a single room who were downed like 30 seconds in.

There’s several reasons for that. One is that players are learning. I think forcing that is an admirable goal and you’re doing a pretty good job of it. This event was great on the whole. But one is also issues with the design.

To use an example, Ehmry fails on Warden #3 more than any other warden. By FAR. This is just my theory, but I think it’s for two reasons.

1) No AOE circles on the bombs makes players (or at least inexperienced players) very unsure where the safe zones actually are. Are they out of a bomb’s range? Are they dodge rolling a safe distance from a bomb? There’s no way for them to find out but trial and error. Trial and error that makes the room go down and the entire lane fail. Good players can deal with this. Learning players can’t even see the problem they’re making without an onscreen indicator what they stepped into. If you can’t see where you messed up, you can’t learn. You only get punished.

2) Not all players enter the room at the same time. If you arrive to the teleporter behind the earliest entrants, or if you take longer to load, know what happens? Sometimes you spawn into a room who have already been fighting Warden 3 with just two players and they already died. Good luck. Sometimes you spawn with an AOE circle already on top of you because they fought while you were loading. Prepare to die instantly upon arrival. A very small amount of the time the shuffler only gives them 1-2 allies. They’ll lose that one too.

Individually, these don’t happen often. But combined, at least one happens often enough for one room out of five to fail pretty darned often. We aren’t, on the whole, struggling with the content – we’re rallying really well, learning the content and having fun working together to overcome the challenge, then having one problem (sometimes user, but sometimes mechanical) in one room fail the lane. And the next. And the next. Please don’t get me wrong; this level of challenge is wonderful, so long as it isn’t dependent on both perfect performance by all platforms and RNG luck of the draw.

This is just a suggestion, but next time, could you work in some kind of system to start the event once all players have entered the room? Something like either a waiting room that opens after 10 seconds have passed (giving all players a fair chance to arrive/load before “game time” and the timer starts ticking or just a delay for the warden to arrive and the fight to begin that accomplishes the same thing.

I literally cannot tell you how many of my problems with this event that would have fixed. Let your team have a moment to acquaint themselves before they’re expected to be a team. Don’t throw players #4 and #5 into a fight that #1 and #2 already started and failed.

Hi! Ehmry Bay player here. I just wanted to offer some thoughts on these two in particular… I feel like we struggle on these two the most for several reasons and it’s helpful to document why going forwards.

Warden 2
This is the second-most likely warden to wipe on. I don’t think this is entirely your fault though. The thing is he’s a little too fast for an enemy you have to lead onto mines. If you run in circles, he keeps up with you, and it is very hard to actually get a mine between you and him. The best solution, for me, has been to dodge roll through him so he has to turn around.

…But what players actually tell newbies to the event is simply “kite it” without elaboration how to kite it or what they mean. A newbie is going to interpet “kite it” to be "run away from it in a circle until you can get a mine between you and it. That won’t happen. So I think players have a very counter-intuitive expectation how you actually want them to lead it into the mines. Perhaps that is just me.

Warden 3
This is the one that, in my experience, Ehmry wipes on the most. There’s a few reasons for this that I don’t think are players’ fault.

1. Not showing AOE circles for the bombs
This is a big one. Especially considering all of the other AOE, it is very easy to miss when you’re in a bomb’s range or not. Not everyone is good at dodging, and alot of the fails here are user error, but the odds are really stacked against you in this one because you can’t see everything you’re supposed to be dodging at once.

2. Dead before Loading
This, IMO, is one of the biggest ones. As a rule, the players don’t wait for everyone to get in before attacking the Warden. That means players 3, 4, and 5? Really easy for them to be dead before the game even finishes loading their screen. I can’t count the times I arrive 5th in a room with a circle on top of me and then I’m downed and that’s the end of that.

Please, in the future, if you’re going to use a set-up like this? Don’t let people start the Warden fight until everyone who is going in is in. Otherwise you get a mess where arriving 5th is a crapshoot whether you live or die.

3. Making the AOE a oneshot
This isn’t a problem, in and of itself, but combine it with 2 and the results are very unintended. I’m pretty sure the reason the other Wardens don’t wipe 4-5 lanes in a row are because the loading players can only be picked off one in a time by Warden attacks. It is the mass-AOE nature of Warden 3 that makes it really imbalanced. At least one room is going to have a straggler or two arriving late – and that room gets mauled so the whole lane fails.

On the whole, I love this event, I just wanted to offer my thoughts on why Warden #3 is such a pain. There really should have been some kind of buffer before the fight starts so a room can actually get together before the battle begins. Like a holding chamber where people show up, and if you don’t have a room full of 5 after 10 seconds, -then- open the door and let them in. As it is, it really punishes everyone but the first arrivals.

Especially considering you need all five rooms to win and you weren’t able to add any way to help a struggling room. Lanes, in my experience, constantly fail 4/5 completion and the above is why I think it happens.

Hope this is helpful for the future and thanks for a really neat event concept I know you can improve!

- Too much waiting around

I agree with this and I don’t. The thing is that the idea, pretty obviously, is to be able to cycle from Marionette to Wurm. They run on pretty parallel timers, so if you’re doing both, you have maybe 20-30 minutes downtime between events.

In -practice-, the overflow prevents you from safely doing that at high traffic hours, so you end up camping one or the other. More likely the Marionette because I was not very fond of the Wurm. But that wasn’t their intent, so I don’t fault them for it. We’re choosing to wait around.

Even if we’re doing the Marionette, we could do stuff like grind the Power Core stuff in the interim, right?

- Too little reward

I disagree here. The cipher chests give you a ton of stuff – the problem is that the reward is backloaded, not that there’s too little of it. Win or lose, you get a ton of fragments towards your chest. I’ve failed a bunch of times but I still have enough cipher keys to get like 30 rares when I do finish getting the cores.

Hello. I am not sure if this has been answered before, but is Retribution on April 30 going to be a one-time event like the Ancient Karka one or an instance more like the rest of Flame & Frost?

The reason I am asking is because I would enjoy being able to do it with friends, but I have finals up until the morning of the 1st, so my hope is that it is an instance we can all do the next day. It sounds like a big event, though, and the past event climaxes have been single-day ones.

Any confirmation or even hints would be very very very much appreciated, though I understand if Anet doesn’t want to confirm/deny one way or the other. Thank you if you can!

Though by no means certain since we didn’t get one for Halloween, if we got one for Wintersday, I would be delighted to no end to have a penguin. Failing that, a (rain)deer would be cute since that’s one of the existing wild animal types we don’t have a juvenile version of.

…Thinking of this post made me really want a Christmas Fern Hound. Sylvari can grow their own Christmas spirit!

elsbeth.3567:

The other was the timed nature that meant that many thousands of dedicated players could not play. Your attempt to brand this as self-entitlement and a temper tantrum makes it clear you do not know what you are talking about. Your suggestion that there is something wrong with a customer expecting what they were sold is irrational.

That actually is an entitlement though. Your argument is along the lines of “I bought a ticket to a game, but I missed it because I got called into work, so logically they should have stopped and replayed the game again because I wasn’t there.” Very few things work that way and to expect otherwise is to be entitled.

An event, by its nature, typically excludes those who can’t make it. That’s why it’s an event and not a regular feature. To expect that you’re entitled to attend the event is an entitlement no matter how you look at it – though the OP thinking they deserve an apology is moreso. One would be nice, and honestly gracious of them, but in no way deserved.

Do I think they should make some kind of arrangements for players in awkward time zones? Definitely. Do I think those people deserve an apology and are right to give ANet the level of grief that players have been dumping on them? Not even a little.

I just don’t get it because players seem to assume, as far as I know baselessly, that this is some isolated event and judging it in and of itself. What exactly is wrong with ANet setting a precedent that, maybe, each big event will have a chance of getting a precursor if you play it through? That would be a fantastic way, long-term, of combating the inflated prices and Mystic Force shenanigans you have to go through.

But everyone seems furious about it because they didn’t get one this time, assuming there won’t be a next time. My reaction to not getting one was mild disappointment, but I liked the exotics I did get, and I looked forward to maybe getting one next time during Wintersday if they continue this trend.

I know you’re not in this camp, but alot of people seem to be mad less because ANet introduced a new way of getting precursors (taking part in events) and more because they didn’t get one. I think it’s a great way to proceed – if you don’t make it to this event, there’s always another one a month or so down the line, and it’s a good way to introduce more to the market and combat the prices long-term.

(Mind you, I do agree they should do something for those in awkward time zones – staggered instances but with a one-time per account lock would be a great way to simulate the one-time only feeling)

My long-term goal is Kudzu, personally, and I didn’t get any precursors at all from the Lost Shores – but it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm towards trying next time. I think that’s a good idea, because it shouldn’t just be about grinding gold. Taking part in something big is a nice alternate path everyone will be able to use in the future, including your other characters.

kaahzvi.3469:

Then the concept of the whole “one time event” is flawed & beyond help, and we can blame Anet for not taking that into consideration – by making an event 2 hours long that even altered the map really only gives a handle of people to participate.

Fair enough, I suppose. It probably would’ve been better for it to have been less flashy and thus more easily repeatable. But I will admit that it was definitely impressive to see stuff like the event as it was. Alot of the reason it was oneshot is because the map itself was organic – if you missed the initial raid on Southsun, it didn’t have anything like bridges or outposts initially, and the metaevent quest line involved helping and protecting the Lionsguard as they built all of those things.

So you got to actually watch them colonize a portion of the island and fortify it against the Karka in anticipation of today. It was really cool, but unfortunately, the reason it was really cool is also the reason it had to be a one-time event. Maybe it was overly ambitious of them, in light of players abroad, but I appreciated them trying to do it even though I missed a good third of the event due to my own time zone.

kaahzvi.3469:

That’s a rather bland insight; not to blame Anet when they obviously didn’t give a chance to players from Oceania or Asia. Is it really hard for them to make chest account bind and made the event repeatable for the entire day rather than just 2 hours?

Potentially, yes, it did seem like it would be hard to run in succession. There’s no fixed time on the event; it took each server as long as it took them to run through it all, and the event itself took place over most of the map, with the landscape changing during parts of the event (for example, permanent holes were blasted in the hive, steam geysers were uncovered and used that were still there after the event, etc.). I’m not sure how you would make the event, as it was, repeatable without having parts of the map regenerate or change back to their pre-event settings, and I imagine players would still be complaining about the inconsistent times if it repeated.

I missed the entirety of the first day, myself, because I was at work at noon my time when it began. But I understand why they couldn’t have Lion’s Arch raided for the first time multiple times just to give everyone a try. There is unfortunately no golden time that works best for every time zone across the world, and not every event can be perpetual for everyone.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but the Wiki has updated more metaevent / recipe stuff than the story content. Since I wasn’t able to complete the Noll and Miyani eventlines, I don’t know if this was addressed, but did we ever find out what exactly the Consortium did that woke up the Karka, or if it was actually them that did it?

Also what exactly did the Lionsguard figure out that allowed us to hurt Karka this time?

I was pretty curious for the context for the big fight we had today. Thanks.

I got two exotics from the event; one was worth 8 gold and one was worth 5 gold. The price of both halved on the TP before I even thought about selling either, and they aren’t exotics any of my character classes can use. I guess that was lucky, but it feels like almost 10% of the remaining profit went into revive/repair costs.

Still, on the whole, I had a really good time today and I wish others had too. I’m sorry if they lost out on the chance for the chest at the end, and I wish the metaevent had dropped minor rewards throughout too so they could have received something. But I don’t think it’s right to judge the event purely on what you received item-wise.

The map itself was really interesting, and it was a great experience having fun with friends doing Skipping Stones yesterday, or battling the Ancient Karka today. ANet certainly had their flaws – I think they should have staggered the instances from the start, and informed us in advance when they did. But most of it I think was out of their control. They probably did beta-test the events that bugged, but you can’t effectively beta-test the effect of thousands of people doing it at once. Not even a public test realm would have imitated that level of stress test.

But I don’t think it’s right to blame the event for being on the wrong side of a RNG. If you allow for exotics, you should also allow for precursors, because precursors are themselves exotics. The people who got those got luckier than the people who didn’t, but I don’t think it’s right to blame them – or ANet – for events making it easier to get precursors. Especially because you might be one of the ones who do get one next time – and Wintersday isn’t all that far away.

All in all, though, I think it was a fun event, even if it was flawed. I do wish they hadn’t padded the boss fight with those “Reinforcements” waves though; that actually detracted from the epicness of the experience the way it was delivered (since the Ancient Karka just kind of stood there while we fought a mob for 20 minutes).

1. Making metaevent enemies drop more
I think this would be a good idea. I don’t know if it was just me, but Karka of all variety during the Lost Shores metaevents were incredibly stingy when it came to drops. Even getting the Karka Slayer achievements, less than 10 Karka actually dropped anything at all throughout the weekend, and when they did it was a bit of copper and a crab meat trophy.

Now, please note I am not asking for the Karka to drop some hugely profitable exotics or anything like that – the prize at the end of the metaevent did a wonderful job with that, and I wasn’t unhappy with getting trophies or bits of copper. But my feeling is that if you are going to do a prolonged event full of combat with very strong creatures, they should at least drop something to off-set some fraction of the cost of waypoints and repairs.

The Karka oneshot alot of players today due to a combination of difficulty and culling causing them to appear right on top of you. That is not a problem, but the silver costs really add up when they aren’t even dropping trophy items you can sell to offset some of the damage. Overall taking the Lost Shores today was a blast, but it was a blast that cost me over 40 silver, with only the chest at the end to make up for it. Players really notice the drain in income, and the flood of new exotics in the market also lowered the prices for those – so it was really hard to make that 40 silver back, especially if you weren’t a level 80 player.

This had the unintended effect of making fighting the reinforcement waves feel kind of monotonous – you didn’t even get drops for killing the Karka, so it was hard at times to stay motivated during the really long waves in between the fun part. Even picking up some trophies or checking the bodies to see what you pick up would have given the fight a little extra spark.

Overall: Please consider having metaevent enemies in events like this drop more, even if most of what they drop is a pittance like normal enemies. It feels strange when they either drop .01% exotics or nothing.

2.
This is more of a future idea, but since we defeated the Karka, it would be really cool to maybe introduce something like aquatic-themed Karka shell armor in the future. It’d be an awesome idea for a Karma set of items, but even gems would be cool. Karka were memorable for their armor, so it seems weird to miss the opportunity to -make- their shells armor. Food for thought.

Shy bump just because I’m curious about reactions; maybe people prefer the human animations. ^^; I would be interested to know if I’m the only one who thought this though.

This would actually be a really nice thing for variety, I agree. You especially notice it when you regularly play with others of the same gender and race.

I’m not sure how expensive or prohibitive it would be, but just 1-2 other options would go a long way. I love the voice-acting in this game and it’d be nice to get attached to the voice you picked or mix things up.

Hi! I am not sure if this is a cool idea, or how many people would be interested, but I was thinking about it earlier and it couldn’t hurt to suggest. ^^;

It seems like the Necromancer minions are largely inspired by the human Necromancer’s minions in the original Guild Wars, which is cool and appropriate, but personally it kind of turns me off playing the class as other races besides human – because all of the minions you raise are very human-oriented (human bones/parts). I thought it could be really cool if each race had its own skin for the minions.

For example, each race would summon all the same minions, but like…
Sylvari: Their minions would look more like they’re made out of leaves and thorns, with sap instead of blood
Asura: Their minions would look more techno-organic, like the human minions but with golem pieces.
Norn: Maybe their minions would look more like their four animal totems
Charr: Bestial, animal-like versions

This could even work with Mesmer phantasms, like instead of exploding in butterflies, the Sylvari clones could explode in leaves, or the Asura ones like holograms, or Charr ones could explode like heat haze hallucinations. Maybe Norn ones could pop in a burst of snow, that sort of thing.

This is a very minor thing, I suppose, and may be more trouble than it is worth. But it would certainly make it feel cooler to run a non-human Necromancer and encourage more use of the other races.

Personally, the big reason I wish they did something like Ashontear’s suggestion is that I would be all for leaving the PVP jumping puzzles as a PVP resource – except it’s not just for PVP. It’s also part of a pre-requisite that has absolutely nothing to do with PVP (getting the Gift of Battle if you don’t want to have to fight people). There’s a lot of great PVP-oriented arguments in favor of leaving it as is, like the resources argument or the fact it’s in a competitive zone.

But I don’t think it’s particularly nice that in order to get PVE rewards (map completion, a legendary) that you have no choice but to either PVP or deal with PVP at the PVP jump puzzles. There should be some neutral option for people who are forced to be there when they don’t want to, or can’t handle, PVP.

Some friends of mine tried to walk me through the jump puzzles the other day, because I dearly want to be able to earn the Kudzu bow, but I have anxiety issues that prevent me from being able to handle or enjoy PVP competition. It was a complete disaster because the other team was camping the midway point of the puzzle, so I had to completely write off ever getting a legendary.

The jumping puzzle should be a safety valve where players who don’t want to PVP can get what the game forces them to collect and get out. It really shouldn’t be yet another PVP resource too. That’s my two cents, at least, and I know I’m in an extreme minority because my condition makes even the jump puzzles too scary as is – but I think it’d be nice to have some way for a pure PVE-er to collect what is primarily PVE content.

I was thinking about this the other day and it would honestly be fantastic!

Even if it was limited in scope, I’d love to be able to colorize my gear somewhat. To use an example, since I’m a Sylvari, it would be great to be able to change the tint of my sylvari bow from green leaves to autumn or darker colors. Or using celestial dye on a sword to make it look more holier if you’re playing sort of a paladin, or a shade of green if you want to look like the Green Knight.

I don’t know how hard it would be, and potentially it shouldn’t apply at all to exotics and/or legendaries given how unique/animated those are, but it would be a great feature for normal to masterworks.

Mm, I think the main problem with that is that the process is a timesink intentionally; all of the suggestions you made are really cool, but also much faster ways of doing it, and the point of legendaries seems to be a long-term goal as you play. To the extent you make it short and sweet, you finish a key portion of the end game much sooner and have less incentive to continue playing.

That is not to say I’m very happy with the system they have now – I have anxiety issues about crowds and negative attention in competitive PVP that stops me from taking part in WvW and meant I had to completely abandon even trying to obtain a legendary (which I was otherwise prepared to do all the pre-requisites for), so I greatly disapprove of the fact that they made playing a lot of PVP a mandatory aspect of obtaining a PVE weapon.

But you have to acknowledge the reasons why the process is meant to be time-consuming, since you are talking about one of the cornerstone projects of the end game. That’s my two cents, at least, as a disappointed but understanding fan who can never get one.

Overall I was very impressed; this was my first Guild Wars holiday but it did a great job of introducing me (and other new players) to the neat traditions and lore. I had a lot of fun collecting candy corn, getting the memoirs, and playing the Mad King boss fight with friends (even low level ones since you were awesome enough to scale the Mad King’s Realm) for treasures.

I had a lot of fun with the Clocktower too – it was hard, but the reward was worth it and so was the experience. The height differential between players was really my only complaint. I enjoyed competing with other players, just not the fact that I couldn’t see my character in a really large group. I feel like the Clocktower would have been fine exactly as is if it only had a smaller cap on how many players were in each instance of it.

Really, on the whole, the only lasting complaints I have about the whole event boils down to one I have with the game in general:

It would be really nice not to re-use the same designs for exotic tier armor. I was disappointed when I heard that all of the Six Gods’ exotic armors looked exactly the same, and so did the GW1 Character’s armors, but I was really surprised when the ‘Mad King’s Armor’ was the same model as a pre-existing set too.

It really takes a lot of the fun and incentive out of questing for that particular exotic armor if you don’t even get a unique model out of it. Exotic armor would be more attractive to game towards if they were all exotic, and while I understand this might not be feasible for all of them, I feel like holiday/event exotics should be unique for sure. It didn’t have to look exactly like Mad King Thorn’s armor (after all, there’s a skin for that), but something based on him or his Lunatic Courtiers would have been really awesome.

Beyond that, it was an excellent event, and I really look forward to the next offering because I enjoyed buying a new skin and playing with friends this time.

Very much love the Grove. It is beautiful and really well-designed with a wonderful aesthetic.

The other cities have been impressive, to be sure, but that is the one that really won me over.

Personally, my only issue with the armor is not that it is not revealing enough, but only that there’s a relative lack of variety for certain types of armor. With Light Armor, there’s a lot of vastly different looks you can build for, from an Arabian theme to a peasant outfit to some fairly questionable ones like the Character Creation Mesmer one.

With Medium Armor, with very few exceptions, you will be spending the entire game in a trenchcoat, slacks, boots, and a face mask. I couldn’t even find or craft a hat until Level 30+. This is not to say that the armor is ugly – I used the dye to make some really neat outfits with what I found – but I would have greatly appreciated more variation in the outfits.

For example, a sleeveless top would have been lovely, even if it kept armored gloves. The starter outfit is a great example of this. Or an outfit might have a short cape (think something like Lightning from FFXIII) or a cloak instead of a trenchcoat. The coats are great, but with the exception of a few Dungeon Gears, all the non-starter outfits are trenchcoats and not everyone wants to be locked into exactly one idea of what their class can look like.

My character is a Ranger and I would love to be able to emphasize that with an outfit that looks mobile and convenient for travel, but all of my outfits are heavy layers. It doesn’t make the outfits I have ugly, but I would be very happy to be able to craft or drop a different kind of look than just the one my class is locked into. Hopefully ANet will expand the selection in the future is all.

Ahh, I see. Thanks so much for the correction.

Sorry for the mistaken bug report.

I am not certain if I am missing something or not, but it seems like I am not getting credit for one of the 7 skill points there.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2dkjzn9.jpg

http://i47.tinypic.com/2d7zcs1.jpg

Is this a bug or am I missing a skillpoint / one of those seven actually belongs to another area? The last one I did was the Warmaster Yulia skill point at Vigil Keep, but I joined a fight in progress rather than initiating it myself.

Very sorry if I am just missing the actual 7th or something, but I got worried about not being able to complete it. Thanks either way.

Hello,

I apologize to ANet since I know that there is a merged guild system thread, but that was originally created for a different guild issue, and it has not received any Dev replies in at least two to three weeks.

My friends’ guild which I joined about a week ago is United Sanctuary on Ehmry Bay. Unfortunately it has a bug which is afflicting many guilds where the leader is not able to change permissions or use any influence, so we have been unable to perform any guild activities besides inviting members.

It seems like making a new guild can easily solve the problem, but we are quite attached to the guild they already made, which has accumulated 4500+ influence we cannot use.

I understand that ANet cannot confirm exactly when this issue will be fixed, since it is a big issue, but would it be possible to ask whether it is at least being worked on? The merged thread has been silent on this. Some acknowledgement that it is being worked on would go a long way towards making it easier to wait for, since I trust you to do your best if it is a project in progress.

Just started this weekend, but already have two:

Male Sylvari – Julius Cedar
Male Norn – Fassin Sitbelt

Easily the two names that made me giggle the most when I passed them thus far.

It’s alright, the first thing I mentioned was my laptop, so that was an easy assumption to make! Hrm… I will look into the ones without integrated graphics then, plus one with better power. I am just trying to find a ‘good enough’ model within a somewhat limited budget. I am embarrassed to say I’m stuck in a price point where $700 is really approaching luxury until I graduate.

Hypothetically, would an integrated graphics one be able to attach a Radeon graphics card and then work well decently though? This is the most taxing game I expect to play on it, to be honest, at least for the immediate future.

Hrm…

http://www.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron-660-Desktop-with-Intel%C2%AE-Core%E2%84%A2-i5-2320-3.0GHz-Processor-%2526-24%22-Full-HD-Widescreen-Monitor.product.11762129.html

I -think- this is the same Inspiron as in the first link. It says there that it has 300 W power though, assuming it is the same version.

Thanks for the reply! I really appreciate how helpful and patient everyone has been with my uncertainty.

In this case, I am hoping to keep the laptop that I have, but to buy a desktop that will be able to run the game instead. The Inspiron 660 seemed to be the cheapest desktop I could fit the game requirements, but is there a desktop you would recommend instead that is within the $500-700 range?

Hi, I found out recently that my laptop lacks the video card/video RAM necessary to play the game, so I have begun looking into a new desktop for the first time in a really long time. Unfortunately, I am something of a tech dunce, so I am trying to find the right one and I would greatly appreciate a confirm/deny from those smarter and more savvy.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-660/pd?oc=fddwrt2&model_id=inspiron-660

I am on something of a low budget (500-600 range) but would like to supplement it with a graphics card too for more video RAM. Is this something you can do with a Dell if it has an integrated card? I apologize for possibly dumb questions as a desktop newbie.

Thanks so much!

Sorry that you’re having trouble too, Schadow. I hope you are able to fix it since yours sounds better than mine, at least.

A friend proposed trying virtual RAM as a last resort; is there any possibility that might help or is it grasping at straws?

Well, it isn’t the answer I hoped for, but I really appreciate both of you answering so fast. I had a bad feeling when it was that far below what was required, but I hoped it was new enough to stand a chance or that reducing the settings might compensate. Thanks any way!

Hi, I’m sorry if this is sort of a dumb question, but I’m a total tech dunce here.

I was interested in being able to play, but I did a system diagnostic at http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx for GW2, and apparently my two-year old Inspiron 1750 laptop meets and exceeds all of the Minimum Requirements except for one.

Minimum attributes of your Video Card
Required / You Have
Pixel Shader version 3.0 / 4.0
Vertex Shader version 3.0 / 4.0
Dedicated Video RAM 256 MB / 64 MB

Unfortunately it falls really short on Video RAM. Can the game still be run at lower settings or is this a completely lost cause? I apologize if it’s really obvious, but thanks so much for your time even if the answer is no.