Guild Wars 2

Rasimir.6239:

Ilium.3160:

why should a player be forced to join a large guild in order to complete an event that is open to all?

Nobody’s forced to join any guilds to do this. I’m currently in a guild all by myself, with nobody else as members, but I’ve already spent a couple of hourse two days in a row collecting gold rewards in the pavillion (and I am definitely not a farming kind of player).

I meant that comment about being forced to join a guild as a response to what the previous poster tried to pass off as advice for this event. Your comment is what I would call actual advice.

I’m not going to get into an argument that derails what this thread is supposed to be about, it shouldn’t turn into a casual vs. hardcore debate. Especially since it wouldn’t change anyone’s mind.
Not everyone has the same tools available to complete this event with a large, highly coordinated group. And the current system in place seems to add discouragement to even attempt to complete it otherwise, by the whole system to be highly timer oriented.

I think this thread could do with less elitism. These are valid points, why should a player be forced to join a large guild in order to complete an event that is open to all? Why is temporary content supposedly designed for everyone so punishing and difficult for everyone to have a chance at completing? Maybe you like to play unforgiving and difficult games but this game is not advertised as being that game. Less condescension would be nice.

I understand that, and am willing to comply to help out the team. But, it just seems with these new mechanics that they have traded one bad habit for another. Zerg players, for AFK players.

I would rather have a mindless zerg (because at least they are somewhat contributing) than a bunch of AFK players.

I haven’t posted nearly as much ever as now on this forum because currently, I’m AFK. Since the new bosses have been tuned to discourage large groups and scales them up to ridiculous levels, players are asking others to stay out of the fight, and wait in the center of the Pavilion until the event is completed. So this is what I’m doing, at this very moment, instead of having the ability to enjoy other parts of the game, or feel like I am taking an active part in the event, the most helpful I can be is by waiting, AFK. And the boss mechanics of the pavilion seem to encourage it, the ideal setup would be for each group fighting the bosses to complete them at the same time. But there is no way to monitor how all the other groups are doing without some other kind of communication.

This seems to be common in this update. At the Zephyr Sanctum, I wait AFK at the finish line of the dolyak race, since I can’t complete it again to feel like I am contributing, I just stand there, and ALT-Tab to the forums, or wherever waiting for the event to end. The same thing for the other event, once we get up to over 100, I just wait until the timer runs out. I haven’t yet done the gauntlet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it also required waiting, twiddling your thumbs until it is your turn.

This is not interactive and enticing gameplay. And I’m still sitting still in the pavilion, even now, AFK waiting on the end of the event.

Any thoughts?

There does seem to be more players at the sanctum, and that is where I spend most of my time. The main reason why I’m there is that I need an amazing amount of tokens to get all of the rewards I want, the pavilion is just depressing, and you actually get rewarded for your time and effort at the sanctum.

I have tried to do the pavilion event multiple times. No server I have been in has been remotely organized and I have never even had the hint of receiving a gold reward. Now I won’t start complaining about the loot drops being terrible. But there has to be a better way to get tickets/tokens. I want to take part in the gauntlet but only have about 80 tickets, and my completely uninitiated self will not even know how to start fighting the bosses. Let alone have a chance to complete the achievements associated with the Living Story.

Why can’t those who want to participate actually get the chance to do so? Why have the tickets gated in such a way that you either have to have a bunch saved up or be incredibly lucky and land in a server that actually has a chance to complete the event quickly? As it is, it takes at least 30mins to do all the bosses for a chance at maybe 10 tickets. How is this having content open to anyone who wishes to play., and playing the way you want? This reeks of catering to elitists, which I thought this game was not supposed to be about.

I am very disappointed.

With all the talk about no loot from the enemies in Queen’s Gauntlet it has gotten me wondering about how difficult completing some of the rewards are to new or newer players.

Right now both Living Story zones are not as active with players as would be expected for new content, especially the Crown Pavilion. After completing the Boss Blitz 5 times and finishing all the boss and regular mob achievements, as well as the event instance I have a grand total of 67 Entrance Tickets. How is a new player supposed to complete the bosses in the gauntlet with so few tickets?

Now, I do not plan on returning to the pavilion unless the drops on the mobs are improved and I know many who share my sentiment. The enemies in the pavilion also have a horrid drop rate for the Entrance Tickets, I have probably gotten at most 10 from regular mobs. Which is awful given the amount that I have killed. Most players require more than one try on the bosses to complete them, add into this to the fact that a new player likely has zero experience fighting enemies solo of that difficulty.

Farming the mobs is not very feasible since most are grouped and require more than one person to kill them and hardly anyone is there to help. If you are lucky there will be a group to kill the boss that spawns but they are not interested in killing the adds and given the atrocious drop rate, it would likely take a person longer to kill the mobs to get enough tickets than it takes to kill the boss. And as more players complete the achievements it is very likely that noone will bother to kill the bosses at all.

Now I know that you can buy Entrance Tickets with Festival Tokens, 5 Tickets for 35 Tokens + 20silver. But even this seems unfair to new or newer players. Keep in mind that most of these players have missed out on prior Living Story skins and rewards and will likely want to use those tokens to purchase those. As well as the gold cost, it is also very likely that new players won’t have a large amount in the bank. It seems to me that many players will have to choose between competing in the gauntlet or purchasing the skins.
Tickets are also a possible drop from Zephyr boxes, but the drop rate is also not very high. Also, since these require crafting materials to purchase, this is also skewed towards veteran players. New players are unlikely to have a large amount of materials saved up, as well as smaller bank accounts to purchase the materials off the Trading Post.

So, given all of these things, along with many of the problems with this Living Story event brought up in other threads on this forum, completing the Gauntlet event seems to be made less possible to newer players given the difficulty in acquiring tickets. Now, I don’t know how long the event will last, but the longer it lasts the less players that will participate and the more difficult it will become to acquire the necessary tickets to complete it.

My solution is to increase the drop rate for Tickets and Tokens from all enemies. Or even remove the need for a ticket to fight in the gauntlet all together.

I took some screenshots of my Sylvari with one of the new faces from the makeover kit. I think it looks somewhat elf-like, especially with the ears.
Unfortunately all of the long hair styles that I have seen all look like branches, which doesn’t appeal to me.
Keep in mind that my clothing is not elvish in appearance and I prefer to dye my Sylvari’s eyes black. Also, I was glowing at the time I took these.