Guild Wars 2

Run AC or CoF a few times to get 16G, buy a new char slot instead.

You can transmute any two of {skin; stats; rune} into an account bound item using transmutation stones.

Chaosgyro.6023:

It seems like anet doesn’t want to introduce tiers any higher than ascended, which means that gearing will become relatively painless over time. Older players will catch up eventually, and newer players will see exotics as something similar to rares – just one more step along the road.

And all those people who want to be crafters get kittened. Because you can’t craft Ascended gear.

Also, adding a tier above Ascended will cuase more of a rukus than adding Ascended did, because it will prove those slippery slope arguments right, and prove ANet as a lier.

So no, I don’t think they’ll do that, I do think they’ll add bigger infusions, with even more rediculous grinds needed to make them. Hopefully by that point I’ll have found a games company that actually keeps it’s promises.

Avatar.1923:

but as the game matures, content will be more and more challenging and engaging.
just check the huge step between old dungeons and fractals..

The only difference between old dungeons and fractals is that fractals is gear-gated and gives the mobs bigger numbers.

I think this can be summed up as:

Ranged: Easier, Less Damage
Melee: Harder, More Damage

Which seems perfectly reasonable.

If I ever heard that I’d tell them that the best party-healers in GW2 are Warriors and Elementalists.

Jester.1236:

I’m the exact opposite. If someone, guardian or not, enters a dungeon im in, and says there “full support” or “healing” i cringe. I have a heal. I do fine without a “healer”. What i dont need is someone poorly healing the group by topping them off when they dont need it. While unable to heal through burst when they would need it. I would rather have someone just hit the mob hard, and drop it faster. Requiring me to push 6 less. Dont stack my might, i can do that. Dont heal me, i can do that. Kill stuff.

I have a guildie who runs a “Support” Elementalist. Respectable DPS for a non-zerker build, and he maintains something like 25 stacks of Might, close to permenant Protection, some Vunerability, some healing, and probably a few more things that I haven’t noticed, all across the entire party. He is also a better tank than my DPS Guardian. (Admittadly, a lot of this is player skill, combined with the high skill cap of the Ele) Anything less than that I consider a hybrid support build, and expect more damage.

I’d like to know who wrote Seiren and Tybalt, and put them in charge of all dialog from here on out. Because those folks know how to write with feeling.

Also, whoever did the kids in LA before the Destiny’s Edge reunion. That makes me smile every time

Josh Foreman.8250:

Cantha was my favorite GW1 region to work on. And I worked on every GW release. I know a lot of the dev team loved it and would love to revisit it. I kinda agree with critickitten about the negative aspect of tight corridors. Most of that came from hitting technological limits while trying to keep the epic quality of the concept art. I think we could do some really amazing things with those themes in our new engine. Certainly nothing is ruled out. I certainly encourage anyone to express your desire for a Cantha region in GW2 in a positive and friendly way. It could be years away, but it’s worth asking for.

Here’s the thing, when I saw what the GW2 engine was capable of, Kangang City was the first thing I thought of and went “That would be awesome” Fighting over rooftops, dropping down into the streets, fighting through the buildings…

If you start thinking swashbuckler movies you’ll see where I’m coming from.

infarmer.9836:

eddiecapp.1076:

Well… did ANet say something about a Linux client until now?

Yes, they said NO. You can check it in the following link:
NO GW2 for Linux

Not through official channels: not official. Don’t pay any attention to it.

ANet need to get that message.

Vox Hollow.2736:

the main reason people want to kill everything is because they dont have the skill or knowledge to skip.

Skipping requires more skill than clearing the path from the last waypoint. I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

Let’s not do this, guys. You don’t need to put down people who don’t share your viewpoint. This doesn’t have be a divisive topic.

Umm, where am I putting anyone down? Other than the people who try to skip with groups that don’t want to?

Warriors are pure ROFLStomp.

Glass Cannon Warriors are tougher and do more damage than anything else in the game. And you call them fine?

I have lvl 80 engineer, guardian and warrior, and the warrior in full berzerker gear is barely any squishier than the guardian in full soldier gear.

Now I don’t expect everyone to be brought up to the warrior level or for the warrior to be taken down a peg, as Warriors have always been ANets sacred cow, but don’t let them think it’s ok.

FacesOfMu.3561:

I don’t believe a game’s purpose is to keep people coming back. That’s like having a book that’s so difficult to understand you must keep reading it over and over, hardly getting the point. A well written book can communicate the ideas hopefully in one read.

You know, the best book I have ever read keeps telling me new things each time I read it. I wish all books did that, but only the very best manage it.

It’s not that it’s hard to understand, but that it’s that it’s so full of nuances.

The book is by Miyamoto Musashi.

Also, every game is striving to be the next Chess or Go. If those games didn’t keep people coming back, we wouldn’t even know about them today.

Skipping requires more skill than clearing the path from the last waypoint. I don’t think anyone is arguing this.

In a PuG, you should assume that all members have no skill.

So, I don’t skip in PuG groups, as I can’t trust them to be good enough. What people do in organised groups (other than my own) is none of my business.

evo.8640:

That’s pretty easy: Illiander

1) Because people are tired of killing the same boring kitten downy-AI trash mobs.
Because the RNG from trash mobs doesn’t bridge the amount of time saved, no matter if it’s 5 seconds.
Because no one needs a better reason than they simply don’t want to, which may point back to boring / low reward.

2) I’m not sure how to respond to this as I wasn’t aware skipping required more than the occasional dodge/speed buff and knowledge of path layout. Neither of which necessarily correlate to being “good”.

If every PuG group you’ve run with knows how to skip all the mobs in a dungeon, then you’ve been very, very lucky. Most PuGs I run with seem to die on the spider queen. Lots.

When you’re working with people who can’t stay alive against one of the easier bosses in the game, you have to assume they know nothing and clear the route from the waypoints, because they will die, and then they won’t be able to get back. Otherwise you’re probably going to be soloing some of the hard sections.

And for the record, my regular group do that anyway, as we find it less effort to clear the mobs than to skip them. We find that the dungeons bug less if you do that.

Strifey.7215:

So they basically added fractals so you can make a dungeon as hard as you want. Only problem is it’s basically hp/damage difficulty and not mechanic difficulty.

When they add in difficult mechanics that require teamwork and/or skill like GL, CoF 3, Arah 4, Collosus Fractal, etc. 95% of people complain it’s too hard.

This and this.

They do add extra skills to mobs based on Fractal level though, so the potential exists for them to do mechanic-based difficulty based on Fractal level if they feel like putting the effort in, but as fractals is basically a cop-out anyway I don’t expect it.

Someone’s solo’d Lupicus. Kholer is a baby in comparison.

Though if you can do it on an Engineer I will be suitably impressed.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Why would I show a money run? He implied that I couldn’t make as much money, and I proved him wrong. It was all I wanted to do. You should get some reading comprehension, and maybe some decency and respect as well.

Illiander.8049:

Kill spider (I would expect you to kill at least some of the trash here).
Skip Gravelings in traps.
Kill troll wherever.
Kill Kholer.

Illiander.8049:

If you can do all that in 30 mins, then my hat’s off to you. But I don’t think you can, and won’t believe you until you post a video.

I specifically asked for a full money run. I watched the first video until you skipped the spider then turned it off.

Also, learn to link.

The discussion went to AC as an example because everyone knows it. It gives a base that anyone can talk about with actual knowledge. We could just as easily talk about CoF, or any specific fractal, but I figured more people would know AC.

Also, no-one’s countered this yet:

To everyone who wants to skip in PuGs:

• If you’re good enough to skip, then killing the mobs will take barely any time at all and guarantee that the run succeeds regardless of the quality of the other players.
• If you’re not good enough to skip, then why are you trying?

If you don’t play with PuGs, then you don’t effect me and I don’t care what you do in your own private group, and neither does anyone else.

Typo: meant 180 tokens.

Lets break down what you mean by a skipping run then, because I think your definition is a little off.

This is what I would think of as a “skipping” full-money run.

All:
Skip Burrow.
Kill spider (I would expect you to kill at least some of the trash here).
Skip Gravelings in traps.
Kill troll wherever.
Kill Kholer.

AC 1:
Do Burrows (both paths at once for max speed).
Skip grubs and goo.
Run Scepter pieces.
Skip gravelings, focus down the money one in the middle of the rest then run.
Kill boss.

AC 2:
Focus money graveling and run.
Skip spiders.
do chains.
Focus money mob and run.
Skip goo.
Defend Detha.
Kill Boss.

AC 3:
Focus money graveling and run.
Skip ghosts.
DPS burrows.
Skip spiders.
DPS more burrows.
Run to money graveling, focus it down and run away.
Skip more gravelings.
Kill Boss.

If you can do all that in 30 mins, then my hat’s off to you. But I don’t think you can, and won’t believe you until you post a video.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Illiander.8049:

Those gravelings by the scepter pieces are the only thing my regular group doesn’t kill when we do AC. And we run all three routes in under an hour thirty when we’re being lazy, including time for clearing inventories, etc… between paths.

To everyone who wants to skip in PuGs:

• If you’re good enough to skip, then killing the mobs will take barely any time at all.
• If you’re not good enough to skip, then why are you trying?

The problem is, you say you do all paths in under 1h 30min when you can do them in under 30 min by skipping.

Some people just don’t want to waste that extra hour on mindless 1-2-3-4-5 spamming.

Sorry, that’s an hour thirty while hitting every money mob, so that’s about 3 gold before selling anything (4-5g after selling stuff). I’m assuming your full-skip runs only get you the 120 tokens and 78 silver?

You also didn’t provide a counter to my point: If you’re in a PuG, you can’t trust them to actually be good enough to skip stuff effectively, so you’ll end up with half the party dying repeatadly and that half hour sweep will turn into a 3 hour one.

Because most people skip as much of it as possible so haven’t noticed?

Those gravelings by the scepter pieces are the only thing my regular group doesn’t kill when we do AC. And we run all three routes in under an hour thirty when we’re being lazy, including time for clearing inventories, etc… between paths.

To everyone who wants to skip in PuGs:

• If you’re good enough to skip, then killing the mobs will take barely any time at all.
• If you’re not good enough to skip, then why are you trying?

Ok, lets take a dungeon everyone knows relly well: Ascalon Catacombs.

Typical skips:
Burrow at the camp.
Gravelings in the trap corridor.
Kholer.
Troll.
Gravelings in the corridors.
Goo.

Firt off, all of those other than Kholer will cause trouble if you have a bad group. So if you PuG, you’re better off not skipping them in case some people have to rez. “Don’t die” is not an option with people you don’t know, so you can’t afford to not clear the path you’re taking.

Kholer vs Troll: Throwing away 20+ silver for a fight that takes almost no effort? Or forcing PuGs to watch for 1-hit kill tells from two bosses at the same time? Not worth it in my opinion.

MehWhatever.1248:

Gwenanne.5674:

Is the gw2 client still running properly under Wine? I’ve tried it on my new Dell XPS 13", which I’m happy that Dell now offers without Windows tax. But, no luck. Whether running via PlayOnLinux or directly with the “dx9single” flag it has problems that I’ve been unable to avoid.

There is no lighting on the models in the chooser, and the game crashes immediately after selecting a face shape. Has anyone seen this problem and found a workaround?

I don’t think the integrated graphics chip in the XPS13 will be capable of running the game, even on Windows.

Intel graphics chips are really bad.

If you have the motherboard slot for it, I’d suggest getting an nVidia* card a step or two above the “recommended” and fitting it. But my experience with Dell PCs is that they don’t solder the connectors on for anything that didn’t ship with the machine. (which is one of the reasons that I never buy from “big-box” manufacturers anymore: no garuntee that I’ll actually get what I ordered).

• I’ve always found that nVidia cards get better support under WINE than AMD.

I wouldn’t trust a public anouncement anyway.

They’ve gone back on those before, so I can only assume that they would do so again.

Tarn.1374:

It seems they’ve simply lost the concept of what an online MMO game is.

Anet you need to stop overusing the ‘Activity’ mechanic. It’s ruining all these social activities you’re putting in the game. In fact I’d highly suggest doing away with it completely for any future content. I’ve not met anyone in-game who likes it.

That would be a good use of time. Fix the “Activity” PvP stuff to allow parties to enter together. Maybe they could take a look at the sPvP tournement code for some ideas? I think that already has everything they’d need.

It’s a flop because they decided to make a team PvE game impossible to enter with a party of friends.

Then their response to this is to say they’ll reduce the requiements for an achievment.

And everyone is ignoring the free and legal alternatives?

MehWhatever.1248:

I’m not sure. It’s listed under ‘non-functional’ on the wiki … Anyway, the game is playable in Wine without it, and there are better ways to detect Wine.

You know, sometimes my reading comprehension is terrible. I’d completely missed that it was in the “Non-Functional” section.

I doubt it would work on a windows tablet, unless they’ve decided to abandon the idea of their ARM tablet.

Why do you want to use W8 again?

Didn’t we do this here for the last one as well?

And they dodged the important questions (or gave handwavy answers that didn’t actually mean anything). I don’t expect any better from their PR department this time around.

Raincrow.1840:

Illiander.8049:

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

I think you’re missing something more important than a pointless acronym.

And if you want to play solo go grab Plants Vs Zombies or something. Don’t come to a game designed to be played with friends and complain that people want to play with friends.

Seriously, they put that up on Youtube rather than their own website?

My opinion of their PR department keeps getting worse and worse.

Raincrow.1840:

Latorn.4209:

Why? Why is having the option for people to play the way they want a bad thing?

The “option” isn’t bad, assuming they keep Pugs and Premades seperate, and keep rewards equal for solo and groups.

But you’ve missed the point completely. Some content is simply not made for you to play with in a pre made group. As a solo player, I’m constantly expected to just live with the fact that much of the game’s content will never give me an option to play my favorite way. While I have no problem with you wanting extra options, it is extra work for the devs to give those options,.

I just find it in bad taste that solo players are often left out of many of the game’s most important content, such as the highest rewarding instances, and even the end of the “personal story” and that seems perfectly ok to group players…. but when things are switched and you have to que for something solo (not even play solo, just que solo) you’re all bent out of shape about it. And then, for you to imply there is hypocrissy on MY PART is just nonsense.

I think you’re missing the point of the second “M” in MMO.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Like Snowball Mayhem and the Bell Choior, the Toypocalypse is an activity. They are using the same systems, and these systems do not permit joining by party. Unfortunately due to technical limitations and time constraints before the holidays, we cannot change it. We understand that this is not ideal for people who wish to play in the same party and who are finding it difficult in random groups. We will be adjusting the “Toypocalypse Cancelled” achievement so that you will need to keep only one gift dolyak alive. We do not have an ETA on when this change will be live. Thank you for your feedback. We have been listening, and we will take your comments on board for future game updates.

Bull.

Make it a dungeon. Problem solved.
Make it a tournement (it’s using the random PvP systems already). Problem solved.

Changing the achievement is not fixing anyone’s complaints about this. That’s not what people care about. I belive what you’ve done is commonly reffered to as “Cutting off the hand to spite the face”, or “Completely missing the point.”

I think I’m realising that ANet is actually a very immature software house with a great concept and a lot of hype that they’re steadily living down from. I guess I just have to accept that they’ll keep missing the obvious. (Like using a decent bit of forum software rather than (apparrently) rolling their own, so you can’t keep logged in, or the whole ascended fiasco.)

Oh well, I guess I’ll keep playing until my friends realise this too.

@RageQuit:
nVidia’s drivers are fine. It would be nice if they’d open them up (both for them and for everyone else), but they work perfectly well.

What you’re having issues with is WINE’s DirectX→OpenGL translator. I wouldn’t be suprised if that’s the biggest bottleneck in playing on Linux atm.

See L4D2 for an example of performance for something that isn’t using that.

@MehWhatever:
PlayOnLinux includes it by default, and it’s still on the wiki. Would have thought a dev would be keeping that page up-to-date at least.

Valve are doing that, but rolling in the hardware as well. Look up SteamBox.

Personally, I don’t like that idea. Too many ways it can go wrong. Not to mention I detest rebooting my computer. Haven’t done that in months.

Then again, I estimate it would take all of 20 minutes after that was released before I could just “emerge GW2” on my machine.

Ignore that petition. Bug ANet to release the number of people running with the “dx9single” flag. Those are about as close to the real numbers as we can get for how many people are running on Linux now. Then add that 500-sig petition as “users who would run on Linux if there was support”.

But I’d still encourage people to play from Linux if your machine is up to it. I do, and the water’s lovely

Also, everyone will be distracted by the shiney wintersday stuff.

I wouldn’t expect a decent WvW showing until january.

Agreed, for every one of these we should have one of these.

I’m just going to point out that GW1 did have mounts available.

Does anyone remember the Siege Devourer out in the Charr Homelands you could ride?

A big, slow, living charr tank. I’d be ok with some of those being out in the world.

Just as long as they aren’t a collectable pokémount.

RawkFist.1935:

I personally feel it’s somewhat of a high expection to think that players want to kill every single mob in an instance.

Why? If you have a bad group, then you want to clear them out so that people zombie-rushing actully get back to the fight, and if you have a good group, it takes about 10 seconds to clear the trash out. The only problem is if you have a bad group that thinks it’s a good group, but that’s a whole different issue.

Obvious exceptions for things like the gravelings in the scepter pieces room and infinite spawns.

MehWhatever.1248:

OK, I’m doing this.

Dear ArenaNet,
We, the players of Guild Wars 2 and users of Linux, would like you to consider developing a Linux version of the Guild Wars 2 client.

We understand that we are a vocal minority here, and that a Linux client likely won’t be profitable in the short term. But in a longer term, Linux is becoming a viable option for gaming.

• Valve is bringing Source, Steam to Linux, and later on, their own Steam running, likely Linux based hardware to the users.
• Hardware developers like NVIDIA and AMD/ATI gave us updated, faster drivers.
• Unity, one of the most popular 3D engines, introduced Linux support for version 4.
• CryEngine, one of the most graphically advanced engines in existence, has a native Linux port.
• Project Eternity, Star Citizen, Wasteland 2, Double Fine Adventure, Homestuck, Planetary Annihilation, Shadowrun Returns, Maia – pretty much every big upcoming ‘indie’ game will have Linux support.

This was said many times earlier, but now it’s finally backed by some really good evidence. 2013 will be the year of the Linux desktop and linux gaming. And we’d love to see another great developer embrace it with a great game.

There are many ways you can achieve this. You’re already using Cider for the OS X version, and you can use a similar product like CodeWeavers for Linux, or collaborate with the open source Wine project, which is where both Cider and CodeWeavers originated back in the day. But the best way forward is most likely a native Linux version. A native client will reduce the performance overhead caused by the translation layer (and that is very important for an MMO), improve the overall user experience and allow for most of the code to be reused for a native OS X version, too. You also get to avoid Cider, so you’ll have more freedom with doing whatever you want in the Windows version, and get rid of the bugs in Cider itself which are plaguing OS X users. Writing a new platform backend from scratch is not an easy task, but if it works, it will pay off greatly. So please, at least consider that.

We love your game. And we love Linux. And we’d love having our favourite game on our favourite platform.

Love,
K900, a.k.a. MehWhatever.1248.

P.S. You’re awesome, keep it up.

Edit: grammar.
Edit: accidentally a dot.

Quoted, signed.

That’s how you write one of these things. (I’m not very good at expressing myself in text, as reading back through this thread will amply demonstrate, so I’ll leave it at that now)

Neikius.9345:

Yes, Linux needs STANARDS. And don’t mention posix. There are so many non-standard additions and subtle differences… freedom does not equal zero order – the linux crowd doesn’t seem to get that. And I am a long-time linux user, just can’t get myself to ever use it at home again for all the problems. Maybe in a few years if adoption rate gets up and this would be a really nice boost.

Linux has standards. I believe there’s also something out there (that I can’t remember the name of right now) that is using environment variables for the less standardised locations, so you can find out where they are on the system you’re running on.

Also, the lack of homogenity is one of Linux’s strengths: an exploit or bug in one system will only be present in a fraction of the linux machines out there, yet people can write programs that work across all the different versions without any real issue. (I have never seen build scripts mention distros at all, if you have, I would love to see some examples).

And if you really want to only support one distribution, support LFS. Everyone else will be able to work from that one.

If you can’t afford exotics when you hit 80, just get rares then go play the FotM lottery (you’ll be doing this anyway if you want to actually be fully geared).

You’ll probably get enough drops to fund all the exotics you need by the time you get your ascended bits.

Ok, the serious problem with Trahearne is his writing and voice acting (and the fact that he’s obviously a DMPC/Mary Sue/wasn’t introduced properly). If he was written and voiced as well as Tybalt or Serien (or half the random Asura, Skritt or Quaggans) no-one would mind anywhere near so much about working with him for half the plot.

Best solution if you want a console port would be to plug your computer into your TV, and plug a gamepad into your computer. There’s probably enough controls on a pad to play, as long as you don’t have any ground-targeted skills.

Once you have a gamepad setup that works flawlessly (including ground-targeted skills) then… Wait, that’s just as good as a console port, so why are you complaining?

I’d prefer him exorsicised from the story, a one-off lynching doesn’t seem enough.

But on that note:
Vote: Trahearne

Cider is not a fork of WINE. Cider may use many of the same ideas that WINE uses, but if it uses any of the same codebase, they’re in a lot of trouble.

It is a question of priorities, but not the way you make it sound. ANet could take all the money they’re throwing at Cider, and throw it to CodeWeavers instead. Bam! Support for Mac, Linux, BSD, Haiku, Solaris, SCO OpenServer, [50 other UNIXes that I can’t remember the names of anymore]…

WINE’s “design issues” don’t seem that major at my end. Everything is looking just rosy here, and it’s not even getting any ANet dev support.

I’ll add another voice saying that this area is actually pretty easy.

They should definitely add more patrols.

soulsuke.7913:

By the way, ANet is using a layer that, between other things, probably asked for quite a sum to “support” GW2, and that is takes many of its features from the Wine project. So, by the time the Mac version of GW2 will work well, Wine will probably support it in the same way on other OSs ( Mac too by the way ). Cooperating directly with Wine or Codeweavers would’ve been a better choice, it’d have probably costed less and would have made GW2 playable on nearly any OS ( we should note that there aren’t just Windows, Mac and Linux, but even Solaris, Haiku, *BSD, etc. Ok, not much of a player base there, but again being a “mmo that can run on any OS because ANet worked on it!” would probably get GW2 a lot of good advertisement, both from the users of those OSs or because of many sites that’d probably report such a news, which are more than most people believe ). But still, it’d be just a WIN32 game running on a layer, there’d be still some performances drops on non-win32 OSs.
A better solution would’ve been to actually use OpenGL instead of Direct3D. Now, before anyone starts flaming about this… GW2 currently uses DirectX 9, doesn’t it? So there wouldn’t be any loss in switching to OpenGL at the moment. Of course it’d take some time to port the whole engine, but… Seriously, even WoW does it. It has a -opengl switch that makes it run using OpenGL. They even have ( had? ) a Linux client ready, but renounced to publish it because it was “hard to target a distro” ( I’ll avoid to comment on that ), meaning that building the client isn’t that hard itself. Anyways, this way there could’ve been a working and native GW2 on both Windows, Mac and Linux, with no performances loss in the process. Again, these are just my 2 cents.

I’ve been saying this ever since I found out how they’ve done the Mac client:

If they’re using a win32→UNIX translation layer, why aren’t they using the best one?

(I still laugh when I look at the Mac client bugs list. Why anyone would use that rather than WINE on Mac confuses me.)

To all the people complaining about magic find: take a loot at this thread.

Solution to magic find and power creep all in one package.