Guild Wars 2

No, “Gates of Maguuma” is not what took months of development.

What took months of development is the ENTIRE setup for “Gates of Maguuma”, “Entangled” and a dozen or more similar updates, each of which containing a roughly similar amount of content as “Gates of Maguuma”. That means about 4 story instances, and more additions to the world map (likely including more Dry Top).

If you don’t know who Aerin is, you should have gotten a few clues:
1. Aerin was a rather noticeable NPC in Labyrinthine Cliffs over the past two months.
2. Various clues and NPCs strewn across Dry Top and the story instances slowly reveal Aerin’s identity. And you are required to collect most of them to progress the story. It’s your responsibility not to read any of it.

If you don’t know who the Master of Peace is, you should have gotten a few clues:
1. He appeared before in the introductory story instance of Festival of the Four Winds (which was available for just under two months).
2. He is specifically mentioned as being “the leader of the zephyrites” by Marjory and Kasmeer in the “Fallen Hopes” story instance.
3. Your entire purpose in the “Cornered” story instance is to find and save the Master of Peace. Various clues in Dry Top pointed the way to the instance.

Again, not paying attention is your own responsibility. Do you also watch movies with the sound turned off?

snoeckie.9230:

Algreg.3629:

sometimes, I am very ashamed to be european… like at the moment.

Never be ashamed of being a european
Remember we civilized the world
;)

Interviewer: “Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion about western civilization?”
Mahatma Gandhi: “I think it would be a very good idea.”

I find it astounding that people use anecdotal evidence to conclude that Guild Wars 2 is slowly dying, all while projecting their own beliefs onto the entire gaming community, and refusing to consider that other people may have the audacity to actually like what they do not.

Personally, I quite like the small story releases, and Gates of Maguuma contained more story content than a typical Season 1 release. If all Season 2 releases are of the same quality, I would be very happy.

Also, I do not see the necessity to add bold text to random passages in sentences. As a rhetorical tool, it is rather unconvincing, and it makes posts look like tabloid headlines.

I am a fan of Guild Wars 2, and I am neither horrified or disgusted.

It is an official statement, which is why I quoted it. I would agree with it if guild content was at all attainable for players of all playstyles. But it isn’t, so I don’t.

I would like to post a link to a thread that may give some insight in why people are so mad:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Reason-why-people-are-mad-Fairness/first#post5168853

Here’s the gist:
It is not greed or entitlement, but genuine moral outrage at unequal pricing.

Group 1 (who have nothing) pay $50 and receive A + B.
Group 2 (who already own A) pay $50 and receive B.
These two groups pay the same price, but they get unequal value in return. This touches people at a deep emotional level: “That is unfair!”

So why did ArenaNet not see this coming? Because pricing and sales policy are very rational activities, while morality is a very irrational, emotional thing. No, they’re not evil or immoral. It was a blind spot.

Back in December, collectible bank slots were introduced for all rare crafting materials, including those that are exclusive to the seasonal events. Additionally, collectible bank slots were added for Passion Flowers, Passion Fruit and Karka Shells.

However, there are four rare crafting materials that have NOT been provided with a collectible bank slot. These are:
- Copper Doubloon
- Silver Doubloon
- Gold Doubloon
- Platinum Doubloon

In my opinion, it is simply inconsistent that these items are not collectible. Perhaps even an oversight?

Therefore, I am hoping that collectible bank slots may be added for the Doubloons soon. Either under “rare crafting materials” or “gemstones & jewels” wouls seem appropriate.

In my view, there are 2 problems:

1. The cost to access Guild Missions may be fine for large guilds, but is prohibitive for smaller guilds.
(Those who argue that small guilds want stuff for free, while large guilds work for it are overlooking the fact that small guilds need to earn a lot more Influence per person to be able to buy the same upgrades.)
Suggestion: All that is needed for small guilds to not feel left out is to put the very lowest tier of each type of Guild Mission behind a lower unlock threshold, while keeping the higher tiers behind more expensive unlock thresholds. Done in such a way that all unlock costs add up to the same levels they are now, so that large guilds who have already unlocked Bounties are not disadvantaged.

2. Guild (Bounty) Missions themselves cannot be completed with the small number of players many small guilds have available.
(Those arguing that bystanders in the open world can help with the mission overlook the fact that bystanders do not receive special rewards, and may have little incentive to help. Also, finding 2 Champions in 15 minutes is hard enough if you don’t have 10 people.)
Suggestion: The easiest solution is to introduce lower-tiered Guild Missions that can be done with five people. For example, a Guild Bounty that requires finding and defeating only 1 Champion in 15 minutes. Or a Guild Rush that is balanced for 5 active participants. These should offer accordingly low rewards, of course, but should still allow players to earn Guild Commendations and the guild to acquire Guild Merits.

I believe that the underlying problem is that ArenaNet considers “small guilds” to be guilds with 10 active players online at peak times. Unfortunately, guilds with less active players during peak times than this are not thought of at all.

Finally, let me reiterate that Matipzieu KyA’s excellent series of 4 posts on page 14 of this thread is a must-read:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

I think it’s more likely that Scarlet will receive a partly redeeming death scene, in which she is defeated in the final battle, briefly reverts back to Ceara, says something about achieving freedom, and then dies.

Does GW2 have a future?

Yes, yes it does.

His daughter Ellyna Graidy walks around Lion’s Arch spouting racist slurs to any sylvari who dares to approach her.

Using the Graidy name for a city landmark will only bring associations with Ellyna and her intolerance. Ellyna’s attitude is so contrary to the general tolerance of Lion’s Arch, that it taints the Graidy name for the city.

I’m going to quote Isaiah Cartwright on the cost of ascended accessories:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

These items are mainly earned through guild content, we included them on the laurels vendor to give players the opportunity to earn them if they are not in a guild but they are priced high to encourage players to try and accomplish them via the guild content.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-kitten-Cleric-Ascended-Accessory/page/3#post1516124

(Note: I personally disagree with his reasoning, because some players simply have no access to guild missions and its rewards because smaller guilds (10 people or less) have difficulty earning enough influence to unlock the guild content, let alone completing any guild missions.)

The Copper, Silver, Gold and Platinum Doubloons are rare crafting materials (and item upgrades) that have recently had their functionality changed. Where they first gave Magic Find %, they now give Boon Duration %.

However, even with this change, there is still no collectible bank tab for these items, even though all other rare crafting materials did receive this.

Why is this? Are Doubloons not considered crafting materials, like Jewels, Sigils, Runes and Crests? But all gemstone-type jeweling materials are considered crafting materials, and are collectible. Therefore, I believe this is an oversight, and one that has not yet been caught after many months.

My request is simple. Please add collectible bank tabs for the four tiers of Doubloons.

Thank you.

It’s not bread you ate, but a lifetime bread subscription that you got and paid for three years ago.

Except now, the same company that brought you bread now has BreadPlus, which is way tastier and more nutritious than regular bread – with free peanut butter and jelly. Regular bread will no longer be sold to new bread eaters (although your current lifetime subscription will still be good and the recipe will be tweaked a bit).

Now, your friend (who never liked bread, but is interested in BreadPlus) is willing to buy a lifetime subscription to BreadPlus. You are considering upgrading to eating BreadPlus, but then you find out that the upgrade cost is exactly the same as your friend’s subscription cost. Even though you already paid the full subscription cost for your lifetime supply of bread three years ago.

This means that if you upgrade, the “lifetime supply of bread” you paid for only gave you three years of bread, and no discount on BreadPlus.

I don’t think it was there to “placate the whiners”. Most likely, the voice recording for the current Living Story releases have been done well in advance.

(It’s far cheaper to get voice actors in the recording studio for one full day per 2-3 months, than to get them in the recording studio for 2-3 hours every 2 weeks. Especially if you also need to rent the recording studio.)

Personally, I believe the “assistant” dialogues were written to illustrate how much the asura are intellectual snobs, and how Councillor Phlunt is even worse than that. Taimi obviously calls us her “assistant” because that is the only reason Councillor Phlunt can imagine why she would ever need a bookah for her experiment. (Other than as a test subject, of course.)

Having a Graidy lighthouse attended by Ellyna Grady only gives her a stage to spread her message of hate.

I would like to offer some corrections over the self-gratifying nonsense that is being raised in this thread:

- Just because you dislike Scarlet, that does not mean everyone dislikes Scarlet. Not even if there are people who agree with you.

- Just because someone does not share your opinion, does not mean that that person is “one of the very few” who do.

- People who like what is going on have little reason to go post about it, which is why “I hate X” threads are more common than “I like X” threads.

- Just because there is a Living Story, players are not forced to participate in it. Just go do your WvW or dungeon runs or guild missions as usual. If something annoys you, don’t expose yourself to it.

So please stop proclaiming: “I hate Scarlet, which means that everyone hates Scarlet, which means that Living Story is a failure, which means that I get to tell ArenaNet what to do.” Because even if the first thing is true, none of the others necessarily follow. Basic faulty logic.

Personally, I don’t think Scarlet is that great of a character (as she has been badly written), but that does not diminish my enjoyment of the Living Story in the slightest. And I do not have the opinion that “Scarlet needs to go”. I am confident that the Living Story will provide Scarlet with an appropriate exit eventually. Probably involving the unleashing of some terrible threat to Tyria.

If we continue Imperios’ argument, we get something like this:
“Why not include pedofilia, cannibalism, sexually transmitted diseases or (gasp) visible genitalia? Those all exist in the real world, so why should they not exist in Guild Wars 2?”

Unless we would want all of that in the game too, Imperios’ argument is not valid. Tyria is a fantasy world. ArenaNet has the artistic license to use or not use any elements from the real world, and to add or not add any elements that do not exist in the real world. We as players have the choice to either accept this fantasy, or to move on to a different game.

So if people don’t like Tyria for not exhibiting enough intolerance for homosexuality, this might not be the right fiction for them.

In December, a new bank tab was added for all rare crafting materials.
ALL rare crafting materials?
No, a small subset was overlooked: the doubloons. Even

This suggestion is simple:

Please include collectible bank slots for:
- copper doubloon
- silver doubloon
- gold doubloon
- platinum doubloon.

In my opinion, they could be added to either the “Gemstones” tab (because they can be used as equipment upgrades) or “Rare Crafting Materials” tab (because they are used for crafting runes, sigils and jewelry) in the collectibles bank.

crimlet.9872:

OK. I hopefully they fix it so we can have a way to trade with each other. Because the mail system isn’t setup for actual secure trading.

Nothing is broken, so there is nothing to fix. This is a game design decision, not an oversight or mistake. (For the same reason, it is not possible to drop items on the ground either.)

Indeed, the mailing system is not a secure way for trading. It is meant for players to give gifts to their friends.

Only the trading post is a safe (though anonymous) way to trade with strangers. It is effortless, as you don’t need to wait or even stay online to sell an item. Additionally, the trading post is a single system across all servers, so it is not limited (as you are) to the instance you happen to be in.

Most of the advantages of not having a personal player-to-player trading option have been listed above already, but bear repeating:
- No WTS spam in mapchat. Also, no WTB spam in mapchat either.
- No scamming between players (unless you are gullible enough to trade through in-game mail).
- No hacking/duping attempts by players trying to deliberately abuse their game client with a trade window open.
- Tradepost fees (15% of all sales) keep the in-game economy healthy, by preventing exponential inflation of in-game currency over time.

jsduke.6537:

We don’t need to be able to play everything that ever happened in the history of the game. The story moves forward and so do we. Let it go. Move on.

This is a moot point if there is no way for (newer) players to find out what happened in the game world in the past. There should be a way for players to learn (or be reminded) of Living World stories that happened in the past.

For example, if a player participates in The Nightmare Within without any prior knowledge of previous Living World stories, that player will have no clue who the nasty sylvari lady is, or who Marjory and Kasmeer are, and will have absolutely no idea who these “Molten Alliance” monsters are who pop up as hallucinations.
If there is a passing reference to Queen’s Jubilee, there is no way for players to find out what “Queen’s Jubilee” was about, without resorting to asking other players (which may yield biased or incorrect information), or consulting an outside source (like the GW2 Wiki).

Unless players already witnessed the start of the Living Story, there is no way they are ever going to be invested in it, because there is currently no way to get them up to speed. This also breaks the immersion of the game world, because after a change in the open world landscape, the new content is indistinguishable from the content that has been there since launch (e.g. the “Second Aetherblade Site” in Gendarran Fields, or the reworked Tequatl event, or the Twilight Assault dungeon path). Players will only get a sense that Tyria has an evolving history, if they are made aware of how much the world changes, and has already changed in the past.

What the Living Story needs is something like the scrying pool in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, or the campaign mission books from that game. Or some other interface to learn of the in-game history – while in-game. The content of such an interface could be brief write-ups of the Living Story, as well as the cutscenes and cinematics developed for those past chapters.
(The Heralds can not and do not serve that purpose, by the way. The Heralds are only meant to point players in the direction of the current Living Story events.)

As a member of a tiny guild (3-4 active members out of 10-12 total), I have had a talk with my guildleader, and we decided to try an experiment.

We are going to upgrade the guild in order to unlock guild bounties, spending gold if necessary to acquire the needed Influence. Once Guild Bounties are unlocked, we will start Bounty Missions on a regular basis, and we will post announcements on our game server that anyone who wants to get the rewards can become members of our guild for the duration of the bounty, for a small fee (perhaps 1 silver). At the end of the mission, all temporary members will be removed from the guild.

The participation fee is intended to earn back (over time) our investment in buying the influence in the first place. In return, we would be providing a service to the players on our server who would otherwise have no access to guild missions, giving them a chance to experience this content, and to acquire Guild Commendations and other rewards.

Any opinions on whether you believe this experiment could work?

The Tequatl fight is badly implemented, because it only takes a relatively small amount of players being counterproductive to make the fight unwinnable.

And it is very easy to be counterproductive. All you have to do is be afk in the general vicinity of the event (especially near the turrets) by the time it starts.

You were the second post in the thread. There was nobody to point it at EXCEPT the OP.

Next, someone will claim to have made the discovery that there used to be a seventh god named “Abaddon”.

And that the “Temple of the Forgotten God” story instance is a clue.

Volrath.1473:

The fact that Thieves were completely ignored on the “ready up” doesn’t bother anyone else?!

Didn’t surprise me that they talked allot about warrior since they all main warriors (except Josh) and they clearly said it out loud in the stream but bypassing the thief profession like that shows the respect they have for the thief community. Not that we don’t already know how they feel about thieves but acting like that in a live stream is unprofessional and offensive.

Yes, they wasted a lot of time joking instead of talking shop, and it got worse in the last few minutes. Yes, they need to take a course in PR and presentation skills. Yes, it was unprofessional.

But given the poor time management they already exhibited, skipping over most of the thief changes was necessary. They were running out of time, and the Warrior Healing Signet issue is one that they needed to discuss, because many, many players have been very concerned about this skill for months now, and the forums have been overflowing with discussions about Healing Signet.

One other possible reason could be that they mentioned they are reworking some game mechanics in ways that they can’t discuss yet, and this will affect the Thief more than most other professions. Therefore, perhaps they were at less liberty to discuss the reasoning behind upcoming changes to Thief than they were for other professions. So perhaps they are reconsidering how (e.g.) stealth works, except that it won’t be ready yet for next week’s update.

The writing on Living Story Season 1 left something to be desired. However, once it started, it could no longer be changed. The entire story had already been written by the time the first negative feedback about the writing started trickling in.

At that point, they would have had two options:
1. Continue rolling out the original story as planned, and taking notes to improve the quality of any content to come after that.
2. Cancel the original story immediately, leaving players without a conclusion, and hope the game survives 4-6 months of no updates at all (not even a feature patch) while the writers and developers scramble to start over from scratch on a new story.

Which do you think would be worse for the game?

From December 2013 onwards, ArenaNet took time to at least give Season One a decent ending that did not contain the writing mistakes of the previous chapters, and
to better prepare for Season Two.

The four month hiatus after the end of Season One was probably not only used for the China launch, but also for the writers and developers to use all the Season One feedback to create a better Season Two. Remember, it took them 2 months on average of development time on a single LS update in 2013, and they needed 4 development teams to keep up with the updating pace. Writing and preparing Season Two from scratch (as well as developing the first few LS content updates) will take at least as long, if not longer, and I believe it is a good sign that they took the time to draw and incorporate all lessons learned from Season One (including the finale) into the preparations for their new Season Two project.

The Berserker stats (Power, Precision, Critical Damage %) have a mutually strengthening interaction that is lacking from all the other stats.

Consider:
- More Power => More base critical damage => more damage on a critical hit
- More Precision => Larger chance for critical hits => more average damage
- More Critical Damage % => More bonus critical damage => more damage on a critical hit

The crucial interaction here is that Critical Damage % is a percentage of Power, so an increase in power Power actually increases the absolute value of how much damage a +1% Critical Damage entails .

This is overpowered. Not in itself, but simply because other stats do not have such an interaction.
(There are only two exceptions: Boon Duration % (with boons) and Condition Duration % (with Condition Damage), but those are counteracted. Boon Duration % is counteracted by the limited availability of skills that allow boon stacking, along with the relative rarity of the stat. Condition Duration % is counteracted by (1) the presence of condition removal effects, (2) the damage formula for each specific condition – limiting the effectiveness of the Condition Damage stat, (3) the stack limit on conditions – including those that stack duration, and (4) the fact that condition damage is always rounded down into one-second ticks – wasting any duration that does not reach up to the next tick.)

Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power do not have any such interaction. Having a high Toughness does not increase the value of your heals, and having high Healing Power does not increase your maximum health. Not in the way a high Power increases your critical damage bonus from high Critical Damage %.

Therefore, I think it is entirely fair if the Critical Damage % formula is changed in such a way that it no longer multiplies boosts to Power. In fact, my proposal would be to have it be a percentage of the base (unmodified) Power stat (which is 916 at level 80). I am guessing that this is what ArenaNet already has in mind.

This would mean that players’ critical hits would be dealing less damage. At a Power level of 2748, this would reduce the effectiveness of critical hit bonus damage (both the base critical damage increase and the % bonus from the stat) by two thirds. If this is deemed too strong a nerf, perhaps the the percentage bonus on Critical Damage % could be increased (doubled?) to make up for it.

For all those heavily invested in Berserker gear, this would be a nerf, but not a crippling one. Simply cutting the interaction between Power increase and Critical Damage % increase ensures a more level playing field in the value of all the stats.
Berserker would change from the single best stat combo from a numerical point of view (because it is the only one with a three-way synergy between the stats) to one of many decent stat combos.

(Incidentally, such a step would also be a minor increase to the survivability of Elementalists in PvP/WvW, as they would take less damage from critical hits.)

What I believe is the case here is that ArenaNet mistakenly assumes that “small guilds” are guilds of 10-20 active people, and that they believe that guilds of 3-6 people do not exist.

I recall seeing a developer post (pre-patch) stating that even the Tier 1 Bounty Missions could be easily completed by “small guilds of 15 people”. Earlier today, they stated that “10 players is an ideal number for Tier 1 bounties”.
(Sorry, I have no links right now.)

TrcyMcgrdy.2317

What irks me the most is the people who bought HOT already, maybe even the ultimate version, then come on here to explain how it is worth it while, at the exact same time, telling people that the value of the expansion is different for everyone. Hypocritical as fark. If you TRULY loved this and were more than happy about buying HOT, you wouldn’t be coming here trying to justify the price.

Cut these people some slack. They are not so much defending ArenaNet’s pricing policy, but rather their own purchasing decision. After all, agreeing with this angry mob that ArenaNet gives bad deals, would mean that they would have to admit that they fell for a bad deal. Nobody wants to admit to being a sucker.

By the way, I am not claming the current pricing scheme is a good deal or a bad deal. I have not purchased the expansion myself, so far.

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP’s argument.

The anger voiced by many is not inspired by greed, but by moral outrage. This is illustrated by:

- Strong emotional reaction – morality is very much based in emotion.
(Greed is more calculating, and any outrage inspired by greed is merely staged.)

- Various accusations aimed at ArenaNet that paint them as immoral or evil – very moral terms.
(Greedy players would rather paint ArenaNet as cheap or selfish – very economical terms.)

- None of the angry players says anything negative about the new players who would receive a better deal.
(If they were greedy, they would be more envious of the new players.)

- Angry players demand an apology and rectification from ArenaNet.
(Greedy players would just settle for more stuff and not bother with apologies.)

My impression is that the sales managers at ArenaNet have vastly underestimated the perception of inequality that their pricing scheme evoked. ArenaNet needs to address this adequately, or their long-term reputation may suffer.

Oh, and the counterargument claiming that “veteran players are greedy because they don’t realize what they got over the past three years” is sadly mistaken. The thing is that all these players have already paid for that by purchasing the game in the first place.

Finally, why does the occasional price reduction in the base game not bother existing players as much as this deal? Because it is very typical of any product to decrease in value over time. A used car is less valuable than a new one. A three-year-old game is worth less than the upcoming next-big-thing-with-super-graphics.

Ever since collectible bank slots were added for rare crafting materials, for some reason the Copper Doubloon, Silver Doubloon, Gold Doubloon and Platinum Doubloon were left out. I found this odd, since they were like a rare variant of the jeweling crafting materials, and are acquired in exactly the same way as all other rare crafting materials. And many crafts use them in discoveries.

With the most recent update, the Doubloons were given a new functionality, with their Magic Find being replaced by Boon Duration. Additionally, new collectible bank slots were added for all the new materials needed for Ascended crafting (including some that are not even implemented yet).

So why are Doubloons still not collectible? To me, it appears to be an oversight that has lasted for many months now.

Please add collectible bank slots for the Copper Doubloon, Silver Doubloon, Gold Doubloon and Platinum Doubloon.

Thank you.

(I have also recently posted in the Crafting forum with a similar message, but as this is more of a suggestion anyway, I have decided to post here as well.)

To me, the argument “we all know why” automatically disqualifies anything that follows.

No, the “farm fields” only appear for specific cooking ingredients that yield only a single type of ingredient (e.g. cauliflower, lettuce, strawberry, sugar pumpkin). Such “farms” are also usually the only places where these ingredients can be found.

Herbs (of various qualities) appear on all maps, and are not limited in that way. However, if you are looking for very specific herbs, you should note that not all ingredients drop from all herb nodes.

For example:
- Chilli Peppers only drop from herb nodes in Ascalon.
- Vanilla Beans only drop from herb nodes in Maguuma.
- Coriander Seeds only drop from herb nodes in Kryta.
- Rosemary Sprigs only drop from herb nodes in the Shiverpeaks.

Some of these are also limited to certain level ranges. (E.g. While Vanilla Beans can drop from Maguuma herb patches from level 1 areas and up, Cloves will only drop from level 55-ish and up.)

(By the way, everything I mentioned about herbs also applies to root vegetables.)

I believe that is an early concept drawing of Caithe, before the sylvari were reimagined as 100%-plant creatures.

Don’t count on copying that, especially not the looks or hairstyle.

Try abandoning the chapter (or starting a different one), and then switch back. That should restart your story chapter.

Or wait, is this Tizlak’s Warbler that you need to summon hidden scouts? In that case, disregard the above.

1. Try talking to Tizlak again. He’s out there in the open world, right where he gave you the thing in the first place.
2. If that doesn’t work, file a bug report in game and check the box “blocking progress”. This should flag the issue to be looked at.
3. Find another player who has the warbler and ask them to summon the scouts for you, so you can talk to them.

I don’t mind that it takes time. I do mind that it takes smaller guilds longer to unlock the missions than it would take larger guilds, even if they start at the same level of influence.

And I second that the missions themselves are unplayable in groups smaller than 10-15. My guild is composed of real-life friends and doesn’t even have that many members.

Intentional or not, ArenaNet’s new guild content reinforces the elitist opinion that small guilds are not “real” guilds by placing guild missions out of the reach of small guilds.

@dekou:
I believe that ArenaNet has consciously decided to tone down the number of new zones to be added to the game. Possible reasons?

1. They want players to keep populating existing zones, to prevent “dead areas” in the game as much as possible. This is good for the game’s longevity.(Guild missions, Scarlet invasions and especially Ascended crafting with its tier 2-4 material requirements all achieved this.)

2. Southsun Cove was not received well. Players complained about the empty feel of the place, the lack of interesting events and the annoying monsters. This resulted in a redesign of the area.

3. During the first year of the game, much of the available game design resources was spent on creating repeatable festival content, to serve the game for years to come. Examples include The Mad King’s Realm, Toymaker Tixx’s Airship, Labyrinthine Cliffs, and the Crown Pavillion. Oh wait, those were all new zones, weren’t they?

4. As part of improving the game world – or at least in order to reflect continuous change – (parts of) existing zones were changed or added to. These include Deirdre’s Steps in Mount Maelstrom, the Bloody Prince’s tomb in the Black Citadel, the Marionnette’s Landing in Lornar’s Pass, the 2nd Aetherblade Base in Gendarran Fields, the Twilight Aetherpath, and all of Lion’s Arch.

5. You are overstating your case. Look closely at Guild Wars: Factions. Cantha contains a significantly smaller playable area than the Guild Wars: Prophecies part of Tyria. Prophecies had 54 vanquishable areas and 25 missions, while Cantha had 33 vanquishable areas and 13 missions.
Elona (Guild Wars: Nightfall) was larger than Cantha, but smaller than Tyria. Eye of the North added the fewest number of zones. I’m not counting the dungeons, because those actually shared and reused significant sections of dungeon maps.

@Lasur Arkinshade:
In this respect, both the “new skins” part and the “pay money” part of a “traditional” expansion are already in the game. This strengthens my point that Living World Season 1 is mostly comparable to an expansion.
Also, do not discount the various cosmetic skins (mostly back items) that have been the rewards for completing a Living Story chapter in season 1.

I partially accept the argument that all weapons’ #1 skills should be balanced with each other.

However, I would go one further: All sets of weapon skills should be balanced with each other. This means that elementalist MH dagger should be balanced with elementalist scepter and the first 3 skills of warrior greatsword, etc.

This means that weapons with very good #1 skills should have relatively poorer #2-5 skills (either in terms of cooldown or damage values), while weapons with poorer #1 skills should have relatively better #2-5 skills (either in terms of cooldown or damage values).
This creates interesting trade-offs, as certain weapons are better for short-term damage bursts, while others would be better for sustained damage.

Addtionally, main-hand and off-hand weapons should be slightly less powerful than two-handed (5-skill) weapons, because of the extra flexibility to mix-and-match weapon skills allow.

Finally, other profession mechanics should weigh in as well. A few examples:
- A profession that has above-average utility skills should probably have slightly weaker weapon skills.
- The elementalist’s attunements have twice the number of weapon skills available during combat as most other professions with a weapon swap. For this reason, the weapon skills can be made slightly weaker.
- However, the elementalist player has less freedom to choose which weapon skills he has access to based on weapon choice. It’s an “all or nothing” package deal. For this reason, the weapon skills can be made slightly stronger.
- Warriors and guardians have better armor than elementalists and necromancers, so this could be compensated by slightly weaker weapon skills.
- Guardians and elementalists have less health than warriors and necromancers, so this could be compensated by slightly stronger weapon skills.
- Etcetera.

For these reasons, I believe the argument that only auto-attack skills should be compared and made equal is short-sighted. The thought behind it is a good one, but YOU need to see the bigger picture.

P.S. I’m not saying that all skills are perfectly balanced. Just that the proposed solution to the perceived problem is too simple, and that balancing takes far more effort than just improving elementalist auto-attack skills. Maybe it’s warranted, but maybe not. My main is an elementalist, and I can’t tell.

Personally, I believe a lot of the groaning and moaning going on in these forums at the moment is a case of fear of the unknown.

Players become worried because feature patches promise change, and they’re not sure if they’re going to like it, so they prepare by assuming the worst. Then they read the pessimistic ramblings of others, and these posts amplify each other.

Feature patches are especially prone to these behavioural patterns, because they promise actual changes (“improvements”) to the base workings of the game, rather than just the addition of new stuff, or the tweaking of balance issues and bugs. No, things that exist now may actually work differently or not at all after the update. People are afraid that their favourite toys will be broken or taken away by the big bad company, while they are powerless to stop it.

So they threaten to quit, say they don’t like it in advance, complain about everything they can think of. It’s a coping mechanism. If they decide in advance to not like the update, or to disavow the entire game, that gives them back the sense of control that they lost when ArenaNet first announced that a new Feature Update was coming that could change the things they know.

If you throw away the toy before the big bad company can break it, then the big bad company can’t hurt you. Even if the toy ends up unbroken, or improved. You can always pick it up again afterwards (without making a peep on the forums).

Quick Mouse.7635:

(besides cooking which doesn’t really count)

Cooking does count!

@Jski:
“Work with other guilds” how? Co-operation between players is supported, but co-operation at guild level is not. There are no alliances.

“Add more people” how? If people looking for guilds can choose between Guild X with Guild Challenges and Guild Puzzles unlocked, and my guild, who can only do Bounties, where do you think they will go?

The cost of crafting a single Ascended weapon is manageable, and your playstyle could accommodate that over time.

HOWEVER, the cost of raising even a crafting discipline (Weaponsmith, Huntsman or Artificer) to 500 is quite steep. I have strong reservations about whether this would be a worthwhile investment for you, as it requires making multiple discoveries of exotic recipes. In other words, expect to spend large amounts of Orichalcum, Ancient Wood and the highest tier Fine Materials (Powerful Blood, Armored Scales, Piles of Crystalline Dust, etc.), as well as Ectoplasm.

I cannot tell you whether this investment will be worth it for your playstyle, especially if you have little to no interest in crafting. I can only advise you to read up on the subject and make up your own mind.

ArenaNet has already taken measures to warn players against such scams, by adding the warning text: “This message was sent to you by another player” at the bottom of every in-game message sent by another player.
Also, any message sent by actual ArenaNet staff in-game will display the ArenaNet logo next to their name.

If you receive such a mail, click the “report” button on the message. This will notify ArenaNet of this fraudster’s activity and trigger an investigation into his/her account.

Lampshade.7569

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Just because there is a Living Story, players are not forced to participate in it. Just go do your WvW or dungeon runs or guild missions as usual. If something annoys you, don’t expose yourself to it.

If this was just one update, I would happily do so, but it has been public knowledge for some time now that Scarlet is just too poorly written to be salvaged. Four more updates of her story is the Titanic, deliberately headed for the biggest iceberg in sight.

No, it is some people’s public opinion that Scarlet is too poorly written to be salvaged according to them. (And would you go see a movie about the Titanic if it didn’t involve the vessel going down?)
Opinion is not fact. And yes, that does include your opinion.

Also, I don’t see why your opinion about Scarlet’s “salvageability” does not allow you to disregard the Living Story.
If you don’t like Fractals, do you feel compelled to play them every time a Fractal is added?
If you don’t like playing the TP economy, do you feel compelled to buy/sell items to make a prefit every time new tradable items are added?
If you don’t like WvW, do you feel compelled to play it anyway every time the WXP reward system is updated?
If you don’t like minigames, do you feel compelled to play them every time a new minigame is added?
If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

warbignime.4610:

Here is answer to all argument. Want it, have money for it, Buy it. Want it, no money for it, save up money.Don’t want it, don’t buy it. It is that simple. All the arguments and rioting are getting ridiculous.

This response is misplaced. This thread is not a complaint at all.

Elementalist auto-attacks are deliberately underpowered. That is because it is the #2 skills that are the elementalist’s bread and butter. Most of them do a good amount of damage, and they all have a cooldown of 5-6 seconds. Some are situational, however, and in other cases it is the #3 skill that makes a weapon truly worthwhile (although the #3 skill is on a slightly longer cooldown).

So if you believe that elementalist auto-attacks are weak, go use the other skills. And swap attunements if too many of your non-auto-attack skills are on cooldown.

ArenaNet could have solved the “Queensdale train” issue in two possible ways to bring effort and reward back in line:

1. Increase the difficulty of the champions.
2. Decrease the reward.

Option 1 was not desirable, because starter areas are not a suitable place to put greatly difficult encounters.
So they went with option 2; decreasing the rewards. (Although the demotion of champions to veterans also made the encounters easier.)

Paying (about) $55 for a game does not buy ownership of the game company, and does not entitle one to make game design or business decisions. Least of all, it does not entitle one to take away somebody’s livelihood.

One forum post is not negative publicity.
Opinion is not fact.
Not even mine.