Guild Wars 2

I agree! I love that they chose to follow up with the refugees and bring the Consortium and Southsun back into the picture since I felt like they let that boat sink instead of bringing it all the way into port. I’m glad they put it out so soon after the completion of Frost and Flame instead of leaving us with nothing to do through the rest of May. I’m really enjoying the new activities and player-life on the island. I’m intrigued by the mystery behind the human nobles. I really love the crab toss game and I enjoyed chasing after the achievements.
There are things that could be improved but overall I’m pleased with this update.

I have to agree with the OP—especially since this last update. Everything they said about Guild Missions was all inclusive and many things they said addressed small guilds specifically. Yet, more and more I see small guilds being excluded from this content for guilds. No adjective there. Just guilds. And I want so badly to give Anet the benefit of the doubt but they refuse to speak to us; refuse to clear up the misunderstandings which leads me to believe that they are not misunderstandings….

I left WoW for many reasons but among them was Blizzard’s complete lack of honesty and respect for the playerbase. Things got so out of hand that it became common to see Mods heckling players on the forums. The Anet rep’s post here feels very ominous to me. Such a thing could have easily been communicated via private message. Also the fact that it is the only post from them and does not address this serious allegation tells me that they do not take their player base seriously. They do not care about what they communicate to their players. And most of all, they don’t care about their players concerns. Trust is extremely important between players and devs. Break it and you may never get it back.

To add my own thoughts in response to anet’s post:
A challenge is good. Difficulty is good. However, zerg fests and dps races are getting really old in this game. These “challenge events” feel lazy, half-done, and unoriginal.

Lazy because you made two of them that are exactly the same. For what purpose? One would have sufficed. If you wanted two separate events, you should have created something different for either Evon or Kiel. You made two completely different mini-games. Beautiful mini-games with a lot of skill and effort required. But you made one challenge event and pretended you had made two.

Half-done because the scaling is almost ridiculous. You just kept adding more and more of these mobs. There is nothing different from Tier 1 to Tier 4 with the exception of the number of mobs and their health pools. In addition, doing it with a group is harder than doing it solo. I have yet to complete it with either but I noticed a serious difficulty drop when I switched over to soloing it. If my group is coordinated and working together (which they were for the most part) it should be easier than soloing it. Want proof of that? Take a look at a plunderer’s health pool with 5 people versus 1. I can burn down a plunderer all by myself when I solo. When there are 5 people in there, 2 dedicated dpsers can’t down one before he goes and comes back even with as many CCs as we can muster being used.

Finally, unoriginal because this is no different than anything else in the game. When you go to a dungeon, bosses with the exception of AC, are just spam buttons until he dies. There is no strategy and no teamwork. There might be some dodging you have to do but beyond that, it’s nothing more than button spam. I thought the whole point of the changes to AC and boss encounters like in the Aetherblade Retreat was to get away from this button-mash system.

Regardless of whether or not this content is completable or not, I think this should be re-evaluated in terms of the goal and direction of the game as portrayed by Anet. If you want content to accessible to all classes and builds then all builds and classes should be taken into account. If I am supposed to be able to play the way I want, then I should not have to respec to complete this content. Changing out traits and utility skills, yes. But not completely respeccing my traits. If content can only be completed by a berserker warrior or if it cannot be completed by certain specs/classes then it should be told truthfully. (I am not suggesting that either of these are true about this content. I am making a point.)

If you want people to play in groups then you should encourage group play by making things easier for coordinated groups and discourage solo play by making it hard to do solo. Yes, you will lose players but riding the fence makes no one happy.

If you want people to enjoy your content, you should not make it a grind. Few people, if any, enjoy grinding. Having the same exact event twice with a different face and name on it does not promote happy feelings except in the few people who really enjoyed it and don’t care about repeating things.

Please step back and re-evaluate this.

I was going to make a thread about the new AC but I figured I should just add my thoughts to this one.

I did all 3 paths of this tonight with 4 guildies and 1 PuG. 3 80s and 1 46 and 1 60.
Overall, I loved the changes! Way to bring a faceroll dungeon up into the realm of challenging like explorable modes are meant to be without making it long and tedious. There were some things, though that probably should have been done better.

Spider Queen
I like the fact that she requires some kind of skill now more than just dodging out of her AoEs, however, her + the spider hatchlings is almost overkill. They are not exactly squishy and can easily zerg a person down in any small number. I would suggest either nerfing them in some way or keeping the queen from spawning until all hatchlings are dead. Of course that could be exploited so perhaps a timer after all hatchlings have spawned of maybe a minute thirty is better than all hatchlings being dead.

Kohler
So. Much. Better. Thank you for taking away the 5minute mindless spam.

Cave Troll
I only ran into him once and we let him and Kohler duke it out but from what I saw, he looks like a lot more fun.

Final Bosses-General
I love the way these were revamped. It’s fun to see the storyline actually being part of the final boss fight. The whole point was to help these guys find a clever way to take out the graveling king and now to see them actually using what we worked so hard to help them get is cool.

Howling King
Wonderful work here. It took my group a couple tries to figure out the mechanic but we had a great time doing it and now we know for next time.

Ghost Eater
I love, love, love the concept here. There are a lot of bugs though that need to be worked out. The traps don’t always activate and that leads to a fair amount of frustration. He also gets stuck when he has stacks of defiance up or at least that’s what my group was observing. He’s not easy to move around and he doesn’t react well to the traps.

Colossus Rumblus
(In another thread about this boss specifically, I read that his skill is meant to be interrupted and if that’s true then what I’m about to say may not be applicable.)
The concept I saw here was really good however, my group spent probably about 30min on this boss alone. Why? Based on what we saw in the first two paths, we thought we were meant to depend entirely on Grast. However, there are currently a lot of problems with this approach.
First, when you wipe, Grast does not reset. I believe this is a bug because Tzark does. So we constantly restarted with Grast already at 50% health.
Second, Grast and Tzark’s AI causes them to pull before we do resulting in combat starting before we’re ready.
Third, Grast is melee and the boss hits hard meaning he takes a lot of damage.
Fouth, Grast’s health pool is ridiculously low. He is probably one of the squishiest warriors I have ever seen and he doesn’t have the sense to stand in healing aoes or get away from the boss when it’s beating up on him or dodge anything.
We finally managed this with two eles with staves equiped as well as the resurrection signet spamming heals and a guard with healing gear also spamming heals. However, that is not a fight I would soon repeat. I would suggest fixing the bug on Grast, updating the AI on both npcs to stop ninja-pulling and giving Grast a bit more vitality and toughness.

Obviously, there’re some kinks and bugs that need to be worked out but overall, I think the changes are really good. I’d love to see something similiar done to the other dungeons.

Or did they disown me? The priory is on the scene, researching this strange alliance and the bizarre ongoings and yet… they didn’t call me. They had no task for a Magister of their order. They didn’t even have the decency to write to tell me personally about their findings. Even if they don’t need me, I’m still part of the priory. I love learning, research, and adventure as much as the rest of them but I have to seek out some silly priory robot thing to learn what in the world’s going on.

Likewise… The order of whispers clearly has covert operations going on but they didn’t call me up and ask me for help. I’m a Lightbringer—someone directly responsible for the downfall of Zhaitan but they don’t need my help. Instead, they enlist the help of random nobodies that happen to be wandering through the Black Citadel. What? They don’t even have the decency to tell me that I could be useful. Instead, I hear about it from the Heralds. How is it that they know more about what my order’s doing than I do? Especially when I’m one of the highest ranking members…

Drama aside, I really do feel like there was a huge missed opportunity here. You put the orders on the scene—orders that we joined but haven’t heard from since the defeat of Zhaitan. A new threat shows its face and they still carry on as if we’ve nothing to do with them. The Living Story is meant to bring the world alive. Overall, it’s been extremely underwhelming. The Personal Story took place in the world too and I distinctly recall a dev commenting on the fact that the living story gets complicated because of the events of the personal story. Despite that, there’s no point at which the two touch. They have no common storyline or characters. They are completely separate happenings. Here, we see our orders (the ones we are supposedly all-important members of) working hard to figure out what is going on and then fix it but they don’t call on us. They don’t even stop to tell us what’s happening. Instead, we’re told by our old mentors to seek out these silly gossip-mongers standing on boxes in cities for our information. Don’t we rate a little more than that?

You could have prolonged the fun of the living story and made it more relatable by pulling our orders into it. The questlines for the living story, once there actually were questlines, were easily finished in one evening. Then there was only the evidence left in the world. The events, the peri-sonic scope thingys, the dead and dying refugees, the foreverly broken sign posts, and the ice and dust storms. It just doesn’t feel life-threatening or important. There’s nothing relatable in it and I don’t feel needed. All these people send us mail at the beginning of the month, begging for help, claiming they’re swamped and don’t know how to handle anymore. Yet, when you go to them, there’s nothing to do. There’s too much drama for the tiny amount of activity. There could have been tons of mini-quests from our orders, or really from anyone, keeping the living story alive. But there wasn’t. When I compare the living story to the personal story, it falls extremely short. It seems like no one really needs us, they’re just sending us out with busywork to keep us out of their hair. My point is: the living story has fallen extremely short of expectations (at least for me) and the orders could have been an excellent tool for really bringing it to life but ultimately, they became a wasted opportunity.

maddoctor.2738:

A Guild of 6 members isn’t a guild though…

Why not? They call Destiny’s Edge a guild and they only have 5 members. A guild is a group of people who play together. 6 makes a group.

Shonie.5297:

Kasaeva.4691:

TurtleofPower.5641:

Sera.6539:

Having just tried a T1 bounty with my small guild. We had about 5 people for this. Don’t even bother unless there are people on the map willing to help you.

You can see in any guide that there are 15 targets to cover. Of course there’s a problem there if you did it with 5 people. Why not just rep a big guild and still hang with your buddies?

Why should we have to? This is the question everyone’s asking. Why did Anet make content exclusively for large guilds without a single thought for the small guilds made up of local friends and family? Is it so wrong for us to enjoy hanging out with people we know IRL and want content to do with them?

Because it’s larger scale content. I know it sounds strange, but many people like large scale content in MMO’s. Does everything in the game need to cater to incredibly small groups of people? What does the game currently offer for challenge to larger guilds? Absolutely nothing aside from guild missions. What’s achievable by a 5 person guild is meaningless to a larger guild. It would be too easy and rather boring.
If you’re so stubborn not to want to enjoy the content with a larger group of people, then go about getting your earrings with laurels and ectos. But don’t trivialize the content just because you don’t want to play with anyone outside your 5 person circle of trust.

It’s fine if they want to create content for huge groups of people. The problem is they advertised it for the generic term: guilds. Guilds come in all shapes and sizes. Since they did not specify large guilds it was assumed that the content was for all guilds, which is clearly not the case at this moment in time. Had they created and stated that the content was specifically for large guilds, it would have been assumed that content was coming for smaller guilds as well. Despite the fact that this content seems to have been solely created with large guilds in mind, there does not seem to be any plans for small-guild-oriented content.
The out-cry here is for Anet to be honest with us. If they only mean to create content for large guilds, they need to tell us so that the rest of us can stop wasting time in a game that is not meant for us. If they mean to create content or fix the current content for small guilds they should say that so that we can stop flooding the forums with questions and wait patiently.

In addition, I have no desire to trivialize content. Nor do I wish to take away the content from large guilds. I don’t think it would be hard to make it available to smaller guilds as well. If they scaled down the influence cost based on membership or scaled up the influence gain based on membership it would solve the initial problem of accessing it. Then, if they used their dynamic event scaling methods on the content (again, based on membership) it would also allow us to complete it. The two goals don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Lastly, there is no reason for you to be sarcastic and snippy. You are entitled to play the way you want to and your opinion and everyone else is entitled to the same. I merely questioned his assumption that large guilds were the only way to participate when Anet has not stated that. They advertised from the beginning that they wanted us to be able to ‘play the way we want.’ If that is true, then there should be no issue with us wanting to play content with a small guild.

Precursors are just depressing. I’ve gotten nearly all of the mats for my legendary except the precursor and looking at the prices is just completely depressing. The prices keep going up and up and up. Everyday it looks more and more hopeless. I farmed the dragon events and other chest events every day for nearly 2 months. I only ever saw 1 exotic. My friends all saw their precursors drop in dungeons. I was running a dungeon with a random group, this guy got a precursor and didn’t even know what it was. There’s nothing fair, good, or right about that. I’ve run hundreds of dungeons, done hundreds of group world events, killed thousands of mobs and gotten nothing. Then some brand-new 80 wanders into AC and goes, “Oh hey look at this.”

I don’t care if it’s meant to be a long-term goal. Long-term means after a long time you obtain it. Not, “Oh well someday you might possibly see some precursor drop.” I’m not even guaranteed that should a precursor drop it’ll be the one I want or that it will even be worth the amount I need to purchase mine. As is, it’s simply not obtainable unless you’re lucky, rich, or don’t mind zombie farming CoF every waking hour for 2months.

“You can’t possibly play forever and never see one drop,” you say? I don’t care how you do the math, it is absolutely possible for every roll you make to not be the ‘precursor roll’. It may be unlikely but I promise you it is possible and I am the kind of person it would happen to.

I also don’t care if you think what makes a legendary special is that few people have it. People who have put 0 effort into it have gotten precursors and the rest of us who have put hours into farming and hoping have gotten nothing. If I am willing to put that much work into it, I should be able to obtain my goal.

Anytime now on the “scavenger hunt” thing would be great… :|

All players are upleveled to 80 upon entering Southsun Cove. It can be accessed via an Asura Gate in Lion’s Arch.

The Frost and Flame story arc mostly took place in low level zones. Wayfarer’s is 1-15 and Diessa is 15-25. Or somewhere around there. I’m not entirely sure but I believe the concluding dungeon and the personal instances in the Frost and Flame story arc upleveled you or adjusted to suit your level as well.

So, to answer your question—no. The Living Story is intended and designed for everyone to participate and enjoy.

Shonie.5297:

If everything is scaled to accommodate the size of your guild, and content is done as easily in groups of 2 or 3 as it is with 30 or 40… then what is the point of guilds in the first place? I’m sorry this content doesn’t conform to the way you want it to work without the smallest bit of effort.

You still cannot access the content without a guild. It simply takes away the necessity of being in a large guild to complete it. There is no reason to force people to choose between content and friends—especially when said content has been advertised to be “content with friends.” Some people really love being part of the horde and some people actually have that many friends. Some of us really don’t love being part of the horde or managing the horde and would much rather laugh and strategize with a few friends. Both are perfectly normal and acceptable.

We don’t want content that is “easy” or requires no effort. We want content that is challenging but doable for whatever size guild we have. There are currently 6 people in my guild and I would like to be able to do this content with them. I’d like the challenge of coordinating and working together…with them.

TurtleofPower.5641:

Sera.6539:

Having just tried a T1 bounty with my small guild. We had about 5 people for this. Don’t even bother unless there are people on the map willing to help you.

You can see in any guide that there are 15 targets to cover. Of course there’s a problem there if you did it with 5 people. Why not just rep a big guild and still hang with your buddies?

Why should we have to? This is the question everyone’s asking. Why did Anet make content exclusively for large guilds without a single thought for the small guilds made up of local friends and family? Is it so wrong for us to enjoy hanging out with people we know IRL and want content to do with them?

Yes please! Give WvWers a WvW monthly and PvEers a strictly PvE monthly. That will take WvW specced players out of Fractals and PvEers out of the WvW queues. While I don’t see how it would really be an issue, if there was concern about giving players too many rewards per month, they could be made to be exclusive. Once you complete one the other becomes locked until the next month.

it’s 50 kills…..play for like an hour and you’d have it…..

Yes, it’s only 50 kills but you would be surprised at how difficult that is for some players. Not everyone is good at PvP. In fact, some of us are really terrible. The request is merely that we not be required to participate in one aspect of the game that we dislike (WvW) in order to participate in another aspect that we greatly enjoy (monthlies).

I agree with OP, however no one is required to do a monthly.

Yes, we are not required to complete monthlies. However, some of us enjoy completing monthlies and there’s nothing wrong with us requesting that they be made a little more accessible to us—especially since the aspect we are suggesting they change is not strictly PvE.

I see PvE players QQ all the time that they should get to play how they want to play and as such should not have to WvW to do 4 map completions. Look at it the other way, as a WvW player I have to take the time to do 32 PvE maps I have no use for. Eight time more maps then PvE’ers and nary a QQ from us.

The complaint is not that we have to complete them; only that in order to complete them, we have to be able to access areas that are often controlled by the enemy meaning we cannot complete them. However, this is off-topic. The discussion is monthlies; not map completion.

They already added a PvP monthly and daily for those who really prefer only to play SPvP. They award SPvP appropriate items for completion. While WvW and PvE are closely related, they are still two different aspects of the game and at the very least, consideration should be given to treating them as such. A WvW monthly could reward blueprints and badges or the like instead of Mystic Coins and Karma. It really could be a win-win situation for both parties. We should look at the possibilities here instead of bashing one another for not enjoying the part of the game that we enjoy.

I’d love to see vendors outside dungeons. Surely there’s someone in Tyria that would love to get their hands on the stuff we’re bringing out. You always end up with so much stuff in dungeons and there’s no where nearby to sell it. I know you can always waypoint or run to some vendor or visit wvw real quick. I also know you don’t have to be at the dungeon to enter it, however, someone has to open it. It’s just a matter of convenience—especially when your party’s in a hurry or you’re trying to get in as many runs as possible before the dungeon closes and you have to wait for the event.

To those singing Anet’s praises:

First, if you’re trolling, just quit. It’s not funny, edifying, helpful, or contributing to this discussion.

Secondly, if you’re here to puff up your ego, please do it elsewhere. I’m sure you could create a thread purely for celebrating completing the content. This thread is for discussing the pros and cons of the content.

If you’re not trolling or boasting, did you do it before or after the fix or both?

Did you really and truly enjoy the content?

Do you truly believe that such content should be temporary with only 2 weeks to complete it?

Do you feel satisfactorily rewarded for your time and effort?

Do you think the scaling was done appropriately?

Do you think the 4 tiers really should have been more of the same or could they have come up with more creative ways to make higher tiers harder?

Do you really think that having the content repeated twice was a good thing?

And do you believe that Anet’s stance as posted in the dev’s post here is truly the best way to deal with the issue of broken achievements and exploited content that is temporary and never returning?

The issue the rest of us are having with this content is that it is poorly implemented, it is not fun, we don’t believe the rewards are really worth our time, we disagree with the way groups are discouraged from doing this content, we disagree with the dev’s stance on exploitation and rushed content as presented in his post, and we wish they had told us upfront that this content was only meant for 1% of the community to complete. Very few, if any of us are saying that this content is too hard or impossible. So please quit putting words in our mouths and explain why you think this content is so marvelous and wonderful. Or better yet, post a detailed explanation of how you did it so the rest of us can complete it too. Thank-you.

Farzo.8410:

Only thing I dislike about this is that the achievement tab spoiled the whole story in mere 15 seconds reading them…

Not really. They don’t actually tell us anything. At most the surprise of seeing Canach again is spoiled and that there will be some sort of lair event/dungeon/personal instance. But we don’t know any of the details surrounding that event. We don’t know the whys, the wheres, the whens, or the hows. Personally, I feel like I have something to look forward to more than I feel like the story was spoiled for me.

I have a few questions.

1. Is there a reason that we cannot choose which missions we are interested in and pursue those first? As I understand the system, you have to unlock them in a specific order. Guild Bounties>Guild Treks>Guild Rushes>Guild Challenges>Guild Puzzles. Are they purposely tiered in this manner meaning that once we finally unlock Guild Puzzles they will be far more rewarding than Guild Bounties? If not, why are we forced to follow this chain? Why not allow us to pick which one we want to unlock first?

Especially since the first one is in the Art of War tree which many guilds have not invested in at all. If they have level 6 already in Politics, why force them to start at the bottom of Art of War instead of rewarding the dedication they have already shown? I read the dev post in the early pages of this thread and understand that you are planning to make Art of War applicable to all guilds; however, that doesn’t have any bearing on the situation as of right now.
The current situation is that many guilds are barred from Guild Missions because they unknowingly invested in the wrong things. No, it’s not a huge deal to put out the influence to upgrade Art of War in order to get there but why would you knowingly bar, or at the very least, time-gate, your PvE guilds from this brand-new feature that’s supposed to be so exciting without even a hint of warning? Why would you blatantly favor WvW guilds in this way? It’s not about whether Art of War will be useful to everyone in the future, it’s about the fact that right now you have excluded all non-WvW guilds from something that you advertised as fun and exciting for everyone.

2. Did you purposely throw small guilds under the bus? Is it your intent that all guilds be 200+ members? If not, then is it possible that a scaling system be implemented based on the number of members in a guild? For example, if you have 200 members it costs 50k influence but if you have 100 members it costs only 30k influence. Or perhaps the rate at which influence is gained could be changed. If there are 200 members each event earns 5 influence. If there are 100 members, each event earns 10 influence.

I am currently in a guild of 4 dedicated players and 2 weekenders. We also have 3 members who play every so often. After much deliberation, we’ve decided that as much as we had looked forward to February’s update for guild missions, we will be waiting. We don’t want to join a large guild and be lost in the crush and we don’t want to flood our own guild with random people. We like hanging out and playing with just each other. As things are, it’s going to take us about a month to unlock Guild Bounties which is a real shame because we were so excited about the whole thing. It’s also a shame because we had been looking forward to Guild Puzzles the most; however, it’s going to be probably about a year before we ever come close to unlocking that.

I understand that you want to make unlocking these missions a challenge by itself but for one thing, it’s not fun grinding and it’s something you’ve said you’re against. In order to get even the first of these missions unlocked, it requires a fair amount of grinding influence if you don’t already have it. For a small guild, the amount of grinding required is much, much greater. For another, it’s more than merely a challenge for small guilds. It’s a mountain we have to climb and while we do so, we watch larger guilds dance on their little hill celebrating one unlock after another. Surely we can find some middle ground here.

IVeracityI.8936:

I think an easier solution to this would be a sort of saved-outfit feature where you could equip different armor/weapon sets at the touch of a button. It’s fast enough to make out-of-combat weapon changing a snap, but doesn’t break their current style at all.

Plus it’d just be handy all around, for those with different armor/weapon sets that they switch through more than just the standard. (IE a S/A+Rifle Warr who occasionally uses Longbow. Or anyone with a MF set.)

This. Exactly. Although, I still think it would be easier to just put the alternate weapon slot in and lock it to only out of combat at least for the time being. Half of it’s already done. Something already set up and saved so that I can store 2 weapons sets and switch between them just by hitting a button only out of combat. We can already do that, this change only means we don’t have to open the character panel or bag panel to do it. If you want to restrict it to only pve, that’s perfectly fine too. I can understand why some might feel that such an option in pvp could cause an imbalance, particularly when abused. In my opinion, PvE is the only place we need it.

To say that I am frustrated would be a horrifically gross understatement right now. I have tried with groups, I have tried solo. I have tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. And yet I cannot for the life of me get past tier 3 and 4. So someone please please please please explain to me how an elementalist can do this. I need tier 3 and 4 for both candidates.

And Anet, please don’t ever ever ever make something like this again. Especially not something that you have to complete twice. This is the epitome of UN fun.

Yes please. There’s currently very little skill going into making a legendary and a lot of “lottery ticket wins” required. If I purchase or grind about 1~3k gold (depending on the legendary) then I can make a legendary. If you wanted us to purchase them from the gem store then you should have just made them available there instead of making it look like we could reasonably earn them through normal play.

Same is true here. Even the “Having trouble seeing this email? Click Here” link is broken. By the way, thank-you ioki for linking the survey!

This was also true for the invite a friend email and many other emails in the past. The first Halloween event email though worked. Hope arenanet can get it working properly; would be very nice and much more convenient.

Don’t see this one on the list..

Inspector Ellen Kiel: Tell me everything. These buildings seem to be the target. What’s inside?
Subdirector Noll: That information is strictly on a need-to-know basis. And mind your tone. The Consortium is the victim here.
Inspector Ellen Kiel: Fine. Have fun being trampled and eaten until someone who needs to know shows up.
Subdirector Noll: Wait, wait. Given the circumstances… These are simple storage depots. Tools, supplies, records…
Inspector Ellen Kiel: Why would wild creatures attack caches of tools, supplies, and records?
Subdirector Noll: Figuring that out is your job. And just so you understand the stakes—this isn’t an isolated incident.
Subdirector Noll: Our Southsun records on the mainland have also been targeted. Destroyed, in fact.
Subdirector Noll: The originals here are all that’s left. I’m having them collected so we can protect them, but I want Lionguard assurances.
Subdirector Noll: If the Consortium loses this important asset, the Captain’s Council will hear about your incompetence.

Anyone else notice Astorra was green out in Caledon but blue/purple in the instance? Or was it just me?

SoliSnake.9457:

Anet finaly introduced something that make a guild a guild!!

need influence? do dungeon and event with your guild mate!

stop crying!!

I need 30k influence and have 6 members to earn it with. Do you know of some way for us to accomplish that in a reasonable amount of time that doesn’t involve us changing guilds? Because like you said, the content gives something for guilds to do and our guild is the guild we want to do the content with.

Well having it so a group could faceroll through it is pretty much a zergfest in my opinion. That’s how a lot of the content in the game already is. This is only one out of maybe three DPS checks in the game. The other two being Simin and defend event on CoF Path 3.

I never said I wanted anyone to be able to faceroll through. Protesting the design of the fight is not the same as asking them to make it ridiculously easy. I don’t enjoy faceroll content anymore than I enjoy nearly impossible content. I prefer balanced content that is fun and requires more from a player than merely button mashing.

put what your problem is in bold. You’re expecting an event scaled up to FIVE people to be able to be done with two people who essentially carry the group with their DPS. You need the entire team working together and providing support and DPS.

You misunderstand. When you have two plunderers spawning at the same time, the logical conclusion is that you need to split your dps team but it’s a huge hassle to push your way through the mobs to the other side to kill the other one. By the time you get there, the next one on the first side will be spawning. If you have two dedicated DPSers on each one, you should be able to get them down. Especially if you can solo it in one pass while soloing.

Kasaeva.4691:
Finally, unoriginal because this is no different than anything else in the game. When you go to a dungeon, bosses with the exception of AC, are just spam buttons until he dies. There is no strategy and no teamwork. There might be some dodging you have to do but beyond that, it’s nothing more than button spam. I thought the whole point of the changes to AC and boss encounters like in the Aetherblade Retreat was to get away from this button-mash system.

Actually, there is strategy to AC and AR. It’s just that a lot of players are lazy and rely on exploits that essentially allow you to faceroll through past boss mechanics and just auto-attack.

Please re-read. I never said there was no strategy to AC and AR. I actually said that they were the exception and hinted that that was the kind of content I had hoped to see more of.

There are a lot of games that require you to change your game play to overcome an obstacle. People need to learn to adapt. From what I heard from people on the forums, one of the areas in GW1 after you beat Abaddon was extremely difficult. Players figured out the correct builds and they conquered it. You can still complete 95% of the game however you want.

That’s fine. I don’t have an issue with adapting personally. Especially since respecing is pretty cheap in this game. My issue with it is that they say one thing and do another. This is about them establishing a direction and sticking to it. I’m tired of chasing their ideas all over the map of directions for MMOs.

This isn’t really a grind. Most games actually have a grind because that’s what keeps players occupied. You can only realize content so quickly as to not overwhelm casual players or too slowly to bore hardcore players. If content is rushed then it’s more prone to bugs and quality often suffers.

I realize in hind sight that that portion of my post is a little confusing. I wasn’t actually referring to this content at the point but to the direction of the game in general. I apologize for diverting from the topic.

Wayfinder.8452:

Guild targets are random, MANY guilds can have the same target. The game cannot be modified to suite the needs of countless guilds so there are no guild exclusive targets.

If you are unlucky enough to have other guilds on your target it becomes rock paper scissors.

That is a terrible system. Perhaps what they need is a logging system that keeps track of which bosses have been assigned as targets and which haven’t. If all the bosses are currently assigned, you get a queue. If there are a ton of guilds though this could be a very long queue so maybe they should just instance the zones the bosses are in. That could also help them appropriately scale the bosses and ensure that all guild members got something from completion.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, the instancing could work really well. They could set it up like fractals except without a party. Every guild member online gets invited to join the instance when the hunt is started. Then it sends you to the first map, gives you the hint in chat and a timer. When the boss is dead, it teleports you to the next map. If you succeed, it rewards everyone, like dungeons. If you fail, well you fail. This would eliminate all competition with other guilds, allow for good and proper scaling because it would be based on how many players are in the instance, would ensure loot for everyone, and would still be out in the world to some extent.

Thoughts?

Why shouldn’t he get the rewards for the work he put in? He’s not saying, “It’s too hard—make it easier.” He’s not saying, “It’s too much—cut it back.” He’s saying he wants the same difficulty over more time. It hurts no one for him to earn the same as the rest of us at a slower pace. Yes, they are dailies but what is it to you if you earn 7 a week and he earns 2 a week? It’s the same amount of time and effort at a slower pace. Just like if I go and only kill 2 fireflies a day, I will eventually get to level 80. It will take me an extremely long time, but eventually I will get there.

Anet orginally said their goal was to make a game in which every playstyle would work. You could play the way you wanted to. He only has 30min a day to play. Why should he be punished for that? This is a game not a job. It’s meant to be fun. It should not be that you have to put “x” amount of time a day to get anywhere.

No, dailies are not required but neither is playing the game. Right now, dailies and monthlies are the only way to get certain end-game items. Thus, if you want to progress you need to do dailies. It’s not about how much work it is, it’s about making it accessible to everyone regardless of real-life time constraints.

Before anyone mentions it, no, I am not advocating that everything should be made available. Obviously dungeons require a certain amount of time investment that cannot be stretched out. Also, some of the story quests require longer amounts of time. Some things simply require larger time investments. However, dailies are already earned over a period of time. I am not required to go out and farm the daily only for 1 hour straight through. I can go out and kill a couple things, log off for an hour or even ten hours and come back to kill a few more things and they all count towards the daily. The only restriction is that I have to complete it within 24hours. I, however, don’t see what it would hurt to extend that time. If it takes him 4 days to complete it, he gets the rewards for 1 daily completion and has to wait until the next day to start the new one.

ThiBash.5634:

Anet is currently working on a more advanced version of this, that also allows players to swap trait builds and equipment, instead of just weapon swapping for eles.

It’ll take a bit longer, but all professions will benefit instead of just eles and engis.

Out of curiosity, where did you get your information? They have posted nothing to that effect to my knowledge and I’ve been keeping up with their posts fairly well since release.

That sounds overly complicated. There needs to be a set system of ‘do this and this and this and get a precursor.’ Whether that means that we obtain more mats to build it via crafting or have to accomplish certain tasks or something else entirely is up to the designers. Either that or it needs to be guaranteed after so many kills/dungeons/Forge attempts. RNG is a terrible, horrible system for anything as vital as this. Increasing RNG isn’t going to help matters.
In addition, if you want to avoid people trolling or farming then precursors and legendaries should simply be taken off the TP. The prices are completely inflated and ridiculous. If there was ever something that destroyed economy it’s something that’s worth practically nothing selling for hundreds of gold. If they don’t want to take them off the TP then let the market be flooded with them and drive the prices down. That would be a positive. Even anet has admitted that the prices on precursors are harsh and not quite what they had in mind.
The only thing that makes precursors so expensive is RNG. If precursors were more common, they wouldn’t be so expensive. If they were a guaranteed drop that was account bound, there would be no TP problem at all.

Wayfinder.8452:

Kasaeva.4691:

Wayfinder.8452:

Guild targets are random, MANY guilds can have the same target. The game cannot be modified to suite the needs of countless guilds so there are no guild exclusive targets.

If you are unlucky enough to have other guilds on your target it becomes rock paper scissors.

That is a terrible system. Perhaps what they need is a logging system that keeps track of which bosses have been assigned as targets and which haven’t. If all the bosses are currently assigned, you get a queue. If there are a ton of guilds though this could be a very long queue so maybe they should just instance the zones the bosses are in. That could also help them appropriately scale the bosses and ensure that all guild members got something from completion.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, the instancing could work really well. They could set it up like fractals except without a party. Every guild member online gets invited to join the instance when the hunt is started. Then it sends you to the first map, gives you the hint in chat and a timer. When the boss is dead, it teleports you to the next map. If you succeed, it rewards everyone, like dungeons. If you fail, well you fail. This would eliminate all competition with other guilds, allow for good and proper scaling because it would be based on how many players are in the instance, would ensure loot for everyone, and would still be out in the world to some extent.

Thoughts?

Highly unlikely given that the whole point of Guild Missions was to make people visit different zones and move the game away from instanced content such as dungeons, or at least I think so.

Still that would be a possible solution I guess.

I’m still curious how the whole guild target RNG works…

I was under the impression that the point was to provide content for guilds to do together. Large or small. The way it was implemented though has caused more grief than anything else.
One goal may have been to push people out into the world as well but, the point of pushing people into the world is to get them to do events and help out players questing there. If they are there on a timer to kill a specific target that could, at that very moment, be under attack by another guild, they’re probably not going to be very concerned with helping other people or doing events going on in the zone.

I can’t really speak fairly to the dungeons as I haven’t done many of them. However, as to the clocktower… I honestly would like to see something like that again. Yes. It took me 15hours to complete it. (total, not straight) However, the challenge was amazing. And yes, I wanted to give up and call it quits after the first several hours. But I didn’t and when I finally completed it, it was amazing. That feeling is the purpose of hard content. If you want to make an easier or ‘training’ version, I wouldn’t be against that. For example, they could have allowed you to climb the clocktower we sat and stared at while waiting just to get a feel for the climb before charging into the timed version. However, do not avoid making hard content because some people don’t want to put forth the effort to get it. If they really want it bad enough, they will put in the time and effort to get it. And they will be rewarded with that amazing feeling in the end.

Just as a side note, those were 15hours I would have spent ingame anyway. So what if I spent them climbing a clocktower while trying to outrun the nasty green fog that was ever on my tail?

Direksone.3867:

Matthew. While I understand where you are coming from I do not agree. Me and my guild play a lot of content together, we have no problems with any of the dungeons or fractals. Some of us do not play in the most optimal setup perhaps, but to each their own. We have tried several times doing the T4 and it wasn’t necessarely hard, but more that the mobs had WAY too much health. We were in the middle of the fray, not just killing the Plunderers, also trying to kill the veterans but it is kitten near impossible for us to burn two of them down before the next couple spawn. I seriously suggest you look into it again, because the scaling in terms of health is beyond ridiculous in my opinon.

I agree. This has been a common theme in recent content. New mobs that are being introduced all have higher health than in the rest of the word. Look at Southsun Shore. The health and skills on those guys are more similar to one level higher than in the rest of the world. By that, I mean that normals feel like veterans, veterans feel like elites, elites feel like champions, and champions feel like legendaries.

The same was true with all of the aetherblade content. At least in that dungeon, there weren’t too terribly many of them and we had a full group so it was doable and even enjoyable. However, run over to the jumping puzzle they introduced with the content and get into a tussle with the aetherblades there and you’re going to be hurting. Not to mention their ability to apply conditions, immobilize, knockdown, and damage is borderline overboard. This content with aetherblades is no different. They are scaled way above normal mobs in the world. Be careful or you will find yourself caught in an upwards climb of inflated numbers.

I definitely agree that the current state of precursor acquirement is terrible. There is absolutely nothing—zip, zilch, nada—legendary about purchasing it for 650g off the TP or throwing a bunch of exotics into the mystic forge or finding it on a mountain goat (or the equivalent). Honestly, that last one just makes me laugh. Did the mountain goat eat it or something? How does it end up with a precursor?? Realism aside….

There needs to be some serious work and thought put into changing the system for acquiring a precursor. I don’t think that completion of story quest is quite the right path though. Most everyone has completed the story quest and the quests are really not that hard. The idea of defeating an Elder Dragon is legendary but the actual path the story quest takes us on to slay the dragon is not really all that legendary—at least in my opinion.

I think the idea of Epic Quests that are maybe a scavenger hunt for rare items is a really good idea. Those items had better not be RNG based though. There needs to be certain tasks accomplished to get said items. Never in a book would you read that [ insert main character name here ] slew 100 boars and found [ insert magical item name here ]. They would have to go and consult with a powerful wizard or witch who would send them out to acquire certain relatively common items that would then create said magical item. Or perhaps traverse long forgotten ruins in order to retrieve the item. Maybe even slay an ancient beast or guardian protecting the item. I don’t think these quests should all be able to be completed solo. I know that puts a lot of people who prefer solo work in a hard place but every good fantasy/adventure book character has a party of followers or fellow adventures helping them. In addition, this is an MMO and part of an MMO—particularly GW2 as they emphasize community—is playing with other people.

It needs to be an epic journey filled with lore and history on the weapon you’re trying to create in order for it to feel like a legendary accomplishment to earn/create a legendary. More than anything else, it should be challenging. Not just to persevere through terrible loot droprates but to actually play the game. I’m not saying only hardcore players who spend hours tweaking their stats to get them just right should be able to accomplish it. I’m saying it needs to challenge you to explore every facet of your class and character and call upon all your skills in order to succeed.

Yes! Ironically, I just made a post about this a little while ago. Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks so!

Gisei.5749:

I wonder if these incredibly small guilds (aKa. less than full parties)complain that they can’t complete a dungeon because they don’t have 5 players, and shouldn’t have to ask for help from pugs. It really is the same concept.

Guild missions are made as Group Events. A public group event. Emphasis on the public, and group. 3 people aren’t a group. 5 players are a dungeon party. Think bigger. 8 players is more like it.

My guild was able to rally a whoppin’ 8 players for our first round of T1 bounties. We successfully completed them, without cheating. We are an incredibly small guild, managing 8 players for a scheduled event. Any smaller than us, and you’re not a guild, you’re a fancy dungeon party.

And I thank you Anet on behalf of my guild. The only thing holding us back was influence. This will no longer be a problem. It has made all the difference.

Had Anet made a statement to the effects of “X number of players constitutes a guild by our definition.” Or “Guild Missions are intended for x number of players and up.” I would agree with your argument. When you go to enter a dungeon it says right on the popup that it’s for 5 players. As far as I am aware, Anet has said nothing to that effect and there is no recommended number on Guild Missions anywhere else.

Also, I’d like to know who died and left you to decide how many constitute a guild or a group. In real life, people tend to refer to any more than 2 as a group, meaning 3 could very well constitute a group. Also, Destiny’s Edge is only 5 and is referred to multiple times as a guild. Even if you count Snaff, it’s only 6 which is less than your count.

That said, I do believe this addition is a solid step towards opening guild missions up to smaller guilds.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Wow, everyone just wants it easier.

Pretty disgusting

How is purchasing it for 600g off the tp harder than completing the story questline? Especially if, as many here have suggested, legendaries are given their own questlines that are exeedingly harder than personal story. Unless you actually farm the gold that is. Even so, grinding may be tedious but it isn’t exactly hard.

Shonie.5297:

Is there even any reasoning with you?
I look back to my 6 years playing FFXI and remember nothing of value could be accomplished without large group effort. Threads like this and posters like you would be laughed out of the forums. Fast forward a few years and all of a sudden people think it’s legitimate to complain about everything they don’t like in a game as if it’s somehow possible to please millions of people in the same game. As if all content is amazing for every gamer out there.
It’s pretty simple really, either do the content or don’t. If there’s content you want to do and there’s prerequisites for the content (having enough people), then get enough people. The devs clearly wanted to add larger group content to the game. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t. Go on playing like the content isn’t there and if you feel you need the earrings, save up your laurels and ectos.

1) This is GW2—not any other game.
2) This thread was created by Anet themselves for the sole purpose of voicing concerns and opinions on Guild Missions. Just because someone’s concerns and opinions are not yours or agree with yours does not make them less valid or valuable. Perhaps you don’t mean to come across as condescending, but you are and it really is uncalled for.

That said, I would counsel all of us to stop answering this poster at the risk of this becoming a flame-fest and the mods put an end to it.