Guild Wars 2

Sladeakakevin.4162:

What kind of gear do you use?

PVT all the way.

My Engineer/Mesmer is gonna kick some booty!

Disregarding the uncomfortable fact that there’s more to GW2 than PvP and not all PvE is encapsulated in Boss Fights and Dungeon Runs…

Becoming overly fixated on a single build’s weakness while failing to see that every build will have a weakness to some other Profession/Build or Tactic…

Ignoring that individual player skill is the wild card and not some monolithic or consistent value in the game…

Failing to acknowledge the cognitive dissonance in the arguing against point defensive builds in PvP Game Modes that are at least 80% dependent on capture point objectives…

Or you can just play smart and allow a class with excessive damage mitigation / stability to go in and wreck the turret engi ON point, namely Ranger/Warrior/Engi/Ele.
Turret engi’s are bad, period….

…Also, warriors should have been able to get rid of the turrets no problem.

• Condition based professions get nullified by cleansers…

• Zerks get stalled by Bunkers…

• Bunkers get melted by boon removers and condition appliers…

• Everyone can kite or be susceptible to being kited….

• Every build dedicated to just countering one type of opponent will be vulnerable to others…

• Dodging…

insanemaniac.2456:

the smart players avoid you, because they know 1v1ing you will take too long. you arent fighting against good people. when you get 3v1’d, thats when youre fighting the good players, because they know bursting your turrets down overpowers you. so of course you feel like you win a lot of 1v1s.

its a really bad cycle of thought.

Strange, I’d consider that 3 Enemy Players that pulled themselves away from other objectives in order to gang bang my control point is the definition of success in and of itself. After all, even “skilled” players have to deal with the chore of weakening my hold on a point. I’m not rolling over for them or routinely melting under their onslaught because their attention is very often divided. That’s my thinking on it.

I was a combat engineer in my army days; tank traps, bridge demolition, battlefield obstacles, etc were all about slowing the enemy down as much as possible.

To my way of thinking, if it takes extra enemy bodies to wipe out my position, then I am helping my Teammates in that way as well and opening up capture opportunities for them. The more time the enemy spends trying to fight my Turrets and chasing me around, the better.

insanemaniac.2456:

the game overall is a team game yes, but when you die in a 1v1 (which you will be in often) youre giving your opponents a lot of slack room to work with and push for huge advantages. you need to be competent at fighting, and so many turret engis just arent, because of their lack of experience and their build.

I can’t disagree, but I haven’t found myself dying very often and I’ve been getting good results thus far. I think part of the reason is opposing players get “freaked” about all the turrets because they are more familiar with Nades and Bomb Engies.

Yes, I have been in quite a few matches where the enemy swooped in and wiped out my on-the-Point Turrets and pressured me heavily enough to down-state me. I never expected to be invincible, so I can roll with the punches. Usually enough time can be bought in these “losing fights” so my fellow teammates can respond or I can slap Supply Crate down upon Rally.

zaced.7948:

Peutrifectus.4830:

you mean this kind of hate?

that’s not hate, that’s my experience from playing ranked. turret engis do have some advantages over some specs but on average this build is performing badly against any kind of half-decent ranged spec or anybody with stunbreaks/stability/evades. stance warrior barely gets scraped before the engi dies to conditions or is taken out by cc himself. ele destroys the turrets before he’s even half through with blasting might. grenade engineer can simply either kill the turrets from range or take out the turret-engi with condis from afar. zerk- or condi-mesmer can easily kill a turret engineer without coming near his turrets. and that’s just the classes i play and i’m not exactly the pinnacle of skill. while turret engi in fact is very good at keeping you off the point he’s easily killed which makes him nothing more but a mediocre staller since you can just cap afterwards. not even talking about wrecking any turret engi that is moving between points and unable/unwilling to drop his turrets offpoint.
from what i have heard from other engi-players and can confirm myself from experience (i main engi since the beginning of time) is that the turret build has a low skill ceiling and can be outplayed quite easily once you know how the build works (merely counting the intervals between turret attacks and the cds of the turret skills as well as knowing the animations mixed with a single stunbreak for when you miscounted gives you an advantage over this build that the turret engi can’t overcome) since you’re dependant on the ai in the end and ai can be easily outplayed.
edit: i am not talking about builds that utilize a turret but about full-turret-builds that horribly lack utility.

I guess I fail to see the problem, it’s not a 1v1 match, it’s team play with various other other Professions and no Profession is consistently strong in all areas at the same time.

So having people blow their CD’s dealing with an Engie on Point opens that player up being susceptible to attacks from the Engie or other opposing players.

I mean, come on! Take any build for any Profession and you can say the exact same thing! There’s always going to be counters and a means to overcome them. Turret Engies are no different. Yes, in general Engies lack Condition Removal, and yes, Turret Engies can be vulnerable if their Turrets are all destroyed and on cooldown. But, so what? Every build will have some blindspot or weakness.

For my Turret Engie, I didn’t blindly dump everything into Turrets at the expense of anything else…I spent a full line on Firearms and rely on Power/Toughness/Vitality, forgoing Crit Chance and Condition Damage.

The Traited Rifle is a great Power based weapon for Engies, when you have Traited Turrets, it’s even better.

I’m not claiming this is the only way or best way to play an Engie; but it is an effective way. The enemy has to pay for trying to take a control point in PvP. And in PvE, it’s just fun as hell.

johnsonade.9547:

Maybe just you are upset at the Turret engi hate, Kuldebar. I’m pretty sure you understand why they are hated, otherwise you wouldn’t be posting a list of positives about them. Of course turret engies are strong and a benefit to their team if played well. But anything that consistently beats most classes in a 1v1 in our only current pvp play mode on a point, especially newer people is going to get hate. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t master it though.

The devs know how strong turret engies are and either they are going to nerf them or they are going to give classes other tools to deal with them. The reason rangers got buffed in the first place is because the devs want more equal representation. If turret engineers are left to dominate low level PvP in the expansion, it’ll make that game mode barren. Turret engies aren’t much of a threat to top level pvp currently, otherwise every top level team would have one and we would get some more significant nerfs in this version.

But for real, be careful of posting threads and arguing down everyone that disagrees with you that doesn’t like turret engineer builds. Not saying you’ll do that. Not saying you’re not free to do that. But it tends to get pretty childish really quickly and it just tends to look a bit self-aggrandizing.

Either way, if you’re happy with your wins and kills, you’ll have to just tolerate the hate and report when it gets out of hand. I’ve received the same hate and I just had one turret on my utility bar. People think turret engineers are bad for the game, and nothing is going to change their minds outside of being able to beat turret engineers at least 50% of the time in 1v1 scenarios without drastically changing their builds or bringing more APM to the table.

Hmmm, so you’re preaching to me (rather lengthily) about the virtues of being non-provocative in this forum?

I find that your post is reasonable but ultimately skewed because it utterly gives a free pass to the “hate” that has been rather well illustrated.

Now I see no reason to NOT play the Engineer in this way, in fact, most people don’t play the Engineer in this way because (as near as I can tell) peer pressure/condemnation.

Sure, kits are great, I’ve played that way, but Turrets are nice as well and their mechanics aren’t as clunky as kits.

insanemaniac.2456:

…carried by their PITA AI and unable to win a duel on their toon with any build against anyone.

I’m sure there’s no hyperbole to be found here! /not

Look, you may as well join a line forming up to whine about Mesmer Clones/Phantasms, Necro Minions and any other Profession ability that lies out of the absolute and direct control of the player.

Adding to that line of whine would be all the Guardian and Warrior abilities that offer 100% Blocking/Damage Mitigation, as well Health/situation threshold proc abilities offered up by Sigils/Runes and Traits in general…

Oh, and I’m sure there’s quite a bit more to add to the list.

Look, I’ve played various builds with Engies and just recently decided to try out the “repugnant and taboo” Turret-centric build.

I specialized in Rifle and Turrets… (not the “meta” build with the Alchemy Traits, BTW. )

My Engie has a high Power rating, high Armor and Vitality. His Turrets are armored, do extra damage, have max range, auto-repair and blow the hell up when destroyed by enemies. It’s ridiculously fun to play.

I also play this build in PvP and have to say, it’s pretty kitten ed effective for holding points. A little tactical forethought means you can be mobile as well and not necessarily “stuck” to one location. (Pro-tip: when leaving an area, pick up your turrets instead of detonating them, this reduces your cool-down significantly.)

I tried the Grenade/Bomb builds but all the flipping/rolling about became rather silly to me. Besides, everyone seems to be playing their Engies that particular way.

Sorry if this post offends some people, but I’m not gonna apologize for playing an Engineer in this way.

To me, an Engineer is about:

• Being a bulwark via inventions and tactical sensibility.

• Grabbing a defensible plot of land and holding onto it tenaciously.

• Offering a relatively safe haven or respite to fellow adventurers.

• Being a general PITA to the enemy by being more than just a speed bump.

Lifestealer.4910:

Necro: nothing of value

An overstatement at best, total rubbish at worst.

Some people don’t actually “play” games anymore, they min/max accounting and play like little robots attempting to maximize every narrowly defined “efficiency” that their skewed views identify. Think of a bunch of tax accountants playing Monopoly…yeah, how exciting!

And, yes. ANet fails (via dev direction contribution) when they cater to this silliness by caving into the teaming meta-lemming masses. It’s all quite understandably human and sad.

The Necromancer being useless in dungeon is has become a “truism” solely by virtue of being a GW2 cliche.

I’ve leveled 2 Necro’s to 80, and I have seen this “fact” being regurgitated and spread like cholera from one unclean body to another.

People create their own echo chambers of self-fulfilling expectations or the lack there of…

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1dv4sp/why_are_necromancers_considered_so_bad_for/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-New-Appreciation-for-Necros

Junk items are vendor trash and you can make some coin off them…not sure what there is to complain about.

These items are certainly not worthless or useless:

Junk items are trophies that mostly drop from slain enemies and have no utility other than being sold for coin at merchants. Junk items can be identified by grey colored text in the item’s tooltip. They cannot be salvaged and will stack with themselves. All junk items are soulbound to the character upon pickup.

Most junk items dropped from enemies are split between 3 different tiers, similar to the manner crafting materials and salvage items, allowing stronger monsters of the same type drop different and more valuable loot.

Junk item tiers often have similar names (or even the same name, such as Hoof), but are worth different prices.

A few trophies that are used for events are incorrectly labeled as junk items.

Some crafted bags, such as Oiled Leather Packs, will fill with junk items before other items if possible.

-wiki

Look, I didn’t “care” about PvP either, until I tried it, and guess what? I loved it!

PvP matches are quick and rewarding and you will find yourself getting better at it if you stick to it at your own pace. You will get all sort of PvE related rewards depending on the reward track you choose.

For two years since launch I avoided PvP and stick with WvW and mostly solo PvE, unranked PvP has really help diversify my game. I still do everything else I enjoyed but I usually always run a few if not more matches a day on one or more of my characters. (level doesn’t matter)

Yes, ANet does “push” things a lot, but every now and again, I can understand why. Players often get set in their ways and stuck in ruts, sometimes they need to go outside their comfort zones in order to refresh their game experience.

Azhure.1857:

SpyderBite.6274:

UnitedChaos.8364:

Gold: Those days when getting gold was tough are gone.

When was getting gold tough??

Back during the first days and months of GW2. The days when collecting silver was an accomplishment. Gold was exciting.

^ This. Gold was not always as easy to acquire. I can usually get 10 gold a day without even trying, not something I was doing on my first 80 two years ago.

Goose.8195:

Unlike a sinking ship you can simply drag your thousands of “unneeded” fragments off the inventory screen in about 2 minutes and press the “delete” button. Problem “solved.”

Except that I won’t ever do that until I actually have to do so, because games do get patched after problems are presented and NOT swept under the rug.

Where some people see no problem, many players do.

ANet made the decision to account bind these mats and give them no vendor monetary value. Before adding silly band-aid “fixes”, why not just do a little table editing in the loot database?

If ANet doesn’t want to go that route, the Mystic Toilet is another alternative.

Look, the time that was spent creating the SoG quest and item to get rid of ONE TYPE of excess crap item…could have been spent on adding a Mystic Forge RNG recipe so that we could dump four stacks of this stuff into it at a time.

Goose.8195:

It’s literally 15 minutes of your time to help fix one of your storage issues…

I don’t like everything in-game either but when something so easy gives me such benefits I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit of my day to get it done.

But it won’t “fix” it.

3-6 stacks of 50 a day; let’s be nice and say 300 empyreal fragments a day…considering the current inventory I have of the stuff plus my accrual rates; I may as well be paying off 30k in credit card debt by making minimum payments.

Don’t give me a thimble and have me start bailing water on a sinking ship; and certainly don’t call that thimble a “fix”

Conaywea.5062:

this happens because no life people abuse good rewards , like Silverwastes right now

I’m really annoyed that people keep making this type of argument. The same thing is said of EotM, “Players created the problem, they are greedy just want karma/XP trains, yada yada…”

Give me a break! Players do what players always do in games, they optimize and maximize potential. Game designers, you know those guys that actually DESIGN the game, have to be able to predict and understand how players play games.

So please, give this silliness a rest.

Just accept the reality that players will play the ever-loving freak out of a game as it is delivered to them. Dev intentions are ultimately meaningless, it’s only the design that matters, and only the design can effectively change things.

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, both would sink and the scorpion would drown.

The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the position that no change can be made in the behaviour of the fundamentally vicious.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Quality > quantity.

I’d rather have one rare and useful item every once and then, say, 2-3 per day or week, and feel extremely satisfied with it, than getting spammed with clickable junk that spams more clickable junk that overloads my intentory with valueless runes, valueless skins and valueless materials. You can’t even sell them when they are sellable, because of how common they are.

When you have items like Mawdrey II, that consume massive amounts of “precious” materials for even more junk, and players are satisfied to transform overly common non-tradeable junk for tradeable junk, then you know the reward system in this game is not doing something right.

I agree. ANet is spamming rewards left and right…which is a fast food approach to game design. The rewards are trivial and of little value because most of it is unusable and unwanted.

I don’t craft or do fractals; yet I have copious amounts of account bound crafting materials, some of which have no assigned crafting bank slot so have to take up space elsewhere. Other than destroying the mats, which I detest that idea, I keep getting more of this useless “ascended junk”.

For people who say, “Well just get Mawdrey 2 or SoG!” Please, just stuff it, I’m not going to “craft” in order to get rid of crafting materials I don’t use because I don’t craft. Neither am I going to spend the roughly 100-150 gold on materials to make Mawdrey 2.

As for SoG…I don’t do jumping puzzles, if I wanted to play an arcade game, I’d play an arcade game.

Finally, it should be noted, that both SoG and Mawdrey 2 only get rid of ridiculously small amounts of only a couple of the problematic material types.

ANet put in the Mystic Forge for a good reason, they need to make it even more useful.

Just let me put four stacks of this crap in the Mystic Toilet for RNG rewards already!

Problem solved.

Castrin.8972:

LOL!

This is funny since I see almost everyone that complains about the current trait system point directly at the “do this to unlock _ trait” process as the worst part of it.

Peace.

Yes, you do see a lot of complaints, but it’s not the unlocks so much as how and what Anet decided to tie the Trait/Skill Unlocks to…being polite, it was a trashy job:

• Unlock tasks are often in map zones that are levels out of sync with the character level.

• Unlocks are often tied to broken or narrow event windows.

• Traits are level gated, often making for some really dull game-play for pre-80 characters.

• Traits Unlocks are treated the same for all Professions, not given lore appropriate of game world rationality.

• Vendor coin/SP costs are extremely high for newer player characters.

There’s a whole thread…but I implore you to see what people are saying; it’s not the Unlock mechanism that’s riling people up, it’s how ANet implemented it.

The original Guild Wars Elite Skill Hunting appealed to many GW2 players, but not this hodge-podge, tacked on system we have now.

Immensus.9732:

level progression is necessary for the skill and traits system

Well, actually it isn’t. The only reason it has any relationship in the current game is because it was gated out that way.

Trait and other Skill/Ability unlocks could be tied to any number of requirements, character level is but one of many possibilities. (Log your low level character into HotM and see for yourself.)

@Galphar:

Yes, every-time I load into the PvP Lobby I am struck by how silly the idea of leveling is when the game already has an unlock system in place that could have been further refined.

If everything else remained virtually the same, but with no levels, the game would have earned its place as a true MMO maverick.

After all, nearly all the foundations were in place at launch for a solid horizontal progression based game. Perhaps with a few tweaks:

• The Karma system could have become far more meaningful (assuming it wasn’t so dumbed down)

• Gear would still have stats and the same tier system but no longer tied to levels

• More unlocks could be added where they made sense. Example: rare quality gear could unlock with the first Master Trait Unlock

• Crafting would become more meaningful (with a few adjustments) because crafted items would remain useful for longer periods instead of being quickly out-leveled by the user

• Players might actually have greater interest in dungeons.

• The whole hassle and headache of level scaling would go away, ANet could spend more time tuning challenge levels in PvE and less time trying to make “level appropriate” mobs.

• Trait unlocking could have been more like the original Guild Wars and less…then what we have at present

• Maps wouldn’t be avoided for level reasons anymore, no more content dead zones because maps are “out leveled” or deemed unrewarding

• Everything thing in the game would have become more meaningful, unlocks, skins, best in game gear, all of it would matter more.

DeceiverX.8361:

The hearts are a grind, though. It’s basically the same thing as “go kill 75 rats” except you don’t need to talk to the NPC to get the quest and its exp reward.

Grind is a virtually meaningless term now days…because it can literally mean anything. Having played MMO type games since the early nineties, my definition of “grind” will be somewhat different; certainly different than a player who is generally newer to MMO’s.

I personally wouldn’t label “Hearts” as grindy solely because there are various and sundry ways to complete them, often in conjunction with an ongoing event. It’s not rare that Hearts are completed before ever interacting with the Heart NPC.

But, having conceded that "anything’ can be considered a “grind” in this silly gamer world, I will leave that aside and say I mostly agree with your post.

tim.1280:

The most important thing to remember as a player who has played since the begining and still enjoys to level up, is don’t rush to the end game. Try a bit of everything as you go along -> Everything gives exp.

I would generally agree with this except now since the Trait/NPE changes, leveling a character deliberately (taking the time to smell the roses) is far less enjoyable due to the restricted Trait, Skill and Level gating limitations.

Before there was indeed a feeling of freedom, I find that now to be far less than it was…your character is truly unfinished until level 80, before there was a sense that you were actually growing stronger.

Now it makes for a rather unsatisfying experience which is why I advocate that you get to 80 as soon as possible and settle into a Trait Build and THEN explore the world.

• the loot is better at 80

• you have a full skill set and build to meet the challenges

• you have access to the best armor/weapons

• map exploration is wide open for you

• gold is easier to acquire

• The entire personal story can be completed at your leisure instead of being level gated.

• You can more readily Unlock Traits via SP’s/Gold or the Task Challenges

Farzo.8410:

You can’t get kitten from the store with your gold, it just costs far too much. That being said, you don’t need to spend real cash, but the option almost forces you to take that option before the other.

I don’t do dungeons, just PvE, EotM and PvP. I make plenty of gold.

I buy gems with gold quite often. In the last three months:

• I “bought” two Living Story Chapters I had missed.

• Three Cosmetic makeovers kits

• 10 Transmutation Charges

• a few BLC Keys

I currently have about 50 gold because I spent 17 gold on some 5 Transmutation charges yesterday (they were on sale for 105 gems.)

Leveling and character progression used to be the greatest part of the GW2 experience for me. That was changed with the Trait and NPE “feature packs”.

I still play the game for HOURS each day. Why, you may ask?

Because I still have fun but I had to make some adjustments to how I play my characters.

Where before, when I could ramble about as I leveled and gained traits, I now have adjusted my play style as follows:

• Accelerated leveling in order to lessen the duration of time spent with a dearth of Traits, Skills or access to other game elements.

I accomplish this by running EotM trains on the character or Unranked PvP in HotM for Level-up Tomes and Skill Point Scrolls. I also do a bit of low level map completion and the dailies that pop up every now and again.

• I am more focused on accumulating gold via the gathering crafting materials and selling them on the Trading Post.

I do this so I can afford to purchase “must have” Traits from the Retrainer Merchant. It helps to have a higher level character to do the work of farming, but gold is relatively easy to come by via the TP.

Traits can be unlocked via in-game tasks, but many are woefully out of sync with a character’s level and map exploration.This makes for a disjointed play experience if you attempt to venture forth and unlock specific Traits.

Some Trait Unlocks are sporadically discovered during game-play but aren’t immediately useful or desired.

• I do PVP a lot more now.

PvP is very rewarding. The reward tracks and Tome and Skill Point scrolls as well as loot container rewards make it a good way to advance and fund your new characters.

• I WvW a lot less. (EotM doesn’t count as open WvW for this bullet point)

Open world versus world PvP is just not worth the time. It’s slow, plodding and unrewarding if you compare time spent with reward gains. (EotM is comparatively faster paced and vastly more rewarding.)

Closing thoughts:

I still enjoy the game, but the enjoyment is post-80 with all my core traits and a solid build for my characters.

The NPE skill locking killed some of the early fun because it limits your choices for weapons and “play style” at the onset of the game. This usually means I just resort to two-handed weapons for the first few levels, etc.

The “dumbing down” of difficulty has hurt the game as well because it makes the early maps into a rather boring experience due to things like:

• Mob difficulty/abilities nerfing

• Watering down Heart/Event challenges

• Game Element level locking: Skill Point Challenges/Vistas/Underwater/Resource Gathering, etc.

• Lack of “excitingly dangerous” content (RIP Champion Troll)

I love the idea of Cultural Armor, the unique look to reflect each of Tyria’s playable races is cool and immersive…but it falls short in the following areas:

• It’s expensive, costing coin. Why not Karma? After all, Karma reflects the efforts you have made helping out your home and allies.

(Tier 1 Set: 2.88 gold/ Tier 2 Set: 7.7 gold/ Tier 3: 119 gold) <—that last step is a doozy!

• Stats are limited. They should be select-able stats (all gear should be!) before equipping. Or, make them skins, like the WvW stuff.

• Tier 3 is Rare Quality not Exotic, for the cost, this is unacceptable.

• Not really sure why we need three “tiers” of Cultural Armor, level 80 Exotic would suffice.

It’s only gets expensive if you manage to miss a lot of episodes.

I was away from the game for more than six months during the last parts LS1 and the beginning parts of LS2, I had to buy two chapters because I hadn’t been logging in; I did this by buying gems with gold; it was relatively easy.

200 gems is not a lot…and you can make gold in the game fairly easy even prior to 80.

I find the execution of the Collections system to be rather schizophrenic in its implementation.

The idea that you have to get an object from a vendor to “start” some collections, while others just require the collectible makes for an irritating inconsistency.

The drop rates of some items are repetitious while others are virtually non existent.

Collectibles should just go straight to the collection and not be inventory items.

I am not a big fan of mini’s that don’t make “logical sense” in the game world…like the miniature human Queen Jenna…or Rytlock or stuffed animals, I mean wtf?

First off, it’s rather disrespectful to make an effigy of a esteemed person into a a “pet” but to each their own.

Now mini critters/animals, sure…they are pets. Or magical objects, I can incorporate that into my fantasy world view just fine.

I’d like to see more profession based mini’s. That Shadow Fiend mini is awesome for my non-minion build Necromancer. I’d like to see similar treatments for other professions.

It’s meh…a whole bunch of meh.

Look, the time that was spent creating the quest and item to get rid of ONE TYPE of excess crap item…could have been spent on adding a Mystic Forge RNG recipe so that we could dump four stacks of this stuff into it a time.

So, ya, thanks ANet, but please stop “breaking our legs” and then hand out band aids as a fix.

Signed,

Not Grateful

Um, it’s a cheaper Mawdrey II for those who can stomach Jumping Puzzles…but like M2, it’s woefully ill-equipped to handle the task at hand.

Come on! 3-6 stacks of 50 a day? And Mawdrey 2 costs about 100-150 gold in mats to craft. SoG maybe be “cheaper” but it still is just as anemic.

Just let me put four stacks of this crap in the Mystic Toilet for RNG rewards already!

Problem solved.

I want a better method of getting rid of this stuff. I don’t craft and I don’t want to spend money on materials to craft Mawdrey II especially with its rather limited utility (3-6 stacks of 50 a day! wtf?). The Star of Gratitude is on par but requires the Jumping Puzzle game mode which I do not do.

My point is this: stop tying QoL enhancements to specific game modes.

For frackin’ sakes, let me put four stacks of this crap in the Mystic Toilet for RNG rewards.

Not to be dismissive, but “farming” for Bandit Crests can be achieved simply by playing the Silverwastes Map. Nothing special needs to be done,just actively roam or camp areas as you wish and use shovels and keys during “down” times between map events.

Arietta The Broken.1875:

It’s all about trial and error. If you spend a few hours playing a day I’m pretty sure you can work out how to:

Complete a heart
Res someone
Use the TP
Travel to LA!
Use Waypoints
Play the game ._.

ANet should implement Starter Dailies for new accounts that task the new player with basic stuff.

Essence Snow.3194:

Vendor price would help increase inflation as many would simply do just that.

They should constantly balance item rewards with sinks. Rewards aren’t Ronco Rotisseries you can’t “set it and forget it” and expect it to be perfect.

The material is inflationary by its existence in the sense it is a “glut” that is of little value to players like me.

The Mawdrey II solution was a good idea…but it’s simply not up to the task and I think it crazy that I need to craft an item to get rid of crafting mats that I have accumulated because I don’t craft. :{

For frackin sakes, just let me mystic toilet flush 4 stacks at a time for rng vendorable crap!

OmniPotentes.4817:

You have 2 choices: stash it, or trash it. There is no other alternative. You don’t craft, you don’t want to go for Mawdrey. As things are it sure looks like a big waste of good storage space.

Totally agree with your assessment, I just wish ANet didn’t force this type of “problem” upon me…I mean for supposed “ascended” materials…they seem rather mundane and of little worth.

Why is crafting a mandatory game mode, alternatives are nice, aren’t they?

Can’t we just get a vendor price?

Sandpit.3467:

Star of Gratitude is trivial to get so no reason not to have it.

Meh, jumping puzzles..not my thing.

Wanze.8410:

The took EMpyrial fragments and dragonite ore off the loot table from chests in eotm with the wintersday patch.

Did they? Good to know, but I don’t have an affinity for any of the three mats, so I can only notice I’m still getting these items at a fairly substantial rate. I PvP, WvW, Boss fight and salvage a lot on my various characters.

Linken.6345:

well you can always farm the trees and sell on tp for profit and less fox fires to buy

I don’t really craft, and I sell nearly everything I gather on the TP; not really interested in “crafting” in order to get rid of crafting items.

Linken.6345:

what is it that cost so much the fox fires or are you buying the already crafted thing from tp?

Yes and even if I had to go “farm” for the materials to make Mawdrey…it’s simply not worth it or fun. I find it rather ludicrous that I would have to resort to buying or farming expensive mats just to get rid of crap materials.

May as well ask me to dig a hole in the ground and fill it back up again…

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

If you’re getting 150+ Empyral Fragments per day, you’re doing something silly. Chest hunting doesn’t reward well except in Empyral.

As for mawdrey, you can craft multiples of them. Each has their own separate limits.

I haven’t been keeping count of how many of a particular type of material I am getting each day, I can only attest that it is too much.

As for Mawdrey II, that’s nice to know…but at the 100-150 gold costs to create Mawdrey II…no thanks!

OK, I don’t do Legendary stuff, not my cup of tea, and neither is high level crafting or the non-Laurel Ascended or Fractals stuff either…so I have three item types piling up to ridiculous levels:

• Empyreal Fragments
• Bloodstone Dust
• Dragonite Ore

I am reluctant to just trash them, because I know that ANet does and has changed things before. I feel kind of cheated to get so much of this stuff…that has no value to me…I can’t even vendor it!

Mawdrey II and Star of Gratitude are far too anemic and costly to resolve the problem. Limited to 3-6 times a day for a 50 stack…the rate of material accrual would negate such trivial efforts.

For my Ranger, much like my Necro, I just gave up on pet/minion reliance.

Now the Ranger actually fairs better in the pet department than Necro in my opinion, but it is still pretty dismal. Beast Mastery type builds at least look like they might be viable in more game modes than Necro Minion Masters.

But, for me, I just use ranged pets (devourers) to assist my 4/4/6/0/0 (Axe/Torch & Short Bow) Traited Ranger by adding to condition pressure.

Pet’s are also good sponges for player to pet condition transfers and the down reviving when needed.

It’s silly to argue that Rangers CAN’T be petless, I run my Necro without Minion’s all the time, and Trait accordingly.

Wish my Ranger could have the option to be more Druid-like and less “WoW Hunter” (I liked my WoW Hunter, but still)

Halloween > Winter’s Day

I pretty much agree with the OP.

Halloween had a leisure element along with flexibility which for me added to its enjoy-ability and sense of accomplishment in time spent.

I ran MKL for the reward and FUN. The dailies were casual, I didn’t have to sideline my whole gaming agenda for the day in order to pursue the festival daily requirements.

For Winter’s Day:

Toypocalypse is a mostly awesome event but perhaps overly long with too many stages.

Jumping puzzle…I generally don’t do JP’s that have frustration/aggravation components as part of their design.

The Bell Choir was just of-putting from the start, I just don’t do music or music related puzzles, sorry.

The giant gift wrapped boxes should have been rolled into a daily in some way and also some variety to the encounters as well.

Winter’s Day is way too grindy overall and locks the player into a rigid number of tasks.

Looking forward to the end of the event, gifts sell well on TP though.

The UI Menu buttons for PvP Build are inconsistent with the rest of the UI design

Embarrassingly, when I first logged into the HotM, I couldn’t find the PvP Build Menu so I could change out my Amulet, Runes and Sigils.

I was starting to rage a bit until I finally noticed two smallish “buff” sized buttons crowding over my target frame in the center top of the screen.

Now, those buttons are real helpful but the windows they bring up are rather small and partially redundant because you can still change Traits out the “normal” way. Overall, it’s a functional but clunky interface…very much duct-taped onto the game by all appearances.

Look at wonderful little ranking achievements at the end of a match…oops, never mind! They are gone, where did they go?!

Seriously, where is my time to savor my little achievements? I saw the multiple little purple boxes pop up, caught a few blurbs about Top Rank…but then they went <poof> ! And they aren’t to be found anywhere.

Also, I have no clue what the player score points at the end match leader board are supposed to be for…kills, objective claims? I’ve had low points but Top rankings notices, so I don’t know how to interpret this information. And, it’s gone forever after you get auto-ported out of the map so no time for reflection..

I love all the maps, but why no “opt-out” option for the Courtyard haters?"

I’m convinces that more players like the Courtyard Map than “hate” it, but why not allow players to pass on a map? Yes, it could make their wait for a match more lengthy, but give them the choice.

I don’t understand the “hate” for the Courtyard match. First off, it adds variety, a different type of scenario is nice to have. Second, if the concerns are about “bunkering” how about using bunker buster tactics?

Yes, having Team mates get killed and thus separated from their Team upon respawn sucks…but that’s kinda the whole freakin’ point, it is a DEATH MATCH. Being able to respawn after being killed is already ez-mode if you think about it.

I recently discovered the awesomeness of PvP and Reward Tracks and also the buzzing community that makes up the PvP Lobby/courtyard where players are having fun in between matches. This got me thinking: why not just place the “lobby” into the regular game world?

It would enliven the LA city scene quite a bit, PvP players wouldn’t have to “lose” anything by such a change because care could be taken to relocate all the necessary NPC’s etc.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Kuldebar.1897:

Anyone else think that Elementalists are short shrift on underwater usable Elites?

No. Our water elite is the only real elite we have IMO. Sure, we only have one, but it’s a real one. The damage on that toilet flushing bowl is quite good. When 1 to 3 players chases my ele in WvW I really like to jump in water and wait for them to follow. They think they have the upper hand because they are fresh and I’m at 50% and the moment they hit the water they start being flush so fast they die before I do. That skill is “elite”. The others we have are not.

That’s nice to know, but prior to level 80 and/or well over 30 plus invested SP’s, we have no elite skill for underwater.

Anyone else think that Elementalists are short shrift on underwater usable Elites?

Jana.6831:

No, I actually think it helps new players to get the depth of this game as the NPE points out certain aspects of it.

I guess I have a hard time thinking that making the kiddie side of a swimming pool more extensive adds to the “depth” of the swimming pool. I’d argue that is actually making a larger portion of the pool more shallow by doing so.

The NPE is tolerable but in conjunction with the doling out of Trait Unlocks, it’s grating.