Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

I am going to mention the march during our Community Showcase Live broadcast tomorrow, Noon Pacific Time Wednesday, June 14, live on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.

Yay!

I also made an infographic for easy sharing via social media, and I’ll be posting it on twitter and tumblr as well!

Endless Soul.5178:

Is there a similar Pride March happening for NA?

~hopes so~

Yep! The top post is about the NA event ^^

Atomic Soldier.7450:

i just want to check, is this event going to happen for certain? i saw a lot of stuff on social media (tumblr, for example) last year, but almost nothing this year so far.

i missed it in 2016 due to other stuff going on, but i’d really like to join in this year and hopefully encourage my guild to come along as well!

It is!

We’ll be posting more info this week, as well as making a post on reddit about it. We’re just waiting to hear back from a charity we are planning to fundraise for to confirm the fundraiser.

We at OpenCommunity are super excited to be involved on EU side once again ^^

Here’s to a great Toga Party and a great cause! Yay!

Hey everyone!

To celebrate entering our 3rd year of existing, OpenCommunity is holding a massive 1-week shindig with tons of varied events, prizes, and of course, supporting a good cause!

Quick Info

• When: Sat 6th-Sat13th of May (Main events: 6th, 7th and 13th of May)
• What: A large number of varied small, 30-90 minute events!
• Where: All around Tyria!
• Join: Teamspeak address: ts.theopencommunity.org – no password, no mic required
• Requirements: Varied, mostly none. More details below & on website.
• Details: Below and at http://www.theopencommunity.org/calendar/

~

What can you expect?

We have many events lined up, from self-organized events such as Hide & Seek, Scavenger Hunt, Costume Contest, Jumping Puzzle Races, to in-game activities like Belcher’s Bluff, Guild Hall claiming (open to everyone), as well as world boss events such as Triple Trouble, (naked) Tequatl and (also naked) Shatterer!

On Saturday, 13th of May we will also be one of the two official EU organizers for the Toga Party for MS!

Can you get shinies?

Yes! All self-organized events such as races or contests will feature cool prizes! We have a big prize pool of several precursors and a bunch of other goodies including black lion skins, various precious or rare knicknacks and a hefty amount of ectoplasm.

Most events even have a guaranteed participation reward! So come over and give it a go! The world bosses drop loot as usual =)

In addition, the Toga Party for MS event has a separate, larger prize pool which includes some quite… legendary… prizes!

Are there any requirements?

The majority of the events will be held in or near starting areas or cities, so they have practically no level or exploration requirements. The world bosses require a minimum level & world exploration corresponding to the area they are located in.

Only the Hero Point Run and Guild Hall claiming take place in Heart of Thorns, so it is not required to join most of the events.

How can I join?

The easiest way to join is to connect to our TeamSpeak at ts.theopencommunity.org (or ts.gw2oc.org for short). There is no password or microphone requirement, but our community is a Teamspeak community so our Event Coordinators will mostly be speaking in there. We will provide info in-game as well, but the majority of the event will be happening on TS!

When is this happening?

The event will be held for 8 days, from Saturday 6th, to Saturday 13th of May.

• 6th, Sat – Community Birthday Weekend, events from 13:00 to 23:00 CEST
• 7th, Sun – Community Birthday Weekend, events from 13:00 to 23:00 CEST
• Mon-Fri – Community Week, several events every day in the evening!
• 13th, Sat – Toga Party for MS EU – events from 13:00 to 18:00 CEST, Toga Party EU/NA starts at 19:00 CEST.

For a more detailed event schedule, go to http://www.theopencommunity.org/calendar/

What is the Toga Party for MS?

The MS Toga Party is a charity event organized by Gamers Giving Back every year for almost 10 years (originally in GW1) which raises money for Multiple Sclerosis, fundraising for the MS Foundation of Canada.

Throughout the entire Community Week, we will be sponsoring the MS Toga fundraiser by also giving out OpenCommunity rewards to people who donate to the fundraiser!

Official Toga Party website: http://toga.gamergivingback.com/

For more information on the Toga Party for MS event, check out the official post https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/events/Toga-Party-for-MS-Official-Thread/

But I’m busy playing the new update!

Don’t worry, the update will wait! The fun & prizes of the community week, however, are a one time kind of party! So join us, and who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy the time so much you might check out our regular events – which we’re hoping to include the new maps in soon!

OpenCommunity contacts:

Website: http://www.theopencommunity.org/
Event Information: http://www.theopencommunity.org/birthday
Toga Party Info: http://www.theopencommunity.org/mstoga
Contact: on the website or in-game (Lelling.6795)

Hi!

Just thought I’d drop the EU-side info:

OpenCommunity has also already committed to organizing Pride March Tyria EU in June, like we did last year, and have pencilled in June 24th as the planned date. Huzzah!

Just like last year, we are also hoping to raise money for a sponsored LGBTQ+ related charity (last year it was the Pulse Fund for the victims of the Orlando Pulse club shooting), and we might have even more shinies to give away to those who decide to donate to the cause!

We’ll be posting more details mid-May as we are currently focusing on the Toga Party for Multiple Sclerosis with Gamers Giving Back which will be held on May 13th (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/events/Toga-Party-for-MS-Official-Thread/)!

For more information on Tyria Pride EU, please contact me in-game (Lelling.6795) or directly via a private message on our website at http://www.theopencommunity.org/

OpenCommunity is happy to be involved this year as one of the two official EU hosts! ^^

We’ll be doing all our events at the same time as our American friends, which means for us, Pink Day starts in the evening at 20:00 CEST (18:00 UTC), so we’re organizing some extra events earlier in the day to get ourselves in the pink day spirit and for those who can’t make it later in the evening!

We’ll be kicking off with events at around 14:00 CEST and keep going all the way until Pink Day in LA officially starts internationally at 20:00!

You can join us by hopping onto our TeamSpeak at ts.theopencommunity.org – the TS is not passworded, it is open to all and users don’t have to speak, but unlike Pink Day which is done via GW-EN and say chat / map chat, our organizers will be using mainly voice chat to coordinate events, so it’s important you can hear what’s happening!

Check out our infopost on pinkday at www.theopencommunity.org/pinkday!

Hope to see you there, EU peeps! (And much love to our NA friends <3)

Update from EU & OpenCommunity:

The event was a roaring success! We had an attendance of around 300 people (3 maps at start), the entire event lasted for around 4 hours, and everyone had a blast!

I do have to note – to the amazing community of Guild Wars 2 – we did not have a SINGLE ONE hater, troll, or anyone disturbing our fun! The march was just a massive blob of fun, love, happiness, and just good times in general. This truly shows that this is one of the most accepting gaming communities out there.

I could not be happier with how the event went. Thank you to everyone who attended & especially to those who helped out with organisation <3

OpenCommunity has already decided that this will become an annual event on our end, and we encourage communities on NA servers to do the same!

Thank you again to everyone, if you’d like to see some screenshots you can see them here:
http://www.theopencommunity.com/forum/index.php?/topic/341-lgbtq-pride-march-tyria-eu/

Love,
Lelling <3

Hey ^^
I’m the admin of OpenCommunity – a small community that runs events on EU – and this is definitely something we’d be interested in helping out starting EU-side. I was actually just thinking yesterday it might be a good thing to get going.

Something like 6 PM CEST (5 PM British time, 4 PM GMT) sounds like a good time. Are EU people fine with that?

Hey peeps!

In just a few days (OH GOD it’s Thursday already!!!), OpenCommunity will be holding a very special Community Weekend celebration!

Join us on the 16th and 17th of April for a two-day celebration with fun events, cool prizes, great laughs and good causes!

Quick info:
Where: EU, TeamSpeak, Tyria!
TeamSpeak address: ts.theopencommunity.com (no password, no talk requirements)
When: Starts at 13:00 CEST, ends at around midnight (both days – drop in at any time)

More information:

What’s a community weekend?
A community weekend is a fun, magical, fantastical, spectacular two days of crazy events, shiny prizes, boss slaying, and just good old fashioned fun!

What’s the occasion?
I’m glad I asked! OpenCommunity is not only celebrating our first birthday, but we’re also holding the event in honor of our charity fundraising month! Throughout the entire month of April we are helping raise funds for The Cybersmile Foundation, a non-profit organization which works to promote a friendlier and more inclusive online environment!

How are you doing the thing for The Cybersmile Foundation?
That’s an EXCELLENTLY phrased question! Throughout the month of April (and May if we end up feeling fancy) we are giving out shiny badges for our forum & TeamSpeak to users who donate to Cybersmile, and on top of that, we are sending 50% of any donations we receive to Cybersmile as well! (The other 50% is used on server, TeamSpeak, forum and website costs for OpenCommunity.)

So what kind of events are there?
We have ALL sorts of events at the Community Weekend! We have done our best to include a varied amount of world boss events, fun / silly events, and slightly more competitive events, for all shapes, levels and sizes of participants! You can check out the full list of events below.

What are the level requirements?
There are NO level requirements. Some events do have recommended levels, though. Wherever possible, we have made sure events happen in starter areas, cities, or city-adjacent areas to make sure as many people as possible can join without much of a hassle. We are also going to be killing some World Bosses, though, so some events have a recommended level ^^

Where is it happening?
The events will be happening all over Tyria, so we’ll be jumping around quite a bit. There is no prescribed server or particular zone required. Most of the static events will be happening in Lion’s Arch or another city so that everyone can access them easily =)

Cool! How do I join?
We will regularly be shouting out in map chat for people to join us from there, and if you’re dropping in from somewhere else, all you need to do is connect to our TeamSpeak:
- ts.theopencommunity.com (or ts.gw2oc.com for short, they both lead to the same place)
We will be taxiing people in from TeamSpeak via a squadjoin ^^ The TeamSpeak is open, there is no password, no silly requirements, and you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to =) But most of the coordination will be happening there so it’s important you can hear us!

Contact info
You can contact me at any time if you have any questions, or just respond to this thread!
In-game: Lelling.6795 (“Lelling”, “Cyan Vei”)
Website: http://www.theopencommunity.com/forum/ you can contact us on our forums =3 (my name there is “Lelling”)

Event schedule
[Times are in CEST (UTC+2)]

Saturday (16th of April)

13:00 – Gathering starts
13:15 – Tequatl the Sunless
14:00 – Triple Trouble
15:15 – Hide and Seek
17:00 – Protect the Quaggans!
18:00 – Belcher’s Bluff Contest
18:00 – Challengenauts! (pending interest)
19:30 – Tonic Race
20:45 – Naked Tequatl
21:20 – Fun Triple Trouble
23:00 – Afterparty!
Sunday (17th of April)

13:00 – Gathering starts
13:15 – Tequatl
14:00 – Triple Trouble
15:15 – Jumping Puzzle Race
16:00 – Scavenger Hunt
18:00 – Improv Challenge
19:00 – Fashion Wars
20:45 – Naked Tequatl
21:20 – Fun Triple Trouble
23:00 – Afterparty!

For more information, you can check out the post regarding the event on our website:
http://www.theopencommunity.com/forum/index.php?/topic/223-opencommunity-spring-community-weekend-16th-17th-of-april/

Other useful links
http://www.theopencommunity.com/ – OpenCommunity, our website ^^
https://www.cybersmile.org/- The Cybersmile Foundation – read more about them, they’re great!

I think that’s everything!
Thanks for reading!

<3
Lelling

Khisanth.2948:

TheGrimm.5624:

Races/Rushes are one guild mission that currently allows people to not have to wait and allows multiple guilds work together on an objective which to me is a positive things that also benefits the smaller sizes guilds. The biggest issue right now is educating people that they don’t have to wait if another guild has started it and can run their people thru as well gaining credit for both guilds. I don’t think I would like to see these change since they are working well currently.

One change they do need to make is to prevent last week’s situation of the same race on two different slots.

If someone starts and easy you DO have to wait if you want to do the medium otherwise the timer on your mission would run out before the race finishes.

Indeed. You NEED to wait until another guild’s mission is over. Or just hope you can cram everyone in in the time remaining.

Today for example we had to wait for 3 minutes on a map where nobody from the guild that started it was actually running, so we just sort of had to afk for that time. Now that was a small time period but you can have anywhere up to 10 minutes when it’s a better idea to wait.

And we don’t have time to just keep triggering it after it’s ran out :P

Hi ^^

(I use the old term Guild Rush, by that I do mean Guild Races :P)

It seems that even after the change to guild missions which has enabled guilds to do most missions with ease & without disrupting others, Rushes still aren’t quite there. Whenever we’d like to do a Guild Rush, we have to either look for a map where one isn’t running or wait until it runs out (sometimes 5-10 minutes) to make sure all our guildies get a fair chance at running it.

I have a suggestion to improve this situation slightly, in only a few steps:

1. Make the races on the map active all the time, essentially working the same way as adventures (no leaderboard stuff required, but just the “talk to flag – do thing” functionality) – anyone, in a guild or not, can walk up to it and transform, and run

2. Make the Guild Race missions work slightly differently:
When you trigger the mission, the timer starts in the guild panel, and not in the world – for the duration of the mission, anyone from the guild who runs the race can accept credit for their own guild. Alternatively, they could get the popup – “Do you want to run for [GUILD]?” (or selection dropdown to select which guild they wanna run for).

As this means random people running wouldn’t contribute towards your guild’s completion, I’d also suggest slight changes to difficulty stuff.

Easy: 5 people must finish the race in 20 minutes
Medium: 10 people must finish the race in 20 minutes
Hard: 15 people must finish the race in 20 minutes

~
This would eliminate the issue of having to wait for another guild, or having to finish the race within a specific timer of another guild that started it earlier.

Let’s chat about what everyone else thinks, and if you have any suggestions / reasons why it wouldn’t work, let’s try to figure something out =)

Ayrilana.1396:

Was there a notification within the 60 minutes that you were on the map?

We’re familiar with that, yeah. We used to have this bug when we would taxi on maps which were closing, and then the message would disappear when we got enough people in – but the map would still close. But this is not it, unfortunately =(

We don’t go on maps that are closing anymore, we make sure that nobody had the message that it’s closing when we’re choosing it. And a lot of people naturally get redirected onto it, which means it shouldn’t be closing.

This is a known bug so why are we getting so many challenges in our weekly mission opportunities? I suggest disabling those missions from appearing in the opportunities as to not waste guilds’ time & effort.

I posted this in a different thread and then noticed this one.

In my opinion (and looks like the opinions of some other people as well), this event could be improved in three easy steps ^^

1. Add a stack for participation in a set range of the event when it’s completed to prevent “tag & run” tactics
2. Change the rewards to be based on the map-wide events completed as opposed to personal (& improve the scaling so it’s more beneficial to spread out)
3. Personal participation stacks work so that 5 stacks = you get the map-wide rewards, 10 stacks (cap) = you get an extra 5/10 blooms.
What does this mean?
Essentially it means that players will want to spread out and effectively do as many events as they possibly can as quickly as possible.
A player will not hunt down events to tag them & leave because they would not get the participation bonus anyway. Plus, since a player only need to do 5 events, there is no pressure to tag & run in the first place.
But wait, then you’re like – wont people AFK? Well, there’s a few factors featuring in this.
First, people AFK already now, and you can’t stop people who do that from doing it entirely, you can only deter it.
Second, because the reward would be based on exactly how many events are done (29 events in area = 29 blooms), you want to actually make sure those events get done.
Third, to encourage people after they got those 5 participation stacks, they can still get to 10 personal stacks which would add an additional few blooms.
I find that if you don’t tag & run (which I don’t), you get about 10 stacks anyway, so there’s no time to AFK :P

Actually, I noticed now that
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Mordrem-Invasion-Update-11-September-12-30-PM
this thread exists.

Maybe you should post this there ^^

You can get gemstore items with those blooms. Pretty solid deal, in my opinion.

I would propose a different solution in 3 quick steps:

1. Add a stack for participation in a set range of the event when it’s completed to prevent “tag & run” tactics
2. Change the rewards to be based on the map-wide events completed as opposed to personal (& improve the scaling so it’s more beneficial to spread out)
3. Personal participation stacks work so that 5 stacks = you get the map-wide rewards, 10 stacks (cap) = you get an extra 5/10 blooms.

What does this mean?

Essentially it means that players will want to spread out and effectively do as many events as they possibly can as quickly as possible.

A player will not hunt down events to tag them & leave because they would not get the participation bonus anyway. Plus, since a player only need to do 5 events, there is no pressure to tag & run in the first place.

But wait, then you’re like – wont people AFK? Well, there’s a few factors featuring in this.

First, people AFK already now, and you can’t stop people who do that from doing it entirely, you can only deter it.

Second, because the reward would be based on exactly how many events are done (29 events in area = 29 blooms), you want to actually make sure those events get done.

Third, to encourage people after they got those 5 participation stacks, they can still get to 10 personal stacks which would add an additional few blooms.

I find that if you don’t tag & run (which I don’t), you get about 10 stacks anyway, so there’s no time to AFK :P

So, this is a feature that could’ve existed at release, even though not a lot of things depended on it. Essentially, we could have a tiny indicator of what kind of state the map is in.

Just a tiny bar saying whether it’s day/night, a world boss is attacking the area, or a special event is going on (sandstorms) – it could be above the minimap, indicating time of day, and what’s happening in the map. This would make the world at least a little bit more engaging (new to the game? A world boss is attacking the area!? I must find it!).

It seems that in HoT, at least some of the content will depend on whether it’s day or night, but using the event message to say which one it is seems slightly patchworky – like an afterthought. If GW2 is indeed moving to more and more content that’s based on what time of day it is, why not have a little indicator other than the few lighting changes we get ^^

A special bar that would indicate this would work perfectly – it could be above the event list on the top-right side, or above / below the minimap.

At least that way we wouldn’t get a successful event: Sandstorm message :P

I agree! (I also agree with your signature, Zaoda. A valiant cause!)

Ok, so I’ve mentioned depositable mats last week, here’s another super simple thing that a lot of people who are altoholics have been mentioning might be a good idea.

People who like making characters will probably, during some point in their GW2 experience, find themselves thinking “Oh, I sure wish I could preview all the faces, hairstyles and colours you can get via the makeover kits during character creation.”

Why not make these kits (hairstyle & makeover kits) consumables that store in the player’s wallet? This makes them – 1. take less space in your bank, 2. easier to store & access, 3. able to be accessed from character creation.

Additionally, making it possible for us to at least see the locked hairstyles, dyes & faces during character creation, even if we’re not able to use them, would probably tease them more prominently to players who don’t go online to see them, resulting in more people wanting to buy them.

Added the clay bricks & cooking stuff.

I think the Blade Shards being account bound is a good question. It definitely seems very arbitrary, how certain things, like Blade Shards, are account bound, while others, like Foxfire Clusters or even Clay Bricks, which serve a similar purpose, aren’t.

So I made a post about AoE circles a week ago, and now I’m gonna try to address another very popular topic when it comes to in-game grumbles about easy fixes that would make the game a lot better.

This one is pretty simple, there is a small number of materials which have existed for a while but they haven’t been added to the Material Storage / Collectibles tab / whatevs you wanna call it ^^

The materials I’ve heard mentioned so far were:

• Blade Shards (oh god please)
• Foxfire Clusters (because why not?)
• Vision Crystals (both regular and lesser)
• Clay Bricks

A lot of players consistently complain about at least the first two on the list cluttering their inventories, many just opting to sell the Foxfire Clusters. Those of us who need blade shards usually have a stack building up on every character, or have to make the obligatory visit to the bank after each adventure.
Vision Crystals are a different story, but since they can be gotten form unsolicited sources (looking at you Mawdrey), they can quickly turn into clutter if players don’t need them at that very moment.

People also consistently mention Mystic Forge components, like Mystic Clovers, Mystic Forge Stones, Crystals, Philosopher Stones, etc, some even mention rarer items like the Assault Knight Power Cores, while others speak of madness such as having a tab for the Agony Infusions :O

EDIT: People have also mentioned an extended list of Chef/cooking ingredients, i.e. the halfway ingredients that Chefs can produce.

What are your thoughts on these? Did I forget to mention something that should be depositable? What do you think about the Mystic Forge stuff? Discussion magic commence!

And if you ever need any help you can always whisper me in-game ^^ And if you play on EU I know a couple of different guilds that could suit your needs, depending on what you’re interested in ^^

Jimson.5168:

Lelling.6795:

I think you’re focusing too much on the golem issue and not enough on everything else that has been said.

I think you misread what I intended to say. It would be a waste of time for Anet to fix the golem bug or rework the maps of areas destined to go away in the hear future.

The worst part of program development is to have someone come by everyday and say the requirements and goals have changed yet again. The constant demand to change this and that is the single-most reason projects fail. It’s annoying from customers (not always.. there are some very bright users out there) and deadly from the PTBs. Every seemingly little feature that’s added tends to create at least 5 new bugs to track down and fix each of which tend to create new bugs.

All I’m saying is that the requests (and in some cases, outright demands) of the community are over the top of the limit anyone could hope to respond to or address in the midst of trying to create a new update. You can’t just tack that on to existing code and expect it to work. Anet’s silence does not surprise me at all. There is no way they could respond without setting off another griping war b y the people who think they are being ignored.

Yes but that’s not what this thread is about. The op just mentioned the golem in passing.

The request was for more communication & transparency as to what is planned, and there have been many posts completely ignoring that and just focusing on the golem thing – also known as off topic replies that don’t really contribute to the argument.

In general (not directed at you, Jimson), I don’t really see a valid argument in this thread against ArenaNet conveying even more of their thought process through to the players, especially those who can’t find their way around Twitch.

I think you just need to find a guild / community that fits you, one that’s more open towards different playstyles. I’ve not queued a pug since early 2014 and I’m really happy with dungeon after discovering the wonders of not stacking in a corner hoping my zerker gear will outlast the enemy

Jimson.5168:

Anet should spend time and people resources on a bug that will disappear in a couple of days as well as working on a map that will disappear when HoT is released? Really? I’d rather they keep working on HoT. New content (however buggy) is preferable to me personally. (echoes of words “cost effectiveness” seem to float in the far reaches of the Silverwastes and in the remote corners of Orr…)

Perhaps you all think you could back seat manage a group of code geeks, artists, and storytellers that think it’s only their way or the highway… I know I couldn’t. Please think a little deeper than the display on your monitor about what it takes to put a game like this out and (miraculously) keep it more or less working. The complexity of this game makes me shudder and I was a programmer for 20+ years… I’ve been in those internal meetings way too many times not to understand that flame proof underwear is not an option.

I think you’re focusing too much on the golem issue and not enough on everything else that has been said.

Online / multiplayer game development isn’t just about developing a game, it’s also about communicating plans to the people who are playing that game. Heck, this is even true for single player games.

ArenaNet has definitely done A LOT of good in the past few months, and I really really like the direction they’re going into, with stuff like Points of Interest, and generally communicating more. But I’m just hoping they keep at it, or even intensify the amount of communication.

For me, personally, what they’re doing now is enough to trust they’re doing really cool things, but I know other players may need a lot more.

For something more concrete, I enjoy playing PvE content that is challenging and social, like dungeons, fractals & Triple Trouble.

I think a large number of players unfortunately just sort of float in space & time, doing all-zerker all-stack pug runs of dungeons, silent chest farms or champ trains to farm gold for the purpose of farming it – and while that can be fun for some, most people start to feel a disconnect from the world & the game over time.

For me, the fun things are getting those Triple Trouble kills coordinated with over 90 people, or doing Fractals or dungeons properly with friends (by properly I mean you don’t stack behind a box and pray your zerker gear will mean you do more damage than the enemy).

Those work for me, on the side I bounce around the world doing jumping puzzles, or just generally trying to find interesting places in the game.

A good source for information is always the Wiki ^^

You can also read on changes here:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

Additionally, there was recently a major patch (about a month ago) which introduced a lot of changes to Traits, Conditions, and other stuff.

You can read the patch notes on the wiki as well, with links to everything relevant:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2015-06-23

EDIT: Oh and depending on how long you’ve been gone, you’ll notice that Lion’s Arch has been destroyed / rebuilt :P

I think this is a pretty solid idea. I was confused by the addition of weapon swap in the first place, but I suppose people really wanted it. However, now that we have it, unless they go with the thing that you are suggesting, I don’t know how that’s going to be implemented with the existing stance swap we already have.

I really like the idea of Revenants having a bit more choice when it comes to utilities – the idea of having at least 4 utilities, so I can at least feel like I’m choosing, and 2 elite skills to choose from in each stance does seem fair. Especially since I don’t think I saw the possibility of using our racial skills on the human Revenants in the beta – so even with the extra class-based utility skills, they’d still be at the same number of skills.

Vayne.8563:

I support this. I suffer from red/green colorblindness and there are times when I simply can’t see circles. There are certain rushes where I just walk into traps that are clearly marked, because they’re not clearly marked to me.

This is exactly one of the main things that crops up when discussing these in my guild.

SirDrygan.1823:

actually, it’s not the AOE that is not accurate, it’s your ping that is causing you to think that the AOE is not accurate. <more words>
So, stop blaming ANET. It’s the ping that is causing the circle to be inaccurate.

The example I gave about the Triple Trouble Wurm is not an example of inaccuracy due to ping.

Additionally, I’d like to respond to the discussion about bosses telegraphing attacks with animations – this is a really important topic as well. There are loads of bosses which are actually really fun if you can read their animations (like the Mai Trin tactic of 1 person staying in range, blocking her teleport projectile), and always feel very satisfying because it is a form of reactive play (another example is the Aetherblade dungeon boss, who is massive).

This is something that the game suffers a lot from – the lack of reactive play. The reason the full zerk stack-in-a-corner and hope everything dies before you do tactic is so pervasive in the game is because a lot of the fights just don’t feel reactive.

Even with Kholer, whose animations are very clear, he is decently sized, and the fight is in close quarters, people aren’t really fond of the fight.

This has a lot to do with players not knowing what our enemies are doing. There’s a huge lack of consistency when it comes to animation telegraphing, and sometimes attacks just don’t make sense. There’s been discussions on this topic about creating enemy casting bars, or causing the enemy portraits to pulse when an animation is happening so that players at least know what to look out for, but that’s an entirely new topic (I did have a post planned about that as well). There’s tons of things to discuss about this though, like the importance of sound & timing, but I really don’t want to derail this topic.

Oh, @Xenon.4537, I hope you’re not misunderstanding me, I’m not saying we should have MORE AoE circles, I’m saying that the ones that exist should be consistently using the new, orange texture as opposed to some (like those in guild rushes) using the old ones, if not for the sake of consistency, then just for visibility.

Photoloss.4817:

Add an opacity slider for the circles, iirc there already is an option to disable them entirely. That should satisfy the “immersion” crowd, and it should be easy to do.

Xenon.4537:

Also add a setting in the graphics tab to lower the opacity of all orange markers from 100% to 0% on a slider. I would keep it around 5-10% personally. Obviously I need to see this crap to dodge it, but I would like the ugly bright intensity to be lowered at my personal preference.

I cannot stress how much I like this idea. GW2 has always been about free choice & doing a lot of things the way you want, this just seems really fair, also enabling people to essentially create a “hard mode” for themselves just looking at the animations.

And you’re correct, there is an option to disable them already.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Honestly I would be happier with consistent AOE timing. I have noticed that depending on the encounter, and once the red circle is placed, sometimes I have 2 seconds to dodge and sometimes must less.

This change would make getting out of the way easier. You can add the consistent type too, but I would just prefer all AOEs to be timed the same.

That’s a very good point. One good example of that is Triple Trouble – the AoE circles appear when the projectiles START flying, meaning that depending on how far away from the Wurm you are, the actual damage will be delayed more and more.

Perhaps something other than just an unanimated texture, like if it pulsed 0.5/1 second before the damage actually struck, or something like that could alleviate that issue, and create more opportunities for reactive play.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Ah, not what I thought, I was thinking this was about getting hit by AoE when totally outside the marker (whether it be red circle or orange)

Oh yeah, I was supposed to mention that as well x_x That’s me – too much rambling, too little actual substance :[

EDIT: Yay though, my intention was for others to say what annoyed them about AoE circles as well, to sort of expand on the debate ^^

I didn’t know that thing about the grenadiers :O

I rambled for a bit at the start about why I’m posting this and what the thought process is. Not really crucial to the debate so I hid it :P

AoE Circles
As everyone probably knows, there’s now generally 2 types of AoE indicators (I think there’s actually a few more unique ones, however they are usually restricted to a specific one thing)

There’s the original, faint/thin red line AoE circles, and then there’s the newer, filled out, orange AoE circles.

Generally, the orange AoE circles were received positively, due to increased visibility & better telegraphing, however, the very simple problem is that they are not being used consistently. Many events & abilities still use the thin red line, which can be really difficult to see (& sometimes invisible to colorblind people).

So my question is:
Can’t we just use the orange AoE circles consistently?

If the concern is that the orange would just look too intense if it was applied to everything, then maybe we should at least have the option to turn them off/on?

It’s a tiny thing, I know, but it’s been really bugging me ^^ Does anyone else feel the same, or did I just pull this out of my.. out of nowhere? :D

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but others below have – the other issue with AoE circles is that they often don’t match the actual AoE (example: Mai Trin fractal cannons). Fixing that would also be really nice ^^

EDIT2: The newest suggestion from multiple people has been to not only update all the old AoE circles but to also give the player the option to choose the opacity of them, allowing players to adjust them to their playstyle & vision. I have to say I really like this idea.

Did we play the same beta?

I REALLY liked the Revenant. In fact, I was constantly worried that it’ll probably be nerfed because it’s SO GOOD (and I still am worried tbh).

The utility & support power is unparalleled. And if your only measure of how good a class is is the damage it can put out, then you’re missing out. I’m not saying that straight-up damage builds are useless in any way, it’s just that, expecting high damage with the Stances that were given to us during the beta is like wearing Nomad armor and complaining you’re doing low damage.

Imagine if we got to play Eles with only Water & Earth attunement, while knowing that Fire & Lightning are yet to come – what would you be focusing on? The utility of the two available attunements, the supportive capabilities of Water, or the lack of damage due to features (that YOU KNOW are coming) not being in yet?

I feel like a lot of people squandered the opportunity to try out a really interesting, new playstyle that hasn’t had a lot of spotlight on it in GW2 yet, and it makes me slightly sad.

Variety is good! Yay for variety!

Yoru.2687:

Final Embrace.4157:

I like it! Although I would recommend making it to not refer to specific puzzles because new players might want to discover them on their own without the game telling them where/what they are.

I agree! I would like it if it would just say which map and not the which puzzle. Then players could look for it if they dont already have it and be surprised when they find it.

That sounds like a great idea!

Yay! Really looking forward to it ^^ I’ve only stumbled randomly into it last year, and I’m so happy I got to be a little more involved this year =)

Also, just to let everyone know, today and tomorrow (11th and 12th), GW2Community (EU) will be celebrating our 1st birthday, and instead of collecting donations for prizes, we’ve decided to collect donations towards Pink Day in LA, so if anyone’s interested in a bit of a pre-celebration, be sure to hop on to our Teamspeak at ts.gw2community.com at any time after 3 PM CEST ^^

EDIT: Oh, this is on EU, btw ^^ Sorry, American buddies :P See you at Pink Day!

Woop woop woop ^^ Guys it’s going to be so much fun! (and I’m not just saying this because I’ll be co-organizing it :P)

Oh, and we will be collecting donations for Pink Day in LA throughout the event, which is also great ^^

Aaaaaaaaaaaah these look amazing

No.1
The leveling & related system changes introduced in the latest feature pack were intended to improve the way new players learned the game mechanics – one justification for the change of pacing is to give players more time to practice & learn their current skills before moving on to the next one, however:

The previous way of unlocking weapon skills not only felt cool, but also made sure that the player had to use that weapon for a bit before unlocking all of the skills with it. At higher levels, you unlocked the other skills after only killing one mob since it was assumed you didn’t need an introduction course in those weapon skills. This makes perfect sense.

The current way doesn’t. After unlocking my sword skills, I can then swap to a completely different weapon and have all of the skills unlocked. I will mash everything.

I don’t see why this was implemented if the learning curve was really the concern. It feels to me more like a shiny thing was required in the level-up popup. Is there any justification for this change backed up with any tangible whatever? Because right now I’m inclined to believe the popular accusations that, in lieu of making new content (either because of resource, time, or effort constraints), existing content was just locked and gated in order to give the impression of progression.

Thing no. 2 I don’t understand.
The changes implemented are supposed to engage newer players and keep them engaged for prolonged periods of time, but it seems like the direction taken is the direct opposite of what most games have been doing for the past few years.

What most games seem to be doing now is, when picking and starting your character, you usually get a short (GW2 starting instance-sized) instance where you play your character with a set of unlocked late game skills. Then, once you complete that instance you are set to the regular starting state. This not only gives you a preview of your character’s class (which I assume would be welcomed by new and veteran players alike), but also teases the skills that you’ll get to use later. It gives the player something to look forward to and strive towards. Since it’s an isolated sandbox instance, there are no worries of the player not knowing what to do due to the amount of skills – they can literally just click buttons and see what happens.

Instead, for the first 10 minutes of the game, what a player is doing is just pressing 1. And then possibly 6. With no guarantee that they will actually be enjoying the skills they’ll unlock later in the game. And then by the time they unlock the profession mechanic, they’ve already invested what feels like so much time into the character that they will not want to reroll to try again. And if they do, they’ll have to go through the whole process again with another class.

I don’t understand why this approach was taken at all.

Yay, join us ^^ It shall be glorious!

GW2Community is an open community and all our commanders are super friendly, so don’t be afraid to just hop on the TS and join us! Anyone can join our runs, the only condition is that you are on our Teamspeak as the Wurm requires huge amounts of coordination – we will also be explaining the entire event and going through dry runs before the spawn, so don’t be afraid if you’re unfamiliar with the event =)

Hello! Draco Venantium [DV] is a guild that regularly does Wurm, and often Teq at their regular evening spawn times, and occasionally (through the help of other sponsor guilds) we also get to spawn our own at different times.

We do not require representation, and will not kick you if you do not have time to attend guild missions.

We might be just the community you’re looking for. If you’re interested, check out our website http://dracovenantium.shivtr.com/

If you’re interested in joining, contact Lesyl Nox. You can also contact me – I don’t have invite priviliges myself but I can definitely ask the people that do if they’re online ^^

P.S.: I don’t think this thread really belongs under “guild misisons” :P

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about, Oranisagu.

I assume (I originally wrote know but changed my mind) Arenanet considers every single one of the things we’ve talked about on these forums. I believe that they do take everything into consideration, and start planning a fix for these things immediately. And I also understand that these things take a long time and large amounts of information & work to fix, and that there are only so few teams / people working on certain things.

What Anet is bad at is telling us these things. I can assume all I want, but nothing soothes the players more than “we assure you we’re working on <thing>”. Or just teasing stuff like “We’re currently working on a fix for <thing> that we’re super excited about” more often.

In fact, I’m quite sure that if Anet mods posted more frequently, they wouldn’t need to lock as many threads at all. If they said “we are aware of <whatever> and are working on <thing>, thank you for your feedback.” People would stop bumping threads unnecessarily, achieving the same effect but getting a more positive feeling altogether. Nobody feels silenced and everybody feels listened to.

(Same with locking threads to keep all discussion about a single topic in 1 thread. Simply saying “we’re aware of this, come join us in the discussion in <thread>” would work just as well, without people then resorting to raging in-game about how Anet is trying to silence the negative feedback)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Lelling.6795:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You may glean more consideration by Moderators should you send your questions and/or concerns to forums@arena.net

Good luck.

Yeah I’m also doing that but I wanted to post here to sort of start off a debate in that area as well, since these are my opinions only and I wanted to see how other people felt about this as well.

I think you will find the ultimate answer to any debate in the Forum rules. It is probably best for the Forums if we each abide as much as possible. =)

I understand the rules that are in place concerning locked posts and also why they exist. The point of this post is not discussing a specific thread / reviving a negative post / speaking out negatively against moderators (although I will not be surprised when it will eventually be locked, as despite my efforts, this post will not look like an opinion but rather a complaint post to a moderator – it would to me).

I just wanted to make sure that the moderators understand why that “+1” bumping was happening (and my concerns have been validated by the people commenting here). It was not bumping to keep a thread up, it wasn’t mindless bumping. It was saying “this post has been made in my name and therefore I want my name to appear in this forum”. It’s sort of a signature of agreement (as explained in the OP of this thread).

EDIT: Anyway, the post was just a thought I had, I’m not trying to make a statement or anything

Randulf.7614:

No, I felt that adding +1 was far more counter productive. The best thing for these forums is continuing in constructive debate until that well runs dry. Whether that’s positive, negative or whatever. Anything else wont help facilitate that.

All I will say (since this thread will be closed soon I suspect). Just think how these forums would look if every one bumped their threads with +1

Yes, but these weren’t the same people bumping the threads over and over again. You’re misunderstanding, the point isn’t bumping a thread, the point is that these people are simply adding “+1” instead of creating more (less eloquent / concise) clutter on their own.

Randulf.7614:

As for the single thread merges, it’s for the health of the forums this occurs, but also for ease of the devs to tracks. So much easier to track feedback in one place, rather than the same amount of feedback in various places on the subforum.

With that said, do you not feel that locking that community post was counter-productive? What if every single one of the several hundred members posted a thread about that on their own, instead? Adding a +1 to something you’ve possibly even co-written is much easier, and I don’t mean for the people who write these things. Us players have all the time in the world to write posts, the people who most benefit from people only writing "+1" are in fact Arenanet’s <community-related-job-post> people.

Rauderi.8706:

As it is, if we do want feedback to go through, we need as few actual posts as possible on specific topics, and they need to be cleaved of 90% of the of over-emotional garbage that’s in them.

Exactly, and the thread that was locked was a very calm & composed post, with clearly expressed opinions and nobody attempting to emotionally blackmail Anet by saying they’ll stop playing.

But the locking of that thread might actually prompt the people who feel silenced by that action to make such counter-productive posts / threads. (There was a lot of negativity in game when we were talking about it and a lot of people feel like they haven’t been listened to).

Obviously, once Anet is aware of these problems and our opinions they have no use for the thread to stick around anymore, but what Anet is bad as is letting us know what they’re thinking and if they’ve actually read those things. To a minority of us, it is clear that they are fixing these issues and attempting to address our concerns (and that it takes a while), but the majority mistakes the silence for Anet not caring.

Their approach makes sense from their side, but I don’t think they’re handling this side very well, because most people aren’t aware how these things work, that they take time, etc.

Again, I’m not saying there were no reasons whatsoever for locking that thread (and possibly some others as well), but that it might do more harm than good in the long run. That thread was not toxic, it was not creating negativity or harming anyone in any way. And while it might have served its direct intent once an Anet dev had read it, it also had a positive effect on the forums in general, since a lot of people would go there, read it, and add a +1 instead of possibly posting a more emotional, less constructive thread of their own.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You may glean more consideration by Moderators should you send your questions and/or concerns to forums@arena.net

Good luck.

Yeah I’m also doing that but I wanted to post here to sort of start off a debate in that area as well, since these are my opinions only and I wanted to see how other people felt about this as well.

Important: This isn’t a “please unlock <thread>” post. There’s actualy a point… in there somewhere

Far be it from me to dispute a decision done by Anet’s watchful moderators, however, I do have a concern about locking certain threads posted by representatives of some of GW2’s communities (I have a single one in mind but I wont link to a locked thread for obvious reasons)

The reasoning given for the lockdown of those threads is that there wasn’t enough debate and people were just adding “+1” in the comments. But surely you understand why that was the case, right?

Sure, the OPs wrote “This is <community>’s stance on <so and so>”, but we understand how forums work, and how the hottest threads with the largest amounts of comments get most attention from Arenanet. And because of that, we comment simply to let the people who are reading those posts know that it isn’t just a pointless post. And the reason we’re not furthering the debate in the forums is because these posts have been constructed with a lot of debate and consideration done prior to posting. These weren’t just your regular “I’ve had a thought” posts (like this one is), these were thought-through, checked and rechecked and meticulously and concisely constructed posts (unlike this one).

There’s a difference between someone writing “500 people feel like this” and actually seeing those 500 people adding “Yes, I do feel like this”, and I think by locking these threads, the moderators are effectively preventing us from adding our names / voices to those posts. And I think it’s doing more harm than good overall, since these posts still represent large communities of several hundred people, and instead of condensing all our opinions to a single thread (which is the moderators’ reasoning behind most of their thread lockdowns), you’re

a) scattering these posts into a chaotic mess that makes the job of whoever’s analysing the community’s concerns even more difficult, because the opinions of these people do not go away, they’re just expressed through different means
b) creating a wave of negativity spreading out from those who feel silenced / ignored, and causing general disillusionment about the game, the forums, Anet, etc

I’m not saying you should unlock the threads, and I’m not saying you haven’t been taking this in consideration, I just want to make sure you are, and that you understand our motives behind posting in those threads in the way we have been.

P.S.: By this point, you must be aware of the general “police state” opinion people have about your forums, right? I mean, maybe it’s time to consider a new direction? Together for a brighter tomorrow / S2 and all that?

P.P.S.: Wow I did not mean this post to be this long.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything said in the original post. These changes alone (which don’t really require any drastic system changes) should resolve most of the problems that world boss slaying guilds and communities (TxS, GW2community) are now experiencing.

I agree with the sentiment that something has to be done about the way these bosses are handled, and the times at which they spawn.

I disagree (as I’m sure Anet will) with the idea that guilds should be able to create private server shards, as I’m sure they want to work towards a more open community, instead of creating closed ones. While private shards may provide a solution, I don’t think they’re part of Anet’s vision for GW2. But hey, it’s not my job to come up with these solutions.

But what they don’t seem to be aware of is that, as a direct consequence of the boss activation system, guilds will start to become more exclusive. They will require a certain amount of representation and dedication to the guild, which will exclude a large number of people who aren’t willing / able of providing that.

My main concerns with this update (as far as world bosses are concerned) are the boss times and the way Anet expects communities to handle these. Also, there are many problems with language barriers on EU megaservers now. There are people who cannot (or will not) communicate in English, and you can’t possibly run a coordinated wurm attempt when half of the people don’t speak the same language (although that’s another issue entirely, one that shouldn’t be happening in the first place, since Anet said we would be put in megaservers corresponding to our language).

In addition, every time we’re doing wurm, there’s a handful of people doing world completion or just running around. With the megaserver, we’re expecting more of those as well.

All in all, Anet seems to have made the mistake of just forgetting about a number of different communities while coming up with this patch. Since it hit, all I’ve been hearing is complaints from world boss slaying communities, roleplayers, people from non-english servers, etc. And while Anet might not care much about the latter two, I’m pretty sure they created world bosses for a reason.