Guild Wars 2

My only complaint regarding the current Masteries are the ones tied to in game mini games and jumping puzzles. I log in to play the MMO fantasy game, not tic tac toe or dodge em’.

Associate them with killing Bosses, doing events, or communing like some are already are. If you want some associated with mini games go ahead just make sure there are enough other options to obtaining them by playing the game itself, and to be able to max all lines in the Masteries.

Siobhan.5273:

Pandaman.4758:

On a lighter note Colin probably owes Mike a drink or ten for bailing right before this announcement.

I’m not sure he bailed.

I have to agree with you on this….

Dawdler.8521:

Ashen.2907:

Faereilos.5106:

Endless Soul.5178:

For me it’s a physical reaction. My body can’t take it with my condition. The last time I had to PvP for my guild (there were only a handful of us on, and we needed this one PvP mission to level up the guild and they begged me to join them) I came away with fast breathing and shaking hands. I thought I was having another crisis.

Years ago I played other games where you shoot each other down in airplanes with no problems. Now, my body rejects it all.

Don’t get old kids!

Glad I’m not the only one >_< When I’m fighting against another player my anxiety causes me to shake and lose focus, and ingame it looks like I’ve no idea what I’m doing. Sometimes it gets so bad I have to turn off the game and do something else. Having to wvw for my gift of battle is pure torture right now…

Just do the non competitive WvW dailies. Takes a bit longer but you will get there without as much anxiety.

Oh I am pretty sure they cause anxiety as well. It was daily camp the other day and I killed this guy taking a camp easy. Like killing a level 40 upscale or something.

After he whispered a lenghty line involving about 10 different kittens and how I ruined his daily.

Stuff like that makes WvW worth playing.

People with this attitude are the reason people avoid the Toxic wastelands known as WvW and PvE.

I’ll stick with the Meta’s in PvE…..

Visually a 10 – Game Play a 3…… It is what it is…..

Very disappointed with the Puzzles having to be solved in Story, felt like filler so devs didn’t have to create more content but still stretch out the amount of time to finish.

Still hate that ArenaNet is still putting Masteries behind jumping puzzles. These need to be in context of the game not a Jumping Puzzle that not everyone wants to complete.

Story was OK with the exception of the puzzles.

TexZero.7910:

Daddicus.6128:

TexZero.7910:

No you want to do them to attain some frivolous rewards, making them completely optional.

Mastery points are frivolous?

Considering how many excess ones we have, yes chasing the ONE located in a JP when you know you hate JP’s is not only frivolous but an exercise in insanity.

You’d think if you hate platforming, you’d i don’t know here NOT do that part and chase the literally hundreds of other alternatives.

But the rest are hidden behind in game games (mini games) so you have to do JP or Mini Games which really shouldn’t be part of the Mastery System in my opinion. This is forcing you to do one or both of these content types.

I go with the group that says give JP specific Achievements or Mini Game specific Achievements, even chests with awesome loot. Just don’t make them needed for Mastery’s that are tied to the flow of the general game and stories.

Amaimon.7823:

Vayne.8563:

ProtoGunner.4953:

This is a solo instance. Do it like this and you won’t have this.

It’s an instance, not a solo instance. From the very beginning you could go with friends into personal stories without being penalized. There was precisely zero reason to change that.

I run a casual guild of a couple of hundred people, and I’ve had to do that mission about fifty times to help get people through it. I can’t tell you the number of times I soloed the end of it, because someone was in the penalty box.

You might love challenging content, but not everyone does and for the main story it’s probably a bad idea. It turns more people away from the game. Story is something casuals should be able to do with a relatively basic skill set.

But if story missions are “press A to win”- then where is the sense of thrill, the sense of achievement, the sense of survival. Oh look it’s mordremoth, the elder dragon. He’s been designed so 10 year old jimmy with slow reflexes can kill him with just auto-attacking.. I better brace myself for this epic figh- oh.. he died while I blinked

But in all seriousness, sometime during those 50 trips to the penalty box, a spark must’ve travelled through the brain to make a person think “hey, my strategy isn’t working, I need to use more CC, I need more dodges, I need more mobility, I need more X or Y”, and then adjust the traits and skills to get that. And I’m honestly curious, did they invest anything in the fight? are they wielding/wearing optimal equipment, or are they running some weird prefix not meant for combat at all?

I would/could agree with you if this were a World Boss, but not on a Personal Story. I think that’s what is being missed Personal should be soloable without having to invest in different armor or weapons than what was used to get to this point. Remember you aren’t actually killing Mordy at this point its a mind game, his death comes from the Dragon Stand Event.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Git gut. End of discussion. If you don’t comply, go play My Little Pony Farm. Casuals started to destroy the gaming industry for far too long. Ever since mit 2005 as the huge masses of CoD-mass-market-consumer appeared on the screen…

Actually (I have no stats to back) I bet there are more casuals than so called “Hard Core” and from a business model point of view I will go for the biggest bang for the buck.

And the “Git Gud” mentality is the problem most folks have with self proclaimed “Hard Core” players. To me this fosters the “I’m in Junior High School or never graduated” persona. Please folks consider others when making comments.

I can play it as is or with adjustments really doesn’t matter to me I like both models, I prefer playing with my Guild and anyone who wants to join our party or asks for help.

I do understand others who prefer to play solo, not everyone wants to be “forced” into teaming up, and before you say MMORPG it does not stand for having to team up or join guilds “Massive Mulitplayer Online Role Playing Game” no where does it say you must team up.

I think they had it right in the original Guild Wars (and no I’m not saying it was better) but if you remember you had the option after completing an area to play it in Hard Mode. I would like to see something modeled along those lines rather than either crazy hard or eye roll simple.

I will step down from my soap box now

If they leave it like it is no do not buy, in fact I would recommend waiting to see “if” they make any adjustments. I purchased day 1 for pre-order so I’m over my 30 days. If I had been given the opportunity to “try before you buy” I would not buy in its current state. Again just my opinion other’s will/may vary.

leftyboy.9358:

It seems ANET wanted to try to be like other mmo’s with certain things that were done in HoT.

1- Bizarre one way to acquire gear acquisition. Some are achieves, some are raids etc. One things for sure; laurels for loyalty became less interesting to them. There’s no need to force people into the hardest endgame content for things everyone uses. Percentage of people who raid regularly will always be a minority.

2- Mastery….gates behind gates, behind gates. Once again, one path to success for mastery achieves. Not everyone likes your adventures:P. Keep it simple stupid is how gw2 started and it worked for them.

3- Making promises you can’t keep- Legendary’s, new fractals, bug fixes for essential items like LFG taking forever (still have to post twice to get a new description to work in fractals after someone leaves, and usually someone has already joined by that time and have to explain what lv.s are actually being done). but bug fixes have always been an issue for anet though ….I digress.

Since the release of Hot those have been the glaring ones for me anyways. I don’t pvp in this game so I have no Idea what that community thinks.

As a side note: I hope the legendary team wasn’t just pulled simply to work on the next money maker expansion (if they don’t fix issues here first, they’ll just find many people unwilling to even buy it).

Just so this post isn’t all Debbie Downer, I’ll say I think ANET did a superb job on making Hot zone maps fun to explore and I still enjoy the events and meta’s on several of the maps. I think that the concept of mastery’s was and still is a good implementation with perhaps some tweaks needed. This is the most artistically creative mmo I’ve played.

Oh man I was with you there until that last paragraph where you went all “Rainbows, Unicorns and lolipops” on it lol

I really don’t care for it, but won’t say I hate it. (1) I dislike the vertical maps aka Tangled Depths to me this is lazy design(2) very disappointed in needing 5 Masteries to get new skill, I had used all I had on the other maps so after doing story and killing worm I have 2 and can’t locate others without new skill to ascend (3) Story seems poor to me, the entire thing felt like lazy writing.

Anyone remember how GW1 handled this? You had an easier (not always easy) way then after you had completed the area you could up the difficulty to hard mode….. Hmm could this be applied to the entire site for GW2, old and new? I bet that would keep interest and allow all to explore or go wide open in hard…… You could also up the drops for hard mode………Just a thought…

Yeah but in my case, I received some Gem Cards for Christmas. I loaded them into my account and they are all just sitting there. But ArenaNet on the other hand already has the money so they don’t care if I cash them in or not…..

Sad but true….. Kinda like the 6 Permanent Copper Salvage kits sitting in my bank, with the shared slots I don’t need them, can’t refund them, can’t sell them, and can’t even give them away………

It really appears to me it is all about the money, they really have no sense of loyalty to their customers. Unfortunately it’s a business first and only……… Sad really sad.

I always rotate between PvE, WvW, and PvP maps for dailies. I can usually complete the 3 required (more often more than 3) using all areas. Just an idea…

Thanks!!

Vix.6730:

Forsaken.7015:

Sure it was amusing for 10 minutes but it kitten annoying and they should have implemented a way to disable it.

This tool alone would have solved the problem for many, including myself. Let the players who wish to run around like airplanes do so for the duration of the game-state, but give others the option to revert back so we may enjoy the game ourselves.

I agree 100%

Character names are meant to be reflections of your own personality and original, why would you want to copy someone else anyway? Just take a few minutes and as others have said try using a different spelling style.

I have 24 different names most using Blaq in the title. Blaq Widow, Blaq Oak, etc…. Find something you like and run with it. Be an individual in the sea of clones (Oh yeah I love my Mesmers lol)

I guess the OP should have started with “Back in the day”………. If you don’t want to use it don’t but please quit whining.

Key word here is Choices……

TheLastNobody.8319:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Ya know, I’m happy for the most part with the patch…but I’m not gonna pat somebody on the back that let their house keep burning while they insisted it was fine.

As far as my reading comprehension skills go, “We are going to fix this and that because it’s not in line with how we envisioned GW2” does not equal “Everything’s fine, guys!”. They very much deserve a pat on the back for recognizing/picking up problems pointed out to them and fixing them, and even fixing some longstanding issues.

The only thing I’m a bit bummed about is that they changed nothing about the ratio of piles of flax seeds to vials of linseed oil. I’m hoping they’ll still change that at some point in the future. Otherwise this patch puts a big smile on my face, a sentiment shared by my guild mates so far (so it’s not just an individual opinion).

They never really acknowledged these problems until recently and only after they saw that HoT was underperforming. I’ll agree this is a good change and I’d come back and play if other games weren’t holding my interest right now, but I’m sticking to what I said. This is the kind of thing they should’ve done or started looking into maybe a month after hot released, he’ll I’ll give them two months even, I’m feeling generous. Not half a year later.

By all means, be happy, but don’t forget we only got this because it started affecting their pocketbooks.

I have to ask if you are playing other games that have your interest so you are not coming back, why do you bother to post? Not being sarcastic or a smart elec but when I lose interest in things I don’t re-vist.

I have an idea if you don’t want the 2 gold delete it or donate it to your guild.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I’m not a fan of the gated access for players who bought HoT. Once the maps are released anyone who has HoT should have access to the map because not everyone jumps on playing the stories. I did play the stories myself but I’m sure there are many people who haven’t played the LWS3 episodes yet.

I really wish the cold resist had been an account wide mastery rather than something you have to do every single day. The recipe isn’t even account wide where other recipes are.

I would so like to see “Cold Resist” as a permanent addition via Masteries or just as a Once you get it you have it on all accounts type of thing. You get plenty of drops for making the cold resist its just really not worth fooling with after you complete the story. That is the main reason I don’t do anything in those areas very often and I never do that (cold resist) for the dailies.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I haven’t made a legendary because the process would make the game feel like work to me. My RL working allows me to afford games, it’s not for creating me more work.

~EW

LOL I love this you my friend deserve a standing ovation!!!!

DaikonSamurai.6714:

Haha are a lot of people posting positive things just to prove Vayne wrong? Vayne, I don’t know you, but I read a lot of your posts and you should stop liking GW2 and stop white knighting. The power of everyone trying to prove you wrong will turn the forums into a paradise lol.

Gliding and masteries in general added so much value to my cosplays. Elite specs giving my characters access to new weapons and skins. New class revenant allowed me to make Donatello. I enjoy mobs actually requiring me to use my abilities to survive. Elements of the story were impactful and I thought it was really awesome how parts of the story took place in the open world and NPCs treated you differently if you were a Sylvari. Maps are beautiful. Horizontal progression is a great solution over raising the level cap. Yeah HoT got a lot wrong, but the good is keeping me playing.

LOL I love your post man, spot on. I actually like the fact they added gliding to all of Tiria makes some of those Vista’s even more spectacular!!!!

Vayne.8563:

Actually to me, the Lake Doric engie farm was bad PR. It is the kind of thing that turns me off from MMOs in general, and I’m happy that Anet stepped in.

The area was designed so that the point of interest on top would be accessible when groups of people ran up the hill to centaur farm.

You can’t complete the map without that point of interest. The engie farm was making it so people didn’t want to go.

It’s borderline exploit and exploits should be dealt with.

What Anet has done was stop people who wanted to put in the least amount of effort possible to get stuff. Good for them.

Actually that POI can be obtained going up the back way. That’s how I always go I never need a “group” to run up the hill.

And I must disagree, though I wasn’t a Engineer farmer I have no issue with those who enjoy and prefer to do this. ArenaNet keeps listening to the complainers who want everyone to play like they play and they will see other issues.

I can’t understand why folks want to complain about the farmers, if you want to do the event use one of your famous quotes, “use LFG or create you own on a map not farming”. If it works for Dragon Stand it will work for Lake Doric.

From someone who loves running Mesmers since day #1, the answer to “Is Mesmer inferior to other classes atm?” is Yes.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Sir Alymer.3406:

I actually liked the salvageable items from the new maps gotten as event rewards. Why ANet didn’t just fix the salvage rates for kitten leather from those and tone down the hardened leather resources needed to craft things is beyond me.

The fix, in my eyes and with my limited information, was simple; adjust the salvage rates and crafting needs to find a happy medium.

Why do it the easy way? This patch makes me wonder if Colin came back to anet

LOL I made the same comment on day one to my Guildies. Welcome back Colin!!!!

In my opinion they were fun until the last Nerf, I went back to Mesmer, Ranger, and Thief… Of course they also Nerfed the Mesmer recently but at least I am familiar enough with the class to adjust my limits on the mesmer class..

maddoctor.2738:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Git gut. End of discussion. If you don’t comply, go play My Little Pony Farm. Casuals started to destroy the gaming industry for far too long. Ever since mit 2005 as the huge masses of CoD-mass-market-consumer appeared on the screen…

Actually (I have no stats to back) I bet there are more casuals than so called “Hard Core” and from a business model point of view I will go for the biggest bang for the buck.

This is something I’ve never understood. “Hey there are more casuals than hardcore, so let’s ruin the game (any game) to cater to those casuals so we get more sales” instead of, you know, having content for hardcore and casual players at the same time?

Making content that appeals only to some “majority” is a dumb move that ruins games. For example, let’s play the “majority” game.

How many players like Not So Secret jumping puzzle? I’d guess a tiny fraction of the playerbase, so let’s remove it.

How many players like SAB TM? I’d guess a tiny fraction of the playerbase, TM isn’t for everyone, so let’s just remove it.

How many players do Fractal level 100? How many players compete at the pro leagues of PVP? How many players play the new Raids? How many players can actually kill Lupicus in Arah?

In general, how many players enjoy <insert any type of content>? And since you said about a business standpoint, why should a company create a turn based strategy game (let’s say like Civilization) or a great RPG with loads of mechanics/lore/story (let’s say like Pillars of Eternity) and not make a MOBA or a COD clone? Because those attract way more people… why bother with something that has less people interested by default?

If every company was thinking only with their wallets, computer gaming as a whole would be long dead. Should game development be focused on the majority? I’d say no.

Obviously reading past one sentence is not a strong point for you. Clip what you want to fit your agenda instead of reading the entire statement….

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Guild Wars 1 had a ingame store where they sold access to skills and heroes to play with (mercenaries).

Maybe you should look at that before you say too much about the Guild Wars 2 cosmetic selling store.

By the way, not everyone likes PvP. Many bought it solely for PvE.

This has got nothing to do with buying heroes – clearly there are none in gw2.

My point is that gw2 could have been better and players could have been a lot happier if we weren’t forced to play through the story modes to progress and level up – and yes this is required, because you wouldn’t level up unless you did it. There’s nothing wrong with the story mode but it should have nothing to do with levelling up and gaining rewards. This should be done through a skills training system, which is completely separate from the story mode and is vital for playing any computer game. PvP can be an extention of the skills training system, just like PvE – you have to train your skills in order to play or do well in either. But you shouldn’t be ‘forced’ to play PvP or PvE in order to progress through the game.

Story mode is “not” required. I have 21 level 80 toons 15 with map completion and I have only done story mode on one… You can level by doing PvE events and mapping, no story required….. Merry Christmas Cedric

Djinn.9245 “Masteries were not necessary to give progression, they were chosen. And their form of implementation by forcing players to do all play modes whether they enjoy them or not (or don’t get many Masteries) is a terrible decision. Giving players choice of how they want to spend their entertainment time is always better”

Masteries were not necessary to give progression, they were chosen. And their form of implementation by forcing players to do all play modes whether they enjoy them or not (or don’t get many Masteries) is a terrible decision. Giving players choice of how they want to spend their entertainment time is always better.[/quote]

I agree with you 100% I hate the chase for Masteries in their current state, it takes the fun out of the game. I also dislike the vertical caves in HoT. A game should not be made so difficult you have to rely on Videos or Manuals to resolve.

And for the stupid mini games they insert and require us to do to obtain Mastery Points in ludicrous. I would prefer the Masteries to all be open world content obtainable and nothing gated behind events.

maddoctor.2738:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

maddoctor.2738:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

maddoctor.2738:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Git gut. End of discussion. If you don’t comply, go play My Little Pony Farm. Casuals started to destroy the gaming industry for far too long. Ever since mit 2005 as the huge masses of CoD-mass-market-consumer appeared on the screen…

Actually (I have no stats to back) I bet there are more casuals than so called “Hard Core” and from a business model point of view I will go for the biggest bang for the buck.

This is something I’ve never understood. “Hey there are more casuals than hardcore, so let’s ruin the game (any game) to cater to those casuals so we get more sales” instead of, you know, having content for hardcore and casual players at the same time?

Making content that appeals only to some “majority” is a dumb move that ruins games. For example, let’s play the “majority” game.

How many players like Not So Secret jumping puzzle? I’d guess a tiny fraction of the playerbase, so let’s remove it.

How many players like SAB TM? I’d guess a tiny fraction of the playerbase, TM isn’t for everyone, so let’s just remove it.

How many players do Fractal level 100? How many players compete at the pro leagues of PVP? How many players play the new Raids? How many players can actually kill Lupicus in Arah?

In general, how many players enjoy <insert any type of content>? And since you said about a business standpoint, why should a company create a turn based strategy game (let’s say like Civilization) or a great RPG with loads of mechanics/lore/story (let’s say like Pillars of Eternity) and not make a MOBA or a COD clone? Because those attract way more people… why bother with something that has less people interested by default?

If every company was thinking only with their wallets, computer gaming as a whole would be long dead. Should game development be focused on the majority? I’d say no.

Obviously reading past one sentence is not a strong point for you. Clip what you want to fit your agenda instead of reading the entire statement….

The rest of your post was irrelevant to the casual vs hardcore you mentioned in the first sentence. I addressed your comment about the “business model point of view I will go for the biggest bang for the buck.” which, as I explained, doesn’t have to be true.

Again pick and choose and from a business standpoint you are going to pick your highest revenue stream. You may not like it but if you must choose a segment all business will choose the one with the highest payout thus most profit.

If they choose to go with the lowest revenue stream odds are they will not please their shareholders thus pulling revenue from their base.

Very few companies in general can please everyone so they will pick the majority.

That’s false and I already said why. We would only have MOBAs and COD clones if that was the case. Pleasing everyone is impossible, but pleasing as many as possible isn’t so hard, that’s why they released 3 versions of SAB for example, that’s why they release jumping puzzles which are impossible for the average casual player (Their so called “majority”).

Do you believe it’s a mistake that they are releasing that content that is not for the average casual player? I say it’s not, I say it’s the best thing they could do, to provide something for everyone. The alternative, to release only content that is for the average casual player is too scary to even consider. We would only have SW-like maps for endless chest farms

My Lord do you not understand English? No one said anything about content I didn’t even pick a side I said they will go for what is the most profitable, if you can’t understand that I obviously can’t help you.

Grow up please or don’t make comments to my post if comprehension is that difficult.

And to answer your next question “No I do not want fries with my shake”….

dronikal.8150:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

dronikal.8150:

I’d like to jump in here for a second.Lets put the things in perspective.We have the people that love to do world completion.To them all I can say is I’m happy for you.For you this is not a problem.Lets face it my solutions are not meant for you.If you have read the whole post you would realize there is a catch and it does not hurt you in any way.
On the other hand for us people that despise world completion it offers a simple solution that allow us to avoid spending days in something we hate.Though we pay a price in the face of Gift of Exploration all the keys and gold that come with world completion.
Here is one more perspective.People like me have somewhat of a little OSD that triggers every time I see something on my map missing which is no matter how annoying or painful it is I do world completion or avoid playing that hero.

Using this rationalization I want Legendary Weapons from the new HoT map, but since I don’t want to do what is required allow me to buy this instead, see the point?

Sorry not being rude but the game was designed so that you had to actually play the HoT maps and obtain said items to get these Legendary Weapons. The same thing goes for map completion.

Just be thankful, my first 4 map completions included doing WvW as well as the the basic map.

Have a Great Day!!

It is clear you have not read the post or you did not think over what you were writing.Please put the time to read the whole thing before writing nonsense.

Obviously I did read your original post and I was trying to be nice and let you know that we don’t need shortcuts to map completion, what part of map completion is so hard to understand. Like I said they did make them easier in the beginning WvW was included to get this.

If you want all waypoints, poi’s, Hero Points, and Hearts jump in and do them. If you don’t want them bad enough stick with the one toon you did completion on.

But since I disagree with you I “Obviously” didn’t read your rant.

Just like in real life, achievements feel better when you do them yourself and not rely on shortcuts.

Ardid.7203:

At least publicly, Colin wasn’t fired. There was an statement from himself explaining that. If you don’t want to believe what he said, well, that’s another problem.

Actually not a problem, game is struggling under Colin’s rule, he suddenly says I’m leaving to fulfill my dreams. New man steps in starts addressing age old issues, fixes many in a few months. Listens (obviously) to what the players are saying. Doesn’t implement everything asked for (who could) but makes leaps and bounds.

Do the math and stop being a sheep (lol coin off my signature not being a smart alec)

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Anyone who knows anything about public relations knows how it works in the real world. We call it damage control. And given how things went recently, ANet certainly doesn’t want to add fuel to the fire.

So they had a ‘parting of the ways’ as they say. I know because I did this last week. Terminated a contract with a client. We both said publically that he decided to pursue other interests at this time. And I wished him the best of luck.

Sound familiar?

Again, no, it’s not concrete evidence, but those of us with common sense can read between the lines.

It is what it is, and that’s the last I’ll say about that. We’ve derailed the thread enough.

So let me try to put it back on track: With the recent patch, things are much better in the Deep Jungle to include Dragon Stand. Better loot drops and the like. And with the daily win reward there, hopefully more interest will be included too.

Dang man how do I give you a standing Ovation with an avitar, lol.

I agree I haven’t had time to try DS yet but my open world experiences so far have been great. My Guildies and I are already making plans to try the DS Meta this weekend.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Siobhan.5273:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It hasn’t escaped my attention either that the only red posts are from Gaile when she started this thread.

Back before I started that Dev post in Reddit thread I kept seeing these posts on the forum where people were begging for help on precursor crafting. There were a number of events that required failure and this was setting up deliberate griefing as well as innocent event completion that stopped people who had been trying for days to get their needed item. People were coming to the forum and making thread after thread trying to get a red post about this situation. If there was even one red post answering them, I never saw it.

Then one day, I found the reddit dev tracker and browsing through that I found a red post talking about this situation to someone over there. It was over a month old at that time. That irritated me. They posted an important piece of information there and couldn’t take the time to post that on just one of the many posts here? That’s when and why I decided to make that thread.

From comments on the forum I know that some people think I’m doing ANet’s job for them as a favor to ANet and to suck up to ANet (I was outright told that in a thread on this forum). I’m not. I’m doing it as a favor to the other posters on this forum and I’m doing it because ANet’s not doing their own job by making relevant information centralized and easily accessible. Whether ANet likes me doing it is irrelevant to me and personally I hope it embarrasses them a little. Who knows, maybe it will embarrass them enough that one day they’ll do their own job and make sure that posts on non official sites get cross posted on their official form.

I clapped for this post. Seriously.

I appreciate everything you do and all the information that you bring to us, everyday, often multiple times a day.

You are top notch in my book.

Ty.

I wouldn’t have bothered to post the why’s and wherefore’s of that thread but after seeing a couple of comments about how I was especially favored now, I thought it best to say exactly why I started it and to comment that the moderators haven’t been cutting me any slack, which is another thing I was told. They infract and warn me as readily as any other person here. Since there are some people who think I get special favors or moderation I thought it best to say directly that I don’t.

Edit: spelling

My God you are so right, I see one poster in particular that is above reproach. This comment will be deleted and infracted in 3, 2, 1……………………………

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I find playing HoT content alone to be tedious at times. Its slow going if I’m slogging through on my own, or I’m just another faceless body when I jump into the zerg-zerg-zerg content to work on assorted achievement tasks.

The last couple of weeks, I have been playing through the content with my husband. He loves aspects of HoT, but the general difficulty level is a bit beyond him, and he finds it extremely frustrating at times. For him, the game is about us playing together. He’s really not into zerg play. So, when we’re exploring, and we run into a hero challenge we can’t complete because he keeps dying, or I can’t keep the aggro to keep him alive, I can almost taste his frustration. He gets so angry, because the game is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable (and the core game was). He works 70+ hours a week, he has 0 interest in spending hours trying to “get gud” as you people put it because that’s not the reason he plays. It hurts, and it’s sad to see him walk away from a game he used to really enjoy because after a decade of play, Anet just doesn’t give a rats kitten about his type of player anymore.

Lanfearshadowflame.3189 please jot down my screen name and find me online. I run with a group of various ages and skill level players. You can join our guild if you want but don’t have too. We would be more than happy to help you and your husband. We aren’t a bunch of world killers as individuals but as a team we can do anything.

We do a little of everything and really enjoy meeting new people and forging friendships. Take care and hope to see you all online….

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Palador.2170:

They do make a good point about a lot of the skins being “wasted”, though. Or, rather, of questionable development value because so few wind up with them.

Personally, I’d be fine with them becoming a lot more common. I don’t care if it’s exclusive or not, just if it looks good for the character using it.

I agree with you, exclusive isn’t why I chose a skin or weapon it’s how it looks. I like the little animations from some but not all. It is a personal choice thing, not everyone has to be the “only” special snowflake with that weapon/skin…lol

SkyShroud.2865:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

SkyShroud.2865:

If you ever do a search on the forums, you will notice countless topics and posts regarding guild hall a few months ago. What you suggested is already suggested and the pros/cons are also discussed in those topics. Do a search on it.

When I do a search for anything guild hall related, the only results that come up are from this thread and one about scribing mats. I’d write that off to how poorly the search function on these forums work, but the point remains.

In either case, just because it has been discussed before, that doesn’t mean some fresh ideas cannot be bought to the table.

I agree with you the forums search engine is bad. The dev too agree with you that the search engine is bad. The mod team too agrees with you that it is bad and even made a pinned thread about it. But, you could use other search engine like google’s.

Do keep in mind that I mentioned “What you suggested is already suggested and the pros/cons are also discussed in those topics.” What being discussed right now is just repeating the same thing what other’s have mentioned months ago, likewise the same arguments rephrased differently.

Also, there were tons of topics and pots about it, however, despite the many posts and arguments, nothing is conclusive and dev did not mention any plans to make any further changes to the costing to accommodate tiny guilds.

I would recommend not reading if there are to many posts of the same nature, then your problem will be resolved entirely.

Yeah I only do Ascended since I can craft them for a fraction of the cost. I can even make them for various builds (Berserker, Condi, etc) and just carry them with me and still save a lot of gold and time.

Then I skin with the skin I like, the Legendary’s don’t really interest me since the cost is so high and the precursor drops are non-existent for me after almost 5 years of playing.

For those that want them I say awesome get what you want but when the stats are the same I go for the “cost savings” lol….

Ashen.2907:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Ashen.2907:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Ok where does this say masteries will be hidden behind Mini Games?

“To train a specific Mastery track, you must first unlock it by spending Mastery points. Mastery points are awarded for completing various pieces of game content. Things like completing a chapter in your personal story, completing certain achievements, reaching hard-to-find locations, overcoming challenging encounters, excelling at adventures found within the Heart of Maguuma, or earning 100% completion for a map will award Mastery points. Each Mastery point can be earned once per account, so while Mastery points allow you to unlock Mastery tracks, they are also an indicator of how much of the game you’ve experienced. In fact, once you have unlocked the ability to train Masteries, your nameplate will display the number of Mastery points you have gained rather than your level. Mastery points can be gained at any level but cannot be spent until level 80.”

Also when I pre-purchased Heart of Thorns I’m pretty sure this wan’t available (not that I would have picked up on mini games from this description) since I ordered day 1 of being available.

Hopefully you will not prepurchase in the future. Wait, see if it matches your preferences, and then buy.

And that solves the issue regarding “Masteries” how? Whether I pre-purchase or don’t doesn’t have anything to do with Masteries hidden behind mini games.

I understand the thought behind it (don’t give them your money if you don’t like it) but I love the main theme of the game I just want to get my opinion thoughts out there so hopefully they won’t make the same mistakes (again my opinion) on the new expansion.

Thanks Ashen

You opened your post with a question about where Anet advertised masteries as being hidden behind minigames and closed with commentary about what was said when you prepurchased HoT. Everything in between was quoting someone else. My post was not intended to solve, retroactively, your issue with masteries. I responded to what you said, not to an issue perhaps raised in another post or something of the sort.

As to how my point might address similar situations in the future:

Prepurchasing insulates the company from consequences, at least in the short term, of their decisions. By giving them your money without knowing what the product will be in its release form you have financed those development decisions that you dislike (hate, despise, etc). A complaint on the forum, in hopes of change, generally, will not have the same impact as a decision to not buy until after desired changes have been made.

A player base that says, in effect, “we have given you our money up front, product sight unseen, and you have no reason to believe that we won’t do so again, but we don’t like feature X,” is likely to have less impact than a player base saying, “you have to prove that your product is worth our money before you are going to get it.”

Ok if that’s the path of choice show me where they said you would be required to do mini games that have nothing to do with the story or general game style play. My quote was from ArenaNet sir/ma’am.

And I also disagree with you. I enjoy the game and if I and others relay their displeasure with the path they chose, they will hopefully realize that’s not the way to go with the next expansion.

I will buy the next expansion on pre-order with the faith that they will take a different path. As far as I can see for the most part (other than Mastery’s) they have made adjustments by listening to the player base.

I have found that if we want to run a squad without the commander tag just create the squad, have the commander drop out then someone invite them back to the squad. Keeps the squad without the tag.

Vayne.8563:

In truth is is really the problem with mastery points. Most people want mastery points but not everyone likes the content you have to do enough to get those mastery points. If those players force themselves to do that content, they’re not going to be having fun, even though the got the reward.

This is my biggest issue with the Game. I can’t stand the mini games or jumping puzzles (others love them good for them) but they need to give everyone no matter their game play style the option to earn max Masteries. By max I mean to be able to completely fill all bars to the max.

Thanks

CMM.6712:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I wouldn’t be happy with those drops.

nailed it

Prime reason why I don’t buy keys.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Hero challenges should never be forced group content, you need them for elite specs and map completion. Requiring you to depend on the whims of other players to do something that the rest of the game let you do by yourself is bad game design.

I agree 100%

I have to agree with the OP, I hate the mini games and find it as a way of saying “we don’t care what our player base says”. I hear very few (yes some of you like them) say they like them. In fact all folks I play the game with are of the same opinion as me. My thought is if I wanted to play these so called mini games I would buy a console and get the Mario style games, not a MMO based in Fantasy…

I know they are not required but I would like to be able to max all my Masteries without playing mini games.

Again my opinion, along with all my game friends, but I bet if ArenaNet polled their customers mini games would be “Voted off the Island” lol…

Have a Great Day All……

maddoctor.2738:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

My Lord do you not understand English? No one said anything about content I didn’t even pick a side I said they will go for what is the most profitable, if you can’t understand that I obviously can’t help you.

According to some casual players (and this entire thread) they didn’t pick that “most profitable” side and instead went for the little minority We’ll see.

Are you saying they did????

They did.

And I disagree with you. If for no other reason than you being obnoxious lol….

The jury is still out until after the April Patch.

Be good Mad

Wolfey.3407:

Here’s a box image for the pre-order….

Can anyone show me where on the official preorder box where it says or advertises casual?

Or do you guys mean that you were duped by a streamer or your best friend because THEY said it was for casuals?

If you pre-ordered there was no box, and to plays devils advocate it also doesn’t say we are ramping things up to be harder.

Also anyone that participated in the BETA had full Masteries opened, where does it say they will be closed and you will play heck opening them?

I honestly don’t care what they choose to do, I have played since early GW1 through the beta and start of GW2 and was an early pre-order for HoT, and if actions say anything I haven’t been in Hot in over 2 weeks.

I play daily always do dailies and mapping. I have 22 Characters counting my new Rev all level 80 and the Rev will be my 15 with map completion in a week to few more days.

I will say I personally (not speaking for all) enjoyed the environment where I can get to everything solo or with a group. I have primarily solo’d all 14 soon to be 15 toons.

Not sure if it is the vocal minority who prefer laid back look at the scenery or not, but personally I do.

Just as a closer I am not making threats that I will “take my ball and go home” but if I had known what little I would get from HoT (yes I finished HoT personal story on my main toon a Mesmer) I would not have purchased the expansion. I just can’t see dealing with the “environment” of HoT to do map completion there or finish Personal Story on any other toon.

Again just my 2 cents

Astralporing.1957 please don’t feed the gerbils, there are some that know all.

As an FYI don’t get caught into the “Gotta have ascended armor, weapons, accessories, trap” You can get exotic Armor from Karma Vendors and it is so close to the same stats as Legendary and Ascended it isn’t a factor (mostly cosmetic).

If you need different builds for you Weapons or Armor’s carry more than one set (they are not that expensive especially if you use Karma) then you can change to a specific build and don’t need the ability to switch stats (Legendary) just switch Armors or weapons.

If you just started in HoT please do not cheat yourself of the entire experience of GW2. Play the other areas, work on your build and skills and “Yes” Laurels are the best way to get Ascended Accessories, that is how I do it.

Mapping is not hard and if you let yourself get into the story instead of just focusing on the end result you will enjoy the game so much more. If your not in a guild find one with like minded people who enjoy playing the game, they will help you advance and learn.

I enjoy the time I spend chatting with Guildies in our TS or Guild chat for those who prefer to not use TS. If I personally can ever help feel free to add me as a friend or send an email I will help.

I’m not a pro by any means, but I’m always willing to help others. One of my Guildies asked me yesterday what my goal for endgame was and I said “to enjoy playing, have fun meeting new people from all over the globe”.

I like the HoT maps for the most part (Don’t care at all for Tangled Depths but I guess 3 out of 4 maps liked is a good number) but really dislike the fact they chose to put some Masteries behind mini games. If I wanted to play a mini game I would download it to my phone.

If you are not yet familiar with the Masteries they are additional points you get to gain more high level skills such as Gliding, Mushroom jumping, etc.

Yeah I haven’t done the Centaur run since they brought in the bombarding hammer. I just go elsewhere. I’ll hit it for wood but that’s about all its good for now.

NOTE: Fixed typo

Vayne.8563:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

The point is, there are people who raided in other games who came here specifically because the game didn’t have raids and they could get the best stuff without raiding. Now that’s gone.

Um, what do you mean by “the best stuff without _”? It’s a skin, not a stat bonus. Plus the game already required dungeons to get dungeon armor & weapons, fractals to get fractal weapons, silverwastes to get lumi armor, and (for a brief period) WvW to get Legendary Weapons.

When the game first launched and for well over a year after, there were lots of people who said they could never get dungeon skins; it was just too hard. The same for fractals: I know even more people who thought those were inaccessible, too. And of course, there are all sorts of PvP skins (and achievements) gated behind competitive gaming.

So now, people are saying Raids are too exclusive — I have trouble believing that. I think people are claiming foul before ball has landed.

I think it’s reasonable that some people think that a game purportedly designed for casual players should not have any features gated behind skill. I think it’s reasonable that some people think that features should not be gated behind larger groups.

However, I also think it’s completely reasonable for ANet to disagree with both ideals, especially since they are in the business of making games profitable enough to keep making games, which means appealing to different types of players.

---

On a related note, I think there are lots of ways that ANet could try to bridge the differences across the community’s expectations — making Raids easier is one and/or making it easier to obtain mag-shards, but I think those are the most short-sighted.

One of the core sensibilities seems to be that there’s some amazing advantage in having stat-adjustable armor (although frankly I rarely make use of it for legendaries).

So, ANet could introduce a wardrobe-like system that offers something like Trans-statial charges, comparable to transmutation charges — perhaps bought or perhaps crafted — allowing you to change stats (& runes|sigils) on the fly. Legendary owners get the costs waived, so there would still be an advantage and it would probably have to be fairly expensive (for various economic reasons).

Then the only things Raids would gate is a skin. And the game already has plenty of gated skins, so I am hoping this wouldn’t be as much of an issue.

I never had problems with skins. But legendary isn’t just about skins. It’s a tier of gear.

Right now, I have enough skins to choke an ox. Could I work for more skins? Sure. I would I realistically at this point be likely to use more skins….not so much.

But armor that I could reskin taht I could change stats on, that IS something I could work towards. It’s a meaningful goal to me.

My goal used to be achievement points, until I hit my cap and they became too grindy even for me. Now there’s no real reason to push myself to get those achievement points, or in some cases even log in.

Combine that with my finishing getting every dungeon and armor skin…even the PvP reward tracks that are left don’t really interest me that much. Yeah, I could get all the glorious armor, I suppose. I’m just not interested enough in PvP to do that.

So I find myself at a crossroads. If this game is about progression, but there’s no meaningful progression left to me, then I’m not going to play as much.

On the other hand, new story is coming out and that IS meaningful progression to me. This is just growing pains while Anet gets moving on the stuff that I like.

I’m 100% sure something will come out sooner rather than later, another 3-4 months maybe that will get me back into the game hardcore.

But right now, what I have left that I enjoy is helping new players and building the guild…which is what I guess I should be focusing on.

Wow been reading your last few posts on this subject and I agree with you 100% (Uh oh watch the lightning lol) I’m in basically the same boat.

23 Toons all level 80 15 with Map completion and all with Exotic Gear and Ascended trinkets. I’ll never see Ascended Armor or Legendary to much of a boring grind not fun just grind.

I spend my days now (when online) helping Guildies level our Guild Hall and add to it as well as take them on Dungeon runs, Fractals, and whatever anyone wants/needs help with.

Got 3 through the HoT personal story working on #4. I just keep telling myself to keep the faith while awaiting the April Patch. I’m not a fan of PvP or WvW myself lol.