Guild Wars 2

*_Sorry so long – basically I’m saying don’t spend anything until 80, the below gives you the whys and many details on armor in GW2. Hope this is helpful to you. You may want to skim through the “Players helping Players” Forum too. There is a lot of great info for new players there._

Hello friend and welcome to Warriorness a’ la GW2.

I’m not exactly certain what you mean by “get armor that is not chain mail.” I’m guessing you’re thinking about it like in good ‘ol D&D where chain mail is inferior to scale mail and that inferior to plate, then full plate. Are you thinking about it in those terms? Or perhaps like WoW where a Shaman (or w/e) progresses from leather to mail at levl 40? It doesn’t exactly work here that way. Here heavy armor is heavy armor from lvl 1 to 80 and chain is considered heavy as much as scale, ring, plate, etc. As you progress though the armor’s graphical style and stats will increase and vary and the only titles you’ll really want to pay attention to are like “<whatever> of Carrion, … of the Knight, … of the Bezerker, and so on.” Those titles will tell you what type of stats are on that piece (and generally what that piece’s graphical representation will look like). Eventually you’ll hit 80 and want to start hunting down and putting together the perfect set of Legendary Armor with the stats that best suit the build and play style you’ve chosen.

As far as the ‘looks’ of your armor this isn’t too much to sweat either. Throughout the game you’ll be getting certain buffing items (name escapes me) pretty regularly from certain quests (dailies, zone completions, etc.) that will allow you to combine the looks of one piece with the stats of another so that if you find a piece that really looks bad%@$ but whose stats stink you can combine it with a piece with great stats so that the piece ultimately looks bad%!# and has the best stats for you.

At level 10 none of the armor looks cool but, you’ll be gaining new armor and weapons so fast that there is no reason to invest any currency in it. You’ll find you’re often buying a piece that you’ll only replace in an hour or two most times and that’ll just be money down the drain. Trust me just save every penny while you level and even more so, save every last karma point you can. When you do hit 80, one of the easiest ways to put together a nice set of Legendary armor is from vendors in Orr (one of the 70 – 80 zones), and they only accept karma as currency.

P.S I don’t have the link on this comp. but there is an excellent GW2 site run by a player named ‘Dulfy’ with pics of all the armor sets and weps if you’d like to figure out which one you wanna aim for and it has a lot of other great GW2 info as well. Try googling – ‘Dulfy’, ‘GW2’ & ‘Armor’ and it’ll likely pop up. You also may want to check out the “Players helping Players” forum here. It has a lot of great info for players just beginning as well.

No HP or Toughness? Hmm… Yeah, a fighter who can be brought to his knees by a toddler winging rocks at him does scream “manly”.

Just kidding, I dunno maybe your build is awesome? I pretty much leveled to 80 exclusively dualing axes and I enjoyed glass cannonry until I became more regular in PvP and so regularly ran into said toddlers throwing said rocks. Dual Axe wielding glass cannon build isn’t exactly what I’d call a revolutionary build though. For certain, nothing generates Adrenaline like dual axes. It has it’s pros and cons like any build or choice of weaponry of course.

I’ve been taking some time off from gaming here around the holidays but up until a few weeks ago I tried to fir them in when I remembered to keep track of their timers. This may have changed but, at a minimum I’d usually get 1 Rare (yellow) out of 5 or so kills, sometimes 1 out of 2 or 3. Never actually got one I actually needed but I could pass them off to guildies leveling alts or break them down for ectos. Considering time spent it provided nominal income in the form of ecto sales.

They get old fast though, especially when you have an off day with drops. Beyond that though the fights entail little more than knowing when to step out of range to regen HP and banging away their HP bar. No skill, ability, tactic or strategy is necessary at all. Really you could just turn on auto fire and run back after fears and collect your drops. If the made these fights require some type of actual challende I’d likely take part when ever I could for that reason alone, regardless of what they drop.

As far as Legendaries, Precursors or Forge Mats, I havent seen a one or heard from anyone who has. Personally I think it would be really cool if they’d add a couple more dragons, maybe that spawn only weekly or so that presented great challenge and had a stepped up loot table. Honestly, as easy as they are at this point in time, I don’t think they merit a loot table any more generous or wider in range than they have on the 3 in game currently.

In essence, they are a grind mob like any other, they just require a few more warm bodies than most, imho at least.

What’s a Logan? What’s a Thackery?

… and how did these two terms end up in a sentence next to each other?!?!

I’d like to thank the AN Rep, Colin, for a quick, consice and clarifying response. Again I can’t help but notice that right on his heels were people just chomping at the bit to critisize. This is the whole story as far as I can tell on these forums and the “dialog” that here takes place:

“We’re fixing and beefing up what we have- A LOT!”

“OH GREAT! So no new content, gee thanks for not doing what I want!”

Or, it could have just as easily have been:

“We’re adding new zones & mobs (dungeons, bosses, items, races and professions, etc., whatever someone wanted to hear) to the extent of pretrty well DOUBLING the content released at launch!”

“OH GREAT! So you aren’t gonna be focusing on fixing the bugs, issues and annoyances that currently exist, gee thanks AN for not doing what I want!”

Of course I know someone will chime in with, ‘well we want both!’, in response to my observation as well. More, more, more!!! Yeah, we all know.

I’m not making any comment on the quality or validity of the game thus far or trying to guess at what it may be in the future. My point being, that if every decision or action I run by the “community” gets met by the full spectrum from “YAY! Thanks!” to “BOO! You guys suck!”, the act of running it by them in advance is pretty well 100% pointless. Some will hate it, some will love it, some will be pretty well indifferent – WOW! What a revelation! That’s why I feel they may not be working through the wee hours of the morning to provide near full disclosure of the up and coming to the community. At least I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be in their situation.

There are people posting here constantly that have no real concept of constructive criticizm or its importance to a worthwhile discussion. Some people just appear to have no internal filter on what is worth actually being said and what is just noise. In any facet of life where a critical dialog is needed, if one party just begins spouting off inanities, the party across from them will eventually just stop paying attention. Whether because they have more important things to attend or maybe they just plain get bored or whatever – the dialog will end and eventually no one will even bother persuing one in the future anymore either.

Also, I think an understanding of the terms objective and subjective could add a lot to the usefulness of the postings here and the dialog’s that they may engender. If enough posters can’t even figure out how to meaningly contribute so a dialog could be held here though, actually being objective is a “bridge” to be crossed that can’t even be seen from here. To say the least, LOL!

But for instance, in evaluating the term used in AN’s posts: “expansion’s worth”, maybe ask yourself if the foundation of your post is your subjective definition of the term, or an objective one (in so far as one can be agreed on). Like I said though, I think pontless complaints and QQ are usually shooting the horse dead before the poor guy even gets out of the gate, really making a discussion of how well the horse runs or seems to run completely superfluous from the word Go.

Whatever’s whatever though. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come out with myself and the prospect of a large scale effort to refine, further develop and fix what we have right now definitely sounds like something to be looking forward to. Metaphorically, if my car has 2 flat tires, I don’t go looking for after market upgrades to the engine until those tires are fully dealt with. Subjectively, AN’s decision makes perfect logical sense and is definitely the right way to be going at this point in time. Furthermore, I don’t see how anyone can see it any other way, IMHO at least.

Oh man, I’m with ya – some REAL PvP! Sadly there’s been a noticeable stepping down into “Care Bear Land”. WoW, had some good times until they started instituting “rules” to destroy them. Then came WAR with it’s “chicken” debuff or whatever. Then we had SWTOR where if you wanted to even see a member of the opposing faction your were gonna have to hire a shirpa and plan out a full on expedition. To here, GW2 where outside of segregated and specifically structured areas you can’t hardly make an unpleasant grimace at another player. (I glossed over many titles just to high light the big obvious steps into this MMO “touch football” hell they’ve all contributed to bringing about).

Is it the newer generation of young MMO’ers that just want the clearest path to hitting level cap and aquiring the shiniest shinies as quickly as possible just so they can turn to the production companies and yell, “MAKE MORE!”? Is the large crowd ushered by WoW’s Mc’ Donald’s style MMO’ery just that scared and shaken by any confrontation or fight (for lack of skill or whatever reason) as they turn to the companies and bellow, “DO WHAT I WANT OR I QUIT!”? I don’t have a clue.

What I AM sure about though is that spontaneous PvP is all but cold and in the ground right now. On the bright side, this does set the stage for some company to pick that ball back up and champion the desires of all the old school PvP’ers. If there’s a profit to be turned there I’m pretty sure it’ll happen eventually!

Personally, I always thought that a selection of servers fitting multiple styles was the final word and the ultimate answer on the matter. What did I know though? Apparently utterly eradicating PvP seemed a better answer?

Oh yeah, additionally we’ve had a couple guildies use the same “method” as early as a few weeks ago so there’s hope. Maybe the Holidays will make it more difficult but we’ve had members able to transfer since launch up to just a few weeks ago as noted above.

1. Whenever you or one of them logs in check the friends list and then get in touch with who’s on line. Really though, get a Vent server or something – these things are pretty much standard issue for any member of the MMO community these days I thought.

2. If the fact that you are seperated by levels and so you don’t all get the same amount of progression sought by gaming together then, plain and simple, your priority is not gaming together. In any MMO known to man if you and your friends are of different level you will have to go to there zone and help them to play together. This isn’t a condition unique to GW2 and I’m not sure what A-Net or any other company could do to change this fact. It basically comes down to the fact that you are choosing progressing your personal character over playing with your friends. All through out my MMO career me and my friends are many times at diff levels, the higher simply goes to the zone of the lower and we play together – that one is sacrificing time they could spend for progression isn’t even a consideration. We’re playing to gether, that was the whole point.

3. Again. Vent, TS, Mumble. Something. Free server and a $10 headset w/ mic from Wally World and you’re in there like the 4th stripe on Adidas.

None of this is really problems caused by A-Net’s design nor can they really do anything about them. You simply require 5 minutes to sign up for a server. A trip to Wal-Mart with $10 and an examination of your priorities – either playing with your friends is more important or your personal character’s progression is more important. That is all.

Oh jeebus, it may already be too late but..

I’m not touching this one with a 10’ pole except to say, OP, you’ve touched a nerve here in this game’s forums and you’re gonna get feedback from all over the map here. Some considering this “variety” of end game a gift from God to some who will tell you endgame just plain doesn’t exist here. As with so many things in life and even more so in MMOs, you just won’t know what you’ve got or if you’ll like it until YOU give it a shot.

Good thing is having already bought the game you’re free to try it as much as you want and whenever you want.

“the pant”??? Why not just go nuts and spring for the whole set of pant*s*.

Anyhow, do you by any chance wear the shirt in roughly the same “form” in the thoracic region as the Sylvari model? Just saying. That part’s what really sells the shirt in my view!

Look, I don’t know how the status of “Full” is arrived at but here is the best anecdotal uh… whatever I can offer you. I was unable to play until roughly 3 days after launch. By the time I was able my guild’s chosen server (Jade Quarry) was long since full and it remained so for, well… it still is I think.

So of course my only option to actually play the game was to roll on another server but of course I wanted to transfer A.S.A.P. I checked the Server list frequently, even checking in the wee hours of the mornings with no change. Finally, the way I got in was this. Immediately after a “new build” was issued (as they were almost daily in those early days) I logged in as quickly as I could and low and behold I found Jade Quarry, and every single other server that was typically full, just briefly less than full and could then log in.

Now why, they weren’t marked as full right after a new build I couldn’t say. Are they genuinely “unfull” (by whatever standards they are considered full) briefly after every new build? Don’t know. Just saying me and a few other guildies who’d been trying to sneak in were able to so at this specific time. You gotta be quick though and log in immediately after the build completes, it only lasts a few minutes from my experience. I hope this is helpful to you. Good Luck!

P.S This did also occur in the wee hours of the morning, around 2 -3 a.m. EST. That was just in my experience though, whether the exact time is relevant or not I also don’t know.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

Mayam.8976:

Olfinbedwere.5049:

Because pve loot is partially calculated by dmg dealt. If you can’t dump enough dmg on something before it’s down you get no loot. Glass cannons probably get twice as much loot as everybody else. And some people are too lazy to respec for dungeon groups.

Whoa, really? Seriously, not attempting to cast any doubt, I’ve just never heard that before. Where did you hear this?

From the Wiki http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Loot
“Each player who participates in killing a monster will have the opportunity to loot the body. Each monster has a damage table and a threshold value of damage done to it by the player before it will give full credit for the kill. This value is about 5% to 10% of the monster’s health.¹ The loot dropped is unique to the player, and loot received by one player does not affect what another player receives. One monster may drop the same rare item for multiple players.”

I believe it’s taken from a quote from Eric Flannum. If you don’t land enough dmg (5-10% of the mobs health) I’m betting it’s closer to 10%, you don’t get loot.

Ah I see, thank you. I misunderstood sort of, I thought you meant that the more damage you do the greater the value of loot approaching 100% damage dealt. That makes sense though even though I had never read the exact quote. No one can just come skipping up to say a World Dragon and poke him once before he dies and expect a share, at least from all I’ve so far observed. If the previous was the case it would put a whole new spin on the “Glass Cannon” argument though wouldn’t it, heh.

However, I would also like to make the point that a 30% bigger (or whatever) pile of magic gear isn’t gonna have anyone doing the back stroke through their vault full of gold a’ la Scrooge McDuck in this game the way it’s economy functions. Unless you can rake in a noticeably greater amount of Ectos and Ori or otherwise valuable mats or (good luck) noticeably more rares and exotics that may actually sell for a gold or two the cost / benefit of forsaking better gear and stats for a few more points of MF just isn’t worth it, at least in my humble opinion.

KrakenAZ.9367:

In case it hasn’t been mentioned yet, the bandits that take over Seraph Observers Waypoint in Brisban Wildlands are nigh-impossible for a single or double-team of the appropriate level to take back. Densely populated and they seem to come back much faster than what is stated here. I could probably take it with my downleveled guardian, but that says more about the downleveling system than this particular spot.

Edit: lol and now that I look just a few posts up I’m obviously not the only one to run into this problem.

I have to agree there, it would be at the least an extremely challenging solo mission even if they extended the spawn timers. With times as they are now, considering how denesely the mobs are packed in there it’s nigh impossible solo. It seems that every time I’ve come across that area I’ve had to go in and “aggro” some mobs so some poor dude (usually right about at the camp fire) could get enough time to rez and haul kitten!

In Orr what you speak of is glaringly apparent, not because of just their respawn times alone but because of how densely they are placed in certain areas. It’s common there that you fight 3+ mobs or packs seperated by only a few steps so that as you may be finishing off the third the first and second are already back. If you just had to take down the first and then could easily put some distance between yourself and that spot the issue wouldn’t exist.

I’m pretty sure I know exactly the Skritt cave you speak of and I recall not having to venture very far into to the tunnel at all either. I did so, but only to take out a Vet and get the chest not far inside. I also recall a POI I had a real hard time getting to solo in an Ogre stronghold as well. I just kind of assumed these types of areas where kind of an open world “gear check” test sort of. When I came upon them and couldn’t keep up I took it as a sign I needed to upgrade my gear. I did so and returned and overcame them from there.

I’m not saying this to sound like a jerk but I took it as a case that I needed to step up my game, not so much that the game needed to be toned down in any way. There are still some spots in Orr that can get messy even with B.I.S. gear though. Brute force just won’t carry some of em and you have to get mobile, dump some aggro, kite, hit and move, etc. Of course there’s never a shortage of people just running through collecting an aggro swarm in their wake that’ll eventually just dump em on some poor schmo picking berries or something.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

Because pve loot is partially calculated by dmg dealt. If you can’t dump enough dmg on something before it’s down you get no loot. Glass cannons probably get twice as much loot as everybody else. And some people are too lazy to respec for dungeon groups.

Whoa, really? Seriously, not attempting to cast any doubt, I’ve just never heard that before. Where did you hear this?

Um…. hmm. Okay I’ll give it a shot. I suppose you are saying change the drop rates to reflect some arbitrary amount of MF. I’m not going to go into the mechanics, I’m trying to keep it simple. So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s say we up the drop rates by oh… I dunno 10%? Okay, done. 10% greater likelyhood of magic gear dropping (of whatever level). Um, okay this is where this may get fuzzy for you – so right drop rate is now +10% BUT see now everyone puts their magic find gear back on and so they have the +10% across the board with everyone else AND the drop rate buff offered by their MF gear. You see, that’s why an across the board increase is just plain not an answer, however much they raise it, the entire point of MF gear is for the player to then raise their own personal chances above that of the standard, whatever that standard is. So yeah, a selling point this isn’t.

Also, I’m not seeing whatever you’re trying to say by claiming that not having MF gear would be “novel” among the genre. I really don’t know any other way to respond other than to say uh… it is not novel? At all? In no way what-so-ever? In support of that I offer you, well um… the majority of RPGs, MMOs, and uh MMORPGs, I guess?

If your issue is that you and your crew show up strapped to the nines to bring the pain on a dungeon or something and some PuG show’s up in his mediochre “… of the Traveller” set up (which I’m guessing may be the case) then, if you all feel like you are carrying them tell them to put on some better stuff or kitten off!

I don’t think you and whatever minority may share your feelings avoiding having to tell some PuG to get to steppin is a valid reason for such a change. Your argument for “novelty” just plain doesn’t exist and the notion of changing where the baseline drop percentage lies is logically faulty in it’s concept. In short, I don’t see one real reason for even requesting this change. Is there another reason driving your request that you didn’t want to elucidate on here maybe? Cause all that felt like a stretch to come up with a good reason, to say the least. The only one that barely made sense was people potentially not bringing their best to a group but there’s a real simple solution to that, expel them from the group if they won’t put on gear the group feels is appropriate. Pointing your finger at A-Net and saying ‘you need to erase this totally from the game’ seems to be a bit of an over reaction (at best).

Well, I’d really just like to point out one issue and that is with AGGRO. It is so murky, subtle, and esoteric in this game that trying to “manage” it isn’t an art form like “trinity based” games of yester year. It’s more like trying to mathematically represent and show reason in utter Chaos. That is to say, impossible.

I’m hardly a great anything in this game so I wouldn’t pretend to be the final word on how anyone should play any aspect of this game but I ran a “glass cannon” build shortly after hitting 80 just for doody and grins with my Warrior. Swooping in and getting a 100 blades set up and executed on a small group in WvW then scrambling to escape if you don’t manage to lay em all out is fun and the build works pretty well in open world PvE too but it isn’t flexible at all and it’s really a one-trick pony all in all. In dungeons I found it rather worthless and I leaned on my Rifle more than anything.

3/5 of your team in melee range with the barest minimum of defense (and I’d hazard a guess their utility bar wasn’t crammed with cond. cleanses, ‘Endure Pain’, and the like either) is just a blatant and obvious “we’re gonna fail hard” group walking through the door. Heck, it’s not like any of em could spec to “tank” anyway or manage aggro if they could figure it out so the other two could even begin to really cut loose. 3 melee Warriors period is not what I’d call well rounded to say the least no matter what their spec though really.

If they don’t at least have a Rifle in their off hand and remain ready to kite as needed you guys were banging your head against the wall anyhow, just banging it harder and faster with 3 G.C’s who didn’t have a shred of defense either. Ranged G.C’s are a different animal altogether though. Personally I didn’t roll a Warrior to be a plate wearing Ranger without a pet though whether we can pull off a high damage range build or not. That’s just me though. Hey whatever works for ya though!

Slightly peripheral to your topic and question, but I caught an allusion to a potential underwater theme as setting for some / most of the “expansion” (I know we’re all just completely, 100% guessing here though). Whatever possible new race could be included along with whatever else may get thrown in, an underwater setting would be absolutely disastrous unless they get that little “immune” mob hiccup (read: massive game, quest, champ / vet, mob, dynamic event shattering MAJOR issue at least in roughly 50% or so of every under water encounter currently in game).

As it stands currently I avoid any under water activity involving fighting a mob as much as I’m able to. This has been a huge issue for me personally from the begining and it has recieved approximately ZERO or less attention as far as I’m aware. I don’t recall even seeing it referenced by anyone from A-Net come to think of it (though to be fair I don’t actively look).

I’m not just kittening about it, I’m not abandoning the game or demanding a refund or organizing protests or anything. All I’m saying is that if they’re going to add much content under water, especially important content which one wouldn’t want to just simply side step, this MUST be fixed, in my humble opinion anyway.

In addition, casting conjecture on raw guess work here LOL, if they were to write the Tengu in it seems at least possible that some form of arial combat might be possible – which low and behold would involve a Z-axis like under water content. Stands to reason the same problem would be inherent there too.

Honestly we’re stepping so far into the “realm of maybe” though with this topic and discussion everything I said above is about as close to irrelevant as one can get without having never actually even played the game! Lemme run get my 7 year old nieces thoughts on GW2 and their potential “expansion”, it’ll be just as relevant. LOL!

I realize it’s kinda apples to oranges, or maybe apples to pears, or crabapples maybe? I dunno, similes aside, anyone else find it a tad ironic that on one hand there is a segment of the player base raising Cain about “verticle” gear progression and there steadfastness that they don’t want to have to put any more time or effort into their gear once they have reached the level of gear they are comfortable with. Then at the same time you have a portion of the player base constantly pointing out any discrepencies or illogical loot drop rates and tables. If I were a developer I would definitely be feeling as though, to some extent, I’m trying to cater to two mutually exclusive group’s game feature desires. If it’s strictly about skins though then I’m sorry, I’m just not seeing a reason for any urgency or need to increase the availability of the more unique (read: legendary) skins. In terms of application and performance you have the stats to compete on the top level, you simply lack the “skin” per your whimsy.

Personally, I enjoy killing the dragons for the sake of killing the dragons and if I had just one wish regarding them? It would be for them to be more like the quintessential “World Boss”. I realize this is the first itteration of GW2 and likely the future will be bring more content of which will hopefully be more and tougher “World Bosses”. Though the demand for strict “horizontal” progression may be incorrectly interpreted to suggest all future “World Bosses” be on this level of “wussery”. I sincerely hope not though.

I’d love to see the loot tables jacked up, maybe not necessarily drop rates (well much) but in terms of ultra rare mats and yes, even precursors. Not without these “World Boss” Dragons recieving a serious overhaul though. I want to see World Bosses that are truly dangerous, that will require an adequate force showing up to put them down and take some time, resources, and a couple rounds of repairs all around. I’d like to see Adds. that MUST be handled, a requirement for at least some kind of actual group strategy. A “Call to Arms” sent out in /g chat and communicated back to Lion’s Arch calling in back up. You know, like the kind of World Boss fights that many of us are familiar with from more than a couple games. In no way am I advocating copying the World Boss encounters of any other game, far from it. If the encounters we’re stepped up as in this way though I think the 3 hour auto-spawn a’la “Old Faithful” style would no longer be fitting as well though. I think a daily spawn (with at least a matter of a few hours of unpredictability to the spawn timer) would be called for. Even maybe just 2 – 3 spawns a week being that there’s 3 Dragons. I think the degree of the World Boss’ “bad-kittenry” should dictate how often they spawn personally. Also with such wide windows of spawn potential it would necessarily follow just by the law at averages that eventually they will spawn in the “prime time” of every player as well

Do it GW2 style of course, but throw in a healthy dose of challenge, team work, focus and strategy. Heck yeah step up the drops! We’re more than willing to earn them as well A-Net!

P.S: I kill the Dragons for the fun of it. Whatever loot drops for me at the end is just gravy for me. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see better drops though – but I really wanna earn em as well. Currently it’s just spam range attack, run out to regen, rez if someone needs it – pick up my junk when it’s over. In it’s current form it’s just a shadow of the FUN it could be to kill these Dragons. I.M.H.O at least.

P.P.S: I think the point that people CAN just tag the Dragon and then go do, well literally ANYTHING ELSE, and those who remain can STILL smack the Dragons down as fast as we do is a point directly supporting the “ULTRA-WUSSERY” of these “World Bosses”. They’re a “Chanmp Mob” with a really big model at best.

Feydra.6318:

What if burning countered stealth in some way, kinda hard stealithing with flames around you and plume of smoke trailing around you ;P …

Excellent point! I have no clue how the game and classes are conducted these days (or post – BC expansion really) but I think at one point in WoW that DOT’ing a Rogue (a’ la Flame Shock or soemthing) was at least one way you could lock them out of re-stealthing. Might be thinking of another game (it’s been a while) but it seems like a pretty good general rule all around when it comes to stealthing / re-stealthing and makes perfect sense. I mean even in a loose attmept to barely even begin to mimic what is “real”, what exactly would the Thief be doing here in such a case? Making the flame leaping off of their own body entirely invisible as well? Yeah – this deserves thought…

I would like to make note that I hardly consider Thieves in their current state to be the “Tyria shattering demi-gods” some people seem to feel them to be. I think being able to blast someone in excess of 10k and effectively remain completely invisible is a bit over the top and deserves an honest reassessment by the game’s developers but the game is hardly _ruined in it’s current state, especially not by the thief class._

On a side note, I think that melodramatic posts work against effective communication between players and developer’s more than any other one factor as well. Qualifying any “change it or else I demand a refund!” for example pretty much immediately sucks all the credibility out of anything said I feel. Keeping any post, idea, suggstion, etc. with in the realm of realistic is a good start to realistic responses and consideration – you’d think that would go without saying though.

/shrug

I think, point blank, in simplest terms, no Player Character (or an NPC really) should be able to pull off a 1 – shot kill while invisible. If we just consider perhaps a Vet or Champ mob who could essentially remain invisible, effectively all the time, and then every few seconds or so a member of your group just melts instantly and you can’t even see, let alone target and counter. The NPC who is responsible of this is… Well really, need I say more? That isn’t a “Champion” like ability, it’s a “God like” ability.

I don’t think anyone (well anyone with sense) is demanding a massive nerf to stealth (read: survivability) across the board.

Just like a Warrior has to sacrifice massive damage for nearly all of their potential Defense, it should be the same, really a standard rule for the design of ANY class. You want to hit for crazy damage? Okay, say goodbye to all but the very minimal of whatever defensive capability your class possesses. You want supreme survivability? Plan on hitting along the order of a wet-noodle.

Massive Offense – Defenses of wet toilet paper (and not even the “quilted” brand!)
Massive Defense – Offense of over cooked pasta wielding toddler

Personally I think that is, or should be at least, a basic rule of character design. I’m not really seeing any room for argument here. Invisible / Untouchable and capable 10k plus single attacks? Nu-uh. What is the trade off? Now, I’m certainly no pro at Thiefery, if I’m missing something please let me know.

Quick question, ‘Preview’ feature fixed on the TP? If not then what in the airborne fornication are they doing twiddling around with any part of the ‘Preview’ feature while this STILL remains MIA?

That is all…

Conner.4702:

Syktek.7912:

Mahaedros.7085:

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Slightly, though there’s a clear difference between my complaint and their complaints. My complaint is on something that has gotten on my nerves for quite some time. I dealt with this crap in EVE for three years and now I have to deal with an even worse case of it. Poisoned communities get really annoying, especially when it’s everywhere you go.

Except you are wrong. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The only thing the vocal minority is a minority in is the fact that they are vocal. You can not in any way state that they do not, speak or speak not for the silent majority. Just because someone isn’t complaining on the forums does not automatically mean they like things as they are, which is exactly the argument always brought up by people that want to counter the complaint. Until someone speaks up you will never know their stance on a subject.

As such it is simply very irresponsible to ignore large complaints and waltz over these people.

As for complaining about complainers. That is just worse as many complaints are genuine complaints. It doesn’t matter if it is presented constructive or not. The less constructive the more passionate the poster usually is.

Not to be a Negative Nancy or contrary just for the sake of being contrary but, accordingly the best we can infer by the above post is that the coalesced opinion of the “vocal minority” forum goers is that it is factually, well… meaningless. The prevailing opinion of those who frequent the forums, in short, may or may not indicate the prevailing opinion of those who do not post.

In other words, the majority of the consumer population may or may not be pleased with the design, management and direction of GW2. Which is exactly, to the letter, what we can factually conclude if not one single member of the consumer body uttered a word to A-Net about their attitudes and feelings on GW2.

Incidentally though, passionate in the absence of contructive, feedback is generally agreed to be less than an ideal for the purposes of level headed, sober perspectives to base direction and decisions on. Valuable feedback is generally agreed to, first and foremost, come from objective observation, critical thought and the atmosphere of free and open discussion these qualities foster and encourage. Without pointing out any specific examples, lets just say that through out history A LOT of people have been incredibly passionate about some REALLY bad ideas. Just sayin’…

TL;DR: Angry customers will usually not keep it a secret if they are angry enough. Satisfied customers won’t generally utter a word, they speak almost exclusively with their wallets.

There is no reason to believe that the vocal minority on these forums (or the vocal minority offering feedback to any company in the service industry really) is representative of the majority of consumers. There is one hard and fast rule understood by members of the service industry explaining why this is. Example:

Have you ever had a hot delicious Big Mac served along side hot out of the frier, perfectly seasoned, golden fries and an ice cold perfect mixture of soda syrup and carbonated water, served promptly and friendly? I hope so, everyone deserves to know this small pleasure offered in life. I digress. After such a meal did you feel over whelmingly compelled to find the manager and people responsible for this idyllic fast food experience and see them dutifully commended? No? Not once? Never? Me niether. Welcome to the human race.

Conversely have you ever been served a Big Mac that looked like it was the practice sandwich in an experiment to train chimps to work in fast food… using only their feet, accompanied by cold fries that look like they were scraped off the floor under the frier… last week, and a watery beverage which was some how warmer than your fries that barely resembled a soda in appearance and not in all in flavor. One which appears to have taken 20 minutes for a siezuring epileptic to ball up in a paper bag and hurl at you with nothing more than a middle finger before they went back to trying to call their crack dealer? Just out of curiosity, did such a dining experience as this compel you to find the people responsible for it and offer them some tips… on how to end their life and why they owe it to the gene pool and the future of humanity to do so as soon as possible? And again, welcome to the human race.

You see, in part 1 of our example. Eight or so adults (more or less) all pitched in to serve you an appropriately assembled and prepared sandwich, fries which necessitated only the ability to use a timer and a salt shaker with in reason, and place both ice AND the beverage of your choice into their appropriate container. Then to employ basic math to negotiate and transact the exchange and place these items into your hand, WITH the appropriate untensils and accoutrements no less, all in around 5 minutes, give or take. To an acceptable standard, they did, wait for it… THEIR JOB! A feet which (although one could easily argue it is quickly becoming one) is not noteworthy and which you appropriately did not note, because well… it wasn’t worthy of it. Now in part 2 of our example… well I think you get the point.

As the saying goes, they squeaky wheel gets the oil. The Japanese have a similar saying which I find more appropriate though – the nail that sticks out gets hammered first.

Well, I think we all get the point here. When consumers are angry, they express it and call attention to it, publicly if at all possible. When they are satisfied, they generally don’t make a peep.

“Well how does a company know where they stand if the only unprompted feedback they generally recieve is largely negative then Mr. Smarty McSmartface?!?!” You may be wondering. Well there is an equally simplistic barometer of the general consumer body opinion as well. Which is:

… the company still exists, turns profit, and the individual that got caught in your sights when you were wronged by whatever company in your explosive tirade of WTF’ery is still employed therr and putting food in their kid’s mouthes from the check that, in a round about way, was written by you none the less. Now there is one sure fire way to get a complete, accurate, and specifically itemized picture of customer satisfaction. One which is probably most easily practiced by a company providing an MMO – Compulsory Surveys! That’s a discussion for a whole ’nother thread though friends.

I wouldn’t even try to put a list of “most useless” in order because I can hardly keep track of what works like it says, should, or at all anymore. I kinda shy away from general “PuGery” these days but I remeber a time, maybe 6 weeks ago or so when I played a great deal more, that it seemed at least 50% of the groups I joined for dungeons or something had a member who wanted to "set up’ my utilities bar for me. Telling me which skill / trait worked, didn’t work or didn’t work as claimed etc. Heck, I can’t really isolate that to just PuGs (they’re just ready to kick you if you don’t take their word as Gospel). A former Guildy had me convinced that our War Banner didn’t rez at all despite it’s description.

Above all, this is my biggest gripe with this game. I’ve always just taken it for granted up until this game that I could read the tooltip and, wonder of wonders, that would be what that skill would in fact do! Then I could just take it from there in determining my build. In this game it takes some earnest research to sift through and find the factual effects of skills, traits, etc. though.

Oh yeah, and I’m not even addressing the general ambiguity of the large majority of these tooltips. Heck, let’s just take the tooltip for “Powerful Banners” shall we, the tooltip reads as follows:

Banners do damage when summoned.

Yeah… don’t know how I could have passed this trait skill up?!?! I mean, a match causes combustion technically, but technically so does a GOD KITTENED NUCLEAR WARHEAD!!! See what I’m getting at here?

Honestly, if you were to read the title of this thread outside the context of this game… well, just read over it again and think about it. HA! Struck me as funny anyway.

RedOwl.7496:

Well since I no way to know if they have it on autocast I will just report them for botting anyway. Sick of hearing it over and over. If they get banned then maybe they will learn to NOT autocast it town.

Besides, I don’t think ANET wants people to stay logged in permanently anyway and wouldn’t casting it over and over do that?

Ah good. Thank God no less than an A-Net moderator dropped by this thread to ask you to be “100% sure (or at least as close as possible)” that you’re reporting a bot. Which your version of reading comprehension turned into, ’they’re using the auto-attack skill available to every player which clearly screams BOT (not really but that’s beside the point)!’

Please be sure to call them out on these very same forums for not responding quickly enough to all the actual bots who are wrecking gameplay for everyone as they weed through wild goose chases like all the players using their auto attack skill too. The sooner we teach these game makers that they can’t do anything right the better!

Or we could alternatively take you seriously and so likewise, anytime you see anyone auto attacking a mob you should report them as well, no way to know right? Be prepared to be reported yourself on the order of hundreds of times per day as well though – there’s just no way to really know! Log in and spend your game time reporting everyone you see! Man! This feels good doesn’t it! Community action, let’s get ’em!

*sigh

While other people wax philosophic about vectors of progression, I just want stuff like this fixed. I got to 80 and got Exotics in every slot and I hardly broke my back farming away a big chunck of my life doing so. I’ll get Ascended gear too, someday I may get a legendary but I’m not banging my head on the wall to do it. It’ll happen. I’m not worried about that nor am I worried about having some group of players with stats on their gear that are double mine or more just dry humping me into the ground in WvW.

Just fix the blatantly obvious broken and bugged out stuff. Just do that first and foremost before you commence the Ascended gear rollout that is causing some portion of your players to literally lose their minds. A GREAT place to start would be this tragic joke and all the broken skills and miswritten, inaccurate, ambiguous, or just down right broken tooltips.

Thank you, that is all.

I honestly still can’t wrap my brain around how they’re able to enact this kind of guild structuring and get it to float. I’ve seen “communist” style guilds succeed in the past in other games where their members were required to contribute a certain amount of materials and currency but this was all for the guild leaders to orchestrate raids, the consumables needed for them, money for repairs and upgrades for the tanks, etc. There was garaunteed benefits to the members too though. For example, they didn’t have to worry about the money to buy their mounts when the time came, the guild handed them their choice of mount when they hit that level. Any specific armor (fire resist or w/e specific stat may be required) or consumables were covered and provided by the guild.

The guild structure you’re describing though just sounds plain, well… stupid! –
“Join us, we’ll allow you to deposit things in our bank (but never withdraw them)! We garauntee that there might be someone you can maybe run a dungeon with uh… possibly? We promise to allow you to contribute to us getting Legendaries for ourselves that you can then freely observe us using (if you follow us around that is)!”

You know what, upon further reflection a loose plan has begun to emerge. If you’d REALLY like to metaphorically body slam these kittens, post the guild’s name and server here. I think with enough dedication to the cause we can gather enough people to transfer over and go about joining this little band of D-bags (no offense to you OP – Lady ‘D’, that is). From there we could put a long term plan into action to not just destroy but fully rob this guild blind, just on principle alone mind you, not for the purpose of monetary gain necessarily (although there’s no reason we have to rule that out either, this part of the game is 100% player content here). Or we could just put a short term plan into effect and coordinate a mass walk out among the “slaves” leaving this handful of “masters” sitting there looking at each other like a bunch of idiots with no source of influence, gear, or monetary income that they’d become accustom to. If we could then follow the physical breaking of the guild from the inside we just need to then launch a tirade of negative PR to seal the lid on them so to speak. We could literally shatter this guild.

Well, ball is in your court. I’m down to wreck shop on these fools though and I think that ultimate moment of smashing this guild would provide enough chuckles that we could enlist enough to do this easy. Just think about them all sitting around yucking it up while they drain the bank, mark “strikes” and banish folks to the “naughty corner” some evening as they’ve done on so many others when all of a sudden they start seeing: [So and So] has left the guild, then [What’s his name] has left the guild, [Watcha-ma-call-it] has left the guild, [Pete] has left the guild, [Repete] has left the guild, [Moe] has left the guild, [Larry] has left the guild, [Curly] has left the guild, and on and on and on and BOOM! The whole floor just gives out and their entire guild, aside from the handful of knuckleheads with the audacity to call themselves the “Masters”, is just…. gone…. just one night out of nowhere in 10 or 15 minutes the whole guild just bleeds out like a stuck pig.

Sounds like nothin but giggles to me =D! And think of the epic story it could turn out to be that you can share with all the youngins in GW4 15 years down the road!

Mechanix.5719:

mmm where u in some kind of BDSM guild because it really sounds that way

Yeah, we really may be crossing the line into some definitely wierd and especially non MMO related territory here.

Um, if that is the case then I would like to volunteer my services to take you and your friend’s gold, valuable items, etc. Believe me, if having people take the things of value that you’ve worked for “pulls your trigger”. I’m sure there will be a VERY long list of people in game who would be MORE THAN HAPPY to be your “friend”. That much I can garauntee you!

P.S I fully realize I’ll probably be “reprimanded” by the forum moderators here. I honestly feel it’s worth the sacrifice to make this point in as “loud and significant” fashion as I could though. I mean this goes right down to the very pack structure of animals and the primal “forces” that govern that kind of “society”. You, and all the other guild “slaves” are being summarily ABUSED and could LITERALLY end the situation in a matter of seconds by simply quitting the guild. This “problem” literally demanded someone to stand up and point the way in a “loud”, if unkind, fashion. It had to be said, and it had to be said this way. I apologize for that (but not really).

Yeah, I feel like I must be missing some really big part of the problem’s description here. You are a willing member (slave w/e), who is willingly subjecting themself to this guild’s PAINFULLY obvious abuse of it’s membership and you are subjecting yourself to this guild’s abuse – 100% VOLUNTARILY. From what you have described I see a whole bunch of reasons why anyone wouldn’t want to be a “slave” member of this guild and not one single benefit. I really… I’ve gotta be missing some REALLY important detail in what you wrote. I mean you’re 100% willingly a “member” and continue to be one yet you think A-Net should enact some kind of punishment for the people who you and only you are allowing to completely ruin your guild and game experience.

I mean, there is LITERALLY only one person responsible for you being treated this way and that person is, wait for it… keep waiting for it… YOU!!!. Let me try and break down how you can remedy this situation as simply as I can: ahem – step 1> *QUIT THE GUILD, step 2> … um… uh… Nope that’s it, just that.

This HAS TO BE A TROLL attempt. HAS TO BE! PLEASE!!! Let this just be a troll attempt. If it’s not, then we are left with only two possibilities. 1> You, the OP, are “special” (God I hope that’s all it is) or, 2> Humanity has finally degenerated to this point – the gene pool has become this “polluted”. If it’s #2 then this is it folks, humanity has peaked and crested it’s “high point” in evolution and we need to prepare to rush at break-neak speed through a downward spiral and a rough landing in the next “Dark Age”.

If you, the OP, are willingly subjecting yourself to this treatment and with not even the possibility of a future “payoff” for being this guild’s “slave” member and just skipped right over, “quitting the guild” to solve your conundrum and arrived at “get A-Net to penalize the offending guild ‘masters’” and make this all better for me. Then… kitten it, there’s nothing left to be said and really, everything I have said in this post has likely flown straight over your head so high up there in the stratosphere’s of logic and common sense that it’s been no more than a complete waste of time.

Congratualtions to your guild’s “masters” I guess in weeding out and roping in the players they have as “slaves” who don’t even have the common sense to quit their guild with in seconds of reading their “rules” and seeing how the guild is fundamentally “run”. I mean really guys, just wow! I’m plain awestruck that I’ve seen such a post. The idea that a person exists who has continued to be abused in your guild AND is able to write coherently too is just… well, wow! I mean… wow! I’m just… wow!

If I’ve learned anything from this post’s just plain utter existance I guess, it’s that I should never think “now I’ve seen it all!” Cuz… I… uh…. wow!

I tried to care for a couple minutes but no, I couldn’t.

There’s probably 1000’s of “Home of the World’s Greatest Burger (or steak or pancakes or whatever)” too. If I like a particular “Home of the World’s Greatest Burger”, I’ll go there and eat, plain and simple. Their neon sign of proclamation or whatever has nothing to do with my choice either. I’m certainly not going to not go eat there because I take issue with the truth of their sign, nor would I debate the point with someone based on the argument of that particular restaurant’s proclaimation to in fact be “Home of the World’s Greatest Burger”.

GW2 the greatest MMO? Yes? No? Maybe? Who cares? Do I enjoy playing it? Yep. Will my friends? Maybe. Do I or them give an airborn fornication about VGA awards or really any “expert opinion”. Nay.

I guess what I’m saying, and I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’ve actually studied this in depth and indeed made careers based on the ideas but, from my lay person’s perspective, is that in today’s world of marketing and advertising it’s all just kind of run together to become “background noise”. The whole world of free trade capitalism is so thoroughly oversaturated with every company offering every possible product and service shouting that they are the best “The World Over!” It’s kind of like the little boy crying wolf in reverse. Should “The World’s Best” hit the market no one’s even going to look up because they’ll be just one voice of thousands shouting the same line – “We Are The World’s Best!” We’re gonna ignore them too just like we’ve been ignoring the other 999,999.

P.S As a poster above sort of hinted at as well, there’s more than just the ‘VGAs’ issuing awards for video games as well. In fact it’s kind of to the point that companies handing out awards for this, that, and the other thing have become a supporting niche market all of their own. For every game, burger, car, down to garden hoses and paperclips and whatever else, there’s some company issuing and printing some “top 10 on the market” list that, for the right price, you too can have the “Best <Whatever> In The World!”, according to someone at least.

Yes, boosts count.

I was gonna comment in some depth about this but the more I looked at and read this thread the more I came to realize there’s a semantic disagreement at the discussion’s most fundamental level. Until there’s a universally agreed upon meaning of these terms “farm” and “grind” it’s just banging your head against a wall verbally.

I guess this much can be agreed upon though at least – grinding and farming are inherent to the genre. For example, it doesn’t matter how you got your “Exotic set” – karma, dungeon tokens, honor badges, gold, or maybe an hour of earnings from last week’s paycheck, the one thing that didn’t occur is that it materialized in your bags while you stood still making wishes.

One could go on to insinuate that of the “farming” and “grinding” one’s done in this game for their “B.I.S Set” it’s a drop in the bucket to what many MMOs require for a B.I.S set up. Such that if one is casting a negative judgement on this game for it’s inherent “farming and grinding” then MMOs in general just may not be their bag.

cimon.5798:

first off this game is a young pup who in the kitten said exotics was gunna be top teir in there progression. quit being babies about everything you people on here make me cringe sometimes with how much you whine about the silliest crap in the world QQmoar

Fair enough. I was attempting a little more tact but basically, “Yeah!”

Honestly, I’m not big on exhaustively researching a game, especially prior to it’s release. My guildies and friends do that then through course of hearing them discuss it, I get sold. Not to sugar coat it but yeah, I’m just a follower ;P.

I never once read or heard mention to the effect that, “the armor, gear and items that are in the game at launch are the only items that will ever be in our game.” Never heard any statement that could be misunderstood to even hint at that. Furthermore, I guess I just kind of assumed their would be more powerful gear and items, even a level cap raise above 80 eventually.

Seeing so many people rant and rail against A-Net though over the patch of 11/15 I guess I also just assumed that there was such a “promise” from A-Net. Seeing some people so extremely kittened off after this patch made me wonder if I was missing some important detail that I was supposed to be really angry about though.

There’s adding a 5 man dungeon with a ring and back accessory. Then there’s adding a 25 – 40 man dungeon that has to be mastered and run week after week after week for months to eventually replace every item and shred of gear you possess just so you’ll be prepared to do exactly that again when the next content addition is added. Oh yeah, and you’ll probably need to grind out an entirely different set for PvP, well… so you can grind out the next PvP set when that’s added too.

If the “grind” of GW2, whether pre or post 11/15 is demanding too much of your time to keep up then this entire genre probably isn’t for you. Really I’d stick to Solitaire if GW2 is too “grindy”, maybe a game of Mahjong if you have the whole weekend off but take it easy and don’t over commit. Just see how it goes before you lock yourself in to a full set of tiles.

Oh hey @ Snix Spoonman.3871:

I’m trying to finish up my Personal Story Quests as well but I stopped just short of finishing a few weeks ago because the rewards for killing Zhaitan were ABSOLUTE GARBAGE! I mean garbage to the point of like – the rewards come in bags literally called “Exotic Bags” however everyone was getting pretty much solely blues and greens with a very few rare (yellow) items in the level ranges of the teens – 80! So really, just finishing the maps for Malchor’s Leap and / or Cursed Shore got you 2 Exotics each but killing Zhaitan would get you some random useless green or blue that you coudln’t even sell on the TP above their vendor value much less even get an Ectoplasm from. They aren’t even worth Salvaging in most cases, just strait up selling to a vendor!

I was just wondering if you had heard if this bug (it HAS to be a bug!!!) had been fixed? Anyway, I’m at the point of wanting to finish my Personal Story as well (assuming it’s fixed). I’m gonna add your name to my firend’s list if it’s cool with you and please feel free to add my name to yours and we can at least help each other finish our Stories. Even if you aren’t up to the “Killing Zhaitan” part I’d be more than happy to help you get to that point (heh, not it like it’s in anyway hard though) and hopefully maybe we can find a couple other’s who would want to get in on this as well and we can all get this done.

Either way, feel free to hit me up in game. For any reason really, doesn’t just have to be about the Story Quests. I haven’t felt a big need to hop in FotM either so I’m still on tier 1. Maybe we can get a group together to start on that too?

As regards Baron of Winters.5697‘s commentary / posting:
This is what I was getting at. I truly don’t feel that these changes brought about in one patch constitues a large enough sample to conclude they’ve completely reversed their philosophy and are hence forth just going to begin piling higher levels, stats and tiers of gear on top of each other at a “WoW-ish” style and pace. I hit 80 and literally finished my B.I.S Exotic gear on 11/14. If I were to make any educated guess about what this patch portends for the future and it’s progression style and pace it would be that I’ll have even longer to cobble together an Ascended set.

Honestly I’m not feeling pressed to do so anyway, I was doing WvW in blues and greens and never felt at a disadvantage. Comparitively the gap between Exotic and Ascended as it is now barely registers compared to the gap that my quest sub-80 blues and greens were comapred to full Exotics. I’ll get em when I get em, it’s a goal to keep me logging in just like maxing my crafts, gaining Influence and buffs for my guild and buying my Exotic set was. Carrot on a stick or whatever, it made me want to log in.

One patch that adds one dungeon, one zone and a couple accesories of a new “tier” of gear does not a pattern make though. Judging the future progression of this game solely by the patch of 11/15 is logically invalid barring ESP. The changes of the 11/15 patch, at most, may deserve a wary and suspicious eye. Assuming those changes are step one in abandoning the entire design philosophy of GW2 is jsut a tad of an over-reaction (by tad I mean huge of course ;P) though i.m.h.o. Nother couple of patches that just ratchet it up and birth the same kind of “arms race” found in many other games though and we have a verifiable, "WTF happened to the years of PR about the “casual” GW2 A-Net?!?!"

I do agree that releasing this “content patch” with one zone essentially completely barren of any content, and a single dungeon representing the ONLY step up in content we’ve had since launch was a mistake though. It shouldn’t have been difficult for them to predict that at least a large enough portion of their player base was going to end up sitting around LA spamming “LFG FotM Tier [whatever]” and a really huge portion of the game world they spent so much time designing was going to be deserted along with enough players feeling left out to be an issue. If anything, this patch should have been a part of a larger patch offering more content through out their world and offering something to every (with in reason) player of every different play style. The only thing this one really has to offer their entire player population is a dungeon that yeah – HAS to be grinded. The fact that even those players who don’t mind the grind still have to fit themselves into one of a couple dozen or so tiers just magnifies is dividing of the community that much more.

Who am I to say though? I’m by no stretch a programmer that could even approach programming an MMO let alone produce and market it multi-nationally. I’m certainly by no means qualified to critisize the folks at A-Net or any game / software producers though. Maybe they did make a mistake releasing this patch as it was or maybe they didn’t? Even if it was a mistake, they’re human and by no means would such a mistake (if it was one) sour the game for me, let alone ruin it. I’d guess that their next “content patch” will be aimed directly at the heart of spreading the content back out (rather than solely concentrated in LA) and opening up a lot more doors to the Ascended gear. I seriously doubt they instituted one tier with one stat that applies to the higher end of one dungeon. Leaving the “casual vs. hardore”, “vertical vs. horizontal” and whatever other conflicts out of the equation completly and all that work around just one part of one dungeon makes precisely ZERO sense anyway.

To even approach a “fair shot” you’d have to give it at least one more “content patch” to judge. But hey, if you’d be having more fun doing something else than playing GW2 then by all means go for it! Afterall, it is YOUR liesure time and ultimately that’s what it comes down to. Whether you stay with GW2 or abandon civilization to live an isolated Ascetic life a’ la Siddartha Guatama you don’t have to qualify it with me A-Net or anyone else! Whatever blows your hair back friend (unless you shave it all off in the interest of the whole Aescetic bit of course)!

@ GregT.4702
This isn’t like subscription based games where you end your sub and stop paying and forfeit your ability to post on the games forums if that’s what you meant. I agree with the spirit of your post though.

It seems in every MMO these days there will inevitably be some change that some players are bound to object to and of those who do object there will be varying degrees of reaction (or _over_reaction, more to the point). Some will ignite into a downright apoplectic siezure of seething, venomous verbal assaults swearing to all things holy that they’ll boycott the offending company for their lifetime hence forth. Some will just state their suspicion of the path the current change could be leading to and then go about playing the game to wait and see with all the other emotionally stable players though. (By the way, I’m speaking purely in generalities OP, my description of some of the “extremists” is in no way directed at you Sir or Madam.)

To be fair some companies will take customer feedback (and apparently mix in some LSD and / or other severe hallucinogens) and metaphorically grab the wheel of their MMO, aim it at a brick wall and put the pedal to the metal cackling like mad men WAY off their meds as they pancake the whole thing into the wall at 130 m.p.h (see: SWTOR).

Personally, common sense suggests (well to me at least) that they’re either noticing that most of their players are spending most of their time in one dungeon trying to get a couple items to drop. Which means all the content, mobs, bosses, dynamic events, zones, dungeons, etc. (collectively known as “variety”) that they spent so much time designing is where the majority of them um, well… aren’t. Kinda like a luxury cruise liner that’s built and designed to cruise entire oceans and coastlines that is now just pretty much cruising the same 10 mile circle – the people holding tickets are bound to get REAL bored REAL fast. So I’d be expecting this to change P.D.Q.

If you were caving in some guys head in PvP when he had exotic rings and a backpiece, I think the chances of him now beating the complete bejeebus out of you with an extra +10 to a few stats from a ring and a backpiece are pretty slim too. It’s hardly the kinda of overwhelmimng gear advantage of some guy in teir 18 raid gear over some schmo in green quest rewards.

If I had to bet, I’d bet this recent content addition is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole new zone to fill in now, a whole bunch of gear to compliment that couple of rings and backpack, and if I was A-Net – my biggest priority right now would be to pry such a big chunk of my players out of that one new dungeon and get em spread back out in my world. And I’d wanna have more than one path for my players to take to gearing up as well (in keeping with the appeal to the “casual” market). I don’t think, ‘do this dungeon over and over or else’ is even close to their intention (at least I REALLY hope it isn’t). If anything maybe they should have waited to release this dungeon and zone as part of a much larger content patch but I think the doom-sayers are assuming the worst case without any real reason to. Also if I were A-Net though I would definitely feel that time is a factor in getting out some alternatives to THEE DUNGEON everyone’s set up camp around since it’s release.

The beauty of this MMO financial and design model though is that you can put it down and walk away and come back later without being so far behind it’s not even worth trying.

I’m rather confused to be honest. I’ve been playing pretty much everyday more or less since launch, and playing my main – a Charr Warrior – daily in addition to fiddling with several alts, and have yet to see the first pet drop. Not a single one. I’ve heard of none of my friends and guildies seeing a single pet drop either.

You’re post insinuates that they do drop, however rarely, from everyday mobs through out the game though. I’m sorry if I might be slightly derailing your thread a bit with this question but, what am I missing out on? I honestly hadn’t given them much thought given I’ve so far not heard a word about them until this post. I haven’t even seen a player in game with one running along by their feet or anything like I have in every other MMO where they’re available.

PLEASE someone tell me what I’m missing out on so far as how one procures one of these!

In case its important I suppose I should mention that I bought the standard version, not the Collector’s Edition or anything. I purchased a physical copy through Amazon.com (I know with many games these days, where you purchased your copy can determine what “special” in game bonuses you recieve). I purchased in time to play the final Beta Weekend but didn’t because of some real life obligation I don’t even recall now, but my account and game was activated for launch day. Lastly, I haven’t yet spent any money beyond my initial $60 for my copy. Haven’t seen a need for any gems or anything in game yet until I need to add bank space (couple mule alts have sufficed so far). Or if things change concerning the contents of those BL chests I’ve got about 100+ of now. I refuse to shell out enough cash to open them all to be at the whim of an RNG (for rewards that aren’t that great to begin with) with real life money on the line. If I’ve gotta lay out real money to crack them open to get a pet I can live without one considering the “mechanics” of how the RNG applies to the BL chest contents presently functions.

Snores.7806:

Hold on to to it mate. With the current inflation rate it should be worth around six squibillion gold in 3 months time. You’ll be able to buy a new pair of trousers

You know really though, this post sums it up entirely! 6 squibillion! SQUIBILLION SIR!!!

… this thread ended with this post imho…

SQUIBILLION!!!11!!1one!11!!!1

:D

Well, for what it’s worth, if they do “ninja buff” the drop rate I don’t think you’d see the floor immediately drop out anyway. Personally, I’d keep an eye on the market for about 24 hours after each “new build” and if it takes enough of a down turn, unload it. That’s if I didn’t just go ahead and sell it straight off the bat, which I probably would, and then just pick up a ‘Midnight’ shade of whatever. At 20g, there’s hardly anything else outside of a precursor that you can flip that quick for that much.

Heck, if you do catch the market and sell at the right time before some “ninja drop rate change”, you can easily sell it for 20~ gold, wait a week or whatever for the market to normalize at a lower price. Then buy it back at the new discounted price and end up with the dye and a decent chunk of change.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We are looking into this presently. Thanks for reporting.

And Thank You Sir for letting us know it’s being attended to. Seriously (not sarcasm) .

Having gotten home now and having time to look through today’s (Dec. 3rd) patch closely:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-3-2012

I see that the following was posted as changes to the Personal Story Quest Chain:

Personal Story
•Minor personal story bugs in multiple personal story steps were fixed.
•The story step “Forewarned is Forearmed” has been fixed to avoid an error that prevented completion.
•The story step “Time for a Promotion” has been fixed to avoid a problem that caused it to stall.
•The story step “Silent Warfare” has had the difficulty adjusted.
•The story step “The Artist’s Workshop” has been fixed to allow players to rally when they defeat hypnotized performers.
•Players who completed the sylvari “mirror” storyline are now recognized by the NPCs in the story step “Through the Looking Glass.”

Of which the first bulleted notation (highlighted above) seemed the only one even potentially relevant. Of course it was so generic in it’s wording it could apply to ANY kind of change to our Personal Story quest chain. I have a feeling it doesn’t apply to our particular issue but I’m trying to hold out some hope that it may. Anyone know yet? (I have a feeling I won’t be getting a positive reply, or any reply at all really, to that question either.)

*_sigh_ And so I continue to go not going on (with my Personal Story quest chain that is)… ho hum…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Transferring-servers-is-ridiculous/first#post915068

^^^ Basically a thread recently posted about the exact same topic.

My reply there:
Post launch it took me about 10+ days to get transfered to server my guild set up on because I had an issue downloading the client that took me a couple days to solve. Ultimately I was able to transfer by signing in and going to the server selection list IMMEDIATELY after a patch. It’s a complete guess on my part of course (because I don’t know how I could possibly verify it as fact without direct comment from an A-Net Rep.) but it’s my belief that if they are going to change the server cap it will be when they institute a patch. Several other members who had to roll on another server first and then transfer found this true as well.

Obviously we’re 3 months post launch so I don’t know how helpful this advice may be now (if it’s even in any way accurate) but if I were you I’d be racing to get in and attempt to transfer as quickly after a new patch is rolled out as I could. Sorry I don’t have any advice more helpful than that but it’s the tactic that worked for me and other guild members in the same situation. Won’t hurt anything to give it a shot at least.

Best of luck with it in any case friend.

Clark Skinner.4902:

2 fixes that weren’t done very well. Guild leaders being able to kick each other. They did this because someone accidentally promoted another to guild leader and the promotee would not step down. This is problematic for everyone else now, and even for those they were trying to help. If the bad egg sees this first, he will kick the legitimate leader out and take over the guild.

And then there’s fixing some bad terrain design by changing the laws of physics in the game. I already had moments where I was running on a slope and my jump didn’t work, but I thought my keyboard was wearing out. There was already a mechanism like this, they just made it more oppressive because it was easier.

2 patches ago, 2 elementalist combo finishers were pretty much ruined. 1 stopped working completely. The other was made so the enemy had to be touching the ele to initiate the finisher inside the field. This patch only made the broken one work the same way. Elementalists shouldn’t be fighting in melee range!

Now they have to cast 3 skills and wait for the kitten Dragon’s Tooth to hover in the air (why would you mentally suspend something in the air longer than you had to?) for 3 seconds while the mobs cut you to pieces just to get the combo finishers to work, but by that time you’re dead because you stopped moving in the middle of a cluster of enemies.

It worked so much better before, the change 2 patches ago. Finisher executed on skill cast, not off in the distance after the field vanished, without the need for it to execute in melee range. And the combo is a boon, it should be centered around the caster.

Hmm… regarding the first; if one finds themself in a guild where there’s a danger of such childishness, well (I guess I should qualify this first by saying, “as I personally see it”) you were never involved with a REAL guild in the first place and good riddance. You were simply in a collection of players who got to have a “guild tag” over their head and indiscriminantly issued invites to people who indiscriminantly accepted.

If that isn’t the case though, such an occurence was a blessing in disguise because your real guild has now identified and rid itself of the D-bag and his ilk who, I guess, felt important by being able to call himself a guild leader in a video game. Congrats! Now you get to go form a real guild with the members actually worth having. At worst you lost the Influence you acrued but it’s worth it in the long run EASILY. Wow, that’s some serious childish kitten to pull right there though. KITTEN!

You’re right though, I see no reason for a change to the guild mechanics though if it’s true that this was the sole reason for the change.

Regarding this jumping bug (and whatever else this “fix” is meant to address) has me concerned. I’m about to head hom,e where I can log in for myself and see what’s really going on but I haven’t heard anything positive on these forums about it so far…

Pardon me, could you repeat that? I had something crazy stuck in my ear.

Seriously, I’m killing time til i can head home shortly and log in. Whatever this “can’t jump issue” is it has me greatly concerned….

ColinJohanson.2394:

Neve.7134:

Why you don’t fix the fact that on Fractals if someone dcs cannot re enter in Fractal?

We’ve got people working specifically on this issue, it has turned out to be much more complicated due to the way fractals are implemented than we hoped. We’ll have a fix for this soon as it’s tested enough we think it’s clearly solved and doesn’t cause any other issues.

We are at least a week and a half away on a fix for this, possibly longer depending on how long it takes to test it properly, we wouldn’t want to deploy anything that makes the issue worse!

Thanks for your patience, we wish this one was super easy! =)

God bless you Colin!

Seriously, this is like the quintessential Gold Standard of a game company Rep. responding to their customer.

1. We are aware of the issue.

2. We have a fix in the works currently and are in the [insert current developmentmental level of progress here] phase.

3. We hope to have it completed and ready for release in the approximate time frame of [insert projected completion time here].

4. Reiterate commitment to quality and express appreciation for customer patronage.

Seriously, Thank You. This kind of feedback really means a lot to your customers. Thank You for your quick attention to this problem as well Sir .

cargan.5689:

Quaggan the ones i rescue their village save their eggs free their captives bring the lost home and then save from extinction by the dragon hordes when i point out a little thank you might be in order get,

ooooOOOOOOooooo Quagaaaan noooo have gold.
Tixx is welcome to them

While I can’t endorse the… uh… well whatever you say he’s doing with kids, Quaggan or otherwise. You make an excellent point Cargan, I think individually I (and each of us if you can wrap your brain around that warp in reality) am solely responsible for the very survival and continuance of the entire Quaggan species and they owe me / us! Heck I think they should be erecting shrines and a cultic following and church to me (and each of us as individuals, again you gotta be REAL flexible with the definition of “individual” here) as their Patron Saint if not their outright Personal Demi-god!

This doesn’t really change the fact (or impact it at all really I guess) that I (we – WHATEVER! You get the point), can’t allow this Tixx wierdo to do um… well whatever the heck you said he’s doing with em.

*_sigh_ Alright then, guess I’m off to kill the Asuran, Tyrian version of Santa Claus for these Quaggan now. You know I really think this is one of those cases where you can “give a man a fish and feed him for the day or teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” Seems especially poignant being that they pretty much ARE fish but whatever – we need to teach them to fish, I mean fight for them selves, I guess they’ll likely be fighting other fish so two birds with one sto… YOU SEE WHAT I’M GETTING AT HERE! Quaggans need to stand up for themselves – PERIOD! (Well after we / I kill the Asuran Santa I guess…)

Wait… what the KITTEN was I / we (Huh?) talking about here?!?!?

My head hurts. I think I need to go lie down for a while…