Guild Wars 2

I saw it mentioned that GvG would be done at a later time, so I won’t bring that up. But I think Guild Halls should be designed such that they can be used as arenas for GvG battles. Enough said.

Proposal Overview
Guild Halls as Gathering Space, Competitive sPvP Arena, and WvW (GvG) Zone

Goal of Proposal
Players want fresh zones for pvp / wvw, and social players want a place they can interact with guildies and express the identity of the guild.

Proposal Functionality
There are three aspects to the design —- social, spvp, and wvw.

These are instanced guild halls. These instanced guild halls could come in a variety of themes and layouts (more on that later). Each guild hall would have a courtyard area (outside) and a castle area (inside).

Social

Guild Halls serve as a social hub for guilds. Guilds can restrict access to the guild hall itself by rank. Guild Halls allow players to queue up for Activities as a guild (an activity to be created favoring members of that guild, but not exclusive to them). These Activities would be unlocked via guild merits and/or influence.

Additional unlocks would be other in-game minigames like Belcher’s Bluff, a stand-alone version of some of the musical instruments in the game, crafting stations, etc. Offer up “theme packs” for guild halls e.g. mad king, wintersday, etc. for gems.

Allow areas of the Guild Hall (e.g. curtains, tapestries, etc.) to be dyed using the dye system (or a dye system).

sPvP

Guild Halls can double as a custom arena which requires only tokens for use or allows guild merits / guild influence to be used in its activation and upkeep. Using this custom arena provides the same tools as other current custom arenas, but is only administratable by those of certain rank within the guild and it is only the guild hall courtyard map. When using the Guild Hall in this way the guild members are placed in an instance of their guild hall for the match. The same rules for deathmatch / cap point apply. The Guild Hall sPvP zone is available only to guild members and can be rank-gated.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Chaith.8256:

ghaleon.2861:

It’s 2014, come on we should be able to speak to them in game, just like every other game out there. Nobody wants to type while in combat.

VOIP is intrusive. It’s not always possible to be on VOIP because of what’s going with your surroundings. Not everybody wants to be in a call, especially with potentially annoying or abusive strangers.

Teamspeak exists for a reason, if you need those features, everyone has it. Implementing voice chat into the game seems to be redundant. I remember voice chat being implemented into another MMO that I played, and it was low quality as well as hardly ever used.

So, that’s why I am all for empowering team-wide voice emotes.

This is how I feel about VOIP in-game as well.

You should be able to turn it off, and easily mute specific people. For PvP, I’d use it. For PvE I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t expect everybody to use it.

Voice emotes are helpful but robotic. They’d be a step in the right direction but in a PvP game I’d prefer to be able to illustrate ideas beyond the scope of what they’d likely implement via voice emotes. I don’t want voice emotes to become a restriction on game content, either.

In-game voice chat would be very cool. Especially if you allowed open voice chat within a /say radius, and or within a /group.

Barring that, if you could mark a rally flag on the map and have it persist for say ~20 seconds rather than rapid pinging. Or, mark an intent for yourself on the map by map clicking and having the map show a basic line between your character and the place you clicked. The current map drawing goes away too fast and is generally too much trouble for most people to draw. Also, a lot of people don’t know they can draw on the map.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would the commander system be functional enough with more markers, guild only tags, less suppression, better supplyinfo, and possibly additional marker shapes?

Short answer: yes

Long answer: This is all good stuff, but I’d really like to see the squad system improved so that joining a squad provides real organizational benefits for large groups, tools that can be used to “discover” a squad you want to join, and ease of squad joining. But I believe that if you make those modest commander updates first that any enhancements you do to squads later will have compounded benefits. Also, please look at this system from an ease of use / user experience perspective… right now using the commander system is not intuitive, as you’ve seen by the “what map markers?” responses…

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

I’ve never seen anyone use the waypoint markers (on my server); I think a lot of people don’t know about them. That feature isn’t something I would call well documented… for one it requires the full map be open (can’t use from mini-map). I’d join a squad more if it were dead easy to join a squad and you could “fill up” a commander squad via lfg or something. I’d be more likely to join a squad if it conferred some benefit to a follower/the squad similar to a party (for example, nameplate highlighting, buff/healing priority, minimap location highlighting).

Spies are a problem, it’s hard for me to say how much because you rarely know who they are and whether you’re just getting caught out due to good scouting. I’ve seen several instances of spying (they told us they were spying and they were actively griefing so I believe them) since leagues started. The commander tag makes it much easier for a spy to feed information back since they can basically sit around feeding information, whereas in a tagless group they’d need to be actively scouting. They’d still be invulnerable but at least they’d have to be able to physically see the group.

I can’t think of why a commander would want to see their own tag on their head unless they had left it up by mistake… I wonder if making the commander buff icon flashier could help with that.

If you hid the commander buff by default and made it a wvw upgrade (Scout Mastery or something) to be able to “spot” enemy commanders with their buff icon or some other visual cue I think that would be a cool change. If it was visible on the mini-map it would be a strong disincentive to tag up.

I’m sorry if I repeat anything someone else has said.

1. Commander tag colors – pick one of 6 or 10 colors, this is an area where you could get commanders to pony up points or gems for additional colors and icon styles if you were so inclined as well. I know many a commander who would love to have a black or pink icon.
2. Commander ‘tooltip’ – Allow commanders to provide a short blurb about what they’re doing… 20 characters max — “karma train” / “keep repair” / “ruins flip”, and make that blurb appear when someone not in their squad hovers over the nacho. This would allow commanders to display their intent. They could also convey info like a voice chat channel they’re in or something.
3. Privacy settings — There should be a minimum of the following (increasing visibility, Guild includes Party+Guild for example): Party, Guild, Friends, and Public. Please do NOT remove the enemy’s ability to see a commander tag at all times. Targeting officers and leadership is a valid tactic in any war and if your party is relying upon a commander that’s a risk you take.
4. Supplyinfo range increase -OR- add a UI component for commanders that shows supply within 1200 range in something like real time, just put it next to the personal supply in a different color.
5. Merit Tags — Only allow players who are at least rank X to buy a commander tag. Provide an alternate method for PvE commanders to get a tag that’s only usable in PvE.
6. Visibility settings — Let me hide commander tags, similar to privacy settings (Guild, Friends, Public). I’m iffy on this because we usually want more information instead of less in WvW and not being able to see a commander on the map may not be worth the convenience of being spared a ton of tag spam. But there are some times when I don’t want to see the 3 other tags. This would have to be done really carefully otherwise people will never find and follow new commanders.
7. Commanders show up in LFG — Use the LFG system to make it easy for people to find and join a commander’s squad. Let it work across battlegrounds, and with the privacy filter. For example, if my guildie is running with Guild privacy for a guild event I should be able to find him using the LFG system as long as I’m in WvW. If I am running with Public privacy on then anyone should be able to see me in WvW LFG and join my squad with the push of a button. It should show my Commander tooltip in the LFG entry. I should be able to see which BL they are in, and it should be accurate. Ditto for my friends and party members.
8. Commander Mastery — Trait line for WvW. You could require commanders spend X points to get the tag, which would be rank 1, then subsequent ranks would do things like provide allied NPC guards with bonuses, show map draw to the whole squad, etc or otherwise increase the utility. Allow some rank to show Righteous Indignation timers from a further distance — everyone who is serious is already counting down 5 minutes from the last flip of some camp/tower or uses monitors apps to get this information anyway. What this shouldn’t be is a reason why you have to have a commander tag up in order to be effective, none of it should scale past 1 commander, and it shouldn’t be beneficial for anything other than possibly NPC impacts, information gathering, or utility. Allow the commander to promote up to X people as “scouts”. These people can also draw on the map and place icons on the map that the squad can see in order to mark enemy groups. No commander damage/vitality buffs or anything, just information.
9. Finisher – Give commanders a special finisher they can use when they have their hat up. Like a giant dorito that scales in size with the number of allies nearby.
10. Someone mentioned a Commander channel and I think its an awesome idea. With the privacy settings you would still hat up and be in the channel without showing yourself to the world, and bring your party / guild / zerg in to help others. The problem, as always, is that it could be abused by enemies.. enemy abuse can be pretty rampant in WvW but that’s another can of worms…

Sirendor.1394:

alcopaul.2156:

Magnetron.5823:

alcopaul.2156:

Magnetron.5823:

The game mode was made for open siege war and not remote GvG, if the dev wants to stand there he has the right to stand there, he did nothing wrong… He said, start the fight go go.

You guys knew it was open world warfare with siege when you bought the game, when you buy a new couch in the store and you are going to sleep on it but its not sleeping very comfortable you are not going back to the store and complain about that right? lol

Say if I bought a billiard stick and encountered muggers, im not allowed to break my billiard stick into 2 and use them as selfdefense arnis weapons because the billiard stick is sold as billiard stick?

do i violate the “billiard stick mode”?

Can you translate it to WvW words? I can do it with mine.. but I don’t understand yours.

are you prohibited to use something in a way that’s not its intended use? like using the billiard stick as weapons.

or say to play checkers using a chessboard?

Coz in WvW speak, they are prohibiting a gamemode (GvG) to be played within a game mode (WvWvW).

Your point is valid. Prohibiting a game mode is nonsense, cause if there aren’t any rules that impede the ‘prohibition’ then there’s no way to enforce it and it shouldn’t be in enforced in the first place, seeing as it’s a game and nobody is cheating by playing doing GvG.

On the contrary, people who play GvG actually elevate the general level of WvW to a more tactical and skillful activity. Nothing is as boring as watching 50 people kill 10, which is the general level of WvW I mention. 20v20 or 10v10 or 15v15 are FAIR matches that actually require skill of the groups in order to win, not just numbers.
It’s rather saddening that ArenaNet tries to negate this.

WvW is not GvG. WvW is not about 20v20 in an open field, it’s about winning across 4 maps over the course of a week with lots of small groups, big groups, and zergs defending, catching the enemy forces out of position, moving resources efficiently, and coordinating their efforts together to take objectives. GvG is about kills in the open field; a simplistic subset of what WvW is.

WvW is not meant to be fair, on purpose. The things that are the most interesting in WvW are when smaller groups are able to be disproportionately effective because they are skillful and knowledgeable of the game mechanics and terrain, and use preparation to their advantage. WvW is about taking objectives out from under the enemy’s forces as much as it is a head on collision of players. Organized and ritualized 20v20 is just sPvP with more people… not exactly a demonstration of extreme skill or strategic brilliance. You can already do 8v8 in a custom arena, and you don’t have to hijack a map and kitten around there to do it.

I think GvG practice fights help guilds get better at open field activity. It’s like practicing a passing drill in football. Does it make you a better passer? Yes. Does it make you much better at football? I guess that depends on what you’d be doing otherwise; you could be practicing other useful skills that would make you an all around better player. In this case though, GvG is like holding a passing drill while the game is going on, and periodically getting mad at the people who are playing the game while you’re trying to practice. Then kittening at them that you should be able to do that and they’re the ones being short sighted. It’s juvenile and kitten kitten.

Albane.3618:

Yeah because Seasons are such a HUGE attraction. Come play our broken open-world PvP for some meta achievements and a gimmicky finisher. I think I heard the wind blowing…

The results of WvW will actually matter week to week in some meaningful way, and you get a nice chest of loot for being on the winning server. There’s a lot of activity in the player base preparing for season one and I think you’ll see a lot of people come back, play more, and try wvw out to try and help their server since these are the matches that “matter”.

I’m more excited for this than I was for Tequatl or SAB. People are still sitting around doing Tequatl and failing repeatedly because they want the achievements and hope that they can get some loot; once the WvW Season meta achievements roll out I suspect those people are going to be flooding the area trying to figure out what’s going on, and unlike Tequatl they have a better chance of having fun if they’re just casually doing WvW.

They’re also not direct competing the start of season 1 with Twilight Assault anymore, meaning that TA will probably be all farmed out by the time this update hits.

incognito.4019:

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d just like to make a note of one thing that I think people aren’t considering when they transfer to stacked worlds. You will not, repeat will not, be able to receive the reward based on overall world place in the league, unless you achieve the meta achievement for the season. If you aren’t able to get into WvW much, you won’t get the rewards. So it is absolutely taking a risk to transfer to a world that has a large WvW population.

So, how about ending paid server transfers and allowing us to transfer for free again? Get people off of these high tier servers. Once every three months seems fair. It won’t mess with WvW numbers a whole lot like it did when it could happen weekly.

I wish they’d end server transfers altogether during the season. I haven’t transferred a single time and I’ve played since launch, so I guess I don’t really get the pressing need. After the season, open server transfers back up during the lull. I think transfers off high pop WvW servers should be free or very, very cheap.

nielscase.6258:

SykkoB.9465:

Sarrs.4831:

SykkoB.9465:

1. the top ranked server r gonna have no issue getting the achievements.

I think what he’s trying to say is that there are personal achievements and if you’re stuck on a queue all the time because you transferred to Stackgate you’re never going to be able to get them.

Of course, whether this is actually the case and whether it actually acts as a stacking deterrent is yet to be seen.

i know what he was trying to say man, its just he really has no clue what he is talking about.

T1 ques r really not as bad as ppl wanna think they r, this is how they go.

Friday reset night- All maps during na r qued for 1-2 hours
Saturday- 3 of the 4 maps r qued for 5-20 mins
Sunday-3 of the 4 maps r qued for 5-10 mins
monday-thursday – 2 out of 4 maps r ques for 5-10 mins 2 r insta pop

This is for the NA timezone only.Ocx/sea/eu at max will hit 2 maps qued and even that is hit and miss. T1 servers r not as strong as they r because they que all 4 of there maps 24/7, its because they have 24/7 coverage and no other server has it.

the truth is the WvW population in this game is just dying, ppl r sick of waiting a year+ for fixes or changes.

Fixed:

Friday reset night- All maps during na r qued for 1-2 hours*
Saturday- 3 of the 4 maps r qued for 5-40 mins*
Sunday-3 of the 4 maps r qued for 0-30 mins*
monday-thursday – 2 out of 4 maps r ques for 0-20 mins 2 r insta pop*

*Depends on time and matchup. If it is an even match ques are longer most of the week. Uneven then its easy to get in on any map usually after saturday.

That’s before the season rollout. I’d probably expect all of those to at least double if not triple once the season starts for all servers, and if people try to stack tier one things could get out of hand. Take a look at Tequatl attendance since his upgrade.

Buffy.9246:

Queens Gauntlet is a fail in my eyes. Anet says all classes can kill every boss and do able with different builds. It’s been tested but its a flat out lie. If you are not a zerk for this you wont win. Any other builds other then zerk will run out of time and fall to your death. The final T3 boss is way 2 hard…I watched videos(showing mesmers only it seems) beating her and I do the exact same way, same skills and weapons, I still fail. Anet needs to take its time on these living stories instead of rushing to put them out in the game every 2 weeks. If they took the time, queens gauntlet prob would have been better instead of the skill lag, camera angle, super hard boss. I want that mini(i am collecting) but it looks like I will not be able to get this 1.

This isn’t true; I’m PVT and I won.

Nilyth.7621:

“Ow, another useless WarioWare update, so funny.”
This is the reaction of all people i know who quit gw2.
Anet should learn from the players, making a game casual does not mean pointless updates.

Speak for yourself. Some people like different things. My friends and I love these updates; the game still feels fresh, and I still feel like the game is exciting and the PvE is interesting. Literally every 2 weeks I get either Christmas Day or the catalog for Black Friday. It’s a crazy pace and I love it.

The whole game is pretty pointless; it’s just there to entertain you for a while. The fact that the content is entertaining is the entire point. If it does anything for you outside of that, great.

Do I want expansion-level content (e.g. a large dump of all-new areas with new monsters, new skills, new events, new vistas, etc.)? Yeah I do, but I’m still having a good time with the current content and the frequent updates.

Flute intro to Time’s Scar (Chrono Cross) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J46RY4PU8a8)

Time’s Scar Intro (sounds a little off, the flute bug makes it difficult to play well right now)
6(33-2)87(12121)778666(333556565532123231231)78

Request: Althena’s Song (Lunar: Silver Star Story) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FULmDcGqknI)

Althena’s Theme
(3—3-4-3-2-2-3-221)—78(611)7
(16654433122312)
(3—3-4-3-2-2-3-221) 78(61)878

piano man.1672:

Alright guys, I just finished. And after 2 1/2 hours, this is what I’ve learned and what worked for me.

- Always keep your health up as high as possible.
- Always use Bluff. Using Bluff, even when he has his boon up, will sometimes inflict less damage than when drinking the Juice.
- After he uses Belch, Belch back (in the hopes that you get lucky and stop his Heal). After, Drink Water.
- Select the Boast skill before the fight, and only use it when you get around 2,000 hp.
- Using Belch when you have less than 20% hp does more damage, so keep that in mind when using Boast or Drinking Water at low health.

Hoped this helped.

This sounds a lot like what I did. I was able to beat him in about 30 minutes just doing this, and it was very very close. Keep an eye on his drink cooldown and hope you stop him from healing 1-2 times during the encounter.

Call to the Gate (play it at the moa race)

146 8"8"8" 6"6"6" 464 1146 8"8"8" 864 1 1 1 4

Stalvros.9217:

Merrik.6734:

Stalvros.9217:

request:
Final Fantasy 7 victory song

8"8"8"8 6 7 8 6 8——

sounds off

I used the sheet music from that video. It actually has it as

8"8"8"8" 6 7 8 7 8—— (if you have the first note at 8 ) If it sounds too high to you you can always start at 6 or so.

Chocobo theme (not especially well tuned):
(642) 8 (64242432"232121224678)

Stalvros.9217:

request:
Final Fantasy 7 victory song

8"8"8"8 6 7 8 6 8——

Here’s a map of GW1 POIs on the GW2 map:

http://gw2.mmorpg-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/guild_wars_2_points_of_interest.jpg

Here’s a GW1 map:
http://i.imgur.com/0SyFS.jpg

Here’s a Tyria world map:
http://i.imgur.com/JAyuE.jpg

Things we know:

It was not constructed during GW1; it was sometime after the sinking of Orr.
Originally it was a shallow harbor, but flooded following the rising of Orr and the wave.
It’s about 6 days sailing from LA on a wrecked ship.
Cobiah says he knows the sea from Rata Sum to the Splintered Coast (West→East) and from Port Stalwart to Port Noble. We know Port Noble is on Laughing Gull Island, which is on the Northeastern portion of Sea of Sorrows. This could mean that Port Stalwart is either South or West of there.
South would place it closer to Orr and the tidal wave, but we know from the book that it seemed to be relatively unscathed by the wave.

Just looking at the GW1 map, obvious ports are East of Sanctum Cay, North of Sanctum Cay, on the Southern tip of The Grove area, and South on what’s now the Splintered Coast.

The most likely places I can see are on the Southern edge of the Splintered Coast (there are hills and mountains readily available, plus its South of Port Noble), and North of Sanctum Cay.

In both instances a wave would have been hindered by barrier islands getting in the way and blocking most of its force, plus the Splintered Coast harbor is actually facing North West and so it would not have been hit head-on by the wave. Both are a fair distance from LA, but not so far that you’d expect it to take weeks to get there on a decent ship. I’d expect to see ruins on the Splintered Coast though, and since we don’t have any visible (unless its Fort Trinity), then I think it’s likely on the Western edge of the Sea of Sorrows around Sanctum Cay. Fort Trinity would be a good spot, except that it is really close to Orr (seems like it would be heavily damaged by the wave) and it also seems more than 6 days sailing from LA.

Rye of the Kaiser: Signet. Cooldown 30 seconds. Passive: Grants Fury, Retaliation and Quickness. Active: You down nearby foes in one bite.

Elite
Sacrificial Tuna Sandwich: Turn self into sandwich. Allies may eat you in order to fully heal and gain +100 to all stats for 1 hour. All nearby enemies are drawn to your alluring deliciousness and are downleveled to 1 until slain.

Flavor Explosion Skill Type
Creates an explosion of flavor in the target area. Flavor explosions can burst, destroying the explosion area and creating a flavor elemental.

Skills
Habenero Chili: Fire field, inflicts burning and weakness on enemies
Flavor Burst: Burst the Habanero Chili field to create a Chili Elemental that follows you and pulses might for six seconds.
Smooth Mayo: Gives vigor to allies and dodges within the field go double distance
Flavor Burst: Burst the Smooth Mayo field to create a Mayo Elemental that follows you and pulses regeneration for six seconds.
Tangy Teriyaki: Ethereal field, knockdowns last twice as long within the field.
Flavor Burst: Burst the Tangy Teriyaki field to immediately knock all enemies in the field down and create a Teriyaki Elemental which follows you and strips enemy boons for six seconds.

Elite
Cool Ranch: Gives protection and regeneration to allies, doubles the effectiveness of all other flavor explosions.
Flavor Burst: Creates a Cool Ranch elemental which acts as a water field but remains stationary, and refreshes the duration of any flavor elementals

My feedback…

Southsun Cove

I really enjoyed this update. The changes to the area were easily noticeable, made sense, and made a difference in how we played in the area. The sort of “dual-faction” mechanic was cool but sort of shallow; I never used the Consortium buff except for the achievement, and I didn’t notice any real difference in how I was perceived or anything based on who I was supporting, etc. The events were fun and quick without feeling punishing. I loved the beach resort with Lady Kasmere and Lord Faren – I spent a good amount of time hanging out there. One thing though: Better resort drinks! Where’s my daquiri?

Crabtoss was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the strategy and the frantic pace of the game. It’s a simple game but fun; I would wish for something like a secondary objective in a future iteration, but really I’d take it as it is. It’s a very fun addition to the game and I’ll be sad when it’s gone.

Canach / NULL

I’ll admit this was a bit of a letdown for me. I enjoyed the puzzle mechanics but I hit a few initial bugs. When I went back later and everything seemed okay, but I just didn’t think the puzzle mechanics were difficult enough. Since the puzzle was fairly simple this content seemed very short. NULL was a little bit more interesting and my group actually had some initial trouble; it required a bit more coordination, and I enjoyed that.

If the Canach fight could have been up to the difficulty of NULL I would have been more satisfied… and if the content had been a bit longer (each dungeon took something like 5 minutes from start to end) then it would have felt like a more substantial conclusion to that arc. As it was it felt very abrupt/short/vague.

Rewards

I like all of the rewards, I think you guys did a good job on this. Please give us a coconut cup with a tiny umbrella for a town clothes weapon.

AnonEMouse.7932:

Tbh, the frog was fugging hard FOR ME…

Yes he had a pattern, but between the water, and the completely unavoidable (to me) attacks… I wasted 3 continue coins on this fecker… and still had not a single clue as to how to defeat him. The only target the entire time was the crystal… which according to others here, is NOT what you need to hit to kill him… Gonna be easier for me to hit the chests than complete this.

I thought it was hard, but sometimes I like challenging experiences. It was a great boss.

Frog King dislikes Jewel Shards.