Guild Wars 2

You can solo much of the content in HoT. Elite specializations are earned in HoT outside of vanilla GW2. That must be the “pay wall” they refer to, you have to have Hot. Elite specializations are an upgrade in terms of available skills, traits and weapons available to your character. I’ve soloed (didn’t join any group) all professions(9 now) to their complete elite specializations on 12 characters. While some were easier than others, it is very doable. There are some hero point challenges and events obviously that will require more than yourself, but you can get there by yourself without the need to join a group. I’m 50 with two kids,so take that apparent skill level and available time for what it is worth

Colossus – Claw of Jormag chest
Dusk – WvWvW
Leaf of Kudzu – Mystic Forge

I found Dusk during an SMC defense and spent nine months collecting everything to make Twilight. Would have loved to buy the T6 mats and all, but didn’t have enough gold as I was still crafting ascended gear for a few of my characters. The last thing I needed for Twilight were the Ascalon Tears.

I did the PvP reward track rather than run the dungeon over and over. I got the last of the 500 I needed, but I stuck around for the next weapon chest for an exotic. Now I’ve been dropping 4 rare or 4 exotic weapons in the mystic forge as I get them for a few years now. So as I am going to make the Gift of Twilight, I notice I now have 4 exotic weapons in my stash. So I grab them.

I go to the mystic forge and make Gift of Twilight, then throw the 4 exotics in and out comes Leaf of Kudzu. My first precursor out of the forge, ever, right after I craft the last gift for Twilight. Sold it for over 700 gold. Could have probably used that gold nine months ago YOU SICK #%$@ ZOMMOROS!

Not really something to complain about, just really funny timing.

I have two.

The first. I was fortunate enough the second week after release to be down in Sparkfly Fen standing at the waters edge when “There’s something in the water”. Back then we didn’t have Dragon Timer and no one else was around and I didn’t even know what went down there. Teq flew right out in front of me. I was in awe. He was easier back then, but I couldn’t solo him.

The best one however was the second WvWvW season. I was involved in an hour and fifteen minute defense of SMC. My group was not out of combat the whole time. We were getting it from north and south at the same time. There weren’t any mass wipes and those killed were always streaming back to SMC. I was on my ranger, the last profession I leveled to 80.

I always had a sweet tooth for DAOC relic raids and no game has captured the chaos and mayhem since…until this fight. The whole time it just looked like we’d lose it, but we held on by our finger tips. We were going on in chat about how awesome the whole thing was. About 10 minutes after it ended I finally go to sell and salvage when I find Dusk in my bags. I’m not likely to top that.

Simply a case for me of not identifying myself as the character. I’m not imagining myself as the hero, but guiding the hero. As I’m male, I’m more apt to feel protective of a female.
There are certain characters as I imagine them that I’ll roll male, but I mostly do female.

What is QA gonna do? We QA’d it, it doesn’t work. Get a programmer instead please.

I agree. I had a Colossus drop from Jormag and that didn’t feel particularly Legendary. I sold it. I got Dusk from an epic WvW fight that lasted over an hour. I made Twilight because it reminds me of a great battle in game. This is how precursors should arrive. They should try and think of ways to make the acquisition memorable. Swatting a random grub or standing in front of a forge or hitting a loot pinata for the 1000th time isn’t particularly memorable. Of course, my view is colored by the fact I’ve actually seen two precursors.

Seeing Tequatl come out in front of me about a week after release. No one around and just happened to be standing there. I think that was the only world boss I found on my own. To this day I go stand on that same spot while waiting for the event. Dumb luck, but seeing the waves start, wondering what it was, and hearing “there’s something in the water” before a dragon pops out in front of you is pretty cool.

Finding my first precursor at Jormag after 11 level 80’s (Colossus) and finding out I had found a grand total of 4 silver doubloons was a “wow” moment. Immediately sold it to fund silk for ascended armor.

Best “wow” moment was a few months ago I was involved in an 1 hour and 15 minute battle in and around SMC. Never out of combat, downed three or four times but didn’t die. Neither side could finish the other before reinforcements arrived. When it ended I told my wife that was the most fun I’d had in two years with the game. Went to salvage my loot and there was Dusk. This one I made.

Honestly my only complaint leveling my 10th to 80 this past week was this nugget of game design brilliance….

We at ArenaNet realize you might have 3 centaurs trying to stomp you right now, and you’d probably like to see them rear up to trample you, but instead we’d like to offer you this nifty window explaining that you can now do something.

Well gee swell, but I closed the window before I could read it because I didn’t want your nifty window getting me killed. I have no idea what you were trying to tell me I could now do. Good thing I’ve been through the game already. Cause that was a waste of UI effort on your part. I guess you were hoping I’d level up cutting down a tree? Couldn’t put a little book icon down where the chests and level ups go? Design consistency? Ever heard of it?

1) Level 80 characters on an account contribute nothing to other level 80’s pm the same account. How many character slots. storage space, boosters, skins, etc… would they have sold if each unique combination of profession/race/order learned abilities that could be equipped on other characters? Maybe two equip slots like food to pass training on to other characters. This would have given players a reason to play more of the existing content, more gem store purchases, and given alts a reason to exist. As it is, they have killed alts and reasons to buy gem store items.

2.) Letting an economist have final say in design decisions. 300 silk scraps a day, more than your account can store by default, didn’t come from any game designer. It is obvious who has final say in this game and fun isn’t the winner.

3.) Tequatl. This was ego pure and simple. Designers didn’t want players beating it too fast. If you put in harder content, you need to give players the ability to iterate on it to learn it. Liadri was tough but you could keep trying it. Would you have beaten Liadri waiting two hours per attempt? Now multply that by how many people need to be on the same page on the learning curve. They should have upped his spawn rate initially so people could iterate and learn. Design motivation was for not beating it fast on release, not challenging content. They killed a world boss off for ego for a majority of players.

3.) Laurels keep getting more uses, supply not increased. Kills alts.

4.) Ascended gear forces players into one build which gets boring fast. I used to play 9 characters. The last two months just my mesmer and just one build. Rather than leave all that work on the selection screen, I just stopped logging in. Removing player options due to barriers on changing skins, builds and weapon sets leads to no varied game play and boredom/ It did in my case anyway.

5.) Abandoning the manifesto. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. I just don’t trust them anymore and this also contributed to my leaving the game.

This kind of sorted itself out for me. I don’t think they should remove the WvWvW aspect of completion. I was sitting at 98% completion when I got my first precursor. It was the only one I wanted, the colossus. Due to ascended armor, I ended up selling it to fund my armor. Since the incentive was for me to sell the thing, I realized I will never actually craft a legendary and thus stopped trying to complete the world. So thanks for ascended armor, it relieved my need to finish the world.

Bait and switch. I sure wouldn’t have leveled 9 80’s had I known ascended would be the way it is. I am under no obligation to pay any more for the game and I certainly got more than my share of entertainment from the game for what I paid and the gems I bought. It is their game and they have a right to do what they want. I have the right to not support them anymore because of it. That is how you vote and it is the clearest message you can send if you don’t like their direction.

The to do list in GW2 is too long to do anything just for the fun of it.

Farm 300 silk scraps a day (more than the game lets you store by default, per day)
Farm Dragonite
Farm Bloodstone dust
Farm Empyreal Fragments
Farm linen
Farm karma
Craft your time gated materials.
Get guild commendations
etc…

What did ANet think this would do to a game mode that does nothing to help you deck out your character?

As if that isn’t enough reason, I don’t need the attitude of that group generally speaking. It is in the PvPer nature to destroy their community through less than stellar human interaction. They eventually run out of people who will tolerate their antics.

It is my personal belief that had you added a 100 point achievement for having 8 level 80 professions and a title like “One Man Army” and had each unique combination of race/profession/order learn a combat ability and a non-combat ability that other characters on your account could equip, you’d have created a good case for players to progress horizontally while also providing some vertical progression to your characters.

You’d certainly get more out of the existing content and those character slots, storage, boosters and skins would have a much larger customer base. Ascended has pretty much narrowed many players focus to one character. I’d have gone the other way, give them a reason to focus on more characters.

Chris I believe mentioned Final Fantasy Tactics as an example of horizontal progression that he liked. You would have to get a certain combination of jobs (think GW2 professions) to a certain level to unlock a new job. A level 10 cleric and a level 10 fighter would make Mage an available job. Once this class job became available, you could create a new character with that job. You could also switch an existing character to that job. Each job had skills that you would have to level up. Once you learned a skill in a particular job, you could in some limited way equip some of the skills that character learned form the Mage job, while you character was a cleric.

Building on that train of thought, there is a direction I’d like to explore as it pertains to the two extremes of players GW2 has. The player that spreads out his play time over many characters and the player that focuses on one character. The player with many characters has already progressed horizontally. The player with one character is in need of growing vertically. The players that tend to spread out amongst many alts are likely veterans of the original Guild Wars, while generally speaking the player with one character as a main is likely conditioned by previous MMOs that you pick one due to vertical progression. There are expectations that each end of the spectrum has. The horizontal people expect all of their characters to feel like heroes so bristle at the though of trying to gear each with the ascended tier. The players with one character are fine with it.

We need to get the other MMO vets to think horizontal as well as the vertical they are used to. You wanted to make a horizontal game without being “grindy”. You built the game, what you didn’t do was give the MMO crowd you brought in a reason to think horizontally. They aren’t used to that. They needed an incentive that wasn’t really there. They are used to focusing on the vertical.

The details of this aren’t important, just a sense of the framework that ties back to Final Fantasy Tactics jobs. What if each unique race, profession, and order combination could learn an ability or two from their Order mentor. For example, a Charr warrior in The Order of Whispers. By the time Claw Island comes around, this character has learned “Arms Training” with is an ability that grants +5% critical damage. If that Charr Warrior had joined the vigil, he would instead learn “Strength Training” +5% damage. The abilities would be learned from your mentor, but would not reach full power until the character hit level 80. In addition to this, if you finish the personal story in Arah, you would receive your Pact Token, and would receive some form of non-combat ability. Something like 10% reduced WP costs, 10% merchant discount, 10% better salvage rate, etc… You’d get to pick one.

These abilities would become account bound. Once learned, maybe two of these account abilities could be equipped on any other character in your account. The training your warrior received was passed on to your elementalist. If you wanted a character to have both 5% damage gain and 5% crit damage gain, you need to level two characters to learn both. But then could equip both on one character.

I think this would encourage players to play races and professions and join Orders they have not played. It leverages the existing content, and it is vertical progression for your other characters as well as being horizontal. The gist of the idea is horizontal progression that rewards vertical progression for other characters.

You could apply this to crafting as well. Norn weapon crafters might give weapons they craft +5% chance to chill. If they were and Armor crafter -10% chill duration.
The crafting profession themselves could give bonuses to other crafters. For example, there might be 3 schools of armor design. Fashion, functional and efficient. Once a character reaches 500 in crafting they pick one and it becomes account bound so that other crafters can gain the benefits. In this example, fashion design might be the ability to hold more than one skin. Functional might let you add insignias for stat swapping, and efficient might lower the required materials to craft.

The end goal, reward vertical progression for horizontal progression.

More characters played means more opportunity for boosters, level 20 scrolls,
character slots, storage and skins to be sold from the gem store. Players that want vertical progression get it by spreading out. If someone likes only warrior that is fine, there are 15 variations of race and order for a warrior.

This would also get players back out in the world. You can’t keep moving the goal posts on gear. You can’t keep adding new zones every month or two. What you can do is rub peoples faces in all of the content you’ve already created and let them vertically progress for doing it.

I guess the thing that has been troubling me is why ascended gear was added at this point. You have a game here where Anet said they wanted people to have fun, not prepare to have fun. Crafting ascended gear is preparing to have fun. Now I have 8 level 80 professions and vertical progression for each step of the horizontal progression players like myself have done is just not possible the way it is implemented. This got me thinking about why Anet needed to do this.

Clearly, the majority of players haven’t gone as horizontal as players like myself. You don’t make changes like this for the minority. Clearly the majority of players have gone with one profession and were clamoring for something to do. Here is where I think Anet went wrong. They came up with something new for them to do.

Why fight that battle? Looking at the game from the perspective of the people that paid for the development and are counting on the game being a financial success which includes the gem store, why introduce a game mechanic, that went against your stated goal of not grinding? The cost of vertical progression (ascended gear) is such that it narrows the players focus to one or possibly two characters? What happened to the other 6? What about all the personal stories? Were these developed so that players would only see one of them?

This is my problem with it, they did not leverage the existing content that was already developed and paid for by fighting a different battle. Solving a different problem. How to get those players with one profession out of the typical MMO mindset and play more than one character. You made the game but didn’t lead them on the path to enjoying the games horizontal progression in terms of race, profession, and order.

Well, how would you do that? I’ll take the example of Final Fantasy Tactics and the job system. In that game, you could “level” a Mediator profession. You could change that character back to say the Cleric profession but equip a mediator skill. Chris liked this system. Then why didn’t you do something similar in GW2?

Here are some ideas off the top of my head of things you could have done. Level a warrior to 80 in the vigil. Any other character in your account would get access to +5% damage. Level them up in the Order of Whispers? Instead your other characters have access to +20% endurance regen. Level a Sylavari Ranger in the Durmond Priory to 80 and the rest of your characters could enjoy some manner of stealth detection. Something, anything that would get players leveling more than one profession and experience the content your company already paid for. Perhaps you could only have two combat and two non-combat bonuses equipped on a character but the more you unlocked, the more choices you’d have.

What this also would accomplish is make those boosters, character slots, and storage space worth getting from the gem store. Players would probably buy more skins if they had more characters. Level 20 scrolls? That would be a hot seller. The current direction is leading people down too narrow a path for the gem store to be as successful as it could. The current path, you are going to have to move the goalposts in a few months anyway.

You could even apply these to crafting. Mesmer’s that make armor, they can create items that allow armor pieces to hold more skins. If a Norn crafts weapons, 5% chance to chill added to weapon. If a Norn crafts armor, -5% chill duration. Things like that that would open the game up so players could get more powerful through playing more of the game that is already there.

I just don’t understand why you abandoned your goals of a horizontally progressive
game without at least trying to retrain the MMO crowd to stop thinking in terms of one character so they would have an incentive to see all the stories, join all the orders and generally have fun playing all the professions all while getting benefits for all of their other characters. Seems like this would have synergized with the gem store better.

I’m just curious why something like this wasn’t even attempted. Instead of letting players lead you, lead them where you want to go. Give them tangible rewards for going more horizontal. You built it, but didn’t put anything there for players to get a sense of what they should do different in this game and now the tail is wagging the dog.

Yep, people that realize the futility of it sell their damask and people that want it buy it and you have a good portion of players that are done with it already one way or the other. Those that want it have it, those that laughed and said no “kittening way” have made money. Time gate doesn’t effect either one of these types of players.

Astral Projections.7320:

The ascended weapons and armor are too costly in time, laurels and money as well as too restrictive for builds and alts for the value, the small stat advantage, you get from them.To make them worthwhile and so that a patch doesn’t trash a whole build worth months of work, make the stats selectable on all ascended items. Otherwise it will be too painful when particular builds are nerfed.

The way ascended gear is set up now it discouragers creativity and experimentation and encourages ‘cookie cutter’ builds. It encourages staying with what is safe and known. I can’t imagine that the Devs are trying to set up a game that discourages innovation and encourages conformity, but this is exactly the game they are setting up now with ascended gear.

I’ve personally decided not to do ascended armor, even though I have sufficient gold to do so. It would be too disheartening to have to discard a set of armor that takes so long and costs so much because of circumstances beyond my control.

Not to mention the multiple sets per rune setup and cost of transmuting all your armor to preserve your armor skins. It is waste of resources for what you get. A few stats and no additional functionality for a months work and a ton of lost gold. For one set.

I just put the 4 damask up I crafted so far on the TP. I realized I couldn’t make more weapons as deldrimoor is shared with armor. What you get for it is a bad joke and with the amount of gear sets I have across 8 80’s it’ll take me a year and 3 months to get the armor I currently use upgraded (If I log in everyday) not to mention the 84 transmute stones Anet thinks I’ll buy. Seems like an opaque attempt at wringing money out of players to preserve their previous purchases and in game progress. It isn’t happening.

Guardian in Frostgorge

Vertical progression is fine when done correctly. You didn’t do it correctly in my humble opinion. You have horizontal progression in your game as well. You did not have the two systems work together. You didn’t even attempt to make them work together. Horizontal progression includes multiple characters, skins, gear sets with different stats and runes/sigils to support different builds.

The more horizontal you went, the more options for fun you have. Yet for every horizontal progression a player has made, they are now required to do a vertical progression for each and every one. They always have required a vertical progression, it just wasn’t nearly as expensive or time gated. Have four exotic chest pieces to support 4 skins 4 runes and 4 different insignias? You need to make 4 ascended chest pieces.

The time is fine for the player with one character, one build and one weapon set.
Go past that and your time and costs compound. You cannot reuse skins on characters that equipped them like dyes can. You cannot craft another stat set into an existing piece of ascended so you can switch them, and you can’t accumulate rune sets. Legendary weapons can choose any stat for free. Ascended can’t have more crafted into them? As a result, every player that went wide horizontally is punished according to the amount of horizontal progression they made.

The two systems don’t work well together, at all. You are killing player options, fun has turned to months if not years of work for some players to get to feeling like they are playing heroes again, and a dedicated portion of your player base, the ones who explored your content the most, are left disillusioned. Until you get the two systems working well together, you will bleed players that reach their limit with trying to support their horizontal progression. Currently, you either go vertical OR you go horizontal OR you go insane.

Please fix this.

I think we may end up waiting a few years for the skin re-design. They have themselves in quite a pickle and they went out of their way to point out there is no time frame on changing it. Likely those that have it will keep it, and ANet will sit on this for a good long time until there is an outcry that it hasn’t been changed, which is likely not to happen.

Congrats to people who got a copy of it, you likely have the most exclusive armor skin in the game.

I did. Then ascended killed off most of my alts and the ones I do maintain already have gem store or cultural skins on and I’m not throwing out that work to buy new skins. So the last three months I think I’ve spent $10

I was happy to make another exotic item to put a new skin on so my character could change looks, but with ascended gear being orders of magnitude more expensive, this option will be gone with the addition of ascended armor. Once I have an expensive skin on a piece of ascended, that is it for me.

Case in point, the flame kissed light armor skin. My mesmer has both cultural and profane armor but I am saving my mats for ascended armor and since I am not putting a gem store skin over another gem store skin or my cultural set, I didn’t buy it. Very cool skin (regardless of the controversy around it), but I didn’t spend the money on it since it would require me wasting either money or time in game.

Once expensive skins are on expensive armor, their gem store skin sales will gradually decrease. I’m not throwing away money or effort, and without a way to preserve my previous investments, I won’t be buying more. I wouldn’t even care if it was like dyes where you have to get it for each character, but until I can change up my looks like dyes without wasting previous resources, I won’t be buying many more pieces from the gem store.

From time to time I get one. Usually zone completion on an alt or a random mob in a starting zone. I think they drop more from the starting zones because ANet want to get you hooked on opening them when you start. I destroy all the chests I find until I have a key and then when a chest drops I’ll open it. Otherwise the chests just take up space.

The worst of it is that the turrets are so important. Shatterer can be done by a lot of people clipping his toenails without using the mortars. That doesn’t work on Teq.
All it takes is one or two turret operators to be afk when Teq spawns and it is over.
This is why overflows have been used to control the turrets and organize properly.

I don’t mind tough fights, even if they aren’t necessarily rewarding in terms of gold or items, if they are fun, I’m there. The Teq fight just requires too much communication and coordination for 80 random people to be able to do it, even when half aren’t afk when he spawns. The wp being contested doesn’t help matters either. You won’t get anyone coming in to help after it starts like most of the other world bosses.

When you are waiting for the boar to spawn, ask how to make the boar spawn. There always seem to be 30 clueless people standing on the hill waiting for it thinking
it magically shows up.

“if thats the reason, its kinda ridiculous. a 10 minute, 15 min max event is too long for a guaranteed 2 rares?”

Max event? Max fight, not max event. Your credibility was lost right here before you even started pontificating. The organization and spawn waiting alone are not worth any reward. The general population likes to play the game, not stand around for an hour waiting to play the game.

You really should have some experience with something before offering an opinion.

Just put it back up as is. The horse is out of the barn. No one is buying this wasn’t intended. All three skins are duplicate meshes of in game armor with flame and texture effects added. This was their intent. There was no “accidentally” about this.
We are supposed to believe your intent was to change one skins mesh when the other two weren’t changed at all either? Riiiight.

They are just trying to save face now for picking a cultural T3. Apparently not one of them plays the game to even think this was going to upset people who spent twice the gold on a less decked out set of skins. I don’t trust you folks at all after that whooper.

I’m not laughing.

1.) Vertical Progression stifles alts.
I don’t log into my alts after putting in all the work on ascended. They don’t feel like heroes anymore and I don’t want to leave all that work on the select screen. This has caused me to not buy gem store items for them. They have been abandoned.

2.) No wardrobe. 30 gold skin on ascended gear is not getting transmuted over or a
splitter bought for every piece anytime you’d like to try a different look. As more people have expensive gear and skins. The skins game dies.

3.) Elementalist. Anytime you are moving traits between tiers at this stage of a game, you failed. Class has no stability and as much as I’d like to play it, I can’t gear it due to the constant change. I have all 8 at 80 and main a guardian, I just feel bad for people who do main an ele.

4.) Tequatl. With this fight and ascended gear, Anet did a 180 away from people that can’t play more than a couple hours. The organization required for both is a deterrent to many people.

5.) Dynamic events. One of the major pillars of the game has no reward in terms of time spent vs gold/items earned. This is why champ trains are popular. You want to reach your goal efficiently. How much gold can you make an hour? How long does an event take? Give that ratio of gold for events.

I’ve got Orr completion on all professions playing solo. It isn’t that it isn’t hard, this is where you learn how to play your class. You get tired of dying and start changing up strategy, skills, weapons and traits. Could be you learn where and when to use certain skills and weapons. Just keep at it, it is possible. I loved doing the skill challenge in the maze. That was always intense. I guess they called them “skill points” for a reason.

No, Renewing Stamina is still an adept tier. Arcane Retribution, Arcane Resurrection and Elemental Attunement are moving to adept

I copied that from the original post. Somewhere in this mass of 21 pages they went back on it? They changed their mind? They changed their thoughts on others as well? That’s swell.

Perhaps they should update the original post so D/D players don’t rage quit just reading that insanity?

I don’t mind ascended gear. I geared up my guardian with 4 weapons so far, and since the rest of my characters don’t feel like heroes anymore, I don’t play them. So I don’t buy boosts, storage or skins off the gem store for them. Not out of spite, I just can’t rationalize spending money on characters I likely won’t play anymore. Hurts them more than me.

Many viable alts is more money for them. Less viable alts, less money. I just found I won’t log into an alt leaving all that ascended work on the select screen. Maybe I’m the only one, but considering the vertical progression is counter to their monetization scheme with the gem store (less characters leveled and played, less stuff will be bought) I suspect this will be more of an issue for them in the future than it will be for the player base.

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

So if I am reading this correctly, Anet are declaring war on D/D players whose build doesn’t already go 20 into Arcane? After over a year you guys are moving traits to different tiers? What is wrong with you? All it takes is one guy running 20/10/30/0/10
signet/aura D/D with duel Incinerators and we will likely get a post that breaks any records for the amount of “kittens” per word. I wouldn’t blame him. I don’t play my ele much and when I do she runs staff, but even this has me shocked.

How in the world does this make it online as even a suggestion? This is the kind of thing you do before people gear up and spend a year learning a build, not after. I understand balancing the power of traits like “reduced the rate at which endurance is generated for 100% to 50%”, but completely taking them away?

You really need to take a step back and think about what you are doing here. I don’t know of a single D/D ele that is right in the head that gets into melee range without that trait. Squishiest class, closest range weapon set, and you put the vigor up another 10 points?

Word association? To me it means Warrior.

Once enough people have expensive skins on their ascended weapons and armor, there won’t be anybody left to buy skins. No one in their right mind will apply or transmute over those skins and I doubt anyone wants to make two of the same ascended weapon or armor. Some may buy the splitters to save their skins, but I suspect a large percentage will opt to rock what they got on.

I personally have no intention of buying something off the gem store to help me save money I already spent. I didn’t realize we were leasing them. Only when Anet notices their new skin sales dropping and figure it out will this become an important issue to them.

The gem store is that way →

I assume your complaint is directed at Anet since they are the ones that determine whether or not you are gimping yourself by not playing one? I have all 8 at 80. My opinion: Guardian>Warrior>Mesmer in PvE. The rest are too limited in many ways in PvE. WvWvW and PvP are a different story, which is how Anet balanced them.

Wait for the decision to transmute over that 30 gold cultural chest piece skin or craft a second ascended chest piece. Skins are already dead to me, I have very few pieces that don’t have gem store or cultural skins on them and there is no way I’m transmuting over them or paying more money to save the time and money I already spent acquiring them.

The character that bound the skin should be able to apply it again, simple as that. Just like dyes. The only reason they aren’t handled like dyes, which would be a no-brainer in consistent design, is they made a decision to soak us for more money. Which is why I’m done supporting them. There is nothing left for me to buy that wouldn’t require me throwing something out.

This is how Anet is supposed to make money and they are punishing the customer who has already shown a willingness to support them. The issue is how much the skin already on the armor or weapon cost you. Cultural, gem store skins, temple and dungeon equipment have a significant cost. Either in game or in terms of cash. No one is going to transmute over those. No one is going to want to make another piece of ascended armor or another ascended weapon to put a new skin on. I did not lease these skins, I bought them. The pool of potential buyers of these will get smaller and smaller as people put expensive skins on expensive equipment. Transmute stones don’t even enter this equation.

I personally don’t really care one way or another. It just shuts that part of the game down for that character. But they are out $40 right now and probably any future skins they make I won’t buy. The cost is no longer $10 for a new skin. It comes with a 5 day
time gated wait, or the cost of another ascended weapon. Or instead of buying a $10 skin, you have to pay more to buy their skins because you also need a splitter. That is just for one piece. My characters have well over 15 pieces on them that I will not go through that. It doesn’t mean that much. The cost is higher than what they are asking for the skin.

My suggestion would be to…

1.) Copy the existing dye interface to hold images of skins and change the headings for the dyes to “weapon” and “armor” categories. They already have the code for the interface.
2.) Through the gem store, and also in game, sell and let players acquire a “blank pattern”, let them craft it, find it, earn if in monthlies, random reward for dailies, etc..
Sell them at a slightly higher cost than transmute stones.
3.) Double click the blank pattern, select the item with the skin you want, boom, you can reuse it on the character that copied it.

Problem solved. Anet can go back to selling me skins. Right now, I won’t buy anymore. I don’t care what they look like. They are not giving me a way to keep the value of the money I already spent. I won’t spend more until they do.

American Express/Visa/Mastercard.

The problem is learning to melee results in many trips to the nearby waypoint because anyone that values their own silver isn’t going to rez you if you go down where the electrical field pops up. I learned that on my guardian, and now do the event with my elementalist taking off her daggers in favor of a staff. Though I don’t stand where I can’t get hit. I stand just inside his firing range.

The issues are the camera; you can’t see what is going on around you in tight with all the spells flying and effects going off and you are toast if you lose focus for one second and he has a large health pool. Path of least resistance. Now, if they made melee do more damage and make the fight go quicker (risk/reward) you may get more people willing to try and speed the process up. As it stands, the sensible thing to do is attack from range where you can quickly bail if need be.

I wouldn’t call this a player problem. I’d classify it as an ANet making money problem. I have bout 8 sets of armor skins off the gem store for 7 of my characters. Transmuted them up to 80 in mnay cases. My Guardian is wearing pieces from Primeval, Aetherblade, and Braham’s.

Now, the new armor skins came out and I thought I’d buy them for at least one piece in the set for 4 of my characters (yes, I’m still doing my best to maintain alts despite ANets every effort to kill them and force me into one, but that is an entirely different topic). So I took stock of what I’d need.

I realized that two of the pieces had an existing skin I paid money for, so applying it over the top would have been a waste of money. I laughed at the thought of buying 125 quartz and charging it over 5 days to make another (this will get to be more of a deterrent when ascended armor arrives), and I wasn’t about to spend more money on a splitter to keep what I already paid for. I didn’t lease the things.

I realized the time gating and vertical progression to come has locked me into my skins because my comfort level at spending $10 for more skins when I only get to keep one was a bridge too far. So I’ll keep rocking my existing armor. They could release 100 skins, I wouldn’t buy anymore unless the piece fit with what I had and was for a slot without a skin I bought.

People who bought the new staff skin and put it on an ascended weapon will realize that in the future, they not only need to buy the new skin, they have to buy a means to keep the old one. Some will. Many won’t. Some that will might do it once. There is a dead end here for ANet making money off these.

I’m not complaining. These are whimsical purchases that in the end I could give a rat’s kitten about. It’s just a game to me. This is how Anet is supposed to make money and they are punishing the customer who has already shown a willingness to support them. They didn’t get $40 of mine, I didn’t get a new shiny. No one won here. They can look into it or not, but there it is.

There is a reason I don’t play WoW. I play games, I don’t need another career. Raids take too long to organize, you can’t get up and get the phone. I have problems with dungeons as it is. Having said that, as long as they give players another way to get what would be a reward for said raid, I’d live alongside it (like ascended trinkets). But if they turn the quest for nice things into WoW, I’ll be leaving.

I let my 9 year old play. Some of you may have followed his commander tag at the temples on Blackgate. He is also a master at jumping puzzles. I let him play it since he had an interest in it.

It has taught him how to type when he needs to tell me something in game. He has learned the value of currency, which is hard to teach kids. He used to spend all his gold but now saves. He had to learn to read better.

He does well at it and has fun. Ironically, he has the same complaints many people on the forum do. He can handle it. He gets to see colorful language many times. But asa father, I’d rather teach him how to deal with different distractions in the world rather than hid them from him. How to integrate games with school and life (he gets all A’s or doesn’t play…bribery!).

Having said that, I wouldn’t let my younger one near it, likely not even when he is the same age. They are all different. So if you think your son/daughter would handle what they experience, give it a shot. I find it is better to let them try and fail so they understand why you say no.

Is there any reason why, and I’m just thinking out loud here, they don’t put a message like “Ominous winds are blowing” or “There’s something in the water” in the chat window like they do with Scarlet? The whole reason I don’t generally do these events is I don’t want to play the game by keeping an eye on a website. That is “somewhat” immersion breaking,

Yep, and just like the armor skins, when you want to maybe try a different skin in the future, they expect you to A.) flush your money down the toilet by applying another skin over it B.) craft another ascended weapon (or armor) to put that new skin on C.) buy something for money that helps you to save the money you already spent. If it comes out of the gem store, until they put them in the achievement skins panel that you can reuse, I won’t be buying more skins no matter how much I like it or want to try it. I am not wasting money I already spent or going with one of their three “options”.

I bought $70 worth of armor skins for my characters and they are cemented on until they give me a way to save that purchase. I don’t care if they are only usable by the character that first applied it, but I am not tossing out a perfectly good skin that cost cash.

I don’t mind the champ farm, but seriously. If they wanted to solve it, the answer is here….

Single target…Mesmer. Lay waste to the masses, Elementalist.

I feel more like I protect the character I play through my actions rather than think of it as an extension of myself. So I will always play the female characters. Some games, including GW2, they are just better to look at as well. As for why they seem to have more attention and detail, well, most artists are male in this industry. Don’t need a slide rule to figure out what most of them would be more enthused by.