Guild Wars 2

To the questions above, 1 & 2 yes, 3 sometimes.

I gave up on trying to rank up. I started playing for the loot. I decided to go way back to my roots. In GW1 I was a Monk in Random, Team and HoH. I jumped onto my Druid. A class I had overlooked as someone above sagely pointed out a support class cannot carry a bad team.

I played as consistently as ever but all the old healer instincts are there. 12 straight wins, rut climbed out of. Even in some of the worst class stacking scenarios we pulled through. It was a good day.

Thanks for the tips. I tried my hand at Scrapper and the losses are getting closer but there are still losses. Even teaming with a mate we will get a good win streak but then start seeing the same clowns that consistently throw matches. I can only carry a bad team to a point.

I can look at the names in my team at the start and tell my mate “X will get killed in the first minute then probably blame Y. Y will get into a slanging match and we’ll be effectively 2 players down while they rage. Z, who is running into the wall will probably still be running into the same wall for the first two minutes”. Then it plays out exactly like that. There are just too few people playing if I can get to know a bunch of random matches that well and see them day after day.

I’d like to see Random Arena and Team Arena back from GW1 but right now I’d settle for flagging certain players as “never team me with this person again even if I have to wait 15 minutes for a match”.

I’m looking for tips if anyone has them. I’m playing support (Tempest / Guardian) and I do okay. I cap, I heal, I hit map objectives, I place well and generally get at least 3 top stats.

I am stuck in a rut of winning only slightly more matches than I lose. I’m still performing but it is like night and day on the team composition.

One match we’ll have a decent mix, communicate, form a plan and follow it and generally win. Next match we’ll get 2-3 glass cannons, nobody wants to work together or the plan is just outright ignored along with capping points.

Match maker seems to be a real gamble and in gambling terms how do I sidestep the losing streaks? Is there a key like wait x minutes between matches? switch class every third match while standing on one foot?

When I heard Glory was being phased out I spent my stockpile with the Kodan vendor. I am now in the same boat, getting piles of crafting mats I can’t use. I also have a stack of glory boosters that do nothing.

My hope is that when the new system comes out the devs add some kind of trade system where I can swap my mats and boosters for something usable. Much like the vendor that got introduced when they changed the tournament ticket system.

It would be nice to get an official word on that in the meantime.

I don’t know you Palu but thank you for being a part of this game and community I too deeply enjoy. My condolences for you situation.

Please, cling to life with everything you have. Fight whatever it is that is killing you with everything you have. Hang in there. Luck or whatever divine being or beings you hold true to may just see your fight and reward your struggle with a miracle.

Don’t do this for me, do it for you and those who know you and love you.

Ouch, I hope this can be changed. I am currently working towards the only legendary I like and the stats are no good for me. If I can’t transmute without wrecking it I might have to rethink.

If the future Ascended weapons are easy enough to get I could always transmute again but based on the current Laurel vendor I’d say a month or two of dailies at least.

Such a shame.

Before I get to my moment there are some things I want to say and this is as good a place as any. I was a mad GW1 fan and played through everything there and loved it. For years GW1 and Eve were the only games I played. I was excited for GW2 and frankly if there is a target market for the game I am it. I enjoy all aspects of the game but must confess I am holding off on sPvP while I gather stuff for my legendary (I don’t have a lot of hours in a day for games).

With the Karka event I was very disappointed. I am in Australia and the first two parts were laggy and buggy which was bad enough but worst I couldn’t take part in the finale as it was at 7am on a Monday morning. I also missed out on the chest even when they were supposed to be distributed to everyone. If this was the event format it was no good for me and I took a break.

I was persuaded to give The Living Story a chance. I have to say this format is awesome. This is what I was expecting, the rewards are cool but not over the top and for a lore hound like me the extra material is fantastic. Frankly this has won me back to GW2. I just refunded my Defiance season pass and spent the money on gems. All I can say is MORE!

Now that’s off my chest.. I had a moment… I went back to Southsun for the first time since the Karka event to see the place again so I could better appreciated the changes when they come. I found myself standing by a bridge and I remembered that bridge being built, I remembered clearing trees up the path. Suddenly I had a connection to, of all things, a bridge. New players will just see a bridge and if it comes up I may get to tell them the story behind it but the memories and the connection are mine.

This will be the case with all the changes over time. This becomes our story. At first glance some might say it’s not fair because people miss out if they join late, but stuff happened before I was born in real life too. New stuff will happen that I will miss due to real life commitments but I will hear the stories when I get back. As for things like the dungeons these can become more slices of history to appear in Fractals, it’s perfect. That’s important because that Molten Furnace was fun and well built, it would be a crime not to give it the FOTM treatment.

I remember in Eve there were world changing events that left landmarks behind (like Crieliere for instance). Sure I missed most of the early ones but I heard and read the stories, I saw the wrecks and relics and it was part of a rich history. It was cool knowing I could have been there and I made sure I threw myself into any events that came up.

This Living Story format gives us enough time to enjoy the content, savour it on our own schedule yet it still has that magic of having a limited life. It’s a moment that will become the history of this game.

GW2 is on the way to becoming the MMO as art form. Keep up the good work ArenaNet.

Has anyone else had that magic moment when you just ‘get it’?

Similar thing happened to me on the weekend. Was good fun, totally out of the blue.

I stopped playing after the Karka weekend but Flame & Frost tempted me back. I really like the new Living World format for content. It brought me back to the game but fun like the fireworks and food fights in Lions Arch keeps me playing

I level up an alt a bit by doing the daily then switch to:

Lvl 80 events (Orr, Frostgorge etc).
Dungeons.
Fractals.
WvWvW.
sPvP.
Exploration.
Helping Guildies.

I wouldn’t pay a sub for GW2 but these days that is true of all MMOs. I just wait for them to go F2P which seems to happen faster and faster. If I take a break for a few weeks from a subscription then I don’t feel I’m getting my monies worth. In that case I tend to stop subbing and rarely come back.

I liked the model for GW1. You pay for the expansion as you would a normal game if you wanted that content. Then you played for free. If they had kept up releasing expansions it works out the same as paying a sub if you buy each one as it comes out. There is also the cash shop.

As long as ANet stick with the Living Story stuff and don’t do any more “7am Monday Lagfest” events then I will happily keep buying expansions.

An interesting comment from the team behind Planetside 2 went along the lines that 10% of the players are paying for stuff, the other 90% are providing targets for that 10% to keep them playing. Difference here being we all bought the box at $60+ and a chunk of us no doubt use the cash shop as well. GW2 does not need a monthly sub.

No.

More skills, more weapon types, more dungeons, more living story, more DEs and GW1 style expansions – yes.

More gear tiers, more grind, more time gated / region specific events – no.

Pustulio.8207:

“Guild Halls” – Awesome

“Player Houses” – Not so awesome…..borderline freakin kitten actually

Agreed.

Guild Halls are much needed. Including scrimmage & GvG. My own little house I can sit in alone and play dress ups, not so much.

Grimm.2906:

This is why I firmly believe that EVE Online is the only MMO that really supports roleplaying. Instead of just typing about what your character does, you actually do it. I consider “roleplaying” that’s not backed up by rule or mechanics to be just talking funny and composing fan-fiction.

…

This x 1000. While I do still like some good RP dialogue going on around me (and not two G.I.R.L cybering) Eve was the last MMO I really RP’d in, in null-sec, in my Jaguar, guns blazing.

Ushra’Khan, we come for our people. insert blood fist logo

Soulstar.7812:

I am from the Tarnish Coast server, the un-offical GW2 RP server, and I love it.
RP, short for Role Play, is when players assume or represent the the current game-world is real, and participates in assuming a personalty and a personal story.

There are some who lash out on role players in GW2 for no other reason than just to be a huge misery to others.

I would argue the roleplayers make the GW2 servers feel alive, it certainly make the cities seem busy when player walk through them and making small talk.
When you look at the alternative of a normal non-rp server, you find that it’s dead. No one talks, and mapchat is reduce to “looking for groups”, trolls, and dead silence.

Roleplayers actually appreciate the story and world of the game, and should have some respect for making everything interesting.

What do you think?

It’s a tricky issue. I used to play table top RPGs (AD&D, Dark Conspiracy etc) and MMOs are something I got into about 7 years ago. The key difference is that with the old pen and paper games only your group of players exists in that game world, if you had hundreds of players you would have the same issues you do online. At conventions there was always someone who was fixated on their +9000 Vorpal Trousers at the expense of team work and dialogue.

Different RPers RP in very different ways. There are the god moders and there are those who try to re-use the setting (“This my fort!”, “No, this is my fort!”, “Uh guys, the sign says Vigil Keep”). That is always going to draw some ridicule even among other RPers. Now factor in that many of the other players around you are not RPers at all and you can see where these attitudes come from and over time can become the default response.

It is a shame when you do get a negative reaction though. I do enjoy it when I overhear an RP conversation, one on par with the dialogues we hear from some NPCs in passing. It adds colour to the world when done well and harms nobody. I do appreciate it and the respect you are seeking is the kind that should be given to all fellow gamers, you do your thing and I’ll do mine.

Personally I don’t type much or engage in ICC, on the rare occasions I do it’s often via mail or whisper. Which is ironic considering how much I enjoy the conversations I overhear. This and the ability to play musical instruments are the two things I miss most from LotRO.

I suppose the best middle ground option is to pick your locale. Outside the Fractals gate is probably not a hive of RP but there are so many great little pubs and dens just off the main drag. Aside from that, use /ignore for the most persistent cases and grow a thick hide to fend off the others. But step out around the crafting area once in a while, there might be a Norn having a quiet chuckle over what you said while he is tanning his latest kill.

“More RP, less Harpies.” – Sylvari RPer

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

How annoying would it be if the player who created the guild switched servers and took the guild’s upgrades (incl. the bank) and influence with them?

How annoying is it when the server population drops to the point your entire guild moves to a new server and is forced to leave all our fully upgraded stuff behind and start over?

Yeah, working through that now. slow clap

Nearly a week now. No chest, both support tickets I have raised still open and unanswered. No information from ArenaNet. Nothing.

It’s like they don’t like having paying customers. Well ok, that last gem purchase of mine was the final one from me. After Aion I was reluctant to play GW2 due to the NCSoft tag but my friends persuaded me that ArenaNet would rise above the dross. They were sadly wrong and actually left the game weeks ago. The name ArenaNet is one to be avoided now it would seem.

If you ever decide you want to get back to the manifesto and build the game your fans were hanging out for then email me. LOL, yeah right, you don’t even answer support tickets. kitten it.

Yeah, still nothing here. No response to any support tickets either. Maybe they are losing staff as fast as they are losing players?

I had a couple of issues on Saturday night playing Planetside 2. I had to raise two tickets, both were addressed and resolved inside of 10 minutes. Now that was a breath of fresh air.

I am still clinging to an ever fading hope ANet will somehow get it together and deliver the GW2 talked about in the manifesto. So much potential currently being lost.

Still nothing here. I took part in the events all weekend but missed the final one on Monday morning due to the whole “having a job” thing. Mates of mine who were away the entire weekend have got chests but I don’t qualify? Seriously?

These one time events are laggy, bug ridden and exclude a large chunk of the player base from new content. North America gets access to the epic stuff, the rest of us get to grind. Sorry, not going to work out.

More mini dungeons, more dynamic events. More event chains with a monthly theme (Peace talks in Harathi Hinterlands, doomed to descend back into war). More story, more gear side-grades instead of upgrades. More events that run for up to a week with instanced content rather than one-off zerg rush, so we can play the game in our time zone with our guild mates. These are the things that could have been done instead of the Maple Story junk we are getting.

I said nearly a month ago I would like to see the following steps taken to get Guild Wars 2 back on track and start living up to the manifesto:

1) Make good on the rewards from the Karka event. It won’t make up for missing the content but giving everyone a chest at least levels the playerbase and doesn’t just give a boost to North American players.

2) No more one off events. Structure them differently. All players in all time zones are supposed to be equal. That means equal access to content.

3) Stop the gear grind at Ascended. That genie is out of the bottle but end it there. Add more ways to get Ascended gear. Less RNG, less grinding the same nine fractals. This isn’t Aion.

This roll out of chests is the first step. Going by the debacle it has become I don’t have a lot of faith in the last two steps ever being completed. After so many years waiting for the game laid out in the manifesto I would like to see it.

No chest for me. When a guild mate showed me his loot today I thought awesome. ANet are going to make good on Lost Shores, maybe they will now stop doing time gated content, maybe they will stop the ladder at Ascended gear, maybe they will add other ways to get the best equipment other than grinding Fractals.

Could this be the time to come back, buy those gems and get ready for Wintersday?

No, ANet chose to give me the finger. It’s a dark day when Sony Online are actually doing a better job than ArenaNet.

Looria.8019:

Mooge.2346:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

This has not been forgotten. The solution is coming down the pipeline and should be live this week.

Thanks for being patient.

Don’t forget to include all the non-US players that got excluded from the final event because you chose to run it at an exclusive time slot.

The future relationship between myself and ANet hangs on how you handle this and the timing / format of future events. Meanwhile Planetside 2 knows how to treat Aussie gamers so I’ll be spending my time and money there. Here’s hoping for a decent resolution to this sad turn of events, GW2 has so much potential and it’s sad to see it become Maple Story 2.

This solution will be for ppl who participated in the event and go disconnected. Its not for ppl who didnt attend the event at all. Yes, it was not the best time for Australian players but you did have the choice to attend it. Did you get blocked from the event? No. Was your account suspended for the event? No. It was just not during the best time but you could have attended it.

It was your choice that you didnt, whatever reason you had for it. School, work whatever.

I cant believe that you want reward for some event you didnt even attend. Just the thought makes me sick.

I took part in every aspect of the event where I had an option to. The option to take part in the final stage was removed from me because ANet chose to run it once only at 7am on a Monday morning. I was at work and I live in the real world with real and important responsibilities. You are a joke if you think I am going to skip my job to play a game.

Here is a quote regarding the global nature of this MMO…

Matt Witter.6982:

Greetings everyone!

We’ve received lots of feedback regarding night capping. Many want to know how Arenanet views this. Our answer is that WvW was developed as a never ending continuous battle.

We feel that everyone should have the ability to contribute no matter what time of the day it is. How we’ve came to this conclusion is that no player’s time is more valuable than another. Everyone has different off peak hours for whatever reason. Players should not be punished or unable to experience and view the same content as everyone else because they play at a different time. They too are paying customers.
This is not saying that we are against any adjustment to scoring, or against developing another mechanic to improve the capping system. This is simply saying that we will not be changing WvW based on some players’ idea of off time hours.

Please use this thread as the main discussion for this topic.

So, based on this why should I accept that although I pay the same, if not more, money for this game I am excluded from content because I don’t live in North America?

While it is a shame to miss out on cool cut scenes it is going beyond the pail if you are telling me I must miss every major event and every epic reward because I am Australian.

All I am asking for is equal access to the game content. As a paying customer it is my right to ask for this. If the answer is no, then I will take my business elsewhere. Frankly if you feel it right to exclude your fellow gamers from content by time gating it then I am glad I make you sick.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

This has not been forgotten. The solution is coming down the pipeline and should be live this week.

Thanks for being patient.

Don’t forget to include all the non-US players that got excluded from the final event because you chose to run it at an exclusive time slot.

The future relationship between myself and ANet hangs on how you handle this and the timing / format of future events. Meanwhile Planetside 2 knows how to treat Aussie gamers so I’ll be spending my time and money there. Here’s hoping for a decent resolution to this sad turn of events, GW2 has so much potential and it’s sad to see it become Maple Story 2.

It’s the end of the week now and ArenaNet seem to feel this issue is not worthy of comment. Really?

After all these years … oh why bother trying to discuss this. Clearly they want non-US members to quietly go away. Planetside 2 has a much better take on thw 3-way faction warfare and Australian servers.

Anything on this Oceanic issue ANet has created? I don’t want to play an endless grind with no chance to take part in the epic events.

My question is, what are ArenaNets plans to support the Oceanic and other non-US players in one off event timings? Are events going to be changed so they are accessible to the entire playerbase?

1. Who here, still come to forums but play the game much less?
I check the forums to see if there is any meaningful response from ArenaNet.

2. When did you start playing less?
This week.

3. Why / What caused the decline in time spent?
Barely finished my exotic gear, not keen on aiming for Ascended. Don’t have the time on weeknights to do Fractals but finding the maps empty. I don’t like the direction ArenaNet are taking by excluding the Oceanic community from epic events and rewards. I really don’t like the way they refuse to even acknowledge the issue or respond to us.

The flipside being that I looked up long enough to see Planetside 2 has Australian servers \o/

7am on a Monday morning for a once off event handing out elites is very poor form. I agree with the above posters on it feeling like we are being excluded. I am a massive ArenaNet fanboy but the trend that is developing has me looking to other titles.

I want GW2 to be a great game. I can see me playing for years to come, buying gems and expansion packs as I did with GW1. But only if they get back on the path. Right now they seem to be losing their way.

Event weekends or even weeks are a great idea but content needs to be built in such a way that every country can take part without being told to take a day off work and set the alarm clock (our jobs are important, that shouldn’t really need explaining).

By all means limit the reward to one per character or account but there are so many ways to make this repeatable. A mini dungeon like Mad King or even a recurring event like the dragon champions would do the trick. For the “absolutely must be a single time” moment just use a cut scene, worst case we can watch it on YouTube or visit a skrying pool in game. We could have beaten back the king Karka every 3 hours for a couple of days then had a cut scene showing its cave collapsing in on it to close the event. Everyone gets a fair go at the event.

Aside from making it fair on the entire playerbase it would also help mitigate the lag issues that occur when everyone has to be in the same place at once.

My wishlist:

1) No more gear levels after Ascended. More legendaries and stat combos sure but no gear grind (I know what has been said, I just hope it comes to pass).

2) Redress the balance, give everyone who took part in any of the events over the weekend the phase 3 rewards. We could all do with the gold injection for siege and I wouldn’t mind the pendant and bag as mementos of the weekend.

3) No more single shot events. Structure them to be repeatable or instanced so everyone can take part no matter their timezone / country. Take the exclusivity out of the equation, we all paid for the game, no one time zone should be favoured over the others.

4) Get back to making an excellent game with content we can all look forward to.

This is a wish list, not a list of demands. I love ANets work and I love this game but I can see it going in a direction I don’t like. I really hope there is a change of course.

Sunreva.8714:

Simply put, a lot of people didn’t get to participate due to a number of reasons, whether work, family, or whatever.

Make the event repeatable, and simply make it so that if you’ve already opened the Big Chest at the end, you can’t do it again. And to those who missed the event, they’re able to participate and be rewarded as well.

Agreed. As an Australian player I had no chance to attend this event. I was doing the school run and going to work at the time. There is no reason these events cannot run every 2-3 hours for 48 hours to give everyone a fair go. It would also allow us to spread the load and not be faced with such a lag fest. The dragon champions run this way so it is possible.

This event model is no good. It excludes the entire Asia Pacific region and is rough on Europe as well. For no reason.

Personally I would like to see every player who participated in at least one of the events over the weekend get a chest if they missed out on the Monday morning event. Then I would like to see this model abandoned.