Guild Wars 2

Yes, I am quite aware that the dollar is a fiat currency. I was just showing how when you have fiat currency and, for intents and purposes, fiat goods that massive overproduction leads to the devaluation of both.

Rhanax.8314:

In my opinion mat prices are to high in TP. Cost more for the mats than the product they make sells for..

That’s a problem with the crafting system, tho. Agreed, anything should sell for more than the cost of it’s component parts. Unlike the real world though, where manufactured products cost many multiples of the raw materials, in game there is so very little cost associated with the manufacturing process as compared with the real world.

My personal solution would be to drop the vendor price (the de facto price floor) of basic mats and greatly increase the vendor price of at least some crafted items. One idea might be a class of crafted items that have little use other than taking less expensive materials and crafting them for higher vendor value (butcher knives, barrels of salted meat, other household goods). But, unless the bots are stopped this would just lead to bots pumping out these goods. Again, until wide-spread botting is stopped the in-game economy is going to be flawed.

mulch.2586:

devalueing in-game currency and keeping material prices artificially low are inconsistent with each other.

From what I see in game, mats prices have not been kept low.

Actually that is not so in this case. Unlike the real world where there is a finite amount of copper/silver/gold, the ‘coin’ minted by the game is ‘fiat’ currency. It comes from nowhere when created. There is no physical limit to the amount of in-game currency. So, the more that is farmed then the more that there is resulting in the relative devaluation of all the in-game coin. This effect shows most clearly when you watch the value of the in-game currency versus the gems over time.

Likewise the creation of mats via farming. The same ‘tree’ is harvested over and over with no cost of production (other than the need to replace the harvesting tool once in a great while). Bots that repeatedly harvest mats and put them on the AH flood the market, saturating what little demand there is for mats. The non-bot farming of mats right now is not an economically feasible activity. (Yes, you hit the odd node that you come across while doing other things, but it’s not really something that you do as a focused activity.) You can make much more doing events and killing critters. If there were not these bots, then the AH price of mats might make non-bot farming an economically rewarding activity.

We have all seen the amazing “pop in/chop the tree/pop out” botters. The only purpose behind this is to farm mats to sell. This rapidly devalues in-game currency and keeps material prices artificially low. Economy nerfs in order to try and prop up the currency value only hurt the non-botting community, perhaps forcing some on the borderline into botting just to keep up. In essence, its as if there were a currency wherein widespread counterfeiting were permitted.

Speaking personally, I feel highly disinclined to buy most things from the auction hourse or ANYTHING for gems because of the inherently unfair nature of the economy.

ANet needs to make stopping bots a high priority (as in halting new content, etc., until the bots are stopped) the problem will only grow worse. It won’t take much more for large numbers of people to get disenchanted (myself included) and move on.

Reactions can be more finessed than “attack or not” based on your relative standing. Prices can fluctuate (or trade not be offered at all). Dialogue can vary. So on.

Ha! Love the two-faced Josir!

One thing that really flummoxes me is the lack of any sort of a faction/reputation system. This is a pretty basic staple of most ‘large world’ rpgs (stand alone and mmo) that is useful in ‘customizing’ your experience. It only stands to reason that if you gather a reputation as a ‘slayer of Skritt’ that even the most broad-minded Skritt out there won’t want a whole lot to do with you.

However, in Tyria in most areas the Skritt are attack-on-sight. But, in some areas they are merchants and allies. I can walk into the kill-on-sight areas and slaughter them gleefully, then walk into the merchant areas dripping with Skritt-gore and happily trade away. A little baffling.

For those who may be wondering, it appears that my original title for this thread was not sufficiently descriptive. This has been remedied. No other changes have been made or requested. There are no black helicopters landing on my lawn to whisk me away for re-education. : )

Add a dialogue option for the Quartermaster of any given tower/keep/castle to ‘drop’ or ‘add’ your carried supplies to those in the tower/keep/castle’s supply. This would allow players to form emergency supply relays to hasten upgrades, etc. (and give opponents good reason to interdict the same.)

When purchased/implemented the repair crew would systematically (albeit slowly) repair the walls and gates of the tower/keep/castle PROVIDED: 1) there is adequate supply, 2) there are no other upgrades in process, and 3) the tower/keep/castle is not currently ‘under attack’. Repairs would be on a “worst first” basis, meaning that each ‘tick’ the repair crew would work on the wall segment or gate that has taken the most % damage.

Embellished? I quoted the Guild Wars 2 website as it is today.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/personal-story/

Milennin.4825:

It’s just marketing talk. How can you take that so literally?
If all products were to change to match their marketing, seriously not a single product would be the same as it currently is.

There is a difference between “puffery” (i.e. the best coffee in the world, the coldest beer in town, etc.) and specific statements of performance ("Guild Wars 2 provides players both the social, fully interactive feeling of a multiplayer game as well as the customized, choice-based story one expects from a personal role-playing game. ") We weren’t promised “the most up-to-date” or “the latest and greatest”. We were promised, specifically, a customized choice-based story one expects from a personal role-playing game." The personal story, such as it is, in no way meets this billing.

Oh please. I am complaining about key systems that are obviously broken and difficulties that are set as if these same systems were functioning properly.

Troll elsewhere.

The cannons, a mission critical component of the airship battle, is so freaking buggy it’s not even funny. On top of that, you have an insane number of adds and HUGE freaking AoE attacks that litterally overlap each other down the length of the deck. If you are going to have buggy, get stuck in them, wont auto target anything cannons, then do not pour salt into that wound by constant adds and AoE spam.

It is not challenging. It is not fun. It is a chore to try and complete just so I can finish the stinking personal story.

Yep, I pretty much put my thoughts out here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Can-we-have-this-please/first#post456937

The Personal Story aspect of the game has been dramatically over-hyped and has woefully under-performed.

It’s a motto and a theme song:

Zuh… zuh…. zuh…. zuh… Zerg! Zerg! Zerg! Zerg is the word!

-Ehmry Bay

I don’t care what his ‘history’ is. He is not believable as a heroic figure as presented. That’s OK. In fact, I would applaud that decision, if it was implemented something like what I have put forth above.

If you are going to put in an inspiring, knowledgeable and powerful NPC then you must actually make him inspiring, knowledgeable and powerful when he takes part in game play. Trahearne, in the vast majority of the interactions I had with him, was insipid, indecisive, and weak.

I have to say that the whole “home instance” was one of the things I was MOST looking forward to, and not surprisingly, MOST disappointed with.

The hype, from the Guild Wars 2 website:
“These key decisions not only determine the story’s direction, they also change and update your home instance, a personalized home area located in your character’s racial capital.”

The reality:
A few additional npcs will be scattered in your home area that have no personalized content or effect whatsoever.

Trying to turn Traehern into an action hero just does not work for the story line. A better take would have been to make him more of an Eisenhower figure — not necessarily a great general or strategist, but a good enough leader and politician to keep a fractious and disparate alliance together.

In that line, it would make sense for him to be coming to the Hero to basically say, “Look, I’m not good for much but standing at the back of a fight and whirling away now and then with this sword. But, for this alliance to work, I need to have some street cred. So, what I really need for you to do for me, Mr./Ms. Hero is to carry my sorry asparagus-like carcass through some tight spots. I will make sure you get some swag, and a nice share of the lime-light at the end, but in order to make this war effort work and for me to stay at the lead I really need this favor.”

THAT would be both more realistic and in line with what we actually see going on.

As a Mesmer primary, I would gladly accept the trade of a reliable, spammable AoE for a limit on the number of people who can go through a portal in a given amount of time.

>>Mesmer lacks a spammable AoE which is a serious handicap both in PvE and in WvW
^^^^
This!

The majority of people who complain about Mesmers being OP have not played them. Sure the portal trick can be fun but it requires a pretty specific set of facts to be in place (recently captured tower, failure to properly clear by attackers, available allies nearby who can and will actually USE the port (dont know how many times I’ve put one down to have people look at the funny purple circle on the ground and not USE it… sigh)).

The lack of a spammable AoE, indeed the paucity of ANY AoE, makes a Mesmer fit a fairly narrow niche in Wv3.

Two Reasons:
1) It’s a little more difficult for the average working person to rush home from work, get family/friend things cleared, then log on for some serious Wv3 time. Sunday night would be a little easier on the work-week schedule of things.

2) The one advantage you can gain for your world in Wv3 are the “percentage” bonuses in PvE play (crafting, experience, etc.) These reset on Friday night with the new matches. This means that the prime play hours for most people (weekends) those bonuses are low or non-existent.

Title pretty much says it all. When you spike someone their body should disappear and make it not possible to raise the spikee. If you are the spikee, upon spiking you would be given the world view map and a few seconds to pick a rally point. If you don’t pick one in the alloted time, you would default to the basic spawn for your world on the map where you are located.

This would allow downed state to play a role in Wv3 but would also put a curb on the endless zerg. This would also help against the “dead-body-serving-as-impervious-lookout problem” that can exist as well. Just leave the “Finish Them” option on enemies who are either downed or defeated, then the victors can clean the battle field if need be.

From the Guildwars2 web page about personal stories:

“When you create your character, you’ll choose from a range of biographical options that develop your character’s personality, their history, and their hopes and dreams. The choices you make in your character’s biography set you down a particular story path which branches off into new directions with every fateful decision you make.”

Really? Ok, you basically get to pick which racial quest line you start on. Yes, there is some variation after that, but it’s tepid at best. It’s not like your personality type (charming, fierce, dignified, etc.) even has an influence on the story line or the way the NPCs interact with you. Countess Anise is ALWAYS going to be a little flirtatious and light-hearted to the human regardless of whether you are a fierce street rat thief or a charming noble guardian. Also, the outcome you achieve at the end of a given quest line has ZERO to do with the decisions you make along the way. The “fateful” decisions you make along the way in no way affect the fate of any one or any thing, except that you decide which branch you want to take next. If you choose to help the quaggan at one point, does that mean the skritt all freeze and die? Newp. It just means you get stuck with annoying pidgin falsetto dialogue from some NPCs for a few instances.

“Your personal story is told through private, instanced chapters that are specific to your character. If you need a little help, you can always invite friends along to experience your personal story with you. As “guest stars” these players can help you, but it’s still your story and key decisions are yours to make. These key decisions not only determine the story’s direction, they also change and update your home instance, a personalized home area located in your character’s racial capital.”

I won’t even go into the whole difficulty issue. That’s been discussed ad infinitum.

Again… “Key Decisions”? Really? ‘So Commander, do you want to do mission a, or mission b?" That’s about as much input as I recall having.

As far as I am aware, my home instance played no role whatsoever after serving as the back drop for some of my very first story parts. I went back just now to check after going through all the personal story through level 80. The only thing that is different is that there are now a group of quaggan standing inexplicably in the fountain (all of whom give generic responses) and two minor NPC’s that I met along my story line, both of whom give standard generic responses when you talk to them.

“Guild Wars 2 provides players both the social, fully interactive feeling of a multiplayer game as well as the customized, choice-based story one expects from a personal role-playing game. Whether the stakes are epic or personal, we want players to tell their own story within the game environment, so we’ve provided them the tools to do just that.”

I really wish this were true. At any point through the game, what is the difference in game experience between a charismatic Order of Whispers Asuran Engineer and a fierce Durmand Priory Charr Necromancer?

I’m an old school gamer. Played PnP years before they dreamed of computers being in everyone’s homes, much less MMO’s. For all the world, the feeling I get in my ‘Personal Story’ is like the feeling I used to get when one DM in particular would insist on playing a character (as an NPC) in the group. Basically, every adventure was a highlight reel of how awesome his character was and allowing we players to roll the dice for our own characters but make no real decision about the game.

I feel like I am back at that table and the DM’s character is Traehern.

I would dearly love to have a home instance that grew with my character. Maybe where merchants and vendors became available depending on what I’d done in the world. I would dearly love to make fateful decisions in my personal story. I would dearly love to have the tools to tell epic and personal stories in the game. Any chance we could have those, please?

So, having waited a few days I decided to try again. I encountered the same problems. Being the masochist I am sometimes, I decided to plow on through the mission regardless of how many times I went down. I stopped counting at about twenty.

By the time I got to the beach I was half-naked. After only a few minutes on the beach, I was totally naked. My “allies” were mostly ineffectual. Zott did NOTHING, he did not even pull aggro. The thirty or so Risen repeatedly gang rushed me as soon as I spawned and were essentially spawn camping the checkpoint. Only by repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly spawning, running like a madman blindly dpsing and slowly dropping Risen did I finally get to where I could spawn without being mauled. After that, while still naked, I was able to raise my “allies” and slowly finish clearing the beach (again, I know I was defeated once or twice here… I mean I have no armor on at this point).

I’m playing a level 80 Mesmer… therein I believe is one of the problems. Roll up a clothie and run it through some of these.

Armor: 1,898
Health: 16,562

And yes, one rock consistently dropped me. And as a Mesmer, with no enemy close enough to target, I have no ability to move while downed. So, I stay in the AoE ring and get pummeled by the succeeding rocks until defeated.

Everyone griping about Mesmers… go roll one up and try it for a while.

Heh.

The AOE damage from the giants throwing rocks is unreal. One mistake on putting up your shield (or even mis-time it a little bit) and you are DEAD. Period. If you do not have a means of moving out of the huge AOE while downed you will not recover.

This is just silly.

Also, the game isn’t just about WvWvW. If you want to build a guild around PvE or sPvP, for example, that is going to be a lot easier to set up on a server with folks that have a similar schedule.

It would be nice to have some idea of the length of the instance that is up next. Some are incredibly brief (walk into the room, have a cinematic, leave) others are multi-phase battles. There have been times that I have held off doing an instance because I didn’t have much time only to go in and have it be a 60 second deal. There have been other times when I thought I’d do the instance before calling it a night and find myself at it for much longer than I’d anticipated.

Just a little disclaimer like “simple”/“complex”/“intricate” or some such would do wonders.

First part was yadda, yadda, yadda… then we get ‘sucked in’….

I am not a fan of Tree-boy, and this scenario made me thrice so. I want to hurt him. I want to hurt everyone he ever loved. I want to cut down the pale tree and use it to BBQ his useless asparagus corpse.

The instance area is narrower than the fighting spaces in the first few encounters. So I regularly got the ‘leaving the instance area’ warnings when just trying to be the only effective fighter in a group of 8 or so ‘allies’. When I tried to restart from a checkpoint after my inevitable death I once again ran into the boundaries while trying to find my group of dead friends and nearly timed out because the directions were not at all clear either.

Meanwhile, Risen CONTINUE to spawn left, right, and center, even though I am now alone.

I finally fight my way back single handed to the spot where Tree-boy is standing quietly twiddling his thumbs while within spitting distance of a dozen Risen and even closer to a heap of fallen comrades. This is at the ‘base of the stairs’ more or less where you are going up to the Eye. So, I begin to try to dodge Risen and raise friends. Tree-boy, happy in his invulnerability, only deigns to fight if attacked. When I made a little bit of progress going up the stairs it did not matter, because: 1) the Risen were spawning at the rate I could kill them or faster, and any ally I did manage to get raised were almost immediately dropped; and, 2) Grandmaster Tree-boy stalwartly refused to take one step up the stairs no matter how far I got away from him. I would try kiting a few of the Risen back to him in the hopes of knocking him loose. If he deigned to attack them (not always) he would go back to his woolgathering as soon as the dropped.

When I died for the third time at Tree-boys feet, the Risen ignore the heroic Marshal Tree-boy who is flailing and whailing and not doing a #@#$% thing and make sure to beat up the mostly dead mesmer at his feet.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr……..

Edit: I finally calmed down enough a few hours later to go back and slowly eat my way through it. Tree-boy never left his spot where he spawned after being sucked through the mirror. I made sure to talk to him so that there were no dialogue cues needed. He just sat there at the base of the stairs much like Marlin Perkins watching Jim wrestle the alligator from the helicopter (you have to be of a certain age to understand).

After I completed the instance the Risen CONTINUED to spawn and fight. This leads me to wonder if the “ambient spawning” for the world is not turned off in the instance. In any event, if someone had a mind to do so they could sit there in relative comfort and farm level 73 kills with the help of 8 or so NPCs.

There are 4 maps. Red Borderlands, Green Borderlands, Blue Borderlands and Eternal Battleground. There are 4 sets of POI’s and vistas. They don’t reset, but you have to do each of tkittenorderlands individually even though they mirror each other. (But, on the plus side, you get a completion bonus for each of the maps too.)

As a casual player, the ability to return to my spot in the PvE world after time in Wv3 rather than having to Lions Gate>Nearest Capital>Waypoint for a ton of money or run means I will actually use Wv3. I don’t think I’d even consider it on a regular basis if forced to “loose my place”.

Day/Night does not matter for all the reasons stated ad nauseum elsewhere.

The real problem is that there are times when a server is being outnumbered so significantly that it’s players, no matter how skilled and coordinated, cannot do anything effectively. To my mind, the simplest thing to do would be to move the ‘outmanned’ torch from goodies to toughness/vitality and perhaps even power bonuses. That way, if you are grossly outmanned on a map for whatever reason, at least those who were there could have a hope of defending, etc.

As one of the personnel upgrades, it would be nice to be able to buy a Repair Worker. This worker would slowly repair damaged gates and walls provided: 1) No other upgrades were in process; 2) the tower/keep/castle is not presently under attack; and 3) if there are supplies available.

Areas like the Garrison on Borderlands might get some heavy damage on the curtain walls, etc., then the enemy is pushed far away and the zerg moves on. That usually leaves the walls, etc., in a very compromised state. with nothing being done about it. For example, on my Borderland today I started checking outer walls at the Garrison and found 3 that were under 20% and one gate that was under 10%. There was no fighting nearby. All the upgrades had been bought. Supply was at 100% and arrived steadily. Meanwhile, all the castle workers (and players) were walking by walls that were about to fall down. After about an hour of work I finally had one other person help me for a bit and we got the walls and gates in good shape (and I got a lot of progress toward my ‘supplies used toward repair’ achievement. heh.)

Anyway, there should be some way to put the lazy npc louts to work when the fighting has moved on! It would also provide an added incentive/disincentive to keeping supply running or harassed even if there is not a frontal assault going on. I can tell you that spending an hour mending walls is NOT heroic! But if I had spent that time instead protecting supply camps and lines, it would have felt moreso. An upgrade would be the ticket, I think.

Yes, reset the servers regularly regardless of whether you have new content to add or not. It’s not a long term fix, but at least it offers some relief in the short term.

More than 24 hours later…. Skill challenge I am waiting on is still glitched and has been now for at least 3 days.

At least reset the servers! Come on!

Could we PLEASE get daily server resets until the issues with higher level and skill challenge DE’s are fixed?

Could we please have an in game means installed to check for/reset broken DE’s? Maybe an NPC we could check with to initiate a check to see that the events are working as intended?

I am one glitched skill challenge away from finishing a map and it’s rather annoying!

Diessa Plateau, southwest of Town of Nolen. Trying to get that Vista with a Norn character induced such severe camera clipping/zooming issues that I got a headache.

Badges of Honor, Mystic Coins, etc. It would be really swell if they could get their own ‘collections’ tab and be dumped there along with all of the other collectables from the inventory option.

+1 vote for area based rather than level based costs. Makes more sense.
+1 vote for discounts in areas that character has already fully explored. Nice little continuing bonus for exploration.

OK, I think this is DEFINITELY a profession-based issue. My main is a mesmer, and that is where I have had all my heartache and grief. For the heck of it, I decided to try a warrior and see what happened.

SHAZAM! It’s like someone pressed the easy button. I think I went down a total of 3 times and only had to restart from a checkpoint once over the course of many personal story quests. My Mesmer wouldnt have stood a chance.

The dynamic scaling of personal stories has to take the character’s toughness/vitality into account somehow.

What I am saying is to not down-scale me to level 45 and put me in a room full of level 45 mobs. Fill the room with level 45 mobs. If the player wants to tackle it at level 45 (or 40, or whatever) groovy. If, like myself, you’d rather not be quite so challenged then wait for a few levels and then take on the room full of level 45 mobs.

Again, this is about personal stories. There are no “balance” issues here. The only thing that needs to be “balanced” in a personal story is my enjoyment of the game.

If you are all gung-ho “I can kill the elder dragons at level 20 with my leet dodging skills” then rooty toot toot for you, you can do the personal story as the levels dictate. If you are like me and for whatever reason the difficulty is just way to freaking high, then you can wait 5 or 10 or 20 levels and then do the personal quests.

They are supposed to be personal. Let them maybe even be sort of customized.

So, being the masochist I am, I decided to try again with a fresh start.

The first thing I noticed is that the Jotun in the instance have all been upped from the level 42 Jotun that are in the local PvE to level 45. Why? God knows.

Second, after failing again on the second wave of imps (and being kicked out to world despite clicking on ‘retry from a checkpoint’) I tried yet again… and passed the second wave of imps! Only to find that the third wave is another 4 imps PLUS a “veteran ice imp alpha”. Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Not having the option to even go back and try the branch at this point of the story, I guess I am just going to leave the personal story stuck at this point for a while.

This is sad, for many reasons. Most of all because I am an ‘old school’ role playing gamer with the ROLE part emphasized. I was playing pnp long before there were home computers, much less internet games and MMOs. I love the role aspect of the game. It was my thought that this is what GW2 would be bringing back to the mmo, with the concept of personal stories, home instances and so forth, the idea that my character was a CHARACTER, and not a ‘toon’ through which I solved puzzles and zapped things.

Needing to suffer multiple failures and deaths in order to finish a static, linear set of quests is EXACTLY what GW2 was supposed to rescue me from. Now I unrealistically leave this portion of the story hanging. unchanged, even though I have tried and failed multiple times, to no apparent ill effect, to wait for me to return to it, whenever, with all of the characters therein talking of urgent action needed, though I could let it set for a year with no ill effect…. see what I am saying.?

There are systemic problems here that need addressing. My short term answer, however, would be to simply turn off the dynamic scaling in personal stories. Those rah-rah go getters who want to bang their head against them at low level can. Those of us who prefer not to be humiliated over and over in an aspect of the game that is supposed to be about personal character development and fulfillment can know to wait for a few levels before going there.

“Learn to Play” is a totally inadequate response. This is about personal story. This is only about personal story. The personal story does not affect anyone else in the entire world. There is no reason for the personal story to set at some arbitrary difficulty level. There is no reason to have a ‘you must be this tall to ride’ sign.

Personal story should be about creating deeper immersion into the game world. Instead, mine has tended to have the opposite effect. Rather than feel “Hey, I am an important figure in major events” I have been led to feel like “Hey, I cannot finish a task that is supposedly appropriate to my class/skill without multiple deaths”.

Here’s my latest ‘for instance’ from tonight. Quest is “Pastkeepers” its from the Order of Whispers line. Without too much in the way of spoilers I am saddled with a middling effective npc and two quaggan who will at most throw snowballs. This quest is set at level 45 (and so I am limited to 45). Up the hill I must kill 8 level 45 Jotun, then hold the hill against two ‘waves’ of Jotun (3 level 45 Jotun per wave). Then almost immediately I must try to protect the quaggan from at least 2 waves of attacks by ice imps (4 per wave, level 45, with a huge stinking AOE attack that does about 1,500 hit points and cripples… you will be hit…. you will be crippled… you will be hit again and again.) I do not know what happens after that because I went down/dead on the second wave twice. Each time I tried to “start from a checkpoint” but ended getting kicked out of the instance instead.

Frustration level 100%. Turning off the game for the night.

All of this makes me simply wonder if anyone is doing some basic play testing on these things. I mean, when is the last time a Dev took a vanilla character of the appropriate level and tried to complete the quest? Have there been multiple changes to the game since the last time this happened? Maybe its time for a fresh run.

Surely there are stats being kept out there about how many character deaths are happening in a given instance. Maybe pull some of these high mortality personal story missions, copy one or two of the characters, TURN OFF GOD MODE, and try to play the thing.

100% agree! Personal story should be something that you solo. The difficulty is almost always WAY too high due to number and difficulty of mobs.

With all of the jumping, rolling, etc. I think a ‘padlock’ camera view is in order. For those of you not familiar, padlocking always shows your character in front and your currently selected target in the background. So, if you are facing away from the target, you would see your character’s front and the target behind you, etc.

This would help tremendously when in combats where I am very mobile against targets that are equally mobile.