Guild Wars 2

Same here. After completing the Norn tutorial, I got roughly 300 AP for HoM (I had zero before, I don’t even have GW1 account) which pushed me to next Achievement milestone. I accepted the reward, however the chest is sitting unopened in my inventory. Wanted to submit a bug report, but as others mentioned above, the bug report system is messed up now and the categories cannot be properly identified.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Not true! You dont know me.
I will not fight other players.
I bought a PVE game to fight monsters not humans.

anet wants me to PVP, WVW and esports (ha ha). Not with me.

In most of the WvW dailies, you don’t have to fight other players. If there mere possibility that you may be attacked is bad enough for you (not blaming you), fair enough. I’ll also admit it depends on what server you are on and what is the current matchup.

However, other than that:
Big Spender – no fighting at all and not even the risk of a fight
Master of Ruins – no fighting at all
Caravan Disruptor – kill 1 NPC
Land Claimer – kill 1 NPC
(I’m a PVE player and I always do these 4 ones)

Veteran Creature Slayer – Kill 1 Veteran NPC; there are 3 in each Borderland, and every one is close to some base waypoint
Mists Guard Killer – kill 5 NPCs

Camp Capturer, Tower Capturer, Keep Capturer – these in theory only require to kill NPC, however some may be difficult to solo and they bring bigger risk of being attacked by a player

Objective Defender, Invasion Defender – only these two require fighting another players (and I’m not even sure about the first one)

I’ll try to be more constructive in this post than I was in my previous one (which was basically just raging).

First, some background:
Relatively new player (about 2,5 months in total, 1,5 month of it more than a year ago). Little experience with “action combat”. Elementalist class. Exotic gear and two exotic weapons (scepter and dagger). Unlocked most skills, but only about 10 major traits (so far).

Now, regarding the individual episodes/chapters bosses (including some general remarks):
Cornered: The fight is way too long for no reason and the orange fields are spammed way too often. This introduced the gimmick where you spend a lot of time running around and very little time actually doing damage. I guess that’s what “action combat” is about, but …well.
Note: Fights where most damage is negated by movement and you only have small windows to hit the boss don’t discourage “all DPS” builds, but encourage them instead.

Trouble at Fort Salma: This boss is relatively OK (though it could be shorter again, but that can be said about the majority of LS2 bosses). The AoE spam isn’t that bad and the chance to utilize other things than pure damage to slow the wolves was appreciated.

Plan of Attack: That one made me ragequit with the Scepter/Dagger set. Afterwards I purchased a staff and with it finished the encounter on the first try.
Apart form usual “too long”, the frequency of Menders should be lowered a bit. I also had some troubles with the spheres’ hitboxes – it was difficult to time the dodge correctly for me.
Note: I’m not sure if “forcing” a player to certain weapon/skillset/traits set in order to overcome an encounter is the way to go, especially if there’s a chance that the player doesn’t have the weapon/skills/traits at all.

Recalibrating the Waypoints: This one was more or less fine, similar to the one from Fort Salma. Several phases with different mechanics, nice, as well as the variable AoE zones. Only the length again …

The World Summit. Ahaha. Alright, I watched a few videos with it and they all were like “fight starts, player gets downed/killed after a moment, then cut and skip to the end of the encounter”. The way I did it? Pure attrition. I just stood on the checkpoint and spammed Staff Fire 1&2 from there; once I died enough times and my armor got completely destroyed, I started to skip downed phase so the respawns were instant and I even enjoyed a short invulnerability after them. Took me about 10-15 minutes to finish it (I forgot to kill the Leecher at first and it healed the dragon from 50% to full) and about 50 deaths …
Let’s call it down to personal opinion, but this fight is horribly overtuned. There is way too much stuff on the ground from the tentacles and the dragon, and the DPS windows are extremely short.

Hidden Arcana: By far the BEST boss fight in Season 2. That’s how I’d like all the fights to be – interesting mechanics, switching between DPS and mechanics in roughly equal ratio, no excessive AoE/conditions/trashmobs spam. If the RNG of it would be improved a bit, it would be almost perfect.

Tangled Paths(all bosses): Way too long and uninteresting.

Meeting the Asura: Fine UNTIL the very last step, where you need luck so that 3 individual patterns synchronize well enough for you to succeed (lure away the small golems, break the generator AND hit the boss before the golems return). Pity about that, it would be pretty good otherwise.

The Mystery Cave: Haven’t done it yet.

Last but not least, another note about something which isn’t unique to GW2: taking the character control away from the player due to excessive CC used by the NPC is NOT challenging; being delegated to a viewer instead of player is always bad concept, and it should be used as sparsely as possible (and always avoidable).

I agree with the OP – the boss fights in LS 2 are pure definition of obnoxious.

They aren’t challenging - they are incredibly long for no reason → boring – > annoying. You spend about 5% of the time DPSing the boss and 95 % running/rolling around like moron, lying down after missing one of the spammed CCs, waiting for condition cleanse to come off cooldown, or smashing something in RL due to inevitable frustration.

The first one can at least be defeated by attrition. The second one too I guess. But the third one made me ragequit after the pitiful damage I managed to deal to the boss was negated for the third time by the mender. I guess it’s “get ranged zerker or GTFO”.

I tried really hard to like the game when I returned after 1,5 years. But I think it’s finally the time to admit it is not for me. It has many great concepts which I’d love to see in other MMOs; but the sad truth is, I only enjoy GW2 until the moment I’m forced to fight.
And playing a MMO where you hate the combat system is most likely impossible in the long run.

VaLee.5102:

Let me make an analogy. You go in a dugeon that you did a thousand times before. At one boss ,4 of you stack on a point while the 5th doesn’t, and because of him you all wipe instead of getting an easy kill. Who’s fault was it?

I can answer that!

1) If the 5th player said at the beginning of the dungeon that he/she is new/needs pointers for tactics, then it’s the fault of the 4 other ones
2) If the 5th player did nothing to prevent others from assuming he knows what to do, then it’s his/her fault
3) If the 5th player joined “wrong” group (by wrong I mean things like newbie in a zerker speedrun) then it’s again his/her fault

JustTrogdor.7892:

Maybe it is just my age but most of the human female characters already look like they are on their way to a Justin Biebers concert to me.

Same here. I tried really really hard to make human female who would look like woman rather than girl. No success. Eventually, I had to create Norn instead.

Logged out yesterday completely fine. Logged in today into unplayable game. FPS 5-10 right after logging in or switching characters, it goes up to 25-30 after a while but only if I stand still – any, and I mean ANY camera rotation immediately causes lag and FPS loss.
Server: Piken Square

Thanks for the replies so far.

A few points I’d like to address:
- Elementalist is tough class for new players
I agree, however I actually tried most of the other classes (all but Guardian and Necromancer) and Elementalist was the only one I could stick with for more than 10 levels (also I did this year ago when you could unlock all weapon skills almost immediately). Problem is that GW2 is not exactly the game for me – I prefer rotating multiple abilities over action combat (lot of movement and lot of autoattacks, only occasional use of cooldowns). “Turn-based over Real time”. And Elementalist is the only class that comes somewhat close to it.

- The mission is fine when you know what to do
Agreed as well. However, I did the mission for very first time. As far as I can tell, all Personal Story mission until that one required me to clear the mobs, then do something. Here it was the first time when I encountered an endless respawn mechanics where the only solution is to ignore the mobs/ drag or kite them while carrying out the objectives. I had to learn it the hard way, and I definitely did not enjoy the learning process – quite the reverse.

-“You died 15 times in The Ghost Rite?”
Yup. In my partial defense, I watched some youtube videos after that, and they were different from my experience. On the videos, after killing the initial group of mobs the character arrived to the place with fountain (Mystic Forge?) where Lionguard were fighting Risen, and joined the battle. When I killed the initial pack of Risen and arrived to the fountain, the Lionguards were idling there with no enemy in sight, and the main boss was floating further to the right. I ran to the boss, 10+ Risen spawned right behind him as I arrived there and I got instantly overwhelmed.

Anyway. Despite my promise to never touch the personal story again, I tried The Ghost Rite today and succeeded, after developing a heroic tactics – spamming the nr.2 ability (roll + burning trail) back and forth endlessly, while the Risen going after me slowly burned to death. It took me 10+ minutes and needless to say, I felt really epic (/sarcasm).

The rest of the arc wasn’t that bad to my surprise, there were still grinding moments in each mission which frustrated me immensely, but it could be overcame. The final “Retake the Island” mission was – to my genuine shock – most enjoyable in the whole arc. Maybe because I had a group of useful NPCs this time instead of Traeharne (who in previous mission either stood there watching the sky and then said “good work” after the fight was over, or performed combat animations without doing any actual damage). The final fight with the dragon I wached from safe distance while the NPC horde killed the boss all by itself.

So! Back to open world PVE which I enjoy (as long as I avoid certain random events). I may be back later however, when my Elementalist reaches level 70 and new Personal Story unlocks …

P.S. Special thanks to GuzziHero for the friendly PM and the offer of help ingame!

Earlier this evening, I had the most obnoxious game experience which I can remember (I would say ever, but I have some years now and it’s possible that I forgot something): The Battle of Claw Island story instance.

My current character, Elementalist, is first which made it past level 30 (and first after a year’s break). I really enjoyed playing her until now, and also enjoyed the personal story progress (Sylvari, Durmand Priory) some of which was truly awesome. Well that seems to be over now.

(Spoilers from now on)

So, I started the mission. Beginning was OK, some initial battle, then a task to defeat a set amount of Risen Abominations. I actually enjoyed the part, rotating my cooldowns and taking the Abominations one or two at a time. After finishing it, next task was “Find and revive Deputy Mira”. That’s where it all broke.
On my way to the NPC, Risen mobs spawned and started to attack me. I naturally assumed I had deal with them, so I did … however, they kept coming. Again. And again. After cca 10 minutes of the purest definition of grind I had enough and just headed towards Mira.
(As an aside, after checking the web for it – kiting a train of mobs while ignoring them is apparently he correct way how to do the mission. That’s really an awesome design there).

Reviving the NPC (being already quite annoyed), next task was “Use trebuchets against the Dead Ship”. A cute minigame which seemed to put the mission back on track, which sadly wasn’t true. “Ignite the signal-beacons” was right back to “kite and ignore”. followed straight by “Help the Lionguard hold out against the Risen”. When I read the objective, I was desperate; and resigning to any actual effort (while losing the last bits of interest), I simply started to running circles around the objective area, dragging mobs behind me and hoping all I have to do is survive for some time (remember, I never did the mission before).

To my relief that hope has proven true. A cutscene with dragon played (no interest at this point), I got perma-feared running into wall and the train of mobs has beaten me to death.
The only luck was that after respawning the whole mission ended with another cutscene, alas I was so disgusted at this point that what could be a touching moment with my favorite NPC ended completely stomped to the ground of disinterest. I logged off thinking that it couldn’t be any worse than that.

How wrong I was.

Several hours later, I logged back hoping just to be done with the story. “The Ghost Rite”, is the next mission. Some initial cutscene, transformation into a warrior and “Gain Power through the slaughter of your enemies.”. Yay, another grindy grind objective. Oh well.
Oh well.

I killed a few initial mobs, then arrived to a place with invulnerable boss and about 10 minions. The boss despawned after a moment and the minions all swarmed on me, unsurprisingly killing me in a few moments. “Respawn on checkpoint”.
I respawn and am in the middle of the very swarm of mobs. I go down pretty fast again. In this moment I stop caring altogether; I keep dying and respawning while slowly working through the pack of mobs.
I have died at least 10 times, armor completely broken, before the cluster of mobs got thinned down to manageable level. Objective still says " Gain Power through the slaughter of your enemies". New mobs keep spawning, I kill them, die here and there as they are coming indefinitely. This goes on for several minutes without any change. After I eventually die again (15th+ time, stopped counting long ago) with the objective still " Gain Power through the slaughter of your enemies" and no boss or anything else in sight, I lose it and quit the game.

Since this is a rant, writing a conclusion is rather difficult. Maybe a question if anyone else got so disgusted and discouraged by this part of the personal story. Or maybe a question if I can delete the personal story, because I for sure don’t want to touch it ever again, and it will block other hints the game offers (like, when on a new map, “there’s an unexplored area in this direction”). Maybe a question if I , from the description, did something wrong. Or maybe … I don’t know.

Hello,

I recently started playing the game (again, I tried it more than a year ago and stopped after few weeks) and so far find it really enjoyable. There is only one thing spoiling my fun (actually there are more, but the rest are design decisions which I’m not comfortable with): whenever I join a Champion event, usually the one for daily, 90% of time the game crashes before the event is complete.

Now, I’m pretty sure the culprit is my computer which is quite old now, so I’m not looking for an advice how to try and prevent the crashes (although such advice won’t be dismissed, of course). Instead, I have following question:

1) Is there a way how to “save my progress”, so when I log back in I get at least a credit for the event completion, if not the loot reward?

2) Related to 1), is there a way how I can return on the same map I was on before the crash? (maybe being in a group?)

3) Is there anything unique which can only be obtained by doing Champion events? (unique = no other way how to get it, e.g. not tradeable on TP for example). I know I don’t need the Champion for daily – I can do gathering, Vista and “minor” events instead.

Sorry if this has been already answered, couldn’t find it:

Will we be able to choose the Specialization from level 1, or only at 80, or somewhere inbetween?

Kichwas.7152:

Yep.

Its either buttflappery all up in this place, or the duelist bikini top, or the one gemstore goth outfit.

Agreed. One of the first things I did was to purchase the Gemstore Medium Armor set and handful of Transmutation stones. I only use the coat, though.

More “jacket-like” medium armors would be definitely welcome.

squashedsquirrel.5408:

2. Monsters spawn very quickly, leading to perhaps one of the things I hate most right now: Having a ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ battle to get into a small cave, and by the time I’ve harvested that node I now have to ‘zomg epic fight for my life’ my way back out. Even worse is half the baddies you’ve already killed respawning just as you land the finishing blow on the last enemy, and you’ve lost most of your health and all your escape/heal skills are on cooldown. Battles are pretty discouraging for me when they never end unless I die or manage to escape.

New player here. Today morning, my Norn ranger (level 12) discovered a small camp of four level-appropriate enemies (one veteran and 3 normal) guarding a chest. Since I’m fresh to the game, I’m not yet accustomed enough to all the mechanics and thus I expected a tough battle. And it was one – but in the end, I stand victorious (after using every single cooldown).
However.
Before I managed to even click on the chest, the enemies all respawned, instantly aggroed and killed me before I realized what’s going on. I respawned on a waypoint and logged off.

This event is just the tip of an iceberg of what I am experiencing during my first days here. Other examples include killing a particular Jotun (at level 7) three times in a row (kill -> immediate respawn -> kill -> immediate respawn -> kill), going through Sons of Svanir cave (level 4) and after killing one enemy and fighting the next having the first one respawn in my back almost instantly, and pretty much every variation of what the OP is describing.

I thought this game is supposed to encourage exploring. Speaking for myself, I won’t ever again try to do something like I described in the first paragraph. Zerging in mass events and tagging enemies has much better risk/reward ratio, and certainly much less frustration. That said, I’m still enjoying the game enough to try and continue playing, it’s just another (rather big) straw on the camel’s back.

Oh, and I’ve searched the forums and found that “ridiculous respawns” shall be reported as bugs. But when every other encounter is like that, I cannot consider it a bug, I must consider it a feature.