Because they are just so kitten
Loved the new map, there was plenty of room to explore and to move around in the fights not like HoT when you were trapped on narrow paths unable to maneuver. It seemed far more set up for solo exploration than for large groups doing meta events, hopefully it will stay like that.
The mount was wonderful, as someone who has spent time riding horses, the controls did feel right and the way it moved seemed realistic. I didn’t suffer the motion sickness that other had even though I had a good try to induce it this morning.
I didn’t do much in the way of hero points or mastery points, there seemed little point as the progress would be lost, but the ones I did do seemed fine.
The one mine / cave I found was really annoying with rocks falling on my head, there didn’t seem to be any warning or reason except to kill the player that was trying to fight the mobs, of which there were plenty. I don’t know if the red circle were meant to show where the rock falls were but I was certainly getting hit even outside the circle.
It could do with some way to separate unidentified gear from the salvage all option, possibly adding it as another category after rares.
If all the new zones just keep having elder wood and mithril nodes the glut on the market is just going to keep getting worse and the price is just going to keep going down until you can’t give it away. Maybe adding other nodes to the new zones might improve the balance of the materials availability.
My Rangers want to know how they can get Sand Lions, Sand Eels and Vultures as pets, and when is someone going to catch the wild horned camels (sorry I couldn’t see the name) and domesticate them so we can have those as mounts as well.
Firstly I would say to let her play what she wants to try, don’t expect her to be doing any high or hard content straight off, give her time to learn to enjoy the game and then worry about the mechanics.
I have to say though that Ranger would be my choice, but I am rather biased. The pet can take quite a lot of aggro off her, Troll unguent is a great Heal over Time skill, and if she does go down the pet can help her get back on her feet quickly while you distract the mob (I can’t remember the name but button 3 while downed is a godsend).
Alternatively the necromancer is also high survivability, particularly a minion build, or a guardian if she prefers to be in close, mace and focus give a lot of defencive abilities, but she would need to learn when to use them.
I would also suggest that you don’t spec too much into toughness for her, I’m not quite sure how it works but a high toughness does seem to get the aggro directed at you.
Hopes she learns to like Tyria.
I am definitely in the loving it camp.
I hated HoT, the map and minimap couldn’t cope with the multilevels well; in a game that wants you to move and dodge during combat they put you on these narrow paths with no room for maneuver; you could barely take a step without some event kicking off; basic exploring was almost impossible and stopping to admire the view very inadvisable.
So for me the Crystal Dessert Demo is really a step in the right direction, the scenery is beautiful and you aren’t likely to end up getting steamrolled by mobs while you stop and look around you. Enemies are plentiful but don’t swamp you. I am hoping that there will be plenty of nooks and crannies, and ruins to explore that can be done solo rather than needing massive parties to deal with. My ranger is eyeing up all the new animals and wanting to know where the juveniles are, and hoping that this time they aren’t hidden behind major events, Sand Lions, and Sand Eels are already on my want list, I also saw what looked to be wild horned camels wandering the dessert, and want to know when i can have one of them as a mount.
I’m not big on following stories, but managed this start easily enough on both a ranger and a necromance, the two classes that I main most, I didn’t bother about gear or traits, just took what i started in, my ranger was downed a couple of times but never died and the necromancer just walked it.
Overall a distinct improvement on HoT in my opinion.
I know I’m one of the lucky ones that didn’t suffer any motion sickness from the mount. I don’t know if it’s partly that it moved as I would expect a mount to move and as I did a lot of horse riding in my younger days, the raptor seemed to move in a similar way. On a horse if you go from a gallop to a stop they will slide, when you turn when moving forward you do turn a circle, Strafing while stationary turns a pirouette and strafing while moving forward does quite a good leg yield.
My big concern is that if they do tweak things to solve the motion sickness that some are suffering, the solution might prove problematic to the rest of us, and cause us to feel sick instead. Any changes I feel need to be on sliders so that they can be adjusted to suit a specific player.
Unfortunately my first thought when I saw PoF was Promise of Failure. I can’t say I really liked a lot of HoT so while I have no doubt I will get the expac, I’m not that hyped up about it.
After a bit of brainstorming my OH and I have come up with a few options
Price of Failure, it doesn’t matter what the character wants to do, the NPCs will disappear off to do their own thing and we will be left picking up the pieces.
Porky Orange Friday, where the first quest we get involves going out and killing a load of boars to get porky bits and pick oranges, only to find that 9 out of 10 boars don’t drop porky bits and most of the oranges are rotten, once completed it instantly levels our cookery skill to 500 and gives us an ascended cooking knife, which although it only can do one basic attack is far better than any other weapon we could equip. I then realised I was probably thinking of the wrong game.
Party only Fun, the whole expack consists of new dungeons, fractals and raids, no new open content that can be done solo, and there are several other options if the dev team don’t finish on time.
Parties of Five. They didn’t finish the raids so it’s only dungeons and fractals.
Plenty of Fractals. Scrap the dungeons they aren’t ready yet.
Pair of Fractals. Everyone’s been on holiday of off sick, just release what we can.
Primus Ordus Farrenus. With the pact pretty much dead, the dragons watch guild breaking up, Swordmaster Farren steps up to the mark to lead the new First Order of Farren military unit against the …. (insert bad guy’s name here).
Final Orders Please. The devs were discussing what to call the expac in the pub on a Friday night. They hadn’t come up with anything when the landlord called time and asked for last orders, and decided as they couldn’t come up with anything they would just call it that . Unfortunately they had had a little too much to drink.
There is one other option. The devs don’t really know what it’s called. They just pulled three letters out of a scrabble set and then announced that as it’s acronym. They are now watching this thread very carefully so they can pick out the best name. So when it is finally announced, and you think you guessed right, maybe, yours was just the best option entered.
I admit I haven’t played WoW since MoP, but to put it simply, you will never (or very unlikely to ever) have a case where ‘Green is the new Purple’.
For those that haven’t played WoW, greens were the basic level items (like blues in GW2) and Purples were the top end, except in every expansion the new green items given as basic quest rewards,were guaranteed to be better than the purples you had worked so hard to get.
I have decided it is time I came out of my shell and added my voice to this thread, although rather quietly and hoping not too many people notice.
I play MMOs because I like knowing that the other toons I see are real people, but I just don’t want to interact with them, the most I really want is a quick TY and NP (Thank you, and No Problem) when I rez someone.
Like many others here most of my time is spent running the open world doing the odd event, often alone, and gathering mats. I do tend even to shy away from the big world events, particularly the event chains, as there are too many people and too much going on. I guess that is why i have barely got out of Verdant Brink in HOT. I also WvW, but again mostly solo roaming, I am hopeless at PvP so try and run and hide from other players, but as I can quite accept dieing as part of WvW it doesn’t bother me if I get killed regularly. I might tag onto a big zerg if I encounter one, but I don’t go looking for one. Having recently reached rank 66 in WvW I am starting to think I must be one of the higher ranking non PvPers out there. I am also aiming for Yak Slapper and Leader of the Yak as achievements, that is my type of WvW.
i have on occasion decided to join a guild, normally when I get the idea I really should be getting more dungeons done. Normally i’m fine for a week or so, then gradually I notice I am logging in as invisible more and more as I don’t want the guild to notice I am online and try and communicate with me. I then tend to make my excuses and leave the guild.
So if any of you are on the EU servers and fancy a guild where you don’t use voice chat and no one cares if the only thing you say in guild chat is a quick hi when you log on, you would have another member here.
Glad to know its not just me as well.
The other problem i have on my free account is that I normally leave at least half a dozen bodies behind me before I remember that I don’t have the full auto loot ability.
Personally I would settle for a mastery track that provided a mastery point at the end of it. At least that way I would eventually get there with my masteries rather than pretty much writing the whole thing off as I’m not likely to get the points from things I don’t like doing.
I haven’t actually seen it yet, but from your descriptions I certainly won’t be going out of my way to purchase it. I like my pets happy and perky, not looking like they are dying at my feet.
I remember the fish in a bubble from WoW and I think that would have been a good alternative, or if they want it properly on land then base it on something like a lung fish that is adapted to survive out of water for a short time and can use its fins to move about.
Hi, I’m looking for a new small guild and wonder if yours might be the right one.
A little about myself. I have been playing since launch and have been on several times most weeks since then, but only in a very casual manner. I migrated over from WoW and have never really looked back. Initially I was in a guild consisting of friends and family, that guild has reduced down to just myself and my husband, when he is on we play together, but most of the time I run pretty much solo.
I am based on Piken Square, but with the exception of WvW I don’t thing that matters much. Mostly I do a lot of open world exploration and harvesting, joining in events as I come across them but not chasing them down. I have pugged a few dungeons and occasionally will dive into WvW again mostly solo roaming or joining a random zerg. As you can probably tell I’m not much into organised play, but it does mean I am often willing to change what I’m doing if someone wants help or needs someone to run a dungeon. While I have no problems using voice chat myself, my husbands computer is very close to mine so when he is in the room it can interfere with what he does. If he isn’t around I am happy to chat, otherwise I would just be listening in with the mike muted. I’m not too computer wise so someone might have to help talk me through getting whatever system you use set up. I am already on Skype and have used Teamspeak in the past.
I have never worried about meta builds, I play what I enjoy and most of my level 80s are only clad in a mix of rares and exotics. I should also warn you I’m an altaholic, 35 characters and counting, of various levels.
If you can let me know if you think someone as casual as myself would be a useful addition to the guild you envisage either in reply to this or if you can catch me online.
Thanks
There is definitely a way to do it as I have three accounts and each has its own short cut. What Healix looks about right however on the properties of mine the order is slightly different
GW2.exe" -nopatchui -emailx@example.com -password passexample
That is how the last part reads in the ‘target’ box under properties, unfortunately I can’t remember how it was set up like that.
Using this means that you don’t need to enter your username and password as it is already part of the short cut.
It is only useful as a log in for a secondary account as it doesn’t do any patches, I tend to log in on my main account which has the basic short cut each day to make sure the patches are up to date and then use the others to access my secondary accounts afterwards. It also doesn’t go to the extra screen if you change IP addresses and need to put in a secondary security code., you will need to do that through a standard short cut.
WARNING: Do Not use this if you use a shared computer. When you go into the properties of the shortcut it will show your username and your password as part of the target
Welcome to Tyria and I hope you like it here.
I gave up with WoW sometime during MoP, had a brief look at it when WoD cam out and have pretty much entirely turned my back on it. However knowing people who are still playing it I can give some pointers to what I feel are the main differences.
There is no gear grind. The best equipment you can get is Ascended (Legendary has the same stats), which really isn’t that much better than Exotic to be really worth chasing until you are doing high end fractal and raids. For virtually all the content you will be fine in exotics which can be bought off the Trading post fairly cheaply, 2 – 5 gold per item, (gold is far more valuable here than in WoW). Mostly armor and weapons are wanted to unlock a particular skin. Your characters style can end up being far more important at high levels than any gear score.
The classes are far more versatile, if you want a melee ranger, you can make one that works well, warrior using ranged weapons, fine for most open world mobs and can be reasonable support in dungeons as well. You say you have played all classes to 10, but have you tried all weapon types on them, a mace/focus guardian plays very differently from a greatsword guardian. Try as much as you can and find out what is fun for you to play, that is more important here than what is meta at the moment.
A couple of other things to mention, there is no kill or node stealing, everyone that helps kill a mob will get experience and loot for themselves, ore, wood and plant nodes will remain for anyone else to gather after you have collected them, you can even log onto a different character yourself and go out and get the same node. Everyone can resurrect anyone else, and gets experience for doing so. Leveling is quick and the more you play the quicker it gets as there are items that can be used to grant levels to alts, but it is worth taking the time to level slowly and explore the world, and find out what part of the game you enjoy, whether it is open world pve, dungeons and fractals, wvw or spvp, every thing is viable.
If you are still playing the trial version you will find there are a lot of limitations on it, particularly as far as the trading post goes. You can do most of the original game on it all the way to level 80, but if you haven’t bought the game and are sure you are enjoying it then I would recommend getting HoT.
GPS would be nice, but more importantly can all gliders be retrofitted with altimeters.
I also second bringing back the fountain and having the rubber ducks in it.
There are a lot of restrictions on the F2P account. As others have mentioned you can’t get into Lions Arch until level 35, however you can’t even get into the other cities until level 10. I’m not even sure if you can get out of the starting areas before level 10. You can however get to all starting areas (any area marked as for levels 1 -15 ish), there will be one waypoint accessible normally the one nearest the city that you can port to.
You might be best helping her reach level 10 and then helping her with her personal story instead of her accompanying you on yours, that way there shouldn’t be the access problems.
When you mentioned unicorns, my first thought was the Dreamer, I don’t know if you could write it into the story you plan, but making it a quest for the heroine to find a bow associated with unicorns that could be used to take out the final enemy might also give you time to get some screen shots of it ready. I don’t know if you have considered letting your daughter help design a character on GW2 then you play it for her and use it in the story taking the screen shots of her character as it progresses through your story. If she has helped design the heroine it might give her more of a connection to what happens to her in the story.
For actually getting the Dreamer, I have been (vaguely) working on it for the last year or so. I haven’t concentrated on it but I have been stashing things away regularly for it. Two things to mention, when creating the mystic clovers in the forge there is a good chance you will get T6 mats instead, so I would start concentrating on getting those forged then fill in the blanks on the T6 items. Laurels are also a good place to get T6 items, the heaviest crafting bag will give 3 T6 items for 1 laurel, make sure you log in each day to build up the laurels and when you get the month end reward chose the laurel option.
As for screen shots, Timberline Falls has some of the best scenery in the game in my opinion. There is also a view point in Wayfarer foothills just out side Hoelbrak where you look across to sculptures of the spirit beasts that might be wotth trying to get if it fits with your ideas.
Instead of trying to get shots of the mobs for the bad guys you might find that playing with the different character options could give you a creepy appearing bad guy that you control. I have a sylvari done using a makeover kit and she looks distinctly alien in my opinion, so something like that might work.
I figured I might as well add another female gamer to the list.
Of the 32 characters I have 3 are male, 2 charr and 1 human. One of the charr was created not long after my old Ragdoll cat died and was done in memory of him and a great deal of time was spent with the makeover kit to get the best look possible, my only regret was the tail, I really wanted the female fluffy tail for him.
My human male is carefully designed blond, athletic, bronzed warrior dressed in the skimpiest heavy armor I had for him. We women can be just as bad as the men when it comes to inappropriately dressing characters.
Of the 29 females I have representatives of all races and I think every armor weight available to each race. Some are scantily clad, others are very sensibly dressed, all have their own character.
One reason I don’t play a lot of males is I dislike the general appearance and animations for them. The Norn males are just lumbering hulks I have tried them and I just can’t stomach the way they move.
One very controversial thought I have had on several occasions is do the devs, even unintentionally, put more effort into creating the female toons which is why they seem to look and move better. I don’t know the ratio of female to male devs but as far as computer programming goes the number of males I know in the profession is far greater than the number of females. If this ratio is biased, then men in general are aware of what they appreciate in the female figure, but seem to be far less aware of what a female finds attractive in a male figure hence all the over muscled, badly proportioned hulks seen in most games (I don’t know if men find these attractive or not).
I will also add my husband mains a female human engineer, he just wasn’t keen on the way the males look and move either.
Welcome to Tyria and to Piken Square (its where i hang out although with the mega server system, it isn’t as important as it once was).
I also main a Ranger (as much as I main anything being an altaholic) and they are really good for survivability. My main advise is take your time. Unlike some games the journey is as important as end game here, get to know how to play the character your own way, there are plenty of guides and videos but but if you are just doing basic open world pve you don’t need to worry about the meta, so worry about what is fun for you. If you start wanting to do raids or PvP then you might have to look further, but that can come with time.
You have 5 or 6 character slots depending on the version of HoT you bought and more can be bought with gems. Gems can be bought with real currency (pounds or euros) or with gold, but the exchange rate for gold to gems is high so I would make use of what you have and decide what characters you want, the basic slots might be enough. Try out the different classes and see what you think to their play style. Also make sure you try out the different weapon choices, almost all classes have both ranged and melee options (basic engineer being the exception), you might find you enjoy the slightly odd options, Melee Ranger or Ranged Warrior for example.
As far as casters goes, elementalist is generally reckoned to be one of the hardest classes to solo, if you aren’t careful they end up as glass cannons. You also have to remember to keep switching between elements to make the most of them.
Mesmers are a bit of a Guild Wars oddity and don’t really compare to classes from other games I know, so take a bit of getting used to. Although a caster class wielding paired swords is definitely different.
Necromancers are probably the easiest of the casters, they have a good choice of weapons, a reasonable health pool, and minions to help take the damage if you opt for that type of build.
You will also find that Guardian can be classed as a caster even though they are in heavy armor. Revenants also rely heavily on magic for their abilities, and who can argue with a hammer throwing Assuran.
Hope that gives some ideas. I would also suggest you take a look at the Players helping Players forum, there is some wonderful advise on there for newcomers as well.
Have fun.
I’m going to add my plea to this one as well.
I love just wandering around and exploring, the story is fine, but its something i want to do in my own time. I hate that zones are gated behind the story.
I can understand what people are saying about areas being unknown and there should be a story to finding them, but once areas are found and opened up, everyone should be able to get there. Columbus spent a lot of time and effort in organising and funding the exploratory voyage to get to America (not what he was looking for but it was what he found), but once he found it it was open to all, every other explorer knew it was there and could get there, they didn’t have to do the same sailing off into the unknown that Columbus did, so why should every player HAVE to do it at least once to get to a new zone.
With such a wide player base I know ANet can’t please all the people all the time, but please stop narrowing the options and let us chose what we want to do, being railroaded along quests and stories is what has turned me away from other games.
I don’t know if you are more into pvp than I am but I find my mace/focus guardian has plenty of defence options, and can certainly hold her own against a lot of pve mobs. She does take a while to kill anything so anything that regenerates can be a problem and give for very long fights. Part of it is learning to time the blocks so that they are effective against a specific attack rather than trying to use them for general defence. She certainly isn’t a meta build but that type of thing has never interested me I just go for what I find fun to play.
If you try the heavies with slightly different builds or weapon sets, you might find one you can enjoy playing.
Glad to see i’m not the only one that finds the new maps too frantic. I don’t mind a fight but its also nice to be able to see a path where I’m only going to be fighting one or two mobs not packs of them.
I love to roam, exploring, gathering, doing events when i feel like it or ignoring them if I don’t. I particularly don’t like the narrow paths in the likes of verdant brink where you can’t even go wide to avoid the mobs, and if you use your dodge in a fight you are likely to go over the edge. The zerg fest and constant events take away the pleasure of getting to know a zone.
I am looking forward to the day they eventually open up Woodland Cascades, I think it could be really beautiful, but I hope it is closer to Timberline Falls than the new HoT zones.
Axe or scepter works well, both are mid range rather than far away like the staff, but you can still be far enough away to stay out of trouble. One of my mains is a Axe/Dagger Necto using wells rather than minions, and for open world pve she manages fine, although Scepter/Focus can make a great combination as well.
For the time being, concentrate on exploring the world and doing personal story, try out as many weapon combinations as you can, to find what works for you. Most of the openworld areas in core Tyria (pre HoT areas) are fairly forgiving and you shouldn’t have a survival problem unless you let yourself get mobbed. Don’t worry too much about gear and builds they will come with time, just try and make sure that equipment isn’t way lower than your level. (I doubt I am the only one that when wondering why my level 70+ character was having problems realised that rings, accessories and occasionally even my secondary weapon choice were in the 20s).
Most of all remember to have fun, and, unless you are going for serious competitive play, it really doesn’t matter if you prefer a weapon and skill set that aren’t optimal. you can still hold your own in open world.
Welcome to Tyria.
Unfortunately they don’t seem to realise that some of us will never finish out masteries and still hate to see the XP numbers flashing up and going nowhere.
I probably have got as many CT mastery points as i am likely to get, there are perhaps one or two left that I might manage. Pact Commander line is complete, the first line of Legendary Crafting is done and that is it. I don’t like Fractals so that takes out all of those points as well as others like the spoon collection. Dungeons, I do occasionally, Raids i have never done in any game and feel no need to. What do I do, I run around the wonderful zones they have created, killing mobs, gathering mats and completing events when i feel like it. I am starting to dislike the new zones where the events seem to get in the way of exploring the area, and the paths are so narrow that playing a character that relies on movement to stay out of trouble seems pointless.
My solution to the Mastery Point problem is simple, a Mastery Point track. It can be filled multiple times and each time will award 1 Mastery Point. It won’t be quick (or as other might put it, it would be another grind), but at least the XP would be going somewhere.
Otherwise if they want to tie the Mastery Points in to achievements then maybe they could expand the kill X mobs achievement list so that you can get them there, or add in gather X nodes, or complete X events. The numbers would have to be high, but they could be gained just by playing the game.
Unfortunately this topic is one that is cropping up every few days, or so it seems.
The gold to gem prices are set by player demand and supply not by ANet. There are only two ways for it to go down and that is for a lot of people to buy gems with cash (£, € or $) thereby adding more gems into the market, or for players to want something that they can only buy with gold and therefore encourage people to change gems to gold.
No game has a real economy as every player wants the loot that drops and most want to make as much gold as possible as quickly as possible, you only have to look at the outcry that comes with loot nerfs. This means that there is a constant influx of gold into the economy and not much to take it out, there are a few gold sinks but nothing major enough. ANet could put something in that costs a lot of gold, but really that would not be that different to what is available in the gem store when you consider the price as if it were in gold.
Personally while I don’t like the gem prices constantly going up (I started at launch, I remember when 400 gems was less than 50 silver!), I prefer this model of having things in the gem store than the other one of having them locked behind dungeons and raids where the item you want has a 0.0001% chance of dropping, and where you have to be able to devote hours a day for months in hope of getting something at the end. I work full time, and only have time for GW2 for an hour or so in the evening, i know I can get most of what I want eventually, either by saving up the gold or by wielding the credit card.
The system may not be ideal, but it seems to be one of the best balances between those players that have time but no money, and those that have little spare time, but do have a bit of spare cash.
I have to point you in the direction of trying a Ranger/Druid as well, but I admit i am biased. I have both longbow/Greatsword ranger and a separate staff druid (I so rarely use her alternative weapon I can’t even remember what was equiped) and both of them do well at open world and solo roaming WvW. I have never been worried about the meta builds, most of mine are built for survivability as i spend a lot of time running solo. I have only done the first 2 areas of HoT, not because they couldn’t cope but because I don’t really like the maps, too constricting and confusing for my tastes. A good pair of damaging pets (and remember to use your pet’s attack skill to get it to attack before you go running in so it will tank for you) will make a lot of difference and I have found a spirit / condi build on the Druid works quite well at putting enough damage down. I may not be doing the big numbers damage some want, but I do do enough and I don’t have to spend a lot of time waypointing due to getting killed.
I use the Razor Deathadder still, as it is one of the few true left handed mice around. I did try the left handed Naga but I found the thumb buttons were just in the wrong place and as I have limited space and use a smallish mouse mat (the Razor Goliathus, made an incredible difference to mouse control.) I was constantly hitting them accidentally as I moved the mouse back to the centre of the mat. I also found the Naga was slightly smaller than the Deathadder which also didn’t help.
As to how I play, using my left hand on the mouse and my right on the keyboard has meant that i have to rebind pretty much everything, but I have got into a pattern that I try and use in most games. Moving forward is done using the mouse buttons, which also controls turning. The one mouse button is used for auto run and the other for jumping, although to be honest I normally still use the space bar to jump.
As for key bindings, place you hand at the centre of the keyboard either on the numbers or on the centre of the keyboard, try and make it so your thumb can reach one of the ALT or Ctrl keys, using my right hand on the key board this is easy for me, index finger is on the 5 and my thumb reaches the ALT key to the left of the space bar. My skills are then bound to the numbers with the most used skills being the easiest to reach, the exception being the 4 which is my dodge key, I want that to be easy to hit. Everything else just works out from there depending on how often I use a specific key. Most used are easy reach, those I mainly use outside of combat are further afield. I don’t like trying to hit the F keys in game so I tend to use the Alt key combined with an easy reach key which gives a whole second set of keys that can be accessed (this is a hold over from my WoW days when you needed so many key binds it was ridiculous).
In short, find a comfortable place for your hand, and work your key binds from there, and use the Ctrl or Alt key to give extra posibilities.
And when you have worked out what is comfortable for you to use, write it down, there is nothing worse than having to press keys at random trying to remember what you bound somethng to.
I’ve being playing ‘Outside’ for quite a while now and recently made level 45. At these mid levels it really becomes a grind. I normally just go on to do my dailies, mainly a run in the ‘Office’ dungeon. Normally the dailies are always the same and a grind, but the other day I found i had a new one I hadn’t had before. I thought it was going to be pvp which i hate in any game, but it turned out that the other player, a member of the guild ‘Inspectors’ (TAX) was just trying to do his daily as well and we could just work together and both managed to get our daily done in record time.
One note for those who join guilds and don’t want the 18 level debuff from additional account mentoring, there is a range of buffs you can get called ‘contraception’ varying from one use, to ones that last up to 3 levels. I’m on a UK server and if I go to a member of Doctor (NHS) they even give some of them out for free (about the only thing you can get for free in this game). I’m on the UK server and I think the devs are starting to worry about the population level and are trying to find ways to stabilise it.
I find the Cat mini pets are far preferable to the Dog mini pets they don’t seem to suffer the ‘Bored’ debuff as easily and I have heard that if they get enough stacks of ‘bored’ they have a ‘Destructive’ mode that they can go into and wreck everything in your home instance. Cats also have a special ‘Purr’ buff that increase the general well being of everyone in range which can help hold of some of the debuffs that occur.
I’m going to be in a very similar situation very shortly, there are one maybe two more mastery points in the core areas that I am likely to get and the rest are either tied to things i’m not interested in (like how many points tied to fractals, even the spoon collection needs fractals) or not likely to be able to do. When I finish the track I’m on now that will be it assuming I can get another mastery point to finish it.
They really need to find another way of giving out mastery points, maybe make it an option for the final daily log in reward. or a way to buy them with karma or something.
I also which they would get rid of the flashing reminders on everything. I’m in the middle of a fight and I have hearts and level up reminders flashing away, on the revenant, the utility and particularly the elite skill are flashing away as I don’t have the hero points to buy the skills. It really is annoying and an option to turn off flashing reminders would be welcome.
First of all welcome to GW2 and please don’t be disheartened, there is a steep learning curve but I think you will find it worthwhile once you are more used to the game.
As No One mentioned, I think there is a 3 or 4 day wait between upgrading from a free to a full account and being able to access everything including the Trading Post.
The first think I noticed was that you mentioned you had had the game 9 days and had reached level 80, this makes me think you have fallen foul of the assuption that, like in many MMOs, the action begins at max level. This isn’t the case in GW2 and is possibly why you are now finding it confusing, you haven’t really had the time to learn how to play the game and your class to the best advantage. It isn’t a major problem but I would suggest that you might want to go back into the Hero Panel and read just what abilities you have access to and then try out different ones. I would also suggest that you try all the different weapons you have access to and then decide whether you still like the staff the best.
Having come from WoW myself, one thing i can say is that this game is far more reactionary, not just in dodging, but in skill use. From what I remember of WoW you learn your rotation and just made sure you pressed the right button at the right time when the cooldown ended. In GW2 you might have a skill that spends most of its time off cooldown waiting to be used just when needed, particularly anything that interups the enemy or gives you an extra dodge (staff skill 4 in fire attunement sends you backwards and also means that you can dodge even if your dodge isn’t recharged, just becareful of back rolling off cliffs).
You say that you have hardly done any areas above level 40, you might want to go explore the world a bit while you test out different weapons and builds. It is a big world and there are plenty of events that you can take part in and if you make mistakes or the build doesn’t work for you then the people in open world tend to be more tolerant and less antagonistic than in dungeons.
Having mained a Rogue in WoW, the thief is very different. There is no permant stealth ability, you are having to go in and out of stealth all the time. Dodging and kiting are the only things that keep my thief alive.
You should now have either 5 or 6 character slots so I know you said you didn’t want to re do all the areas again, you might find it worth while trying the other classes and you might find one you prefer. You don’t have to do all the zones in order, as long as you are at least minimum level for a zone you can go there, you might find some fights rather hard at that but not impossible, and running away is normally an option if you realise you have taken on more than you can manage. You can also always go to areas below your level and still have a good fight and learn how best to play your chosen class.
Hope you have fun and don’t worry too much, learning anything new takes time and I think many of us that have been playing since launch forget what it was like to be new and confused.
Sorry for the long post, I hope you find something of use in it and it doesn’t bore you to death.
I’ll add my vote to this option. Like the opening person I am not keen on content that requires organised grouping. I started playing at launch and like some others still haven’t finished the personal story, once i found out it required a group for the last part I lost interest and even now I know it can be soloed I’ve never gone back to do it. I’ve pugged a few dungeon paths specifically for my legendary, but its because I have to not because I want to. I’ve yet to go into fractals. However I do love the big open world events and join in whenever I come across one, but don’t tend to join the trains to farm them. Even HoT I tend to wander around solo and just join in with what I come across.
I don’t think my dislike of organised groups means I shouldn’t play MMOs, there are plenty of other things that include other people that I do like.
I think it would be a good thing to have an easy (solo or duo) mode for a dungeon, you could still have the standard mode and then a hard option could also be added for those who want the more challenging content. Adjusting the loot would be an easy way to try and keep the standard mode popular but an easy mode dungeon could give less loot and a hard mode give better loot.
For me there would be a simple answer, scale the dungeon difficulty and give players an option of Easy, Standard or Hard when they enter a dungeon. Standard would be the same difficulty as now, Easy would be aimed at a party of one or two players and Hard would scale up to an easy raid level, aimed at say 10 players. Increase the loot according to the number of people, so 2 people doing an easy dungeon would get loot as it is at the moment, but 5 people attempting a hard mode dungeon would get better loot. It could also act as a training ground for larger groups to learn to work together.
New Legendaries need PvP & WvW, and it's ok.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Oenanthe.6549
I feel that making players do things they really aren’t interested in is detrimental to everyone’s gaming experience.
I like shinies, I want a legendary, and even though I started playing at launch, I am still working towards my first one. This is partly because I enjoy open world roaming with a few friends or alone, I don’t really like dungeons or pvp. I have managed to do enough WvW to get that gift, and I am slowly getting the dungeon tokens for it, but it is a bind for me. The crafting side of it and getting the mats is what I enjoy, so ascended might come quicker.
The biggest problem as I see it is I have to do dungeons and WvW, and if i want the new ones raids and pvp (not sure about the last bit, I haven’t read it fully) which means I will do them if I have too but I will be doing it half heartedly and not really wanting to be there. Which in the end means I will be pulling down what ever group I am with. In a wvw zerg it didn’t really matter if I didn’t pull my weight, I would imagine pvp is different. In dungeons, I never went for the elite, fast run groups, to try not to hinder them too much. Its not that I’m not willing to try, its just it doesn’t really interest me that much so I don’t play at my best.
I would really hope that the devs would look at different options for us to get the same things rather than gate them all behind specific parts of play.
On my main account 30, which includes 10 level 80s and 1 level 2 mule as I have too much junk to store in the bank and don’t like to throw things out, just in case i need them later.
On my secondary account, 8, one for each class, Ironman variation so each is played until death, I also want to try and get world completion on them. That account isn’t upgraded to HoT and may never be.
On my tertiary account, 2, it’s a free account started to make sure that the SMS thing worked on a normal phone line and is kept running to see just what I can get on a F2P account, a legendary is the ultimate objective.
As you may guess, plenty of characters but no gold, it all goes on character slots and gem items.
I have to agree that there seems to be a prejudice against small guilds. It seems like it is trying to make a small group of close friends less worthy than a big group of strangers. I’m against having to invite people into the guild just to get the numbers up to get the guild hall, I feel it would lead to a two tier guild, the original members, all who know each other in real life and chat about work, life thing they do together outside the game etc., and ‘also rans’ those that are just members for numbers, or we end up with the invite and then kick system I remember from other games when certain numbers were required in guilds for certain perks.
I would dearly love a guild hall, we had one in GW1 with only three members (all of which are in GW2 plus a few others) we poured hundreds of platinum pieces into that guild, quiet happily and would be willing to do the same with gold here if it was worth it. Getting things slowly doesn’t matter, it is the possibility of getting them in the end that matters.
I have to agree with those that say that a few days ago we were a worthwhile part of the community, now I feel we are pushed aside, no longer good enough for the devs.
For those that say it is a MMO and we should play with loads of strangers, I know very few games that could be classed as SMOs (small multiplayer online games). I want the trading post, i want the open world events that I can join in when I come across them, i want cities fillied with people, not just AIs, I want to be able to team up with one or two friends and roam a massive world. If any of you who keep telling us we shouldn’t be playing MMOs can let me know the name of such a game (must be fantasy, on PC and be able to use both mouse buttons for moving, I never managed keyboard moving like Skyrim, must allow small groups, must have guilds and preferably guild halls, must have large population of players in cities and in the open world) I would be willing to look at it but frankly I doubt such a game exists as it wouldn’t be financially viable.
All I’m really after to start with is the unlock. I’ll probably go back and finish all the core zones once I have the weapon and only then move on to the new ones, by which point I will have earned a few more Hero Points. I’m only looking for a way to get the weapon as quickly as possible so I can learn how to use it. I dislike fast leveling and if i could have had a staff ranger from level 1 I would have been happier.
I only have two real complaints with it.
They seem to have decided that you can only be a guild if you either know lots of people or are willing to invite lots of strangers into your guild. Guilds for just close friends are no longer viable.
And my biggest complaint is that the new weapon options can not be used at low level. I don’t mind the elite trait line costing so much but why did the weapon have to be linked to it, couldn’t they have made it that the weapon was available at low levels as will all other weapon options.
Hopefully I have this sorted now, and it doesn’t look too bad.
Create a new character, use a scroll to get to level 20 or 30 depending on the scroll.
Grap an experience boost.
Run around the level 1-15 and 15-25 zones to get the hero points killing anything that gets in the way for added experience. I may not be able to one shot things but they do go down pretty quickly. Those 9 zones will net 63 hero points, so I can then go and use any tomes to level up the rest of the way to 80, having got some experiance during getting the HP i won’t need as many tombs as I thought.
Not quite as quick as I was hoping for, but it looks like I can get the necessary Hero Points to unlock the elite spec fairly easily. I can then work on the rest of everything with the weapon of choice.
I’m also a member of a small guild, just a group of RL friends who like to play together when we happen to be on at the same time. There are 7 members, 2 of which don’t have HoT, one of which is really classed as inactive and i don’t know when he will be able to be back on. We are lucky if there are 3 of us on at any one time. We have manged to get all of the guild bank levels and would have loved a Guild Hall, we had one in GW1 and we were only 3 people then. Whether we get one or not I don’t know.
ANet does seem to have forgotten that as well as personal guilds there are some of us in small guilds that don’t want to have to invite anyone and everyone to the guild. I also feel for us to do so would lead to a very two tier guild even if we didn’t intend to, it can’t be helped when you keep talking about Real Life as well as game stuff.
I would be interested to know if there is a Europe / USA variation here. If Europeans being from so many individual countries, do have a more insular mind set, and therefore are more likely to opt for guilds of friends, is this a cultural thing that ANet hasn’t quite understood.
Oh well, I guess i will just have to run around and unlock those 60 HP, I had hoped it was just the trait lines that had to be unlocked.
I feel its a shame they had to tie the new weapon to the elite trait line that way.
I’m not too bothered about other new content just the new weapons, i can work on the masteries at my leasure. I just read it that you had to have all the normal traits unlocked to get the elite trait available and unlocking the elite trait would give access to the weapon.
Like many others one of the things I wanted in HoT is the extra weapon choices, particularly for me the staff Ranger and Longbow Guardian, however none of my level 80s really want to go for the change in weapons, they were made for a specific build and want to stay there. I was planning on making two new toons for the rolls but i’m not sure I want to play them all the way up in one build just to change it later.
By my calculations is should be possible to use all those scrolls and leveling tombs to get straight to 80 and that should get me enough Hero Points to unlock the elite trait, even though i will obviously be short on skills. I could then wander around with my weapon of choice and build from there.
According to the Wiki, leveling to 80 nets 398 Hero Points, each of the five normal trait lines cost 60 points and then to unlock (not master) the elite is another 60, totaling 360 points, giving me 38 left over for skills. I haven’t seen it mentioned that you have to have all skills maxed out to get the elite trait line.
Before I go and use all my leveling aids, can any one confirm this for me.
While it might not have the highest return in gold per hour spent, if you do find you, like myself, get bored with repeating the same content all the time like running dungeons or Silverwastes then I would suggest farming the mid level zones, levels 30-60 ish. Go out with the idea of if it moves, shoot it; if it doesn’t, mine it. Some type of speed boost can help cover the ground quickly, and make sure you have the right tools for the area, there is no point in using orichalca tools in low level areas. Specific targets for me are moa and raptors for poultry meat, bats and minotaur for blood, and any thing humanoid for cloth, Harathi will give yams, and any Ascalon zone has a chance for chillies, all of which sell fairly well on the TP. Also if you have a light armor wearing toon that is probably the best option as there is supposed to be a better drop rate for items applicable to the character so more cloth armor to salvage.
Mid level rares can be worth selling on the TP but by the high 70s people tend to be looking for exotics and rares are normally bought for salvaging as far as I can see, which is why people say to salvage what you pick up, ecto are always need for high level crafting and the only way to get them is from salvaging high level rare items.
Having played WoW for many years I can say that gold does not seem to come as quickly here, as there if you are willing to do a boring grind it can come faster, or you can do what you enjoy and earn enough just playing the game.
I would say your hands should be where ever you find it comfortable to put them on the keyboard. Have you keyboard in front of you, one hand on the mouse (assuming you are planning on using your mouse for movement, if not do the next bit for both hands), close your eyes, and then put the other hand on the keyboard, open your eyes and look at what keys you are touching. Those should be your main weapon skill keys, then map the other keys in easy reach to what ever feels right.
I won’t say much about my mapping as I am a little odd that my mouse is in my left hand and my right hand is on the keyboard for the skills and strafing. My main weapon skills are the number keys 5 – 9 on the top row not the number pad. That puts most of my keyboard in reach of one or more fingers or thumb which is what I need.
What is most important in my opinion is that nothing is a strain to reach, one finger always stays on its home key so that my fingers automatically return to where they should be without me having to look down. I can also easily reach the alt key with my thumb and therefore use that as added keybinds (I prefer to use alt + 5 – 9 for things that are normally bound to the F keys, such as pet attacks). Keep things in easy reach and you are less likely to end up with finger problems later.
i can’t remember getting one for map completion pre change. I guess it might just be RNG being perverse, or it could be that the chance of getting one has increased significantly. I will probably be finishing a few more zones in the near future to see if the keys keep dropping for me or if its back to the 40 pieces of leather.
Not sure if it counts as part of the increased drop, but since the change i have had 2 keys as rewards for completing the starting zones (one for Queensdale, one for Wayfarer foothills) on different characters. It seems to be an option instead of the materials reward. Don’t know yet if it is time gated but I don’t think it is linked to the personal story limit as I get one for doing that on Thursday, and then one for Wayfarer today. I don’t think I ever had one for zone completion before the changes.
With 28 characters I have several classes of several races, I even have some classes more than once for some races. I have 2 level 80 rangers, a human and a Norn, 2 level 80 Guardians, (human and Norn again) a level 80 sylvari mesmer and a level 50+ charr mesmer, to name but a few. Normally I have a spare slot or two to try a new character in if I want a change rather than deleting them, but as I enjoy leveling starting a fresh doesn’t put me off, the nature of the game means that I’m not stuck following a limited number of quests to level by. If I really decide that I am not playing a character because i can’t stand its look it will go. The worst was back in vanilla WoW when I deleted a level 54 dwarf because I decided i really did not like their stance with a gun.
The main thing for me is having fun, if i don’t like the look of a toon, then it becomes not fun to play, time to hit the delete button, or just use it as a mule to hold all that account bound junk that builds up.
Level 80 female charr elementalist, and level 50 female charr mesmer reporting in.
The charr elementalist was my first charr character, specialising in fire magic and with a fire shaman father.
The mesmer believes in being a one women war band. (although she does call on a couple of ash legion friends occasionally)
You know, I do wonder why it is anyone would have more than 10 characters. You’ll have a male and female of each race, and you’ll also have at least one of every class. If you want a different playstyle, just buy a different gear set.
I guess I can understand having a key farmer, or extra slots to farm silver doubloons…
I have multiple characters because I hate having to change build, gear etc. Every character is a seperate set up and I associate that build with that character. Even on games with equipment management and talent options I still had different characters for different builds. I also find some builds suit some races better, no one but my Assuran engineer would use the rifle, they find getting blown backwards a little silly, she finds it fun. I guess it partly depends on how much you roll play your toons and how much they are just there to get you to end game goodies.