Guild Wars 2

’Just a bit disappointed this glider has been removed already, only a few days after being introduced (a week-ish or so, if I am not mistaken).

I’ll admit I don’t check the store every single day, but it does feel a bit inconsistent when other Valentine items are still advertised (bouquet, wedding costume, etc.). On a communication level, I think the message wasn’t very clear and that it’s easy to believe whole set would be available until the next refresh (Tuesday 23) – pretty much like any other BLTC update.

There are lots of items around the Valentine theme : Lovestruck weapons, wedding costumes, toys, now gliders, etc. and they are ALL slightly out of sync in terms of availability. I don’t know if it’s on purpose to keep the players checking on a regular basis, but in the end it can be slightly frustrating.

I was really hoping to get the glider this week-end (already had the gems actually) :/ I only hope it will return “at some point” before February 2017…

Here’s the problem to me, and probably to a lot of the veteran players who have put in time and extra money in the form of gem purchases over the past two years.
$50 for core for expansion + 4 character slots + 2 bank slots =/= $50 for expansion and nothing else.

This.

Basically, when buying the “expansion” at $50, veteran players get a penalty because they probably won’t be able to play some of the new content (new class) without spending more money to get a character slot.

I won’t pretend to teach ANet how to market games, they have a successful business and I don’t, but do they realise most of their base players won’t even be able to play HoT, making the actual entry price to the new content for existing players effectively $60 (=$50 expansion + worthless “free” base game + character slot)

There’s nothing wrong with attracting new players, but I think penalising existing ones is a first in history of video games. Especially with MMOs, where there is a strong feeling of loyalty and commitment. HoT wouldn’t exist without the players who already own the game…

New players : $50 = base game + expansion + 4 character slots + 2 bank slots + 9 playable classes
Existing players : $50 = expansion - new class

Seriously… ?

Ayrilana > if an achievement gets removed, I think it makes it “official” that it was too buggy or random, too unbalanced or unfair. Achievements should be, by definition, achievable.

Removing a poorly designed achievement based entirely on luck takes away the frustration of not getting it, which is what keeps completionists going.

Imagine an achievement “get a precursor weapon from the mystic forge in the next 7 days”. That’s completely random and doesn’t reflect player skill ; some will get it, some won’t. It’s highly frustrating and that’s exactly the way some of these LA/LS “challenges” feel.

I completely agree with ZilentNight and all the other completionists here -

I have all the LS achievements myself, but this is getting ridiculous. It was quite bad with the Marionette, where achievements started to depend on the performance of other players ; while it was completely random, I did manage to get these, and I thought it could only get back to “sane” challenges. The new “LA under siege” proved me wrong. The new ones are not only random, but also buggy.

Achievements should reflect personal skill, not luck.

Whoever designed these achievements really need to rethink their strategy. If the goal is to encourage the community to improve, get players to help each other, large groups to coordinate, etc. it’s not happening.

Large scale open raid-like events just don’t work. Either give the players the tools to organise and coordinate (e.g. let them gather with guilds on a specific server, make it instanced, etc.) or design the achievements so that they are of equal difficulty across all servers including overflows (make it about personal abilities, small groups at the largest)

Liadri 8 orbs was a GREAT challenge. Marionnette and 6 Minutes Knights are completely arbitrary ; we have no control of what’s going on, and it ends up being frustrating.

It’s bad enough the “content” updates are entirely about mindless farming and gem-store skins (Torment weapons, seriously ?! what’s the connection ? …). At least get us some REALISTIC achievements.

I couldn’t care less about achievement points, but regular new challenges is what’s keeping me playing GW2 at the moment. I’m really hoping for some real update with LS Season #2, but in the meantime I might just do like many others have done already and go see somewhere else…

Also, in a typical MMO raid, you plan ahead, you know who you play with, you ensure players have reasonnable stats / gear / skills, etc. Basically, in a raid you prepare for the instance as a group, and you succeed or fail as a group. You control the challenge.

Here, you just end up with a bunch of random players ; some are very good, some are very bad. It’s just luck…

Algreg.3629:

It is a good thing people have to try over and over and maybe improve a bit – hopefully.

I would agree IF there was a direct link between personal skill and failing to get the achievements.

That is NOT the case here, and that is what players are complaining about.

ATM you get denied the achievements if other platforms fail ; I don’t see how any decent player doing things correctly will “improve” by trying over and over simply because he has no direct control over the skill of others… That is terrible logic.

At best you are lucky, you end up with a bunch of good players, and you do get the successes ; at worst you get extremely frustrated and tired of the same mistakes others do and you just give up.

Liadri 8 orbs was a good challenging achievement. These are not.

I am a completionist, and I like getting all the temporary achievements. I had to try the Marionette 3 to 5 times a day, every day, for the past 3 weeks, to finally get the few ones I was missing. Out of the ~100 attempts…

Many failed simply because there wasn’t enough people, and it took me several days just to just find a server / time slot where we had a chance. Also, having to camp there between events not to end up on overflow servers (some were great, some were terrible) is not the most exciting experience

Out of the few REAL attempts I was part of, many didn’t progress very far because players failed repeatedly on phases 2 and/or 3. And if I enter the portals to help with phases 2 and 3, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to enter phases 4 and 5 to get a shot at the achievements. At some point we even started to plan failure on lane 4/5 to focus on succeeding in lanes 1/2/3 in order to manage the Sickness debuff. Ridiculous.

Out of the few attempts that went to phases 4 and 5, I was denied a chance several times because of 1 crash and 3 disconnects. Bad timing, but very frustrating.

Out of the few attempts I managed to enter in phase 4 and 5, many failed because another platforms didn’t kill their warden. And because I am not perfect, one time I did fail to dodge.

Bottom line… out ot ~100 attempts, I managed to get to warden #5 less than 5 times, and was denied the success mostly because of the poor performance on other platforms.

These are NOT good achievements.

I am not the person who claimed having done only 7 runs. But I do get your point.

Please note that most people who complain, including myself, are, from what I understand, doing so from a “completionist” point of view. We don’t hunt achievement points (I couldn’t care less for actual point values) and we don’t argue about the “meta”- rewards ; we only want what we believe would be a fair chance to at least get all the achievements that are being added to the game.

If I spend 50 hours trying Liadri 8 orbs and still fail, that’s my fault for not being good enough. If I don’t get an achievement because a pseudo RNG-based system I have no control over decides not to give it to me, that’s more problematic.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

I did only level 30s and 40s and got it, so zero sympathy.

Lucky you – I ran fractals on a regular basis (and was already doing so before the Fractured update), and never got the Jade Maw.

While the chance is small, it does exist. I know people in my guild who are addicted to Fractals ; they do 10s, 20s, and 30s dailies pretty much every day, on top of a 45+ to level (back) up to 50, and guess what ? Some never got the Etherblade or Fusion complex.

I don’t complain about precursor weapons, unusual armor pieces (Light of Dwayna, etc.), etc. these are “just” rare skins. I complain about achievements that are not designed to be achievable in a reasonable way. What’s the point of having them on the list if you don’t give players a fair chance ? The RNG is something players have absolutely no control over. What about “Everybody rolls a D100, whoever doesn’t roll 1 gets a prize” ? That’d have the same effect.

And coming from people who have done ALL the achievements for temporary events for the past ~18 months, that does mean something.

Had we known about the actual duration of the event, we’d have sorted that VERY easily : players and guild mates would have simply “swapped” spots to complete the entire list in just a few runs.

This feels like getting punished for trying to play the game normally.

The main issue is that nobody really knows how long these living story bits actually last…

Some last for 4 weeks or more, and overlap with new content, while some disappear in just a week. History proves that we cannot rely on the “title” of the living story branches (“week”, “fortnight”, etc.) to reflect the actual duration of the events.

So what, people need to rush all the achievements in the first week-end, just in case they go away earlier than expected ? … That doesn’t make sense, and this is really frustrating.

I completely agree with Treeline, and my motivations match what he describes.

I don’t care about achievements points (I’m getting close to 12k, but I’m not trying to max these points in any way), and I don’t care about PvP. But I do care about living story and temporary content, and about the WvW season. Therefore achievements that relate to these categories were important to me.

And so far, I had every single one of them. Including the challenging ones (Liadri 8 orbs, Crab Toss, etc.), including the tedious ones (WvW mercenary camps, etc.), including the boring ones (repeatble Lunatics, etc.).

And now what ? I missed ONE – the Jade Maw. But not because it was difficult (I’ve already done it hundreds of time before the Fractured update), or because I couldn’t find the time, or because I wasn’t good enough, etc. No, because I wasn’t “lucky” with RNG.

I’m sure you can understand how frustrating this can be.

If I had missed one because I wasn’t good enough to get it, that’d feel fair, because at least I would have tried. But randomly getting an achievement or not, that’s absurd.

It’s like dying in a “hardcore” hack-n-slash. You play in perma-death for the challenge. If you die and it’s your fault (failed to beat a boss, wasn’t good enough, etc.), that’s OK, that’s part of the game. If if it’s not your fault (massive lag, bug, etc.) that’s really frustrating and can put you off the game completely.

Temporary achievements in GW2 is the kind of thing that keeps me up on my computer until the middle of the night. Not having a “perfect” record, in my own sense based on my motivations, because of some random element I do not control will seriously impact my experience of the game.

Signed !

“This is the first achievement category in the game that I have missed (including a full HoM, GWAMM, maxing out all repeatable living story achies, and doing all of season 1 WvW). I was unable to complete it because of RNG”

I’m in the same situation ; I’m a completionist, and while I might not be leaving the game this will significantly modify my approach to achievements in GW2.

“I have missed my first living world achievement since the game released”

I’m exactly in the same situation ! After having done Liadri 8 orbs and Crab Toss achievements, which were significantly more difficult, this feels really unfair

Agreed, removed too early ! Not because of the difficulty, but because of the RNG I’m only missing the Jade Maw, which I have done more than 400 times before the update :/ That does feel a bit unfair

Same here… I’ve done my share of Fractals, and I already had 400+ before the update, but I never got the Jade Maw during the Fractured event :/ Since other achievements have been staying for quite a while, I was really hoping this would stay a bit longer

Please bring back the achievements ! If it involves RNG, at least give players a fair chance of getting them all.

Same here ! I’ve been running Fractals on a regular basis, and the only level I’m missing in the achievements panel is the Jade Maw ; somehow I’m almost always getting Mai Trin (which is actually much quicker, so I wouldn’t mind if there wasn’t an achievement tied to the specific levels), and sometimes the Fusion duo.

I’ve got the Meta, but I’ve got ALL the achievements for temporary events since the beginning of the game (including Liadri 8 orbs, Crab Toss, etc.) so I would be really annoyed if I missed that one just because of RNG levels

Given the fact that the Nightmare Within is still active, I’m really hoping that Fractured will continue for another week or two. At this point I’ll just sort something with guild mates to “swap” spots in the 4th fractal to get the achievement.

Not much details, but maybe this could be related too ?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/I-lost-my-broom

Thanks for posting about your issue, I was looking for people with similar problems.

A guild mate was telling me about “not being able to find” her Quaggan backpack a few hours ago, after switching some equipment. While we would usually call the odd disappearing item a “user error” (sold by mistake, destroyed while making some inventory space, etc.), the same thing happened to me tonight with an ascended item (Cirque of Arah, Infused) while playing Crucible of Eternity.

It is very possible that these are indeed user errors, but multiple occurrences in such a short time frame does sound suspicious :-?

While I personally don’t mind getting a replacement for my ascended ring, I thought I would check the forums for other similar reports…

We don’t “need” 30+, we just get them when playing Fractals. Starting level 10, you get a chance at a (random) daily ring in the reward chest ; starting 20, the ring can be infused.

And if you don’t get a ring, you get a Pristine token ; 10 of these get you the ring you want.

The problem is… the rewards are random, so before you drop a ring you want (with the stats / infusion slot you need) for your build, you’ll have 20+ in your bank. Some will go to your alts, but there’s a point you just have too many you can’t use in any way

I think I’d rather be able to salvage them for vials/globs/shards of essence so that I can infuse the rings I really want to use. Or maybe for Pristine tokens, to buy the items you’d want to put on alts.

According to this page :

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ascended_equipment

Knight and Valkyrie stat combinations do exist. Are these not the stats you are looking for :-?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/T3-Cultural-armors-why-so-expensive

short version, it’s a skin, people are supposed to work a bit to get them. T3 racial sets are middle/long-term goals, and they’re very affordable (I say this as a player who does not “farm” anything and never “camp” world events)

The leader would need to allow officers to trigger guild missions.

Nevertheless, a guild without a leader ? … It sounds like s/he should step down and let someone else lead the guild.

There’s nothing wrong with the guild system or the guild missions ; a guild simply needs an active leader to operate.

A more interesting way to solve this would be to request a feature to auto-promote an officer Leader if the leader hasn’t logged in for 2 months ; or something like that

> Celestial gear

small bonus to everything. Available for Ascended items as well

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

My mistake -

Jiiub.7135:

one of them later told us that we needed to rush so we did, they all died

I cannot defend people who want to “rush” content, esp. if they fail miserably. My previous statement would not apply to a group like yours.

Because you’re so great… ZZzz…

I bet these 4 “randoms” would have had a much better experience with a 5th player in a similar mind set, i.e. discovering the dungeon and trying to analyse why their setup wasn’t working in each different situation.

That’s how people get better at the game, not by trying to follow a specific “strategy” because someone told them to.

Geotherma > I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience with dungeons ; nevertheless, they are quite fun (well, most of them are ; the updated Ascalon Catacombs is great, for example) and it’s worth perserving.

I think it’s mostly about finding the right group, i.e. people who play with a mind set similar to yours. If you can find 3 other players (plus you and your wife) who want to discover a dungeon (i.e. they haven’t done it before) and are happy to spend 2+ hours on an instance without necessarily finishing it, you’ll have a great time.

That’s what dungeons are about, discovering and understanding the logic by yourself, wiping a few times at first, and iterating with your group until you get a smooth run and overcome the challenges.

In terms of difficulty, dungeons increase the gap between people who understand the logic of each encounter/room and use the games mechanics, and people who don’t.

A few general tips for dungeons :
- roles ; even though everybody can be doing a bit of damage/control/support it’s important to know who’s mostly doing what, because there are affinities depending on gear and traits
- builds ; get a full set of all the weapons for you class, understand all the details of the utility skills and be aware of good traits synergies. Changing a few things to your build between combats in a instance can make a huge difference
- focus on the goals and understand what each encounter is about ; wiping multiple times in a room is not an issue as long as in the end you understand why and can adapt. Maybe this room is about monsters inflicting insane poison damage ; have plenty of condition removal skills, utilities to deflect or avoid projectiles. Maybe this room is about surviving long enough for a NPC to complete something. ; if brute force damage doesn’t do it in terms of keeping monsters in check, adapt to maximise survibility, with stun fields, snares, mobility, etc. And so on.
- environment ; many dungeon rooms are about using the environment properly. Maybe there’s something around you can activate or use to help you, maybe that NPC can do something as well, etc.

Dungeons are about putting all these things together, and understanding what to do and what to focus on for each encounter

Who cares if something can be done more easily or more “efficiently” somewhere else ?

Selling worthless dungeon drops and buying jute scrap to complete the daily “salvage” goal is a bit “too much” from my point of view. People doing that will waste 5mn to save 2 silvers. Who cares about 2 silvers ? The exact same 5mn that make people whine about the dailies, complaining it’s a big time sink…

All I’m saying is that even when playing dungeons or WvW players have plenty of opportunities to complete 80% of their dailies for free.

But not doing so, and trying to “optimise” the play time and trying to do these activity elsewhere, it then becomes a chore and a waste of time ; this is a great example where trying to optimise things too much is actually counterproductive.

If people were doing these as they play what they like, there would be much less complains on the forums.

“No holy trinity” doesn’t mean “no role”, it means that each class is somewhat versatile and can play any of these roles, or a combination or roles, in its own way.

ANet announced it very clearly, there’s no mandatory tank/heal/dps classes, but there are damage/support/control roles (and supporting doesn’t necessarily mean healing).

As for mixed build, there are plenty of very valid ones. Try a a AH+EM Guardian with shouts for a great balance of all 3, with some good punches for damage, plenty of buffs/symbols for support, and a hammer for some limited control.

And that’s only one example, each class supports a fair few of these.

frans.8092:

you don’t get anywhere close by just roaming or exploring, let alone by doing only dungeons, or Wvw

We mustn’t be playing the same game…

So, when you play dungeons, you never…
. kill roaming monsters
. dodge attacks
. resurrect downed or dead allies or npcs
. collect items you can recycle or put in the mystic forge
. collect items you can salvage to craft other items
. defeat champions or veterans

And when you play WvW, you never…
. kill roaming monsters
. dodge attacks
. resurrect downed or dead allies
. collect items you can recycle or put in the mystic forge
. collect items you can salvage to craft other items
. defeat champions or veterans
. collect resources from nodes
. complete events by attacking/defending key locations
. do the jumping puzzles

So what exactly are people doing in dungeons or WvW ? Because I get all my dailies completed at virtually no extra cost.

@Toxyn : true ! But wouldn’t you agree that by the time it takes a new player to reach FOTM ~30-ish (which is how far you get when infusing the AR items you easily get in previous easier level), that player is likely to have enough laurels for an amulet ? Therefore unlocking the next tier… and then will probably be able to get an earring when reaching the new band.

The pace does seem to match the natural progress speed ; therefore I’m not sure if talking about gated content actually applies here

Toxyn.9608:

Fractals requires Ascended gear for further progression. If it wasn’t for that, you would be right.

I don’t think this is a fair statement as people playing fractals do get access to ascended rings very quickly. It is very doable to get up to FOTM 19 with just basic rare or exotic gear and no AR at all ; by the time you get to level 20, with the daily chests, pristine tokens and fractal tokens, people should have a access to 15AR at no extra cost (2 rings + 1 capacitor, all with the basic +5 infusion)

That unlock the 20-29 tier, and it’s then only a matter of getting infused rings, infusing ascended items or upgrading the capacitor to unlock the next tier. And so on.

There’s no hard gating there ; people get the rewards to support the game mode they are playing

Couldn’t agree more !

I just log in and enjoy the game, the rewards will come when they will come. I see many people who are exclusively focusing on the rewards, and I honestly wouldn’t want to be in that mind set because it really seems that playing GW2 is a chore for them.

That being said… to my actual point -

Every time there is an update, we get a fairly comprehensive change log, with details of all the small modifications. But these are mostly just details. Game changing details, but implementation details nonetheless. What we are missing is the motivation behind the changes, i.e. the thought process that lead to the changes, the reason why the changes are an improvement.

Some players do get the reasonning behind the changes, and some don’t. And I don’t pretend to understand, but at least I still enjoy the game, and it still matches the expectations I had on day 1, unlike some people who seem to consider playing GW2 a chore.

Once you understand (or think you understand…) why things are the way they are, it is much easier to accept the update. And sometimes you will still disagree, but at least you know what the intent was.

There is absolutely no reason why ANet would want to frustrate the players, “break” the community, or any of the things we can read on these forums. When you develop a game, your product is played by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, and you pay attention to the feedback, and you’re proud when the players like your game. There is nothing more frustrating as a game developper than working on a product that people don’t enjoy.

Therefore, my suggestion is quite simple : monthly updates should have “design notes” to explain the motivation behind the changes. Quite similar to change logs, but more about the intent rather than the actual changes.
If you look around, you can find partial information ; an interview here, a blog post there, and article over here, maybe some reddit additions, etc.
We get the very high-level (the update overview : you’re told it’s about guild missions, rework of the dailies, etc.), we get the very low level (the change log), but we only partially get the intermediate level, the one explaining the motivations and the way game designers expect people to play the game.

I find it infuriating when I see people complaining that the game is lacking content, that there’s no “end game”, that daily rewards are a chore, that you have to grind for pink items, and so on ; to me it seems all these people are completely missing the way the game is supposed to be played.

As a tangible example for GW1 players, we got one of these “design presentation” when Dervishes were reworked completely ; for example it explained why Flash enchants were required to improve the mechanics of that class. Some people did still complain about the changes, but at least you could point them to a reference and say “eyh look, that’s a good thing and that’s why it’s a good thing”

We shouldn’t need to understand the thought process, but apparently, given the amount of complains on the forums, we do. I am suggesting an additional layer of communication to help solve the issue.

Thanks for reading

Hi all -

Reading the forums, there seems to be lots of misconceptions about some of the game fundamentals and design mechanics.

Some examples taken from the recent forum activity :

- Daily rewards, seen as chores
- Ascended gear, seen as gear treadmill
- Guild missions, seen as gated content that small guilds will never access
- Updated dungeon mechanics, perceived as “insane” difficulty
- and so on

I don’t pretend to know better than everybody else, but there are players that do still enjoy the game, and I am one of them ; my common answers for the examples I mentionned would be, short version :

- Daily rewards > the rewards come for free, just play the game normally and you complete 90% of the objectives at no extra effort
- Ascended gear > the stat difference is so insignificant that “BiS” theory doesn’t apply. The only “gated” content is 20+ FOTM, but fractals players get AR easily while leveling up. Other ascended gear are just long term rewards: play the game normally, and every now and then you’ll get an Ascended item, which is supposed to make you feel great ! These items are breaking the gap between exotic and legendary. You’re not supposed to “rush” and get them in days to be competitive
- Guild missions > this is supposed to give people new content over time. Guilds are not supposed to flush 500k Influence right now and play all the new stuff right now (even though some can and will access the missions slightly earlier than others). Again, long term goals, and the Influence-based unlocks let each guild prioritise the queue of upgrades. In months, you’ll still be unlocking missions. Once you accept that, it gets much easier
- Dungeon mechanics > I played AC yesterday, and the changes do not increase the difficulty, they actually makes things easier if you understand the logic. This creates a gap between “good use” and “bad use” of the game mechanics. Grave zergs and pure DPS brute force just don’t work anymore. This is a GREAT incentive early in the game to encourage players to explore the game mechanics. Arguably, some other dungeons could use the same kind of attention (HoW, aka. straight-line-brute-force-bashing)

This thread is not about daily rewards, ascended gear, guild missions or dungeon balancing though. Please do not comment on these There are many other (endless) topics already debating these at great length.

My point is that I am convinced many players simply misunderstand what the updates are about, and how the game is supposed to be “played”.

Just read some threads on this forum… it’s ridiculous – People second guess and misunderstand the motivations for the changes, and end up blaming the developper for this or that, suggesting alternatives that would be “obviously better” (even though most just don’t work when you look at the big picture), and finally state that ANet employees are all dumb for not doing what they want. Seriously ?

Is it really that hard to understand that dailies are not a goal on their own, that people shouldn’t log in specifically to do the dailies ? Dailies are not content or gameplay, and that’s not the way they have been presented and introduced to the game.

People seem to think of dailies as “chores”, while they shouldn’t even consider them to be a task.

You log in, you play the game (dungeons, PvE, fractals, WvW, etc. whatever you like), and as you play the game, you get the daily reward (or you get close to and just need to finish with a 2mn “gather some resources” run around)

As long as you log in regularly and play the game for at least 30-60mn, you get a reward. For free. That’s all there is to it.

If you see dailies as an endless list of boring chores, i.e. your only way to ascended gear and something you have to painfully go through, or even a waste of time, you’re not playing the game the way it’s been designed.

Just because ANet doesn’t do specifically what some people want, it doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing…

It’s easy to criticise when focusing only a small portion of the problems they are trying to solve. Some respect and understanding can go a long way.

Traveller.7496:

The thing is, I don’t feel comfortable at all to leaving my guild and joining a huge one just to be able to do these missions. I wouldn’t feel right towards that other guild either to pop in whenever they’re doing a mission and then just leave.

It seems to me many people think that guild members should prove they are worth “something” (read “influence”) not to be kicked out of a large guild. I see it the other way : the guild should prove it’s providing a useful infrastructure for members to want to represent it.

Bashing people with rules and “must represent” policies is counter-productive and doesn’t lead to a friendly environment people enjoy. Get members to realise it’s actually fun and nice to be part of the guild, and you get a lot more buy in from everybody

As far as I am concerned, members not representing the guild is a failure in terms of guild organisation and communication.

People should feel like they’re part of the group, and should want to represent the guild, not because they’re told to, but because they want to. If a good balance is achieved, it’s a win-win situation, and members will naturally represent the guild when they believe they’re getting something out of it, simply because most people have a common sense of some sort of “loyalty” (i.e. “I enjoy playing with this group, therefore when I do I will represent their guild”). Some people won’t, but that should be a minority.

A large proportion of “leechers” would show that people don’t get that feeling, contributing to the community, and getting something from it.

As a guild leader myself, I truly don’t mind if people join my guild just for the rewards. Maybe they’re in a very small “friends” group in parallel where every influence point does count, but they want to enjoy the content before they can afford it themselves. What’s wrong with that ? We have to pay to unlock the rewards anyway, whether we’re 20, 50, or 100 players actively representing the guild. At that kind of scale, 50.000 influence or so doesn’t make a difference. So… Why not share the joy.

Best case, these players initially joining “for the bonuses” start to feel “at home” in the larger guild, at which point they will naturally represent it.

It’s all about the experience of individuals. Make people feel they’re part of something, and they will contribute.

Hi all -

After reading multiple threads about the recently added guild missions, I can see plenty of people complaining about the influence cost and the fact they do not want to be penalised for not being part of a large guild.

Fine. I won’t argue with that, nobody likes being penalised. I know I don’t.

While the cost in terms of influence points could be discussed, as well as the ways to work around it, this is not the point of this topic as it’s already been debated at great length.

Nevertheless, I feel there is a general resentment that large guilds are some kind of evil entities that do everything they can to ruin the player’s experience and are the kind of environment that would only suitable for “hardcore” players truly dedicating their life to the game… (or something like that)

That’s where I beg to differ -

First, a guild doesn’t have to be big to have restrictive rules and stupidly demanding directives. Similarly, a large guild can remain friendly and flexible.

It’s only a matter of finding one that suits your needs. I’ve seen enough people complaining on these threads to know that there is a potential for a large gathering of players who want to take things the cool/relaxed way and play in a friendly group. Oh wait, a large gathering of people with a common view on the game ? Wouldn’t that be a guild…

If you feel you can only dislike a large guild, look around these forums : there are hundreds of other players who seem to think exactly the same, and want to stay in their micro-group of IRL contacts, i.e. family and friends. What’s preventing all these people, with a similar approach to the game, from uniting ? Or at least working a bit together.

I’ve seen absurd things when it comes to guilds, including voice call interviews, in-situ exams (running dungeons as “hiring test”), codes of conduct 20 pages long, mandatory financial contributions (1gp/day, anyone ?), mandatory dungeon/resource runs, minimum daily play time, etc. and all that kind of non-sense.

You don’t want any of that ? Great, because neither do I ! Still, I’m in a guild with 50+ regular active players (which I’d call medium size), and we have no issue affording the guild rewards we want, including all the recently added new missions.

- We don’t “interview” people or ask them to “apply”, we just invite them and kick the ones that are annoying
- We don’t force anyone to be part of any activity
- We don’t ask people to contribute with gold
- We don’t kick people if they decide to represent another guild (when they do WvW for example)
- We don’t kick people for only playing a few hours a week, or sometimes less
- We don’t kick people because they don’t have the “BiS” items
- We don’t know all the people in the guild ; does that matter ?
- We don’t all play together, there are subgroups with affinities, either personal or gameplay oriented
- I like certain people, I dislike some others. Who cares, everybody plays with the ones they like
- We don’t have scheduled dungeons runs or similar things. You just log in, see who’s interested in what, and get people to join you in whatever you want to do. Or maybe you join them. Or you just play on your own on that day because you feel like it.

One of the biggest advantages of a large guild is that there’s always someone you can do things with ! IF you want.

So I guess my question is, after all this… I don’t understand why large guilds are perceived so negatively :-? And maybe the large guilds some of you know are that annoying, with mandatory scheduled events and whatnot, but why not create your own or expand the one you have already ? There are apparently PLENTY of people who think like the players I have seen complaining on the forums.

- thank you for reading

drwookie.6391:

Dailies do not come for “free” for everyone.

I play WvW exclusively and almost always have to go out of my way to finish the daily. If I ignore it I will never finish.

And don’t even get me started with monthlies.

I do not think this is a fair assessment – WvW is actually one of the easiest and quickest way to make progress in terms of daily rewards.

In WvW you get a large variety of monsters, lots of resource nodes to collect from, and
plenty of events for capturing / defending points of interests.

After a typical WvW session, all you need to complete the daily achievement is probably a jumping puzzle or some crafting (which you can also do in WvW)

Similar to your complain, open world PvE players could argue that they’re not getting any WvW tokens or glory. But why should they ? It’s all about balance, and yes sometimes you might end up doing just a bit of something you normally wouldn’t do, but that goes for everyone and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. All in all I don’t think the current mechanics are far from decent.

vespers.1759:

come back and tell us how much you like dailies after 365 of them in a row.

People shouldn’t log in to “do dailies” ; they should log in to play the game, the way they want. Daily achievements come for free at not extra effort when you just play the game at least 30-60mn.

Do a dungeon or fractals, maybe some WvW, maybe level up another character, etc. When you’ll be done with your session, check your daily progress : you’ll probably have the reward already, if not you’ll be missing a few gatherings or a couple of kills. Trivial, at no extra cost.

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but I played Guild Wars 1 for five years. I’ve got my GWAMM and my 50/50 and I play this game EXACTLY how I play Guild Wars 1.

[…]

You’re responsible for how you see the world, no one else. I played Guild Wars 1 and other games and feel NO NEED for ascended gear. I’ll get it when I get it.

This.

As someone else was saying earlier, the content is not gated ; it is possible to do absolutely everything in the game with standard rare or exotic gear (except FOTM > 20, but fractal players receive special rewards to get AR easily).

The extra +2 or whatever on a pink item won’t make a difference… It’s a long term goal, and it’s supposed to feel “nice” when you finally get it but it’s not required.

Thank you for your feedback, it’s always a good start to improve from a base idea.

Nevertheless, I can justify the choices I made over the ones you’re suggesting :

- Fire XII only triggers with fire spells, which is not the primary way of dealing damage with this build. It’s still a valid option if you prefer to build some Might first before switching to hammer. I do find that less practical then jumping in and out as needed though. A consistent stable and reliable base damage is what I was aiming for

- Arcane Fury ; definitely an option ! As mentionned in the details, it’s very possible to swap the 10 traits points from the Earth line for other benefits. It really depends how much Precision the player is going for. With a good base stat, I find that increasing the raw damage is more interesting. Another interesting alternative to use the free utility slot for Arcane Power. There are definitely multiple “flavours” for similar results, here

- Tornado ; as stated in the build description, it’s pretty much down to individual preference. I, for myself, much prefer the Take Roots Sylvari racial skill, which guarantees an instant 2 sec invulnerability, and lots of turrets to distract the enemies.

The whole point of the build is not to enforce some specific skills or traits, it’s only to explain that it’s very much possible to build a decent and fun-to-play build around a conjured weapon that acts as a valid switch.

I’m not saying this is an overly powerful build, I’m merely stating it works well enough and provides a reliable alternative to more traditional elementalist styles. Also, with solid foundations, there are sufficient ways to customise this build to match personal preferences.

I do suggest you give it a try though

Hi all !

Thanks for having a look at this thread.

I would like to present a build I camed up with that I really enjoy playing in both PvE and dungeons/FOTM. This build relies on the conjured Lightning Hammer and makes it a very usable “switch” weapon for the elementalist, to complement a more traditional ranged-based staff or scepter gameplay.

This build also leaves a few opened options, for people to personalise their gameplay.

OVERVIEW

This build focuses on damage via critical hits for very high closed ranged dps with the hammer, but lets you provide some support and stay at the back to cast AOEs with a more traditional staff or scepter weapon.

Being able to switch between these two positions during combat makes your elementalist extremely versatile and flexible.

The build :

http://en.gw2codex.com/build/23357-hammer-switch

GEAR

Armor > focus on Power and Precision, we want to be doing decent damage and a lot of critics. Pick a 3rd attribute to match your gameplay (Critical Damage for improved damage, Toughness or Vitality for better survivability)

Trinkets > balance with your armor stats to ensure decent survivability while maximising damage

Sigil > whatever you like that triggers on criticals or kills usually works reasonnably well. Superior Sigil of Fire is great for maximising area damage, but you can choose to have some support or utilities instead. Pick what you fancy as a “flavour” for this build.

I personally tend to go for Power/Precision/Critical Damage (Berserker / Ruby) armor with some Emerald or Beryl type trinkets and a Superior Sigil of Fire.

SKILLS

Utility 7

There’s an empty utility slot in the build linked at the top of the thread ; that’s for you to decide, depending on your game style or dungeon. I would recommend:

Cleansing Fire or Signet of Water > additional anti-conditions, great to combine with Ehter Renewal in condition heavy areas. Make sure you don’t pack too many though, that would be a waste

Lightning Flash > improved mobility on the battle field. Hammer 2 and Staff 4 do already provide very good movement abilities though, to get in and out of enemy groups smoothly

Arcane Power > guaranteed criticals, for max damage

Mist Form > improved survavibility, especially if you swap Earth VI for Water III in the traits

Elite

Again, that one too is for you to choose. Some racials can be nice (Take Roots as Sylvari, for example), otherwise the Glyph of Elementals can be quite versatile. Up to you, they all work as long as they’re timed properly

TRAITS

Fire and Air lines are mandatory for the build to work, but feel free to swap Stone Splinters for a Water trait (regen on cantrips if using one, condition removal on attunement) or an Arcane one (vigor on criticals). Small impact, but another way to add some “flavour” to this build, and customise it to your needs

USAGE

Keep your distance with your staff or scepter for a more supportive or ranged-AOEs based role.

Switch to the Lighting Hammer to jump in the action and deliver powerful blows. Watch your health, but the hammer offers decent controls ; using it properly will ensure maximum survavibility.

In particular, use a Hammer 5 + 3 combo to trigger Air XII and gain superior control and damage.

Switch back to you main weapon when/if necessary ; if you can stay at close range, you should be able to maintain the Lightning Hammer all the time if other players don’t pick up the one you drop.

WHAT ABOUT PvE ?

For PvE you can drop the survivability to a minimum and maximise critical damage, condition damage (lots of burning going on), or magic find.

In Orr, base mobs (“trash”) tend to die in just 4-5 hammer swings ; I am registering 5500+ critical hits, and I’m not even using exotic gear. Vitality or toughness won’t be an issue for traditional PvE. Also be aware that with just a trait or utility carefully selected, you have much more survivability than a “pure” glass cannon.

Well, that’s about it ! Thanks for reading, I hope you’ll find this build enjoyable

Hi all !

Another BLTC / Trading Post issue here

Before I expose the details of my problem, some background info :
- I started playing GW2 when it was launched, i.e. end of August 2012, and my trading post has been working fine for months
- starting approx. ~November 2012, my Trading Post UI started being “blank” on a very regular basis

Steps to reproduce:
- log in to the game
- try to access the Trading Post default interface (default “O”)
- the Trading Post UI appears
- the Trading Post UI displays the loading symbol (small rotating “wheel”) for a split second; the loading symbol then quickly disappears, but no information is displayed
- all the tabs (gem store, gem exchange, player auctions, etc.) remain entirely empty. See attached screenshot
- Very rarely, (<10%) the issue will go away when restarting the game, and the trading post will load fine

The issue definitely seems local to my machine and/or connection, as using my account on a different computer / internet line works just fine

Having read (most of…) the replies in this thread, I have checked the basics:
- I do not use a runtime anti-virus, which could be blocking connections. The machine has been scanned “clean” recently, though
- The awesomium_process.exe does get started when I access the Trading Post
- None of my internet browsers (Opera, Chrome and Maxthon) are using a proxy
- I tried disabling my firewall (Windows default) temporarily for testing, without success
- I tried to clear the GW2 temporary files, without success

I still can’t get my Trading Post to display anything Luckily, I was using another computer and managed to purchase what I wanted from the gem store on Saturday, but not having a reliable auction house is a huge blocking issue (esp. since I used to make most of my money with the AH)

Is there anything else I should check ? Some other process the game relies on that might not be running on my machine ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Regards

Aye.8392:

I consider the OP’s stance that I would buy a costume or a weapon skin to show that I have money offensive.

Thank you for your reaction about this, it was a bit provocative on purpose.

Aye.8392:

It isn’t about showing off wealth, it’s about having something I enjoy in the game. I don’t like the legs on the witch’s costume for female characters so I didn’t buy that.

That sounds very sensible, i.e. as a responsible consumer would act. Now, the question is… :

Aye.8392:

I love the staff skin. I would buy that. But, it isn’t for sale.

Would you buy it for $100 ? $500 ?

Because that’s what vanity items are about and that’s what some people are trying to do, when throwing $100s in keys. And while that might sound ridiculous, at least to me, some games do do that.

In this context, vanity items are not simply about appearance, style or cosmetics ; it’s about pride, conceit, pretentiousness and self-importance.

Vanity items, in this case, are not about getting something nice and affordable ; everybody wants that. Cool costume to unlock for $5 ? I’ll have that, thanks. No, vanity items here are about boosting someone’s ego and being different, i.e. unique.

Another interesting question… Do most people want the staff skin because it’s nice, or because it’s expensive :-? …

I’m all for 100gp / $5 skins and unlocks ; I’m all against “the more expensive in real £$€ money the better”

Azoetia.2183:

the prohibitive cost actually will stop me from getting what I want, rather than convincing me to pull out my credit card.

How do you feel about the current “solution” for “normal” players (i.e. not spending thousands $ on chests and not playing 25 hours a day 8 days a week), which would be :

- see the permanent Staff skin as a long terme goal (a bit like an armor set from a dungeon) that you will be able to craft when you’ll have gathered the resources

- use the very cheap 4h skins when you want to look cool during the event, in dungeons, etc.

Also, what’s your view on T3 racial armor. They’re very nice looking, but cost 120gp; how is it different from the newly introduced weapon skins for the Halloween event ?

True, there are a fair amount of “souvenir” items already ; and it’s only Act I. I guess the fact there are rarer/more expensive ones make people feel the standard “souvenir” items are worthless :-?

Redfeather.6401:

Yeah, cosmetics are something that appeal to the RPer the most. I remember in original GW a lot of RPers I knew from the fansites had crazy amounts of storage through buying extra storage panels, and buying extra character slots to act as mules. They liked their bling.

Correct, and I was one of these (4 accounts, 32 characters, lots of level 20 in Prestige armors, etc.)

Nevertheless I think this is different from “vanity” items ; hoarding nice collectables is part of the core mechanics of MMOs for dedicated players. But vanity items are different ; vanity item in the context of a cash shop is about parading with things just to show you can afford them. You don’t want them because they’re nice, because they fit nicely in your RP background, because they’re hard to get with in-game mechanics, but because they’re expensive to buy with real $£€.

And as far as I am concerned, that is the bane of multiplayer games. Unfortunately, it seems to me that people who spent $100s on chests and want their rare skin is exactly that, vanity item.

I agree on pretty much everything !

With 350+ members in my guild, it’s impossible to keep track of anything. The only slightly useful info about people’s activity is the “success points” display.

I would also add something that seems critical to me :

- Confirmation when promoting members to key roles (esp. Leader)