Guild Wars 2

I too played both games and where GW1 was about choices and progressively learning different combat strategies from kiting to stealth, GW2 is mostly about “farming” and the cash shop. There is a “loose” personal story that pulls you through the content, but mostly its about farming materials and crafting weapons and armor to get stronger to take on these OP’ed enemies. If you are a strong player, you blow right past the content even without upgrades, while people like myself need ascended armor and weapons just to enter fractals and survive a few minutes. Eventually, everyone can master the content as updates and new releases make characters stronger or you can “buy” your way to a stronger character through the trading post. This is Arenanet’s strategy for GW2 and yes, this is much different than GW1 because it focuses more on profits and less on choice and less on strategy and player choice.

One of the things many players don,t do is kill yellow creatures on their map, that is flies, boars, pigs etc. These animals are directly affected by MF and also the length of time they have been there without being killed. As MF increases, you should get more drops and better drops from these creatures, however, it is zone dependent, so the higher the zone the better the drops. Also, when a thief steals is also dependent on MF. Drops from stealing use MF and stealing on my thief is a major part of this character.

At game launch, I created six other characters, like I had in GW1 just because I was excited in creating heroes eventually and being able to equip, outfit and customize each one. GW2 with all this gating has essentially killed multiple characters as having to repeat LS2 and other stuff for each character is exhausting and a buzzkill and takes forever. I currently am having to choose probably three main characters to play moving forward but Anet lost a ton of money from me in equipment, armor and gem store purchases for all 7 characters that I was planning and willing to spend on. I also like OP do not like to play with others for dungeons and fractals and though I have fun occasionally in WvW as a support player in the zerg, I have only played two dungeons and zero fractals but I will have to get into these soon for the mastery points and heros would be cool and I was hoping to get these by now so I could do this content my way and enjoy it, who cares about the rewards?? I come home from work and just want to immerse myself in another world, I am not a professional gamer, I like to farm and play different characters and playstyles and try out different stuff and don’t want to waste others time or be yelled at for trying and failing a playstyle. I like LS for that REASON BECAUSE IT IS SOLO. I can take my time and fail or experiment like in GW1. I joined GW1 late when heros were already there and I never played that entire game with anyone just NPC’s and heroes and it was awesome though sometimes a little hard. We should have a choice but it seems if I ever do get to HOT, nobody will be there as silverwastes which I just started playing is deserted much of my playing time so it is hard to get to those top achievement battles because the design is flawed and again Anet is losing tons of money on players like me who now are not buying stuff for alts because there is NO need.

I just wasted an hour trying to do this hero point as it is five quick jumps in a row. I am lucky if I get three done in that time. Another jump crystal should be there to allow regular joes to get the hero point, it is just a hero point. Anet please correct this obvious problem.

I have finally completed the original personal story and after five hours on the last chapter, all I can say is “thank god it is over.” The last eight mini-stages are exactly identical. Spam my character with one to three minions almost constantly and then give me ten seconds to fight the boss or dragon. I was so tired and so bored I just about quit after wave after wave after wave of more dragons and other time wasters. By the time I got to the final dragon, my hands were hurting and I was exhausted. The fight was me hitting one button twenty times, one time then dodge then repeat, no strategy, no fun, and no reward. There is no way I will repeat the airship stages ever again on my other characters, I’d rather have a tooth pulled. It was just so disappointing and so drawn out. Is this what dungeons and HOT will be like because if so I might have to give up. Even the NPC’s that are with you don’t help. I died ten times on the “mouth” fight and this fight took over an hour as you just run all the time and then scoop up a fire orb and then wait and then throw it at boss again and again and again. It was so boring!!! I have leveled up eight different characters all to 70-80% world completion and I was going to take them all the way be now, there is no way I am EVER doing that again. Lastly, the cannons on the airship could not even focus so I was having to wait five of my 10 seconds of boss fight for them to aim correctly so it was just a slow, slow, slow, tedious, boring fight. You would think after years of playing and progressing that the payoff would be worth it but it was a HUGE letdown and once again no strategy and boring for combat. I’ve had more fun in open world champ fights. I should have felt like a hero, instead I feel like a tired button masher watching cut scenes that are slow and drawn out. Though I am not quitting, I am NEVER going to repeat this portion ever again and feel sorry (literally) for anyone who has to still do this part, you will not like it and plan on spending many hours doing this last section as it is SLOW, SLOW and SLOW.

Basically, this just de-motivates people like myself with multiple alts. I like to play in old tyria and without gaining experience or anything, it makes it really hard to do events and level multiple characters. Maybe I should be like the rest of the crowd and only have one character and finish the expansions in one week and then just complain. If I level multiple chars and replay through the world multiple times, I need something for that and I am helping Anet by keeping the TP and the world populated and busy.

I just posted a comment like this on under a diffent topic but housing in the home instance should be a priority. I hate guilds and giving my stuff away to strangers who just abuse me and steal from me. I want to advance my scribing in my home instance. I don’t want missions or any or that group content stuff, just a place I can decorate and advance my craft.

I would like to see more stuff for the home instance. Guilds are mostly dead, and I have been burned several times with guilds so I am not joining another one. I would like to work on scribing in the home instance, like a personal guild hall. Right now, I cannot progress at all because I do not have a guild or a hall and I am not planning on getting one. I have my own guild for one player and that’s all I want as I don’t trust others. I am not sure why we can’t have order guild halls where anyone can do scribing like in GW1. This just seems like a waste of space, my home instance because I can’t put stuff into it.

I do not think crashes are just happening only in HOT. I have crashed repeatly in boss battles in Old Tyria. Usually happens with two to three minutes left in the fight after I have already gained my credit. I have submitted crash reports but I also have gone back into settings and last night I changed my high settings/ultra settings back to “autodetect” which did lower the resolution just slightly and took some settings off “ultra.” I have not crashed since that time after three more boss battles in different areas. I am running 64 bit client and I have a $4000 system with a very high end card with lots of VRAM and a water cooling system. It should easily run at “ultra” and it did before the 64 bit client but now it just crashes in these full map fights. Just try to reduce resolution or go “auto-detect” until Anet can fix their client.

Honestly, this is a huge issue as I am demotivated to do any events or hearts because I am not getting any credit for XP. I still have five characters to level but I am very slow on mastery earning so as I am leveling I am just skipping all events which is not fun at all just running from waypoint to POI and repeat. We should get something for our time and it should not punish us for leveling many alts, which it is doing currently. Even if it was a small boost to MF or some karma, that would be okay. I don’t really mind the grind as long as I get some sort of credit for it. Please fix this soon!!

The best part is that it is account bound so you only have to grind once. I am still leveling characters to 80 on the main game so I have not yet even started HOT and I am in no hurry. They just fixed the original game and the leveling in it so its actually challenging now so I will give them a few years to “fix” HOT and then try it.

The reason many people are complaining is there were a lot of us in one man guilds. I had a lot of stuff unlocked and could get banners and such. Now all that is lost for no reason. They should have kept the old system of influence for small guilds and then let large guilds move over to halls which as one person I have no interest in.

I stopped playing for a while and just tried WOW for the first time and was so bored with the combat in WOW, I never even made it to level 20. The endless boring quests were mindnumbing and I could not tie all my alts together under one account so I had to grind six times over. Guild Wars 2 has the best combat system and is designed around crafting and farming not single character adventures or raids. They have raids now in the game but I am not sure of their success or accessibility to all players. I rate the game 7 out of 10 mainly for a lack of replay-ability and high level monster variety and combat sameness. End-game is elusive on purpose as this is a progression type game involving multiple characters, farming and group play. I came back to guild wars because I just did not GET WOW. Too slow and too structured. At least gating now is account bound and the future looks bright. They just need to keep cranking out the new stuff in less than three years. How about yearly!

I would like to try your guild. The alt I am on is HotBloodyKiss

No sure what the hurry is for many of the complainers. It does not really take long at all, but you do have to actually play the content, not skip stuff. Still see people skipping mobs in PVE which if they would stop and kill everything they run into they would already have the mastery finished. Most of these people must not be crafters because crafting is also time intensive but slow and steady. I think ANET spoiled many of these players as some got through the original game in three days, yet I still have not got world completion after three years so there is the difference in play styles right there. I also am not sure what the hurry is as these same people were complaining last week , they were bored and the next expansion will not be for another three years so everyone should take their time, really.

I have not even got to the dungeons yet in the game, and I was not going to play them because of all the elitists people and people kicking others out of groups. Now, that the rewards have been decreased, I may start to try dungeons as I can now not worry about having people hijack my group and kick me for a speed run. I want to take my time and explore all the dungeons and kill every single thing inside no matter how long that takes. I do not care about the rewards other than I expect something for my trouble but I don’t play to farm gold and all I can say is “It’s about time ANET” that you did something to get rid of all these toxic people who are just using the game and not playing the game. They are messing up the economy and we finally have a system where everyone can create their own legendary weapons and not be hostage to these gold/market manipulators. If I were ANET I would nerf every single thing that gets exploited until these players leave so the rest of us can play in peace.

This game is now awesome!! After three years they finally fixed it so people have goals to conquer and everything you do gets you closer to a reward or new skill. The BIGGEST problem with the original game was that you could skip too much stuff and just farm stuff for gold. That was soo boring. At least if I have to grind, give me new skills/goals to achieve and the mastery system does just that. No, it is not instant gratification, but it makes the playing field equal for all players so players are not left behind by those who play all day. Fast players will be penalized for a while with timers and hard content until others catch up. Then they will adjust the end game to allow for more solo players. The most fun I have had in three years was the opening instance to the jungle where I was playing with others but in a loose group like silverwastes but content was challenging but not overly difficult. I unlocked part of the berserker and it is awesome and powerful and I have been using it in the halloween events and stomping some Mad King enemies. The game feels more like a crafter’s game with slow but steady progress and the need to do many different things to progress sort of like making ascended pieces from recipes. It takes a while but you feel good when you accomplish the goal. I am not in any hurry and I have enough to do for another 3-4 years with all my alts and 2 new characters. I just purchased today and would recommend then purchase as staying in the old system is worthless as all the experience you are earning is not counting toward masteries so you should buy the new game where everything you do counts toward your progress and goals. I just wish this system had been around three years ago at launch as I may not have quit for 9 months during those living story seasons which were pretty bad and were not connected to the main game which is the dragons.

Anyone with half a brain can see a trainwreck is coming. I would not be surprised if the whole game goes off-line for a while once the expansion starts because of problems and bugs. Slowdowns and crashes are already happening and I figure it probably will only get worse. This is what happens when you release unfinished unfocused software. I mean where are the dragons, the new stories, another set of lands to explore, new dunguons?? They aren’t even in this so called expansion. I’ll probably stop playing til after Thanksgiving so they can get their stuff together.

I’d like to think that we would get an entirely “new” Halloween set of events as they have been recycled several years in a row. I laugh at the fact that it will either all be recycled and still buggy or the expansion will be buggy as they have not the time or resources to fix either of these things. It is such a joke. One of the best potential franchises EVER reduced to multi-year recycled events and a bug-filled expansion at the same time. Oz the Wizard, your curtain is open.

I have not seen anything worth $50-$100. The LS seasons were below average at best and were FREE, and never worth paying for. This feels like a $20 upgrade so $50 is way too high. It’s going to be buggy for six months and it really feels like this is all seed money for another game expansion coming in three years now that their update model has changed. I’ll wait til the dust settles and see then what it’s really worth. Meanwhile all the rest of you can play with bugs.

Events and personal story give a lot of experience. Also crafting gives a lot of experience as well. Take your time as leveling is the best part of the game.

After listening to the interview on Reddit, it seems pretty clear that the devs are monitoring the entire game and do see what is happening in terms of players, hot areas etc. They talk about balance and the economy and I suspect that if you look at the game’s development from a larger perspective, it may be two to three more years before we get any real expansion. Beijing just started in July 2014 and it takes at least two full years to level up multiple characters if done properly so Anet is really in no hurry to put out an expansion for only one part of the player base when the largest part of the player base just started playing. The living story is just to keep high level players engaged and grinding until China players catch up, that’s why many of the new items and areas are so grindy. Anet is also trying to encourage more cooperation with these new areas as many regular areas with champs go unplayed and are deserted as I am seeing through the leveling process, like last night with the Inquest lab in Mount Malstreum, I was begging for help and no one ever came and it looks like no one was playing that dungeon either, so why should Anet waste all their time and money on dungeons , when many areas even regular areas are empty?? Areas from 50-80 should be full of North American and European players and lower level should be full of china players, that’s how Anet was planning when they had a delayed rollout, but it is not working as many early players just skipped though the middle of the game and now are bored, not Anet’s or my fault. I constantly see people just run pass monsters that I have to kill as they are too much in a hurry or too lazy to kill. This game is also designed for multiple characters and the different challenges and play styles of each so if you only play one or two characters, you are playing incorrectly. Develop and level at least 5 characters that will take up your time. I need at least two more years just to get all five of my characters to 100% world completion so I don’t see the problem. This game is for casuals like me who play about 2-3 hours a day for dailies/monthlies and maybe 15 hours max on the weekends. I even left the game for six months for personal reasons and when I came back the game was much better. Is it perfect, no and never will be. But if you just wander around in different areas and help people and do a few world bosses, it doesn’t get much better. I do a world boss every night before I quit and when we win, it feels like xmas, so much loot it fills all my bags so it is very nice. Anet many of us do GET what you are doing and are very happy with the slow pace as we need time to work on our alts. These other players can just leave for a while and they will come back in a few years when the expansion comes and burn through it in 2 months like the first time and then complain another 4 years about being bored. Just keep going slow and steady like the turtle, who as we all know, wins in the end.

Your preaching to the choir. I doubt Anet even cares as if they change it now, it would show they made a mistake and they don’t want to look bad so I predict it will just continue as the weakest link (class). Just relish in the fact that many of the best players are eles as warriors and guardians can just stand there and take damage, we have to move all the time as two hits and we die.

Eles are a very weak cl;kitten currently and the staff makes them slow and weak. We need either more skill points, no delay on staff like thief weapons, medium armor, or a companion like a beast or spirit full time like the ranger to draw aggro. We also need a much farther casting range and a larger AOE area as even current expanded area isn’t that useful or far. A true ele or caster class should almost never be in melee but this class is in it constantly and cannot always dodge or run or get outnumbered. Downed state is a joke as we need at least 6 seconds of invisibility not three. I can’t play WVW solo as I die in 2 seconds after three hits unless I’m in a group so not good balance at all. Not sure how I’ll do in dugeons but I died 20 times in MF in large boss battle which was embarassing even with fairly good dodge abilities. True balance in this good would give every charter type arounf the same HP amounts like 20,000 not 14,000-18,0000 for ele. If anything we should have the most HP as we have the lightest armor. This is why heavy armor characters are just easier to play. I hardly ever die with my warrior but die 4-5 times a day with my ele even in low areas especially with the staff. I gave up on staff and went S/D as it dealt more damage faster in a medium range. I just don’t like D/D as it seems too melee for me which is not what this class needs to be. I don’t mind support roles but I should not be forced to play this role in group play which I feel I have to because of lack of power and toughness and damage output. I agree meteor shower hits like 1 in10 times, real effective. My ranger hits 100% of the time from further back and has a pet for aggro draw so my ranger hardly ever takes direct damage. I liked this character a lot in GW1 but it is NOT the same now and is the weakest class in the game and I have played all other classes up to level 60 at least. My only good point about this character is that it has made me a better character and player as I would never have learned to dodge or manuver as well if I did not have such a weak character and it helps me with my strong characters to never die. To those who find this game easy, I challenge you to get off your warrior or heavy armor class and play an ele with a staff in fractals and dungeons and on Southsun as this makes the game as challenging as you could want, I KNOW, and this challenge is fun but it still would be nice once in a while to feel like the fight is fair and my ele can stand on even ground with all the other classes. For NOW, this is NOT the case.

I’m averaging between $30-$60 a month buying gold and items from the gem store. I have 5 different characters and I just started a guild so I buy keys, the molten pick, and a lot of influence with guild commendations using gold. I am a casual player and I play about two hours a day as thats all my wife will let me play and I don’t farm as I only have one character at 80 right now. You don’t get much gold in lower areas so I purchase gold to buy stuff for crafting and for repairs and to buy exotics and armor for all my characters. Lately, now that I have one character at 80, I have been spending a bit less probably $30 a month but I was spending $60-$80 a month since August until March just to keep making progress. Gold conversion has been going up so I love buying gold as I have been steadily getting more each time and it is still rising which is more gold for the buck, a good deal. Prices in the store could always be lower but if you buy in bulk like keys or things on sale and its fairly reasonable, I mean $10 isn’t breaking anyone for hours and hours of entertainment. Also for those selling items, the trading post is the way to go as you get a 10-40% premium on some items vs. the vendor so making money has become easier thus my lower spending for gold lately. I believe the economy is in great shape and has gone from feeling like it is squeezing the player to making it more fun earning gold and the store is slowly getting more things to buy so the future looks bright. Lastly, if you don’t spend money on the game, do not expect new content and continued support so everyone should be spending at least $10 a month just to keep the game and the company happy and wanting to create expansions.

This is like the 200th thread about people whining about RNG. Listen People, whatever you want to blame on Anet is really your fault. Anet has created a unique experience for every player through RNG so its just like real life, which also has no gAURANTEES. Be thankful for anything you get in the game and treat everything you get like a surprise because it is truly random which makes it fun from the right perspective. To go after certain items by spending money on randomness makes you a poor consumer and makes Anet very happy as it shows once again how impulsive some people truly are even facing incredibly small odds (worst than Vegas). However because every person operates under free will and no one forces them to save their money, all I can say is hope you have fun gambling. I also buy black lion chest keys and spend real money for keys but I open them for fun with no expectations and when I am running low on cash, I just save the chests or sell them as its no big deal. Getting emotional over gambling losses is NOT Anet’s fault and is solely your fault if you are disappointed as they did not promise you anything and in reality it is less fun if everybody has the same stuff (armour, weapons, trinkets, etc.). Yes, it does make them a lot of money but it also keeps everyone’s experience different and even my different alts have different experiences so that is pretty cool.

This is a REAL weakness in this game. For casual players, doing dailies is hard enough is my wife hates the fact that every night I have to log in for two hours to do a “daily.” I have so many alts that are not level 80 that it is hard to complete all the temporary content. It takes me several days to switch characters as I have to re-adjust my play styles and options for each alt so switching characters often is not possible for me to play effectively. I have just given up on the temp content as it is a huge gold sink and just keeps content burners busy though it does free up the lower areas and allows us “weaker” players a chance to learn and cooperate without rude and rushed players forcing us to skip content and wrecking events.

Though I also enjoyed the flame and frost activities and dungeon (my first one ever) I have fallen behind because of the pacing and rl events. The difficulty of Southsun was not fun and I hate dying so I quit and went back to leveling alts and doing dailies. This is where I need to thank Anet. In the lower areas, it has been less crowded and MORE fun now that all the warriors and rude players have left. The other players and myself have played in relative peace and quiet and with much cooperation. I have finally been able to do events and caves that were crowded before or always farmed. I have given up on all this “extra content” and the achievement points as I will never be able to keep up and my only hope is that they return again someday. If not, oh well. I refuse to be pulled into content that is too difficult, not balanced for different characters and is interfering with dailies and map completion for my alts. This extra content does not have any strategy , even less then the “main” game. We need more ability to clear areas, have less mobs that gang up and that can be kited in which DPS is NOT the only factor. Southsun had no strategy. Just a bunch of players walking around group fighting and rezzing each other. There were not any goals to achieve and enemies to defeat or castles to take, just walking around killing monsters, BORING!! From Anet’s perspective it keeps the content burners happy for a few minutes even with insanely hard and unpolished content. For regular players, they kill you a lot and this is a huge gold sink with not much award or large story twists. I’m just going back to the regular maps and my alts and working on my larger goals like legendaries and ascended gear, not be distracted and robbed of all my loot on equipment repair.

I realize yesterday after reading all these posts and thinking about it a while that maybe we all are thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe Anet isn’t “lazy” but brilliant as the sickle is as disappointing to us as the “resort” is to the refugees. The sickle was overpromised and under delivered much like the resort. It was a “ripoff” of the mining pick much like cheap tourist junk we all are exposed to in rl tourist traps. Maybe the long animation times were done on purpose to make us mad on purpose, because the tool is “broken” because its cheap Consortium “crap.” Even if this is true, I am still not buying one as I want cooler, quicker tools, not themed broken ones. This entire land and the resort are all based on this theme, which is why it is so difficult, so rough and feels unwelcome and fake.

I’m right with you. I bought the pick ax and I really like it and in fact I want to buy more pick axes now that I have tried it but I cannot because they have removed it and instead are now trying to sell me a half-finished uninspired harvesting tool. To Anet, once again, you need to give your customers more time when introducing new stuff and content. I’m not buying five of anything until I can try it out first and 30 days is not enough time for a casual player so you suffer. As a player I’ll just keep buying picks and tools the cheap way. You need to do things in 90 day cycles, that is more reasonable.

I was in the Black Citidel trying to form a group to visit Trixx workshop. Never saw invite button but could manually enter other characters names. This system needs to be like GW1 which was easy but so far I am very confused and just play by myself even though I am in a couple of guilds.

mine does not work either

I have an elementalist character and on Inner Harbour vista in Lion’s arch the gun will not target. I turned off fast ground casting and in fact I turned off all options and still no targeting with jump gun. I tried different weapons and I tried no weapons still the same result. Targeting works with my other characters just not the elementalist.