Guild Wars 2

This does not happen 100% of the time, but it’s frequent enough to be absolutely godawful annoying. I’m going to state specific occurrences, because I don’t think I can generalize the problem clearly.

a. I logged the character out at the crafting stations in Claypool. When I logged in the next day, the character was inside Divinity’s Reach at the entrance portal.
I want to point out that that is not even the same zone as where I logged out.

b. Logged the character out in Swamplost Haven in Queensdale. When I logged in the next day, character was in Shaemoor near the entrance to Divinity’s Reach.

c. Logged the character out in Gendarran Fields next to the eastern portal to Harathi Hinterlands. When I logged in later that same day, the character was at the opposite end of the zone, on the bridge to the portal to Lions Arch.

d. Forced logout when trying to zone from Brisban Wildlands to Kessex Hills, due to a “new build” that was ready to install. When I logged back in immediately afterward, the character was in Venlin Vale in the extreme southwest of the zone, a section I didn’t even start exploring until several weeks later. The map between Venlin Vale and the areas of Brisban that I had explored was completely unrevealed, meaning the character didn’t walk there, and could not have waypointed there.

e. Forced logout due to “new build” while trying to zone from Gendarran Fields to Harathi Hinterlands. When I logged back in immediately afterward, character was at the opposite end of the zone on the bridge to LA.

f. Forced logout due to “new build” while trying to zone from Kessex Hills to Gendarran Fields. When I logged back immediately afterward, character was at the zone portal to Claypool on the extreme opposite end of the zone.

g. Logged the character out in Gendarran Fields on Provern Shore next to the pirate encampment. I logged out to the character select screen to answer the phone. When I logged back in, the character was inside Lions Arch.
Again, that’s a different zone. At no point was I logged out of my account, and if someone has been taking surreptitious control of my character by logging in as me, I would expect the client to have booted me to the desktop. It did not.

h. Logged the character out in Gendarran Fields near the Almuten Estate. When I logged in later that evening, the character was in eastern Lornar’s Pass, in a part I had never explored. The map in the area was completely unrevealed, so there was no way I could have foot travelled there from somewhere else, or waypointed there.
And apparently I spawned in mid-air, because the character instantly died of falling damage (no critters or NPCs nearby, no armor damage, and I could hear it happening while I was still staring at the loading screen). I attempted to WP to Trader’s Forum in LA. After six minutes of loading screen, I got an onscreen message that the waypoint was “contested” (how is THAT even possible?), and I was being redirected to the next nearest safe WP. Where was this “next nearest” WP? Even further to the east, in Snowden Drifts, another different zone, in a section I had never previously explored.

I can’t possibly be the only person experiencing this, but I could not find another thread devoted to it. In most instances, the pattern emerges of a character being sent to the opposite side of a zone after a forced logout while zoning, or after logout near a zone portal, but neither of these is an acceptable situation. As for being moved to a different zone, I can’t even begin to guess what is going on there. In several instances, not enough time passed for someone else to hijack the account, and nothing appears to be missing (I would at the very least expect gear or mats to have been sold if someone else was logging into the account). It seems more like the game has an inordinate amount of trouble keeping track of a character’s last location. It shouldn’t be possible to send a character to a locked WP or an area that hasn’t been explored yet. This ridiculousness is really ruining the game for me.

Supposedly, ALT+LClick sets a personal waypoint on the map or minimap. However, this rarely works as expected, and I often try multiple times to set the darned thing before closing the map in frustration… only to find that the game client has spammed every POI and WP in the immediate vicinity to the chat window and I’ve been autochatbanned. This has happened twice now. The key and click combo for sending a location to chat is NOT the same as setting a waypoint, so why is this happening?

I’ve opened several tickets on this, and while it doesn’t happen as often as it did a month ago (it used to happen 100% of the time), it’s still happening far too frequently.

When Shadow Behemoth is targetable, staff attacks prompt the red onscreen message “Out of Range” no matter how close I am, no damage is done and marks are not being placed. If I switch to dagger or sceptre, every attack hits. Daggers and sceptres have shorter ranges than staves, so why the staff permablock? And why this message, which is so obviously incorrect? Attacks against underworld portals and creatures spawned by them are not affected, and can be targeted normally with a staff.

I don’t know if it’s related, but a similar problem exists in Brisban Wildlands while attacking bandit mines. The red onscreen message “Obstructed” appears for every ranged attack against mines in the Wendon Steps area, even if you are standing on the mine; only melee attacks affect the mines. In other areas of the same zone, the mines can be attacked normally at range and do not cause the “Obstructed” message.

That’s baloney. The prompt offers you an incentive to change right now, yes, but your only other option is “Later”. You can’t “decline”, choosing “Later” procs these results:

• The prompt does not go away, it merely minimizes to the right edge of the screen, and the icon is large enough to accidentally reopen the prompt at the most inopportune times. I’ve found posts online indicating that for some people the prompt keeps restoring itself without user input.
• Choosing “Later” starts a timer, at the end of which you will be forced to change maps and this time you won’t get an incentive and can’t tell it “Later” again.

It’s entirely conceivable that etienne is doing something time-consuming like crafting, gathering materials, or waiting for an event to start or NPC to appear. With the ongoing problem I have of the game not respecting my current position (my character rarely is in the same place when I log in as where I logged out), I don’t trust the game to place me anywhere near my current location if I choose to switch maps, and so I don’t. I have no guarantee that I won’t get the prompt again minutes after changing maps, the minimized prompt is very annoying, and if my plans won’t take me to another location before the timer runs out, I log off for the day. It’s a poor design.

I only just started playing a couple months ago, so I can’t compare to last year’s. But this event seems weak compared to similar events in other games.

• The OP mentions “following a dolyak around”… is that actually the point of that event? I thought I was missing the point, but then as with nearly everything else in this game, it’s so poorly explained (or not explained at all) that I thought the title was accurate and you were supposed to DEFEND the dolyak, which appears to actually be impossible, because the “attackers” con friendly, can’t be targeted, and take zero damage from AoEs. I see players running along swinging weapons; are they even more clueless than I, or is there some UNEXPLAINED trick involved in actually doing damage to mobs that can’t be targeted? Or is it, as the OP suggests, just some bizarre non-interactive parade that starts every five minutes?

• In nearly every game that has snowball throwing, there is a point to it: the target goes into a stumble animation when hit, or there’s a chance that the target gets a short duration season-themed buff, or has a chance of a snowball spawning in inventory so that he can “return fire”, or there is a structured contest in which you score points for hitting your target and the highest score wins some achievement or accolade. In GW2, throwing snowballs doesn’t appear to serve a purpose. No effect is applied to the target if hit, it’s very difficult to hit a target that is not standing still… there is just no EXPLANATION or feedback to tell you that you aren’t just wasting time.

• Most games with a winter event have oversized gifts that spawn randomly, and sometimes these explode with knockback and spawn hostile mobs. Unlike GW2, they DON’T involve being knocked back a quarter mile for hefty damage AND lengthy stun, but then the GW2 devs do seem to love their ridiculous superpermaknock attacks. I mean, that is the whole reason they put centaurs in the game, so you can in nearly every encounter with them be bounced continuously around the battlefield until you die from falling damage without ever getting a shot in? The Wintersday gift mechanic seems designed to knock you completely out of aggro range of the newly spawned mobs (WHY?!?), but there is not anywhere in the game where that doesn’t guarantee that you are knocked INTO the aggro range of something else. Thanks LOADS. And

• Most games also have special quests for the event, often with different sorts of challenges from normal content. Except all the other games let you LEAVE such content if you find it’s not to your taste. I got trapped in Toypocalypse, another event where nothing is explained until you are already in the content, and then THERE IS NO EXIT. The rules SEEMED simple enough, except they’re garbage. “Pick up any object to use as a weapon”… except no item you can pick up can actually be used as a weapon. “You can only heal in the center of the map”… except that if you are seriously injured, you might as well let them kill you, because it will take fully 15 minutes to heal due to the crap regen rate, and there is NO EXIT. Thanks for announcing the Tier 2 Building Phase or w/e, except that wasn’t even MENTIONED in the rules, so I have no effing clue what I’m supposed to do (not that I can actually do anything, because after 5 minutes of “healing” I’m not even up to 35% health). I finally got out by quitting the client after a new build was announced, otherwise I’d probably still be stuck in there.

I was actually looking forward to Wintersday since finding my first broken ornament in a JP chest. Except there doesn’t appear to be a quest in this event that requires them, so really what’s the point? At least Halloween had good xp and useful items obtainable only through the event. I’ve not found anything to convince me to continue participating in Wintersday.

Ansau.7326:

This setting is only available for cpus with 4 or more cores.

False. I’m using a dual core, it is neither grayed out nor uncheckable for me. The dev post VaLee linked confirms that the check box should not be grayed out for anyone, but the option to choose the high texture setting from the dropdown menu is disabled if the cpu has only two processors.

The improvement provided by checking the box is marginal on medium settings and probably not distinguishable to the human eye on low settings, so they might as well have grayed it out for machines that don’t qualify for the high setting.

This happening to me too, and I don’t even know how to change instances. Some examples:

*Logged out in Claypool, when I logged back in I was inside Divinity’s Reach at the portal (not even the same zone)
*Logged out in Swamplost Haven, when I logged back in I was in Shaemoor Village just outside the Divinity’s Reach portal
*Logged out inside Divinity’s Reach at the tailor station, when I logged back in I was at the entrance portal to Divinity’s Reach
*Logged out on the east shore of Viathan’s Arm, when I logged back in I was inside Kessex Haven
*Logged out outside Kessex Haven, when I logged back in I was inside Black Haven
*Logged out in the Ascalon Settlement, when I logged back in I was near Nebo Terrace

It doesn’t happen every time, and to be fair it is always near either a spawn point or a portal, but in nearly every case there is a spawn point or a portal much closer to the log out point than the location where I actually spawn. It’s like the server can’t keep track of where I’m supposed to be and randomly chooses a location where I’ve been in the recent past.

(And to be clear, something interfering with normal gameplay that “isn’t an intended feature” is by definition a bug.)

I have a slightly different question. I assume you are making these dyes. If you keep making the same handful of colors over and over, eventually you will no longer earn crafting xp for those. Would you rather people choose less popular common dyes? I’m open to that, but you’d have to advise me which colors.

If they are already made, or you don’t care about the xp, I think your suggestions are just fine (Banana, Rose Breeze, Fog, Midnight Olive).

Let me know if you’d rather I choose different colors. Character’s name is Callisandra Nyx. Thanks a TON for this offer.