Guild Wars 2

IT’S A HALLOWEEN MIRACLE

Thx Anet

Test.8734:

Nike.2631:

Really. You think the folks whose livelihoods depend on the game and have been working towards this release for about two years now didn’t think about it?

Yep.

Just like they didn’t predict the massive outcry when they announced the price of the expansion.

Or when they announced the new “gold to gem” conversion system.

Or any of the other times when they had to take back a decision they had made because of a massive community outcry that they didn’t properly predict.

You can claim that ArenaNet is perfect and thinks everything through correctly and perfectly. This mess with the specialization points show otherwise.

If anything, this is a sign of how poorly they are doing. People are complaining because the specializations are locked behind a grind wall. The grind wall exists because ArenaNet is trying to artificially inflate the duration of HoT. They are artifically trying to inflate the duration of HoT because the expansion has very little content. HoT has very little content because ArenaNet couldn’t make more, even after all this time working on the expansion without adding new content to the core game. ArenaNet couldn’t make more content because they are extremely ineffective at making things.

And that explains why they are doing so poorly. We know that:

• ArenaNet had basically to make server merges with the megaserver thing, due to how empty the maps were.

• ArenaNet itself had said that, if they did it right, the Living World would mean they wouldn’t make an expansion. Here we are with an expansion, hinting that no, they didn’t do the Living World right.

• We also know the GW2 earnings during the Living World and, accordingly, it didn’t stop falling. Not only the LW didn’t raise the earnings like expansions do, it didn’t even prevent them from falling.

• GW2 became free to play, and we know that no MMORPG went free to play when its previous business model was being a success.

• NCSoft, which completely owns ArenaNet, has distanced itself from GW2. We have been told that it’s ArenaNet who’s publishing GW2 now, instead of NCSoft; the lack of advertisement about HoT is a very clear sign of how few resources ArenaNet has as far as publishing goes when compared to NCSoft itself.

• HoT has been released in a hurry, with many promised features that aren’t actually here but have been postponed for “later” (legendary weapons – they didn’t release even the three they had mentioned earlier -, raids, the new squad system, etc…).

• Lots of important people have left ArenaNet this year. Chris Whiteside, Eric Flannum, Jon Peters, Kristen Perry… Many of those have left in the last few months.

If they really did think so thoughtfully about things, they wouldn’t be in the middle of all those issues.

With the current mess about the specialization grind being just one more mess among many.

Well said. Something worth thinking about

I was extremely surprised to not see beds included in decorations

That would be a great addition to making us feel at home in the guild hall (and I’m not even an RPer)

We would be more willing to grind out the mastery XP if we had full access to elite specs while doing them.

HoT mobs are hard enough – why the hell would anyone run a kitten elite spec build missing traits and utilities through it?

Can confirm, but mine is stuck for the 2nd time where Taimi says, “I guess the ley equipment on Scruffy’s not quite perfected yet.”

Calling Personal Story quits until they fix it

flocc.3612:

At least 80% of Hot’s Hero Challenges are either unsoloable or gated behind tedious mastery grind.

Players were fighting over ambients

Good riddance

Not really bored, just frustrated to the point of not wanting to play.

It is EXTREMELY annoying to spend 10 minutes trying to find the route to the top of a mountain in HoT, and then find out that the vista/POI/hero point is inaccessible because I’m missing a mastery.

And its not like this happened once/twice. It’s happening all the god kitten time

Palador.2170:

Cerpin.9152:

It says [Group Event] right there on the right side of the screen.
If you don’t have a group worth of players with you, how can you call it “overtuned”?

My experience was that most of these were duo-able.

Because they’re Skill/Hero Point challenges. They shouldn’t be group events.

This isn’t like a raid, where you’re supposed to come prepared to do incredible things. This is the stuff you have to be able to do in order to prepare to do incredible things. If it becomes a block to people, and it may as crowds move on, then it will cut them off from parts of the game.

We’re not saying it should be easy. Just… not THIS hard. This is what a character does to make themselves tough. Raids are the title fight, this should be the workout in the gym that gets you into the ring. Something that can fall on you and you alone.

This. Anet, remember the HUGE backlash from your 2nd version of unlocking traits?

To those who weren’t around, some traits were unlocked behind clearing temples (whose final battle was literally impossible without a player zerg plus you had no way of knowing when they would start), dungeon paths (also impossible without partying if up), and champs that weren’t as bad as temples, but your chances of soloing were slim to none.

Some of the Maguuma hero points are the same. RIP if you are solo, in a quiet spot on the map, and in the future for anyone who logs in at a late hour or if low player population due to festivals or the fact that other players don’t need the hero points anymore.

I said this a long time ago, profession unlocking should NEVER depend on the kindness of other players helping you out, and sure as he’ll not behind challenges that are ignored after the 1st time / impossible when no one is around.

Or think about it this way: If I hated grinding hero points for MYSELF, what makes you think I will want to do it AGAIN for other players?

Joel for president 2016

Not an amazing presenter, but he is the only one who could present the camera changes because he literally made it and knows everything its capable of

The same is probably true for the other content

kitten them, the farmers don’t own the ambient creatures

You have every right to kill them, guilt free

What’s the point of making another thread on this?

They’re just going to get merged anyway

I found farming ToT bags in labyrinth stupid easy as guard spamming staff 1 or flamethrower engi (farmed about ~14k last year). Unfortunately unlike SW it is kill based drops, so you will absolutely hit the DR wall and it will be obvious. If i remember correctly I’d swap out all toons after hitting 250 bags, and when none were left I’d idle them in LA/ rotate in dungeons & world bosses for a bit.

If leading zerg, just clear out the door spawns asap (many bag drops) and then full circle mid while clearing mobs for more during down time. Do NOT engage the really hard boss unless youre positive you can kill him, or else players will ragequit bc they dont want to run back

Now Im curious if any of the elite specs will be even better for mob farming than the base classes, but I doubt it

Hell no man lol

In the time it takes you to unlock all that AP from GW1, you could have farmed thousands of gold in SW (no seriously) and just spent that unlocking collections/achievements in GW2 for more AP anyway

I didnt think it was possible but OCX/SEA players just got the middle finger twice

If youre afraid of a patch messing with WvW, how about actually testing the patch internally multiple times before releasing it into the wild? Anet has a terribad track record with that specifically

Also your post should probably read “We have more NA players logging in on Saturday”, but who cares because they already had Friday to contribute to the rush?

You are still screwing over a large percent of the WvW player base with a change NOBODY is rallying for.

Dont fix whats not broken

Linken.6345:

Scientia.8924:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The follower list is useful. It lets you know how many people are stalking you.

This x100, and the dumbest part is, while they can’t message you if you block them, I’m pretty sure they can still see your location and verbally harass you over Map chat.

For a game that tries hard to minimize trolling, this actually makes it really easy

You do know if you blocked them you cant see whisper, say, mapchat, squad chat, command chat or party chat from that person right? So how can they harass you?

Anyone can be harassed, regardless if they see your text or respond to you. e.×. You port into a guild organized Teq and talk kitten about the guild over map chat. Everyone on the map sees what you’re saying about the guild. The same applies if you were to stalk an individual player.

Also side point, you can’t report verbal abuse if you aren’t aware, can’t even see or screenshot their text, lol

Absolutely dumb change, you are screwing over OCX/SEA coverage which is a substantial percentage of WvW players

It was good the way it was before, NOW you decide to change it out of nowhere?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The follower list is useful. It lets you know how many people are stalking you.

This x100, and the dumbest part is, while they can’t message you if you block them, I’m pretty sure they can still see your location and verbally harass you over Map chat.

For a game that tries hard to minimize trolling, this actually makes it really easy

IMO right now, hell no

But after HoT and reworked rewards, possibly, especially if you need the ascended gear for smoother raids

Silverwastes, both from the rare bags and Mystic Forging all the greens from the other bags into additional rares is the fastest way hands down

After HoT release, who knows, maybe that and a combination of the new map event completion rewards

1. Teq for sure. These days going in 10 minutes early is enough
2. Karka Queen if you have nothing else to do
…
9. FE, Modniir and Golem are barely okay bc of the 2 bonus champ chests (which arent even that good)

Shatterer, Taidha, Shadow Behemoth and Jormag absolutely not worth the time IMO

Going to make this super simple, as of today if you could only purchase ONE of each:

Mining: Watchwork Mining Pick – Same speed as all the others BUT drops watchwork sprockets which hilariously sell on the trading post for more than any of the actual ores. This tool will pay for itself.

Harvesting: Consortium Harvesting Sickle – IMMEDIATELY noticeable that it is faster than the normal harvesting animation. To say otherwise is just crazy.

Logging: All are the same speed now, but in the past was not the case due to a bug. Personally I bought the Frost Wasp (which was fixed). The reason why some players might think it’s faster is because there is no awkward aftercast animation of you pulling an axe back (there is no axe)

Zaron.1987:

1. overwolf overlay

2. no words. shiny new world . be connected to game (content) 24/7 ….. o.O

1. From my experience the Overwolf apps specific to GW2 were eiher poorly optimized, buggy/just slapped together, and not as transparent (not in the literal sense) as Steam overlay

2. Its a huge selling point to modern aggregate gaming clients. Those who don’t take advantage of it are definitely missing out, and those that do have useful tools for running a gaming community

lordkrall.7241:

“1. You are getting purchasers who would not have bought the game otherwise”

Is that really true though?
Would people magically decide to start playing the game just because it happened to be on steam?

I absolutely find this to be the case among my circle of gaming friends. There’s a few reasons but the main two are:

1. Steam overlay has a low footprint and very quickly lets you play music or pull up webpages without ever alt tabbing out. Besides convenience it is always better to run a game full screen for performance as well (and GW2 needs all the help it can get)

2. Lets a group of gaming friends easily view/share game content outside of the game, any time anywhere because Steam is accessible via even via cellphone & on Android, iOS, and Windows. Many guilds atm use Facebook, but many people in general are anti Facebook

punahou.3986:

Bloodstealer.5978:

The Ranger Bots have re-appeared in force… no longer in Cursed Shore or other well known spots around Tyria.. now they stand idle in Dry Top near to the Prosperity waypoint using their pets to tag events and macro spawn traps .

Cmon Anet when are you going to get a grip with the exploitation of your game mechanics and do something. Oh that’s right we are advised to hit the report buttons and day after day the same players stand there tagging rewards, especially since that little pinch of info about maybe needing geodes for some of the pre-cursor craft steps at Twitchcon

every class can do this
its not specific to ranger
too bad Logitech, razor, and whoever else company has made products that can loop commands.

I think the part that the OP didn’t outright say is that rangers have the advantage of AFK farming without needing to run macros.

How do you tell the difference between someone who is legitimately AFK and someone who is AFKing to farm, and when there are no ‘cheats’ to be detected?

Steam would definitely have an impact on the number of F2P players. F2P games are quite popular on Steam, even though the majority of them are mediocre.

Yes Valve will get a small cut of all sales, it doesn’t matter though because 1. You are getting purchasers who would not have bought the game otherwise 2. It would be hard for Valve to claim an additional cut from gems purchased through Best Buy, etc.

On a side note, the new vids coming out of preorder players playing GW2 on the Steam controller make it look really fun. You can easily add GW2 to your game library if you need to change the modifiers (left paddle+ABXY for skills 5678)

Known bug, happening to a lot of us

Shayne Hawke.9160:

I don’t even know what end game is.

Silvatar.5379:

+1 OP

So many people migrate here from other MMO’s with preconceived exceptions of “end-game” content (which they cling to) that they just don’t understand what GW2 has attempted to provide for its community. Thanks for the post.

Serophous.9085:

Bloodstealer.5978:

The Ranger Bots have re-appeared in force… no longer in Cursed Shore or other well known spots around Tyria.. now they stand idle in Dry Top near to the Prosperity waypoint using their pets to tag events and macro spawn traps .

Cmon Anet when are you going to get a grip with the exploitation of your game mechanics and do something. Oh that’s right we are advised to hit the report buttons and day after day the same players stand there tagging rewards, especially since that little pinch of info about maybe needing geodes for some of the pre-cursor craft steps at Twitchcon

This spot isn’t new. People did this when dry top was popular. Then people complained, and anet did come through with the ban hammer.

Now that its not so monitored, they’ve returned

This. Also want to add that AFK farming is also doable in SW, not just Dry Top (not refering to those AFKers who stand at south lane, but AFK farming the forts)

Doing SW via events rewards those who understand the map the most and can prioitize their routes. The greater the effort, the more rewards, exactly how it should be.

The only thing I agree with that was probably not intended originally was chest farms that literally go on for 2+ hrs on the same map, with no events ever being done. Easiest solution to that is make the bandit chest rewards mediocre.

paintpixie.7398:

You cannot be “sexually abused” in map chat. It’s physically impossible. You can possibly be sexually harassed. In which case, report them/block them and move on with your life.

That’s what adults do.

Don’t worry about my daughter. She’s not an overly sensitive crybaby like you are coming across to be here. She doesn’t need you to look out for her.

In the words of Twitch chat…

PUBERTY

New meta:

4 zerker
1 druid

no problem

Getting 1500 ping at 4am because the one node is getting DDoS’ed as usual

Mesmers aka illusionists have been a Dungeons and Dragons class specialization for literally decades, with many terms straight up taken/borrowed (as far back as the mid 1970s)

There isn’t much uniqueness going on except for the purple color and butterflies

kitten amazing job with this Mystic

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I doubt a hero party could handle these dungeons. The AI doesn’t seem smart enough to handle enemy AoE effects. Just imagine a party full of Logans or Traehearnes fighting a boss.

That’s what the flags were for

DPS reigns supreme, because its faster to rally x3 via kills than to raise the downed manually

Now if you DIED the instant your HP hit zero…then yeah I’d definitely want a tank taking all the hits for me

If that’s your friend’s reasoning, I don’t want him playing the game

Henchmen no, heroes yes

But we can all agree as amazing as customizing your heroes was, it destroyed the multiplayer aspect of GW1 real fast

Great suggestion, reminds me of a couple SRPGs I’ve played

The first thought that came to mind though is that the circle would eventually become obscured anyway with all the existing light flashes and animations from other players

Marko.1895:

Make it so that whenever you apply a new rune to a piece of armor, it updates the “library” of available runes for that piece with that rune for free swapping down the line. Basically you would be unlocking runes for armor when you apply them for first time. No free runes and no waste of gold

So just like the drop down menu for gear in PvP?

Not that I’d be thrilled, but the simplest solution would be to integrate obtaining the elite specs via existing systems

PvE: Hero points / quest line
WvW: A track (just like AC/ram/etc. Mastery) requiring AP via WvW rank levels as usual
PvP: Awarded at the very end of a PvP reward track, although this seems too fast

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Seems like a logical progression in actual difficulty to me, having to actually manage who’s in the field and getting the heal/buff as opposed to just spam it for everyone.

Isn’t real coordination and not just stacking in a corner what people wanted from raids in the first place?

As for chat/parties it makes more sense to me for it to be a single party.
And isn’t there going to be a strong push/requirement for voice comms in a raid anyway?

Another good point, it won’t matter if we decide to get on TS (though it is super annoying with people talking over each other). Its not like they’re not going to implement a new chat channel just for raids, if not Map chat then Team chat can also be used to split comm channels

GW2 will never have an enemy skill activation bar. Remember how GW1 became a contest of who had the lowest ping + fastest interrupt scripts in competition?

To this day it is still a huge problem, and its really obvious Anet has abandoned efforts to catch them

The best part is you can still always catch one visually when in spectator mode

Nate.3927:

why are people assuming that 2 separate 5-man parties can’t communicate with each other?

There’s this thing called map chat.

Good point, in that case you’d absolutely want the ability to isolate chat between parties, otherwise comms becomes a clusterkitten.

For example if one party needs to works siege while the other assaults (something like Tequatl), the assault team doesn’t need to see any of the called-target spam

GW1 is extremely different. The ability to literally build an 8 player party EXACTLY how you want via heroes will lead to hundreds of hours brewing and min/maxing. Unlike GW2, dungeons and elite areas had obvious counterbuilds due to the trinity present.

Mesmers in particular were very different back then. They were pure control illusionists and dying to one was 100% your own fault since many mes skills didn’t even do damage to you unless you caused the specific trigger to happen (by moving, casting or attacking)

Constructive feedback:

1. Tell us what you learned so we have confidence that your next event is worth our time

2. Stop abandoning projects when they don’t go as planned. You won’t learn that way

Tormance.6387:

What’s the point of offering specific suggestions as a way to improve this event when there are no plans to change it or repeat it?

This sale has been disgustingly bad.

To sum up this thread: “Nothing that I actually wanted went on sale.”

Most of the crap that I bought was only because it was super cheap and I have thousands of gems just sitting there