Guild Wars 2

My first thought on seeing this is how obnoxious it is. I admit it looks pretty cool and I can see the appeal, but then I remember how excited I was to buy my spirit raven glider and how I never use it now. It’s too large and gets in the way for me and other people. I’ve been doing a few HoT HP trains and the nonsense gives me a headache. I can’t see a thing in front of me.

So like I said, I can see the appeal, and I can see why anet wants to release flashy skins, but I am so over it.

Oh lord, no. Bouncing bunnies are pushing it as it is.

Knockbacks are always going to be a problem because everyone levels so much. Even at level 80 when your bar fills you get the leveling animation that includes a knockback. Don’t do it on purpose, obviously, but it’s always going to be unavoidable.

Thief is my choice for tagging. Shortbow bounce is great, #2 blast exploded above their heads is better. The teleport even helps you keep up with the zerg if you stopped to carve a pumpkin or mine candy corn (or that freaking mummy immobilized you … again!) Massive mobility and minimal rotation for the mindless massacre of spooky critters.

I hear good things about flamethrower engis too, but I just like my thief a lot. Well, technically daredevil, but basic thief works.

Add my voice to the plea for more simple skins and outfits. I still want my town clothes back! I admit I have one of those obnoxious raven gliders, but I feel kinda bad when I use it and I dye it the most sedate color scheme I can. And if I’m in a group, I always switch it to a smaller one. Have you been in a HP train lately? The gliders in a group that size is obnoxious. Plus you can’t see a kitten thing – like where to land a tricky jump. Just ick.

If I had to pick one thing to roll back in this game, it would be the SAB glider. I love SAB and it’s fun, I get it. I just don’t want the pixelated skins etc leaking out of the Box into Tyria proper. That’s obviously just my opinion, but every time I see someone glide by on a rainbow cloud I cringe. I get the appeal – I really do, I just … just really wish that line hadn’t been crossed.

We actually lost two events – there was a PvP map the first year that I can’t remember the name of, but it was quite fun. And, of course, the quest chain for the Mad Memoirs back piece never came back (so we lost 3 events, sort of)

Honestly, what I miss the most is the decorations. With Old L.A. the decorations fit the earthy, gritty aesthetic of the city. They were spooky. The new L.A. paizza area is too sanitized to sport that look and we now just get wagons full of candy corn. The only festival they hold in L.A. and they didn’t plan for it to integrate into the existing Halloween aesthetic. Water under the bridge there, but I much preferred the haunted house feel to the children’s party look. that first year was magic. Now … not so much. Some of that is familiarity, but not all of it by a long shot.

Ferelwing.8463:

The pay to ID mechanic feels like a bad choice. If I don’t pay to ID then I feel like I’m missing out on something, if I do pay to ID something it feels like I wasted time and coins. Neither of these choices feel good to make.

For me, this is the crux of it – it doesn’t feel good. I feel I am making an uniformed choice either way and thus prone to buyer’s remorse no matter what I do. I like the idea of stacking gear to identify later, I just don’t want to have to pay for that privilege. The heart part of it if fine, IMO. This is not to mention the extra steps of click, click, click, type number, click, click, click. That I have to place these things in an invisible bag to get around the salvage all is also another step to take. I’m also not sure what the point of regular loot dropping along with unid gear is. Either make it all or nothing IMO, but I haven’t lived with it enough to know how fast the random stuff will fill your bags.

Others who are comparing these to bags are correct. I’d just rather have the bags. And not sixteen different types of bags and chests. I get that a heavy bag is different from a gilded chest, but in HoT it went overboard in the types of bags and pouches and seedpods and crap you can collect in just one meta.

I was going for more of a shaman vibe with my Norn.

Environment is gorgeous. Loved the more relaxed feel of the map and that I could explore fairly casually, but I do hope there is a mix.

The mount is great. I loved the feel of it and even like that there are reasons for me to dismount. I disliked that mounts were allowed inside buildings – really hoping they are not allowed in main cities at all.

Unid items feel bad. The utility of stacking is nice, but paying for the privilege of getting mediocre loot and wishing you’d just salvaged in the first place feels bad. I had regrets each time I had to decide to salvage or ID and neither felt like the right choice.

You know what, if it is initially 4 maps and a world boss meta for the 5th, I’m fine with that. I don’t dislike the metas on the HoT maps, I dislike that they were all built like that. I like variety and sometimes I just feel like wandering around a map and not worrying about being in the right place at the right time and everything I do is to move a meta along. I just need a few maps that let me breathe.

I absolutely agree that I don’t want to see mounts in cities. I love that mounts are in the game, completely fine with that, but don’t want them cluttering up the cities.

To the poster above who talked about riding through Orgrimmar and Stormwind, I get it. However, what I do not miss about that game is the giant mammoths and dragons covering up the NPCs, mailboxes, etc. If people can grief with game mechanics, they will.

I just ran an AB meta and was reminded of the the super funny ‘put a merchant in the center of the big chests so players have to click on the chest to open it’ trick. The eye-roll and annoyance I felt at that is how I feel about giant mounts in the cities.

Depends on what you thought the problems with the game were, I guess.

If it was maps or story, then the LS has pretty much come through on that part. My disappointment with HoT was a little more vague. The maps were really good when I was in the mood for them, but I found myself not really in the mood and I rarely go back to them. But hey, that’s just my opinion and not everyone is going to be overjoyed with them. Lots of people thought this was the right direction.

What bothered me most are things that still kind of bother me. Basically a lot of potential and hype that didn’t quite deliver. Scribing was a huge disappointment. They did make some adjustments, but for the most part a profession that excited me pre-launch continues to make me sad with implementation. The economy was thrown out of whack with new mats and the sinks that got thrown at us and is still wonky and inconsistent. The masteries didn’t live up to their potential and became boring gates. (for the most part).

So for me they delivered on the big things – maps are gorgeous and interesting, new specs, gliding, raids, fractal revamps – all the flashy things are pretty cool. It’s the little things that keep adding up that never get addressed that get me down. The game feels like a rough draft that has a ton of potential, but my greatsword still clips on my buttcape and my Charr still has backpieces that hover over her without touching her actual back. HoT just doubles down on all that and adds new unpolished business. But hey, flashy new story map, look over here!

Randulf.7614:

Ignore the first pillar and jump round the furthest ledge. You can glide straight onto the last pillar from there.

THANK YOU! This was the secret I was looking for.

To clarify for others who are curious – jump onto the first and second pillar, then on the long ledge instead of jumping on the third pillar, you can go around the corner of that ledge to get higher ground. Then just jump directly to the 4th pillar.

Seriously – thank you.

I was disappointed to see that Cin didn’t want any of his stuff and I had been carrying around pelts and wood for no reason. Along with the extra seafood and crawfish and pearls and jellyfish and …. AAAAHHHHHH!

Experimental rifle seems like the best option here. I went there with the one character I knew had those on her and tried the jump first and made it with zero problem. /facedesk, cry. That jump is crazy weird. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Is there a trick to this one? I jumped up the pillars with no problems yesterday, but today, I can’t get onto that last pillar. I’ve tried jumping at different angles, different spots, aimed for different spots on the last pillar and just can’t seem to find the winning combo. Is there something obvious I am missing or is the window for the jump just that fiddly?

Would have preferred an adjustment on overall drop and salvage rates as well. I’m sure groups will form eventually and you can LFG for it, but I’d rather not have to.

Setting is great, story is good, but I find myself not enjoying this map as much as the others in LS release for some reason. Not sure why, I love the scenery. And that last fight – no thank you. Confusing, frustrating and too small an area. Also way too long without a break. Get a DC towards the end and cry into your keyboard.

But the Indiana Jones experience – A+. Would have liked even more!

Completely agreed. After the first half I ended up half naked and was quickly naked towards the beginning of the 2nd half. I’d port in, get CCd, aoe’d and die again. Truly horrible fight. Maybe after you get a better handle on the mechanics it’s easier, but first time through – hate it. At least give us a friggin forge so I am somewhat useful. I didn’t want to start over though cause it’s sooooooo long. Maybe more breaks would be a better strategy.

The story is good, the fight was bad.

I get that it is a strategy to string out your offerings during events, but a lot of the hype of the holiday dies down for me once real life holiday hits and is over. Right before the Wintersday patch hit, I was bouncing off the ceiling waiting for it to start. I was lamenting the fact that I only had the one Wintersday outfit and hoping some new offering was headed our way. At this point, however, two days after Christmas I have switched all outfits and wardrobes back to their normal looks and I just don’t have that spirit anymore. You gotta find that sweet spot for these sales.

Maybe I’m completely wrong and your data shows it, but the timing of the mini seems off. I was thinking I was feeling the same about a Halloween sale of something as well, but I can’t recall what was on offer and when during that.

Anet has done this before when the game launched. A lot of people were very unhappy about gambling to get exclusive skins. They took the feedback then and changed things, but it seems they have reconsidered that decision.

Once again, I disagree with it. They had Braham’s outfit as both a drop and gem store purchase, I don’t see what is so terribly different with the gliders.

The Bitterfrost vista thingie I have a more mixed opinion about. It’s a small convenience, but not an advantage or anything visible like skins are. In principle I don’t like that it’s gated behind RNG, but can’t really bring myself to be too fussed over it.

But as has been said, the bottom line will be the profit margin. Vote with your wallet, but voicing an opinion doesn’t hurt either. It’s just that your dollar talks louder.

I think it is. Someone explained it to me and I came back here to say so. I’m a bit embarrassed now, lol. Can you tell I don’t WvW much? :p

Thanks guys.

Wow, that is not clear just from the UI. But I feel much better now, thanks again.

Used to be Halloween, but I really dislike the way new LA is laid out and decorated for Halloween, so it’s kind of soured me on it. Wintersday also feels like it has more varied activities to do and so Winterday wins for me.

My participation score is erratic and seems to drop for no reason while I am active. I have been reporting it, but was just wondering if this was a common issue or a known bug.

No, it’s not degrading – it will drop even though I am active in events and kills. I get event credit and xp pop ups during this time and it still drops for no reason I can detect. The latest example is going from 82% during a large scale battle in which I was getting player kills. I died, WPed and noticed it had dropped down to 7%. I went from about 90% after capturing a keep, and then 2 minutes later after capturing a sentry point, it was in the 20s. It happens in WvW and EotM.

Like I said, I have reported this, but right now I am more interested in seeing if this is something other people are experiencing. When I run with guildies who do the same content I do in WvW, they don’t have this problem.

I’ve been noticing that my WvW participation is erratic. It will be 82% at one point, then then drop to 7% (real example). I find it extremely hard to get to 100%. Once there it is stable, but it takes forever because of this problem.

I know about deterioration. I don’t believe this is happening. The jump happens all at once and not gradually. The participation bar is orange, not red. The drop happens when I am running with an active group and participating in kills and captures. I do get credit for events, but the participation is still erratic. I’ve been keeping my eye on it and I went from a score in the 90s after capturing a keep, and then less than 2 minutes later after capturing a sentry point, I was under 20 percent. I do not leave the map, I participate in all the activities the rest of the group does, and they don’t seem to have the same issue.

Is this a known issue? I have been reporting it because I’ve been keeping a close eye on it lately. I run a guardian (not dragonhunter) and it happens in both WvW and EotM.

Eventually things will have to be fixed if they keep breaking things. Look at Halloween and how this last year had the least content of any year. I think there is a difference between creating new events and some basic game maintenance. And yes, I would endure a content drought in order for them to get around to some maintenance and QoL changes. Like I said, this game is very ambitious and I understand that their vision cannot keep up with their implementation. I still see people complaining about broken events, broken code that reduces existing content, QoL changes that have to be done as a side project (like material storage), new content being buggy (grawl heatstones), etc. At what point to they keep pushing to create new content when there is a lot of existing content that needs to be looked at?

I’ve recommended this game to friends with the following qualifier – it’s a beautiful and interesting game, but there are a lot of areas where it’s not polished. If you don’t mind small annoyances, then this game is worth playing. Does that sound like a good recommendation? I do love this game and plan to play it for the forseeable future, but I can’t give it an unqualified thumbs up when asked about it.

I get that it’s a matter of developer time and priorities. I get that they are working kind of bare-bones right now and thus we get things like legendaries without the collections. I get it, and I’d rather have Toypocalypse as is than not, I’d rather have legendaries as is than not, but it still makes me sad for the game. The creativity and vision is, I think, exceptional, but they can’t implement their ideas effectively.

My biggest issue with new LA is the piazza area. It is sterile and lifeless. There are parts of LA that are beautiful and I think an improvement, but that’s not where we spend our time when we’re in LA. So instead of seeing the best of new LA, we mainly see the marine-life buildings and the empty, wasted piazza that doesn’t even have a lion statue. It hurts my soul.

(and to keep it on topic – the halloween decorations for new LA are simply inferior. Having the twisted trees with spooky pumpkins and fall inspired corn stalks doesn’t fit the new aesthetic, so we get bland candy corn. Booooo. I can’t say it enough. BOOOOO!)

I absolutely don’t get the radio silence we get on upcoming events, specifically holiday events. The harm in giving us start and end dates in advance is … ?

Right click on the Black Lion Chest to get the preview option. Find the Wardrobe unlock and then preview that. It will show you what you could unlock and it’s personal to your account. Yes, there is a lot to scroll through, but the bulk is going to be BL weapons skins and you can roughly eyeball the sets by thumbnail and skip ahead.

Eh, I feel like it’s fine. I’ll admit, I got annoyed a few times at the mushroom glade when I died from events, but that was on me. I actually really like the torch sprint for just zooming through stuff.

The seasonal item is no fun. I won’t want a Wintersday present either. And yes, I know it replaced a booster that some people don’t value, but it still feels worse than getting a booster (but not worse than getting a tome of knowledge).

btw Wardrobe unlocks completely rock.

Didn’t we go through random skin drops in BLC like a million times before? It always ends in angry tears. I would have straight up bought the glider skin off the store, won’t spend a single gem on keys.

No idea why we weren’t given the end date to begin with. Communication. It’s a thing.

Behellagh.1468:

And before the change to inscription recipes to include leather, light armor was more expensive than both medium and heavy and only light classes were complaining. So they “fixed” that. But since the mats for heavy can be widely farmed, unlike leather and cloth, it will always be the cheapest.

“Fixed” is right. I get that heavy armor is always going to be easiest because of ore nodes. With weapons and armor both needing ore, that’s a given. I do think that leather and cloth should be equally available, and right now it’s not according to my experience and bank tab. And I think both should be reasonably (not easily) farmable in a different way than ore and wood are.

The unstable, salvageable items in the new maps are a good start. A nice, small change that can slowly leak more supply into the game. I’m salty right now because Anet took a heavy hand in balancing leather/cloth earlier and now it’s completely out of whack. It’s a self-made problem that they are backing off of for now and we are suffering the consequences. It doesn’t mean that Smith isn’t doing the right thing – I have no idea from a theory perspective. All I can say is that it feels bad to me, as a player, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I guess my major gripe is that if I want to gear up a leather wearing toon, it is much more expensive than similarly gearing up a heavy armor toon. It seems to me that there shouldn’t be a supply hurdle in such a basic function of the game. It kind of shuts down that whole ‘play how you want’ theme they try to promote. If it was just as expensive/time intensive to get the same building blocks for a metal suit of armor, I wouldn’t feel that it’s so imbalanced.

I just went through this when deciding which toon to focus on next. My first thought was druid, then I looked at my leather stores and went with mesmer instead because it was less of a hassle.

I do really like the overall look of it, but won’t buy it. I’d rather have the helm be separate and the grasping hands as an infusion. Those I would buy.

So I agree, good job on the effects design. I just want more customization.

My top choices have been said many many times, so I will just say THANK YOU for poking and prodding into this!

I also second (third, fourth, fifth …) the request for some sort of tonic wardrobe, since we’ve got your ear

OK, disappointing about the non-dyable helm. I would have bought it in an instant if it was. Anet, it’s not too late to separate the elements and give us the helm and effect as an infusion without being tied to anything else!

Did I read somewhere that the head is always black? If it’s not dyable, I am no longer interested. The outfit itself is rather bland, but the helm is beautiful. The grasping hands is a nice touch too, but I wanted to be a ghost with a blue or white dye. Not interested in only having black for the helm portion.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Ardid.7203:

Legendary Armor not being cultural: 0/10 (Seriously, stop)

Lets be fair here: Anet is already struggling to deliver one three armor sets (light, medium, heavy) and adjusting them for each race + both genders. What do you think would happen if they had to make an unique design for each race + gender + armor weight? Those would never see the light of the day.

While this is probably true, it should still happen. I have a hard time cutting Anet slack on the armor front when their decisions upfront apparently made creating armor such a time-intensive task.

Tekey.7946:

Anet has to stop taking an expansion as an excuse for the lack of new content.

Last time it was HoT. This time it’s the next expansion. You’re putting us on hold year after year abandoning everything else. That won’t work anymore.

While I appreciate the Lab changes (thank you!) so very much this. I think it’s clear at this point that Anet doesn’t have the resources to implement all their grand ideas and it shows. Please polish up what you do have before heading off to the next grand idea. I know some won’t agree with this, but I’d rather have a polished and sparkling gem I can take pride in rather than a bigger gem with visible flaws.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

According to the chart on the wiki, every year has been missing 2 events except the first year… so 2013-2016 has had an equal amount of activities: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Halloween

~EW

That’s a little deceiving. It doesn’t take into account the living story aspect of it, which is completely missing this year if I’m not mistaken. Also, there have been a few other BLC related prizes – armor/weapons the first year and lottery another. For one year (maybe only the first) you could buy temporary Halloween skins to get in the spirit. The haunted doors used to be the only way to get into the Mad King’s Realm, so it’s kind of disheartening to see they spawn less in open world. It was just fun to come across them. Also I am not discounting the general atmosphere. There used to be children running around LA taking your candy corn. The decorations in old LA fit the city better and were spookier – more pumpkins and twisted trees, corn stalks, etc. Now it’s all sanitized with candy corn littering the place like a childrens’ party.

So yeah, it’s not just the activity count, it’s the heart of the event. It’s gone, I tell you. So the question is, as another poster above me pointed out, do we sacrifice what we fell in love with the game for in the first place for promises of an expansion? I’m just not sure at this point. So many half-hearted ideas in this game that just need a little love and attention to make them great. I am absolutely willing to sacrifice a few new LW maps to free up some resources to make what we do have shine.

I like the idea behind it, but I’m pretty meh on the actual armor.

But at least Gwyn had a chance of dropping from the ToT bags. I haven’t been able to confirm if the raven does or not. Seems like not.

Vayne.8563:

Back at launch they weren’t coming out with a new map every single update. Now they’re trying to. I’d rather have that more often than a new halloween thing that I get to play for 3 weeks out of the year.

I understand what you’re saying and applaud Anet’s attempt to bring out new maps. I am skeptical that it will last. Anet has a history of trying a thing, then scrapping it and trying another thing. It’s why a lot of areas of the game feel half-done. Anet has so much potential and a lot of it is fulfilled, but everything just needs polished to make it a really great game. Festivals are part of the polish. For many people, they will see festival content and maps much more often than Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay over the life of the game.

Yeah. The bosses in the lab are nerfed to the ground. 10 people took out the Lich without issue or talking about it beforehand. It could be that we’re awesome … but nah, it’s just easy now. Took on the Viscount and the Horror at the same time and didn’t even realize it til the Horror died. Half the fun was swearing at the people who dragged Steve to one of the boss fights and trying to do damage control.

I love Halloween, don’t get me wrong, but it’s lost some of it’s heart. While there are more rewards, there is less to actually do. And the decorations in LA don’t fit. More spooky, please, less childrens’ party with the candy corn everywhere. Old LA was perfect at Halloween, but I know that ship has sailed. It still upsets me though.

In general, yes, I would like focus to be on new content rather than changing temporary festival content. However, the problem with Halloween is that they seem to go backwards and take away what I like about Halloween bit by bit. Honestly the straw that broke my back over Halloween is the decorations in LA. Compare New LA and old LA decorated for Halloween and there is zero contest. It used to be creepy and absolutely atmospheric – I looooved it!. Now LA looks like a childrens’ Halloween party with candy corn scattered all around. I know this isn’t exactly what the OP was talking about, but it is something that really did make Halloween less enjoyable for me. I used to just hang out in creepy LA for the atmosphere. Now, why bother.

I also still have a few tonics in my bank from the first halloween – zombie, skeleton and maybe ghost? Why did these go away? The zombie was actually rather disturbing with my head twisted to face backwards. Like I said, taking fun away for no obvious reason.

I second this. I’ve been wanting a test dummy specifically for breakbars and clams are the answer! I loved seeing them in Ember Bay.