Guild Wars 2

hartmoore.9632:

I am hoping the fact that they haven’t added a section for dungeon tokens is due to the current stack limitation of 250. And that they need new tech implemented so we can store maybe 1000 or something like that.

And the “Deposit collection” option wasn’t available prior to the wintersday patch.

The reason it’s 250 is a basic computing thing. most variables are stored in Hexadecimal and most also only use up two bits. Well in Hex the maximum number you can express with only two ‘digits’ is FF or 255, hence the 250 stack limit because your average person would look at a stack of 255 and go “what the jesus bloody kitten is this kitten?”.

In order for them to change the stack size they have to increase the number of bits allotted to each item in regards to quantity, not as easy of a thing as it sounds as it’s a base code change. And just so you know, FFF would be expressed as 4095 in base 10 (the everyday number system we use).

http://newsletters.ncsoft.com/emp/gw2/announcement/2012-11-21/na.html

One time events are an assinine thing to do in a game that has players from all over the world on the same servers. If it was just the US , Europe, and the Pacific it’d be less of an issue.

Then agian there are the people like me who live in the ‘proper’ timezones for the event(s) and is unable to attend them due to out of game commitments. Not everyone works 9-5 and for this types of things everyone should get a chance to at least see the bloody thing. I’ve yet to participate and any of them due to this.

If the events are more or less regular events that have more or less regular loot that’s fine. Did everyone notice how the event that gave the unique item for Halloween happened frequently and was even extended due to out of game problems? That’s awesome and that’s how it should be done.

But then we have this Ancient Karka event which has this chest that apparently vomited precursors. It’s not the precursors that’s the problem or my complaint, it’s the very nature of one time events effectively PUNISHING those who are not able to schedule their lives around a video game. We would like to see and participate in this things too you know.

Functional link.

http://newsletters.ncsoft.com/emp/gw2/announcement/2012-11-21/na.html

zargnath.9524:

Yeah, was disapointed abot no Ascended questions. But I guess the forum already have a few answers for that.

I addressed that by including them as part of the Fractals. I enjoy the individual Fractals, they’re fun puzzles to figure out. I don’t know how I’ll feel about them after having done them multiple times, but right now they’re awesome and fun. Oh and I get loot….But I don’t really have any kittens to give about loot.

The thing in this weekend patch that I enjoyed the most was that donation-vendor-thing. I LOVE having a 250 stack Basic Salvage Kit and Mithril tools and Orchilum tools. Oh and I can buy keys, sure it takes a significant amount of the tokens but that’s ok. BECAUSE I CAN BUY THE KEYS. (Also I feel that that the donation system is something that may help stabilize the economy by providing a place to dump things)

Kouken.8604:

This was a huge problem in WoW, 5 beautiful cities yet everything needed was in 1,
If all cities are even most people will still flock to the most convenient one (I.E Ironforge in Vanilla WoW) but allows others to enjoy the other cities without losing access to important resources

I dont understand why devs dont add all resources to all major cities, portals/gates etc

I’d personally never leave The Grove

As for putting portals to all the other cities in the various cities I believe that’s a lore decision. Humans and Charr do not get along very well and I think neither race would accept a portal into the heart of their territory. I can easily see the Sylvari allowing such portals to be erected in/near The Grove but I don’t see the Asura doing the same with Rata Sum. They’ve been forcibly ejected from one home before and I imagine they want to fortify their new one heavily. That probably has something to do with why it’s so physically inaccessible.

With that said I agree that it feels like a waste that Lions Arch is the only place to go to find things you need. Rata Sum does feel like an appropriate place for the Fractal portal as it’s an Asura project to begin with. In my opinion city should (eventually) have a special thing that’s only in that city. Lions Arch has the dungeon vendors, Mystic Forge, and portals. It’s a trade hub and neutral grounds for negotiations between the races. Let Rata Sum have the Fractal Gate.

vox.5019:

It’s still a crumby system that bases advancement through high-end content on your level of grind rather than your own skill. And even then if that were removed it still segregates the population based on your unlocked difficulty making it more difficult to find groups than necessary, especially if you don’t start grinding out the tiers at the start of the week.

There have been posts by ANET confirming that your Fractal level does not reset each week. I cannot remember where they are but you can find them. And I agree that it doesn’t solve the problem of finding groups.

I feel those issues can be resolved by adding a cross server channel to Lions Arch with a limit on how often one can send a message. It would allow you to advertise or keep an eye out for other groups. As for the needing to be in the same instance to get into the Fractal dungeon well that’s a tougher nut that would be solved by Guesting or the ability to put yourself into an overflow regardless of your zone population.

vox.5019:

I’m sorry but this doesn’t get to the core of the issue that this system is vertical progression with gating. It may be “just for the dungeon” but this dungeon is now our high-end endgame, just because you don’t want to play at the highest levels doesn’t mean it’s problem solved if you don’t feel you have to. There are those of us who do and we will still have to deal with all of the negatives of these archaic and lazy design mechanisms.

And no, real hardcore players aren’t the ones that need their success at content to be defined by how long they’ve spent adding numbers to their gear. They want an even playing field because there’s no other way to gauge your skill against others.

I apologize for my misuse of the term, no offense was intended. I do not what to call the group of people who want to chase after items with higher stats but the Ascended seem to be a method of appeasing them.

Or it’s gating. I don’t know, raids and whatnot are not really something within my realm of experience. I myself, due to gating and vertical progression, and solo tendencies have never been able to do such high end content because I never had the gear I needed to complete the thing that required the gear in it.

As for the infinitely higher numbers if the proposed Infusions are only defensive or negating in nature then the playing field might be even, once you reach Exotic Infusions.

kKagari.6804:

Actually, it lets you join people in overflows easier, so you can group up for the dungeon cross server.

Yes but you cannot easily communicate across servers or easily switch overflows at will.

How about making a chat channel that only shows up in Lions Arch and is cross server? This would allow people to more easily form groups.

A method of switching overflows, similar to what was in the first Guild Wars, would also go a long way to solving this issue.

I wouldn’t know anything about this event as I was unable to attend it, or any other one time event due to scheduling conflicts. I very much disapprove of this model and feel they should go back to a model which has the event cycling several times over the course of a day. Of course you would make it so you can only get the special rewards from the event once.

The upleveling will most likely go away during the next patch. In the information released it was implied that the zone would only uplevel during the event.

I for one do not really see an issue with level 45 players running around the zone. But then I also feel that the enemies in the zone are far too powerful.

Aradian.9086:

Yes, perhaps that is true and again, I am of the mindset that would be most pleased by it. But another component of the compromise I am advocating is that it allows ANET to stand behind their recent decisions and additions without apologizing or admitting fault.
Why? Because it is easier to work with people if you let them retain their dignity. I realize the can of worms this statement opens, (what about my dignity?!) but here again I am willing to let go of something in order to gain a workable solution.

I feel that my suggestion, once properly refined by the community and ANET is a compromise that does not admit fault. That said I am biased in that I am also one to give up something that is over powered for the sake of overall balance and fun.

don ring.2793:

Yeah…since the release of this abomination was in the form of accessories. They can’t change the stats and make anyone who has any Ascended gear happy because they can’t cosmetically reward the players with these items. This thought gives me an inky feeling about Anet :S
Seems like an intentional attack.

I would rather attribute this issue to an honest mistake rather then an intentional attack.

Aradian.9086:

I agree with your suggestions and enjoyed reading them, however I feel that there is an irreversible precedent with the already added stats that cannot be retconned.
I don’t like it, mind you, I am offering a solution to appease the majority, both those that like the new gear and those that don’t. It is of course a little painful for both sides I believe.

Thank you. I can’t predict what kind of backlash there would be if the Ascended items were ‘downgraded’ to enhanced Exotics. People will ragequit over just about anything, however they often seem to come back once they calm down. One of the selling points of the Guild Wars franchise is the ability to stop playing for months, or even years at a time and then to come back and still be on par with everyone else.

You cannot please everybody and the ‘Content Locusts’ are literally impossible to please for any extended amount of time. I feel that the backlash from retconning Ascended items will be less then the current backlash over their introduction.

This only happens to me during events and lately. I believe it is due to the population increase of Lions Arch as it is the only zone that it happens at for me. Although during the recent event Kessex Hills did load slow as well, just not as slow as Lions Arch.

I myself have made a suggestion thread about this very topic with a write up of a potential solution. You can find it here.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I already had enough problems with Lions Arch due to an aging computer but now the zone takes so long to load and is so laggy that I go to The Heart of the Mists to use the Mystic Forge and to that Pact camp in the zone with the volcano for the trading post and banks.

phanmc.6759:

I don’t think restricting the gear progression to just dungeons will be enough to satisfy those that want vertical progression.

I don’t know if it will satisfy them or not. I just know, with it’s current implementation many who enjoy WvWvW but prefer not to engage in Dungeons or general PvE content will be inferior. I feel that if the Ascended items continue to have higher stats then Exotic items that all future content will most likely be balanced against a playing having Ascended gear.

I know that I came to this game because of the promise of horizontal progression. The MMOs I have played the most had this type of progression for a very long time and did very well. Those games being Guild Wars and City of Heroes. (They did add vertical progression later into City of Heroes but only the content which required it was balanced around it. It also had no effect on PvP if I remember correctly.)

Since writing this I have had several more ideas for potential Infusions. The ideas above are based only on systems and effects that we have already seen in action within the game. If we extend this to having buffs which are only active within certain zones then the Infusions for items can also give players the higher numbers to reach for.

For example, an Infusion could grant the extra stats that the Ascended items already have. They could have chance based effects like many Runes and Sigils already do, only expanded some. Rather then having a chance to make a basic lightning strike (Sigil of Air) it could be a more powerful version that applies Weakness and/or Vulnerability. Possibly extend the chance for effect to all attacks rather then just crits.

The point is, in theory, Infusions could grant ever higher stats while engaging in Fractals. However I do not believe there is any system in the game which grants passive bonuses conditional upon which zone you are in. Nor do I know of a way to make this idea work. I’m not a programmer nor do I have knowledge of the inner workings of the game.

As for incentives to DO the Fractal content you could place unique skins, both bound and unbound. Materials required to craft upgrade armor and craft Infusions. You could even make it so that at the higher levels there is a chance for a precursor to drop, possibly even a unique set of precursors. Maybe a set of titles? I don’t know, I’m not really sure what kind of aesthetic rewards one could place within there.

As for the players which have already gotten Ascended gear let them keep it, their gear will gain an upgrade slot with an upgrade appropriate to the ‘upgrade’ built into the item. It would keep the Infusion slot and any Infusion that is already slotted.

Edit: Added an explanation for the new Infusion ideas.

I’d like to say that first off I have not read this thread, it’s too long. Nor do I intend to.

I am posting in it to draw attention towards a potential solution I have come up with which should please both the ‘Hardcore’ and ‘Casual’ players.

I would very much like to hear opinions and feedback from both sides of the community. Rather then making ANET guess at what we, the community, want by just complaining about the problem we should be offering ideas on how to compromise so everyone is happy.

There are many people who are very upset that the Ascended items and Infusions have the same difference in stats as Rare->Exotic has. And I agree with them. It sets the bar higher and the fact that these things can only be obtained through a form of gated content is against what ANET has been promising for many years now.

With that said, I enjoy the Fractals, it’s fun and many of them are honestly inspired. My proposed solution is to change it so that Exotics are still the top tier items. Ascended and Infused items will only effect the Fractals and NO OTHER AREAS OF THE GAME.

How do you accomplish this?

Keep the mechanics in the Fractal dungeons which require some form of passive protection in the form of an upgrade to your gear. This can scale as infinitely as you like. As you get to higher levels of the dungeon you need more and more protection but not stats. The Agony mechanic does this, I suggest mixing it up a bit with other similar mechanics just for flavor and variety.

Make Ascended gear similar to how it was in Guild Wars. It’s a passive upgrade that only negates some potentially severely dangerous thing. Spectral Agony would nearly one shot most characters, getting your gear Infused by running a mission made it so that Spectral Agony did pretty much nothing.

This can be accomplished by reducing Ascended items down to Exotic level stats. You then adjust it so that an Ascended item is merely an upgraded Exotic item which offers stats that grant some form of protection against the negative effects of Fractals. Infusions would be more of the same. This creates the gated content that players who enjoy grinding (the group dubbed ‘hardcore’ by the community) love so much without impacting WvWvW or PvE as the effects that Ascension and Infusion provide protection for simply do not exist outside of Fractals.

Now, to make sure Fractals are still accessible to those who do not enjoy gated content or grinding (the group dubbed ‘casuals’ by the community) you simply make it so the first few difficulties do not apply the negative effects or the negative effects are not as severe. Say levels 1-5. At that point you will need Ascended gear to negate the negative effects of 10-15.

Ascending gear could be accomplished by putting various Fractal-only drops and rewards (such as the Fractal Cores) into the Mystic Forge along with an Exotic/Legendary item to be upgraded. Infusing gear would follow the same process, just requiring the that the item be Infused instead.

Alternatively Infusions could be effects applied to Ascended gear, sort of like a second upgrade slot. As stated before Infusions wouldn’t grant any stats that are not directly related to negating some impairment within the higher difficulties of the Fractal dungeons.

As for making the ‘gear treadmill’ you simply make higher quality Infusions which provide greater protection. I believe this would be best accomplished by adding more negative effects then Agony. Perhaps an effect that reduces your damage, healing, increases cooldowns, or causes you to take more damage. Each of these effects can be, theoretically, infinitely increased requiring greater and greater levels of protection.

As for the rewards for delving deep into the Fractals? Unique skins, and mini-pets. One could even add a special Transmutation Stone for transmuting Ascended items, this should help increase Gem Store usage.

I thank you for your time in reading this and apologize for the somewhat unstructured nature of the document. Writing isn’t my forte. :P

Onshidesigns.1069:

stayBlind.7849:

Or, you know, expansion packs that are worth it to buy.

That could never work though…

Expansion packs that are worth buying must be accessible to all level 80s. If they are only for players with Ascended items, thats lost gem store sales.

That’s why I think infusions should be on all Exotics. And Exotic stats should be top tier.

Exactly what this man said. Kill the ascended items and make the infusions like they were in GW1, an extra ‘stat’ that gets slapped onto armor which doesn’t actually effect combat effectiveness, only prevents something from massively decreasing it.

I have sent those who I plan on inviting a copy of the GW2.exe file. When you download the client normally (or were in the beta) that was the only file you needed. To download there isn’t a login required and the entirety of the game consists of GW2.exe, a .dat file, and a small handful of other files which the .exe creates as it patches.

In summation, you don’t need to torrent anything, you just need to give them a small .exe and then they can download the client themselves.

I think someone has tried this with me when I’m on my guardian. I’ll be fighting a veteran or something and a couple guys will come by trailing mobs and run right past me. This usually doesn’t cause me any problems because of the way I’ve built my character but I’ve seen it happen. Never thought people were attempting to grief me. But now I know and shall keep an eye out for it. It’s a sad truth that people will inevitably find some way to harass their fellows, even in a system as friendly as GW2.

I would assume it would be like it appeared to work during one of the BWE’s. In that you could simply RCLICK on a party member’s name and hit “Join” and it would shunt you into the same instance as them. This feature is partly in the game if any member of the party is in Overflow. The problem with using that to cross-server party, only a few zones have overflows anymore.

Oh god yes! I loved this when I stumbled upon it. It was so much fun. I especially liked the addition of the diving goggles at the high places for jumping off them. I think it would have been mildly frustrating for me had there not been several people running around attempting it because I fell off the tree a couple times and rezing and finding my way back would have been difficult. But otherwise it was awesome fun!

Many kudos ANET!

Learn to read the first forum on the boards, both of you.

With the Halloween event concluding and Halloween in-game content going away, we wanted to let you know that some of these items will still be available in the Gem Store after the Halloween event is over. The following items will remain to give you a little longer to get your hands on them:

All Halloween items will remain in the Gem Store until November 7.

Personalized Trick or Treat Bags will remain in the Gem Store until November 15.

The chance to get rare Halloween-related skins from the Black Lion Chest will remain until November 15.

And then there are those of us who can’t WvW because it’s a slideshow with people attacking invisible people and skill effects coming out of nowhere. I’d love to be able to get the monthly achievement but it’s just impossible for me to do with the way it’s currently set up.

You have to find the doors first, I’ve only seen two

@Lucas Ashrock
It’s not broken that’s the intent. So you can use ANY ITEM YOU LIKE THE LOOK OF from level 2 to level 80. The only reason you can’t do it from level 1 is because you can’t mail bound items, though if you have a bank access golem when making a new character you could use that to get the items before you even leave the tutorial. I’ve done this with a wooden sword item on one of my characters. I even transmuted the original item onto a LOWER level item.

Ohoni

I just hope that they increase the drop rate on the keys, because in almost two months of playing and across six characters I’ve accumulated about three dozen chests, but only a half-dozen keys.

They want you to buy keys, the drop rate will never increase. And chests have a decent chance of containing another key in them (not always mind you).

See there is the primary difference between us there. I don’t WvW because my entire computer lags out, not just the graphics.

I plan on using different rune sets to stack +15% Protection duration for my hammer guardian. The goal is to keep the protection buff on myself as long as possible while still maintaining a good crit chance.

And personally I like the random effects more then the raw stats. Imagine if two or three people on a team had Runes of the Pack slotted and they were constantly (and randomly) granting everyone Fury, Might, and Swiftness. I’ll take that over raw stats any day!

I bought it before that I believe, they were called pre-order and it was the main way to get into the beta events.

I never saw any announcements that they were going to have a DX10+ patch/version on release day. I saw announcements that said “after release”.

“I know for a fact that a team of nvidia engineers went to your facility a couple weeks pack to help you guys fix this?” Again, where are you getting your facts?

I run an nVidia card in my subpar rig and the game is both playable and looks nice. I don’t get 60fps but I don’t need to since the human brain processes about 24fps into fluid motion.

Go do different areas. And if you did all of them on one character, well shame on you. Go exploring, unless you already did that too. Craft things! Or did you do all that as well?

If you’ve already done everything there is to do and don’t want to do it again on a different character (which will play differently, unless it’s the same profession and you’re leveling it in the same way) then my only advice for you is stop devouring content like it’s going to go away. Slow down, smell the roses, read the random things that are scattered about, and take your time. Otherwise this same issue you’re having will occur no matter what video game you play.

If you’re left handed you might try changing the keybindings to the NUMPAD or to the right side of the keyboard. Experiment and find something that works for you. For myself I have my skills on 1-5, then my healing, utility and elite skills on SHIFT+1-5, and then my profession skill bar on ALT+1-4. They’re still bound to their default places as well so I can use either location. I find this works beautifully for me, but I’m not left handed. A combination of modifier keys and NUMPAD bindings may work wonders for you.

I like the Steam Shield design on my engineer, but that’s because I throw the shield so it having all those sawblades on the edge makes some sense.

Calae

I laugh when the clerk at the convenient store tries to sell me lottery tickets and can’t answer a simple question such as; what are the probabilities of winning?

Flip over the back of the ticket for scratch lotto and it will say you have a 1:X chance of winning, including ratios for overall prizes and higher prizes. The same can be done with the daily lotto drawings by looking at the back of the slips used to pick your numbers. Either you never actually asked or you asked someone who had only worked at that store for a few days. I learned these things within a month of working at a 7-Eleven.

That’s funny because it allows Uwe kitten

Edit: Word filter on forums catches it but in game it does not XD
Obscured word is “have no father”.

Explosives would be just that, bombs, grenades, and the like. It may also mean turret explosions but the obvious is the former two.

Two things I would like to point out and/or confirm.

1) You DO NOT need a rune to craft an 8-slot bag/pack/box. They are needed for 10-slot and higher. I’ve no idea why the rune tool-tip says it’s for that. (This information is on the wiki, I will not link it because I personally love the discovery system But it’s easy enough to find.)

2) Yes, every Legendary item requires you to have two crafting professions maxed out. As referenced here.

I second this motion, it would be a very nice addition.

Well I myself am 33 and have done this by neurotically getting 100% completion on each starting city and the connected zone. I have had enough materials to level one crafting profession. I imagine I’d have enough for two, discounting Cooking of course, but I chose Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing. And actually, now that I think on it, I’ve got both of them leveled to the point where I now need Iron rather then copper. Weaponsmithing is just lagging behind because I’ve not done as much Discovery with it.

What advice I can offer you is to simply not sweat it. Go do something else if that one thing is irritating you. Wander around and have fun, there’s no hurry to be maxed out. ‘Endgame’ effectively starts at 30 as, to my knowledge, that’s the highest level requirement for doing dungeons. There isn’t a subscription cost so the pressure to ‘get your money’s worth’ is gone as I’m certain you will eventually dump 80+ hours into the game. (I paid 80USD, so that’s 80+ hours minimum)

As for getting those vials, open the loot bags. Those usually have crafting materials inside. You can also salvage items to get the more basic materials.