Guild Wars 2

Thanks guys and thank you, Anet, for making the items I wanted so much finally available for purchase!

First thing I notice today when I log in is that Silver-fed Salvage-o-matic is back in store, the item I wanted for so long.

Charr is happy.

Then I go do dailies and start with the jumping puzzle in Bloodtide Coast. After failing numerous times to activate the portal correctly a kind mesmer made a portal to the top and Dusk drops from the chest there.

Charr is FREAKING OUT ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Realizing I need a lot of Obsidian Shards to craft Twilight from Dusk I go to Silverwastes and join a chest train. And someone in the squad mentions that Bat Wings Glider is back in the store.

//1111111101011010101010101110101//
//alarm: excitement levels are critical//
//error//
//charr has encountered a fatal error and was shut down to prevent brain damage//

I really hope those will be available for purchase the upcoming Halloween. Pretty much the only glider skin I want.

Thank you for your advice, Sykper and fishball. My current plan is indeed to try and find a training run or guild over the weekend.

Sabetha, my WoW raiding experience, all accomplished when that content was relevant, includes the following:
- Classic: MC, BWL, AQ40, Naxx40 up until and including Sapphiron;
- BC: Kara, TKT, SSC, Hydjal and BT before nerfs. Did not raid in Sunwell;
- WotLK: Naxx10 and Naxx25, EoE (Malygos), OS25+3, Ulduar10 first 4 bosses. Took a break from the game at that point and did not raid until the release of Cataclysm;
- Cataclysm: HM BWD25, HM BoT25 (not including Sinestra), HM TFW25, HM FL25, HM DS25;
- Mists: HM Mogushan Terrace 25 (not including the last boss), HM HoF25 (3/6), HM TES25 (3/4), HM ToT25 (1/13), HM SoO25 (10/14)
- Warlords (at this point I’ve taken a more casual approach in WoW, focusing on the raiding in Wildstar): Highmaul Heroic 7/7, BRF Heroic 10/10, HFC Heroic 13/13.

My raiding experience in Wildstar:
- Genetic Archives: Phagemaw before the Dominion side of the Oceanic community ceased to exist in late 2014. Later on got full clear after rerolling on the Exile side.
- Datascape20: 14/15, Avatus killed multiple times, the only boss not killed is the Water/Fire elemental pair.

Additionally I’ve done some casual LFG raiding in FF14:ARR’s Crystal Tower, clearing it.

At this point, I would say that in general I am an experienced raider and I am completely aware of how raiding mechanics work in MMOs. After watching more than a couple of guides and kill videos on YouTube on GW2 raiding, I can safely say that I understand the mechanics of GW2 raids, such as break bars, tanking, personal responsibilities. I also can not say that what I’ve seen is impossibly difficult and requires extensive experience to beat – you should simply be performing well within your role, be it a tank, dps, condi or healing and everything will fall into place. Just like in every raid content of any other MMO really, so that’s nothing new.

In my case, faking GW2 raiding experience will simply not work by using those codes since, first of all, it would be quite strange for a person with, say, 50LI to still be at 161 mastery level and, second, I don’t have the Legendary Armor collection The Envoy unlocked or complete, which, from what I’m told, is either hard to fake with codes, or not possible at all. Attentive person would see through such antics fairly quickly and I have no desire to straight out blatantly lie to people just in order to get invited into a raid group.

Be mindful however that I have never said anything about expecting to be invited to multiple raids all at once at first beck and call. More so, I have not been just sitting idly and doing nothing – I have, in fact, been actively using in-game tools to achieve the set goal. Still, as I have already said, it is quite hard to find any raiding group at all with the time zone difference and the ones that I have got in contact with have been rather unpleasant.

Regarding your comment on the set meta, I fail to see any issues with following it since I am quite familiar with the fact that there are always builds that are more optimal for raid performance. I have not made any statements claiming otherwise either. I have absolutely no problems with adopting a build that is considered the best at the moment if that means my dps/healing/tanking will be better.
And yes, people have stated this exact cancerous phrase in one of the similar threads on this forum, clarifying that this is their right to flip anyone off at their own convenience because what they want is a fast clear with as little hick ups as possible. I am not going to try disputing that and, if I remember correctly, such a reply was made in an argument about, once again, builds. See my own personal stance on the builds matter above. That however left a very negative impression on the raiding community here and my own experience with the people from it is not making it any better.

I do however wonder why you though it would be appropriate to throw in the “special snowflakes and lazy people” part in your reply to my post, Sabetha, and how that applies specifically to my current situation with GW2 raiding.

Are the raids terribly hard for newcomers to get get in? Yes. Allow me to elaborate.

I am an Oceanic player and have started playing GW2 in roughly November of 2015. Being quite casual in this game since I actively raid in another MMORPG called Wildstar, I have still managed to accumulate somewhat a little over 3,7k AP, crafted a full set of ascended gear for all slots but the second aquatic weapon and got to the Expert level fractals from scratch.

As I was still learning the differences and mechanics of GW2 combat and stats I took advice from one of the numerous YouTubers, went to Metabattle and got myself a viable build for my profession, a PS Berserker Warrior. I have watched and read a couple of guides on a what the dungeon/raid role of this profession is and have been playing in that build ever since. Needless to say, my ascended gear has the current meta zerk stats with appropriate runes and sigils.

Now I come to a point where I’ve seen the fractals, dungeons and their multiple paths, world bosses, massive map-wide events and have maxed out all of the available mastery tracks, sitting at the mastery level of 161. I realize that there’s one more track that is unlocked after defeating a boss in Forsaken Thicket. Well, seeing as GW2 raiding is one of the few types of content that I have not seen yet other than PvP, I decide to give it a try.

My guild, a small Oceanic one that generally consists of players from Australia and NZ, tells me to contact a certain person that is also a part of this guild and who can help me get into raiding. After doing so I am given the following requirements: have full ascended gear and have a correct raid-viable spec for my profession. Stating that I meet of these requirements, I am then asked if I have any raiding experience at all, even from other MMOs, to which I lay out 11 years of raiding in WoW and having cleared the raid content in Wildstar. I am then told by that person “interviewing” me that they have a “similar” raiding experience and that it doesn’t mean anything at all. A second later this person asks if Wildstar is “that other MMO that turned out to be kitten” and I realize that they have absolutely no idea what level of general raiding experience I possess.

Regardless, I ask what should I do next to get into raids in GW2 then and the answer is, quote, “find a pug, fake the experience until you make it”. Using the LFG tools I monitor the LFM raiding tab and advertise myself in the LFG one, but every single person that contacted me or replied to my inquires has asked for this Legendary Insight number, which, to my understanding only shows how many boss kills you have while not indicating the actual bosses that you may have killed. Seeing as I have 0, I am told to kitten off. Literally.

I ask in the guild chat if this is a common type of behavior, to which I get a reply that it is and that is exactly the reason why the majority of the guild does not raid at all. Someone pointed out that my other option is to find something called a training guild and get my raiding experience with them, however at this point I doubt that I will consider raiding in GW2 at all anymore – just get a VG kill to unlock that last mastery track and that’s it. The time zone difference doesn’t make any part of this process any easier however.

Then I come here, to these forums, and see people openly saying that those who are getting into raids just now should feel obliged to the veterans since the vets are the ones who figured out all the strategies and raid comps and that makes it okay for them to act like this. It is as if people have never raided in any MMOs at all and are trying to reinvent the wheel.

TL;DR: The GW2 raiding community in general is extremely toxic towards new potential raiders and does not fit my preferred MMO environment.

Thank you, Arena Net, for fixing these story bugs.

A hotfix has just been released that is supposed to fix this. Have you been doing this mission after applying it, or before?

Morsheira.6102:

(snip)

Just stop. It’s not even 3 weeks old yet.
Let me tell you a little thing about coding games. Fixing a broken code for colour is a hell of a lot easier than fixing a code for interactivity. That does -not- mean the fix isn’t being worked on. How many of you have ever poured over line after line of coding to find the specific change or error responsible. It takes time to locate and even more to create a change that won’t negatively impact something else. Take a breath and chill.

(snip)

Bottom line is just breathe. Fixing a bug in a program isn’t as simple as replacing a part in a car. It just isn’t.

(snip)

I’m sorry, did I understand you correctly that:
1. having a bug that is critical to story progression and that is COMPLETELY BLOCKING players from experiencing the story for “not even 3 weeks” is acceptable?
2. almost 3 weeks is not enough time for an established game dev studio to go through the code tied to this issues and fix it in a timely manner?

I can understand a week. A week and a half, at most. However, so far, there has been absolutely no response or action from Arena Net apart from acknowledging that this bug exists and that it was placed on the bottom of a to-do list more than a week ago.

I know a thing or two about patience. Are you familiar with a game called Wildstar? That MMORPG has had its long-promised 3rd raid instance delayed for over a year and I, along with other people who still play it, have been patiently waiting for it ever since.

You are correct, there are different types of content in games of the MMORPG genre but when a game praises itself for having such a deep and gripping story that it is purchaseable in the cash shop and playing through this added content is required for you to understand the story of the expansion, this content must work, must be functional and any issues that cause its performance failures must be dealt with as a matter of high priority.

The way I see it, my position as a paying customer here is completely justified so let a Charr have his tantrum after waiting patiently for quite a while by now for a bug hotfix or at least some response/update from an Arena Net representative.

The Nolander.2967:

Two months? Christ. I spent a lot of money on the expansion and the LS and I can’t even access the content. Since this also blocks out mastery access it makes doing anything else in the game pretty pointless as well.

I do find it interesting that Anet thinks it worth pushing through a hot fix for some issue with lighting in a few days, but can’t even fix a progress blocking bug in more than two weeks. Maybe they aren’t interested in getting new players since I imagine new and returning players are the ones most severely affected by this.

Well, from a standpoint of company, which goal is to make profits, they have actually succeeded – the customers have paid up the price for the additional (not in the core game) content.

Thing is, the customers had no idea beforehand that the product that they were purchasing was faulty and the manufacturer of the said product doesn’t seem to care.

No, I bought Season 2 and HoT for the story and I want to see the story unfold with my own eyes, not some walkthrough/let’s play on YouTube.

Why should I get a cut version of the content if I paid for it? Why should I not be able to experience the, realistically speaking, DLC content that I have purchased in full?

Fix these bugs in the story missions. Then roll out whichever cash shop items your hearts desire.

I was really looking forward to a patch that would fix this bug so I’d be able to progress with the story (new player, hardly 3 weeks into the game). When I saw a dev post with patch notes, my hopes swelled …and then crashed down in a combusted wreck.

I may not understand the fine points and priorities of game development and support, including bug elimination, but this thing here seems to be more important that new cash shop items if you ask me.

Having the same problem. Interact button doesn’t seem to be working at all on that guard.

After restarting the instance with that part of the story maybe 5 or 6 times and having no luck, I skipped to the next episode, Point of No Return, and now I have the exact same issue with the Mystery Cave part of the story. I have the torch of the divine flame equipped, press interact on the Mysterious Wall to get it to open and nothing happens.

I’ve started playing this game less than a week ago and this is my first time doing these quests. Obviously, I can’t finish them and I don’t want to venture into the HoT content without knowing what happened prior to it.

P.S. I was doing these quests after the small patch that was released today.