Guild Wars 2

I’ve been waiting for a legendary weapon that fits my main character’s aesthetic for years now. Don’t get me wrong, the current legendaries are really cool, they are just not what I want for my main character, except one, but it’s a weapon I almost never use. I don’t have much time to play, so over the years I’ve been saving in game so that once a new legendary that I liked came out, I would get it “right away”. However that has not been the case. Now with the announcement of the expansion, and it’s relatively quick launch date, I wanted to know. Is this the end of the HoT Legendary Weapons? Are we not getting a full set? I have several items in my inventory that are basically for HoT Legendary crafting only, and I want to know what to do with them. Should I set it aside for a secondary character’s legendary, that I’ll probably never make? Or should I save it because the set will be completed before the expansion and I might just get the weapons I’ve been looking for? Honestly I just don’t want to redo any more HoT maps (like I mentioned I don’t have much time to play).

I went Consortium. At first I thought Priory for sure, but then I thought the Consortium would make a more interesting story arc. The way the story is being told, it felt very singular; like this is only happening to me (the player) and not so much everyone else. I wanted to involve myself with the Consortium, because I feel like I would be needed by them later so they would have to come back to me. Also there is the fact that the merchant repeatedly said they had spies in the Priory. So I couldn’t trust the Priory 100%. Basically I wanted to be a mole. I feel the Consortium has a lot of hidden info so I’m hoping we get to see more of them.

hmmmm.

Vale Guardian:

Normal mode: (aka. NM)
Stays the same.

Easy Mode
- 15% base damage reduction from NM
- 20% skill recharge time increase from NM
- Enrage: VG get +15% base dmg. , and -25% skill recharge time

Hard Mode
- 15% base damage increase from NM
- 20% health increase from NM
- Phases now activate every time VG looses 1/5 of it’s full HP
- Enrage: Same as NM

Wait.. What this? A 3 tier Vale Guardian? No but this cant be. It’s not possible.
I mean despite not changing any mechanics at all, it clearly breaks the game. It’s too dumb down now, and any idiot can do it. Where’s the challenge? It was clearly taken away from the people who do easy mode and everyone else simultaneously.
Oh and the time! This is gonna gonna take so much time to implement. I mean the dev has to go and copy and paste THE WHOLE VG FIGHT CODE! And then! Then they have change whole HALF A DOZEN variables for each tier. I mean.. god they’ll need a whole new group of people for that.
You know what your guys? You’re right tiers are just not realistic. GG! Everybody go home! Raids are just for people with specific gear and builds!

Lyndina.7984:

Been playing Mesmer since the release of Gw2, it was my only class that i played in the game. Even in Gw1 this was my class which i had most fun of. Sure i have other chars,but mostly of the content i did with my Mesmer ,because i love this class. Today i finished my ascended armor on my warrior and gone to my first Fractal with a new class other than mesmer. What can i say….its ridicolus how much Mesmer sucks in comparison. Guild friends say its okay if we take you with us…the quickness is worth it…but for me personally it feels like im just carried,which sucks. So…today i only use my Mesmer for Roleplay Purposes, Warrior will be my future Class to go, until A-net makes Mesmer playable again without being a drag. And im talking not about raids, i only do world events, Dungeons and fractals.

I agree with you. It’s same same with me. Mesmer is my favorite class and has been my main class since GW1. Surely we can carry our own weight; This is our favorite class, we know how to use it, we know how to survive and do the best we can to support our group in battle. But at the same time in harder pve areas it’s hard to compare ourselves to peers in terms of damage.

In GW1 Mesmers were very “1 enemy focused”, and had a lot passive/indirect damage (degen hexes). The same is happening now where a lot of damage comes from your conditions. That’s a great thread in SPvP where players need to think about their degen, but not so much in PVE, as some bosses pretty much ignore conditions. It wasn’t till May 2010, that the devs in GW1 addressed this but revamping what? Almost half the Mesmer skills? After that update Mesmers were still 1 enemy focused, but now many of the skills the Mesmer used in that 1 enemy had an effect on surroundings enemies too. That not only increased the damage Mesmer put out, and also addressed their lack on AoE. After that I could bring my Mesmer out in PvE and do significant support/damage. Lets take the elite skill Ineptitude. It was a hex that made an enemy take damage and become blinded the next time they attacked. That was great in pvp, if you had “stop” a warrior or assassin, but in PvE? Oh great you held that one guy off for a bit, but here’s 5 more. After the 2010 update, that elite hex spread spread to adjacent foes too, keeping it’s functionality while at the same time greatly boosting it’s PvE effectiveness. The same can be done now. For example Confusing Damages (scepter 2) it “Channels a beam of energy that damages and confuses your foe”. Now if the do the same here and make it so that is effects foes adjacent to the one you’re attacking , BOOM you just gave the Mesmer a more reliable AoE. Simple change with great PvE effects. They did this with Mantra Of Pain and it made it SO much better. I feel we need this but our weapons, not just utilities. Those are where we tweak to support out teams. Another example is Mind Stab (GS 3). What if after you activate it, the sword/AoE would stay for a few seconds and then explode/shatter causing damage and bleeding. It keeps it’s effect, it makes it avoidable in PvP, but it can also give a significant PvE boost.

There are so many ways to address this, and it’s frustrating to not see it not being done because “oh they’re good in pvp”.

Mesmers in GW2 have the same problems Mesmer had in GW1. And just like in GW1 it’s taking the devs years to address it. Yes they have utility, yes they are good in SPvP , but guess what? They also fall behind all other classes in pve. They lack AoE’s in comparison to the other casters, and simply just can not steadily put out as much damage as other classes. Literally the same problems. I thought they were going to address it better than they did at the HoT release.

They need skill revamps. Some skills need to have their functionality completely changed. Maybe even split between pvp and pve. I’m sorry but my clones are not reliable aoe attacks in pve. They just aren’t.

TexZero.7910:

…So sorry, when it comes to does it harm anyone the question is a simple yes. It harms the people it should be helping by not actually teaching them anything because they will just ignore mechanics due to how simplistic you’d have to make the mode for it to be readily accessible.

What do you mean harm the people by not teaching them? This is not a competition or job training. No-one’s looking for a career path. This is a game, as in method of entertaining people. If there is an easy mode (no rewards), Normal mode (regular rewards), and hard mode (extra rewards), most people get to experience the content, and those who complete the challenge gets rewarded for it accordingly.

fishball.7204:

The people that can’t clear the raid don’t fail because of enrage anyway. They fail because they don’t manage to do the mechanics properly and/or have no idea how to play their class.

SALT did that 1 hour matthias kill a while back which is wayyyy into enrage territory so again timers are not an issue except for a few bosses which have time limiting mechanics such as Gors, Sabetha, Trio, Sloth. Pretty much every other boss you could just full nomads and take 1 hour to kill it yet I don’t see any of you people complaining actually trying to put together a full nomads group to do so.

Yes people do fail a lot because of enrage, and I say that because I have been in several groups that work together, and are doing steady damage, and have the mechanics down, but simply can not keep up after enrage. And I don’t mean “oh we got there once and died”, I mean consistently getting to the enrage point, and then getting wiped.

And getting into a full set of anything is a big part of the problem. Unless you and your group already own the full sets, there is a whole new level of preparation that goes on before even trying the raid. A lot of casual players simply don’t have all this time to just prep for a raid. Let alone schedule in regular play times. People live in different time zones, they have jobs, have kids, got to college, have social lives, and have other interest besides gw2.

Again an easy mode (no rewards), a normal mode (regular rewards), and a hard mode (extra rewards) would give the people access to the content WHILE AT THE SAME TIME rewarding those who have the time to complete the more changing versions of that same content. There simply is no downside to this. When you say you don’t want a tier system you’re saying you want exclusivity on raids, and that’s simply not fair for everyone else who bought the game and simply don’t have as much time to put into as you do.

Assic.2746:

SkinnyT.5382:

I have been playing guild wars since 2006…
Never did I need fall into a META, in order to defeat a boss. Until now.

So you want to tell me that you have never used this website with META builds?
http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki

I don’t buy it.

Never to defeat a boss, or to play regularly no. Only time I ever used that was for farming or speed clears, which is not the case here. If you were to look at my builds in gw1, most of them don’t make any sense. They were made to work with my friends builds which were also kind of crazy. They were effective, and allowed me to play however I wanted, which is the most important thing for me.
Dungeons, UW, FOW, Ugoz, The Deep, DoA, I did them all with my friends and our weird setups. Some places, sometimes, took way more time than they should have, mean while others like UW(revamped) we had it down to a science and our weird team setups and builds were just a quick and effective as the metas at the time.

Just by taking off the time restrictions on the bosses; that alone would allow way more people to participate in the raids (and I say this because I have over a dozen people who have said that to me). If they have 10 hours to spare inside a raid LET THEM! Seriously tell me. How does someone playing through an easier version of the raids, not getting any achievements, not getting as much money, and having a lowered loot table, take away from your already existing challenging experience? It doesn’t.

When you say there should only be one tier/one challenge level you’re taking an elitist stance on this matter. You’re saying that because others don’t spend as much time in the game as you do, they shouldn’t get to experience certain parts of the game either. But guess what? We all paid for this game. A person who plays 3 hours a day/ 7 days a week, should not have precedence over a person who can only play a few hours once a week.

A challenging raid, and an accessible raid are mutually exclusive, BUT with tiers they don’t have to be. Same content, but for different people. It’s a win win, so I don’t understand why are people arguing against it!?

I’m a little late on this but I figured I’d leave my 2 cents. (*note I did not read all previous pages either)

I agree with OP, and the reason for that is solely due to the time restricted bosses. If you don’t get them killed in a certain amount of time, they get a 200% dmg boost? Basically you kill it in time or you lose completely. Now before you give me one of the ever so eloquent “GET GUD!” responses, hear me out.

I have been playing guild wars since 2006; yes I’m one of those gw1 players blah blah blah. But see, the thing about this franchise is that it’s always been inclusive. And what I mean by that is that so long as you had the time, and you were the right level, and had the right level gear, and had a group of people (who worked together and knew the mechanics), you got to play every piece of content available. Well that was until now. Now with these huge timed increases of damage, your time and effort is not enough, working together and learning mechanics is not enough. Now you need all that, PLUS specific sets of armor, weapons, and accessories in order to put out a specific amounts of damage, or do specific things. Never, and I mean NEVER, in a decade of playing this franchise have I ever needed to change my equipment, in order to play a part of the game. Never have my equipment outweigh my teamwork and mechanics knowledge. Never did I need fall into a META, in order to defeat a boss. Until now.

You can say “Well SkinnyT, just go get the equipment then!”, but the problem with that is that you now pigeonhole people into specific professions and roles. Chances are that if you are casual player you don’t have the time to acquire all these very specific armors sets to raid with, specially if you have multiple characters. This means you can never step in, on a whim and fulfill a role needed in the team. It yet another restriction.

Listen, I get it people want to be “hardcore” and what not, and that’s fine. It’s fine to want to be challenged. What is not fine, is to kitten on other people for wanting to be able to experience ALL of the content that they have paid for. No one is saying “NERF!”, they are saying “Make a more accessible replica of it.”. Adding difficulty tiers to raids does not take away from players who want the extra challenge. It simply allows everyone to experience it.

OP here, sorry for a super late reply.

Yes, he was with the group. As you walked into the area, him, Marjory, Taimi, Rox, Braham, and Kasmeer were together as a group. You’d then move on a little further to activate a cut-scene, at which point the group see new survivors. Then when you choose the only available path for the beta, he would join you and the other (sylvari) pact survivor in the search for the Pale Reavers.
We all know that the main group was not in the ships, and that they were going to help in the new area. So when the player get’s to the new area, it should be just the main group and the player. However we find Canach there with them and it seems weird, specially since he’s rather quiet through that whole instance.
Countess Anise had indeed ordered him to join The Pact, as others have mentioned here, but he never became part of the main group. So because he was part of The Pact, it wasn’t weird when he showed up randomly in the end of Living Story 2. However the Commander (aka the player) is also second in command in The Pact, so having an npc, specially a Sylvari (considering the situation), just join his group without a word or explanation doesn’t make complete sense.

Sorry if this is not the right place for this feed back, but I don’t see a BETA sub-forum so I think this is the best place to put it.

~/~SPOILER ALERT~/~

As I played the demo story I noticed that Canach was part of my npc team. Now I don’t know if this is exactly how players will start the story in HoT, but as is, there’s a disconnect as far as Canach’s involvement goes (a similar thing happened during Caithe’s Reconnaissance Squad). Yes, after the The World Summit, during LS: S2, Anise told him to join the Pact. However when a player starts the demo story instance, Canash is simply there and is already a part of the group, which doesn’t make total sense. This can be confusing specially for players who didn’t play the LS1 and/or didn’t catch Countess Anise’s dialogue during The World Summit instance. Even though I know who he is, and know why he is there, I still felt that his presence in the instance and in the group was very un-organic.

I believe the simplest solution is to have Canach be introduced again, sort of speak, when the story instance starts. Have him come to the player and say something like "Hello Commander. Due to the current blow to The Pact’s troops, I’ll be joining your team. ", then have him and the player walk over and meet up the rest of the group. Or perhaps have a “Scout” tell you about him joining, or have him mention on the dialogue options that lead to the instance. So far when Canach shows up as a NPC aiding players, he seem to just be there. I believe that he needs to be given a clear reason as to why he’s part of the team. Even if that reason is simply because Countess Anise told him to.

OP here;
I feel some people took this thread in the wrong direction. I didn’t want to talk about the traits. The builds, specifically in terms of traits, will always change. What you do and don’t do behinds the scenes is a whole different thing. As a matter of fact I actually like the traits given to the Chronomancer, I feel they are good in terms of functionality and application.

The issue I’m having and would like to discuss is directly with the skills themselves. When I play my mesmer I feel very limited in what I can use effectively in pve. Specially in high difficulty settings, like high level Fractals. For instance, mesmers lack AoE; they barely have any right now. That was addressed (sorta) with the wells, but they are all utilities. When it comes to a 1v1 sort of setting I find that I can use all my weapons effectively. However when we get in larger groups, whether I’m alone or with others, my weapon choices are drastically reduced. I had hopes that the expansion would give some new skills not only to refresh my game play by adding some variety, but also to address the fact that we’re incredibly dependent on our shatters, and in PVE they are not reliable. Like apharma.3741 mention, in many situations, taking the a mesmer into battle is not even worth it because other professions do a much better job a damage and support.
Here I am looking at the reaper and dragon hunter with their skills (many of which hit multiple targets) and I’m just thinking wtf? I don’t mean to say that the the skills for the shield are bad, but we deserve to have the rest of our bars filled, and the rest of out issues addressed.

First off, I just want to make clear that I think that the mechanic of the chronomancer is actually really cool. The ability to control time; slowing/stopping enemies while speeding up allies, meanwhile we also get to replay/reset out skillbar (to a certain degree). We basically help to control that battle and that sounds really fun.

That being said. TWO skills? Really? The dragon hunter get 5 skills, plus a revamp of their current special feature (which practically gave them 3 more action skills). The reaper gets 10 because they get an upgrade of their current special feature too. From the trailer we can tell that rangers will get at least 5 (since they are getting the staff), and the engineers will get 5 as well (from hammer), plus others for their F5 slot. The elementalist will get at least 8 new skills regardless of what weapon they get, and they might even get more if their specialization is another type of element.

The reason I call it the " back hand compliment" of specializations, is because it practically says " hey, here’s the ability to increase your recharges and even replay skills, so now you can use all your old skills even more often!" All the other professions are getting all these new, fun, flashy skills and it feels like we’re getting the short end of the skill stick. Although my mesmer is my main character, I’m much more interested in seeing/playing those new skills the other profession are getting, than I am at learning my main character’s new specialization. And that’s a sentiment I share with many others. The bottom line is we need more skills, it’s only fair.

It is not beyond imagination to give mesmers a dagger. Skill 1 could be similar to the scepter, where the 3rd hit summons a clone, while the first 2 could apply a condition. Skill 2 could be something like “Dancing Daggers: Summon illusionary daggers that surround you blocking attacks for a short time; Click again to send the daggers flying around you causing damage, crippling, and bleeding foes around you”. Skill 3 could be a bouncing dagger that summons a phantasmal rogue at the last hit, and stealths you. Depending on how you want the specialization to work the dagger could have slow condition on its skills. And this is just one simple option, thought of in 20 min. There are many other option that can be fun and flashy like the other skills released for the other professions.

Now, I’m not completely out of touch with reality. I know that the expansion has a deadline and that adding a new weapon takes time with all the art, and the balance. I just hope that this issue is taken seriously, and into consideration, and that in maybe a month or two after the expansion comes out there is an updated to the mesmer. So that way mesmers will be at par with the other professions (in terms of skills). Otherwise it’s just gonna be another year or two or more before we maybe see anything new for the profession again. Which is simply not fair.

Xuro.5861:

Morfedel.4165:

An acquaintance of mine got on, in two weeks got an abyssal dye and a precursor, decided he was bored, and stopped playing.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing since beta and have never touched a precursor. So… yeah, luck happens. Sucks, but what can you do about it, other than live with it or rage quit?

I’m a PHP developer. When a system doesn’t work as intended, or there is a better alternative, I improve on my initial designs. That’s why my framework has developed quite well over the past 7 years. I give my customers 2 years long free upgrades incase I find ways to improve their initial product. All part of the service I offer.

ArenaNet however decided that RNG + Skinner Box is the way to go and to never improve upon this system (adding new currency is a band aid at best).

A well developed system would increase the droprates over time for a person if they have been unlucky for months/years to ensure every player has their ‘happy’ moment. An even better system would be one that rewards actual effort instead of pressing 1 once and resulting in bronze completion with the same item rewards as gold completion. This however is far more expensive to develop & maintain so they choose the cheap version instead.

I’ve been playing since Guild Wars 1 and while I’ve sadly been getting older over these past 10 years (wtb age reduction skill) I’ve also seen well respected companies turn to crap due to financial restraints setup by investors/management. This case is sadly no different.

I still play for about 5 minutes per day as I keep a slight sense of hope that someday they will understand that the skinner box & rng won’t work forever as content but it’s also fading a bit more every day seeing the current developments.

This entire ‘event’ for the next beta only reconfirmed why I decided to become inactive in the first place.

edit: spelling.

This post here explains the problem beautifully.
Bottom line the RNG in game doesn’t work. It’s an unfair and inadequate way of getting people into beta. How about this for a system? First off, how about being transparent about thing? Just come out and say “Hey, we’re looking for X amount of people for this beta.” Then make the portal item something that any player can get after some amount effort. Lets say you can get it if you trade in 2500 Bandit Badges for example. Now instead of making that item a sure entry into the beta, make it an entry ticket (since we know that they can track people who get the item). Oh so what do you know? Now there is a list of interested players, who are also all active. Now if they get more entries than the X amount they needed, THEN they do a random draw, which unlike the game’s RNG, would be fair because it would pick everyone at one time from a fixed poll of entries.
Now for those who like to argue that there’s no problem with the RNG , or that my example system is no better than the current system. Let’s go back a few months, to when they introduced Firefox Clusters. When that was released everyone was lodging Malchor’s Leap, amoungst them there was me and one of my guildies who played about the same amount of time. Once a day, everyday, I would go to Malchor’s Leap and I would lodge every tree in that zone. At the end I would have 1-4 Firefox Clusters. About 3 weeks in I was talking to my guildie and she said tells me she has more than twice the amount of clusters I have. So I asked her how she got it and she tells me that she just goes to Malchor’s Leap. So I ask her how many times a day does she clear the area, and she tells me that she doesn’t, she just goes once a day to the cluster of trees around the Melandru statue. Turns out she would get at around 6 clusters from lodging only about 6 trees, as oppose to me getting a max of 4 cluster from over a dozen trees (and I mean I seriously never got more than 4 clusters from a whole map clear of trees). See these items weren’t that special, yet there was a significant , and unfair, difference in drop rate between two players who’s in game activity was very similar.

I said it before and I say it again; RNG is broken. And giving people beta access based on it is a slap in the face to ever one who suffers from from the current system.

P.s. I was typing this at work and had to stop a lot so I might have made suggestions other already have but I can’t go back and check all the time.

Oh I’m sorry 1 out of 62 armors for male casters shows some chest and/or abs. Guess it met the quota!

Woah there; this is not The Sims.

I love this look so much, I just wish it was an armor set and not just an outfit.

@mcwurth
I’m aware of the Squad feature’s existence, however being in a squad and in a group is completely different. For example in a squad you can’t tell where other members of the squad are through the mini map.

@MrWubzy
What I meant by currency is something like the Bandit Crests and Geodes. Something that can be physically attained but is not a necessity to keep. I feel that players who actually enjoy Southsun as is, are a rather small (if not insignificant) portion of the over all player population. If I’m correct, it means that to a certain degree there was a waste of resources.
Here’s the thing; in business there is a chart called the Growth-Share Matrix, which was develop to help businesses look at their investments/product lines. There are 4 categories in this chart: Stars, Cash Cow, Questions, and Dogs. Stars means products that require a high amount of resources but they also bring in a high amount of cash. For ANet that would be something like the HoT expansion. A Cash Cow is something that requires low resources but generates a high level of cash, in ANet’s case that would be gem items like armors, etc, or wvw content. Question are things that have used a high amount of resources but are not really making much cash and need to be evaluated, while Dogs are things that don’t really take much resources but also don’t make much money at all, and are often things that are you get rid of. Southsun was a Question. A lot of work went into it but there was never quite that much replay-ability in it. There have been changes done to it but it still not a Star or a Cash Cow. It continues to be a Question, but it now borderline Dog. It could be dropped at any moment and it wouldn’t have a significant effect.
Making Southsun the portal for a raid, and changing it so it’s more like the Silverwastes where there are constant events and a boss at the end; that would increase player attraction, and it would make it a Cash Cow which is what you want all older contents to be.

It just feels like it needs to be said. We need raids, Southsuns needs updates. One hand washes the other; both hands washes the face. This is just an opportunity to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

I’ve had this idea in my head bugging me for some time now, and I thought I better put it down “on paper”.
For a while now I’ve been talking to friends, guildies, and random players around the game and there seems to be a consensus that we need large group content. Now when I say large group content I don’t mean Tequatl, the Evolved Jungle Wurm, and etc. Those are great, but they require a relative large amount of people (too large) , as well as a lot of organization (the Wurm specially); and they are also timed. What I mean is challenging, instanced content, for mid. size groups. A small scale raid if you will.

Here’s what I often find. I log in and there are 10-15 people in guild, and they all want to do something together, because we’re a guild and we’re all friends. Ok let’s do dungeons, a fractal… okay cool but those automatically split our group into smaller ones. We’re not really doing something together anymore. Now if we really want to stay together we have to go to some open world content, which translate into a farm. Not only that, but there’s usually more people there and things scale, and now it’s no longer a guild/team activity it’s a map one. We don’t want to mindlessly farm, or be dependent on random people to achieve something. We want to get together experience challenging content, at our own time and pace, and be well rewarded for our efforts. In Guild Wars we had Fissure of Woe, The Underworld, Urgoz’s Warren, The Deep, The Domain of Anguish, amongst other areas which were challenging and required good team work. Many of them even had exclusive rewards, which made these areas even more rewarding when you did in fact get said rewards.
I don’t know what Hearts of Thorn will bring, but here is what I thought could be done based on what we currently have:

There is a thread about stuff like this. Go on there, be specific, give lots of details, drop the attitude.

I like to bump this thread because the main (more like only) reason I don’t play engineer is because of those ridiculous backpacks. We already have the ability to make our head and shoulder gear not visible, so I don’t understand why we’re forced to show those bags. I tried many times to pick up the profession, but I either have to deal with being bored with a monotonous set of weapons or have to deal with the eyesore that are hobosacks. Two situations that I rather not deal with. To this day I have a character slot waiting for this aesthetic fix.

Race: Human & Norn
Gender: Male & Female
Profession: All

I’ve had this problem since beta, and for the most part it didn’t bothered me till now that I’m trying to “perfect” my characters looks. Basically, the problem I have is that hair styles for Humans and Norn won’t render completely. The reason why it didn’t bother me before, it was because while in the open world or in armor/weapon preview windows, everything looks fine. However when I’m in character creation , using hair-style kit, using total makeover kit, and even in some personal story instance cut-scenes (the ones that just show up to 2 characters while they talk) the hair details simply won’t show. I mentioned this to my guildies the other day, and they had no idea what I was talking about, so I guess it’s either just me or very few people with this issue (sorry I did not read all of this thread to find out)
I have tried changing the screen size, and the video quality but nothing seems to work.
Before it didn’t bother me because if it’s a brand new character, you can always remake it and get a hair you like better, but if you are using one of the kits, and the hair doesn’t load the way you thought it would, you just lose all the gems you invested on the kit.
The attached picture is of a female human with a style where this issue is more prominent. It makes it so you can can barely tell that they are the styles are the same

Proposal Overview
Guild Halls: A place for guild members to gather and socialize.

Goal of Proposal
As someone who has been playing Guild Wars since the first game, I have found that guilds often times like to just gather amongst themselves away from other players. They may want this so they can create events with no interruption, so they can prepare for events such as guild missions, or just to have a place where they can stand around without worry and chat with other guild members, or just sit in silence enjoying the scenery.

Proposal Functionality
I believe that the new guild halls should function similar to the guild halls of Guild Wars 1 where they are located in a place outside of the regular maps. They should be different from one another, and acquiring them should cost the guild money. However I believe the similarities should end there.
Because of the way GW2 is set up I believe guild halls would be better off as as only social places/homes. They would be used to socialize and it will also serve as gathering place for activities. By allowing the party size in guild halls to be greater that 5, they can also be used as set off places/entrances to future actives such as gvg and large raids, where large guild parties would hypothetically talk to an npc or use a scroll to venture into the Underworld to take on Dhuum again. You know… hypothetically speaking.
Also because of the of GW2’s terrain versatility, guild halls can be just as versatile. If used for the the purposes mentioned above, they don’t have to be battle friendly, which means they can be anything. An underwater facility (with aquarium views), a large airship (with beautiful dawns and dusk), a hidden cave system (with pools of crystal sparkling water), anything!

Associated Risks
I believe the idea proposed would have very few risks. One of them being that city maps would become less populated. That however would only be a problem if services such as crafting and mystic forge were to be available in guild halls (which they shouldn’t be).
Another problem would be the implementation of gvg when the guild is not an arena. That would be fixed if we would take a cue from the pvp already available in the heart of the mists. A set of arenas would be available and the guild would be able to pick from them. The guild hall would work like the heart of the mists but for individual guilds.

I opened roughly 500
Pre-patch: ~200 = 200tokens
Post-Patch: ~300 = 300 tokens.

I already have over 3k tokens. This drop rate is ridiculous. Very few people actually enjoys the gauntlet. Making drops only available there and with such a low drop rate, is in no way shape or form good incentive for people to play it.

I opened about 200, and all I got was 200 tokens…

Lord Kuru.3685:

Anet probably had an estimate for how many people would be doing the Gauntlet and set the drop rate from that estimate.

Could it be that the Gauntlet is far less popular than Anet expected, making that drop rate too low for the amount of activity the Gauntlet is actually seeing?

That could be a possibility. I remember last year having to wait most of the time if you wanted to play it, yet this year is empty almost the whole day, even Sundays. The most you ever wait now is like 1 or 2 fights in front of you, and that’s IF you don’t want to walk to another one that’s probably empty. Another reason why people are not doing it is because farming the pavilion is also no where as easy/fun as last year. This years it needs a lot (in terms of gaming) of organization to get a gold rating on the bosses. Not to mention it cost money to simply activate them. If you’re not getting tickets why the hell would you go up there? I mean you loose a lot there, let’s be frank here.
Never the less, even if that was the case we can’t ignore the fact that now it is a problem, and that it needs to be addressed. If the drop rate was set on a prediction, it should also be adjusted to the reality. And also I’m not a game designer I don’t know codes or anything, but wouldn’t an increase in drop rate simply be a matter of a couple number changes? Would it be bad to simply increase, and watch it on the Trading Post and then adjust it if necessary? The patches for that, in my mind at least, would be very small/simple, and barely noticeable.

This is really frustrating. This is the only back piece in the game that I actually really like, yet no one can’t get it. Like people say, it’s just another Final Rest moment. One day (if ever) they’ll just fix the drop rate so everyone and their mother will get it, and never talk about it, they’ll be like “Oh see the item was there all the time. meh”. What really bugs me is that there hasn’t been a word on it. If they say “Hey we’re looking into it/ working on a fix” I wouldn’t care, but come on. I feel there is always lack of communication on what things that really matter.

Rouven.7409:

…I absolutely don’t mind this content, I would only prefer to leave it out of the story or make it a dungeon. The whole intro and visuals where stunning though, very well done.

This is what I’m talking about. If its hard because you need a your guild to get like 25 people to come on do it and coordinate, that’s fine with me. But the story is suppose to be something everyone enjoys, and gets to do, but currently it’s not.

Spendingallmytime.7249:

….
Fight it. Fail or win. It’s about trial and error, and ultimately learning the mechanics. Christ, people are so whiny.

captainteemo.6537:

We killed it in overflow, and it was just a mixture of people talking on TS. … Too bad people give up easily without trying to work out their problems. I’m sure if you keep at it you’ll get it. Like riding a bike.

Ok is not about being “whiny”, or giving up easy. Although challenge is good there is problem when you get in and have no idea what to do. Some of us have been playing guild wars since it first came out in 05, and it has always been that you could hop in and get stuff done. Things were always pretty straight forward. Sure back in gw1 some stuff wasn’t done effectively without other players working together, but even with henchmen you could go out on your own terms/time, and have a go at it, and learn.

The whole thing about killing the trinity was that people, with no structured teams, could just gather up and do an event. Meaning even casual players could partake in large events at any time and be able help, get credit, and get loot from it. But with Tequalt and now these events, players not only have to look outside of the game for instructions, but they also have to be in game at a certain time, and with a certain amount of people , and those people also have to know exactly what to do, and there is usually a lot of player prep before the event, and they usually have to be in the main server or a very good overflow, and that’s for them to just have a chance to give it a real try. I’m not even saying win, I’m saying just a good try.

I’m not in high school anymore. I have 1 day off a week and 1 hour to play the game per day, at night, IF I’m lucky. But if I want to participate in one of these limited time events, I have to be lucky to be at the right place at the right time, and have the right people along side with me to even try the event. I shouldn’t have to switch servers in order to try an event. I shouldn’t have to spend my whole day off hoping from server to server to see if I can find one that has enough people who know what to do so I can just finish an event. I still never killed Tequalt. The hype for it is pretty much gone, so now the chances of getting all the people, and prep work, and time to get it done even once for me are pretty much 0.
So no it’s not whining, it’s being frustrated that all these events are introduced yet, because I can’t devote my life to the game I never get a chance to finish any of them. And that is a problem!

WTB Final Rest 50silver!…
Never mind I got a drop this morning.
DECREASE THE DROP RATE ANET!!!!!

Although the event was broken for along time, a lot of people have done it. The drop rate had to have been extremely low (or buged) for people to not have gotten it. either way, I don’t care about the rarity, I just like the look of it and want it on my mesmer.

I’m having the same problem and it started about a week or 2 ago. I always had over 40fps but now I’m lucky to get 25. I’m also having problems loading in some areas , something I never had before. I was in straits the other day for instance, and there was barely anyone there (so no extra loading or anythign) and a group of monsters made me crash. It was only about 15 of them. I mean I did the final Karka event at max settings with little lag for crying aloud, what’s going on??

You know , the more and more I think about it, the more likely it seem that the drop is from a hidden event/area. Anet doesn’t wanna give out the exact location just like Jump Puzzles; they want the players to find out. People probably have activated the event or found, but they just haven’t gotten the drop since it’s “very rare”. I wanna look into Zapan’s suggested area. Seclusion might be the biggest reason why we haven’t found it yet.

Yeah maybe it’s not a boss from an event. Maybe it’s just from a hidden spot no one has been able to crack yet. Like Oola’s lab for instance. The only way to get in is with the crystal that drops randomly. I cleared that area over 6 times before I was able to get in. I’m not saying it’s in Oola’s lab, but it could be in a similar place.
Really, Anet needs to give us more info this is like a bad joke that’s been on for too long.

Yeah I’m gonna give you 25g if I find the staff alright.

Arosa.2647:

I’ve been following this thread for a long time because i like reading all the theories and the hunting. The other day remembered… what about those large group events on WvW like the big tree on EB? I don’t think WvW people farm those chest and they are lvl 80 :/

But are those rare?

Ok so how about this. I was looking at achievements list for no reason and I see a “Bosses” section. I look at it and one of the achievements is called “Kill the Hydra Queen”. Upon looking into it (on wiki) not only is this one of the few events that give a glorious chest, but that boss is RANDOM, which could be the reason we haven’t seen the staff drop. If I’m correct that’s a pirate boss. Her name is also Admiral Taidha Covington, so someone took the time to nick name her hydra queen. And where did we use to find Hydras? In Ascalon, along side, none other then gargoyles. O.O
A rare pirated boss, with an ascalon related nick name. Maybe she’s the one that we should be farming. Or maybe I’m just too tired and should go to sleep. Anyway it’s worth a shot.

If it’s for gathering and maybe doing something in a big groups, wouldn’t it be better to go for a server with low population so that when people do visit you can actually all be together?

I won’t read the whole thread but I hate Trahearne as well so I figured I would post why.

The reason I hate him, is because of his voice over. It’s extremely monotone; he’s suppose to be a plant but he sounds like a robot. And emotionless robot. The dialogues lacks a bit in personality too but the voice over just kills it completely.
I also don’t like his look. As a main character in the story line, I feel he’s not memorable enough.
I do think that if he had a better voice over, with more emotion behind it, he could have made a much better character to interact with.

I say we raid Anet’s headquarters and demand a location for the staff drop!

Yeah I don’t think it’s from Fractals. Just because it doesn’t make much sense to have added it to the game before we cloud even look for it. Not saying fractals is not one way to get it though. Could there be a boss that shows in both fractals AND on the outside world?

I have a question. Since all we know is that “it drops from a big chest”, do all big chests drop max level armor? Let’s take the The Shatterer, does his chest ever drop max level items for people under lv 80? I never got anything much higher than the area’s level, and since Final Rest is max level I wonder if it would drop from a chest below lv80. If those lower level chest don’t drop max level stuff on a regular basis, we can pretty much cancel all but 4 areas in the game.
Now everything seems to indicate that it drops from the chest at the end of the Zho’Qafa Catacombs event chain, since is a pain to finish and it pretty much can’t be done alone. But then I wonder. That chest is big but doesn’t seem as big as say the one from a dragon minion. Since it’s a rare drop that can’t be crafted, and seems to come from just this one specific “big chest”, I would expect it to be one of the biggest.
Have any of us explored Frostgorge Sound enough to know that the rare boss with the big chest is actually not there?

This is just extremely frustrating. Some of us really want this staff but barely have time to play. Saying that it drops from a big chest is like saying it drops from a boss; it doesn’t really say anything other that it’s in the game. If you say it comes from a specific boss or a specific dungeon, it lets people work for it without having it all be in vein. We’re all here now looking to do this “pain in the butt” chain presuming that’s where the staff drops, but for all we know that “big chest” is on another area across the map, on another place where someone or something died. Assuming the name of the staff is directly related to it’s location. It could also just be from a completely different event that we never finish because it’s bugged halfway, and we don’t know any better.

The good thing about gw1 was that we knew where the drops were. If you wanted Duhmm’s Scythe , you knew you had to kill him, and if you didn’t have time to farm him you knew other people were doing it and they could sell it so you could work on getting money to buy it instead. Same thing if you wanted an Obsidian Edge.

I don’t care if the drop rate is extremely low, as long as I know with certainty that if I’m going to spend the little time I have doing a quest that there is a chance I’ll get the what I want. And if I don’t I know someone will be farming as well and I might be able to buy it from them. I just don’t get the point of this secrecy. At this point it’s more feasible to get a legendary weapon than it is to get this staff. Doesn’t make sense to me.