Guild Wars 2

Knew that was coming. It’s been bugged for hours; I couldn’t log in w/o being autoplaced into spectator mode on random players I never selected. o_0

I think they bugged everything today. Activity: bugged. WvW: bugged. PvP: bugged. Haven’t tried a world event, but not holding my breath.

I can’t enter PvP without being in spectator mode. I am not clicking spectator mode. I do not wish to be in spectator kittening mode.

What did they NOT break in this patch? o_0

I had still received the exact same parse message when I attempted to purchase gems earlier today.

I just now tried again before responding to the thread, & finally managed to make a purchase.

And of course as soon as you submit a ticket, it’s ’here’s an email w/ a program to download & run, btw you have to disconnect your router & do this, that, & the other to run it’.

Kitten that. Your gem store is broken. I submitted the details I have, & I shouldn’t have to transform into a tech wiz just to ask a simple question. If it takes that much, you don’t really need my money that badly anyway.

I can’t buy anything on the gem store, because I cannot buy gems. I cannot buy gems because every time I click through to complete the purchase, I get the following error message (formatted as below):

{
“error”: “parse”,
“type”: “orderMode1:error”
}

Help – I’m trying to give you my money! :p

We ran path 3 both times. 4 hours first time & called it on Lupicus. 5 hours second time & called it on Lupicus. I don’t know what alternate universe people live in, but this content is not ‘easy’ for casual gamers. And, as I acknowledge in my first post – it probably shouldn’t be! Keep hard content!

My point here is not to ask for an Arah nerf, but simply to make the dungeon token requirements of legendaries equitable. It makes NO sense for two (Bifrost & the spear) to be ‘pro gamers only’ when, as I’ve seen w/ my guild, casual gamers can manage to obtain all of the others.

After my second Arah run with members of my guild, I’m up to a grand total of 3 Arah tokens. This is from a combined 9 hours in that kittening dungeon.

Since the first run I have upgraded my gear to a mix of rares & exotics, w/ upgrades continuing towards full exotics. I have a nearly complete set of ‘survival’ jewelry to swap in for higher Armor & Vit on boss fights (looks at Lupicus). Didn’t make a kittening difference.

All of this said (& pages of potential frustrated ranting unsaid), I’m not here to suggest that Arah be retuned. Let the top tier, hardcore players have their dungeon! It’s just as important for them to enjoy the game as any of the rest of us, & this is probably the only spot left in the game that could really serve that purpose.

What I would propose, however, is that the token portion of the two Legendaries which require Arah, Bifrost & the spear, be moved to another dungeon. This would provide a more equitable difficulty between all of the Legendaries.

For comparison:

3 hours in CoF with guild group: 198 tokens.
Tokens/hour: 66.
Projected play time to complete 500 tokens: 7.58 hours

I ran story mode & all 3 CoF paths last weekend w/ my guild – so the same group of casual gamers could run CoF once a night, 5 times a week & have the 500 tokens needed in less than 2 weeks.

9 hours in Arah with guild group: 3 tokens
Tokens/hour: 1/3
Projected play time to complete 500 tokens: 1,500 hours

So the actual calendar time to finish this portion would be kittening long. I can’t even dedicate enough time to do an Arah run except on Sundays, sometimes Saturdays; there is no way I can get through the 3-4 or more hours needed for our casual group on a weeknight (& that’s just to get to Lupicus & wipe a few times there before calling it, & hope oh HOPE to get a few bonus tokens before then – got ZERO for the 5 hour investment yesterday).

So… Bifrost is approximately 200 times better than any other Legendary (& note that’s just the play time, not calendar time)? o_0

I understand that Legendaries are not an ‘every player should have one’ item – but as it stands, I CAN earn every Legendary except Bifrost & that spear just continuing on w/ my guild. I doubt there’s a plan to move all of the tokens to Arah, so the alternative to provide an equitable difficulty would be to move the tokens for Bifrost & the spear to other dungeons.

(P.S. Yes we’ve read guides, yes we have people who’ve gotten past Lupicus before, & really how the KITTEN do people dodge every single thing as the answer to Lupicus; is there a hack being used to have an ever-full endurance bar or what?!)

Yeah, no. Pretty much undoable solo now. Target 1 vet in the cy, tag it, 15-20 things run at me. Meanwhile a steady stream of Pact forces run in 1… by 1… by 1., & die… & die… & die, w/o lifting a finger to fight as I’m standing right there.
If it’s meant to take a 5-man group, that’s fine – just label the quest [Group]. If it’s actually meant to be soloable, then stop bugging the kitten out of stuff. Geez.

I stand corrected.

However, given that the first non-purchased masterwork recipe for chefs is at skill 125 (vs. 50 for other crafting classes), I still maintain that this was not a well-considered move. A higher number of crafted items of any level would have provided a more equitable challenge across all of the crafting skills.

Chefs do not have masterwork recipes. Chefs therefore cannot fulfill the monthly crafting requirement.

Chefs, apparently, are no longer considered crafters. Odd how crafting boosters work for them, & they use the crafting UI & all. Hmm. Strange. sigh

And I’ll mention this ‘fancycache’ thing to the tech friend who’s fixing this for me, thanks.

Re: SSD drive – looking around a little (Newegg, Amazon), it seems I’d pay twice as much for half the capacity. Afraid I can afford neither.

I’m leaning towards a WD Black 2TB. It’s at the top end of what I can afford, but maybe it’s worth it?

My hard drive is dying, so I’m going to be replacing & upgrading that in the next week or so. The question is whether I should just bump up to 1TB (currently at 700ish whatever the proper number is) or go ahead & spring for 2TB. Would this make any difference for running GW2 (w/ everything else being the same, i.e. speed, cache, etc.) or not?

I’m not very tech-savvy at all, so small words are good. :p

Also, for anyone still confused about the Portal change, a dev post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Change-to-Portal

So no one else is worried about the nerf to stealth? It no longer clears mob agro – so Duplicity is used for nothing other than an extra clone button now I guess? I mean, it was hard enough to get out of agro range before the short stealth wore off anyway, now you’ll always have to run off the leash – or at least, that’s my reading of the note. Anyone able to confirm (still at work here)?

I’m glad some people find this one easy. I’m glad some people are able to finish this one in mere moments, or by playing exactly as they normally play.

I solo a lot. My main is a ranger. I run axe/torch (love the combos) w/ a melee pet. I almost never dodge in regular play because I hardly ever need to – my pet is generally the one taking hits, not me. I also run a warrior who hardly ever dodges (he kills things fast enough so why bother), an elementalist who hardly ever dodges (ditto), & a variety of lower level classes (& at lower levels I find it just not necessary). So no, I don’t pick up this one through ordinary play because I don’t bother to dodge very often in ordinary play – it usually seems like a waste of time IMO.

I also found very quickly during beta that I SUCK at dodging – I am not a twitch player. I can track multiple mobs & coordinate a variety of things simultaneously (harkening back to old school EQ bard swarmkiting pre-automated twisting), but I can’t dodge for kitten.

I understand the principal of utilizing the dailies to ‘teach’ the game. What I find, however, is that it feels like I’m being nudged into playing the game ‘right’ – as if somehow the way I enjoy playing the game is ‘wrong’. I’m not out there constantly meeting death for failure to dodge – in fact, I’ve met more death from trying to get through this kitten daily!

‘Round up a swarm & just dodge’… or, if you suck at it like I do, just die when they all unleash right AFTER you dodge (or right before, whatever). ‘Dodge an archer’; I can’t time it reliably & have to sit there trying & trying & healing & waiting for stamina to build up enough & trying again & finally running the mob off because kitten my health is too low now gonna die. ‘Find something with a slow swing’; I’ve tried with a single melee centaur, the ones with the reeeeeaaaaallllyyyy long projected swing… & maybe get 1 dodge out of every 6 or 7 swings (also done ettins & worms with the same result; in fact, I’m actually worse of all on the worms – which have the slowest wind up). Probably the only things I manage with much success at all is AEs, but I’m having trouble finding enough of those (& they tend not to fire that often per fight).

Additional fun bits of the dodge one: on my ranger, I have to turn my pet OFF to have a decent chance of getting this one, since otherwise the mobs focus more on my pet (I recognize that people who are better dodgers my not have to resort to this). Hmm, ‘teaching’ me to play the game ‘right’ but getting me to disable a major feature of my class? Likewise when trying to do this one on my lowbie mesmer I had to avoid using any sort of clones… which is, um, kinda a big part of what the class is about. Hrm. :/

So again, I’m glad that there are folks who enjoy this one – but I hate it with a deep & burning passion. >/

Not to hijack, but I’m having a very similar issue except that my computer restarts itself immediately – so maybe not an overheating issue? If it’s bad RAM as someone mentioned, how would a totally non-tech person be able to find that out?

I’m having this same issue.

I appreciate the idea of using the dailies to teach the game, but it’s having some unintended consquences.

‘Dodge’ daily on a ranger: mobs attack my pet almost without exception rather than me. Makes it kinda tough to get a dodge credit. I have to turn the pet to passive, & even then mobs will often throw a few hits at the pet that’s just standing there rather than attacking me as I’m pounding on them. Um….

So, here’s a daily that’s requiring me to DISABLE a class feature & run around intentionally playing my class WRONG in order to get the daily credit. Bad.

30ish hours played this weekend. Zero dye drops.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Latorn.4209:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

As long as jumping puzzles are optional, that’s fine, but requiring one as they did with the Mad King fight crosses the line. If they are going to require jumping puzzles to complete regular content, then they should fix things so all players have an equal chance.

I did not consider the MK boss map as a jumping puzzle. All you are doing is dropping down. And I made it so there are MANY paths down.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Noooo! Don’t change what you’re doing! The mad king mini-dungeon layout was fantastic, really spiced it up with the small amount of jumping required. Think of how boring it would be if you just went in and fought him on a flat level :/

Oh I wasn’t saying I was changing anything. I was just seriously surprised that anyone would consider the verticality in that map a ‘jumping puzzle’.

I not only gave up on the Clock Tower (& only tried it a couple of times to say I had – I KNOW what I’m not good at, & have only ever attempted 2 jumping puzzles in the game), I also gave up on the MK dungeon after my 5th time running it w/ (&, sadly, torturing w/ enraged ranting) my guildmates. I died 2 times on that 5th run on just 1 of the jumps, & finally had to suicide dive to the bottom & get rezzed next to the chest.

For those who truly suck at jumping puzzles, yes, this counts. I never found any way to ‘just drop down’ without going SPLAT & having to get a rez (which, honestly, is just humiliating). The worst part is trying to get down to the chest after killing the MK – I’ve earned the reward, but OH WAIT, now I gotta go through the TORTUROUS reminder of how much I SUCK at jumping before I can claim it!

It was not fun for me. I will not do it again. I’ve not been bothered at all that jumping puzzles exist for those who enjoy them, but if this sort of mechanic becomes an integral part of the game such as it was here, I’m out.

Yeah, after running 2 story modes this weekend (CM & TA), both with my 50-55 ranger (leveled a lot over the weekend), I have to say some of these were crazy hard.

Dogs in TA. Too many at once w/ powerful CC abilities. We finally just skipped a pack in an open area rather than deal w/ the fearing.
Bandit (or whatever – swarms of human mobs) in CM. Same issue – 6-7 mobs w/, in this case, knockback just ping-ponging you around the room until you’re dead before you can even do anything.
Flowers in TA – in 1 spot, right before you go into the cavern w/ the spider boss, we were getting 2-shotted by flowers… someone come in to rezz, die trying… kill flowers, rezz, flowers respawn & kill the newly rezzed + rezzer before we could even move away… we had to just give up & run back from the entry waypoint.
Final group in TA – bindrushing should not be the way to complete an encounter (& the trash in AC story involved a lot of that, too).

That only 1 boss fight is mentioned here as ‘too hard’ should say something about the current encounter tuning.

(OTOH, I found the TA spider guy insanely hard at first, but after a wipe or 2 we nailed the strat & it was a fun fight.)

Some good ideas here. I would only say that the 1k WvW kill should have an alternative at both phases for those who simply do not want to partake in WvW.

Morrigan.2809:

Between my husband and me we have jewelry, tailoring, leatherworking and weaponsmithing at 400.
As we lvled we outfitted each-other in full gear, that we crafted. It is not hard, it is not a grind and it is very rewarding.
All we did was play the game, gather what you come across, salvage whites and vendor blues and greens. At 80 salvage yellows and any exotics you don’t want yourself.
We sold mats we didn’t need, supplied eachother and we have the satisfaction of wearing our own gear made to our specs. Working on our exotics now.
We love crafting in this game.
I recently started crafting on my alts as they level as well- I can’t imagine not crafting.

The incredible disparity in experiences between what this player encountered & my own (& that of some of the others posting here) really leads me to wonder what the kitten is going on.

I can NOT keep up my crafting. I ‘just play the game’, save everything I need, break down ALL whites, use money from selling blues & greens to buy more mats – nope, still not enough mats or silver to craft what I need & OH LOOK now I’m 5 levels higher & into another tier of stuff that I still can’t make anyway! GAH!

I can understand those who make a ton of silver playing the market & fund their crafting this way – I wish I had that skill (& yup, I’ve read & watched plenty of guides, but there is a good reason I’m not working in the financial sector IRL – I SUCK at this stuff!). But that some people can just wander around & have sufficient mats & silver just rain down upon them – I simply cannot comprehend how this is possible. Is there a secret ANet RNG code attached to every account, & I just got stuck w/ one of the cruddy ones? /tinfoilhat :p

Example: This weekend I went farming in a zone just below my level (50 at the time, was the 40-50 zone just east of Ascalonian Plains, I forget the name). Harvest, harvest, harvest, do the hearts & stuff while I’m there (for silver & cloth/leather scraps drops & white item salvages). By the end I had… not enough wood, not enough leather, not enough gold ore, not enough iron ore, not enough of the inscription mats, BARELY enough silver to buy what I needed to get 2 of the 4 crafts up that I needed to equip myself (& seriously cut into my level 60 training manual savings fund at that – & this is even after selling the cooking mats that I don’t use), & OH YEAH now I’m level 55 & need MORE mats to level up the skills for a whole new tier!

So – kitten it. The only game I’ve seen that really got low level crafting right was EQ2 (after one major revamp & a few retunings) – you could get your mats w/o outleveling yourself, craft w/o outleveling yourself, & (w/ enough gathering time invested to get rare mats) get some really good leveling gear out of it. Every other game seems to run into the same problem I’m encountering here, where it’s just insanely difficult to keep up for many players (& I really want to get that secret ANet RNG code the lucky ones have! ;p )

I’m really enjoying the game, but feel that I’m leveling far too fast. I outlevel gear before I can get enough drops (or coin to buy on the TP) to even craft it, & of course the crafting itself levels me even further. Ack!

I think an optional toggle (defaulted to ‘on’ of course) for xp would be great addition to the game, & allow those who enjoy a more laidback gaming experience to progress at the slower rate that we prefer.

Kessex Hills – Ol’ Stinky. No NPC present to start the challenge all weekend on Crystal Desert.

Same, but logging in (like, to post here) proved it hasn’t been changed. The originating email matches verified ANet address (the one I used to register my game purchase), so I’m wondering whether a) something internal is kittened, or b) they had a bunch of failed attempts which generated these warning emails. /worried

I’ve quit doing WvW because of this. I don’t play a game to sit around doing nothing – that’s what work is for. :p