Guild Wars 2

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I definitely agree that in-game world boss availability messaging is something that should be implemented and it’s something we would like to do.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about map completion is the abundance of things to do in any order I wish. Events could sort of have this nature if we showed them map-wide. But even telling players about events that are across a single map can be tricky business depending on the nature of that event. A number of events can be completed well within the time that it would take to travel to it from even the nearest waypoint. Yet a good argument for showing them anyway would be a map such as Dry Top or the Crown Pavilion, wherein you might care about the state of the events even if you don’t plan on participating in them.

Do you think that showing all of these events makes the map feel cluttered? Would it make finding the information you care about more difficult?

I would love to be able to see events across the whole map. Sometime I zone in, think the whole place is dead, and then quit. If players knew what was going on, I think they would focus more. Perhaps a simple icon to indicate where an active event is would be a good solution. Once you get closer to the icon, it becomes a big orange circle, or whatever event indicators are normally associated with it. This would be especially useful in maps like Dry Top, that depend on how many events are completed within a limited time.

I also think it would be fantastic for there to be a boss timer in-game. I would love to fight more bosses, but I find myself averse to using third-party sites or applications to find out when they will be available (make it feel less like an adventure and more like a job). Let players really see how much there is to do! We might better notice when you add new events to existing zones too (whatever happened to that promise anyways?)

Hrmm. Well, those are good enough reasons, I suppose. Can’t say I agree with them completely though, especially the no XP aspect. We still need it to earn skill points for items/any skills we haven’t already unlocked. It also seems like daily kills aren’t awarded because of the whole no-XP thing as well, while other things, like reviving still awards XP and credit towards the daily. And honestly, farming the story doesn’t really seem any different than farming the same events over and over again. I will agree that it is good to keep players in the open world, but I think the design strategy could use a little tweaking.

While only a minor issue, I have noticed that the current living story instances do not award XP, progress in most dailies, or any loot for killing enemies. Is this a bug or is it intentional?

The reason that I ask is because I was going through some personal story chapters with a low level character, and I was able to loot defeated enemies and make progress toward completing dailies, as well as earning XP.

I feel that stripping those features away from story instances makes the play experience less rewarding, and it punishes individuals who choose to sit down and play through the story as opposed to event hunting.

Is there a reason for the change in this design philosophy? What does everyone think?

Your advice pretty much sums up the reason why I won’t be attempting this content anymore. When Guild Wars 2 first launched it was supposed to be about providing a game that people can pick up an play for an hour or 2 at any time of the day and enjoy it. When I find myself logging on and having to wait 20,30… 90 minutes just to play with other people and fail, receiving a 90c compensation, I have to wonder what happened to the whole “play your way” approach.

Yes, I know the rest of the content still exists, but nobody is playing it. The new content is disappointingly inclusive to the hardcore/elite audiences. I am perfectly willing to learn how to play the encounter, but I also despise it when developers force their players to use external tools in order to succeed at their content.

Essentially, I am one of the disheartened players and unless ANet offers something as an alternative to this, I’m done with the game.

BobbyStein.2315:

SquirrelKing.8964:

I would like to add that I do not have a low spec machine. I have a core-i7 processor with a radeon 7950 HD and 16gb of ram. My fps was over 40 for the duration of the cutscene. I don’t think it is anything wrong on my end.

What was your latency?

I didn’t have it at the time, but it looks like it runs around 80-100 when I am on Lion’s Arch during peak hours.

I would like to add that I do not have a low spec machine. I have a core-i7 processor with a radeon 7950 HD and 16gb of ram. My fps was over 40 for the duration of the cutscene. I don’t think it is anything wrong on my end.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

This just in, Tybalt died at Claw Island!

Don’t you mean Trehearne voice Clawr Island?

I would say… expect nothing of lasting consequence to happen. That seems to be the majority of LS so far.

I definitely want to see new areas as well. An introduction of new skills, weapons, and dynamic events would be a hugely awesome addition to this game. I feel like we get the story in such tiny bites that I am constantly starving (metaphorically).

Sometime I feel like ANet has given up on Dynamic Events, but I really don’t think they should. We just need said events to have more meaningful effects on the world. Further skill and weapon progression would also give us some new stuff to do. Basically, I want MOAR!

I’m glad to hear from other folks. I’d like to hear from someone at ANet on why this was changed, since the patch notes don’t mention anything about it. It would have been great if the large kite baskets worked as another way to get kite fortunes (which have also become extremely rare since Cutthroat Politics started).

That’s about what I figured, but I just found it odd that there are skritt thieves just sort of moseying around the kite baskets, not doing anything.

Definitely recurring, although next year probably won’t have the same murder mystery to solve.

Well, I don’t know if it makes any difference, but they have said that the next update will not involve mini-games or jumping puzzles, and will instead focus on massive scale dynamic events. One of the devs seemed to hint that it will have something to do with Divinity’s Reach, perhaps a massive rebuilding effort of the collapse.

As far as the RNG stuff goes, they will probably not get rid of it. It is their primary way of keeping items rare and generating revenue. We have already seen steps towards improving the system though, i.e. fortune scraps that can be used instead of a the golden ticket. I hope they continue to improve the system for those of us who have terrible luck, but I doubt it will be completely abolished.

I had a lot of trouble with the high tiers of the aetherblade trials in the most recent update, but there are plenty of other things to do that don’t involve raid-like content. All-in-all, the new content seems to be branching off into more diverse territory, and I think it will only continue to improve.

You have to remember that we are only just beginning to see the efforts of living story after they reorganized to having four separate teams producing content. The end goal is to create deeper, more involving content, so let’s hope we really see some awesome stuff happen in August!

I’m sorry to ask this if it has already been answered, but I was wondering if large kite baskets are intentionally empty? I have only found two of them so far, but at both destinations there were skritt thieves just sort of hanging out next to the large kite. Are they supposed to have stolen the goods? If so, it is not very clearly conveyed and it seems odd that they just stand there with no dialogue or any sort of action like squeeing about shinies before scurrying off.

This is pirate voting, it’s supposed to be a little random.

This really is fantastic. I’m really enjoying the combination of movement skills and places to explore. It doesn’t bother me that it will end eventually because we are getting something new in 2 weeks!

It’s funny, at first I thought that this was a new post. I read Colin’s quote about players getting a massive amount of things to do with the core skill bar in the October/November updates and was further boggled. Then I remembered costume brawl. Was that what he was talking about? That didn’t exactly pan out, :P

Could it be a July 4th thing? They do happen to be red, white, and blue!

I tried this with guildmates tonight. We were all pretty excited, but gave up after about six attempts on Frizz. We got to the last laser field part every time, and every time members of the group would get the pull-confuse-laser field combo. Pulls would be fine if the golems couldn’t be invulnerable. Invulnerability would be fine if they couldn’t pull. With both of those, having to dodge lasers, pay attention to conditions, and try to rescue fallen party members, it is a bit of a sensory overload.

I immediately thought she was a villain. She’s probably an undercover Canthan trying to undermine the Bash.

I was wondering earlier if this was put in place because of what people have been complaining about with the ticket system (i.e. entirely RNG). Perhaps there is a 1/100,000 chance of getting the wings, so if you are so entirely unlucky, at the very least you would be able to turn in all of those candies.

I just wish there was something else we could do with the candy, such as recipes, or other rewards that could be earned using jorbreakers. That would at least make things more interesting.

Just to clarify what my situation was:

I was a thief with dagger-dagger and a short-bow for my second weapon set. The NPCs frequently died before I could try to pick off one of the hammer Aetherblades, after which I was swarmed. I did my best to dodge and evade, but once I got caught by one hit I was stuck in a knockdown cycle for about thirty seconds without any way of getting out. I know if I had the right skills I could have avoided some of it, but they were knocking me down with regular attacks, not flashy wind-up skills. Even if I had all of the skills to avoid/mitigate knockdown effects I would have still been caught in it once they were all on cooldown.

I just hope my feedback leads to tweaking of this specific enemy’s skill, to either make it occur less often, or make the wind-up more obvious for the purposes of evasion. I loathe mechanics that take away control of your character, but am willing to accept them if they at least seem fair.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

All areas of the game except Orr have kills, veteran kills, and event completion daily achievements. If we want players in Orr more often, it should be included in the dailies like the other areas.

This is exactly what we need to do to get people into these areas. Create a few more specific dailies. Maybe even something like, “Capture the Temple of Lyssa”, “Lead the northern assault on Orr”, etc. I think dailies would be an excellent way of focusing players in certain areas, but as they are right now they pull people away from high level areas.

A couple of weeks ago my guild, which is all of five people, were attempting to do some of the meta events in Orr, but it was just a bit too rough. There was literally no one else in the zone, so it was all up to us. We would make it about halfway through events before getting pushed back, and while I enjoy a challenge, I was frustrated with the lack of other players.

As for Southsun; we may have been given a few more things to do, but it still feels extremely thin on content. The rewards for the meta event are the most boring skins in the game. Considering that there is a huge island, there is actually very little to do in the water. Can’t karka swim? We still have no real answers about their origins either. That’s just me ranting though, :P

They could win by allowing for 1-5 people in an instance…

I can confirm this. Knockdown is bad enough as it is. I was stuck between two of them just repeatedly being bludgeoned. It made me chuckle a little, and then I thought, who designed this?

I haven’t noticed any changes in drop rates. In fact, I have sometimes been getting as many as two dragon coffers off of one hologram mob, which is better than what I was getting yesterday. Have you tried farming in higher level zones? That’s what I’ve been doing.

I was so excited about this even this morning until I actually logged in. It had none of the awesomeness of the Halloween or Wintersday events.

First, I saw Lion’s Arch reskinned. Okay, I thought, this looks pretty neat. Now, what is there to do? I go to the nearest NPC who tells me a few things, but is then cryptic about other things, so I have to ask every NPC about what there is to do, just so i have an idea of where to go.

Then I go to try a game of Dragon Ball. That was kind of fun. Nothing amazing. The reward for winning also sucked. One zhaitaffy… really? I remember getting more from the competitive events in previous holidays. Also, is zhaitaffy the only new thing? There are no new crafting components like the snowflakes or chattering skulls?

Then I look for pinatas. They keep getting bashed for I can get to them. What the kitten? Shouldn’t this be like the pumpkins or snowmen from before?

After attempting to find effigies, which are summarily destroyed before I can even TELEPORT to them, I gave up in frustration. How am I supposed to do anything? What events are there to really participate in? We have Dragon Ball, which was fine, but other than that there doesn’t really seem to be anything unique about this event. I don’t have the money to put into Moa Racing, nor do I see how that even fits into the Dragon Bash theme, so I don’t really consider that much of anything either.

Ultimately, this has been a pretty big disappointment. It has really started off with a whimper. It feels rushed, buggy, and just poorly thought out. Has anyone seen the ((DELETE ME!!!)) achievements? Stuff like that should not be allowed to make it past QA. Until this point I have been willing to give the benefit of the doubt to ANet, but I fear the quality of the game really is slipping.

It worked just fine on Fort Aspenwood last night for me.

The best use of the living story, in my opinion, would be in introducing new content that we haven’t seen before. I really liked the idea of the first Southsun event because we got a new zone to play around in, and we also got to establish the encampments around the island, which still exist today. That felt like we really changed the world.

Bringing that out over a scale of several weeks would be very possible, and I think it would be great. Implementing new zones, dungeons, weapon types, vistas, points of interest… anything at all through some sort of living story activity would make people feel like they are taking part in a unique event, but would then have a lasting impact on the world.

Why not have a living story where all the races pitch together to rebuild Divinity’s Reach? Or a living story where we actually start restoring Orr. Or one where we take the fight further north against Jormag. There are so many things that could be done, but it feels like the current stories are at such a disconnect from the storylines originally established.

I have to say, I’m a bit perturbed by the personal “story” instance. What happened to the dialogue we got when we played F&F? He just says generic Sylvari stuff. He doesn’t have a unique voiceset. He just attacks us with shield bashes right at the outset.

As far as the encounter itself goes. I encountered many bugs that rendered it unplayable. First, about half the sound effects cut out so I was no longer able to hear the bombs “ping” or explode. Then, when Canach started putting down new bombs, they exploded on me before they were even visible. How am I supposed to counter that?

This seemed like something someone built in five minutes. I promptly logged out.

Whips would be fun.

Whips would be great. I’ve wanted them in the game ever since I saw the Nightmare Court using them!

Wow, I’m impressed with the turn-around on this patch. I hope we will be seeing Living World updates coming more frequently like this from now on. One month was a pretty lengthy period for the first couple of Flame & Frost segments, so I’m glad to see they have pulled together the know-how/tech to do this on a more regular basis. I’m also glad to have a reason for coming back to Southsun. Maybe we’ll finally find out what drove the Karka to attack us in the first place!?

I’d like to chip in my opinion here.

I tried this dungeon on patch day and got through it with a PUG. We strategized and worked out how to do it all. Tonight, however, I tried it with my wife, brother, and friends (three of whom are experienced raiders/dungeoneers from other MMOs), and we weren’t able to complete the boss fight after many wipes. Everyone in my group was pretty frustrated that we couldn’t finish, especially given the limited time that this dungeon is available.

I personally enjoyed the mechanics of the boss fight, however, I would suggest for future content to implement a casual or easy mode. I always believed Guild Wars 2 was developed for the everyday person (40 hr/wk job), but this was just too rough on my group. My brother really enjoys lore and story, and to be cut off from it after battling our way through the dungeon was extremely disappointing to him. My friends both prefer to play as melee characters, but were quickly pinned by the berserker due to his insta-teleport one-hit suction wave attack. Yes, I know this can be avoided by dodging away, but your out of luck if your endurance is too low, subsequently being knocked down and blasted into a fire aoe that lasts for over 30 seconds, leaving little chance for revival by party members.

Thank you for an awesome dungeon, but in the future, please evaluate your content for the everyday player. It should have been a challenge equivalent to the other story-mode dungeons, not an explorable.

I’m a bit baffled by your post. You basically act like the game is holding a game to your head, forcing you to do dailies, which you don’t have to do, and then you complain about the variety of tasks presented to you. If you are asked to kill mobs in a different zone than the zone you play in EVERY DAY you complain about it. The developers are trying to get you to experience other things, to try the full game they created as opposed to zerging events in Orr.

Thanks for the polite feedback from some of you.

For those who question why I am in such a small guild, it is because it is made up entirely of people I know in real life that I prefer playing the game with (my brother, my wife, and two of my friends). We all have busy schedules, so the idea of committing others to the guild seems disingenuous to their potential ambitions.

I also had the feeling that some events definitely seem do-able for small guilds, but others that require multiple groups would be difficult with only 5 folks. I most definitely read the blog, but I was still left with the question of “what is the minimum guild size for this content?” after reading it, and, as I can see by the replies, many others have been left with this question as well.

It looks pretty interesting. I’m wondering how this will scale for my little 5-man guild. Will we be able to run any of these, or is our guild too small?

I’m pretty sure they have said “no” on this at some point in an official capacity, the main reason being the personal storyline.

I believe this event should be retitled ‘A Dirge of Flame and Frost’…

For those of you who still don’t get the pun, the title sounds awfully similar to George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.

When it’s done, so expect lots of bugs!

Nothing is wrong with you computer. This is called culling, and it is bad for everyone. Oftentimes during large events, important enemies will be culled (made invisible), making it impossible to tell what is hitting your or what you are attacking. The system is in place in order to try to reduce stress on computers and on the server on which you are playing, but it is poorly optimized and we have had yet to hear of a solution being in the works.

It’s sad that I can’t even get items to improve my character with. I am a level 78 thief wearing lvl 70 equipment (or below in some cases). Drops should be frequent enough to keep up with the level curve, otherwise what is even the point of creating content that people will never see.

It just baffles me that there has been no response to this issue. I used to log in for several hours and have a blast, acquire a few dyes, get some new equipment, and run dynamic events with all of the people in my zone. Now… well, there’s no one around so most of the dynamic events are too difficult to finish and I believe this is in large part due to the pitiful drops. After half an hour today I quit. I managed about ten minutes two days ago.

cry I’d like the game I bought back, please.

Wow, just did the Sector Zuhl jump puzzle. Fought the Giant Troll at the end with just one other person, and I got a blue shield. I opened the giant chest to find, tada!, two white items. I contributed tons of damage to the boss and got kitten-squat. Something is definitely wrong with that.

This was done precisely because of the Halloween event. I think many people were frustrated at not knowing when to log on, what would be interesting to them, and what to expect. It gives people time to actually plan a schedule so they can be online with friends to enjoy the events.

Yup, happened to me as well. Just assumed it was a problem with my computer.

Thanks a bunch. For some reason he didn’t render so all I heard was laughing and saw a cloud of smoke. This is much more dramatic!

Norn thief with no speed boosting. When I jumped into the clock face it went to the loading screen and I immediately thought “Oh, crap! Did I fall?”, then I heard the glass shattering and my character appeared next to a huge chest. I cheered and then breathed a sigh of relief that I would never have to do it again. Sort of reminded me of Dark Souls, in a horrible way.

I finally made it as a norn thief. I did have a few people griping about my character’s size, unfortunately, and it actually felt sort of awful. I didn’t know there would be events with timed jumping puzzles when I created my main, yet I am insulted for being a bigger character. Ah well, I will never have to do it again.

Explore the zone south of Lion’s Arch. I’ve seen tons of nodes, including a Rich one.

I would never spend money on this stuff, but I feel really bad for everyone who did. Fronting money for something like this should at least provide you with a reward. So what if everyone who has paid money has Halloween skins? I won’t. The other players who don’t have money for it won’t either. If you’re going to pay money for a sparkle pony, they should give you a sparkle pony.