Guild Wars 2

Sartharina.3542:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

I really don’t think it’s a strange creature to have in the desert. It’s basically an amalgamation of a desert hare and a kangaroo, 2 creatures not uncommon to the desert landscape. Also, someone earlier in this thread argued that they are very illogical beasts of burden, but these are mounts, not beasts of burden. There is a difference between the two. Mounts are meant to be ridden, beasts of burden are meant to carry heavy loads. Considering the PoF mounts are all about mobility and getting to places you normally can’t go, this kangaroo/hare creature fits the landscape and the reason for the mounts’ existence perfectly. Much more than the skimmer does, that’s for sure.

I’d say that a rider can be considered a heavy load – especially if it’s a Charr or Norn.

Absolutely, but that’s not what the term beast of burden means. It specifically refers to an animal carrying heavy loads of cargo, not a passenger. That is called a mount (or riding animal), because you mount the creature to ride it. Cargo cannot mount an animal, it can only be loaded onto it. Personal interpretation aside, words do actually have official meanings and these 2 terms do not apply to the same thing.

Play how you want, right? Both melee and ranged attacks will kill anything in this game, eventually. It’s just that in my experience ranged players usually have subpar performance. Take the gladiator (endboss of the Chaos Fractal), for instance. Practically all of the pugs I have joined kite this boss, running around all over the platform. As soon as the CC bar pops up, everyone dodges away instead of towards the boss, not breaking the bar and dragging the fight out even longer. A lot of those groups wipe. Taking him down costs a lot of time. While a full melee group can take him down in 30 seconds. I’ve tried to get those kiting groups to melee him a few times, and they always go down before he even reaches his breakbar state. There are other bosses where the same things happens (Bloomhunger, for instance; usually takes a lot of time kiting him around, but melee groups can burst him down in no time).

I’m not saying this is the case for OP, but people who favor ranged play over melee are often subpar players, not capable of staying alive even when they range (I’m only conveying my personal experience here). One thing I like about GW2 combat is the synergy between classes, which is also one of the selling points of the game. Going ranged takes that aspect away and the combat suffers because of it. And I’m not one of those players who likes drawn out combat while the enemy could be taken down in 1/10th of the time it takes to kite him down. It’s fine if you want to use ranged weapons, but there’s no rule stating you have to stay away from the enemy to use that weapon. Like the Elementalist poster above said: you can still fight in melee with a ranged weapon, which doesn’t take away from your effectiveness. In fact, with skill synergy it actually improves effectiveness.

Though I’m sure stat choice has a lot to do with this as well. I have the sneaking suspicion that there are a lot less zerkers out there, even in Fractals, considering how long it takes some of them to kill a boss. If ranged is your preference because it improves survivability, consider dropping defensive skills and focus as much as possible on doing maximum damage. At least this way you will be less of a liability on a ranged character. And since it was stated that it’s easier to survive in ranged combat, defensive skills aren’t that essential anymore, right?

I really don’t think it’s a strange creature to have in the desert. It’s basically an amalgamation of a desert hare and a kangaroo, 2 creatures not uncommon to the desert landscape. Also, someone earlier in this thread argued that they are very illogical beasts of burden, but these are mounts, not beasts of burden. There is a difference between the two. Mounts are meant to be ridden, beasts of burden are meant to carry heavy loads. Considering the PoF mounts are all about mobility and getting to places you normally can’t go, this kangaroo/hare creature fits the landscape and the reason for the mounts’ existence perfectly. Much more than the skimmer does, that’s for sure.

bigchunk.5190:

I just can’t bring myself to equip Minstrel’s as healing gear on my black character solely because of the name and the racial history of the word in America. You have to admit, it would be a little strange to do so if you understand the other definitions of the word.

As much as I think you are reaching with your argument, there is a very simple solution for your problem: use the ascended version. It’s called Maklain’s [armor piece]. It has the stats, but not the name you so clearly have a problem with. It solves your problem. ANet will also most likely never change the name so it would be best to leave it at that.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Greatsword didn’t start out very well on a Necromancer at the start of HoT, but for a long while now it is part of the meta builds for both condition and power. I often do Fractals with a Necromancer and GS (when I’m not using ©PS Warrior or condition Ranger) and I have never had the experience that you describe. Not even a single mention of it in all my pug runs.

Machiavell.7396:

Leyline Chromatic Effect – the rainbow chromatic desynchronization effect that leylines have, we don’t know the exact name but we do know it’s appearance (in DS medium leyline armor user NPC has this aura on her and she is the only one who has this effect).

What are you talking about? All leystone armor sets have this effect. My Mesmer has been using a few pieces for more than a year now. Besides, I don’t see the use of adding an extremely rare drop that gives you an aura effect that is already active on much easier obtainable items.

The home instance nodes are accountbound, meaning they appear in all the home instances for all your characters. However, if you farm one of the nodes, it won’t appear in any other home instance for any other character until the daily reset. So if you hadn’t farmed any nodes in your home instance since reset that day and you still didn’t see the nodes, then something’s wrong. If you did farm the nodes, they won’t appear anywhere until the next daily reset.

BurningHeavy.7268:

How? Explain how? Without dps meters community perception is all that would matter. There would be nothing but ele’s and buff kittenes. With DPS meters eles doing 8dps will get kicked because they are bad, while guardians doing 20k dps will be kept around, even tho their class isn’t meta at the current time. This does NOTHING but improve the game.

This does not improve the game, it improves your personal experience. Those are 2 very different things. You make it sound like a dps-meter is essential for raids, but it most certainly is not. Pay more attention to the screen instead of the overlay and you’ll find the less skilled players are easy to spot. This game never needed dps-meters and it certainly doesn’t need them now, definitely not one that shows other people’s dps and gear.

Why we shouldn’t kill Elder Dragons anymore has been made clear in season 3. It destabilizes the magic in Tyria and will lead to an apocalyptic event that won’t end well for anyone in Tyria. We discovered the effects of killing Elder Dragons after killing 2 of them. It’s only logical that we didn’t know of this before. No one documented it and since Elder Dragons rise once in a millennium (or longer) it’s not as if we could’ve observed it before.

Regarding Balthazar’s motivations, expect to learn more about that with the expansion. He only revealed himself in the previous LS chapter. It would be extremely sloppy and unrealistic storytelling if we already knew why he is up to the things he is.

He is wearing the Balthazar’s Regalia outfit in that cutscene.

It spawns right in front of the Melandru Reliquary WP so all you have to do is port there and wait for it to pop up when the power grid has lost its power.

That map is the Ruined City of Arah, where the last chapter of the personal story and the 4 explorable dungeon paths take place. If you look at Cursed Shore, the Promenade of the Gods leads right up to it.

I personally think we might get the portion south of Malchor’s Leap as a new map. Based on the trailer it looks like there’s greenery in the map and that portion actually has a body of water, which is important for life to flourish. And similar as with Arah, the Artesian Waters (where we cleansed Orr with Trahearne and Caladbolg) are right before it. Go beyond the Artesian Waters and you’d end up in that map portion south of Malchor’s Leap. One would think that the cleansing effect radiates out from the source, or at the least goes in a certain direction starting at the source.

Another theory, which I find much more unlikely but not impossible, is that they’re turning the portion south of Arah into a new map. Technically it’s part of the map for Victory Or Death, where you fight against Zhaitan (the part with the circular structure surrounded by water is the Dragontooth Defense, and the smaller part northeast of it (with dragonlike wings protruding from it) is the Elder Dragon’s Lair). It might be that the magic contained in Zhaitan’s body after his fall was released (similar to Glint’s body still containing magic after her death, which was harvested by the Zephyrites), and that is causing the place to come back to life again. But considering it is already an existing (albeit instanced) map, I find this the more unlikely of the 2 options.

DaShi.1368:

Or the new Fractal. We might be getting the Abaddon fractal.

Unlikely, since they said back then, during the election, that the losing Fractal would never be released in the game. It’s possible they’ve come back on that, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

Except we’re talking about strikes on nodes which makes it every five strikes we would get an extra strike for plants and every 100 strikes we would get 7 extra strikes for wood/ore. If this is frequent/regular (the first one perhaps) then so is the rate that it’s at right now.

I don’t know about you, but i tended to get an extra strike every second/third node (and double additional strikes weren’t that rare either), that was definitely frequent enough.
Now i get no additional strikes at all.

And the same goes for me. Extra strikes for plants? How about 2 or 3 extra strikes, for a total of 4? Happened to me multiple times every day. 2 full sets of 3 strikes on wood and ore? At least twice a day. Extra strikes were quite common. Now they are non-existent, even with gathering boosts. The Power of the Mists had a significant effect. Maybe you played on a badly performing WvW server, though mine certainly isn’t in the top and doesn’t have the highest score every week.

Like I said, it’s not insurmountable. I will still keep gathering and I am not annoyed by it. I just think it might be nice to get some ability to build up the same effect in PvE. You know, not leech off our WvW players’ success, but work on it ourselves. I’m not assuming ANet will implement something like that, but I would welcome it.

And yes, the WvW system before megaservers is for me a perfectly reasonable argument against the PvE effect for Power of the Mists. The fact that is was built up in WvW, however, isn’t. The fact that it was intended to bring in people to WvW but failed, also isn’t. You can intent for something, but it will usually take on a life of its own after you release it into the world. And that’s what it ultimately is: not what you intend it to be, but what it comes to mean for the people who use/are affected by it.

Donari.5237:

However, I do want to address the “entitlement” discussion. I can certainly see and mostly agree with those considering this definitely in the area of entitlement. Still, the legal concept of “right of way” comes to mind. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/propertyclinic/8568033/Property-advice-Right-of-way.html Basically if you walk over someone else’s property long enough without them complaining, you create an ongoing right to do so.

This is what I tried to describe in one of my earlier posts (I’m not a native English speaker so I didn’t know what it was called). There is a similar principle when it comes to income earned for a number of work hours over a specified period, and the right one has to that even if an employer decides to give you less work hours (under certain circumstances, of course). The basic principle is that when something becomes common and dependable, and is suddenly taken away through no fault of your own, you can invoke this right or an equal compensation.

Like I said, I can live without Power of the Mists. But throwing around the term entitlement is taking it too far. ANet could’ve thought about the fact that PvE players had a reliable system for years that affected them too, and not just WvW players. It’s not that PvE has the right to said effects, but taking it away certainly does affect them. Which leads me to my following point.

Ayrilana.1396:

The loss of that bonus will have a minimal impact on node farming.

No, it won’t. Or more correctly, it hasn’t. I am a frequent node farmer and have been for the entirety of the game (I’ve played since launch on an almost daily basis). There is a definite decrease in the yields, as I’ve tried to explain in one of my previous posts. Nodes have 3 strikes. With Power of the Mists I was able to regularly harvest a node again after the first 3 strikes, for 1 or 2 strikes, and sometimes even 3. This was not a rare occurence but a regular one. Even with the guild boost active I have had no extra strikes since they released the patch that removed it. I noticed it within a few days, which is indicative of how many times extra strikes occured before.

To remove a system that affects 2 game modes but only introduce an alternative for 1 of those game modes seems illogical. Regardless of megaservers or initial intent, it has grown into a reliable effect.

Ayrilana.1396:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Ayrilana.1396:

Susy.7529:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zaraki.5784:

Because it was always existed before, hence it’s a loss now (that applies to WvW too obviously).

As was already stated, it’s a bonus from the actions of the WvW population. With its removal, buffs were added within WvW to compensate.

So a PvE only player get only a loss from it? I mean Zaraki is right on that, it was always existed before.
It’s like someone giving you X€/month since you were born just because your neighbourg is working hard, nobody ever complained about that. Then one day it suddenly stops, wouldn’t you complain for that? I’d surely do.

That would be entitlement.

Actually, no. If we use the real life comparison of receiving a sum of money for an extended period of time, it can be viewed as a source of income. It’s something people have come to depend on and that dependence is a valid argument. Changing the source and taking away the monetary benefit would mean messing with people’s income and that is very much a valid reason to raise objections to the change in real life. That’s not to say people will and need to be compensated, but raising objections is a very natural and understandable thing to do in such a situation. Usually the entitlement comes from those who did not depend on the benefit in the first place and therefore don’t mind if it’s there or not.

As it is I’ll probably get used to the diminished node farming results and it’ll turn into one of those “the good old days” things. All I know is that I haven’t had the option to farm a single node a second time for 1, 2 and sometimes even 3 extra strikes, which was a regular occurence before they removed the buff.

The way I see it, they removed a buff that was in effect in WvW and PvE. They added compensation when playing WvW, but not for PvE. If it isn’t meant for PvE then they shouldn’t have put the effect there in the first place, so that’s not a valid argument anymore. In my opinion PvE should’ve had their own compensation. That, to me, is just simple logic. I know that WvW hasn’t received love or updates for a long time, but that doesn’t mean others have to “suffer” for it.

It’s still something that you didn’t earn. Whether someone depends on it or not doesn’t change that. The benefits of the power of the mists is also not the same as the benefits that those who less fortunate receive in order to get by. You’re comparing two different things.

Yes, the chance of a bonus strike has obviously gone down but it can still happen.

Again, this last paragraph is another example of entitlement. It was a design choice to include it across both game modes but megaservers likely contributed to it being obsolete.

Explain to me the logic of putting an added PvE effect to something’s solely meant for WvW. It’s not as if that happened by accident. And I’m not saying PvE should just be given something free of charge. They could’ve added something that’s entirely unrelated to WvW, a buff that PvE players had to work for themselves so they at least could benefit from a system that has been there for a long time, but without having to rely on other game modes for it. It’s not the fault of PvE players that they could benefit from Power of the Mists. That was a completely intended effect ANet added to it. They had 1 system with 2 effects. They removed the system but only compensated for 1 effect. In principle this makes no sense.

Like I said, personally I’ll get used to it and I won’t stop farming nodes because this has changed (I still need the materials, after all, regardless of any of this). But I can very much understand why people object to it. And within the logic described above and the fact that it should be earned and not given, I don’t see the entitlement here.

Ayrilana.1396:

Susy.7529:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zaraki.5784:

Because it was always existed before, hence it’s a loss now (that applies to WvW too obviously).

As was already stated, it’s a bonus from the actions of the WvW population. With its removal, buffs were added within WvW to compensate.

So a PvE only player get only a loss from it? I mean Zaraki is right on that, it was always existed before.
It’s like someone giving you X€/month since you were born just because your neighbourg is working hard, nobody ever complained about that. Then one day it suddenly stops, wouldn’t you complain for that? I’d surely do.

That would be entitlement.

Actually, no. If we use the real life comparison of receiving a sum of money for an extended period of time, it can be viewed as a source of income. It’s something people have come to depend on and that dependence is a valid argument. Changing the source and taking away the monetary benefit would mean messing with people’s income and that is very much a valid reason to raise objections to the change in real life. That’s not to say people will and need to be compensated, but raising objections is a very natural and understandable thing to do in such a situation. Usually the entitlement comes from those who did not depend on the benefit in the first place and therefore don’t mind if it’s there or not.

As it is I’ll probably get used to the diminished node farming results and it’ll turn into one of those “the good old days” things. All I know is that I haven’t had the option to farm a single node a second time for 1, 2 and sometimes even 3 extra strikes, which was a regular occurence before they removed the buff.

The way I see it, they removed a buff that was in effect in WvW and PvE. They added compensation when playing WvW, but not for PvE. If it isn’t meant for PvE then they shouldn’t have put the effect there in the first place, so that’s not a valid argument anymore. In my opinion PvE should’ve had their own compensation. That, to me, is just simple logic. I know that WvW hasn’t received love or updates for a long time, but that doesn’t mean others have to “suffer” for it.

I do believe the cap should be removed, for various reasons.

Once you reach the cap (and have a majority of the permanent AP as well) it’s very hard to raise your total AP. Newly added achievements reward far less AP than the old achievements did, making it even harder. Unless you like all 3 game modes you can feel forced to do game modes you don’t really like to raise your total AP, because you have most of the AP in your preferred game mode.
If we look at collection type achievements, for instance, these days we usually get 1 AP per tier. Do certain events or activities, we get 3, maybe 5 and in rare cases 10 AP. In the old days, 10 AP was the rule, not the exception. Tiered achievements also didn’t use to give 1 AP but 5 was the general rule. To get to the higher AP tiers is very difficult with the lower amount of AP they hand out per achievement.

Why would people want to raise a seemingly insignificant number on their account? Because it’s not as insignificant as it appears to be. Every 500 points you unlock account-based buffs to either gold, karma, MF or XP gain (or a combination of those). You unlock skins you can’t get any other way (regardless of what they look like and what you think of it: aesthetics are subjective). You also get an achievement chest with gemstore items and other utilities. You even get liquid gold. Every 5,000 points you get a new title, 400 gems and 30 gold. All of this might not matter to some people, but it might to others. So it’s more than just a number counting on your account.

Bridging the gap between people with low AP numbers and people with high AP numbers seems like a lost cause from the very start. There will always be a gap. The really diehard people will play all game modes and farm as much AP as possible. People who just play this game for relaxation and fun and don’t care about AP (and who might even play longer than some of the diehard players) are unlikely to come even close to those numbers. And then there are the people who are inbetween (which is usually the larger portion of a community). People who started playing after launch, after the expansion launch or at any moment inbetween are also highly unlikely to reach those numbers, especially since there are a lot of achievements that are no longer available. On that basis alone there will always be an AP gap.

I have read a lot of those “Remove AP cap”/“Retain AP cap” threads (won’t claim to have read them all because there are so many) and so far haven’t seen a solid argument for the cap.

No additional tool would be needed. It’s not needed for the drops we get from random mobs now, so why would it be necessary for leather drops?

As an example: you kill a drake and get a vial of blood from it. It’s not as if that vial drops out of the mob’s body nice and shiny the moment you kill it. You’d have to drain it and carry the vials with you. But that would make the game too enmeshed into real life details. We just get the drop, period (I’m not even going to argue the drops of weapons and armor, for which you would have to cut open a mob and empty its digestive tract to find these items).

No, leather can just drop from certain mobs without any sort of additional tool needed. DeanBB’s node suggestion would also work fine. WvW already uses that system, so why not PvE?

The only thing they did wrong was also bombarding the area up the hill. The problem was the Engineer farm, which was situated in the centaur camp at the foot of the hill. And the funny thing is, those bloodstone-warped hides (which is the actual leather farm item) hardly drop in the camp below, so those Engineers weren’t really doing the leather farm to begin with. You get them en masse when you follow the path up the hill, not when you stay down in the camp. The only area that needs to be bombarded is the camp, not the rest of Watchtower Cliffs. You get bombarded for standing still for too long, but that only happens in the camp. The farm up the hill is an ever moving farm, not a standstill one. As soon as they change the area that’s bombarded and limit it to the camp below, everything will be peachy. Sure, people might still not agree with it, but the original leather farm will be back to what it was supposed to be, and the camp will be cleared of faux leather farmers.

And this whole leather farm has done nothing to change the economy. Leather has even become more expensive since they introduced it. The only thing that would impact the economy is if they implement it throughout the entire game, i.e. all the maps. That way the leather drops for everyone, not just a small minority out of an entire playerbase. At the moment it’s too limited a means to have a significant impact on the economy. I believe they didn’t introduce the farm to impact the economy, but to make the acquisition of leather easier by making an area in the game where the drops are guaranteed and substantial.

Oddly enough I could farm them all today.

I’m having the same issue with the triple nodes at Melandru’s temple. The ones in Dry Top and Mount Maelstrom work fine, no matter on which character I farm them. But at the temple of Melandru I can only farm 1, sometimes 2. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve already farmed Draconis Mons or first go to the temple, so it seems unrelated to the account cap for LS3 map resources.

DeWolfe.2174:

FrizzFreston.5290:

So much for the “But its intended to be farmed” argument.

I still have no intention to run around like a chicken for the Dev’s amusement. If I want stand in place and kill respawns, I’ll do just that.

Except, the leather farm isn’t down in the camp, it’s when you go up the hill and kill the centaurs there. So yes, it’s intended to be farmed, just the camp where all the engineers and their turrets are is not the place where the centaurs go who drop the leather. That engineer farm is just a regular loot farm, not a leather farm.

You’re running around in the wild. What do you expect? Hostile wildlife is going to come at you. It’s par for the course. Why not just kill the mobs? It removes the movement impediment much faster than being tagged and just walking away again.

Well, I don’t know about the movie, but Ares (not Aries, that’s an astrological sign and a constellation) feeds off war in the comics. He gains his strength through humans waging war and strife, and cultivates it among humans to grow stronger. Since Balthazar basically said Tyria (and everyone in it) doesn’t matter, I’d say their motivations are different. Unless they gave Ares another spin in the movies, but I’ll have to wait one and a half week to find that out.

I’m not sure what points you are talking about, but if you mean Mastery Points, you only get those from achievements (check the Heart of Thorns category in your achievement panel) or by going to the Mastery icons on the map and interacting with them. Then, once your XP bar is full (XP gained in HoT maps, or else you won’t be able to advance HoT masteries) you can spend that Mastery Point. Glider Basics only needs 1 Mastery Point, though, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say you need 2 more points.

Donari.5237:

Most of them are in hard to reach places so unless they are harvestable in addition to any daily account limit I shan’t be worrying about getting back to them.

Dry Top kind of makes up for that with 3 nodes instead of 1.

Zinn was an amoral scientist, just like those that experimented on the Sylvari. He was warned and got what was coming to him. For such an intelligent species they sure do make stupid mistakes and don’t seem to learn from them. And these are the guys who think they are so superior that they should rule/govern the other races in the world, thinking they are above all and everything? These guys, who work on advancement for the sake of being better than their peers instead of the advancement of science in general? Asura aren’t scientists, they are narcisists at best, egomaniacal at worst.

GW2 is not the kind of game to make moot all your hard work at maxing out your characters by raising the level cap. They said so before the release of HoT and I fully agree with that decision. Like others have stated, practically every other MMO does that. Do we really want another carbon copy on the market? If I had to do that for my 16 characters with the release of every expansion, I’d abandon the game. It all comes down to the basic principle of not being able to please everyone.

Astralporing.1957:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Right up until they released the legendary backpacks, the only way to get the only legendary items in the game (weapons) required you to do PvE. So if you have a problem with doing PvE to obtain legendaries, you’ve been having that problem since the launch of this game. And I think it’s reasonable to assume that anyone interested in legendary armor is also interested in, or already obtained, at least one legendary weapon.

It’s however not reasonable to assume that anyone interested in legendary armor is interested in raiding. In some cases it’s certainly true, but in many cases it’s definitely not.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

If you’re talking solely about legendary armor, it was never meant to be a core feature of the game. It was created as a special reward for Raids, to give people something special for taking on the challenge.

Maybe if you’re talking about this specific set of armor, but in general, we’ve heard suggestions about legendary armor long before raids (or HoT) were even in a picture.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

There are plenty of items in this game you can only obtain one way, yet a lot of people suddenly seem to have a problem with that when it concerns legendary armor.

Have you ever thought that maybe it’s because a legendary armor (the only one in the game) is a really poor choice for such a side content-limited item?

In response to your first point: yes, I realize that not everyone interested in legendary armor might be interested in Raids. However, that is not an argument to introduce alternative means to get the set. I like the sPvP legendary back item skin, but I don’t like sPvP (haven’t played it since before the release of HoT). So I accept that I won’t likely ever get that skin, and I’m fine with it. And don’t come back with the possibility to get another legendary back item from Fractals, because I truly don’t like that skin. And since a legendary back item is no better stat-wise than an ascended back item, there is no need to get it just for a skin I find undesirable.

Yes, ANet may have talked about legendary armor long before HoT or Raids were introduced, but that has no bearing on the acquisition method. Have they ever hinted at making it available through “regular” content, like legendary weapons? I fully accept that legendary armor is a special reward for special content. It’s a prestige item and you don’t get prestige by doing something anyone can or will do. So no, I don’t agree it’s a bad decision to make something like legendary armor available only through Raids. I fully accept that there are things in this game not everyone will get because they don’t like the content they have to do for it. That’s the nature of MMO’s. There’s something for everyone, but not everything is for everyone. GW2 sets itself apart from other MMO’s in many ways, but that doesn’t mean they have to make that principle a universal thing throughout the game.

Right up until they released the legendary backpacks, the only way to get the only legendary items in the game (weapons) required you to do PvE. So if you have a problem with doing PvE to obtain legendaries, you’ve been having that problem since the launch of this game. And I think it’s reasonable to assume that anyone interested in legendary armor is also interested in, or already obtained, at least one legendary weapon.

If you’re talking solely about legendary armor, it was never meant to be a core feature of the game. It was created as a special reward for Raids, to give people something special for taking on the challenge. Reasoning for legendary armor to be available throughout the game, to anyone no matter what you do, is basically arguing for the removal of any kind of special reward for anything. There are plenty of items in this game you can only obtain one way, yet a lot of people suddenly seem to have a problem with that when it concerns legendary armor.

Ariurotl.3718:

What cats? What hairballs? My home instance has never had any cats in it, and it never will have any cats in it. Unless I’m playing as my Charr alt, in which case it will.

Except these cats are accountbound, not soulbound. So if your Charr has them in the home instance, all your characters have them in their home instances. You can’t pick which ones have cats and which ones don’t.

I agree with you on the situational thing, though. It would be weird to reference cats if you don’t have any, or are completely unaware of it.

CedarDog.9723:

Ardid.7203:

As long as you keep thinking in terms of “farming”, it will never be fast, comfortable or efficient enough.

I dunno, Bloodstone Fen, Bitterfrost Frontier and Lake Doric farm quite nicely. Ember Bay not so much with the stumps being strewn about all over the place. And of course, Draconis Mons doesn’t either.

Bloodstone Fen farms horribly. It has the lowest droprate of all the LS3 nodes. In Ember Bay the nodes are spread out quite far, but if you navigate that map often enough, you know where they are most likely to be and can go straight for those places. Then again, I must have incredible droprates because most nodes (whether they be Primordial Orchids, Jade Shards or Petrified Wood) give me at least one, with only a small minority giving only regular results. Bloodstone Rubies are a lot harder to get in my experience.

lukejoe.1592:

Yea, but they would also sell a kitten-load of gems. If you’re thinking from a “How can we keep this game alive perspective?” mounts would be a good idea. People pay good money for pretty, pretty ponies.

Considering the many, many posts about mounts in the past few years and the overwhelming negative response to such requests, I don’t think it would create that much revenue. GW2 has speed buffs and WP’s. No mounts needed.

lukejoe.1592:

Yea but no one cares that you find it offensive because of the 4.5M people who bought GW2, less than a million of them have bought HoT. If Anet just keeps making you happy by continuing to dole out story, they won’t survive. You want your story? Tell Anet to listen to the 3.5M people who quit playing there game between GW2 and HoT.

Would you care to show us the source of those numbers, or is this your Random Number Generator speaking?

Ayrilana.1396:

Expansions are primarily PvE content as the majority tend to be PvE players. Why would PvP feature prevent the expansion from being sold to PvE players? Would PvP players really not buy the expansion just because there are no build templates regardless as to whether there are other appealing PvP content that’s a part of the expansion?

I understand that these things are what you really desire but I wouldn’t go so far as to speak for the majority or to assume that these are “musts” or “common sense”.

Except OP’s talking about PvE build templates, not PvP. And I agree with him on that. Not that I wouldn’t buy the expansion if it doesn’t implement build templates, because I most certainly will get a next expansion. But build templates are sorely lacking in this game and it would satisfy a considerable part of the community, especially Fractal and Raid players.

OP must’ve been hibernating for the 2 years we didn’t have any SAB and people kept asking for it to return. Plenty of people kept calling for the return of SAB, and finally ANet obliged. I’m happy because I enjoyed it from the moment they introduced it as the (in my opinion) ONLY enjoyable April Fools gag of GW2 since it’s creation (to hell with those annoying bobbleheads and that bland aviator stuff). It’s popular. I despise Hip Hop but that’s popular too, yet I’m not calling to remove a lot of people’s favorite kind of “music” from the face of the Earth (I only dream about such a world).

It is indeed a one way portal. You can go through from Lake Doric’s side, but on the side of Harathi (actual proper spelling) Hinterlands there is no portal to be seen so nothing to go through.

Until the next Living Story release, as usual. Which will be somewhere between 2 to 3 months.

I don’t have a particular favorite, but I do tend to shy away from the ridiculously big back items (all crafting disciplines’ back items, any of the wings, the legendary back items, spinal blades, etc.). In fact, the largest back item I’m using is the Sclerite Karka Shell, because it fits the aesthetic of one of my Necromancers best. If it fits in with the color scheme, concept and looks of my character, it’s my favorite one for them. For example, my mainly light blue and gold Human Chronomancer carries the Light of Dwayna’s, while my white and gold Tempest carries the Sun Catcher, my Sylvari Druid in all green and brown Sylvari armor carries Bough of Melandru, my blue and purple Sylvari Chronomancer carries Mawdrey and my red and gold Charr Warrior with his mixture of Crimson Lion and Gold Fractal skins wears the Fires of Balthazar, etc. They all complement the look of the character, its armor and weapons, and don’t dominate the aesthetic too much. So there’s not really any one favorite for me.

I really don’t like WvW, yet I’ve obtained 4 Gifts of Battle in the past few months, just by doing dailies that don’t require killing other players or a group to complete. And on rare occasions I join a (small) zerg I come across and tag along for a while. I also use boosters that increase reward track progress. I don’t particularly enjoy this process but I don’t hate it either. Bottom line, I do want a fair share of the legendaries (about 14 or 15, from the top of my head) and personally, after giving it a go, I find this effort worth it for the reward you eventually get. In fact, I only started working towards legendaries after the precursor collections were added to the game, since I didn’t like the ways we could obtain them before. Random drops are too rare (I got my first one since launch only recently) and you have no control over what you get (of course the one I got was for a legendary I do not want). And saving up gold for all those precursors isn’t worth it, considering all the other things I want to spend my gold on. Precursor collections finally gave me a satisfactory way to obtain them.

And here I thought the ability to adapt to a changing environment is what enabled kitten sapiens sapiens to evolve as far as they did. I guess that’s true of the species, but not of every individual within the species…

Seriously, though. Learn to adapt. Every game since the 80’s had [insert whatever mechanic]. Well, GW2 doesn’t. You either adapt or get left behind. Unless you have a disability that prevents you from executing jumps without gliding, all you need is the will to change. Frankly, the expectation that all games throughout the decades should hold to the same mechanics seems rather unrealistic and reductive, not in the least boring.

Edit: thanks to forum censorship I can’t even write our species’ taxonomic designation without baby cats popping up……

I would also recommend gw2community. The only failed TT attempts I’ve ever seen were back when it was just added to the game. I don’t do it on a regular basis anymore, but whenever I do I join gw2community and it never fails. Admittedly I wouldn’t even try it on a random map if people call it out, or by using the LFG system. If you know the times of the event, join gw2community’s TS (it’s open, so no password needed). They usually do it 3 times a day. I even come across shout outs on other maps regularly, stating they’re going to organize the next TT event.

TT is fine. It doesn’t need to be nerfed in any way. Perfectly doable with a group who knows what they’re doing. With all the other world bosses out there, and how easy all of them are, it’s nice to have at least one event like TT. Not everything has to be accessible to everyone. This game has plenty of other things to offer.

I finished that collection, but was apprehensive about killing the Legendary Sand Giant. People indeed don’t bother with it most of the time, and call outs in map chat usually get ignored, or it’s flat out stated it’s not worth it. However, I went to Dry Top and called it out in map chat, including my need to get it for the collection. People came and we killed it in one go. I didn’t even have to wait, beg or anything.

@OP: I don’t know if you’ve given it a try, but do so, and mention your need to finish the collection. If people hear you’re doing it for a specific reason, they might be more inclined to help out.

First of all let me say that I was very unpleasantly surprised by Braham’s change in behavior. He’s downright disrespectful, aggressive and selfish. This thing he’s doing right now can only lead to more bad things and in the end he’ll have himself to blame for it.

Having said that, I can understand where he’s coming from, being the young, brash and hotheaded Norn that he is. For most of his life he’s despised his mother for walking out on him and his father. Never mind that she was working with Destiny’s Edge to eliminate the threat of Elder Dragons. This was the first sign that Braham is rather self-centered and does not have a a clear vision of the big picture (or any vision of it at all). He and her got off to a rocky start, but after their joint mission in Frostgorge Sound he has grown to respect her, and see things from her perspective. Both fighting for the same cause would have also helped for them to become closer. He might’ve realized he’d been a bit of an kitten for disliking her most of his life.

So now he’s seeing his mother through different eyes, perhaps even feeling honored being her son. Whatever time he’s lost with her, he could catch up again. Then comes Mordremoth and the failed attempt of the Pact to fight him. He was very anxious to find his mother, not wanting to lose her so soon after meeting her and changing his opinion of her. But alas for him, she becomes a casualty of war. His one chance to get to know his mother better is taken away from him. I would not be surprised if he blames himself for all the years he’s disliked her, not finding her and getting to know her. He had already lost his father not that long ago, and now his mother. I can tell from experience it’s a weird realization, knowing that the people who brought you into this world are no longer in this world. And especially when you’ve just decided to strengthen the bonds between you, to have that chance taken away is harsh.

So what does a young and hotheaded Norn do in such a case? He throws himself into the fight, honoring his mother in death, making up for lost time. It’s hard to look in the mirror and acknowledge that you’ve made a mistake you can never correct. Lashing out to those around you is not a strange reaction in such circumstances. So his mother’s quest was to defeat the Elder Dragons. He takes that on with renewed fervor. He feels quite anxious about it, because every little thing that might impede on his progress makes him feel even more like a failure. Blaming others for your own shortcomings is a natural response for a lot of people, no matter how you feel about that. There will be a myriad of “what ifs” going on his mind. The memory of his mother is sacred to him now, and nothing will stand in the way of him fulfilling his mother’s quest, no matter what anyone says. Anything else is trivial by comparison.

It’s a sad state to be in, even more so because it turns him against his friends and allies, who have been there for him all this time and saved his life on several occasions. But he’s not thinking about that now. He’s grieving, blaming himself for things he couldn’t have helped. He’s confronted with his own shortcomings, his own narrowminded vision of his mother. More than anything, I feel he’s trying to make up for that. I don’t think that deep down inside he truly blames the Commander and the rest of the guild. But it’s easier to stay angry than to look in the mirror and face your shortcomings, face that you can never fix what you’ve done wrong. He’s not honoring Eir’s legacy, Or Destiny’s Edge’s honor. He’s burying himself in the rage he feels for losing her, for losing his chance to become closer to her. We often put those we’ve lost on a pedestal, something we would likely never do while they are still alive. We forget the inconveniences and idolize what we thought we could’ve had if things went differently. I understand where he might be coming from, even though I disapprove of his current behavior.

Goose.9317:

I quit the game when they announced the expansion. I was a bit miffed when I saw Anet was releasing endgame raid content behind a 50 dollar paywall. This is something that made a huge number of players leave because it didn’t exist anywhere close to launch. Now I have some friends who would be willing to try it out but I don’t want to pay 50 dollars just to have to pay more in order to proceed with the new content. Is purchasing living story chapters necessary in order to get access to the content in the expac?

After purchasing HoT, you don’t need to purchase anything else to get access to that content. Considering you quit when they announced HoT, you should have all LW season 2 episodes on your account, since they released the last one 11 days before the announcement of the expansion. If you return right now the only thing you’ll miss is LW season 3 episode 1. You won’t have the story that accesses the new map, Bloodstone Fen, but you can still get there with a Teleport To Friend (since it’s a closed off map with no entrances from other maps). So you pay your $50 and you have access to everything, except LW season 3 episode 1. But regardless, not having certain LW chapters does not block you from any content or maps, except the story.

By the way, an expansion isn’t exactly a paywall. It’s as much a paywall as the price for the original game is a paywall. You don’t expect to get that one for free, so why should an expansion be free of charge? I have yet to see the first expansion of an MMO being released entirely for free. If you play other MMO’s this must not be a foreign concept to you. Or do you quit all MMO’s you play the moment they decide to release an expansion?

Shaman.4513:

well what i was trying to say, is regardless if its 500 or 1000, why would it have to be that much and it doesn’t drop on each occasion. did u check the drop rate? how many times did u have to do the same thing over and over and over to get, and after weren’t you surprised to see that it was just tier one of some overly l-o-n-g quest that requires mats worth a precursor to craft?
did u try scribing? did you see how much each item cost? not to mention its size in comparison of how much you had to pay for it?
250 amalgameted gemstones, fulgurites, 20 flaxes per 1 lindsail oil, why why and yes why? I have the right to question it, cured leather a tier 6 mat costs 70g per stack, is this normal?

Scribing has improved a great deal, and I say that as someone who levelled it to 400 before they fixed the material cost. Your post once again shows that you haven’t done your homework properly. Amalgamated gemstones aren’t needed for any decoration or scribing item. Flax is easy to farm in multiple maps, and these days you only need 1 vial of linseed oil regardless of which decoration you’re crafting. It used to be 1 for tier 1 decorations, a number that increased for higher tier decorations, up to 18 for a T6 one. Now that was a pain. Other materials are also needed less for scribing than before. The costs have been greatly reduced and are much more manageable now. It’s also safe to assume you don’t do raids, or else you would’ve known that raid boss pieces are guaranteed drops, a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5 per boss kill. Considering raid boss trophies require only half the amount compared to world boss pieces, they are a lot easier to acquire. It sounds more like you’ve taken a quick look, didn’t like what you saw, extrapolated from that and are now throwing around information that is based on your extrapolated assumptions instead of actual facts.

Yes, leather is expensive. It’s been that way for a while. But unless you are planning on overflowing your guild hall with decorations you really don’t need that much leather to begin with, and most decorations don’t require T6 materials. Plus, it’s a group effort. Scribing does become more expensive if you have to do it all by yourself, without any donations, but it is not intended to be a solo effort. If you are doing it all by yourself, it is either your own choice (and you shouldn’t complain if you don’t like the consequences of your own choices) or you have another problem, a guild related one. Find one that cares for the guild hall, enough to donate materials needed for scribing. Your complaints will disappear rather quickly then.

Shaman.4513:

What I am asking for is related to decoration/ scribing:
To craft a bronze statue, you need 10 drops from a specific boss; the silver would require 10 silver statue meaning 100 from the item, for the gold its 10 silver meaning 1000 item.
In other words, to craft the gold vale or gold teq you need 1000 of its drop, etc…
Now, if every time you do that specific boss you get the drop, in the scale of things, I would teach myself to live with it, but, it’s that bloody system again at work, from every 6 to 8 times you get 1 drop which means, that, in the scale of things… you need to do the vale guardian or the shatterer or teq or gorseval around 6000 to 8000 times.
Assuming you have a guild of 50 who are willing to do the content on a regular basis, from each raid run, 1 or 2 players would get it, and its weekly timed, so in the scale of things, I lost count and think that it shows how the simplest things to get are yet scaled to legendary grind grind grind and grind.

Your calculations and information regarding world boss and raid boss trophies are way off. First of all, you need 500 single pieces of a world boss to make a gold trophy (10 pieces for bronze, 10 bronze trophies for a silver one, 5 silver trophies for a gold one), and 250 of any raid boss (5 pieces for a bronze trophy, 5 bronze trophies for a silver one, 10 silver ones for a gold trophy). World boss pieces drop in single numbers and are dependent on RNG so don’t drop every time, but raid boss pieces are guaranteed drops, ranging from 1 to 5 pieces per kill. So with an active guild invested in these activities it doesn’t take as long as you suggest.

I do agree that some materials needed for scribing are much to expensive (the 50 rare flower seeds needed for 1 potted blue orchid comes to mind; a single one of those costs almost 4G on the TP). It assumes that a group of people will dedicate considerable time to mine passion flower nodes on a daily basis to gather them all (and they are really rare drops, since I mine those nodes daily for the precursor collections). Other stuff like Maguuma lilies are another good example. I think it wouldn’t hurt anyone to make those items more accessible. Rare flower seeds could be harvested from other plant nodes as well, for instance.

Galtrix.7369:

Except for the fact that it will take you years to acquire ascended gear in any way other than crafting. I’ve been playing for 3 years and I’ve literally had a single ascended drop.

So, in this way, we don’t really have the choice not to craft if we want ascended gear. Crafting is the only surefire way to acquire it. Please don’t tell me that we have multiple other options, because we simply don’t.

3 years and a single ascended drop means you don’t do Fractals. I refuse to believe your RNG is so bad that you haven’t had more drops in all that time. Trust me, next to crafting, Fractals is the best way to acquire ascended gear. I have 9 ascended characters and 10 sets of ascended gear (that’s full ascended gear, so armor, weapons and trinkets). Only 3 armor sets were crafted (for the Ascended Accoutrement achievement), the rest is obtained during a period of 4 to 5 months of daily (high level) Fractals. I crafted some weapons but most were also drops. And I’ve some drops outside of Fractals, though I admit that this last option is too rare to build up one or more full ascended gear sets. You do have choices, but that’s not to say anything will drop anywhere at any time.

Arkantos.7460:

ONLY 1 …. for all types of armor …. O_o …. what is Anet doing all day

1

….

and why only seen on humääään ….. take other races as well … but i think you need another year to fix clipping problems …. see ya in a year …. bye

This is just the heavy set, so it’s not 1 for all types of armor. They are still working on light and medium but have stated those are not ready to be shown just yet. They’ve announced it will be several months still before all 3 weight classes are done. Read the article they released about this and you’d know this.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-first-look-at-legendaryarmor/

The official article by ANet. For those of you asking where light and medium are, and when we might see those. Short version: still in progress, months off.