Guild Wars 2

The event inactivity mechanic is horrible. I have lost count of the amount of events I have lost the reward too because I died fighting the boss and couldn’t get a rez for a min or two.

When you spend 10-30 mins doing a long winded event with 170%-200% participation and lose the final reward because you couldn’t hit anything for 60-120 seconds it makes you want to bloody quit GW2.

This game mechanic wasn’t needed or wanted. I don’t run around tagging events. I never have yet I have been punished constantly by this over zealous game play rule.

The participation score with the bronze/silver/gold rewards prevented tagging to a point it wasn’t some game breaking issue.

Adding this poorly thought out game mechanic when we have events where the NPC’s are not fighting anything for long periods of time (especially true towards the end of escort missions) or when you face bosses where you often can’t get a rez for 2 mins due to AOE clouds of damage is only punishing people who take part in events.

People who want to sit around tagging events while not doing much to help can just set the 1 key to auto-fire on a ranged attack from corner of the battle field. It’s the people risking their butts to rez people and take part in the fights that this is bloody punishing.

Sthenith.5196:

How to make gold :

1. pick up everything you find on your way, from ores to plants. Put in bank.

2. Loot everything. Salvage everything white-blue-green. Put in bank.

3. Do as many champs as you can when you’re near them, do all events when you’re near them. Loot, see 2.

4. Make your own foods.

5. After a few days : put everything in bank onto TP with sell orders.

Reap. Rince and repeat.

There are oc many other ways, but in order to make a point to Anet, i’d suggest NOT buying any gems for that oh so new and awesome skin (…yet another one….) and tell em to bugger off. Show them you’re unhappy. IF enough ppl do it, they might listen and use their brains. Or not.

When everyone is just selling everything including the mats you will need to craft ascended/legendary weapon’s/armour that you can’t buy on the Black Market. How do you get them item’s? If no one is buying anything on the Black Market where does the Gold come from?

As another poster suggested. If the developers want far less Gold in GW 2 stop selling gold for Gems. You know what would happen within a month or two of them removing the ability to trade Gems for Gold?

All the Gold would dry up and people would be crying out for a way to make Gold.

GW 2’s economy is built on people with credit cards buying tons of Gem’s to convert to Gold to buy what they want on the Black market. Without anyone doing that everyone would be exposed to just how little DIRECT Gold you can make in game.

Every other MMO I have played I can farm tons of gold just by selling junk to venders without ever having to rely on other players buying anything from me. Here I’m still getting silvers and coppers for fighting champions.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The salvage nerf became super real to me last night when I used a BLK to salvage an 80 rare and got… 1 mithril.

So they nerf dungeons by 66% and nerfed Salvage by 66% and Fractals by 66% (unless you grind the fractal mastery)

I guess they want us to all blow $100’s on gems to get everything now the games free2play.

Free2play ruins another MMO

Where is our end game Dungeon raiding for chests full of gold and rare loot?

Where are the massive boss’s that have a FAIR chance of legendary weapon drops or even ascended armour drops?

Where are the quests and story lines to unlock our elites? Why not have us go on a quest with a weapon master to unlock our elite weapons and skills?

Oh no we can’t have that as it’s direct character progression that doesn’t force us to grind the same content for days or weeks or months on a mouse wheel. We have to grind to over come GATES and than GRIND for tokens. It’s all about repeating content for weeks or months with zero chance or 0.001% chance of anything good dropping as loot.

Just look at the people who open thousands of champion bags and chests. The chance of anything dropping that is a direct gear upgrade for your character is 0.001% or if your lucky 0.003%. It’s insane.

After you overcome the waste that is Mastery’s to get your Elite Spec HOT becomes Silverwastes 2.0

I say the mastery’s are a waste as ther only purpose is to be a GATE. They add nothing to your character outside of HOT. The same applies for the fractal Mastery which now GATES you from fractal rewards we once had access too. Add the agony GATE to that and fractals are double GATED.

The agony system/grind in fractals which is another GATE in GW2 is a example of stretching content as you do the same fractal instances over and over till your sick of them. Now fractals are double GATED making it horrible.

Everything is focused on stretching content out using GATES that don’t advance your character and force you to repeat the same content hundreds of times till your bored of it.

This here is the problem. ^^^^^ This is why we are complaining.

The OLD spec system required you to go on quests to unlock your traits. A lot of this could be soled and it had a massive amount of variety. You could unlock a trait by doing a Jumping puzzle or completing a few events or killing a boss or exploring a area. Every trait was different and could be acquired without any GATES.

The old spec system had more build variety and was just a lot more fun. When they gutted the old spec system and only give us 3 out of 9 choices per spec line I was extremely disappointed. They took away the fun of hunting for traits and made building a unique spec far less viable.

Now we are forced to max out all the spec lines using Hero points removing the CHOICE of what we want to put points in while adding a 6th spec line that while good isn’t some fantastic advancement on our characters. We don’t even get a choice to save hero points for the elite spec. We have to use them all on spec lines we may never touch. It makes all characters the same.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Cerbeius.7129:

Seeing as Labyrinth ain’t no Central Tyria nor Maguuma Jungle…

Fractals are located outside of our space-time yet they give exp.

To add to this, WvW is in the mists too, yet you can still build mastery xp there as well.

So…its not an excuse.

This is why I’m cynical of the entire thing.

They say it’s dangerous to try enable mastery experience gain in a Halloween instance yet all the other instances work fine. If all instances were affected I could believe it but since it’s only the Halloween one I think it was intended to be that way to extend the life of the HOT content.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Eponet.4829:

The major issue with the elite specs is that in a large number of cases, the playstyle of the elite spec is actually a weakness of the base class.

Exactly my thinking when I heard of the tempest. The point of an ele, I understood, was the flexibility to jump between attunements. That’s our weapon swap. The exact opposite of that is to stay in one. Hello tempest.

Even so, I’m working up to getting my tempest. I’m dubious of the mechanic and I want to see how it actually plays. I want my suspicions to be proved wrong.

They also took away a lot of class flexibility with the spec line updates. They killed a few of my builds in that update and removed the fun and adventure of hunting down your traits in the game world.

fixit.7189:

I been using dare devil and…dying a lot if I use that staff. No instead I am using short bow and pressing 1, 99% of the time b/c going melee with pretty much any HoT mob as a thief results in instantaneous death. I have tried a mix of valk, soldiers, serker, clerics, etc now and it’s always the same thing; try to melee mobs and then get insto killed b/c mob flipped around and instantly hits me for over 16k in a blink of an eye. Then I watch a reaper solo champs and out heal them. Not all classes are meant to be equal I guess!

I have exactly the same problem. Forced to go Pistols or Shortbow because even trash mobs in hot will reduce you to ash in melee as a thief.

There is no game balance. It’s all a mess of poorly designed combat abilities and game play. The combat is sloppy. Your either spamming 1 to win at ranged, rolfstomping anything on a tank/healer build or getting 1 shotted.

Xytor.1267:

Amroth.2170:

The fact that we’re discussing this at all is just depressing.

It’s so fundamentally counter to how the game was originally envisioned. Death by a million cuts. GW2:HoT plays nothing like vanilla GW2 and I for one am not happy about that.

What do you mean when you say ‘envisioned’? I’ve been around since the 3-day headstart and followed the game a few years before release. As I recall, a big sell point for them was huge world bosses, meta events, explorable dungeons, and underwater combat. Although I agree this expansion is radically different than Vanilla GW2, it still captures the essence of what they were going for at release, minus the shift from dungeons to fractals and raid, and leaning away from underwater areas (for now). The only major difference is the gates to unlock said content, which never previously existed.

If you don’t like the gates, I get it. No one asked for them and I see where the backlash is coming from. I just don’t think it’s that terrible a thing because most everything is still there. Also, maybe gates aren’t the problem? If you’re going around exploring new zones and participating in meta events, the masteries will unlock themselves pretty much. Not to mention they aren’t necessary early on. The most crucial things you learn quickly anyway. So again, I fail to see the major issue with these gates.

The problem with putting GATES on content is it’s only ever implemented as a way to make content last longer than it should by making you replay some of it to the point of tedium while not adding any new content to the game itself.

In most cases the GATES themselves are artificial that add NOTHING to your character’s over all progression. Just look at fractals and the USELESS agony system. You farm the same few fractals for countless hours to the point your burned out just to get enough agony resistance to get to the higher level fractals where you might get a slight increase in gear stats. Agony resistance has no use at all outside of fractals. It’s a GATE that shouldn’t be there. It should be replaced with NEW harder game content that requires organised group play.

In every MMO I have played EVERYONE has HATED content gating. It’s killed many MMO’s including Dark ages of Camelot.

Over the last few months leading up to the HOT expansion the developers have removed interesting game content that was fun. Hunting for your traits in the open world like it was some epic quest was a lot of fun. They took that away from us and gave us a spec system that is far more shallow. There is far less choice of traits and abilties and now you are FORCED to spec into all 5 spec lines just to get your elite spec.

So now we have spec GATING where we can’t even choose which specs we want to put hero points into. We have to fill up all 5 even if we have no intention of ever using certain spec lines just to use the elite spec. Another choice taken from us and turned into a GATE.

Even the fractal rewards we previously had have been GATED behind Mastery’s and some of the event/boss rewards are GATED in HOT even after completing that event.

Mastery GATES that are useless outside of HOT
Agony GATES that are useless outside of fractals
Spec GATES that force you to spend hundreds of Hero points on spec lines you will never use

No one asked for any of this and this is what will drive players away from Guild Wars 2. A lot of MMO players moved to Guild Wars 2 to get away from gating, grinding, and artificial content stretching.

For years RPG’s were about going hunting in deep dark dungeons for the best loot. Taking a skilled party of adventurers into the dark depths of a dangerous dungeon that required team work to get significant loot rewards and shiny gold coins.

In GW2 they killed dungeons and nerfed the loot by 66% and pointed us towards a gate. The same gate players have been trying to get away from in MMO’s for years.

Players want character progression that’s meaningful, choice of character design/Spec, dungeons, phat loot and exciting new content that we don’t have to repeat to the point we burn out.

Now every class is the same. Every thief has had to fully spec all 5 lines just get get Daredevil. There is no character choice. You can’t choose which lines you don’t want to spec into or what Mastery’s you don’t need. You need everything and your character is just like everyone else’s.

Add this to the fact they are now GATING rewards behind Mastery’s and you still have to buy keys using gold on top of that.

Everything is being placed behind gates and gold sinks while nerfing the heck out of every way players have to obtain Gold that doesn’t rely on selling mats on the black market.

They are funnelling all the Gold out of Guild Wars 2 by removing the few ways we had to make Gold while adding massive gold sinks. The only way Gold ends up back into the system is through buying gems with real money.

Just look at the change to black lion chest keys. You can no longer get them from the personal story more than once a week even though the chance of getting anything you really want from them chests is 0.03% or lower.

I am sick and tired of artificial GATING of content in MMO’s to try STRETCH out how long it takes to get to the good stuff. Is that because there isn’t much through that gate once we get there?

Just look at fractals and the agony system where you have to WASTE time farming just to get to the harder fractals. If I was farming for better gear it would feel like progression but instead your farming for a stat that’s ONLY USED IN FRACTALS.

It’s exactly the same with Mastery’s. We are farming Mastery’s that we can’t even use outside the Jungle just to get to ONE new spec line that costs as much points as our 5 other spec lines combined. The 5 other spec lines don’t even offer as much build choice anymore and they honestly feel like they been gutted.

We can’t even choose to ignore the spec lines we don’t want so we can save points for the elite spec line. We have to put points in spec lines we will NEVER EVER use. How is that character choice?

We are forced to farm agony, farm mastery’s and dump points in spec lines we won’t ever use just to get to what we really want. It’s all wasted time and wasted game content that offers no advancement to our characters.

Agony GATE
Mastery GATE
All 5 Spec lines GATE

The nerfing of non-gated content such as Dungeons and lower level fractal rewards is insulting enough that players are leaving over it. We are being pushed onto a treadmill of grinding the same content over & over to get over a gate that doesn’t even advance our character.

Maybe the developers should focus on giving us more game content and goodies that advance our characters instead of wasting time and resources on gates that the players don’t want and never asked for in the first place.

We want new challenging game content that isn’t gated behind anything but player skill and building your character for the fight. (aka bringing a build/spec that counters that boss your fighting). Gear grind should be part of that but it should take a back seat to the rest and shouldn’t be boring.

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill. I am always thrilled to see what comes next in my specialization.

For me it wouldnt be fun to get everything i want the day hot was released, it would be the same like using a cheat code and all the challange would be for nothing.

Reapers are currently one of the best PVE classes in the game for soloing content. If your playing a Necro you can solo certain champions. Nearly every post I have seen from Necros are ones about soloing their way through the Jungle. Let’s hope Anet doesn’t nerf them

Other classes struggle to solo some Veteran mobs nevermind anything stronger. Some classes have a much harder time in the Jungle even in groups thanks to trash mobs that can one shot you.

logan.5846:

reapex.8546:

Maikky.8526:

Unblockable, undodgeable one shots

What a game

If you’re getting one shot, you’re either doing something wrong or need to change your gear.

Any suggestions on gear to add 1.4 million HP?

Add to this the trash mob mushrooms that can one shot Thieves/Ele/Mes etc.

The entire Jungle zone is full of mobs that spam attacks that one shot players. Just one mistake or miss timed dodge and your instantly out the fight.

That isn’t challenging group content as not even a healer can counter CHEESE like that. Grouping in challenging group content in MMO’s normally revolves around timing heals, keeping the trash CCed and making sure no one drops while watching the pattern of the boss.

In Guild Wars 2 Challenge is giving everything 1 shot attacks and GATING content off.

You can open 50 Black Lion Chests and get nothing but junk.

Black Lion chests & keys are only in this game to get players to blow $100 for a 00.01% chance of obtaining that rare new shiny or in some cases a 00.001% chance for a old shiny.

Given the low odds of obtaining anything nice the keys should be obtained through personal story’s as often as you want as well as a weekly log in reward and rewards for certain weekly events.

It wouldn’t harm key sales as players still won’t get what they want anyway and it will only encourage people to buy them once they get the “open black lion chest” fever.

I honestly think this change was motivated by greed and the drop rate won’t have been increased more than 0.03%. This all ties into what we are seeing with dungeons being nerfed and fractal rewards being gated behind HOT.

It’s all about the in game store.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

When the dust settles in 2 weeks? Have you not realised yet? That’s when all of you moaning about us complaining begin to ask anet why hot maps are empty and demand it sorted lol

In two weeks I can’t see myself or others ever setting foot in that Jungle again. Especially with the amount of cheese 1 shot trash enemy’s and how annoying it is to navigate. None of the jungle Mastery’s can be used outside and the mobs drop far less loot while being so far a part as to take longer to get any loot out of it.

Not only that but you have to spend gold on keys just to open the rewards from certain events. It’s all a time and gold sink. Maybe there is other rewards in there but a fair few players won’t be visiting again for anything but the most hardcore of rewards.

bigbobpataki.4796:

Do we think that everyone is going to stop complaining and calm down in a weeks time when they fully unlock their elite spec for their chosen mains?

Tao.5096:

Those Hero Points in Heart of Thorns are utterly bad.

5min for killing a champ solo which not only hit like a truck, also CC and heals up or stealth.

A few months ago: We want harder open world content ArenaNet!

Decently challenging hero point challenges that require you to group in a MMO are implemented.

Forums this week: We want easier open world content!

They didn’t add challenging boss content to the events that required you to think. Least not for the events I faced so far although they do require a group because some mobs can 1 shot you without warning LOL.

The rewards for some of the events require you to have other Mastery’s to enable you buy keys that cost gold to open the rewards. If you do the event before you complete them mastery’s & buy a key you get no reward.

The new GATED reward system where you can spend 30 mins completing content and killing that boss but get lesser or no reward until you grind out mastery.

This isn’t even getting into the fact most of the Jungle mobs are not dropping ANY loot and the few ones that do only drop stuff worth coppers or blues/greens items for salvage .

The content is only harder in places / requires a group because they give some TRASH mobs a 1 shot abilities that can take you from full to floored in one hit. That isn’t challenging content thats fun to play against. It’s not fun to go from full health to sitting on your butt with no chance for a healer to do anything. It’s content thats JARRING and seems to be slipped in just to force you to group up so you have someone to pick you up. Group content gives you chance to heal your group.

Khristophoros.7194:

Once you have gliding, bouncing mushrooms, and updrafts you can reach almost all of the content so you shouldn’t have to deal with diminishing returns.

Also try out the adventures. They give pretty decent experience.

There are clouds of poison in areas gating that until you get the Mastery.

The rewards for some of the events require you to have other Mastery’s so you can buy keys to open the rewards. If you do the event before you complete them mastery’s & buy a key you get no reward.

The new GATED reward system where you can spend 30 mins completing content and killing that boss but get lesser or no reward until you grind out mastery.

What’s the point of Mastery’s if we can’t use them outside the Jungle? I experted to use them everywhere as per what other games give you.

Are mastery’s just a GATE inside the new Jungle maps to make it take longer to go through the content forcing us to grind a area for Mastery EXP till DR kicks in?

So all these fancy glider skins are a WASTE as when we finish the Jungle maps and get our elite spec finished we won’t ever go back?

They should NEVER have introduced these mastery’s if they add NOTHING to your character outside of being a KEY to a GATE to slow you down from getting your elite spec.

warbignime.4610:

Dont purposely farm them just go explore the jungle. Don’t let level up be your goal, aka don’t play to level up, level up while playing instead.

Levelling up is the ONLY goal of doing Mastery’s.

The Jungle is GATED by Mastery’s you are forced to level. You can’t just hop into the next area or move to the next map. You have to GRIND a area to death first.

It takes about 5 times as long to complete events in the jungle than it does in the open world outside it.

If you die at any point or stop doing anything for 90 seconds you lose credit for that event. I have lost count of the times I lost credit because I died on the final boss and didn’t get a rez straight away.

DR kicks in after 20 – 30 mins. Events in the jungle take upwards of 15 – 30 mins each. Do the math. After doing just one event in a area DR has likely already kicked in.

Nerfing old content to discourage people playing it and make the new content more viable isn’t good game design and is shady business practice.

This is the first MMO I have played in 15 years that has pulled this stunt and no one should be happy about it. The excuse that GW2 needs to nerf old content because it’s free 2 play holds no water when there are plenty of free 2 play MMO’s that haven’t nerfed old content when they bring out a expansion.

The nerfing of old content just as the expansion hits is so blatant as to be insulting to the inteligence of all Guild Wars 2 players. How anyone can defend that practice I don’t know.

Its completely dishonest to say they rebalanced this content because its rewarding too much 2 years into release when they just happen to release a expansion to fill that void. They should be HONEST about it. Players want honesty from a MMO developer without game content being nerfed to try make new content look more shiny ir rewarding.

Do we really want Guild Wars 2 to have a cycle of old content being nerfed to the point no one plays it every time Anet brings a expansion out? Does anyone really think that will help Guild Wars 2 retain players?

What happens when the next big expansion hits? Will they Nerf Heart Of Thorns content to get people to buy the next one?

MMO gamers are not stupid and do move onto other games as soon as they get treated like they are. Why do you think there are so many failed MMO’s out there?

Guild Wars 2 and it’s content developers are awesome and deserve massive amounts of respect BUT whoever thought it was a good idea to go back a nerf/lock old content has made a mistake. It’s hard to retain players in MMO’s these days and decisions like that cause player retention to drop.

It’s confirmed that the new name for Guardian Elite Specialisation is Dragonborn!

“I used to be an guardian like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.”

phys.7689:

Victuswolf.5286:

eithinan.9841:

Victuswolf.5286:

What I have noticed about Guild War’s 2 is ALL the Gold coming into the game comes from the Gem store.

This is 100% false. The majority of gold in game comes from either Dungeon rewards (majority) or selling items to the vendor(all those grey items). Teq gives 2 gold minimum each time it is completed per person. I am sure the 3 headed Worm does a similar amount and other world events give a handful of silver. That is just raw currency rewards right off the top of my head.

BTW, I stopped reading at this point because when someone is SOOOOO wrong in the first couple sentences there is no reason to read the rest of a wall of text like that. IF there are any salient points made they will be repeated later on on a lesser wall.

Cherry picking one long boss event that you will likely do once a day at most to get you just 2 gold when it costs hundreds of Gold to craft anything epic? Really? All the other trash in this game sells for coppers and most of the bosses don’t give you any trash to sell for gold or even copper. Even the level 80 junk sells for coppers.

You tell me how do you make the hundreds of Gold needed in a reasonable time frame to level up your crafting & craft Ascended gear without selling anything on the black market (as your salvaging it all for mats) and without spending weeks or even months grinding?

the gem market creates no gold, it actually reduces gold.
All gold comes from event rewards, gold drops, bag loot (give like 3 copper) and people npcing crap.
then people trade each other thier gold on the bltc.
yes, most people are poor. The rich people got their dough from the poor people, or they did a ton of dungeons.

You buy gems. You use gems to to buy gold directly or you use gems to buy keys for black lion chests and sell the results on the black market.

The market for Gem to Gold soon drops when there’s nothing in the gem store worth buying. Why? because a lot of people convert gems into gold.

If no one was doing it we would not see massive shifts from from 350 gold right down too 250 gold. There are a lot of people buying gold with gems otherwise gem to gold prices would stay above 350.

A great example of this is all the Black Lion Chest ticket weapon skins, Dyes, Contracts and mini’s on the Black Lion Market. They all sell for lots of gold. Most of that comes from store bought gems.

[edit]Some might come from key grinders but the time investment is not worth it. It takes well over a hour maybe a few just to get one key that way. In just one hour at a min wage job you can make enough money to buy 25 keys. (what most people do who work and havent got time to ruin their fun grinding keys)

eithinan.9841:

Victuswolf.5286:

What I have noticed about Guild War’s 2 is ALL the Gold coming into the game comes from the Gem store.

This is 100% false. The majority of gold in game comes from either Dungeon rewards (majority) or selling items to the vendor(all those grey items). Teq gives 2 gold minimum each time it is completed per person. I am sure the 3 headed Worm does a similar amount and other world events give a handful of silver. That is just raw currency rewards right off the top of my head.

BTW, I stopped reading at this point because when someone is SOOOOO wrong in the first couple sentences there is no reason to read the rest of a wall of text like that. IF there are any salient points made they will be repeated later on on a lesser wall.

Cherry picking one long boss event that you will likely do once a day at most to get you just 2 gold when it costs hundreds of Gold to craft anything epic? Really? All the other trash in this game sells for coppers and most of the bosses don’t give you any trash to sell for gold or even copper. Even the level 80 junk sells for coppers.

You tell me how do you make the hundreds of Gold needed in a reasonable time frame to level up your crafting & craft Ascended gear without selling anything on the black market (as your salvaging it all for mats) and without spending weeks or even months grinding?

[edit]

I will set the context. Level up 3 characters to 80. Hit every node and salvage every item. You still won’t have the crafting mats needed to level up even one crafting discipline on one character and it’s extremely unlikely you will have more then 10 gold even if you avoid spending any on traits or gear.

Then you have 3 level 80’s stuck at a wall that requires hundreds of gold per character to advance them. Don’t even think of trying to craft one legendary. That’s the reality of Guild War’s 2.

Thief elite specialization? Bunny slayer :P

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t know about the lower level areas but in SW and Southsun DR kicks in very quickly, usually less than 30 minutes.

Diminishing Returns kicks in at 20 mins. Not enough time to do anything constructive in a area or complete any content with the “better” loot rewards.

They say Diminishing Returns is to prevent Gold Farmers. I say 20 min Diminishing Returns isn’t there to prevent Gold Farmers from making Gold as they typically spend hours in the same area not 20 mins as its their Job. This isn’t even getting into the fact Gold Farmers don’t come close to competing with the in game Gem store on Gold prices. I have seen their msgs and reported them. Diminishing Returns is designed to prevent EVERYONE from getting the better loot rewards or making Gold on their own.

If this was a fair and balanced system Diminishing Returns would take at least 60 mins to kick in so we can COMPLETE the content with better loot rewards before the Diminishing returns kicks in. 20 min Diminishing returns is wrong on so many levels.

Diminishing returns kicks in way too quickly. Within 20 mins of being in any one area the loot you get is severely reduced. I notice that my first 5 too 10 loots in a area I get some slightly above average drops but after that its junk, more junk and even more Junk.

I think it’s designed this way because most world boss fights take a good 10-30 mins to finish and get to the loot. By the time Diminishing returns has already kicked in.

What I have noticed about Guild War’s 2 is ALL the Gold coming into the game comes from the Gem store.

You can avoid spending any silver or gold on anything but fast travel, level 7 characters up to 80 sell all your loot to venders and still lose money. You can do the dailys, do all world bosses and sell all the junk loot you get and you don’t even break even from the quick travel costs.

The ONLY way to make money in this game without buying it from the gem store is to sell stuff on the Black Market Trader. The problem is that Gold comes from other players who are in exactly the same position as you. The only way they are making money is from other players or the gem store but NO ONE is making money from selling items to NPC venders.

I am willing to bet that 95% of Guild War’s 2 in game Gold was originally bought with Gem’s.

This is the only MMORPG I have played were I can’t make enough money vendering items to cover travel costs and walk away at the end of the night with profit from selling Junk items. The fast travel costs completely out strip any income you make in normal game play while trying to avoid Diminishing Returns and doing the daily events.

Try making the hundreds of Gold you need by vendering Junk items at level 80 to go craft Ascended items. You just can’t do it even if you salvage everything for mats and hit every node while doing your dailys.

The other issue is you can level up a few level 80’s and salvage EVERYTHING yet still fall FAR short of even leveling up one crafting disciplined. I have the store bought mining/woodcutting/harvesting tools and I hit every node I see on the map while leveling to 80 yet I still need to buy hundreds of materials after hitting 80 on more then one character just to level one crafting discipline up.

In short.

1. Diminishing returns kicks in after 20 mins. Your average gaming session is 2 hours for even a casual player. 20 mins is way to harsh and designed to prevent us getting better loot from most world bosses.

2. You can’t make gold in this game without selling to other players. Other players have the same issue. The end result is most of the Gold in this game is store bought directly from the gem store. That really bothers me.

3. Even if you salvage every single item when leveling characters up to 80 and hit every single node you see you still need to buy hundreds of materials to level up crafting.

4. You can sink thousands of hours into GW 2 hit every single world boss for months on end and NEVER see anything but salvage loot from boss chests. You never feel like your doing anything but running on a mouse wheel with no end in sight.

At first I use to think GW 2 was casual friendly. Now I realise that the only thing casual about this game is the leveling system but once you hit 80 it’s a brick wall. To get the Gold you need and crafting supplies you need within a reasonble period of game play you have to open your wallet and buy the Gold you need from the gem store which in all honesty is ruining the game for me at this point. The other option is grinding the same content for months where you never see the loot that makes you feel it’s worth logging in every day or playing and all the Gold your not buying yourself is coming from a players wallet even if your selling stuff on the Black Market.

Isn’t it funny how you can’t even buy ascended gear that other players craft? and that the only option to get ascended gear is crafting it yourself? See above for the issues with that.

Everything is coming from the in game store one way or another due to Diminishing returns, low drop rates, lack of materials even if you salvage everything from one to 80 and hit every node, requiring you to craft your own epic gear due to us being prevented from selling it. The limitations are funnelling everything the same way.

Just had this happen today. Now I have a numbered note that’s account bound. weird!

Anet are you fixing this?

They are getting rid of a lot of traits, preventing you from using adept traits in master slots and forcing you to only use 3 trait lines. We now will only have 3 trait options per slot which is severely limiting.

How anyone can say that increases build diversity is beyond me as its far more restrictive and many builds will no longer exist as a direct result.

Then add the fact certain stats such a +boon duration are not on armour but were tied to trait lines. How will Anet address that? or will they at all? Most likely they will expect us to eat the stat & trait loss without having any option to do anything about it.

Looks like most of the other mesmer armour out there with shiny armbands. (for males at least)

Castlevania style Whip!

MMO games seriously lack whip weapons.

Cyninja.2954:

Victuswolf.5286:

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Wrong. Did you factor in the 3 second stealth which you can sit out and regenerate initiative? Just tested it myself, you actually can keep this combo up permanently or at least near permanently. OP is actually right about that.

Even if you had godlike timing and managed to use Heartseeker 3.99 seconds into Blinding powders effect and then sat in stealth for 3 seconds doing nothing to regain back 3 initiative your still losing initiative each time you do this combo.

So this tactic requires you to sit in stealth the entire 3 seconds while damaging no enemies to work?

Well the OP found the slowest most ineffective way to level.

To cut this poster off at the knees.

Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You have to recast it every 4 seconds to keep enemies in the TINY bubble blind.

Infusion of shadow only gives you 2 initiative back from stealth. Using heartseeker to get into stealth costs you 3 initiative.

You lose 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo with Infusion of shadow.

You can’t keep Black Powder up indefinitely using the tactics he described or even keep it up past 8-12 seconds. In short the original poster is lying, posting misinformation or is uninformed.

Artaz.3819:

Faereilos.5106:

Um didn’t ANet already nerf black powder so that it ticks slower and have reduced aoe size? What more do you want? And enemies are stupid. They stand in aoes and most don’t know how to dodge.

Yes, but then ANet added Invigorating Precision (and then buffed it further % proc chance). With good old Lifesteal Sigils + Signet of Malice + added two targets to hit with Dagger autoattack (double crit proc) + Mug (if you want) just in case and you become a tank with Black Powder spam in zerker/assassin gear.

Actually going stealth to get Backstab is more complicated in the chain (unless you need stealth for the condition cleanse of poison or weakness via Shadow’s Embrace) in lieu of Infusion of Shadow.

Of course, level 80 PvE = breeze regardless in 99% of everything but this makes it braindead level (especially with Scorpion Wire for multi-ranged situations). And you can reset via stealth/shadow step whenever you want anyways.

You will still blow through all your initiative fairly quickly if you try to keep black powder up by relying on the 50% chance of a crit giving you +1 initiative back.

6 initiative use every 4 seconds isn’t something you can regain with Invigorating Precision. You might be able to regain 2 too 4 initiative if you have 5 trash mobs near your AOE attacks at all times less then that and you will blow through it all.

Personally I don’t recommend life steal sigils as they don’t give much health. Your far better off with +crit sigil + condition remove sigil to increase your chance at initiative regain with Invigorating Precision and remove conditions that prevent sigil of malice from healing you.

SpudMan.5041:

I have been playing as a thief (dagger main hand, pistol offhand), and have noticed a seriously unfair way of killing high level enemies.

By using the 5th skill, “black powder”, you can make a group of enemies miss all of their attacks for 4 seconds, since the enemies make no attempt to get out of the AOE. During this time, you can land 2 full rounds of auto attacks, and then use heartseeker to go invisible (this happens when you combo heartseeker with the black powder AOE). Then backstab, and repeat.

You can literally do this indefinitely with the “infusion of shadow” trait, since you gain the same initiative back over the 4 seconds as you used. You receive close to no damage from the monsters you are killing because they spend the whole time being blind, hence you are able to kill things way above your level by adopting this very repetitive play style.

I am getting SO BORED doing it because everything is so easy to kill. At the same time, I can’t resist the temptation of using it to level up quickly. Please fix this so there is no longer any temptation! I am making myself get so bored of this game!

Your wrong about regaining all your initiative. Black Powder uses 6 initiative. You only gain 2 initiative back from infusion of shadow and heartseeker costs 3 initiative to use to get you into stealth.. So you will be losing at least 7 initiative every time you pull off this combo .

Are you REALLY using this tactic to kill enemies or did you watch a old youtube video and wanted a thief nerf? or did you get killed in PVP and run to the forums for a nerf X class thread?

Using black powder+heartseeker+infusion of shadow is a very slow way to level. All professions including the thief have faster ways to kill melee only trash mobs with near zero risk. This only works on land based enemies that lack ranged attacks, AOE attacks, channelled charge attacks or CC protection.

Certain enemies are Immune to blindness or have abilities/boons that reduce it’s effectiveness by 90%. Ranged enemies, enemies with channelled charge attacks and enemies with AOE attacks won’t come within the tiny black powder AOE. That’s over half of all the games trash mobs. The black powder bubble is so small that there are enemies who can hit you in melee from outside the bubble.

So you are looking at this tactic failing on most enemies other then some trash world mobs and running out of initiative after using this combo 3 times. Not to mention that this combo is all SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE, single target blast+ single target heartseeker with a delay between attacks. Sorry but your slowing your levelling down a lot.

The only exploit I see here is the original poster trying to exploit people who don’t know any better into thinking you can do this tactic indefinitely on all mobs with just infusion of shadow & a combo when you can’t as you will blow all your initiative fast.

High level enemies only take glancing attacks from you and can one shot you. It’s much faster to get experience facing mobs closer to your level while doing events. Either way you get so many tomes & writs in this game that getting to 80 can be done with no risk and plenty of boredom just by double clicking items in your inventory.

My original question was aimed at finding out if Anet has a policy stating that they don’t touch the Black Lion Market or buy/remove items from it.

Has a developer ever commented on it?

There would be certain financial advantages for Anet if they did buy up items on the BLM while reducing the drop rate and giving other options for obtaining items of a similar value in the gem store.

I would assume it’s Anets and the GM’s policy not to touch the BLM as obviously a significant amount of players would see it as wrong.

There is one good thing about it. The green accessory colour is far darker and more natural hair dye looking colour then the two greens in exclusive hair colour section.

Most of the exclusive hair colours don’t look like hair colours. They are WAY too bright or look like a massive block of colour with no definition.

I wish the developers would add a far bigger variety of darker exclusive colours that don’t look like a BLOB of colour on a persons head rather then dyed hair.

RoseofGilead.8907:

No, the free unlock period ended some time ago.

OP: Do you already have that story chapter unlocked on your account? If so, that may be why you don’t see it in the pack.

Thank you. Yes I didn’t even know I had it unlocked.

It’s very annoying to find out you can only colour your hair using the limited small amount of accessory colours.

Anet needs to fix this issue.

Why is 8. Point of no return not included in the season 2 complete pack?

Does this unlock content for all characters?

What loot will I get from this pack?

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

In the pictures you posted it looked like they were kicking a guy for being away. As he told them I’m here. Just OOC.

After they started a kick he told them F-you.

In one of the other pictures the party are saying don’t join a party and tell us what to do. Before starting a kick.

If you go away in a fractal or start trying to boss a group you just joined around or you swear at people you will end up being kicked. There is also no call for swearing.

Saying these people should be banned for kicking him when they have a guy in their group swearing at them & being away is stupid. They have every right to kick people for that.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

You’re forgetting to say other MMO’s have it as well…

with swiftness 35% it’s P2W, and with combat options : NO….

Oh and btw:

NO MOUNTS

I have filled at least 10 posts why mounts are not neccesary…

But if you would get your pink moa, would you actually place a Char(r ) on it?
The Association for the Protection of Animals in Tyria would have your head… or in some cases the animals would just have your head…

Oh and btw, in case you forgot to read:

NO MOUNTS

Nothing in a mmorpg is necessary.

Mini pets are not necessary either and so small you really can’t see the well enough to matter. If I had a choice between a player home, a mount and a mini pet it would be house → mount → mini pet in that order.

The point is mounts can add to the immersion factor. Same with player homes. Mini pets are mostly too small to matter or even notice in game. At least you notice mounts in games.

I would pay 1000 gems for a hi-res Wolf mini pet that’s the size of the wolves in game.

I get no valid path to target on certain slopes and steps in the game despite being able to walk up them no problem.

Shadow step is crap now.

You want a example?

Try shadow stepping from up the steps on the Mystic forge in Lions arch to any of the ground down the steps. It won’t let you despite the fact you can walk up or down them fine. That’s how bad they made this.

They call it a red panda mini when it looks nothing like a panda. Why? It looks like a fox or re-textured low res raccoon.

Was that mini made in china? It would explain the low quality and calling it a panda when it’s not :P

193

Tryggr Fenris

There are a significant amount of bosses, events and champions in this game where going into Melee range is suicide, counter productive and offers ZERO advantage but PLENTY of disadvantages.

It isn’t fair, it isn’t right and it does not respect the rule of RISK vs REWARD. Going into melee should be worth the risks and a viable option far more often than
ranged.

There needs to be more bosses & champions who block projectile attacks or punisher players for using them to balance out the fact there are bosses where melee is a MASSIVE disadvantage with no rewards.

New Bass Guitar-

1. The keys/notes are unresponsive. There is a delay after hitting each note/key.

2. There is a cool down after hitting a note/key.

Both of these things make it terrible as a instrument.

3. The Bass Guitar in GW2 is a Piano. There is no two ways around it. It sounds like a is a piano. It’s nothing like a guitar.

Is all this a bug that’s going to be fixed?

I bought this Bass guitar yesterday and instantly regretted it as it sounds NOTHING like a bass guitar. It sounds like a synthesised piano and everyone at lions arch was saying the same thing. Heck me trying to play that thing put a lot of people off buying it.

Anet I really want a refund. Either that or turn this guitar into a Axe Weapon skin. The skin is great and looks awesome but as a musical instrument its horrible.

I agree. I just bought the Bass Guitar last night and instantly wanted a refund as it sounds terrible and nothing like a bass guitar.

The bass guitar can’t even hold notes so you can forget about playing most music with it and if you try play any fast songs its useless as there is a cool down after you press a key.

Is there any way of getting a refund for the Bass Guitar? Since its not as advertised and is generally terrible?

Easy way to do it is just make it so armour skins are selectable for all professions in the wardrobe regardless of armour type.

It would be no different the what we have now other then all the skins we have unlocked on our accounts wardrobe could be used on any profession.