Guild Wars 2

I realize that I’m coming to this topic very late, but I still want to get my two cents in.

Point one, I think the season 1 material was a lot of fun. I realize it’d be a lot of work to reformat it into all-instanced material like season 2, but leaving it forever lost is simply unacceptable if the game is going to have a coherent narrative structure going forward, and considering the direction things were going at the end of season 2, it’s clear that the storytelling is relying on those events as a foundation.

Point two, I think there should be a short cinematic recap for each chapter of the Living Story, not just season 1, but each chapter full stop, available in the story journal.

Bear with me here: Especially if you plan to charge people money for the content, despite the season 1 stuff now being long lost, having a preview to show them what they’re missing out on will unquestionably drive their desire to unlock it all. And even for those of us who don’t plan to unlock it, having a recap of events and characters available in the game lets the narrative continue to flow forward.

It’s simple, really; when you click on a story chapter in the story journal, there’s an option to play the episode recap, and (if needed) an option to unlock the chapter.

That way, work on reformatting the season 1 material can happen at its own pace, and the players won’t be left wondering what the heck is going on.

I would say, however, that as it has taken this long, and been the source of this much toothgnashing on the part of the playerbase, Anet would be well advised to seriously consider how much they want to charge people for it. At this point, there are brand new players coming into the game who are being told that they missed a bunch of one-time-only events that they can’t even see in videos, and they will likely not be inclined to pay you a great deal to unlock content that honestly should have been available to them from the get-go.

One the format for Season 2 was determined and defined, season 1 should have been adapted to it immediately, not later; this was something that should have been done immediately on the completion of the new format.

Stop trying to play WoW in GW2.

GW2 is not about “leveling.” It is about adventure, exploration, story, activity, and fun.

Remember that the first game had a level cap of 20, which you could hit in one afternoon on a new character even as a casual, non-hardcore player. Because the purpose of level progression in Guild Wars is to act as a tutorial for the game’s systems, giving you time to learn and develop comfort with the game’s mechanics and how skills and traits interact, and how your playstyle will be most comfortable.

The only reason the level cap in GW2 is 80, is because people cried endlessly about how the level cap was set so low in the first game. There’s no actual gameplay reason for it to change, ever.

The whole idea is content. I mean, would people be satisfied if the level cap was a million? Because they could set the amount of xp required for a level to 30 or so, let you gain 15 levels from harvesting an ore node; a million is totally doable. And then just think how easily you could brag to your former WoW buddies!

Seriously, stop doing this. Guild Wars isn’t WoW. Stop trying to make it WoW, and try enjoying what it is.

Which is NOT WOW.

Jade Arkadian.9280:

Rebuild it to destroy it again! Muahahahah!
Huh…sorry, I’m not evil anymore… But I like city destruction though…

Right?

Waaaaaaaay back when, one of the moments in gaming that really blew my mind was from Asheron’s Call, back in 1999. Patch day comes… and these giant floating towers have erupted from the ground, and blown up one of the central cities.

ANet handled city destruction better; logging in after that patch in AC, if your toon was in town when you logged out, meant a ~1000 foot fall to the bottom of the crater where the city used to be, followed by begging for a rez.

But it was an amazing moment.

Watching Scarlet’s airship fleet come down around the city was an awesome moment.

Honestly, I’m looking forward to “rebuilt Lion’s Arch” way, way less than I am the day in the distant future when they release all that lovely LWS1 content as story journal episodes. I know it’s a monumental task, since they’ll have to significantly rewrite most of that content to work the way the newer LW episodes have, but if it ever happens I will be absolutely delighted.

Bumpifying.

Anet, I love you guys, and I love my Necromancer.

I have been able to stand up to everything I’ve come across thus far with several different combinations of skills, including the much maligned minions.

But it IS irritating that if I make a goof, and go down, I am toast in seconds regardless of my best efforts.

You can test this. Go to Queensdale. Aggro three level 5 bandits. Let them down you. Attempt to survive. I absolutely guarantee you get killed. Regardless of your level, gear, or any other factor, you’re dead once you’re downed. The downed skill 1 / life leech attack will take 80% of a level 5 bandit’s health in one channel. You will still die.

My guardian isn’t even level 50, and has better survivability in downed state than my level 80 necro.

Whyyyyyyyyyy?!

My level 15 mesmer can stand up to abuse in downed better than my level 80 necro.

Whyyyyyyyyyy?!

Dude, I know you guys are rocking the updates, and have a ton of work on your plate, but whatever calculation results in this problem cannot be that hard to find and fix.

I know this is low priority, or someone would have replied by now, but please fix this.

I’m primarily a solo explorer, and being able to survive from downed is a major issue for me; most of the time there IS no-one around to give me a hand. I don’t always dig going way back to the waypoint… from 10 meters from the activation zone for the next waypoint.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I am actually really curious to see, if the Molten Alliance was formed to combat something gross underground that’s not Primordus-related, what’s really going on.

So, yeah, this rocks. Good job.

shrug as a necro, I have no problem with these.

Several tactics I’ve used:

- Standing behind a tree while minions kill it
- dodging
- using an axe. (Dodge, skill 2, dodge into cover; repeat)
- Setting the flesh wurm behind it and then ignoring it until the wurm kills it
- making the golem charge it
- detonating bone minions on it
- setting the bone fiend to immobile, and letting it plink away

These things don’t have a lot of hit points. Why the complaints? They’re SUPPOSED to be annoying, that’s part of the whole concept.

takes a deep breath

The escort quest is one of several pre-conditions for the SB spawn. It has to be completed first, though.

If the oakheart spawns during or immediately following the brew shipment completion, SB pre-events will not start until after the oakheart is killed; since one of the SB pre-events takes place in the same location.
(I have no idea if it’s possible to do this, but if the oakheart is on a separate timer, and not actually one of the pre-event triggers itself, it would be VERY living world-y to have the SB pre-events launch and run down to participate and see the oakheart being zerged by shades and aatxes. Just saying.)

At any rate, the oakheart has to be cleared, the brew shipment has to be protected, because both have components that take place in locations able to block the SB pre-events.

Prior to the spawn window, hunters wanting to do the SB event should go kill the oakheart, complete “Drive the centaurs back” and launch the brew shipment quest so that Sister Brenda and the pack bull move off along their track and Abbott Mathias can return to his original position.

There is a partial pathing bug in the scripting for Sister Brenda, I suspect, because during the event yesterday, the brew shipment event had launched, and at the second ambush point, the pack bull stopped, and Brenda ran all the way back to the abbey before returning and continuing the event chain. As soon as she and the bull were at Swamplost Haven and the oakheart was dead, the pre-events launched immediately.

Also, Dana – if the oakheart stops spawning, it’s because SB has missed more than one timer cycle. Make sure Abbot Mathias is in his correct position, and the brew shipment is clear, and the events should launch.

I can confirm that Rhendak the Crazed definitely does spawn the additional chest popup for the rare as of last night.

shrug Kormir represents the aspects I find most appealing myself, so I usually pick her during character creation as well.

I would note that – as a previous poster did – her part in causing Nightfall was far, far smaller than her part in cleaning it up. The player’s part was much, much larger, or did anyone forget that? The Way To Go, Serge rule applies heavily throughout the Nightfall campaign; Kormir actually spent a good chunk of that campaign cleaning up messes the PLAYERS made.

I admit, having to go pin Dhuum back down in the Underworld seems major enough that you’d think Grenth might have intervened a bit more directly than “if you give me a huge donation I will give you permission to go get your kitten kicked so I don’t have to.”

The Fissure of Woe was more… low level, I suppose? Doing FoW I never had the sense of “the world will end if this doesn’t get fixed” that I did doing the Underworld. I can understand Balthazar letting us handle that. After all, it is possible to solo FoW – I know, having done it – but the Underworld is completely impossible to solo. Even if you can somehow acrobatically defeat all the lesser content – which I flatly don’t believe – good luck not getting killed in maybe 4 seconds when Dhuum shows up.

Kormir cleansing the entire Realm of Torment? Granted it’s not canonical that she FINISHED by the end of GW1’s content, but she straight-out says that it’s her intent, so I’m not all traumatized and kitten by the notion that most of her time has been spent on that for the last 250 years.

Total speculation, here, but might Primordus be backing the Flame Legion without them knowing? I mean, they THINK they’re still worshiping the Titans, blah blah, but they have to be getting their magic from somewhere, and Primo is way more local than the remaining Titans.

It’s entirely possible that the alliance formed to give both the dredge and FL a foothold to escape the stone dwarves, since the dredge hate, and fear the dwarves – former slave owners, remember? – and if Primo is backing the FL, THEY may not know that, but there’s no reason to think the dwarves wouldn’t. Especially since they’re pretty much devoted to chasing down his minions and destroying them.

It’s clear either way, though, that the alliance is hugely beneficial to both races; xenophobic they may be, but the dredge are pretty technology-exclusive – not a lot of magic – and the FL is totally bereft of technology since the schism between them and the Iron Legion. Combining their forces gives them the advantages of both magic and technology, which is the position the FL previously enjoyed, and one the dredge have always envied.

Granted, it gives them a host of new enemies, but doesn’t every decision have consequences? The alliance arguably gives them both more than sufficient advantage to overcome their xenophobia.

Also, I would argue against the notion that they’re being OPPOSED by Primo and his minions, because if that were the case, the dredge would have been far more interested in aligning with the Svanir than FL – Destroyers are immune to burning. FL brings advantages affecting pretty much everyone BUT Primo’s minions.

Just the fact of the fire aspect of things would lead me to think that the whole Molten Alliance has to be pretty hostile to the Svanir, though, and I would be interested to see if the Svanir start to aggro MA critters when they spawn, and vice versa. Just because Primordus and Jormag are both dragons doesn’t mean they – or their minions – particularly get along with one another, and those two seem more diametrically opposed to each other than any of the others.

In fact, that may be a proximate cause for the alliance – Primo may be feeding the MA power and magic as a means of gaining advantage against Jormag. Remember, other than “they wreck stuff,” we don’t yet truly know anything about the actual motivations of the Great Dragons; we know they’re really dangerous, tough as hell, immensely destructive, and actively hostile to the player races, but that’s pretty much it – and I’m sure anything with the intellect to plan the way Zhaitan demonstrated has more than enough brainpower to have more on the ball than “wreck stuff, just because.”

If there’s some form of score-keeping between the dragons, or rivalries we’re not aware of, Jormag seems a natural target for Primo, and what better way to screw with a competitor than by undermining and weakening his minions through unsuspecting proxies?

TL;DR: Primordus is bankrolling the Molten Alliance as a means of, at a minimum, tweaking Jormag in the wobbly bits.

I am looking forward to seeing where this storyline goes, quite a lot.

Easily soloed both instances with my Necro. Granted, these guys are not a cakewalk, but…

…Wait, yes they are. They’re ALL glass cannons; they do high damage, but they go down very easily. Bring high-damage AoE or pets / minions / turrets / blocking skills to soak some of the damage, and some form of stability to deal with the (very, very frequent) knockdowns, and these guys are very easy.

As I said, I ran both instances solo, using heavy life drain and vampiric wells, no minions. Just AoE and lifesteals.

I am a VERY casual player, since I only get to do more than minimal dailies on my days off – full time job, wife, kid, that – and I had no trouble with this content at all. Seriously, learn to dodge. You can even hotkey it.

Adine.2184:

1 ) The introduction of bounties . You may not think about it all that often but if a guild triggers a bounty and gets one in an event zone there could be a swarm from 1 guild at the other end of Frostgorge or Sparkly right before or as a dragon pops .

2 ) Map population reduction. Its my understanding that the population allowed per map has been reduced. This of course will cause more frequent overflow

3 ) Guaranteed rares . Do you honestly think that only the guesting population is increasing the event mobs? Have you ever thought that since you are guaranteed a rare or better that people on your own server might be hitting the chests that didn’t bother before?

Now discuss

OK: Yes, guild bounties happen. Do they happen enough to hit every single major meta event area, consistently, across the entire game world, multiple times a day? I’m pretty sure they don’t. I’ve seen plenty of the guild bounty targets wandering around in the zones, and I’ve never seen one pop during a meta event in the same area.

Map population reduction is definitely not the problem. The huge quantity of people showing up for events is way above the original population caps as well.

Guaranteed rares will certainly be a draw for more players, but a casual glance at the in-game chat during any meta-event demonstrates that at least fifty percent of the people present at any given meta-event are guesting from other servers.

Be honest: just ask, in chat, at any event. “How many people here are guesting?”

I bet the responses will surprise you, if you think anyone complaining about the numbers of cross-server farmers is somehow being dishonest.

Really? With a three hour turnaround, they can “never” log in when the event is up on their own server? I doubt that quite a lot; I have a full-time job, a wife, and a life, and I somehow manage to hit most of the major events at least once every day.

Nerfing the loot back to previous levels, I can maybe see.

Increasing the cost of travel between waypoints, no.

Between servers? Sure; the huge mass migrations that are going on right now are pretty clearly not what the devs had in mind anyway.

How about, in order to “guest,” you have to be sponsored by a player on the server you want to guest TO. In other words, you actually have to be guesting to see someone, which was the whole point.

I am 100% sure that the guesting mechanic wasn’t introduced as a way to allow cross-server farming.

Requiring a native sponsor for a guesting session seems reasonable, totally prevents event farming across servers, and still permits actual cross-server friendships to exist without penalty.

Actually, it’s causing a lot of resentment in-game, too. I just saw some people who “guested” to fight the Shadow Behemoth get told in chat to go back to their own server.

I mean, ok, but WvW isn’t supposed to really spill over to PvE, yanno?

I tried to participate in the Kill The Shatterer event this morning, and the quantity of people that showed up reduced my machine to about 4 frames a second. Luckily I somehow got a bronze participation, although I’m pretty sure if I got a single hit on the dragon, it was an accident.

This server is not, natively, that crowded. Prior to the update that reintroduced guesting, I hadn’t been in overflow – in any zone – since the Southsun Coves one-shot event.

Now, if I don’t arrive for an event more than 10 minutes before the spawning window opens, I don’t get to do it. Period. And the overflows don’t end until the meta event ends, which guarantees that people who are on the same server miss out on playing together.

Like, for example, what just happened; I looked at the timer a few minutes ago, and said to my wife, “hey, baby, the behemoth will be up in a few minutes, want to run it before you leave for work?”

So I log in, go there, no problem. She logs in, maps from Lion’s Arch, lands in overflow; we’re not going to get to play together for this event. At all.

So someone from another server can get an extra lick at the Behemoth.

I’m pretty sure the reason my wife and I created our characters on the same server, and dragged our friends who also play to this server, was so we could play together, not so people could abuse the guesting system to allow them to get extra loot at the expense of us getting to play together.

A better solution than changing the overflow rules might be to automatically apply DR to all guested meta events. That removes the incentive for cross-server farming, without penalizing people who actually guest to play with friends. You can participate in the event, you can get a reward, just not as good a reward as you’d get for doing the event once daily like you’re supposed to.