Showing Posts For arabeth.2361:

Homophobia & the Ignore System

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

All chat channels, all emotes, the person should not be able to see when you’re online, nor should they be able to see what map you’re in.

Good point – they shouldn’t be able to see when you’re online or where you are, either.

It’s almost like we’re talking about two different features: “ignore” and “block.” “Ignore” seems to be the thing that Anet thought people wanted, and that may be fine for some people in some situations. But we also need a “block” – something that completely removes that person from your playing experience. It honestly wouldn’t be going too far to replace their in-game character with one of those nice “generic” models that you use now to avoid culling.

Homophobia & the Ignore System

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Ignoring/Blocking a person should prevent…

  • …this person’s chat comments from being visible to you in all chat forms:
    • Guild
    • Say
    • Local
    • Map
    • Yell
    • Shout
    • Party
    • Squad
    • Team
    • Tell
    • Whisper
  • …this person’s emotes from being displayed to you in the chat box.
    • Including (especially?) blocking custom emotes (/emote blahblahblah) as blocked players currently use that as means around the block feature (exploiting).
  • …this person’s ability to see or join your LFG through the LFG Tool.
  • …this person from being able to join your party.
    • Could even have a warning message pointing out to you that “The person attempting to join your party is currently blocked” and then offer a “Permit this person to temporarily join the party anyway” option.

Block should actually block the person and restrict all possible contact with this person until the block is removed. Or have it as an option to where you can select to only block chat related activities made by this player, or choose the full block that prevents all possible contact (LFG, etc).

100% right. What is the possible reason for not including absolutely everything on the “ignore” function? What does that help? Why wouldn’t it have worked this way originally?

(edited by Moderator)

Please nerf Mad King says

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

This game is not supposed to be balanced. Ever. The odds are greatly in the ghosts favor, and that is exactly how its supposed to be.

This. The point is that you are probably going to lose. It’s “last man standing.”

That said, it does seem like this one skill is almost too good. It could probably use a longer cooldown.

Not Enough Mad King Finishers for Meta

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

The finishers have a high drop rate in the labryth. I have around 300 finishers (mad king and scarecrow) all from farming that for a few hours.

I have been playing this for about 2 hours a night and i have only seen 1 drop for this finisher….. So i guess you got all mine.

Plus i have never used a finisher before and never did PVP or WVW so i’m not sure if i’ll be able to do this one.

How strange. I’ve also gotten exactly 1 drop after over 3 hours of farming. What is up with the discrepancy?

Is precursor crafting going to happen or not?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

It never ceases to amaze me how people can read something and still only see the thing they wanted to see.

Colin said “yes.” In fact, he said “absolutely” – twice. It WILL happen. Period. That’s all there is to that statement. The OP asked a question (“is precursor [creation] coming or not”) and it was answered (“absolutely”). Definitively. It is coming. Period.

The only ambiguity is whether or not it will happen before January first of 2014. The answer there was that there’s a good chance it will not. It’s not a yes or a no, but a chance that it may or may not happen in the next 2 1/2 months. But it will happen. Period. Absolutely.

The only other things you can infer from his statement are that precursor building will probably not involve the current crafting system (since he went out of his way to avoid the word crafting) – but then again, it might – and that additional legendary items seem to be tied into the precursor building update in some way (but there’s no reason to think current precursors would be left out of any precursor building system – in fact, there’s every reason to think they would be included) – but then again, they may not.

But the one thing we know for sure is that it is coming. Absolutely.

Who gave up on the reptile already?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I’ve done the event many times and the best I’ve ever seen was he got down to 85% health. I’ve never even seen the megalaser thing. Always been in an overflow.

The thing is: I still think the event is pretty cool. I like the mechanics and the challenge and I honestly do not believe that “leechers” are the thing killing it, or the timer. I think at this point most people who want to try have looked up how to do it and have a passing familiarity with their role. And the timer is just there to make sure you can fail without wasting all day trying. And as mega-events go: no one can deny that it is pretty awesome.

However, I’m not going to bother again because this content was not made for me. I don’t play this game by running around in huge, coordinated groups using voice chat du jour. (I’m not in a giant guild or WvW team.) And unless I just happen to luck into being in a battle where there are those groups playing (the odds of which are basically zero, unless I spend hours and hours of my life waiting around), then there’s absolutely no way I will be able to 1) win or 2) make any difference. It’s cool, don’t get me wrong: I just can’t contribute in any meaningful way because of how I play. (And honestly, I have to think most players aren’t in huge groups and fall into the same basic category – but I certainly may be wrong.)

Hmm, what does this remind me of – oh right, raiding! Waiting around for hours just to fail in a few minutes… That’s why I don’t raid, either. And I don’t have anything against raiding and kudos to the people who do it and enjoy it. But that wasn’t written for me. And rather than bang my head against a wall, I’d rather do something else I enjoy instead.

I was very glad they made the wings accessible to everyone, though. That was definitely reward enough for me.

Community Damaging Content

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I’d say what’s way more community-damaging are people like the above poster (edit: I meant penguin), and many others, who come to the forums and talk down to people and make rude comments. Every time you read on the forum someone say “this isn’t for you” or “you don’t know how to play” or “you’re doing it wrong” or something to that effect: that’s damaging the community.

(Ironic, given that the reason GW2 is doing well is because LOTS of people play it. If the people who think everyone who isn’t like them should quit, they’d be out of a game rather quickly.)

Community Damaging Content

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I don’t really think this is community damaging. I think a lot of people are venting on the forums and such, but those are a tiny fraction of the playerbase.

That said, I also more or less agree with Tallybunny. Now that I’ve gotten the wings from the meta-achievement, there is no reason for me to go back to this event until getting the boss down to 50-75% is more common (instead of 5-7%). I didn’t enjoy end-game raiding in WoW, and so I don’t have any reason to enjoy it here in open-world GW2. For those that love Nintendo-hard: great! More power (and loot) to you.

Any story surrounding the Teq living story?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I realize that, for a lot of people, the LW release stories don’t feel connected. They are, but we’re not always making that clear to players. It’s something we’re always looking to improve.

Great goal. Looking forward to it!

The new boss killing time - 15 minutes ?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Ghaste: excellent points! I see what you’re saying and that’s totally fair. I agree something other than a timer would work just as well or better.

world bosses: GW2's best kept secret

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Thank you for being helpful!

So this goes back to my “the secrecy was part of the deal” idea before; there’s really no way you could know unless you happened to be in the right place at the right time, or you were connected to someone else who knew, or you got tons of information from non-official websites (or sort of figured it out from the wiki). Which is fine: and I can see why they’d want to make a huge deal about world bosses, since the majority of the playerbase probably never heard of them until this week, and that’s a lot of coding and cool stuff to just get seen by a few people. (Not to mention those few people were probably also farming the events regularly and increasing the difference between the wealth of the average player and those in the know, which is why I am guessing they kept lowering the loot and made them harder.)

It still seems weird that you’d have to have a site that could read and interpret the API in order to know the timing. No regular person off the street is going to have access to that. And the site you linked is the one I keep saying is wrong at least half the time (and yes, I’m selecting the correct server).

It just seems like there’s a HUGE amount of stuff to this game, and barely anything in-game or on official sources telling people about it, and very little to know why it’s important or how it works or really anything. I mean, crafting alone is incredibly complex if you want to not lose a ton of money doing it, and that’s just one tiny (and well-documented) piece! Obviously part of the point is to discover parts of the game yourself, and as an MMO I guess it needs to just keep going on and on to keep your interest, but my point is that with some things (like world bosses) it’s very easy for you to never discover them – unless you’re plugged into a bunch of non-official sources. Which is fine for many people, but it’s still very easy to miss information that way.

Risk vs Reward [Challenging Content.]

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

In time, people will be downing him regularly. You don’t want to make ascended crafting invalidated.

Pretty much this.

The new boss killing time - 15 minutes ?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I am actually pretty happy about the time limit. The thing is: the event needs a fail condition, like someone said above. And if you didn’t set a time limit, people would fight for hours and hours without knowing that they could never win – and that’s just terrible for everyone. It’s much better to set a limit so you can go ahead and fail and try again next time.

Whether or not the time limit is too low is another question. Maybe for this event it is: 30 minutes might be better. On the other hand, in all the times I’ve played the event, I’ve never seen Tequatl take more than 15% damage (85% remaining). The majority of the time, it’s less than 5%. So an extra 15 minutes is just going to waste 15 more minutes of your time and gold from rezzing. It won’t make a difference.

Also: for everyone quitting, apparently you get rewarded based on whether or not you get him below 75/50/25% health, like the Scarlet event. So if you quit early you’re just walking away from rewards. Personally I’ve not seen people walk away early yet since we all need the daily for the wings, and all you have to do is be there. But now that many people are getting their wings, they may just start to leave.

world bosses: GW2's best kept secret

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Wow, what a bunch of mean spirited responses! I’m not even sure why someone would respond like that in such a rude way.

Thanks, Shemsu, for that – I had no clue what those sorts of things were for, other than sort of “meta” events going on, but I didn’t know those were tied to world bosses, specifically (again: how would I? Where is this mentioned in-game?). I recall those sorts of status bars tend to show up whenever you’re in the area of the map that has them, so I’ll pay more attention to that now. But how did you know that was what they were for?

I’ve also seen many enemies with “more than a champion” style frame around their portrait, but this happens constantly – I mean, look at Logan or Trehearne or any of the other major NPCs – so I just thought that meant “extra big” or whatever. It seems like there’s a big gap between champion and world boss; I mean, it would take like 100 Logans to hurt Tequatl.

Also, thanks for the help about tracking websites, but as I’ve already mentioned above: they tend to not work (including the link above, which is wrong at least half the time, but that’s still better than most), and they are all out-of-game random sites put up by whoever. There’s nothing official about that stuff. And how did those sites know (often incorrectly) what the timers are, or what counts as a “world boss?” How does anyone?

world bosses: GW2's best kept secret

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

There is absolutely nothing in-game outside of being in the right place at the right time to know that there even are such things as world bosses. Before this patch, the only official mention that we ever had was in the patch notes, telling us the loot structure had changed for them (a few times), and now telling us that they are harder. I’m still not sure how you can even tell if something is a “world boss” or not (I found out one through the new daily achievement). Is there something in the event name or somewhere that actually designates them? How can you know other than going to some random site that may or may not have correct information?

Don’t get me wrong: I think they’re very cool and apparently according to my achievements I’ve even stumbled upon one or two without even knowing what it was. And I am very happy that this issue is being more or less resolved by having an entire content update basically revolving around the idea of world bosses. But there could really be a bit more official and/or in-game information out there about them. For example, another basic question I have is about how often they occur. With the Scarlet invasions we knew it was every hour, but with world bosses there are tons of random internet sites that “track” them, although most are wrong and even the ones that get them right don’t help if you show up and are shunted to overflow. I have no idea how often the current world boss fight happens, for example, or where I’d even go to find out.

Thanks for making them more obvious but I just wanted to say that the majority of players have probably never heard of a world boss before this week. Are there other big, huge, cool areas of the game that are also kept effectively secret (other than whatever the end of jumping puzzles look like)? Was the secrecy sort of part of the deal with these?

Ascended vs Exotic (Math)

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

You appear to be intentionally excluding the middle, which is a very strange and illogical way to argue.

You appear to be intentionally misreading my post, which is definitely a strange and illogical way to argue, I agree.

So I’m glad that nothing you said actually argued against what I said, which was: it is up to you and your playstyle to determine whether or not this matters. (Maybe assume people are trying to be helpful instead of deceptive?)

Boss 'Week'?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Never heard of shark week, but thank you for clearing up the confusing name! I was also worried that we only had 1 week to do this content. Please don’t make names this confusing in the future.

Silver Doubloons Price and Rarity

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Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Someone else linked this earlier but you really need to look at this link.
http://www.guildwarstrade.com/item/24502-silver-doubloon

The price spikes: yes. But it also drops hours later. Your thread is honestly probably contributing to the gradual average increase, since that’s how this economy works: anyone who tells people about a deal causes others to invest in that deal. (If I were really cynical, I’d wonder if you weren’t doing that on purpose.)

I feel for you: I do. They need a copper→silver forge recipe, they need a platinum→gold and gold→silver recipe, and they also shouldn’t use t2 mats for legendaries. It sucks. You know what else sucks? The fact that Trading Post PvP is far and away the most profitable way to play this game, period. You will never make more money actually playing than you will shifting items around on the TP. And there’s no way this will change.

If 350g is bumming you out, then the fact that most lengendaries will end up costing you over 1500g + lots of time and effort will probably bum you out further. Precursors alone are in the 800g range these days. The precursor for the legendary I will never make just shot up over 300g in the last month. That’s pretty much the same as your doubloons. Unless you are extremely good at timing the market, the cost investment is going to be ridiculous. And it’s not like other legendary ingredients haven’t spiked, either. John Smith wrote earlier that a slight increase in availability of precursors would actually increase their price, since more people would think about jumping into the legendary game. Then we had a massive farming event where everyone constantly had 300%+ Magic Find. It’s no surprise that this rippled out into other ingredients as well. Everything is more expensive right now because we just had a light bit of concentrated inflation. The next patch is helping tamper that back down, but it will take a while to reach all the various markets (and some may stay changed forever).

My advice is to dump your doubloons when they spike one day and give up on a legendary. If it’s not fun, then it’s not fun. And unless you’re a whiz at TP PvP, you probably won’t have a lot of fun making gold for a legendary.

Ecto Salvage Rates Again.......

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

RNG leads to hate. Hate leads to fear. And fear leads to… tinfoil hats.

Ascended vs Exotic (Math)

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

So, bottom line for the thread:

~10-16% (estimated) increase in DPS, as a rough rule of thumb, using full (currently available) ascended gear. (Pretty much matches up with other estimates I’ve seen.)

Is this enough to matter? The answer is yes and no. It depends on the situation. 1 vs. 1 with evenly matched skill? Yes. In a giant zerg? No. So each person needs to answer this for themselves: how do you prefer to play?

Tequatl Lore: ...what?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I just assumed it was an incredibly thinly veiled Godzilla reference.

Like, the whole update was one big Godzilla homage.

Ruined Ore & Logs

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I don’t think this is a bug. I think it’s intended. If you are getting attacked, your gathering efforts are ruined. This is probably intended to stop you from just running through an area and gathering without paying any attention to the mobs. You actually have to clear a site to gather.

Sorry but I don’t think this is a bug.

swiftness in combat not working - necro

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Fair enough – thanks for letting me know. I know something has definitely changed, since my movement wasn’t reduced so horribly before that patch. Maybe the change was that instead of it slowing you down for a few seconds (or while in range of a mob, or whatever) you’re slowed down until you’re out of combat. It certainly seems like I do not regain speed until out of combat now.

Or maybe the bug was that the Signet of the Locust didn’t get included in the speed reduction, and now that has been corrected? I hardly ever play other classes – much less those with always-on speed boosts – so I have no experience in this matter.

swiftness in combat not working - necro

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Maybe I am confused or imagining things, but two patches ago (not SAB but the previous one) the Signet of the Locust on my necro stopped working during combat. It’s a very noticeable speed drop. Additionally warhorn 5 (our only swiftness) also no longer works while in combat. (It may only no longer work with Signet of the Locust up – I haven’t tried without the Signet.)

Was this a change to all classes so that movement speed enhancers didn’t work during combat? Warhorn 5 is particularly brutal because using it for swiftness also tends to aggro anything you’re near (even more now with the increased range). I’ve really noticed this during the Scarlet events (since they need lots of running around maps) – as soon as I hit combat it’s like my character is stuck in molasses.

6 Levels for Maxing Non Ascended Crafts

in Crafting

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

You don’t get 10 levels from maxing one crafting profession. This is a pretty common misconception. You get 1/8th of the total XP required to get to level 80. This is not necessarily 10 levels, although it can be. It’s higher at low levels and lower at higher levels. Check this out:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Xp#Leveling_table

That said: only 6 levels when you’re such a low level does seem wrong. It seems like that may have been a coding mistake.

has master crafter changed

in Crafting

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Does anyone know if this title now requires getting the 3 expanded professions to 500 or just 400?

SAB Obsidian shards not there?

in Super Adventure Box: Back to School

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I sort of see it both ways.

On one hand, for those who don’t care about the skins or minis or all the 8-bit fashion, the “normal” loot rewards made the event a lot more rewarding. Now there’s very little incentive other than a few easily ignorable achievement points and the challenge itself.

On the other hand, making SAB completely separate from the rest of the game means that you don’t HAVE to play it at all. A lot more people would feel pressured to play and use the rewards as a cheaper alternative to fund other projects – and thus the complaints and frustration would be even higher.

I was disappointed (since I missed the first SAB) that I couldn’t get anything of use from it, but now I’m sort of glad that it works this way, because I don’t feel like I would be playing it for any reason other than the challenge.

Also, I sort of wonder if they will make those items available again after the SAB is over again…

Is it too hard? Respect the awesome work

in Super Adventure Box: Back to School

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Josh: I really appreciate you responding in this thread. You may be done reading it by now, but I have to admit that my personal opinion of you was positively corrected once you stopped being flippant and started honestly telling people about your vision for the SAB. Your passion is evident and I think it’s pretty clear Anet is lucky to have you.

It’s quite possible that we are just THAT much better at jumping than the average player…

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You are probably not that much better than a hardcore player or a hardcore jumper. But you are so much better than average, I think you sometimes don’t recognize that tricky jumps that lead to death are, in fact, difficult jumping puzzles for some people. I still remember the Mad King boss fight being a difficult jumping puzzle. I think at the time, the response was, “we didn’t realize it was a jumping puzzle.”

Well I would challenge anyone who thinks SAB W2 is harder than Zelda 1 to beat the last couple of dungeons! Zelda is WAY harder.

Here’s the thing: I have played and beaten Metroid, Super Mario Bros (most of them), Zelda (nearly all of them), and many of the games you love so much and are respecting here. I mean, I laughed out loud at the opening sequence – it was great! (I even beat Bionic Commando. Not Ninja Gaiden or Mega Man, though. Those games are for masochists.)

This is way harder. Part of the reason is because you can do more in 3D with a fully 3D world. Moving in 9 directions is way easier by default than moving in 29 directions. That’s why, when you got to Mario 64 and Ocarana of Time, those games weren’t as punishingly difficult in the jumping puzzle areas. Moving in 3D is already more difficult to start with.

You say you may have overestimated the “average” player. My question is: what average are you talking about? The average player who still goes back and enjoys playing through Castlevania 1 or Ninja Gaiden or Ghost n Goblins? Or the average player who plays Guild Wars 2? Modern games are different for a reason – you know that. Many people don’t enjoy “Nintendo hard” anymore. I get that this is what you’re going for here – and that’s great! But who is your real target for this minigame? If you ONLY want “Nintendo hard” people to be happy, then your goals for World 2 are perfect, and other than the engine stuff you mentioned, you shouldn’t change anything! If you actually want all of GW2 to play, then you are wildly off target.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to imply that one is right and one is wrong! I think you should 100% stick to your vision, because anything else will just upset everyone. But “average” player who plays GW2 and “average” player who would enjoy SAB are not the same, and they probably won’t ever enjoy the same content. And I’m sure you know this. I’m just putting it back out there.

As for the nights and weekends and ignoring your family: GAH! Don’t ever do that! What are you, young? I’m glad you’ve learned that lesson because it is never worth it – and this kind of “playerbase slaps you in the face” “reward” for your over-the-top effort should show you exactly how that kind of dedication is usually rewarded. Naw, man: keep your sanity, keep your family, and then when you’re all rested and on top of your game: THAT is when you design the best stuff!

Why ascended weapon is bad for wvw

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Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I think people are taking a short term view. It seems very likely that there will be additional ways to craft / receive ascended items in the future, just like there are more ways to get the trinkets now. If a power imbalance even exists – which is still a fair question – it seems likely that it will be temporary at best.

Anet!! You have outdone yourselves!!!

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I understand why it might sound jarring to some, but we’re experimenting with dialog to make it sound a little more natural.

This achieves the opposite.

Anet!! You have outdone yourselves!!!

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I have a low-end machine and the only time I experience slowdown now is killing Scarlet, and that’s because literally the entire map’s population is in one tiny area. (Thanks for upping her HP, btw – now everyone actually can get credit!) I recall when the karka invaded Lion’s Arch and that was a <1 fps stuttering mess. Akittens worst, this event is still playable for me. SO MUCH BETTER.

I will agree with others that calling Divinity’s Reach “DR” was quite jarring, and didn’t seem appropriate at all. People don’t call it “DR” because it’s a nickname; they call it that because they hate typing. While there are maybe a handful of actual cities in this world that are called by their initials – like Los Angeles or Atlanta – the vast majority of city names are nicknames, not initials. Calling Rata Sum “The Cube” or something like that would make much more sense. Calling it “RS” just inhibits communication and looks… dumb.

Actually, I’ll go further: it looks like you don’t know why you’re calling it that. Since shortening Divinity’s Reach to “DR” comes from typing and not speaking, it’s very unnatural to see it used in speech. It’s like you don’t know why people call it that, but you think that’s cool and it’s just the “way something is done,” so you mimic it out of the correct context. It reminds me of seeing little kids hold their fingers to their ears when they’re singing pop songs. They have no idea why they’re doing it: it’s just “what is done” and they think it’s cool and they mimic it out of context. The reason they hold their fingers to their ears is because many modern pop singers perform in concert with ear monitors, and so they have to cover their ears so they can hear themselves and stay on tune (when they’re not lip-syncing, anyway). It has nothing to do with how they are emoting or how to sing correctly. But kids don’t understand why they’re doing it – they just mimic the behavior.

Anet!! You have outdone yourselves!!!

in Clockwork Chaos

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arabeth.2361

Just wanted to agree: this update is awesome. You can’t have a world-wide invasion every two weeks, but this one sure is fun. It’s definitely all that the devs promised, in my opinion. It feels like mini-karka events every hour!

It really plays to one of the biggest strengths of GW2: random, ungrouped partying with strangers to accomplish a large goal. I’ve managed to join overflow maps that have succeeded a couple times now and it’s a really cool feeling. They also give you heavy incentive to stay to the end, even if you’re losing, which is also nice. Honestly this is probably one of the best planned events they’ve done since Halloween.

Like many have said, it also shows off GW2’s biggest weakness: zergs. But at the same time, these are easily the least buggy/slow zergs I’ve been in, and you can tell that they have really been working to make their code better. All those particle effect reductions and character model replacement experiments have really paid off: this is WORLDS better than the karka event. And it still requires huge, map-wide coordination and a little more effort than just running around in order to get the best reward. There’s even a mechanic in place to tempt everyone, and/or allow for really good players to up their rewards: stick around and kill the extra champs that spawn after a portal event finishes, or go? One gets you more loot now, but it might lose you the map! Very much in the spirit of how GW2 works.

Some people like jumping puzzles, and some people like farming. There are tons of playstyle preferences, just like there are tons of players. But huge, open-world, co-op events with good rewards seem like one of the best parts of GW2 to me. And so I’m really enjoying this update!

Karma hoarding - wanted warning about change

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

What? I already used all my consumables after reading the patch!

You should read both of his posts.

Scarlet Scrambler NEEDS to be changed

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

2. The achievement is credited to everyone on the map following a successful event clear as long as she is killed, even if they don’t tag her.

This is the best solution because it doesn’t also endanger your chances of failing the event.

I mean, honestly: why isn’t it this way already? The “event failed” loot is awarded to everyone on the map. They know you’re there. Why limit anything to the silly tagging system?

Karma hoarding - wanted warning about change

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Well, that is very cool of the Anet team to go above and beyond like that.

Personally, the karma thing wasn’t such a big deal to me: I see the change as a way to make the game more fair. The vast majority of players probably never boosted their karma gain from the jugs, and I’m sure that very, very few people were actually getting the 95%+ boosts. Only those in the know and with access to good resources could get that sort of boost. So it was just another case of: the rich get richer.

Now, everyone gets the same amount regardless, which is much better. The idea that some people “lost” a huge chunk of karma is coming at it from the wrong perspective; it’s really that those people were corrected to be in line with everyone else. Now it’s more fair.

So really, Anet didn’t have to do anything, and in fact doing something sort of goes against the spirit of fairness in some ways. But they are going to be cool and call it a communication issue and fix it for people – which I still say is well above and beyond what they needed to do. Kudos to them! This really shows a huge deal of attention to their fans, in my opinion.

To Scarlet: Post here!

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

LOL at some of the responses in this thread!!! Brilliant!

is character slot expansion going on sale?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I originally bought extra character slots because I thought they’d never go on sale. The first time that happened, I missed it, and I’ve never bought another one because I’ve been waiting for them to go on sale again. For me, the sales are counter-productive because it makes me wait for them to happen again – and in this case, I’ve apparently missed them twice. Same thing with bank slots: I’ll never buy another one unless it’s on sale. When you can only buy so many of something for your entire account, there isn’t much sense in paying full price.

Gem Store skins into achievement system?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I agree that they’ve sort of let the cat out of the bag with the repeatable achievement skins. That’s what everyone’s wanted since before launch – even expected – so showing that they are willing to try it just shows that it can be done and reminds people how much they’d want it.

The thing is, the skin transfer system they have in place now is not just to make things really inconvenient for players – although this is certainly the main byproduct. It’s actually a money sink. Transmuting two items ends up with one fewer item. It’s a way to bleed items out of the system, just like the mystic toilet (although less effective overall, I’d guess). (And it bleeds gold from the transmutation stones – but that could stay in place.) And like any money sink, removing it would inflate prices overall slightly, and slightly damage the economy.

They’ve probably done the math and/or are watching it, but I’d guess they’ll implement this system the moment they can say for sure the negative impact on the economy will be smaller than the positive impact it will have on the playerbase. Sort of like the wallet system: there was no reason we needed all those currencies whatsoever, except to drive up bank slot sales (and bag slots, maybe). I’m guessing that these have probably stabilized, and they thought that with the constant introduction of new currencies they’d get more pushback from the playerbase than it would be worth, so they went ahead and made something that was intentionally inconvenient more convenient.

(edited by arabeth.2361)

I don't like this update

in Queen's Jubilee

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

We do our best to deliver appealing content with enough variety to keep as many people as satisfied as possible.

I do believe this. I know you guys want this game to succeed.

The Living World is a great idea, but it’s hard to implement. So far, we’ve mostly been given temporary content that people are rushing to finish because they know it won’t last. And that is frustrating. We’ve been givekittenllion currencies and new skins and so many things to buy with it that we have to check fan sites to even keep track of it all, and many of them also won’t last. And these are frustrating. And ultimately, the entire Living World content has boiled down to mostly just grinding for achievements. And that’s frustrating, too. I think the problem here is that you want people to see all your new and exciting content, so you ramp up the rewards to give lots of incentive for people to do it. But the rewards are so good – and the time to reap them so small – that people feel like they HAVE to play the game this one way: achievement grinder. And ultimately, that’s what I believe people are pushing back against.

Immersion-Where is it going?

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I thought we were talking about the pro’s and con’s of the Living Story, were we not?

I wasn’t – I was way off topic. Far bigger picture. Sorry!

Double the precursor drop rate

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Is the point of this game making money or having adventures? … People should be rewarded by playing the game and not by repeated farming.

It’s worth pointing out that many people enjoy farming, and for many people the point of the game IS making money instead of having adventures. I’m not saying that’s more valid than your point, but please be aware that you are saying many people’s fun is invalid when you make statements like that.

It’s also worth pointing out that regardless of how many ways you try to stop it, people will farm your game to get rewards. I’m not really sure how to keep this from happening. If you have any ideas, I’m sure Anet would love to hear them, because they are doing everything they can to discourage repetitive gameplay and they have been since launch.

Double the precursor drop rate

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

We’ve seen before that at certain points in certain markets, changes to the supply side of the equation has resulted in an effect that is opposite of what was expected. We noticed that shifting the supply side equation caused the demand side of the market to shift even further. As people see the changes in the game many of them decide to enter the market. The changes to the in game content, cause a change in individual preferences. The phenomena falls off pretty quickly as you push harder on the supply side, but small changes so far have resulted in increased demand due to changing preferences. That’s why if we were to increase the input by 10 prices would drop, but if we were to increase it only slightly, prices would most likely go up.

Perhaps a clearer way to say this would be:

If they only doubled the drop rate of precursors, John Smith believes that would cause just enough extra supply on the market that more people would try to get them and then prices would go up because of an actually higher demand.

But if they increased the drop rate by about 10x as much, then yes: that would cause there to be enough supply that these people would be satisfied and enough would be left over that prices would drop.

It’s still pretty counter-intuitive, though. If someone sitting on the margins wasn’t satisfied when the price of a precursor was X, why would they suddenly get into the market when the price went up, regardless of the actual drop rate? (In other words: why would demand go up if prices go up?) Is he saying that for the brief moment at the beginning when there was more supply, that would lower prices enough that more people would buy precursors – but then everyone who bought them would just jack up the prices even more? Or is it that with a slight increase in supply, the price would be lowered slightly and then everyone waiting on the margins would pounce – thus actually reducing the total supply while simultaneously increasing demand (since more people are bragging about finishing their legendary), and that’s what drives the prices up?

Unrelated:

At least part of the reason threads like this spawn and are so volatile is that many people seem to only want to prove they know a lot of jargon and very few things are explained at a level that someone who isn’t a graduate in economics could understand. Certainly this isn’t John Smith’s job – although he does seem to enjoy taking time out to belittle people in threads who counter his theories – but I’ve yet to see many people explain things this complex at a level that is accessible. And of course this isn’t going to stop everyone from countering or believing their own views, but it might help. (Of course, I’m assuming that anyone cares or wishes to help, which may itself be unrealistic.)

Post your legendary progress!

in Crafting

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Well, thanks to the achievement chests, I had 500 badges of honor, which I think was the very first piece of a legendary I could have received. (Sadly, I spent some to reduce the laurel cost of an ascended amulet, though. Ah well.)

I recently calculated that it would take about 1100 gold to get the legendary I’d like, including fixed costs, precursor (purchasing), and the mats which cannot realistically be farmed. Or, I could save up just a few hundred gold more and just buy it. Seeing as how I’ve never had more than 20 gold at a time, I’d say my time to build a legendary is approaching infinity…

12K+ achievement points? How?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Also, you might be surprised to learn that 5500 AP is not exactly a “casual” score. You’re still within the 90th percentile of all GW2 players; the vast majority of players actually have AP’s of 2000 or less.

5000+ is not my definition of casual, either. Although I’d like to see a chart or something that shows the 2000 or less statistic.

Immersion-Where is it going?

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Trying to derive actual story content from the whims of thousands of fickle gamers…

I think you’re conflating “story telling” with “experiences.” I probably wasn’t clear enough.

Immersion-Where is it going?

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I wonder if this was sort of a reaction to some of the things discussed in this thread?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-social-media-side-of-guild-wars-2/

Although ironically I get nearly 0% of my GW2 info from facebook, and less than 0 from twitter. Fan sites and gaming sites have much better, more detailed, and faster access to information.

Living World makes me sad

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

But if you have any opinions on the matter feel free to let us know.

…a system that would allow certain bits of Living World content to be accessed independent of the release.
…ways to leave some LW content behind to evolve Tyria and improve the game.

Asked, answered.

sylvari writing seems bi-polar?

in Sylvari

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

Do you know that Courtiers are entirely irredeemable?

One person’s “irredeemable” is another person’s “waiting on the right plot line.” One of the best stories I’ve ever read started with the question: can an irredeemably evil creature choose to be good?

What Caithe did may not have been nice, but it was pragmatic and justified. “Heroes” who let violent criminals walk free to abduct, torture, mutilate, pervert and murder some more are terrible because they care more about their own superficial “purity” than about the suffering of others, for which they become indirectly responsible…

I believe you and I have different outlooks on life.

Immersion-Where is it going?

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

I would say their target audience is 30-somethings…

…It’s almost as if ANet wanted to cater to the modern, teensy, ADD crowd who can’t be bothered with focusing on one thing for longer than a few moments.

So what makes you think the game is for 30-somethings? Just the freemium nature of it? (I read somewhere that while it’s generally assumed that whales run the show, most FTP games – which GW2 basically is – actually really do make most of their money from zillions of small transactions. So I guess… plankton? Too many ocean metaphors…) Neither of us are Anet execs, so we’ll never know, but I’d still say GW2 is a game by 20-somethings, for 20-somethings. Even if it wasn’t intended, hiring 20-somethings to develop and market it naturally pushed it that way.

What your saying is simply providing a giant meeting room for player interaction, albeit with colorful and interesting wallpaper and toys. If good storytelling, like that of SWTOR and Skyrim(or even Guild Wars1), are seen as not only highly engaging and immersive, but intrinsic to overall player enjoyment of the game, then why not provide for it?

Good storytelling only lasts so long. Player-driven stories can go on for as long as people like your game. MMOs aren’t planning for 100-hour experiences: they’re planning for 1000-hour experiences. Or more. Not even Skyrim can provide that for millions of people.

Don’t get me wrong: they’re still stuffing a huge helping of story in there, just to provide that fancy wallpaper and whatnot. And we’re here, talking about it, right? So there’s definitely substance to it. But I think it’s a mistake to believe that developer-lead story telling is the true focus of any modern, sustainable MMO.

If what you’re describing above is the wave of the future, I need to find another game genre. :/

Eh, who has the time anymore anyway, right?

Edit: As I realize I’ve gotten wildly off-topic, I withdraw all questions… Nothing to see here…

(edited by arabeth.2361)

Immersion-Where is it going?

in Living World

Posted by: arabeth.2361

arabeth.2361

You make some really good points, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. :p

Ha! Well, right back at you: we don’t have to like it, but I do wonder if this is the way the gaming world is headed.

Nonetheless, there is a colossal difference between communication among the player community, which is impossible to do to this extent in-game, and the devs not bothering to make information promptly and centrally available, or not bothering to write a coherent story in-game.

I think those walls are coming down, though. I think the difference between the “player-driven” narrative of participating in the game and the “developer-driven” narrative is becoming smaller. Think about this: when you play an MMO, what’s the most important part: the game’s preset story, or the “story” that develops from playing with other people? The first may as well be a single-player game; it’s also static and can only happen once (or a predetermined number of times). The second is something that can happen as many times as you have the time and effort to invest in it. And that’s really the heart of what makes an MMO a multiplayer game. I think the player-driven experience of massive online games is where those games are headed; it’s really the only sustainable long-term solution. And I think GW2 plays into this fairly well, although they straddle the line quite a bit. Sure, they gave us a semi-hack (but not insignificant) “personal story” to sucker the Baldur’s Gate crowd in, and keep posting minigame-filled “living story” updates, but the real meat – and what keeps people playing hundreds of hours instead of scores – is the experience of playing with other people, which cannot be scripted but is also capable of being more authentic. Here’s another example: I can’t name every member of Destiny’s Edge off the top of my head (I’m lucky I even got the guild’s name right). But I can tell you the names of my guild leader(s), fun people I play with online, and Dulfy without blinking. Those are powerful player-driven experiences, and those are more meaningful to me than what they’ve delivered “officially” in-game. And rather than try to control or centralize those experiences, Anet chooses to simply provide the catalyst and then get out of the way. Hence: decentralization, propagation, and instigation.

I think this is a sea change. We can choose to stand defiant in the storm or accept this brave new world.