Guild Wars 2

Hows it hanging Ese (Essay), It says here by the stats (people crying on the forums) that your skritt is all snarzed up. What is going to happen is that we are going to take a lot from over here and give a tiny bit here and a tiny bit there and inject you with a bit of fluff here. Don’t worry kitten, my sister was a quaggan and there are plenty of excelsior builds out there (more ""Balancing""). So awww, that will be this many dollars and what I need you all to do is put your magnetic strip there.

Point is, if the influx of players seem to be switching over to various classes, expect them to evaluate why and attempt a remedy. If less people play the beloved “Thief”, expect them to not see change, but rather perhaps minor buffage. The FOTM (Flavor of the Month) is just that for a reason and this is why everyone often states LTP – Learn to Play.
The fact is, I prefer the original moto from the Arenanet team where it was stated that they will not seek balance, but do their best to provide a well rounded gaming experience.

Back to enjoying life and playing the game.

Yall make me smile.

The important thing to realize is that precursors are not legendary, they are the items that lead to legendaries. Which legendary crafting is a time sync, considering you are paying for mainly a skin. Ascended weapons are the same statistically.

A precursor is overvalued because we made them that way, truth is, these crafting quest should have been set up as alternatives for truly crafting legendaries, not for precursors. Do the math, in 1 hour, you could potentially earn at least 2 gold from events, plus 2 gold daily. So potentially 10 gold a day x 10 days is 100 gold. Thats saying you play 4-5 hours.

Pvp for first tier crafting costs you 200 of pvp and wvw currency. I earned 2 currency for pvp in about 1 hours playtime. To be honest, Id rather farm gold and just buy the shritting precursor at this point. 2 currency an hour means 100 hours, or 20 days at 5 hours a day and that is just the pvp requirement.

I do not mind it having a pvp requirement or a wvw requirement, but its ridiculously off par to the reward you get, a tier 1 exotic.

Spoiler Incoming

Rework the infinity ball to go back in the past to defeat Scarlet, therefore altering the future so that present is not happening.

Or

Use the infinity ball to bring yourself back from the future with a machine of your own.

Or

Use an Electro Magnetic Wave to shut down the puppet, and treb it from the flank.

Or

Go back in time and dig a trap door with a remote switch with the exact location of the puppet.

Or

Go back to the first seedlings and never let the Scarlet seed come to life.

Actually,

It could have reached its final point a week prior, perhaps they haulted it at a certain points throughout the event to pan it out intentionally.

As far as Kiel/Evon vote, I believe the blame is mine as I held off on my vote and missed the oppurtunity to throw all my votes in. Im sure others did the same.

The problem with player driven content is it creates a conspiracy theory.

Now that would be a great new living story event where its a conspiracy and it keeps you guessing on what will happen next. But then people would conplain that they werent there to see a certain set in it which would create yet another conspiracy theory.

My two favorite classes are Ranger and Thief…. I abandoned both when the Shortbow range nerf hit. Shortbow as far as thief goes is really one of the worst damage weapons with exception of Cluster Bomb. It could have had the damage reworked and kept its range to keep it a viable playstyle, but alas, Thieves were made to be close to mid ranged. Ranger, I played a Shortbow/Greatsword build, I don’t want to invest time in a Greatsword/Longbow, as for me, it doesn’t mesh as a well, although a very viable build.

I once upon a time played a Guardian, but the game play was far to slow for me, they are truly great defensive beasts which I never had a problem with Thieves.

I currently play a unique Bunker Warrior, of course I need to tweak him to be more in between bunker and DPS. But I don’t have much problem with 99% of thieves. They generally give themselves away, or when they do target me, its not just 1, its like 3, and then the 1 minute and 30 second fight ensues in which either they chase me half way across the map and get caught up with others or they are able to finally tear me health down until I hit the floor.

That’s sort of why I am saddened by the comment that was made regarding warriors. To either use Ogre or other runes to make up the damage loss instead of Melandru or Lyssa runes. Lyssa runes really only benefited us for the Boons and Cleanse. Melandru for the Conditions duration deduction. Ogre runes gives us a Hyena and other junk. I feel its a bad comparison.

A figure approaches, wearing a brown duster, his black boots have a mossy goo on their soles, his pants are fairly worn and a bit oversized, his shirt is mud colored, from where it used to be white, with various objects used as buttons. His face is hidden from under a bandit handkerchief, his beady pearly eyes pop out from under his oversized wide brimmed hat, gazing strongly on the Krait. His cheek bones raise twitching in which can definitely be discerned as a grin under his cover. His gaze never breaks from the Krait, and his eyes begin to twinkle heartedly. He seems almost mesmerized by the Krait, so mesmerized his words burst out abruptly but in a drawn out soothing voice. ~Shineyyyyyyysss~

“You give me Shineys”, this time actually in a more demanding notion as his second surveys the shiny scales on the Krait’s body.

~~~~~

~The Skritt

Well

It seems that my previous post to this discussion was moderated without notification or simply put deleted. So I can honestly say, yes some of us do go unheard and ignored.

With that said.

First order of the process, you might consider trying to fix this so if we do go Unheard, weare at least notified.

Thanks

Well a couple things come to mind.

1. Overabundance of DPS players, no tanks, healers online means you are forced to play something you dont like to remain competitive.

2. Stacking stats, lead to third party program, lead to in game version of counter, lead to elitism. Every heard this before? Your dps is to low, we need somebody else to complete this.

3. Egotistical Tanks – they often more times then not become self promoted leaders, some are great, others arent, and when you get those that arent, your forced to wait. Waiting isnt fun. Ever wait for a Doctor in the emergency room. Not fun.

There are more I can promise you.

There are definately faults currently. Like the feel the need to wear Zerker gear to compete. This feeling needs to change.

That kill credits for champion are based more on DPS then on anything else.

That WVW is more about DPS and its absorbtion and healing rather being truly balanced.

That the classes still seem less diversified and moreso rather flavor of the months.

But I will say this, Anet is doing a great job about tackling it while still bringing us massive living story, tweaking wvw, tweaking spvp, bringing us new features, etc.

You would never get this kind of service from a subscription based variant. Of course, youd have an expansion expected or coming out soon, but I degress.

Also,

It would be nice to change the color of all hobo sacks and guild packs.

I like brown, dont get me wrong, but when I am trudging through the snowy lands, I seem to be a dead give away to the local denizens even with my snowsuit on.

Why cant my hobo bag be a similar shade if not a shade I want it to be.

Afterall, it fabric, we can stain metals, but ny brown hobo sack comes with a stain proofing whatchamagizmo.

First place winners should get 10g
Second place should get 50g
Third place should get 100g
Fourth place should get 300g

You see where I am going with this?

First place servers dont need the help, they are perfect the way they are.

Ken hit the nail on the head.

By saying the Queue, and wanting to know where he is in it.

I will further that statement by saying that Edge of the Mist is more a bandaid ona gushing wound as the points gained there dont help your PPT and instead of running arpund doing other things while waiting for a Queue to pop, you could be thrown into a battleground thats sole purpose will be to deflect your attention for the very purpose we want in WVW. Sure youll get more blues and greens and some wvw xp, but your still in a Queue.

As far as leagues go, they serve no purpose currently, they dont prove skill and dedication, perseverance and loyalty.

It just proves numbers and coverage will always win

I dont think it was a bad idea.

However, I dont believe it was a good idea with all your ducks not in a row. This definately feels like we are beta testing wvw.

1. PPT shouldnt declare a winner with current population balance issues
2. Some classes still need work to give them a proper place in WVW
3. Toxic or any other event that effects the purpose of wvw shouldnt be there.
4. Commander colored tags would be great

And lastly, when it comes to meta, it should have included daily wvw tasks.

Also, I believe Edge of the Mist is going to create a new problem. To me it feels more like it is a diversion that used up talent, time and resources that couldve been used to tackle the real issues of wvw. So now instead of sacrificing my time because I choose not to leave an over wvw populated server, I get to gain wvw experience without worrying about helping my community. I understand its to lure PVE players to WVW, but face it, the jumping puzzles and regular events havent brought them, therefore chances are, this wont either.

Sorry for speaking my mind, back to wvw I go.

It was mentioned above that thieves can clusterbomb and backline play.

If you meant the back of enemy zerg, I would strongly recommend against that for thieves. Because the zerg in a split second likes to do u turns and you could be left for dead. As far as cluster bombing, its debatable since the short bow range was reduced youd be better off picking off the fat kid at a departing enemy zerging and stun stopping for your zerg.

Thanks Chris.

I believe before I can state my three, forums themselves only represent about 10% if that of the population, and many of us are biast. With that said.

1. Would love a carrot set to intice folks to join the conversations in the forum.
2. Surveys in game go along way and can be focused on select queries
3. An ongoing log discussed ideas that are being evaluated for consideration.

This I believe would be very helpful in the dicussions

Without going to deep into this discussion

I believe you cant compare this to sports considering sports teams dont have to have 24 hour coverage and also they get breaks in between games.

Personally, they need to break us up by time zone and have the PPT be rewarded as such

Red Time Zone score – EST
Blue Time Zone score – EU
Green Time zone score – OCE

As examples.

We may be more skillful during our peak but it doesnt show because our off peak isnt there.

Setting us up on a 24 hour counter is where the problem is.

They could have even designated servers where from time A – time B = PPT growth, this means NA players could go up against them for skill rather then coverage.

EU players could take on other EU players, etc.

Currently, the only problem with WVW is coverage issues.

I hear you KeeZee,

And I never stated I wanted warriors and thieves to be the same.

I merely said, “thieves werent as versatile for me as warriors are”.

Maybe it sounded that way however. My point was, you dont have to be like everyone else, just play how you like and have fun.

Well,

I started on JQ, and they were great, they expanded and retracted alot. I ended up transferring to TC since my friends couldnt get into JQ when they started playing. TC has a great community that I wouldnt trade for a Golden Dolyak.

I know SBI had seen greatness many times and fell and settled, the core that remains there I absolutely respect.

I love FA, they are my favorite fight (good times FA)

I remember when BG was barely tier 1 and struggled alot against JQ and SBI.
I commend them on thier growth and accomplishments.

I could go on and on, you are all great communities and sadly this all falls on Anet who is working hard to solve our concerns. But its time that they are WVWing against and the PPT is definately showing not in their favor.

I truly believe we should all get the Gold Dolyak, but well, that promotes failing an event for free loot. And the community has already spoken our dislike for that.

So hang in there, because for those on rock bottom, it can only get better.

Really,

Its about playstyle, I play an unusual out of the box warrior that can contribute to conditions, stun, and still has decent burst, great vitality, enough toughness, several get of jail free cards.

Typically, I run with the zerg, however, generally I cut through the enemy before the zerg decides to finally react. When a enemy zerg rolls in, I treat them like a lava bomb and then begin to fray their edge and lengthen their tail.

Alot of this playstyle comes to me because typically I play a rogue type.

Mold the play how you like regardless of if its percieved good or bad, its not necessarily about the points, but that its enjoyable.

Thief is to limited in my opinion compared to warrior, its the reason I leave the thief strictly as an extra bank at this point. Eventually they will expand thieves and it will be more my tune again.

The “I survived season 1” title

1st place will get the “We are the champions, because we have the most people” title
a gold dolyak finisher, a gold dolyak mini, 6 greens, 4 blues, 30 silver, 5 champion bags and a transfer server voucher.

2nd place will get “Looking for more, because our coverage isnt there yet” title.
a silver dolyak finisher, a silver dolyak mini, 4 greens, 2 blues, 15 silver, 3 champion bags and a transfer server voucher

3rd place will get “You need help, because your community relationship skills lack”
a bronze dolyak finisher, a bronze dolyak mini, 3 greens, 2 blues and a yellow, 1 champion bag, 300 gold, 2000 gems and a stack of luck equivalent to 100 luck levels, also an open Iinvitation to Edge of the Mist beta test.

Seriously doubt it will be fancy as in a way, we all just beta tested WVW 1.3 for them. The good stuff will come in WVW 2.0

I still say

That I dont believe the root of the problems with WVW are simply because of transfering.

Transfering has its benefits. Also its cons.

Fixing the cons is what will need to be tackled.

Lets say I am on a tier 1 server, the likelihood of me transferring to a tier 6 server will probably never happen, even if you award me 2000 gems.

But if I was on a tier 6 server and it wasnt my speed, no matter what punishment or gem cost or time, I would do it because its what ,with patience, will help with my fun factor.

The problem that exists is much like stealth, stealth isnt what kills you, damage does or points. An even playing field will never truly exist.

Short from creating server versus server versus server with equally geared same class npcs.

Its my opinion that you look more at how the points are tallied so that those that are undermanned stand a chance.

Or

If you are strongly striving to achieve a balance, put all servers in 1 of 3 leagues, when in Q for their home server, it could put them in their weaker linked sister server, matches could still be similar, and total points for each league would be displayed, this would certainly begin to bring the point spreads closer together and could help balance server loads as perhaps some would transfer to help for coverage on each of that leagues maps.

Also, there is still no real reason to defend anything or rally and muster people.

Im assuming the Season 1 chest will be another RNG box or some fluff, while great for an individual achievement does nothing to help promote the WVW community.

Also

Although this may be slightly off topic, commander pins being color changable would be welcomed immediately to help organizing on the battlefields.

Keep up the good work ANET, you are certainly on the right track no matter what you decide and thanks for listening to us.

Transfering because of PVE reasons is understansable. But transfering from a low pop server for WVW doesnt necessarily mean better.

It could mean creating worse Q times. Penalizing people that transfer upwards is understandable.

However, transfers from a high wvw server to a low pop server shouldnt be restricted to be honest.

Transfering itself shouldnt be the solution.

Because population balance in wvw will always be a struggle.

Face it, transfering downwards is less likely, laterially does and transfering upwards does.

So really the question evolves of how to get a overpolluted wvw crowd to transfer downward. Sadly, its like asking boston fans to support new york sports team.

Not likely, because it would mean an incentive so great it would spark a conflict with all clients.

I believe it would be simpler to assign all servers based on wvw population to 1 of 3 realms. And points are added to that teams overall.

So yes the stronger servers score would carry others. But at least the averages would bring it closer in terms of balancing the playing field.

Also, it might cause servers that are stronger to try to transfer to a lesser server to have better coverage on all servers that share their number in order to better their scores.

Well,

Given the likeness this is to Realm versus Realm, different of course.
One of the faults in comparison is the weekly reset.

In the Realm versus Realm flavor, it gave the underdog a chance because they knew eventually the Giants would get bored and allow them to finally be at an even playing field. Right now, the underdog story really doesn’t show in terms of points.

Lets say

Server A – 1000 people
Server B – 990 people
Server C – 400 people

No matter how good and how hard server C tries, they can’t ever see their Total points being higher. Plus this example also shows that server coverage would be effected. Given if no one worked and all only did WVW. Server A and B could have better time shifts then Server C.

Having PVE server tied to your WVW server becomes another balancing act.

Using the ABC example above. Lets say all 3 servers had the same population but above reflects the WVWers. Just making sprays WVW servers and allowing signups would still create the same balance concerns we have now though, it would have to be severely regulated in order to work.

The incentive is another story, for those that are borderline or WVWers, it doesn’t take much to make us happy. But getting PVEers to step out of their safety net is much harder if it doesnt have a great reward. I dont believe its something that is even worth aspiring for as it would create a whole new economical and conflictious debate in the community.

The truth is, there are many things that need work in order to help the underdog.

Better defendable keeps, easier defendable keeps, line if sight corrections, a reason to defend and hold a keep. A reason to upgrade a keep. Keeps should not be as easy to flip. Even towers need work.

Currently, everything is offensive, no defense needed. This needs to change, but what good is defending since its more tedious and pointless then just going to take another place.

There is much more but I will become very long winded, so I will let you soak in this bit for now

Sorry to say this.

Because last time I commented about my passion for this class, I feel I was left with crickets and unsupported.

Its actually nice to hear that they are trending to see thieves have more diversity instead of being pigeonholed as a crit hitter.

However, its going to need alot more changes to bring me back to thief. They are just not viable to me in WVW. I dont really do SPVP. But will say this, you cant balance classes via SPVP in regards to WVW.

Consider this. My new class is a warrior. I have better armor, further range, just as much dps and crit if not more, more vitality and toughness. And the trade, cooldowns and a stealth component that actually can be a benefit or a consequence.

I still say All Shortbow users need some love, Pistol/Pistol needs love, Sword needs love, even Dagger/Dagger needs some reworking.

The thief is a class that requires reworking for it to be brought on par in WVW (doesnt matter if you dont agree, its my opinion and I will stick to the warrior as long as thief cobtinues its trend of being subpar in terms of diversity and no real practical purpose in WVW)

Ive done Tequatl every night, including last night at server reset which is my play time.

But I have no more drive to do him anymore, since if you get booted, even if it succeeds, you dont get rewards. And for something that time consuming to organize and then actually succeed, its a slap in the face when you error out do to fault of server side error, have to reboot client, load in to an overflow, load back into group to find out you got nothing for it.

Im not saying a hand out, but if im there and we make it to phase 3 and fail, I still get 3 boxes.

But being there for 3 phases of success, erroring out yields 0 boxes. Thats punishing the wrong people for crime others commited.

To be honest

I played an MMO where each patch had a survey to fill out. With a box for being descriptive. It was a simple multiple choice form.

I believe that was a great system, because the majority could voice thier opinion and it showed truer statistics to what majority of players wanted.

A panel of players and direct forum collaboration only speaks for the 10% of the playerbase typical, the fanatics as I call them, myself included.

Watching to see what and how players react silently is great for bug fixes and hashing out exploits, but doesnt share their feelings of the system.

Also, there should be a level of negative criticism that should be considered. It can be hard for people to word their opinions in constructive foremat in text that gets to the bottom of the issue. This could easily be set up with a proper format to state the key elements of whats the problem, where does the problem take place, when does it take place, why do you feel it took place, how do you feel it could be better.

If you made a form that asked questions like above, people tend to be more receptive in trying to give their feelings and it also helps in the developer in understanding whats truly the root of the problem so they can deliberate on whether to undertake a task at changing it to better facitate the playerbase.

Chris,

I appreciate your cander in this matter, and its true, sometimes players emotions get the better of them. Realize, although this wonderful game lacks a subscription, gems awhich buy items therefore become an investment, although, in the longterm eventually would have been a mere temporary investment, saying if GW2 every stopped its service and closed down. So people can get emotional, much like the world we live in and in which you get paid for (be it contractual or salary) when things are taking a turn in an unfavorful direction of which they would have prefered.

There is a reason that in many states, gambling is not legal, and although in GW2, we are doing it digitally, it still can publicate as a monetary version in real currency, and with the use of RNG mechanics truly cites the reasonings of the bad values of this form of mechanism being used today.

Furthermore, after an experience last night which left me fairly bitter at the mechanics of this game currently and the lack of in game costumer services, I now will tread in a different stance of a less entertained client or in otherwards, taking a step back and I am going to see what is going to be done in the future. This is not a threat, please consider this, that dependant on this games direction and information of the direction, will ultimately steer me to a clear levelheaded direction or choice of whether Guild Wars 2 will continue to a hobby of mine.

To cite the incident that happened to me last night, so you can have an understanding ofmy feelings in this. But before I publicate it for you and the viewers, I believe its important to understand my gaming history.

I have been playing MMOs, GW2s, venue since near the very first of them, yes the MUD days. I even had the opportunity to alpha test Ultima Online and continuedbto follow the genre until current, GW2, which I believe is my home, since this game has it all and in a tasteful manner.

Lets move on to my citation now that you understand my passion for this venue.

Last night, doing a Tequatl event, which I do every night on Tarnished Coast, 95% of the time as Turret 4, from east to west or as Tarnished Coast have heard me say many times LLTN4 or Ludicrisp Lucky Turret Number 4. We were on the final stretch with 2 minutes and change remaining, I believe I got credit for all 3 phases of Defend the Laser phase. We had that dragon to 1 or 2%, easily and more then enough time to take him out and with all 6 turrets blasting. And what happens, an Arena Net Error, I then rush to get back, and poofed to overflow, I click my team mates and it poofs me back to main. But whats this, just as I suspect, no nothing for my time and effort, which has happenednto me before 2 other times. And then, I go and report it, realizing you have no traditional CSR in game, I go to killing leftover risen, but slowly my attitude shifts from a positive gaming experience to now a frustrated irritated gamer. So I think for 30 seconds while telling my guildies my misfortune, and then calm down, kill another risen, reach to take a drink right next to my keyboard (which I recommend against, lol) and get nooted to character select sceeen, I was like really? Really?. It was definately not a good night for me on the game.

But see, thats were I believe lies a problem. Arent games designed to challenge and entertain, so I guess alot of people like to feel robbed, I am not one of them. So if this is truly the direction Guild Wars 2 will continue, then my choice becomes very simple.

Go back to the drawing board for a hobby. And seriously, it does hurt, because I have paid alot in real cash for gems in the game, and I get to eat this investment ifnthat be the case.

I truly hope you guys can get back on board with us players, and what I mean by that is, I wouldnt currently tell my family or friends to check it out, in fear of backlash to myself. However, things could change over the course of the next few months to bring my passion back to you guys.

Thanks for reading and I look forward for Guild Wars 2 and the better times to come

So,

After last night random error message on tequatl with 2 minutes left yo kill him and him at 1% health and all turrets running, I failed because of Arena Net and this unstable event. And because to many people cried about getting rewarded for failing, I dont get rewards. Its not like I wanted Arena Net to boot me.

Clearly 1% health, it would have died.

No other mmo I have ever played doesnt solve the problem for borked mechanics, often, a gm would come and spawn the loot boxes, seeing it was their mistake.

This wasnt the first time this exact thing has happened to me, its the third time.

Fuethermore, I have 95% of the runs ran a turret and gotten no loot boxes.

Even this day, sometimes on a turret you dont get loot boxes.

I get kicked for being afk while moving my character around killing risen waiting for Tequatl.

Im sorry, I love the idea of Tequatl world boss event.

But with borked mechanics with afk booting falsely and hit or miss rewards for succeeding.

I would rather them actually revert back to old Tequatl.

Leave the hard stuff for dungeons that can be spam repeated on failure.

I truly hope Arena Net gets this message and reconsiders their position in this matter.

Because, the few people wanting it hard mode might leave, but I can almost promise that a much bigger percent will fall out to another game if they go the World Boss 2.0 on all world bosses. It would be a huge mistake.

The real problem is the raid folks arent being catered too. If you had raid dungeons, it would solve 75% of the conflict at hand.

I truly hope that you have truly more diversity in next weeks update. I know its to tackle support builds.

Also, most of the world boss enhancements basically smacks melee people in the face.

Melee people just arent welcome anymore in this game. Might as well give everyone 1200 range. And scrap melee weapons altogether.

While just now, standing around for a brief minute for a drink, right to load screen, no error this time, no where near Tequatl even spawning. Just chilling down for a minute to regain composure from feeling robbed and what happens.

Right to character screen

This has happened to me before while moving, clearly im not afk

Okay

So tonight like every other night, I waste time waiting for Tequatl.

With like 2 minutes left, its nearly 1%, arenanet error, and boom, no loot, no nothing, I log back in immediately, poof overflow, click party members, back in but its dead, I failed even though I would have suceeded and get what, nothing.

This has happened 3 times now to me.

First 2, I chalked up to debugging and corrections, this time, its unnerving and rather demotivates me.

Please anet, fix it somehow, because this just is by no way fair and right.

Actually

I would love to see scarlet in that fractal,

I would also love for her to permanently stay there

So we could get back to the dragons

The scarlet ploy itself makes no sense, and using her as staple for all others just furfher slaps consumers more interested in the story.

Ive said it before, I will say it again, my character who I am become attached to, and even loved my personal story lead me to Orr, but if we truly succeeded, then why are their still risen, furthermore, why is Tequatl still around if we axed him.

I know its a method of inacting new materials in the same land. But really, this is a grandnexample of why they need to expand the map, for new content. To further or story, of course, at the last stage of our story, thats where the Living Story should take hold.

There are way to many problems with the current design and meaningless living story content, which is why I no longer play certain MMOs.

Really, they should have just stuck with their dragons. They can still sort of same things if they choose.

How you ask?

We all wake up, Tyria slept, emerging into erroneous nightmares, for the nightmare court in their quest to bring forth a minion of their own to win their conflict, bringith forth a new dragon, a true nightmare, that feasts on our dreams.

Yes, it is a bit cliché, however, it brings us back to our real purpose.

Well,

There are a few problems with the logic in comparing Teq to a dungeon path.

The first would be timeframe, 15 minutes versus 8 minutes.

You dont have to wait 8 minutes in a 30 minute cooldown in a 60 minute window. So even with diminishing returns, the dungeon will still out perform in terms of loot.

The unique rewards from the chests

Really, just the breathers. Otherwise its just for fluff. Mini’s can be sold.
So technically, you dont miss out on much if you choose not to do it.

Pass or Fail.

The dungeon even when failed can be repeated instantly, Tequatl has at least a 30 minute wait, 1 hour window.

Super Organizing and Learning curve.

Teq requires 100% organization, doesnt mean folks are always hitting their marks, but due to the ticker, there is less room for error. Its a constant learning curve as people change in and out.
Dungeon Path, you can often carry 2 of the 5. And as you repeat it wil same people, the learning curve ends.

Plus often turret operators that dont abandon their turrets even when helping megalaser still arent getting all chests.

So, with the exception of Aquabreathers, its all fluff after that.

Dungeons in long term are easier to organize, better loot over time, huge margin of error recovery, no timer, no fighting overflow, no fighting the new afk mechanics even when your not afk. Rewards as long as your there. Dungeon currency.

Im sorry, dungeon still prevails.

Statiscally drop ratio, lets say the regular ascended formula is 1%, lets say the average period between Tequatl attempts is 60 minutes. So, lets say the advanced drop rate on Tequatl for ascended weapons is 5%. I take my 5 man party through 7 times, it means 7 times 1% chance is greater chance then my 1 chance at 5%. Its not like we are talking s huge chance increase. It also means 7x the main chest loot. The regular scrub battery phase loot boxes I get from regular mobs on the way, plus little boxes in dungeon along the way x7.

So yeah, keep believing the loot is on par.

However, I love that type of content and truly hope they iron out the rest of the problems, I wont stop succeeding at it, even knowing all stated above. Because I honestly have high hopes for the future of this event.

Thanks for reading

Okay,

Let’s put it another way using a famous book and movie where I believe we all can relate.

Lord of the Rings. Gandalf goes to Bilbos birthday, knows Frodo will get the ring and embark on a journey to Mordor.

At no point on his journey does he do a turnaround to instantly warp back to The Shire to stop his crazy relative Sackville-Baggins.

My point is, our personal story, that which from the beginning attaches us to the story, leads us as we embark on a story to Orr. Where we then end up searching for others, if we didnt already pick up our own conpanions along the way.

Then we are zapped instantly to Lions Arch, then Southsun, then here and there and dverywhere, meanwhile, the attacks from the Risen continue. Why are we blinded by this?

What happened to the Stone Dwarves?
Whats happening with the other races thats at our fingers edge?

And why did the Queen have a coronation if whe was already the queen?

The problem is and will always be that Living Story isnt a story, they are Fractals. Holiday events are just that, events.

Tequatl, Voting and Dungeon tweaks arent stories. They dont emerse ME in it, its about Caithe….

There are many different players, those that are substance players, those that are monetary players, those that are visualistic players, dynamics players, masochistic players.

If done right and strategically planned, you could probably cater to everyone of us and minimize your lessons learned. I personally dont blame the artists, I blame the management.

Many of you havent met the Glimmerking, nasty dragon surrounded by more then 100 instant repop glimmerlings. I remember the first time we fought him, 300 of us charged him, with a swipe of his tail, 150 dead bodies lay dead, 1 shotted. Then came a claw swipe right and a claw swipe left followed by a nasty breath of nasty gases which finished the raid.

Take 2 – 250 charged the dragon, this time more like Leeroy. The result was nearly the same.

Take 3 – 150 now getting worn down, strategically Seperates into 4 groups, 1 takes on glimmerlings A, another on glimmerlings B, and another on glimmerlings C, last group splits into 2, rotating in and out like a line up for hockey. They won, of course, next was hashing out why nothing dropped from it.

Seeing as Teq is a lieutenant, not sure why hes harder then Zhaitan

Sounds like the current trend, need to go ranged, all stack over here..

I believe this is where another game did it better.

I cant state the company or encounter, but I can discribe it.

Heavy Melee grabs main boss who has sword and shield and heavy armor.
Another melee grabs a sub category boss and runs him around (always explodes into a ring of fire on death (not to hard to kill, veteran like). A ranger veteran launches snare traps, a snipershot that can nearly 1 shot a person if not interupted, this archer would randomly pick a target saying, “if you move, you die”, for a short duration. It would also shoot oil fields.

The big boss on phase 1 is immune unless caught on fire, you did this by running him in oil, and having veteran flame guy explode in it, youd then beat him down, still juggling other two, at 66%, his shield would bring.

Next phase would be the same except now boss is more punishing with its damage.
Beat down to 33%, and his armor would become damaged and hed become vulnerable. And youd beat him all the way down til death.

Note: both his 2 minions were instant respawn when killed (2-3sec respawn delay)

This was a great fight, it wasnt a dps race, you had jobs each member had to perform to succeed.

Ive said it a few times that I want to see it as episodes, not all hopscotching around, at least then I dont have to get confused by the lack of plot. Non of the living stuff makes any sense. Personally, I am not convinced that Zhatain is gone for good, or else, why are all the risen still here? Furthermore, why do the risen ignore Scarlet and all her minions? Who really pulls her puppet strings.

Interesting, there sure is alot of sand being thrown around here.

I myself will always try something a few times on principle. Same thing goes for food or drinks. However, trying it out doesnt mean that its Pristine Fun Factor 10.

Statistically, if we all give a gold and there 1 million people and only 3 winners, statistically, that means there is only 3 winners. Stop trying to argue numbers when numbers dont mean anything. Sadly, with the temporary content, you truly cant judge the true numbers, as everyone races to be 1 of the 3 winners.

This temporary content will always spike at the beginning and the end of the temporary contents shelf life. Why is this? You have people that feel a sense of urgency to complete it, and then there are those that wait until the last minute, hoping less people are doing it for better framerates.

The Living Story is great conceptially, but in practice, feels more like the developers are practicing programming. The original concept of the world changing over time and your character will help influence it buy reacting or ignoring would have been great, but probably wouldn’t have worked out.

My one wish for guild wars 2 is to evolve our personal story or beyond our personal story into an episode to episode type living story, rather then this rubberbanding dribble that makes no sense whatsoever. And each living story brings change to Tyria.

Yes, some of my favorite moments in mmo history had to do with long term temporary content, the best stories came when I was having fun in my community. But it seems there has been a disconnect in this thought by many factors, such as, “personal greed”, "personal content, personal guilds (wheres our guild versus guild?).

The problem is, respectfully, we all want our own personal agendas to be tackled now, right now, that we miss the bigger picture as to what the living story intent was initially, "to bridge the gap between solitaryand reel us back into community.

Nurgle.6597:

folly dragon.4126:

I agree with you that SAB should be permenant and not just a fill in living story content.

I know for a fact that dev feels the same way, they are searching more options to make living story impactful, and permenant. Just look at the last 2 living story updates. Tequatl is now changed and they made a new path in Twilight Arbor (Assault).

I believe dev is now on the right track and I have been enjoying myself alot, of course, there have been growing pains and each new content will bring more growing pains, but at the end of the day, I believe its gonna get better and better.

Keep your chin up

The Teq event is pretty much dead on my server, just 2 weeks after the release, people got sick of all the waiting around just to get a chance to kill the dragon for a chance to get good loot. Now whenever I go there there are just about 15 people hanging around there and it’s impossible to do it.

I understand the frustration with Teq, and although the server I am on does him server reset, I cant discredit ANET for live testing thing, Teq definately showed them some lessons learned. I am sure they are hashing out ideas of how to correct it to make it better scale, but that takes time, collecting data, sorting data, and tweaking it based on the data. The last thing they want is to anger the other side of the swartz unjustly.

As foe SAB, they realized world 2 difficulty was a bit over the top, however, we wont see fixes until prolly next round world 3 – In search of more funding.

It would be nice if the beauty and art which gets created isnt temporary, and then they continued to tweak it overtime. I believe this will be the new trend, but only time can tell.

I was excited when they stated 30 new hairstyles for each race.

I was dissappointed to see 2 new hair styles for male Asuran. Very.

So not sure what they meant by wed have access to all 30 hairstyles on all races. 2 doesnt even mean 50% of 30.

I read enough of this topic to get the idea of what everyones feelings are, so apologize if I double cover thoughts.

I like the concept behind the living story, however, every story to date doesnt feel like a story, heck it doesnt feel like a fractal even (5% a story, a glimpse).

I dont mind the world evolving at all, it gives us reason to revisit old zones which in turn might help a late bloomer (player) to experience something with others.

The problem with Living Story are obstacles that are self inflicted.

4-5 different teams working on their own ideas of their versions of stories that really dont fit in with current affairs. (Orr, Dragons, Etc).

I may play Guild Wars 2, but its surely not my true love (favorite mmo). When we state impactful, we arent asking for a choice like vote for x and get y. We are saying that at the end of our personal story……. spoiler incoming look away.

When we take out Zhaitain, as heard on Tarnished Coast mumble, did any body check to make sure hes dead? Arent we going to look?

And further with my own point, “If Zhaitain fell, is the re strengthening of Tequatl the reason and also the reason why the risen arent thinning out?”. Zhaitain cant me dead.

And second question.

Which Dragon does Scarlet work for? Could it be she works for Zhaitain, which doesn’t make any sense considering her hench men are pirates and mechanical creatures from my characters alter universe.

There is way to much skipping around aimlessly that makes this not really story like indeed None of it for new players or even vets like myself can truly geek over this.

Honestly

I cant list a best or worst. I can name areas that need improvement still.

But that would be for another subject.

I believe that an expansion is not needed. As a matter of fact, most major titles that had expansions eventually lead to their ultimate reshelving for me.

The problem with current living story is that it’s not a story whatsoever. They jump around more then Game of Thrones series. The difference there is, you cant wait to watch what will happen next episode. In a living world, you cant really achieve it because its supposed to be happening all simultaneously.

Holiday events and special events are the exception. And see that there is another problem, holiday events and special events arent really living story stuff. They should be called something completely different.

Really it should be 1 team for living world for each race and you could rotate it bi weekly

Char and Asuran – week 1
Sylvari and Human – week 2
Norn and Main (Or new race week 3)
Main – week 4

Then on top of that Special/Holiday Celebrations/Events like Mad King and SAB

Part of any game and the story lines is expanding on them, currently, I am getting dumber and dumber about each race and feel more and more like we are rats in maze trying to find the cheese in the RNG boxes that are hidden away in RNG time gated glimpses.

Its like you scraped all the lore of what pushed each race here and here, then the personal story lead you to Orr, and now your like bouncing around waypoints because some strange lady appeared out of the magic hat, yet, dont you wonder why we still have risen everywhere?

And whats gonna make it even worse will be the Thermanova Reactor fractal where nobody will know why its happening, heck fractals to me dont make any sense in the story. They are a neat system that I love, but they still make no sense.

I still dont know how Flame and Frost happened
I still dont understand the point of Zephyrs
What was the consortiums point
What was the Arenas point?
Why did Tequatl get stronger?
What happened to the spiders in twilight arbor when Scarlet invaded.

The point is, the living world needs help to make it truly viable, to make the story truly bloom, currently, there isnt any any story, just a bunch of glimpses about nothing.

An expansion will just compound this problem. The power dev has can lead us back to less played zones by redesign for now, but it does nothing in actually delivering us a story.

The concept in beginning was right in the players will influence the story. But many of us see that its currently about money grubbing then building a true foundation. Instead of emersing us into the thick of it and challenging Tyria as a whole in a fight that leads us onan epic adventure, we get helter skelter pinballed around like ragdolls where really, we dont know why.

Sadly, I look at living story as they are practicing game design and story telling. Instead of each living story being like a new chapter or a sequel or prequel, it feels more like 4 completely different stories they are trying to bounce between. But in a persistant world that rarily shuts down, it has to act more like a staircase. Otherwise, it feels like watchingva movie that keeps jumping around and evetually gets to its point, thats to say half the theater didnt already walk out after the 1st 15 minutes.

Lets see, we went from southsun helping out Black Lion Co’s enemy, the Consortium which to this day hang out in Lions Arch fractal building and serve no purpose whatsoever to helping out against the flame and frost which we still have no idea who created that madness then to Southsun again to help turn it into a no purpose resort, then this band of pirates came from the sky that we curbstomped and then we helped out a sky merchant from who knows where exactly just so we could vote for somebody, so that we could stop the Queens Assassination from this person named Scarlet who control the Aetherblades, Steam creatures from the future and Clockworks who fled somewhere, then Tequatl rose up living fishheads in its wake, and now we stumble upon Scarlets new home in Twilight Arbor.

Come on, non of this makes any sense. Actually, its a great idea I just had, for a grand end of this livimg story and the new one (The search for more Dragons). The tie in Living Story could be called “Sorting out the Madness” where everything comes together, because we learn Scarlet is in fact!!!! ____

I agree with you that SAB should be permenant and not just a fill in living story content.

I know for a fact that dev feels the same way, they are searching more options to make living story impactful, and permenant. Just look at the last 2 living story updates. Tequatl is now changed and they made a new path in Twilight Arbor (Assault).

I believe dev is now on the right track and I have been enjoying myself alot, of course, there have been growing pains and each new content will bring more growing pains, but at the end of the day, I believe its gonna get better and better.

Keep your chin up

As time goes on,

I truly believe the overflows will fix themselves.

Up until the great dragon crash of Sept 30th, it seemed more overflows were conpleting it then main server.

Thank you Dev,

You listened to us and we are all greatful, keep up the good work.

Listen

I am not a huge Teq supporter, however, because the fault lies with me and my hardcore casual play. (Limited Hours, so cant be called a Hardcore Gamer anymore).

Likes from this.

I met some really great people on my servers community that I might not have before this point.

It demonstrated new commander purposes outside living story, champ killing and WVW

It offered a new challenge that creates a hardmode, not because its hard but because it requires coordination.

Things I didnt like

Overflows (not overflows themselves, but the attitude they generate)
For those naysayers, my home server failed last night, but the exact same time, people who were trapped in an overflow trying to get in server sparkfly succeeded and won.

Respawn time after failure (instead of dusting our defeat off and trying again, we have to wait 1 hour + to attempt it again), this looses people with limited time.

Rewards (As it stands now.) However, if they made the encounter instanced or without a cooldown or long cooldown to where you could wait 10 minutes and try again, rewards would be fine. Problem really is long wait to try again with RNG makes rewards a disaster.

Fishhead punishment, I believe they couldve had a better punishment that wouldnt hurt up and coming players.

Waypoint contested or to far away (already a punishment if you have to run back). They should install a bit closer waypoint to be honest.

Have to have a voice communication 3rd party program to coordinate effectively.

All in all, I dont believe its necessarily the wrong direction, but I believe there are many finetunings that need to be done to keep it complex yet more player friendly and desired.

Anybody who has played another game which I cant mention the title and fought the Glimmerking alongside 300 other players knows, it turned into a once a month event, and it was instanced and always available, the problem there was sharing 20 rewards with300 people. (Last time I kill Glimmerking, we didit with 8 people)

I guess my only complaint it,

Instead of installing a new unique dungeon, it means in a way, we are more then likelybgoing to see a rework of the entire game but in micro increments, the last developer to try this is well, no longer live anymore.

Adding new content and more land to explore with more varying monsters to tackle is more in tune with what my wish list would hold.

Yes the same problem applies to achievement rewards, if you picked radiant, but later decided that you like the fire helmet better, how can you get the other pieces (considering they cant be dyed).

I certainly regret my choice there, so I choose to no longer wear them, because id rather have a dyable piece that I can uniquely blend to my desire, then a strict uniform.

You could always make it where having friends from another server, puts your entire group in an overflow.

I know what your going to say.

But folly, how is that fair? Well, if they are your friends, why arent they on your server to begin with.