Guild Wars 2

Brother Grimm.5176:

Isn’t it entirely possible there is a valid reason you FEEL stupid?

(I"m in no way implying the OP IS stupid, just that the act of spending gold to obtain this collection might not be the brightest move they ever made).

Blaming Anet for that feeling might fall into that category as well…..

Friend, I clarified the problem with assistance from others throughout this thread. Did you actually read and sort through the replies?

Thanks. Maybe that’s the source of frustration…feeling forced to go the TP….just to do a collection…just to find something unrewarding to do during the “lull and hype” that happens between xpacs in every game. If I go after Gaze, I’ll try to remember that.

My jaw dropped when I saw how many replies this post got. Most of them are pretty useless, which caters with an obsession toward wondering what type of person is so compelled to reply to every post like mine with the stock “your choice!” material.

I agree about the bandit collection. And, that one you can’t just buy on the TP.

I also appreciate the argument that the grawl reward is simply not high enough when compared to krait, hylek, and ogre.

As for those grinding the mats…I’m not convinced. I’m not unlucky. I would say it’s average. In two years, I’ve had some very cool drops such as an ascended staff with the stats I wanted. So, why only three large skulls in all of this time? Oh wait…I’m not killing enough grawl? Lol…it’s kinda’ hard to play every aspect of the game like I do and not kill your fair share of grawls. Ok, I don’t play the grawl fractal. So, are you saying that the vast majority of large skulls drop there? I’m just saying that if it takes three large skulls to craft one, and I’ve only obtained enough for one in two years…then either something is broken or the TP is flooded with duped god skull weapons, or the TP cost of both skulls and weapons should be much higher. Any other possibilities…constructive ones?

I’m just left wondering how so many of those weapons are available yet, in 3 map completions along with hundreds of hours doing other stuff, I have obtained THREE large skulls as drops.

I knew fully well what the reward would be. I’m providing the suggestion to remove them or increase them since, at least for me, it was like saying, “Good dog…let me throw you a rotten bone”. I would have been more content just finishing the collection. I didn’t need a reminder that I just contributed to a huge gold sink.

Seriously…take out collection rewards. Over the past few days, I earned and spent 30 gold on godskull weapons for the collection. Why throw me a bag with 3 obsidian shards, a 30 silver rare, and couple of achievement points? Talk about making a player feel stupid for spending gold. Are the developers really that greedy to think that’s supposed to be a reward? No wonder I log in less and less.

They’re also not all achievable anymore. Well…ok, one could feasibly sit around waiting for days for a group who actually want to do the Bloodtide escort for the Orrian Relic….but then that’s assuming Triple Trouble isn’t up.

I know some people resort to saying, “Well, the idea is that you should have to work to feel the sense of accomplishment”. Sitting around waiting for people on a dead map to do an event no one wants to do but that is necessary to get the collection item…and having that further stymied by a a mega-event that nearly always fails but does succeed in preventing obtaining the collection item"…there is absolutely zero sense of accomplishment in that.

Andred.1087: I would but it’s so much more fun to farm it and blow it on Tier 3 cultural armor….aka “so bored, I think I’ll buy a title”. You should come up with a reply that isn’t so 2010…love your reference to the subgenius though.

I just wish they would come out and say to not expect not much until the expansion. When I realized what was going on (mostly by gauging the attitude of the community….increased standing around doing nothing, increased trolling/griefing, stuff you see in other games like that)…I listened to the advice of “well, make the best of it”

So…went chasing after achievements. Ok, I’ll create a prof I’ve never played (mesmer). Do map completion. Get each collection item in each zone. Try to earn each trait in each zone. Even made an Excel file to organize all this.

Now here’s the reality and why I just uninstalled. Kill the blood ooze for a trait in Bloodtide? It rotates with a champ spider…and no one is there to help with either one. Impossible to solo. Ok, so I just buy that trait…whatever. Not long after this, I try to escort the scholar to get the Orrian Relic collection piece. Again, impossible to solo so I come back later to see if anyone is around…oh, there’s people around…people griefing over too few people to do Triple Trouble…which, guess what….just happens to spawn right next to the scholar who would love to sell that collection piece! Now, that’s just poor game design…unless it was assumed that there would be several hundred people on the map, or even a handful interested in the escort for the relic.

That’s my rant…straw that broke the camel’s back in thinking that I could “create” something fun to do during this lull.

The chest from the champion svanir world boss appeared but would not open for several people. I’m not sure if this was the case for everyone at the event. For me and the other in my party, it was the first attempt of the day (6:15 pm pst event), received a gold star for participation, and was after the new build that launched about an hour prior to this. Both members in my party are high enough in level.

I did not know this! Thanks. Given also that the upcoming changes only affect one wh skill (1/2 sec cast reduction for locuts swarm) and what has been said here, I think I’m going with focus….goal is all three weapons and one more ring to go…then on to ascended armor.

First, I should say that I main a power necro. I go staff and d/wh. I went zojia’s (zerk) on the ascended staff and dagger. Now, I’m having troubled deciding between an ascended wh or focus.

Along with which may be “better” than the other, I’m also considering how the choice would have the greatest benefit across other professions. Along with which might be better for the necro, which would would benefit the most other professions beyond necro? Decisions, decisons. What do you think?

Thanks for the informative responses.

Just leveled weaponsmith from 6 to 400…6 levels? I understand that they don’t want people leveling to 80 this way and that it was nerfed….but 6 levels? Is this a bug?

I’m struggling with map completion. Suppose I created a character on a shard with an active wvwv presence making it more realistic to complete. Could I then mail the gift to my main character? In other words, does account-bound also mean cross-shard?

I know that map completion is time-consuming…in essence, doing it twice but once without having finished the wvwvw maps. But, I find this more enjoyable (and legendary) than checking to see if the colors have changed.

This would be my new baby since my main recently retired. In this pic, she is pouting over her first death…one-shotted by the champ wasp.

Nice. I finally know where to seriously slice up some rabbit meat!

It’s novelty and a slight bonus at certain levels. Let’s suppose that you want to do map completion through your race’s zone. Suppose further you are going to sell drops and ores. You will be able to buy T1 and T2. You will be op for a level or two, but it doesn’t matter. You look good, and you did something that you wanted to do. You also probably won’t change gear for 10 levels.

1.) That doesn’t apply to cultural weapons, which as bought with karma. You probably don’t have that kind of karma ready to spend unless you already had it saved.
2.) It doesn’t apply to T3 because of the drastic jump in price. But you are 80. Are you really wanting the T3 cultural set right away?

In my case, I have it on a character. But that’s only because I gave up on crafting a legendary, sold the T6 mats, and wanted something on the character to show for the work. She’s hawt, right?

Nooooo….just deleted mine yesterday.

Nice! Yeah, if retiring means getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, you could say she’s back out from retirement. I’ll probably do the same if and when I seriously play the necro again.

I’ll probably do that if and when they open up new zones with events, hearts, and all that.

Unique, you hit a wall. Whether it’s one character or six, you are in that place of, “what now?…oh that…yeah but I don’t really want to do that”. You made an internal cost-benefit analysis and are now stuck. I suggest going through the achievement list to get ideas for other goals. You could also buy another character slot. Of course, you could stop playing but sounds like you are not wanting to quit.

That’s actually the spot that many of us hit…truly do not want to quit vs. truly trying to figure out what to do when the options aren’t that appealing.

By the way, if you end a sentence with ‘s’ and then the next word is ‘hit’…it changes the word to kitten. See previous post. LOL!

same here, but it’kitten or miss. Last night, I couldn’t edit at all. Ran a cleaner and nothing changed. Server load?

my bad…I assumed necromancer. Re-roll and play that.

Here ya’ go…worked like a charm for me (although I made some modifications here).

No worries about how long it is…you can skip around chapters like a book.

Have you ever taken a character as far as you want to take it and decided it was time for retirement? Share your pics!

This is Lomia Katsi, a level 80 necromancer. She’s wearing the Khilbron set (rabid) in battle, retired wearing the T3 cultural set, and wields the ascended Angchu Spire. (It was a gift from Scarlet, which makes complete sense given that most of her outfit is dyed scarlet.) She was a follower of Dwayna in order to better understand the life aspect that comes with death. She retired at the Cathedral of Zephyrs.

Also, include your moment when you knew it was time to retire. For me, it was world completion. (Not interested in the legendaries until offer other equally-difficult methods for achieving them.) Do not include pics of deleted toons. They aren’t retired. They are dead. Retired toons have the option of coming out of retirement in the future.

Do the map content! Try to get map completions. The rewards are ok. You’ll level doing hearts, events, vistas, waypoints, and points of interest. You’ll learn a bit of the lore. You’ll meet people…(well, depending on the map, maybe one or two people). You’ll find jumping puzzles. You’ll get to know your profession. And at 80, if you are after a legendary, you are once step closer to the required world completion.

So then why isn’t the OP playing the immediate gratification mmo’s, which is most of them, right? Ah…because that system gets stale once you see the pattern of grinding for gear that is almost immediately obsolete so that you can do it all over again.

See, that’s what is so great about GW2….there is very little of that here, and it’s refreshing for there to be a game that people can just play. I would absolutely be thrilled if legendaries were based on something other than crafting. For example, world completion including personal story on five different race/class combinations…that would be pretty legendary. Don’t like that idea? Have four other ways you can accomplish it.

By the way, many players don’t do the ascended grind. The only ones complaining about being at a disadvantage are the ones so hardcore that they are in a position to notice negligible differences. You don’t sound like a hardcore player, so just avoid the ascended. Maybe one will drop. It does happen.

I enjoy the process. I always seem to get increasingly frustrated, whiny, and downright miserable when I get to the point where it seems the next goal should be the legendary. I don’t know why, but around then, everything is negative and I spend more time in LA map chat than actually playing the game. Y’know why? At that point, the game becomes more like a job. There’s no satisfaction for me in killing 100 mobs to sell the drop to get materials that don’t naturally drop.

This is just the GW2 system for those “cosmetic” grinds. If you can’t start another character to re-live the content in some way or to try a different approach then Vayne is right. This game isn’t designed for quick-gratification loot-based reward cycles unless the delay in your reinforcement expectations is extremely high.

I am very tempted to buy this just for the fun of starting an account with no achievement points…that feeling of freshness that comes with starting from scratch. But, I really can’t afford it right now and have already done this once in the past.

It’s an incredibly good value.

Well, come to think of it, I was 58 after all of that, not even 60. But, go run that map…you’re going to hit level 65 mobs very quickly. There isn’t a smooth transition. You can argue for the fun of arguing, I guess….and I’m not bothered by this. I’m just saying that the devs might want to double-check the continuity.

It still doesn’t address how I could have been only level 58 when starting at level 20 and having done four maps with all hearts and numerous events including several of the beloved Maws.

FWIW, I honestly don’t care. I’m just letting the OP know that I had this same experience on one character (out of 10 that have been through there)..and that zone does need a little bit of work on continuity. We all know that won’t happen.

No, the OP is correct in certain circumstances. Here was my experience with one character. I leveled two crafts (artificer/JC) to 400 starting at level 2. That put me at level 20. I always have goals for a character. So, for this one, the goal was to go through all hearts and as many events as possible along with map completion for the norn zones. I also bought gear from the TP at certain level increments (e.g., 20, 35) with runes/sigils…all in fun…but I was never really behind in gear.

Wayfarer? No problem (of course). Snowden? No problem. Lornar’s? Not crazy about that zone but no problem. Dredgehaunt? Well…all of those dredge concentrated in small areas can be challenging for anyone. Timberline? A bugged heart but it just took me ten times longer than it should have taken.

There is no 60-65 or 60-70 norn zone really. Next is Frostgorge at 70. So, you choose Maelstrom or Fireheart. I went with Maelstrom.

Now, how in the world, was I only level 60 going into Maelstrom if I did every heart, many events, and map completion? Note again that I started out at level 20! I was pretty ticked off about it since the hearts there start at 62 (not 60).

The solution was to jump backward (and go against the plan for the character) by doing Sparkfly (55-60). But one shouldn’t have to do that. I’ve never had that happen with another character so there is something weird about the XP scaling going that route. And, the OP is correct in that the hearts do NOT start in 60 in a zone advertising 60.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mount_Maelstrom

Wait until he gets to the end of the personal story. o.O

You can easily waste a lot of time discussing this like I did once upon a time. Or, you can go do something else that levels you to 61 or 62. Level cooking…switch crafts if you need to…or you can do a diff craft and try to get that level from just the basic and cheap low-level conversions (e.g., leather). I can’t guarantee it because they change things so fast, but it should be faster than running champ trains in Queensdale. You could also go to a different zone but I never liked how that broke up the continuity.

Exactly. It’s purely psychological. One person may have no problem at all with this indirect method of gold farming to get the material. I know there are others like me to don’t find that fun because we prefer to see it drop. Hey, brandeds drop the other dusts with a realistic probability. After doing world completion and have 15 crystalines there is no way I’m farming for them in Orr. That would be one month, full-time for 15 dusts, which comes to almost three years.

I know who is the same boat but has it worse. That would be those after legendaries that requires cores. Anyway, there’s not much point in posting from me. I retired that toon and am just messing around with alts. I reached a point in wow where I was just waiting for the next decent game (which turned out to be this one)…now I’m in that boat again….well past the whining phase and just waiting.

Well-said to you too, Pariah!

And yes…pretty sure I read a dev posting about this not applying to chests. Unfortunately, the problem seems to apply to general mobs.

I like Pariah’s hypothesis because it makes sense without sounding like we are being conned by evil anet people who want us to quit playing. If you have a near-zero probability of a drop then even 1,000% MF might be negligible…depending on how near-zero we are. We don’t know base rates beyond our own data collection; we just know things like “has a very rare chance of dropping”. (If I’m wrong though, please tell me where to find the actual probabilities for drops…I know other games do have this information online, so I might have missed it.)

This is no different than what I was posting about crystaline dust. It’s bad for you because you are “forced” to do things you don’t want to or can’t do. It’s bad for me because I have to make someone rich (probably in real-life) by killing karkas to sell for dust.

Spare me on the “other ways to get dust” assertion. See other posts about this.

Unique, don’t buy the “unlucky” indictment. When someone says that, they are making an unfounded moral statement about you (or you’re doing it to yourself). If some were “luckier” than others then where are the multimillion dollar research grants to be able to find these people. Certainly, governments and businesses would be just as interested as the casinos.

I’m trained in statistics at the doctoral level, ok? Not bragging…just prefacing what I’m going to say next. In statistics, people think that it’s an objective science. That’s only true when it comes to the data. At the end of the day, a decision about the data is made from comparing it to some probability of certainty. Usually, they’ll say that such-and-such would only occur 5% or less of the time, so by that number, this finding is “significant”.

But, note that the 5% comparison is just some universally agreed upon standard for journal publication. But out in the real world, we deal with subjective probability. People draw their own conclusions based purely on observed data. That, in of itself, is not the way to go. However, when enough people come together sharing the same experience, the anecdotal experience now becomes shared by an increasing number of people and increases what is called convergent validity….and whether someone says “not enough data” or “you are unlucky” is irrelevant because people have already made up their mind that this bullkittens and they just aren’t buying it anymore.

I’ve been saying this for quite awhile. Before luck, I had 3% MF and did not want more than that. If I wanted to play MF-stack, I’d play D3. But I was ok that GW2 included it for people who like that and want to do it in this game.

Back then, at 80, I would see at least 2 rare drops a day…usually more than that. Now, I’m at 110% (after lotus fries), and I’m lucky to see 1 a day at all. Others have said the same thing adding that it’s worse for them.

FWIW…I vendor my whites now. They said it would change after 100%…lol. No, it didn’t. Nothing has changed, and it’s worse than before, and I regret even getting into “MF” in this game because it sets up another illusory carrot on a stick. But, hey, people are free to keep salvaging what could have just been vendored.

P.S. To “that guy” who has anecdotal proof of MF working…feel free to also use terminology like “tin foil hat” or “small sample” in attempt to just handwave the discussion.

to expand on the rares…you are once again better off selling that rare to the highest buyer for 23 silver (or whatever), buying the ecto at 30 silver (or whatever) and losing a few silver in that trade than you are counting on ectos from salvaging rares. And again…driving home the point….everything driving you somehow to use the cash shop.

and how do you get ectos? salvage a rare? Look at the large sample raw data on that. And how often are rares even dropping? I’m at 130% MF and see about one per day. When I salvage it…well, again, look at the large sample data on ectos per mystic salvage kit.

And this is what I meant by “drives the point home”. No, sorry, 500 crystalines at a rate of 15 per world completion, which included 100s of world events…not sure who would do completion 33.33 times.

The problem is the methods. All of these ways to lose money or break even or dream of karkas are diversions from the type of farming that I and many others want. If I want frostweave cloth in wow, I know where to go. I know that it will take a long time for the amount that I need. I farm, do the work, and get the return. I don’t have to farm murlocs to get scales to sell on the AH for the leatherworkers to get the gold to get the frostweave. It’s possible, but it’s not “forced”.

I saw in another forum somewhere that the problem isn’t farming but the methods for farming. I was working on 250+250 crystalline dusts for the minstrel. (For other legendaries, it’s 500 of something, usually lodestones, right?)

Anyway, I’ve been karka farming, and I’m thankful for those who lead this. But, honestly, this is the least fun that I’ve ever had in an mmo or rpg. There’s just something non-fun about grinding so that you can buy what can’t be counted on to drop. I know that there are other ways to get the dust, but that just drives home my point.

It’s weird. And it feels like they are driving people to farm karkas due to high demand for them (?) Like I posted awhile ago, I did world completion and had 15 of those dusts to my name (and that world completion is counting plenty of temples, metas, etc.)

I’m trying to find the right word for it….rude?

To be clear, I’m not complaining about farming since many people are probably going to respond “Don’t want to work for something!!! People these days!!!”. No, I’m fine with farming for materials. Having to farm something else because you need things that can’t be counted on to drop much at all is the problem. Maybe you are fine with that. Then there’s not much point in you responding; you should get back to your unpaid job.

Well, I agree with that. What I’ve noticed is that the game can be so immersive at times that we forget the level 1 noob mentality. We have “wishful thinking” and then gradually come to realize that very few people are going to get everything they want in this game. Case in point…without mesmers, I’ll never be a jumper…and without nothing but Light Travels back to back, I’ll never be a Sanctum Sprinter. :P

Maybe it was just my interpretation of the tone and, if so, my apologies. According to map chat, I’m no angel.

Nike, I strongly agree with this. One day, I was feeling a bit compulsive and went against my “spend real money” philosophy. I bought whatever $35USD represents in crystals. Within a day, I had the Master Crafter title. That totally put things in perspective because, for the person who would flat out buy a legendary, $35 is nothing.

So, they are telling the truth when they say “play how you want to play”. Is spending real money legendary? Go for it. Is grinding the mats legendary? Go for it. (Personally, the only thing that I think is legendary in that particular goal is world completion…but someone else might see farming 500 crystalline dusts as legendary.)

Wow…Vol! I’ve been following your posts for a long time because they are usually helpful and productive….but lately! Why the hostility? The OP was requesting an official response to something that matters to him or her. The responses are way too reminiscent of “Stormwind Trade Chat”, which is not just a reference to that game but any game where the community is so hostile that new players get a terrible first impression of the community.

Besides, your opinion is contrary to ANet’s philosphy of equal multiple ways to do anything in this game. And, I think he’s justified in addressing what he or she sees as a disconnect.

I have no opinion on the matter other that lighten up, maybe take a break, and let an official respond.

It’s a one-inflated Poisson distribution, which is why your average is 1.91. It’s not an equal probability between those counts.

For example, my small sample data yesterday was 1,1,1,1,1,2,3

Unless they include a progressive rng element to the code, the fact that 2 and 3 are at the end of the series is just rng. It could have been 1,1,3,1,2,1,1

Anyway, the legendary part of my legendary attempt was world completion. I gave up after that. Farming that much gold, salvaging that much gold (ectos), and feeling compelled to break down and spend real money….isn’t all that legendary. The crystalline dust is where they get you. At the end of world completion, I had 15 of them to my name. 15! Yet, 500 are needed. And with the low drop rate, you would hit DR faster than you would make much progress trying to farm them.

(And, no, transmuting them right now is actually a loss…the forum says 40 but the footnote says 1-40….this appears to be a normal distribution…at the end of the day you are getting about 20 per mystic forge, which is a loss in terms of materials.)

I don’t know. I had already resubbed to “the other game” for one month…logged in, yep characters still there, yep bank stuff and guild still there, nope I don’t want to do this again. Checked the forums here. Chatted a bit with one forum poster and ran some dungeons with another…had a blast.

I just now know that these mobs do have loot tables that Anet does disclose. Didn’t know the wiki had that kind of detail for mobs. But I still think they should make maps more rewarding since map completion is getting people out in the open world. Kinda’ odd that they want people out in the world but the people getting rewarded are the champ-zerg-grinders. Anywho, people were making this complaint many months ago…so nothing new there.

I did have a great time afterwards….maybe just needed to do something other than hearts for awhile. Maybe needed to find a good group.

Oh, the focus precursor is pretty cheap too. I bought that because I like it and saw that mystic casino as nothing but trouble from day one. I don’t even like real casinos. So if we can get that precursor out of the way, there’s a lot more to do but it doesn’t have that “impossible” feel to it anymore. Of course, that doesn’t help when the price of many precursors is way inflated.

Well, now I’m wondering if I should guest to a lower population server for this. I mean, in Fields of Ruin, I might have seen two other players and a few hanging out at the Ebonhawk TP. But that’s not to say that someone isn’t farming the zone at other times.

58 on one character sounds right. Between all four characters, I got 79 levels. (The AS/WS didn’t hit 20.)

I’ve only used that scroll once, and it was on accident. Leveling is already fast enough, and I can’t figure out how there can still be people asking “what’s the fastest way to level?” I seem to get 500 XP every time I take a sip of coffee in this game!

But yes, I have three crafting alts all at 19-20 (post-patch), which gives people an idea of how many levels to expect if crafting both to 400 starting right away at level 1 and without crafting buffs.