Guild Wars 2

From Story Journal entry:

“To unlock an episode and have it added to your story Journal, you simply need to log in to the game during the two-week period that the release is live to be given permanent, free access to the storyline of that episode. Once you’ve unlocked it by simply logging in, you can replay that episode’s storyline on any character on your account as many times as you like from your story Journal forever.”

and

“Characters under level 80 will be able to see the available episodes, but will not be able to play them until they reach level 80. Think of the Living World story as the constantly expanding continuation of your character’s storyline once they reach level 80.”

AAAAAAND

“Once one character on your account has completed an episode in their story journal, every character on your account will have access to a set of challenging achievements. At any time once unlocked, you can return and attempt to replay that episode in order to complete the achievements. "

PER MA NENT

Elbegast.6970:

Logan Thackeray: There’s only one Asuran that can help me!

Logan hastily runs off into the cold, rainy night

THIS +1 so many times! I’d watch this scene over and over again. That last line and the next music cue always gives me the urge to get up and yell YEAH!

But who is this mysterious man who can help Logan? Is Snaff still alive? Is he perhaps disguised as Mr. E!?

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Good break-down.
I wrote something similar… ish, here

Good breakdown, EnemyCrusher.

pixelpumpkin, I read your link. It seems to me that Living Story has begun to address the issues you spelled out. But people who enjoy LS will continue to enjoy; neutral and rational players will appreciate the improvements; but some people just can’t be satisfied. (Pessimist moment: I don’t think ANet can get shut up 90% critics no matter what they do… Pessimist moment over!)

Using Bazaar and Cutthroat as example for your points:

1. Reward for doing everything once (or get to tier 1): I think achievement points are already a form of reward. I don’t think it’s good to start raining down item rewards (actual items or skins) to everyone who just try everything once. It’s okay to do it sometimes, like Halloween you only needed to follow Mad King around and listen to his jokes and you get the witch hat, or even free wizard hat during Wintersday.

2. Reward desirable items to people who want to grind: The meta rewards (permanent quartz node, Ellen and Evon mini) is a form of this, in that you have to grind (in some way) achievements to get to the “ultimate goal”. As for the new items, you can farm mobs for or buy from gem store (2 methods) to get kite fortunes and then scraps. Grinding these guarantees the Zephyrite helm, dream catcher backs, and later desert rose and zephyr rucksack. Don’t want to farm mobs or shell out gems? Running the 3 minis and play RNG drop for the latter 3. Don’t even want to do that? These items are available enough that they’re reasonably affordable on the TP. I know that Aetherized weapon/skin are still RNG ticket from boxes or RNG drop from trials, but at least you now have the option of farming something for loot instead of no choice but to buy/convert to gems. And at least they’re available on TP too, as ANet has unlocked all items from tickets from account bound.

3. Be able to get to the meta by playing how you want: Bazaar required 16 achievements to get to the meta. Some people hate JP with a passion, so if you don’t go around collecting kites at JPs, you still can get to 16 (although you have to do every other achievement, but then again one of the kites isn’t a JP). Same with Cutthroat, each requiring 6 for meta. I didn’t do any of the trials, dungeons, or fractals, and I got there by grinding the mini games I enjoy (they also dropped me both the rose and 2x rucksack, sun and 2x lightning back, only missing the wind). My boyfriend does not enjoy grinding mini games so much, so he’ll be doing the other 3 on the weekend (on top of voting, homeland support, and daily, which I also did). We each played how we liked to get to the meta. I do think the options are a little limited; and on top of that the trials/dungeon/fractal are harder so they award more achievement points, but they still count as 1 achievement towards the meta. Good place to improve is to balance the achievement count / achievement point / implement that you can use either count or point to get to meta. They can also include more achievement categories, but if they up the total AP from 250 to 500 available per release, I imagine there’s going to be outrage about that too (I still don’t understand why people whine when they choose to grind…)

Anyway, great posts, and I really enjoy Living Story!

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Well, they did lie about the spontaneous dynamic world. It barely exists and they seem to be getting farther and farther away from it and relying on pug dungeons and mini games more and more.

That’s not lying. They implemented the events that affect the open world for you to play. Succeeding or failing some events will lead to different results and different events. Sure, in the longer term, the world is essentially unchanged; events restart and bosses respawn. But they called this “dynamic world”. How do you take their definition, interpret it your way, and then call them liars?

Now that a lot of people have reached level 80, or have multiple level 80 characters, they’re introducing more stuff to do. Sure most Living World content do not make permanent (or just significant) impact to the open world, but the ANet specifically said that they will be going in that direction in future living world releases.

They introduced a whole level 80 Southsun back in November, and that didn’t turn out well. With Living Story they’re introducing small things leading up to something bigger in the future (think Flame and Frost opening little areas in existing maps). But this concept of Living Story hasn’t been around that long. Wait and see where it’s going.

Ooh I like Living World! But I’m not about to pass up a survey to express constructive criticism

[ ] Married
[x] Have BOYFRIEND who plays more than I do. Yes I know there are no girls on the internet, blah blah
[x] Employed full time
[x] Have a cat who meows at us to play with her instead
[ ] Have Children
[x] Are an Adult
[ ] Have a Life… I probably should work on this
[ ] Have no Manual Dexterity

You Think Living World is too:

[ ] Hard
[ ] Time Consuming
[x] Temporary. Although I don’t mind releases every 2 weeks, I’d like them to stay for 4 weeks.
[x] Full of Jumping Puzzles that are NOT the hardest of the game, which is cool because I like them when they don’t make me want to smash my monitor

You are Currently Threatening to:

[ ] Quit
[ ] Uninstall
[ ] Kick Colins’ Dog
[ ] Tell the Internet That You are Upset
[x] Continue playing while voicing constructive criticism in survey form

Well here’s the thing, I do find the mini games fun. Achievement points are like extra incentives to go try them out when they’re rolled out (the achievement points themselves are basically rewards). I get the points while doing something I enjoy.

Anyone can play how they want. I just see 2 options: 1) enjoy playing and points come with it, give up points on things you don’t like, or 2) grind all points possible. If you go with option 2, then you must realize that you won’t like all parts of the game, and some you’re going to get sick of. If you choose 2 and get sick of some games, you can either (A) keep a positive attitude and try to have fun, or (B) play something else to keep having fun, or © keep grinding and keep being unhappy.

Why make yourself unhappy?

knyy.6427:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

The more I try and get the achievements in the mini-games, the more it feels like getting a job at your favourite restaurant. At first it is totally radical that you can eat all the stuff you like, but after a few months you hate it so much you don’t even want to smell it.

The problem of course is that ANet for some reason tends to create achievements that, for the average player, require a lot of games to get.

For me anyway, it means that by the time I’m done the achievements, I never, ever want to see the game again. Even the ones I liked at first are now the last thing I want to do in game.

There must be a better way to integrate achievements, with out ruining the games.

This so much! We had so many mini-games so far (too much in my opinion). They are funny in the first 10-30 min and then tends to get boring quickly. The problem here is the achievements in minigames with time restrictions. People can argue that you dont need to do them, but with the new reward system you do need the points.
And the OP is totally right that by the time you did all the achievements for minigames you are totally frustrated with them and dont want to see it ever again (there are some exceptions).
you dont need to add a new minigame in every content update or make it the only new thing a patch delivers (cutthroad politics = 2 new minigames and some tokens).
1 achievement for a new minigame is enough (like play the game 5 times and maybe one achievements for winning this game once).

I understand this point of view. And I’ll start off by saying that I did not like the fact you had to win lots of games for achievement points. Sanctum Sprint got it right, that you only need to win ONCE, it gets you a title, not a whole lot of points.

However, tying time-limited achievements for new mini game releases encourages people to try them out, because they want MANY people to play to make the mini games engaging. Think about keg brawl before the achievements, or costume brawl on a day there’s no daily for that: not many play, and the games are not fun. That said, this is to encourage TRYING them out.

As for the actual work related to achievement points, they do come in tiers, so you already get a bit of AP reward as you move up (survivor at 1000 points gets you 3 AP, 2500 is 2 AP extra, same applies to head shots, and achievements for aspect arena), this in itself is reward for progression.

Lastly, GW2 has always tried to be the game you “play how you want”. You can get achievement points no matter what you do. Now that the achievement rewards are rolled out, some people started to feel like it’s a daily grind to maximize your points, which is not the spirit of this game. For example, if I missed a daily today because I wanted to go out after work or catch up on my favorite TV show, I’m not going to miss the potential 11 points I can get (more from PvP). Same with LS, If I choose to spend my time on mini games (I maxed out on points) and got the meta, I’m not going to worry about the points I’m missing out from candidate trials. Achievement rewards is the same whether I do it now or later. LS event and APs will keep on coming.

I think at the end of the day, you approach the game with a positive attitude. If your goal is to get every single achievement point you can, then that’s the style you play, and it IS a grind that you have to spend time and effort on.

arabeth.2361:

Thanks, nekodoken, for being a human being. And thanks for the actual help, hidden amongst the rudeness, that you can get a lightning pull and use it to get across that first air jump part. I’ll use that advice for sure if I ever try to get an alt up there, since I still occasionally miss the jump (again: from someone who got 40 crystals and did the gryphon nest jumping puzzle in one try).

I consider it common decency to be civil to anyone simply expressing opinions that they are completely free and entitled to do. I’d give any jerk a piece of my mind, but I didn’t get that from you arabeth.

I do think you have a good point. Perhaps next time they introduce some new skills to navigate a zone, they should make it so you wouldn’t die during the tutorial. For example, if you rolled off the cliff during the first 3 waterfalls you get an option to come back to the sun adept, death during the jump come back to the wind adept, and lightning too.

arabeth.2361:

This is pretty much my point. I’m glad you’re so good at the game that you don’t even think of getting to the top of the bazaar as a jumping puzzle. I’m not talking about people like you. I’m also not interested in debating the semantics of “jumping puzzle.” The way I am using it, if you have to jump around and the penalty for failing a jump is death, that’s pretty much a jumping puzzle. If it offends you to hear something so “simple” called a jumping puzzle, then please find/replace “jumping puzzle” with “tricky jumps that cause death when you miss them” in my post. The message is the same.

I understand what you’re saying. But many things in the regular content that is supposed to be available to everyone, requires a bit of “tricky jump”, and many will definitely cause death (vistas, for example, includes lots of jumps). In this case of the Labyrinth, it’s not the same. And I’m not saying this from the view of “I’m adequate enough at JPs that it didn’t even cross my mind that this is one”. The main difference in this is that there are the sun, wind, and lightning adepts right next to the places you have to jump, explaining to you exactly what needs to be done. (To my annoyance, quite a few players don’t bother reading at all, and just started to spam map chat complaining that they can’t get through the waterfall. But I know you’re not one of these people.) That makes this trek to the top a tutorial, which I believe was the intent, introducing you to the 3 aspect skills to navigate this place. You talk to the sun adept, you dash through 3 waterfalls. Wind adept -> a few jumps. Lightning -> a few tethered pulls. At this point, you have reached the top WP.

And this area content that you want to access (sky crystals, best dive ever, Sanctum Sprint, and later Aspect Arena) all involve the use of the aspect skills. If using the skills to get to the top WP turns people away, chances are they’re not gonna enjoy the rest of the content either.

I myself died a few times trying to do this. But if I had a beef with anything, it’s the collecting of sky crystals, which killed me 100 times more, costing a lot of WP money. Fortunately they made up for it as Sanctum Sprint was so profitable.

My 2 cents.

Comes from Champion loot!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/New-Fellblades/first#post2522028

It’s coming on the August 6th patch. Champion boss loots will include rare weapon drops including rapier. See Fellblades thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/New-Fellblades/first#post2522028

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

@ Nekodoken. Regarding the mass release of mini-games simply being a buff to their inventory, and that the addition of mini-games will stop soon, as they are reaching a significant amount; I truly hope this is so. However, I sincerely doubt it. Some of the mini-games, such as aspect arena and sanctum sprint, can’t stay on, as they will not be able to operate without the crystals provided by the Zhepherites, thus many of the mini games are temporary. If their goal is indeed to reach a surprise of games for rotation, I do not believe they are ready. At any rate, I wont believe a word until the game designers speak up.

I understand. I’m not trying to speak as if I know all about what ANet is doing. I’m only sharing some of my observations and guesses to possibly help you remain hopeful and continue to enjoy new releases.

Sanctum Sprint and Aspect Arena are the only 2 games relying on crystals, and ANet is even including one of the (Sprint) in the mini game rotation (set in Lion’s Arch), which is in the Jubilee release page. Sprint will essentially be a permanent installation even when the Zephyr Sanctum leaves, and Poyaqui will be in LA for Belcher’s Bluff, moa race is already permanent, crab toss and southsun survival will also be in rotation. That’s ALL of the mini games released since after Wintersday. They will now be permanent, but at least 4 (per release note) will be on a rotational schedule, so the amount of available mini games is being cut.

That said, you are right that nothing indicates ANet wouldn’t push out another 3 temporary mini games out at the same time (such as now: aspect arena + southsun survival + existing sprint), and the Jubilee indicates only 1 (and can scale in difficulty, so like Trials?) It’s only my personal guess that the trend seems to go the direction you want.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

So this will probably come as a shocker, but I liked the mini-games from Bazaar of the Four Winds, I just don’t want this to become a trend where all we do is play mini game after mini game with each new release. That being said, I prefer Dragon Bash over the Bazaar, because there was more story to it, whereas with the bazaar, we are greatly disconnected. I just hope that the Queens Jubilee becomes a focal point that will return us to the story, such as the treaty between the char and humans, or a White Mantle raid (Queensdale bandits for those who haven’t played GW1) as other posts suggested. Even better yet, a treaty ceremony interrupted by the White Mantle.

Yep, I am waiting to see what happens as well.

As for the mini games, I feel like it’s a bit of over-compensation on ANet’s end. They promised lots of mini games a long time ago, and all we had for a long time was the keg brawl that no one played (and random costume brawls that rely on someone planting down a banquet or box o fun in LA). So I think all the recent mini game releases have been planned for quite a while. They tied a lot of temporary achievements to each new mini game release, so people will be encouraged to try them out. And now they’re set to put these games on a rotational schedule, meaning not all games will be available at the same time. It seems to be they’ve finally rolled out enough mini games that they’re winding down. That’s my guess.

Hey Mia, I read a few posts and skipped to the end when whether bazaar was a festival took hold of the conversation.

I sort of agree there has been a lot of “festive feeling” events stacked together. But think about it like this: you liked the approach of Flame & Frost, then Dragon Bash is created to be similar to Canthan New Year which they can’t have yet because Cantha is not here (being Chinese I can tell you, Dragon Bash coincided with the Chinese Dragon Boat festival on June 12). But Dragon Bash was interrupted by a murder! Then we get to play a dungeon against sky pirates. I personally think the Bazaar is created to coincide with summer breaks and vacations, and now probably so is the Queen’s Jubilee. However going with the trend, I’m gonna guess (as others have on the forum) that something bad my happen towards the end of this release (meaning the next scheduled 2 week release), and we’ll get to play a dungeon-ish content once again.

This is just a guess of course, I’ll wait to see what happens. I do have to say I like Bazaar of the Four Winds better than Dragon Bash (and Bazaar has been very profitable. I didn’t buy or convert to gems, I just got lots of gold running mini games), and I hope the Zephyr Sanctum returns at some point

When I first heard “combat in Her Majesty’s Honor” I hoped for jousting, but I guess they’re going with gladiator vs. monsters system. How cool would it be if we can have jousting while riding giant moas!?

:D

Zylonite.5913:

Strejda Tom.6108:

nekodoken.5329:

But other people are enjoying the hell out of it. Not every update is going to please everyone, but asking to “remove any residue” so you never see it again? That is VERY odd. How does the existence of a story progression prohibit you from playing regular content you want to play?

For this sir you deserve a cookie. I think that it is really normal that someone does not like some kind of added content. But I do not get why it should be deleted so people who enjoy it cannot play it anymore.

Well that is too bad then because the content will be inaccessible in a week or so….

I didn’t mean that I want this event to continue beyond 2 weeks. You said that you wish to remove any “residue” from cutthroat politics after the next patch. The story and events go away, but the “residue” will remain in the form of continued story about the Captains Council; the Southsun Survival mini game is going to stay (on a rotational schedule); and the Zephyrites will remain as part of the lore due to the trade contract, meaning Zephyr Sanctum will return at some point. I wondered how these things are going to negatively affect your enjoyment of the game.

And thank you for showing your clocked hours, but a lot of people play GW2 quite a lot and they feel that they’re forced to play content in order to keep up or get rewards. As a result they enjoy the game (and ANet) less and less. I really do hope you don’t lose interest in the game.

For the original poster: Do you like GW2 at all? Based on your questions, I can’t understand how you’re still playing it. Content patches come every 2 weeks now, and all can’t be large. Some will be a minor progression in story, but the next one will be here so soon… Why the outrage?

1. I agree that information is not that sufficient. However the big content is really Zephyr Sanctum, and this is an extension of it (like: hey here’s a bit extra to do) while progressing the story line a little bit.

2. This ISN’T an ELECTION for a seat on the council. Ellen and Evon think that they will be given a seat (by vote of the council members themselves) if they can secure a trade contact with the Zephyrites. It is the Zephyrites that said they will only give the contract to the person that the PEOPLE support. Also, just because government elections don’t let you vote for multiple candidates (or vote more than once), there are lots of things in real life that do this (reality TV competition?).

3. Living story doesn’t mean that the ONLY content being rolled out is related to living story. They’ve rolled out lots of balances, bug fixes, new UI, new reward systems (ascended jewelry, guild commendations, laurels, achievement rewards), along with the living story. People have asked for mini games. They roll out mini games and tie some time-limited achievements to them so people will be encouraged to try them out. If they don’t like it, they don’t even have to do the achievements, as metas don’t require you to do every achievement (6 out of 10 this time, for example, for each meta).

4. If you don’t want the trials to be there at all, why do you play it? Aside from the story progression and new mini games above, this part is for people who are looking for a challenge in fighting (makes sense to scale in difficulty for this reason). The reward is rare Aetherized weapons (better drop when you do higher tier). This is just one aspect of the current content.

5. Minis are just ONE of the many types of rewards. I don’t understand what you mean by something you can use. You want a rare weapon? Do candidate trials for a drop; but then again it’s only a rare, so if you have exotics it wouldn’t be something you can use. So what if you wanted the weapons as a skin? Then that’s aesthetics (which is a HUGE part of GW2), but then so are minis, so what’s the problem?

So you are not enjoying these 2 weeks because you feel like you get nothing out of it and you think it’s boring. What do you play then? This patch has a small story, 2 new mini games, dungeon-esque trials, achievements lead you to do events in open world normal dungeons and fractals. What do you play and like in GW2 if none of this appeals to you? Rewards include achievement points, back item skins from the mini games, rare weapons from trial dungeon, minis from meta achievement. What do you want as rewards that none of this appeals to you?

But other people are enjoying the hell out of it. Not every update is going to please everyone, but asking to “remove any residue” so you never see it again? That is VERY odd. How does the existence of a story progression prohibit you from playing regular content you want to play?

magic fly.2041:

I really wish the ghost attacks were removed.

Minding my own business, on my way to a victory. Had enough supplies that i started thinking of hunting down some other people.
All of a sudden, I get knocked down, lose all my supplies and a karka spawns on me.
I escaped, but with 6 rations all gone, and no easy rations nearby except for the ones near the karka, it was game over.

All this from a dead player who i cannot see or dodge.
I am often more powerful dead than alive. How is this fair in any way?
I really want to play the survive and hunt game, but i am always either gathering food, or running from ghosts. Shouldn’t it be gathering food, and hunting/evading players?

This game is 15 minutes, and I believe the mechanics of ghosts and revenge motes are in place to do 1) give everyone in the game something to do until the next round starts (think about the complaints of waiting at the finish of mad king tower, winter wonderland, sanctum sprint), and 2) end the game as soon as everyone is ready to move on (if you want to wait around, you wait; if you are sick of waiting, you kill survivors, which ends the game).

You probably would’ve won that game if you holed up somewhere. You wanted to kill someone so you got killed by being in a more populated area. Being more powerful dead isn’t unfair. It balances on the style of play. Hunting players are high risk because you need to worry about other players both alive and dead, but you get higher point rewards; hiding is lower risk, and you get the guaranteed 50 point for your wait.

I saw another thread with suggestions of using bigger maps, more players, ambient creatures to kill for food and armor, more hunting/evading, no ghost. I’d wholly support a game like that and will enjoy it, but that game is not the same as this game.

Okay for people who didn’t read my long post (apologies), I’ll just say this:

You use headshot to 1 shot KO a player crouching down, following you, trying to hunt you, caught not paying attention. You only need 1 arrow to make this happen. However if they got skills they position themselves so they can’t get hit, run away, or dodge your arrow.

So the people you kill come back as mist next to you. They become mists because YOU decide to kill them. They want to kill you too. They want to summon a karka to 1 shot KO you. while you crouch, not paying attention, or hide behind a tiny thing like a crate to hunt other players. They need 10 revenge motes to do this, and whether they have 10 available in the immediate vicinity depends entirely on WHERE you decided to killed them. If they do summon a karka, if you got skills you can position yourself so you don’t get hit, run, or dodge the karka.

And somehow the first situation (which is totally in your control) is fair, and the second (which is partially still under YOUR control) is not?

zerospin.8604:

The mechanics are PERFECT. Absolutely nothing needs to be changed.

So if you kill a lot of people, you wish to be somehow – rewarded? By getting special protection? But.. you killed a lot of people – that IS your reward, you got a load of points.

That is part of the fun and excitement, you killed someone and you know he is around, vengeful and trying to kill you. It’s creepy, spooky, even scary, since you can’t see them.

What about the player who died? Would you lock him in a cage on the other side of the island? Is he not frustrated? Shouldn’t he get a chance to get revenge?

If the dead players didn’t spawn on top of their killers, I bet you that all the people agreeing with OP in this topic, would create a topic asking for the mistforms to be spawned on top of their killers

COMPLETELY agree with you. I think the mechanics makes perfect sense because:

1. If you want to kill people for lots of points, you have to deal with the ramifications of vengeful spirits following you. But there are strategies to survive: kill away from supply camps where people scavenged and left motes enough for spawn karka, kill a bunch at the same spot so they fight for motes, learning to effectively dodge spawned karka, or learning to AVOID tight spots that are impossible to dodge where karkas are spawned on top of you.
2. If you want to kill people to get points, but you are not good at surviving all the mists that hate you, then you get killed and fade into the mist, now use your killer instinct to haunt more survivors and get more points. The same mist powers you complain about can be used against survivors, and give you more points!
3. If you enjoy killing and hate the people who hide (for no other reason than they’re just minding their business and you can’t?) use your skills and hide, trap, hunt them, while keeping in mind that you need to get more rations to outlast them. Finding them and killing them in a remote location means that they will have NO motes to get revenge on you before the game ends. There IS something you can do about this.
4. Lastly, if you do the standard scavenge, don’t kitten people off, and hide scenario, then you trade the potential of massive kill points for guaranteed 50 points as the last person standing, and a better chest.

I personally think this is very evenly balanced. Think about what you want out of this game (be it loot, achievement points, or simply just want your name at the top), think about it (or there’s lots of tips online!) and play accordingly. And of course there are always people who are better than you, or people who just kill for no reason, or bad players somehow getting lucky.

Just a last bit of anecdote: I was so confused by this game at the beginning. Watched a video some friendly player posted for tips on surviving, and now I aim to outlast players somewhere far off. But if I get killed early, I don’t mind. I trade headshots with people to get achievement or hang out with other mists to haunt down a jerk player

Bottom line is, and this applies to SO MANY things in this game: play how you want and enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, leave. If you feel like you’re forced to play this game for achievements, you are wrong; learn to enjoy playing for achievements, or leave and learn not to care about achievements. There’s really no point in getting yourself all worked up playing a game

When taking a temporary power up to boost the performance of actions 1 2 and 3, or when using Aspect Master, the icon for each action will be updated to show that you currently have the boost. After the 07/23 patch the light dash power up does not show up.

Where in that blog did you see mention of banking system expansion? Perhaps I read it too fast, but I can’t seem to find it.

Informality.1279:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I’m guessing most of the players that are upset about this didn’t play GW1. Anet is a great gaming company, except for one glaring fault. They spend 90% of their time worrying about the loot we get and the quality. They won’t change, it will get worse, they are never happy, and we will never convince them otherwise. If it really upsets ya, then this game is not for you. I don’t like it, but learned to just let it roll off. Oh I’ll complain now and then, but I know it is falling on deaf ears.

It does upset me — and many others — because of the time spent into getting magic find gear due to its usefulness. As I said, I use it to farm for tier 6 mats and to make a little more money on selling the higher end items on the market to spend on other things that are more useful to me.

I don’t believe you have a right to tell me that “this game is not for me.” I really enjoy this game — I love it. But this is a significant change and will cause a lot of chaos no matter how they do it. Completely eliminating magic find in gear and making it only a permanent account-wide bonus is too big of a change to suddenly throw out there at this point in the game. People who spent time and money (gold or gems) on magic find gear are going to lose a lot of their hard work if ArenaNet isn’t careful. It’d be like working and farming for months and spending much gold and laurels to get a legendary and suddenly that legendary is completely removed from the game. Where’d all your hard work go to?

I like that while upset by the possible changes, you are able to present your critique and concern in a respectful manner. It’s really refreshing to see a civilized discussion for a change. And to that I’m hoping any additional tidbit of information a dev may want to share will come to this thread.

Genavelle.9516:

Yeah..it doesn’t make sense that they would make an entirely new set of armor with mf stats, and then 2 weeks later say they’re ditching mf armor. A little more answers, a little more consistency, would be very welcome here.

Also I was just thinking..I for one, love skins and different armors and I really have way more exotic coats than any one ranger needs. But I was thinking..if they do something like some people have suggested, where you trade in mf armor for mf consumables or something..what happens if you’ve put a special skin on your mf armor? I mean while they keep throwing more and more special, limited-time skins at us…I’m sure lots of other people have thought to use these on their mf sets, to be able to really use all of the new skins. so what if we have say, a sun/wind/lightning catcher skin on an mf backpiece? Or that dragon helmet on an mf helmet? Etc? And if we were to salvage, or trade-in these pieces to get our compensation, we would essentially be losing a special, limited-time skin that we can’t get any more. I don’t feel that this would be really fair, since they didn’t give any real warning that players were going to lose a whole set of armor. I guess, at best when you trade it in (if thats what happens) you’re given your mf compensation as well as the skin itself back.

Agreed. I’m hoping is not a trade, but perhaps allowing a one time stat reset? Sort of like how they’re going to make the legendary select any stat combo. Perhaps a one time stat reset on each item with mf, plus boosts or consumables for compensation, is good? Although I don’t know if this is at all achievable. Trade-ins seems problematic as you suggested, comes at a loss of limited skins or loss of compensation for mf piece.

Hope more information becomes available soon. Forum is getting filled with people who are mad at speculations or wrong assumptions based on the blog post

The post said the mats (500) are made from lower tier mats, meaning that all of your (400) mats will still be relevant and valuable. Nothing so far indicates that legendary recipes will change. Perhaps the additional legendary will include an option of using less (500) mats to replace (400) mats (i.e., gift of magic and gift of might having 2 recipes to make, for 400 and 500).

I was wondering about the mf utility infusion as well. But I think that item may be one of the few mf items that stay. Here’s why:

Look at the other utility infusions: gold+, karma+, xp+. These are all stats that you cannot get from base weapon and armors, and all offered by account wide permanent bonuses. To that extend, I’m guessing that runes and sigils with mf will not go away either. It seems to me that this move is to take mf out of base stat combo and use it more like the gold, karma, and xp bonuses currently in play.

I personally never worked for an mf set. That said, I am concerned about how they’re going to make this change, because like the OP said, the time and effort put into a full exotic mf set is never going to be appropriately compensated. Giving laurels back for ascended jewelry may be relatively easier.

My issues with this is, how long have they been evaluating this issue? My guess is not for long, because ascended jewelry haven’t been out for long, and they carry mf in the stat. Hell, exotic celestial just became available for craft, and they carry mf. While many people who like the celestial stat combo may find mf as a bonus they didn’t need or want, how many others aimed for celestial because of mf? Bottom line is, if they had eliminating mf on their minds, continuing pumping out items with mf was a bad way to warn people. On the other hand, if they only started thinking about doing this in the past 1.5 weeks (since Bazaar started and celestial came out), then there must be some disconnect of intent/communication between different groups of devs at ANet. In the case of the latter, I hope this is provided with a lot of detailed information, and implemented very slowly or very late, to give people a chance to transition.

My 2 cents

Going off the debate a bit: does the kite show the guild emblem of the guild you are currently representing? Meaning it can change, and not locked to 1 guild?

Back on the topic:

First of all, I think if the opinion on the guild kite price is pretty evenly split, then it’s not overpriced

Second, 15g at the rate of 3g per 100 gems comes to 500 gems, which is the price of the aspect kites. Including the cost of the aspect kite needed to make a guild kite, the guild kite is essentially twice the cost in gems, and also in terms of real life money. And like the dev said, the guild kite option will stay available, meaning that half of the cost for the guild kite you can slowly grind to get there.

And finally, relating to why guild kite > aspect kite, I can see that because even if you have no special feeling towards the specific artwork on the kite, customized item is usually more expensive. Uniqueness does affect cost. Especially if the guild kite changes to any guild you represent, the versatility of this one item warrants (I personally believe) double the price

I would like to believe the item description is correct and the lack of “consumable” means it’s like a mini?

Please let it be true!