Guild Wars 2

The LFG tool is the second most important tool for finding groups after guild chat. The following proposals are intended to make it easier for individuals to find groups and guilds for the content they want to play.

More Categories

First, the LFG tool would benefit from having a few more categories. Currently, open world content is a catch all and is over populated. Here are my proposed open world categories.

— One channel for each map in the game grouped by region (Magus Falls, Kryta, etc) or by expansion (Heart of Thorns vs Central Tyria)
— Guild Recruitment (Very Important!)
— Other Open World Content

These categories will address overcrowding problems in the open world category now and in the future.

Guild Recruitment

You may notice I included a channel for guild recruitment. I included this not because I believe guild recruitment messages contribute to overcrowding, but because there is currently no good way for a new player to find guilds they may be interested in. Currently, new players are at the mercy of map chat recruitment messages. A guild recruitment category would allow guilds to recruit from the whole game rather than one map at a time while giving new players a path to finding the guild that is right for them.

You may be thinking that this dilution of the information over several categories would hinder the LFG tool in its current state. You would be right. This leads me to my next proposal.

Display the Number of LFG Requests for Each Category

There is currently a feedback loop where people don’t post LFG requests because no one checks a given category and no one checks the category because no one posts LFG requests.I propose that the LFG tool should display the number of active LFG requests next to the title of each parent category.

Example:

Magus Falls (18)
— Verdant Brink (9)
— Auric Basin (5)
— Tangled Depths (1)
— Dragon’s Stand (3)

This brings important information to the player with much less clicks. Normally, a player would need to click and view each child category individually. If anything proves that players are not willing to do this, it is how dead the PVP and WVW categories have become. I personally never spend the clicks to check these categories for LFGs because its usually a waste of time.

Now with both of these changes implemented we are ready for the icing on the cake.

A New LFG Menu Icon

LFG tool should be split off into its own main menu dialogue rather than being a child menu of the friends list. In addition, It should have its own menu icon in the upper left corner and a hotkey just like WVW, mail, and the TP. The LFG icon would show a number of active LFGs for your current map or game mode similar to how the TP icon changes when you have waiting gold or items.

Are you in the heart of the mists? The LFG icon shows the total lfgs for the pvp categories. Perhaps your queue preference could be used to show event more specific information. There could be seperate LFG channels for stronghold and conquest and your queue preference would indicate whether you would like to see the LFG count for one or both categories.

Are you in WvW or PvE? Then your current map’s LFG count is displayed on the LFG icon.

Are you in a capital city such as Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach? Then the LFG count for the guild recruitment category is displayed on the icon.

I believe these changes would reinvigorate dead LFG categories as well as improve the overall GW2 social experience.

What are you thoughts?

Encoded Rig.7903:

I had a macro player interrupt a duet with a friend and then continuously brag to me that he earned over 100 gold in donations simply by afking and playing instruments with macros all while calling the people who donated him gold gullible fools. Do you really think that macros for music give no unfair advantage to people playing the game legitimately?

But that’s not the worse part. It’s worse when some macro player comes and interrupt what we are playing with a full blown macro simply because we can no longer play legitimate music with other players because someone’s macro is interrupting our cues and tempos and they can keep on continuing to play without making a mistake.

Or when someone who accuses you of using macros intentionally comes over to spam notes all off of the basis of trying to interrupt your macro song even though you are playing the instrument legitimately by hand, and this has happened numerous times.

We have had many members lose interest in making and writing music because of macros. We even made our guild’s music sheet private because of what happened to our sister guild Cmaj in the EU.

Or even worse, when people start heckling you because you accuse a macro music player who lies about playing their music by hand and their nearby listeners and donors say that you are jealous because you’re not as good as a musician as the macro user.

Needless to say, if you think macros convey no advantage in this game, you need to reconsider your policy even when it comes to musical instruments.

How is the macro the problem in any of these cases? As far as I can tell, the problem in all cases are immature trolls.

I created gw2mb.com, so I feel a certain obligation to weigh in after reading the posts here.

I spent 6 months of my free time creating that website.

I didn’t do it to undermine people who play manually.

I did it because I love music.

I wanted a place for people to share the music that they create.

It hurts a little to read these posts about people who purposefully insulate themselves from the site and don’t post their compositions there. Who cares if somebody uses your song in the form of a macro? It should be about sharing and spreading music throughout the game.

I hope the talented individuals who play manually will eventually come to see things my way. Because if they do and they post their compositions on my website it will benefit everyone.

Race: Human
Sex: Male
Class: Elementalist

Armor piece: Zodiac Light Vest

The first dye channel has no effect on the appearance of the armor. In the screenshot I have selected red dye in the first slot and it can easily be seen that the color appears neither on the back nor front of the armor.

The currencies are necessary to allow people to play the game how they want. It everything rewarded gold only, then the path of least resistance we become too obvious and everyone would feel obligated to do it.

When you obfuscate the true value of things by using different currencies it is easier for people to feel that they are being relatively well rewarded for playing the portion of the game that they enjoy.

Dresden.1736:

I don’t think any developer has the right to ban people for using mechanics in the game, even if the developer didn’t intend for those mechanics to be used in that manner. If something exists which they didn’t intend, that is a failure on the developer and its QA staff, not on the player who is only using in-game functions. The only people who should suffer consequences for such things are the staff members.

I play several MMOs, and several of them have Beta servers where they release major content changes a month before rollout so these kinds of things can be identified and removed prior to hitting production servers. Players get a chance to test out new changes and usually have vast quantities of currency to allow them to experiment freely, and the devs get free and much better QA.

That said, they have every right to patch out unintended functionality as quickly as they want to, and should if it is adversely impacting other people’s experience, but they should never punish players for their own faults.

An exploit is taking their mistake and using it for your gain. All exploits will be something they put in the game because it is their game.

ShadowMaster.5708:

if you think about the crafting exploit. I think they should ban the one that highly abused it (Lvled several characters from 1-80) and gained tons of SP (not a perm ban, 1 week max). The other ones (that level 1 character from like.. 50-80) i think they should reset back to their original level, but still make them lose the gold they spend.

Seems fair to me

I agree. I am already nervous that nothing will happen though. They have already included the fix in the patch notes and in the past there has been an announcement of bans very close to the fix in the patch notes.

Arenanet has not announced any bans since the snowflake incident. Usually, if there are bans even if they don’t announce them some bitter person will go on reddit and complain. There have been no such posts around the times of the last couple major exploits.

If the recent behavior of Arenanet is any indication of their future behavior, I would not get banned for exploiting.

Back around launch there were mass bans for the karma vendor and snow flake exploits.

I have seen several exploits come and go now, and all that happens is they fix it as quickly as possible.

Nothing else.

What this teaches me as a player is that I should exploit whatever I can whenever I can because I will get to keep all the spoils of my activities with no punishment.

I don’t think banning is required for my satisfaction, but I would like to see Arenanet taking back money or items from players who use exploits to acquire them.

Can anyone refute me on the following point?

Arenanet’s recent behavior in regards to exploits (patching them out of the game and doing nothing else) rewards those who exploit.

I support this. I have wanted a reason to get mini’s for months and this would be it.

HairChalice.2315:

So take the one area where you have gear checks and elitism, and make it even harder for new players to get in to.

What? No.

Your average player will just play as usual while committed speed running teams are rewarded for their efforts.

The effect on casuals will be that rewards will match their time commitment and their skill. The closer they can get to the fastest time the more efficiently their time was spent, but nothing makes them be efficient. People still run COF path 1 casually.

This solution is quite complicated, but I believe it will balance dungeon wards while encouraging the farming of all paths.

First, Arenanet will need to implement speed running leaderboards for each dungeon path. These leaderboards will record the fastest path completion times for each dungeon.

After this list is in place Arenanet uses the values of these boards to balance the rewards based on completion time.

So, what evnds up happening is as certain paths get figured out and their time reduced they become less rewarding and other longer paths that need to have their time reduced become more rewarding.

In the end though the rewards of each path will be balanced against one another not against their original value. If the player base reduces the completion time of every path by 1 minute, then rewards remain the same. We want to encourage people to lower completion times.

For example, let’s say the average completion time for a dungeon path is 20 minutes. Lets assign 20 minutes a 2 gold reward, so any path that has its fastest completion time at 20 minutes will reward 2 gold. COF path 1 takes 6 minutes 30 seconds to complete.

(390 sec / 1200 sec) * 2 gold = 65 silver

The completion reward for COF path 1 is now 65 silver.

Another example would be one of the longer Arah paths. Lets say the lowest completion time on that path is 1 hour while the path average is 30 minutes.

(3600 sec / 1800 sec) * 2 gold = 4 gold

That arah path would reward 4 gold where COF 1 would reward even less than 65 silver because of the higher average completion time.

There is one final piece to the puzzle. A group that posts a first place time on the leaderboard would receive a huge reward. As would the next group to dethrone them (even if they dethrone themselves).

At length this will create an environment where the all dungeons give rewards based on their time commitment.

It would be EXTREMELY important to eliminate skips and exploits from dungeons, and I am sure many leader board resets would need to take place if a group of people break the dungeon and beat it in a fraction of the time.

The reward would not have to be gold the real idea behind this is to naturally scale rewards based on time commitment and to allow skilled players to receive better rewards by reducing the top times.

So, to be clear, your strategy for breaking up zergs is to introduce highly rewarding, location specific events?

Your ideas have merit, but they are hardly a solution for the problems in wvw.

Ranger F2 pet skill tool tips change based on the player’s boon duration. For example, the regeneration duration on the Fern Hound’s F2 skill shows a higher duration based on the players boon duration. The problem is that the actually regeneration duration when the ability is used is not changed.

This problem appears to affect all pet F2 skills.

I forgot to mention that this is for light armor.

There are small perpendicular red lines going out from the upper back portion of this armor.

Super necro bump of epicness…

The aura like effect on the wind catcher skin, the translucent wind currents, is easily five times as large as the respective effects for the lightning catcher and sun catcher.

It appears either the other two effects are too small or the wind catcher is too large.

I only bring this up because I feel it is odd that an easily obtained item can give off a larger visual effect aura than almost all legendaries.

Experiencing intermittent network lag. Diagnostic file attached.

Someone on reddit just blew my mind by showing me the concept art for this armor where they separated the dye-able areas exactly as I did.

So, please Arenanet follow your hearts and restore this set to its former glory!

The PvE Heavy Plate armor skin is purchasable in pieces from many heart vendors in Guild Wars 2. It shares its appearance with the heavy WvW Armor.

Here is a link for anyone who is wondering what it looks like.

I have a request for an improvement with the way dyes can be applied to this armor set. Currently, only two dyes can be applied to each armor piece, but I believe that this armor set would be much better served with three colors for most pieces.

The helm and shoulders should remain with only two colors. However the chest, hands, legs, and boots all have a very defined way to separate the secondary color zone in two.

In the attached image i have separated the secondary dye area on this armor into two zones.

The “trim” of the armor shares the same texturing through all pieces and is highlighted green. The areas “left over” in the secondary dye zone are highlighted in blue.

I know you guys have a million things going on that are more important than this, but if I didn’t make this post I feel I would be doing a disservice.

This is my favorite armor set in Guild Wars 2, and it could go from awesome to amazing if these changes are implemented.

This affects both the consumable bells and the unbreakable and occurs after the bell out for about a minute even if actively playing. I’m trying to create some magic here people. Is this intended or a bug?

morrolan.9608:

proteininja.5891:

What I am concerned about is that the game teaches me that I can get carrion armor, carrion weapons, and carrion jewelry all at max stats, but I cannot get a carrion back item at max stats. Why?

I’ve had a rabid back piece drop but its masterwork not rare or exotic.

I’m not sure what this adds to the conversation. I am looking for input on how people feel about the facts stated above.

mulch.2586:

Well PNinja, I’m glad you’re well.

You wrote that you didn’t know about the non-TP sources for backs and breathers. So look them up.

That you don’t get exactly the stats you wish you could is a constraint built-in to the system. It’s actually a big part of pvp, selecting the build and amulet, because it’s not going to be ideal.

What you can do (and with a lot of flexibility in pve) is select from the gear that’s in-game that best suits you. With such a radically flat itemization, I find that to be good challenge.

It seems you are misinterpreting my message. I’ll try to clarify.

I now know where to get all back items and aquatic helms as well as ascended items.

I am not concerned that certain stat combinations are absent from the game such as cond dmg, toughnes, vitality.

What I am concerned about is that the game teaches me that I can get carrion armor, carrion weapons, and carrion jewelry all at max stats, but I cannot get a carrion back item at max stats. Why?

Or that I can get traveler’s armor and weapons, but not a full travelers jewelry (there are no traveler’s trinket upgrades in the game that are max stats).

When the game launched, I learned shortly thereafter that only certain predetermined stat combinations would be available at launch. For example, I desired to itemize my ranger into condition damage, toughness, and vitality. The result would have been an extremely resilient attrition based fighter, but I found out that this combination is unavailable in Guild Wars 2.

I eventually accepted the state of things, but now I have come to a new issue as I attempt to fully gear my mesmer. My end goal is to have a full cond dmg, power, and vitality (Carrion) set and a full cond dmg, power, magic find (Traveler’s) set.

Originally, I found ways to do this through various dungeon jewelry pieces and named armor sets and was quite satisfied, but a few niggling little problems remain.
I am pretty OCD when it comes to itemization. I like to know that I have attained the maximum possible state for each stat I choose to spec in, so even 100 missing points of cond dmg could bother me even though it is of little consequence.

My problems are with the lack of available max stat back pieces, aqua breathers, and the strange stat combinations available on new ascended armor pieces.

Back Items

I didn’t even know these existed until well after my Ranger was level 80. I didn’t do my ranger’s personal story, I wasn’t in a high level guild, and there were no back items on the TP, so I assumed the back item slot was just there until they added them into the game.

Not only is it difficult to even acquire a back item, but once you reach max level and would like a max stat back piece your stat combination options are even more limited than other armor.

There are currently no exotic back pieces in the game that carry Carrion or Traveler’s stats. Even if there were a Traveler’s back item, there is no trinket upgrade that carries the traveler’s stat combination.

Aquatic Helms

This item occupies your helm slot when beneath water and there is not a single exotic aqua breather in the game that gives max stats. There are only a few masterwork aqua breathers available to choose from. The absence of an exotic option is strange. Also, I didn’t know about aqua breathers until well after my ranger was 80 because there were never any on the TP. I assumed everyone was running around with the same aqua breather they had at level one.

Why would an item slot that is so important be so devoid of options?

Ascended Items

Let me start by saying that I have no problem with the new ascended gear system. I actually like it because it gives a long term goal that is more attainable than a legendary weapon.

Also, I have yet to see the available stat combinations on ascended rings, so I will not comment on those.

Recently, ascended items have been added to the game and they are slightly better than exotics. Naturally, my desire to have max stats draws me to these new back pieces and rings. I go on the internet to find the recipe for my carrion or travelers stat combinations, and I find that they do not exist.

Condition damage is the stat I care about the most. I have been willing to get other combinations besides carrion so long as they had condition damage, but now the only condition damage ascended back piece has precision accompanying it. Precision and condition damage being on the same item should be a crime on its own, but seeing as it is the only option I think we can upgrade it to a felony. I cannot see the logic in the decision to release so few stat combinations at the start. Now if I want to progress into further levels of the FotM I must force myself to put hours into acquiring a back piece that I will feel a need to replace the moment they release an ascended back item with carrion stats.

Allow me to reiterate my point for effect. In order to progress deeper in FOTM, I must spend a great deal of time getting a back piece I neither want nor will keep as soon as a better option is put in the game.

My problem is that I am now in a lose lose situation because it was decided that releasing only these stat combinations was a good idea. My current options include:

• Waiting for Arenanet to release an ascended back item with the stats I desire while everyone passes me by in FotM difficulty levels.

• Spending the next few weeks acquiring the resources to obtain an ascended back item that I will immediately replace once a carrion ascended back item is released.

I know certain stat combinations were determined to be OP during beta and that is why they are not in the game. My commentary is more on the lack of consistency with the available combinations. My goal is to have a full set (armor, weapons, jewelry) of carrion and travelers stats, and I think the option to attain that goal should be available. Currently, it is not.

Please reply with your thoughts.

References:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13gj0p/ascended_gear_and_infusions_how_to_make_them_and/

Ossus.9231:

Vircomore.4586:

The fact that this game has only been live for five weeks, and you are already more than 50% to a legendary item proves that ArenaNet’s anti-farming system is not strict enough. Legendary weapons should be the accomplishment of a GAMETIME, not something you crank out in two months.

So once you get your legendary weapon, what do you plan on doing? Your only focus in the game has been farming, so what will you do when the farming is complete? Are you just not going to have any more fun, and quit playing?

This right here is the mindset that ANET is trying to defeat. Fun comes before farming, and if the only fun you get in MMOs is earning that new item with that different-color name – then you’re playing the wrong game.

You realize that all you are getting for all this effort and all this crying is a few more stat-points, and an item-model that will tell everyone in WvWvW to kill you first.

Meanwhile there are people like me:

• Still haven’t run every wing of each dungeon.
• 0% towards any legendary weapon.
• Only have one piece of karma exotic.

BUT…

• having a blast.

Please stop trying to make a job out of our video game, just because you don’t know anything but work.

This completely ignores the fact that the DR is hitting those who are not farming, who are nowhere near a legendary, and who are playing the game as intended. I am one of the many who has been hit by the DR while playing the game precisely how it is intended.

It does not ignore that. The post above is in response to that very issue. He advocates stricter DR thresholds. I don’t know if I agree, but his argument is well thought out and valid. I wish I could up vote it.

I would like to see a system implemented that is similar to the one that gives more EXP the longer a monster has been alive.

Reward players for finding those hidden away DEs with huge rewards. Remove DRs so that people who want to run around Orr can do so without interuption, but those who have a talent for finding obscure events get comparable rewards.

Apply this system to everything. Positive reinforcement. DEs give better karma, exp, and gold. Monsters not only give better exp, but also better loot.

I would love this sort of system.

Please add the ability for guild to tax their members from their money directly dropped from kills.

They recently fixed the priority for the f key. looting is now prioritized above everything.

Grumpdogg.6910:

I love how the OP explains that we have been given very little information from the developers, and then makes the unsubstantiated claim that these measures are just a “stop gap” until a better solution is found. There is no basis for that claim.

These changes could just as likely be permanent.

The basis for these claims is Arenanet’s track record with Guild Wars 1.

@ Strill

These bots must have been tuned down to not be affected by diminishing returns, but this is fine. The counter measures are not meant to prevent botting they are meant to make it less profitable. Also, the DE DR is in there for players to so that they can’t make too much money off of some mistake.

Arenanet will ban the bots that are currently ruining Orr for everyone and other zones. The banning is the other part of this system.

@Strill

The rate at which bots gain gold IS important. It affects the profitability of the companies that use them for gold generation.

@Nebojsha

I agree that Orr is the worst area in the game right now. 4 enemy type is not enough for the highest level zone in the game.

Also, I am aware of the Dungeon Reward DR bugs, but they are bugs. They will be fixed.

We don’t take kindly to outsiders…yup.

@Galador Dux

Thank you for your kind words. I agree that the Dungeon Reward DR bugs are not helping at all right now. All I can do is try to inform people that this is not how it is supposed to work.

@Jnaathra

Not exactly sure what you are getting at. These are anti-botting techniques. They make botting more difficult and expensive. Not impossible. The teleporting bots will be banned as soon as Arenanet nails down the script to remove them from the game all at once.

Now that we have that out of the way lets talk about these mechanics.

Item Drop DR

Drop caps are carried over from Guild Wars 1. In Guild Wars 2 they operate in a similar manner, but seem to affect nearly all loot. In Guid Wars 1 where dyes, rare materials, etc were unaffected. Don’t expect to see this changed or removed. This code worked wonders in Guild Wars 1 for reducing the attractiveness of botting and Arenanet has little incentive to remove something that has been so effective.

Many players complain that that this anti-botting code unjustly prevents them from doing whatever they like. Farming a single mob for hours and hours is not actually a problem for the economy, so why do they stop it? It is when this activity can easily be executed by a program that problems occur. The reason for the lack of information on how the anti-botting counter measures work is because if Arenanet clearly defines how the system works, then it becomes simple to write bots that avoid the code. It is difficult to write a bot that can move from area to area, use different skills and tactics, and can handle the many problems that can occur (being downed/dead/getting knocked off course). However these activities are easy for a human. All arenanet is forcing players to do is use their reasoning and skills to get around their code. Think of it as captcha, but implemented in an unobtrusive way that encourages variety.

Dynamic Event Reward DR

The purpose of this code is different from the drop DR. The drop DR is difficult to be affected by if you are not farming mats. Dynamic Event DR is in the game to prevent exploitation of DEs that are very close together on the map that happen to occur near the same time. The problem is there are some quest chains that happen in quick enough succession that this code can be triggered. This is obviously a stop gap measure while Arenanet fixes the game to prevent players from exploiting any Dynamic Events that they have yet to properly time out and balance. This code may stay in the game for the long run, but expect it to be tuned down as Arenanet gets closer to properly tuning all of Tyria’s dynamic events.

Dungeon Reward DR

This new anti-farming counter measure is the catalyst for recent discussion of these mechanics and for my writing of this article. Lets look at player and developer motives to try to come to an understanding on this issue.

Arenanet wants you to play their content. They spent years creating it and it would be an absolute shame for 66% of their dungeon content to be completly ignored.
Players want dungeon armor. They want it as quickly as the game allows them to get it.

So here is the problem, how do you get players to experience your content if one explorable path is clearly more efficient than the others?

The answer is that you make each path equally appealing and efficient for the player. Then, it is only a matter of preference as to which path the players take. This is a no brainer, but to acutally reach this balance is a true challenge. So while Arenanet tries to solve the problem properly they have implemented some changes that will force variety until they can balance content. It is important that there is variety or else players who want to do inefficient paths with never find willing parties outside of friends and guildmates.

In summary, story mode was never meant to be a cash farm, players are being forced to play different explorable paths until Arenanet can properly tune them, and players who do figure our ways to do dungeons in under thirty minutes are being discouraged until Arenanet can find and fix the exploits that allow this to happen.

Players are never forced to be inactive by these mechanics. If you experience drop DR, then switch to a different enemy type that drops the same material. If you experience DE DR, then do anything in the game other than events for a few minutes. Take solace in the fact that Arenanet will eventually tune up events, so you can adventure as you please. And now it should be obvious to you how to completely avoid Dungeon DR. Alternate between two or more explorable paths and don’t use exploits that trivialize the content.

It is important that these counter measures are put in place in the meantime to prevent inflation in the markets. If one small group of players finds a technique to become super rich, then the rest of the player base must use that techinque or be unable to afford anything on the market. That is bad.

I hope this article helps those who lacked understanding of these issues, and calms those of you who are afraid that Dungeon DR and DE DR are here to stay in their current form. Dungeons will be tuned. DEs will be tuned.

TLDR; Many of the new mechanics meant to affect player behavior are stop gaps until better systems can be found. Please be patient while Arenanet solves these difficult issues.

I spent some time last night reading the official forums and reddit. I was looking at everyone’s opinions on the most recent changes to dungeon rewards and their relationship with DE reward reduction and item drop caps. While I was reading through the posts I noticed there was a great deal of misinformation floating around.

With this in mind, I would like to bring everyone up to speed, so that there is no confusion surrounding what we as a community know about these mechanics. DR = Diminishing Returns. DE = Dynamic Event.

Diminishing Returns Information for Item Drops

We don’t have any facts reported by the Arenanet staff on this system, but what has been agreed upon is that after farming a single enemy type for about 20 – 30 minutes drops seem to dry up. It has also been speculated that using magic find gear will cause a player reach the cap faster. The cap is most likely dependent on the number and quality of drops received and as well as time. Also, drop DR may be affected by location, so if you keep moving to new areas while killing the same enemy type (im looking at you centaurs) you should also be unaffected.

Diminishing Returns Information for Dynamic Event Rewards

We don’t have any facts reported by the Arenanet staff on this system. Reported findings point to a reduction in the reward for all events if too many events are completed in a certain time period. This time period and the number of events required to trigger the code are still unclear.

Diminishing Returns Information for Dungeon Rewards

Jon Peters

Let me clarify the change a bit since not everyone understands it. If you run the exact same chain twice in a row you will have your rewards cut. This means you can bounce back and forth between 2 different chains, even in the same dungeon without ever hitting this change. This change is made to encourage people to try different chains. If you speed clear dungeons at a rate of more than 2/ hour, and continue to do that for some time your rewards will slowly begin to degrade. It doesn’t kick in after running a single dungeon and it doesn’t immediately zero out rewards. Finally we reduced the value of repeating the story mode, because they are built to be easier and we want to encourage those repeating dungeons to run explore mode.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Updates/page/3#post154925

Continue Reading Below…

bwillb.2165:

The black lion NPCs at lion’s arch trading won’t happen. I’d like it, but it won’t happen. Why you ask?

Well, because lots of people are buying black lion express items off the gem store to facilitate the process. Any annoyance that results in gem sales won’t be removed.

You could be right, but it should be pointed out that the primary purpose of those black lion trader express items is to access the trader while adventuring. I don’t think it will hinder sales of express traders if this were implemented. I could be wrong, but the thing that leads me to believe this change could be implemented is the varying distances to the traders in different main cities.

For example if you are a jewel crafter in the grove it takes about 10 seconds to run to the trader. If you are a jewel crafter in LA, then you must run for about 30 seconds to reach the trader. This sort of imbalance in main cities leads to different crafting professions having different game experiences.

Weaponsmiths don’t care at all in LA because their station is right next to the trader, but jewel crafters are sad pandas. This inequality can be fixed by making the TP accessible from anywhere in the main city. It also preserves the value of express TP consumables and it removes what is at its core an arbitrary mechanic.

You talk about walking like its something that takes effort in game. Its not about effort. Its about wasted time. Video games don’t have real world limitations, so when they are arbitrarily added we must ask why.

This post will highlight a few minor annoyances that have bothered me since I started playing this wonderful game.

• Issue #1: Walking to bodies and hitting the “F” key are unnecessary steps in the looting process when a player already plans to pick up all loot drops.

Decisions are what make game mechanics fun. I decide whether or not to kill a goat. I decide what skills to use when fighting the goat. These decisions can change regularly during a session. I decided 3 weeks ago that I wanted to pick up every single drop, but I am still forced to take actions for something that is no longer a decision.

Solution #1: Implement a true auto-loot system.

Loot is already instanced in GW2. There is no race to the body to see if I can grab the loot before someone else. Why must I be forced to constantly stop and pick up items that I already want in my inventory? Players who choose to pick up everything should be able to check an option that moves loot directly into their inventory when they kill something.

In GW2, inventories are large and because of “Deposit all collectibles” and stackable trophies players are rarely punished for grabbing up everything under the sun.

• Issue #2: The two ranger pet behavior states are insufficient for pet management in dungeons.

If the pet is set to aggressive, then he aggros anything in his threat range and attacks. This is obviously not acceptable for dungeons where pullsmust be managed with extreme caution. If the pet is set to passive, then this no longer a problem, but it becomes a chore to constantly retarget the pet on new mobs especially when there are several low health mobs.

Solution #2: Add a third “intermediate” ranger pet behavior state.

In this state the pet will behave passively until you begin attacking. After you start attacking the pet attack’s whoever you are currently attacking and stops attacking when you stop. The pet can be manually retargeted to another enemy, but always goes to your target if you begin attacking a new target. If you tell the pet to retreat then they will come to your side and stay there until you issue a new command or you begin attacking a new target.

This will help immensely with pet management in dungeons. Passive mode will still give the best pet control as it will be much easier to give your pet targets independent of your own , but for the rest of us who just want their pet constantly in the fray, but not pulling aggro between fights this new behavior state will be a major improvement over the current choices.

• Issue #3: Upon reaching 80 players are unmotivated to explore and adventure in very low level areas.

I play regularly with my girlfriend and after about two weeks I began to get pretty far ahead of her in content and in level. I will still go back to her areas and help her though the content because I love her, but most players don’t have that extra motivation when it comes to helping guild mates. Low level areas are extremely inefficient for character progress when compared to Orr. This results in Orr being overpopulated and the rest of the game world eventually becoming underpopulated.

Solution #3: Scale money, karma, item, and experience rewards for all dynamic events, monster kills, map completion, and heart quests so they are comparable to level 80 explorable areas

I enjoy the low level dynamic events, but since my level is already adjusted I feel it would only be appropriated to give comparable rewards to Orr Monsters Kills and Dynamic events when killing and adventuring in low level areas. Not equal rewards. Just enough to make it worth your while to help lowbies complete content and 100% starter areas. Also, weapon and armor drops are underwhelming. Weapon and Armor drop loot tables should be dependent upon player level and little else.

The rewards should be less than those of the higher level areas, but there should be at least a tiny chance to get a very good drop when doing low level areas. If I know there is a 0% chance of getting a good weapon I will have no hope. If there is a .00000001% chance, then at least I can dream.

• Issue #4: Running from the crafting tables and mystic forge to the black lion trader NPCs in order to retrieve money and materials is an unnecessary annoyance.

When a player is adventuring there should be some barrier to them getting anything they want immediately from the trading post, but when a player is crafting in lion’s arch there is no reason to deny them access to goods or profits from the trading post based on their map location.

Solution #4: Allow the “Take all” button to be used from anywhere in one of the five main cities

Alternatively, move the black lion trading post NPCs to the area between the mystic forge and the crafting tables.

Thank you very much for your wonderful game, and I hope this issues list and its suggestions help you in your quest to make the ultimate online gaming experience!

Illushia.3721:

You did not comprehend what I said at all.

Obviously you read it, because I didn’t say the changes were lazy until the end. But you didn’t comprehend it.

No, you pretty much called me lazy.

I think the one that I am most looking forward to is if they implement full autolooting. It would be so nice to never miss loot in WvW or while doing DEs.

Thank you. That is what I’m getting at. I have to admit I didn’t know about the grove though. I will probably use that as my hub now.

Illushia.3721:

“I don’t want to run from one vendor to the next. Every vendor should sell everything that every other vendor sells.”

That is essentially where this argument leads.

That is laziness.

That is not at all what I suggested.

The point of the black lion trader NPC suggestion was that the TP is an integral part of crafting and should be easily accessible while crafting.

Having the black lion trading post in a separate area from the crafting area and mystic forge is like placing the master chef on the other side of the map from the cooking station. It just isn’t a good idea.

They do fight back if they are attacked and will not stop attacking if you drop targets.

Also, laziness is not an issue in a video game. I should not have to do anything that takes away from having fun because the game developers have the power to create a streamlined gaming experience.

It isn’t about laziness. Its about doing three things every time I want to do one task. I want the loot. Why do I have to do find the sparkly body and hit “f” when it is no detrimental effects to having the loot automatically added to my inventory.

Why should I spend 30 seconds running two and from the black lion NPCs in lions arch when that is COMPLETELY unnecessary.

Its about removing superfluous actions so all that remains are actions that are tied to meaningful decisions.

Sorry to confuse you on issue 4. I meant running from the crafting tables in LA to the black lion npcs. I edited my post to reflect this.

Also, I’d like to mention one more thing that won’t fit in above. I think they should remove the portal to lion’s arch from the mists. I hate having to go through all those loading screens just because I know its cheaper to go to lions arch through the mists.

This post will highlight a few minor annoyances that have bothered me since I started playing this wonderful game.

• Issue #1: Walking to bodies and hitting the “F” key are unnecessary steps in the looting process when a player already plans to pick up all loot drops.

Decisions are what make game mechanics fun. I decide whether or not to kill a goat. I decide what skills to use when fighting the goat. These decisions can change regularly during a session. I decided 3 weeks ago that I wanted to pick up every single drop, but I am still forced to take actions for something that is no longer a decision.

Solution #1: Implement a true auto-loot system.

Loot is already instanced in GW2. There is no race to the body to see if I can grab the loot before someone else. Why must I be forced to constantly stop and pick up items that I already want in my inventory? Players who choose to pick up everything should be able to check an option that moves loot directly into their inventory when they kill something.

In GW2, inventories are large and because of “Deposit all collectibles” and stackable trophies players are rarely punished for grabbing up everything under the sun.

• Issue #2: The two ranger pet behavior states are insufficient for pet management in dungeons.

If the pet is set to aggressive, then he aggros anything in his threat range and attacks. This is obviously not acceptable for dungeons where pullsmust be managed with extreme caution. If the pet is set to passive, then this no longer a problem, but it becomes a chore to constantly retarget the pet on new mobs especially when there are several low health mobs.

Solution #2: Add a third “intermediate” ranger pet behavior state.

In this state the pet will behave passively until you begin attacking. After you start attacking the pet attack’s whoever you are currently attacking and stops attacking when you stop. The pet can be manually retargeted to another enemy, but always goes to your target if you begin attacking a new target. If you tell the pet to retreat then they will come to your side and stay there until you issue a new command or you begin attacking a new target.

This will help immensely with pet management in dungeons. Passive mode will still give the best pet control as it will be much easier to give your pet targets independent of your own , but for the rest of us who just want their pet constantly in the fray, but not pulling aggro between fights this new behavior state will be a major improvement over the current choices.

• Issue #3: Upon reaching 80 players are unmotivated to explore and adventure in very low level areas.

I play regularly with my girlfriend and after about two weeks I began to get pretty far ahead of her in content and in level. I will still go back to her areas and help her though the content because I love her, but most players don’t have that extra motivation when it comes to helping guild mates. Low level areas are extremely inefficient for character progress when compared to Orr. This results in Orr being overpopulated and the rest of the game world eventually becoming underpopulated.

Solution #3: Scale money, karma, item, and experience rewards for all dynamic events, monster kills, map completion, and heart quests so they are comparable to level 80 explorable areas

I enjoy the low level dynamic events, but since my level is already adjusted I feel it would only be appropriated to give comparable rewards to Orr Monsters Kills and Dynamic events when killing and adventuring in low level areas. Not equal rewards. Just enough to make it worth your while to help lowbies complete content and 100% starter areas. Also, weapon and armor drops are underwhelming. Weapon and Armor drop loot tables should be dependent upon player level and little else.

The rewards should be less than those of the higher level areas, but there should be at least a tiny chance to get a very good drop when doing low level areas. If I know there is a 0% chance of getting a good weapon I will have no hope. If there is a .00000001% chance, then at least I can dream.

• Issue #4: Running from the crafting tables and mystic forge to the black lion trader NPCs in order to retrieve money and materials is an unnecessary annoyance.

When a player is adventuring there should be some barrier to them getting anything they want immediately from the trading post, but when a player is crafting in lion’s arch there is no reason to deny them access to goods or profits from the trading post based on their map location.

Solution #4: Allow the “Take all” button to be used from anywhere in one of the five main cities

Alternatively, move the black lion trading post NPCs to the area between the mystic forge and the crafting tables.

Thank you very much for your wonderful game, and I hope this issues list and its suggestions help you in your quest to make the ultimate online gaming experience!