Guild Wars 2

Most of the solo queue players seem to be entering team queue alone now because it’s much more profitable. Discrimination against solo queue is starting to make it obsolete.

Regarding contested waypoints: What happened to the system that would automatically redirect you to the nearest uncontested waypoint if the one you chose was contested? Wouldn’t that work with megaservers?

There are so many incorrect theories in this thread that I feel I should help set things straight.

1. The ecto salvage rate has not changed since release.

2. Magic find does not affect salvage results.

3. Inconsistent short-term results are consistent with random chance.

That is all.

Why not just remove the loot table and leave the experience as it was? No one is going to sit there trading kills for a small amount of experience. That would fix the problem of players not knowing if they got the kill and the problem of players not getting sigil stacks.

Waypoints are something worth defending.

That being said, I do wish players would defend objectives and play in enemy borderlands more often. If they bring back orbs of power they should provide bonus karma or magic find rather than a competitive advantage though.

I really don’t like the concept of this idea. It detracts from teamwork and would discourage players from trying to survive as long as possible (ie ‘if I go down before my teammate, I get to rally and he dies’).

This year’s Halloween felt anticlimactic. It wasn’t really bad, I just expected a battle between the Mad King and Bloody Prince, or new scavenger hunts, or something. I did enjoy fighting the Bloody Prince, but was literally only one minute out of a four week event.

“Adjusted the warmup times on the Coiled Watch event chain in Frostgorge Sound.”

They fixed it!

One year after GW2 released, Arenanet put out this infographic.

Since we just passed GW2’s second anniversary, I think it would be cool if they released another infographic.

Elbegast.6970:

lordkrall.7241:

/wiki Living Story

ALL of the story should be told in-game. There should be NO reason one would have to go to a 3rd party website to learn the storyline.

Third party? That’s the official wiki. lordkrall even gave you the command to access it from the game client.

I think one of the devs answered this last week, and that the answer is that you can delete all of your characters and still keep your currencies, but make sure to log in to each one first so the currencies get deposited and make sure they aren’t holding anything you want to keep.

Will we still be able to use multiple traits in the same line from the same tier? The first screenshot in the part 1 article looks like each specialization can only have 1 adept, 1 master, and 1 grandmaster trait. Will we still be able to do things like pick a second master trait instead of a grandmaster trait? If not, this will greatly limit build diversity, from 594 possible combinations per trait line to 27.

Possible trait combinations per specialization:

Current (6/4/3, substitution allowed): 6 * 9 * 11 = 594

Proposed (3/3/3, substitution allowed): 3 * 5 * 7 = 105

Proposed (3/3/3, no substitution allowed): 3 * 3 * 3 = 27

Don’t forget about the Forgotten!

One of the recent updates caused all minipets that wielded weapons to store them instead.

I agree that Chainsaw is now very disappointing. It’s bad enough that he’s significantly smaller than the glow-in-the-dark skeleton minipet, but now he doesn’t even hold his signature chainsaws. I wouldn’t have bought the mini pack from the gem store to make him if this had been the original appearance.

Mif.3471:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

3. Run around hitting ettins, Sons of Svanir, etc

I was thinking more along the lines of Norn, Charr, Human, Sylvari :P

WvW then

I like that the ones standing in the roads provide some variety and keep WvW tied in with the living story.

I hate the ones that have taken over the mercenary camps though. The mercenary camps were already frustrating enough without other NPCs killing everything that could have possibly progressed the events.

I completely agree with both of those ideas.

I doubt they would exceed the 250 stack limit, but it would still be really helpful to be able to keep a stack of each type in collectable storage.

In a jarring plot twist we find out that Eir Stegalkin was the one who sparked the Molten Alliance, because she wanted Cragstead to be destroyed so Braham would have to return to Hoelbrak.

But of course she was being manipulated by evil mastermind Morraloo, who intended for all land-dwellers to kill each other off so that quaggans can rule the land as well as the sea.

Downscaling ascended to exotic is a bad idea.

Making ascended weapons and back pieces available from WvW is a good idea.

No.

15 characters.

I typically stand by Anet’s decisions on how to handle bugs because they’ve always been reasonable. This seems to be an exception and I’m very disappointed.

John Corpening.9847:

There were a number of suggestions around labelling dropped siege to allow players decide which siege to build. I like the idea of filtering dropped siege. Maybe you could have some of the following settings:

• Show my Commander’s siege
• Show my Squad’s siege
• Show my Guild’s siege
• Show my Party’s siege

If siege dropped doesn’t meet one of the settings you pick, you won’t get an interact for them.

This idea sounds like it has potential, but I think a simple option of “Interact with trusted siege only” would be simpler and more convenient. This would also include information to tell the player that siege is “trusted” if it is created by someone on your friends list, someone in your guild, one of your party members, or the commander of your squad if you are in one. Burning oil, cannons, mortars, and siege golems would always be trusted, but not siege golem build sites if build sites are included in this restriction.

John Corpening.9847:

The exhaustion idea that I kicked out there has had some mixed responses. There were some amazingly good ideas to make it work a whole lot better. For example, I really liked the suggestions that the cool down time is reduced for each member of your squad. I am really concerned though about the affects that you guys brought up on small havok groups and defenders. There were some suggestions that I think would make it work. For example, a couple of suggestions were along the lines of if you are actively playing it will clear your exhaustion. So if you down an enemy, break down a gate, destroy enemy siege etc. your exhaustion would be cleared.

If we tweaked Exhaustion to this would it work? :

1. When a player places a piece of siege they receive a stack of “Exhaustion”
2. A stack of “Exhaustion” expires after three minutes
3. If a player has five stacks of “Exhaustion” they can no longer place siege
4. If a player downs an enemy, destroys siege, breaks down a wall or gate their exhaustion is cleared
5. A commander’s exhaustion is reduced by 30 seconds for each member of his squad

We aren’t tied to this idea at all. I’m just collecting and shaping some of your suggestions on this idea in large part because a lot of people seemed to like it. I’m wondering if there is a version that would work for everyone.

I do not like this idea at all. There are often situations where I have to place a lot of siege in a short time during defensive situations. Times when I have to throw down 10 arrow cart blueprints in three minutes to defend a keep aren’t common, but they do happen. I also occasionally set up 4-5 balistas and a few arrow carts to help defend supply camps near our spawn points when holding them is critical.

John Corpening.9847:

Some sort of community policing also came up a bunch in this discussion. I think there were some great and promising ideas there. But, generally the concern with that comes down to a few things. How many people would be needed to get a person banned? What if not that many people are on? At what lower number will we have to start worrying about groups kicking members of another group because of petty arguments?

Finally, regarding swinging ye olde banhammer, that’s an option but if we can make some reasonable adjustments that greatly reduces the need for that option it will really be the better way to go. I would very much like to steer clear of falling back to that option in this discussion.

I don’t think players being able to ban other players is ever a good idea. The existing report system would work well for this if a clear “anti-competitive PvP behavior” (don’t actually call it that) option existed for players who try to sabotage their own team in WvW or PvP.

The thing that bothers me about Rox is that she’s named after a golem.

SynfulChaot.3169:

I understand making only one due to time-constraints.

Actually they’re only making one because players keep saying that we want our own decisions to actually impact the game rather than giving us the illusion of impacting the game.

Change the duration to 30m, change the 250 Bloodstone Dust to 1 Foxfire Cluster, and remove the self poison. Then I think you’ve got a great idea.

Parisalchuk.9230:

So this update is a total of a small PvE questline that will likely take 30 mins like Flame and Frost and EB JP being an instance. Thats it?

Sad…

Free content makes you sad? Anyway, you missed the most important part, WvW traps!

Rank should be a sign of experience in sPvP. It doesn’t show skill, but it should at least show how much time someone has dedicated to playing.

I hope we see bans for the worst exploiters, and that they remove glory/rank gain from custom arenas (not all hotjoin).

Today’s patch notes say:

Warrior

• “Shake It Off!”
  • Removed unnecessary range indicator.

But “Shake It Off!” affects nearby allies as well as the user, so the range indicator on this skill was not unnecessary. Why was it removed?

Right now, miniatures have a green dot on the minimap as if they are players, which can easily lead to confusion. With the upcoming changes to the way miniatures function, they are likely to become much more commonly used.

Please change miniatures to not appear on the minimap in WvW.

MatthewMedina.5419:

As Colin stated above, we can’t talk in detail about the ongoing development to drive retention for our veteran players, but I just wanted to make the point that the NPE was deliberately designed to address the early game retention issues, and ensure that Guild Wars 2 can benefit from a strong and steady influx of new players into the game.

Adding level restrictions rather than tutorials will bore new players, causing them to leave.

PvP already has a tutorial area the first time you enter Heart of the Mists, and one of GW2’s selling points is that anyone can PvP from level 1. Hiding PvP behind a level gate will frustrate any PvP-minded new players, and make them feel like they’ve been lied to.

Diving goggles are really easy to use. The skills are just for show, and the goggles are generally away from combat. New players have often been excited to discover them. I remember first discovering the diving goggles in LA during a beta weekend, and telling my friends about it. They all brought their characters there and we dove off together. It was great. Low level characters are now met with the message “You cannot use this object at this time” and no explanation.

Low level characters in starter zones no longer encounter interrupts or conditions. Skill slots and class mechanics are behind steep level gates now. Any new players considering moving from another MMO to GW2 will now see combat as “move to enemy, autoattack until it dies, repeat”, and quickly come to the conclusion that GW2 combat is boring and repetitive.

This goes completely against the idea of trying to retain new players.

To all the people complaining about the timers:

1. The timers are not new, they have existed since the game released.

2. Before this patch, timers were inconsistent and would sometimes cause siege to despawn, sometimes not.

3. The two minute timer after a blueprint is laid out is new, but only applies if no supply is used on it at all.

Everyone calm now? Carry on.

No, it’s invisibility, adding invincibility to invisibility would be the most broken thing they could do.

PS This is coming from someone who plays Thief in sPvP.

The achievements are completely optional. They wouldn’t be achievements if you got them for free.

Embrace the challenge, and if you can’t get some of them, don’t worry about it. You can always come back and try again later.

Zylonite.5913:

The final fight of the living is nothing more than a cheap way by the devs to create an illusion of a challenging boss fight.

Having to fight a boss with other mobs spawning at the same time and dodging red markers on the ground is not challenge, it is called unfair fight….

None of the bosses in the living story have any mechanics. They just have big AoEs with CC with other smaller vets mobs spawning at the same time. In other words, they are just copy/paste from other boss or mobs.

You want us to solo a fight boss in the living story then give us a real boss with new mechanics to solo…/sigh who I am I kidding.

Who are you kidding? Yourself, because none of that is true.

I agree with the OP that more needs to be done, but I disagree on which effects are the worst offenders.

• I would put elementalist weapon skills as the worst offenders, followed by skills from engineer kits (grenades, bombs, flamethrower, etc).
• Cleansing Flame has quite an impressive (and obscuring) effect, so I use it to scare enemies in WvW regularly (with great success). I would be sad but understanding if its effect was reduced.
• The on-target effects from melee attacks disappear if you turn animations to the lowest setting, so I never even see them. I also haven’t noticed the Virtue of Justice flames in a while, so either I’ve gotten too used to playing guardian, or they disappear if you turn off post-processing effects or turn down animations.
• I barely notice fire/air sigil effects now even when I’m using them and playing solo, so I don’t think they’re too much at all.

Oghier.7419:

Yoji.1420:

… you have become NPC filler text in his single player GW2 forums experience!.

So… find any bargains today?

Today and every day. You just have to know where to look… and how to ask.

Antonin.3926:

My only problem with 2 week updates is the content feels a little unpolished and buggy. And if you want to keep up with your guild as far as achievements and rewards, then you really need to make an effort to get the meta achievement done before the content is gone.

Arena Net said they didn’t want this carrot on a stick feel with their end game but are choosing to go this direction with the living story. Just seems a little odd.

The content shouldn’t decrease in quality with the new schedule. They hired new developers and have 5 living story teams now instead of just two. That means that each living story team now has 10 weeks to complete each content iteration rather than the previous 2 months (8-9 weeks). We’re also nearly done with the first year, which means the repeating content (such as Wintersday) doesn’t need to be created this time around.

The entire 9/9 feature patch was based on player feedback. Please explain how that is ignoring the playerbase.

I was talking to one of the devs a few days ago, and apparently his team had a similar reaction to the NPE that the players had. They’re currently working to fix unintended behaviors and respond to player feedback, so give them some time, and try posting some constructive feedback rather than “I’m going to quit” or “NPE is dumb” posts.

It’s really random.

Daecollo.9578:

None of the updates in the game besides the base game have mentioned anything about Sylvari or Nightmare or Meguumi Jungle. Every other race has gotten at least a little spot-light.

Canach and Scarlet are both sylvari. They’re getting a spotlight, just as villains.

Someone should make a map of where all of these are. I bet there’s a clue in their locations.

Sabas.8431:

So if I get this right,

If I’m just a lowly level 31 with not enough time to live in Tyria 24/7 the halloween event is not really of any interest to me?

Halloween isn’t entirely about having a bow that looks like a spider and nothing else. It’s about having fun. Do the quests, try out the haunted doors, play costume brawl, mine for candy corn, try out the new jump puzzles and dungeons (once they’re added in the next few days), join everyone in Lion’s Arch for the finale event with Mad King Thorn, and just have fun.

Alur.7510:

And still no word of ANET on this, we know you read this, why you don’t say anything back to us? It’s really annoying when this happens.

Why should they reply? I’ve seen nothing constructive in all 5 pages of this thread, it’s all just people whining about how they can’t have all the rare skins during the first of four parts of the festival without actually trying.

Maximelene.6794:

Read the Anet message, it’s clear when you read it that there are no other items.

They actually said that there will be more items. Did you really think that all items were made available in the first of a four part event?

The greatest fear arc was one of the most interesting parts of the story.

BobbyStein.2315:

It all comes down to resources.

5 playable races x 2 genders = 10 character combinations / 10 voices

Let’s pretend that the PC has 2,000 lines of voiced dialogue in the game. With 10 voices that’s 20,000 lines of VO just for the player. Add one more PC voice per race/gender combination and you just doubled that line count to 40k. Unless you have a limitless budget, those lines have to be taken away from other content.

So while we could have added two voice options for each race/gender combination, it would have resulted in there being no ambient VO or events being silent.

A possible solution would be to modify voice pitches based on character height, build, or starting personality. This would not require any more voice recording and would give players all a more unique sound. I find it strange that large, fierce characters have the same voice as small charming characters.

Why was a No Trespassing zone added anyway?

Astralporing.1957:

John Smith.4610:

That’s a 20% change. I don’t understand your simile.

20% increase on a miniscule chance may be significant to Anet (who looks at the market as a whole), but is completely inconsequential to the individual trying to forge a precursor.

It may be a novel thing to an economist, but sometimes money is not everything that matters. And people are not statistics.

Except that it is very consequential to the player trying to forge a precursor. 20% more precursors from the forge leads to more supply, more supply leads to lower prices, lower precursor prices leads to lower rare and exotic weapon prices, which means that the person throwing countless weapons into the forge will pay less for each weapon that they put in, and they have a 20% higher chance to get a precursor, so it probably won’t take as many tries.

You can’t take only one piece of the economy, pretend that it works entirely separate from the rest of it, and tell the economist that he’s wrong for considering every piece of the equation.

The downed state is a great boon to teamwork, I just wish eles couldn’t go through gates while downed.

The WvW Season One achievement “Mists Merc Camp Vanquisher” currently only gives credit if you help claim a mercenary camp for your server. It’s bad enough that the current living story NPCs are in the mercenary camps stealing all of the kills that could progress the events, but it’s difficult to actually find a neutral mercenary camp to be able to claim (especially since mercenary camps were removed from the borderlands).

I suggest changing requirement to progress this achievement from “Mercenary Camps Taken” to “Mercenary Camps Taken or Neutralized” for future seasons or other achievements.

Josh Foreman.8250:

…By the time we release World 4, the entire game will be complete and playable from start to finish, along with hard mode, and hopefully some other modes we have in mind.

Can’t wait!

Josh Davis.6015:

Engineer turrets will be able to be affected by conditions.

Not all conditions make sense when applied to turrets.

Makes sense:

• Burning
• Chilled
• Torment
• Vulnerability
• Weakness

Maybe makes sense:

• Blind (makes sense for all except thumper)
• Confusion
• Slow

Doesn’t make sense for existing turrets, but would make sense for mobile turrets:

• Crippled
• Immobilize

Doesn’t make sense:

• Bleeding
• Fear
• Poison

At the very least, turrets should remain immune to Bleeding, Fear, and Poison.