Guild Wars 2

Da Sonic.6521:

Yes, because Anet definitely benefits from you missing out on putting more currency into the game, making the Gem:Gold ratio higher.

Right?
Right?
Right?

If it was just me, your sarcasm would make sense, but tell me, if it happens to thousands of users, then what?

By their own numbers, in their first year, just one type of mob in this game removed approximately $1.2million worth of gold from the in game economy in just the repair fees people had to pay to make up for being killed by them.
How much loot are they not distributing by allowing critical bugs to persist then? World event loot includes at least one yellow, and now T7 mats.

With all the fabrications they’ve pulled over the past year, along with the unscrupulous methods they use to part people with their in game money, it’s no stretch to see how they would ignore certain bugs for that same purpose.

Not really happy about the amulet changes, as I don’t think they were needed.

Not giving a laurel refund however was a deliberate decision on their part I think. It forces thousands of players who are low on laurels to log in once a day to advance their login rewards to build up enough laurels to replace what they had taken from them. Thus allowing anet to fluff up their “daily unique login” numbers for investors.
More of the same used car salesman sham tactics that have been so pervasive in this game from the start.

Account and soulbound are here to stay. It’s one of the many ways Anet tries to push people into spending money on the game.

I didn’t spend get to spend a whole lot of time in the demo, but here’s where I wound up:

Appearance: Loved the area of the map we could explore. The size of the maps is going to be more what I have wanted in games. Still not quite as bit as the Qa River Valley in Vanguard:SoH, but it was definitely a good size. (note: yeah, I know, vanguard was a different structure for zones).
Amnoon is beautiful. Moreover it feels big. To dig up Vanguard again, it reminded me of running around in Ahgram or Khal. Big plus for me in that.

Mobs/NPC’s: The frequency of mobs was perfect. Quite dense considering it’s a desert, but not overwhelming. They Hydra are challenging when solo, and a lot of fun in groups of 2 or 3, especially since they tend to roam the same areas where sand sharks show up and make things a bit of a dance. I don’t recall the group name for the mobs. Balthazars minions. There’s a rock-dog type creature that I personally think could be toned down on how much burning they apply. The Choya are absurd in an amazing way. They remind me of prickly pear fruit off of Cacti in the Southwest USA. There are enough NPC’s to make the place feel alive.

Mapping: POI’s, Vistas, etc. are well done, as well as the mastery points. I like the mini-game method of getting mastery points, but don’t over-use it please.

Bounties: Really nicely done. Learning how they work is interesting, and some of them can really surprise you. The Legendary Choya is a monster.

Loot/rewards: Other than a concern about the unidentified gear, I really didn’t pay much attention to loot as it was of no value in the demo. There were a couple bag items that surprised me with the amount of crafting materials they dropped. Not sure if this was just an enticement to buy though.

Story: only saw the beginning of it, but it moved well.

Mounts: Really well done. Great animation, movement is wonderful. Getting stuck on steps, not so much. The models themselves are stunning. The detail and materials used really work together well (I don’t know who does the original sculpting of the reptiles for Arenanet, but they are insanely talented. I’ve always been impressed with the drake ranger pet family, and the quality there is the same present in the raptors. They could use some more dye channel options, but I have to agree with the idea that players shouldn’t be able to have a completely Electro Purple Raptor. The dyable markings are perfect.

Suggestions: For mounts, extra dye channels would be nice, but would love to see skin patterns for them. Spots instead of stripes, and so on.

Now the odd part: I …actually am not sure I will buy the expansion. It looks great, but overall I got the subtle yet strong feeling of sameness. I love the new models, and the changes in mob tactics are nice. The landscape is stunning, but overall I haven’t really seen anything new that makes me go “I want that”. Sure, mounts in central tyria would be fun, but why do I need them?
These days I spend my time working on legendary weapons, and the occasional collection (out of boredom). The only second gen legendary I’m interested in has not been released yet, and as long as Mike doesn’t go back on what he implied in the AMA on Reddit, we will not need the expansion in order to make those.
The suggestions I have are lengthy, and honestly have already been addressed over and over on the forums (sometimes for years). More home instance versatility, deeper collections that aren’t designed to just be gold sinks yet reward items that are worth having. New skins that are exclusive to a combination of open world PvE + crafting. Titles for crafting first generation legendaries, (retroactive btw) so those of us who crafted them as opposed to just buying them off the TP can prove it.
It’s all been discussed before, and it’s way too late to put it into an expansion that most of it isn’t really related to, but the lack of such things is what has me wondering if I should even bother buying it.

A final note: About the pre-order packages. They are decent, but could be perceived as better value if some of the items were exchangeable for other things. After buying the Mistlock Sanctuary pass (congrats btw, you finally got me to spend money that wasn’t gifted to me for a birthday or other holiday), I have no need for something like the Lily of Elon pass. So that part of the pre-order package is.. pointless to me. A negative. Offer me a ticket for any black lion weapon skin of choice. Or something along those lines. That would be value.

tl;dr: Path of Fire is stunning in it’s beauty, and offers a lot of content, just…not content that piques my desire to buy it.

1. visual edges vs. physical edges.
2. Legendaries not being account bound
3. Introduction of D.R.
4. The use of soulbound mechanics
5. Reliance on gimmicks to create “challenge” and “variety”

Rage: Tier III. Kahloipoi Friendship Bracelet.

The hint lists the village of Kahloipoi as being located in Cursed Shore.

Kahloipoi and Varonos Parump are locatred near Murmur Waypoint in Malchor’s Leap

edit: Also worth noting that you cannot get the token from Varonos when she’s in vendor mode.

Next: Defending Moshpoipoi in Frostgorge Sound is required to receive a friendship token from Varonos Kassplip, however the NPC does not trigger the token when spoken to, just the generic conversation.

I noticed the lack of any statement saying that the conversion will be 1 to 1.

I’d like to hear from Anet directly that the conversion is going to be 1 shard for 1 skill point/scroll, and that Mystic Forge prices aren’t going to be changed.

No reason to play it at all. Did the much hyped “boss blitz” and out of all of it got a total of 3 greens.

Number 3 is starting to bug me a lot. My system isn’t brand new, but when I started GW2 I recall places like Lion’s Arch and Divinity’s reach taking only a short bit to load. The time it takes now for L.A. to load is border line with “make sure you have something else to do while waiting” in length.

Trajan.4953:

So many negative posts I see on these forums are from people trying to play an MMORPG as a single player RPG. The whole magic of an MMO is doing it with friends, trust me if you have a group of people who want to do content it makes it better all around. If you are having problems with the basics of this game find a guild, interact, enjoy. That is what it is all about.

Just sayin.

Are you a Sociologist? Psychologist? Psychiatrist? Any number of other given professions who are educated and qualified to make an assessment of why lone individuals may find a social connection to the people around them without being forced to interact with them?
Never mind that MMO’s bring some people out of their shells and actually get them to start interacting with people. Never mind that the gaming industry is currently focused on MMO’s, and as such the bulk of these types of games are not solo-RPG.
I’ve seen various guild sizes in different games. I have yet to come across one that wasn’t occupied for a good portion of the day with people just like you who are convinced that anyone who doesn’t want to play your way is somehow mentally challenged.

The concept is great, but the limitation to the instance owner, and the 1200gem price is obscene.

Ashen.2907:

Don’t be surprised if the bundle is split up at a later point after those willing to spend 2000 gems, perhaps to get just one item in the set, have done so.

I highly doubt that. Anet has a long track record of committing 100% to bad ideas, no matter what the outcome.

Oh look, this topic AGAIN.

It’s as if the other 20 or so threads the past 2 years don’t exist at all.

Drop rates are easy: If it’s an item you really really really want, it won’t drop for you, but it will drop all over the place for other people.

RNG is a harsh, cruel mistress.

One of the biggest issues I see in the MMO’s I’ve played, including GW2, is that unless you go in blind, a boss fight, heck even normal mobs, is predictable.
You learn the patterns, you learn the attacks, the weaknesses, etc.

This also results in players narrowing down the best set-ups for each situation. Thus we have “go zerk or go home”.

All that could be thrown for a loop if the players had to be ready for more than just a few encounter types. It could result in longer (or sometimes shorter) boss fights as well.

What needs to be done is some randomization of the attacks.

Using dungeons as an example, let’s consider Kohler on AC Path 3.

Kohler has a neat attack where he pulls you in and then plays blender. That’s fine. Cost me a few silver, but I learned how to avoid it and what to watch for. You can see what’s going to happen, and even prepare ahead of time for the fight if needed. Choose utilities, weapons, etc.

I’d like to see Anet make bosses a lot more complex. Give someone like Kohler a pool of 30 attacks and defenses, then for each instance/event, have him choose 3. Make them different enough that people actually have to figure out what they are, and form a strategy to get past it with the setups they have.

This would require a reduction in damage on some of the “one-shot” attacks that Anet is so fond of, but Anet is going to have to wake up and realize that gimmicks and cheap-shots are the hallmark of poor design and lack of imagination.

Same would apply for open-world dynamic event bosses like Dwayna’s statue. Give Malchor a pool of 30 attacks to use, and let him choose between 3 and 5 of them when he possesses the statue. Get the players to work together and have to strategize on the spot instead of just reading about the one or two constant mechanics that the boss uses.

World boss events like Jormag could benefit from this as well. The upcoming buff to Teq may be a step in the right direction, but it won’t be long before his attacks are known, right down to the pattern.

The ease of memorization of boss attacks and such has plagued MMO’s for years. It’s time to break that mold and let the players adapt to some unexpected variety.

paintpixie.7398:

Since it hasn’t been added yet, I know I saw that somebody here on the forums had this as their signature, and I thought it was pretty funny.

What’s Queen Jennah’s favorite movie?
Logan’s Run

:)

5 Norns walk into a bar, and the bartender says “Well, we’re in the black for the year.”

Small update. From first impression to next.
I’ve played through a few of the fights against the Knights now. It’s a good thing that overflows are judged by player numbers and not player egos, otherwise there are a whole lot of players who would be soloing their instances.

This Living Story segment is, I think, a bust in my book. There are the three Knights and…. what else?

Yes, run around the entire map killing champions here and there, but overall I get more loot from the frostgorge champ train, so loot is out. The miasma type events are pretty much ignored due to the champs, and the zone-wide event feel that rescuing citizens brought about is gone.

I also think it was a bit of a cheap shot to have the spinal blades be a requirement to access whatever it is that requires them. If they weren’t, in my opinion, ugly and crude looking, I’d have considered making more than one set, but I know several people who simply didn’t bother because they didn’t like the appearance at all. Now they are penalized for not having wasted precious crafting resources?

Not to mention that one of the achievements requires equipping the spinal blades.

What next, Anet? Achievements requiring the purchase of gems with real cash? Because, let’s face it, the above issues are starting down that road.

If you think I’m blowing it out of proportion, consider if Anet had required someone to equip an ascended weapon in order to enter Scarlets Lair? Same principle. Spinal Blades require crafting materials (some of which went up rather sharply in price due to their introduction).

Final analysis (tl;dr):
Escape from Lion’s Arch = win
Battle for Lion’s Arch = not-so-win.

Suddenflame.2601:

DR was introduced due to bots. I was playing back then. Not sure if you were, but there was a lot of bots back then. DR if your being hit with it you really need to rethink what your doing cause it doesn’t kick in for hours of you playing in place without logging out and switching zones. Also, you aware there is more and more games having RNG boxes. WoW from what i am aware is going to add them if they have not already. So do not think this is just Anet. It is only pressure if you allow it to be. If you allow it pressure you should go get checked out by a councilor or a therapist for an addiction issue.

As a few people pointed out they do not feel pressured but if you do then you have a problem that should seek professional help with it. I have missed dailies, LS, and other things without much of a care as I do not feel pressured to keep playing. If I was paying a subscription fee i would feel pressured to play to get my moneys worth. Since GW2 does not have you should not feel pressured.

I’m not really in the mood to answer this but I will try to do so clearly. First, it’s clear that you are the type who will never be shown any other way than what you think is true. That much is obvious from your comments on this and other threads where you are given plenty of evidence contrary to your statements but you continually argue semantics.

Second: Bots were the given reason. Anet is in this game to make money any way they can. There are, in fact, no rules on the table that prevent them from running bots themselves, or running automated Trading Post accounts that are there to deliberately inflate the market rates. Sure, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s a fact that this is something they can do. Bots were a convenient excuse for adding a function to the game that deliberately forces people to grind for gold, as opposed to farming for specific items. On a side note, I’d like to know your source of info, since you seem to know so much about how DR works, especially when Anet is so secretive about it.

Third, thanks for assuming that I have a gambling problem (FYI, I don’t).
The fact remains that thousands of people don’t even understand that they are addicted to gambling in situations like the RNG here. Because they’ve been lead to believe that it’s not gambling. Additionally, players do not have to feel the pressure for it to be there. This is not a time-share-condo high-pressure sales meeting. It’s about subtlety and illusion.

Yes, other games use RNG, so what of it? Guild Wars 2 is using it with an iron fist. In all the other games I’ve played, I’ve never felt it was completely hopeless to farm/grind for what I was after. In GW2 I have one choice, for my playstyle, to obtain the things I want. Grind gold.

Perhaps though you’ve never gotten good at something in real life and then had it taken away. Perhaps you’ve had your life handed to you on a silver platter, never needing anything other than to occupy your time. News flash: there are people out there who find MMO’s to be a great way to let off stress, to have fun, and to keep their minds occupied with productive projects, because they cannot, for whatever reason, do things in RL to fulfill those needs. I love working with my hands. I used to create jewelry. Real jewelry. Life stepped in and took that away for a time length that I’m not sure of yet, so I turn to games and such to work with the metals and gems that I enjoy. Do you even understand what it is like to create something on your own, with your own hands? Or do you just buy everything and have it delivered and assembled for you? I love working with wood too, but we’d get evicted if I set up my tablesaw in our apartment.
My side of this is just one story among thousands. There are thousands of reasons why people turn to games for some mind relaxation, and not all of them can be pigeon-holed into your narrow viewpoints on how things work.
And don’t go and pull the “then find another game” bullkitten commentary. People invested a lot of time into this game before discovering that all was not what it seemed to be, and they aren’t willing to just up and throw away what they’ve been able to scrape together.

So long as gem sales remain at current or growing levels, Anet has no incentive to do anything more than they already are.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Neural.1824:

I’m not a fan of the Spinal Blades back pack, but it surprised me that Anet hasn’t yet turned them into a glider skin. It would be pretty popular.

Yes it would BUT if they’d only make the basic one and think they can sell it4 times I’d sey nonononononononononoNONONON NOOOO!

If they’d release it I’d be very content if they’d releas it as a wing set with all 4 colors… for 400 gems… skin exists only needs a turbine sound and it woud be perfect. (maybe a smoke trail from left or right engine when dmg-ed and sparks and a black smoke trail when broken…. would be epic…

Yes, for the standard price of a glider skin, they would need to allow for the color choices (maybe through a dye channel?).
Love the smoke idea for when it’s damaged. That would be nice.

The places that I have seen them reply (which are really rare), they’ve been pushing the 64bit client, which, if I read correctly, is still beta.

As it stands right now, Anet does not have a stable client at all, and they seem to be betting the farm on their new golden child 64bit client.

A great suggestion, however in order to get Anet to implement it, you’re going to need to explain how they can sell it as an add on feature for guilds for 800gems

+1 on the account bag idea.

Kakeru.2873:

kidbs.8920:

Maybe OP should spend more time on his schoolwork and less time being “hardcore” in a video game.

Didn’t even mention the word hardcore. And is that an attempt at belittling me?

A) you stated that you are not a casual gamer
B) you listed off multiple characteristics of what you consider a casual gamer
C) through terms like “watered down” and stating that those who fall into your definitions love "bad American commercials, you set the stage yourself.

Suggestions:
1) Eve is that way —→
If you have so much time to play video-games and be not-casual, you can earn isk in game and play for free via their PLEX system.

What’s the Iron Legions favorite sea food? Arctic Charr

How does the Blood Legion like it’s meat? Charr-broiled.

So I bought 10 extra slots and made several different classes with all of the slots I have. It’s fun, but I still can’t post a short message on the forum :/

1. Join the zerg for a bit
2. Figure out their path
3. Get some friends and do events out of sequence to mess up their pattern
4. Laugh in map.

When Anet removes the insane stupid grind for T6 mats, I’ll start the process of outfitting my 4 main characters in Ascended gear.

However, Anet will never do that, so the answer to the OP’s question is: none.

Asurans are the smart ones in the bunch of us. They have waypoints, Super Adventure Box, golems, etc.

It would be ….convenient…if an asura were to “invent” a portal to a place (instanced for individuals or squads) that was loaded with asura tech, and just happened to have an area in it that was completely chroma green and well lit in the same manner that the hero panel and preview window are.

Not that the devs have time for it. Just considering how it could be done if they did. Would make it nice for a number of screen shot reasons.

I enjoy the champ trains so long as the people remain civil. While I’ve championed my server the last few days, last night was embarrassing, and I hope people got reported if it got much worse after I left.
The gold is nice. It’s not like I’ve heard old CoF1 was, but I’ve made more gold doing the champ train than ever before in GW2.
That being said, gold is nice, but I’m after mats, and T6 mats simply don’t drop much at all.
In that respect the people who have legendaries that are so worried about losing their special snowflake status (even though most of them just slapped a credit card down for their toys) don’t have to worry much. Anet may have changed loot drops to being something of value, but no-one who wants to craft a legendary the traditional way has seen much change worth cheering about.
I suppose you could take all the T5 mats and transmute them in the mystic toilet, but I refuse to do that simply because my RNG luck sucks.
I’ll probably farm until the big nerf, because you need 110gold straight up minimum for items that can only be bought (icy runestones, recipes, and in my case, the precursor).
It’s nice when the zerg breaks the chain and goes and runs an DE chain from start to finish though. Keeps things going.

John Smith.4610:

This is a spinoff of the economy thread to talk about RNG tactics in games in a general form.
Here’s the premise. RNG is evenly distributed on aggregate. On an individual level this means that while almost everyone falls into a reasonable range in the middle, there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all. These individuals become sample cases and spotlights for experiences that maybe shouldn’t exist.

We do need to be very careful about ideas that flatten the experience entirely as that quickly becomes not fun at all.

There are two concepts that have been discussed in the other thread that I’ll briefly summarize.

1. Use a specifically non-random NG. The NRNG functions similarly to a RNG, but has characteristics that either squish the distribution so that outliers exist much less or specifically manipulate a player’s experience for loot in a more complicated way that makes it feel rewarding.

2. Implement measures that counteract low-end outlier behavior inside of game design. This would be a system that is something like: If player hasn’t received a rare drop in X time send them Y tickets for random drops.

2.5: “Add secondary reward mechanisms (ie. token based system) alongside the primary RNG system; allow progress to be made even when you don’t get the result you want.”

Obviously these are hyper-simplified descriptions, but I don’t want this to get too long.

edit: added 2.5

Did I just read this? Is someone actually showing that at least one soul at Arenanet understands what it’s like to be on the bottom of the RNG bucket?

I sincerely hope you are not risking your job by posting this, sir. It is about time your superiors allowed you to bring this to discussion.

I believe #2 is acceptable, but the “consolation prize” needs to be substantial. None of this “well, you haven’t had an exotic in 10,000 drops, so here’s a ticket scrap.” (note: I’ve no clue what the average rate of exotic drops is, I made that number up for sake of example".)

The primary reason I have all but left GW2 is because I simply feel the reward for effort is dismal at best. I like to know I’m making progress towards a goal, even if that last drop didn’t give it to me outright. I like to be able to lay down numbers on a spreadsheet and figure out how much I need to do in order to guarantee a result. RNG, as it stands currently, is the polar opposite of that. The caveat to the well defined path is that I don’t like having my patience tried. It’s ok to tell me I have to play casually for a year to get to a certain goal. Telling me I have to play casually for 5 years is too much.
People need to see progress, and RNG doesn’t allow it. Some form of #2 on your list would greatly increase the perception that the game is rewarding. Because no matter what you do, you know you are progressing towards whatever goal you wish to achieve. Just don’t let the monetizers convince you that “progressing” means merely nudging you forward an inch on a 1000mile journey.

That’s how I feel anyway. Like I am nothing more than some lowly peon to be ignored and loathed. While I’ve thought it in the past, I’m not the first to post on these forums the thought that Anet’s attitude is “shut up and give us your money”.

I’d like to suggest that Anet break the typical game-company mold and require their employees to spend 15minutes a day reading the forums or in game interacting with players.

Stop treating players like we are some sort of repulsive infection. Maybe some of the attitudes would change around here if the players actually felt like Anet employees know who provides the money for their paychecks.

Arenanet has a penchant for re-skinning content. I would be surprised, pleasantly, if they created new models for this next update. That being said they likely won’t. The only ones that I can think of that fit what may or may not be key words, along with the object that was sent out, would be worms. Worms populate a lot of Tyria, but mostly in the caves. While they can poison, they shoot fire a lot. I’m really hoping it’s not worms, because that would make the Dune references just too much.

no login here either

I’ve never heard of Extra Credit until the vid post above, but wow. They nailed it with their commentary. I was active in Eve Online during the whole Incarna disaster, and watching it all unfold brought to mind a number of issues. One of the big ones is that game companies seem to hire real world economists to build the financial models on how virtual world economies will work.
Yes, there are parallels, but there are some strong differences as well. The end result is overpricing, poor implementation, and expectations by the company that go far beyond what the users will even think twice about.
Anet is doing quite well at making the wrong decisions, but considering some of the people they’ve hired, they probably have “greed is good” plastered on the walls of their office.

Nike.2631:

…snipped…

While a bit brash, your statements are dead on accurate.

DGraves.3720:

Magic find is an economic stat. The ramifications of uncapping it could be pretty severe.

I have one account with 250% MF plus food and an amulet, and I have one account with roughly 50% MF that I don’t bother using food on.

The difference is not even noticeable. They both get the same number of greens, yellows, etc.

The impact on the economy would be next to nothing, and only people who grind out an insane amount of MF will see any measurable results.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

spartan.9421:

Dinks.2478:

spartan.9421:

Ahhhh…. the amount of people getting upset over this is amusing to me.

I too get amused when consumers get upset when they’re robbed by companies.

I meant the everyone yelling at each other and Anet.

And no one was “robbed” they just feel robbed, legendary weapons were pointless anyways.

So, you’re saying that if you pay for a product and you only get part of it and the company tells you that they’ve stopped working on the rest of your purchase until “eventually,” you would be completely satisfied and not feel “robbed” of part of your money?

And how fast would you be to buy another product from that same company if they haven’t delivered all you paid for on your first purchase?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a bridge to sell this guy.

Azure Prower.8701:

People rage in PVP. I just block them if they start whispering me because they couldn’t handle dying.

From my experience it’s not the ones dying who have the attitude issues.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We want to let you know that the ability to build your precursor will not be in our upcoming Feature Pack. The way progression and rewards work in Guild Wars 2 have changed quite a bit since we initially talked about that feature, and our main horizontal progression systems are about to get some additional updates in the upcoming feature pack. Because of that, we are looking into several ways to integrate building your precursor into our new updated reward and progression systems we’re working on, which is requiring additional development time and iteration. As always, we’ll share details on this system once it’s far enough along in production we’re ready to discuss it.

Honestly, this sounds like a bunch of marketing gibberish that is nothing more than an excuse for why crafting methods of obtaining a precursor have been shelved yet again.
Summer of 2013 they listed precursor crafting as a year 2013 objective, then December 2013 we got a “we couldn’t fit it in” and it got slotted for sometime in 2014.
Now it’s being pushed back again.

Until when Mark? 2015? 2016? People are getting tired of what is coming across looking a lot like lies and obfuscation. It’s not just precursor crafting, it’s many things. Bugs that have been around since day one, precursor crafting, etc.

Arenanet is digging a hole, and they’d better start considering how they are going to get out of it, because the players aren’t as stupid as some would suppose.

Now that several items have been removed from the gemstore. There’s room for bunny ears.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You don’t need Ascended armor. The stat increase over Exotics is minor. So if you’ve given up on getting these, you can still play the game as normal.

You are assuming that I want ascended gear for the stats.
The attributes matter, but the little extra that ascended gear adds is not much of a concern to me.

.. a first impression of the battle for LA.

Escape from LA brought about some great changes. Changes that I see as good for the game. At the same time, there are things about Escape from LA which are bad for the game.

First, the bad:
#1: Getting loot for no effort. The whole issue of people being able to jump into LA and just afk the whole time to collect loot bags from the Group Events is simply poor design.
#2: Scaling is still off. Every time I go into LA now, map chat is nothing but arguments of people telling others not to join certain events because of the scaling. The elitists are 100% positive that only they and their 4 man crew have rights to miasma events because it supposedly only takes 5 people to do them. Avoiding zerging is one thing, but zerging is preferable to the toxicity in both map and local chat.

The good:
#1: The pace of events is great. There’s a sense of urgency. Some of the event speeds could be improved (ahem children), but overall many of the escort events have a decent set up.
#2: For a loot/reward system that is as bad as we’ve had, the rewards for this event are actually not that bad. The variety you get out of the alliance bags is nice, and adding ascended materials was great, but I’d like to have seen more T6 mats as well.

#3: The rescuing of citizens is the single best thing I’ve seen with Living Story. It gives a fantastic incentive to do anything but zerg. Five to ten player groups can patrol given areas and know that what they are doing adds to the total end reward. There are the Group Effort rewards along the way as well.
This is a fantastic introduction. The Zone-wide strategy. Where people need to spread out into small groups, each doing their little segment of the zone in order to help the entire zone reach an end goal. I do think the rewards for it are lacking slightly, as when it comes down to bag count, you get a lot more bags running the events near Traders Forum, along with some miasma events (I get around 125 bags when I do that, as opposed to roughly 40 or so when I stick with just helping citizens (numbers do not include final reward)).

edit: having posting errors with next segment, but the above sums up a lot of why I liked Escape from Lion’s Arch so well. Once I get the errors resolved, I’ll continue with my first take on the latest update…

Killed 3 knights and got zero loot from any of them.

Expect Anet to fix this bug sometime the day after never.

My wife and I both play, and starting a couple days ago, these issues are coming up as well, but not for both of us at one time. We’ll be running a story line, or just in open world and one of us will get an error like 58:11:5:523:101 and get dc’d.
Both our systems are brand new (come to think of it this did not start happening until we got everything on the new computers patched and updated, including drivers, windows updates, etc.).

edit: Posting here because the support page “cannot be found”. Lovely service.

Randulf.7614:

Guys, don’t blow what she said out of context. Her post specifically mentions golem bankers, not the problem at Triple Trouble which has already been flagged up as an issue by the dev team.

The fact is that all these things are related to the core problem of interactable items being stacked. Whether it is a golem banker on top of a loot chest, a downed player on top of a dead NPC, or a hundred rocks on top of a critical event spawn location, it all boils down to a problem with stacked items.
It is discouraging and disappointing that the devs apparently feel that if they don’t personally see something as a problem, then it is not a problem. Gaile may play for “hours” on nights and weekends, but her experience has been quite different from mine. I see these “accidents” constantly.
Even if they truly are accidents, it still shows there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

I think, again, that OP is an outlier, but it does illustrate a problem in game. Some people simply collect too much of a given item through their daily activities, and Anet provides no outlet for those items other than to delete them. This destroys the value of the effort put in to obtain those items.

Though I think that something as simple as a mystic forge recipe might not solve the OP’s predicament. He’s got so many Essence of Luck, he’d wind up with stacks of the best that a mystic forge recipe could offer, even with RNG involved.

A lot of what keeps me away from WvW is the players on my own server. I do okay in WvW, but it gets really tiring listening to the internet badasses spewing their elitist bullkitten every minute of the time there. PvE players won’t try WvW because the H4rdc0re!!!oneone kitten swingers have made it quite clear that they don’t want PvE players even trying WvW out.
If the elitists are so fed up with PvE people, maybe they should stop kittenting on people in the threads where people ask for WvW to be removed as a world completion requireme… oh wait. you want easy targets. Forgot that detail.

Tiresias.6473:

Case in point: a lot of people want the crafting system to be more profitable, but I personally like the fact that crafting is extremely expensive. This gives it a significant barrier to entry that ensures that the market won’t be flooded by top-level crafters who all have the exact same recipes and can crank out top-end crafted gear cheaply. In return for the expense and difficulty involved in the crafting system, you can actually level a character through it. I feel that crafting should actually be MORE difficult, to the point where crafting could be a dedicated profession like it is in Ultima Online.

As someone who has always been drawn to the crafting side of games, GW2 has been a major let-down. We do have market flooded by top-level crafters who all have the same recipes. The only reason rare items are expensive is because they can be salvaged for Ectoplasm. Exotics are expensive not because of any challenge to crafting itself, but because of diminishing returns/loot-drop rates. Prices are upside down as well on things. The cooking profession has a number of items that sell for less than the cost of the materials required (look at the cost of a yam vs. items made with yams. Same for chili peppers and vanilla).
I put a lot of time into crafting in various games, and with the exception of GW2, there was always a need for someone who did high-end crafting. It was part of your “resume” when applying to guilds. Even if you weren’t that great with dungeons, you were desirable because you had put in the time to be able to craft things that other guild members needed to have crafted.
Meanwhile, in GW2, no-one needs a 400. Because just about everyone is either already at 400, or will be in a couple hours of work. Crafted items are sold pretty much at material cost.
I would love for crafting to be a real part of this game, and not just an occasional easy-daily or extra XP boost for when you want to level a character. I highly doubt that we’ll ever see it go beyond that though. I don’t think Arenanet is capable of doing something like that, and even if they could, I don’t think the care enough to do so.

I love how it looks with the carapace outfit.

Colors: Royal Purple, Purple, and Flare

No.

Eve is that way —→