Guild Wars 2

ZerotheFang.5890:

leveling is not really the problem i have with mastery system most my hate is directed towards how you get the points some things like adventures are not easy to do or are in areas where the meta kinda ramps up the fps and makes lag during the challenge, or my favorite an npc frog goes attacks me while i do the mastery challenge. if they want to fix some of them like add a 30 sec-min for silver or change the skills not to have a freaking cooldown (fungus among us worst adventure ever created it can just be removed for all i care).

I’m with you there. I can’t stand adventures! For that reason I’m totally for adding more mastery points so the system offers greater flexibility to players. I like that the mastery system gives us nice perks to work toward. I don’t think it necessarily needs to be so restrictive, however. The effort is enough.

I think they did a good job of minimizing the true barriers. But if you want to earn all of the masteries it does force you to really play every single one of those adventures out. I think it’s more GW2’s style to give players a choice in how they achieve their goals, where possible. This is probably one of those areas it wouldn’t cause any great harm to do so.

Nethod.7068:

Mastery system blocks progress.

Totally not playing Gw2 because of said blocked progress.

Oh Anet you want me to collect X more mastery points to level up whatever just to get through the story? Nope. lol. Story isn’t that good and there’s youtube to see what happens. You’re not making me play through the trash this time.

Edit: And done watching spoiler video. Yay. This why you bad anet, I’d rather watch someone else play the story instead playing catch up masteries to see it myself.

How is this a mastery system design issue? The underlying cause of your particular complaint is that you clearly dislike HoT gameplay.

Just to put it in perspective, to unlock the critical masteries you need to explore the jungle and complete the storyline, only 2 million experience (about the equivalent of leveling from 70-80) is required along with 4 MPs. That really isn’t a lot of time/effort. If you had any interest at all in trying the new maps you would earn that much just in the process of exploring and trying out the events for a few hours.

I know players in this game are used to doing things on their own terms, but even the core game didn’t allow you 100% freedom in this sense. You still had to put in effort to achieve objectives, frequently in game modes that might not be your cup of tea. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of JPs. I still have to do them now and then if I want the rewards. But as long as the entire game isn’t one big JP, I don’t consider that unreasonable.

Well it’s a lot easier since April, so this post is probably several months too late. If you were starting now, it would likely be a different ball game.

Okay but, in each of those cases, you have to level each character seperately. HoT, on the other hand, you level your masteries one single time and you’re done. Once you unlock gliding on one character, all your characters have gliding.

Nor is HoT particularly linear. While you don’t have the options to have five starter zones, you don’t have to level each character differently.

I played HoT a lot like I played the core worlds. Even from the first waypoint in HoT, there are two directions you can go, leading to two different outposts, with two different event chains.

Some people just level their masteries via raids. Some people play open world stuff. If you have a lot of characters, you can even level by doing the story over and over again. Adventures give a ton of experience.

If you’re seeing HoT as linear, I assure you it’s not. It’s like anything else, you have to run through zones to get to the next zone, but even taht’s not 100%. For example if you have the AB guild hall, you can get into AB without ever setting foot into VB.

I’d say “You’re welcome” but I’ve a feeling that would earn me more ire.

+1

It’s not just the wiki.
The only other MMO that has comparable out of the game support and tools,is WoW.
And that tells a lot.
Thanks to all who put time and effort into maintaining these.

If getting to level 10 is a huge issue I really don’t know what to say. The only way I can think if to not get to level 10 in a very short period of time is to not move around and only kill mobs that spawn right beside you. Exploration gives huge exp, killing mobs that have not been killed in a while gives huge exp, doing event chains gives a lot. Posting on forums does not give in game exp.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Difference in the two games mostly. WoW is developed by Battle.net and as you can infer by the name, it specializes in competition and setting player against player. It’s not surprising that people in a game that emphasizes competition are less helpful and pleasant. That game has taught the players that everyone else on their map is in competition for their mobs, loot and nodes. This game specializes in cooperation and actively encourages people to help each other and want to see others on their maps.

Fun fact: Our very own Mike O’Brien led the development of Battle.net.

Yep. And as I understand it, a number of original devs came over from there. Perhaps they saw how a competitive game fostered a bad game community and and that’s why they decided to leave there and make cooperative games instead.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Difference in the two games mostly. WoW is developed by Battle.net and as you can infer by the name, it specializes in competition and setting player against player. It’s not surprising that people in a game that emphasizes competition are less helpful and pleasant. That game has taught the players that everyone else on their map is in competition for their mobs, loot and nodes. This game specializes in cooperation and actively encourages people to help each other and want to see others on their maps.

Fun fact: Our very own Mike O’Brien led the development of Battle.net.

Difference in the two games mostly. WoW is developed by Battle.net and as you can infer by the name, it specializes in competition and setting player against player. It’s not surprising that people in a game that emphasizes competition are less helpful and pleasant. That game has taught the players that everyone else on their map is in competition for their mobs, loot and nodes. This game specializes in cooperation and actively encourages people to help each other and want to see others on their maps.

Vayne.8563:

sophiewhite.3149:

General Health.9678:

Djinn.9245:

The objection is how the game has gone from being able to get XP for your character by doing anything you want in the game, to not being able to get XP/Spirit Shards unless you follow the very narrow path that Anet has dictated.

Maybe many players don’t mind this lack of choice. Or maybe Spirit Shards aren’t something that they need or want. But going from complete freedom of choice to a single path for progressing my character is not fun game play for me. I prefer choices.

Apples and oranges, you can’t compare pre-hot to post-hot and add shards.

I’m really unclear whether you’re complaining because this is affecting you or if you’re complaining on behalf of everyone because the wider playerbase doesn’t seem be complaining about this, it’s mentioned in a couple of places and people are either “do a simple raid”, “who cares about shards” or “oh my god this game sucks because anet forces us to raid (or whatever flavour of the month thing it is people suddenly take offence to)”. If you personally need to raid as the last thing to unlock spirit shards and you really, really want shards.. join a guild that offers training raids and just run one. It’s one tiny thing being blown out of all proportion.

Maybe there will be another way to get spirit shards in the future, maybe there’ll even be a need for them in the future.. in the meantime, try raids, might even enjoy them. Chances are if you are already frustrated by the rest of HoT you will not be able to but plenty of people here will show you round the HoT maps if you ask and the metas are really good fun, missing out if you’ve not tried them.

honestly im not sure how people can hate raids when they clearly never gave them a chance. find a guild. theyll group you up and youll never need to do it again.

But I have done raids. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them either. I’d simply rather not spend potentially hours doing something I don’t enjoy. Why would I want that?

people have commented you only have to do it once though.

Djinn.9245:

The objection is how the game has gone from being able to get XP for your character by doing anything you want in the game, to not being able to get XP/Spirit Shards unless you follow the very narrow path that Anet has dictated.

Maybe many players don’t mind this lack of choice. Or maybe Spirit Shards aren’t something that they need or want. But going from complete freedom of choice to a single path for progressing my character is not fun game play for me. I prefer choices.

Apples and oranges, you can’t compare pre-hot to post-hot and add shards.

I’m really unclear whether you’re complaining because this is affecting you or if you’re complaining on behalf of everyone because the wider playerbase doesn’t seem be complaining about this, it’s mentioned in a couple of places and people are either “do a simple raid”, “who cares about shards” or “oh my god this game sucks because anet forces us to raid (or whatever flavour of the month thing it is people suddenly take offence to)”. If you personally need to raid as the last thing to unlock spirit shards and you really, really want shards.. join a guild that offers training raids and just run one. It’s one tiny thing being blown out of all proportion.

Maybe there will be another way to get spirit shards in the future, maybe there’ll even be a need for them in the future.. in the meantime, try raids, might even enjoy them. Chances are if you are already frustrated by the rest of HoT you will not be able to but plenty of people here will show you round the HoT maps if you ask and the metas are really good fun, missing out if you’ve not tried them.

I have to wonder if acquiring 1 Spirit Shard per ~250,000 XP is that game-breaking. It seems we already get something like 20 to 50 per level-up as it is.

Before the change to Spirit Shards, I had maybe 300 Hero Points saved; since then I have acquired thousands of Spirit Shards.

Again, I have to wonder if 1 Spirit Shard is worth the angst. Of course, that’s just me.

Ubi.4136:

I’ll admit it is a little disturbing that after several tries no flags were raised.

Mike O’ Brien didn’t say a single thing in his post about no flags being raised. That’s an assumption being made by the posters here.

Just because flags are raised, it doesn’t mean those flags will protect someone’s account.

Gaile, again I’m sorry this happened to you. In a different MMO I played I and my guildies could only watch as someone who hacked a friend’s account logged in character after character draining her of everything. It was heartbreaking to witness, and I can only imagine what it would be like to experience.

~EW

It bears repeating, so I’ll say it again – the hacker who got Gaile tried multiple times until he got a CS rep that granted him access.

That is inexcusable.

Figlilly.3907:

What a disgusting thing to happen to a lovely person. What sort of low life takes advantage of Gaile of all people? She is always so kind and helpful. You people blaming Anet security and the poor dupe who probably lost his/her job, consider the real culprit was one of us – a vile, nasty little player. Yuck.

Who else are you going to blame!? I’m not blaming the hacker because there should measures to stop this. Anet has credit card information stored on file god forbid he stole that sorta information. So go ahead and feel bad, I don’t, i want to know what’s going to be done to keep my information safe. I’m sure Gaile Grey is a good person but consider the consequences if this continues to happen. I do appreciate mike at least acknowledging but what is going to be done to prevent this weather it be gw1 or gw2.

Figlilly.3907:

What a disgusting thing to happen to a lovely person. What sort of low life takes advantage of Gaile of all people? She is always so kind and helpful. You people blaming Anet security and the poor dupe who probably lost his/her job, consider the real culprit was one of us – a vile, nasty little player. Yuck.

Does not really matter who hacked the account, what matters is how they were able to get away with it. And yes that solely falls on Anets lack of security and the CSR that let it happen for not following policy.

Chaba.5410:

Game companies are not banks. There isn’t the same amount of risk involved. But the world is changing as is the nature of online gaming and your suggestion is a good one for them to consider.

Nope, that they are not. But Game companies often do store info such as Paypapl account info, CC info, home address, real names, birth dates…enough information for someone to steal your Identity if they wanted to.

But keep on thinking that Game companies don’t need similar level of security that you find at banks in today era of Technology.

Chaba.5410:

oshilator.4681:

I used to do CS for a large banking company in my area. We would occasionally have somebody call in & attempt to fraudulently gain control of a customers account. After the first attempt, notations would be made on the account to give the next CS rep a heads up. After the second attempt, the account would be marked as “Transfer to Fraud Dept Immediately” if the hacker called again and the account would be locked down. The customer would also be notified.

Long story short – At what point was Gaile notified and what, if any, actions were taken by your CS team to secure the account before it was compromised?

If this is how your CS team handles situations like this, then we have a problem.

Probably a few thousand problems.

Game companies are not banks. There isn’t the same amount of risk involved. But the world is changing as is the nature of online gaming and your suggestion is a good one for them to consider.

I’m well aware that they aren’t the same thing nor same amount of risk. But thanks for being condescending.

My point was, as others have said, the security measures in place aren’t working if all it takes is one CS rep not following the rules to compromise an account.

good work on the speedy update to let the community know what happened. also a good lesson to everyone to understand how important 2 factor authentication is

Smooth Penguin says he would like all rewards to be nerfed for a while so he can recover his losses from all the ecto he bought recently. Thanks.
See other thread – tee hee.

This won’t solve anything. It will alienate the loyalists, cause chaos for a couple of months, then be stuck with same issue.

You need to solve bandwaggoning.

medusashadow.3567:

Do me a favor and run mouth after the 2 months when db no longer link ok please.

So you’re saying you’ll be able to compete if you have a larger numerical advantage in two months…

Thelgar.7214:

TC had stacked their way to T1 and outnumbered pretty much everyone along the way. And then, while not linked, it was left open for transfers after the new linkings. Population isn’t it’s disadvantage.

DB is winning because it is playing to win – havoking, protecting its thirds, and maximizing the principles of mass, maneuver and economy of force.

You say that like TC weren’t in t1 for over 2 years before. Yeah they had dropped into t2 for a short period while guilds moved around, but after the first links it was enough to bring them back to t1 as JQ started to falter and then DB dropped out of t1 before they went back up to replace YB. DB has also been open for transfers longer than BG TC JQ, who got stacked again?

DB is winning because of coverage and probably more pug commanders (that’s kinda obvious by now isn’t it?), and yes pvding and back capping when they can. I say this as my main account is sitting on DB.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I logged into WvW recently, and saw something that boggles my mind. How exactly did DB overtake both TC and BG? Did World Linking give so much of a boost to them that they’ve become a juggernaut? That brings up a question of fairness, because Commanders on TC say that we weren’t linked with anyone, putting us at a disadvantage.

TC had stacked their way to T1 and outnumbered pretty much everyone along the way. And then, while not linked, it was left open for transfers after the new linkings. Population isn’t it’s disadvantage.

DB is winning because it is playing to win – havoking, protecting its thirds, and maximizing the principles of mass, maneuver and economy of force.

Thelgar.7214:

Azure Prower.8701:

Thelgar.7214:

Azure Prower.8701:

Thelgar.7214:

Azure Prower.8701:

If you have all the dyes. You can still salvage them for the scribe profession.

For less than 40 silver each…

And?

The dyes are account bound. Not like you could sell them any way.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

I’m sorry you can’t pick up the distinction of the birthday gift being something the player who gets it should enjoy. I bet you give kids one pair of socks for Christmas.

Some kids would be delighted to even receive a pair of socks for Christmas.

I guess the ones that aren’t happy are spoiled children and throw tantrums when ever they get some thing given to them.

Yeah, this is about poor children. Keep trying to make this out to be you claiming some kind of moral high ground rather than just trolling a thread with meaningless and inappropriate cliches.

You’re the one who started involving children with your flawed analogies.

Thelgar.7214:

The situation is one kid is getting a pair of socks that are too small to wear and the other kid getting a Playstation 4 – with no good reason for not correcting the discrepancy.

I didn’t know birthday presents were giving out dyes to some people and legendary armor to others. My mistake.

Muusic.2967:

Obtena.7952:

That’s not a problem though … I believe that’s the intent. If you want that XP to matter, you need to actively get the mastery points. It’s a way for Anet to encourage players to experience the game. If some XP is wasted in the process, so be it.

The problem with it is that for some of us it’s not that we don’t WANT go get the masteries, it’s a matter of not having the time to spend hours and hours building up obscene AR to get the fractal masteries or maybe we don’t have quite the special clique of friends to drag us through Raids and teach them to us. In my case I have been trying to finish the Aetherblade diving for my last point forever but due to the terrain at the top where you jump from it’s a completely blind jump.

That’s ALSO not a problem. Never will the game accommodate every player and their lifestyle. Not having time to do something is never a reason to change it so that every player can get everything they want.

Palador.2170:

Seera.5916:

While I disagree with Obtena on whether or not the spirit shards should be able to be earned before completing all mastery tracks, Obtena is right in saying that they can’t please everyone.

There will always be some content that one person will love but another person will hate.

What I’m disagreeing with is Obtena’s automatic dismissal of the idea simply because it’s being made in an attempt to open things up to everyone.

Obtena.7952:

Seriously, says the gaming industry. What game accommodates every player that wants something … none. It’s impossible to do.

Impossible to do doesn’t mean it’s not a goal worth working towards within reason. Nobody will ever make the “perfect” game, but every game developer tries to get as close as they can. Suggestions shouldn’t be dismissed just because they won’t be perfect.

That’s not why I dismissed the idea. There is little value in it. The complaint is that you have to DO something to ‘unlock’ XP being useful … in otherwords, people don’t want to do something to get something specific. I find that line of thinking … deplorable for any game. This isn’t choose your own adventure. It’s not a negotiation where you decide what you’re willing to do to get the things you want. it’s not ‘locked’ by anything but a person’s willingness to get something done.

Greener! You have done so much work on the Wiki! Thanks! I see your name everywhere there and just wanted to give you a shoutout specifically, so thanks again.

Sartharina.3542:

Obtena.7952:

Glacial.9516:

As Sartharina said, the problem is when you have more than enough exp for the Masteries, but not enough Mastery Points to acquire them. At that point your exp goes nowhere and is wasted until you are able to get enough mastery points to open up new masteries or you finish all of them.

That’s not a problem though … I believe that’s the intent. If you want that XP to matter, you need to actively get the mastery points.

In the meantime, I’d like to be able to earn Spirit Shards with XP. Because one of my HoT mastery tracks is locked behind a Raid that I tried and cannot beat a boss in to unlock. So now I have a lot of XP-earning stuff that does nothing at all.

We would like lots of things … that’s not how game design works though. There are lots of things in games that people can’t do as well; that doesn’t mean Anet should change it to accommodate those people. Having lots of XP earning stuff that does nothing is not a problem. I have lots of boosters I don’t need, etc …