Guild Wars 2

Djinn.9245:

I think that the people arguing that the instance is perfectly fine are suffering from a case of “I saw the answer instantly and therefore it must be obvious to everyone” syndrome. Different people understand situations differently, so what is obvious to one person may not be obvious to another. Telling the people who aren’t getting it that the situation is perfectly obvious isn’t helpful. If enough people aren’t getting it, then it’s not a problem with THEM.

This is a common problem with walkthroughs though.

I often find if I look up instructions on something it will have an absurd level of detail for something I thought was obvious and then one sentence for the part I’m stuck on. Then I find another guide and it’s the complete opposite, it skips the part I thought was easy and explains the part I’m struggling with.

Ideally of course a walkthrough will explain everything clearly so each person can find the part/s they need. (Can you imagine if instructions for installing a program started with “Once the launcher comes up…” because the person writing it assumed everyone knows they need to put the CD in first and what to do if their computer doesn’t auto-run?) But most walkthroughs aren’t written by professionals.

Zeivu.3615:

Wow, I thought most people hated that skin….

They don’t hate the skin. They hate the fact that it shows through the back of your head.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It makes sense that the OP would want to submit a support ticket with the details (date+time, item name, prices|history, and screenshots to document). All the same, it won’t be something that ANet would respond to quickly.

Also, Anet does not discuss the outcome of any investigations, if there is any response it will be along the lines of “thank you for submitting your report,” and you will not be told if the reported user was a bot or not, if it was banned or any such info.

This website (http://qtfy.enjin.com/builds) is what you should be referencing for all up-to-date raid builds and rotations. This page (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4v76gq/qt_updated_guides_and_dps_benchmarks_for_all/) has the full DPS benchmarks for every relevant build and class right now.

Seera.5916:

Sometimes humans force two species who have similar features to breed. Such as horses and donkeys to make mules. Mules are typically sterile and can’t breed with each other when they are fertile (there are rare cases of fertile mule females being able to breed with a pure horse or a pure donkey). And the mating of a donkey and horse doesn’t always produce a viable offspring either.

So it’s not completely true that two different species can’t breed and produce a viable offspring. That offspring will just likely be infertile.

So Norn and Humans could likely produce a viable offspring to some degree, but it likely wouldn’t be fertile except maybe with other pure Norn and Humans. Sylvari likely would have a more plant like reproduction and would therefore not be able to reproduce with the other species given their other types of reproduction.

Charr and Asura would likely not be able to successfully reproduce with any other species given the differences between them and Norn and Humans and each other.

Your argument is flawed when you compare horses/donkey to humans/norns

Horses and donkeys can produce mules because they share a common ancestor and still are closely related enough that they are not completely separated into incompatibility. Basically they are not yet completely separated into 2 species. Species separation can take hundreds of thousands of generations and with horses/donkeys, they are still in the process of separation.

Norns and humans do not share a common ancestor. Norns come from Kodans and humans aren’t even native to Tyria but are from another planet. Therefore they are completely different species and always have been different species.

The fractal dailies are on a fixed 2 week rotation:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists#Daily_Schedule

with 15 different islands, 3 per day and 14 days and desiring an equal spread 12 islands have to be 3 times per rotation, 3 only 2 times per rotation.
Swamp is in the 3 times per rotation category, only Thaumanova, Volcanic and Underground Facility are in the 2 per rotation category.
(your 3/week is off unless you mean combined)

TL;DR:
Your laptop is probably bottlenecked on the CPU end… not directly at the GPU, this said 630M is no gaming solution either….

Long stories:

For GPU (Graphics Card/Solution):

• A 630M peformance index on PassMark is 675 and is about 3 times Guild Wars 2 minimum requirement being a Geforce 7800 (GTX @ 225, GT @ 193 and GS I @182 passmark).
• The 7800GS was even produced with a AGP buss a long time ago… with 256Mb or 512 Mb of ram.
• The screen matters, the 7800 series was made with resolutions of 800*600 (480 K pixels 1024*768 (820Kpixels) and 1280*960 pixels (1.2M pixels) in mind. Not resolutions of 1600*900 (1.4Mpixels) or 1920*1080…(2M pixels)
• And as such a 7800 GTX would perform on 800*600 or 1024*768 as a 630M will perform on a 1600*900 or a 1920*1080 given all other ardware and bs capabilities woud be the same.

For CPU (Processor)
Facts:

• Most cheaper Laptops use i3 or i5 processors with 2 cores, sometimes hyperthreaded allowing for 4 threads,
• These 4 Hyperthreaded threads are not actual cores so core computing power needs to be shared to allow 4 threads.
• There are i5’s with 4 real cores, most i7’s also have 4 cores, they’ll provide more performance.
• Most of the performance is limited per clockspeed… roughly said total computing capability of a laptop is clockspeed multiplied by the numer of threads.
• In case of gw2 the requirements are such the game-engine is limited to 2 game threads and needs 1 support thread……
• This said 2 basic threads or 2 cores will bottleneck the game somewhere, but having more then 4 cores or hyperthreading on these cores will not substanttially improve performance with the gw2 engine as it is now at this time (sept 2016)
• The forementiones kept in our minds we can say CLOCKSPEED is the only requirement for gw2 on recent PC’s & Laptops.
• This leaves the fact most CPU’s made for mobile platforms have lower power usage and lower clockspeeds to allow for better battery efficiency (comparable to undervolting high end Systems, whcih tends to produce less heat and less power usage AND less need for cooling.
• Cooling being an interesting thing to look at as cooling is achieved through air flow which is restricted in the slim casing of many if not all notebooks.
• The high hardware resource requirements of games mean CPU’s and GPU’s are causing a high load on used components and those components taxed a lot consequently are producing a lot of heat.
• Hotter hardware nowadays is downthrottled to allow lower heat production, AND causes lower PERFORMANCE. (As such undervolted systems tend to run in turbo mode more stable and longer allowing for a performance boost, this goes for OC-able GPU’sand CPU’s alike)
• Laptops tend to get dirty on the inside due to dust and dirt accumelating in the ventilatio ducts inside the laptop case. Due to the confined space this will hamper cooling a lot, with thee unfortunate but logical problem a small case is alsodifficult to clean.

• I cannot look inside your Laptop from afar, but things like AV, and other applications can really slow down a computer, even more when the computer isn’t the high end workbeast.
• Unneccesary software taxes the hardware of your PC further, allowing for less performance still….
• So if you want to maximize performance, do not multitask, or use a clean boot, and -only- run gw2, and your -needed- drivers, if you are lucky you can fit in TS3 or discord and a maybe a browser window….

Gw2 itself:
*As for ingame settings run low(est) settings

• change the camera settings to give yourself the smallest viewarea (you can minimize this with the sliders)
• make sure you have 1 level of postprocessing above minimum, (shows circes and mechanics)
• make sure reflections are terrain and sky only (MAX!),
• no shadows
• limit character limit to minimum and quality to 1 level above minimum….
  In the end you should get a playable framerate.

• for gForce-driver:*
  Make sure your computer uses the 630 and it is set up for maximum performance in your settings…

With regard to the 60FPS
I have a i7 hex core OC-ed @ 4.0 Ghz with 2 GTX 780’s (stock)(passmark 8017 each) in SLi with 32 Gb or Ram and so on and I’m limited to 35-45 FPS in cities and events(and WvW) can bottleneck it even further, Max framerate is around 125-140 FPS but this is by no means standard or representative in maps while mapping I could be around 85-105 FPS but I cap it at 60 to reduce load.

Yes: My system is on high settings, supersampling and with multiple applications running but the System has enough capability to run all this simultaneously.

just for the idea some other comparison numbers for GPU’s
- Highest passmark gaming cards: Geforce 1080: 12164 (approx $600/piece)
- Previous generation high gaming: Geforce 980: 9734 (approx $420)
- Highest mobile gaming: Geforce 1080M
- Previous generation mobile gaming: Geforce 980M: 5584

for affordable cards
- Affordable gaming card Geforce 1060: 9371 (Approx $200)<- compare this with 980 above)
- Previous generation gaming Geforce 960: 5913 (approx $170)
- Affordable mobile gaming: Geforce 1060M: ????
- Previous generation mobile gaming: Geforce 965M: 2935
- Affordable previous generation mobile gaming: Geforce 960M: 1163

Haven’t found numbers for 1060M,1070M,1080M

The numbers are taken from Nvidia GPU’s as I tend to see way more Nvidia mobile GPU’s in gaming laptops then I see AMD solutions. Intel solutions are improving but still not really suited to Gaming, though it is not impossible.

For GW2 on phone: do you have 10 thumbs?

1. You would only need to craft the precursor to unlock all the achievements, not craft the whole legendary. If you’re that hell-bent on doing it you could craft it and then sell it.

2. It’s 9 AP with no title or additional collections and achievements tied to it. Don’t bother.

3. Yes it’s intentional. The point of this was to provide a one-time, zero RNG, gradual crafting process for precursors. Not to placate achievement kitten.

PyrateSilly.4710:

Because Steam wants 30% (if I remember the number right) of every transaction.

That’s the reason.

It’s not just 30% of ‘box’ sales either. Every single time Steam players buy gems, or in-game upgrades like HoT (if you bought it through the game) Steam takes 30% of that as well.

It’s not a terrible trade-off if you’re an indie developer who doesn’t have any other way to get their game out there and get people to hear about it, or if you can otherwise afford to lose that money.

But for an established studio like Anet with a large publishing company (NCSoft) behind them there is very little benefit and potentially a lot of lost revenue in putting their game on Steam.

With GW1 it’s not as much of an issue because it’s not being developed any more and even their own website has discounted it. Outside of that you’re most likely to find copies in the bargin bin, if at all.

During the first beta where Ascalon Catacombs was available many people declared it incredibly difficult (and remember this was the old ‘easy’ version) and were either declaring it hardcore end-game content that most players are not supposed to be able to finish (at least not easily) or reassuring each other that it’s just because it hadn’t been properly play tested and it would be nerfed for launch.

It wasn’t nerfed, but once players got more familiar with combat mechanics generally and that dungeons specific quirks it became a lot easier to do. I’m not sure about the other permanent dungeons (wasn’t following public opinion that closely) but I know the same happened with Canach – at first a lot of people found it incredibly difficult but with practice it was possible to work out tricks and techniques that made it easy.

I suspect the same will happen here. Once people have had more time to play around with it and learn and share what works it won’t be nearly as bad.

Hello hello,

Just dropping this off here. A project I’ve spent over 250 hours with for the past month.

http://tinyurl.com/OOPSLAW

What?
Near pixelperfect World Completion routes. The few exceptions of where it’s not exactly on point is where I had to draw a bit further away to avoid clutter.

How?
First I needed to get the maps. This is a lot more tedious than one may think since caves are not showing. To get that I had to manually walk into each cave and [screenshot, paste, cut, repeat] (I also had to make sure no vendors or my own character arrow was showing).

Once the maps were done it was time to make the actual routes. I started by Comparing the old maps (Dark Ronins) and gw2timer.com and then made my own route using those two as a template. Now it was time for the actual playing, where I did run the actual path as I filled it in using Photoshop on a second monitor (having the decided path on a third). Once that was done I logged another character and tested my route (quality control) to check if there was anything that were missed / overlooked.

If everything was alright it was time for the final polishing. I were working on multiple layers, to highlight if a path crosses with another one, this let me show which one is after (highest) or it could also be based on altitude (gliding above a running path). Also the first dot in a Waypoint path is on a layer above the default one. This is also where Spacers and Gliding Start indicators are added and finally the Oopsy Watermark!

Why?
Because no one else did this. There are older maps posted (which also gave me the idea). Not only are they outdated but also not optimized like mine. Then there’s gw2timer.com, a mess unlike any other. Neither do these two guides abuse Waypoints/Launch Pads or highlight Gliding paths.

Trivia

• The whole project has taken somewhere between 250-300 hours to complete.
• I started this around July 16th.
• The character(s) I used to make (and test) this were Engineers.

Don’t hesitate to contact me in-game for questions and/or please do let me know if Anet makes changes that affect this guide. I will keep it updated as long as I play GW2. If you feel like supporting me, I only accept in-game gold.

Hope you’ll enjoyed it!

thanks Danikat.8537 for the paragraphs, you’re a lifesaver!

now that I can read it, I find myself agreeing heavily with the post. great post OP!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I suppose. Seems a bit of overkill to use a L40 Scroll on a key farmer. /shrug

You use that scroll when you want to do a Super Key Farm and farm both the level 10 and level 30 keys at the same time. It’s twice the keys for twice the disappointment profit!

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

The wiki has drop-rate research for BLC keys by map completion: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_completion/Drop_Rate

It’s around a 25% chance of getting a key… and you don’t get them for the starter cities (or southsun cove, according to the wiki). Of those 16 maps, how many were starter cities?

Sometimes RNG just sucks.

If there’s a 25% chance of a key per map and you complete 16 maps, you’ve got a 19.7% chance of getting no more than two keys. http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial.aspx

So, this is a perfectly likely event; humans are just bad at statistics shouldn’t trust their gut feelings on what is likely or not. In particular, we expect much less variance than most random systems actually provide. That is, you will get results far away from the average much more often than you expect.

Go to your applications, and click on the guild wars 2 icon and select “Show package contents” —> “Contents” —> “MacOS” —>"cider". when you run it like that it runs it through the terminal, and the client will show and run, only thing is you will likely have to start it open using that cider.exe every time u play. Thats worked for me when the window doesn’t want to show, hope it helps till the new client comes out.

Lemuria.3195:

They count towards map completion. It gives you more reason to explore the area outside of just passing through, and encourages players to gather in certain areas to complete them.

If you need the extra prodding from a heart to go explore did you really want to explore in the first place? If someone wants to explore why does there need to be an additional excuse?

Areas with hearts are often hotzones of activity for players.

Only initially. Once most people are done then it becomes a dead zone unless there are other things happening around it … like events.

Did you attune or infuse the ring? There’s been an issue where by doing so, you can’t change the stats. AFAIK it hasn’t been fixed.

It is intentional. Mystic forging always destroys items and creates completly new ones.

Change default browser to “the one you need it to be”

Justine.6351:

Ayrilana.1396:

DGraves.3720:

Since Karma is an account-wide currency why do we still have to open the containers to receive the karma? That’s pointless clicking. Just have the karma be attained on acquire.

Clicking the item and seeing it being acquired provides a greater sense of reward to a player than it automatically going into their wallet.

Laughed for 10 seconds. That’s just embarrassing to read. Its karma, the stuff people get millions of with the only real easy sink being orrian jewelry boxes which sadly give lots and lots of karma potions.

Well it’s true whether you find it embarrassing or not.

Linken.6345:

They should cut the next expansion team totaly and deliver what this expansion was sold as, then take back those developers when its done to work in second expansion.

Let me understand this logic. In the midst of a near-year-long content drought (not including raids), that resulted in the lowest numbers in their business history, you would rather ANet drop any further work on PvE content, to include an expansion, to instead focus on legendary weapons?

I see.

Well . . . I’m glad you’re not the president of ArenaNet.

I think some are confusing agreeing with a decision personally and agreeing that it is a good long term decision for the company.

Overall the number of players who would have bought HoT based on the legendary weapons is likely small. Comparatively speaking.

They were between a rock and a hard place. Continue working on legendary weapons and lose a majority of players to lack of new content (including some who would want those legendary weapons). Postpone legendary weapons to work on new content and lose a small portion of players.

As for me, while the new legendary weapons were not a draw for me the next expansion pack will either need to blow me out of the water based on feedback I hear from the betas or they will have needed to gotten back on track with or have finished releasing the HoT legendary weapons. And none of the HoT legendary weapons should require anything from any future expansion packs.

It is entirely possible to hate a decision a company makes and understand why it was done.

Just as a historical note, The Twice Told Legend was added to the game because there didn’t used to be a wardrobe. Back then if you wanted two identical legendaries such as double wielding quip or double wielding frostfang, you literally had to make that legendary twice. When the wardrobe was put in the game that work of making a second identical legendary was made almost completely redundant. The title was put in as a small consolation prize to those people who did all that work before there were wardrobes.

Earlier in the thread I linked to an MMOGAMES article on 5 tiers of Pay to Win. I’ll summarize them here.

• Convenience Items – these include boosters, inventory slots and the like. Even the author acknowledges that most players don’t see this as Pay to Win. For GW2, most players consider these items as either way overpriced for convenience, like the perma-gathering tools, salvage kits, gathering nodes or the passes to hubs like the airship; or they are worthless drops from BLC like boosters, express contacts, revive orbs. Only a few like bank, bag and collection slots are popular convenience items.
• Subscriptions – Since GW2 doesn’t have these this doesn’t apply to us. Many so called F2P games offer subscriptions but under the name Gold tier or VIP.
• Content Check – Many F2P games lock off content from it’s F2P players, offering access as a perk to their “not a subscription” VIP tier or as a one time fee just like a paid expansion in a non-F2P game as ours. Of course this means WoW is also “Pay to Win” and pretty much any MMO that ever sells expansions, like GW2.
• Buying Gold – Well can’t deny we don’t have this but as I stated earlier that as long as RMT companies exist, a player can buy in game currency in every popular MMO, at risk and any game officially offering this simply wants a cut of the money players are already spending with the lure being risk free but at a lower exchange rate. In GW2 gold can be often used to short cut time-gated material crafting as well as acquiring ultra rare (tiny supply/huge demand) items like precursors, legendaries, limited available minis, etc.
• Purchased Power – direct selling of more powerful gear that can only be acquired with cash. GW2 doesn’t have this. This is what most players think of when the phrase “Pay to Win” is tossed around.

Let the nitpicking begin.

i find it funny that peoplewho logged in for a few month and then stopped playing , suddenly come out and rant about something he missed… i mean, why do you care about what you missed ? just play the content you have, you’ll be going in a few month anyway…

BUY-2046 PFR’s Challenge #103

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists_

Complete that achievement and it should open up to you.