Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Instead, I wonder if ANet can follow in the footsteps of gw2state.com and similar sites by creating a two-tier event overlay to go on the primary map.

• First tier: toggle on the event overlay on or off (default).
• Second tier: choose options for which events to display, for example:
  • Champion events.
  • Meta events.
  • Events active for more than 20 minutes.
  • Trait-unlocking events.

I suppose ANet could also add an option for display a list of upcoming timed events in the zone.

I think the overlay on the map screen with selectable options would provide everyone with enough freedom to display the info they wanted without creating a massive clutter for folks that prefer fewer things shown. It also doesn’t affect the main screen, so it’s not like you’d be in the midst of a battle and have a bunch of notifications pop up, blocking your view. As was stated, the more options the better, but that they should be options is most important of all.

I like making spreadsheets, so I’ve amassed quite a few of GW2-related sheets over the past several months. I’ve been converting them to Google Sheets so I can share them with the community.

I wasn’t sure whether I should make individual threads for each sheet, so here’s all of them in one post.

Cloth/Leather Salvaging Calculator

Back when I was salvaging cloth items for ascended crafting and luck, I used this sheet to let me know what prices I should be buying blue armor items for.

Asset Inventory Tracker

When I was trying to flip things months ago, I threw together this basic inventory tracker so I could remember what items I had ordered and what prices I planned to sell things for.

Insert new rows and copy/paste rows for new entries, and drag rows between sections to bring some order to your transactions.

Luck Calculator

This spreadsheet gives you information about the Luck grind from 0% (or wherever you’re at) to 300%. How much luck you accumulate per day, how long until your next level, how many blues/greens/ectos you would need to get to 300%, how many hours you’ll be clicking, all that fun stuff.

GW2Spidy library for Google Sheets

All these spreadsheets use this library to fetch information from GW2Spidy. If you want to use it in your own spreadsheets, it’s available too.

Ascended Crafting Tracker/Calculator

I already posted about this one in the Crafting forum, so go check it out over there.

Dungeon Skins Checklist

Not BLTP-related, so I posted this one in the dungeon forum, go check it out there.

If you have any questions, ideas, or whatever, let me know. I’ll have a few more up probably in the next day or two. Have fun with all the numbers!

(Note: Throughout this post ‘you’ is used in a general sense, not referring to any specific person. Technically I should be saying ‘one’ but that sounds insufferably pretentious.)

The idea of a secure password being one that’s a mess of letters, numbers and symbols is very out dated. These days it’s relatively rare for someone to ‘hack’ your password by guessing what it is. It does help a bit by increasing the number of possible passwords, but not much.

Unless you’re using one of the 100 most commonly used passwords (like abc123 qwerty or password) one password is as secure as any other. It’s how you use it that matters.

Here’s some common ways accounts can be hacked:

1. The same email and password combination is used elsewhere.
Particularly relatively unsecure websites like 3rd party forums. Most of these use the same software (phpBB, simple machines etc.) and most of these are open source, which means anyone who wants to can look at (and edit) the code. This makes them very vulnerable to having their databases (including account names and passwords) stolen. This is compounded by the fact that most of them are run by small groups of volunteer admins who need to update the software in their free time (which is a pain in the kitten to do, especially if you’re not that familiar with the process) so they may not even be using the latest security.

If you’re using the same email and password for everything then once they’ve gotten the details for one of your accounts they’ve got them all. And often the type of site can tell them a lot about where you’re likely to have accounts. For example if they got their list of emails and passwords from an MMO forum they’ll sell it to gold sellers to try on MMOs and odds are a lot of them will work.

2. Using virtually identical passwords
If your password for one site/game is ‘mypassword101’ and your password for a 2nd is ‘mypassword102’ then you’re effectively using the same password for both. It’s such an obvious, incredibly common approach that it’s the first thing any hacker will try if your password has a number in it and their first attempt doesn’t work.

3. Key loggers and other phishing software
This is software that’s installed on your computer without you knowing, often because it’s hidden in another download from dodgy websites. It tracks what you do and sends all of it (or if it’s well written the useful bits) to the person who created the program. Useful bits being things like programs and websites you log into and the passwords you used to do so.

You can protect your computer by installing and using up to date anti-virus and anti-spyware programs. (Using in bold because I wish I had £1 for every person I know who installs an antivirus, disables it because it keeps saying there’s updates and then never uses it again, then blames the program when they get a virus.)

You can also protect yourself by being careful about logging in to sites and programs from other peoples computers. My mum uninstalled Spybot because it stopped her free IE tool bars from working. That was the day I stopped using her computer to log into any site where I wanted to keep my account.

4. Using the same password for your email
This should be less of an issue because most email providers are relatively secure (compared to things like 3rd party forums) but it still means you’ve removed a layer of security. If you’re using the same password for your email account and your other accounts they don’t even have to try using the ’I’ve forgotten my password’ option, they’ve got everything in one go.

thaooo.5320:

How many more thousands of feedback do we need to give ANet?

Has ANet seriously not taken on board ANYTHING?

In 2 years there has been 3 small changes and 1 big change which was EOTM which didn’t even add anything to WvW, it added to PvE.

Nobody asked for orbs to return, it gives more power to the stacked servers. ANet brought those back despite community outcry.

Nobody asked for an insignificant PvE karma train map. ANet made this on its own.

When will the players matter to ANet?

How many more years will it take for ANet to provide WvW with a dedicated and passionate dev team?

We can only give you suggestions so many times before we simply stop caring like ANet stopped caring about WvW 2 years ago.

It’s attitude like this that doesn’t help at all.

There’s always something that can be improved. We wanted a new map for the longest time. They gave us EotM and it’s brilliant. It is a beautiful and really well designed map. Is the fact that people turned it into a karma farm Anets fault? Maybe partially due to the high incentive structure, but it is also the players fault as well for bandwagonning that. There’s nothing preventing you WvW guilds from going in there every now and then and owning face.

I personally would love to see a map like this in actual WvW. Someone else made a thread asking for a city map. I thought that was brilliant. I think if you had one more, tri-balanced, city map, then you could get rid of the boarderlands and just keep EB, put EotM in WvW proper, and the new map. Keep EotM as a duplicate overflow map as well.

But more importiantly, it did help alleviate que times which we were complaining about for the longest time. Not only that, but they actually did implement a system that give you your approcimate wait time, so now, we don’t have to stare at our screen for 15 minutes or 2 hours or whatever. EotM also got the super casual player out of WvW, a welcome addition for me as I want people who care about PPT, people who are geared for fights, people who will get into TS.

They improved server preformance drastically since launch. I myself experience almost 0 lag and I play at highest settings. I do understand that there are still many who experience lag, and I’m sure that Anet is working towards making that better eventually. But compare that to what it was like at launch and it’s night and day.

They got rid of culling.

They put in a system to get armor and weapons for badges. OK, it’s a really lame system as all the gear is just karma gear from around the world, and it does cost a little gold, and some of the stat choices are missing. One huge, huuuuuuuuge grip for me here is since they got rid of transmutation stones, all this gear is worthless. But, they did put in a system.

I am by no means an Anet fan boy. Heck, look at my signature. It’s just that the attitude of Anet sucks, they do nothing, when actually, they have, bothers me. If I put myself in their shoes, and I read something like this, I’d just gloss over, and probably start speeding past the rest of the threads. Yes, I feel they could be doing better. Yes, I think they should be listening more and focusing on what the players want rather than what they think we might enjoy.

This thread seems stuck in a loop around semantics.

The issue is not that crafting stations etc were removed. Of course they’re available elsewhere.

What has been removed is convenience.
No longer is everything in one place, we have to accept additional 3-minute loading screens to travel between cities. No longer are there waypoints close to every important service, there’s only one in the middle and it demands coins.
Driving the point home is the fact that today is a “Daily Laurel Vendor” and “Daily Mystic Forge” day. It’s just a waste of the player’s time.

Is that acceptable? Considering the old promises of “having fun instead of preparing to have fun”, I’d say it goes against the core principles of the game. I like the vigil camp as a storytelling device, but at no point does the story dictate the removal of important services from the hub area.

Now the airship ticket is a convenience item. Which is what the BLTC is about, and the Terrace Pass was an acceptable addition.

What many players seem to take take offence at is the combination of removing convenience and selling it back for gems. Some people seem to be fine with it. To others, it feels like extortion.

If we could focus the discussion around that, instead of pointing out locations of crafting stations or reminding that the same item was already offered under entirely different circumstances, I think this thread would be more productive. Is it ok to remove convenience from the game? Is selling back the removed convenience for gems covered by the BLTC’s premise of covering convenience and style only?

Then again, what matters to ANet isn’t whether some people complain or not, but how many of the tickets they sell. If you don’t like the policy, don’t buy the item.

Okay. There has been a bunch of chatter about drop rates, and what exactly will drop from heavy moldy bags. This started with a discussion about the Immobulous recipe requiring 250 giant eyes (ridiculously difficult to get) and spun into other threads.

People were stating how many hours they played the game and what they had gotten (x precursors, x dyes, et al).

I had some extra gold and decided to take a stab at a bunch of heavy moldy bags. I bought 1500 of them, the cost was approximately 87 gold, just a handful of silver over. For full disclosure, I have 2246 hours in game over 344 days.

The bags themselves contained 45 silver and all of the following mats, including three giant eyes!! (I included an overlay of my bank tab to show my existing giant eyes, I have 6 now, 9 total since starting GW2) I have put everything but the giant eyes onto the TP to see if I gained money, lost money or broke even. I will post a follow up once everything has sold.

Super big thanks to Wanze for reminding me that the scroll wheel can be re-mapped to a macro…..my hand would be dead otherwise.

Neural.1824:

Corpus Christi.2057:

It is not forbidden to farm. Ask for explanation and supporting evidence of you “botting”, otherwise, if none is provided, demand exculpation.

Anet will pretty much laugh at that. It’s their game, and therefore their way or the highway unfortunately, and they like the “highway” option, especially when someone might be getting ahead.

It is 100% allowed to farm and there is no limit to the amount of farming (although you can be hit by diminishing returns).

It might happen that you are identified as a botter. The process of identifying has three steps.
a: Your account is flagged suspiccious. This can be done by another player who thinks you are a bot or by ‘bot-detection’ software.
b: A GM will evaluate the evidence against you and in the case the outcome is that you have been botting you are suspended.
c: at this point you can appeal the decission.

Anet will never provide evidence. The first reason is that they dont have to. The terms of service is very clear that Anet can suspend an account without any reason (though they never will). The second reason is that the evidence would learn bot-writers how to bypass the filters and avoid detection.

Some have claimed that they have been falsely accused of botters. Of those who appealed and got a negative final answer, I never saw any evidence they didn’t bot. The people botting can easily say as well that Anet is wrong and they profit from putting Anet in a bad corner. The amount of people making these claims do make me suspect the latter. This situation is very very rare.

So, after the creation of the signet heal, I thought quite jokingly “What about a full signet mesmer!”. Then..it sat in the back of my mind, and I finally decided to try it. The only way I saw it to work was the pair it with phantasms, with the Signet of Illusions.

Link1, Passive: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAR8anUEFQbDNK0wWjkw8hefmB0jOpCuukCcvbA-j0BBYgCyUEA0HQUJwZnFRjVZDT9iIqGA-w
Link 2, Active: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgQQNAR8anUEFQbDNK0wWjkw8hefmB0jOpCuukCcvbA-jkCBYfCyUEA0HQUJwZnFRjtmpIas6aYaXBR9KyqYoCBEaCA-w

Utilities:
Signet of the Ether: Great passive and active heal, see traits for what else it can provide when traited
Signet of Inspiration: Lots of boons to keep you beefy. This will help keep you alive while you kite your enemies!
Signet of Illusions: Make your phantasms harder to kill, with the option to recharge any shatter skills you might want (I’m looking at you distortion!!)
Signet of Midnight: Allows you to keep your boons longer, and the AoE blind is very useful against melee opponents who get a bit too close. The stun break is also invaluable.
Elite: Mass Invis. I’ve found this is a great reset skill, since you will be able to heal while invis, and get off at least 1 phantasm while in stealth. If properly timed you can get off both your phantasms while still in stealth and healing up.

Traits:
Dom: 10 (Signet mastery)
Duel: 20 (Duel II, Duel VIII)
Chaos: 15 (Chaos IV)
Inspir: 25 (Inspir IV, V)

Explaination:
Domination: It was pretty obvious to take the signet mastery. It turns our new signet heal into one that can be used fairly often with a 28 second CD (Not bad for a ~6k heal)
Dueling: Dueling 2 gives your phantasms fury, which is great for that initial burst. Dueling 8 gives you a 1 second distortion whenever you use your signets. 4 seconds of signet distortion is very useful!
Chaos: I use this trait line purely for Illusionary Defense. With 3 illusions out nearly constantly, you take ~10% less damage. It makes you very very beefy. The gaining protection on regeneration is also very helpful since it will proc a free protection when your Signet of Inspiration gives you regen. Free boons are always good!
Inspiration: This line provides THREE very helpful benefits. First, Mender’s Purity now means your signet heal will not only give you the passive heal and 8k active heal, but also give you distortion AND remove 2 conditions! Inspiration V will also provide your phantasms more health, which when combined with Signet of Illusions gives your phantasms 70% more health. Finally the grandmaster trait will increase your phantasm damage by 15%. For FREE you also get retal on your phantasms, and your phantasms will proc regeneration on any allies!

Weapons:
I am currently using a GS+ s/p. The GS and pistol phantasms are great for damage. The iBerserk will also cripple your enemies making it much easier to kite them, while it and the duelist chew your enemy down. Sword is used for the leap and the blur. The GS has a prec stacking sigil . The sword has a sigil of luck, and the pistol a sigil of purity for more condi removal. All weapons have knight’s stats in the passive build, zerker in the active build.

Armor/Trinkets:
I’ve found that Knight’s gear and PTV trinkets works really well for the passive! Runes of Resistance are great to use, since you get the aegis whenever you pop a signet. When you pop a signet, you get distortion (evade all attacks) and aegis (block an attack that might get through).
For the active build, it uses a combination of knights gear with zerker/knights/cavalier trinkets. This increases your damage output quite a bit, though it also removes a chunk of your vit. However, if you are active and dpsing faster this should not be an issue. Centaur runes allow you to keep up pressure with stronger attacks, better bleeds, and more in combat mobility with swiftness.

Variations:
Click here!

In general, you are supposed to report in game and the best time is when it happened. Reporting through a support ticket is not normally the way to do it as they will then need to search for the correct game logs. In this particular case, if it was me, I would use a ticket since the incident will be several days old and they will have to search for the game logs anyway. This way you can give details as to the date, time and map.

However the person you are talking about probably got a suspension already. When they reviewed the chat logs when you were reported, they would have seen the other players remarks also. In addition, Gaile said on your thread that the players name was being reviewed already.