Guild Wars 2

the daily achievement point system is working as intended.
5 / 5 dailies for most people.
the minority who wishes to grind, can grind.

no pain, no gain.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday pushing things back further than anticipated, the page will go live tomorrow.

Sorry for the confusion.

understandable, thanks for the heads up!

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday pushing things back further than anticipated, the page will go live tomorrow.

Sorry for the confusion.

thanks for the reply Mark

Fiery Greatsword is an inferior utility? In what universe?

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Yeah in Caledon there are fern pups. So cute! But no mini yet

They’re in Caledon
Tummies showing, hearts floating
My heart floated too.

As many people would say, it really depends. Some months I find myself tossing 20 euro or more (constant subscription would be 15 euro in the Europe regions) on different kind of stuff. Sometimes i just make gifts. And there are those months that I don’t give a dime. But I’m generally trying to pay at least 10 euro every 2 months. Regardless if I need the gems or not. I just love ANet’s pricing policy and this is my way of showing support. It’s my opinion and I’m not entitling anyone with it.

Play the way you enjoy the game!

I spend about $5-$10 a month on gems, so it is less than a sub game. Not only is it cheaper, but I can pay when I want.

These stones with writing on them are fundamental to Asuran architecture. Very, very common

It was always meant to be that way, after 30 points its nothing but titles.

Also, getting 50 points gives you 500 achievement points.

The impression I was left with was that any ranks after 30 would be titles only. There was never any intention of adding gear or skin rewards past that. Even their own skill calculator would say you had unlocked every skin at 30/50.

Sorry, man. I dunno what to tell ya.

Arenanet has eight different healing skills implemented for the next release. I assume that each class can buy its own skill. I can’t see any laziness in this implementation.

style.6173:

5. The tag should be account bound

i think nobody is thinking about the downsides to this. there are some commanders most of my server will not follow but i don’t know their alts. I would rather it stay character bound so that i don’t have to get wiped a few times to realize how bad the commander is I can just recognize the name.

Ive only done maybe 12 fractals, but I havent gotten either of those. Just unlucky I think

I spend only game gold on gems, and I would not even consider playing a game with a subscription.

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

Peetee.9406:

It’s business.

Unlike GW1 which was a truly unique and beautiful game, this game is very similar to every other of it’s genre on the market. While this game beats all it’s competition on the current market, it probably won’t beat future releases. Wildstar and EverQuest Next are taking the best features from this game and launching with a engine not nearly as restrictive.

The game is on the descent and is only going to bleed more players as time passes. They understand that and that’s why they’re trying to make as much money as they can now. Any major update that the players want is not going to happen. They’d never recoup their investment back.

It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just how this genre operates these days. MMOs get about a one year life cycle where they try to make as much money as possible before shoveling up and going on life support.

I would agree with that if they didn’t plan to launch in Asia next year. I think right now there just putting fillers in so that way once the game does release in Asia they can have all the markets on the same page when it comes to updates and content.

I just found the one in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. I double-dog-dared a Norn to lick it.

He’s probably still there.

There wont be much difference climbing the leaderboards you will still be paired with zergers along with 4v5. Your best bet is to find a team and do team queues

I can’t say I ever feel forced to buy anything. I do buy some items now and then, because I want to. You should never do anything against your will, in my opinion, anyway.

Lv. 48: Tainted Renewal – Regeneration, protection, and vigor have unintended effects. (Regeneration becomes poison, protection becomes vulnerability, vigor becomes weakness.)

This is much more interesting than its condition counterpart — Ill and Chill (Lv. 38) — because it hits all classes and particularly impacts the berserker metagame by reducing survivability that isn’t attached to traits and armor. But this instability hits a really nice sweet spot in which it’s not impactful enough to require gear changes but still notable enough to cause a player to pick up a few traits or utility skills that otherwise remain dormant.

Lv. 49: Stamina – Outgoing damage is reduced when endurance is low.

This is essentially a better version of Lethargic (Lv. 42). By giving players the option of dealing with less endurance or less damage based on how they manage their roles, the instability manages to avoid becoming an overly burdensome damage or survivability throttle. It essentially punishes mistakes that force a roll by causing the player to deal less damage, but it also rewards players who are attentive enough to only roll when necessary. That’s the kind of decision-making that instabilities should encourage.

Another bonus: It boosts condition builds because they’re not affected by the damage reduction.

Lv. 40: Agonizing Expedition – You are frequently afflicted with agony.

I like how this plays as a gear check and warning for those beginning to progress through the 40s. There are just two issues: First, it’s pretty uninteresting; it doesn’t change fights at all because the right group will just equip enough agony resist to negate it. Second, it fails as a gear check because it’s easy to simply skip lv. 40 once a few people beat it legitimately.

To be honest, I think this instability is how agony should work in the first place. Agony resist is supposed to be a crucial factor in how players progress through fractals, but it can be largely ignored because it’s only unavoidable in the boss tier.

Lv. 41: Playing Favorites – Untargeted enemies take half damage.

Although it’s a damage throttle, I like this instability because it goes against the berserker melee train metagame by making it much more difficult to stack and AOE clumped-up mobs. It also indirectly boosts condition builds because conditions are not affected by the instability in any way.

So if damage throttles are going to exist, this is how they should be done. Don’t just make them blanket reductions in damage; make them interesting mechanics that can be and have to be played around.

Lv. 42: Lethargic – Reduced endurance regeneration.

This instability adds a huge layer of challenge to all PvE encounters, which justifies it in its own right. But it’s also compelling because it makes it much more difficult to run a glass cannon build, which, as we all know, are all too popular in the berserker metagame.

The issue is that no one is going to realistically change out gear to become tankier when ascended gear, which is needed for agony resist, is so difficult to come by. So while this could actually encourage tankier builds for one fractal level, I have my doubts that it will actually do that because most people will simply tough it out and accept the extra challenge instead of changing out gear.

Lv. 43: Bloodlust – Combat is agonizing. Get a kill for relief. (You take increasing damage each time you hit an enemy, based on your health. A single tick is 0.1 percent of your max health. Each hit causes one tick.)

This is easily the worst instability in the game. It is nothing but a damage throttle. All it does is require people to slow down their damage to avoid dying. That doesn’t add depth to gameplay; it just makes bosses unnecessarily longer and uninteresting chores in kiting.

Lv. 44: Overextended – Take damage on critical hits. (The damage seems to scale with maximum HP; mostly moves between 400-900 damage.)

The exact same problems apply to this instability as Bloodlust, but this one also adds the unnecessary gear issues that surface with Lethargic.

Lv. 45: Frosty – Periodically leave a patch of chilling frost.

This discourages stacking, and can force even good groups to change up how they approach encounters, much like Stormy Weather (Lv. 35).

One issue in terms of progression is that this seems notably weaker than Stormy Weather because the lightning strike effect is much stronger, even though Stormy Weather causes only one lightning strike while Frosty drops scattered chilled bombs. So it might be a good idea to switch Frosty and Stormy Weather in terms of fractal levels.

Lv. 46: Social Awkwardness – Nearby allies reduce your healing effectiveness.

One of my favorite instability effects. It does everything to discourage the current metagame and stacking, particularly because it makes reviving so much more difficult. (In effect, only one or two can revive a teammate.)

My main concern is that it disproportionately affects some encounters far too much. In cliffside, the hallway players must stand in to destroy the two seals effectively requires stacking, which is made close to impossible by Social Awkwardness. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if there were other means to tackling this encounter, but the hallways is the only realistic approach.

Lv. 47: Antielitism – Elite skills cause death.

This could be interesting by forcing some team compositions to change up skills so they can adjust to not using certain elite skills. For example, a group with a warrior and necromancer might make the necromancer pick up Signet of Undeath to make up for the warrior’s lack of a Battle Standard.

The problem is elite skills are too seldom useful or interesting in PvE for this instability to play a big role, so Antielitism ends up acting as an extremely weak damage throttle for some classes and a nearly negligible hassle for others.

On my climb to lv. 50, I encountered some good and bad instabilities. Now that I’ve had time to collect my thoughts, I figured I’d turn them into constructive criticism.

Lv. 31: Mist Stalker – The Mossman stalks you through the fractals.

I think this is exactly the kind of mechanic instabilities should be going for. It’s interesting and definitely forces a group to change its playstyle a bit — or at least gain a little caution.

My only criticism here is that I really don’t think Mossman should have any stacks of defiant or initial crowd control immunity when he pops up. That would not only make countering the spawn more interesting, but it would also give a higher value to the control role, which has long sought a stronger standing in PvE. (On that note, if ArenaNet is truly interested in boosting control roles, these are the kind of mechanics that should be looked into.)

Lv. 32: Impaired Immunity – Conditions applied to you last longer.

I really like this instability in concept because it could encourage better teamwork and support through condition cleansing. The problem is most PvE encounters just don’t make much use of conditions (or boons, for that matter). So this would be a great instability if there was some groundwork in place that already created some condition pressure, but that groundwork needs to be built first.

Lv. 33: Outflanked – Enemies do more damage when attacking from behind or the sides.

Another interesting instability just because it requires players to be more cautious and change their playstyles. More survivable builds in particular deal with this instability much better, which is a welcome change from the berserker metagame. The problem is it seems really buggy, particularly for AOE attacks.

Lv. 34: Fleeting Precision – Your critical chance is reduced.

This is the first boring instability, and I think it’s the kind of damage throttle that ArenaNet should avoid for these abilities. This kind of instability doesn’t make anyone change their gear set-up. (There are too many issues with that, considering fractals require ascended gear.) Instead, it just makes encounters unnecessarily longer without adding any depth.

Lv. 35: Stormy Weather – Lightning periodically strikes.

This is similar to the Outflanked instability in that it adds depth and caution to all encounters while indirectly boosting non-berserker builds. It also could encourage stun breaks if the stun on the lightning strike lasted longer, which is perhaps one area ArenaNet could look into. The one difference from Outflanked is the lightning strike directly discourages stacking, which is a tactic that can often trivialize encounters if done correctly.

Lv. 36: Losing Control – Outgoing control effects have reduced effectiveness.

This instability seems really pointless. Control effects are already trivialized by the defiant mechanic on bosses, and control builds have long been trying to find a niche in PvE. I don’t think ArenaNet should be weakening a type of effect that’s already too weak.

Lv. 37: Keep Them in Line – Damaged enemies gain boons when unattended.

This instability is just too negligible. It’s extremely rare that a damaged mob would go unattended for long enough for the instability to trigger. Even if it does happen, chances are a few boons aren’t going to make or break any encounter. The only time it became a problem is on Mai Trin, which produced a few unwanted bugs.

Lv. 38: Ill and Chill – Poison, chill, and confusion have unintended effects. (Poison inflicted by players becomes regeneration, chill becomes protection, confusion becomes fury.)

Another negligible instability. Poison, chill and confusion don’t play strong enough roles in the current metagame or encounters for their conversions to make a big difference.

But the bigger problem with this instability is it unfairly targets some condition builds that rely on poison and confusion. Considering the vast majority of the playerbase already considers condition builds too weak, nerfing them even more seems unnecessary.

Lv. 39: Last Laugh – Enemies explode when killed.

One of the best instabilities. It completely changes how a few encounters are approached, hurts berserker melee trains more than other builds and discourages stacking.

My only concern is it might be a little too much in certain areas of the game. Legendary Imbued Shaman — already one of the most genuinely difficult boss encounters in Guild Wars 2 — becomes a total disaster with this instability because players have to kill the spread-out worms as quickly as possible.