Guild Wars 2

OP, neither you or GW2 are at fault. Different people find different things enjoyable, much like peoples taste in music. I believe ANet is trying to make an enjoyable game for the largest possible playerbase, but, you can’t please everyone all the time. I’m not going to discuss the issues of personal preferences and how they affect our perception, I will just give an example. I started playing about a month after launch in Metrica Province. One of the bosses is a champion called the “fire elemental”. I was doing the event chain in the reactor for the first time and got to the last part. The fire elemental spawned and one shotted the whole room, downed players everywhere and any attempt to rescue them was almost instant death. I respawned and went back inside the reactor. Looking at the fire elemental from the next room, it was simply overwhelming in power and appearance. It cast a moving fire spell on the ground and could one shot you from at least twice the range of a rifle or bow. It was also spawning embers so you couldn’t even hide behind nearby pillars. Some might call this cheap mechanics, I though it was awesome and it transcended the idea of “fun”. Yesterday I was playing my level 11 thief alternate in Metrica. Someone said on map chat that they had soloed the fire elemental with a level 17 character. Did they miss anything? Maybe not since they seemed happy enough.

I prefer the GW2 official forums because here I can at least be sure the poster own the game.

I have found a few exotics from drops, ended up selling them since they weren’t what I wanted for my build. I also noticed that I can make 3 or 4 passes through a dungeon and get exactly the exotic I want for dungeon tokens. I think that is a really nice loot design.

Lalangamena.3694:

a lazy solution for the situation , is that a level 80 player can get his ‘events’ daily achievement only from level 80 events in orr.

I tried that once, got everything except kill variety. Kill variety was 2, I know one was risen whatever, but I still don’t know what the other was.

What a surprize, another “Game is Dying” thread. Yesterday’s one ended up locked so we needed a new one? Since this thread will probably end up the same way I will keep this short and answer the question in the title, in my opinion it is just you.

GW2 includes the following optional activities.
1) WvWvW.
2) PvP.
3) Crafting.
4) Dungeons.
5) Personal Story.
6) Obtaining Exotic, Ascended, or Legendary equipment.
7) Cosmetic improvements for your character. (Some people have real talent at this)
8) World exploration.
9) Guilds.
10) Friends.
11) Dynamic events and heart quests.
12) The temples of Orr.
13) Achievements.
14) Playing TP tycoon.
15) Helping downed players in the starting zones.
16) Veteran and champion bosses.
17) FotM.
18) 5 sets of racial lore.
There are several I couldn’t remember but this list should be sufficient. GW2 is a collection of optional activities. You may complete as many or a few as you desire. When you have complete all the activities that interest you, then you have beaten the game. Since there is no subscription you don’t even need to hurry.

Hi, hope you continue to enjoy the game. I still get a kick out of Asura doing backflips and cartwheels when they dodge.

I heard there is a website that tracks which temples are open. I haven’t used it so I don’t have the URL, maybe someone else has. If you look at which servers have the temple open frequently you have a good server to transfer to. Also, on one of my Balthazar temple runs one of the players was talking about a guild that regularly does temple clears. Again I don’t have the name, sigh.

Lichbane.3952:

I cannot survive at low levels and if I cannot survive in low levels, then there is no way I will survive high levels.

Not really. At low levels you don’t have most of your skills and traits. Higher level equipment has more boosts. Rare equipment starts at level 35 (as I recall) and exotic starts near level 80. As a starting point, take a warrior, get equipment with power, toughness and/or vitality, run the famous (or infamous) 5 signet build, and use a greatsword/rifle. If you aren’t familiar with the 5 signet build, as you add traits and skills to your warrior you choose signets for all your skill slots. They grant passive boosts and have an active state also. The 5 signet build is selfish, you are primarily boosting yourself. As such it is not the preferred build for running dungeons, but it is an easy beginners build for PvE. Finally, as a reality check, just go ingame and look at the players killing things solo. If they can do it, you can too.

OP, welcome and glad you are enjoying the game. The dungeons are intimidating at first and are much more difficult than PvE. Considering that the dungeon tokens can be exchanged for BIS equipment, I feel the effort is worth it. I don’t belong to a guild and always do dungeons with random people. While I have found a few quitters and elitists, a lot of dungeon runners are helpful, especially if you tell them you are new. I started doing dungeons with lvl 80 rare equipment, it isn’t very expensive. I have heard people say that a good set of greens is good enough. Upgrade to exotics with dungeon tokens, karma vendor items, or the TP. Just remember the TP is not your only option.

OP, as you mention, you enjoy games that employ the level up/get better RNG based gear/kill bigger monster/repeat model. I like those too, the best one I ever found was Diablo 2. However GW2 does not seem to work like that. The BIS gear is available by well defined tasks, like dungeon tokens, karma, and crafting. The autoleveling also produces an effect quite unlike some other RPG mechanics, a high level character is not drastically OP. You know, cast chain lightning and everything the room is dead. If you don’t enjoy playing for the lore and spontaneous cooperation in the PvE world then you have the wrong game. Or you can look it as buying a chess set and trying to bluff your opponent, the game mechanics just weren’t designed for it.

Always remember to wear armor, and don’t name your character “qwertyuiop”. Seriously, the signature that ANet uses to detect bots is not going to be publicly available, for obvious reasons. If you are close enough to a group of bots to be concerned, play it safe and go somewhere where you aren’t worried about it. Tyria is a pretty big place.

Probability takes math, cold unfeeling calculations. Luck makes you feel special, or cursed. They have absolutely nothing in common.

Account binding on ascended rings is the same design pattern used for equipment obtained from dungeon tokens or from karma vendors. It keeps certain items out of the gold economy. Basically the only way someone has this equipment is if they earned it. This model differs from other games where everything is obtainable for gold.

I noticed that after today’s update also. Seemed to be only one or two tracks, the others are the same.

For me, game review sites, and youtube videos have lost all usefulness (aside from comic relief) over the past year. I have seen games I really enjoy given bad reviews, and seen rave reviews of games that are among the worst I have ever experienced. This is only natural since almost anyone can be a “reviewer” these days. The most reliable method I have found for selecting a new game is on the forums of games I did not enjoy. People on those forums will (to be polite) recommend alternatives. Since both I and the poster have the same opinion of the current (unenjoyable) game, the chance of my liking the alternative is quite high. Two of my current favorite games, GW2 and Dragon’s Dogma are both recommendations from one such forum earlier this year.

My first 5 characters are all Asura. I looked over the racial lore after I got the game and I liked Asura the best. My highest level Asura are at various stages of the 3 story arcs. The other 2 will be deleted and rerolled as a different race so I can play some different racial lore.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

CassieGold.7460:

This is brilliant game design! Let the people who want to throw a kitten load (yes I typed the word kitten) of money at the game to have whatever they want do so. Their willing sacrifice just funnels money at a company that I want to succeed so that company can keep building more content in a game I don’t have to pay a sub fee for.

Thank you nameless font of cash, for spending more money on this game than I ever will and keeping the company I love in business. Truly, you affect all of us because you allow us to be cheap

Actually people that are going to buy gold are generally going to do so from a gold selling site. This doesn’t promote the game at all. Most gold selling sites are cheaper than Gem Conversion (significantly).

Punishing legitimate gem/gold buyers because of illegal gold sellers makes about as much sense as implementing DR because some people run bots.

I believe if an item was purchased with karma it cannot be salvaged.

Also, consider that this is typically an off week from work and school is out for winter break.

Very good guide OP, I used a similar approach and am very happy with the results. Running 3 or 4 paths in a dungeon for each armor piece may be a bit of work, but it isn’t excessively difficult and there is no RNG involved.

I would like to see GW2 (and other games) ported to Linux also.

People have been able to convert gems to gold since launch I believe. Using this gold to buy gear has likewise always been possible. There is therefore nothing new about buying gear with gold. So what if the gear is now labeled ascended? There are people with more money than time. If they choose to buy gems and convert to gold they still cannot obtain something I cannot get from playing the game. They also support the game financially and provide an alternative to a subscription. I have no problem with any of this. Google “envy”, it is an interesting read.

Just my PvE opinion here. I started a warrior and guardian at about the same time. My warrior is level 80 in full exotics. My guardian is level 2 cooling his heels in Desider Atum. For me the warrior was more natural and easier to play. The 5 signet build is easy for beginners and can evolve to shouts or banners. I can go where I want in Orr and participate in temple captures for fun. I’m not down on guardians and I always like to see one in my dungeon group. Guardians have pulled me out of tough spots more times than I can count. My advice, start one of each and see which one plays more naturally for you.

Holiday sale = Blasphemy? Does not compute.

One positive effect of the 15% transaction fee is that it puts a damper on TP speculation. If you aren’t sure you can make more than 15%, you will not play TP tycoon. Of course if you think GW2 should support the TP tycoon profession, then the 15% transaction fee is a negative.

I though some about cesmode’s comment and came up with a refinement. Any player running a story mode dungeon that they had already completed would always get 60 dungeon tokens as long as at least one member of the party had not completed story mode for that dungeon. No DR necessary because the number of players that had not completed story mode for a dungeon is not infinite. If someone wanted to farm dungeon tokens by helping people complete story mode it would at least work to the benefit of the player base. Its not like people cannot farm dungeon tokens already, “LF2M AC exp speed run”. If you think this would destroy the GW2 world economy , you are probably a Mayan.

I don’t know if this will suit your gaming style but here is what I did. Only read enough of the documentation to choose your race and class. If you are going to do crafting check which 2 make sense for you. Read the keyboard layout sheet. Start the game and figure it out as you go. Only read the forums and wiki after you are sure it won’t reveal anything you don’t already know. GW2 as a voyage of discovery so to speak.

I liked the feel of Orr when I got there. It gave a real sense that the undead issue was non trivial, and there were lots of undead. I seem to recall getting whopped up the side of the head by a farmer with a shovel, I’m Asura so it really did hit me in the head. To add to the unease, even the camps weren’t always a safe place to manage inventory.

JunkyardWolf.4126:

MB can mean either megabit or megabyte depending on the context.

Context is secondary to case. A capital ‘B’ means Byte, ie. MB = megabyte, while a lower-case ‘b’ means bit, so Mb = Megabit.

Also, you’ll often see “mb” to refer to ‘megabit’ which is incorrect though sadly all too common, where a lower-case ‘m’ technically means ‘milli’ or ‘one-thousandth’, the opposite of ‘mega’ or ‘million’.

The main thing here is the case of the ‘b’, lower=bit, upper=byte. The case of the ‘m’ is played rather fast and loose, though it matters little as no one uses ‘millibyte’ which of course doesn’t exist.

Confusing, yes. Just watch the ‘b’.

Technically yes but in common usage how many get it incorrect? It is not uncommon to see DSL rates quoted as 1.5 MB per second. Consider for example mAh – milli Amp hour – why is only the A capitalized? Answer, because it stands for Ampere, named after the scientist Andre-Marie Ampere. The proper capitalization in electrical units is something I casually observe on packaging and documentation. A suprizing number of products are technically incorrect.

Looks like you have a slow internet connection. A little math. 2.5 GB = 2,500 MB, 10 hours = 36,000 seconds. Your transfer rate is 2,500/36,000 = 0.0694 MB/sec (megabytes per second), converting to bits per second 8 × 0.0694 = 0.556 mega bits per second or 556 kilobits per second. The slowest DSL connection I had seen to date was 1.5 megabits per second, which would be 3 times you current transfer rate. What kind of internet connection are you using and what is the advertised data rate? If you are paying for more than above calculated data rates you should contact your ISP.

Be aware that in computer speak, MB can mean either megabit or megabyte depending on the context. For file size it is almost always megabyte while for data rate it is usually megabit. Hence the factor of 8 conversion, 8 bits per byte. And if anyone mentions 2 to the 10th versus 10 to the 3rd in megabyte calculations, well I will rage quit! (not really).

cesmode.4257:

Alloy: True but whats the incentive to run explorable when you can facepwn through story? The rewards are the same. I would just run Arah story, and never ever ever touch arah explorable.

Like I explained, it adds 1 path per day with max tokens. Now you can save 240 tokens per day versus 180 before DR kicks in. Getting a dungeon set quicker seems like incentive enough to me. The topic at hand is how to make it easier for people to get story mode groups together. I haven’t gotten to Arah yet but if explorable is much more difficult than story maybe we can adjust the reward for story to 10 tokens.

Story mode could use some help. A dungeon token reward equal to the explorable mode per path amount would probably help a lot. This would give players 4 sixty token paths per day rather than 3. People working for dungeon equipment sets would then have a reason to run with the story mode players.

I liked the GW2 non RNG loot system before ascended/FotM. This original loot system is still largely intact. Warnings about ascended gear may be ominous writing on the wall, or the boy who cried wolf. Time will tell, but that is not the topic at hand. Legendaries were cosmetic only. The level 80 exotic BIS gear was all obtainable from various well defined, although not necessarily easy, challenges like dungeon runs, crafting, and temple karma vendors in Orr. The effort needed to obtain a complete set of exotics seems about right to me, and there was no RNG involved at all.

I do not have an informed opinion on the proper role of RNG for legendaries since I don’t have one and haven’t researched the process involved in making one. I will leave that discussion to people who have experience with it.

I would guess language differences might be part of the reason. I was not aware that most Europeans were as fluent in English as you obviously are.

The engineer’s rifle jump is really nice. I did the pirate’s jumping puzzle in LA on my engineer. Used flamethrower for light too.

I have 5 Asura characters on Dragonbrand. My 2 lvl 80s live in LA, the other 3 live in Metrica province at Desider Atum. I have a lvl 61 ele, a lvl 2 thief, and a lvl 2 guardian. My ele has almost never been outside Metrica because I did the Vigil and Durmand Priory story lines on my first 2 characters and I am saving the Order of Whispers for my thief. I run the daily events with him because the bonus experience is more use to him than to a lvl 80. I can complete the daily in about 30 minutes and pick up about 1 level in the process. Without the bonus experience it might take twice as long but still not a long time per level. I do this routine as soon as possible on each new server day, about 5PM my time. I almost always see 5 to 10 Asura running around by Desider. I join parties if asked and the others Asura are typically level 10 to 25. Sometimes I see high level individuals or guild parties come through doing map completions. I have map completion and will WP to any events that show up on map chat. I use a staff and upgraded my equipment about every 5 levels with inexpensive green stuff. Most greens sell for little above vendor price on the TP and that is not expensive, mine some copper if you need to but it isn’t expensive. If you don’t upgrade your equipment you become less powerful as you level up. This is a consequence of the auto-leveling and not a real problem to deal with once you know it exists. I started playing about 4 weeks after launch and Metrica’s population density hasn’t changed enough to cause me a problem.

This has been an interesting and remarkably civil discussion so far. The concept of winning is associated with competition, the concept of fun is associated with recreation. The question is if a single game can please both recreational and competitive gamers. Or is the reality that a competitive game will not be enjoyable to recreational gamers and a recreational game will not be interesting to competitive ones? And, any attempt to produce a game that pleases both will end up pleasing neither. Special thanks to the OP for creating a thread that is more a discussion than a shouting match.

OP, I do not define video games in terms of winning, I define them in terms of enjoying. Let me give you some examples of activities that are enjoyable without any connection with winning. Going for a walk in the morning, building and flying a radio controlled airplane, using a lathe and mill to make pieces for a car restoration project, and just to keep the list short, gardening. None of these activities involve winning in any normal sense of the word. I play video games the same way. As long as a game is enjoyable I will continue to play, when it stops being enjoyable I will go do something else. GW2 is enjoyable to play, I have no idea of what winning it would mean.

Thanks for the actual numbers Jeffery. I will note locations of any respawn issues and report them. I have had enemys respawn so quickly that I was still looting the previous body when the new one appeared. I will provide details if I can reproduce the effect. If I am positive I observed the problem once but can’t get the problem to repeat I will report it as an intermittent, and I know how much fun those are to debug.

OP, I agree completely. As a software/systems engineer myself, I know how difficult a software project of this magnitude is. Congratulations.

Oglaf.1074:

Alloy.2839:

I have also seen that technology used on tuna and sharks. And yes, there were Asura in the area.

The plot thickens… Did they have laz0r beams on their heads perchance?

No visible weapons but I cannot rule out invisible ones. They had the ability to suspend themselves several feet above the water, or even land in the case of the sharks. They also had no need for any air breathing apparatus! Surely the Asura are behind this, but then the Char have some good engineering talent also. Perhaps a conspiracy or even dragon involvement?

Evalia.7103:

The funniest thing about those champions is not even that they left alone.
Is that if you come back to them you can solo them with ease.
=/ i’m soloing every champion in queensdale and many other low level zones.
And they will most likely oneshot you if you come to them on the respective level in the gear you are supposed to be at that level.

Thanks for the info on easy champions in Queensdale. I had been looking for a place to test the champion drop rates without needing a group. Should be able to solo them with a dungeon runner lvl 80 warrior in full exotics with no problems, right? I killed a bunch of veteran risen in Orr yesterday doing Balthazar’s temple and got a couple rares but no exotics. Since the Nov 15 patch I have gotten 3 exotics from drops, didn’t pay attention to what dropped them, but it wasn’t champions.

Combat: As an Asura I can’t even see my character in a moderate size group. I learned to do group combat like flying an airplane on instruments only, auto-target then watch the indicators and white damage numbers. I am OK with it as is. To me there is a trade off with depth of combat in an MMO. If I want real depth of combat I prefer a single player console or PC game.

Player roles: My biggest concern is that PvP balance issues will cause problems with character differentiation. Next concern is that combat versus the game AI and versus human opponents changes the values of some skills drastically. For example the game AI will always attack an engineers thumper turret, that thing has more agro than a gold plated AK-47 with a shield on it (if you played Army of 2). But somehow a human opponent always just ignores it.

NPCs: The world of Tyria is big and takes exploration. Although I sometime get curt responses on map chat, I prefer to ask people. It adds to the personal touch since this is an MMO. I would leave it as is.

LFG: Would like to see that in game. Should include an option like “Willing to go with any 4 random players”. Other party requirement options for other play styles are OK with me.

End Game: Once I do all the personally enjoyable content the game is over until the next expansion. I do not expect an infinite amount of content from any non-subscription game. Similar to single player games, purchased expansions would be OK with me. Purchased expansion should never be required to play the content you already purchased. With a subscription game I am paying the equivalent of an expansion every few months and I expect continuous new content (endgame content so to speak).

I have also seen that technology used on tuna and sharks. And yes, there were Asura in the area.

OP, if that’s the biggest problem then GW2 will probably survive it quite well. I started playing about 4 weeks after launch and was not here for the initial mass of players moving through the PvE content. This in no way reduced my enjoyment from leveling 2 characters to 80 and a third to 60. The current state of the PvE world simply looks normal to me. It was during the Karka events that I first saw a zerg in PvE. Some people talk about the good old days and how things were better then. I hear them, but to me they are only stories. What counts is that I am enjoying my current experiences, which I am.

Since GW2 is not a subscription game, and since MMO companies need to make money to pay their employees etc, I see no problem with the gem store. In no way is it required considering that you don’t win an MMO. I am sorry that the existance of the gem store ruined your experience with GW2 and wish you success in your search for a more enjoyable gaming experience. Due to the economic realities of running a business in the real world, the perfect non-sub MMO might be a lost cause for you. Perhaps you might consider single player or coop console or PC games. Without an economy and other players, the problems that trouble you simply don’t exist. Or, if you want to pay a sub to avoid the gem store, there are other MMOs that offer this feature.

I played a little in Dredgehaunt Cliffs on my way to the Sorrow’s Embrace dungeon. I had read some posts on the forum saying it was a difficult or unenjoyable map so I was expecting the worst. I was working my way to the dungeon entrance when I saw a request for help on a champion. Ended up joining a party that was some distance from my current position. I made a beeline through some unexplored terrtory hoping I didn’t hit a mountain range or something. We killed the champion and I went on to the dungeon. I liked the map in general and especially the battle in the pit near the dungeon.

I have seen the problem with ‘F’ not working on a vista. It also occurs with a champion Krait on a floating platform in one of the areas south of LA, might be Sparkfly Fen but I’m not positive. After running by the champion you cannot activiate the vista. As others have mentioned logging off and back on will fix it. This might be working as intended and the logging trick is just a cheap workaround, or it might be something that the devs would fix it was reported. If it really bugs you, consider posting the problem in the appropriate section of the forums.

You mean you don’t have at least Fort Trinity and Rally Waypoint open all the time? Have you gone to the Rally Waypoint and watched the preliminary DEs activate? One of the waypoints on the coast opens up during the northern reinforcements DE. As far as opening the WPs on the islands by killing the risen in the area, I didn’t get that to work either. I suspect the WP opening is part of the rather complex DE chain leading up to the attack on Balthazar’s temple. Just got back from running with a group of 30 or 40 players who successfully opened Balthazar’s on Dragonbrand.

I run the dailys on my mid level ele. In the past week I have gotten a Black Lion salvage kit and some regular transmutation stones. Just RNG in action I guess.