Guild Wars 2

The article does seem to imply that you get access to every color upon becoming a commander (with current commanders being grandfathered in).

If this is the case, then we should celebrate. It would be nice if an Anet employee would come to the forums and say outright that colors are not purchased separately just to make sure.

They should have done 3 days instead of 3 weeks. That way each day would have a lot of information. This is mostly a presentation thing, but it is disappointing to look forward to a blog post only for it to not say much or talk about something you weren’t interested in. I’m sure the feature pack will make some very big changes to the game. It just won’t seem like it if they only show a bit of information at a time. I think people will be more excited if they are overwhelmed than if they are drip fed.

We should get some answers today as the blog post that will be out later is “Command the Rainbow.”

Hopefully they get back to us soon. Account bound tags is a good thing and raising the price to compensate is fair enough. Different color tags is something we’ve wanted so it’s good that it’s now going to be in the game. Unfortunately, selling colors individually is definitely a bad idea and they really need to reconsider it. They said they were going to post further details, but haven’t and the employee who said that has posted on Reddit since then (just not about this issue) so I am going to assume that they are having talks about it before responding to the criticism.

The Anet employee on Reddit said they would put up more info on the official forums “later today” which was two days ago. I wonder what happened to that. They definitely do need to clarify a lot of points.

Perhaps they are reconsidering selling individual colors based on feedback. I’m not expecting it, but it will be nice.

It’s always fun to watch a dominating server get tested in a higher tier. The SBI/IoJ/GoM matchup thread was a fun read, lol.

There is a great chance that DR will face one or two of DB/SBI/YB/CD with CD being the most likely of the group to be DR’s opponent. Since CD is basically a T3 server or at least near T3, this will be a big test for DR since they aren’t simply going to face T4 servers.

Now for my own tier, there is over a 99% chance that SoS/FA/Mag happens again.

They merged the commander topics on the WvW forum, but haven’t responded yet to any questions.

TheMaskedGamer.5708:

One thing I still don’t get is that if its souldbound after its use? I have o A guardian who is a Commander, and he’s the only one who can do it, but not sure if it now translates to all my other characters as well.

All your characters should become commanders after the September patch. Anyone who purchases the tag from that point on will be doing so for all their characters rather than one.

750, but no legendary. Working on it. I will be poor after.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/September_2014_Feature_Pack

An admin on the wiki edited the page and included this, “Players who have unlocked four or more tags, can contact support to get another color of their choice.” He went to gamescom.

http://www.guildmag.com/command-tag-gamescom-2014/

Looks like you have to buy colors individually. If you already have a tag, you don’t need to buy blue again.

Somewhat related…
http://www.guildmag.com/command-tag-gamescom-2014/

Looks like you have to purchase different color tags individually. If you already have a tag, you don’t have to buy blue again.

Anet just posted in the reddit thread for this. You will only be reimbursed if you have 4 tags or more.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2djnv8/interview_with_devon_carver_commander_tag_will_be/

-Account bound
-Duplicates will be reimbursed (Edit: Only if you own 4 tags or more)
-Price will go up to 300g

So I guess get one before feature pack if you wanted it.

Edit: Anet posted in that reddit thread.
“Customer Support asked me to clarify that refunds are only given to players owning 4 or more tags. No refunds will be processed prior to Sept. 9. Watch our official forums for further details later today.”

UPDATE 8/20
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/big-changes-are-coming-to-the-commander-system/

I’d love it since all those level ups feel wasted. Anet definitely won’t do it that way though.

Most people don’t switch to alts at the end since they either never realized they could do that to level up or they don’t want to deal with the hassle of doing it. Also, most players don’t run dungeons anyway. Implement this idea and players would all start running dungeons for fast level ups for their alts. Getting to 80 would end up being way too quick even compared to running the EOTM train. I can’t see Anet wanting this.

Realistically, it would be nice if they let you buy tomes with skill points. Like 10 skill points for a tome. Then those level ups you get on your 80 would help contribute to your alt, but it wouldn’t be as fast. Although you do get scrolls like crazy so I can see Anet lowering the amount of scrolls you get if they did this.

If a balanced trio can be sustained over many weeks, then I don’t mind playing the same servers. The problem is that this is rarely the case. Servers 4, 5, and 6 aren’t necessarily the most balanced servers for each other. It could be that a match between 5, 6, and 7 would be more balanced. But that matchup would be extremely unlikely to happen. And if it did happen, who would server 4 face? Their match would be incredibly unbalanced.

If WvW was balanced by design, we wouldn’t need this type of discussion. Balance across servers would allow variety to be viable. But since WvW isn’t balanced, we just have to deal with it until someone makes a better RvR game (preferably without sub fees lol).

I run 6 paths (COF 1,2 SE 1,3 HOTW 1, TA up) every day starting after reset. From my experience, putting “80s exp” in the lfg description does make a huge difference compared to not putting anything else besides which path you want to run. 90% of the time the run is very efficient. The other 10% is just one person making a big mistake, but not something that turns the run into a horror story. Very rarely do I get a run where everything goes wrong. 80s exp groups fill up fast especially after reset so almost no waiting followed by a good run makes me very happy.

That said, I do join groups that only list the path and those can be a mixed bag. More often than not, people who want to run the path are experienced anyway so you get a smooth run. But you also get newbies as well on some other runs. I don’t mind explaining something if necessary and I am a bit tolerant of others making mistakes if they haven’t done the path before, but I do get annoyed when things go very wrong too. I won’t be the one to nerdrage on party chat though, because that only makes things worse.

At this point, I don’t see a need for 5k zerker gear (and whatever else people keep adding to those descriptions like heavies only no ranger). Whenever I see them in the lfg, they take longer to fill than simply putting 80s exp. In the long run, I can’t see more restrictions being more efficient because waiting longer to start the run isn’t an efficient use of your time lol. Since I don’t join those groups, I don’t know how much more efficient the run itself is compared to 80s exp. Cool if you get a perfect run every time though.

tldr, the state of pugging is fine.

This site has the official rankings and ratings:
https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw

Go here for more information:
http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/

If your server is ranked 3, 6, 9, etc., you will be red more often than not. If you want your server to be consistently green, you will either have to go up two ranks or drop one.

In the old system, the highest ranked server in a tier was green, the middle was blue, and lowest was red. Servers were ranked by their rating. This was changed so that every server is given a temporary randomized matchup rating based on their actual one. So this week, Maguuma rolled a higher rating than Sea of Sorrows and Fort Aspenwood which allowed them to be green even though they should be red due their rank.

The funny thing is, a group that simply specifies you have to be experienced at the dungeon path in the lfg will get the path done faster than a group with ap, gear, and class requirements since the group will fill up faster and start the dungeon earlier. They will probably do the dungeon just as smoothly anyway. Very rarely have I had a problem with a group that only specified experienced.

I’ve heard so many horror stories concerning dungeons which is why I only started running them a month ago. Most of my time spent in GW2 has been in WvW. Now I feel silly for not doing dungeons sooner.

Just ignore the lfgs that want 5k ap.

As it is now, I’m fine with EOTM being a karma train.

The stated purpose of EOTM doesn’t make sense. Here in T2, we rarely have 4 map queues and when we do, 2-3 of the maps have a light queue so you might as well wait instead of going to EOTM. While there may be some people who actually want to have a competitive match that only takes a few hours instead of a whole week, there aren’t going to be enough of those people on at the same time to make that dream a reality.

So let the people running the karma trains collude. They aren’t match fixing because there isn’t a match! I mean…how can it even be called a match when the players don’t even care, lol.

That said, I do think the EOTM map is wasted and should be incorporated into WvW. My suggestion is to do a test run for a week. Have the EOTM map replace EB. Then we can see how EOTM will work when the players have a competitive mindset and are actually coordinated since it would be proper servers playing against each other instead of megaservers. If the community likes it, then we can have EOTM and EB switch places every other week. When EOTM is the WvW map, EB would be the extra map that people karma train in.

Maybe if Mag ppts hard enough they will end up in T1.

I don’t think TC being in T2 will make for a balanced matchup though.

T7/T8 matches were even more unlikely than the T2/T3 matches. 1.7% and 1.3% lol. Required SoR, EB, and Kain to all roll higher than FC. The other tiers had their expected matches.

The problem with orbs was that it benefited the team that was already winning. The vast majority of the time, the same server would own all three orbs. Not coincidentally, it was the winning server. So all the orbs did was make it harder for the losing servers.

I do miss the orbs though. It was nice having a capture the flag game lol. Bloodlust ruins are boring and people rarely do them.

Most players on NA servers are from……NA. Mid-tier servers and probably lower tier servers as well still have large NA populations. What do you think is going to happen if all those players are forced into 6 servers? You may get better coverage around the clock, but the times when NA players are usually on will have insane queues.

Edit: Beaten by less than a minute.

At the very least, I would like to see the 3 borderlands maps be visually different. Keep them the same size and have all the camps/towers/keeps in the same locations, but each map would have a theme. Red BL could be fiery and Green BL could be more like a jungle. Keep Blue BL the same as it is now since there is a lot of water and the snow in the north is related to water….good enough lol.

Visual variety helps a lot.

A wvw tournament/season simply doesn’t make sense given the type of game it is. Anet should find some other way to give incentives to players to try out the game mode, but not at the expense of the game mode itself.

Here are my characters:

Male Human Warrior (main)
Female Sylvari Mesmer
Male Asura Engineer
Female Norn Ranger
Male Charr Guardian

Do I win for unoriginality? Also, I don’t mix and match outfits.

Getting to level 80 w/ full exotics doesn’t take much time relative to the equivalent in other games of the same genre. That’s all you really need to enjoy what the game has to offer (except maybe high level fractals? do those require ascended?).

LastShot.4762:

As for grinding, there are far worst Korean grinder out there, even some Chinese ones can drive you insane despite having build-in bot features in game.

Yep. Reason I don’t even bother with Korean MMOs.

serapheles.5409:

As for the idea that expansions would mean new continents and/or races, I can see that, but what I don’t see is any reason why LS can’t have those too.

There’s no reason why they couldn’t and it would be awesome if they did, but they didn’t do that (with Season 1 at least). Had they released an expansion instead of Season 1, we might have had a new continent and race right now since expansions usually add that type of content.

I’ll be happy if they add a significant amount of permanent content in Season 2, but it’s not like I can really go in with that kind of expectation.

Assuming they have the resources to do either one or the other, I would much prefer an expansion.

Expansions would probably mean new continents to explore and new races to play. The idea of a living world is nice, but unfortunately it means much of the content is only temporarily available. I’d rather just pay for permanent content. Also, I’d imagine the story would have been better planned had it been a part of an expansion.

An optional pin number for banks would be nice. I recall playing a game that used it, but I can’t recall which one (not Runescape).

Out of curiosity, did you set up an authenticator for your email and for GW2?

Match looks exciting from the score. Too bad I logged on late and every map has a queue right now lol. Gonna be a fun week.

Theoretically, this should be the best week for matches since servers are already grouped by their rankings and next week should be the worst for matches since servers from different tiers will play each other. This doesn’t take into account servers whose glicko rating doesn’t reflect their actual strength due to bandwagoning or an exodus and has yet to settle into their true rank. Over time the point system will match servers that are closer to one another.

It will certainly be interesting to see if YB/HoD will be more competitive against FA compared to SBI/IoJ. Some of the matches next week will be terrible though.

sestitodc.3567:

NA prime time in tier 2:

Awesome!

It’s too bad SoS no longer has the population for T1/T2 anymore. They are a great opponent.

When TC comes back to the tier, NA primetime should be closer so we really do need SEA/EU coverage.

I’m happy how far FA has come already and it will be great to welcome new guilds to the community.

FA took the lead. Hope we can continue being as successful over the rest of the week.

Probably not. Out of all the servers that had a mass exodus, only ET fell to T8. Unless more guilds leave SoS, it could settle in T3.

A lot of fun so far!

Basedgod.7328:

I think i remember that now. I do remember the matchup before that when we fought Blackgate 2.0/Bestgate. The horror!

Yep, the week before we fought BG and DB in T3. BG got transfers during the match, lol.

I remember our last match with SoS (it was a one week match). We were winning by a lot and then SoS got a ton of transfers throughout the week. We still won since we were already ahead. Mag was the other server in the match. Mag had to deal with SoS 2.0 (this is what the server was called at the time) the week after.

Green > Blue > Red is the expected outcome of every match. Highest ranked server in a match is green. So… the rating system is working.

I was thinking of Red BL having a volcano theme, Green BL having a forest theme, and Blue BL being kept as is. Even if the layout is the same, having different aesthetics could help.

Blueday.6953:

http://i.imgur.com/WG3EvBU.jpg

That’s weird. DB is the blue server in our current match.

Haters gonna hate.

FA gonna WvW.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

5hr 30min left of the match with YB a little over 10 points ahead of Mag. It’s happening!

Perhaps JQ is its own tier. I can accept that since SoS is doing as well against JQ as TC is against BG and I put BG and TC as different tiers. Kain is close to BG. Even if SoR/SoS/BG can all beat Kain, it doesn’t mean Kain shouldn’t be in the same tier as them. It’s difficult to get three servers that would come down to the wire so our definition of competitive needs to be broader.

JQ, SoR, SoS, BG, Kain
TC, FA
DB, Mag
CD, YB, EB

The bottom half is more difficult to predict.

Clearly BP, AR, and NSP are competitive with one another. But is DR really a tier ahead of them? I don’t think this is the case. During the second Mag/BP/DR fight, the latter two servers saw some of their players transferring off. DR edged out BP by only 10k sending BP to T6. DR had to deal with Kain the next week when there was still free transfers. I won’t say DR has become weaker than the T6 trio, but I think they may be on the same level.

SBI and IoJ are still big questions. Just from the fact they both had an exodus of players, people were assuming they would drop to T8. They are performing much better than expected. IoJ managed to outscore DR last week. We need to see how they will perform in matches that don’t have CD/YB/EB.

The first week DH dropped to T7, they narrowly lost to HoD. Now they are winning by a wider margin. Perhaps DH would be competitive against the T6 trio now?

Similar story with SF. They were competitive with GoM and HoD before they dropped to T8 where they narrowly lost to FC. They are winning by a landslide now.

D W.5179:

Something is broken with the scoring here… has to be.
I don’t see a way out of tier 8 unless they correct the rating system. Doubling the score of your enemy should NOT show an overall loss in rating points.
Could somebody from ANet explain the math behind this a bit, and possibly defend it? I’d like to know what has to happen for us to GAIN points, as doubling the enemy score is not enough.

You gain or lose rating based on how your actual performance compares to your expected performance which in turn is based on ratings. FC and ET’s ratings are so low that SF is expected to win by a massive blowout. Having a big blowout is underperforming.

One solution to fix this is to tighten the ratings. Change ever server’s rating to 1500+((current rating)-1500)/2. The problem will eventually come up again, but SF would be allowed to escape if this were applied once. Another solution is to have a rule added to the matchmaking system. If a server wins a tier twice and the server above it gets 3rd place twice, switch them for the next match. They can keep their rating, but their rank will switch.

Borderland maps were originally designed with the orbs in mind. Removing them has made the maps seem empty.

Some matches are not competitive, but resetting the ratings would have taken a longer time to fix things than simply letting the old system do its thing. T5 is unbalanced. But next week, SBI will move to the bottom of T4. The week after, SBI and EB will switch places creating more competitive matches in T4 and T5.

T7 is a closer match than T2 and no one is really complaining about that. But at some point, HoD and SF will switch. Maybe they should do the 1500 + ((rating-1500)*.5) thing to tighten the ratings, but solving the T8 issue shouldn’t inconvenience everyone else which is what a reset would have done.