Guild Wars 2

I was on the same boat as you until I realized how weak his heal was. He’s not Mallyx the Unyielding, a boss in GW1 that also has a similar debuff-to-heal conversion mechanic. Difference is that Mallyx’s version was stupid-overpowered. Prototype F-IV version is well … kind of weak.

Aside from that, you should swap out some of your signets out with abilities to help your party out. For example:

• “Shake it off!” — F-IV does considerable burning damage if not mitigated. Party members within earshot will love you for taking off the burning condition.
• Mending — IMO, this would be the best Healing skill you can have as a Warrior when it comes to encounters involving conditions, but if your party members can remove your conditions as well, then Healing Signet can still work.

Banners and Shouts would help your party tremendously. “For Great Justice!” and Battle Standard are awesome! Personally, I have a tendency to use Battle Standard as an AoE ressurect. Assuming they’re not in defeated state, it works quite well.

You’ll lose out on some crit, but it’ll be all worth it when your party member’s DPS goes up from your buffs.

@Jasher

It’s an odd concept for some folks, but it also has some assumptions to it. Some might think you know everything … or rather maybe too much. I mean, why is your Level 80 Ranger (or whatever profession you play for example) ragging about what my gear and traits look like on my Level 80 Warrior? What do you know about playing a Warrior? Why don’t you log on your Level 80 Warrior and show me how to make the best of my profession. This conversation could end in either “Yeah! I thought so!” or “Oh! I never knew that. I should try that! Thanks for the tip!”

As far as the “big bad elitist” being forced to party up with someone, the elitist should have asked some questions before starting up the run. Sure one could argue that an /inspect command could save some time and precious keystrokes in asking a question, but then there is no social interaction except with “your gear’s good” or “GTFO, baddie!” At least if the one being invited is asked to leave, that one probably got a decent idea why they had to leave based on the answers given instead of being left in the dark. That’s how I see it.

Aside from that, people can see what my armor looks like. I can tell you where I got if you ask nicely, which I have done so in my last run through CoE Explorable when one of my party members saw my armor in the cutscenes.

@Bizbang

I suppose in GW2, it can be different in that a lot of high-end gear can be crafted before running dungeons, but in the general scope of things where there is an easy-mode and a hard-mode (in theory, Story Mode and Explorable Mode respectively), those who choose not take a crafting profession could progress through something easy before being more comfortable in trying something harder. Personally, I’d rather run dungeons and earn my gear since I find it challenging and fun, than farming for the money to buy gear. Well … assuming that suitable gear drops in dungeons, but I’m sure a few patches from now, the dungeons would be a little bit more rewarding.

I don’t know about you, but in most MMOs, even when I’m a freshly dinged max level player, I still do dungeons and gear up through that method. Usually, I’ll do the easy modes before I feel comfortable enough to do the harder modes. If I can prove to the group that I can carry my own weight, which almost always, I do, then who gives a crap what I’m wearing. If you want to make fun of my gear, then be my guest. Those who like to poke fun, in my opinion, are probably “bads” themselves and don’t have the balls to admit it. Sometimes that’s true, sometimes that’s false. All the time, however, they end up getting the boot from the group for just being a total bonehead.

GW2 might be one of those oddball exceptions due to the vast differences between Story Mode and Explorable Mode. Explorable Modes obviously feels like a totally different dungeon; whereas in most MMOs, the Hard Mode version is just the same dungeon layout as Easy Mode only with slight changes that somewhat make it harder.

As far as Elitism goes, it exists in every cooperative game known to mankind and I have come to accept that. In fact, I was once part of a guild full of those types, and was actually one— but I’ve gotten better than that, personality-wise. I can’t speak for all “leet” people, current and former, but I know I’ve become more humble and patient as I get to know the people who I constantly bump into when doing dungeons. In MMOs that have an LFD matchmaker, it’s quite surprising the wide spectrum of people I have bumped into. Unfortunately, I know people who still carry such an antisocial mindset. It’s a bit sad, and sometimes I find myself rooting for the underdog.

On the other hand, I have known in the past in GW1 that if you ask nicely to link their attributes and build, then the player is more likely willing to comply. In this case, the sharing of information is voluntary instead of invasive. It’s sort of like a simple interview without some crazy behind-the-scenes background check. I’d say that if one wants an invasive method of looking up one’s information, I think they might as well start looking at other things related to that person like their Facebook page, Xbox Live and PSN gamer profiles, and even going as deep into their resume on LinkedIn.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration there, but the point is this: there are just some things that are just better off being requested by the party leader, instead of resorting to invasion of information. That’s how it was in GW1, which encouraged some form of friendly communication before the dungeon begins, during the dungeon run, and finally after the dungeon is complete. Inspecting is what police officers do to potential suspects in a scene of a crime. You’re not inviting potential suspects to your party, are you? Of course not … at least I hope not.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions how everyone’s built before the start of the run. If the party composition looks reasonable, then go with it. That way, you know how your abilities would synergize well with your party members. Not asking questions could potentially lead to problems later. For example, assuming the sword-n-board Warrior has Toughness/Vitality gear when they actually have Berserker’s or high amounts of Magic Find in their gear could be somewhat disastrous when they’ve been ratted out of being the slacker of the group.

In a way, I can see what ArenaNet could be going with this by not including an /inspect command. In this case, it would be the fault of the person who invited the unskilled (or undergeared in some examples), instead of laying the fault on the person falling behind the curve.

I mentioned something like this in another thread in regards to an Armory-like website, which is, more or less, an over-glorified /inspect feature.

Simply put, although an /inspect feature would be nice and some would use it for good intentions, I think it would end up being used for ridiculing someone than for constructive criticism. In a way, I could also see it as a way to poke at a freshly dinged 80 and call that person a “baddie” for having sub-par gear and/or a strange Trait spec.

The way I see it is that it makes max-level content less welcoming if someone has the capability of “over-criticizing” your choice of gear and traits, which is the opposite of what ArenaNet is trying to achieve with GW2— as in, max-level content should be accessible to as many people as possible.

With that said, if something like this were to be implemented, it should include options to hide a portion or even all of your character’s profile, or even restrict it to friends and/or guild members.

Or as mentioned in a previous post, show only cosmetic information, such as instead of listing a chest piece called [ Berserker’s Draconic Coat of the Berserker ], you only see [Draconic Coat] with no stats. To make it even more interesting, one could right-click that piece of gear in the /inspect UI and there would be an option to load up the GW2 Official Wiki, and that wiki page should tell you how to obtain it.

That particular POI is often revisted during various points in your Story quest … are saying that you have completed the entirety of your Story quest, all the way up to the final quest to defeat Zhaitan and never ever discovered that POI?

That might actually be an interesting idea.

Another idea would be to put these token vendors deep inside the dungeon, like the Obsidian Armor vendor in Fissure of Woe in Guild Wars 1.

A private one for home instances, and a public one in Lion’s Arch would be great! — I agree! Thanks for the addition, Ekevu.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Though it is kind of interesting to see your character on a profile sheet, I could also see it as a way to poke at a freshly dinged 80 and call that person a “baddie” for having sub-par gear and/or a strange Trait spec. In a way, this is also the same reason why you don’t have an /inspect command like in some MMOs. The way I see it is that it makes max-level content less welcoming if someone has the capability of “over-criticizing” your choice of gear and traits, which is the opposite of what ArenaNet is trying to achieve with GW2— as in, max-level content should be accessible to as many people as possible.

With that said, if something like this were to be implemented, it should include options to hide a portion or even all of your character’s profile, or even restrict it to friends and/or guild members.

For those who like to experiment with different trait builds and armor sets, there should be a Master of Damage NPC that can do all that crazy mathcraft for you.

For those who haven’t played Guild Wars 1, there was an NPC that you beat the kittens out of for three minutes (or until you use the /bow emote), and he calculates your DPS as such.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Master_of_Damage

He should make a triumphant return in a variety of locations. Of course, having stupid amounts of DPS doesn’t replace the competency to dodge big red circles of death in a dungeon (which I suppose would be reserved for a Master of Dodging NPC), but the curious types wondering about how much damage they’re doing, Master of Damage would do just that.

Though an original name would be nice, I say bring back the Paragon from GW1. They would be the only profession that could use a Trident and Spear as land weapons! They could also use Shields, Focus, and Torches. They could use Shouts like Warriors and Guardians, but can also possess Mesmer-like abilities as well with the use of Mantras and musical chorals. But to differentiate it from the Guardian, access to different elemental affinities works well, as you suggested.

My first MMO was GW1 and played all three campaigns from start to finish. However, I was somehow suckered into playing WoW with a friend. I played WoW starting at the beginning of the Burning Crusade expansion onward to the beginning of the Cataclysm expansion pack. I did take a long break when Lich King came out. I first started out as Alliance but then went Horde when Lich King came out.

I eventually got frustrated and bored but I just couldn’t leave my guild since I was the Main Tank, but I eventually quit the game when my guild /gdisband’ed, thus I didn’t had a reason to play anymore. I could remember that time in Vent when it happened too. The guild leader somewhat flipped his noggin mid-raid, left the raid, ninja’ed the bank, and /gdisband the guild. No one really saw it coming. I think most in my guild tried to reestablish themselves and continued on, but other went to play other games like Rift, TERA, SW:TOR, and The Secret World.

I did play Final Fantasy XIV for a few months after my WoW guild disbanded, but there was something about it that I didn’t quite kept me motivated. It felt too grindy and disconnected in some parts … and I actually like just about every Final Fantasy in the main series.

Eventually, I retired from being “hardcore” and settled with a casual guild that I ran with when playing TERA. I only played TERA for about a month since it was on sale for like 5 bucks at Best Buy, but when my subscription ran out, I decided to catch up with some unfinished business in GW1. Eventually, the guild went on to play Guild Wars 2 and I decided to join them. Some still play TERA but others moved on. I’ve been with them ever since and became an officer with them for being founding member of the GW2 version of the guild.

Now, I have no problem with the “kitten” filter. Actually, I find it rather hilarious reading raging complaints about random complaints about kittens.

However, if a word in the Topic title is replaced, the forum URL can show you what word was replaced with the actual word. Here’s an example below:

http://tinyurl.com/9gxv8qb

NOTE: I have to TinyUrl the link because the “kitten filter” would also change the word in the URL as well, thus breaking the link.

The thread title says “Forced to kitten DPS” but the URL shows what the censored word was.

A little minor thing and most people might not notice it, but I thought I’d point it out.

I think ANet could add in some kind of incentive for completing ALL the available paths in succession in an Explorable Mode dungeon. The cheap-n-easy people can still do their speed runs for their tokens but for the bold that want to do the two other harder paths, at least they have something to show for it.

Aside from the Dungeon Master title, which can be quite difficult to show off due to the way how titles are shown, perhaps an Exotic skin for their weapon that is noticeably different than the Exotic weapons one could purchase for tokens. Or even stand-alone gloves that glow or have unique effects. I know in GW1, there were unique gloves you could obtain that showed you did something to earn them. Just something that makes others wonder “Holy crap! That looks awesome! How do I get that?”

ANet could also introduce attunements that require you to do complete up to a certain point in your Personal Story before entering a certain explorable path of the dungeon. This could be equivalent to being “Ascended” in GW1.

There will obviously be grinding but to lessen it, and to encourage those to attempt the other paths of Explorable Modes, I think after completing one path, the next path could offer double rewards, and the third path could offer quadruple rewards (this is assuming you do each path back-to-back). In a way, this kind of reward was similar to how the Domain of Anguish was done back in GW1, where you would get a multiplied amount if you completed each path in succession instead taking breaks.

I remember the early days of DoA where you needed a tank of some sorts, three Elementalists, two Monks, and two Necros … or something like that. Everyone else were shelved for that oddball group. That sort of ticked me off at the time because my main was a Ritualist.

Eventually, I devised a build that would replace one of those Elementalists in the group— an AoE Channeling build of some sorts. It worked for the most part but I only finished City of Torc’qua and Foundry of Failed Creations … my guild disbanded soon after and I haven’t actively played GW1 until two months before GW2 came out.

Returning back to DoA, I noticed that the zone-wide debuffs were gone (at least they were in Normal mode. Hard mode felt like pre-nerf DoA with the debuffs back up). I eventually finished the last two zones I needed with just 7 Heroes; and went on to kill Mallyx two hours before GW2 pre-launch servers went live.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=91600748

It felt good at the time, but I kind of wished I did it with 7 other human players during DoA’s primetime to show that breaking the meta-game is possible. On the other hand, I’ve always been under the impression that some people out there are just plain stubborn and aren’t willing to innovate past the “go with what works” stage.

Anyway, I do appreciate that group composition is a bit more lenient in GW2 and allows for greater variation. Personally, I don’t find it too hard. There’s some iffy parts where we resorted to waypoint-zerging to accomplishing it, but after learning the pulls, we relied on that method less, and became better players. I think it’s just about learning the encounters, pulling trash responsibly, and watching out for your surroundings. It’s moderately challenging. Funny that I say that and I’m currently wearing Berserker’s gear with a glass cannon-like build— truth of the matter is that once you learn the dungeons and know your abilities can synergize with your teammates through combo fields and finishers, the encounters will eventually be cakewalk, and you can afford to swap out some of that Toughness gear with a little bit more damage.

I do see your point and do often to forget to reapply my food buff during farming sessions. With that said, I’ll be using an Alarm clock to remind me reapply my buff. I intend to do four runs:

— With Dungeon Gear: no Magic Find
— With Dungeon Gear + Food Buff: 30% Magic Find
— With Magic Find Gear: 116% Magic Find
— With Magic Find Gear + Food Buff: 146% Magic Find

Problem would be interferences from random dynamic events, especially the Claw of Jormag. In that case, I would have to find a way to avoid it to keep with consistancy.

I’m willing to put in some tests later on tonight. I’d probably farm in a way like I’m vanquishing a zone in GW1 to minimize the chances in triggering the anti-farm code. Meaning I’ll follow a zone-wide circuit instead of farming a small patch of mobs.

My current Magic Find set is at 116% (or 156 with food buff and I almost always have a boon up, though I might use the other food buff for better consistency).

However, I’d imagine there must be some kind of cap on Magic Find, which was my initial thought but I think I’m triggering the anti-farm code too quickly through the circuit of events in Orr. I might try Frostgorge Sound since there’s a variety of mobs like: Svanir, Icebrood Elementals, Griffins, Minotaurs, Trolls, and Grawl; as opposed to Orr which is almost always Risen.

If I’m not mistaken, “sir” in military terms is short for Officer, whereas Enlisted personal are often referred to by their rank (eg. Private, Corporal, Sargeant, etc). At least that’s how I remember it. Maybe it has changed over the years, but I think that’s the mentality behind why a female CO would want to be called “sir” in that regard.

It looks like an Exotic set, that’s for sure. I think it’s Norgu’s. I have the Boots and Chest sitting in the bank waiting for my Mesmer to hit 80.

The set is named after the Vabbian Mesmer hero from Guild Wars 1: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Norgu

On a side note, I do wonder what other armor sets are named after Heroes of Guild Wars 1 … ?

If you play the same race, then I’d imagine it would be boring somewhat. My opinion is somewhat different but I know I find it quite refreshing leveling up in the Sylvari areas after leveling up a Norn character to 80. Just take different paths and routes when given the choice in your story quests.

But if you’re one of those “Too-Long; Didn’t Listen” types and skips almost every cutscene … well, I can’t help you there.

On the other hand, WvW is more or less like open-world PvP in most MMOs where people of all levels gang up and beat each other up. Difference is that the lowbies are artificially boosted up to level 80 so that they have a better chance than those who are actually level 80. I don’t know about you, but I see leveling up a new profession more like relearning to play the game. Only with different abilities and mechanics. Skipping levels might make sense if you’re creating a new character of the same profession (eg. I have an 80 Warrior and might consider starting another Warrior), but skipping levels for a brand new profession doesn’t make sense.

“This is my Elite Skill!” Shout. Grant an awesome boon to you and your allies, while foes are confused by your great announcement.

Seriously, I would like an Elite Shout as well. Maybe not with that effect in mind, but perhaps one that would fill in the gaps left out by Battle Standard.

Warning! Spoilers below!

When I started my Norn Warrior, I chose the Lost Heirloom story arch. However, I ended up destroying the Heirloom in the very end of that story quest.

I’m now level 80 and way beyond that point of the story. I was given a choice by Marshal Trehearne to acquire Romke’s map or do something with the temples. I chose to look for Romke’s map.

When I met with Romke’s ghost, no where during that story quest ever brought up the subject of the horn in the beginning of the game. It’s almost like Romke didn’t really care that a bunch of Kodan and I smashed up the heirloom. I honestly found that to be pretty odd about it. I thought Romke would have some kind of connection the heirloom and would be somewhat upset that I had to destroy it … but nope.

Any fellow Norns found that kind of weird?

I attempted Zhaitan for the second time, mostly because to catch up with my Story Quest but to see what has changed since last night’s patch.

This time around, I decided to be a little bit more observant with the fight and checking out other things besides spamming 2 on the cannon. Here things I have noticed:

• Music is dead during the Cannon phase. Where’s the awesome orchestral awesomeness of Jeremy Soule’s musical talent in this battle? Like a pro wrestler’s theme playing as one walks into the square-circle, there should be some kind of heavy dramatic tune as one encounters and battles Zhaitan. Zhaitan is a Big-kitten-Dragon (which I’ll refer to as BAD through the rest of the post). He should have some badkitten music playing in the background.

• Surrounding NPCs on the airship don’t appear to be doing anything. Suggestion: I don’t know about you but if I see a BAD nearby, I would definitely do something about it. As members of the Pact, they should at least try shooting it with something or repairing parts of the airship.

• Zhaitan spits out poisonous blobs, but the damage is very pitiful and can be ignored. Suggestion: As a BAD, I think it would be better if his acid spits do moderate damage to both the player and the cannon. If a cannon becomes destroyed, then the player activate another skill on slot 4 called: “Cannon Down!” Shout. Call out for the assistance of a nearby Pact engineer to repair the airship’s cannon.

• Almost no resistance overall. Suggestion: A small pack of adds should spawn whenever one of the cannons becomes disabled. They should be easy for one player and a few Pact NPCs to take on while the other four players continue using their cannons. Likewise, these adds should be fended off from the engineer that’s repairing the cannon. Considering Asuran technology, it might be possible that an obliterated cannon would only take 30~60 seconds to repair.

• Other suggestions: At lower HP, Zhaitan should do something desperate, like summon a lesser champion dragon. Zhaitan would be temporarily immune, and to break that barrier, the champion dragon must be killed. They would appear on the other side of the ship and can be defeated using the cannons on the other side of the ship. Oddly enough, the cannons on the other side of the ship are usable, but currently do not serve any purpose.

I don’t see how it would work in comparison to using Way Points. Personally, I think it’s a bit of fresh air to move around on foot. I could actually take the time to appreciate the scenery around me.

However, if mounts were to be implemented in this game there has to be a few restrictions like:

• Not allowed in Dungeons, even outdoor dungeons! OR Include super-fast mobs that do extra damage to mounted players (both in and out of dungeons), similar to the mobs in Caudecus’ Manor that do extra damage to moving players. In some MMOs that allowed you to use a mount in dungeons, I find the dungeon to be of bad design if 75% of the trash could be skipped by using a mount. I don’t find that sort of dungeon-run to be enjoyable. That’s assuming the trash is of reasonable difficulty of course.

• The mount should have its own health bar and if killed/destroyed, it could be revived by the player. However, unlike the regeneration of player’s HP, the HP of the mount would only regenerate if it is not moving.

• Player should auto-dismount when entering an area where a Dynamic Event is in progress (unless the Dynamic Event allows for it). This would almost force them to participate. In order to mount up again, the DE must be completed or that player must retreat a certain distance away from the event.

Here’s my Warrior. The armor is the crafted Exotic gear, but I think I might transmute it into something. I’m just not sure what yet.

I also have many more screenshots uploaded on my Steam account:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/KaguraBeatBox/screenshots/?appid=sc_371&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid

Kailthir.6384:

Can a person sell or trade their mystic coins?

Yes you can. You can put those Mystic Coins on the Trading Post.

The Mystic Forge is mostly a big gambling game if you just dump random stuff in it. Sometimes, it works in your favor; and sometimes, it doesn’t. I do know that at one point, I bought 4 rares for a total of 80 silver. The Mystic Forge spit out an Exotic which I sold for about 2g50s— PROFIT! If you’re into gambling and testing your luck, then I suppose you might find some fun in it. For the rest of us, I would say just vendor or dump it in the Trading Post. If it’s a 70+ rare item, salvage it and hope for Ectos. At least the acquisition rate for Ectos is a bit more reasonable than hoping for four Rares to proc an Exotic out of the Forge.

As a Warrior that loves to run dungeons, here’s this tip: Bring a Ranged weapon! Rifle, Longbow— whatever! If you can do constant DPS from a distance on encounters that favor ranged combat, then do it!

Also, bring a few utility skills to help your party. Shouts and Banners are great to use, whereas a full signets load-out might make me thing you’re running some kind of glass build.

I personally use Mending as my default healing spell if I’m expected to deal with mobs that spam conditions. However, for areas where conditions are minimal, or if partied with someone that can remove your conditions, then Healing Signet would help quite a bit as well.

Now that is a really strange bug. It’s almost like Zhaitan is saying “Okay guys. You guys are cool and all, but if you can’t play nice, then GTFO!”
“But he did it first!”
“Like I give a kitten’s butt! boots party out of dungeon”

But seriously. That is a really weird bug. I do know that in a few of my groups, we would have someone leave for some random reason and we were able to replace them accordingly. On the other hand, I have yet to boot anyone out from an Arah group.

I honestly thought the Risen priests in each of the Orrian temples were marginally challenging with Grenth being the hardest. Oddly enough, I remember participating in the zerg-rush for that event but failed it at least three times because either the NPC we had to protect died, the shades killed off the zerg, or we just didn’t had enough DPS.

What I think needs happen in some of the Level 70+ Dynamic Events is that when the amount of people participating reached a certain threshold, then more Veteran and Champion mobs should spawn that have tactical abilities that the player needs to be wary about. I mentioned this in another thread, but I think these kinds of mobs should be immune or have a high-resistance to Ranger traps and AoE abilities; and actually run out of AoE like competent human players.

I’ll also tack on a few more ideas to this!

In the current state, you’ll notice Rangers laying their traps at spawn points and AoE-heavy professions pre-cast their stuff before they even appear. The mobs eventually die before they even show up on the map.

My suggestion is to put a lot more randomization on spawn areas for invasion-style events so it becomes less predictable, especially in the outposts like Pentinent, Shelter’s Gate, and Jofast in the Cursed Shore. Also include more Veteran and/or Champion mobs if there are more than 10 people participating in the event. The randomized spawn locations could also apply to escort events like Historian Fia towards the Risen Gorillas.

Another suggestion is to have the invading mobs have a temporary invulnerability until they get close enough to their target. Also introduce a few mobs that have high resistance to AoE, or ability to disable or walk through traps without taking damage.

The thing in GW1 is that those people would volunteer to share their skill set and builds in chat for everyone in that district to see when requested to do so.

An /inspect feature, however, would be a bit more invasive, especially more so in the max-level content. In the wrong hands, you would have some rotten apples inspect the “newbie” in the party and rip that person a new one regarding their gear, trait allocation, and equipped utility skills. That always bugged me in some MMOs where I would be a freshly dinged 60, 80, or whatever the max level was; and someone geared to the teeth would be like “DUDE! You put your talent points in THAT? What’s up with your gem sockets? OMG! You’re very bad, bro!” … First off, I ain’t your bro, yo! And the dungeon I queued up for is the Normal version, not Hard mode … sometimes, I may never understand those people.

I don’t mind a little criticism, but if you pass yourself off as some kind of jerk, I’m probably not going to take you very seriously. If something seems awkward about my equipment, I’d like to know so I can fix it, but there are better ways to do it than being an elitist jerk.

Back to the subject of the /inspect feature, I’d rather not have it and instead have people ask what they have equipped like it was back in Guild Wars 1. Those willing to share would link their equipment set and abilities appropriately.

I had a somewhat optimistic view during the Cannon phase of the Zhaitan fight. I honestly thought that fight was bugged. My first inclination was that I couldn’t see Zhaitan’s health bar on the top of my screen, only on the side where the Dynamic Event progress would be. I also couldn’t see how much actual damage I was doing with the cannons.

I don’t recall if the cannons on the other half of the ship were available, but if they were, it would be nice to fight against lesser dragons during that fight.

But if that fight is what it is, then I think it should be improved somewhat. Here are my ideas:

+ Perhaps Zhaitan can disable some cannons and a Pact engineer could come in an attempt to repair it. However, one has to defend that engineer from a small group of Risen adds. Possibly [Body Parts] of Zhaitan.

+ Maybe the cannons could be manipulated and turned against us. After all, the Risen are capable of building catapults. It would then be up to use to rebuild the cannons and fire back at Zhaitan.

+ Zhaitan could fire projectiles and the cannons would have to be used to defend off those projectiles with the use of some kind of barrier, similar to the lesser dragons before him.

I have yet to play the Explorable versions of Arah, so I don’t know if there are remnants of Zhaitan in any of them. If so, then I guess that’s why Zhaitan’s current form is somewhat weak while a B-A version of Zhaitan is somewhere in the explorable areas.

Hsinimod.5784:

Ah… well, you’re sorta right. But you can change your account name (the name and the numbers), without paying money. So you can hide anonymously after doing a ton of crap. Or, you just won’t be remembered anyway. As you pointed out, the smaller community allowed us to remember and flag people to avoid. The larger it is, the less you can do to prevent that.

Also, the difficulty of the dungeons does act as a way to weed out problem players—great point and I never thought of that. But then I remember the times of “why’d you queue up if you don’t know what you’re doing? GTFO.” This doesn’t affect me, as I have a guild, and I’m not messed with in PuGs. But when I see a new person in my group getting picked on because a bunch of random people want to min/max, that bothers me. I have empathy.

Ninjas were not a point I was making about GW2. I was mainly making the point of LFG tools allowed people to be more anonymous and selfish. The second it was up, I was a healing Druid rolling need on Rogue gear. Why? Cause I now could get my offset, and I was tired of being the good guy all the time.

That is exactly what happens to a community when it no longer needs to communicate. People will act like the lowest common denominator.

If GW2 makes a tool, will that happen? We don’t know. We only know what happened from past experiences. And past experiences, it allows the community to get worse. We have MMOs (plural) to judge from. WoW is not the standard, it is simply the example most people can relate to.

The changing of account name is a bit of new information for me. I guess the more you know. Although, I do wonder what notifications other players would get if they have that person in their friend’s list?

Well, I have used automated LFG tools almost extensively ever since it was announce in WoW, and have used it a lot in almost every MMO I have played that included it. It made me run a lot of dungeons. that’s for sure! I have partied with a variety of people with varied degrees of personalities. Some desirable than others, while some could be humorous and add a bit of RP-like flavor to the group. Likewise, I have also bumped into good guild groups and bad guild groups. At the time, I could only write down their name and server on a sheet of paper; but I think the merge of WoW accounts into Battle.net may have allowed for cross-server communication. I wouldn’t know since I left WoW midway through the Cataclysm expansion.

WoW aside, I do let everyone know that if it’s the first time running a dungeon, I’ll announce that at the beginning of the run. 80% of the time, the party members have been pretty cool with it and will explain the mechanics of the trash mobs and boss fights as we continue. That and I also played a tank. They had to explain that crap to me or the party would be in queue for another 20 or so minutes. :P

Honestly, you’re mileage may vary on the LFG matchmaker. Some may use it only once and that’s all the opinion they need. Me? I have probably ran over 500 dungeons using that tool, and have seen a wide spectrum of personalities.

Hsinimod.5784:

You can call it bull all you want, but I highly doubt you played WoW before the LFG and LFD tools then. If you don’t remember the days of your name being remembered on your server, then you were not there.

Being called a Ninja was an insult that meant something. You could not get a group to risk joining you. Your name was blacklisted. Call it bull if you want, but that just proves to me that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but are opinionated about it anyway.

You used to only do battlegrounds within your server. Not only did you know your players, you knew the enemy factions players, by name, as well. Completely different community in the start.

Everyone that came into a game when the community was already trolling and griefing, that is the standard they remember, and that is the standard they act on. And they’ll deny the community was any better, cause they were ignorant of such a time.

It’s basic psychology that people end up treating each other better when social conventions force them to. They fall into place. The simple act of needing to communicate is such a convention. We see it for what it is.

I do know in WoW and in most MMOs, the “community” would be regarded as the people of that particular server. In that case, those communities were small and people knew your name. However, one could transfer to another server with a totally different name, identity, (and much later) race and faction affiliation. It’s like dumping a bottle of bleach over a stained shirt.

However, in Guild Wars 2, you’re the only player with that particular name. Names are game-wide. Even if you were to change your name, you also have another name that will remain the same for the very life of your account: your account name! That’s right! The name you have plus the four magical numbers attached to it. The only way to change it is if your fork over another 50 bucks to ANet and buy a another copy of the game.

If someone on the forums called you out by account name, EVERYONE would know about your great deeds or your notorious rap sheet regardless of what server they’re from. Friends Lists are cross-server, unlike in most MMOs where the lists are often server-dependant. If you like trolling parties or just being a total d-bag, that kind of action would be reflected on your Account Name, which can be seen by every member of your party.

I don’t see mute parties happening much in GW2 and I’ll tell you why: Dungeons in GW2 are hard! Unless they’re nerfed to the ground, people will still have to communicate in order to succeed, regardless of world of origin. The parties who fail are those who fail to communicate. With that regard, I know if my guild pugs someone for a near-full guild group, we offer to have them join in on our Vent server.

How about the ninjas? Loot Ninjas practically don’t exist in this game since everyone gets a little bit of something from the loot chest.

What can exist are people who act like jerks. They’re on every single MMO! Fortunately, ratting out jerks is much easier in Guild Wars 2 since 1) names are game-wide and 2) when you add that player to your friend’s list, you can see which characters they play on since it lists both character name AND account name.

In essence, the Guild Wars 2 “community” would be every single person who plays this game regardless of which server you play on. Sure there might be smaller communities like the Jade Quarry community, or the Fort Aspenwood community, or the Kaineng community, and so on per server. However, you could still be held accountable of all the actions you do with other people regardless of what server you play on.

Vendetta.5032:

What ends up happening though is everyone will sit in the city, next to a vendor and just wait for the queue. This stops people from actually experiencing the game, imagine trying to quest and no one else is there to do the events with you..

That wouldn’t happen in GW2 and for the obvious reason that you have no dedicated “tanks” or “healers”— just players of various levels of skill. If you “queue up”, you should in theory have a substantially smaller queue time to get into a dungeon because you’re not waiting on a tank or healer to queue up. I do know that back in my WoW days, I have queued up as a Tank and my queue times would be almost instant because Tanks and Healers are always in demand.

Instead, what might happen is that players might inhibit dungeon burn-out for running too many in quick succession. If that player has played a DPS role in other MMOs, then that person might freak-out and be like “Holy crap! My queue is short!” Considering the overall difficulty of dungeons in GW2, those lowly skilled adventurers would be swayed away until that player gets better or the content gets slightly nerfed.

dkabib.5143:

Please how do I create the 250 Salvage kits? I just buy 3 Regular 25 uses and put what it?

You put in three mystic stones, along with the gold, blue, and green salvage kits. These can be obtained by either doing the daily achievement, or by buying them in the Gem Store.

I would definitely get behind this concept! However, for some explorable paths, the same boss may be shared. For example, the Crucible of Eternity explorables (Hello Alpha!). In cases like those, that particular boss might be replaced by something else depending on what order that path was taken. Lore-wise, I’m not sure what but it could share the same or similar tactics the original boss but was killed in another path. Either way, it would nice if that kind of reward system was in place for those who want to try to Marathon-run all the explorable paths in that same dungeon.

I figured I’d bump this up. I can’t be the only one who DC’ed in the middle of a fight and then got cheated out of a few measly dungeon tokens. :O

I have encountered a rather glaring anomaly in regards to running a dungeon!

If you get disconnected, you get ported outside of the instance immediately! There is no grace period to return back into the instanced area at the spot of disconnection like there was in GW1. In addition, if you get disconnected during a boss fight and return back to find that boss dead, you get no loot chest. For Explorable versions, that also means you get no tokens, which in my case, I’m short the Manifestos of Moletariate that I would have earned for participating in the killing of the last boss in Sorrow’s Embrace (Fergg’s path).

I have submitted a ticket regarding this issue (#120912-002056) and I have yet to hear back. Although I don’t expect to get a response immediately since ArenaNet is probably still bombarded with tickets about hacked accounts and such. However, I’m being somewhat optimistic about the situation, but I also understand if I don’t get those tokens— it’s not the end of the world. Besides, Fergg’s path would be perhaps one of the easiest Explorables I have done.

Ranged:
+ Shotguns — 2-Handed Weapon. Crafted by Huntsmen. Usable by Engineers, Rangers, Mesmers, and Warriors. It would have lower base damage than Rifles or Pistols, but it would be compensated with better frontal cone AoE capabilities.

Melee:
+ Scythes — 2-Handed Weapon. Crafted by Weaponsmiths. Usable by Necromancers (duh!), Elementalists, Thieves, and Guardians. Earth- and Air-attuned Elementalists could have abilities similar to what Dervishes had in GW1. Guardians could also adopt some of the Dervish’s Mystism abilities.

+ Fist Weapons — 1-Handed Weapon. Crafted by Artificiers. Usable by Thieves, Warriors, Necromancers, and Elementalists. And Elementalist with a fist weapon could have the capability to shoot Hadoukens and similar projectiles found in fighting games.

Some kind of LFG matching system. Honestly, I don’t understand the people who disagree with this feature but most modern MMOs have this and it makes it quite convenient to get into a group without having to waste time standing in front of a dungeon’s entrance and spam “LFM for [dungeon]”, especially during times of the day where not many people are playing in that same zone. I hate doing that, especially since there’s no world-wide chat, which obviously limits my advertisement to run a dungeon.

Or at the very least add a world-wide LFG chat of some sorts … hopefully, it would be used for LFG requests instead of off-topic general chat.

Now, I’ve heard a bunch of disputes around the dungeon matchmaking feature and I could spend all day intelligently debating, refuting, and arguing about it, but I’ll save that for another thread. For now, that’s my #1 suggestion at this time! I’ll add some more when I can think of them.

Thanks!

Hello Mark! I’d like to share a few issues I have had while running some dungeons.

I have had issues trying to zone into Ascalonian Catacombs since last night, both Story Mode and Explorer Mode for the past two days; and I haven’t found a way to fix it.

Here’s stuff I have tried:
+ Disbanding and reforming group
+ Logging out straight to desktop and logging back in.
+ Logging into a different character and logging back into the main character
+ Rezoning to different areas

What happens is that either we get to zone in but no party members can be seen; or we can’t zone in at all, even after clicking the appropriate option on the prompt. If we can zone in (which is usually through walking into the instance portal), but zone back out, we cannot return back in.

I’m pretty confused on how to make this work.

On the other hand, the day before, we had smaller issues running Crucible of Eternity Exploreable Mode. 3 out of 5 people can zone in but the other two would get an error that the instance was “full”. We found out that 2 people from a previous incomplete run were still in the instance with a possibility of hijacking the instance for the others wanting to complete it. My theory was that the 2 left inside were still in a party but those who abandoned the original party got two others to replace them and wanted to give the dungeon another try.

My current home world is Jade Quarry.

I know this seems kind of odd, but I have a suggestion: how about a feature to manually Reset the instance without having to reform or relog? Maybe that could fix it. I know such a feature works in many MMOs I’ve played where there were issues in running dungeons without a lock-out timer.

Depends on the situation and group composition.

For soloing and encounters where there is high resistance to bleeds, I go with a Greatsword. I also use this for farming events. Unlike Whirling Axe, which has a 15 second cooldown, 100 Blades has a 6 second cooldown, meaning that it can be used more often and reliably between waves.

For encounters where the boss has high armor, I might go bleed-spec with Sword in main hand and axe in off hand. The sword would build the bleeds up while the axe would be great AoE while rebuilding adrenaline incredibly quick.

Rarely, I might also go with a Hammer mostly for crowd control. Oddly enough, I leveled up to my mid-50’s using a Hammer.

For long range, I would prefer a Rifle for single-target damage or a Longbow for AoE and occasional cripple. I also use a Longbow for WvW so that tagging Invaders before they die is much easier, thus completing the WvW monthly achievement much easier.

Greetings!

I’m not one to complain much, but I have noticed one strange oddity amongst adventurers during my travels around Tyria, and that would be the use of oddly placed accent marks on character names. Now, I understand the legitimate uses such as if the name is of foreign origin, like “Björne the Ale Master” for a potential Norn character. I can accept that situation. But a name like “Bïg Bäd Nörn” for example makes me scratch my head.

For simpler one-word names, I suppose it’s because the original name was taken … but couldn’t you have thought of a last name or title to go with that? 19 characters plus the allowance of spaces would allow one person to be very creative with naming without given some a hard time in trying to invite someone to a party.

Or in the case of the metal umlauts or “rock dots”, I get it— you’re probably some kind of heavy metal nut, but for other accent marks, it makes me wonder about that name, probably to the point that could make the brains of us lesser Bookahs explode in questionable magnitudes.

I’m wondering what’s the policy behind this and if names like these should be reported. Of course, I’d imagine it would be on a case-by-case basis. I obviously wouldn’t want to report the accents in someone’s name that appeared to be used logically, such as a name of foreign origin; but instead for names that just have accent marks just so that name looks “different”.

Thoughts? Opinions? Could someone make a name like Bòókah and get away with it?

LyricDawnhagen.7803:

If they add duels, I only ask that ArenaNet includes a setting in the Options that will allow me to ignore all duel requests.

I agree with this! I wouldn’t mind a casual duel amongst guild mates, but when some random weirdo starts spamming duel requests, it gets quite annoying. Either that, or reserve duel requests in a special area of The Mists.

Pretty much, but you can still earn those rewards from GW1 should you choose to do so.

You don’t. You rely on how skilled they are in running the content in question instead of looking at what they’re wearing. However, if you’re desperate in wondering if their gear is exotic/legendary etc, you could always study the looks of gear from the various dungeon armor vendors in Lion’s Arch. They’re near the WvW Asura gates.

Note however that the stats on that gear may not always reflect what they actually have. Meaning that they could just have the skin of that armor but the stats of something else, mostly due to having transmutation stones. However, if that person is wearing a complete dungeon set, then chances are that they probably know that part of the content pretty well.

I play a Warrior and I know three abilities that can remove conditions:

Mending: Heal + remove two conditions
Signet of Stamina: Remove all conditions
“Shake it off!”: Removes one condition within earshot.

Plus, Warriors can stack bleeds with a Sword in the main hand.

@Izithel

I suppose I could do that, but then if I want to browse around the GW2 wiki for certain things, that means I would have to actually minimize the game to do the browsing, and then maximize the game to play again. It’s cumbersome and doesn’t fully utilize the capabilities of my computing space. With supplementary resources loaded on the second monitor, I could look at that AND play at the same time!

@Dez

I have tried enabling fullscreen windowed mode actually. It does prevent the minimizing part, but the real problem is that my mouse cursor would mysteriously find itself on the secondary monitor regardless of whether that option is enabled or not. And of course, if I click outside of the game, that means the program on the secondary window becomes in focus and I would no longer be able to control my character in game until I clicked back on the GW2 screen. I do find it rather strange.