Guild Wars 2

Another thing to consider is that at some point, our Achievement points would retroactively give us Laurels, allowing a more quicker acquisition of Ascended gear. In other words, the time-gate on currently earning these pieces is simply temporary.

I find that it’s just a pain in the butt to report exploiters themselves— it’s just too much of a hassle; and half the time, they consciously don’t know they’re actually exploiting because “that’s how I learned how to do this dungeon”. Funny thing— I had a guildie admit that two nights ago was the first time he fought Mossman legitimately, and he ’s almost level 40.

So what I’ve been doing is taking pictures and video captures of the actual exploit itself, documenting on how it can be reproduced, and reporting that. So far, most of the exploits I have reported end up being patched in the next major content update. Does Anet ban those who actually exploit in dungeons? First hand experience, I can tell you that my guildmates never told me stories about getting banned for anything over their Mumble server, and half the time, they’re usually present in my video recordings. However, YMMV.

Aside from blatant exploits, there’s also the case of skipping mobs. It’s a controversial note that gets passed around these forums, but skipping (within reason), is legal to do. To what limit is probably what’s still in the air. The way I see it is that if it involves terrain exploitation (eg. The CM Mountain Climb and The Arah Boat Glitch), then it’s a red flag in my books. Otherwise, running past mobs using Swiftness boons, area stealth, and other abilities; and having their aggro resetting back to their original location is okay.

Personally, I find that if I’m around new people who aren’t familiar with the dungeon, I’ll just tell everyone to kill what’s in front of them, especially Arah where if you end up with a party-wipe somewhere, running back can be a royal pain in the butt. For experienced groups, or those who don’t mind skipping mobs, then I’ll skip with them … at least until we find that we’re struggling, then I’ll fall back to the previous point.

Overall, I think ArenaNet is still learning about the psychology of today’s dungeon runners as opposed to how it was like running missions in GW1. One key element introduced in GW2 is obviously the capability to jump. That means that players will find creative ways to utilize jumping to expedite their runs. Some MMOs I’ve played usually involved players wall-jumping to odd places in an attempt to speed up the completion of certain content. GW2 seems to encourage massive amounts of jumping, and even have a set of achievements just for “Jumping Puzzles”. Honestly, I’ve always wonder what these dungeons would be like if the mobs also learned how to jump.

If ArenaNet finds skipping to be a big problem (and I mean big), then they could bring back Vanquisher-style objectives to these dungeons. In case you haven’t played GW1, Vanquishing a zone meant scraping and combing through the entirety of a given zone and killing everything! Often times, it would award you with money and skill points. It might still work in GW2.

Outlaw Slaying potion should work on the Cliffside Fractal seeing that the mobs there drop bandit-specific loot.

Ghost Slaying potion strangely works in the Charr Fractal seeing that the Ascalonian mobs are the same as the ghosts in AC … just not in ghostly form.

Technicality-wise, random results just plainly sucks. I never really was a big fan of lottery-type rewards as the only means of acquisition. Sure, it might give a sense of suspense to some folks, but I think those types are a vast minority and generally lumped into the “hardcore of hardcores.” It might have been cool back when MMOs were new, but as I got older, I get more tired when it comes to uber-low drop rates and hoping for that “best-of-the-best-in-slot” to drop. For the sensible folks, regardless of level of core-ness, there should be a sense of progression in the form of gathering the appropriate resources in order to build something that is suitable. Legendaries, for example, could be something that could be worked on bit by bit, and eventually you’ll get one.

However, I’m always in the mindset that there could be a lore-specific reason why something is specifically random, which lessens my likelihood to rage about the situation. For example, the acquisition of Mystic Clovers since clovers generally signify an aspect of luck. Boss-specific drops might also make sense (within reason of course).

The suggested Mystic Forge recipe seems reasonable, but perhaps the precursor for the Fractal weapon should be craftable instead of just some run-of-the-mill exotic. I think it could work like this:

First, the recipe for the Fractal weapon should be purchased from the vendor for a modest amount of Mist Essence materials. You would need level 400 of a crafting discipline in order to make the first part.

Example—

Recipe: Beta Fractal Shield
+ 10 Pristine Fractal Relic
+ 200 Fractal Relics
+ 5 Vials of Condensed Mist Essence

Let’s say you gave all those materials to the vendor to purchase the recipe to make the shield. In order to make the Beta Fractal Weapon, you would need:

Beta Fractal Shield : Requires Lv. 400 Weaponsmith
+ 10 Orichalcum Shield Bosses
+ 10 Orichalcum Shield Backings
+ 5 Pristine Fractal Relics
+ 5 Globs of Coagulated Mist Essence

Then the promoted version would be the actual Fractal weapon you could get from the daily chest, but instead of hoping to be lucky, you can actually crafted it if you want.

Fractal Shield : Mystic Forge Recipe
+ 1 Beta Fractal Shield
+ 1 Gift of Ascension
+ 15 Pristine Fractal Relics
+ 15 Shards of Crystallized Mist Essence

I’m sure the numbers could be tweaked a little bit so that the weapon requires some degree of time and effort to obtain the materials to craft one, but at least there is a sense of progress towards building one and one should expect to see results upon reaching completion of the desired Fractal weapon.

Based on the name, I would have to say it drops from the chest that spawns when you defeat Champion Drakin Cinderspire in Iron Marches. That boss is located in the northern-west corner of that zone called the Scorchlands.

I usually run with a mix of white, black, and reds. It seems to work out for the look I’m going for, though sometimes I switch it up depending on a certain look I’m trying to aim for.

Back in GW1, I know black and white were also relatively expensive. However, you really didn’t have much of a selection unless you experimented and mixed various dyes to find that perfect color. It didn’t surprise me that the rare quality whites and blacks would reach that monetary value in GW2. White is a brilliant base color to work with and goes well with many things— it’s the Guile’s Theme of Colors. On the other hand, darker shades are a bit tricky to work with but can produce interesting results without making it too plain in dark light.

In addition, you also have to consider what material that dye is being applied to. I find most Vibrant colors to be comical in most schemes, but can be workable, while the Metal and Leather colors work best when applied to those materials.

Honestly, I find the worst color combinations to be dying every single slot the same exact color, regardless of color. The notorious ones would be those who go all-Abyss, all-Celestial, or all-Midnight Ice/Fire. Just because those are Rare quality dyes doesn’t mean they’re the best dyes.

I second this bug.

Had this happen yesterday and reported it in the Game Bugs forum.

Here’s a video of Magg not accepting our bombs:

Definitely!

Also, I hate to think how some Engineers felt after purchasing the Charr or Quaggan backpack with real money instead of converting gold into gems. I would have probably feel somewhat gypped and demanded a refund. If the issue has to be escalated, I’m not sure how far I would take the issue; but knowing me, I would go as far as humanly possible to demand a refund. I’m sure the BBB has a well-documented rap sheet about me when it comes to customer service complaints.

Okay, maybe that’s just an exaggeration, but if real money is involved, I’d probably feel somewhat annoyed about it; post about my complaint on the forums; get flamed at from the community because I didn’t use Google or other researching methods; and then getting banned from the forums because I decided to speak out my mind in total rage. All that while feeling Like a Boss.

Silliness aside, I think I might spend some time to draw out some backpack concepts. Once I feel satisfied, I’ll share my ideas here on the forums and on Reddit.

Tekno.3027:

I saw one guy on my server with that shield yesterday,so it must drop somewhere.

You sure it’s actually the Dark Moon Shield and not the Shield of the Moon? Both shields are somewhat similar in design, but the Dark Moon Shield is more thorny and greenish, while the Shield of the Moon has a smoother texture with yellow accents on it.

As an Grenade-spec Engineer, I’m pretty sure I’ll be using my Grenades a lot more than my pistol and shield. If I were to use a specific shield or back piece, it would primarily be for RP/Cosplay purposes than for actual functionality (though, the projectile reflection on the shield is nice, it’s purely situational).

Honestly, I think the shield and/or backpiece should somehow influence the look of our kits in some way. Perhaps the kits could emit some sort of Fractal-like particle effects if you have the glowing Fractal Capacitor. Or maybe the kits could look plush and cute-looking if you have a Quaggan backpack.

In a previous patch, I used to be able to display my decorative backpiece while still using my grenades; and not having my grenade pack cover the piece. It allowed me to appreciate some of the screenshots I took while still keeping up with my damage. Somehow, I can’t make my backpack disappear anymore, and as seen on the attached screenshot, the backpack covers up the backpiece.

For those who prefer having a shield on their back instead of a backpack, then the kits could adopt any particular particle affects (or even an actual themed skin) from them.

There should be a choice between adopting the effects from the shield, the backpiece, or both.

For now, I’m left with a rather odd dilemma— and that’s choosing what to put in my back while in combat. In non-combat areas, I suppose I could put one of my elixirs on autocast so that both my shield and my backpiece can always be displayed. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter much while in combat since my eyes are more likely on the enemy than on my back, but for times when I want to take some in-game photography, I guess I’ll have to stick with my grenades until I stumble into a screenshot-worthy moment, then I’ll go to pistol+shield mode temporarily for the screenshot before going back to grenades again.

Anyone else in a similar issue as me when it comes to what goes on our backs?

DISCLAIMER: No bragging rights implied. Just a rather extreme example.

I suppose one could start another “Theories” thread in regards to this shield. It looks like an interesting shield to add to my shield collection.

This bug sometimes happens when a group fails this event but escapes death by running back to the tunnel before the bombs detonate.

The event can be activated again, but the bombs could not be turned in to Magg, thus the event could not be completed.

As seen here:

http://youtu.be/FllpfgVr1vs

If the bubble doesn’t work, your next action is to attempt to interrupt it using knockdown and dazing abilities on the boss. That should work. If not, then running really far away could do it, as long the boss doesn’t reset.

I honestly didn’t find AC much longer, just different . If anything, it might take a while for your guild mates to adapt to the new boss mechanics; and when they get the hang of it, the dungeon would probably be just as fast as AC 1.0. Though, Detha’s path might be a little throttled depending on how the boss reacts to the traps and the time it takes for the adds to get placed in the traps; but everything else should be gravy in time.

As far as “short” or “easy” dungeons go, I find CM Butler path moderately decent. TA Up path can be somewhat short as well. SE 1 and 3 are also quick.

1 — My original server was Jade Quarry. I ended up choosing the server because the name was closely related to the Luxons from GW1. Ironically, in most MMOs I end up playing from day-1, I usually end up on a server that goes from full to dead in just a month-- Jade Quarry, on the other hand, must have been the go-to server for the hardcore of hardcores and became filled up real quick.

Eventually, I transferred to Sanctum of Rall because the people I knew from Jade Quarry no longer played (I guess when many of your members got their Legendaries, Dungeon Master titles, and completed most other content in the game, then they’ll get bored very fast … those were the kinds of people I hung around with during the first three months of this game). Originally, the JQ guild that offered me to join them claimed to be one of the top Kurzick alliances in GW1— but I would feel very out of place in that guild since I was Luxon so I declined.

I ended up on Sanctum because I found the name of the server to be moderately unique and named after a late fan of GW1. I also knew another community of people that was on that server … but they stopped playing a week after I transferred over so I ended up in a guild full of Redditors instead, whom are very interesting to hang around with and have been with them since.

2 — What would get me back in WvW? If I ever come around to either building another legendary and/or WvW becomes a requirement to complete the Monthly achievement. Otherwise, I don’t bother too much of it since I don’t find it as interesting as doing dungeons. Then again, in most MMOs I played, I usually end up doing dungeons because I just enjoy it. Most kinds of PvP tend to annoy me, regardless of which game I play. It’s not because I’m scared-- I’m not. After all, I managed to complete all the Monthlies, got 100% Exploration for two characters, and got enough tokens to purchase a Gift of Battle. I just don’t find WvW very amusing.

3 — It is true that the bonuses does affect dungeons, but I don’t find it wholly significant. If WvW bonuses made me moderately godlike, then I would probably end up scheduling all my dungeons on a Thursday night or Friday morning, before WvW scores reset; but I do dungeons just fine regardless of the day of the week.

4 — If repair bills scared me, then I wouldn’t be doing dungeons either. Otherwise, I find the repair bills to be rather tame in this game in comparison to some of the other MMOs I’ve played. For instance, my last MMO I played was TERA. If I died, one of my cruxes would break and I would down almost 100g, which would mostly be a day or two worth of farming. Back in my WoW days, I was the main tank for my 25-man guild. My repair bill on almost every progression night would be the reward amount of two or three daily quests. Repair bills in GW2 is actually very generous. I guess I should be fortunate that I don’t get down-leveled when I die, unlike in much more older MMOs.

5 — Beats me. I don’t have Sunrise so I cannot legitimately answer that question, but if it’s supposed to be a riddle, then I suck at riddles. Sorry.

Attached is my server’s current WvW score. Yes, we’re currently falling behind; but honestly, I don’t really care too much about it. As long my guild mates are happy with what they’re doing at the moment, which at the time of this post, many of them appear to be scouting the world for boss events like the dragons, temples, and Shadow Behemoth, then I don’t mind. WvW scores don’t need to dictate their happiness.

I wouldn’t say to remove Guesting all together, but change it so that it fits the intended purpose of the feature which is to “allow you to play with your friends on other worlds.”

The key word on that one is friends. Meaning that the server choices should be restricted to the home servers that people on your friends list belongs to. If you don’t have any mutual friends on a particular world, then you shouldn’t be allowed to guest on that world. That’s the way that guesting should work.

I do agree that it could potentially be crossing the borders of exploitation, especially for players who have multiple characters within level range to participate in such event.

On the other hand, how are we to tell if someone participating in the event is actually a guest or not? Another thing to consider is that the chests for these events have been buffed considerably. That means that more people are actually doing these events with the potential of putting late comers on Overflow servers.

Maybe showing an icon next to someone’s name could be an idea, similar to the LFG, Commander, and World Completion icons appear for certain players. Then we can truly find out if it’s Guesting that’s causing the problem, or the events just simply having a huge abundance of people from your home world.

A Dungeon Finder is in the works! Until then, use GW2LFG or find a guild that runs dungeons a lot!

Though the original intent of the Commander tag is to lead squads of players around in WvW, I do see some practical uses in PvE. For those who believe that Commanders should only be utilized in WvW, I’m thinking it could work like this for Commander-like people in PvE and have exclusivity to their own guild members:

Officer-assigned Commanders: These Commanders would either be temporary or permanent and assigned by their guild leader or officers. They would only be visible on the minimap for any representing guild members. The idea behind these commanders would be to assist in guild missions and other guild-related activities, however, these guild-assigned Commanders could also invite non-guild members to their squad and they would be able to see these Guild-assigned Commanders. These commander icons could also be be different colors or shapes to make it easier to coordinate (eg. “All Engies, Mesmers, and Necros go to Green Commander, all others go to Red Commander.” and so on.)

As far as the mass amount of Commanders in boss areas, like Shadow Behemoth, perhaps they could be consolidated as one icon to help reduce UI-clutter. Here are some examples:

knives.6345:

Ari Kagura.9182:

I don’t envy them— at some point, I’ll eventually get my own if the need arises for one but I don’t find myself using the commander features at this time since my guild has suitable commanders right now.

The annoyance would primarily be because they’re just so many of them. Again, I don’t mind one or two, but any more than that and I’m left scratching my head and bringing up the concern of “Commander Spam” on the minimap. The further questions are just silly and frivolous, and serves nothing more to incite rage. And honestly it takes a lot more to get me mad about something.

Instead, I posted this thread to bring up a concern, which is different from a rant. The issue would be that with so many Commanders on the mini-map, it just becomes more of an annoyance if anything. I’d say that if you want to show off in being a Commander, then go out and actually command something! Kill invaders, take camps, recapture temples, and behead those guild bounties. Actually put that 100g book to good use!

Ok. I still don’t get what you are annoyed at – I mean, there are more people spamming in chat than the total commander hats worn – but yeah, it’s how you feel…

At least chat could be filtered using the appropriate settings. I have tabs set up to show only Guild chat, only Party chat, and so on. Commander icons? I just have to deal with them until a feature could be implemented to filter out some or all of their presence when I’m not interested in them.

I don’t envy them— at some point, I’ll eventually get my own if the need arises for one but I don’t find myself using the commander features at this time since my guild has suitable commanders right now.

The annoyance would primarily be because they’re just so many of them. Again, I don’t mind one or two, but any more than that and I’m left scratching my head and bringing up the concern of “Commander Spam” on the minimap. The further questions are just silly and frivolous, and serves nothing more to incite rage. And honestly it takes a lot more to get me mad about something.

Instead, I posted this thread to bring up a concern, which is different from a rant. The issue would be that with so many Commanders on the mini-map, it just becomes more of an annoyance if anything. I’d say that if you want to show off in being a Commander, then go out and actually command something! Kill invaders, take camps, recapture temples, and behead those guild bounties. Actually put that 100g book to good use!

I’d say go do it! If you managed to beat it, then post some screenshots of your success!

knives.6345:

They bought it – they have the right to turn it on or off when they wanted to.. They are not violating any of the game’s rules..

Why the rant?

They could be having a meeting for all you know..

It’s true that they bought it with their money. I get that part. I’m not ranting about that. Actually, it’s more like a concern than it is a rant. If it was a rant, then my post would be full of “kitten” after every third word.

As I mentioned before, I didn’t mind when it was just one commander in LA; and I do see suitable uses for it in PvE such as the recently introduced Guild Missions. In fact, I know my guild, which primarily does PvE content, uses commanders to help rally guild members to key locations for bounties and group events, especially when it comes to the Temple events in Orr.

But when you have a bunch of Commanders in a general non-combat area, it does get somewhat annoying. If there really was a meeting of some sorts, even if it’s an RP session (which I doubt since it’s on an Overflow), wouldn’t the head of the meeting say “Meet at my location.”

Again, I don’t see a practical application for the Commander icon when in a major city. In most cases, if the gathering of guild members would take place in a city, almost always, a general location would do (eg. “Meet us near the dungeon vendors.” or “the Asura gates” or “the Lion statue” etc etc).

Vinny.6924:

We had just as many in our LA today waiting for WvW to reset.

We use it as a place to gather and plan where each guild is going and to have fun.

I don’t see the purpose of this post.

I can understand when Commanders are waiting for WvW to reset. That makes sense to me.

What doesn’t make sense is when there are so many Commanders in LA long after the reset. I thought it might have been them waiting on a queue time, but then I remembered that it was just more than 5 hours past the reset … queue time can’t possibly be that long, can it?

Im Mudbone.1437:

ANET should seriously consider making the commander icon displayable ONLY in WvW!

I’m not sure if I totally agree with this one, only because they can be great when doing the Guild Missions or other guild-related events out in the PvE world. If anything, the Commander icon should be disabled in major cities, which the icon itself serves very little practical use.

LilMcGinley.3890:

12 in a BL
Non-commanders need not apply.

Got another screenshot of 14 commanders in a BL.. I wonder if there is a limit?

I honestly would like to know what Tier this was on. This seems to be like an extreme case of the Yo-Dawg Syndrome.

It’s a possibility; But if you get booted out of WvW due to a reset, wouldn’t you end up in front of the WvW portals and not in the northern trade section of LA? That’s assuming the reset is very recent.

Also, I believe the scores reset about 5 hours ago. I highly doubt WvW cue times are five hours long assuming these Commanders are waiting for a WvW cue to pop up. I think the longest cue time I got was about an hour, maybe two.

At the time of this posting, I see six Commanders in this overflow.

See attached screenshot.

I mean, I don’t mind a Commander running around in PvE out in the world, especially with the Guild Missions going around and stuff where the Commander features could actually be useful outside of WvW; but a bunch of them hanging around in Lion’s Arch? Instead of loitering around Lion’s Arch, couldn’t they be out in the world actually doing well … Commander stuff?

Just one was bearable in LA … but as you can see on that snapshot, there are SEVEN Commanders! What are they exactly “commanding” in Lion’s Arch anyway? A very dubious plot perhaps?

I suppose I could join one of their “squads” just so I could see only one Commander icon, but why is joining a complete stranger’s squad a workaround for that? Honestly, it would be nice if there was an option to disable the display of Commanders in select locations; or display only certain Commanders like those from your representing guild. Just a couple ideas there.

Regardless if the group consists of guild members on voice chat or random pugs, dungeons should at least require a certain amount of communication amongst members to get by. That would apply to all dungeons from AC to Arah.

With that said, there may be times when communication can be abbreviated if the answer to “Does everyone know this encounter?” is Yes for every member. It could even happen in random groups. If the random members know how to communicate and lead, then they could be just as efficient (if not more efficient) than an experienced guild group. We may hear of stories of bad pugs and such, but even some pugs out there can listen if you can bring across your commands without coming across as some condescending jerk. I find that most pugs tend to break apart not just by sloppy playstyles, but also by faults of the leadership. For me, if I see texts like “…” “sigh” and “facepalm” from the supposed leader of the group, that generally bring across warning flags for me of could be a shoddy leader. It would then lead to bossy attitudes and well … it just reminds me more of that 50 DKP Minus Guy— a person I probably wouldn’t take seriously unless I was in the military.

Back to the dungeon feedback at hand, I think I like the new AC. It feels refreshing. However, that’s not to say that the dungeon is perfect— it isn’t. I have yet to do this dungeon with a level 35 character, but I know it was initially crazy for a full level 80 group the first time I done it. At some point, a lot of us will figure out how this dungeon works, memorize the boss’ key movements, and it’ll be easy-sauce again; but I did felt that the fights were obviously different, but it was a good kind of feel instead of one of tedium.

Specifically speaking, I did notice Ghost Eater to bug out occasionally by not moving around. Our workaround was to burn off the boss’ defiant stacks and attempt to knockback it towards one of the traps. When the Ghost Eater enters the fleshy form, then the encounter unbugs itself.

The Cave Troll was another boss that felt moderately annoying, mostly due to Fear. If the Cave Troll spawns in a location Kholer, then it becomes annoying if you end up being feared off the ledge, and sometimes and oddly dying to falling damage because you landed on a small extension of the wall instead of the water.

Lastly, we experienced some heavy FPS drops during the event in which we had to use the traps in Detha’s path. I thought it might have been something on my PC that was lagging, but apparently my party members also experienced it as well.

Overall, I like the new changes. It might be interesting to see what the other dungeons would be like with these new changes.

Robert Hrouda said they’re currently working on it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/It-s-time-for-a-group-finder/first#post1384841

At the mean time, the only solutions you have is to join a guild with a lot of people who also do dungeons, or use GW2LFG.

I just want to make mention that I almost dumped pieces of my Arah set in the Mystic Forge while converting soulbound exotics into sellable exotics. I would have been very sad and would have requested a rollback on my account (not really— since I know that rollbacks are generally used for hacked accounts instead of silly mishaps with the Mystic Toilet, but just sayin’ yo).

Fortunately, my Arah set is still here with all 6 pieces sitting in my bank. But I would like to offer a suggestion:

Allow items in Safe and Invisible Bags to be hidden when using the Mystic Forge! Those items are hidden when attempting to dispose of them them using the vendors and the Trading Post— why not the Mystic Forge too? It would be then that the items in those bags will be truly safe from mishaps from sleep-deprived people like me. That’s all.

Good question!

It’s either: 7 days since the reward has been claimed, or on Friday when WvW scores reset. Seems like the logical days.

I guess we either wait for a red post, or until WvW reset, or 7 days since the last time you received your guild mission chest.

Was watching my guild leader’s TwitchTV stream … this is what I saw.

Our guild has noticed this as well. We’re in Reddit Refugees [RR] on Sanctum of Rall.

^ Thundolf too!

Honestly, I’m not even sure if Magic Find even works. I have a near-full Exotic magic find set sitting in my bank with the typical runes and upgrades to push it towards 137% not including any banners, guild boons, or related auxiliary buffs … and I’m still not convinced that I’m getting better loot than before.

Maybe that might change with the next patch when Champions and Veterans would start dropping stuff more meaningful— hopefully.

ZoiN.4280:

I’d very much like to know where you found the info on the changes on AC – would love to see what it’s about ;o

Right here: http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/211/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-II.aspx

Are there any plans for a ‘hard mode’ for dungeons?

Colin: It’s interesting, we might do that. Right now we actually talked a lot about it and our biggest concern with it is it’s already hard to find a group to do a dungeon. When you add a hard mode on top of it you’re further fracturing the player base between story mode, three explorable modes and now three hard modes, and it can become extremely hard to find people to play with if we did that. For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode, and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point where they really fall into the category, more than try and add another mode on top of it. So in the February release –we haven’t talked a lot about this- but we actually rebuilt all of the bosses of the Ascalon Catacombs, from scratch. All of them will be brand new in the February release. I remember the encounters have all been re-done as well. And we’re in the midst of going through all the major bosses in the game in 2013 and try to make them more fun to fight against, making them more challenging. Now that’s a huge project. That’s going to take us a really long time to do that. But just in February alone, we’re rolling some of that out and for a lot of people I think their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do”. And I think that for people looking for a challenge we need to build in a lot more of that optional content that is challenging. I think “optional” is the key – we don’t want to make it so that a casual gamer feels they can’t play the game. We’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people looking for that, and [Ascalonian] Catacombs will be the first place we do that. Some of the open world champions are also getting rebuild in February, just some of the regular open world guys. And we’re going to keep doing that every month going forward, just go back and find stuff to try to make it a bit more fun.

I got my first Fractal weapon a couple days ago — a Focus. Not exactly something I could use on my Engineer, but I guess I should keep it as a souvenir of how messed up the RNG is in Fractals.

I honestly think there needs to be some sort of token or craftable system for these weapons. I get that these weapons are supposed to be rare but I think there are better ways to do it than straight-up RNG. At least with the former two, the end goal still looks somewhat reachable. Maybe some RNG could be involved but for something generic, like crafting components. Perhaps crafting a Fractal weapon could require a similar effort that one would need to craft the final version of the Fractal Capacitor. I mean, those Gifts of Ascension could use more functions than just upgrading back pieces.

Diminishing Returns

Honestly, I could never understand this one in certain parts of the game. The closest thing I could relate this to was the formally-implement “Fatigue System” in FFXIV, which has long since been removed from that game.

I can see that it would discourage those from running the same easiest dungeon path over and over again. That part I can live with. I suppose that could be better than say a “raid lockout” in that you would have to wait a certain amount of time before starting over again. However, getting DR when my group is just “too good” in doing a large string of unique dungeon paths just doesn’t make sense to me.

When it comes to farming, there will be those who like to farm legitimately (as in: not botting) for the entire day. Maybe it’s just relaxing for them. I know I like to spend some quality time in Southsun Cove just killing Karka if I get bored with other things. I shouldn’t be penalized because I chose to dedicate a day of my life in Tyria engaging in the act of Karka Genocide.

Overall, certain parts of the game do need work— I’ll agree with that. I know I’ve been doing my part in reporting exploits in dungeons as I see them happen, because I honestly would not like to rely on using them to succeed in dungeon content; but I would reserve further judgement until I see results. How long should I wait? I don’t know— I know I’m very patient and I don’t plan on playing anything else for quite some time.

There are some interesting points, but despite your play history, I think ArenaNet only knows what their player base _ truly_ consists of. If they play their cards right, their player base could still grow, usually by providing more or interesting content over time. Guild Missions is definitely one of these.

Since you like to bring to the plate your eight 80’s, I’d like to bring across my achievements: I know I have over 5300 achievement points (only 100 points from Agent of Entropy for the curious types, and none from sPvP since I honestly can’t stand that kind of PvP style), but I know this game isn’t perfect.

However, I still have stuff to do before I eventually put this game away. I still have yet to craft myself a legendary, obtain the T3 culture sets for any of my characters, and level an Asura and Charr to 80, for example.

Anyway, let’s get to the points brought up:

Guild Missions

So far, we know one specific detail about one kind of Guild Mission. Perhaps it wasn’t the best example to leak out to the public, but at least we know something. However, I would reserve further judgement until the patch gets released. Maybe other Guild Missions would require different levels in different trees to activate them. That part I’m willing to bet on. It would be kind of silly to lump all those missions into one tree if you were to ask me about it.

Condition Damage and Profession Balance

I’ll agree to an extent on this part. I play a profession that some claim to be the gimpiest of them all: an Engineer. Personally, I’d like to spend more time with a Flamethrower since that’s how I leveled, but unless I go Grenades in high-level Fractal groups, I’m more than likely “doing it wrong”!

As far as Condition Damage goes, it really needs to be reworked in a way so that it doesn’t feel quite restricting when placed with other members who also favor Condition Damage. I suppose the obvious thing here is to remove the 25-stack cap on Bleeds, but maybe there’s a more elegant solution to this.

As far as separating between PvE and PvP versions of abilities, they already do this somewhat. It’s just not as noticeable compared to GW1. I know in previous patches, the flight time for my Grenades were different between PvE and PvP (though I think they’re pretty much the same as of today).

Pre-Cursors / Mystic Clovers / Legendary

Symbolically speaking, a clover (more specifically, a 4-leaf clover) signified a certain amount of luck. It would make sense that there’s some RNG involved when obtaining such clovers. Personally, I stuck with the 1-clover recipe since I would be granted more chances in obtaining them instead of the 10-clover recipe, despite the odds of receiving clovers is roughly 1/3 for both recipes. I would say the 10-clover recipe is more or less for those “Go Big or Go Home!” types.

Honestly, I think clovers should be the only component that relies heavily on RNG, not the precursor. After all, it’s supposed to represent the Luck component when crafting the Legendary. For the precursor, I really would like to see how this Scavenger Hunt would turn out to be when it comes out. So far, I could only gauge it from the Black Moa Scavenger Hunt in GW1. If I had some fun with that in GW1, it might be interesting to see how Scavenger Hunts would work in GW2. When will we such thing implemented? Who knows!

Dungeons

I love running dungeons. I won’t lie about that. However, some of them are just a bit broken and prone to exploits to a certain extent, so getting into a pug that doesn’t like exploiting is quite rare.

If I remember right, AC will be undergoing some interesting changes in the next patch. More like Fractals? Not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but it would be nice to see if the bosses are a bit more interesting. Maybe you’ll actually be forced to use those cannons on the Ghost Eater. Who knows!

As far as the Evolved Destroyer goes, I have noticed that boss to be somewhat easier since the last major patch came out— well, it died faster the last time I killed it.

I suppose “AC 2.0” will be a good gauge on what the revamped versions of other dungeons will be like when future patches come around.

[continue to next post]

I’d imagine that the Steel Chest would tell you right away that opening it would grant you loot that’s normally rarer than the loot found in Wooden Chests. I often see Steel Chests a lot when running Fractals and they almost always have either a random Exotic or Ascended Mist Essence (appropriate for that level’s tier).

I probably would say cliche in terms of looks. When I first saw it, the first thought that came to my head was “Oh! It’s full of flames and stuff. Everyone and their first cousin will be all over this!” Personally, I was never a big fire-type. Eventually, I’ll get the whole set (for completionist’s sake) but I won’t be wearing the full set as much as I would like.

Stat-wise, it’s also one of the easiest Berserker sets to obtain without spending the resources to craft or buy the set right out. Are you broke but need a glass cannon set for those encounters that require you to kill something really fast? Then run CoF until your eyes explode. You’ll eventually get all the tokens needed to buy the whole set.

Thanks for the responses everyone! It’ll take me some time to read through some of these posts individually but it seems like today’s topic in this matter is: Swapping Characters in regards to the term of exploiting.

As Robert said, it’s currently not an exploit under Anet’s definition of such term, but like many things in this game, that could be subject to change; similar to the controversy behind selling dungeon spots, which is still a legal thing to do at this time but may not be in the future.

However, I’d say there’s some moralities behind such issue. Come to think of it, I think there are more or less some moral issues when you end up in a party that resorts to these exploits and exploit-like behaviors. There are always a lot of questions for anti-exploiters like:

• If you want to leave:
  • Is it worth sacrificing the end-reward tokens and coin by leaving the group that resorts to such tactics?
• If you want to stay:
  • What am I risking should I perform this exploit? Will one of the pugs “narc” on me if I do this trick?
  • What if I don’t want to do the exploit? How should I react to a team full of exploiters?

In regards to staying, the worst-case scenario is having your account banned for a certain period of time or permanently if you choose to exploit; though that would generally happen if you performed certain exploits to an extreme amount as opposed to doing it just casually, whether on purpose or on accident. If you don’t want to exploit, but want to stay in the group, then you could end up being reported for “Griefing” by not cooperating with your teammates if they want to exploit. It’s awkward how that works, but last time I checked, the in-game reporting tool currently only checks the chatlogs. I don’t think it has the capability of reenacting the actions of the group as it happens, though I could be wrong.

The choices are tough, but if you pug content, I’d say let your teammates know at the beginning of the run that you don’t like exploiting then go from there. It would be then be up to the group members of how they want to treat you. But if the group does decide to keep you around, the next issue would be trying to determine the difference between an exploit and a tactical advantage, which is what spawned this thread in the first place.

As Robert mentioned, it’s up to him to plug the exploit but it’s up to someone else to determine what kind of punishment should be dealt, if applicable.

Back to the point of Switching Characters before the final boss is dead— I think I should be known of it before the actual run begins. That way, I’ll have a clearer choice of whether to start up the dungeon, boot you out, or find another group. Switching characters without letting anyone know is just bad form.

If Rank 5 Art of War is any indication of the requirements to activate some of these guild missions, it’s a possibility that many other events are placed deep into other trees. Meaning that you can attempt other missions while continuing to level up your current Art of War rank for bounties.

For smaller guilds, there’s the alternative of buying influence with gold. I have been in small guilds in which their members have pitched in amongst each other to help obtain high-value items like Legendary weapons, rare crafting materials, and Commander books— meaning that if members help each other and build the influence to activate the missions, then it’s isn’t that big of an issue.

On the other hand, the real issue is wondering how many guild missions can be active in a particular server at one time. This is where large guilds could potentially monopolize the creation of this content by activating all the missions they can in a short period of time.

I personally find that I get a certain kind of “adrenaline rush” when I run dungeons with different people instead of a static group of the same five people. That might also be attributed to me having a lot of patience for people who are new to the dungeon in particular. The reason behind that is because I don’t know what those others are capable of or how my abilities would synergize with their abilities. I play a Grenade-spec Engineer and I usually bring stacks of Vulnerability and/or Bleeds with me, but if someone else in my group seems to doing that well enough, I could change a few traits around do Burning damage instead. In that case, it’s just being flexible.

The beauty of group composition is that you can complete virtually any dungeon content with a variety of group compositions and manage to reach certain levels of success. Of course, some groups may complete the content faster than others, but ultimately, if that group succeeds, then they succeed regardless of the amount of time spent in the dungeon.

Honestly, comparing a 25-man Raid encounter to a World Event that may have a varying amount of people wouldn’t be a fair comparison. If anything, the Raid is a bit more organized since it requires a set amount of people with certain key members doing their designated part in order to succeed; while the World Events in GW2 is a bit more forgiving to newer, slower, or other wise “casual” players.

I’m willing to bet something in regards to Guild Missions coming up in the next patch. Yes, I’m aware that it’s only being implemented in the open world at this time, but I’m betting that ArenaNet is using that area a test bed to see how well it works out in the open world before bringing in that feature to more specialized areas of the game, like Dungeons and WvW. If it works great, then it could be a step closer to seeing some form of high-capacity dungeons (aka “Raids”). Though, knowing the accessibility this game is for even the most casual of players, I’d imagine the GW2 version of Raid-sized dungeons to incorporate some form of difficulty scaling with a “recommended minimum size” along with a set “maximum size” limit; similar to the scaling mechanics used for most Dynamic Events. Meaning that Raid content could be more accessible to both smaller guilds and larger guilds, the difficulty would scale accordingly depending on how many people participate in the dungeon.

codpin.6542:

This ^ I agree 100%

There are some bosses in this game that are not hard, but take a very long time to kill. When using an exploit, the majority of people dont do it because they can’t kill the boss in the legit way, they do it because its faster!

So all this exploit hunt and all of you that say exploits are bad and ruining the game, please reconsider. I’m not saying that exploits are something good or that everyone should use them, but the fact that the exploits generally do the fights faster not easier its something to think about.

The devs should consider this and not only fix the exploits but think about why the people use them. If a boss its easy but has a lot of HP and goes invis half the time, or uses a single skill very often, this boss is not a challenge, its simply boring. So if it takes an exploit to kill it faster, why not?

Bottom line… don’t just fix exploits, try and think why the players use them. If they want to make the fight shorter, maybe reduce the boss hp? I enjoy a good challenge, i wouldn’t change Lupicus because its challenging and its fun. I would change Alpha tho, because its plain stupid.

I would agree for the most part in regards to Mossman. I have yet to see Mossman’s new exploit in action (mostly because my semi-static progression group keeps getting Bloomhunger for the past week or so), but the one time I did get Mossman, I have to admit it was refreshing to actually fight him legit again, but also realized how annoying that boss was mostly due to those mentioned mechanics. I mean, I can AoE-spam a stealth Thief in PvP and hope it actually hits but I can’t AoE-spam a stealth Mossman and hope for it to be meaningful. Personally, I think the way how stealth works in this game is a bit inconsistent, but that’s just me.

Back to Mossman, I think his HP should be lowered somewhat and his double-axe attack weakened a bit. Perhaps his cooldown on his stealth ability should be increased so that he doesn’t go into stealth often.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

When in doubt, send us an email anyways, or post on the forums. We’ll inspect it and judge it, and then decide to do something about it.

But generally when it comes to exploits, use your best judgement. One of the things my momma taught me, is that “If you wouldn’t say it around your Grandma, you shouldn’t say it in general.” which I suppose can be translated into “If you wouldn’t do it with a developer in your party, then it’s probably an exploit and you shouldn’t do it.”

Thanks for the response, Robert. I guess I’ll report any anomalies that I come across and let you guys be the judge.

On a personal note, I’d like to run a dungeon or two with you some time. It would be interesting to have a casual chat with an Anet developer while doing dungeons. Also: I just find it somewhat hilarious that you would turn on your Anet Logo tag midway through the dungeon and see their reactions. I’m under the assumption that you would do this right after a potential exploit has been performed by the group. It’s almost like how undercover officers work. I wonder what other reactions occur if some choose to stick around instead of leaving in fear that their account could be banned. Although, it’s good to know that the developers run around the world and actually play the game that they developed. It’s great to see to see them around!

I added you to my friend’s list, but I’m assuming you actually use an inconspicuous personal account instead of your work account to play online, which might be the reason why I never see you online. :o

I’m going for the Flameseeker Prophecies.

All I need is the precursor.

What I get is Zommoros’ ability to troll me with cheap imitations at least 5 times already. Attached image is relevant.

deSade, I’ll touch base on on particular point —

Skipping mobs: This a totally different can of worms all together, but might still be loosely related to the issue of exploiting. I suppose your view of skipping seems reasonable, as long terrain-exploiting is not involved.

I know in most MMOs, dungeon mobs generally have perma-aggro, but I think instead of forcing someone to fight something that they don’t want to, entice the group with interesting or rewarding loot that could exclusively drop from them if killed. The treasure-seekers would have some interest in killing them, while those who still focus on the end reward can still attempt their speed-runs. For instance, maybe killing the trash in Arah might have a reasonable chance of dropping crafting recipes that utilizes stacks and stacks of Piles of Putrid Essence. It would be nice to actually have a use for those things.

That aside, I do wonder how much “skippable” content is a reasonable amount when it comes to dungeon design. I know GW2 doesn’t have mounts (yet?), but I know in many other MMOs that have outdoor dungeons and allows the use of mounts in them, it just annoys the hell out of me when you could get on your mount up and skip like 90% of the trash in it. I just find that amount of skippable content to be absurd.

Back to the subject on exploiting and bug-finding, I can’t think of ones that I haven’t discovered myself— just ones that pugs have shown me before. And most of those generally get fixed by the next major build when I report them. Though I’ll admit that I never knew about that trick about destroying those totems in HotW path 1 before the cinematic plays. I might try that see if that actually works because I’ve never heard that one before.

vespers, I don’t think skipping bosses in general is an exploit as long you don’t utilize other kinds of exploits to skip it. I just honestly find it odd. Then again, I find skipping any boss kind of odd, regardless of MMO I play.

A dungeon/group finder is in the works (see my sig), which would obviously contradict what was mentioned previously about making a similar LFG tool. Obviously, there is a demand for such a feature so Anet is doing their best to getting that out as soon as they can. When can we expect it? Who knows!

Khisanth, spy kits and portal guns are a bit iffy— I’ll agree with you on that. I do know that most consumables like those are disabled in WvW but not in dungeon content. Generally speaking, I suppose the mentality behind that is that PvE consumables should only be used in PvE and not in PvP. And since dungeons are part of the PvE game, then consumables like those can be allowed … within reason. What kind of “reason” would that be? Who knows! I do know that pugs can be very creative so they’ll eventually find some kind of cool trick with them and tell all their friends and their friends-of-friends about it.

Thanks for the response, SynfulChaot. That makes sense in a very general sense, which I do provide examples in my OP.

However, there are some “grey area” glitches that makes me wonder if something really is an exploit or just a very strange bug.