Guild Wars 2

Why I play PvE? Where do I even begin…

1. The stories are pretty darn good for a game like this, and especially with full voice-over.

2. There are tons of small, interesting things to discover. Even just two NPCs talking to each other about random stuff makes the world feel alive.

3. Some areas and events (heart, hero points, whatever) can be quite challenging. More so than in other MMORPGs, as I can’t stand still and hammer away on a single button. In this game, player-skill is vital even for PvE.

4. I love crafting my own gear (so much that all my eight characters craft their own things). It’s not about making money, making the best gear or anything, but feeling like I’ve earned the gear I’m using. Buying it is just… well, look at Diablo 3. Adding those f’ing auction houses was such a terrible idea that they had to remove them in the expansion. Loot shoiuld be earned, not bought. Once you buy your gear, the gear becomes meaningless.

5. It’s very relaxing to play. I always put on Sootify when I play, so I can just wander off and listen to music.

6. The community is usually quite nice in this game. Not quite Lord of the Rings Online-good (where I actually had a person on my friendslist. Woohoo!), but pretty good. Quite interesting, sa in GW1, it took me literally five minutes to have the first person on my ignore-list.

7. I like the dynamic events. Many games have tried and failed with public quests, but GW2 really pulled them off and made them both fun and useful. Kudos!

I’m sure I can come up with tons more, but you get the idea.

AegisRunestone.8672:

Tybalt. He’s too darn hilarious.
“And I have a lovely set of… apples.”

I like him too, but this line made me facepalm and almost quit the story. Tybalt is a Charr, and Charr don’t have… apples. So why was he so interested in them? I don’t know what Charr find attractive on each other, but wouldn’t Tybalt talking about a human woman’s… apples be like a human male saying a Charr female has nice horns, or a nice tail? It doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, my favorites are Zoija and Caithe. Zoija because I love Felicia Day, and I love small races. Naturally, putting Felicia Day as the voice of my mentor for a long time was love at first sight.

As for Caithe… I wasn’t sure about her at first, but I started really liking her after I, um, kinda… killled her. A bit. She shows great courage and know how to get things done. I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind comedy characters like Tybalt, but they can easily get boring quickly. If the jokes aren’t funny, they just get annoying quickly.

Still low level, but had some fun with skins and costumes. :p

Aguri.2896:

stof.9341:

Aguri.2896:

Armor is armor. It’s not meant to fit someone’s stylistic choices, it’s meant to be used for combat. Not to mention how unfair that would be if light armor was the only one with this feature. Personally, I don’t think ANet should waste their development resources changing an already pretty good armor system they just need to make new armor and I mean armor not dresses.

Except that this is a game and that the visual representation of the armor has no relation to it’s protection.

In fact, heavy armor barely protects more than cloth armor in GW2. Most of the tankiness comes from the armor enchants part in the form of “toughness”. So you just have to admit that in GW2, armor protection mostly comes from the magic enchants and not from the base physical materials.

One could argue that armor that doesn’t really protect also serves functionality still. For example, my charr warrior has nothing but a strap for a chest piece but I could make the argument he does that for mobility over protection. Anyways, this is a bit off topic of what I was trying to say.

Female asura and charr have the exact same anatomy as the males (they both do have mammaries but they are so tiny it doesn’t matter), there is no reason for there to be a difference in their armor and they have no cultural reasons for distinguishing the females from the males either.To me, this argument is absurd. If we are going to ask for our female asura to be able to wear more feminine armor how about the males too because it would look just as good on them.

Strap for armor? That… can work. (that hair, though…) ;D

Anyway, I play female characters exclusivly, and my main is a lvl 80 Asura mesmer. It hasn’t bothered me at all that all her armor is “unsexy”. Quite the contrary, the only thing that does bother me is that she has room for boobs in one of her outfits. Why on earth would an asura have room for boobs? I mean, I know from a technical perspective, it’s much easier to scale the outfit to a smaller race, than to create an entirely new one just for that race. Still, it does look a bit strange. Not so much that I care, but still.

But if we are to speak “realistically”, Charr are cats, right? And while cats don’t have human-boobs, they DO have, uh, cat boobs. So to say. And a whole lot of them, too. So if we were to make Charr more anatomically correct, wouldn’t the females have six boobs? That could be… weird. Ugh, the images…

The point in all of this is that GW2 is just a game. It might sometimes be too close to regular fantasy, especially in making every single class “human like”. Think about it. If Rata Sum was built by asura, for asura, why is it human sized? Why should asura look like dwarves in their own home city? From a technical standpoint, it’s obviously so the other races don’t have to crawl. But from a lore standpoint, it looks weird. Imagine hobbits living in human-size houses? It would look ridiculous, yet that’s exactly what the asura do. Likewise, why are all armor and weapon the same for every race? Asura are not big and strong, so why should they use a human greatsword or hammer? Why can’t Charr use claw-like weapons? Charr and Norn are big and strong, so why can’t they take advantage of that and fight with polearms and crossbows? Because it’s just a game, and making every single race unique would take up too much work.

Are they gone? Since when?

Why is this thread still going? The entire point was that I, probably like most noobs, sold everything in stores. If you rather sell things directly to the trading post, you’ll make a ton more money. That’s it. I don’t give a flying kitten about min/maxing things in the trading post, or anything like that. Sure, if we’re talking Exotic gear and higher, selling over time will pay off. But that’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about being level 20 and never having money for anything, as I sold everything in stores. After playing for weeks, I had a total of 2.6 gold. After selling directly to the trading post, I made 3.5 gold in one day. THAT is what this thread was about. Sigh…

I have a couple of things I’d like to change.

1. Let us hide weapons and shields when we are outside combat, or even just in non-combat areas. I love running around with a sword and shield, but the shield looks really bad when I put it on my back. So much that I have a second weapon set I switch to outside combat, just to hide the shield.

2. When I auto-attack an enemy, I want my character to move close enough to actually attack it. The reason is simply that when I went from my lvl 80 mesmer to brand new guardian, I often find myself standing right next to an enemy an NOT doing anything. I assume it’s because I’m one step too far away, or something. So annoying. This was never an issue with my mesmer, ranger or elementalist, but they are all ranged characters.

3. When I use a skill that targets the ground, I nearly always loose focus on the enemy I’m attacking. A quick solution would be to keep focus on the enemy until I manually deselect it, select another enemy, or the enemy dies.

4. When I dye clothes, I would LOVE if I could store those colors for later. I get that we can’t store the clothes as custom outfits due to the transmutation charges, but why can’t we store the color patterns? Every piece of equipment can have every type of color, so we don’t even need to worry about what gear we are using. Quite the contrary, it means we can safely switch out whatever gear we want, and still have very easy access to the color pattern we used.

How I enjoy the game now? Same way I’ve always done. I have fun doing whatever I want. Map completion, crafting, exploring, or just having fun. Nothing’s changed for me.

Danguar.2908:

If anyone is interested- I’ve had to be away from the game for a while but now I’m back playing again

Welcome back. If you still need advice and help, here are a couple of things to keep in mind or try out:

1. I’m sure you know about crafting by now? A few notes here. First of all, you can send materials to the bank from your inventory, and the bank is account wide. Plus, you can XP from harvesting trees, rock, plants, you name it. So go ahead and chop down every tree you can find, and smash every rock you can find. Even if you don’t intend to do any crafting (yet), you might change your mind later. Besides, even if you do decide to do some crafting, but can’t use the materials, you might get an alt who can use them later. Even if you can’t use trees now, it will be nice to have ready-cut trees around if you get an alt who can use them.

2. Don’t sell anything other than junk to the stores, and most junk can be discarded for space anyway. Rather right-click things and sell them at the trading post. There are tons of discussions what to sell, how to sell it and when to sell it, but in short, you’ll make a ton more money this way. I’ve had random, crappy things like low-level white gear selling for 20 copper in a normal store, but got 10 silver for it in the TP by selling immediately. And that adds up quickly.

3. Have fun and explore. While you can outlevel zones and be very powerful, you do get full XP and have a high chance of great loot even from low-level zones. This means it’s pointless to rush to max level, as the entire game is “end game”. Meaning you can go anywhere and do anything if you are high enough level, and you get full rewards for it. Level 67 in the asura starter area? You’ll see level 68 in no time at all. So again: DO. NOT. RUSH. TO. MAX. LEVEL.

4. Hero Points: This is a new system, so there are a lot we don’t know about it, and how to build our character etc. But from my personal experience, you need to keep two things in mind:

a) Play it YOUR way. Don’t read builds how to get max DPS, how to get most out this or that, and so on. Focus on what YOU want to do.
b) I didn’t even try to get hero points from skill challenges/hero point challenges, and yet, I had maxed out my Hero Points around lvl 70, and loooong before 80. Now add the fact you get the third (and final) specialization tree at 71, and I had mine ready long before that. In other words, don’t worry too much about getting all the hero points. You get tons of it simply by leveling up. I suggest getting the ones in the zones you go to, but if you skip a whole lot of zomes, don’t worry about it. You won’t really need those hero points. Not yet, anyway. No idea what happens when the expansion is released.

And finally, there’s gear. I hear people say you should get better gear ever 10 levels or so, and I sort of agree… sort of. But the thing is, character level alone doesn’t matter much in this game. The real issue is character level combined with zone level. So if you are in a starting area, you don’t need to worry about gear. If you are level 30 and have decent gear, you can do every zone from the starter zones up to level 30 zones and not worry about gear, even if you level up a lot by the time you are finished. You only need better gear to deal with stronger enemies, so you don’t need better gear until you go into higher level zones. And there are lots of low- to medium-level zones here. I only get better gear (intentionally) when I plan on going into a higher level area, but I spend a lot of time in lower level areas to get 100% map completion.

How come every single time a new class is being introduced, people worry about their old ones? It’s not just in Guild Wars, but in every single MMORPG I’ve ever played. Heck, in every single class-game I’ve played. Same with nerfs. One class too powerful? Some people love it, most people don’t, because it’s too powerful and ruins the balance. Then the devs nerf that class, and we get loads of complains that the class is ruined – simply because it’s not just sa good as the rest.

Ease up, people. Yes, we are getting a new class in GW2, but no, it doesn’t mean we can delete other classes. The new class is an addition to the game, not a replacement for another class. Oh, sure, it might be a bit too powerful at first, but this is normal. A couple of patches in rapid succession over the next couple of days/weeks will take care of that. And no, that does not mean they are ruining the new class. It means they are making the game better.

Honestly, I wish people could be more willing to look at the bigger picture, and stop being so concerned that their favorite class is being ruined. Especially when it’s not even affected.

Tao.1234:

Don’t compare it to Tera.
New Classes there can roll on Pad, but old ones will not.

To make Gw2 roll on Consoles, we would need a Crosshair and Crosshair mouse lock/unlock just like in The Secret World.

Then, GW2 would work with pads.

But one thing stands for sure.

MMOs on Consoles don’t perform well in matter of controling character.

I’m trying to make sense of this, but I fail. Sorry. Guild Wars 2 can work wonderful on consoles. First of all, have you played Final Fantasy XIV on a console? Or on PC with a gamepad? It works really well, and it’s a LOT more complicaterd than GW2 ever will be.

Controlling our character in GW2 with a gamepad should be easy enough. Jumping is important, so we can use B for that (on an XBone gamepad). Then we simply map the first three weapon skills on the other three buttons, and the fourth and fifth on the shoulder buttons. All could easily be swapped out temporarily with utility skills by holding down the left trigger, or profession skills (mesmer shatter etc) with the right trigger. Easy peasy. It gives us access to evertything, and we still have the D-pad unusued, as well as Start and Select. If FFXIV can do it, GW2 most certainly can too.

Oreithyia.3064:

I prefer PC games.
wouldn’t want to buy a console that is unused otherwise, just for one game.
I like playing my MMOs with a keyboard and a mouse…controler would feel a bit clunky.

The question is if GW2 will also come to consoles, not if it will move there. The PC version is perfectly safe, don’t worry.

Ah, I see. I did get a key. Just found it strange, as I’ve always gotten a transmutation charge before. Maybe it was just my luck.

Oooooh… thanks, yet another thing to learn.

Btw in a related topic, I got 100% map completion for Caledon last night with my lvl 80, but I didn’t get any more transmutation shards? Did they change it? And if so, how do I get more of them?

That might seem like a stupid question, but there are 31 in my bank, yet the currency tab says I have 10? Does this mean the currency tab is wrong, or are those 10 different from the ones in my bank, so I actually have 41? I finally hit 80 last night (yay!) and intend to use those transmutation shards soon, so it would be nice to know how many I have.

I checked the Mystic Forge, and you’re right, I could combine some stuff into something new. Didn’t get anything good, but still, I have too many alts that can use it.

So gear stays until someone buys it? Meaning I’ll just be handing it to the TP for free? No thanks, I’ll just sell directly. Note that this is mostly for low-level players who need money quickly. Selling to the store is pointless. It was supposed to be a nice tip, and not drag out into a long discussion why selling to the TP is a bad idea.

Thanks, but I’d rather sell and get money right away, than waiting a day and get my gear in return when no one buys it.

Sorry, I meant rare gear. blush Didn’t notice the typo until now-

EDIT: Rare and exotic gear, I mean. Not race gear. Duh…

Rare and exotic, actually. But I have a few bits of gear I’ve updgraded, so what do I do with the old one? It’s soulbound, so I can’t sell it, and I can’t salvage it. Should I just destroy it?

My first character is now level 76, and I have one lvl 39 and a couple around lvl 30 – 34. I’ve sold everything I can, and so far, I managed to get an amazing 2.5 gold at most. Yay… Then I decided to try to sell to the trading post instead. I right-click stuff, click “Sell to trading post” and accept the current price (so it says “Sell immediately”).And just like that, I have made 3.5 gold in just a couple of hours.

So in other words: Sell everything you can to the trading post, rather than to the stores. I’ve seen stuff being sold for 22 copper in store, yet made 10 silver by selling it directly to the trading post. That adds up quickly Sure you need to visit a trading post guy to pick up your money, but that’s just a quick teleport back and forth. No big deal.

And btw, when I say “sell everything”, I mean everything you can’t use. I don’t sell crafting materials, though I do sell green and blue gear. I figure my alts can get their own gear. Even white, low-level gear can make a decent price on the TP.

Beldin.5498:

What is “EB” ??

nevermind that. what the heck is “mystic toilet”? o.O

I never, ever reach max level in a RPG, and now I’m lvl 76. That’s disturbing. The sad part is I’m pushing for 80 just to get it over with, so I can focus on a new class. Despite my mesmer being awesome fun to play.

If it’s been a long time since you played, you might want to start a new character from scratch. There are lots of new tweaks and updates, including an entirely new skill system. We now have Hero Points rather than Skill Points, and you can build your character in a lot of fun ways now. You probably were told this when you logged in with your lvl 80 mesmer, though.

But anyway, start from scratch with an ew char. It’s worth it.

Lady Abyx
Countess Abyx
Duchess Abyx
Madam Abyx

And so on might work. Strange how there are countless Lady’s around, but when was the last time you saw a Countess or Duchess?

Ooooh… I thought 4/4 meant I had all four map pieces for that map, not that it was just the fourth piece. Thanks, that clears things up a bit.

Quick question here. So far I have these four items:

1/4 Enchanted Map Scrap
3/4 Enchanted Map Scrap
3/4 Enchanted Map Scrap
4/4 Enchanted Map Scrap

The 1/4 EMS isn’t important for now, so just disregard that. But the two 3/4 EMSs have an identical icon and identical text, so why can’t I combine them into one full EMS and one with 2/4?

And as for the 4/4, it says I can double-click them to combine them into an Enchanted Map. But when I try, I’m told I don’t have the item in my inventory? What item? There’s plenty of room in my inventory, so it’s not that it’s full. What am I missing?

Menadena.7482:

Skritt rule, others drool!

I loved the rats in EverQuest 2, and would love to see something like that in GW2 too. Skritt would be very cool. Not sure how it would go with their intelligence level, but we could say they are from a more advanced race, or something. City skritt, perhaps. Or just… “it’s a game”. :p

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

I have taken a look at a thread in the mesmer subsection of the forum called: Why are we a self defeating community? And I’ve come across a few posts in which appearantly frequent mesmer users consider the general mesmer public to be more intelligent or atleast capable of more critial thought in compairison to warrior player who in thier eyes they view as a more straightforward player even jokingly I assume comparing them to neanderthals.

It took me forever to find a main profession, but I ended up with Mesmer and Warrior. ’nough said.

Personally, what I want to see is a huge zone set almost entirely under water. I’m thinking we set off to some icy area where we quickly run into a huge mouuntain we can’t cross above land, so we rather dive into the water and stay there. I’m not all that into the lore of the series, but it could be a huge, ancient ruin from a lost civilization, or something. cough Atlantis *cough. Hehehe. I just think the underwater-stuff is really cool, so if they could expand that with more underwater weapons and skills (and costumes!), better enemies, a more interesting environment to explore and so on, it could be f’ing brilliant. Even have a dungeon set entirely underwater.

There are two main reasons for bugs and glitches at release: Time pressure and a near infinite amount of systems to test. While PC gaming for the most part is great, it also suffers from the curse of letting us upgarde on our own. I say curse, because every time you swap out a component on your PC, you are changing the entire system. Thing that worked well before, might not work at all after the upgrade. Now picture two million people, each with their own systems, trying to get the same game working? Some have state of the art systems. Some have old systems. Some swear to nVidia. Some swear to ATI. Some are happy with their CPU. Others have the same CPU, but overclock it. You can see the problems here. It’s nearly impossible to make a game run flawlessly on every single system imaginable. Add in Mac and Linux-support, and it just gets hilarious how many system the game has to run on.

Of course, even so, it’s fully possible to wipe out most of the bugs and glitches, if given time. But that leads us to the first issue: Time and money. Most companies simply don’t have the time and money to clear out all the bugs in a game before launch. There are a lot of reasons for this, but for now, it’s sufficient to say the developers are only a small part of the whole machinery. When they are done with the game, there are still a ton of things left to do before the game ships. Everyone who isn’t directly working on the game still needs to get paid, so if the game is delayed, the company won’t make any money – and are thus essentially loosing money, by being forced to pay those pesky workers who can’t do anything, as the game is delayed. So the faster you ship the game, the quicker you get money.

This is also a reason why PC-ports of AAA-games are usually a bad idea. The latest example is Batman: Arkham Knight. The console version is great, but the PC version? Don’t even bother. But why focus on the PC-version, rather than polishing the console version?

Put all that together, and I have learned to avoid PC-ports of AAA-games like the plague, and I’m fine with small bugs and glitches in PC-exclusives like Guild Wars 2. As long as the bugs don’t mess up my game or prevent me from finishing it, I don’t mind them. Even an occasional CTD is fine. Annoying, yes, but it doesn’t take long to restart the game, and I often start near where I crashed anyway. No biggie.

Thanks, guys. And yes, I meant zerk, not zerg. Sorry, I’m new to this. Still not entirely sure what zerk even means, but nevermind that. I’ll just join non-zerk group. Never been much of an elitist anyway.

My two cents (without having read the whole thread).

First of all, as a Mesmer, I use a Staff and two swords. The swords do better damage, and I like getting up close and personal. But the staff has some nice skills too, like Arcane Storm (or something like that) that adds conditions to the enemies. Plus, it also lets me summon a phantasm warlock that does more damage to the enemies if they have conditions on them. So first casting the storm, them summoning the warlock does some nice damage. I can then switch to my swords to finish off the enemies, wile the storm and warlock are still active.

Second, there are times when i need to run and/or kite the enemies. Switching to a staff will help a lot in these cases.

Third, there are the group stuff, like dynamic events. It can be very useful to switch to the staff and fire away from a distasnce, while other players hit the enemies with their swords and sticks. I get full reward for hardly any risk at all. Win-win. For me, anyway. But if I need to defend myself, I quickly switch to the swords.

And btw, I’m a leftie, so I remapped the weapon switching to Left Ctrl + V. This lets me switch weapons quickly with hotkeys, without moving my fingers at all. (V is already used for jumping, and Left Ctrl are used for skillls.) And for convenience, I remapped sheat/unsheat weapons to LeftCtrl + S.

So anyway, I’m close to level 50 now, and decided it might be time to try out teaming up with other people. Dungeons was a first choice, but I noticed there are other things to join too, like personal story. That quickly gave me a few questions I’d like answered before trying them out in the game and making a complete fool of myself.

1. Let’s start with dungeons. I noticed a lot of the descriptions mention “zerg”, but what does that mean? If I were to make an educated guess, it reminds of me the zerglings in StarCraft, as in a whole lot of weak monsters swarming over the map and enemy base. Am I correct in assuming “zerg” means a speed run?

2. There was a german player who went story mode, and said everyone is welcome. Fair enough, I like that. But if I join his/her group, how do I find the dungeon? Can I port to that player, or even join the dungeon instantly from where I am? Or do I have to go to the dungeon entrance manually?

3. I’ve seen a thread here about players swapping their characters in dungeons. Is this really possible? And how would I do it? Of course, this is something I would never do without permission, but I can see how it can be useful when playing a low-level character and getting stuck. Swapping it out with a high-level character to help out the others could be nice – unless the high-level character are downscaled?

4. Finally, how important are levels in dungeons? If I go to a level 30 dungeon with a level 80 character, can I solo it?

I’ve played quite a few MMOs over the years, and while I don’t enjoy dungeons all that much, I do enjoy trying them out in a new game from time to time. But no matter the game, there is a golden rule I always follow:

“LFG (dungeon name) – I’m a newbie looking for other newbies”

And just like that, I usually get a group rather quickly, full of newbies. Some have tried a dungeon a couple of times, and some haven’t tried a dungeon at all. But because I clearly state I’m a newbie looking for other newbies, we all know what to expect: Total failure, lots of fun. It doesn’t matter if we fail, as we are in this together. None of us are experts. If we succeed, that’s great. Yay us. But if we fail, at least we had a lot of fun trying.

My two cents. First of all, why are we allowed to swap characters in dungeons? That’s the first time ever I’ve heard about this, in any game ever. The practice sounds a bit… strange.

Second, and this is by far more important: Whatever happened to decency and being polite? I admit this isn’t just character swapping I’m talking about, but it seems far too often that people think MMOs (and online-game in general) is an exception to the “be polite” rule. It’s often like they don’t realize or care that the other characters are real people. Why is it “ok” to be a total ****wad in an MMO towards other people? Short answer? It’s obviously not.

Over all the years I’ve played games, there is one simple thing I’ve learned: You’re only going to have fun if you allow yourself to have fun. Meaning you can whine and b*tch about the game all day long about the graphics, gameplay, bugs, glitches, other players etc, but that doesn’t help at all. If you rather allow yourself to have fun, you are going to have fun. Game buggy? No big deal. Just reload and carry on. Other players being jerks? Ignore them. Boss too hard? Level up, get better gear, practice or get others to help you (if the game supports co-op.)

And most importantly: If you treat other people nice, they will treat you nice. So if you keep doing stuff you’re not supposeds to do in dungeons, no one will play with you. If you keep doing what you are supposed to do and activly help the others, you are all going to have a great time, and you just might end up making long-term friends. Is leveling up a low-level character quickly so important that you are willing to risk looking like a complete looser to the entire server?

So while I play, I often find myself smiling and being amused of the stuff in the game, yet sometimes… I can’t help laugh out loud. I play an Asura female, and she has some nice comments in combat from time to time. And then again… they do sometimes misfire.

Just last night, I was fighting an ettin. The ettin raised its club, charged and hit me right in the head. My asura lay flat on her stomach, and managed a… “That’s how amazing I am!” Um… what?

Earlier today, I ran up to a rabbit, hit it with my sword, and the asura went: “Never felt better!” Good to know. You psycho. Hehehe.

Anyway, those are two of my favorite unintentionally funny moments. What are yours?

Danikat.8537:

One of the good things about this game is that you don’t need to do things in any set order, or even within the level range of the map.

There is no harm at all in waiting until you’re level 80 then coming back to do stuff you missed, even entire maps.

Hehe, I know. The problem is I rarely ever make it to max level in any game (only happened twice so far, in Lord of the Rings Online and Neverwinter), and I really do want to get to max level in this game. So shiould I move on to harder areas for more XP, or wasting a lot of time doing nothing in low-level areas? (nothing meaning “I don’t get XP for this”.) Funny thing is, I’m usually the person telling others to slow down, and don’t rush to max level. But that’s because there aren’t really anything to do at max level in other games, but there are tons of stuff to do here. As a result, I often find myself doing both at once. I sometimes charge ahead into new areas, and sometimes spend a lot of time not really doing anything. The best part? I’m perfectly happy with that.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

For the wind, you might want to check out the utility skills available to you, to see if any offer Stability. With the Stability boon in place, you’ll block attempts to ‘crowd control’ you, letting you walk through the wind without it sending you flying. Different classes have different access to Stability, though. A Warrior will have an easy time getting Balanced Stance or Signet of Stamina to just walk right through, but a Thief will have to wait for the Elite skill Dagger Storm to be able to make it through that way.

THAAAAANKS!! I’ve never even thought about crowd control and Stability. As a Mesmer, I’m 90% sure I have Stability on a Signet already. I’ll have to check in a bit, once I get back into the game. But even if I don’t, I have other classes to play around with. My Warrior is level 39, so she should perhaps have some already. And now that I know where the JP is, getting there as a warrior should be peace of cake.

I found the jumping puzzle in Metrica, and completed part one. Once I found it, I wanted to hurt myself for having missed it for so long. I mean, it’s right there, almost in plain sight. I’ve walked past those trees countless times, yet never bothered to see if there was anything behind them. Grrr…

Then when I got to the top, I found a chest and a portal. The chest contained shoes I can’t use, as well as three map pieces. Funny thing is, they needed four to complete, and I had a map piece already… to the wrong map. Hmpf. But then I went through that poartal, found a log with wind blowing me down every time, and I still haven’t been able to cross it. I can’t get the timing on the wind right. But that’s ok. I’m only level kitten i’m thinking about doing the jumping puzzles and full map completion on every map as a level 80 thing.

3) To elaborate a here bit: Every time you equip gear, you will unlock the skin (if you haven’t already done so.) But even if you can’t equip it, you can still right-click the item and select Unlock Skin to unlock it. Note that this will bind the item to your account, so you can’t sell it afterwards. I think this is to prevent everyone running around at level 1 with gear that looks really rare, or something.

To use a skin, you need to go to the Hero panel (press H), click Wardrobe and select the gear of choice. You will then see a list of all the different types of skin avaliable. Most of this will be from other types of regular gear, but there are special types of gear you can use, too. I bought a top hat skin in the store, and I’ve noticed that because my Necro start with a skull mask, other classes can use it too.

The cost of transmuting skins are transmutation shards. One skin, one shard. That means boots/legs/gloves/chest/shoulders/helmet all need their own shard, so you’ll need six transmutation shards for a full set. And since you can’t get the shards back, and because you often change gear early on, it’s recommended to wait until you are higher levels before transmuting gear. As for how to actually get those shards, the easiest way is to simply go for 100% map completion. You can put the shards in the bank for every character to use (bank is account wide), so if you get 100% map completion with several characters, you’ll quicky rack up quite a few shards. By doing this, I have already 31 transmutation shards waiting for my first character to reach level 80. Also keep in mind that if you’re desperate, you get quickly get 100% MC in, say, Metrica Province and Queensdale, then put those transmuation shards in the bank, delete the character, start a new one and go for 100% MC in those two areas again.

Hope this helps.

BTW also keep in mind you can buy Outfits in the store. These are full costumes anyone can use as often as they want, but other than removing the helmet and changing the dye, you can’t edit them. They are just a costume that doesn’t change your stats at all. Some of them look pretty good, though, so it might be worth getting one if you want to look good early on.

If you do get one, and if you do want to remove the helmet, keep in mind you can’t do it directly. You will need to first put the Outfit on (hero panel → outfits), then go back to your Equipment and remove the helmet there. Maybe it’s just me, but I think a lot of those costumes look a lot better without the helmet.

What’s the point in transfering to another server? Or are you doing it for WvW? Just curious, as we are on a mega-server, so the server selection shouldn’t be relevant anymore. Or so I’ve been told several times.

Thanks, guys. I checked the list of all the puzzles, and just thought it weird that I’ve explored Metrica Province, Caledon forest and Queensdale many, many times, yet I haven’t found a single jumping puzzle there. But according to the list, there’s one in MP, one in Queensdale and FOUR in CF. How could I possibly miss every single one of those, despite having gotten 100% map completion in all threee maps with at least ten different characters? Clearly there had to be something vital I was missing. Other than the JPs, of course.

So I checked the guide for the start of the JP in Metrica, and annoyingly, I know exactly where it is. I’ve been through that area at least a few dozen times, especially since there is both TWO events there, as well as plenty of lumber to chop down. What I’ve been missing is that one little crack in the wall where we can start the jumping. But now that I know where it is, I’m off to go jumping. And I’ll be darn sure to scan the environment a lot closer from now on.

And yes, I do enjoy the JPs. I love exploring in this game, and just having fun. Although my highest level is 45 (and that’s an accomplishment for me), I’m still mostly playing around in low level areas, as I want to get 100% completion before moving on.

First of all, I’m lvl kitten I “unlocked” jumping puzzles quite some time ago. The problem is… how do I find them? If I find a set of platforms, how do I know this is a jumping puzzle, and not just some random platforms? Are JPs on the map? And how do you know if you’ve completed one?

Long story short: I made three different insignia I didn’t have on the coats yet, then three of each of the two types of cotton coat materials. I then created the first two cotton coats with a different insignia… but then I was unable to create a third one? It says I need Tailoring skill 150 to use the cotton, but my skill is 174? And again, the first two went fine, but then it just stopped.

I have tried relogging and restarting the game, but neither of that helped.

EDIT: I made it to Tailor 175, and now I can craft the coats again. Strange.

Sorry for late response, peeps. But before this gets too out of hand, I could explain a few things. I do enjoy my ranger, and I do enjoy fighting alongside the pet. If I didn’t, I’d just play a thief with a bow instead. Or a warrior. Or any other non-pet classes.

However, the problem is that while the game downscale you to areas you have outleveled, it isn’t exactly fool proof. Meaning if you are level 40 going to Metrica Province, you’ll be godlike, even with the downscaling. Of course, this is in part my own fault, as I’m still using lvl 40 gear. Switching to starter-gear should make things a lot more interesting.

However, it also means a high-level Ranger in low-level areas going for map completion don’t need a pet. Vistas, PoI’s, hero points etc can often be done without fighting at all (other than hero points bosses). Also, there are the cities, like Rata Sum. A pet here is just annoying. The problem is that even in the cities, my pet shows up all the time. got a bit hurt? The pet shows up to protect you – even if you got hurt by falling after trying to reach a vista, or took a “shortcut” by jumping down to the floor below.

What I want to do is get rid of the pet until I call it back manually. There is already a command to get rid of the pet, but I want it to last until I call the pet back, not until I take damage or enter combat. This isn’t really a combat issue, but more a convenience issue.

You can play a necro without minions…

I love my ranger, but I don’t always want my pet around. There are a lot of reasons why I won’t even bother go into. While we do have the “Stow pet” thing to get rid of it, it keeps popping back out all the time. Is it possible to make it stay away until you bring it back yourself?

Mazaki.8169:

and ask for refund ?

Since when did “get a refund” become the next, big thing? I see this all the freakin’ time now. Don’t like it? Get a refund! Surely that’s not a problem, right? Where will it end? “I didn’t ask for pickles on my half-eaten burger! Reeeefuuuund!”

On a bit more serious note, it doesn’t cost anything to keep and play the game, so why not try a few characters and see for yourself if you enjoy it? The confusion part I get, but that’s just a minor obstacle we all have to do deal with when we get a new game. And trust me, it’s not nearly as complicated as it might seem. I think GW2 is actually one of the easiest MMOs I’ve played to understand, and it does a TON of things right. Crafting mats? Send them directly to the bank to save inventory space. Want to craft? Use mats directly from the bank – no matter what character, as the bank is account wide. Want to have fun? Have fun. Go to higher level areas to get a challenge, or go to lower level areas and get a slightly less challenge, but still full XP and loot. (seriously, even at level 30, I got better boots than the one I had from a random mob in Metrica Province).

Oh, ans don’t like the rangr? Try a new class. I’ve played them all, and some really surprised me – both positively and negatively. I thought I was going to enjoy the Engineer, but I deleted her when she was level 31. I thought I was going to hate the Warrior and Ranger, but they are now my mains. The thief sucked, as the bow kept loosing focus all the time. Yet my ranger focuses on a bow. Strange.

I don’t get it. Oh, sure, I am a bit tired of the starting areas, but reaching max level seems rather pointless. Unlike most MMORPGs, there are only two types of areas in this game: the ones you are too low level for, and the ones you are the correct level for. If you head into a high-level area and find yourself too low-level, you obviously need to level up to be able to explore there. But… what’s the hurry?

If you go back to a low-level area, you will automatically be downscaled to match that area. Of course this isn’t flawless, as you do keep your skills etc (if you go back to a level 4 area as level 80, you will keep all the skills you aren’t supposed to have unlocked yet.) Even so, going back to a low-level area works really well most of the time. All the XP scale based on your level, so whether you are level 10 or level 60, you still get full XP for dynamic events, hearts and all that. Furthermore, you get plenty of bonuses for doing the map completion, giving you yet another reason to go back to low level areas. But, again, when you do, you get downscaled to match the level recommendation. So what’s the point in leveling up in a hurry?

The only things I can think of is gear and preparing for the expansion. So let’s look at those, shall we?

1. Gear. In this game, gear is nearly pointless. I played around with my Ele for several hours, and started getting annoyed that daggers are so hard to find. But here’s the thing: At the time, I had done Metrica Province, and was finishing up Brisbane Highlands. I can’t remember the last time I found near daggers, but I also don’t remember the last time I wasn’t downscaled. Meaning if I go to one of the other starting areas or the other 15 – 25 area, I already have better gear than I’m going to need. If I set off to a higher level area, I’ll find new gear soon enough. This sticks all the way up to 80. Most classes won’t need near gear all that often, as it is based a lot more on player skill than gear.

2. Preparing for the expansion. I do understand this, but… what’s the hurry? Unless you have gotten tired of every single area in the game, and ESPECIALLY if you are a new player, what’s the rush? What will the expansion do, that we can’t already do in lower level areas? If you already have a character or two at max level, I understand the expansion is tempting. But that’s months away, and there are plenty of other things to enjoy here. If you don’t have anyone at max level, does it matter? The expansion is months away, as I said, and even when it’s released, it’s not going anywhere. It’ll be there waiting for you when you are ready for it.

My advice? Get a character high enough level to unlock a couple of weapon skills, then have fun. Take your time and enjoy the game. This isn’t WoW. Leveling up is mostly useful for getting new skills and getting to higher level areas, but the lower level areas offer a ton of fun, too. Don’t consider this an RPG. Consider this an action game with RPG elements. There’s a difference. Ignore leveling up, and focus more on having fun.

Nice guide, though here’s my own:

1. You get Tome of Knowledge from log-in rewards. These will increase your character level with 1 each. Save up a couple of these. Personally, I think five or six will do nicely.

2. Bee-line it into the nearest gate to Lion’s Arc.

3. From there, head into whatever race’s starting area you prefer, or haven’t playing in a while.

4. Follow the map completion arrow in the top right and do dynamic events (even repeating them give you decent XP).

5. Pretty soon you’ll have a decent selection of weapon skills, some utility skills and so on. Now go to a crafter area and buy harvesting tools, if you don’t already have some. These are useful to get crafting mats (even if you don’t want to craft, you can sell them for quite a bit of money in the trading post.) They also give you XP when harvesting.

6. Now go enjoy the game, and screw trying to level up quickly. The rest of the game isn’t going to change much from your current experience. Sure you’ll get dungeons and so on later on, but so what? That’s only a small part of the game. The real meat is the PvE and PvP stuff, and both are accessed from the start. (I think; not sure when PvP unlocks as it doesn’t interest me, but it’s early.)

Why would you want to level up anyway? This isn’t WoW. I spend most of my time being downscaled, thanks to the awesome, uh, downscaling. It means I can level up to get to higher level areas, but they aren’t necessarily better areas. I’m having at least as much fun in low-level areas as in high-level areas, simply because whether I’m in a high- or low-level area, I’m still the level I’m supposed to be. Leveling up is rather pointless.

My question is simple: Do you want a main because YOU want one, or because “everyone else” wants one? Personally, I play the way I want, and kitten everyone else. Or at least, I try to be a nice person and all that, but I don’t pick a playstyle because someone else is using it. Right now I’m sticking to my surprisingly fun Warrior with two axes and a rifle. I don’t have a clue if that’s the ‘best’ choice of weapons, but in my opinion, that’s certainly the most fun option. I also have an Ele, and while I see a lot of people with staves and/or scepters, I stick to my twin daggers. Not because they are any better than staves and scepters, but because I think they are a lot more fun to use.

And that’s the bottom line. I could write a long post about why, when, which, who and what, but it all comes down to this: Do you want a main because YOU want a main, or because “everyone else” has a main? You already have a few max level characters, so why not switch between them? True, playing more charactes means getting the best gear will take longer, but so what? As long as you are having fun playing, what do you need the best gear for? You don’t do dungeons, and PvP is (as far as I know) a lot more about actual player skill than the best gear.

All in all, do what YOU want, not what everyone else wants you to do. You are the one who needs to enjoy your playstyle, so kitten everyone else’s opinion on what to do.