Guild Wars 2

Gee.. and there I was expecting all those screenies of players playing fetch the bone or Trick or Treat with their new ghosty puppies…. no, oooh wait, I guess they must be a little shy

My money is they will place a special item in game as part of their RNG system.. if you get it you can become a special snowflake and be allowed to increase your level by one.. its a one use item only like the collection shards.. once you find it (rarer than a ghosty dog) the item can still drop for thrill and teeth grinding effect, but unusable and account bound! ..

ErikLeifsen.8421:

At this point, the only option for those of us who are at tens of thousands of bags opened with no result is simple. Write an actual support ticket. Make ANet spend time and money dealing with this bull. Ive lost almost 2,000g trying to get this mini and have less to show for it than before I started farming. Before halloween I was so excited for this content to come back, but now I just want to quit playing entirely. Their RNG system at its core is garbage and until it gets reworked this kind of situation will not stop. I’m a hypocrite though as I still sit here on the last day farming, buying, and opening more freakin bags just like they want.

Sorry to say but youand I are the perfect examples of why ANET implemented this in the first place. They simply want a gold sink in game, which when added to the gem exchange mullarkey.. makes for a perfect buffer to gem sales.
The more they can push out of game on an item that has no actual in game value other than a collectable.. is simply a win-win for them

But don’t feel to bad.. I too have gone through many thousands of bags (farmed and TP bought) and gotten nothing more than a single puddy cat, 6 pillowcases and not a lot else to write home about…

DeWolfe.2174:

I’ve spent many hours Maize Farming during the past two weeks. In fact, I was farming in PvE within an hour of the patch dropping. The rat farm was/is actually one of the least efficient and sustainable places to Maize Farm. So players wanting to get back in shouldn’t have been an issue, at all.

I do prefer Maize to stay in game and not be touched. It was designed to generate supply that the economy requires. If the dev’s wanted to remove all possibility of conflict in game during it’s usage, then they could simply put ambients in our home instances.

That is actually a sensible solution … place ambients in home instance and any player wanting to organise their own farm can do so without any intrusion or objections… shame your not paid by ANET to come up such complex ideas for them. ^-^

Guhracie.3419:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

You can nerf it after I use all of the ones I have left.

On topic though, just because it enables arguments of -who is allowed to kill ambients when- and generates wealth from instance rats, doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed into the ground.

Exploring the open world, even if its just to turn helpless rabbits into candy corn is still better than hanging around in the labyrinth all day.

It needed to be nerfed into the ground because not everyone has the same option to farm. It’s not a matter, as Chris put it, of players saying, “Thanks for farming this thing, because I didn’t want to,” it’s a matter of a lot of people who want to being unable to get back in without exploiting a glitch.

And, again, using maize balm in the open world is not worth the risk of kill stealing.

You don’t need to go back into the Halloween instance to use the maize balms.. there are ambient critters all over Tyria to use it on. Sure at first before players had considered openworld critters to play farmwars on, it was seen as a disadvantage cos of those fast respawn ratties.. but as of now and certainly after the event finishes, the balm will still be used by those only seeking to sit in one place all day long and spam there new favourite AOE skill…. just go on a short trek to Rata Sum or simply map flip to a map of your choosing, grab a coke and some popcorn, sit back and watch the map chat evolve.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Algreg.3629:

why in the name of the lord? Can´t you be happy there is at least one thing in abundance in this game?

Seriously. I wish I could make ascended armor for my thief with leather only, but no….

I need silk too and that stuff doesn’t drop well for theives.

Yeah I would love to be able to craft some leather ascended armour on my Necro cos it drops so much of the stuff… oooh wait errmmmm, yeah that’s right the leather drops are useless for necro.. where’s ma darn silk!!!

Well ANET have done a grande job of muddying the waters when it comes to player behaviour.. they can’t even put clear and simple reporting tools in place… something that has been requested since before the release.
Toxic behaviour has largely been created by the inept placement of certain content and mechanics around them.. Queensdale starter map with high level champ trains that had ridiculously short rotation times, failtrain reset mechanics and now to top it off implementing an item in game which will only have one outcome after the event con cludes.. every man and his dog piling into certain areas to farm nothing but ambients.

Any area that now has a certain ambient content can be considered hazardous for anyone wanting to use it for their weapon mastery achievements because the maize farmers will just spam botting reports on anyone that endangers their ability to claim ownership and lootz.
I would like to be a fly on the wall if a player who is happily farming ambient kills in order get something like shield mastery suddenly see’s a large influx of maize farmers hit the map and run over his fun.. will that one persons report be taken as seriously as ANET took the haordes this time round… no.. as ever it would be a double standard made up out of inconsistent GM’ing and general game design.

TBH Openwolrd has become a virtual mess full holes constantly being sought out in order to attempt to exploit the inherently poor risk/reward/reset mechanics.
Bringing this item into game to me simply says they don’t really know how to fix such inherent issues without a major overhaul of the game, so decide move those players into supposedly less damaging areas and allow them to farm unhindered.. except they overlooked the effects any kind of large scale farming has on both the economy and the rest of the player base.

Welcome to Farmwars2

You will likely see them running around the ambient farm in Rata Sum nowadays.. but don’t disturb their farming or the banhammer might come down on ya

RNG is just the tool they have decided upon in order to take as much in game coin out of the game.. 2 reasons.. to bring down some of the disparity in prices and to entice gem sales.. worked hand in hand with the unannounced gem conversion tool patching and surprisingly strange hike in conversation rates just before it landed… all adds up to something much more bean counter orientated to me .. but heyho.. all’s fair in GW2love and Conspiracy Wars.

Only thing you can really do if the Mini RNG game is frustrating you is to stop buying the bags off the TP and wasting your coin, don’t buy/convert anymore gems and either go farm bags for free.. or simply stop running the event all together and go back to playing the game as you would normally before Halloween brought this sour tasting account bound RNG mullarkey into the game.

There is only really one winner once you start spending silly amounts of gold /real money just for a chance at landing something that actually has no importance in game anyway.. its not mini’s hold much in the way of cosmetic elite status does it?

joshc.3129:

I agree everything should stack unless they have been soulbound or account bound.

Also they should raise the number of items in a stack to something else. 250 is to little. in my mind. I have so many stacks of candy corn taking up space in my bank it’s insane. I can’t sell them on BLTP since it’s been flooded with them selling at 19 copper (or whatever the minimum price is). Give them to the NPC kids so I can in return get more candy corn?!

Why hoarde the Candy corn for selling.. just exchange them for Candy Corn Cobs and sell those instead.

As for the general issue of space and stack sizes.. I couldn’t agree more though. I mean we are able to upgrade our material resource stack to like 1500 now so why doesn’t that also affect stack sizes in our main bank tabs.. or at least provide a separate upgrade options.
With all the new currencies, scrolls, potions etc that have entered into the game now, maybe its time for more bank tab expansions again.

But yeah, sort those items out already in game that for some silly reason don’t stack with themselves even though they are the same things.s stacks why not our bank

ColinJohanson.2394:

Lots of great concepts here already, great job folks. I’ll echo that this discussion is most helpful if we consider what the concept of guild raids in Guild Wars 2 could be, rather than attempting to limit to what “raids” in other games have been.

Think outside the box and ask yourself what other “raid” type systems don’t do well, and consider proposals that you think both make best use of what Guild Wars does well; it’s a similar process we use when evaluating any system or feature for Gw2 in general.

Look forward to reading more of your ideas!

Well…. if your only seeking to go down Guild Raiding then due consideration needs to be made around size of guilds because not every guild seeks to be the biggest possible, some prefer being small and just as hard working.
GW2 allows guilds to be 1,2,…. 500, therefore any raiding needs to accommodate a suitable scaling system combined with the ability for guilds to call up outside help, potentially via the LFG tools.
IMO raids have no real need to be limited to Guild Raiding. By having instanced raids that are either stand alone or that are unlocked by completion of a series of chained events enroute means that the community can organise their own raiding throughout the day and not have to rely on trying to catch a TTS run event or such.

For me one of the biggest de-motivators in GW2 is the "turn up 1 hr early, plug headset in and play the WP lottery when a map IP is announced to try and get into the organised event… and then hope you don’t get DC’ed and loose all chances of getting back into the correct map to complete the event you spent the best part of 2hrs supporting…. this makes the content far to hit and miss for many.
Instanced raiding offers the ability to control these kind of issues and will likely motivate others to open up their own instances regardless of map caps etc… guilds can then effectively raid within their own organised instances and have the flexibility to offer spots if they need, but at the same time PUGS can also organise their own attempts.. sure it may not be as smooth, it may not always succeed but it gives valauable content training, it allows everyone to sample the content and it gives choice.

From this platform ANET could perhaps look to implement a more specific RAID Grouping function.. more controllable LFG if you like where the raid leaders set the requirements and only those that meet the criteria (class reqd, lvl, AP’s etc) get through the filter. The current LFG is far to open with no group leader control, often leading to anyone of any level/class joining and then being kicked…

Regarding Raid Levels.. not all raids need to be lvl 80 endgame .. other MMO’s have introduced raids at other lower levels, much like smaller dungeons.. this gives players an early eyeshot of what to expect at higher levels and the challenges expected.. it would work well with the current “NPE” drive within the game and offers new players valuable raid training if you like.

Raid content.. please not more ball up, buff and spank the boss who has a gazillion HP’s… make the raids more interesting – add puzzles, co-op actions, mix up what certain encounters within the raid require.. give condi builds a role, give zerks their job, bring in the need for certain classes to perform certain tasks and skills (stealth etc etc)… raids need to have variance and challenge that make raid leader consider who/what they take into the instance… this is why Openworld raiding really struggles tobe more than just a numbers game imo.

Just my 2 cents.

I love raiding.. but Openworld really doesn’t offer the same challenges that instanced raids do.

lordkrall.7241:

IPhyton.2348:

erm ok jst a few to keep you amused.
zerk meta
pvp lack of content
condition in pve
lack of challenging content
lack of rewarding content
gem conversion
precursor crafting
zerg as the answer aka mindless and boring farming instead of fun content
that would be a great start!

That list is just that, a list.
It is also a very subjective list and not universal truth or seen as issues by everyone.

There is also a grand total of no suggestions on how to fix any of those supposed issues.

Honestly… why do you feel the need to try to call out everything that anyone posts just because to you the game is sooo perfect… you are the golden example of a word with many ways of spelling…

The list is actually a mere drop in the ocean of things wrong, broke, bugged and pure annoyance to some players- sure every MMO has issues and some are more important to players than others. I personally would love to see some answers in the Mesmer threads for my part.. see we all have likes, dislikes.. but I guess some just prefer to play the ultimate fainboi no matter what.

Such lists are not subjective they are proof that issues exist within the game, many of which have been reported since Beta.. whether they affect you personally is not the OP’s or others concern, they affect some in ways they don’t affect you.. just because you don’t share the same opinion doesn’t mean the OP is wrong or the list is subjective… then again I would hazard a guess many don’t agree with some of the tosh you like to blurt out on the forums half the time either… see what I did there!

Personally I think you post a lot of the time just to get a bite from others tempted into cussing and flaming you, then when the effects wear off you hit “report post” to make it conveniently go away.

BTW – Just so’s were clear.. we are not paid to fix the game.. but we all have the god given right to speak out when things aren’t right, working or frustrating to one’s gameplay..

Its happening all over the game now.. Divinity Reach has popped this 3 times for me in the last 15minutes, Labyrinth access causes errors, zoning in/out of LA causes errors, Timberline is bugged to hell still, Gendarran the same, PvP is having issues, .. everywhere is – something is up for sure.. and its getting worse every day imo.

Vayne.8563:

SundayTrash.9562:

Created my first character

Why should anyone care? And why are you even posting that here?

To be fair why do you care he has posted it.. its not like its in any way shape or form affecting your own experience.. every game whether MMO or Single Player has its joiners and leavers, but one thing remains constant.. every person has an opinion and like to voice it in their own way.. the OP has put his over, he hasn’t resorted to profanity and he hasn’t gone for the “oh I am so full of sadness” approach either, he just put it out there.
So he created a new character in a new game to show us all he has jumped ship.. big deal, have fun in your new land of coloured pixels… there was that so hard to do Vayne?

Its not just Lions Arch its Sparfly, Gendaran, LA, Labrynth

Its getting to the point now that server stability is as good as it was in SWTOR early days or more recently ESO.
Sure our own connections sometimes play up, but this is just too widespread and too often to be individual issues… I would hazard a guess all the server crash patching lends support of my view as well.

Maybe the megaserver mousies are getting tired of all the zergball content and are quitting the treadmills.. NME (New Mousie Experience) needs implementing .. fast, before all of Tyria is consumed in a giagantic sink hole.

Well if they do look to introduce raids focused around guilds then it better be scaleable unlike what we have currently in missions. Small guilds are left high and dry already by this kind of thing forcing them to alliance/co-op or otherwise go outside of “your guild” in order to get to see some content… thus negating the point of having your own guild of 2, 5, 10, 20.. unless you want to be a faceless 500, which many of us don’t.
Sure, lets not try to bring in the "Elitiist, Dress-up, Real Gamer tagging like Chris says.. instead lets now make it all about Elitist Guilds and exclusive content.
I mean its not like we don’t already have to rely on much larger guilds or larger alliance setups to get into do certain content (and then pray your early enough and don’t get DC’ed).

Everything that has come before has suffered with pretty awful scaling, but in doing so that is the only challenge a lot of stuff provides currently because boss AI and phasing don’t seem to count for much.
Instanced raiding is the best possible thing imo but only if the raids have challenge and interest, but at the same time scaleability to allow all to enjoy it.

EDIT .. Instanced Raids shouldn’t even be biased around Guild influence/unlocking.. they are instanced so guilds can run them just like a PUG can and avoids the openworld zerg mentality. It might actually help players to start organising their groups more effectively (if the content is actually designed around more than #1113111 Warrior LFG’s)

aRestless.6213:

Maybe it’s not an exploit in the sense of “using a bug”, because there is no bug. But this doesn’t change the fact that it should be fixed. Soon. I wouldn’t have a problem with that if players could repeat the first instance, because, you know – same chances for everyone.

If “playing the game as intended” permanently declines access to the best farming method in the game, that’s not a good example of how things should work.

It is simple.. ANET have no real policy around game exploits until there is a negative impact on gem sales.. so like all the other exploits recently revolving around fail mechanics they come out with red posts to say yeah fine do whatever just be nice to all… then place a patch up when the discontent grows.

This new exploitation which again uses the fail on purpose philosophy does however have a potential positive effect on gem sales as more players hurry to exchange for gold and buy up the transform pots to keep up their farm habit, so of course ANET come out with a show of support.. but in creating this carrot they fell into their own trap of poor consideration of their game as it actually places a limit on that positive because a large majority of the players can no longer get back in to the instance so have to try it elsewhere where its much slower and less productive.. that’s if you can find an area with enough ambient critters in a cluster that respawn fast enough .. there aren’t many for sure.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a patch to allow full replay of the story comes out soon now they know they have potentially cut their own throats.

lordkrall.7241:

Koviko.3248:

I was formerly a defender of Anet for their weird, irrational decisions as of late. But this one screams of nothing but greed.

How?
Did they somehow remove the ability to buy gems with gold?

---

I have the best solution for this whole “issue”! Lets simply remove gold to gems altogether then we would never have this discussion. Keep in mind that people are already shouting that ArenaNet is greedy and only does this to force people to buy gems with real money. So why not actually do exactly what people claim and outright remove the ability to get gems via gold?

How to completely miss the whole point of the issue… the more you post in this thread the more “clueless” you make yourself look.. sorry if that is harsh but how does removing gems sale/exchange from the game help anyone including ANET.

The issue is the tiers they have now pushed into the conversion stream and taken away a players freedom to purchase what they can afford at the time.
This will likely now have 2 outcomes.. players wont bother to use it out of principal or players will use it less often than they used to because the tiers kind force you to wait and save… and the items they wanted to purchase is no longer available or not on sale.

If you can purchase gold in tiers of 1, 10,50 etc.. why is it so hard to purchase gems the same way… there was nothing wrong before the patch, its merely another NPE smokescreen in order to try and encourage more gems sales, nothing more nothing less… why they are doing this is, I guess someone, somewhere came up with the logic, but we will never know.

But bottom line is.. will this encourage more sales or discourage more.. I personally think it will discourage (myself included)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

Hmm.. lets play some role reversal here.. maybe before you push through a featyre update like this you really need to consider throwing your ideas out to the players first to avoid the pitchfork and torches effect that your obviously trying to play down.

But what’s done is done.. the only suggestion I can offer now is.. if your not happy with what has been pushed through then don’t use it, don’t purchase or exchange, just carry on as normal.
I have never been overly trusting of the gem/gold conversion rates anyway so have used it very sparingly since launch but to be now forced into this kind min exchange mullarkey.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I was in Kessex Hills last night and I just peeked in now. I didn’t see any of that nonsense going on, but hey, I’m sure it happens. When it does, click the name of the person or the char itself, then right click on that char’s image to get options that include “Report.” Click “Report” and choose “Verbal abuse.” A GM will see your report right away and investigate it as soon as possible. This is for name calling, aggressive or offensive, comments, etc.

As in many cases, issues can crop up not with what is being said, but how it’s being said. If someone is being abusive, please report him or her to help make the game better for everyone. Thanks!

That may well be because the latest event(s) to start peaking in attendance have only just started to surface and the level of abuse is likely smaller thus far.. give it a few days .. I am sure your metrics have already started to ripen though…

Ashen.2907:

fellyn.5083:

Ashen.2907:

Dasenthal.6520:

I was in Kessex Hills working on my dailies/leveling a low level toon when map chat exploded with people yelling at others because they weren’t letting an event fail (I.E. doing the event). I jump in, totally not sure what’s going on and pick a fight with the loudest and rudest person in map chat, as time goes on people explain why they want the event to fail but are still unforgiving of people doing the event.
While I understand that certain events give more rewards than others, this doesn’t really seem to be right. Having the rewards improved so much, that people are purposely failing the events to trigger is a problem. Having the rewards improved so much that people are openly and as a group attacking the individuals who are doing the events (as intended) is a Really big problem.
One of the comments in Map chat was that this is common practice in Orr as well, got me kind of curious… Is this mob mentality really accepted into the PvE meta? Or was this just an isolated incidence of a rotten batch of apples?

~Background information (I wvw full time, but have recently been branching out so this was a serious shocker to me. However I suppose I want to know if it’s something I’ll just have to get used to or ignore. ) Don’t think it matters because of MegaServer but I"m on SBI.

An Anet rep has stated that failing an event on purpose in order to farm mobs is every bit as acceptable as completing the event.

What is not acceptable is being abusive toward others. In situations where conflict has escalated to abuse between event fail farmers and event completers Anet has altered the events to prevent the conflict.

No they did not say it is every bit as acceptable.

They said that everyone has the right to play the way they want unless it interferes with those playing the game the way it was designed to be played. Which is an important distinction to make and one fail train farmers seem oblivious to. They argument always stops at the “play the way you want” part and skips the rest.

They also said that things that cause toxicity (really really starting to hate that word) is super not okay. Which fail farming inevitably does.

It is interesting to note that the dev’s quote does not in fact include the bolded section of your claim.

Chris Cleary.8017:
“There are really two sides to this, and when it comes down to it, you are both right – and you are both wrong. Both sides have the right to complete the task that they set out to do (completing or not completing).
Challenging another player’s play style is the issue here, and since this revolved around an event that was designed to be completed, it is being changed so that the original design of the event can be carried out.
When something in the game (such as this event) changes negatively as this has, we need to step in and remediate the toxicity. The byproduct of this change happens to be that a champion farm is being slowed, but since that was the originating factor for the toxicity, it’s unavoidable.
I encourage players to remember that not everyone has the same goals when they play, and sometimes they will clash.”

That post just makes me laugh so loud… it basically says we have no need to ever complete any events in GW2, in fact we now only need 1 event where everyone can crowd in to fail it and constantly reset it for the entire life of the game.. no need for any further content, no need for anything other than a failed event mechanic that allows the reward system to be perversely exploited forever just so long as we all agree to be nice and get along .. the non failtrainer can happily go count butterflies and wabbits, while the “must fail for lootz” players happily crunch#1112111 until mom calls for dinner, then jump straight back into the phatlootz action once you’ve downed ya pudding.

Gee I wish RL had the same rewards for failing things forever… I mean if GW2 fails, no worries all employees will receive an gigantic payrise, a 4 week cruise holiday and a new car of your choice for doing such a good job… when the mood takes you begin making copies of the coding and relabel it GW3.. Rinse repeat every 2 yrs (even less if you can improve on the failtime/reward mechanisms… job done.. failure wins !

If ANET cannot see just how utterly ridiculous that whole statement makes their Openworld MMO look, then .. well it is what it is I guess.

AngelDiscarnate.5489:

Kessex is the worst place for that.
It’s the toxifier event leading up to the alchemist.
If it fails, you have to break the morale of the toxified Hyleks.
If it succedes, it goes right to the alchemist.
So people fail it on purpose for more champion drops.
And will literally be complete kittenbags to players whom are just there for the first time, and tooling around playing the game as they want to.

I think if the toxifier event fails, it should stop the whole kitten chain. Put some of those idiots in their place. xD

That is the fire fighting way to deal with it.. but history has proven in GW2 that the fires just start up again in another location.
ANET are obviously happy for the game to be exploited time and time again by these players otherwise they would do what other MMO’s do when players try to exploit flaws within the game design/mechanics – they root the problem out at its core.

There ya go ANET.. another fire to put out.. another Failtrain event exposed, another area to toxify and serve up with ya coffee.. fancy an exploit muffin with that??.

Sure it will get a nerfbat, but those same players have likely already sniffed the next one out ready to jump to when their loot bags dry up in Kessex.

Wonder how long before the anti-failtrain moves in and the soup begins to curdle once more.. happy times!

kitten .9460:

nightwulf.1986:

kitten .9460:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I talked to a couple of the devs just now, and they told me this is a subject they’re still reviewing and considering how best to address. It’s part of a larger discussion, as you can imagine, and changes would necessarily involve a few elements, not just condition caps alone.

While there aren’t details on changes or a timeframe in which they would be done, you can be sure that this is being reviewed by the devs and considered as part of the big picture and potential adjustments in the future.

Is there a reason why objects and such aren’t affected by conditions? How did the devs not see these issues arise, did they not play GW2 during development ? lol every other MMO I played has your own condition limit and doesn’t care who else has condition on a target.

First off, Guild Wars 2 isn’t the only mmo to have to wrap their head around this issue, you’ve said as much. But what you seem to be forgetting is that other mmos have also had to limit condition/damage over time skills for their own reasons. Wow had similar issues, I should know, I played an affliction Warlock for a long time. People complained there for many years before they changed which dots got refreshed, overwritten, and how many were alotted. There were reasons for the limitations, and when the opportunity presented itself, they were able to change it. It’s no different here. Don’t pretend that there aren’t limitations or considerations in designing condition damage. It ain’t easy.

Edit: Comparing how condition/dot damage works in one mmo to GW2 is also not necessarily apples to apples. The details man, the details.

Sure maybe when WoW was new.. is it wrong to expect an MMO in 2012 (release) not to have issues with conditions? If it is such a flawed system in GW2 why even have conditions at all unless they had a solid system to run them? Just because games circa 2004 had issues doesn’t mean it is acceptable in 2014 lol

^ This.. this person seems to understand that.

Sure all MMO /game design has its issues and limitations, but if that kind of limitation was never picked up in development then something is definitely amiss. If however it was then why the heck was such a flawed system allowed to be rolled out until such a time as it was a viable mechanic.

Sorry if I too sound negative, but to me this surmounts to nothing but excuses.
I think the player base gets it, condition damage is an issue outside of single player and has been since before launch, and to date we are still having a meeting to discuss the issues and throw some “apparent” alternatives into the soup, but hey we’re still discussing it.

Surely a major mechanic that is firmly bolted to the core combat system of the game needs a little more than a 2yr discussion. No one is saying its an easy problem to solve but if its still only at discussion level after this time then its serious enough to have never been allowed to become part of the game prior to launch imo..

This, much like the comment from devs around issues that became obvious once the camera system was implemented during development, to me raises some pretty loud alarm bells

Gaile Gray.6029:

Oh, on topic…

Dr. Strange — I’m going to ask about the mechanics. There might be a reason for this, but I’m just not sure. (If someone else comes up with a likely explanation, please feel free to post! Otherwise, I’ll see if I can find out why it’s working as it does, and if it is working as intended.)

Well.. I am thinking its something far more simple to explain.

Its Autumn now and Quaggan culling season is in full flight.

ANET forgot to bring the ducks into game for us hunters to sharpen our aims on ".. so this new form of sport has arisen to compensate for the lack of "quacks – and with the festive season just around the corner, be sure to stock your freezers up with a few of your favourite delicacies…. I like the pink ones best, so tender, so OOOoooooh …

I had 3 crashes on Jourmag last night and also 3 crashes when activating Plinx on Cursed Shore.. this is getting pretty frustrating now seems more and more events are becoming unplayable for me.. no point starting events knowing the risk of being booted out of maps and every chance your time is wasted, I mean its already hard enough to get into doing some events unless you arrive 30mins -1hr early without all these mullarkey as well.

I have no real issue on players out bidding anything I might bid on, not even if its 1cp.. it’s a simple decision on whether I rebid again and cancel the previous bid (my original bid is returned anyway) – there is simply no risk to someone biding on items.

The big issue these days is when your selling items.. the massive surge in the almost instantaneous 1cp less duplicate item is what’s turning me off using the service tbh.
If I list an item and the price is a little too high then sure I pay the penalty of having to either wait it out or repost it for less. But, these 1cp duplicate items make it too expensive to even bother relisting stuff.. its a gold sink that I am beginning to be very dubious of these days.. it would be useful to have bid / sale stamping cos how do we know this isn’t just a stealth gold sink aimed at manipulating the economy or simply bots.
The Ebay analogy is close for sure but at least you get to see who is bidding.. for sellers now, having to repost in order to keep competitive is just a gold sink too far.. perhaps ANET need to consider refunding listing fees to allow the selling community to play the game on an even keel with the buying community.. it may even help to start bring a better balance in the trading post wars.

Have to say that was a pretty good way to put some stats out for the game… wonder how things compare as of today.. would be nice to have another glimpse if only to see how class spread etc is altering if at all

Every large event with pre event requirements has the same issue.. a few running them and 100’s leeching for the boss kill.

I agree that certain bosses need some challenge put into them and the pre events need some rethinking as well, but so does the way rewards are handed out.
Just being able to sit around for someone else to do the pre events and then tag the boss for full reward is simply poor design and doe nothing to promote tha actual events leading up to it.

I look at the Modir event chain.. a few doing the pre’s and a 100 sat in the tent waiting for a single champ to spawn right at the end of the last pre then they run up to leech the final part… they have not done anything to warrant a full reward except crowd 1 tent for a champ.. therefore the end world boss event reward should reflect that.

Same with the Taidha event on Bloodtide…. long boring pre event to blow the gate open .. some do it while the leeching community sits up on the hill and waits for it to be completed then jump down for the final boss fight.. its simply not a great reflection of openworld event chains and reward mechanics imo.

What makes me laugh is how some whine about the lack of rewards in game .. but are happy to do the least possible in order to earn full reward.

Pretty sure you and your dungeons groups aren’t alone and its not just limited to Dungeons.. pretty much every world boss event now has it with lots of players complaining about heavy spiking and random disconnects.. I managed to kill Jormag almost 3 times yesterday.. each time getting to around 10-20% and being thrown out and instantly logging back in to find myself in a new map instance… but its not just large zerg events either, I have seen the same issues on Cursed Shore as well and Timberline Falls is just a serious game error waiting to happen within a few minutes on being on map.

I dare say our own internet connections have some part to play in issues from time to time but group wide and map wide lagging/disconnects are just to prevalent since the Sept patching for it to be isolated to just our own end imo.

Keiel.7489:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

Nope it’s not any different. At one point they had 3D cards, but you wouldn’t necessarily get one in every pack. You only had a chance to get the 3D card.

And getting the cards everyone had was pretty much worthless. I mean it’s not like you can sell Skip Jutze to anyone. It was a card no one cared about.

There’s really nothing in the BLTC that’s actually worthless. Transmuation charges aren’t worthless. Leveling scrolls aren’t worthless. Even when essences of luck where in teh chest, they weren’t worthless unless you happened to have 300 luck already (which very very few people do).

I disagree. Baseball card packs contained cards no matter what they worth. When you bought a pack, there was no chance that you got chewing gums ,candy(These aren’t worthless either) or other small things instead of a card you didn’t intend to buy, and there was no case you didn’t get any card at all.

I read this and find it a completely ignorant argument. You buy BL Keys and open a chest, and do you only expect BL Claim tickets or Permanent Contracts? Anet regularly announce changes to what is inside the BL chest and there is a wiki that has a pretty good database of what you could get out of it. You’re train of thought is that since the pack of BASEBALL cards has a BASEBALL CARD label, people would not be confused by what they can get from it, and gamers are completely ignorant and would not know what they could get from a BL chest, because it’s called a Black Lion Chest and not “Chest that contains three of the following items: Boosters, Black Lion Claim tickets, Black Lion Claim ticket Scraps, Bank Access Express, Instant Repair Canister, Merchant Express, Revive Orb, Self-Style Hair Kit, Total Makeover Kit, Trading Post Express, Transmutation Charge, Custom Arena Time Token, Black Lion Chest Key, Black Lion Salvage Kit, Box o’ Fun, Communal Boost Bonfire, Dye Pack, Metabolic Primer, Tome of Knowledge, Unidentified Dye, Flame Dye Kit, Frost Dye Kit, Deathly Dye Kit, Toxic Dye Kit, Metallurgic Dye Kit, Lion’s Arch Survivors Dye Kit, Lion’s Arch Commemorative Dye Kit, Heavy Crafting Bag, Large Crafting Bag, Medium Crafting Bag, Utility Primer, Pink Quaggan Backpack Set, Quaggan Killer Whale Backpack Set, Tiger Charr Backpack Set, Cheetah Charr Backpack Set, Plush Tybalt Backpack Set, Mini Caithe, Mini Holographic Scarlet, Mini Mai Trin, Mini Marjory Delaqua, Minis 3-Pack, Mystery Tonic, Unopened Beast Endless Mystery Tonic, Unopened Forest Endless Mystery Tonic, Unopened Furniture Endless Mystery Tonic, Endless Monkey King Tonic, Permanent Bank Access Contract, Permanent Black Lion Merchant Contract, Permanent Trading Post Express Contract, Permanent Hair Stylist Contract.”

I am thinking you have really missed the point, but to make it simpler..
Do you think that BLC are a form of gambling just because you might not get what you want?
ANET can’t be held responsible for peoples inability to handle disappointment especially as both the BL Key and BL Chest descriptions quite clearly state the fact that the end result is random .. the only thing that is absolute is the fact you get 3 items for the purchase, all of which hold value in some way shape or form.

What is ignorant is a players decision to purchase keys without taking the time to read the item description and then feeling hard done by when they don’t get what they want. In that respect the baseball card analogy is in fact quite relevant because your guaranteed to get baseball cards and a stick of gum (at least that’s what we used to get with out footy cards years ago )

I think its still happening this morning.. so far around a dozen items/multiples of items I have posted have an almost instantaneous 1cp duplicate being placed.. all items seem to be below a certain price threshold like 20silver and can be literally anything.. almost as if the items you post are getting copied and placed for sale 1cp less within seconds

I love these threads.. what it really says is op failed to understand the rules of a the game of chance.

I do not consider BLC’s to be gambling simply by the virtue that your money you spend on the key guarantees you a reward from the chest.. .. just cos its not the shiny you wanted doesn’t mean you did not get something from it.

There are simple considerations everyone must make when purchasing an item controlled within an RNG mechanic –
1 – Understand that any game of chance has 2 outcomes and you might not like one of them.
2 – Only spend money on a game of chance if you can afford to not get what you really want out of it.

Those things aside though BLC’S have a win-win element..
You have a chance to come away with something you either did or didn’t want, but at the same time have absolutely no chance of coming away empty handed.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to agree, I would not play WoW for anything. I tried it once, and I just don’t like the graphics. I’ll wait patiently for whatever is in store for us here. Yes, that’s right. I’m a Guild Wars fan. =)

Where’s my torch and pitchfork.. Fanboi’s to be burned at the stake!!

moiraine.2753:

Vayne.8563:

Many of us wouldn’t play WoW for free. I might not even play WoW if they paid me.

Stop talking for the whole playerbase.‘’Many of us?’’ You are NOT me and definitely NOT my friends.I like to play different MMOs including P2P ones if they are good.I like WoW and Wildstar.So what if one of them is an old MMO and the two of them are P2P MMOs?That doesn’t matter.Playing more than 1 MMO is never a problem.Different MMOs bring different things to the ’’table’’.

The post in question was NOT speaking for you.. it was NOT saying everyone.. it did NOT say people shouldn’t play other MMO’s.. it did NOT say people shouldn’t play F2P, B2P or P2P MMO’s…. in fact I fail to understand how you arrived at any of those assumptions and how it was being directed at you or anyone else that likes WoW. In fact I would hazard a guess to say that its in fact your post that is attempting to dictate your opinions to others, purely in the attitude you place within YOUR response. – - – > Reading comprehension FAILED much!!

I am of the mind there is still TP botting going on, every item I seem to put on lately is almost immediately beaten by 1cp.. Ii can be anything , from a low value trash item to high priced exotics etc.. I sure hope there isn’t another duping scam going viral across the TP

Well all I can say is that “IF” raids as many of us know it come into GW2 then I hope they wont become exclusive to just larger raiding guilds like a lot of the guild content already is.
I have no desire to be part of a larger guild and enjoy running with my own small band of friends around Tyria, but if that is the route they decide to design it to become an exclusive closed shop content then that’s when I hit Uninstall and head back to other MMO’s for my fun fix.
Small or casual guilds already get shafted with guild content as it is currently, so I would like to think content like this can be scaled accordingly so that all sizes of guilds or pugs have access to it.. but let’s be honest it’s not proven to be a strong point of GW2 as it is now.. 3HW is a waste of time outside a hardcapped organised map run meaning many never get to be involved let alone succeed.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for those that take the time and effort to organising these types of content but no one should have to plan their lives around such things, turning up an hour before kick off just to ensure you can get a seat in the main event only to find your DC’ed out with no way of getting back into the map again.
This kind of Openworld raiding (for those that deem them to be raids) doesn’t sit well with me, I like the content, I like the event difficulty but it has so many other factors beyond ones own skill and tactics that can affect the success or failure for all involved.
I have lead my guild of friends for many years and have lead raids across various MMO’s (no, not WoW!) so I am well versed in the need to organise your group appropriately, learn the raids, get the builds right etc etc but if we are restricted to running within a larger guild because they can’t be bothered to have it instanced and scaled appropriately then it’s time for me to head for the —>EXIT.

But all this is nothing but pure speculation at the moment so best to wait it out ans see what they come up with.

Many MMO’s had it / have it tbh, no idea why GW2 doesn’t.

/roll ftw

JUN YANG.4328:

this is a really good point. LS not = expansion.

because LS will went pass. but expansion won’t. and also for new player they cant enjoy the pass LS. so whats the point to keep making it.
LS STILL a small update they just keep cover the previous. thats it.

I will hazard a guess that new players will eventually be able to play the first chapter of Living Story in some way, doesn’t make sense to not have that unlocked for them.. when it becomes available and whether it will be gem locked via the story journal is another question.

The fact that ANET listened to the complaints that temporary content was not the way to go shows they listen, at least on occasion. LS season 2 is permanent content and can therefore be considered an expansion of the game especially when looking at it over the season rather than by a week drop in patch.

Look at the end of the day 2 yrs in MMO space is not all that long – you have to remember 10+ yrs ago MMO’s that were out or coming out had relatively no competition so player retention was a little easier and subscriptions therefore gave them a little more budgeting capacity.
GW1 by its very nature was something new from a business model and of course players were going to flock to it because they did not have to pay a sub each month.. add that to the fact competition was still a lot less than it is today meant it had a little easier tme testing out the boundaries of game development and expansions off the back of cash shop sales.
Fast forward to where GW2 was 2-3 yrs ago, almost every MMO I have played or knew off was now offering a F2P model with cash shop sales to stimulate income, some still maintained subs as well so it could feed off both models.. GW2 kept with its original model but now competiton to retain players is a lot more fierce so they have to focus on tempting us to part with real coin whilst placing currency sinks in game to keep us hungry or .. buy more gems.
Income must be harder to come by for GW2 just by the way the world is these days, doesn’t mean its failing to make money, doesn’t mean its a penny pincher and doesn’t mean nothing is being done to expand the game in some way shape or form.. add to that large scale expansions take a fair amount of development.. or do you expect them to have that ready for us every 2 weeks…

EDIT – Don’t get me wrong, I like GW2 but it has many issues imo… personally I would rather they get the content/features/mechanics they have in game currently , fixed and working the way they should before they even consider putting a larger scale updates through..

Jski.6180:

Well lets brake down what your asking for….

“it had been 2 yrs, no new class, no new skill add on existing character”

GW2 is a game where ever class is viable all the time so this means there is no need for more classes in a way each class in GW2 is a microcosmic of all class types in rpg but with there own class related flavor.
They had added in new skills and changed old skills to act like new. To add in countless skills would mean countless fixes for thoughts skills to be usable or not to be so powerful that other skills will become pointless.

“less then 5% map expand”

GW2 started out with a very big map bigger then most mmorpg just starting out to the point where you had dead maps early on because ppl even full world could not populate leading to bad events made for high numbers of ppl.
Prier to the mega world system you had to keep map expansion to a small amount or you would simply have death maps so the expanding maps is starting to kick up due to having this mega world system.
Added note its only a low % added so far because the starting map of GW2 was simply that big to start out with you would have to truly work at spamming maps to get a highish %.

“all the update goes to TP item”

That is how GW2 system works you can get any thing doing any thing you want. The TP or gem store is part of this ideal if you can get gold and use this gold for any thing in the game then any events or mob etc… you kill / do will get you to your goals.

The other things you said was just a rehash of what you said before the main point you fail to see is that LS are expansions. What your realty complaining about is the amount of content or the type of content that you have seen NOT if its from an big expansion or not. You can call LS as a small expansion and the tirdinal expansion as a big expansion this dose not very the type of content but the amount in a given time.

Time being the most important part if you take 6 months of LS you see a 6 month expansion the big different would be the amount of down time between content drops. In a LS type of expansion you have low down time between content updates but each update is not a major about kind of a 1 every 2 weeks. In a start expansion you see high down times between content updates but the updates are much bigger so say 13 every 26 weeks. The point is that your seeing the same content amounts over a time scale just the differences between the time lines in how content is put out.

So asking “why is there no expansion” is an out right silly question there has been many expansion added to the game some payed for as in gem store and some free as in LS events.

Sorry disagree with you comments about map size/expansion.

The maps were not all the large in size and most could be explored in under an hour and often a fair bit under level.
The reason we had so many dead maps so early on is two fold.. the maps were to easy to explore to quickly due to size/challenge and secondly there were/are far too many servers spreading the population to thin so that the caps could be lower to offer better stability – consider megaserver and how the amount of stability issues have steadily grown culminating in large numbers of players being DC’ed or suffering group/map wide lagging during boss events, sure some comes back to our end of the connection but I am of the mind more is down to magaservers and map cappings.

Stooperdale.3560:

GW2 has a future but it needs to deliver more content. Simple as that.

Disagree.. it does not need “MORE” content, it needs better quality content that offers “MORE”.

They push out content every 2 weeks with breaks for holidays, specific seasonal injection etc but generally they are releasing content, features, patches a lot of the time. However that in my opinion is the real issue. Pushing out content on such a quick turnaround has seen the quality falter, depth of content very shallow and has for the most been pushed through at the expense of other facets of the game that need some much needed attention.
Add to this there are many bugs and issues within the game that have either been pushed aside in favour of delivering on the 1 week / 2 week content releases or perhaps deemed less important.
For me GW2 is generally a half decent game but it lacks so much depth in its content and therefore fails on its replay value. LS is a nice concept but it has often felt like a disjointed after thought to keep us logging in to use the gem store every few weeks.

It’s still a babe in MMO space so at the moment it gets the benefit of the doubt from me, but somewhere in the course of the next 12 months I feel it needs to push something much bigger through that delivers quality and interest across the whole game not just LS.

In a F2P/B2P game model there is always going to be a need to push through things that might sell, like skins, mini, etc.. it has too, that’s the nature of the beast in order to keep the game oiled and I have no issue with that at all because at the end of the day its down to me if I want to put some real cash in to it and thus far I have on occasion purchased some fluff items that’s part of the fun as well.
I think it a little idiotic when I see posts accusing ANET or A N OTHER MMO developer of putting all their efforts into cashop stuff.. from time to time they have too to keep income balanced and give the other development areas a little time to breath whilst prepping future content.

Trouble is every MMO has players that want more before the more they previously asked for has bedded in for everyone else… if they release fast turnaround content every week we whine about its poor quality, buggyness etc.. then when they take a break we accuse them of not doing enough.. can’t win eitherway tbh.

Astral Projections.7320:

Alerno.1425:

Just updated my ranger with knight gear and have noticed him getting aggro a lot more now. Not really my point in putting knight stuff on, but just have to live and kite with it.

Back when my ranger was still in rare knights gear, I could pull a champ away from a group of people meleeing it just by showing up and hitting it with my shortbow. The champ would forsake all others and cleave to me, chasing me down to try to kill me. I would be kiting like a crazy person and all the people who were meleeing it were probably cussing me.

Yip .. same here, the Champ Abbo in Cursed Shore right after Plinx…. rangers must drive the melee crazy when its running half way across map to get a piece of me

This is another reason why RAIDS just won’t work in GW2 as it is currently.. classes broke, skills broke, minions broke, aggro system that has little logic and no requirement to organise parties to utilise certain skills/traits .. added to that the particle blur that will cover the raid objectives….

Aggro mechanics need some work imo but so do all the other mechanics in the game that lack polish.. I like the idea of no trinity for example but in a raid whether instanced or openworld .. there needs to be some organised requirements rather than 10, 20, 30 zerks hitting it down.. making aggro irrelevant anyway.

Just wondering if this actually happens.
Well known Gandara Guild was apparently disbanded yesterday by ANET.
Players in chat discussing today.. simply overnight apparently ANET disbanded it for a naming violation… I find this hard to believe, especially as I have known of this guild for a least a year now.

I am more inclined to believe a more zealous officer/leader may have disbanded it and pocketed the guild bank cos really, would ANET take all that and the influence accrued from the guild members without at least a warning and a notice to rename???

Answers on a post card please

Brother Grimm.5176:

Run a TraceRT and see where the lag is happening. It is likely NOT at Anet’s end (but somewhere in your internet routing path). There have been lots of reports of bad routing in both UK and EU in general lately.

Why would you think it’s likely NOT Anet’s end… you of course have proof to throw the notion that many, many players/groups/guilds from all over the EU/NA that are getting the same issues and its not ANET’s end???

This is happening far to frequent across a lot of megaserver maps. Pretty much every World Boss is a lag spike/DC waiting to happen for many players. Whole groups at events are being lagged or worse DC’ed now.
Then we get the issues with certain maps throwing players out of game due to Serious errors.. Timberline Falls and Gendaran are pretty much unplayable for me right now, but if I hit other maps I don’t get the issues… it starts from small skill or game lag then bang Serious Error, send report and crash to desktop.

I would hazard a guess there is some issues with the Megaserver map copies/map cappings. Last night my guildmate got instant transferred off Divinity Reach with no message, no request just blipped to another map copy, while I was stood right next to him in conversation. Something is definitely up, too many players are suffering common issues. Sure our own ISP’s are likely not perfect on there routing through the www but I am of the mindset that ANET know there are issues their end and are hoping they can get it fixed.

Ooh to be a new player trialling the game whiles its dogged performance issues are alive and healthy.

I would say this kind of thread warrants a CDI.. but that of course wont happen

This argument will always exist in game until ANET finally start to take their game seriously and use the hammer to punish those that seek to abuse it.. whatever side of the argument .. .. if not its just endless circle of event>exploit>abuse>nerf>event>exploit>abuse>nerf……

fellyn.5083:

The funny part is this mentality has already leaked into other areas of the game too. Me and a friend were doing zone completion on our new characters in Fields of Ruin, and while doing the big Ogre event in that area there was a guy who kept asking us to fail the event because he wanted to see how well he could farm it.

He wasn’t in any way being sneaking about what he wanted.

He even went as far as to say that he would pay us gold to let him farm it. Which sounds like an awesome deal but I don’t exactly have a huge need for gold. He got mad at us because he wanted to farm it while we wanted to finsh it because it’s yet another event that’s tied to progression in the game.

It’s because once an event exploit goes viral those players know it has a relatively short shelf life, so while they farm the hell out of it repeatedly they are also seeking out new exploits in readiness to move onto when ANET throw out their fire fight fixes… its not a new issue its been happening a while now and will continue to happen all the whiles ANET refuse to deal with the issue at its core and punish those for it while they come up with a revamp of the risk/reward structure of the game on a game wide basis. Having some champs drop loot, others not, some events only reward at completion, some not at all except for karma.. its all too iggledy piggledy imo.. the game needs a uniform reward structure that is scaleable at every event like with Blix or Coil.. but failure has to have consequences whether because of circumstance or on purpose.

Nia.3964:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Lol.. they chose yet again to fire fight the issue.. wonder where the next one will sprout up from.. watch this space!

+

I assume they are working on fixing the problem. But I suppose that takes a lot of time. You don’t have to forget that this game is very, very complex in it’s structure. There are many ideas to address this problem in the forums. And I suppose many more ideas on ArenaNet staff meetings. But you got to think these ideas through completely, then find a smart way to implement them, then test them.
Imo they would have to rework large parts of the Event system.And I think a year is probably a valid timespan in order to achieve such a good rework. Anything else could be flawed again – and abused again.

So, give them time and let them hotfix until then.

This isn’t a new issue.. Coil was just another example of it… of course it takes time, which is why they should be taking tougher actions to dissuade those players that are going out and actively seeking events that are able to be exploited so unhealthily, whilst working on a gamewide solution.

Lol.. they chose yet again to fire fight the issue.. wonder where the next one will sprout up from.. watch this space!