Guild Wars 2

On the topic of the clocktower, the OP is correct in that its creator felt a bit bad and made the decision not to do such challenging jump puzzles for future holidays. He agreed with the opinion of players that holiday content should be readily accessible and entertaining with minimum frustration. Granted that the clocktower was completely optional, but that was a decision that I believe he felt would be more in the spirit of happytime holiday events.

With this being said, he has not said anything about himself stop making difficult jump puzzles like the Clock Tower. He will continue to add very difficult jump puzzles of this caliber to be added in other ares of the game but just not be specific to the holidays. This also doesn’t mean we won’t see jump puzzles during the holidays. They just won’t be that difficult.

I agree with this. Everything else in the event can be done on a per character basis. This seems like the only exception, which is very weird. My main has no use for a free 10 slot bag but my alts do.

If I was a designer that didn’t intend on having people go to LA from the mists, then I would simply not have the gate exist in the first place and replace it with a gate that always takes you to where ever you zoned in from. This would work sort of how the Hall of Monument stone works where you just find yourself back at your starting point. They have the capability of doing that but didn’t for the Mists (that I’ve noticed), so I feel it may be working as intended.

@Grevender- Yes. That’s a DE that I remember doing about 3 to 4 weeks ago possibly longer.

Underwater combat as a mesmer seems perfectly fine for both weapon sets. In fact, I feel overpowered underwater, especially when it comes to underwater PvP during Raid on the Capricorn. My phantasms and clones surprisingly last a lot longer underwater because of their evasiveness and deal a lot of damage. This is also the only instance where I see myself actually using Mass Invisibility as Veil simply doesn’t work underwater and underwater stealth is amazing for navigation purposes.

That’s only 1 class out of 8 though. I can see that with the wrong skill layout or bugged skills, the combat may not be fun with other professions. I don’t have much experience playing on other professions underwater, so that will be something I have to look at when I do play.

@Azelroth- I agree that some RNG is alright and I feel that the Gift of Fortune does this adequately while also being somewhat satisfying and acceptable. If we go along with the assumption that precursors were a method of controlling the economy, then let’s see how prices may be effected without it. I would foresee an awful domino effect of price deflation starting from the top going down with item qualities.

Without the Mystic Forge digesting exotics, the supply of them would increase and the prices would drop. The incentive of Mystic Forging rares has now diminished with a lower or non-existent profit margin. Prices for rares may also decrease as a result. Since rares have decreased in price and less are being MF’d, more rares are being salvaged and more ectos are supplied, which drop the price of ectos. Ectos are prevalent in a lot of high-end recipes, so all those items also see a huge price drop.

While the price drops seem great initially, this means that all your gear loot isn’t worth as much, which is generally a major source of income for players other then harvesting nodes and crafting drops. Very expensive and hard to come by rare crafting materials are now even harder for players to purchase. There are also items like Elonian Wine and Gift Recipes that cost a set amount of gold, which also would be harder to obtain with a weaker income of gold.

I will say that I’m no economist but that’s how I would perceive the economy and player base be effected with other repercussions I’m sure I don’t have the foresight to address. The way I see it, any alternative that replaces the current method of precursor generation must also get rid of a good quantity of exotic weapons to prevent this.

A possible solution that does this would be a chance to receive a new rare weapon crafting material from salvaging only exotics. So if you salvage an exotic greatsword you get a chance (similar to ecto chance rate) to obtain new greatsword rare crafting material component (similar to PvP salvaging but you’d need more then just one). Players would then use these in a new Mystic Forge recipe to generate a Precursor greatsword.

Again that’s just a thought up on the spot idea, but essentially exotic weapon removal is necessary.

There are at the very least a couple dozen Mystic Forge recipes that always produce certain exotic weapons (with there being a couple of exceptions that have 2 outcomes). There are options for mat gathering here and more are still being discovered: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

However, there are exotic weapons that are currently known to only be produced via RNG Mystic Forge like your Death Wish. In this case, you’re presented to options of gambling to obtain the weapon or saving your gold up to buy one off the TP. I am of the same opinion as DrMatt that RNG Mystic Forge is normally only worth it with the mindset of trying to obtain a legendary precursor, which you also have the option of saving up gold and buying. These alternative options to the RNG Mystic Forge may not be satisfying, but are currently the only options. Personally, I’m not a gambler, so I just stock up on gold and mats.

Lol this happened to me last night. Bag of gold?! Checks if it is used in Mystic Forge and finds out it isn’t Ok. Let’s open it then and get some money! Obtains 4 copper Aww…

I currently use low level armor skins that have been transmuted with level 80 stats, because I really like the look on some of them. Although there is a good chance that someone with certain named gear would have it be at it’s original level, there is still a chance that it isn’t.

DeeJay – I share these same opinions as well. Long fights don’t make a fight epic. Interesting fight mechanics and challenge do.

Anet really should do something about the HP of these champion mobs. Something simple that could be done is to see how much HP damage a group of 15-20 players can do to a mob of Champion status with full condition stacks and power based damage in 3 minutes, then use this amount for HP. Champion mobs also shouldn’t be just giant versions with bigger HP pools and more damage. These mobs also need an extra skill or two that forces even a big group of players to coordinate.

Some skills that would make the fight interesting:

Abomination swings his clubs into the ground and does a line nuke.
Abomination jumps up and smashes into the ground for area cripple.
Abomination releases pungent fumes that cause weakness/poison in area.

I really enjoy the constructive posts so far and thought I’d throw another one your way. I’m in agreement with the “take a break and come back later” opinion. GW2 is a new MMO and will be going through a lot of changes over its first year. It seems like what you enjoy doing are completing adventuring tasks in the forms of questing or dungeons with both challenge and structure. I can relate, because I generally expect the same out of most my games in the RPG genre.

Dynamic events while fun to see in action and be a part of generally don’t offer much challenge. I can probably count the number of different events I’ve seen groups fail on one hand. I would like to see more difficulty tweaking on events game-wide. Scaling should be done with tougher mobs and not just an increased quantity of the usual weak ones. The lack of communication during these events is also a result of low difficulty.

Dungeons definitely need to be tweaked in whole other manner. Players that enjoy raids and content of this nature don’t do it for the long fights, which are prevalent on even the trash mobs. People want to see interesting fight mechanics that make them think on their feet and use teamwork/coordination to figure out how to solve it. I feel that no trash mob fight should take longer then a couple of minutes for teams that have appropriately adapted to the fight mechanic nor should they take more then five minutes when a team just DPS mindlessly but manages to survive. The time saved in doing the fight efficiently should be its own reward.

Bosses should be longer fights but not simply because they have a larger health pool. Boss fights should be long because either they have a more complicated fight mechanic to work out and deal with or they go through multiple mechanics in one fight. I feel five minute fight for an efficient team and a ten minute fight for a high DPS high deathrate team should be appropriate.

These are my own opinions on what needs to be done to get these areas of the game up to where players would vastly enjoy them. I went into great detail, because I feel we may share the same desires. If the current handling of DE and dungeons doesn’t currently appeal to you, then come back and play the game when they get to the point you feel would give you enjoyment rather then boredom or frustration. Either way, have fun with whatever you do. =)

Dee Jay.2460:

In theory, Magic Find makes sense.

You sacrifice a lot of your damage/survivability for an increased chance to receive better loot. In theory the game is now “harder” and so your reward is better. Essentially Magic Find is supposed to increase the risk/reward factor.

I really like this assessment here. In GW1, there was no magic find. You would simply do something that made the game harder to increase your chances of better loot. Hard mode versions made all mobs in the zone a lot more difficult to kill, but dropped better things. You would also decrease the amount of party member support to increase your drops. Both of these things made the game more difficult but provided better rewards. Players had to get very creative the more difficult they made their game and were amply rewarded for their skill and ingenuity.

I’ve always had this belief that dye drops were more common in lowbie areas. Everytime I did something in a lowbie area I would get a lot of dyes. This may be due to the very few items available to be dropped as random loot, so the chances are higher due to a smaller pool or it can just simply be the case of being able to kill things faster and being lucky.

I see no issue here with Anet have Halloween gem shop items being sold for a few days more after Halloween has ended, especially since Anet told us this was going to be the case very much in advance. It’s not like they were being malicious, seeing that they didn’t earn enough in-game shop sales and then spontaneously extended the selling period for more money.

Strangely, harpies come to my mind. I don’t why but everytime I see one I think to myself “Flock to me!” and on some occasions I catch myself saying it outloud. ><

Based on the way I play and enjoy the game, I would give it a 9.5/10, which is better then any other Halloween event I’ve played. I don’t even remember what I did in WoW all those years ago. Something about knocking on doors and getting candy… that’s all I remember. This is an event I’ll always remember to the last detail.

However, if I were to rate it based on how it appealed to across the entire population based on being user friendly, informative, and non-frustrating, then I’d give it somewhere around a 7/10.

They did mention a new PvP game for this update, and if players really like it they’ll add it to the sPvP rotation. So not sure why sPvP players feel left out.

Oh yeah, before I forget. I was curious on how all your clones were different colors. I never toyed around with dying my armor between new clone generations, which I’m assuming that’s how it was done. I would love confirmation on this as I easily forget my own dyes used. ><

As long as you have the Halloween mats, you will be able to discover and make use of all Halloween recipes. These will remain in the game all-year round. The mats themselves were only available during the Halloween event save for those being sold on the TP.

Is that a femur (or some king of leg bone)? Is this supposed to be something akin to Wirt’s Leg in Diablo. I’m trying to wrack my brain for anything GW1 related but I’m coming up short.

Assuming both recipes have equal chance of producing clovers, the 1x recipe is much safer since you get more forges overall, which will bring you closer to the estimated average then if you would doing the 10×. The 10x would more then likely be farther away from the average, which could be very good or very unlucky for different people.

He probably started recording minutes before he expected the in game day/night cycle to change and then just showed us specifically 40 seconds before night=>day and 40 seconds after. Granted, the sky is quite bright during the transition but I’m sure this is how the video was done.

bombastinator.8965:

So far as i can tell orichalcum nodes and scavenging has been removed from the game almost entirely.

This makes me curious as to where exactly you are trying to farm for your mats. Orichalcum nodes were not removed or reduced but simply put on a daily timer. As others have recommended, I suggest getting some buddies and going to the high level areas of Frostforge Sound or Cursed Shore.

Karpuz- I understand that point of view. I usually play semi-hardcore in most games, but I always take a different approach in regards to MMOs. Personally, I can’t ever enjoy grinding/farming for the sake of efficiency. From experience, trying to obtain something prestige as legendarys normally take a huge time/gold investment with a game’s initial content. I see this as just coming with the territory.

This is not to say that lodestones aren’t expensive or frustratingly difficult to obtain. They are and I don’t see Anet doing anything special other then adding more content and zones in future updates. I know my advice is a long-term approach to the topic, but again I make a disclaimer that it won’t appeal to everyone.

I wish you good luck in getting your lodestones. I also don’t think that many people will be owning legendaries. Even if lodestone prices fall dramatically, precursor prices will still be high and rare to obtain, especially when all the illegitimate precursors are bought and consumed.

Archer- I honestly would have given a similar reply to what Colbear gave. Anet made their change to prevent an exploit and make obtaining precursors back to what was originally intended. Personally, I really wish Anet was more assertive in deleting the precursors made in this way even if it took some Anet staff to manually control the offender’s account and right-click delete.

Dungeons were mechanically working as intended for the most part (there were several exploited paths and bugged paths). However, players speed farmed certain paths, completing them using said exploits or by skipping large portions of the path. This effected the economy and also caused other dungeons to have a non-existent player population, so changes were made to get everything back to what Anet had intended, while also including changes like karma rewards to make it appealing.

As much as I hate gambling and RNG systems, Anet’s precursor generation via Mystic Forge is working as intended now. I can see how my wording can be misconstrued as support, but that’s far from it. I only talk about what Anet is realistically going to do about it (simply nothing) and how they are going to treat new skins in the future. I don’t particularly like the idea of them not changing the precursor RNG, but I’m realistic and understand that Anet will most likely not change it.

Astralporing – In regards to people already being upset, I recognize this in the second portion you quoted. I also didn’t say that future implementations should follow the same crafting mechanic of RNG mystic forge nor did I support it. Your generalized remark quote on mine doesn’t take that into account at all. Constructively, what matters here is what Anet does going forward, which I give an appropriate idea of what that may entail.

Unfortunately, keeping how the first generation precursors are obtained is how Anet will realistically approach the issue. Some could argue it has nothing to do with fair or everything to do it with it, but fairness isn’t something I mention at all in my post. I just state what Anet will most likely be doing as a company.

I agree with this change. Please bring back the original quantity options for crafting. It actually takes me longer now. =(

My thoughts on precursors from another post:

Unfortunately, their RNG system for precursors has been implemented and can not be undone or changed without getting people extremely upset. Granted, there are people upset about the system in general, but a lot of people who already used a lot of their time/gold would feel even more cheated. Even the players who legitimately got a precursor from the mystic forge would be hurt that they could have used their gold/time on any new system or change they implement. The damage has been done and Anet is going to have to stick to their guns on these weapons.

However, I see Anet slowly releasing more specific mystic forge recipes into the game with skins that are very popular even if there is a lack of particle effects. A good example of this would be Arachnophobia introduced in the Halloween event. Anet needs to increase the amount of desirable weapon and gear skins that avoid extremely low chance RNG and are obtained by more definite means.

I would also like to see Anet add a second generation of legendary weapon skins that use a lot more mats but require zero RNG from the Mystic Forge (mystic clovers are somewhat of an okay exception to this).

Unfortunately, their RNG system for precursors has been implemented and can not be undone or changed without getting people extremely upset. Granted, there are people upset about the system in general, but a lot of people who already used a lot of their time/gold would feel even more cheated. Even the players who legitimately got a precursor from the mystic forge would be hurt that they could have used their gold/time on any new system or change they implement. The damage has been done and Anet is going to have to stick to their guns on these weapons.

However, I see Anet slowly releasing more specific mystic forge recipes into the game with skins that are very popular even if there is a lack of particle effects. A good example of this would be Arachnophobia introduced in the Halloween event. Anet needs to increase the amount of desirable weapon and gear skins that avoid extremely low chance RNG and are obtained by more definite means.

I would also like to see Anet add a second generation of legendary weapon skins that use a lot more mats but require zero RNG from the Mystic Forge (mystic clovers are somewhat of an okay exception to this).

Personally, I’m just saving my gold and not wasting time gathering lodestones. I know that eventually more content will be added to the game and these lodestones will dramatically drop in price. When? No one knows, so it may not be for people who want their (insert recipe that needs lodestones here) now. However, I know that I’ll be saving myself a ton of gold and in-game frustration by waiting it out until the availability increases and the market prices drop. Sure I won’t have my weapons now, but I’m expecting to purchase 5x to 10x with the same amount of gold later on, which will mean more completed recipes at a cheaper cost per recipe then if I did everything the way the market is currently.

As additional content gets added to the game, the market on these lodestones will change. For the most part, all the lodestones and cores that are currently expensive pertain to the types that relate to Elder Dragon minions. Once new zones get added that make way to challenge these EDs or simply get closer to them, we will see more availability of these lodestones and cores because of newer high level mobs that have a chance to drop them. It’s inevitable for these things to happen.

At the moment, the only easily obtained rare crafting material of this sort are essences dropped from Zhaitan’s risen. True these aren’t lodestones or cores, but are analogous in the manner that they only drop from these mobs. The pricing on these items are relatively cheap, because of how many people have been killing the vast amounts of risen in Orr.

My advice is to simply wait out on anything that deals with such lodestones and cores until content gets added that makes it readily accessible. I agree that there are a lot of high level recipes that call for them, but you’ll have to expect paying a lot of gold to make things with them the way the market is currently. Personally, I’m quite patient and dislike farming, so see myself saving a lot of game time and gold by waiting it out and focusing on other areas of the game.

Crystal lodestones will drop in price as we get new zones closer to Kralkatorrik, destroyer lodestones when dealing with Primordus zones, and corrupted lodestones with Jormag. Elemental lodestones such as glacial, molten, onyx, and charged lodestones will be more accessible with these higher level areas as well. I’m predicting that if a dungeon opens up in the Wizard’s Tower, then that would be to go to area for elemental drops.

Anet did make a comment about “Asuran world domination.” However, they never said it had to be the good Asurans. I can see the Inquest achieving this as they actually compile information and monopolize on it.

I think the Sylvari can experience all the same kinds of feelings (pain/pleasure/irritation) one would have with nipples in that general area without the actual having of them. This seems like the most reasonable answer.

Let’s hope we don’t find out that one of the Elder Dragons are susceptible to Candy Meter wave frequencies. =(

I don’t see this as manipulation at all. The original sellers got their small amount of quick gold by listing their weapon at a very cheap price. People that bought these and re-listed them are also doing it for the same reason. The materials cost for these weapons are estimated to be in the 100g range. Is it really manipulation if the new price went from 10g to 20g to 30g all of which are much lower then the material cost? This is just a simple case of supply/demand and people smart enough to realize this and make a profit.

I agree that stealth shouldn’t effect the player delivering the killing blow. Stealth is supposed to wear off the moment you initiate an attack anyway, so having it still work on your character during a finisher doesn’t make sense. I also support the idea on quickness not working on finishers, for the reason previously mentioned of the mechanic purposely taking awhile to allow countering.

Direngrey.1247:

BowmasterSol.3457:

But I want my Chronomancer =(

They have said that they are not releasing the Chronomancer.

I could have sworn this was in regards to GW1. I don’t remember seeing anything about GW2. If possible link the official statement, so I can get sad momentarily and then continue living without false hopes.

Well if they introduce housing into the game at some point, they could add an option to share housing as well. Give permissions to your “spouse” so you can both work together to make a great place to live.

But I want my Chronomancer =(

Praxis.6289:

Bubbles.1047:

I don’t get this thread. Normally, I would be opposed to the presence of RMT in a game, but when the game developer itself is an RMT company, then I want competition among them.

Here’s an informative link, might give some insight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_

Its what I mean… Right now IF ya wanna spend 10-20 bucks youre better off using botters /farmers than arena.net service.

Naturally, any kind of unauthorized obtaining of gold or counterfeit money in general is going to be cheaper. That is essentially why the service exists in the first place. However, even though the service is more efficient monetarily, there are large risks involved. People don’t want to end up robbed and left for dead in the desert nor ,in the case of playing the game, have their accounts hacked and then later banned.

I don’t believe Anet is “spread thin.” This is assuming they are using the same people for lots of different teams. Anet has stated they have hired a whole slew of new staff members to deal with these issues and solely work on specific ones. I understand that it is quite frustrating to see something broken in game, but its normally not something that prevents gameplay.

The fight to make the “perfect smooth running” game is ongoing and never-ending. So what if Dynamic Event X has been broken for awhile? It will get fixed eventually and during the time people are waiting for a fix on it, there will be multiple fixes in other areas of game in addition to new content. Major bugs or exploits are fixed shortly. Botters are banned in waves as to not easily hint out which coding got them detected.

Simply put it is hard to make judgement on Anet’s work on fixing the game from the outside looking in. I bet a lot of developers see all the complaints and cry a little inside when they know they’re trying very hard to make us happy and players don’t get to see that.

Anet isn’t going to change the USD price per gem because of gold sellers. All the transactions of gold => gems and gems => gold are based on the player driven economy of what is available. The only effect this would have is to drastically ruin the market.

Considering the Oct 2012 page wasn’t added until a couple weeks before the event, it means absolutely nothing. The month by month highlights such as these will come the closer we get to each month. Wipe your tears and if you must you can use my tissues. Be happy =)

Trahearne never wanted to be leader. He originally enters the story as an advisor due to his unparalleled knowledge of Zhaitan, the risen, and necromancy. As the different factions realize they need to band together and elect some one to lead, your character suggests that he take up that position. Although quite reluctant to do so, Trahearne accepts, realizing its something he has to do. Trahearne is someone that all the factions in the game equally respect and trust, so he is used in this manner to sustain the fragile bonding of the new Pact.

I have a fear of the deep sea and its inhabitants, yet I’m also a completionist. Why must you torture me Colin Johanson? T_T

Since it’s in Latin, I speculate something having to do with the Mursaat.

If Hoelbrak got changed during Wintersday, then I can foresee this as being incredibly beautiful. We could have a giant tree in the center fully decorated. The thought makes my eyes water.

I think it’s funny that all the effort you put into this lion statue is just so they can blow it up annually. You must get really sad watching that cutscene.

It seems like a lot of your frustrations are due to simple misunderstandings or not being patient enough. In regards to the PToT bags from suspicious locations, other players can not steal your ToTs. You just activate the location for all people to use. They go away naturally after a time, so if you’re not quick enough (~20 seconds) then you’ll have to scan for them again.

As others have pointed out, the event isn’t over. The times you were looking to do Mad King Says may have just been poor timing. The Mad King goes through phases continuously while in LA. He does 6 minutes of Mad King Says (the time you want to be at to get your Witch Hat) then instigates Costume Brawl and leaves for another 5 minutes. He reappears to walk about LA to tell jokes for a good 10 minutes or so. He disappears again for another 5 before doing the “trick” phase of his cycle. Another 10 minutes will go by and he disappears for a small time. He’ll briefly pop up around LA instigated more Costume Brawls before repeating the entire cycle, which he does about every 45 minutes.

If you have time now, then log into LA and simply ask people how long ago was the last Mad King Says played. This would give you a rough estimate on when to expect for him to do so again.

If I have to fight tentacled minions of Bubbles, then I am seriously going to have a panic attack and freak out. T_T