Guild Wars 2

It might be an interesting twist to have her NOT recover, but finally succumb to her injuries. The sylvari would have to learn how to organize themselves, just like the other races, rather than relying forever on what is essentially a living goddess/protector. Maybe it’s time for the sylvari to grow up.

CptAurellian.9537:

I have no problem with some antagonism in the story, but I do have a problem with the PC hardly reacting to Braham’s impertinence at all. That lack of spine kills any potential immersion.

I think the PC’s reaction might actually have been the wisest course. Braham was in an extremely angry mood and prepared to twist everything the PC said. Had the PC “showed spine”, what would have been accomplished? Braham wasn’t listening with an open mind. Attempting to administer a verbal smackdown at that point would have just widened the rift between them. It was a time to back off and wait for a better opportunity to try to have a reasonable conversation without interruptions by assorted packs of nasties. When a child throws a tantrum, a mature person, such as the PC, does not descend to his level no matter what hurtful and unjust accusations the child is hurling.

Olterin Fire.5960:

I think he’s falling much like Svanir himself did. So now we just need a sudden twin sister or something to come up :P

Hmmm. Did you happen to look at the statue of Chococooka? Perhaps the spirit of Jora is not so far away.

coso.9173:

you guys are talking like if Braham had already lead the Norn to their Doom. it has not happened yet and we dont know if it will ever happen. Slow down there. what is has done so far is just acting hot headed. that is all.

I fear it’s more than that. His stated goal was to chip the fang to rally the norn for an assault on Jormag. The last thing we see is Braham chipping the fang and hearing the cheers of many norn. We know that most norn believe in the tradition that chipping the fang means the time has come to take out Jormag, though we also know from one of the elders that this is just a myth. I can see a lot of norn being ready to follow the “chipper” into a no-win situation, and it’s going to be mighty hard for the few cooler heads to prevail now that Braham’s got the enthusiasm of the mob up. Once the rioters are headed out the door, torches and pitchforks in hand, cooler heads are easily ignored.

Best I’ve been able to do so far with my revenant is about 30%.

Back when the NPC’s were actually fighting, it definitely was much easier. Perhaps not exactly a piece of cake, but not a Shadow-Dragon-type encounter either. As you found more of them, it became easier to get through the labyrinth to the rest of them. At the Predator, Braham would bubble up and pretty much keep it tanked and centered in the area while you and the other NPCs could move around sniping it. You still had to avoid the swarms moving around and the rock blasts, of course, but the battle lasted only a few minutes rather than the forever it takes now to make any significant dent in its health.

I really hate being stalled out on getting my new toon caught up to the others in the story. Everybody else is working through Bitterfrost, but my poor rev still has to do the rest of season 2, HoT, and the earlier parts of season 3.

Is there a Wolf Havroun around? Maybe the spirit of Eir could be summoned from the Mists to straighten the kid out. Because I think Eir would be shocked at the depths of Braham’s misunderstanding of her life’s work and legacy given that he’s doing exactly what Eir was trying to move norn society away from.

At least let us follow up on the identity of the mysterious “E”. We haven’t heard from him/her/it for a long, long time now, so it may not be very relevant any more, but it would be nice to know who or what was pushing our buttons in season 1 and 2.

I’m having the same problem with my new revenant. My other six characters did the story long ago, when it first came out, and I remember the NPCs fighting then, as well as Braham putting up his bubble at the Predator. Now they do nothing at any time. While you’re going through the maze rounding them up, the ones you’ve already found will just stand around with their thumbs up their behinds during every encounter. When you get to the Predator, they do the same. You have to do every bit of the fighting yourself. At least Caithe will rally you while you’re in the maze, but she stops when you get to the predator.

This can’t be right. What’s the point of the NPCs even being there, then, except to set up the situation with Caithe? You might just as well go right to the Predator and rescue them later, if you think they’re worth bothering with.

I care, though I missed much of season 1. (Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite, and the Skyrim Dragonborn DLC took me out for a little, and then I got hooked on Skyrim modding, and the next thing I knew … ) The last thing I remember of season 1 is helping refugees in Diessa, without knowing what they were fleeing. Then I came back after the start of season 2 and had to buy the first couple of episodes.

The big loose ends certainly need some wrapping up. So do some of the small ones that are easily forgotten.

For example, there was a rather strange interaction in Camp Resolve between Rox and a supposed “old friend from her mining days”. Is she in some kind of trouble? Is there some unrevealed drama in her life comparable to the drama the other characters have been going through? Rox has, so far, been the most stable and sane person in the group, but also very private. Is she hiding something?

Then there’s the forgotten. What happened to them? They were still around when the Zephyrites/Exalted were recruited. There were still at least some around when Tarir was built. But then we read tablets citing the words of the last of them. Yet we know that they are immensely long-lived at the very least. In GW1 we spoke to one in the Desolation who was still carrying a grudge against the Margonites from over 1,000 years before. Did they die? Or just go elsewhere?

What about Belinda’s spirit in the sword? Now there’s a setup if ever I saw one. A restless spirit inhabiting an artifact in active use? The moment it happened I heard Trahearne in my head saying “This won’t end well.” (I also have to wonder at Jory. After all the ferocious talk about wanting to stick that blade into Mordremoth and get revenge, she seemed perfectly content to just guard the team doing the job from minions. No fuss at all.)

The Exalted finally acknowledged the existence of Gleam, previously dismissed in the game as just a myth. So what happened to that first progeny of Glint? Did the Brotherhood fail and let the destroyers get to her at some point? Did she go bad, perhaps deciding to serve Kralkatorric?

I’m sure with a little time I could think of several such minor threads that need a little resolution.

Edit: Oh, and about the Nightmare Court — what the heck were they doing in the Heart of Maguuma anyway? According to Faolin, they didn’t want to be controlled by Mordy any more than they wanted to be “controlled” by the Pale Tree. Did they think they were going to be able to fight it? Or were they just spying in hopes of finding a defense for themselves, or maybe even something they could use to enhance their own power? Perhaps something that would allow them to influence or control the Pale Tree?

Braham is, I think, much more like Rytlock than Logan or Zojja. Both are very direct sorts, and Braham has even shown his appreciation for this. (“I like the way Tribunes think.”)

The poster who suggested that Rytlock may be the only one who can straighten Braham out may be right. Rytlock is enough older and wiser to know when direct solo action is not the best way to go. Rytlock knows that he functions better in a group that serves to balance him, which is probably why he was so quick to come up with the suggestion to form a new guild.

For example, while Rytlock favored getting on Eir’s trail immediately at the start of HoT, he supported the Commander’s decision not to let Braham go charging off into an unknown jungle by himself. He accepted the Commander’s wish to befriend the itzel in order to gain information and support, though he placed little value on it himself. So he offered a compromise that allowed him and Braham to follow their impulse for direct action without being reckless. That should have been a lesson for Braham right there, especially after the Commander had to dress him down earlier for running off ahead of the team. But Braham was having a bad case of tunnel vision and learned nothing, apparently.

Btaham, unfortunately, seems to think he’s honoring and preserving his mother’s legacy by his actions. He said the Commander had a funny way of showing respect, but Braham himself fails to understand his mother and has a funny way of honoring her legacy.

Eir understood the value of group action (unusual in a norn) after seeing so many promising young norn get turned into icebrood by reckless solo action against a champion of Jormag. She became a master strategist. She observed, gathered information, and planned a course of action. That’s how she, Snaff, and Zojja recruited Edge of Steel (Rytlock, Logan, and Caithe) to form the team that could complete the job against Jormag’s champion that she failed the first time because she overestimated her team’s strength. She learned from that mistake. Those are all qualities that Braham currently lacks and is now sneering at by showing his contempt for the Commander.

I have to agree with Gorgaan, though, that Braham does seem to have decided the Commander is at least partially at fault in Eir’s death.

I do disagree, however, with the view that the Pact collapsed. The Pact was torn from the sky and dashed to the ground with nothing but wreckage to work with. Yet they were so devoted and so well trained that they pulled together, made allies, defended Tarir, broke a path into the heart of Mordremoth’s domain, and overcame his last line of defense — his strongest fortifications and champions — to clear a path so the PC’s team could get to the dragon itself. Using nothing but scrap. That is NOT an organization that can be described as “collapsed”. (Though collapse may still happen depending on what REMF they choose as Marshal. General Soulkeeper, of all people, should know better than to support such an idea.)

(Trahearne was to blame for what happened, of course. His rash plan of attack on Mordy was nothing like the careful strategy he followed against Zhaitan. He had his stated reasons for this, but I have to wonder if Mordy wasn’t subtly influencing him the entire time, as he may have been influencing Caithe. Both too strong mentally to control directly, but perhaps vulnerable to attempts to color their perceptions on a deeper level and impel them to hasty action. Mordremoth may have been all ego, but he wasn’t witless, and I think he may have been subtle enough to do something like this. But where were the Pact’s overseers from the Orders — Wynette, Doern, and Efut — during all of this? Why weren’t they raising questions?)

Squee.7829:

Commander didn’t even explicitly say “Don’t do it”. Just that Marjory should really reconsider. But Marjory decided to get belligerent about it anyway.

Actually, the Commander said “I can’t let you do it.” “Let” is pretty strong and deserved a strong reaction. And, frankly, the Commander’s concerns seem a little bit overblown. It is certainly a calculated risk, but the Commander has taken a few of those as well in the past.

Braham, on the other hand, was more than just “rude”. He was dripping with absolute contempt. You could hear the quotes around “Commander” in his voice. It makes me wonder if he hasn’t decided that the Commander was at least partially responsible for Eir’s death. (Thinking something like “If the Commander had listened to me and gone charging blindly into an unknown jungle on Eir’s trail while ignoring all other duties and considerations, we might have caught up to her captors in time to prevent what happened. But he chose to fool around, making allies of frogs, saving turncoat saladheads, gathering intelligence, etc. while my-mother-the-legend was in immediate danger. Time for the direct approach. From here on I’m going to do things MY way.”)

At the beginning of the episode, you travel to Hoelbrak to get information. One of the elders gives you directions to the new map. Did any of you speak to him again after getting those directions? He has a few things to say about the fang and the traditions surrounding it.

Braham has apparently bought into a myth that was made up to keep rash kids from running off and getting themselves killed. What does scratching the fang prove, given that Asgeir himself was killed by Jormag despite being able to pull that fang?

Aura may enter into it, but I think “gold” is the key concept. Gold has chemical symbol AU, from the Latin word aurum. Looking at the etymology, the Proto-Indo-European roots come from words meaning “to shine”, “to gleam”, “to glow”. Pretty appropriate for a dragon of the lineage of Glint nurtured in the City of Gold.

I still want to know about the baby daddy, though. If there isn’t one, that means that Glint was reproducing by parthenogenesis, like the mythological Amazons. Which would put the nail in the coffin of a “he” offspring, since parthenogenetic offspring are always female.

Of course, the other possibility is that Glint was actually a hermaphrodite rather than female, but nobody wants to go there. Certainly not me.

Serith.3712:

IMO anything that reduces the amount of afkers and players who aren’t on a WVW map for the purpose of playing WVW is a good thing.

Doesn’t this same argument apply to hero points, veteran critters, centaurs, and skritt? Doing ANY of those things is not “playing WvW” since it helps your team not a whit. Vet critters in particular attract a whole lot of PvE players who have no particular interest in WvW. And, as others have pointed out, the TP, bank, MF, and vendors are available outside of WvW. The specialty vendors (Laurel vendor etc. with WvW-specific merchandise) could easily be moved to LA, just like the dungeon vendors. Let’s just clean out the Citadel and keeps of any non-fighting NPCs entirely, except (possibly) for armor repair!

DivaCeryn.2673:

why do we have cap a monument/ruin for daily again when its broken and monuments aren’t there anymore?

The monuments are there. In the desert borderlands the monuments are the elemental shrines. In the alpine borderlands the monuments are the ruins. Go back and read the release notes from the patch where they changed “Master of Ruins” to “Master of Monuments” so that the daily would cover both kinds of monument.

Obviously the change wasn’t tested properly in the alpine BL since it is not working, but there is no need to accuse ANet of not thinking ahead to prepare in advance for a possible return of the alpine BL. Granted that they frequently DON’T seem to think ahead, in this case they did and deserve a pat on the back for their forethought as well as a brickbat for the poor execution.

Inimicus.7162:

Resonating slivers are a 1x per week deal. The economy gets an influx once per week, with the scribe player alone maybe pulling in 18-24 on average (for me, I can’t run WvW missions with my guild because of servers). Now consider it takes 81 of these to make this part of a grandmaster finishing kit.

18-24? Oh, that would be heaven. Me, I’m lucky to get five. I am the leader of a 10-member guild and a member of an 80-member guild. About the only favor either guild gets each week is from whatever missions I can do solo. (Easy bounties and easy treks now, since the WvW Oasis challenges are history.) Getting three people together in either guild for a WvW cap, cap-and-hold, or medium trek is worse than herding cats.

Sadly, even though I do missions for each guild, I only get the personal reward for one of them, which defies my comprehension. I can understand not being able to do a mission repeatedly for one guild to farm slivers, but if I am contributing favor to two different guilds, I should be rewarded for both.

Inimicus.7162:

Coarse sand. There are exactly 2 full maps where this stuff can be farmed, and all of 6 inches of Verdant Brink. The problem is you need thousands of these as a scribe and they do NOT farm quickly. You need 300 of these for each grandmaster finishing kit.

The six inches of VB are the best. You can’t farm sand in DT except for 20 minutes during each hour, and during that time you have to deal with or dodge devourers, skritt, and/or sand giant while doing it. SW is worse because the dust bunnies are relatively few and you’ll have mordrem beating on your tail the whole time. In either map the sand you get from event rewards is pretty small for the time each event takes, which is enough time to kill quite a few dust bunnies. VB at least gives you a place where you can concentrate on sand and nothing but sand.

PopeUrban.2578:

Coarse sand needs its scribing requirements cut by 90%, just slash a zero off of all the sandpaper recipies. Additionally, its demand necessitates other means of acquisition. Sure, leave silverwastes as the most direct and reliable means of acquiring it, but how about adding packs of 10-20 to the commendation trader’s crafting materials page, as one of the random rolls on the Ley Essence converter purchase tables, and as a purchase from the pact Supply mastery’s vendors.

Great ideas. I would also suggest having the insect collector in DT offer something like “Large Bag of Coarse Sand” in exchange for a fossilized insect. I finished the ambrite weapon collection more than a year ago and currently have nearly 30 bugs that have dropped for me since then. Dusty bags of gear don’t seem like a good exchange for something so rare, but that’s the only thing of value currently offered for them. It’s pointless to use them to craft more ambrite weapons, since those can’t be sold and cheaper Nomad’s weapons are just as good for salvaging or Mystic Forging.

For that matter, having the Zephyrite vendors sell sand for geodes would be nice, too. I have nothing left to buy from them save for lockpicks, and I don’t need to buy lockpicks any more because endless farming for sand is giving me more than I can use (along with SW keys, geodes, and bandit crests). So the useless geodes are just piling up in my wallet. My only incentive for doing events there is to help get the map to t4 to get access to Chicklet’s shinies.

I’m having the same problem. I have Advanced Gliding and all the XP needed to unlock Ley Line, but not enough mastery points to do it yet. People I know who have Ley Line unlocked are able to use the launch pads while everyone I know who can’t use them does not have Ley Line yet.

I wonder if it could be related to the problem people are now having unlocking Glider Basics? If they fix that, then maybe our problem will be solved at the same time. One can only hope.

I don’t think I’ve seen IoJ this demoralized since the days when Maguuma was beating on us week after week. (Back when we were a tier 3 world. Remember tier 3?) I think yesterday was the first time I’ve seen us with a zero score since those days. I sympathize with your whiny rant and would join you for a round of crying in our beer, if we had any beer or any place to call our own in which to drink it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Evans.6347:

Southern.8973:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I understand there’s some charr vendor in Lion’s Arch somewhere who sells apples. You might go look for him sometime. Though it might be finding the unfindable.

No, he’s just part of the level 30 personal story, named “Meeting my Mentor”. He doesn’t actually sell apples, and you have to be inside the personal story instance to see/interact with him. He’s just supposed to be an “undercover” Priory agent who’s cover is selling apples — that he doesn’t actually sell.

The joke
^
I
I
Your head

Shh, don’t explain the inexplicable.

Why not? We of the Order are supposed to Know what Cannot be Known and Fight what Cannot be Fought. Shouldn’t we also Explain what Cannot be Explained?

Edit: Apparently we also Revive what Shouldn’t be Revived.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Blood is used by way too many things. From berserker gear to a whole lot of exotic mystic forge recipes for skins. Any little increase in demand will spike it.

As well as spiking the price for t5 blood, which people are apparently buying now to promote to t6.

Swift.1930:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Swift.1930:

Nephziel.6053:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Quaggon Jinn?! +1

It’s not as clever but…. Obi Quaggon Kenobi?

Charr Charr Binks

Blast it… that was mine! xD

I’ll have to sink to… Charrbacca. Or Luke Skyhammer. Or Leia Organic Sylvaro.

Charr… Too Dee Too….?

Charth Vader. Oddly, the Charr seem to have the most pun potential…

Cee Treepio says otherwise.

From keep lords and guards? I predict that this move is going to turn around and bite them. Somehow, someday there will be some change to centaurs or heavy supply bags and someone will forget that centaurs are no longer the ONLY source of bags with that name, unlike every other bag type that is strictly associated with a particular type of foe. When a programmer violates a strict convention for immediate convenience it is nearly always a Bad Idea.

That’s how we got this mess in the first place. One team was busy inventing a new use for bags from level 80 centaurs while another team was busy removing the only level 80 centaurs in existence. Poor internal communication and coordination. And now the mess is rectified by adding an exception to a rule that will be easily overlooked in the future. Ummmm. This won’t end well, as Trahearne would say.

Remember, you heard it here first.

Sviel.7493:

While I’m definitely defense oriented, I think this is a good change. It does make it harder to defend but it also means people will have to actually try to defend instead of porting in after the fact. Should be more interesting.

And for them to try to defend will mean they have to hang around the keep or nearby waiting for an attack. Getting no points for the world, getting no points towards the next rank, getting no loot. Just waiting, close enough to respond in time when an attack comes. If it does.

This is a good change? Even as things were, it was hard to find people to scout or defend in keeps, much less towers and camps. Defenders would respond if they happened to be nearby or if they could waypoint. Now the second option is eliminated and nobody wants to stop what they’re doing and make a long, long run that will probably get them there too late to do anything but die.

I think there’s also a Little Red Hen problem on some maps. Everyone wants to eat the bread but no one wants to help plow, plant, weed, reap, mill, and bake.

In Dry Top, everyone wants to be in a t4+ map but nobody wants to drive it there, so players flood in at the last minute every hour hoping that somebody else has done the donkey work.

In SW the calls to taxi people in don’t begin when the meta begins, but only when a Breach is about to happen. Everyone wants the breach bosses and the vinewrath, but nobody wants to hold and upgrade the forts.

I haven’t spent that much time in the HoT maps yet. Perhaps the meta-participation bar is helping to prevent a similar dynamic from taking place there.

Tommyknocker.6089:

It was not meant in seriousness, unless of course you take it as being serous that the dev team should have not included this mechanic. A fail mechanic for a prize in an MMO where you have no choice but to play with others, makes for very unfriendly game play.

Exactly. But the unforgivable part is that the devs already knew this. For three years the Malchor’s and CS maps have resounded with the cry “let it fail!” whenever a temple defense event begins, followed by the same old arguments. The devs have had to revise more than one event because of fail farming (Coiled Watch being an especially egregious example) and the toxicity it was causing. For the devs to turn around and do the same thing again — in spades, with branching events all over Tyria, despite all this history — makes my eyes bulge, my jaw drop, and my hair stand on end. It is the perfect illustration of the old definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

But there’s nothing so bad that it can’t be made worse. When they added all the inducements for events to fail, they also added the map reward system to encourage other players to let no event fail. “I don’t care if skipping this event will give me three other events in a few minutes! I don’t want to wait a few minutes. I want my Giant Eye NOW!” It is the Daily Event system writ large, extended to every map 24×7.

Celtic Lady.3729:

I would think it would be preferable to encourage the success of events.

Not the other way around.

But ANet is doing both at the same time. When you put up signs telling people to drive on the right side of the road while putting up other signs telling people to drive on the left side, you can expect blood and twisted metal all over the highways. I think we can thank our lucky stars that the people at ANet went into game design rather than traffic planning.

DoctorDing.5890:

Spiritwood planks have almost doubled in price in a week and are now selling for around 15 gold. Crafting them needs lots of soft wood. Bad news if you need the planks for your latest ascended/legendary crafting project. Great news for the wood farmers. Fill yer boots!

Worse news if you need to make a level-25 weapon for a new character that you’re leveling up, or to level up a crafting profession. When a material has a very high-value use (ascended/legendary crafting, GH upgrades) added to it, it is economic suicide to put it to its original intended low-value use. I feel very sorry for players who want to craft their own gear for the characters they’re leveling and especially sorry for new players who want to level their crafting professions.

ham.8209:

Soft Wood Log has got not one thing at all to do with meta of any kind at all . and never will . also in normal crafting the use of soft wood has changed and you need more soft wood . then you did before hot came out and when hot came out the amount of soft wood need to do regular crafting doubled . so instead of needing just one log to make a dowel . now you need 4 log,s to make that same dowel .

HoT didn’t change anything here. Dowels of all tiers have always required one PLANK to make, not one log. Soft wood planks have required four logs each since very early in the life of the game. It was adjusted upward from three logs more than two years ago to reduce an oversupply of soft wood in the economy. There was never a time when you could make a soft wood dowel out of one soft wood log.

Glass Hand.7306:

Elden Arnaas.4870:

You need charged quartz for a lot more than just celestial gear. The (arbitrary, unexplained) time gate is, IMO, a problem.

re: Enchanted Map Scraps – These are not governed by RNG. You get the same one from the same type of chest. Loot chests from different regions.(even open world chests drop them) The wiki is your friend:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enchanted_Treasure_Map

It says right in the Wiki article you pointed to:

“Scraps randomly drop from open world and jumping puzzle chests, with those in specific regions being more likely to drop certain scraps”

How you think something is going to drop randomly without RNG involvement is beyond me.

I believe Elden means that the TYPE of scrap a chest can give is fixed rather than random. So a chest that gives, say, scrap 1/4 will always give that scrap if it gives a scrap at all. There’s no RNG that will give that chest a chance of dropping 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4. To complete the collection you have to find chests of four different styles, with each style being predominant in a particular region of Tyria.

If the one in Southsun works, I wonder if that means the one in Bloodtide will work as well? Or any of the risen megalodons (Sparkfly, Straits, and Cursed Shore)?

Minx.7521:

Kraggy.4169:

Actually, IIRC, you need to fail TWO consecutive events to get the spawn and the required item is NOT a 100% drop.

That’s the sort of asinine game mechanic Square Enix love in FFXI, from 13 years ago.

OH DANG. I can see how the atmosphere can turn really toxic really quick. Anet literally divided the goals for events. It’s not only for the moot either, I’ve been hearing things in my guild about how there’s a temple event you have to FAIL to get an item for precursor.

They took a bad situation and made it worse. There has been a conflict over temple defense/assault events, with the loot farmers wanting the defense events to fail, for a long time. But there was no reason to care about the many other branching events in the game (except for a couple of events discovered to be farmable, such as Coiled Watch, that were nerfed to prevent this). Events would succeed or fail depending on whether there was anyone in the area who cared, so the failures would happen naturally.

Now, however, not only do you need many events to fail to get the right branch for precursor collections, there is more pressure not to let ANY event fail created by the trains farming for the new map rewards. Because of the map rewards, every map now feels like a 24×7 daily event map. “Events? Events? Please call events!” Failure events that you used to see regularly, like the chicken swarm at Salah Bayt in Malchor’s, are now rarely seen, but also required for certain achievements. The quaggans in Timberline were often successfully kidnapped by the krait because the event is out-of-the-way and features the much-hated underwater combat, so it was often ignored. That’s no longer true.

Asking the event farmers to let an event fail is like asking them to poke out their left eye with a pointed stick. Of course this creates a toxic situation!

The sad part is that having people actually doing all these events should be a Good Thing, but it has been turned into a Bad Thing by the precursor collections. The map rewards have players doing exactly what the game was designed for players to do: find and complete events. Creating pressure for the success of events while simultaneously creating pressure for the failure of the same events is not a bright thing to do at any time. But it is very hard to understand how it could be done by devs who already had the temple events as a living example of the problem it causes and who had already had to nerf other events that were creating similar conflicts.

Captain Prinny.6492:

Glass Hand.7306:

For example the Enchanted Map scraps. I’ve gotten 3 of them, all number 2. In a year and a half of playing. As far as I can tell I will never ever be able to complete this map.

You dear Sir need to get out a little more ….and do some JPs. Each Scrap is bound to Chests (mostly JP chests) one for each region. So try easy one, like:

Chest in Queensdale in Wolf Cave near the Crossing Waypoint — [&BPIAAAA=] (no JP) Counts for Kryta Map Scrap
“Under new management” JP quick&easy JP right at the portal to LA in Southsun cove

“Shaman’s Rookery” The JP in Wayfarer Foothills in Norn Start area. Counts for Shiverpeaks Map Scrap

“Morgan’s Spiral” The JP in Caledon Forest counting for Maguuma Map Scrap

any JP in Ascalon…. I like Craze’s Folly in Blazeridge Steppes or the Chest down at Rhendark (small chest outside gate)

You could also park an rather unused character at the chest and open the chest once a day until you get a scrap.

If you are one of the “Jumping Handicapped” so-to-speak and you are on an EU server whisper me ingame. I have a truckload of parked mesmers in the JPs (Mule, storage) which can port you to many JPs for this scraps. I am litteraly buried under tons of that scraps….I wish they would give 10 silver each ;-P

Edit:
Better whisper / mail “Dai Shi” which is character from my main account

There are many chests that drop enchanted map scraps but are not at the ends of jp. Some require a few easy jumps, while others require no jumping at all. Sparkfly Fen has six such chests, including two in Shattered Keep. Dry Top has one in Lair of the Beast. Wayfarer Foothills has at least one. Etc.

So, even if you are as “jump impaired” as I am, you can get the map scraps fairly easily. The same procedure got me the ornaments for the Star of Gratitude last Wintersday, and those chests provide my main supply of Empyreal Fragments, so it is worth learning their locations and visiting them regularly.

I can tell you to the day exactly how long it would take me to get 30 charged quartz for a full set of armor by my own harvesting efforts. I can’t tell you how long it would take me to get, say, 30 powerful blood for a full set of zerker armor from random loot drops, but I have no doubt it would take me longer than getting 30 charged quartz unless I was extremely lucky. Do you get 30 powerful blood or ancient bones or vicious fangs or any of the other rare mats in only one month?

So, what’s your complaint? Those who want insignia using quartz are sitting pretty compared to those who want insignia based on other rare mats. There’s no RNG involved.

When a closure message pops up, it always leaves you with a dilemma because a map can often re-populate if you choose not to volunteer out immediately. This dilemma is especially frustrating for maps with a tiered meta because you can so easily screw yourself by the wrong choice, yet you have no way of knowing which is the right choice.

• If you volunteer, you may end up in a map with less progress than the one that’s shutting down.

• If you don’t volunteer, the map may not repopulate in time to finish the progression but may repopulate enough that you lose the option to leave.

From a player perspective, the best solution would be to keep the map with the greatest progress rather than the one with the highest population. That would ensure that volunteering would always put you in a map at least as advanced as the one you left It would ensure that the map making progress gets additional population to keep the progress going.

From a programming perspective, this may be more difficult than it sounds. But I sure hope a dev looks into the idea if they haven’t already.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Malediktus.9250:

Why is the map closing system super flawed? It often tries to close perfectly nice and filled maps.

Example just now: It is trying to close my auric basin map, which is so full that i cannot taxi in more people. Yet a map will be closed in 60min appeared. 10min before the Tarir defenses starts. Its such a joke!

I wouldn’t call it a joke — it works perfectly well in core Tyria. It just needs to be tweaked for the new maps.

Could use some tweaking for Dry Top and, perhaps, Silverwastes as well. Unless you’re including those when you say “new maps”.

I mean that it could have used some tweaking for Dry Top as it used to be before HoT. Nowadays I don’t know if any amount of tweaking will solve the problem because player behavior with regard to DT has changed so much. They apparently come in with very specific goals in mind related to collections and leave immediately after achieving them, so the map population fluctuates wildly. I’ve even been prompted to volunteer out of maps in the middle of t4 sandstorms, which would have been unthinkable a month ago.

Sarie.1630:

Oopsxd.5481:

Hey do you guys like Tony the Tiger? He’s cool.

I was wondering if there are any tiger quests in this game

thx

Not a tiger, but the Snow Leopard transformation heart is still at the start of Wayfarer Foothills.

And, like the mossheart transformation, they simplified it so you no longer have all the abilities it used to give you.

An Iron Legion charr named Esso told me they used to have tigers in their tanks, but gave it up after a legion reorganization. (Yeah, I know. Only ancient crocks like me will get that reference. The rest of you will have to google it.)

ANet seems to have failed to learn from its own past.

The old Skill Points, which were character bound, had two uses. One use was for character development (unlocking skills and traits). The other use was as a currency for the Mystic Forge.

ANet eventually decided that this was confusing, so they split the functions into Hero Points, used ONLY for character development, and Spirit Shards, used ONLY as a currency. This, to me, made good sense. The HP are character bound, as they should be, while the SS are account bound and placed in the wallet.

Then they turned around and added Proofs of Heroics, which have two uses: character development and currency. They’re like the old Skill Point system, except this time they made it worse. Skill Points at least had no physical token so they didn’t take up a bag or bank slot.

Somehow the principle that character development indicators and currencies should not be combined got lost Did somebody miss a meeting or throw a memo into the circular file without reading it?

The event system was never designed to accommodate all of the things that have been piggybacked on it. Yet ANet seems to keep repeating the same mistake despite ample proof that it IS a mistake.

Without those piggyback riders the system was fine. It didn’t matter so much that many escort events are bugged (and have been since before launch) because you could just shrug and go do something else. Events would fail “naturally” when the map population dropped or everyone was off doing some bigger event. (For example, the Coops event in Malchor’s would generally fail if it came up while a temple event was in progress.) Life was good, except for some conflict between farmers and those who wanted to do temple defense events for whatever reason.

But then they added collectible items to vendors that only appear for a short time at the end of events that they knew were buggy. They added trait unlocks to events that they knew were buggy. Suddenly a minor irritation became a major frustration and a serious impediment to progress. They also added collectible items to temple assault events, exacerbating the conflict between players in Orr by creating an even bigger gap between the rewards of an assault vs. a defense.

We howled about all this at the time. It is beyond belief that the devs did not and do not realize how big a blunder they had made. Yet, they not only continued down that path with the new collections, they made it worse in three ways. First, by creating demand to “please let that event fail” for branching events that were previously of no concern. Second, by creating demand not to let ANY events go undone by the new map-reward farm trains, making them resistant to any request to let an event fail. Third, by tying collections to even MORE events that have been bugging out since before launch (e.g., Bauxite Alchemicals).

Holy frijoles! How could anyone with at least the brains nature gave to clams look at the proposal to do these things and not see a train wreck in the making?

Each chapter gives you a pretty large XP reward on completion, IIRC. Instead of getting XP for each individual foe, you get it in a lump sum.

Gulesave.5073:

Well, I’m pretty sure their form was designed by Mordremoth. If the Pale Tree or half the individuals had it their way, they would probably look like centaurs. Which would be amazing…until you attempt a jumping puzzle.

There were no humans in existence the last time Mordremoth was awake, so how could it design them around a model it had never seen? If you ask me, I say Mordie simply programmed the Pale Tree(s) to create progeny in the form of whatever seemed to be the dominant race at the time the seed was growing.

Remember the scene from Eye of the North. There was one centaur and a mess of humans living around the Pale Tree, plus a bunch of other humans passing through. If you were a young, ignorant little seedling, who would you guess was the dominant race of Tyria based on that experience?

So, in the end, the OP has the micro-aggressive nature of the relationship turned exactly backwards. It was the poor Pale Tree who was victimized by humans who enforced their pattern on her! For shame, humans!

Lest you forget in your focus on the salacious aspects of the question, the external organs under discussion are multi-purpose. Reproduction is not their only function. So, unless sylvari never need to visit the restroom, they require some sort of organ for liquid waste elimination. Being modeled on human beings, it would make sense for those organs to resemble those used by humans for that purpose.

Can you imagine how horrible it would be to have a mouth for drinking beer, but have no way to pay the rent on it? Even Mordremoth could not possibly be that cruel to his creations!

Kraggy.4169:

I did find one new Waypoint in the far SW of Ashford, it doesn’t appear on my world map so I didn’t even know it was there, I stumbled upon it while playing a new Charr last night, before reading the replies here so I now have seen one of these additions.

That’s for one of the new-ish guild puzzles. You will find similar puzzle waypoints in the NW of Snowden Drifts and on the west side of the iron farm in Brisban Wildlands.

If you don’t yet have the explorer achievements for Ascalon, Shiverpeaks, or Maguuma, then you need to scrape around near the doors of the puzzles to unlock the names of the areas behind them. (Or do the puzzles with one of your guilds.)

Hilko.1760:

BrettM.9062:

Hilko.1760:

Bounty
Why are we blacking out the bounties if it is just going to be the same one every time? Everyone and their mother has “Poobadoo” this week so one random person in a 1 person guild walks up and starts it while we are waiting for people to show up for credit.

I guess I’m neither everyone or their mother, since I got Brekkabrekk.

Who knows. I rerolled it like 7 times to see and it was Poobadoo everytime O_o

We failed to find Brek the first time. Rerolled and got Brek again. Failed again. Rerolled and got Brek a third time, succeeded. So it may be that it gets stuck on whichever bounty comes up on the first roll. I didn’t mind that at all, since it’s easier to keep trying one bounty than to get a new one every time if you are unfortunate. If that’s a bug, I hope they never get around to fixing it. (Which is a good bet given ANet’s track record on minor bugs.)

Hilko.1760:

Bounty
Why are we blacking out the bounties if it is just going to be the same one every time? Everyone and their mother has “Poobadoo” this week so one random person in a 1 person guild walks up and starts it while we are waiting for people to show up for credit.

I guess I’m neither everyone or their mother, since I got Brekkabrekk.

Dante.1763:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I think Divinities Reach had a new poi added, the Dead End, an instanced area.

One just has to run up to the door to get it, or at least i did on my most recent character!

The same is true for the hatchery in Nolan (Diessa Plateau), New PoI in an instanced area, but you only have to run up to the door to uncover it.

Nephziel.6053:

Hannelore.8153:

You can get 214 points from Central Tyria which will unlock all skills, all core specializations and all but the last two elite specialization skills.

After that go to Verdant Brink to get a few HPs for the rest.

Alternatively, I believe that you can also get those extra HPs from the Borderlands, Edge of the Mists and Eternal Battlegrounds, unless they changed it.

Borderlands and EB has been included in those 214

189 Core
3 Per Border and 3 in EB = 12
Krait Obelisk Shard
Rest is in Silverwastes and Drytop.

Almost. Your total is correct, but there are actually four in EB (Dredge cave, ogre camp, krait camp, and Stonemist), for a total of 13 in WvW. SW/DT between them have 11.

Squeesidhe.4761:

OK, thanks for the tips, I’ll use my amazing Chronomancer skills to skip forward in time for a bit to unlock Masteries.

Anet – WTH? This kitten is confusing, and I shouldn’t be wasting XP because I’m not at exactly the stage you want me to be at expansion launch.

I agree, and it is a shame that you have to spoil season 2 in order to unlock masteries. Season 2 episodes give huge amounts of XP as completion rewards and require level 80, so all that XP goes to waste unless you first spoil the ending and then return to the story. That seems like a nasty trick to play on new players who are taking their first character through the game and spent gems to get that story. “Okay, new player, you can either spoil the story you paid for or forgo some of the rewards from the story to avoid spoiling it. You choose,” sez ANet.

I’m behind the OP 100%. In fact, for a second there I wondered if I had been posting in my sleep under a pseudonym, since I had been contemplating making the same post.

Togo, it doesn’t matter that Pact Commander swiftness only works in town because there are places in town where you are required to jump to reach vistas. I don’t think it’s at all silly to want to have control over your character’s movement speed.

Wonderful summary. Thank you.

My mesmer spent some time trying to get that SW yak through the lava and up to the Fire Keep gate by keeping its bubble up and applying speed boosts. No dice so far, though I’ve gotten it within a body-length or so before it drops dead. The issue also affects caravan guards if the camp is upgraded enough to send them along. The buff that negates lava damage does not affect the yak or guards.

The yak seems to be heading for the stair that will take it over the lava when it suddenly swings right and takes the stair down into the lava. Perhaps it’s some kind of navmesh issue.

I’m feeling mighty screwed by the info release. My little guild of 10 had a pittance of about 50k influence collected. We were told that we could exchange 10k influence for favor, implying one favor since no other exchange rate was given. Well, that was so punitive for a small guild that I took the advice of a later blog post and just spent most of the influence to catch up on upgrades that would grandfather over, whether we really needed them or not. Now I find that I could have held back and traded for enough favor to start the GH claiming mission.

We were not given enough detailed info early enough to make solid, rational decisions about the best way to transition our guilds to the new system. I call that a major communication failure, but, unfortunately, I can’t say I’m surprised by it.

Astralporing.1957:

Actually, you do have a point, but only where ascended crafting is concerned. Here, they have just added 3 elonian squares to the cost of each insignia, while leaving the damask at the previous value. It was a straight increase, made to make ascended gear cost more. This at the same time where it has suddenly became more important (due to incoming raids) and also when Anet massively nerfed asended drop rates in fractals.

I’d really, really want to hear reason behind that one.

The cost of ascended insignia went up more than one might think if you look at everything that goes into it. The increase wasn’t as “straight” as it might appear at first glance.

“Just” three elonian squares? Elonian leather now costs more because it takes four thick sections to make a thick square instead of three. So, for the 150 thick squares needed to make three cords, you need 600 sections instead of 450. That mounts up quickly. A full set of armor requires six insignia, so the total number of thick sections is 3,600 — over 14 stacks!! — just for the added cords, plus the cost of all the lower-tier leather, the ecto, and the reagents that go into each square.

But the cost increase doesn’t end there. Each ascended insignia also requires a gossamer insignia, so we have to factor in the added costs to make those — more leather and more gossamer thread — as detailed earlier in the thread.

It’s kind of jaw-dropping when you pencil it all out.

It seems like they have too many development teams that are not paying attention to what other teams are doing. So we have, say, a Daily Event team that isn’t aware of the changes being planned by the Desert Borderlands team for removal of Ruins and vet creatures. Or a Guild Hall Upgrade team that isn’t aware of the planned removal of level 80 centaurs along with a Desert Borderlands team that isn’t aware of the planned need for Heavy Supply Bags for upgrades. Apparently nobody is coordinating the efforts at a higher level, figuring out every system that might be affected by any given change and alerting the other teams. Apparently during team discussions of changes nobody thinks to ask “who else might have a stake in this?” Everyone has a narrow focus on their own task and nobody has an overview.

Somewhere along the way it seems as if lessons learned are being forgotten, as well. For example, the old Skill Points had two uses. One use was for character development (unlocking skills and traits) and the other use was as a currency for the Mystic Forge. This had the potential to cause a bit of confusion, so they simplified it by dividing Skill Points into Hero Points, used ONLY for character development, and Spirit Shards, used ONLY as a currency. Then they threw the principle entirely out the window and introduced Proofs of Heroics, which have two uses, one use for character development (unlocking Hero Points) and one use as a currency for the purchase of superior siege. They solved a problem then turned around and re-introduced the same problem in a new place (while making it worse by having the Proofs be soulbound tokens outside the wallet system).

I’m beginning to think ArenaNet should rename itself to AnarchyNet.