Guild Wars 2

Hmm… thx, but I’m not sure that applies, I think my necro was on the original storyline. She’d actually completed the ‘greatest fear’ storyline (Apatia variant) about a year ago, which it still existed, and had one completed mission into chapter 8, “Temple of the forgotten God”. I made a ticket to customer support already, so we’ll see what they make of it.

I’ve recently been finishing the personal story line on a bunch of characters, and I noticed something odd. I never got the mission “The Source of Orr”, that is supposed to be on all characters, for my Charr necromancer.

Her list of missions in 8. Victory or Death:
- temple of the forgotten god
- through the looking glass
- what the eye beholds
- starving the beast
- A grisly shipment
- further into orr

Still to do: Kill Zhaitan (mission that’s currently up)

Checking the list on one of my other characters, who completed the same personal story arc over 2 years ago, reveals 6 missions after ‘Further into Orr’ that I never got on the necro.

And incidentally: I cannot use the in-game /bug feature, it doesn’t seem to have a category for personal story arc.

Daywolf.2630:

Broom.2561:

Latest thing in EVE is ship skins you can trade and purchase. Is it just me, or are all MMO getting a bit creepily alike…

Not really the latest thing, just continued production of them with now permanence to the skins with ship types. But yeah, there are actually a lot of active EVE vet players in GW2, was all the talk in forums and chat way back when (GW2 Pre-launch) regarding the WvW system here, many of which started EVE after games like DAoC, SWG, UO where stuff like this has been around in some form for a very long time.

SWG??? During the time people actually played it (2003- May 2005), all armor (composite of course) pretty much looked the same, apart from color. Clothes now, yes, those came in near infinite variation…. but all player made and player sold.

This might come as a bit of a shock, but the guys making the aesthetics are NOT the same guys who add new encounters. Entirely different type of development, entirely different people.

Basically, once a game goes live, most of the nuts-and-bolts development staff that is responsible for things like new encounters, leaves for greener pastures. The aesthetic creative types that are needed to feed the cash store (which is how non-subscription games make their money), stay and do just that, NOT content.

I have no issues with the Dry Top stuff personally, but I have issues with dodging and other rapid-reaction based mechanics, so I definitely get it. For me, it seems that every new bit of content lately emphasizes those things. That’s an issue, in my opinion. I know quite a few people who have a condition which makes that kind of gaming troublesome (which is why they stick to MMO, and don’t go near FPS). Means they’ll definitely not be buying HoT if it goes the same way.

generalraccoon.3857:

Broom.2561:

Tell you something funny… I’m a hardcore PVPer of the type that happily plays games where everyone is a target all the time and where there are no safe places. I (still) play games like EVE, where the lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum and I do well there. In AION, when I still played, I was a (solo) perma-rifter, so if you got ganked there: hiiiii! Might have been me!

And I am a carebear too. I like this game the way it is, it’s relaxing. If I want to go gank people and destroy their stuff, there’s plenty of other games for that. This one doesn’t need ‘toughening up’.

Haha nice. Used to play EVE as well a long time ago (Ironically I think I was last in when they just got the expansion that added the “revenant” supercarrier, hopefully i stay here long after the ‘revenant’ here is officially around). Lost my first cruiser to gate camps because i didnt know there were such a thing as gatecamps! just blindly jump to low sec! :P

And yes part of the reason i picked up GW2 was because of the relaxed and friendly mechanics as well

Well, if it’s any consolation, back when I was just able to fly an Iteron V, I went and did random courier missions near Old Man Star, if that still rings any bells. Guess we all have our little youthful indiscretions.

Latest thing in EVE is ship skins you can trade and purchase. Is it just me, or are all MMO getting a bit creepily alike…

It’s also in the wrong forum…. should be in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp

generalraccoon.3857:

Vayne.8563:

I see. So I should turn off map chat and not get event notifications because some people want to act like children? No, I think that’s probably not right.

And no, carebears don’t rule this forum…carebears rule this game. Proud to be a carebear. If it means that I’m a nice guy, who would rather play cooperatively with people than beat the hell out of them, sure I’ll wear it. Happy to.

The PvE in this game was designed to be cooperative. As for changing things not affecting us, well, it does affect us. Because all those other games have options to turn off PvP and whatnot and they all still suck because design decisions are made around that open world PvP that affect everyone.

And since I don’t need my PvE being affected by open world PvP (there’s already too many PvE changes that have been dictated by PvP), then I’m happy to not have it at all.

Saying something won’t affect other people doesn’t mean it won’t.

My favorite reply in this thread so far. I so agree to this and a proud carebear too.

Tell you something funny… I’m a hardcore PVPer of the type that happily plays games where everyone is a target all the time and where there are no safe places. I (still) play games like EVE, where the lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum and I do well there. In AION, when I still played, I was a (solo) perma-rifter, so if you got ganked there: hiiiii! Might have been me!

And I am a carebear too. I like this game the way it is, it’s relaxing. If I want to go gank people and destroy their stuff, there’s plenty of other games for that. This one doesn’t need ‘toughening up’.

Jourgound Meister.8561:

Tevatron.8217:

Acutally, a normal adult in everyday life would avoid this kind of trash talking altogether, and that’s what ANET did with GW2 thankfully. And do notice that the community is not being passive agressive since the point: there’s hundreds upon hundreds of MMOs out there that work just like the OP wants, but he/she comes to the single one that isn’t and say it should be like the others. Pls, tell me how the community is wrong here?

You do realize that trash talking is a normal thing. You see it when sports fans of differing teams talk, you see it when ppl play board games. It’s not a new thing an adult is someone who has the capacity to handle a situation a child wouldn’t. An adult should understand that these situations happen, exists and are normal human behavior and instead of standing there shutting your eyes and covering your ears like a child you can, a choose ignore it, not participate or leave the area of the conversation.

Actually, no, trash talking is NOT a normal thing for people playing board games. I’ve been doing the whole board game scene (including war games) since I was 15 or so (I’m 47 now), even helped organize gamer conventions. It’s not appreciated, it WILL get you thrown out of the club or off the premises.

Trash talking is generally also not a normal thing in any environment where men and women mix. Contrary to some beliefs, that includes MMOs.

Sounds like this person needs to go play EVE online, where scamming is allowed and encouraged (GMs give new players tutorials on it), stealing of ALL kinds is allowed gameplay, and ganking is called ’emergent content. No safe places anywhere. Exactly as requested.

Of course, this does mean that you have to pass an NSA security check before you are allowed to join a corporation on probation, and that people (apart from the scammers) generally don’t even speak up in chat, but hey…

Speaking as someone who’s been in charge of the same (multi-game) guild since 2004, this game’s guild system is a nightmare.

My first problem is that of the 4 letter guild tag. My guild’s called Fated, has been called that since 2003. In other games, we wear our tag, and are recognized as ‘oh, those guys we ran into in POTBS or Warhammer’. And then you get Guild Wars… where the tag is restricted to 4 letters. So we chose ‘Fate’. And found out at least 10 other guilds are using that tag. It’s tiresome and it takes something away from our identity as a guild. And it makes it harder to settle in-game conflicts. Someone misbehaves, others see a tag, assume it’s guild A, while it’s actually someone from guild B. Sure, you can select the character to see the full guild name, but most won’t bother. Which is how reputations get blown…

Then there’s the guild events. As the previous poster already mentioned, this game caters heavily for huge guilds, forgetting, apparently that by far most guilds are groups of friends and that PVP/WvW guilds especially tend to be smaller and selective about membership. Only about 25 members of my guild were ever interested in GW2, and we REALLY don’t like mass recruiting. That automatically means a lot of options are closed to us, since all the guild activities seem to cater to big groups. Which means that with the new system, we don’t even have the ‘currency’ to buy some of the items we have the influence for.

Another problem is the way ANet deals with ‘full’ servers. It’s ludicrous, but several of our members have been trying off and on SINCE PRESTART to get on the same server as the rest of the guild. There’s no option to enter a queue for an available slot, you just have to sit and wait at the screen and keep trying… and failing. This is REALLY significant, since we’re a open world PVP guild. A WvW guild, for the terms of this game. Not being able to get on the same server has proven to be a game killer for us.

And lastly, there’s the option to join multiple guilds per account. I hate it. Sorry, call me an elitist pig, but I prefer it if a guild is a bit more than something you join for convenience, and leave to be with other guilds at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t give guilds a chance to become a community, it is a pain for communication, and it makes it really hard for guilds to develop into maybe doing other things than the one they’re ‘branded’ for.

Other games had alliances for that. Everyone would ALWAYS be in their own guild, but alliance chat gave contacts for e.g. dungeon runs, pvp matches etc.

Hannelore.8153:

ArenaNet doesn’t care about what makes peoples’ hands or wrists hurt. I have RSI, and it is flared up daily by this game (especially loot bags and the horrible process of selling my collectibles on the TP at anything other than instant sell value).

They have done absolutely nothing to curve this, ever. Nor anything to help remedy any other health problem (poor UI organization, no high contrast, etc.).

I used to respect them alot but their continued ignorance of disabilities and just how stressful their game is on the hands has seriously irritated me for a long time now and made me stop buying gems about half a year ago. I farm gold to convert to gems instead, that way I at least have some kind of benefit from my pain.

You’re not the only one. This is the only MMO out there that actually physically hurts playing for me. I’ve reported this way back when, near launch, but they never did anything even halfway serious to give some relief from the click- and twitchfest.

Hum. I regularly see racist and sexist ‘jokes’, invective and comments in chat. I see a lot of sniping about classes, builds, gaming preferences. A lot of truly nasty stuff about people who are not doing things ‘the right way’ (i.e. maximising loot during events, or not doing things ‘in the right order’). And that’s not in PVP or WvW, that’s just in local chat on various PVE maps. So is this an particularly good community? No, not really. Not the worse by a far stretch, but not exactly a model to hold up to all other games either.

I also rather hesitate to call what is happening in GW2 a community. There’s too little coherence. Guilds mean jack, servers mean little, unless you’re active in WvW, and even then there’s a lot of server hopping. There are no real community generated events of any type, no things large groups gather around and rally to.
Basically, what you have here is a lot of gaming individuals. Quite a few are nice and helpful, but not more than in other games I’ve played. Quite a few are behaving like complete brats, who should have their mouths washed with soaps (frequently). This too is tiresomely common.

spoj.9672:

Broom.2561:

I know quite a few PVE players who loathe any form of player versus player combat, whether it is what this game calls ‘pvp’ or what it calls ‘wvw’. Many of those also hate fractals. But in stead of getting alternatives to choose from, those people get 2/4 fractal options.

If I were limited to PVE, I’d have an issue too. I REALLY do not like fractals and dungeons, so I never do them. Which pretty much means there is no way I could survive a high level fractal… there’s this little matter of agony resistance.

And i dislike everything except for dungeons and fractals. If 10 AP was really that important to me I would just suck it up and do some other stuff i dont enjoy. If you are an AP farmer then you are just going to have to accept that you arent going to enjoy every daily…

Well, I didn’t said the system was ideal now, did I? Honestly, I prefer something that EVERYONE can do just by doing something they like doing. What we have now feels entirely too much like being herded into something the developers think is ‘under-utilised’.

I mainly do PVP for the dailies myself, and it’s hard NOT to notice how rarely mesmer came up until now in ‘win one match as profession x’. No skin off my back, since I have one of each, but if you really like that class, and want to play it, you almost got penalized for it. No telling how that’s going to work now it’s ‘pick 1 of 2 classes and win a match’, but somehow I’d still not be surprised if mesmer wasn’t all that frequent.

Seera.5916:

Azala Yar.7693:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Vech.7396:

I know its a topic that keeps coming up, but there is no reason double daily fractal should be coded anymore. I don’t mind doing a fractal for my daily, but for Kitten sake we don’t need to be required to do both a fractal and level based fractal for a daily
(Especially a high level one) cut specific levels fractal and just leave the daily fractal please.

Because you have other dailies you can complete. You arent forced to do dailies, and you certainly arent forced to do fractals which you may or may not even be properly geared for.

It’s a non-issue for the majority, so it aint being changed. If you dont like it, just search custom arenas for open arenas advertising slackerpvp to finish your daily. Others do.

You get 10 achievement points for the completion daily, so why wouldn’t you want to do them ?

If you don’t do fractals and you get two on the same day then you can only complete 2 dailies as you won’t get the completion one either.

So yeah ANet, it really does need altering, the daily fractal should be grouped with the other fractal options so only one fractal may end up as a daily.

There are WvW and PvP dailies you can do as well.

And Daily AP has a cap. So missing a few days due to double Fractals when you can’t be bothered to do the WvW or PvP ones either is not the end of the world either. Because you’ll eventually hit the cap.

I know quite a few PVE players who loathe any form of player versus player combat, whether it is what this game calls ‘pvp’ or what it calls ‘wvw’. Many of those also hate fractals. But in stead of getting alternatives to choose from, those people get 2/4 fractal options.

If I were limited to PVE, I’d have an issue too. I REALLY do not like fractals and dungeons, so I never do them. Which pretty much means there is no way I could survive a high level fractal… there’s this little matter of agony resistance.

Hamfast.8719:

I got my rewards and salvaged all before getting booted. I ASSUME the mats didn’t disappear after I sent them off to my bank. It did take away my credit towards the daily. And with all of these crashes, it’s restoring me 5 miles away from where I was.

Think they did. It just happened to me at Megadestroyer. I has salvaged everything in my inventory just before I crashed. When I got back, everything was in one piece again, I was back where I was before the chest spawned, and I did not have the rare lvl 77 hammer from the daily world boss reward.

Astralporing.1957:

Broom.2561:

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

No, it is not known. The only thing i can think of you might had in mind is the “computer rng is not a true rng” articles that are often brought up, in which case i can only tell you this – people that bring them up do not understand what they have read, and do not know in what way it is relevant to the discussed topic. And in what way it isn’t.

Loot distribution is based on algorithms. Algorithms are based on if-then formulas, loot tables (a database) and a lot of math. In other words, there are dependencies in these algorithms, and any outcome is weighed. And unless you have a REALLY basic code, with no external factors, that means ‘random’ never really is random.

Behellagh.1468:

Except they are talking the results of what is a normal distribution generates. They, ANet didn’t decide “well this guy is unlucky and this one is” it’s just the way it came out. X% of players will be lucky, Y% will be unlucky. Who they are is left to the same Gods of chance as the each attempt to win that drop from a player’s perspective.

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

Binomial Distribution says for example that in 200 attempts with a 1% chance, 13.4% of the time you will get lose every single time. 100 players each doing 200 attempts means on average 13 or so players will get nothing. There is nothing that determines who those 13 players are, they are just the result of this style of item distribution. Just like the 14 player who will get 4 or more of those items in those 200 attempts. It’s a function of the math, not predestination, not some factor they can tune.

The math can tell it will likely happen, it doesn’t who it will happen to. So no, you can’t simply “switch” them.

You are assuming the distribution is random. It never truly is, however. There’s been numerous articles about this, so I’m not going to repeat it all here, but it’s a known thing.

It’s also a known thing that tiny, tiny bugs can have REALLY major results. One space too many in the code can bug an entire feature.

Sariel V.7024:

Prototypemind.4026:

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

You do realize how that only influences drops off of mobs, not off of World Bosses, not from opening chests. Even if it does improve the system, it still falls way short. There are players who have been logging regularly since open beta who have seen zero drops of worth. No rare skins, no precursors, not even Ascended chests off of bosses.

3. I find the assertion that any player that has been a regular player since Beta having had zero good drops to be absurd. Proving this would require more than their own anecdotal recall, which is highly biased to favor things that have ridiculous value on the trade post. There is more to having good luck than hitting the lottery.

Want a list? I have played since the april closed beta, have been in live for 3000+ hours, and I can remember all my ‘good’ drops…. they are that scarce. They’re also all still in my bank.
- I have never looted a precursor; I have never gotten a precursor from the Mystic Fountain in over 600 attempts.
- On average I loot 1 exotic item per week (discounting the map completion rewards). The average price is about 2.5 gold. I have never looted an exotic worth more than 12 gold. (The 12 gold one was a warhammer. I tried to sell it on the TP and suddenly the price dropped below 10 gold… it never sold).
- I have looted 3 ascended armor chests, none with any of the META build stats.
- I have looted 4 ascended weapon chests, again, none with META build stats.
- I have looted ‘midnight blue’ back when you could still loot dyes.
- I have gotten a handfull of ascended rings in PVP and WVW (all with worthless stats).

So you tell me….

I don’t like dungeons and fractals, so the only dungeon I’ve completed was Arah storyline (hate it with a passion). Maybe engaging in those activities would up the chance, but then again, I’d be doing something REALLY I don’t like doing. While others engaging in the exact same activities as me DO get great drops, including precursors.

I’ve played games with ‘trinity’ (in all roles) and I’ve played games without. Both take skill. Don’t know what the OP is going on about. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

lordkrall.7241:

I did not say the low drop rate was a problem. I said that issues could turn up that could be impossible to actually identify as issues due to low drop rate.

Lets say the system mistakenly tells the system that account A already had a drop, despite not having one (and not flagging the account). That would mean that account A could never ever no matter how much time or how lucky they were get a portal, which means that they simply couldn’t get access to beta. But due to the low drop rate people would just attribute it to RNG.

Programming (for actual programmers) is harder than people think. It looks all easy and such but people that actually work with it is fully aware that things seldom works as intended, no matter how much you have thought it through beforehand.

Lol. I used to work as a bugfixer for some major software manufacturers, amongst other things. I’m all too aware. I’m also very much aware of laziness, sloppiness, taking shortcuts and lack of overall knowledge of systems operations with programmers and engineers. After all, I had to deal with the results….

And what you are saying quite literally does not compute. The type of code I suggest (IF… THEN with only 2 possible variables) would prevent this from ever happening. If the account isn’t flagged, it would with still be eligible for drops. If it IS flagged, it is flagged, and does not need a portal drop anymore.

lordkrall.7241:

^ And yet it could rather easily lead to issues that would be more or less impossible to actually see, due to the low drop rate.

The low drop rate should not be a problem. A formula like this would simply say ‘drop chance does not exist if flag is present’. A really LAZY programmer, who thinks exclusion formulas are scary, could even copy the loot table, remove the portal drop from table 2, and state ’if FLAG – YES then table 2.

Programming really isn’t that hard. Thinking things through beforehand is.

Behellagh.1468:

I hate it when people think it’s “easy” to add code to do anything.

Erm… because it is? The loot drop table is exactly that, a table that exists in game, that is used in certain algorithms to determine what loot drops (including the ‘zero’ option) are available and what percentage chance there is of each of them dropping . The key word being ‘algorithms’. Which are ALREADY THERE in the software.

The developers themselves told us that if you loot a portal, your account is FLAGGED for beta, even if the actual portal gets deleted or sold. In other words, there is an ACCOUNT FLAG already present in the software.

So basically, you’d need an addition to the loot algorithms that says ‘if FLAG = yes, then loot table = minus portal’. In a properly executed (and understood) system, it really shouldn’t be hard to add a check like this.

I’ve noticed this too. Bleeds, poisons, damage taken (they are not full health on respawn), all still present at respawn. No details here either, sorry. Seems to happen on all maps.

Funny thing… My guild’s predominantly involved in PVP. In SW:TOR we all worked hard to get good PVP gear. Then they nerfed the one-but-best gear overnight, made newb off-the-rack-gear better. And we all ragequit. Why? Because months of work had just gone down the drain, something which especially impacted our more casual members.

Admittedly, the impact of gear in GW2 is way, way less and Ascended gear actually isn’t much of a step up from Exotic (apart from the essential agony resistance for Fractals). But it IS something people have to spend a lot of time and effort on obtaining. And nerfing it is simply NOT a good idea, unless you actually want people to /ragequit. People do not like to see their toys taken away from them, especially if they were hard to get in the first place.

Broom.2561:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I can check on this, but the numbers of drops seems irrelevant. We hope for a certain number of players, so I would surmise that the drops would continue until we have reached the desired number of accounts, not the planned number of drops.

Again, I’m speaking casually, as a hypothesis, and I’ll confirm this.

I just believe that someone getting multiple portals is not impacting the chances of someone else participating in the beta.

Oh, and don’t forget: Increase your chances — sign up for the newsletter!

Ah yes… the newsletter. The one I unsubbed from because you kept sending me guides on how to play Guild Wars 2… when I’ve been in game since closed beta. However much I’d like to be in the HoT beta (and I DID try for over 40 hours in the Silverwastes and Dry top) I REALLY don’t want to start all that up again.

Couldn’t you just have us register our interest in participating in the beta instead?
Seriously, I have someone in guild who IS subscribed to the newsletter, and had their account flagged for the HoT beta access. This person simply wasn’t interested, didn’t participate, and got a reward chest to boot… how fun is that for those who DO feel motivated to test your product?

And to add insult to injury, this same person has now looted a portal too. He’s still not interested in testing.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I can check on this, but the numbers of drops seems irrelevant. We hope for a certain number of players, so I would surmise that the drops would continue until we have reached the desired number of accounts, not the planned number of drops.

Again, I’m speaking casually, as a hypothesis, and I’ll confirm this.

I just believe that someone getting multiple portals is not impacting the chances of someone else participating in the beta.

Oh, and don’t forget: Increase your chances — sign up for the newsletter!

Ah yes… the newsletter. The one I unsubbed from because you kept sending me guides on how to play Guild Wars 2… when I’ve been in game since closed beta. However much I’d like to be in the HoT beta (and I DID try for over 40 hours in the Silverwastes and Dry top) I REALLY don’t want to start all that up again.

Couldn’t you just have us register our interest in participating in the beta instead?
Seriously, I have someone in guild who IS subscribed to the newsletter, and had their account flagged for the HoT beta access. This person simply wasn’t interested, didn’t participate, and got a reward chest to boot… how fun is that for those who DO feel motivated to test your product?

Well, speaking as an outlier on the extremely unlucky side, I can only confirm that this effects everything in game, and is quite depressing. Completing loot dependent collections is a nightmare. I’ve never seen a precursor drop in 3 years of play (since closed beta). Beta portals? Not happening. And so on.

So what CAN be done about this?

For one, do away with the extreme grinds for collections. Either increase the drop rate for boss events that drop collection parts, or make it so that 4 of the lesser variants of the desired item (e.g. blue signets of Rhendak) can be converted to 1 account bound exotic version.

Precursors and other high-end loot … I see several ways of changing this apart from the quest path introduced in HOT. Accounts are already flagged for things like gold find, magic find, etc. Why not add a bar for ‘precursor find’, ‘ascended find’ and ‘really rare exotic find’ that increases the chance to loot one as a function of time actually spent playing (a metric you’re already tracking anyway). With the bar resetting to zero the second you actually loot something belonging to that category.

It would also help if Ascended loot wasn’t bound to a specific stat on looting. Having an inventory full of rings and armor and weapons with completely undesirable stats isn’t exactly lucky, it’s more a pain, especially since these items cannot be salvaged.

Incidentally, speaking on loot: while your intention with giving people more e.g. leather loot if they’re on a medium armor class character is no doubt sympathetic for new players, it is anything BUT for those desiring to level armor crafting. It makes it a lot harder to get the required fabrics if your preferred character wears medium or heavy armor. Especially since medium and heavy armor both require fabrics to make, same as light armor.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/first

John Smith (dev) here literally says the following:

Here’s the premise. RNG is evenly distributed on aggregate. On an individual level this means that while almost everyone falls into a reasonable range in the middle, there are outliers on each side of the distribution that are either highly rewarded or not rewarded at all. These individuals become sample cases and spotlights for experiences that maybe shouldn’t exist.

Here is a developer admitting that there are extremely lucky and extremely unlucky people in the current system. I would say this pretty much proves that yes, there is a problem for some players, and yes, the devs are aware of it. They’re also asking for input on how to change the current system. So I’d say have at it.

Astralporing.1957:

pdavis.8031:

Good point, but about the seed numbers. We know thats its not tied to character or account number or anything but…(puts on tinfoil hat) what if it’s tied to the activation code?

Theoretically it is possible that every single account has a separate seed (instead of a single rng process that supplies all random activity in the game), but that’s extremely unlikely, as it would be a really dumb programming. Especially since in this case it would require a separate seed not only for each account, but also for each type of activity (so that loot drop rolls will not be in the same queue as attack and damage rolls, for example).

Basically, someone would need to intentionally program the rng system in a really inefficient and unintuitive way.

I have worked in the software creation industry (commercial stuff) since 1994. Contrary to what you may think, sloppiness, laziness and sheer stupidity are quite, quite common. Over the years, I have run into an astounding amount of sheer lack of knowledge from people who were supposed to be the experts.

Do you know what version control is? And how often it’s ignored or made pointless by people just copying and pasting old code, without checking if it’s the latest version?

And then you’ve got the real bugs, like an extra space that’s snuck into the underbelly of the code due to a machine copy error (invalidating an entire set of instructions by its presence). And the math errors. But then, considering that the engineers sometimes live on 5 hours of sleep a night in the months before the product goes gold, maybe you should expect those.

Either way… it happens. And it is really a lot more common than you’d think.

fracture.9754:

I never said anything about “forcing”. Please stop making words up.

Yes you did. Go re-read your own post. Old and forgetful? (That’s usually my excuse)

Tryhard Pants.9745:

fracture.9754:

Of course not, lol. Beta testers were paid before. Nowadays people pay, or grind, for the chance to be a beta tester.

Get a staff of beta testers and pay them, I’m not doing it for free for you.

They do internal beta tests. The idea behind all this is to encourage people to play in the new zones with a slight chance to get a key. Nobody is forcing anyone to “grind” for one. If people force themselves to play just for the sake of getting access then that’s their fault, not the developers.

Internal beta tests are never enough, as is proven again and again. Which is why just about every game out there has gamer beta testers.

As to forcing… well, I agree, no one’s putting a gun to your head. But for those of us who actually LIKE beta testing and those who’d like a sneak peak, it easily becomes a grind. As for me, the attempts at getting a portal have completely burned me out of the SW. Again.

Margrave.2071:

I’ve probably not called it by the correct term, but I’m curious about the feature where you get lowered in level to match the area you’re in.

This feature is annoying. I was wondering if there’s a way to turn this off, or if there’s been any consideration of making this feature optional.

This does not help getting friends into the game. If they come to a title I’ve been in for a while they expect me, as a higher level character to aid them greatly. This is not possible with this current system. As such, we’ve ended up in a different game than here. They tried, bought GW2, and this single feature keeps them from returning.

Please consider changing this system.

Thank you.

Lol. I do have to question your skill and sanity here. Even down-scaled, all my characters (and I have one 80 of each class) can mow down lower zone mobs so fast, its completely and ridiculously overpowered. And you are complaining you cannot help your friends in lower level zones? Seriously?

trueanimus.4085:

ok.. people seem to be missing the point so let me rephrase my statement…

My ranger can 1 shot a regular mob with #2 skill in 5 seconds…

This is not the same as the stacking damage from mesmer sword for example..

This is not “burst” damage with all signets popped.

This is a single shot that will down almost any regular mob before my pet even gets to it.

Now.. as for mesmers.. to get any high numbers.. you have to channel GS 1 skill.. and even on a regular mob, you can reach 10,000 damage.. but it takes FOREVER to kill the mob that way.

The damage is not the same, yet Anet claims that all classes are capable of the same dps/tank/heal roles and should be equal.

Someone said that it is stacking damage… if that is so, they both should be downing the mob with just the mesmer a few seconds longer for the inital build up of mind wrack.

This is not the case.

Even warrior GS skill 2 or whatever it is wont down a mob that fast.

Anet said that when they “fixed” mesmers they would retain thier damage.. this is clearly not the case and after a year and a half i thought something would have been done to level the playing field.

You DO realize that most of your damage on a mesmer comes from your phantasms, right?

Also, you really should try a thief sometimes if you think a ranger kills fast…

Cactus Brawler.7415:

It isn’t a reward for Beta, what has happened is that collectors edition accounts got flagged as ‘beta accounts’ by Arenanets system, and when it came time to turn off their Beta access, they discovered the previous version of their account type was no longer something Anet could flag kitten they became heroic edition owners instead.

This is not true. I own a collector’s edition. I actually was a closed beta player from the earliest beta on. I am an active player. And I did NOT get a beta invite, or a chest.

I hate SW with a passion. It’s BORING. For most of the time it’s an endless repeat of the same handful of quests in 4 different locations, unless you go map hopping to zones where the boss fight is imminent. Which unsurprisingly quite a lot of people do….

I have an 80 of each class too. And the only class I’m having DPS issues with, is the engineer. Jack of all trades, master of none. The mesmer does just fine when specced right.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Broom.2561:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

John Smith has a big thread asking people to discuss RNG and I haven’t seen anyone offer any suggestions that offer systems that would be enjoyed by the masses.

I have seen this claim several times now, and I have yet to find the thread you are talking about. Could you please provide a link?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss

ty!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

John Smith has a big thread asking people to discuss RNG and I haven’t seen anyone offer any suggestions that offer systems that would be enjoyed by the masses.

I have seen this claim several times now, and I have yet to find the thread you are talking about. Could you please provide a link?

Hearte.6852:

Ok, so why should the people who got into the beta be “compensated?” It’s seriously unfair to award those who were lucky enough to get into the beta with material rewards. This needs to be fixed.

It’s worse… I’ve heard it from people I know IRL that they got an invite to the beta, ignored it, and still got that chest.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Chuck.8196:

Keep in mind this is mostly referring to LOOTED items. Not chests, forge, etc.
@Everyone
Why are you posting if your only going to argue the OP? You’re asking for “proof” of it but can you prove there isn’t something wrong? There are ALOT of people who experience this problem. And its amazing that so many people here will deny having not experienced it. If you can’t provide the evidence that it DOESN’T exist then you can’t deny it does. I play one account typically 12 + hours a day and my loot is worthless all day. I run around to most every dungeon, diff maps doing diff stuff, fotm, world bosses. SW… all on diff toons.. my loot is still all garbage.

I can get onto my alts and farm for a couple hours and get plenty of rares and a couple exotics. So far Alt #2 loot hasn’t diminished since i got him and it about 800 hours now. Alt #3 is the same; 200 hours and still great loot. it’s enough to make me want to stop playing my main. But no need because I multibox.

All of you that believe everything is perfect and works how you’re told Gullible

I’ll give you a quick rundown of the current conversation:

• Player – Something’s wrong because one account has better RNG than others.
• Me – RNG doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a drop.
• Anet – No account is luckier than another. Each account has the same base chance to get drops from the loot table.
• Player – Show me proof that I’m not unlucky. I want to see data to prove I’m wrong.
• Other players – /deadhorse.gif

As John Smith said many moons ago, we players need to first show there’s an existing problem before coming up with solutions. You don’t come up with solutions first, then go hunting for the problem.

Right now, people only feel there’s a problem, because they’re not getting what they want. In this case, I use the term Entitlement to describe the on-going issue.

Thing is… I’ve witnessed it happen too. Someone in teamspeak (who already owned multiple legendaries) looted 3 precursors during one ‘champion farm’ in the hour before Teq. You may say that’s just RNG, but as someone who hasn’t even looted (or fountained) ONE SINGLE PRECURSOR in 3 years of play, I’d say there seems to be something off with the loot distribution if some people loot things like that so consistently and others never get a break.

And no, it’s not a matter of entitlement… it’s a matter of sheer frustration

I’m 47, my husband 53. Our guild’s oldest member is 70+, our youngest 23. Most members hover around the mid-30s.

You have to keep one thing in mind: there is such a thing as ‘statistically lucky’ and ‘statistically unlucky’. Some people don’t just SEEM to have all the bad luck, they actually DO have more bad luck then others. And others consume the luck that would have sufficed for 10 others.

In MMO it seems to be the same. In a game like AION, where RNG determined whether you could make Fenris armor or not, some people had 20+ fails (each one involving an excruciating amount of grind) and some had the critical success they needed in 3 attempts or less.

Could this happen on account basis? Could this have something to do with older versus newer accounts? Always possible, but we don’t have all the facts.

I’m one of the statistically unlucky, incidentally. 980 days in game, no precursor. 20+ hours in the Silverwastes and Dry Top this week, no portal.

/bangsheadagainstwall

Tirien.1326:

Straits of devastation!

I mean up to this point the game has been great, i have loved every aspect of it.
Obviously i do miss some things, but i leave that for another thread.

When i came to this zone everything has changed. Nope, it’s not that it gets harder, it’s the fact that aggro range seem to be insain. You can’t move without aggroing and/Or taking dmg from mobs, which means you are pretty much WALKING through the zone.

Is this what i will have to face going forward? The last three zones are they like this one (I guess so).. I sure hope there are other level 80 zones cause this is just horrible :/

Anyone else that really dislikes the direction for this map, and the fact it’s packed with so much mobs everywhere that you just can’t move around. I love that it’s dark and gritty-ish. But everything else fell short xD.

When I was leveling my first character, just after release, Orr came as a RUDE shock. Especially since I was wearing greens, which had been completely adequate till that point. Not so much in Orr, though.

All I can tell you is that it actually gets easier. Straits of devastation does a lot of funneling, has a lot of chokepoints. That gradually gets less. And as you level more classes, you WILL find each can survive Orr in its own way.

You do need to control your agro, though.
if you’re a necro, ditch all pets
if you’re a ranger, LEARN TO KEEP YOUR PET ON A LEASH
if you’re an engineer, don’t use turrets
if you’re a mesmer, be careful what phantasms you use. some run all over the place and drag in new agro.

Basically: move with care, use yellow gear or better, and don’t think you can run through things while trailing a mob. You’ll get snared and have 20 NPCs eating your brains.

Terrahero.9358:

lordkrall.7241:

And yet it is a grind is a great way to see if you are fit for a beta in the first place.
A beta is basically grinding the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again. If you don’t like that, you shouldn’t be in a closed beta in the first place.

You dont even know what is in the beta. Nor are the bèta’s that these keys give access for that long to begin with.

And if only the feedback from people with a grind mentality are valued, i fear for what that holds in store.

I’m with you there. If this is the kind of gameplay to look forward to in the expansion… well, let’s just say I’ve got better things to do with my precious time.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet it is a grind is a great way to see if you are fit for a beta in the first place.
A beta is basically grinding the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again. If you don’t like that, you shouldn’t be in a closed beta in the first place.

I really have to disagree here. I’ve been a beta tester since 1995, both for commercial software and for games. Beta testing is NOT a grind, it’s not repeating the same activity 5000 times… it is testing ALL mechanics. In commercial software, that means following a test script ensuring you see as much of the functionality as possible. In games, it means trying to do EVERYTHING, including things the devs might not want you to, to see if things can deliberately be broken. And in both cases, yes, it does mean try everything again once a new build arrives, but it’s very much NOT repetetive and boring, unlike repeating the same handful of quests until your eyes bleed.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Before:

RNG. Some players complained that they were as or more deserving of beta access, and that players who play a lot should have a higher chance of getting into the beta.

After:

RNG. Some players feel that they are as or more deserving of beta access. Players who -play a lot have a higher chance of getting into the beta.

It honestly doesn’t have anything to do with ‘more deserving’. It has to do with liking the idea of having a look at beta, but getting thoroughly burned out on the way in which access is available.

Like I already said, I think a registration of the interested would be better, whether the devs decide to give access by lottery, or set a parameter search for the type of player they want reactions from (dungeon runner, open world PVEer, many hours of play a week, time-limited, etc.). Just as long as they don’t make it yet another pointless grind. I’ll take my chances.

And actually, since trying for 8 hours of so yesterday, on my day off, my wrist hurts. That REALLY isn’t the kind of gameplay any company should encourage.

This… is just a bad idea. More grinding in a game that said it wouldn’t have grinding. Because for people like me, the chronically unlucky, that’s what it amounts to. See, I’m one of those people who couldn’t loot/forge a precursor if my life depended on it. Been in game since early closed beta, have thousands of hours of play time, and it’s just not happening.

So why not just have those interested apply for beta? Gives you a chance to pick some actual active players (if a player can see their character’s age, I’m pretty sure the devs can see that AND how active the account is… it is registered somewhere, those famous metrics).

Currently, as far as I’m concerned, all I’m getting is a bad Silverwastes burnout. Give me a simple registration lottery any day…

I always found the sheer amount of mysogynist, homophobic and racist chat (whether so-called jokes or direct insults) in Guild Wars 2 quite appalling, more so because people seem to think it’s NORMAL to type whatever.

Yes, I report and block. But the fact I keep having to, means the problem is pretty persistent and more should be done about it.