Guild Wars 2

well the edit button is gone >.>

anyway, on fort aspenwood borderlands, an hour ago at most, someone from dragonbrand flew over the FA garrison’s walls, grabbed the orb, and disappeared. a few minutes later, it showed up on dreaming bay, which dragonbrand had just recaptured (thanks to some poor swiping on our part that allowed a mesmer in)

the mesmer portal is fine, it’s a valid strategy. the problem is the flying hack. removing mesmer portals would be like removing thief shadowsteps back when people could use them to break out of the map. it’s not a solution.

but seriously, there needs to be a patch (emergency patch or not) to counter flying hacks. it’s by far the most demotivational thing that i’ve seen on WvW. hours worth of effort to get the orb, then bam it’s gone because someone flew over it, grabbed it and flew off while everyone watched.

that reminds me, i found on my first run of AC explorable a hidden jumping puzzle with absolutely no point in it. i figured it was for another path, but i just realized i’ve done all 3 paths and never even got close to that place.

for the people saying this is a good matchup, lol.

FA has been pushed out of all 3 borderlands. yesterday we had one keep in DB’s borderlands (with the orb) and FA borderlands was fairly well before i went to bed. we even had a waypoint being set up. then i wake up this morning, and all we have left is EB.

from what i understand (given my friend’s report of when he played while i slept and the current map situation), BG’s night squad wipes us out and goes to bed, leaving half the map for DB to cap at will because FA has no place to defend.

i know how this post sounds like, but it’s really discouraging for FA players to go back to WvW when in 3 out of 4 maps they have absolutely nothing to fight for, save for the occasional desperate group of people who try to cap the closest supply camp (which lasts half an hour at most).

so around 1 hour to half an hour before the WvW servers were taken down a second time, my server was building a waypoint on our borderlands, more specifically on the garrison keep. we were about 20% done when the servers were taken down.

once we return, to our surprise, the progression bar is gone, there is no waypoint to be seen, but the workers are still running around, taking supplies and building… something. buying a waypoint is disabled, but buying anything else is still enabled. afraid that researching something else would throw away the waypoint money and investment, i held back and assumed the progression bar was just not visible.

hopefully that’s all there is to it, and by the time i wake up the waypoint will be there (unless my team screws up majorly overnight >.>), but i felt the need to report this occurrence.

it helps if you say which part you had the most trouble with.

general idea is bring a lot of projectile reflection/blocking, because the snipers deal double damage against moving targets and even the base damage can take you down to half health. remember to always focus fire on a single target at a time to take it down faster (use ctrl + T to target). being careful with your pulls is always a good idea too.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Indeed. I can say this though, we recognize failures not just in random occasions, but in total systems and dungeons in general. The great thing about an MMO/Live game, is that we can change it for the better. We have plans to change things based on feedback, and we are finalizing those plans right now. As soon as we are done and have a solid actionable plan, we’ll let you all know what that is, and what you can expect for the future of dungeons.

“and what you can expect for the future of dungeons. "

please say future dungeons will have unique bosses with equally unique mechanics, like the end of CoE story or SE story, and that it’ll have a lot more puzzle solving like the minidungeon on diessa plateau

seriously, dungeons are seriously lacking on the puzzle department. from the way you guys talked before launch, i was expecting them to be almost like zelda dungeons, but with awesome combat. it’s not that i don’t like them now, it’s that they have so much potential to be more than what they are, and to be better. you’ve designed an amazing dungeon and tucked it hidden in diessa plateau, at the end of a DE chain. you’ve designed amazing bosses, but only two dungeons get the honors.

this is the most serious case of armor clipping i’ve seen so far in the game, because it clips with my character’s hands AT ALL TIMES. when my weapon’s drawn, it’s the left hand, when it’s not, it’s the right hand. when i’m idle, the left hand clips just from the slightest hand gestures.

seems like someone misplaced one of the bracers, and didn’t give enough elasticity to them (if the part over the hand moved together with it, there would be no clipping with the weapon drawn). it’s a real shame, because i actually really like them on this character.

pics for clarity:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7751/gw024c.jpg
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/4486/gw025q.jpg
http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/4036/gw030b.jpg

just dropped by to say i haven’t had any issues running explorable dungeons blindly (that is, without previous research) with random groups. it’s totally doable, and as much as i hate to say it, if you’re having that much trouble, try looking at yourself before blaming the game. see if there isn’t anything you could be doing better, any changes you could make to your build to make it more efficient on that spot, etc.

i think the problem with P/P is that it feels weak. D/D is better for condition, S/any is better power, and SB can lay that poison field + that AoE that deals a lot of damage + mobility.

P/P could be the ranged power build, but it’s not strong enough for it.

*quote button won’t show up*

@Shadow Phage - it seems that you can use it while immobilized too IIRC, but it won’t break stun. so essentially, you teleport to another place, but remain stuck.

as far as i know, i don’t have any traits that explain that behavior.

same here, the quote and report buttons just don’t show up sometimes, and it looks like it’s completely random. for example, this thread has had a quote button before i replied to it, but another thread didn’t show them until i posted, and sometimes the buttons won’t show even after i post.

well, there goes my build. thanks for the clarification everyone.

now i need to find something else :/ maybe +bleed duration, since my build is about stacking them.

^ i’ve first noticed it with my daggers, so it’s as much of an issue with them as it is with ranged weapons.

another problem this causes is jumping puzzles with enemies out of reach. you get hit by an enemy halfway through the puzzle, but the enemy is out of reach, so you’re forced to run all the way back to the beginning of the puzzle in order to break agro, because you just can’t make the next jump with the reduced combat speed. an example of that are the jumping puzzles on the asura area.

this isn’t challenging, this is annoying.

i see the reason behind fees, but when traveling fees are bigger than the money you earn from a successful DE (whereas on lower levels a DE more than pays for the traveling fees), then something is wrong.

“shouldn’t” + “it” = kitten.

took me some minutes to realize what was the issue, then i lol’d.

shouldn’t steal just break your action? i don’t see any benefits to steal not breaking the attack, it’s not like thieves have long charge attacks that would benefit from a teleport/shadowstep.

bump

we really need better tooltips. i don’t believe any of the attributes are actually explained in-game other than general terms. just how much extra damage will i get per point in power? what the hell is the logic behind healing power? (seriously i have no idea how it works beyond “more = stronger heals”).

this doesn’t stop people from theorycrafting and seeking optimal builds (which should NOT be discouraged), this just forces people to dig the internet for the formulas. pure busywork.

the same can be said for sigils/runes and traits, many of them speak in broad terms that really don’t explain anything. picking a popular sigil, the sigil of air: “30% chance to cause a lightning strike on critical hit”. what is a lightning strike? is that a skill? do i have to create a character of that class to find out what does it do? how much damage does it do?

that’s one of the biggest issues with the UI right now, and IMO should be focused on. a lot of the game already receives complaints that parts aren’t explained clearly enough, at the very least i should understand what my numbers do on an RPG.

this is one of my favorite traits (VIII on the shadow arts path, steal grants 2 seconds of stealth), and yet, about 50% of the time, using steal will grant me every bonus traited into it except stealth. what’s worse, i get the stealth cooldown, and the stealth attack is never used (i’ve tested with pistols, since they’re very easy to discern from the normal attack to the stealth one), my stealth simply isn’t triggered.

so what is it? it looks like a bug to me, but maybe it’s some secret, unmentioned cooldown.

yeah, i’ll probably wait. though my plans were getting my character’s gear and looks set before going back to exploring.

which reminds me, why is it that the Caudecus Manor armor is the only lv80 exotic armor with “shaman-like” attributes? there isn’t anything on the trading post with vitality, condition damage and healing (or other combinations of condition damage and healing). this is the main reason i’m running this dungeon. the other reason is that i want that golden dagger.

the first run described was was two hours ago, with the second run taking place about 5-10 minutes after we finished the first one. pasted from my thread on the game bugs section:

so i decided to do caudecus manor explorable for the first time. two of my party members were in the same situation. we hadn’t run a dungeon in half a week. we completed the seraph path in what i assume is a normal completion time, since it was our first time there and we weren’t exactly rushing.

and despite that, my reward was 45 tokens, instead of 60 (as the patch notes said they would be).

so the three of us moved to another party, and tried a different path (the missing butler path). completed once again without rushing, got 30 tokens.

that’s 45 tokens, an entire run’s worth of tokens, that i was denied from due to the bug. since i’m already here reporting, is there any way to get those missing tokens? or will i have to just deal with it and run the dungeon even more times than i was originally planning?

so i decided to do caudecus manor explorable for the first time. two of my party members were in the same situation. we hadn’t run a dungeon in half a week. we completed the seraph path in what i assume is a normal completion time, since it was our first time there and we weren’t exactly rushing.

and despite that, my reward was 45 tokens, instead of 60 (as the patch notes said they would be).

so the three of us moved to another party, and tried a different path (the missing butler path). completed once again without rushing, got 30 tokens.

that’s 45 tokens, an entire run’s worth of tokens, that i was denied from due to the bug. since i’m already here reporting, is there any way to get those missing tokens? or will i have to just deal with it and run the dungeon even more times than i was originally planning?

first, those “chance of something happening on critical hit” sigils. is it me, or do they overlay each other, and only one of them will work? i’ve spent some time in the mists messing with them, but it seemed that even with using only the auto attack, only the offhand’s sigil would work. also, is there a reason to use two of the same sigil of that kind? like two sigils of air, for example.

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second question is about those sigils that charge when you kill something. i couldn’t test on the mists (as killing those golems and the training NPCs don’t count), but will they overlay each other too? i wanted to use two of those on my main set (one that gives condition damage per charge, and one that gives healing power), but i don’t want to buy them before making sure.

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thanks in advance

and no, i don’t mean they’re short. i mean i have to stand in midair during jumping puzzles because my hitbox is twice as large as my character, so every platform next to a wall has an “invisible barrier” that i have to go around by floating.

there’s enough space between the closest i can get to a wall to fit an entire other character model in there. this makes not only jumping puzzles, but avoiding AoEs much harder (i won’t even bring up jumping puzzles mixed with AoEs, which is how i found out about the bug).

please fix it ASAP, it’s really, really getting in the way of having a fun time with my asura character.

bump

15char

so i decided to try the jumping puzzle section of thaumanorva reactor, on the icy chamber. everything’s going fine until you get to the first ice formation (that spams damage +chill AoE). there’s a clear AoE ring around it, but despite being way beyond its reach, my character still gets hit. this is an issue that occurs only with the ice formations, because as it turns out, some elementals above you will try to hit you, but their AoEs function properly.

which brings me to the second issue. those elementals may or may not attack you from above, and if they do, you have to start the puzzle over. why? because in-combat speed is different from out-of-combat speed (the stupidest design choice in the entire game, with no purpose other than frustrating people), and there’s no way to break out of combat from them, even if you stay over one minute out of sight (where the bugged ice formation would be).

a third issue is once you get to said elementals, they respawn less than 10 seconds after being killed. this is hardly enough time to get on the platform, if you’re a ranged character, and even if you killed them at melee, hardly enough time to recover and kill the next elemental.

TL;DR: Add more puzzle-solving and exploration to dungeons, rather than a linear path of things to kill with some traps here and there.

More interesting and unique final bosses like CoF and SE story mode, and more unique mid-bosses like the ghost general from early on AC explorable.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t sure if this was better suited here or on suggestions, but I thought it would make more sense here. If any moderator moves it to the suggestions board, please notify me so I know where did my topic end up :P

Regarding Dungeons Themselves: I was extremely excited about them. Why? Because I was promised dungeons that would feel like they belonged in an action-adventure game, like Zelda. Traps, puzzles, exploring the area to find the secret way in, and so on. But what i got was a standard “move to the next spot killing things along the way” (granted, done very well on that regard).

HOWEVER, I do know that Arenanet is able to do such a thing, and do it really well. How do I know that? Well, because they’ve made a dungeon like that! It’s not known to many, though, because it’s hidden at the end of a metaevent on northeastern Diessa Plateau. More specifically, the Font of Rhand minidungeon.

The minidungeon I found there provided clever, interesting puzzles, need for exploration, and challenging fights that required skill. The only problem with it is there aren’t more of it.

So please, when designing future dungeons, make them feel like actual dungeons. I loved that place, its clever puzzles and the way you guys turned an object into a “key” to the final door. More like that, please!

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Regarding Dungeon Bosses: Once again, you’ve proven you can do it right, but it doesn’t happen often enough. The two best bosses so far, in the entire game (instanced or not), are the Sorrow’s Embrace final boss, and the Citadel of Flames final boss. They are big, they are tough, they are engaging, and they are unique. The strategy stops being “punch it until it dies” and starts being “avoid its attacks, notice the patterns, and solve the ‘puzzle’ within the fight to deal damage”. Once again, quite similar to Zelda (CoF’s final boss is actually eerily similar to a particular Skyward Sword boss, mechanically speaking, and SS is usually considered the best Zelda in terms of boss battles).

Now I’m not saying “normal” bosses are a bad thing, but they have to have unique mechanics too, like the ghost you fight early on ascalonian catacombs explorable, or the final boss of crucible of eternity story mode. But those bosses should be the steps before the final confrontation against the major one, the one with cool mechanics and that relies on more than just your ability to kill mobs. They should be the culmination of the dungeon, the reward for getting that far, not “just another tough mob, with one or two special attacks you should worry about”.

So more of those unique enemies at the end of the dungeon, and more of those “big, strong mobs with unique attacks” as normal bosses, rather than final ones. And, if I may say, no more of “it’s just a really strong guy” as bosses, those are just plain boring.

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So there you go, my two cents on dungeons, and my hopes for future installments of those.

this is the reason i’ve been avoiding the personal story, now that i’m near the end. the further i go, the more audiovisual bugs i get. it’s getting very annoying.

the latest one was the “through the looking glass mission”, where an entire cutscene played with none of the voice clips playing. it annoyed me so much i just logged out so i could do the mission another time (hopefully when it was fixed).

mandatory specifics in case it’s a very specific bug:

human, thief level 80 at the time of the mission (mission’s actual level is 73), picked the “ambush the eye with a bait” choice on the previous mission, which is what led me to this mission in the first place. it’s the first part of the mission (don’t know if there are more), when you successfully lure the eye, then said cutscene plays and you have to kill a bunch of risen.

it’s definitely an issue with the game, happens to me too.

i think that, more importantly, those big events need failstates to justify the threat. if no one kills tequatl, so what? he’ll just stay there, him and his horde of zombies, on that corner of the map that doesn’t block anything in the way, until someone shows up to kill him.

AND, just as importantly, they need to make those battles actually engaging. make them tougher, add more attacks to the dragons, etc.

i think that, more importantly, they need an equipable minipet slot. that way the mini will stay out every time you move to another area (no need to keep remembering to use it), and as a bonus, it frees up inventory space.

i’d like it, but for the same reason i like that feature on my steam friend list: it makes it easier to know when to expect people to be online, or if they’ve been busy recently or something.

i’ve noticed this since beta, but it seems like it remains. all verdant weapons are bugged on the preview and hero panel. the blade (blue part) just won’t show, so instead of having a rather cool looking plant weapon, the preview shows you this.

the same goes for the tier 3 cultural sylvari weapons , whose name escapes me.

the title pretty much says it all. there needs to be a preview option in the trading post for weapons and armor. i know plenty of people that have said they’re avoiding anything from the TP until such option is implemented, because they don’t want to buy an armor that looks ugly.

this is something i’ve only noticed with this armor (the duelist armor set), but there’s this ugly as hell red line dividing the chest piece in two. i’m not using any kind of red dye, plus it looks like a flaw, so it must be a visual glitch.

Neara.4378

The locker took 250 of each item at some point in beta. Why it doesn’t work anymore should be quite obvious.

no, it’s not obvious, otherwise i wouldn’t have posted the topic.

so please, enlighten us.

Olkyr.4821:

I am very confused… why do you want the 2nd item? If you want it for 2 characters, then wear it on 1, put it in the locker and wear it on another. If you only worry about 1 character, why would you ever need the 2nd unless its a DW item?

do i really have to answer this? aside from the part where you already answered with “it’s a DW item”.

people like change. there are plenty of great weapon and armor designs in GW2, and people like to change up their look every now and then. the current locker system hinders that by putting in a barrier that has no other benefits, only drawbacks. a barrier, might i reinstate, that was put only recently.

so, for example’s sake, let’s say i have this really cool sword. two of them. but i play a thief, so i can only use one. that’s ok, no problem, i’ll store the other. but then i make a warrior that dual wields swords. every time i want to play PvP with the look i want, i have to log into one character, store the items on the bank (not the locker), go back to the mists, log out, log back in with the other character, leave the mists, get the items in the bank, go back to the mists, and equip the item.

every, single, time.

and why? because if i have two swords, i can’t just store them in the PvP locker, and if i finally get a third, that problem is solved, UNTIL i make a guardian, or a ranger, or a mesmer. then it’s back to swapping crap around through the bank in lion’s arch.

seriously, i can’t see how this would do any harm. it was on beta, so at some point ANet looked at it and said “no, let’s take that out”.

the problem with this is that now, unless you do some extremely obnoxious work with mule characters, PvE bank, and constant going back and forth with character select, you can’t have two characters wearing the same item.

got a repeat that you like? well shame, either salvage it to free up space or put it on your bank, because the locker won’t accept two of the same item.

is there even any reasoning behind this, other than annoying PvP players that play with more than one character or, god forbid, dual wield the same weapon type?

second this. having to go back and forth through the asura gates to the mists/lion’s arch is just busywork.

Twilight Arbor story mode: i killed Faolain, no final dialogue. she just fell dead and the dungeon ended.

Twilight Arbor story mode: one of our friends was AFK, so he stayed on the second boss’ room. when we went to fight Cadeyrn, Cadeyrn teleported to the second boss’ room, and no amount of kiting or agroing would get him out of there. as a result, the fight was a pain because he kept transforming us into cats with no nearby pups to fight. check the minimap on the attached picture.

i’ve been noticing that the more i progress in the personal story, the more audio issues i stumble upon. on Retribution, for example, no music played for most of the mission, giving it a very boring feeling that killed the mood of an otherwise amazing mission. after that, i’ve constantly seen cutscenes that play oddly, or entire voiced segments that go silent for no reason.

most notably, i just finished Breaking the Bone Ship, and one of the NPC allies didn’t have any voice overs during the cutscenes, while the other did. that, and the final cutscene triggered before i had even done the final part of the mission, and instead of being shown a proper scene regarding what was happening, all i could see was the water’s surface from a top-down camera, as one of the NPCs tried to talk off-screen, but no voice came out.

these audio issues really kill the story for me, and it actually made me decide that i won’t play the personal story until they’re fixed, because i’d rather wait for a fix than have forever the memory of a broken mission.

Shaileya.7063:

Myself and my guildies stayed there for 2 days just to get everyone through. I was the first to complete it.

I missed that jump about 15+ times in my efforts to help them test out ways to make it. Only successfully made it 3 times, and I was the first one to make it period! Talk about terrible odds. We rezzed the repeatly dead at the bottom while waiting for the last guildie to make it, confirming that everyone else severely struggled with that un-lowered mushroom.

I was also severely disappointed when a Thief gleefully told us he was able to use one of his abilities to effectively shadow step to it without having to make the jump. The mesmer couldn’t teleport. Why was the thief able to shadow step it?

i’m a thief and i can confirm that the “shadowstepping to not jump” rumor is a myth. instead, you’ll be put at the very edge of the surface you’re at. at worse, you’ll end up falling because of that.

near the end of the dark reverie jumping puzzle in caledon forest (after completing morgan’s leap), there’s a mushroom platform that is clearly out of bounds for my character, but it’s clearly the only way up. i did some research, and apparently the platform prior to it was too hard to reach, so they lowered it. what was forgotten was to lower the rest of the platforms, turning an already unforgiving puzzle (if you miss you die and you have to do a whole other jumping puzzle just to get to it, unless you have a friend on the inside playing gate guard) into something capable of raising blood pressure like no medicine.

i think adding some sliders wouldn’t hurt. sometimes you just want the voice to be a bit deeper or squeakier to match the face of the character.

of course, it would have to be something done well enough that it doesn’t make the characters sound silly.

seriously, if it wasn’t hard enough that being hit by lightning is seemingly dictated by a random number generator (i’ve been hit mid-jump), and that if you get hit, you’re as good as dead, once you finally die, there is no checkpoint respawn (like on Spekk’s Lab on caledon forest). this makes the jumping puzzle even more annoying than it already is, with odd hitboxes and that camera (god, that camera).

the jumping puzzles were one of the parts i was looking forward the most, and this is one of the most interesting ones. HOWEVER, all these technical issues (and the lack of a checkpoint if you die by lightning) make this puzzle more frustrating than anything.

i find WvW to be one of the easiest ways to make a lot of money and exp in a short time.

if you can generate money on WvW, the money sinks to prevent inflation should also exist on it.

i find your use of the term “hardcore” amusing, but i digress.

farming is obviously something they don’t want in the game, and that’s why the anti-farm code is there. bots get banned, not punished with code. but players found creative ways to farm in GW1, despite the measures, and ANet never tried to stop those new ways.

so instead of complaining that the game is working against you (which, in this case, means the game is working as intended), try and find a creative way to farm. hell, you don’t have to be creative. just move to another zone.

just in case… did you check the sound options, to see if the music slider isn’t muted?