Guild Wars 2

Loboling.5293:

Using your megaserver tech, divide some instances of each zone into previous states from Living World Season 1.

Example: Player A decides he wants to participate in the tower of nightmares. He activates that part of his living world story, and the game will tell him to head over to Kessex Hills to help uncover the mysteries of this giant tower unleashing toxic spores, killing the wildlife. When the player gets to Kessex Hills, he doesn’t enter the same instance as other players doing their personal story or simply visiting the zone. He is placed into a server with other players who have activated this step of the living world story.

I agree completely but the problem that will occur has already been experienced when LS1 was active, and in the zone you reference.

Two weeks after the Tower of Nightmares went live, it was dead. It was massive content designed for the zerg and if you could not muster more than five players you likely couldn’t get to the top. Of course this was before mega servers so in all likelyhood, with proper scaling and rewards or maybe even new acheivements, I’m certain that an instanced version of the Tower or Scarlet’s Invasion of Lion’s Arch would have more than enough players willing to farm/replay the area for a long time to come.

As an old-ish player that ran into RL issues for the 2nd half of S1, I feel the pain. Anet was trying something very novel in making massive changes to their open world between expansions. All other MMOs have been relatively stagnant in the interim phases. I missed the fall of Lion’s Arch and would love to have a way of experiencing it but I also love the way GW2 feels alive for more than the two months post major release.

In the interim, the best solution I’ve seen proposed would be a series of cutscenes with “the story so far…” that new and old players alike could access from the character selection screen. Every major event or season could have it’s own 1-3 minute mini-movie that describes how Tyria has changed and what led to it. It’s simple but at least brings new and returning players up to speed.

Making all of these changes replayable/instanced defeats the purpose of a Living World. Because of this, Living Story Season 2 feels more like Personal Story Chapter 4. The idea was to see things change in game and have those changes mean something. The destruction of Lion’s Arch was traumatic and left a very visible scar on Tyria. Without it, Scarlet’s invasion would have been far less impactful on those who played and to the story as a whole.

mcgriddles.2416:

and like someone else said, an ambush is an unexpected attack.

By definition, yes, an ambush is an unexpected attack. The debate is why Trahearne seems to have changed tactics so drastically and why this ambush was not foreseen.

Trahearne was the reluctant leader. He chosen not just for his knowledge of Orr and Zhaitan but to act as a neutral party. One that the Pact factions could rely on to arbitrate their differences; to trust to have no ulterior motives in amassing the largest army Tyria had known. The entire third act of the PS was gathering intel for Trahearne and the Pact so they could weaken Zhaitan and move against the ED with a minimum of casualties.

Yet, throughout LS2, we see Trahearne running headlong into the Jungle. He ignores clear and present dangers. The fort at Camp Resolve remains incomplete. At no point does he ask the PC to gather intel on Mordremoth’s forces. In fact, there seems to be no voice of reason at all. DE simply shows up to further their own glory, so we could not rely on them. Caithe is AWOL and as a by product, so is the PC. And the Mother Tree was in turn purposefully evasive and then down for the count.

Trahearne’s change in personality is what is suspect. Why is the brooding, often overly introspective and cautious Marshall suddenly so hell bent on taking the fight to an ED that has thus far managed only the barest of footholds into Tyria proper? He is also the only character outside of DE and DE 2.0 that knows something is up with Caithe and that a dragon egg is involved. That knowledge alone should have given Trahearne 1.0 pause and he would have sent out search parties and gathered as much intel on why Caithe was acting strangely and what her intentions were with the egg.

Instead we get Trahearne 2.0 who simply tells us, “Good luck! See you for supper after we kill this dragon.”

Maybe Trahearne was under direct influence and he has been corrupted. Maybe he was under indirect influence and Mordremoth had clouded his judgment. Maybe he’s out for revenge and should have relieved himself of command after Mom was attacked. Was he overconfident? Or, maybe he’s just incompetent.

These are questions we are left with and I hope we discover some interesting answers in HoT.

BrettM.9062:

Pretty Pixie.8603:

“”Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Hanlon’s razor

You beat me to it. Trahearne isn’t evil, just stupid. Let’s look at the record.

… It almost seems as if his cabbage brain got coleslawed by the cleansing ritual or something.

This could be an indication of Mordremoth’s corruption, or at least influence.

Trahearne may only have been so adept and skillful in his leadership against Zhaitan because Mordremoth wanted Zhaitan out of the way for Its ascension. Mordremoth could have been manipulating Trahearne the entire time. First with the Wyld Hunt and his desire to learn all things Orr/Zhaitan. Then with tactical insight beyond his own knowlege. Finally, with Zhaitan out of the way, Mordremoth could have infuenced Trahearne into believing It was far less prepared for the assault thus leading to Trahearne’s brashness and over confidence.

I won’t go as far as to say Trahearne is corrupted. My take is that the influence was more subtle and these latest decisions are, in point of fact, the fault of the PC. Had the PC been available to act as Trahearne’s sounding board and as Commander of the Pact, this tragedy might have been forestalled and the danger the Sylvari posed might have been discovered in time to stop or at least mitigate it’s impact.

That same brashness and impatience could also have been an artifact of the Pale Tree’s current state and had She not been pre-occupied with Her own well being, trahearne may have been more able to see the dangers that lie ahead.

To be completely honest, I’m not a fan of Trahearne. I do not think he’s evil but he may become an interesting character study in HoT as the writers explore what influence the ED have on the denizens of Tyria.

Having read one of the extraordinarily annoying ’I’m offended by totally unrelated events’ threads and noticing the proliferation of more, I have a suggestion for Anet and their 2016 April Fools event.

Remove all weapons skills and have our characters perform therapy on all of our in-game enemies so we can finally bring peace to Tyria. Our precision stat could be userd to calcaulate Critical Breakthroughs where we get to the heart of Tequatl’s angst or The Claw of Jormag’s maternal issues. And all of our elite skills could be hugs and Teddy Bears.

April Fool’s 2016 – A kinder, gentler, more sensitive Tyria

This question really depends on where you are at now.

If you are in a full exotic set, with stats of you choice, then you may want to set your goal on cosmetic versus ascendeds.

If you have the appearance you like but the ghear is lower level, then farming karma for a full Orrian Temple exotic set would be the easiest goal. Or if you enjoy WvW, buying an exotic set with tokens.

If you have full exotic and appearance already, then my suggestion would be to experiment with stat combos of exotic sets and see what you like while levelling crafting or stockpiling mats.

Miku.6297:

So then if with the skins as I said all you got were the skins (no collections nothing trade/sellable) All they get is the skins (many skins are not part of collections) In GW2 the graphic/look is what has value. Im not saying a ban is justified, I’m simply trying to understand why people are saying look/apperance is in no way a benefit. If apperance/looks are worth nothing then why do people pay the amounts of gold they do for them.

You’re confusing goals with benefits. Having every skin unlocked in your account provides no benefit unless they satisfy a goal, i.e. collections. Fasion may be the end game but there is no fasion contest that one wins in this game. Fasion is individual taste. There is also no benefit to being able to equip hundreds of skins in eight-ten slots. Having all skins unlocked would be beyond useless in your hypothetical.

Fasion items are the goals we set for ourselves and the reward Anet provides for play or pay. Fasion is not the win.

And by your definition, would this not constitute a complete mastery of the game and therefore negate any further reason for playing? Since gear level and stats apparently mean less to “winning” the game than running around looking schmexy.

Cherokeewill.7504:

Cherokeewill.7504:

In point of fact, due to the shear volume of whispers the player says they experienced, it was a distinct disadvantage to game play.

Now that’s not something I hear every day… Someone getting attention for having something that looks cool is a distinct disadvantage… Most people show that type of stuff off for a reason.

Once again not saying it’s ban worth, I just disagree with the fact that graphic/apperence = 0 benefit.

The player involved said that they were getting tells so often that they had to log out of their favored character. They were not typing “look at me!” in map chat. They were not dancing on the Stormwind fountain. (wrong game, but you get my meaning) They simply saw something odd, experimented and grew to regret it. It had a negative impact upon their enjoyment of the game. You don’t see how that’s a disadvantage?

Elementalist – Open World PVE
Mesmer – World Boss farm (long distance DPS FTW)
Engineer – PVP (Not a turret build)
Necro – WvW (Staff/Wells AOE Bomb!)

Miku.6297:

If there were some way to unlock every single weapon/armor skin without having to earn them, would people consider using it an exploit? They couldn’t sell or trade any of them and all they are is graphics (same as this).

Because the skins in game are also connected to collections and those collections’ rewards can in some cases provide an advantage to the player in terms of farming and therefore increase their abilities beyond other players in the economy, then yes, that would be an exploit and therfore Anet would be completely justified in punishing the account/account holder.

But that is not the same as this. This was a bug in the client, and though not reported immediately by the player, it gave the player in no way, shape or form an advantage. In point of fact, due to the shear volume of whispers the player says they experienced, it was a distinct disadvantage to game play.

gerry.6519:

sorry it just had to be done

Thank you!

Jerus.4350:

In other words, less intelligent play, more spam.

I don’t understand how what has been described would produce the effect you state. Spamming CC would have little effect. It has been stated that the break bar will only be vulnerable at certain periods or require a severe concentrated effort on the part of the players. Spamming CC will make the break bar move but only a coordinated attack will break it and thus provide the benefit to the group.

This also adds the mechanic of Commanders actually commanding.

This is also one of the reasons I disliked playing LS2 on my Asura. There was no sense of animosity from any Sylvari I met along the way and there should have been something considering what we witnessed with Vorpp. It seems odd to have a story so rooted in racial identity with no nod to the complexities of race relations in Tyria. Anet has done such a good job with humans and Charr in Ascalon that I felt this aspect of the story very lacking.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

No, screw that. Let’s not delay the expansion for God knows how long for story content that people will play once and dump.

Is not all story content basically play once and dump?

Once you replay LS2 for all the acheivements, is anyone still going into Glint’s Lair to replay content for no reward?

I just killed Zhaitan, time to delete this character and re-roll to play it through again.

I am not advocating hours of unique, instanced content that could, as was so politely put, delay the expansion. But the expansion is likely still months away from general release. Small Open World items could be put in places (Libraries, Tombs, Tomes, be creative) where all players can learn about the Legends but the story unlocks things specifically related to Revenant skills. This would be immersive and a welcome change to the dynamic of character levelling.

Malkavian.4516:

The way I see Revenants is that they are those who have been exposed to the Mists long enough to learn the secrets and memories of heroes of ages past. As Tyrannical pointed out, norn havrouns are an example of those who tap into the Mists and the players (and Rytlock) would probably be the first ones to actually integrate that knowledge for combat purposes.

This is my point. My character may have learned these secrets but I don’t know these secrets, therefore I can never truly identify with my character.

All other classes can attribute there abilities to being innate and natural. Though some class related content would be nice; i.e. Necromancers learning a new Ritual, Mesmers a new Mantra, Elementalists attunements, etc. But, each of those examples could still be attributed to the some form of self-discovery.

Revenants are unique in their explanation of where their abilities come from. One cannot just kill some World Boss or save some town from destruction and suddenly know the history and power of a Legend.

I’ve read many posts asking for a Class story and those arguing for one. They all seem to boil down to “Rytlock’s the first Revenant! How do you explain 2 year old content and the Revenant?”

The answers all seem to come down to,“Story line only cares about race.” or “No other class has had a story so STFU!” or other less polite replies.

I don’t care about Rytlock or his role as “First Revenant” as hypothesized on the forums. That said, please consider the following;

1. I have not played Guild Wars 1.
2. I have no clue who these Legends are.
3. I have no idea why the powers of the Legends are associated with them.
4. No other class is based so exclusively upon story.

I’m not saying that Revenant should be removed/excluded from the racial class lines but I would recommend a novel approach to the class; lock traits behind story quests. Rather than paying for them or waiting for some Open World event, force the player to follow a quest chain to learn about the five legends. The more they learn, the more powerful they are.

I am excited about the new class and I find the history Anet has chosen to reveal so far very interesting, but I feel their will always be something missing from the class if only Guild Wars 1 players can truly appreciate how complex Revenants are.

I’m running a basic A10 with 8G of RAM with a Radeon 8610 grapics card. GW2 runs fine at medium-high graphics settings and for screen shots I can still bring it all the way up. For PVP I drop it to the lowest graphics settings just to be certain lag doesn’t play a role in my loss.

I might have some problems when HoT hits but I’m more than happy with is now.

This is the purpose of expansions. If the majority of content is available/modifications of the Old World then it would be called an “update.”

And consider what WoW did with Cataclysm. They created an expansion that re-worked their entire old world and then forced you to pay for it. There was no playing the game at all, not just being left out of the expansion areas. Many games become Expand-or-Leave. Giving players the option in this case is being very generous to the existing player base.

As Andred points out, the likely scenario is if you don’t want to buy the expansion, you’re not nlikely to stick around anyway. Sorry to fanboy all over your obviously biased and inflamatory OP.

They also drop from JP chests so running the easy ones on a daily basis with all your characters will give you more than enough.

Looks like this is coming next week.

http://dulfy.net/2015/02/25/gw2-upcoming-gemstore-items-from-feb-24-patch/

Edit – Re-read: Maybe not next Tuesday but data mined and ready to go soon.

There seems to be a lot of tongue in cheek and knee-jerk reaction to this suggestion, and as suggested it is game breaking and laughable but there is a grain of something here that could enable some interresting tactics.

Instead of a port to commander, there could be way points setup around the map that need to be occupied in order to become active. Fights would revolve around maintaining access to these points for reinforcements and it would be another use for roamers to got out and contest or capture these points. They should be relatively indefensible and have a quick timer that runs out if they are not occupied.

EoTM is not the only place this could be utilized either. Place one north of the North Camp in each Borderland, or in the NPC zones of EB. One of the chief complaints people have about WvW is the zerg. Creating opportunites for more mobility could make smaller groups useful.

Couldn’t agree more with the OP. I’m currently missing one dive from this acheivement. I’ve hit every one of them on the dulfy list at least twice and I can’t figure out which one is not registering.

At least a tracker with names/locations rather than just a counter. Please?

Some indication of the health of the clone and phantasm would be nice too so you don’t lose and opportunity to shatter if the health is really low.

The problem is not just the story.

A new race requires a rework of all armor currently in the game, a new starting zone and city, new ambient voicing, new voice acting for the entirety of the Personal Story, 9 new cultural armor sets, new skill animations, a new dance and many more things that I know I have missed.

As much as I would love to see a new race, with a game as in depth in the character creation/development process as GW2, a new race is a MASSIVE undertaking.

I think I’ve heard this storyline before;

Rytlock: You must defeat him. He was seduced by the Elder Dargon Mordremoth. He has ceased to be Trahearne and become Darth Broccoli. When that happened, the good man who was our Pact Leader was destroyed.
Player Character: There is still good in him.
Rytlock: He’s more minion now than man. Twisted and evil.
Player Character: I can’t do it.
Rytlock: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Brocolli…

Queue John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra

The DR festival area is amazing but where is the draw to bring players to the area? Only one achievement takes place in the area. The rest take place in the Dragon Ball arena which is just a sewer.

I’d like to see some open world participation or human outposts and something far more involved in the festival area. Even things as mundane as “View the Fireworks Display” like we had for Dragon Bash.

Underwhelming is definitely the word. I realize that HoT is likely demanding the ram’s share (see what I did there?) of Anet’s resources but this is the first non-western Holiday event in GW2 since the Chinese release. It should be more of a production than this.

The look of the festival area in DR is beautifull. I only wish there was more reason to hang out there and explore/enjoy it.

If you have seen the HoT promo video you will notice a hammer wielding engineer with goloem ‘drones’ flying behind him. Something like this could be part of a specialization in the Xpac.

+1 also. I love the idea of more/better foci.

I just wanted to take a minute to thank all the PvPers I have been playing with recently. I consider myself a PvEer and have avoided PvP like the plague because I have never felt good enough to not be a detriment to any team I’m on. I’ve also had terrible experiences in the past with PvP in other games.

I started playing PVP last week because I was bored and found I had a really great time. At first it was just to get the Balthazar Back item but I’m hooked.

I haven’t seen the toxic map chat or or the dancing on downed players or any of the things I associate with PvP and the bad behavior that comes from internet anonymity.

I’m getting better. I’ve found a class and build I’m comfortable maining and I hope to become more of a benefit to my teams as I progress.

Thank you all for proving the assertion that GW2 has the most supportive and inclusive population of any MMO.

FrizzFreston.5290:

The first option, to new players is pointless. An option, in my opinion anyway, is that ArenaNet needs to bring out a pack where you get sorts of a Season Pass (I hate the word too, but yeah).

I mean, it’s really disappointing to find out that half of the game is still inaccessible after buying it. We’ve all been there, and it’s still very annoying.

So my solution to this problem that DOES keep coming back. Offer to buy the game as a whole (for a fair price) rather than letting people find out ingame they have to pay extra.

New accounts could have all episodes of the current season of LS open up to them until the end of the season or one month, whuichever timeframe is longer. Past seasons would be P2P like for everyone else. Simply start each season with a generic trailer of where we are in teh story and move on from there.

For returning players, your kitten out of luck. This was announced and it was implemented in an extremely user friendly and time efficient manner to get everyone paying attention free access to the season.

I took a break. My schedule changed and I wasn’t paying attention. I payed for the first half of LS2 without complaint.

Every single one of these threads sounds like this to me now. “My favorite band was in town for a free show Friday night and I missed the announcement or I had to work or (insert excuse here) so I missed it. They should come back and play for me on a night when I can make it. Those people over there got it for free. Why should I have to pay for the CD?”

Stop. Just stop. Living Story is a wonderful gift that Anet gave us between release and the Expansion. They promise even more after the expansion. If you already owned the game and missed it, it’s not their fault.

I don’t recall a specific (re. red) statement but every single indication is this will be a direct sale expansion that will not (and IMO, should not) be available from the Gem Store. The only concrete statement on the matter, IIRC, is on the FAQ;

Q: Is the expansion “buy to play”?

A: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is a paid expansion to Guild Wars 2, but once you buy it, there are no subscription fees. This means that you can continue playing and access future updates for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns with no subscription fee.

My assumption is that anything available from the gemstore later would be like the upgrade to the “Deluxe” version that is curently there. Nothing but cosmetics. Actual playable content will be purchased with cash.

“https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Which-Mastery-will-u-master-first/first#post4771570”

Just realized I duplicated a post.

So based on this article, which mastery do you intend to focaus on first?

1. Master Lore: Attunement with new ally races can be trained to understand their language, unlocking secret locations and access to battle techniques that can weaken your shared enemies.
2. Master Legends: Train in legendary crafting to learn to create all existing legendary weapon precursors and new legendary weapon precursors introduced with Heart of Thorns.
3. Master Exploration: Mastering jungle movement will unlock the ability to hang glide to previously unreachable locations as well as the ability to use special mushrooms to traverse the Heart of Maguuma faster.
4. Master Combat: The Heart of Maguuma will be home to some of the most challenging combat in Guild Wars 2, and Masteries will give you the tools you need to excel in these fights. Hunt new enemies, master abilities to defeat champions, and become more deadly against the new creatures waiting in the jungle.
5. Master Fractals: Uncover new depths in the Fractals of the Mists to gain powerful new abilities to overcome difficult fractal challenges, garner greater rewards, and unlock more powerful infusions.

3 is defintely my first with 4 close behind… unless I’m getting my kitten kicked at which point I may have to switch to #4 first.

Nike.2631:

You don’t get a skill point from filling an XP bar anymore. I don’t see that having any impact of the rivers of skill point scrolls flowing from other sources like champion bags.

to quote the wiki: Skillpoint

Acquisition

1 skill point is earned for each of the following:
Completing a skill challenge
Past level 80, for every 254,000 experience points earned (one level).
Dessa’s Experiment Journal (purchased for 35 Fractal Relics)
Scroll of Knowledge

etc….

I can also confirm that as of last night, filling the experience bar does grant a skillpoint. I watched it on my toon.

I’d like to see Anet address if skillpoints will be accumulated after HoT only through levelling and consumables or if they will still accumulate after 80 through regular game play.

Edit: kitten , asked and answered:

“This means characters that have reached level 80 will no longer gain skill points through leveling. Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.”

So, next question; Will these be time gated or one time rewards? Or more scrolls?

I think this is an absolute misinterpretation of the question.

LA is a hub of activity because it is centrally located, has ports to the major cities and is the drop off point when exitting WvW.

I think the question has more to do with the fact that as we move our focus west, will LA remain the hub or will some a more central location, i.e. The Grove, Rata Sum, Mursaatville, become the new hub of player activity? Every MMO expansion has suffered from this as new locations open up and the new major city moves closer to the new location or is setup in the new location.

As fun as it might be to have a discussion regarding Sylvari internment camps, I can’t see it happenning unless it is a very minor subplot for Sylvari player characters where they quickly prove their loyalty and continue on saving the world.

I think you under estimate the brightness of candles.

The human eye can see a single candle flame from 20 miles away. A single candle was all that was necessary for hundreds of years to illuminate an entire room or to light the way through the woods at night. It’s only in our overly lit world in which a light bulb is the equivalent of daylight that we forget that the human eye is designed to see in fairly low light conditions and that a single flame is sufficient for most purposes.

I don’t think the OP is making an unreasonable request at all. They are not asking for a torch but a minor light effect in the immediate area would be nice.

Azrael.4960:

How a legendary trinket would be presented is up for debate, whether there be some sort of aura or what have you. However, by its nature a legendary would have to have something that makes it stand out and that involves costly and time consuming materials.

I agree that the cost of manufacturing each piece of legendary armour as if each were a legendary in its own right would be prohibitive. i.e. requiring 6 Gifts of each type for armour and 5 for trinkets and 1 more for a back piece.

I could, however, foresee that legendary armour would be crafted as a set, like the satchels of armour you can get. In that way, you would only require 1 set of gifts for a set of light, medium or heavy. Adding effects for armour wouldn’t be out of the question as many armours already have effects

A Legendary trinket set would probably also be made the same way, what effect that could have is a debate in itself.

However, I believe the way I’ve surmised how ascended trinkets could be made stands to reason

Legendary is just Ascended by another name. The only thing that makes Legendary Weapons legendary is the special visual effect and the fact that the stats can be changed at will. With Legendary trinkets, visual effects would start to overlap and then we’d hear QQ about wanting to be able to toggle effects on and off.

I’d rather just get the possibility to craft my own trinkets than worry about the Legendary name at this point. But, if we were to somehow get Legendary trinkets, why not make them in the Forge. Place four ascended trinkets of differing stat values (purchased, looted or crafted) into the Mystic Forge and then you receive a “Legendary” trinket with a variable stat box that can be changed any time out of combat.

The idea is that Legendary is BiS for the game and currently that means that stats are insignificant compared to prestige or ascetic and should not be tied to the Legendary item.

And for all of those Fractal runners with a glut of trinkets, make them salvageable or vendorable.

BrunoBRS.5178:

their name have a mesoamerican theme, so my bet is they’re the frogs, much like the hylek and the heket before them.

Or a feathered lizard type of race like Quezalcoatl.

New playable race in the next expansion? (See how I jumped the gun on that? )

Considering flight of a sort is coming out in the XPac, I think Edna said it best…

Do you remember Thunderhead? Tall, storm powers? Nice man, good with kids.
November 15th of ’58! All was well, another day saved, when… his cape snagged on a missile fin!
Stratogale! April 23rd, ’57! Cape caught in a jet turbine!
Metaman, express elevator! Dynaguy, snagged on takeoff! Splashdown, sucked into a vortex!
No capes!

The “skirts” are historically and anatomically accurate though. The movement restrictions that full leg length plate armor would impose would have our characters walking around like the Tin Man without an oil can. The skirt is needed to protect the joint at the hip.

That said, I’m certain a better design can be acheived with little effort and considering the minimalist armors available for female characters, realism isn’t the primary concern.

It would be a fascinating test if players could choose a track before starting an event that had unique, account bound rewards.

Take my sticking point, Tequatl and his Hoard. Anyone that shows up for Tequatl could select in the event panel whether they would like to participate in a token/guaranteed loot track for X number of particapations, or in the RNG track/you take your chances and open the chest. When the event ends both groups get the same amount of gold but the token track gets no chest, just a number in their track or a token.

I’d be very interested what percentage of players would select which option and at what level of grind the RNG track would win out. I.E. run Teq 30 times for guaranteed reward, definitely; 50 times, maybe; 100 times, I’ll take my chances with RNG.

Make it an option that can be changed at any time during the event and before looting the boss chest.

DavidH.7380:

I think this kind of system could be a good compromise that preserves the unpredictability and possibility of getting lucky from the RNG while adding the guarantee of rewards that is the appeal of tokenized systems. At first it is mostly random but as you get closer to the limit is becomes increasingly more deterministic.

The problem with this system is that the big reward may be on an RNG table of possible items. Once you reach the 1:1 and get the drop you’ve been waiting for, there still remains the possibility that it’s not the drop you’re waiting for.

As an example; after running Tequatl for two months everyday, often twice a day, I finally got an Ascended Chest this Friday night only for it to be a Leftpaw’s Weapon chest. I can make Leftpaw weapons. I can’t make the Sunless weapons.

For account bound, unique drops, I still advocate a straight token system.

Who says we’re going to have waypoints in HoT? At least right away.

LS2 started with waypoints being corrupted by Mordy and the Waypoint network is established and controlled by the Asura. The Maguuma Jungle is an unexplored region that we will be venturing into. I would absolutely expect that there will be few if any waypoints scattered through out the jungle and likely only a few in major hubs at the beginning.

This might kitten off a few since they won’t be able to WP back after death but I also figure the glut of players exploring the new areas will make WP ressing virtually unnecessary.

Why have hang gliders? Because they’re cool! Because we like to face plant off of the highest point even when we know it will kill us and now it won’t. Because if these maps are as vertical as they hint it, we’ll need them.

Mounts? As useless as capes.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

For all those using TV shows as an analogy; keep in mind that you are paying for a service package to watch the channel to begin with; be it cable or satellite. Even if you’re going through Hulu or Netflix, you’re still paying a fee to watch those episodes. So they aren’t technically free to begin with. The only real exception to this is if you’re watching ‘local’ channels, which is not what the majority of you are talking / thinking about.

Anywho, back on topic, I’m perfectly fine with this route – LS leading up and into the expansion story line. It’s actually what I’ve suggested they do since very early in the LS development. I rather like it, personally.

Except that you can since you are paying for your internet service already to play GW2. I can watch my TV shows on Hulu from the internet for free , all I have to do is pay for my internet service. So yah if you look at it that way you can compare.

Living Story had a rocky start and it just started getting really good, but now Anet is throwing that away because some people can’t get away from old habits.

No you cannot compare the two. Are you saying that you would like to stop playing every 15 minutes for a 3 minute commercial break? No one is providing you free content in any venue. $40 for three years of great gaming, ok story and unlimitted game time is the best bargin on the planet.

Between you and Test, I’m certain this thread is just being punked. And looking at Test’s posts (and the user ID for kitten’s sake) I’m convinced it is a competitor account designed specifically to troll the forums.

I put a spoiler tag on this just in case someone has not yet completed LS2 and witnessed the big reveal; Sylvari are dragon minions..

If you keep reading past that first spoiler tag, oh well. Not putting anymore in.

In our personal story, we the player were pivotal in helping Trehearne to begin the cleansing process in Orr. In doing so, did we make it possible for Mordremoth to have a foothold in Orr? Did we inadvertently provide Mordremoth the means to wage a two front war against us?

Is it possible that Mordremoth has infuence over not just the Nightmare but the Dream and Trehearne’s Wyldhunt was actually orders from Mordremoth to get Zhaitan out of the way to make room for Mordy’s ascension?

Warning The following post discusses precursors and specific rewards. The point of the post still regards RNG in general.

The problem is not scarcity of tradable goods when it comes to RNG. If I wanted a Legendary, I wouldn’t wait for the Precursor to drop, assuming the one I want was the Precursor I’d even get, or flush weapons into the Mystic Forge. I would buy it from someone that had the Precursor drop already by way of the TP.

Gold can be earned very quickly and easily enough that the high price of super rare drops is mitigated. Besides, the rest of the Legendary Gifts are expensive enough to acquire on their own that the Precursor price seems a drop in the bucket. In this instance, RNG governs the economy and is a necessary thing allowing devs to regulate it.

The problem, as I see it, is RNG for non-tradable and time gated items; i.e. Tequatl’s Hoard, Fractal Skins, etc. When there is no other means of acquisition, RNG will always remove fun from the game. For those that get the drop and don’t want it, they get something they can’t sell, salvage or even vendor. For those that want it and don’t get it, RNG crushes hopes with each failed attempt.

“But if these items were easy to come by/available by other means no one would run the event.” Bullkitten!

The dungeons and World Bosses should be fun and challenging enough to draw the crowd. If players are running Tequatl SOLELY for the possibility of Ascended chests then the event is an absolute failure because it is guaranteed to leave more disappointment than pleasure. I’ve run Tequatl for days at a time and seen zero hoards linked after the event.

I know that I am not the only one who would continue to run Tequatl everyday if I could earn my way to the Hoard weapons. I would even run for many more weapons knowing that each time I did so would count toward a new skin. As it stands now, RNG discourages me from considering those weapons on more than one toon. If I ever do get the Hoard drop I want, it’s likely to take me a while to come back just to run for fun.

My solution of choice is 2.5. RNG remains in play, even at its current level but with a light at the end of the tunnel for account bound items. For tradable items, see my first point.

Create unique new armor sets, titles and acheivements that represent that home city purchasable with tokens won at these mini-games and events.

And each culture must have its own holidays.

There should definitely be safe areas so that new characters don’t walk into town and die but this would be yet another big step toward the “Living World.”

I love this idea, though if HoT is an expansion I’d rather see Orr become a heart zone with tasks related to rebuilding and cleansing. Add a storyline pushing progress toward Maguuma for new players… or better yet, the LS, post Mordremoth, should take us through Arah and beyond to the Crystal Desert.

I definitely don’t want to see the Temple fights go away though. They should remain but be a hinderance to ongoing clean up process versus the siege. They should also be added to the World Boss schedule.

If this is an expansion, my wish is for Anet to continue to make the “old world” relevant. The problem with any expansion is the player base gravitating to the new content and leaving the old content to whither. Re-invigorate Orr and the World Bosses so that when the new car smell wears off we still have the wonderfull world to continue to enjoy… now only bigger.

Wishes for the expansion itself, none. I trust Anet to make the content fun and rewarding and will wait with marked anticipation for its release.

Leo G.4501:

To me, changing the RNG or the system so that you have a near guaranteed chance to obtain something feels inherently wrong. There’s reasons these things are rare. If things were changed like people want, then practically everyone will be able to get everything with enough effort which still feels inherently wrong. SNIP

Why? This game is not based on the elitism of gear grind. Dancing for hours in the town square in the latest RAID gear so others can marvel at the armor they would never acquire. Go pay a monthly if that’s your thing.

This game is based on ascetics and cooperation. If someone else has the same weapon, the same armor, the same mini as me, that does not make it any less valuable to me. And if I earn my stuff rather than getting a lucky roll, I value it more. RNG is not skill. It is not effort. It is luck, pure and simple.

Large boss fights are a massive team effort; a megaserver full of players working together. And in the end, only a very few get to walk away with the prize.

RNG, as a concept, is supposed to keep things fair. Everyone has the same chance to receive the desired drop. But, as with any random selection, there are always outliers. On a bell curve, 70% of the population falls within the norm. These persons are the average. That leaves 15% on either side that are far below or above average. There will always be those who run the events and never get the drop and there are those that will get the drop far more often then anyone else. It’s a matter of statistics, and because of this it is inherently unfair.

Anet knows this. As proof; Dungeon Armor is earned, not dropped. Open world special drops should be the same.

Sariel V.7024:

Funny. When I hear about someone devoting that much resources and effort to something so inconsequential, I start to question their sanity….

Of course, it’s also players with these kinds of resources that have periodically jacked tp prices to ridiculous levels for personal profit.

So, uh, you may find me lacking in empathy.

If you’re truly honest, the entire game is inconsequential. The only reason we play is because of personal goals that make it worth our time and effort in our own minds.

Would you continue to preform a RL activity if you were told that you’d be payed on a random day sometime in the future? If so, how motivated would you be if your co-worker got paid twice in the same number of days and had been there less often than you had? Or if the new guy got paid on his first day and you’d been there for the last month hoping today was your day?

At some point the human mind performs a cost benifit analysis and stops doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. The only people that don’t go through this process are called addicts and their only cure is complete removal from the addiction. Anet wants to keep players, not send them to recovery.

I know this is a game and I do have fun just protecting turrets and slaughtering the big flying lizard. I love the fight, but that’s not enough after a while. Anet did away with RNG when they designed the Dungeons. They can easily do the same for the Boss fights.

Lynne.8416:

Teq is “easy” as long as there is a coordinated group actively participating, otherwise known as: “a good tequatl server”. If you are not able to get on an active server in time, then you will not be able to beat tequatl.

New players would probably feel that Maw, Jungle Wurm, Shadow Behemoth and Fire Elemental were “epic” if there weren’t 100+ geared up level 80’s camped there to kill them.

Very true, but should an encounter be considered a “World Boss” if it can be defeated with only 5 people?

Two weeks ago I entered Harathi late and was the only one of 3 to run the event chain up to the Overlord. It took a while but we got him down. Though the fight was great, I don’t think he should count as World Boss material in his current form. When those those 100+ full ascended geared 80s show up, there should be more to do than faceroll and dodge an occasional AOE.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

I’m all for rewarding tokens which can be spent on boss specific loot, it’d certainly eliminate the luck factor which needs to go for certain aspects of the game.

I don’t think rewarding players for a loss is ideal though, if you fail the event, I personally don’t think you should get anything.

Make it a daily thing too, otherwise the loot would be far too common from people just hopping maps.

Daily, account bound maximum rewards would mean if you fail the first time you try that day you can still hope to win the next time and get the full reward for the day. If you spend your day beating your head against the wall, you can still get as much reward as someone whose group succeeded in the first try.

In the first Boss Week, when we were all still trying to figure out the Tequatl fight and there was no reward for failure, many quit trying and came under the impression that this was big server/big guild only content. The forums were awash with QQ about how discouraging it was. There is no incentive for failure with this idea but there is no encouragement to rage quit the event either.

In my scheme above, one would be able to work the Boss for 7 weeks, every day, to get a full set of weapons. Another 7 weeks would get the Mini and by adding unique, desirable consumables, farming the Boss becomes a real long term aspect of the game.