Guild Wars 2

I find it strange people would complain about lag in SAB, as SAB is the only place where I get stable 60-80fps.

Really the only issue I have with SAB that affects difficulty, and this hasn’t changed since April, is that sometimes it is difficult to perceive whether a jump can be made or not (I don’t know if it is because jumping works differently in SAB or because most surfaces seem to have very generous edges, so sometimes a jump that doesn’t look possible actually is).

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Can’t have people earning things not from the gemstore.

Wait, what? Obsidian Shards have no connection to gem store whatsoever, so what does their removal have to do with earning something outside of gem store.

The only beta “perk” you could possibly have gained is a free character slot. As in if you bought gems with real money during the last BWE and bought a character slot with those gems both the gems and the character slot would be there on launch.

This of course was not intentional, however, for one reason or another no action was taken (or couldn’t be taken) to rectify the situation, so few people have free character slot as a result.

The HoM perks are different story, I for example linked my GW1 account way early on but only found the HoM item in the inventory of a seemingly random character few weeks ago (character created close to but not at launch). I believe Support can help with getting your accounts linked and make sure you get that item, but it has no connection whatsoever to beta tests.

wintermute.4096:

Crise.9401:

So it is highly unlikely that these two teams “schemed” together to design this incarnation of SAB to be particularly centered around the infinite coin in any real respect. More likely that the commerce team saw an opportunity and pitched the idea of this item.

Yeah, there probably isn’t any connection at all between tribulation mode and infinite continue coin.

I never said there was no connection, just that it is unlikely that Tribulation Mode and its design was driven by the existence of this Gem Store item, because it is extremely likely that said design came before the coin.

Iason Evan.3806:

This P2W talk is for the birds. Am I the only one who threw away TONS of continue coins after the last incarnation of SAB went away? It’s a convenience item. nothing more, nothing less. The real hard core players doing Tribulation Mode spit in the general direction of that gem shop item.

I dunno, but I still have my Candy Powered Macro-Meter from last Halloween, along with 4k candy corn… also I have had baubles in my inventory since April :P

Also to all the rest of you, yes they could remove the obsidian shards or added a level requirement or done any number of other things. But they didn’t, instead they limited the amount of baubles being generated on account level. It is quite likely that the Infinite Continue Coin wasn’t even a thing when this decision was made, Gem store items are responsibility of a different team than the people who created SAB and this update.

So it is highly unlikely that these two teams “schemed” together to design this incarnation of SAB to be particularly centered around the infinite coin in any real respect. More likely that the commerce team saw an opportunity and pitched the idea of this item.

Avatara.1042:

I think obsidian shards were also buyable with baubles, correct?

Yup, also 2x bauble bubble per chest at the end of 1-1 made acquiring them super easy… since you could run that world very quickly.

kokiman.2364:

And how did those baubles effect anything in the game besides this minigame?

Bubble baubles created from 250 baubles can be used to purchase several crafting materials for legendaries for example… which if memory servers might have been able to be sold on trading post. I have 0 interest in legendary weapons, or had back then, so I can’t recall what the exact setup and prices were.

kokiman.2364:

skullmount.1758:

kokiman.2364:

Delvoire.8930:

Have you played SAB? Continue Coins are quiet easy to get. You also don’t even need them as you can just wait a day and play again without the coin….

Sorry, they removed that grind. You can open chests/dig up baubles only once a day (accountwide).

What a weird change especially with the introduction of the hard mode.

Yeah, I’d really like to know their reason for that change. Maybe so you can’t get as much bauble, so not as much continue coins, which means more pressure to buy the infinite coin?

Also, I really hope the infinite coin isn’t soulbound. They better let us move it to different characters.

The reason behind this? A.Net needs/wants to monetize every LS Update, that’s the reason.

You might be right, but more likely the reason for the change to baubles is to prevent people doing what they were doing in April which is run with a throwaway character delete, recreate and run again… rinse and repeat for easy infinite baubles from World 1-1.

As pointed out, if continue coins work the same way they did in April, you need exactly 0 continue coins to play SAB as many times as you want. Yes, you only have 5 lives per run like this, but for someone who knows the levels this is not an issue in the slightest.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

an accelerator in time limited temporary content is P2W imo.

I will not have enough time to both farm and get the achievements unless I pay for an item. If I want to win I have to pay. That is P2W.

So let me rephrase, what are you winning exactly? SAB is about player achievement not some game changing loot like an ascended weapon for example (assuming they would be game changing which they hardly seem to be).

On the other hand f.ex, I did not have enough time to farm for an aetherized weapon, so I bought one on the TP. Similarly I will likely convert gold to gems to buy this item, considering all the farming from the past month that doesn’t seem like a big investment at all.

So where is the win in this pay to win of yours (or arguably even the pay, if all you are paying is in game gold).

ZudetGambeous.9573:

and the trip towards P2W is one step closer…

Want to do trib mode… sorry you will need to buy this “convenience” item or spend 99% of your time grinding coins and only 1% of your time actually getting to play.

Really now, the people who will play tribulation mode will likely aim for the TM specific skins or achievements… so they are unlikely to want to use baubles for anything but continue coins. Which they will also be earning more than normal mode players.

Also, continue coins are not required at all, since you can always just restart the level… and once muscle memory kicks in it won’t be such a big deal, if you absolutely hate the idea of farming for baubles. Even the regular continue coins are convenience items to an extent, since if you want to you don’t have to use them. Just a choice between checkpoint or start of the level.

Also, P2W hardly applies when it is about personal achievements… if I go through TM that does not impact you or anyone else in any way whatsoever (skins are account bound as far as we know). So if someone wants to pay for a “cheat” then let them, it is not like it will devalue your own achievements… besides the player using this will still need the skill to actually progress inside the box.

It is not a shortcut but an accelerator.

Delvoire.8930:

The more interesting thing though is the Transmutation Splitter item.

Just a quick PSA on that, from the crafting preview stream, anyone with a Legendary will get a one Transmutation Splitter for free.

If you ask me this is a really smart move, with Tribulation mode being designed the way it is, however, they have to be pretty careful to not have something they do completely invalidate this in the future (ie. the unlikely removal of SAB after all four worlds are out f.ex.)

It seems like the very definition of a convenience item, hope they handle it right.

My guess it is just a hook that they can pick up later… ie. just an open end or unaswered question among many others… like where did the queen actually get the watchknights and why are they overly sexualized?

Chrisplosion.3756:

Um where was this ever revealed/leaked?

Not leaked, just a ninja update to the release page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/september-03-2013/#new-gem-store-items-5

So apparently this is a thing, coming to your friendly neighborhood BLTC.

Two questions, is it truly infinite and whether or not it will retain its value and function through future incarnations of SAB? (ie. any future game using “continue coin” mechanic).

Also is it only available during this patch or also during future SAB patches?

Edit: also, since this is microtransaction specific to SAB, will it retain a function after all worlds are out? (as in what will happen once the first round of SAB completes).

Makani Eldrinn.5638:

Josh Foreman.8250:

(which I’m not aware of having a name yet… let me know if you’ve heard of one)

It may not be correct, but I’ve heard of these type of games being referred to as “platforming hell”. Either way I’m looking forward to the challenge.

I don’t think it has an established name yet, some people call them torture platformers (obviously derived from puzzle platformer).

kRiza krimos.1637:

Ashabhi.1365:

I have to agree with some of what you’re saying, but disagree with other parts.

The Living Story is a lot of fun if you don’t take it too seriously. It’s not meant to be the whole game. There is an arcing theme of most of it, however, it’s difficult to see.

At this point LS is whole game. Invasions farming, gauntlet farming…Few days ago Claw of Jormag was up 6 hours without anyone touching it. I finished Maw with 4 other guys, four!!! Similar state can be seen across whole world, except zone where invasion is currently.

People asked for better rewards and more rewarding content, they got that. Now the pendulum will inevitably sway back, because ANet can not allow the economy to hyper-inflate and spin out of control. Presumably they set this up, so that when Ascended weapons came it would offset itself in the end… reducing gold generation with MF changes and increasing TP transactions with ascended mats, thus taking more fees and also liquidating lot of earlier tier crafting materials when new mats are created.

If that is not enough they will simply either make the permanent invasions happen only once in a blue moon or nerf the rewards across the board. Really in the end the point of invasions is, I think, an attempt at changing the PvE gameplay more than it is the rewards (rewards are just something they need to keep/get some people interested imo. right now it is working against them though pirates being too lucrative to portals so the event doesn’t even always run its full course)

SAB is the break for many, even some of us who like it, since it changes the pace… but definitely those that don’t like it (since they can simply ignore it).

Celebratty.1632:

I never got a chance to do the clocktower, so I’d love that.

Likewise, since I also have a better PC now so it should be significantly more human feat to pull it of :P

Or, assuming the popularity of the content remains unchanged, maybe they will just come up with a new plot and create additional worlds for it that way.

Nobody can really say, not even ArenaNet at this stage I imagine. But they did create some tech specifically for SAB, so gone for good and never seen again in any form seems pretty unlikely.

If you think about the content we have been getting with the Living Story there has been a decent balance (forgoing the fact that it has been bit festival heavy for reasons ANet has given a practical reasoning to).

The story elements themselves are mediocre, but mostly because they have difficulty representing all their lore in-game properly, if you read the short story about Evon for instance he became immediately more likable, however, none of that was referenced inside the game. Same can be said about Scarlet, although there are few references to her short story the most interesting bits are really not represented at all… thus leaving the game character feeling much less fleshed out than what the actual character that they wrote is (although her motivations are still kind of vague but that is obviously intentional for future instances of living story). If they can nail down how to do lore exposition so that no so much of it is let outside of the game, the quality will suddenly improve considerably.

Gameplay wise, GW2 is pretty focused on combat so the kind of content and plots we keep seeing makes sense, if there is nothing for players to fight then what are we supposed to do. Scavenger hunts, like the one for Halloween, are fun, but they are not for everyone same for mini games. SAB is of course the extreme example of what they can do in terms of gameplay, however, that is also the riskiest thing they could do… since content that completely deviates from the normal gameplay can alienate people easily.

I agree that 2-4 weeks for some content does require heavy QA, because once it is live there is no time to necessarily fix the temporary content’s issues fast enough. However, they themselves set the bar that high, if they can’t handle it then they will see the consequences of it and if they do they will change their policies, it makes little sense to state that they are not meeting their standards when we have no idea what their present standards are. If the game does not meet someone’s perceived standards then that is a different matter entirely.

If the new ascended gear is account bound (ie. no profit from crafted gear), I don’t see why legendaries couldn’t/shouldn’t be as well.

That said, they (legendary weapons) should retain their account bound status even on use, just for convenience imo. After all equipping a legendary is worth (a useless) account medal too.

Treadmill implies repetition, getting ascended gear once is not a repetition of said act, ergo no treadmill (and yes you are doing it only once even if the gear is put out in waves, since it is only one full set).

If you want to go the conservative route and imply all “repetition” and all [gear] tiers are treadmill then yes we have a gear treadmill and have had one since launch, so nothing has changed. Case and point.

Even if we were to concede that they broke their promise (which they have not, until they introduce tiers beyond ascended or start heavy handed gear gating), even then your proposed solution is out of scope… not only because getting transmutation stones is easy, or at least it used to be (as in I have more than I will ever use), with map completion which you can repeat ad nauseam (even if that is no longer the case to the same extent as it used to be, they do come out of achievement chests as well) but also because you are asking them to shut down a potential revenue stream. We have known about ascended roll out startegy for months arguing against it now has little point. When it is already done.

Asking for easier access to transmutation is fine, however, realistically they are not going to make it a vendor item thus eliminating all potential gem store sales. At the end of the day they are a business. So ask to get transmutation stones through some kind of tradeoff that doesn’t completely eliminate a revenue stream is reasonable, asking what the OP is asking is not.

One additional tier is not really a gear treadmill, nor is content gated by said gear. Fractals are only gated at higher tiers, far beyond what you need to see and experience everything they have.

So to say we now have a gear treadmill is incorrect. If we get ascended 2.0, then it is a different story.

Profession recognition, as in… with battle tonics usable in WvW you can use that to hide what profession you are playing before engaging, thus giving you an advantage (although, it already has a cooldown for presumably the same reason, and pretty harsh one at that so I dunno).

Belenwyn.8674:

SAB is a permanent part of the game that is temporarily accessible.

This is probably the most accurate answer for now… though in long term I doubt ANet has finalized their plans regarding SAB after all four worlds are done.

Judging from posts in April they had to do some engine changes just for SAB, so it is unlikely that SAB will be removed after the four currently planned worlds. But will they keep rotating the existing worlds with different rewards in and out, add more worlds, or make “SAB 2” in-game is anyone’s guess.

Now what am I supposed to do with 6x Account Bound mini queen’s :S

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi guys,

After some careful investigation of these achievements, we believe there are a few technical restrictions and communication issues that are causing the problems here.

First, Molten and Pirate events do not grant achievement credit. This means that if you hop into an invasion right as scarlet spawns, or if you spend an entire invasion on pirate and/or molten events, you will not get achievement credit for that map.

This might just be a good thing, since the tendency for people to focus pirates is already too strong.

Although, I would also like to say that the Vorpp’s Field Assistant Line doesn’t seem to count duplicate maps either and the wording on it doesn’t seem to imply that to be the case.

Can’t please everyone at once… If you think about it, with some sort of scandal or catastrophe the festival would have been nothing more than pavilion farming (until they made champ farming outside of pavilion the better option).

I know, SAB doesn’t really qualify as a living story update (at least the April instance of it), but that is very different and it shows…. splits people rather strongly few people are completely indifferent to it but most either love or “hate” it.

For a game that is so focused on combat, as in the thing you will be doing most is fighting in some capacity, these kind of plots make sense. Alternatively they would have to completely change the gameplay like SAB did and risk people being alienated by it (also arguably what SAB did, even if it was very popular)

Also, the short story about Scarlet is very good and insightful… sadly barely any of it is referenced in game.

So I agree, the game needs more lore exposition that doesn’t happen outside gameplay, because after reading this short story of Scarlet I became 5x more interested in her, however, immediately asked myself… Why is barely any of this in game?

I just completed 2 invasions in Lornar’s Pass, the first one I was on my home server the entire time the second on an overflow (the entire event in the same one obviously, did not swap characters etc).

For both of these invasions I got the “Scarlet has been driven off… for now.” popup, needless to say the second one I only got a skin scrap, but that is not the point. If I am qualified to receive invasion rewards shouldn’t I be qualified to receive achievement credit as well. However, my Vorpp’s Field assistant and other achievement tracks that tie into invasions are stuck in four invasions and have been so for a while now.

Now, if I am unable to complete the rest of the living story content because achievements are not getting credited properly, that would quite frankly suck. So please, if you are going to gate content behind achievements please make kitten sure they are credited correctly above all else. Or better yet, do not gate content behind achievements but use something like actual items as the metric of progress.

Edit: I seriously am tired of spending 45 minutes of my time and never being sure if I actually get what I need to get into the content that I actually want to see (ie. Scarlet’s instance) before it goes away. The design idea itself behind Vorpp’s Field Assistant is great, but it would need to work 100% of the time, otherwise it will just lock people out of content because for some inexplicable reason they did not get the achievement credit.

When , saw this, http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1kzfcz/killing_children_in_snowden_drifts/, I felt oddly compelled to post it here.

Don’t get me wrong, killing children is horrible, but really if ANet added the aegis effect for the reasons some speculate they did, I guess it was all for naught.

I guess tomorrow we will read in the news how GW2 was banned in Germany and UK, not

Requiem.8769:

Racial skills are meant to be useless -or at least, less effective than all the class options. This is to prevent one race becoming a requisite. If you’d like to improve the use of the Asuran racial, you’d have to likewise improve all the other racial skills for the other races.

Yes, racial skills are flavor skills and fluff… however, they are not meant to be useless weaker but not useless. If they were meant to be useless there would be no reason for them to exist in the first place since they would have no use, hence useless.

Why is Summon Power Suit useless: because Hazmat suit is a consumable and much better at that, it being better is not the problem the fact that it is not a skill is though (and it is not tied to profession or race). The way racial skills should work is like Charr’s Summon Warband is essentially a variation of Thieves Guild. Not like SPS being a variation of a karma consumable.

It is already statistically and functionally (due to the 60s limit) weaker than what it is modeled after, so why it also has to be something that can only be used once in a blue moon. If I want to sacrifice my profession elite for a weaker fluff skill at least let me use it is I believe what most people are saying. Also it doesn’t help that Asura racials are all very samey (really why all the golems) or bland as in not very asuran (utilities).

Point: I see other races racial skills and elites used on frequent basis, but since launch I can count the times I have seen Asuran racial elites used with the fingers of one hand (it is hard to tell when an asura uses a racial utility skill, so can’t comment on their usage).

Hickeroar.9734:

All we want is a real response. Do you plan on officially supporting GvG? Yes or no? One word. That’s all we want.

That’s the kind of response you are never going to get, the choices you offer are absolutes and companies like ANet typically don’t like to deal in absolutes very often. They prefer to leave any statements open ended for a reason, to have the wiggle room to change their mind if needs be for whatever reason. (they don’t do it out of spite, it just happens to be “best practice” for them).

Suffice to say, if they were actively considering supporting GvG as a separate game type the best you would get would be something like “We are currently looking into possibilities” or “We currently have no definitive, plans but we are thinking about it” on the other hand the fact that they are silent pretty much guarantees that the have no such plans in the foreseeable future (if they did, they could give a vague open statement akin to what the they did for the precursor scavenger hunt earlier this year).

They will never say never, as much of a cliche as that is… because that would mean people would stop hoping for it and also that they would have backed themselves into a verbal corner.

Germany, but it would probably have been easier just to say Gamescom.

Sad that a skill with so much flavor is so useless… especially considering that the racial utilities for Asura are bland to say the least.

The dev stream of CWC confirmed that it is not random but a list… also the dragon events might cause some zones to be delayed or skipped I think. Since there is only one invasion per hour if a dragon event holds up the invasion maybe the one following looses its spot, no way to tell how that works.

Also, really… no matter where the city I believe this is more about the races than kingdoms, there is no Kingdom of Ascalon anymore after all. Besides the concept of a kingdom or a monarchy seems to be limited to humans, the other races are each governed very differently. Point being there is only one political entity that is exclusively human.

And, you don’t represent the political entity but the races (with the exception of LA, being race neutral) as far as I recall.

The reason why the story on Scarlet is left open is also so that the invasions can remain as permanent content and not contradict with what actually happened.

As for Molten Alliance, the way I understood it we players went through one molten facility Canach went through another, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t more than those two. The dredge and flame legion aren’t exactly tight knit, so it makes sense that even if one limb crumbles other keep going. From a gameplay standpoint, I think the presence of Molten Alliance in invasions is also to make the connection between Scarlet and their alliance obvious to people who may have missed some of the fine print and connect both of the two factions solidly to Scarlet.

SirDrygan.1823:

Why only Aegis affect the kid and not the others?
Why is Logan’s guardian powers underpowered while Salad guy necro is overpowered?

You really can’t apply game mechanics in story telling… since when can Guardians blink or shadowstep f.ex. (or whatever it was Logan did during the Opening Ceremony).

The story NCP’s simply make use of existing animations and assets, it doesn’t mean they use the skill players can use (especially when we are talking cinematic land, not gameplay).

Though, on the other hand what they did with Queen Jennah during the opening ceremony was really neat too (ie. cross profession combos with Anise, but then again that was actual active combat and not a cutscene).

Barabbas.8715:

Farzo.8410:

Kids are not allowed to die in games, otherwise it would’ve been banned in many countries.

Play the original Fallout.

German and UK versions were censored

Alternatively there is a prominent death of a child in ME3 (shudder), it all comes down to presentation more than anything these days I believe. Also, if kids are not allowed to die in video games something like Binding of Isaac wouldn’t be allowed either (you do nothing but kill children in that game, if you pay any attention at all).

Edit: considering Tyria as a setting, and everything its inhabitants can do, I think Logan’s action makes sense and is a nice added touch… there is no reason to read into it.

Also., in many countries online interaction is not rated by the authorities (which means that online game content is hardly monitored) so it is unlikely that GW2 would get banned unless someone put up a civil action law suit about something they did.

Sobat.8650:

I think some of them are still sleeping.

I might be forgetting something, but as far as I can remember only Primordius, Kralk and Jormag are active… that leaves at least 2 dragons we don’t really know a whole lot about.

Edit: for those who aren’t into lore… these two dragons are the deep sea dragon “Bubbles” and the jungle dragon “Mordremoth” (these names are not official mind you, bubbles being an old working title we got and mordremoth is deduced from an attack name of one of the bosses from CoE.)

@KingClash: Fireworks and dragon pinata’s weren’t really Living Story content but festival content much like pumpkins, kites and snowmen. So even if they did implement retroactive Living story that would not include the entirety of Dragon Bash but only the living story segments through some contrivance.

There is a difference between story content and event content… the sky crystals f.ex. are in no way related to the Living story, so they would not be brought back by whatever it is ANet intends to do about retroactive story telling.

Zaxares.5419:

The Molten Pick, along with other gathering tools, will be available for sale again during the 10 day special sale during the GW2 Birthday Celebration. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came back again at regular intervals in the future.

Considering they are soulbound yes, they will be back… although, if ANet is at all crafty they will not (after the special sale for anniversary) bring back the Molten Pick but a different tool/pick with the same function but a different aesthetic (possibly tied to LS story theme again).

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I hate when this happens. My girlfriend and I weren’t able to play together for many of the invasions. I thought they had fixed this issue?

They did mostly fix it, for the cases where they couldn’t they added the “Join in …” right click option in the party UI.

They probably don’t want to create a situation where an overflow can potentially be created just for your party.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, Ellen Kiel would revive me in the Aetherblade Retreat, which Trahearne never did. So he’s got a while to catch up to her.

Actually he does, just afaik only in one instance, when you fight Eye of Z. in the Pale Tree Vision or whatever that thing is.

I think they retroactively added NPC reviving to few other instances as well… but could be mistaken but I do vaguely recall reading something to that effect in some of the patch notes. But yeah, as far as at launch goes, barely any NPC’s did it, while any combat was ongoing (the one instance above is the only exception I know of), in some steps they will revive out of combat but that of course is useless in most instances.

Hey, when we someday completely defeat Scarlet (if ever) then we will have not one but several pirate factions (assuming aetherblades disband when she is not there to whip them into gear).

So, yeah… rather one set of pirates than 3 sets of them in different colors I say.

Interesting to see what they have done with it, I kinda hope they would emphasize group play in it some more, since this is MMO, but on the other hand it can be either accessible to “everyone” or group based content not both (unless they were to scale it., but thy would also need to scale the rewards then).

I don’t really like normal jumping puzzles (because of the camera and they are slightly out of place), but I do like SAB since it breaks the pace and changes the way the game can be played (also, chip tunes) and avoids the worst of the aforementioned issues the normal puzzles have and it is arguably less out of place even if it is odd content for an MMO.

Edit: for those that did not like SAB, thinking about the fact that SAB has its framework built and the fact that Halloween and Wintersday are soon after, I would be very excited about what that could potentially mean for the remainder of the updates for this year since they probably don’t need to allocate as many resources to SAB, Halloween or Wintersday now.

Also, SAB, being rotating content, while it will likely be available for the entirety of the next month there is the possibility that the second patch of that month doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with it (and if ANET is smart then that is the case).

However, the title for the ’’event’’ does state 19th… so an official confirmation would be nice.

Edit: looks like Scarlet fixed the inconsistency in dates, initially the page had different dates in title and text.

entropyblade.5682:

lol better than having our characters be voiced by text to speech software… like microsoft anna

Oh, we have experienced that in the pre-release demo’s (if you got far enough during the time you had).