Guild Wars 2

Anyone want to take a whack at what dyes Caithe uses on the armor? I think she looks great. A lot of green dyes I try to use end up having some brown on the coattails and the I can’t find a lighter shade that matches.

Any ideas/help would be appreciated!

Canidae Canis.2861:

She also wields a scepter – possibly the scepter of orr?

Scepter of Orr was more of a staff than a scepter, and looked nothing like Krytan Scepter. It’s one hell of a stretch if they actually wanted that allusion.

I wouldn’t mind putting the axe to Phlunt. Who needs diplomacy anyway? My solution to fight the elder dragons is better, anyway:

Step 1. Find the bones of my GW1 assassin.

Step 2. Revive assassin.

Step 3. Let assassin do all of the work.

If we want a third heavy knight, why not just rip death knight straight from WoW? It would semi-similar to elementalist’s attunements, except they could use “glyphs” for their class mechanic that can have bonus effects of chill, poison or burning depending on which glyph is used. Their trees could improve the effects of their glyphs, such as elementalist attunements or guardian virtues.

On top of this, they would only use greatsword, sword/shield or spear – their skill sets will vary by the “glyph,” not so much of their weapon choice. Similar to an elementalist/guardian mix.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

@Galphar – according to ANet, the Paragon was actually rolled into the Guardian, not Warrior. Guardians also have shout abilities, and apparently a few other links between Para/Guard. (I never played Paragon in GW1, so I don’t know specifically myself.)

This is pretty accurate. Guardian shouts closely resemble the shouts of Paragon in GW1. “Retreat!” and “Stand Your Ground!” are both names taken from Paragon shouts and “Save Yourselves!” was one of the 4 most important skills on the Imbagon bar (despite it being a warrior shout).

Bringing the paragon into GW2 simply wouldn’t work.

I spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to figure out what a peakitten was, until I realized what it actually was.

Also, I imagine it’s more rooster-y. The color theme with the blue “tail”

http://argos-soft.net/GW2/Img/1036581.png

http://maureenpierce.com/galleries/Roosters/images/red%20rooster.jpg

Red, gold body…blue tail. Pretty rooster-y if you ask me. And the crest on the head or whatever that thing is called.

I would see this being possible with a fee (1s per use, perhaps) or giving upgrades a BoE status.

Play against Hambow in PvP and you’ll see that hammer is “fine.”

Although for the record, I would support multiple skill choices for weapons still. I see absolutely no reason why warrior’s hammer or mesmer’s staff in PvE should be so non-optimal. They work but…why should we settle for bottom of the barrel just to use a specific weapon?

HHR LostProphet.4801:

hannah mee.7925:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I am up to date with the conversation. We are discussing your thoughts internally and continuing to work on the story steps. Once I have some more new I will update the thread.

Meanwhile I just want to communicate with certainty that NPE was not implemented in order to increase monetization from the BLT. It was designed for brand new players to the game. And it is for that reason that we are working with you to understand how to better refine the system.

Chris

Chris
I know you’ve probably read this already or are already aware about it, but please think about this.
Why has each new character to overcome the leveling process, when you only want to educate new players?
New players might need help with the game mechanics once, but not every time they create a new alt.

I think every character made once a character hits level 80 should get a free level 20 scroll, and every level 20 scroll should instead turn into a random mini.

In the case of people who have hit 1/2 years of age, allow them to trade their scroll for a miniature box of some sort. For people that already used their scrolls, well – at least they got use out of them. Cut losses and let it ride.

P.S. The NPC that will trade scrolls for minis will look up character age, so someone couldn’t keep trading in scrolls by making new characters.

Your idea deals with the problem that many players don’t enjoy leveling. It gives them the opportunity to simply “skip” this part. I think that this is the wrong approach. People should be able to enjoy leveling. So first we have to determine why players don’t like leveling. The most obvious answer would be that it’s tedious and not rewarding.
Players try to make gold to get the things they want. Doing the personal story, or completing maps isn’t very rewarding. So I think that the reward porcess should be altered instead of giving players the opportunity to skip all the boring or unsatisfying stuff.

You forgot to mention that some veteran players have several 80s and want to skip to 80 because they are sitting on a plethora of cash, want to get their exotic/ascended equipment and want to do the open world as a level 80. There is virtually no amount of rewards that I would expect from leveling while maintaining reward balance to level 80 that would make me enjoy the leveling process, and I imagine many altaholics feel the same way. Leveling up, at first, was fun – but by Round 7 I just wanted to have a free 80 tome.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I am up to date with the conversation. We are discussing your thoughts internally and continuing to work on the story steps. Once I have some more new I will update the thread.

Meanwhile I just want to communicate with certainty that NPE was not implemented in order to increase monetization from the BLT. It was designed for brand new players to the game. And it is for that reason that we are working with you to understand how to better refine the system.

Chris

Chris
I know you’ve probably read this already or are already aware about it, but please think about this.
Why has each new character to overcome the leveling process, when you only want to educate new players?
New players might need help with the game mechanics once, but not every time they create a new alt.

I think every character made once a character hits level 80 should get a free level 20 scroll, and every level 20 scroll should instead turn into a random mini.

In the case of people who have hit 1/2 years of age, allow them to trade their scroll for a miniature box of some sort. For people that already used their scrolls, well – at least they got use out of them. Cut losses and let it ride.

P.S. The NPC that will trade scrolls for minis will look up character age, so someone couldn’t keep trading in scrolls by making new characters.

Rejoice! Elites now unlock at level 31, and it seems 1-15 is still inhumanely fast. We’re getting closer to the alt-friendly mark!

Rauderi.8706:

hannah mee.7925:

Rauderi.8706:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

In no way is the word “focuses” proper English.

Sure it is!
As a verb tense.

Are you implying it’s just a conjugation?

I’m mostly countering the “In no way” portion. =P

Though, “proper” rules aside, by syntax rules, “focuses” could be used as a plural noun.
blahblahblah, modern era, evolving language, etc.
Because ginormous didn’t used to be a word. :\

Quite. If a word becomes popular enough, it becomes an actual word.

Rauderi.8706:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Reisinger.4203:

Are you telling me Legos, deers, and sheeps aren’t actual words too? :O

Technically it should always be written as LEGO bricks as LEGO is the brand name.

S’okay, we do this rather frequently. For example:
You get a “Band-Aid” for your booboo instead of a “bandage.”
And you Xerox something instead of “make a copy or facsimile.”

So I’ll say Legos if I darn well want to~

Several brands have left such a deep mark in the field that the brand is informally interchangeable with the product. Sort of goes to show how language can evolve, though, just by simple association.

Rauderi.8706:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

In no way is the word “focuses” proper English.

Sure it is!
As a verb tense.

Are you implying it’s just a conjugation?

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

In no way is the word “focuses” proper English.

Focuses is an acceptable pluralization.

I would enjoy minions getting a nice rework. There are plenty of fun builds to use besides MM but I find it naive to not try and make minions better.

tigirius.9014:

Fascinating that I didn’t see it anywhere even tho you say you posted it to the official forums

He posted it here. I remember participating in the survey.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The other issue is that the sample population is not representative of the game’s population

No sample is a true representation, social statistics are flawed like that. 3,638 respondants out of the hundreds of thousands that likely still play this game? Reaching out to such a small population, never mind an excluding demographic, warrants dismissal of the results.

However the responses do indicate, at least to me, that ANet has some loyal fans that they shouldn’t turn their back on for metrics.

Honestly the new system isn’t too bad for new player retention.

A simple solution for veterans, though…make Tomes of Knowledge more accessible outside of PvP and make level 20 scrolls usable at any level, why only 1-20? Why not 40-60?

Either leveling process was a chore for veterans, these changes aren’t actually any worse and people who think they are should really seek diagnosis for their problems.

Robert.4197:

hannah mee.7925:

Robert.4197:

I never had a problem with toon or rig but I have to wonder, how did the word “sick” go from something that is negative to something that is awesome? For example, if a person really likes this game, they might say "Guild Wars 2 is sick (awesome).

That…that…that…

That’s a really good question. I think I’ll do some research about that some afternoon when I’m lonely and bored.

Well I just woke up and did a search on Google and this is the first thing that popped up http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/75017/origin-of-current-slang-usage-of-the-word-sick-to-mean-great

Heh, first thing I noticed is FumbleFingers marked the question as a duplicate – I wonder if he answered it before. I absolutely enjoy his posts on StackExchange.

For what it’s worth, Hugo is brilliant too and his answers are some of the most qualitative you’ll find.

Robert.4197:

I never had a problem with toon or rig but I have to wonder, how did the word “sick” go from something that is negative to something that is awesome? For example, if a person really likes this game, they might say "Guild Wars 2 is sick (awesome).

That…that…that…

That’s a really good question. I think I’ll do some research about that some afternoon when I’m lonely and bored.

Vermillion Hawk.9037:

It’s one of the most annoying words among the gamer subculture for me.

It’s like “rig”. It’s a computer, not an 18-wheeler.

I slightly agree about the toon thing, although language adapts over time. Cartoons are used to describe almost any form of any entertainment media now, instead of just the traditional animated cartoons. I think my bigger pet peeve though is that as a language becomes more decisive in a culture, the changing of definitions aren’t supported to suit the evolution of the language.

Just my pet peeve talking, but I disagree with the rig analogy – a computer can be legitimately referred to as a rig.

(n) apparatus for some purpose; equipment; outfit; gear

Brother Grimm.5176:

Show me ONE existing player that has/had any intention of making a new character that now thinks ALL these changes are for the better….just one.

Well, I’m one? Although all is an encasing word that is inaccurate. I find the general principle of the update to have a solid foundation, because it’s definitely made my leveling experience faster. There are some things, such as skill acquisition and the introduction of utility skills, that should be reverted – but expecting everything to have a perfect reception without community feedback is an expectation for the insane.

adormtil.1605:

^That is lack of precursors that will stop them.

Lol’d hard. I normally try to refrain from posts that have no constructive value or humor, but this comment was A+, I just had to say it.

Ashen.2907:

hannah mee.7925:

Your son should give it a shot. 1-15 under the new system is extremely easy and the fast pace of 1-15 actually makes leveling to 40 faster than it used to be to level to 30 (my character is 2 days old, 11 hours and level 42 with a combination of map completion and EotM ktrain).

I’m more annoyed with the sheer number of lazy posts dismissing the fact that it’s faster now just because the patch notes and community representation of the new system was terrible.

Kind of my take as well.

If it took X hours to get to an unlock before and still takes approximately X hours now, what does the level matter ?

Bugs and a few issues worth tweaking are another thing entirely of course, but Anet has already commented on those.

Simple answer: it doesn’t.

The complaining is just a hat trick by those who are misinformed, haven’t tried the new leveling system or should benefit most from a slower introduction of mechanics. Leveling alts is much faster now – and extremely cheaper…level 42 with two rares that I didn’t have to buy or spend karma on? Two free dyes so far? Same speed as before?

Yeah…the only part of the patch that isn’t necessarily good (although easily circumvented with little to no effort) is locking skills, especially underwater skills or offhands, behind levels. What’s the point? You still have to read the tool tip to learn what it is.

Your son should give it a shot. 1-15 under the new system is extremely easy and the fast pace of 1-15 actually makes leveling to 40 faster than it used to be to level to 30 (my character is 2 days old, 11 hours and level 42 with a combination of map completion and EotM ktrain).

I’m more annoyed with the sheer number of lazy posts dismissing the fact that it’s faster now just because the patch notes and community representation of the new system was terrible.

I’m more concerned by the idea that Blood and Madness is returning. Does that mean it’ll be the same thing as last year? No progress to the story of Mad King Thorn or Bloody Prince Thorn? I generally like Guild Wars Halloween festivities, but if it’s just last year again I’m going to be greatly disappointed.

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

End of post. The rest of the text was unnecessary because that’s really all the reason there is. With mostly QoL updates and the amount of “new” content being driven out at a saddening low point, most veteran players will continue to just log in less and less. There will be a lot of people who just log in to do the Living Story or to do dailies at some point, and there’s no way ANet can make a financially feasible effort when most of their players don’t get on enough to want to spend money on the gem store.

Galespark.7835:

Also, if I recall correctly he has to travel to LA to take the portal because the “press b” shortcut is one of these level unlocks.

It’s not. The keybind works regardless if you unlocked it.

Hell, if you have a level 80 already, all of the buttons are already furnished for you and you don’t even need to hit a certain level requirement.

The absurdity of how easy it is to level alts with this update is awesome and it was certainly not as bad as everyone’s making it out to be. The timegating is a terrible argument when you can hit the requirement in a few hours.

I’d rather see something different altogether – upon hitting a certain criteria (level 80, 100% map completion, certain wvw rank – any or all of the above? I don’t know) I would like to see all newly made characters automatically equipped with a level 20 scroll.

Leveling alts is tedious, regardless of what system you use – there is absolutely no way around the fact that leveling alts just plain sucks.

This system is certainly more friendly for leveling, because it’s done so absurdly fast you’ll unlock everything much easier than you did before. There’s certainly no “timegating” if you can actually do it faster than the previous version, right? Oh, elites are locked at level 40? Excuse me, you must have missed the very important memo:

YOU CAN GET TO LEVEL 40 FASTER NOW.

But alt leveling is, and always has been, brutal punishment.

Shaaba.5672:

I leveled a character to about 13. I noticed that when I tried to interact with some of the skill points, I was unable to. I think the last time I tried one it was at level 9 maybe?

The pet bar was not available so I could not see his health bar or name him.

I was able to technically interact with all SPs, although quite a few got bugged with this update – and I hope they address the bugs. However, bugs are common for any patch. You very possibly experienced a bug, because I had no level requirements to do any of the SPs I came across.

Not seeing a pet’s healthbar was pretty meh, but not being able to name him? K still works, and AFAIK you could still use F4 to swap if your pet came back to you (not that it would die at such a low level anyway). It’s just another one of those things where they gated the introduction of content to actually reveal it in a fashion worth learning – but it still worked.

Straylight.7529:

It’s not the speed of the leveling process that irks people. It’s about what you do while you’re leveling. And no one can deny that the majority of features have been timegated by this newest feature pack in such a way that you feel like a child riding a toy-train.

How is it timegated though when getting 1-20 is faster than it used to get 1-10?

It’s just a slower introduction of concepts with a faster leveling process. It actually introduces all concepts to the player instead of just throwing them all on the UI.

Silvia.9130:

They managed to achieve what I thought it was impossible: make minis even more useless and meaningless.

I was so disappointed with minipets always hiding. I hope they work on a solution quickly.

…really isn’t too bad!

I’ve been re-leveling a ranger and I have to say, it’s not too bad. People who are having issues seem to having issues with the operator and nothing else (sorry to all of those who are offended).

Leveling 1-15 is ludicrously easy, they hand out the first 15 levels like hotcakes. Starting zones are made much easier to enforce applicability of your learned skills when you learn them and allow you to complete level appropriate content much earlier in the game without consideration for level appropriate gear. Granted his change happened earlier, but there are also no champions kittenblocking your progress and contesting areas.

It’s simply a way to introduce mechanics slower to the game yet also keep things fast paced. If anything, it’s now faster to get to 80 than it was before. They’ve reduced the speed by giving you a faster head start and increased the spread.

I wouldn’t say I’m a heavy advocate of this change…I feel it was a waste of resources from the very start – but now that it’s here, at least it’s not bad.

rapthorne.7345:

I wanted to get a different weapon (not a fan of axe on necro and can’t use off hands until 7) but I can’t interact with the TP

Press ‘B.’

Go to the karma equipment trader.

Buy equipment.

This is why this update has been kind of beneficial so far…if you really don’t know how to get around gearing your necro, you desperately need this slower introduction of mechanics.

I think you can see your own minis if you uncheck and check the minipet display box. That could just be a statistical error on my end though with the population falling shortly after the message showed up – word from a dev would be nice.

Edit: Okay, as long as it took me to type this message, the hidden minipet notice showed up again.

Regardless of if you could see your own minipet or not, having to constantly toggle it just to see your own minipet is bullkitten – almost as annoying as the minipet taking up a valuable inventory slot.

ANet, do something about this!

Well…this confirms it. I’ll make another alt until it’s a human female warrior or ranger that I want.

People don’t typically go buying it all in one day…

Those kind of expenses are best left spread out across several months. If you spent $20 on 1600 gems every month, on average that would be about 144g per month, or 1728g in one year.

With that said, they can buy a Precursor and quite a few materials quite easily to make their Legendary hunt a cakewalk.

No matter how you slice it, a Legendary hunt is a long term goal and should never be something you aim to complete in a day, or even a week.

Combine that with the in-game availability of gold…much easier. I think the gem->gold trade is kind of nice for people who have busy lives, however it shouldn’t be seen as anything more than a footnote or a convenience to the progress already made. It’s easily possible for players to accomplish the same goals without ever spending a dime in real money – granted I imagine those players don’t have the same disposable income unless they won the lottery.

30/50 in HoM isn’t terribly difficult, which will be all skin rewards + quite a few achievements. It’s the last 20 that might be a bit difficult.

I say 30/50 isn’t difficult because you’d honestly acquire most of it just by playing through the game.

If your sole intention is to get the cosmetics and AP, I would say don’t bother.

Zenith.7301:

I don’t come out and compete with Comcast cable with my dial up company and then tell my customers that they should be reasonable and understand that Comcast had some years to develop in its current model. Customers don’t care, they’re paying and if they’re going to fork over cash, it’ll be over something better than the standard.

Comcast has a standard? Color me intrigued.

Also that’s a semi-terrible example. I got Google fiber a year ago and it’s amazing compared to cable. It’s not everywhere yet, but you can’t say that a company can’t dip its toes in water just because of current monopolization. When fiber spreads to other cities, you can bet your kitten people will drop their cable for it – same price with 100x the speed and stability?

Vayne.8563:

I wanted to collect minis in Guild Wars 1, but by the time I started playing many of the rarer ones were way out of my reach. I tried for a polar bear. No shot. I would have loved an Island Guardian but I’d never have been able to afford one. Missing those few minis was as bad for me there as missing the gem shop ones here.

Those were hard to obtain even with being a veteran. There are likely only about 70-100 Island Guardians left in the game…nevermind being able to actually afford one. It’s like the EL Henchman tonics, they’re so rare – even having the absurd amounts of cash to afford one won’t mean you find a seller.

When people say they want to collect rare minis in GW1, I typically assume something like Vizu or MOX rather than some of the extremely exclusive minis awarded for contests.

robertul.3679:

Take it as a challenge! How can you improve yourself if you are always in your comfort zone?

That’s not how skill development works.

Simplest solution is to rehaul the entire PvP matchmaking. Randomized matches are bullkitten enough, the choice to choose a team of random selection? Yeah, that’s just stupid.

Really though PvP sucks in this game, so why bother? Go play something else, like Smite.

I wonder if this has ever been brought up before in the last 2 years. Now that you say it, though, it does bother me a bit. It seems most of the longbows in this game should be renamed to be a recurve bow. Although from my understanding, longbows also do have a curve when strung…

If you look at where most of the bows are actually strung, they seem to align somewhat well with the characterizations of recurve bows or longbows. There are some, such as Ghastly Longbow that could be debated I suppose…but it has so much fantasy influence I’m not sure there is a correct name.

Zenith.7301:

Do you live on some basement? 15 bucks a month is chump change. 2 visits to McDonald’s by yourself will cost you more, and that’s money you crap down in a couple of hours as opposed to a sub game whose content you enjoy for thousands of hours.

Some people don’t make 2 visits to McDonald’s. Most people I know probably visit McDonald’s only when they’re late for work – in which case, paying for the convenience of fast food on the go improves the value of McDonald’s beyond just money you “crap down in a couple of hours.”

I don’t put much stock in your logic because it’s based solely on a financial premise that you feel is rewarding. Not everyone will feel that the rewards for a subscription based game and the rewards for other activities are the same, and thus the intrinsic value may or may not increase the value of the expense. While I believe nobody should judge without ever tasting both waters – people are individuals and have the capacity to decide to spend their disposable income on what makes them happier.

If I can get a speedo for my warrior, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Kartel.2561:

I do think B2P is the best model, followed by F2P, and lastly P2P, though for me that’s just not even on the table.

I always like p2p models because of the sheer amount of content they roll out, however it’s extremely situational and I really have to spend some time thinking about whether it feels cost effective for me. PS+, for example, is worth it to me. I get a plethora of free games to play (most of which are extremely good AAA titles) for only $6/month ($18 every 3 month plan…$50 per year is cheaper but I’m too lazy to try working that into my expenses).

However no matter how good the model is, I’ve never really subscribed due to my own appreciation. I’ve never understood the hate against it though, saying it’s a waste of money. In my value system it’s a waste of money – but that’s just it, it’s a waste of money for me. It’s a value I’ve set on it, not an indictment of subscription models.

IndigoSundown.5419:

There are some players in every game demographic who make such comments. It’s my understanding that the console market is generally worse than MMO’s.

I haven’t seen the console market that bad, really. Although in the console market, due to the relaxed game modes and lack of punishment, you have more people who QQ and generally avoid direct confrontation when they lose a fight. Whereas in MMOs you typically get jabbed with a condition of some sort – such as Dishonorable.

Consoles only get bad after a few years of dissolving. Granted this could be said about many games – the ones who play in the first year are generally a lot better than the people who are playing 3-4 years later. It’s why I try to maintain a regular update to my game collection, the worst communities I’ve found are communities that have been diluted for more than 2 years.

Cries Of Sorrow.5864:

Second mistake you made: reading map chat

I totally missed this. Ace reply. That’s all that needs to be said. /closethread

GW2 is still one of the nicer communities out there. Try going to any other online game, the hate is even more rampant. Ignore people who are kittens or insert their own definitions into the game, they aren’t worth the effort and are likely not very good people irl.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I find heavy armor to be much more difficult to work with than the other armor classes. I HATE seeing my character’s hindquarters, so that automatically rules out 90% of the leg armor selection. I hate large shoulder armor, so that rules out a significant chunk of the game’s shoulders. Basically, I tend to stick with armors that are intricate/ornate, have a sleek design to them, and pack, at a bare minimum, a “butt cape,” if not other flowing parts as well. That’s a really small selection, and finding a right mix-and-match combination to meet it is almost an exercise in futility.

I always liked human and charr t3 for heavy.