Guild Wars 2

Update: aparently Laranthir the kitten Useless has to be alive for this part to trigger.

So go to the skull and rez him, then go back. Then it will work.

Ok, so I lucked my way through falling through cracks to find the right spot, then somehow managed to kill the right version of Nekanwhatever, with no support except Laranthir. Great.

Now I’m on to the next step and standing literally on Arda’s sword and it’s untargetable, unusable and there’s a green circle on my map indicating I should be here, but nothing else.

So…

Yeah. I’ll post more later. I’m sure I’ll figure something out, which may be the point, but if it is: START THE GAME THIS WAY.

If I have to figure kitten out, let me know from the beginning. Everything is handed to me on a platter until it’s not. 90 percent of this game is following kitten on the minimap and the rest is total kitten guesswork.

That’s incredibly frustrating. Make up your minds. Hand hold or don’t.

Oh, wait. Laranthir of the wild apparently hangs out near where I died at least. Ok. So I’ve got backup. Cool.

Oh, so all the NPCs just stand around by the shiny thing. I get it now. I mean, I don’t get it, but at least I understand what they do. Just not why they’re doing it.

And I go down to do the next step ‘explore the hidden sublevel’ and all of a sudden all the NPCs disappear and my pet aggroes everything in site on the way down after I jump.

I’m really beginning to feel like I’m in a paid beta here.

I didn’t. I died. And the NPCs apparently won without me. Then there was a cut scene. And I was alive again. And now I have to “Confirm the Risen Prince Nekandezzar’s death.”

I’m not even necessary in my own personal story.

Let me rephrase: not “take” you out of the instance. The right word is “force” you out. FYI.

For god’s sake, if you build an area where a fall, or a guess about where to go next can take you out of the instance, and therefore back to the beginning of that part of ths story, DON’T. Just don’t allow it.

I’ve had to start over twice now from the beginning from a) going off “script” to get a poi and b) falling down a crack in the floor that took me out of the instance.

I don’t mind repeating if I just fail… no wait, actually I DO MIND having to start over from the beginning since the personal story doesn’t save progress except at the end of each step, but I hate, HATE, HATE having to start over because I didn’t follow the script and the script is unclear.

Traveling from place to place is virtually impossible because of this. Thus, exploration is virtually impossible and this is a game about exploration.

Not fun.

/end topic

A couple things.

1) There is no offensive and no map marker, so after running the wrong way (to get a POI I hadn’t claimed yet) I realized I need to go back out the camp gate to get the story started. A little clarity would be nice.

2) After the cutscene of the undead flooding into the camp, I woke up (not sure what the technical term for being back in the game after a cutscene is) in a GIANT CLOUD of green, apparently poisonous gas and was completely disoriented, then dead with basically no chance of surviving.

Now that I know what to expect, I’m going to try again, but I mean, cutscene, confusion, death in a matter of seconds.

Not good.

You’re right. I wasn’t very constructive, so I’ll try to modify my attitude and turn this in a helpful direction.

I finally completed this part of the story this morning, and I believe it is bugged for a couple of reasons:

1) These are all risen mobs. Undead. The enemy, yet they are yellow and/or white tagged. Like a Doe or a Rat out in the “real” world. They don’t aggro. I have to be the bad guy and attack them, even though they’re just minding their own business, chilling on the dock.

2) The problem I had was that I play a ranger. A ranged class. So I send in the bear and start shooting things. After about 5 minutes of painfully slowly wearing down the nearest group of mobs, I moved my camera around and saw gigantic herd of NPCs all just standing around behind me. That’s the key word: “behind” me.

I thought to myself, “Self, if these guys are behind you, what would happen if you just walked up into this group of undead.”

And as soon as I got close enough, the herd of NPCs all were like, “Oh kitten! Undead! Kill them!”

So, anybody on this step, do yourself a favor. Walk on up to the undead. Say hi.

Same. He just takes the title of “Marshal” for himself, and suddenly I’m a Commander who doesn’t command anything?

It was a bit… sudden, that’s all.

last comment:

everything is yellow or white until I attack. and I have no idea what I should attack.

This iskitten POOR DESIGN.

I have nothing positive to add, in spite of my desire to do so.

“take back fort trinity docks.”

How? What does that mean?

Let me offer a perspective:

Gather flumbrigators that crespazulate portinculously.

I’ll wait while you figure out how to do that…

Oh, and to be more precise:

What am I supposed to do?

Why should I do it?

What’s with the cut scenes that proclaim how glorious the fights are when the aren’t?

etc.

I mean, if I have to deliniate details, it seems to me that a fundamental step has been missed. Or am I wrong?

Ranger 1 hand sword and short bow. If I activate the escape move, I can be thrown off of ledges etc.

Oddly, the push back skill on long bow never throws an opponent completely out of combat.

Fix it.

Compared to other games and other companies, Mr. Vaughan (pardon any spelling errors) has put more into this forum than any other game I’ve ever seen.

Ever.

So… let’s thank him. Even if we criticize.

Please.

I do ok in Orr and in dungeons but I’m still vaguely dissatisfied with the class, particularly the way the skills are implemented. Traiting helps some but… yeah, it’s pretty lackluster. Powerful, yes. Easy, yes. But not challenging. I think I may try something else. Engineer looks like fun. Maybe mesmer.

+1

Mobs respawning while I’m in an area I just cleared has ALWAYS bugged me in games. Occasionally, if there’s a good game world reason (like they’re ants that keep burrowing up out of the nest at my feet or something) I can handle it.

But… polar bears and griffons just suddenly being there again? Grawl automagically respawning in a cave I just liberated from their filthy paws?

I HATE that.

I wonder what kind of even scripting system the developers have…

I’d love a peek under the hood. Maybe they could expose some of it to us and let us design events for the world. Maybe a monthly contest or something.

Anyway, much better intelligence (artificial or otherwise) would make these events actually dynamic. As it stands, they’re pretty flat.

Ha, we posted at the same time Jalad. Great minds and all that.

Or find a way to increase the rewards gained by succeeding with fewer people somehow.

DE #1 version 1 – 50 people show up and it’s a “win”. Reward: 3c and chest that gives out nothing but shirts for town wear that say, “I zerged all day and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.”

DE #1 version 2 – 5 people show up and it’s a win. Reward: 20s and a couple of blue/green items.

Although, I would actually zerg all day just for that t-shirt, so maybe not exactly like that.

frOst.2198:

oh hey. . guess what. you arent required to use travel points.

I don’t believe they were intended to allow immediate travel anywhere. They are there to give you the choice to spend hard earned silver for convenience. And thats what they do.

There should always be a voice in the back of your head saying, “should i just run there?”

“Is it fun?”

Running for 10 minutes to get where I want to go is not always fun. It can be. In fact it usually is. But when it isn’t, it isn’t, and neither is paying through the nose to not have to do it.

I’m not playing this game to facilitate Anet’s economic policy (gold sink), I’m playing it to have fun. And the prohibitive cost of waypoint travel is prohibitive because it takes time, real human minutes spent, to get the silver to travel. Or it takes real human minutes to run.

That should be respected by the developers and I feel like the cost of waypoint travel doesn’t respect my time at all. If I WANT to run, I can. If I don’t, there shouldn’t be a penalty that costs me just as much time to farm to pay for.

Unfun.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Birdy.4816:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Birdy.4816:

Completing challenging heroics

LOL! WoW and challenging don’t belong in the same sentence.

And this game does in comparison? don’t give me such childish response. link me up your 100% heroic raiding completions with hard modes and challenges. oh right you never even got close.

People have completed this games dungeons and achievements already, effortlessly.

Fact still remains, grinding a legendary is crap compared to social, teamwork dungeon crawling, only a complete fanboy in denial would say otherwise.

I don’t have a WoW account any more since I don’t like playing games that are boring drivel.

The only thing “difficult” about WoW (one of the easiest games ever released) is enduring the horrendously boring gameplay (oh look at me, I can mash the number row, SOOOO HARD).

I’m just curious if you think GW2 is hard?

I mean, to me it feels like mashing the number keys plus the dodge key occasionally, at least DURING combat. Outside of combat, there isn’t even that challenge. Run down the hall until you get to the next pack of strategically placed monsters.

Then you get to combat again: Pull the group of mobs of a size predetermined by the developers to be acceptably challenging with no options for stealth, crowd control or changing the number you pull. Mash your buttons and dodge. Rinse repeat.

Hmmm. Can I go back? Probably not. But I doubt I’ll stay here much longer either.

There is so much potential in this game it’s hard to overstate it, but the actual execution is lacking something. Some magic. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s the magic of old school games.

I hate the idea of the trinity, particularly standing around waiting for a group when I’m on a dps character. But at least with the trinity, there is a role. A purpose. A goal. For your character in a group.

Here, everyone does a little of everything in a mediocre way, plus dps. Somebody earlier said that this is a bunch of dps classes with other stuff tacked on. I think that’s spot on.

The goal of getting rid of the trinity is noble and worthy. The trinity stands in the way of grouping. But there must be a better way. Everyone has to feel necessary to have a good time and frankly in this game, I never, ever feel necessary. Not to a group. Not to the world.

I don’t feel like I have any personal impact anywhere in the game, and for me, having a flashier sword (kitten) to wave around doesn’t do it. PvP isn’t really my thing because it seems to be about gear most of the time, not skill. I had hopes for this game in that regard, but my experience in spvp and wvwvw so far has been a massive disappointment. There isn’t much of a way for one person to contribute in either. Follow the herd, smash into the opposing herd, hope for the best. Very unsatisfying.

I don’t know. I just miss certain aspects of gaming. Like the “harmony” and “feign death” skills in EQ for example. You could pull one mob at a time, and you HAD TO sometimes. You could charm mobs, but if you lost control of one powerful enough to be useful it would squish you quick fast and in a hurry.

There was something… I just don’t know. Skillful? Engaging? I can’t quite put my finger on it other than to say that no matter which class you played, you felt necessary, useful, unique in a group or raid.

Here, it feels a lot like everyone’s the same class just with a different skin.

Sigh. I want a better game to come out, but I’m afraid it’s just not possible to build the one that I want.

I don’t so much mind having few options per weapon (although having more available if they were truly useful would be nice), but I’d really like to have more weapons to choose from because frankly the skills on half the weapons, at least for a ranger, aren’t very friendly or even useful.

long/short bow plus axe/horn. Maybe 2hs for pvp, but with the dodgy targeting the leap into action skill can cause more trouble than it’s worth. The bouncing axe trick is neat, when you want it. Irritating half the time because it aggros more than you want and you can’t stop it from doing it.

1hs is horrid. The autoattack animation makes you feel like you’re trapped inside your own body screaming to get out and completely destroys the ability to move while it’s cycling through. The retreat attack shoves you backward into an area you can’t see, so who knows what might be waiting there for you. The spin around and poison the foe skill simply fails to work 80% of the time unless you, the mob and the terrain are perfectly positioned to begin with.

Dagger/torch are “meh” at best.

The swap cooldown is just too long as are the duration of most skills.

Traps are a joke unless you spec for them since there’s no real way to pull in this game, at least not effectively. You either spec to make them targetable, or run in to drop them at the feet of the mob. Bad. And even then they do so little damage and the debuffs last for such a short time it feels like a completely wasted play style.

So… yeah. I’d like to see more diversity in the weapons and skills.

Well, considering that I’ve only found about… mmmmm… zero places in this game outside the cities where you can “take a break”, meaning just stop running/killing for a few minutes, they’d have to put in special locations for these activities.

But yes, I think there needs to be a LOT more diversity of activity (and MOB TYPES!!!!) in the game, and I suspect it will come with time.

ALMOST agree.

I’d like to be able to toggle the lvl 80 bar. e.g. I still get all the experience, but it goes into a pool for later use to buy skill points.

But I also understand why it is the way it is. It’s so you get to level 80 at about the same time you’ve done 1/3 to 1/2 of the map. Perfect to leave you “unexplored territory” for an alt or two to go play in. And that makes perfect sense.

I personally would love to see all this and more. And in case any developers/designers are reading this, this game gave me hands down the most satisfying experience I’ve ever had in any game world due to the weather.

I was running around in one of the mid/high level zones near the ocean (can’t remember which at the moment) and just as I happened to climb to the top of the highest peak in the area, a thunderstorm started.

I was looking for a “personal vista”, meaning not one that you get for map completion, just an awesome viewpoint to see the game world. Man did I get it. The raid drops fallling, clouds rolling around, background noises muted as the rain hissed… while in the distance the mountains and the ocean…

It gave me chills, and that’s saying an aweful lot for a fake world.

But most of the rest of this game is just static and predictable. Need to get to an ore node? Hey! Look! An aggro mob! Surprise… not. Mobs stacked at exactly the right “you can probably kill them one at a time to make it down this canyon without aggroing the next one” range usually. Fifty wolves, bears, eagle griffons, etc. all in one place, standing around, basically just being “living” speedbumps.

There’s sooooo much potential for greatness in this game and the world itself is beautiful.

OP, the fact that your suggestions haven’t been implemented points (imo) to one thing: most people would kitten about the inconvenience of it all.

“It’s dark, I can’t see.”
“It’s raining, why am I moving slower?”
“Where are all the deer? I need to farm them and they aren’t out at night.”

etc.

Shameful, but given the things they did SO right with the visual side of this world, that’s the only thing I can think of that would keep them from going even further.

Ordika.9513:

Derpinator.2894:

unless I stop dps and dodge in to drop it, then dodge back out

I would have to say this is what ANet intents. They don’t want you to just stand there and DPS through your rotation, cause then it just another clone that gets lost in the noise.

Yeah, I get it. And even appreciate it a lot. My point isn’t that this part is necessarily “broken” as designed, it’s that there’s so little information available within the game, that it feels tedious and repetetive because even though “run in, drop your regen, run out” isn’t “just stand there and do your rotation” it’s still a part of the rotation, it just adds more keystrokes.

Now, if there were clearer in-game signals as to synergies amongst characters, places to go practice your strategies where failure doesn’t cost a sizeable percentage of your gold stash etc. I wouldn’t be complaining as much. And later, once these strategies have been (l)earned the hard way by the player base, I’m sure these fights will feel more engaging… for a while. Until they become just a dance of rotations, just like every other MMO.

The problem here is that everything appears random and chaotic right now. But it isn’t. At all. It’s all a simple script with a thin veil of chaos on top.

So is combat more active in this game than a simple rotation?

Yes. But only because the rotations have some random thrown in on top of mobs with ridiculous hitpoints and damage. The sensation of “active” is an illusion, at least in the fights that I’ve seen.

So, if at present (or in the future) winning is essentially a foregone conclusion based solely on time spent, at least make the rewards for the time spent feel better.

Now, if I’m wrong, and there is something dynamic about the world, events, fights that I haven’t experienced yet, I can’t wait for it. Because I’m sick to death of rotation fights, gathering x of y quests, killing x of y mobs etc. when they have no impact on the game world. In WoW and others, I could handle it because at LEAST my character got stronger and I felt diffferent, more powerful in the world. I may not have changed the ecosystem permanently, but I couldkittensure do it temporarily.

Here… I just don’t feel connected at all to the world. Which is fine as long as I can be master of my portion of it, wherever I happen to be. But I don’t feel that either.

I guess that’s my biggest beef. I don’t feel like I’m any part of the game world. I just happen to be ON it.

Hmmm. Maybe I should have a nap.

AstroCat.7628:

Sorry the game didn’t work out for you, I personally really like it a lot. But, since you don’t like it why waste your time on these forums? Move on and find a game you do like.

“If you don’t like it, leave!”

Sure, you were kinder than that. Maybe even being honestly helpful in suggesting that they end their pain and move on, but let me answer your question directly.

People who are dissatisfied complain because they really like some, a lot, or even most of a game and don’t WANT to leave the parts they DO like. They want to interact, suggest, whine etc. in hopes that someone will hear what they don’t like and either offer alternatives within existing mechanics, or be heard by someone in power who will change the less-than-satisfactory part(s).

I personally LOVE most of this game. But the parts that aren’t good aren’t going to change if people just jump ship and run away.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Derpinator.2894:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Agemnon.4608:

Wow, 10 EXP for killing a level 3 mob while farming heart EXP (worth it for the achievement though I guess). 10 EXP may as well be nothing.

You don’t get much XP for killing stuff at any level.

I was getting 1k xp per mob last night in unexplored parts of frostgorge. 299 for the mob and 700+ explorable. Your statement is simply wrong.

You don’t get much XP for just standing around killing the same mobs over and over. You certainly don’t get a lot of XP for killing mobs in areas where you are down-scaled, nor should you, because they’re flipping easy. 300 XP at level 80 is a pittance. The biggest chunk of your XP came from the “explorable” part.

There are a lot of rewards in GW for simply exploring places. If you let folks run through those areas without having to be careful at all, you devalue all of the content. The map completion, the harvestables, the hidden spot achievements, the chests, all of it. Rewards should have some challenge involved, even if it is walking through a drake infested swamp. You don’t want to be bothered after you explored an area? Take a waypoint.

You should not feel powerful just because you made it to 80. You could have sat in town and crafted your way to 80. I feel powerful in lowbie zones because I can stomp everything that crosses my path, not because I can go AFK in the middle of a dangerous spot. You need to go AFK? Stash your character some place safe. There are plenty of places to hop up on terrain and be out of the way. I have never had a problem, even in zones where I’m not down-leveled, finding a place to hang out for a while without getting killed.

There’s a difference between being heroic and being god-like. Heroic is wading into a fight that would have given you pause a few levels ago and winning because of your skill. My ranger doesn’t kite anything any more and the only thing she’s afraid to fight alone are champions or veterans with minion close to her real level. God-like is running around too self absorbed to be bothered with the problems of mere mortals. If you want to feel god-like, go play a single player game where the mere mortals are all NPCs.

No, you don’t get good xp for “farming” in one spot, and that wasn’t my point.

My point was that in frostgorge, I kill a level 80 mob. It takes roughly 20-30 seconds (if there’s just one) and for that time I get a MINIMUM of 299xp.

Call it 30 seconds and 300 xp to make the math easy. 10xp per second of fight.

I get delevled. Fight takes 10 seconds now in a noobie zone. Hell, let’s make it 5 seconds. Reward 10 xp.

xp per second: 2

1/5 of the reward per second spent. It’s not that the lvl 80 mob is a “harder” fight. It’s just longer. None of the one on one fights in this game are hard. They just keep getting longer and longer and you keep getting more and more xp for them.

what makes higher level zones more dangerous? Higher spawn rates, higher damage per second from the mobs relative to your health pool and longer fights. You have a much higher chance of getting an add that (proportionally to the lower levels) hits harder because of spawn rates and mob grouping behavior.

That’s it.

So it’s not that I want to feel “like a god” and pwn things and run around willy nilly slaughtering. I just want either my power to truly grow or for the freaking mobs to at least HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR THEIR ELDERS!!!!

Just… leave me alone Mr. Level Eight Grawl Shaman. I just want to chop down that tree over there. If I attack you, the gods should strike me with weakness for having no compassion on the lesser beings and you should have a chance to thrash me silly for my arrogance.

But if I just want to walk thataway for a while and see the lovely mountains, give me a break, m’kay?

To misquote the crazy guy who ran for mayor of New York, “The fights are tookittenlong!”

Granted, I’ve only managed to find groups for AC/TA/MC so far. My main is 80, but dungeon entrance has been bugged and/or just couldn’t put together a group for the rest so far, so this is limited experience, but I think the main reason that the dungeons feel unrewarding is because the mobs just last tookittenlong for the rewards you get.

“Out in the world” five people on a mob DESTROY it unless it’s a champ. In the dungeons, 80% feel like champs and you still get total crap drops from them.

Then the boss fights. A bazillion hitpoints, people scrambling around, dodging out of the way of totally random and/or AoE attacks. Nobody actually able to help anyone else until they’re “down” because… well, who has a direct heal for anyone else? I can use my longkitten cooldown regen and drop it, but since I’m ranged, half the group won’t be in range, unless I stop dps and dodge in to drop it, then dodge back out, but then I don’t get any benefit and I can stop combat for 20 seconds or so to “complete heal” a friend out of death, but it’s channeled, so if he dropped in the wrong place…

etc, etc, etc.

Later, after people truly know their classes and can synergize, I’m sure I’ll feel differently. But right now… “The fights are just tookittenlong.”

My $.02 is actually a pair of questions.

For what in-world reason do they cost anything at all? The ones from the mists to LA are free. From LA to cities and back are free. I just don’t get it. Now, I get the ‘gold sink’ aspect, but that’s real life intruding on the game.

And regardless of if there’s some in-world cost, how could it have anything to do with MY level, since all my level does is allow me to see new lands (not necessarily more distant from, let’s say, LA which has a couple of mid/high level zones directly attached)?

I like that there are no flying mounts. I like the concept of the waypoints. But I DETEST the way the cost is handled. It just feels like the hand of a developer reaching into the game world and fondling me inappropriately while I run around innocently playing.

muthax.4720:

What else? Flying mounts? Addons? I think you might be playing the wrong game….

Why so angry?

Especially for a new player in a new game, things like “Oh, the camera perpective on Asura/Charr gives me a headache and after playing 80 levels worth I’d like to see if I can change this one to one that I can stick with longer term” make perfect sense.

Duelling makes perfect sense, ESPECIALLY in a “role playing” game.

Flying mounts (in my opinion) do make a world much smaller and I understand and agree with them being missing from this game, but even if the OP had asked about them, why be scornful and abusive of the questions?

Person to person trading could be a nice addition some day but like anything having to do with loot, needs to be implemented carefully.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no official word on any of these things except a vague reference to dueling being added if enough people request it.

[edit] And a dungeon finder might fall into the category of “must have eventually”. I tried with each new in game mail to find groups for the dungeons as they opened up, but because for whatever reason, they were put in zones that aren’t level appropriate, other than to get a group, I had no reason to be there, which made finding a group PAINFUL. As in “not fun”, which aNet has stated is their touchstone for what goes into the game.

So one hopes…

Instaport to dungeons? I’ll pass. The waypoints are close enough for me. I hate to pay for them, especially now that I’m 80, but I HATED the way WoW implemented it. It totally shouted, “This is a grind! This is a grind! This is a grind!”. It was like, “well, you have to do dungeons to progress, but getting to them completely sucks, so… here’s a ‘gift’”.

Ugh. Hated it.

Hope that helps, OP.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Agemnon.4608:

Wow, 10 EXP for killing a level 3 mob while farming heart EXP (worth it for the achievement though I guess). 10 EXP may as well be nothing.

You don’t get much XP for killing stuff at any level. You kill mobs because they are in your way, drop crafting materials, part of an event, or you need them to finish your dailies. You also get bonus XP for killing different types of mobs instead of killing the same ones over and over. There are quite a few incentives to keep moving instead of staying in one place and grinding.

I was getting 1k xp per mob last night in unexplored parts of frostgorge. 299 for the mob and 700+ explorable. Your statement is simply wrong.

And at 80, needing 200K xp for a skill point makes the lower level xp INSULTING for the amount of time it takes to kill a mob. Even being 80 and getting deleveled to (let’s just say 73 like I was this morning) and having to a) spend 15-20 seconds to kill each mob, in a pack of four or five, when that same four or five can definitely kill you if you aren’t careful, in order to grab a piece of metal or a vista or whatever, is a disincentive as written.

I love the deleveling. Don’t get me wrong. I love that I get SOMETHING for my time in lowbie zones and that I can’t just insta-nuke everything in my way.

But don’t for a moment pretend that the rewards are worth the psychological impact of never getting truly powerful in the game. I agree with a poster above. I shouldn’t be able to just randomly wipe the entire zone. But at 80, I should be powerful enough to literally go afk in the middle of an event without fear if I choose not to participate. Not that I would generally, but I want to feel like I can.

So how about we add a fun option instead of enforcing one that’s un-fun to some people? “Is it fun?”

Most of the time, yes. But I’d rather have some kind of invisible/stealth mode when I just don’t want to be bothered. At least in areas I’ve already discovered. I can’t kill a mob without dropping my “disguise” but I can run through without being molested every five seconds.

THAT would be fun and imo not game breaking at all. Or at minimum, if I’m more than 10 levels above the mobs (again in an area I’ve already explored), let me have a permanent speed buff and stun proofing that drops as soon as I initiate an attack and can’t be reset until I’m out of combat.

At least I have the OPTION of “resting” for a moment in these zones where my participation is so unrewarding on many levels.

And I’m not sure how you’re doing it, but I don’t one shot mobs, even in noobie zones. Sure it’s only 4-5 seconds to kill one, and I can AoE due to my skills and kill a virtually unlimited number in that same time if I can gather them together in one place, while my AoE skills are up, but it’s still tedious because at my level, spending 4 times that much time for an equal level kill nets 100x the xp reward or more.

It’s a simple matter of time spent. I don’t get enough out of the enforced fighting to desire to do it when I just want to travel or grab a node of copper because I happen to see one while I’m traveling.

So again, there’s no real incentive to JUST be in a lowbie zone. I’m going there to accomplish something else and having to fight as often as I do, for as long as I do isn’t balanced correctly yet.

For what it’s worth, I finally gave up on the trebuchet and swam out to the ship.

Killed it with my spear gun.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’ve been using a +100% MF gear set (with food buff) but I can’t seem to kill things very fast. where do you guys farm? do you just run around and kill everything or do you stay near events?

I noticed that the anti-farm code kicks in really really fast in events. When the first wave of zombies spawn I kill 10-15 of them and they all drop something, I get 10-15 items. By the second wave if I kill another 10-15 I get 2-3 items max. This has happened at least a dozen times so i’m pretty certain it is the anti-farm code. The best strategy seems to be kill the first wave in a event and then go find another event, don’t stick around for that one.

I just roam and explore personally, but I also “keep up” with my MF gear. Buying a new set every few levels so my kill power stays pretty close to my level. It’s not “fast farming”, but I’m not trying to anyway. I just got tired of being broke all the time so experimented with the MF gear set.

No doubt in my mind. Selling everything but cloth/leather salvageables (because I will craft eventually) for now is keeping me ahead of the gold making curve by a comfortable margin, even in gear that is sacrificing something like 1/3 of my potential kill power (since one of the item slots is taken up with MF instead of something more lethal like crit% or what have you).

I also am probably hurting my overall mf% a bit because I use upgrade slots on these pieces to make up some of the power difference. So I haven’t added much additional MF upgrades. I think I have a 2% doubloon in my helm, but otherwise, all of my upgrades are kill power/survivability upgrades.

It’s a good balance for me at the moment. YMMV.

Freakiie.8940:

merlinr.6581:

There’s an item I bought on Trading Post called Sigil of Luck that you can apply to your weapon. It provides +4% to magic find and stacks up to 25 times. See if that helps.

That’s 0.4% actually, look carefully for the dot in front of the 4.

Edge.4180:

While it existed in the original GW, I don’t think there’s been any mention of an anti-farming code here in GW2.

You sure about this? Since I hear it mentioned in like every second topic about farming.

To the OP, I got full explorer gear, Opal jewelry and 5 pirate runes and I notice that almost every mob does drop something, but I rarely get any rare gear. I do get quite a few greens though. At lv80 most gear drops go for 1-2s, so filling your bags with them is still 50s-1g so not that bad. Unfortunately I didn’t do that much killing in Orr before I got my full exotic set, so I can’t really make an accurate judgment but I’d say the MF has increased my drops.

^this.

I get drops much more often now in general (maybe…80% of all mobs drop SOMETHING as opposed to 30% before I added my MF kit) and as a result I’m getting a higher number of blue/green drops.

I don’t know if (and don’t believe that) magic find improves the quality of drops as I’ve still never gotten a yellow item except out of a chest after a boss kill/dungeon, but because more mobs drop something, I’m getting more vendorable loot and my coffers are filling quickly. Especially now that I’ve stopped crafting completely.

Right now, it just seems to be a total waste of gold when for about the same amount as I get for doing ONE renown heart quest, I can upgrade to a whole new set of MF gear + new weapons every few levels.

I’m 78 on my main now, so won’t be bothering to upgrade until 80, but if I ever play any alts, they will be in FULL MF gear the moment they’re high enough to get a set and all the way through max level. If I’d known how big a difference it would have made, I’d have saved up all my money on my main and used TP much sooner.

Well, I would have if there had BEEN a TP to use.

Swordfish.5241:

Vendor Fodder + AH = Gold = Useful Gear for your character though?

Definitely. My current full set of MF gear cost about 4 silver. The coconut bars (not kitten, lol. You know, the things that fall off of palm trees and taste delicious!) were something like 20c each.

When I started using them, I started getting considerably more blue/green drops (particularly off of the first mob I kill when I hit a waypoint. I’d say I’ve gotten half a dozen green items this way) and vendoring them. I raised probably 2 extra gold (estimate) between 65 and 75 this way, so definitely paying off.

And I can’t prove it, but I’m certain that there is anti-farming code in place. The drop off in crafting mats from respawns is insane. First group of bats (8 mobs, 4 blood). Respawns 1 in 8. Third set of respawns and forward 0-2 blood. Farming, I feel, is a complete waste of time if you stay in one small spot. Clearing an entire mine or something over and over might work, but just standing on a hillside farming for mats has never worked for me.

The NUMBER of drops I’m seeing seems to be fine in my full Explorer’s gear (probably something like 25% increased MF + the cokitten bars making it right around 50%) but I find very little useful for my own character. Vendor fodder + AH.

They’re for completely different modes of play. Longbow is for sniping with some kind of a tank (pet or other player). The damage per shot increases as you get further from the mob out to the maximum range where it’s pretty significant. Example on my 77 ranger, downleveled to 73 this morning as an experiment I sicked my pet on a few 71 ram type mobs.

At close range with the long bow, average damage was about 200ish per round. At max range it was closer to 500 per shot. That’s quite a difference, but you have to stay at range (obviously) to see the real benefit.

Short bow seems to be just the opposite, although I don’t have any clear numbers since I only thought to test it this morning and ran out of time.

I’m fond of both although the “escape” feature of the shortbow is as annoying as the “escape” feature of 1hs. You leap backwards into… who knows what? I prefer the knockback on the longbow so far so at least I can (usually) put the mob where I want it to go instead of the other way around.

The bleed damage is nice and the rapid cycling “seems” to have a slightly better change of proccing/interupting, but overall I still prefer the longbow slightly at this point. More testing needs to be done.

Offhand/second slot is trickier. I love the ability to close rapidly and whomp the stuffing out of things with the great sword, but I find the closer move unreliable. I’ve thrown myself off of cliffs using it. Not funny.

1hs is just worthless imo. The autoattack animation is 3 parts, all of which are overbearing and poorly timed. It makes movement difficult to impossible. The the “escape” move jettisons you backward, again into who knows what (although the second phase to reenter is kind of cool) and the snake bite… what a complete waste of a slot. You leap around like some kind of cracked out ninja but almost never actually end up in a useful spot relative to the mob. It’s comically bad.

Torch… jurie’s still out. I love the fire proc, but can’t tell if it’s actually doing significantly more damage, and the utility of the run speed boost with the horn is very hard to give up.

All in all, I’d like them to tweak most of the offhand stuff a bit, but either bow seems to work pretty well.

Do what you like I guess is the best answer.

I just kept dying and ressurecting until I wore them down. It’s happened in a couple of different places that way. I can’t offer any strategy help since I never figured it out myself, but if you just want to get past that part: die valiantly and take out as many as you can.

They didn’t seem to respawn for me, so it’s doable, just… not very interesting.

800ish. Since I can’t do anything with them, I’m not really keeping track. I just like to open the window to see all the stuff I haven’t done yet!

It’s not hard, it’s tedious and poorly crafted.

I can’t remember the exact quest, but it was mentioned above. The undead are attacking the island outside Lion’s Arch. 40 or so spawn and rush into the courtyard. I have to kill them all, alone, because the NPC’s are just standing around sneering at them basically, or dieing instantly. So, I attack a group, die. “Try again.” Die again. Rinse repeat. “Win.”

And then I have to ENDURE the horrid cut scene dialogue “That was a rousing fight!” etc. etc.

It wasn’t anything but dull and costly.

So the next time I’m in a mob-zerg, I decided to test a theory. If I just wait long enough, what would happen?

Long story short, I only needed to actually engage 1 mob out of dozens because it spawned right on top of me. I just sat there and watched as the PAINFULLY SLOW npc v. npc combat concluded.

Between the “can’t win” scenarios, which definitely happen and the “you’re unnecessary to win” scenarios, which also happen, and the “Here’s a completely new game dynamic that you can’t practice: put on this suit of armor, or use this catapult to repel the invaders!” I keep scratching my head and wondering, what the point is?

And really, it’s that last one that bugs me the most. I spent X levels building my character, tuning my build and weapon choices and now in my personal story I have to use a completely unfamiliar setup in order to prevail?

That’s just silly.

So here’s my attempt to help other players:

Skip the personal story until it gets tuned and tweaked, or accept that in places you are unnecessary and in other places, friends may have to help.

And for me, so far, it’s been the first option. It may just be my class and my version of the personal story, but at present there seems to be absolutely no chance that I can fail, or change the outcome of this “story.” If I’m willing to die enough… I’ll “win” eventually, and since I have to “win” to progress, it will all work out in the end.

So for me… meh. I’m in no hurry to finish it.

In my experience the rewards are pathetic compared to what you’ll get just from regular game content; you can be around other players out there; you can actually progress in the game which in theory should make the personal story slightly more accessible later.

So, get out in the world and enjoy it.

I almost agree, but what about the buff you get that lasts “4 days” that says immune to damage?

I don’t think they intended for wvwvw to have a repair cost. I think it’s just broken.

And no, it shouldn’t have a cost associated. If you’re defending your world, the least that the kitten useless repair guy can do is offer his services for free.

I don’t have a thief but they keep destroying me in pvp, so if I don’t quit playing due to all the other bugs, I may make one.

Just did the story quest “Retribution” and fought an undead with 16 other green npcs on screen just standing there.

Most of the story line has been stupefyingly dull, but this is the first time I noticed why.

Downed state is fine, but two changes need, omg NEED to be made:

1) when they’re really dead, take them off my screen. Completely and immediately. No more corpses laying around. Let their team mates rez them, but if I can’t kill them more, why can I see them?

2) in wvw if I’m capable of getting loot, just give it to me. The sparkly bag on the ground gets totally lost in zerg situations (which is most of the time). Truly annoying.

It feels like the answer is “wait.”

There are serious problems with the risk/reward balance in this game at the moment and the developers have much more important issues to deal with than, “this isn’t fun or rewarding” at the moment.

Which is basically what you’re saying.