Guild Wars 2

I have been chuckling at all of the self-righteous people stating that its so easy and so obvious. I’m glad that this experience has been easy for you. But telling people who are struggling with new content that it is actually really easy and L2P might not actually be what you want to do if you want this game to continue far into the future. GW2 needs to appeal to a variety of different level of player in order to be successful.

And just to clarify: it isn’t normal gameplay for NPCs to tell you how to play the game. It might happen once in a great while, but if people aren’t used to something happening (also like extra buttons suddenly appearing or entirely new mechanics suddenly appearing), they might miss it. And since only a tiny amount of player come to the forums, what do you imagine that most players who can’t figure out a game do?

This is stupidity on Anet’s part, not the players.

I think the main problem is that TT is NOT a raid and newer players don’t understand that it needs so much coordination. There are many World Bosses that you just run up and join the crowd. So people who are now looking for Mastery Points or achievs or whatever run to the area like for so many other Bosses and find it dead.

And as we should all know by now, only a small percentage of players come to the forums. So it will continue to be an issue unless Anet does something about it.

Fenris Amarok.4052:

I… didn’t even notice there were other mobs. First, they literally show you what to do earlier in the mission. Second, maybe put on some tankier gear so other mobs aren’t a problem anymore? The fight takes five minutes, max. I don’t know how you guys are taking so long with it.

I think maybe you are misunderstanding what “literally show you” means.

Gehenna.3625:

Djinn.9245:

Yes, the current system is that after capping all Masteries you WILL get Spirit Shards for leveling. So the question is why people have to wait until Masteries are capped. If I don’t intend to pursue any further Mastery Points because I don’t prefer to play the content they are in, why am I banned from ever again receiving anything from my XP gains?

yeah that’s the core of the issue for some people. I all honestly, I think it’s something that I can imagine being an oversight. I am not sure if Anet expected many people not to want to complete them and the one shard per level isn’t a huge reward. They’ll have to decide whether this issue warrants a change or if they are happy with how it works currently. Personally I don’t see an issue with people getting an extra toggle option but there could be reasons that Anet want to keep it the way it is. I guess time will tell.

Its not even a matter of “not wanting to complete” Masteries. I’d love to have all the perks of capped Masteries, but I play games to have fun. Too many Mastery Points are locked behind content that I don’t find fun so I’m not going to do it. I have gained almost all MP that I can without resorting to stuff that I don’t find fun. If it is a choice between doing things I don’t find fun or not getting more MP, I won’t get more MP. It makes zero sense to me to play a game for entertainment and then do things I don’t enjoy in that game.

Ayrilana.1396:

Djinn.9245:

Ayrilana.1396:

DoctorDing.5890:

Of course, they could just remove the lock on the raid mastery altogether. What purpose does it serve?

I don’t see any issues with the current system. However, I also don’t see any issues if they were to just enable the ability to earn spirit shards if no mastery is selected to be trained. The only caveat being that players could then not complain if future content requires masteries further into the mastery lines.

Of course they could complain – all this gating really sucks coming from core Tyria where choice abounds.

The expansion has been out for over 9 months. It’s not unreasonable to expect the playerbase to have progressed their masteries to a certain degree. A player who gains 3 levels every day pre-Hot would max their masteries in about 4 months. Doing a single AB meta, or even a single DS, per day easily accomplishes that. It’s also not unreasonable for some content to be gated as many MMO’s have done this. While some MMO’s gate by time, were fortunate that our content isn’t.

XP isn’t the gate, Mastery Points are. And many people play GW2 BECAUSE it isn’t like other MMOs. It is [was] the MMO of free choice, of “play how you want”, of “no grinding”. Perhaps you can imagine the disappointment of the people who loved this game for exactly those reasons. Clearly many people in this thread can’t.

Fluffball.8307:

Djinn.9245:

And it sounds like most of the guilds that run it regularly might even be EU which narrows times down even more.

Sounds like?? There are NA groups that run it during every time slot of the day. Some of you just want the event to be dead even though it’s not. There is no helping you.

I personally don’t want the event to be dead, that makes no sense. I went by there several times recently looking for the event to get achievs and it was dead. I guess some peoples’ experiences differ from yours.

Ayrilana.1396:

DoctorDing.5890:

Of course, they could just remove the lock on the raid mastery altogether. What purpose does it serve?

I don’t see any issues with the current system. However, I also don’t see any issues if they were to just enable the ability to earn spirit shards if no mastery is selected to be trained. The only caveat being that players could then not complain if future content requires masteries further into the mastery lines.

Of course they could complain – all this gating really sucks coming from core Tyria where choice abounds.

Redfeather.6401:

Vayne.8563:

Redfeather.6401:

Yesterday I decided to get my stealth glider mastery from 34% to completion. It took me all day!
I wandered HoT zones struggling to find events for the xp. I was so bummed out after a couple of hours that I asked in map chat what to do, and people said tarir meta event. So I farmed that. It took a while and got so repetitive that the second I got the stealth glider mastery I quit. Does the average person actually enjoy this type of game-play?

I have no idea why it took you that long to max it. In almost any HoT zone, I can max a mastery in an hour or two, from scratch.

Are you using any kinds of boosters, food, utiltiies, guild buffs, birthday boosters, celebration boosters?

Maybe that’s it. I wasn’t using boosters of any kind. I was also struggling to find events I could complete. I died many times trying to do certain events before giving up. I should have used lfg to find an xp train or something. I just wanted to explore on my own and enjoy stuff, and it backfired.

Yes, this is another problem with the HoT maps. In the pre-HoT maps, you can wander around and level your character as you like. In HoT the mobs are very deadly to the casual, solo player. And good luck soloing events.

yamay.8075:

Also, am I correct in assuming that the mastery points are finite? I wish they’d implement a daily system where you can farm a mastery point or two each day doing a type of game mode we enjoy.

Another thing I’d want to see is the ability to skip masteries you are not interested in. For example, I don’t want stealth gliding but I want the one after that. Basic mastery being mandatory is fine, though, but after that it should be player choice, imho. Just keep the cost higher for more advanced training, but give us choice depending on how we want to play the expansion areas.

Yes, Mastery Points are finite which forces you to play in modes you don’t prefer if you want to get a fair number of Mastery Lines. Getting Mastery Points by doing something we enjoy – that would be great. Anet has gone from being my #1 choice of MMO because of the many CHOICES I had in game play to the most on-rails MMO I have ever played. I am only still here because of my time investment and inertia. And those are quickly wearing off.

General Health.9678:

Djinn.9245:

GW2 used to be a game in which I could gain XP for my character in any way I chose:

You can still do this.

Djinn.9245:

With the introduction of HoT, this has been changed to ONLY getting XP through the Mastery system. I no longer have a choice how I progress my character because there aren’t enough MP in any of the single modes for me to play ONLY how I choose.

You still get XP in all the ways you talked about until you are 80.

As I said in the post you are responding to, you could CHOOSE how to progress your character. With Masteries, I can’t choose which mode of game play I like and cap Masteries. I have to play many different modes so that I can get enough MP to cap. And Raiding isn’t even a choice – I MUST raid in order to unlock that Mastery line whether I want to or not. None of this is free Choice.

Fluffball.8307:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Given the age of the event and where everyone is now? Yes, very much dead. But that’s par for the course with old content when new content comes out. The zerg—and interest for that matter—moves on.

Good luck getting those achievements done.

Do you know what you’re talking about? Or are you just making things up based on what you believe? The wurm is killed SEVERAL times per day.

Let’s say “several” = 3 times/day. If you don’t happen to play at the times that those 3 times are running, you are SOL. And it sounds like most of the guilds that run it regularly might even be EU which narrows times down even more.

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

If everything including the character was deleted, that would be a different situation than the one this thread is discussing, which is what I’m basing my opinion on.

And yes, not having tools to give items to characters is intentional because most of the MMOs I’ve played (almost ALL the triple-A western MMOs) are able to return items that players accidentally lost.

This situation is very atypical. Practically all account theft is done to siphon every last bit of value out of the account, and use it for botting/supporting other bot accounts. Spending time developing tools to deal with fringe cases just isn’t a good use of resources.

On top of that, rolling back to a previous state is likely much easier (and less likely to cause problems) than attempting to merge a current state with an older snapshot. In GW2, what would happen with an ascended weapon that was left on the account and had recently been stat-swapped? The older snapshot would have a different weapon listed, as the forge consumes it and gives you a new item, so you would then have an extra weapon you aren’t supposed to own. I don’t how item IDs are tracked, but even swapping runes/sigils on a piece of equipment might create copies in a such a merger if the items don’t have unique identifiers attached to them.

The account recovery option for both games was also very specific in its purpose being only for restoring stolen accounts. It’s a rather reasonable policy, as offering rollback (or the item replacement you’re wanting) opens up the flood gates on support tickets for player mistakes, “my bother did it”, “I was drunk”, or whatever other reasons players might file reports over. It would be nice to see options like that, but there are reasons for them not being available.

While I see your point regarding the rollback vs. another type of recovery of an entire account, I don’t agree that its better for anyone but Anet’s bottom line. If they had a snapshot of my account, and were able to replace individual items and characters, that would be better Customer Service. I agree that it would open them to many requests that might be entirely the player’s fault. But that’s what Customer Service is. What would happen if stores only allowed you to return merchandise if there was something actually wrong with it instead of you just changing your mind or whatever? In other major MMOs, I have had items replaced that I accidentally vendored, or purchased the incorrect item or on the incorrect character, etc. That’s great Customer Service where the company is more concerned with the customer’s experience than their bottom line.

Fluffball.8307:

Will.9785:

And how does one do that? How does one know if they are on the ‘right map’ and how does one contact someone on the ‘right map’ to get on? How does someone find out who that ‘someone’ is?

Fluffball.8307:

Check the LFG about 45 minutes before it spawns so you can get on the right map.

Look in the LFG, you’ll see “TT org, join then leave” or some other obvious indicator. I’ve killed all 3 heads dozens of dozens of time doing this.

Or it will say “TT taxi” or whatever. Join the LFG. Once you are part of the group, you will see if you are in the same instance / map as they are because if you are not, your pic / symbol will not be the same as theirs in the group UI in upper left. Then you right-click the pic or symbol of one of your group members and choose “Join in <name of map>”. Once you join the main group your pic / symbol will look like theirs in the group UI.

If it says “taxi” or “join then leave” or similar, you join in the correct map and then leave the group so others can join.

Roguedemonhunter.9621:

PS for fun….

Pact Commander: "Phew! What a fight. That was… Really awful. Oh!? Oh yes Traherne- I meant the foe was awful. Naturally- as you say. What?… Caladblargh? Oh you take it firstborn. It should be your honor not mine… Definitely not mine. What?… No oh no no no no. No-hoooo friend. I insist. I know my Wylde hunt is to ‘slay the dragon’ and yours is ‘to cleanse the county it resides in’… And It might make sense for the dragonslayer to have a great big sword- but I feel GREAT um… restoring magics within it’s blade. I feel it would be better suited to the cleansing and -oh look! Pale Mother agrees.

Woo! Thanks Mom!"

LOL! Nice scene

Kalarchis.8635:

Djinn.9245:

Kevin Ardinez.8906:

it doesn’t makes any sense though, because they are not guarding against the Dragon,
they are more like stopping them, I mean the commander and the team are not like staying in one place and guarding against the Dragons, they more like going out there, find information to fight the dragon.

so the name doesnt really make any sense to me.

If you are on watch and an attacker comes, you don’t just stand there and watch it. You fight it. It makes perfect sense.

That’s OP’s point though. “Dragon’s” Watch implies that we are on the watch of the dragon. That’s what the possessive " ‘s " after “Dragon” means. “Dragon Watch” on the other hand would mean that we’re on the watch for dragons. One means that we’re on the dragon’s side, the other that we’re against the dragons.

So I’m with OP on this one.

I didn’t read that as the OP’s point: “the commander and the team are not like staying in one place and guarding against the Dragons, they more like going out there, find information to fight the dragon”.

But I will admit that the possessive doesn’t seem correct. I agree that “Dragon Watch” would be better – “The Dragon Watch” better still IMO.

Gehenna.3625:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gehenna.3625:

General Health.9678:

Gehenna.3625:

General Health.9678:

The solution can’t be just a toggle to disable the bar surely. Just because you can’t see the lack of masteries and waste of Xp doesn’t mean they’re not happening. Is that what people would really want? Out of sight, out of mind?

That’s also not what I suggested. For me a toggle can go both ways, so also toggle it back on depending on what you want to gain xp for.

I agree that is the definition of a toggle. There currently aren’t any things to gain XP for except Masteries. I’m clearly missing the point and I don’t doubt you know what you want and I’m pretty sure I could get behind it. I just don’t know what it is.
Toggle so it shows what Mastery track you are working on?

Ahh I see your confusion.

Here’s the thing. Before masteries when you were level 80 you would still gain xp and each time you would complete a level you wouldn’t gain a new level of course but you would gain spirit shards.

Then masteries came in and instead of gaining spirit shards you gain xp for masteries instead. The trick is this. You won’t get your normal xp bar back until you’ve completed ALL of the masteries and if you have no interest in getting all the masteries, your xp bar is basically blocked from gaining any xp towards these spirit shards.

What people are asking for is a way to go back to gaining xp for spirit shards without having to complete all the masteries they don’t care to get. So my idea is to let people toggle not only between masteries but also select a non-mastery option if that makes sense.

Actually, before Masteries, one did not gain Spirit Shards for ‘dinging’ a level after 80. The period between the change to Traits and the release of HoT, a player gained nothing whatsoever for leveling past L80. What we did get several months prior to the release of HoT and pre-Trait change was a Skill Point. Skill Points, as you know, were either used for Skill/Trait acquisition or spent for Mystic Forge materials (as Spirit Shards are now). Also, during the period between the Trait change and the release of HoT, we could acquire Spirit Shards through Champion Bags/Boxes, loot drops, exchanging Tomes of Knowledge, Dailies, etc. We have never before received a Spirit Shard for leveling.

Although you may be historically correct, it doesn’t really make a difference. Currently there is an issue where people get stuck on their xp bar if they don’t complete the masteries. Whatever reward you got when for dinging on the normal xp bar is rather beside the point…the point is of course that you don’t get this reward anymore, whichever it is, if you don’t complete the masteries. That’s the focus point here I think. I just quoted what I saw in other threads but it wasn’t the focus of the point.

Yes, the current system is that after capping all Masteries you WILL get Spirit Shards for leveling. So the question is why people have to wait until Masteries are capped. If I don’t intend to pursue any further Mastery Points because I don’t prefer to play the content they are in, why am I banned from ever again receiving anything from my XP gains?

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

I have heard many storied like this and it does affect my view on playing GW2 also. I have been considering buying more gems but this is one reason why I am having trouble making that decision. Why spend real money on a game when things like this can happen?

One thing I want to know is why Anet refused to replace items when stuff like this happened. I also heard a story of a player that was banned for trying to get his own account back.

Guild Wars had an account recovery/rollback option added in late 2011, which is a feature that carried over to GW2. They can restore your account back to one of its recent snapshotted states. It will likely result in some progress loss, as the rollback will revert to some time shortly before the account was lost. But it’s still much better to lose a few days/weeks, than to lose everything you have earned.

I wouldn’t want my entire account rolled-back because someone else stole my account. That’s a terrible idea unless they can roll it back to exactly the time the account was stolen (i.e. I don’t lose anything). If they have a snapshot of my account, they should replace anything I lost, not force me to lose EVEN MORE!

You’re not losing more, you’re recovering all but the most recent earnings.

If they have a snapshot of my account, they can look at it and give me back anything that is missing. Or they can rollback my account to some time before my account was hacked which causes me to lose anything between that time and when my account was hacked. The first option returns more. So yes, a rollback would cause me to lose more than just returning what was lost.

They would have no record of what you had gotten after the most recent snapshot. Typically, stolen accounts are fully cleaned out and often have the characters themselves deleted. Without the rollback, you would be left with nothing at all.

In an unusual case, where some recently acquired items were left intact by the hacker, you would be losing some things. That, however, is not what typically happens with compromised accounts. You would have to choose between keeping what the hacker left, or doing a rollback. The option you’re asking for isn’t possible because they (I believe intentionally) have no tools with the ability to give items to you. A rollback is the only option available to recover anything that was lost.

If everything including the character was deleted, that would be a different situation than the one this thread is discussing, which is what I’m basing my opinion on.

And yes, not having tools to give items to characters is intentional because most of the MMOs I’ve played (almost ALL the triple-A western MMOs) are able to return items that players accidentally lost.

I’m glad the OP wasn’t raging about his experience. The one time I went to a casino, I set aside a certain amount of money I was willing to lose and would stop gambling after that. I won some money at Roulette so I went to the Blackjack table. When I had lost all the money I had set aside plus my winnings, I stopped. Now I can say I gambled in a casino.

I agree that it would be nice to have some breathing room in the newer maps. Especially the HoT maps are completely filled with mobs so you can’t really stop for a minute.

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

I have heard many storied like this and it does affect my view on playing GW2 also. I have been considering buying more gems but this is one reason why I am having trouble making that decision. Why spend real money on a game when things like this can happen?

One thing I want to know is why Anet refused to replace items when stuff like this happened. I also heard a story of a player that was banned for trying to get his own account back.

Guild Wars had an account recovery/rollback option added in late 2011, which is a feature that carried over to GW2. They can restore your account back to one of its recent snapshotted states. It will likely result in some progress loss, as the rollback will revert to some time shortly before the account was lost. But it’s still much better to lose a few days/weeks, than to lose everything you have earned.

I wouldn’t want my entire account rolled-back because someone else stole my account. That’s a terrible idea unless they can roll it back to exactly the time the account was stolen (i.e. I don’t lose anything). If they have a snapshot of my account, they should replace anything I lost, not force me to lose EVEN MORE!

You’re not losing more, you’re recovering all but the most recent earnings.

If they have a snapshot of my account, they can look at it and give me back anything that is missing. Or they can rollback my account to some time before my account was hacked which causes me to lose anything between that time and when my account was hacked. The first option returns more. So yes, a rollback would cause me to lose more than just returning what was lost.

mrstealth.6701:

Djinn.9245:

I have heard many storied like this and it does affect my view on playing GW2 also. I have been considering buying more gems but this is one reason why I am having trouble making that decision. Why spend real money on a game when things like this can happen?

One thing I want to know is why Anet refused to replace items when stuff like this happened. I also heard a story of a player that was banned for trying to get his own account back.

Guild Wars had an account recovery/rollback option added in late 2011, which is a feature that carried over to GW2. They can restore your account back to one of its recent snapshotted states. It will likely result in some progress loss, as the rollback will revert to some time shortly before the account was lost. But it’s still much better to lose a few days/weeks, than to lose everything you have earned.

I wouldn’t want my entire account rolled-back because someone else stole my account. That’s a terrible idea unless they can roll it back to exactly the time the account was stolen (i.e. I don’t lose anything). If they have a snapshot of my account, they should replace anything I lost, not force me to lose EVEN MORE!

No more Mastery lines! NOT /signed

Gehenna.3625:

Years ago my GW1 account was hacked. It must’ve been 2011. I’d been playing the game for 6-7 years. It was my favourite game in the world but the hacker sold off my 50+ sets of elite armour on my account including some FoW sets and yes I was rather proud of my collection.

I got my account back but it was ransacked and the loss was so great that I haven’t had the heart since then to start over. It was too devastating and you guys were unable and/or unwilling to help me.

I have to wonder now if Gaile will get all her items back like I didn’t.

Honestly, I didn’t like GW2 much when it came out but it’s a lot better now in my view than it was back at the start, but also now that I play this game, I play it more casually because I do not trust your security but mostly, I do not trust you to help me appropriately. That trust was never restored, it wasn’t even attempted from your side.

With all the games I’ve played in the last 20 years or so, this was the only game where I got hacked. That could be just bad luck or coincidence. But it was also a situation where Anet were just not there to help out and that was the worst of the experience.

Even today, it’s still a bad memory that lingers. This occurrence really brings it back again and on the one hand it really makes me feel for Gaile because I’ve been there but at the same time I can’t help but think that you as Anet probably will give her her stuff back where you never wanted to do that for me.

It’s a shame but this really just reminded me on how poorly I was treated as a customer of many years by Anet and how I should remind myself not to get too invested in GW2 because if it goes wrong I still have little faith Anet will really support me as a customer.

I have heard many storied like this and it does affect my view on playing GW2 also. I have been considering buying more gems but this is one reason why I am having trouble making that decision. Why spend real money on a game when things like this can happen?

One thing I want to know is why Anet refused to replace items when stuff like this happened. I also heard a story of a player that was banned for trying to get his own account back.

Elyssandariel.2679:

Uhhh……my opinion can’t be “wrong.” It’s an opinion I could say your opinion is wrong, just the same way, if opinions could be wrong. But they can’t.

Actually, you can have an “opinion” that someone who steals another person’s car is not a criminal, but that opinion would be wrong. So yes, an opinion can be wrong. Of course you are still entitled to your opinion, even if it is wrong.

Gehenna.3625:

Going through HoT the first time can be a somewhat challenging but once you unlock some masteries it gets more and more fun. I just unlock the level where flight doesn’t cost endurance anymore and now it’s much nicer and my alts will start with the masteries unlocked as it’s account based. So I do enjoy these maps.

The events, well that depends for me. It’s a bit hit and miss. Some nights there are people doing the events, some nights it’s pretty dead.

Yep. I see Guildies calling for help with a meta and others respond that they’re busy with a different meta.

Greener.6204:

Djinn.9245:

Greener.6204:

Bandrell.4357:

So basically what you are saying is, if you are gaining experience while on a mastery track that is at its end-be it complete or not-that excess XP should be converted into spirit shards, yet it isn’t?

If it doesn’t currently work this way because they’ve locked spirit shard gain behind training ALL masteries-including RAID masteries-completely, I cannot say that I agree with that design decision. MMORPG game design shouldn’t be predicated on the expectation that players will be encouraged or motivated to participate in every game mode that the game offers in order to progress. Particularly a game whose stance is “Play your way”.

Ugh, that would be a pain if it worked that way. But no, don’t worry. A year ago they separated spirit shards and XP from each other. They have no relationship.

Since then, people have been wanting something to be done with the XP they were getting once their mastery bar was filled. Anet’s put one thing in place, and people are currently hoping that this can be massaged to cover more players in more situations.

You apparently are not aware that AFTER you complete ALL Mastery tracks, you go back to gaining Spirit Shards for each “level”. This is actually the entire point of this thread. “They have no relationship” is incorrect.

I’m more than aware of the changes. The main problem that the poster was facing was that a lot of people conflate spirit shards and experience. This is a mistake that I see you made above, and I tried to correct it there.

Anet purposefully removed the relationship between spirit shards and experience over a year ago. They did this to encourage people to play the game how they wished, and still get rewarded for it. Since WvW and PvP have their own leveling systems, players would not have been able to receive spirit shards from the PvE levels. Now everyone has access to them simply by playing the game style they prefer.

Since then, as I say in what you quoted, they’ve gone and added rewards for people who have completed masteries, which is what people have been clamoring for. Is it currently a perfect system? Of course not. Are people looking for it to be improved? Of course. Imagine how amazingly this could be expanded? If you don’t need spirit shards, could you perhaps choose mystic coins? Or maybe you’d prefer a tome of knowledge?

My response to the poster was to alleviate their concerns that a system was broken, and explain to them that what they’re seeing is a new system being brought on board.

Edited for clarity’s sake

They only removed the relationship for a while. Currently, after completing all Masteries, when a player fills his Experience bar (with Experience Points), they get a Spirit Shard. That is a definite relationship to me.

Elyssandariel.2679:

I wouldn’t say that the hacker is “bad” or that the CS person is “bad” either. According to the social engineer hacker on Redditt

You are wrong – anyone who breaks into someone else’s account without their permission, no matter the reason, is a criminal. And why would you believe the words of a criminal?

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Djinn.9245:

Silicato.4603:

I personally dislike how from anet, both MO and Gaile try to put the hacker as the only one “bad”. He/She is not the only one…

Yes, the hacker is the only “bad” person. If I accidentally leave my door unlocked, I am not “allowing” someone to break into my house. If someone takes advantage of my door being unlocked and steals my stuff, they are not justified. No matter how hard or easy it is, accessing someone else’s stuff without their permission is wrong.

In this case not only you left your door unlocked, but you also did it for months if not years. Robber even warned you multiple times that this is a bad idea.

Guess what? People used to leave their doors open all the time. People used to leave their keys in their cars because it was easier. The only reason people don’t do that anymore is because of criminals. So the only bad people are the criminals, not anyone who makes a mistake in security. Making a mistake is human – anyone who tells me they have never made a mistake in their job is a liar.

Scar Rufo.7935:

HoT was a poor expansion to me and I find that the way that the mastery point system was implemented has created a lot of probs, especially for me. I absolutely hate that they put 30 points into seriously crappy “adventures” and that blocks my progress in completing a few of the mastery lines.

Completely agree – why should MP be locked behind mini-games that have nothing to do with the story?

Scar Rufo.7935:

I almost quit the game over it. I won’t be buying a new expansion until I see how they add more to this system because it is seriously flawed.

I am still considering whether I will quit because of the Mastery system. And I definitely will not be purchasing future expansions if they continue the sorry state of “on rails” content that HoT introduced.

Greener.6204:

Bandrell.4357:

So basically what you are saying is, if you are gaining experience while on a mastery track that is at its end-be it complete or not-that excess XP should be converted into spirit shards, yet it isn’t?

If it doesn’t currently work this way because they’ve locked spirit shard gain behind training ALL masteries-including RAID masteries-completely, I cannot say that I agree with that design decision. MMORPG game design shouldn’t be predicated on the expectation that players will be encouraged or motivated to participate in every game mode that the game offers in order to progress. Particularly a game whose stance is “Play your way”.

Ugh, that would be a pain if it worked that way. But no, don’t worry. A year ago they separated spirit shards and XP from each other. They have no relationship.

Since then, people have been wanting something to be done with the XP they were getting once their mastery bar was filled. Anet’s put one thing in place, and people are currently hoping that this can be massaged to cover more players in more situations.

You apparently are not aware that AFTER you complete ALL Mastery tracks, you go back to gaining Spirit Shards for each “level”. This is actually the entire point of this thread. “They have no relationship” is incorrect.

Silicato.4603:

I personally dislike how from anet, both MO and Gaile try to put the hacker as the only one “bad”. He/She is not the only one…

Yes, the hacker is the only “bad” person. If I accidentally leave my door unlocked, I am not “allowing” someone to break into my house. If someone takes advantage of my door being unlocked and steals my stuff, they are not justified. No matter how hard or easy it is, accessing someone else’s stuff without their permission is wrong.

misterman.1530:

Serious question: do a lot of people still play in the HoT maps? I haven’t been in one in ages except DS – was farming Crystalline Ore to buy a Guild recipe for a greatsword (I thought the skin was cool – then I saw what I needed to make it and now I’m all “meh”). I saw one attempt at the meta that failed because there was not, in anyway, enough people.

This is one of the concerns I had about the HoT maps. Once people got what they wanted, would they return? So, the ones that are playing in them, have you noticed a decrease in populations?

I’m concerned about this also. There isn’t enough game population to split among all the metas on all the maps, and they keep adding more metas. With most of the reason for playing these zones tied up in metas that no one will be able to complete, it will become useless content.

I play GW2 because it is an RPG, not to play minigames. Mastery Points should not be tied to content that is not part of the story.

General Health.9678:

Djinn.9245:

The objection is how the game has gone from being able to get XP for your character by doing anything you want in the game, to not being able to get XP/Spirit Shards unless you follow the very narrow path that Anet has dictated.

Maybe many players don’t mind this lack of choice. Or maybe Spirit Shards aren’t something that they need or want. But going from complete freedom of choice to a single path for progressing my character is not fun game play for me. I prefer choices.

Apples and oranges, you can’t compare pre-hot to post-hot and add shards.

I’m really unclear whether you’re complaining because this is affecting you or if you’re complaining on behalf of everyone because the wider playerbase doesn’t seem be complaining about this, it’s mentioned in a couple of places and people are either “do a simple raid”, “who cares about shards” or “oh my god this game sucks because anet forces us to raid (or whatever flavour of the month thing it is people suddenly take offence to)”. If you personally need to raid as the last thing to unlock spirit shards and you really, really want shards.. join a guild that offers training raids and just run one. It’s one tiny thing being blown out of all proportion.

Maybe there will be another way to get spirit shards in the future, maybe there’ll even be a need for them in the future.. in the meantime, try raids, might even enjoy them. Chances are if you are already frustrated by the rest of HoT you will not be able to but plenty of people here will show you round the HoT maps if you ask and the metas are really good fun, missing out if you’ve not tried them.

I’m not sure why you’re asking if it affects me personally. World Hunger doesn’t affect me personally but everyone knows it is an issue.

I will explain the issue again. GW2 used to be a game in which I could gain XP for my character in any way I chose: PvP, WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, Crafting, JP, Open-world PvE, etc. I could choose to do all of these things or I could choose only 1. There are people who leveled their character to 80 using ONLY Crafting!

With the introduction of HoT, this has been changed to ONLY getting XP through the Mastery system. I no longer have a choice how I progress my character because there aren’t enough MP in any of the single modes for me to play ONLY how I choose.

You suggest “in the meantime, try raids, might even enjoy them”. I am not a child, I am an adult who knows what I like and doesn’t need “Mommy” Anet telling me to “try brocolli, you might like it”. I play games for enjoyment, not to be dictated how I should “play”.

General Health.9678:

The solution can’t be just a toggle to disable the bar surely. Just because you can’t see the lack of masteries and waste of Xp doesn’t mean they’re not happening. Is that what people would really want? Out of sight, out of mind?

We’re talking about a toggle between the Masteries and regular XP gain. So instead of being stuck with all XP going to Masteries even when we have no Mastery Points to use, we can toggle back to gaining regular XP.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Djinn.9245:

Harny.6012:

Don’t mix the message the activist tried to send, with mean reactions from community. It’s two very separate things. I know activism can hurt but it has it’s purpose, do you disagree?

This wasn’t an “activist”, this was a criminal. If someone wanted to simply bring the issue to Anet’s attention, they could have gotten the account info, recorded doing it, and given that information directly to Anet. No need to access her account at all.

This is not how majority of companies work. Unless you can do a lot of damage to their services and/or reputation they will not bother.

You can damage their reputation through proving that you have been able to access accounts, not through hurting one person who isn’t responsible for security.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I certainly hope Anet will get away from this vertical, overrun with massive trash mobs map in the next expansion.

Ever since Dry Top, GW2 has been progressing toward being a platformer. Since Anet has not introduced any open world PvE content since Dry Top that WAS NOT platform-oriented, I hold little hope that the game will ever get any better in that respect. Someone in charge or toward the top in the GW2 team thinks platforming is the way to go. It is unfortunate because this is very niche. As the game gets old and starts losing population it will not be appealing to as many people. This will make it die more quickly.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Rylen.2147:

DoomKnightMax.6592:

Wait so, this wasn’t the real Gaile? Sucks, I guess she missed out on meeting a fantastic person such as myself, maybe if she gets lucky enough for our paths to cross again.

No that was the real Gaile. Only her GW1 account was hacked.
This is her GW1 character (after the hacker gave her items away):

Ugh. That screenshot. The people cheering the guy on and willingly taking her stuff are just as gross as the guy himself.

Exactly. And I bet the hacker brags to people in Real Life who don’t dis him for it. If no one was friendly with people who were criminals / cheated, less people would do it.

Donari.5237:

Rasern, I would read that but it noticed I block ads and won’t show me the article unless I whitelist it to show me ads or I subscribe, neither of which I wish to do for the sake of reading one story.

The part I could see said that the hacker went into the guy’s google account and daisy chained from there to his Twitter so as to send out nasty comments in his name. Before I could read how social engineering was involved I got the big block of “pay up or you may not read.”

I have seen some people demanding the things you say, but mostly I’ve seen concern about how multiple attempts did not raise any flags. I agree with those concerns. Why wasn’t anything added to her account profile to note the attempts? I recently was my brother’s gmail account restoration backup source while he was overseas, in case his phone got stolen, and until he removed me I got a notice every time he accessed things from a new computer. Heck, when I add a gmail account on one of my devices, I get an email notifying me of the recent activity. Why wasn’t Gaile sent a notice each time the attempt was made, so she could then notify Support from her authorized email that “someone is trying to hack in, it’s not me” and have that added as a flag?

GW1 is in Maintenance mode. I can’t see a company adding this type of security to a game that is probably not making them any money. It is very unfortunate.

What it comes down to is that each company provides the least security they think they must have. And these are “just games”.

Meteox.1029:

Dreamslayer.7659:

One of the main problems with a socially engineered account take over is that it’s well known that many players do not use their real name or real contact info when they create an account.

I would guess that the reasons range from privacy concerns to people being under age to carelessness, (“it’s only a game!”, etc) to concerns that the system could be hacked and their private data (social security number in the US, address, etc) could be released.

Account Recovery has to remain relatively lax because there are so many people who legitimately own their account, but don’t have very complete or accurate information.

It’s frustrating because I’m willing to include accurate personal information – my real name, telephone number, etc but because there seems to be an assumption that that could all be fake, or somehow all my information could suddenly change – it does not seem like we can establish a permanent ID in the system and then have recovery attempts be based on knowing or proving that info (as opposed to just saying you forgot all your real ID info).

Maybe I’m a bit off in my perception, but I wish there was a way to established a verified ID that includes some static personal information and sets the bar much higher for account recovery.

I don’t know how lax you expect it to be but when I lost my account info I gave them a picture of my state id or license to prove residency, who I am. To me it’s not unreasonable to prove who you are with your id…

Even state IDs can be photoshopped. How many people have a Facebook or other social media with their real name? And how many people talk about their characters on social media? Now you’ve put information out there for someone to Social Engineer your account.

Harny.6012:

Don’t mix the message the activist tried to send, with mean reactions from community. It’s two very separate things. I know activism can hurt but it has it’s purpose, do you disagree?

This wasn’t an “activist”, this was a criminal. If someone wanted to simply bring the issue to Anet’s attention, they could have gotten the account info, recorded doing it, and given that information directly to Anet. No need to access her account at all.

Kevin Ardinez.8906:

it doesn’t makes any sense though, because they are not guarding against the Dragon,
they are more like stopping them, I mean the commander and the team are not like staying in one place and guarding against the Dragons, they more like going out there, find information to fight the dragon.

so the name doesnt really make any sense to me.

If you are on watch and an attacker comes, you don’t just stand there and watch it. You fight it. It makes perfect sense.

General Health.9678:

Djinn.9245:

GreyWolf.8670:

Vayne.8563:

Mostly true. You have to kill at least one raid boss. Some people sell raids, or do practice teaching raids. After your first kill you unlock raid masteries and you can train them like any other.

Once all your masteries are completed you again get spirit shards for leveling.

We should not have to pay others for content we paid ArenaNet for.

Exactly, great point.

Not really a great point. You don’t have to do the content, I myself haven’t. You don’t have to pay someone else to do it for you, I again haven’t. I clearly don’t care about doing that content or about spirit shards. If I did.. I’d go kill a raid boss, get it over and done with and go back to never doing it again.
I’ve got no interest in doing this but really.. it’s gw2.. how hard can it be? My guild offers training and clearing raids and I don’t hear about it being impossible content. If I could muster a bit more interest I’d go check it out.

If your only answer is “you don’t have to do it”, that’s definitely not a great point. You don’t HAVE to do anything, even play this game. The objection is how the game has gone from being able to get XP for your character by doing anything you want in the game, to not being able to get XP/Spirit Shards unless you follow the very narrow path that Anet has dictated.

Maybe many players don’t mind this lack of choice. Or maybe Spirit Shards aren’t something that they need or want. But going from complete freedom of choice to a single path for progressing my character is not fun game play for me. I prefer choices.

Electro.4173:

Its something that a LOT of games nowadays that utilize friendly AI / parties do, actually. Scale the damage your companions do to trivial levels so that the players have to handle the game rather than just letting the AI beat it for them.

There is a HUGE difference between the NPCs “handling it for me” and the NPCs doing nothing at all. I don’t see anyone asking for the NPCs to do the instances for them so I’m not sure what your point is…

Mandar.9813:

Djinn.9245:

It is definitely the case that Mastery Points are locked behind a great variety of content. It would be nice if we ALL could progress the game by playing the content we prefer rather than being forced to play how someone else has decided we should play.

Are you really not aware that that is the entire point of a game? A developer has an idea and content they want to share with gamers, and they decide how you will progress through the content. This game is not a sandbox and has never been described as one, and only a sandbox game is going to give you an experience where play without any restrictions and get all the rewards you want. I mean… my mind is literally boggled trying to think about all the various ways I could try to explain to you why you are so wrong with saying “you are forced to play the way someone decides you should play”. I have to stop. My head is going to explode from trying to ponder ways to counter your sense of entitlement.

Prior to HoT, I could level my character in whatever mode I wished: PvP, WvW, Crafting, Dungeons, Fractals, JP, open world PvE, Champ Train, whatever. Once you enable Masteries, that is no longer the case. I don’t know why Anet decided to go from “progress your character in the mode you like” to the current on-rails system, but it looks like I’m not the one who doesn’t understand.

Chaos.5072:

The funny thing is, out of all the ways to earn masteries, raids are actually the easiest. You only have to do one single encounter of your choice, which means you can do the easiest one (escort) and never touch raids again. It’s not like you need to clear the entire raid 100 times or something.

Everyone has their own opinion of what is easy and difficult. You have just expressed your opinion, it differs from mine.

Chaos.5072:

You can’t say the same for adventures, story achievements, bosses, etc.

It is definitely the case that Mastery Points are locked behind a great variety of content. It would be nice if we ALL could progress the game by playing the content we prefer rather than being forced to play how someone else has decided we should play.

Obtena.7952:

What I said still stands … the complaint is that you have to do something to get the reward … complaining something changed is just stupid … things change in games all the time.

What we’re talking about is XP. Of course we don’t want to do nothing to get XP. I personally would like to be able to receive XP whether I cap Masteries or not. I shouldn’t need to cap Masteries just to get XP for doing anything else in the game.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

MingYew.8521:

Why I say unfair is because previously anyone who is at lvl80 will get spirit shards when they level up. Now only raiders get it when they max their HoT mastery one day. This is my personal opinion feel free to disagree.

My only issue is the singling out of raiders. It misrepresents the issue.

You could just as easily have said “now only players who are good at adventures get it when they max their HoT mastery one day.” Or, “now only players who grind the story achievements get it when they max their HoT mastery one day.” Etc.

Yes, you also said, “I do understand raiders have to do a lot of things they don’t like to do as well.” But, you still then followed it with singling out raiders as I just pointed out.

The only barriers that exist for players to pursue content are the ones they make for themselves…. and that applies to everyone, not just ‘causal PvEers.’

~EW

Actually, it is accurate to point at Raiding because there is a Raiding Mastery line that is ONLY unlocked by killing a raid boss. All of the other HoT Mastery lines do not require any game mode that can’t be soloed. The first 2 Mastery lines are unlocked by completing the HoT story “Torn From the Sky”. The remaining Mastery lines are unlocked simply by entering HoT zones.

Taxidriver.2043:

I called my firework effect, this is what it looks like when u stack 4 effects together, Winters Presence + Bee + Chak egg sac + ghostly infusion

Wow, grats on getting all those – no matter how you get them. People put down people who spend RL money on the game, but I like GW2 so I appreciate people spending money and keeping the game going.

Jerus.4350:

No, it’s objectively fair to everyone in that everyone is forced out of their preferred play to jump through hoops they’ve set up. Do I enjoy it? Hell no. Would I like to see spirit shard acquisition done differently? Hell yes.

It’s just to sit here and say that you’re specifically unfairly treated because you have to jump through a hoop is just… well wrong. I had to go do a bunch of content that I found tiresome to get Leyline gliding so I could actually do raids. Sound familiar?

I think there’s a misunderstanding: just because someone points out that Casual players are at a disadvantage with the new system doesn’t exclude any other type of player from also having issues with the new system. For example, “Save the Pandas” isn’t trying to exclude all the other animals that need saving. We don’t see people objecting to “Save the Pandas” because it isn’t including every other animal.