Showing Posts For Doghouse.1562:

No money from Trading Post!

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Edit: Problem has now cleared. I’m probably down about a gold, though. Ho hum.

Ugh. Problem is back again. NOT good!

The Battle of Claw Island

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

You may need to go over to where the dragon is, to kick the story back into life. See this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/The-Battle-of-Claw-Island-bugged/first#content

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

No money from Trading Post!

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

This morning I’ve sold various things on the TC using “Meet highest buyer”. I’d “sold” quite a bit before I realised I wasn’t getting credited with the sales. The goods leave my inventory, I get charged for the sale, but my Trade Profit under the “Pick Up” tab remains 0. Piken Square server.

Far from profiting from my sales, right now I’m effectively being charged for the privilege of throwing potentially valuable stuff away!

Edit: Problem has now cleared. I’m probably down about a gold, though. Ho hum.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Can I complete winter achi without JP?

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

do you mean to get the meta achievement? for completing 20/20 achievements?

just make sure you keep doing the daily Wintersday achieves. they are under the normal daily but with a special icon indicating that it is tied to Wintersday.

even if you did the JP and all other specific “Wintersday” achievements, you still wouldn’t get the meta without doing Winterdays dailies.
: )) so don’t worry!

I was about to write something like this. It was kind of confusing at first, since i had to sift through all the dailies and find the wintersday one. They should’ve just included it under the Wintersday section. I wonder how many people will never finish the meta because of this.

That’s no different to the way that other LS metas have worked; it’s been simple to complete them, even if you don’t like some of the activities (I’m not a great fan of tough jumping puzzles, or of PUGging dungeons for that matter, and I’ve had no difficulty at all with any of them).

As for having to sifting through the dailies to find LS ones – the LS dailies have a different icon next to them in the achievements list. All you need to use to find them are your eyes, and the scroll bar.

"Nightmare Ender" Achievment

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I have the same problem. Now I have done the story event, though nothing changed, the achievement remains “completed” but still no points are added to the meta event.

Yes, I did the story as well. Got nothing whatsoever for completion.

"willing captive's" mission multiple bugs

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK – maintaining the spoiler-free thread…

I believe that you need Crusader Apatia in the cave with you when you take the orb; the next thing that is supposed to happen is that a group of Krait appear, recapture her and then leave, after which Sayeh gives a speech including commenting on her recapture.

If Apatia’s not with you (and you have to keep a close eye on her, because she really likes to hang back and fight Krait on the way to the cave), the group of Krait engage Sayeh instead.

In my case, the first time I did this, Sayeh died, and her corpse disappeared before I could revive her to talk to her - so I couldn’t complete the story.

As for the “empty” chest: I’m not sure about the chest being already open – I haven’t seen that, and if that were actually the case, I’d say it’s a bug – but there are actually five chests in the cave, in a line along the back; you have to open the correct one (which in my case was the one on the far right both times I did the event recently).

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Willing Captives Bug: Empty Chests

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

There are five chests, not four. One in particular, off to the right I didn’t notice at first. I had to redo the story due to a later bug, and in both cases the one on the right was also the one with the orb.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

"DO NOT TOUCH" pillars across Tyria

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

There is a Guy, Odesan, he posted this in a comment on guildnews.de:
!https://d1ej19d7kwigfi.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/7129/zusammen.jpg!

I notice he ignores the “DO NOT TOUCH” stations that do not fit his theory. Lousy proof. Please come back when you have a map that includes all the stations.

Why do all these maps ignore the fact that there are three of these stations in Sparkfly Fen?

Be fair, he’s following traditional RW “ley lines” practice – pick whatever points of interest seem useful, ignore ones that don’t, draw whatever lines you want and then claim you’ve found something of profound significance…

The Battle of Claw Island bugged

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yup – hit this just now, so still a problem. Having found this thread, like others I ran over to the hole in the wall where the dragon supposedly was (but where it wasn’t visible, despite my high graphics settings), and it reappeared; after a few seconds of running around under it, it started roaring and the story moved on. (It then took me ages to get out the courtyard, thanks to the frequent, extended fears, but that’s a different issue.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Molten alliance kills?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m guessing it’s the daily for today? The hallucinatory Molten enemies on level 3 of the Tower and in Nightmare Chambers count, I believe.

The Aetherblade ones in the Nightmare Chambers don’t seem to. I’m still on 0% today despite having completed one such chamber.

Map detail delays

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Since the Tower of Nightmares patch, it’s been taking forever (by which I mean as much as 10 seconds or longer) for detail of zones on the world map, and similarly my compass, to fill in. Prior to that, all I have is an unusable, blocky mess reminiscent of 8-bit graphics.

OK – I’d thought it might be a memory issue. It doesn’t seem to be.

I was running on 4Gb, and noticed it was getting tight with GW2 active, so I installed another 4Gb that I’d had sitting around for some time. GW2 probably was memory-constrained – with room to breathe, it seems to have a footprint on my machine of up to about 3.5Gb, including cached data, and other stuff was swallowing another couple of Gb – but even now it’s not, the problem persists. I just timed 18 seconds between emerging from Lion’s Arch into Divinity’s Reach and the main map becoming usable, for example.

Sound Effect Volume suddenly going low

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I’m getting a variation of this as well (seems to be all sounds, not just some). It started a few weeks ago, but seems to be getting worse. Right now my PC sound volume is set well above where I normally use it; the in-game sliders (and in particular the master volume control) are in the same position I always set them (and I’ve tried resetting everything to default, as well, just to make sure I haven’t got anything messed up unintentionally); yet the whole game sound is down to nothing much more than a whisper. Very frustrating (not to say potentially dangerously unhealthy, when you have everything turned up to allow for it, and then the next time you start the game, everything blasts on at full volume). I’m running on NVIDIA and Realtek sound drivers (ASUS P8P67 motherboard)

Restarting the game doesn’t make any difference for me. Rebooting the computer resolves it until next time.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

The sour truth: game is UN.PLAY.ABLE

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

As others have hinted – despite your contention that there’s a server-side problem, there clearly isn’t – or at least, whatever you’re seeing isn’t ONLY server-side – or EVERYONE would be experiencing this, and that’s simply not the case. So I’m afraid it looks like you’ve found a problem specific to your machine hardware, software or connection. For what it’s worth, I’ve had similar problems, at various times, in every MMO I’ve played; I know just how annoying and frustrating they are.

This may have nothing to do with your particular problem, but I’ve noticed that the most annoying ones have very often been down to my detailed network connector settings. From memory, I had to change the Checksum Offload setting on at least 3 occasions when I was playing WoW, and it’s certainly something I’d consider making a note of the settings of, then changing, if I were seeing lots of DC’s that other people weren’t. It’s certainly capable of causing problems of the sort you’re seeing**.

Either way, right now – and in common with the vast majority of people playing the game – I’m currently seeing no problems with disconnects in GW2, despite playing for (too many) hours a day. I’d start trawling the forums for further posts containing detailed technical suggestions and responses, if I were you.

**To quote from Wikipedia: “((Checksum Offload)) may cause packet analyzers detecting outbound network traffic upstream of the network adapter that are unaware or uncertain about the use of checksum offload to report invalid checksum in outbound packets.”

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Map detail delays

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Since the Tower of Nightmares patch, it’s been taking forever (by which I mean as much as 10 seconds or longer) for detail of zones on the world map, and similarly my compass, to fill in. Prior to that, all I have is an unusable, blocky mess reminiscent of 8-bit graphics.

Skeletal Lich - Impossible or Bugged?

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The building itself isn’t causing it, it’s the players grouped up tightly around him. His aoe triggers his life leech. I was watching it happening, each time he did it with the people grouped around him in the building he was regenning like 20% of his health. It is possible to out dps that and I’ve done it too, but it’s way easier if you keep him outside and everyone ranges.

That’s logical. And yet, based on the (typically pointed) comments I keep seeing during the event, there’s clearly also a school of thought out there as well that sticking to ranged attacks is absolutely the wrong thing to do, and heals him (or maybe lets him heal). I don’t understand the logic behind it, and I have no idea which is correct – I was trying to understand when I arrived here, in fact. But I will observe that, in the most recent fight I had with him, he went down rather quicker after people started yelling to chat for people to get in close and concentrate on melee, than he had been doing before that (a totally unrepresentative sample of one occasion, but there you go).

Edit OK, we just did him again (EU, Piken Square). As the realm received wisdom is that it’s important that everyone melee him, we were all crowded right up to him, running straight back in after his occasional fears. I watched his health from about 60%, and it never went anywhere but down; and my up-scaled level 74 mesmer had no great difficulty staying alive. What most definitely did NOT happen (despite what some people in this thread would clearly have expected) was him life-stealing back up to full; I have to assume the skill is interruptible, in which case he undoubtedly never even got a chance to cast it successfully.

I’d have to say that, while it may seem counter-intuitive, getting everyone in close and meleeing works.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Skeletal Lich - Impossible or Bugged?

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Anyone else run into this?

Haven’t seen that. I’ve spent several hours over the last few days in the Labyrinth (mostly in overflows), and every time I’ve seen him spawn, he’s gone down. Sometimes easier than others, but even so.

Lunatic Inquisition Regular Broken?

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

As I posted in another thread – I have 2/8 so far. I’ve played 7 games. I’ve never been highest scorer (What? Do a game with 10 or 15 other players, and out-and-out win it 8 times just for an achievement? Hardly likely!) I have to say, I strongly think this is a bug (especially in the light of the report above of a score being wiped out).

Edit Just won another game, credit has gone up to 3/8. And now I think of it, 2 games prior to that is probably what I’d previously won. So I’d suggest that, yes, you’re only getting credit when your side wins.

Edit 2 Nope. Just won another, still on 3/8. Looks like a bug.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Lunatic Inquisition reward

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Played 8. Never had highest score, never been last survivor. Entered all but two from Lion’s Arch. Won 3 so far, credited with 3/8. I’d say, on my own experience at least, it should be “Games Won”.

Edit Nope. Won another, no credit.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

I don't "get" cultural armor

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I really, really don’t “get” cultural armor. Am I missing something?

Ignoring the obvious fact that I can often get better gear cheaper via other routes – and ignoring the lack of variety – one thing really puzzles me. Why is the cultural armor for each race – light, medium and heavy – restricted so tightly to a single trio of stats? Take Sylvari for instance: Precision, Condition Damage, Toughness. Unless I’m putting together a build in which all of those are of keen interest to me – and it’s not, I would suggest, the most common mix – why on earth would I buy the armor? And even if it’s precisely what I want – unless, I’m Sylvari, I can’t buy it anyway.

OK, yes, I get a few achievement points (once). And if I really want, I can skin other stuff with the look (although it’s one heck of a lot of money to spend on a few aesthetic tweaks) . But beyond that?

I don’t get it.

"Survial of the Fittest"?!

in Dynamic Events

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Just did the daily activity (Crab Toss), and got a totally unexpected event completion (NOT an achievement), “Survival of the Fittest” (plus or minus a second “v” – sorry, my typing’s rubbish). I’ve searched but can’t find any indication of what that is, or why it triggered. Does anyone know?

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Zerg trains in Queensdale

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Adding to this because it’s really getting on my nipples.

Couldn’t agree more, Zaxares. What gets me is not people farming champions per se – but the whole “train” thing.

Three or four months ago people were regularly farming the champions – but you’d get a shout out in chat that something was up, and a chance to head over. No problem, nice and sociable, and when I joined in I was almost never standing around waiting for something to do for long.

Now, by contrast, we’ve got an increasing percentage of pea-brained idiots trying to run “trains” who really, really want to do a regular rotation, who can’t be bothered to keep chat informed on what events are up, yet who get downright nasty if someone else dares actually trigger something “early” or “out of sequence” that stops them getting “their” kill. It’s not remotely sociable, it doesn’t exactly endear them, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to pause and wait before kicking something off, just so that they can join in. Because, frankly, I can be just as big a childish and antisocial anus as the next guy, when I’m annoyed. Although at least I’ll do people the courtesy of a polite shout out in chat.

tl;dr: Don’t tell me how to play my game, and I’ll be less likely to knowingly mess up yours.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Southsun Survival

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

You don’t like achievements? Go and collect some stuff.

In fact, the BEST part of South Sun Survival is when you’re dead. You get achievements for gathering and achievements for trapping.

I sometimes get myself kills fast so I can maximize my points.

I’ve nothing against achievements, but I’d prefer to do them as part of the activity – when (because, in all honesty, I’m a crap PvPer) I inevitably get killed – not instead of it.

Southsun Survival

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

what do you mean you have been killed? If you enter late, you start as a ghost automatically which gives you the opportunity to gain some points towards various achievements. Would you rather have a queue before you can enter the activity – standing around in LA doing nothing instead of something with a guaranteed spot in the following round?

If it’s a default for “late” starts, it would be nice if the game actually told me that, rather than just dumping me in as a ghost and leaving me frustrated.

As for a queue – frankly, yes, I’d rather queue for a couple of minutes in some holding area (as per the start of Sanctum Sprint at its busier times, say), and at least have a chance to actually play the game, than get dumped in on a grudging, “We’ll let you in, but you’re too late to actually play,” basis. Or give me (say) 20-30 seconds of invulnerability during which all I can do is move, and a skill that cancels that and lets me start looting and so on, to give me time to get into game. Let’s be real – so far, I hate this activity, and I only do it because it’s part of the daily.But then again, I’m not exactly a big fan of the Crab Toss or the Keg Brawl either – but I at least try to take part once I’m in. I’d like a better chance to do so with this one as well; but repeated “ghost” starts do nothing to endear it. .

Not seeing Tequatl even status any more

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I did, yes. I’ll accept it could be deliberate.

Not seeing Tequatl even status any more

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Apologies – deleted the original post, then found someone had replied. This (not getting the Tequatl status messages) seems to be a bug.

How low has your server gotten Tequatl?

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yak’s Bend cot to the 75% cannon phase this run.
It’s also worth noting there was no overflow on Yak’s bend.
People are already not going to the event.

I’m one of them, I’m afraid. I have better things to do.

Presumably some people will stick at it for achievements and/or bragging rights. I suspect a lot will give up in disgust after the fourth of fifth failure (or even the fourth or fifth death run), though (oh, and the inevitable loud-mouthed idiots moaning about “incompetent noobs” on the turrets is hardly encouraging, either). Frankly I bugged out of the event the very first time I attended after about 5 minutes, when it became very clear we weren’t even scratching Tequatl’s hide. I went back a second time to get the Boss Week daily (for having been there). I haven’t been back since.

The brutal fact is that the rewards, to me at least, simply don’t look good enough to be worth the huge investment of repeatedly wasting time and gold failing, in hopes that, along the line, I and others will get good enough to beat him (or at least start getting decent rewards), when I could be spending the time doing things I enjoy much more. And there’s a classic sociological conundrum underlying the event, namely the “problem of the commons” (1). Because, even if I go along every time, and learn the fight to perfection, that’s still no use unless enough other people learn it well enough as well – without that, all my time and effort won’t make an iota of difference. So my best personal tactic is to let others make the sacrifice – let them do the hard work of learning the basics of the event, wait until “the server” is a lot better at the event – THEN go join in, and reap the rewards of their efforts. And of course, doing that is entirely self-serving, and if enough people do it, the server probably never WILL beat Tequatl. But it’s what’s likely to happen.

(Or we’ll beat him once or twice, the players who stuck with it for achievements and bragging rights will move on to other things, and that will be that.)

(1) Paraphrased: A group needs everyone to make a voluntary sacrifice to achieve a mutually-desirable goal, but individuals taking part lose out unless enough other people also do so. So what normally happens is that most people don’t do what’s needed, the goal isn’t achieved, and and everyone loses out. And the people who contributed, lose out most.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Welll.... THAT was pointless...

in Tequatl Rising

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Just did Maw for the first time after the boss buff, and I’d have to say the buff is WAY over the top, and definitely a change for the worse.

The Maw shaman fight used to be a 20 second nuke fest, and there was a good chance you’d not even get a reward if you weren’t careful to get stuck in early. That was bad.

So the boss has been buffed, and now it’s a 5 minute nuke fest. There are no new tactics worthy of the name (I didn’t even notice the new “ice vortexes”, which got completely lost in the usual graphics lag mess that is the shaman fight). Frankly with the changes to Tequatl in this patch that’s probably a good thing – but in practice it means that all you do is stand there and cycle through your skills, watching the boss health creeping down for minutes on end and getting thoroughly bored. I could have gone Ay eF Kay (1) in the middle of the fight, still have gotten the chest, and had more fun into the bargain.

Frankly, this wasn’t a good call. Upping the boss’s health a bit (to make the fight last a LITTLE longer and let people actually have time to get back and stuck in before he died) would have been fine. Anything more was unnecessary; and upping to THIS extent was simply pointless and boring.

(1) Apologies for that, but the ludicrous site obscenity filter thinks it’s rude if I spell it correctly.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Too hard Champion.

in Personal Story

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Didn’t fail because the way to beat it is simply to wipe, run back, get in a few hits, wipe again, run back, rinse repeat.

Every time my necro died I was put right back at the start point, and long before I could get back to the guy he was back up at full health. All that retrying achieved was a bigger repair bill. Plus the guy seems to have a “pull” power that meant I couldn’t stand off and kite; and once I was in close I quickly ran out of any way to stay alive. I gave up after the fifth or sixth death; even when I managed to get all the NPCs alive at once and helping out, I simply couldn’t get him below about 50% before he killed me again. So once again I’m stuck on my personal story unless I go beg for help.

(I guess it’s possible that I could get past this one by respeccing and changing my gear. Call me old-fashioned, but I really don’t think that I should need to do that just to beat one particular story – that’s shades of the worst parts of the original Guild Wars. My character manages fine in the broader world on her current spec and gear – in fact I have world completion on her – so it seems reasonable to expect that she should be able to complete her storyline that way as well. Apparently not.)

Edit: OK – I wondered whether my big mistake might have been just running past the giants, rather than taking them out. Result (I’m guessing) – ranged fire that was killing off the NPCs, allowing the boss to drop out of combat and heal. Tried again, taking out the giants on the way. Still died once, but crucially this time the NPCs stayed alive until I got back. The boss couldn’t heal up, and I managed to take him down at the second time of asking. (Moral: Don’t cut corners.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Invasion didn't start

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

today at gunners hold we got a message (a few hours ago) that there’s an invasion at timberline falls. everyone got there and there was no invasion :/

Yup. Bugged message. Already reported in this thread.

Scarlet invasion notice & event do not match

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Same problem on Pike Square EU. An external site using the API had the correct location. Server times of the messages in chat were 07:13 and 07:15.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

How to find invasions now?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

invasions are less frequent now, since the new update i’ve only seen two pop (one on the day sab launched and one last night). You just have to get lucky and be on when the message pops up. I read in map chat that they happen roughly every 4 hours, but I can’t confirm or deny this.

I saw one on the evening of the patch, and three yesterday. Based on that very small sample, they seem to be spaced somewhat randomly, at between 3 and 4 hours. They’re definitely no longer tied to the hour – those four were, from memory, at roughly xx:10, xx:50, xx:15 and xx:30.

My big problem (as if it needs saying!) is that, if for any reason you don’t see the messages right away, and they’re not in your chat log (you logged on after the messages popped, say, or chat’s been very busy and they’ve scrolled off the top), you have no way of finding out whether an invasion’s going on, or where it is. Lots of good ideas in this thread and elsewhere on what would be useful; sounds like we don’t seem to have anything practical right now, though?

No Soup For Solo

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Just a minute. Is this a troll thread? It looks like a troll thread.

No, it’s not a troll thread. I missed SAB the first time because of ‘suggested: 5 players’. I missed Molten Facility because of ‘suggested: 5 players’. I missed playhouse because of ‘suggested: 5 players’. I am going to miss SAB again because of ‘suggested: 5 players’.

I don’t do group dungeons. I don’t join guilds. I don’t join organized parties. I am a solo player and there is no solo content in this LS release. You can say it’s soloable all you want but virtually every 5 man dungeon is soloable if you want to bang your head against the wall for hours on end. I want to know why there is no content for solo players in this LS release.

Other players, and the dev’s, are telling you that SAB is perfectly good solo content. Not least, your character’s level, gear and profession are irrelevant. I almost never group either, but I’ve dipped my toes inside, and I can confirm that what I’ve done so far at least was fine on my own.

Putting it bluntly – if you choose to ignore what you’re being told, and carry on complaining because of a few words on a screen rather than trying it for yourself, I’m afraid you’re unlikely to get much sympathy.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

No Soup For Solo

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

SAB is soloable. World 2 might be a pain by yourself if you’re not good with jumping, though.

I’m great at jumping but I can’t go in SAB. Whether it’s soloable or not is meaningless. As long as it states ‘suggested: 5 players’, it’s group content. I don’t group.

Labels can be deceptive. And even when they’re not, not all “group content” is best done in a group. And SAB is different to most content anyway, in that your gear, level and profession is totally irrelevant.

I’m rather like you. I only group with friends (who don’t play often), so I treat “solo-able” group content with healthy scepticism. But having posts similar to this one, and tried SAB for the first time a couple of days ago, I can confirm that at least the early content (all I’ve had time to try so far) is indeed most definitely solo-able.

Ignore the label. Go try it. I rather enjoyed it.

How to find invasions now?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK – Clockwork Chaos has ended, but Scarlet’s invasions are still going on. And I’d like to carry on doing them. Does anyone know how to find out (a) whether one is currently going on, and (b) where it is, though?

I managed to join in on one the first evening after the patch, because I saw the alert message while I was standing in Lion’s Arch. Yesterday, by contrast, I played intermittently for most of the day, and didn’t see a hint of a single one

Revamping Tequatl? Why?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

“Play with your friends.”

My guess is ArenaNet doesn’t know their own game. I tried to ‘play with my friends’ during those invasion mass events and getting in the same district was literally impossible.

Rubbish. All you needed was patience (and just the very smallest amount of luck). If the invasions carry on being popular, here’s what worked for us.

- Get together by a portal into the area in question
- Wait 5 or 6 minutes after the invasion start message for the rush to die down**(depending on who’s where, doing what, it may take that long to get together anyway)
- Then do a countdown and all step through the portal at the same time.
If you don’t all end up in the same copy of the zone, step back out and try again.

It’s not guaranteed, so keep an eye on the clock just in case the 10 minute deadline is coming up. But I did it half a dozen times or more with a group of three friends across three evenings, and whilst on one occasion it took us 4 attempts, we always managed to end up together.

**Clearly you can start sooner, but while lots of people are still joining and new overflows are being created every few seconds, it’s more likely you’ll get split up and have to try again, which is frustrating.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

LS system is "burning" even great players.

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

OK. Without wishing to be overly provocative: Opposite point of view. I’ve seen this wail in multiple threads now, and I completely disagree. From my perspective, it’s simply a request to keep the game more boring and repetitive, so that a few players can feel they’re somehow still “winning”. Whereas to me it’s great that, right now, there’s sufficient new content coming along that I’m not continually doing the same things over and over – and, further, that I can pick and choose what bits I want to do, and pass up on bits that simply don’t appeal.

I genuinely struggle to understand how come people can feel they have to do all the content that ANet push. And worse than that, feel it so strongly that they would actually rather walk away from a game that they presumably otherwise like, than miss the odd achievement or two. What gives? Are you addicted? Are you under so much self- or peer-pressure to be top dog, that you daren’t be seen to actually have ten less achievement points than the next guy? Is it the way you measure your own worth? Or what? Surely, if you’re burning out, you’d do better to simply get up and walk away from the computer for a while. Go take a walk. Read a book. See a movie. Spend a few hours socialising with someone of whichever sex floats your boat. Anything but feeding your obsession. (Please understand that I’m not trying to be snarky or rude, even if it possibly reads that way. But obsession isn’t a healthy mindset; where does it come from in this case?)

One thing I do suspect: ANet have decided on the Living Story delivery schedule, and it’s not going to change any time soon. It’s my purely personal opinion based on observation, but I’d bet that there are one heck of a lot more vaguely “casual” players – who actually enjoy the changing content right now – than there are players busting their cojones kittens to get every last drop done as though their very lives depended on it. ANet, of course, will be able to tell that simply by looking at the stats, and when they tie that up with who’s spending what, they’ll know where their core demographics are – and whether or not it’s in their financial interest to slow things down or not. I’m guessing not. And in game terms, that means that, if it’s a hard choice between (a) losing a few so-called “great” players (a telling choice of words in itself) and keeping a lot more that, the creator of this thread would presumably term “mediocre” or something worse, or (b) vice versa – they’ll look at the numbers and make the call. Come to that, they probably already have.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Where and How Will You Best Farm Gold Now?

in Living World

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

*note: I have no clue where “kittens” came from and I can’t get rid of it.

I would presume that you wrote “that it’s” minus the space and apostrophe. At which point the anti-smut filter decided it couldn’t possibly let you use a string of characters that might actually refer to a small bird of the passerine family, and substituted “kitten”.

Unintended Monthly Achievement Rollback?

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

This is absolutely not true, difens.1326. As a professional programmer myself (non gaming related) who rolls out updates to several clients semi-frequently, it is pretty much impossible to test EVERYTHING thoroughly enough to not have ANY bugs. If you want to make perfect software, you’ll never release anything EVER. Because it can ALWAYS be better. And yes — I’ve messed up some things that have been irreversible, like this. It’s part of the job. So you can bash on ANet or bash on me all you want, but every piece of software you use will have issues from time to time, rather you run into them or not.

This.

For most of the last 20 years I was a professional software tester for IBM, on a mature product core to the businesses of some very big names indeed. If something bad got through into released code, in a worst case it could bring a customer’s business to a halt. We didn’t just get a few disgruntled posts, we risked our CEO taking phone calls from the CEOs of Wal-Mart and the like – and then asking us ever so politely just when they could expect a solution, because a key customer was losing millions of dollars an hour? And I support every word in the parent post. Code without bugs doesn’t happen except in the dreams of people who know nothing about developing code. Fixes are almost never as simple as they look. And you can’t test everything in any reasonable time-frame and still put code out, so bugs will inevitably get through. The best you can hope is that the dev’s don’t muck up TOO badly, and that the testers manage to catch the more embarrassing ones before the customers can hit them. After that, it’s all about damage limitation and prioritisation. So don’t rag on either the dev’s or the testers just because you don’t like one bug in particular that got through – YOU COULDN’T DO BETTER (and if you think otherwise, frankly you’re welcome to go try). And, yes, sometimes you get a bug where the cure would be worse than the disease, and you just have to roll with it and do the best you can in the circumstances.

And, for the record – I came to this thread because I, too, was on 3/4 and expecting to complete my monthly this morning. And I’m peeved that I need to find another 2 categories to complete now – but if the dev’s say that they’re sorry it’s happened but that but there’s no safe way to undo it, I’ll take them at their words and accept that.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

What Happened to my Monthy

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Last Night/earlier today (sept 1,2,3) I had 3/4 completed. Log in tonight and only have 1 of 4 done and new stuff to do? Where did my completions go?
I had to complete 1 more set of dailies to have 4/4 anf my monthly was done. Now I have to do it all again with different dailies. OMG—talk about be screwed over by Anet.

Same here. I put in a lot of effort on Monday to get to 3/4, and expected to complete today with my fourth daily. Instead, suddenly I’m back on 2/4.

What seems to have happened is that they’ve removed the Champions and Events categories from the monthly options (and possibly others, but those were the ones I’d done), and given no credit that I can see for having already completed them.

I’m not so much peeved by not having completed yet (that will happen before the month’s out) but by the fact that, as I said, I put several hours’ effort in specifically to get to where I was, and that’s been taken away again.

Why do people want to win the event?

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The reason this thread even exists is because ArenaNet chose to design the content in a way that allows reward seekers and content seekers to work independently.

Isn’t it possible this is NOT a bad thing? Again, CHOICE is available to everyone that wants to take the time to even show up every hour on the hour.

Personally I’d say it’s not. Without the incentive of the farming, the whole thing would have been pretty much over within the first few days as most people finished the achievements and gave up. Although I can understand the frustration of anyone who thinks the farming is stopping them succeeding.

Why do people want to win the event?

in Clockwork Chaos

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

No. No you don’t. Don’t lie to people. You get one more bag/box each. That’s it and that’s assuming your map has made it to the final phase. I’ve failed/won enough to know.

Don’t know where you’re playing or getting your numbers from…. I go from 2 of each box on a fail, to 5 boxes of each type on a win….

You get one box per wave defeated (with minions in phases 2 and 3 counting as a wave each). So you’ve got to fail pretty badly, not to get four boxes. Getting to the Scarlett fight means you’ve taken out all five waves, so gets you full reward whether you kill her or not. Which – once you have the achievement – means there’s no incentive, other than altruism, to stop farming and go join in.

Oh, and you only get the reward once per map per day, which – given there are 13 maps, they’re only once and hour, and which one comes up is random – is pretty arbitrary. Not to say dumb, because, if you’re unlucky enough to get a map you’ve already done once today, the only incentive to worrying about progress is getting to the Aetherblades. Other than that, you might as well just get stuck in and farm whatever fits your needs. You can’t even drop out and hope to get a different map; it’s stay and potentially mess things up for anyone who cares about completing the invasion, or give it a miss for that hour.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Southsun Survival

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

<rant>
The Daily activity today is Southsun Survival. So I log in, the loading screen clears… …and, yet again, I’ve been killed before I even got into the game. Oh, and (joy of joys) I still have to stick around if I want the credit for towards my daily, and interact enough not to get kicked for lack of “active play”. So I stand there with no interest in what’s going on, getting totally bored; I fidget at the mouse a bit; and eventually the game ends.

What a wonderful activity to do on a regular basis (I DON’T think). It’s way past time this purposeless yawn got canned from the dailies.
</rant>

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

"Activity Participation" daily is a poor idea

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

There are also achievement points you can get by actually playing the game. So if you just zoned in and tabbed out, you get none of them.

Yes, I’d missed that. Agreed – that’s a good enough reason to do the activity seriously a few times.

Which place is most populated with ambient?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I normally go for the rabbits in Wayfarer Foothills to the west and south of Talgar Waypoint (like all the other choices, plenty of them, and they’re on a fast respawn). There’re probably better places for the ambients alone if that’s all you need, but that one has excellent synergy with other things you’re also likely to be doing as part of your daily: several Veteran Oakhearts on a fairly fast respawn in the same area; multiple events at Victor’s Point, just NE; Champion Son of Svanir Wolfmaster spawns regularly just to the north; a decent number of gathering nodes. Plus the Frozen Maw event chain a little further north if you’re in the area at the right time.

"Activity Participation" daily is a poor idea

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

The new daily achievement rotation of mini-game participation seems, frankly, pointless and misplaced to me; it shouldn’t be there.

For example, I owe an apology to any players in the game of Southsun Survival I’ve just (for want of a better word) “played”. Simply by being in the game, I ticked the daily achievement box. And that’s my point – all I wanted was the achievement. I zoned in, swapped to another screen and did other things until the game ended. I came back and hit the movement keys regularly enough to not get kicked. Did I give a hoot about the game? No. Whether I won? No. Whether I survived, even? No (I died about 2 minutes in, in fact, and the game ended shortly afterwards). Did I devalue the game for other players? Quite possibly. Will I do the same again tomorrow? Undoubtedly.

Not really what a daily achievement task ought to be.

Event and Chest Bugs?

in Queen's Jubilee

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Same problem here (Piken Square, EU). Krytan Waypoint again. I was at maybe 20 towers completed at the time I first reached it. Problem persists after the latest patch (and I still haven’t completed the achievement – as it happens, that would have been my 30 if it had worked). I’ve triggered tower access at least five times now, with the same result each time – chest already open, “F” hot key option is to travel.

I’ve also taken three unintended balloon rides to Divinity’s Reach by consequence, but that’s by the by.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Why the "what's in it for me" attitude?

in Dynamic Events

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Essentially no matter what you do or where you go you are always being attacked and the monsters are relatively difficult to bypass since they have a lot of immobilize and pull types making simply running past them a nuisance. This is something some game designers have noticed and it’s a psychological thing, if you are constantly fighting without end you will get tired of it a lot more quickly than if you have breaks between fights where you just need to move.

Orr also lacks the renown hearts that give (me, at least) a reason to stick around in one part of a zone for longer than the absolute, bare minimum it takes to tag POIs, Skill Points and Vistas for map completion (which in most cases is not long) – and which, in other zones, are often half the reason for getting into combat. Coupled with the Orr design ethos of, “It’s going to be tough, and if you don’t keep moving something else will come along and join in”, I found the game positively pushing me to avoid combat wherever I could and to run past everything as fast as possible. Vista done? Time to move on. Mobs aggro’d? Keep running until they lose interest or you reach safety. Dynamic events were mostly only of interest when they were where I needed to be; it wasn’t why I was there (nor, most times I can envisage finding the need to go back, will it be then, either). Did I take in the (doubtless-carefully-designed) story nuances? Did I heck. Find the path of least resistance, get in, get out, move on. Don’t fight anything that you can bypass – it’s going to be hard going and the reward simply won’t be worth the candle. I’m sure there were carefully-thought-out design decisions behind why Orr is the way it is; unfortunately, they add up to a result that, for me (and for many other people, it seems), doesn’t really work to hook me in and make me stick around.

[BUG] Retribution Lvl 59 Personal Story Quest

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Yes, I’ve just had the same challenge. Definitely a problem, and definitely still present. On entry to the story I was up on deck, with the step “Join the assault force at Claw Island” showing. There was no story marker on my compass or map (nor did I see one over the NPC below decks when I finally found him). No cut scene played to give me a hint as to where to go. Logging out to character select made no difference (I didn’t try a full close of the client).

By consequence, until I came here I was completely at a loss as to how to get the story to move forward. (I should add that this is my 6th character to do “Retribution”, so I was quite familiar with what was due to happen – but I couldn’t remember the fine detail of how to trigger it. Something was different, because I definitely didn’t have this problem on previous occasions.)

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

Moorwatch Tower Vista Bug[Merged]

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Guest on Ring of Fire right now there is no event going there

Confirmed – right now, still working on Ring of Fire.

It’s broken on Piken Square, though (“2 cows needed, 3 alive” – but no cows around and the NPCs never do anything) – which is why I came to this thread in the first place).

"Breaking the Bone Ship" personal quest broken

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

Still a problem just now, seven months later. I came within a whisker of giving the story up as uncompletable. and restarting it.

At the ship I found nothing to kill; I swam in circles for 10 minutes searching. A check on line told me I was looking for sharks, but there were none to be seen. I eventually found one seemingly tucked up into the bone ship hull – looked to be stuck, as Tonn and I killed it over a couple of minutes with ranged attacks without once being attacked back (and once it died, the corpse was almost entirely hidden by the ship).

Back to swimming around. I eventually spotted a shark not far outside the marked area, decided it was worth giving that one a try and was heading towards it trying to engage it in combat. At which point I was bounced from behind by another shark that I’m absolutely convinced wasn’t there a few seconds before.

Once I’d killed that one, the quest advanced.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)