Guild Wars 2

morrolan.9608:

Yukishiro.8792:

No. It means they’re hard to play. That doesn’t mean they’re underpowered when played decently. It certainly does mean a bad elementalist is underpowered compared to a bad warrior or guardian or ranger.

To me that says that the class is inherently underpowered, the fact that a good player can get past that limitation is pretty much irrelevant.

It’s… not at all irrelevant. “skill cap” has nothing to do with under/over-powered.

Also, this skills tool is significantly more accurate and robust:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/

Click “En” for English.

LightningLockey.5938:

To say I’m frustrated is an understatement. Never before have I died nearly as much in an MMO. A perfect example is in the one map there is an event to help clean up a mess from a nuclear explosion that the robot turns into a huge fire elemental. The “Embers” which are fire monsters with wings will 1-hit me. Often I’m totally dead without a chance to turn into mist or attack back.

Here is my character build. I have 5 trait points left. Lightning magic seems to be the most reliable.
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.2.0.13.0.0.0.0.0.2.15.16.21.24.6.0.0.0.0.0.19.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5.10.0.5.5

I’d greatly appreciate any help as my current plan is to shelf my elemental this weekend and use it just for crafting.

That sounds suspiciously like the northern end of Metrica Province, but you can’t seriously mean that and be level 80…

What other zone are we talking about?

MistaMike.7356:

WoW has some very interesting PVE bosses which you could look at for inspiration.

Outdoor bosses where the strategy for killing them isn’t spelled out (so that players would have to trial and error how to kill them) would go a long long way to adding the level of “raid-boss depth” that players of WoW are used to.

WoW bosses, unfortunately, aren’t nearly as challenging as they could be, but it would be a step in the right direction. I’ve heard Rift is actually better at that, which means I may someday have to consider trying Rift – but I have no desire to play a subscription MMO anymore.

nerva.7940:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Drakkon.4782:

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

No, what you should take away from this thread is that the devs are claiming that DEs at higher levels are challenging, throwing stuff at you, and actually making you try, when they’re not.

uh no, the article has absolutely NOTHING to do with what you just said.

It actually said exactly that:

Each new experience, new dungeon, and new giant boss is a chance for us to layer on more difficulty

These massive dynamic events usually come at the end of one of our meta-event chains, and they reward players with a challenging encounter

but later in the game, these giant bosses really come at you with gloves off.

Drakkon.4782:

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

No, what you should take away from this thread is that the devs are claiming that DEs at higher levels are challenging, throwing stuff at you, and actually making you try, when they’re not.

Erasculio.2914:

Most DEs are too easy, though. This is a big issue – if all events are eternally at the most favorable outcome, players won’t be in a dynamic world – players will just be fighting the same enemies over and over while keeping the same status quo. Someone at GW2Guru claimed that a dynamic event should become more difficult the more it has been successful, which IMO is a great idea. So the “Defend the village from centaurs” event would be easy… The first time. The third time players manage to succeed when doing it, the next attack would be so big that it would be almost impossible for players to win, “forcing” the world to change so players actually see how dynamic the events can be.

That could be a start, but… so far that I’ve seen, Arena Net’s idea of making stuff “harder” is to just give it more HP and make it hit harder.

Eochaidh.4106:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

So we need bosses with contested gys ,
Humogous hp ,
Numerous adds ,
Munipulate the elements of nature ,
Cast thunder all over the place every 1 min , forcing the players to hide under trees (whle the trees is burning cuase of the lighting thunders ) ,
Players must kil the adds , while some of them must use the water buckets to burn out the fire/heal the tree before the next thunder or all ppl will whipe ,
While the boss lowers his chin casting slowy 180-turn firebreath ,
Hide behind the trees-rocks (the trees die)
Or players must kill the adds fast ,
Some of them equip the mobs skin as shields , and stand in frond of the tree-players to protect them , likeusing Gear shield and abosrve all the range attacks aiming at ur friend ?

Nah …. too much hassle

Because bosses that 1 shot you is definitely challenging… That’s not challenging that’s just ridiculous, there is no room for improvement.

What is challenging for you then? It sounds like you won’t ever be satisfied.

Bosses that can 1 shot you just plain isn’t challenging because there’s not much to those mechanics. You either avoid the mechanic and beat the boss, or don’t avoid the mechanic, and don’t. That’s… not a challenge. There’s nothing deep or complex about that.

Shadow of the Colossus, that was challenging. (unless you just went to youtube instead of figuring it out on your own)

gamingglory.2097:

I will honestly say, and yes it might be bold and arrogant of me, that the longevity in PvE of this game is severely hampered by its spectacular shallow content. What I mean by that is that while events with big dragons is neat and all, it is also very brief and then done. Poof, wait a few more hours or so to see it again if you want, but it never changes and seems nearly impossible to fail.

That’s exactly how it feels. “Shallow” is a good word.

I do personally put value into the cosmetic rewards, but I don’t put value into content that’s nearly impossible to fail.

Red Falcon.8257:

GW2 is not a game based on the concept of “endgame”, as in being enslaved in a circular flow of repetitive grind->reward system.

Anet has been yelling for months that they were doing away with that kind of endgame and were going to give us legendaries for PvE, WvW for PvPvE guys and sPvP for pvpers.
They did.

Not happy with this formula?
You bought the wrong game for you, regardless Anet yelling this at you for years.
Guess who’s to blame.

Completely unrelated to what I’ve actually been saying.

soulcakeduck.7036:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

… it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

You did not read the article carefully enough. Orr is part of their accessible endgame that is intentionally “easy” so that everyone can see it.

Here is the part of the article you were looking for:

For people who love structured and difficult content, we developed the explorable mode for our eight dungeons. A dungeon’s explorable mode has at least three different paths that players can choose to conquer—and each path is a five-character delve into tough content that we designed to push the limits of teamwork and communication.

There is no one who will claim with a straight face that all of the explorable mode paths provide no challenge. Anyone who would make such a claim would say the same thing about the “challenges” offered in other MMOs like WoW’s heroic mode raiding.

Currently, I know of one explorable mode path (out of 25+) that people consider easy (path 2, Magg, in CoF). Pugs clear it regularly, and even there I’d argue there are some appropriate challenges and gameplay is still interesting. Even here, I don’t think you’re guaranteed to clear with a PuG—wait until more average gamers start getting to level cap to see.

And every other path is far more challenging from there. So, you’re asking the wrong people and asking the wrong questions if you’re interested in challenging content.

The thing is, I’m willing to bet at least a single account fee that a large portion of the playerbase want DEs to be really challenging. For a large number of gamers, if content is easy, it’s not amazing or epic.

What I’ve heard about dungeons is two specific things, and I’ve seen it in action from a second-hand perspective:
1. Group composition affects the difficulty – which results in rampant classism, regardless of how minimal the differences are, though it may be impossible to address this
2. Dungeons are only challenging in regards to attrition, (i.e. bosses with tons of HP that hit really hard, and not much more than that), which doesn’t really satisfy my desire for challenging content.

And there’s plenty of people who, yes, have claimed that dungeons are not challenging – especially when you run with three Warriors.

Srondon.3642:

PvE at “end-game” as you call it (max level I assume you mean)

I was actually referring to endgame in the terms that the dev that wrote that article was using.

We didn’t want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we’ve introduced game elements that you’d normally associate with “endgame” at every level and every possible opportunity.

In the sense that the whole game is endgame, and just gets more challenging – problem is, I really don’t feel the increasing challenge.

Srondon.3642:

… and then you said this and I’m like “What in the WORLD is this guy TALKING ABOUT?!” And then you say later in the thread to “ask Elementalists about that.” I AM a max level Elementalist. An Elementalist is one the BEST classes to take into a dungeon (assuming the Elementalist isn’t a scrub, but that goes for all classes really), so I have no idea where that tripe came from.

Most Elementalists I see on public discussion boards, and talk to directly, seem to suggest that Elementalists are grossly underpowered and a terrible choice for dungeons.

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not or how much – the classism is still there and the composition of your group will still affect how easy or hard the dungeon is. (Plenty of people seem to think that you must have a Guardian, for example – not because it’s required, but because of how easy they make it)

There’s also an entire thread in the Elementalist sub-forum right on these official forums of people sharing their experiences of being denied by groups entirely due to being Elementalist.

Dra Keln.2015:

Guys remember that events only balance for so many people. Last I heard standard Evers scale for up to 10. I know that seems ridiculous but think about how many events there are and how difficult it is to balance them. Once this ridiculously high concurrency goes down things should et significantly better. Nothing in this game can e truly judged as of yet

The point of open world events, however, is that they’re supposed to scale. And these big elite events, like Shadow Behemoth as a well-known example, are actually supposed to scale anywhere from 10 to 100 people (those are actually the numbers devs were using before launch!).

The god temple stuff in Orr are all Elite Dynamic Events, right? Doesn’t that mean they’re supposed to scale and remain challenging for upwards of 100 people? If that’s the case, why is 50 too much for them?

ituhata.6830:

Honestly, I don’t see how you can make world bosses hard when 50 players are droppnig stuns slows and knockbacks constantly without making them completely immune to it and then you just have alot of dead people.

By the way, Lok says Hi. He’s got alot of HP and even though I didn’t find him personally difficult to master alot of people didn’t seem to grasp that when he hikes his leg its time to dodge, or just flat out got the timing wrong. Alot of people died constantly and I actually found it entertaining to make my way to downed players and bring them up, all while keeping myself safe on the ground stomps. That fight took at least 5-10 minutes minimum, and it seemed like it took longer.

I think other players nailed it, when the population begins to normalize and there aren’t as many people readily available DE’s will become more formidable and entertaining for those looking for a challenge.

Defiance, Unshakable, whatever it’s called. It’s already in the game.

And why does everybody seem to ignore player scaling?

Airien.4798:

I found this article to be great and really lay it down to those who see this game for something it’s not. This game is all about the journey to level 80 and I feel the article really points out that those who chose to breeze through the content really missed out on the meat of the game.

Try thinking outside the box and enjoy a game where you don’t need to watch your XP bar whatsoever. Enjoy the game first and think of levels as secondary, it will make the game much more appeasable to those accustomed to the past decades genre of MMO’s.

Happy huntin’.

I don’t watch my exp bar. I often forget what level I am because I don’t care.

What I do care about is the fact that everything I’ve experienced in the game so far, outside of dungeons (and in the case of dungeons, the only mechanic is “attrition”), is easy, mindless, AOE zergfests on the same difficulty level as LFR.

I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered by that, if the article (and devs in other places) weren’t making these claims:

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 was to continue to build upon what we’ve shown you before while finding new and interesting ways to engage you as a player, regardless of your level. Each new experience, new dungeon, and new giant boss is a chance for us to layer on more difficulty, or teach you an interesting aspect about your profession and what you can do when you combine forces with other players. Guild Wars 2 is a game about banding together with friends and complete strangers to accomplish great things in a world ruled by uncertainty and challenge.

What difficulty? What challenge?

Rocksors.7830:

The game has just been released, there are a lot of people levelling so yes, there will be a higher than otherwise intended amount of people completing/participating in events.

And as I’ve already mentioned, these events are supposed to scale wrt to number of players participating.

If it’s specifically because of the number of people involved, then their player-scaling system has utterly failed.

Rocksors.7830:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close)

Please, don’t that stop you from judging game play you’ve not experienced.

When compared to my own experience in higher level areas, it doesn’t comfort me in the least, especially considering I know the people sharing these experiences rather well, and have no reason to doubt their judgment.

I really don’t think I could, but I haven’t tried everything out there. The only thing I find lacking in GW2 is content that challenges me. Dungeons aren’t mechanically challenging, they just have bosses that hit hard and have tons of HP, which isn’t hard on its own.

At the same time, I can’t see myself going back to raiding, in any of the current “raiding” games. I want the challenge of a raid, without the nonsense that comes with it: roster management, drama, stress, organizational nightmares when people want to play it their way and not the right way, time commitments… it’s all too much.

GW2 has only partially scratched that itch.

Banewrath.5107:

Mark my words, the first addition to new classes they will eventually add to the game will be the monk.

Guardian already does the Monk’s job, only in plate armor. They would be far too similar.

I’ve got a Charr Warrior and a Norn Guardian and a Human Thief. As well as a Sylvari Elementalist, and an Asura Mesmer. I also already bought an extra character slot for my Charr Engineer.
Still need the slots for a Human Necromancer and Sylvari Ranger.

Haven’t ever once felt a reason to change. Just pick one and stick with it.

What I plan to do, eventually, however… is to have 15 character slots total. Three for each race. I plan to repeat every profession once, except for Mesmer.

No. They couldn’t, and they don’t need to.

The problem with the idea of instanced large-group dungeons (aka raids) is that it will instantly create an elitist sub-class of players in the community. Pretty sure that goes against the game’s design goals.

What they could do instead, though, is tune their open-world encounters better. Make them more challenging, more demanding in regards to player skill and cooperation.

Rocksors.7830:

My vocabulary is extensive and my non-regional diction superb, so it hasn’t effect me apart from one notable exception.

I now, on occasion replace profanity with a juvenile cat. Thanks forums.

Affected!

Just felt like pointing that out. A firm grasp of vocab and diction is useless without also having a strong grasp of grammar.

Bobby.2918:

I say give it time. Everyone and their dog is on GW2 right now so even the high numbers of enemies a DE can manage can’t defeat a player swarm. Things will slow down and DEs might surprise you. I did one on the snowy right side of Gendarren Fields and there were only three of us. We fought like lions and ultimately lost.

Except it’s supposed to be able to scale with those incredible numbers. I’m perfectly happy doing an event with 50 random people, I just don’t want the event to fall over entirely because we’re 50 random people.

Brewbeer.8239:

Honestly, I don’t think the outdoor events can be made much harder. Everyone has to able to participate on some level. A fight can be good, despite not being very hard. Claw of Jormag for example, is a cool fight, but I don’t think it’s even possible to fail it. Some of the Risen high priests in Orr can be really difficult though. The Balthazar one in particular comes to mind. The Grenth priest also has an interesting mechanic with the shades.

I also wanted to comment on how you think “classism” is rampant. I’ve yet to see anyone being refused a group because they’re the wrong class. When people look for more people for a group, they don’t write “need guardian or warrior for dungeon X”. They write “Need one more for dungeon X”.

Go ask Elementalists about that. I even know a Ranger who was refused. I haven’t personally experienced it, but I also haven’t bothered with dungeons yet, because I’m taking my sweet time with this game.

But more to the point, yes, you can make open world events more challenging. You know why?
Because failure is an option.

When you fail an event, you still get exp, karma, gold, influence. The only thing you miss out on is being able to loot the big boss monster, and ya know what? This game isn’t gear-driven.

High failure rates due to lack of skill is, imo, fully acceptable. If these EDEs actually required some measure of skill, suddenly guilds would actually have a reason to get organized. The beauty of it is that they still wouldn’t require a particular roster composition or size, so long as people do their damnedest to contribute to the fight without dying horribly.

Fleshgrinder.6724:

Dear ArenaNet,

You kitten-well know that Jormag should be pronounced “Yormag”.

Fully agree with this. I’m incredibly disappointed that Norn don’t have proper accents!

Mungrul.9358:

On the flip side, the pronunciations of “Quay” and “Trebuchet”, along with “Centaur” and “Minotaur” are constant sources of amusement for my guild and I on Mumble.

Here’s a few hints ANet:
Quay is pronounced key.
Trebuchet, treh-buh-shay.
Centaur, sen-tor.
Minotaur, my-no-tor.

Your pronunciations:
Quay = Kway
Trebuchet = Treh-boo-chett
Centaur = Sen-tarr (YAAAARRRR!)
Minotaur = Minna-tarr (YAAAARRRR!)

Dear lord, it’s tragically hilarious.

I think you got overly obsessed with the pirate theme with those last two.

And golem is pronounced “goal-um” but they always say “gollum”

Honestly, it irritates me.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Sorry, what does “Zerg” mean?

Could you give some examples of how to make things more challenging?

Exactly what you think it means: winning through sheer numbers. Doesn’t matter how skilled anybody is, doesn’t matter how many die, doesn’t matter if not a single person tries to use support/control… nothing but numbers matter.

Not only do I get gold medals without trying, but events get a “success!” ending without anybody trying.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

So I just read that article, and I’m kind of shocked. Now, to anybody who might recognize my name from MMO-Champion’s GW2 community… They probably think I’m a ridiculously zealous fanboy who has nothing to say but good things about you…

So, my response to this article will likely come to a surprise for people who (think) they’re familiar with my posting: There is no difficult endgame in GW2. Period. If you believe otherwise, you must have a blindfold on.

I love GW2’s design concepts and design goals, I really do… but the endgame we’re given in GW2 doesn’t get more challenging from level 1 to level 80. All of it is just mindless zerg. I want something more than that. What I want is the difficulty of raiding, without any of the nonsense that comes with a raiding guild. None of the roster management, the drama, the stress, the time commitments… none of that.

It’s what I was hoping Orr would be – but it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

Ya gotta try harder than that! Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m having fun with the game. I really am enjoying it. But I’m not being challenged at all, and I want to be. Yes yes, the dungeons can be kinda tough, depending on group composition primarily (BIG disappointment there, btw, with how rampant classism already is – doesn’t help that the only tough mechanic in dungeons is pure attrition), but what I want from GW2 is challenging DEs.

I don’t care how often the fail rate is. I’m fine with DEs that fail 9 times out of 10. I still get rewards for them, and that just means they’re incredibly difficult to pull off. In fact, I can safely say I’m absolutely sick and tired of running through zones where all DE paths have been pushed along the maximum progression in the direction of success. I have yet to see a single DE in a failed state!

That’s a big disappointment. It’s bland and boring. Give us some more challenge. And mind you, when I say challenge, I don’t mean “more boss HP!”
No no. I want challenging mechanics. Not tank-n-spank zergfests. I could sleep through most DE boss fights I’ve seen.

Origami Arrow.9310:

the normal route of pure damage
… (which I have heard is good for pvp).

Pretty sure you heard wrong, and this applies to all professions.

Vixen.8045:

I’m a lvl 50 Elementalist and specify in the Water element. Most of my perks are +Healing and things that will benefit my allies.

Since there is a longish cooldown on most of my skills, I tend to switch between all the elements, depending on situation. I give continuous buffs to my allies and I CC, heal and do damage all at the same time without losing out on anything.

I made this comment to a lvl 74 Fire Elementalist I was doing a dungeon with, because she never switched, especially to Earth in order to save herself from unnecessary damage.

Her reply?
-“lol i’m being taught how to play by a lvl 50 nublet.” Well yes, you are. Because you need to be taught, you nublet.

Why is it that so many, almost all in fact, Elementalists refuse to use any other element but their primary? I find it extremely idiotic and plain dumb, to be fair.

Because people are still used to how “specs” work in other games. That’s really all there is to it.

I’ve spent the majority of my time playing WoW, back when I did play, as part of the Shaman community in the official forums.

You eventually just get used to it, Strang. Those of us who make it work eventually learn to just stay silent, keeping our knowing smiles between us and the monitor.

As a long-time Shaman player in WoW, constantly proving wrong everybody’s convictions about the statistically minimal differences in class balance in every group I’ve been in…

You can either deal with it, get better, and prove these people wrong again and again while you wait for important balance changes to come along that will make you overpowered because of the skill you’ve developed…

Or you give up and reroll. Those of us with the fortitude to tough it out won’t miss you.

There’s builds out there that get the job done, even if you’re not the ideal profession choice. Get out there, find them, and beat classism early.

Something has been bugging me with where weapons are sheathed, and I’ve been looking at it a bit recently in the hero panel with different weapon types…

And I feel like 1-handed weapons on my human, when sheathed, are placed too low on the character model. It looks like they’re dangling from the thigh, rather than being placed in a sheath attached to the belt. In fact, I’d dare to say for SOME blades, the sheathe is dangling closer to my knees than my hips. I think I’ve been seeing the same thing on the other races as well, but haven’t looked as closely.
(for that matter, i now notice that, when unsheathing my daggers, the daggers appear to be grabbed in the reverse manner, and then suddenly “flip” to where they are supposed to be held)

Am I alone in this?

trb.7052:

Hellmood.2097:

Got my account back, waited for 5 days (Monday morning)

I’ve been waiting 8 days, how the hell are they prioritising these tickets?

It’s not about priority, but simply that some tickets are easier to resolve than others.

It’s not like they have one person looking through tickets, and randomly picking them out of a hate.

prinnums.5870:

u have got to be kidding me u have time to edit my post but u dont have time to fix my account… wow GREAT SERVICE.

Believe it or not, it’s not every single employee’s job to work on this. Some people have more pressing issues. Some people are entirely paid to handle things on the forums for PR purposes, and do not have the experience or know-how necessary for fixing these issues.

I would like to add that, when I changed my e-mail credentials to one of my numerous “secondary” e-mails, I did not get a confirmation on either account. However, this may not mean anything, as I’m still accessing my account from an authorized IP address.

Also, oddly enough, when I “changed” the e-mail address, pushed to save it, and then went to change it back, I got a prompt saying “there’s an already an account using this e-mail” and err… well, it looks like my e-mail credentials weren’t actually changed to begin with.

I don’t have any other computer that I can use freely with a different IP. :S

Rhapsody.6173:

Just an update on this.. there apparently ‘is’ a confirmation e-mail… though its being sent to the NEW e-mail.. not the OLD e-mail.

Woah. Take about a really bad keystroke mistake! :S

Hope they fix that immediately.

dogmeow.3765:

A:

They do have a post about this, they have said that for now they do not have any restoration, however, in the future they will release the ability to do this, and they can revert you back to an earlier date. Though if they do not come out with it say for a month or more, you will lose all time invested from now till then, just to get something back that you will have already obtained again anyway. (maybe worth it for a lvl 78-80)

All games record data on a time stamp. Some every night, others every 2 nights. So the data is there, they just have not either developed or finished developing the programming to enable this.

Definitely thinking they should have had this system ready to go right at launch…

Widowmaker.5812:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

My account has not been hacked, but I am hearing some very disconcerting things through the grapevine about Arena Net’s policies on restoration and recovery that I do not have an inclination to believe without absolute proof and official sources.

So, my question is this: When a person’s account is hacked, and then proper access is restored, without any risk of further account compromise, can deleted items/gear/coinage/etc be restored by the support team?
I’ve also heard that “accidental” deletions will not be restored, but I personally feel that deletion in GW2 cannot ever be purely by accident (you HAVE to type in that character’s name, so there’s no way you don’t know what you’re deleting) – what concerns me is if my account is compromised, what sort of security do I have against damages to my account?

I want to get this question settled once and for all by an official source, and hopefully open up some discussion between us, the players, and the devs, in the case that these policies are not found to be acceptable by the playerbase.

Drake, we’ren’t you one of the guys in another thread telling me that if your hacked it’s your fault not AreaNet? If you really believe this, then why should AreaNet have to restore anything? Not trying to push your buttons here as I think it’s a valid point. If Gaile and the other GMs really have evidence that all these compromised accounts are our faults then you can’t really hold them accountable for restoring a deleted character that has a solid verification process in place.

Just because it ain’t their fault, doesn’t mean they can’t clean up the mess. It’s their duty to help the players enjoy the game to it’s utmost.

But no, I wasn’t telling you it was your fault, I was simply saying that Arena Net is not to blame if your email/password combination is known by somebody else.

Widowmaker.5812:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Spectorx.9762:

Read the last 20 posts where people switched emails, and changed passwords and still getting hacked.

If they have changed emails and passwords and still get hacked, either those email/password combinations are already in the hacker’s database, and are therefore compromised, or else there is a keylogger on the machine in question.

email authorization should still prevent access, but in that situation, the only thing you can do is to get a really thorough virus scan.

This isn’t accurate. It may be an easy answer but it isn’t the only plausible scenario. Keyloggers are VERY easy to detect. I was rehacked and ran a very good key logger scanner during the 5 days I had between attacks and found nothing. I also ran Avast before and after with mutliple deep scans and even 3 boot-time scans. You can’t explain that away with simple finger pointing.

Provide an alternative scenario then. Because the only scenario is that they got your email and password from a keylogger, or from a database that they have built up using fan sites and other easily-hacked targets. I’m not “finger-pointing” here, unless you think it’s bad to point my finger at keyloggers.

With the way the tech world works, scanners cannot keep up with the pace of those creating viruses and trojans and keyloggers. It’s simply the case that, every so often, somebody’s computer will catch one of those little buggers fresh off the compiler, and it won’t be detectable right away.

Angelkitten.3674:

No its a fake email, they mask who it’s from.

You even said your self you haven’t got a Diablo III account, it’s for stupid people who click the link that links to a really random mix of us. someword here blizzards website.

It’s fake, it’s not real, just another misinformed person claiming security breaches…
I get it to my email address that isn’t even a battle account

Actually, common practice for hackers is to manually change the e-mail address associated with the new game’s account, to an e-mail from a large database of accounts that they have collected (either through stupid mistakes, keyloggers, or even actually hacking a company’s servers). If the e-mail change goes through, then that e-mail does not have an account with that game. If it doesn’t go through, they’ve got your number, and know you have an account with that game.

Obviously, these game developers need to start putting in proper verification responses where you have to actually verify the change from your e-mail address.

Sorry, you are one voice, not thousands – and they do not have a security leak.

lozerette.2153:

Were you logging into the game at the time? If not, I would recommend that you reset your password. I would also recommend that you never click on links in emails that you have any doubt about. You can always navigate to the site directly and reset your pass that way.

^this

Don’t worry about whether or not it’s legit. It doesn’t matter. Either way, you don’t click the link.

You’re obviously NOT accessing your account from that location, so why would you click the link?

Spectorx.9762:

Read the last 20 posts where people switched emails, and changed passwords and still getting hacked.

If they have changed emails and passwords and still get hacked, either those email/password combinations are already in the hacker’s database, and are therefore compromised, or else there is a keylogger on the machine in question.

email authorization should still prevent access, but in that situation, the only thing you can do is to get a really thorough virus scan.

beafnuts.7960:

i never said they were hack proof. i was stating how much safer those coders are than just an email verification. my battle.net account still remains safe (knocks on wood again) due to that little code generator. and i couldnt go 2 days playing this game without apparently being hacked…..thats pretty sad in their security if you ask me

The thing is, I know people firsthand whose accounts are still safely in their hands only because of e-mail authorization. They got an e-mail prompt that they did not initiate, and so promptly changed their password and got a new e-mail address, and haven’t gotten a single prompt since.

Gargoyle.7685:

I second the option for just being able to see the IP list that have been given permission to your account. That way if we spot something thats unusual or out of place we can just grab a ticket and mention the IP that needs to be blocked from the account, or even better be able to just deny and take away their IP access there on the spot.

We can already see the IP list, we just don’t have any sort of control permissions in regards to the IP addresses. It’s just a history of IPs that have accessed the account.

What I’d like is a way to specifically authorize my computer’s IP address as the one and only IP address that can access the account without an authorization e-mail being sent.

Spectorx.9762:

I never received a confirmation email to accept, and it is enabled.

This means it’s not enabled on your account. As I said in my first post, there are issues that I’ve heard of where e-mail authorization is not being properly enabled. The only flaw in the system is that Arena Net has failed to consider the possibility of that happening, and so did not provide a means to manually enable it on our end.

It’s also worth noting that, if you did get an e-mail prompt, and clicked on the link figure it was “safe” because the e-mail is legit, you then unknowingly authorized the IP address of whoever initiated that confirmation e-mail.

beafnuts.7960:

email verification is the WORST way of account security where as email is so much easier to hack than a game account. i will def agree the account page has very limited options and needs to be relooked at to give us better security options.

Not really. Have you looked into Gmail’s 2-step verification?

When an unauthorized IP tries to access my Gmail account, a text message is sent to my cell phone with a 6-digit code (or maybe it was 7 digits) that must be entered to actually access my e-mail.

My account has not been hacked, but I am hearing some very disconcerting things through the grapevine about Arena Net’s policies on restoration and recovery that I do not have an inclination to believe without absolute proof and official sources.

So, my question is this: When a person’s account is hacked, and then proper access is restored, without any risk of further account compromise, can deleted items/gear/coinage/etc be restored by the support team?
I’ve also heard that “accidental” deletions will not be restored, but I personally feel that deletion in GW2 cannot ever be purely by accident (you HAVE to type in that character’s name, so there’s no way you don’t know what you’re deleting) – what concerns me is if my account is compromised, what sort of security do I have against damages to my account?

I want to get this question settled once and for all by an official source, and hopefully open up some discussion between us, the players, and the devs, in the case that these policies are not found to be acceptable by the playerbase.