Guild Wars 2

Ruprect.7260:

Based on the number of threads crying about this, I would imagine this will be fixed forthwith. There was slightly more threads crying about confusion and that is getting wrecked whether it was needed or not. So I would bet this will be taken care of very soon.

Sooner rather than later I hope. I’ve been waiting on 1 point/vista in a keep for over 6 months (Since I began looking for it). I’m sure the keep was capped at one point during that time, but not while I was logged in.

I should have jumped on the annoying server hopper bandwagon before the price went in, but that felt untrue to the spirit of map completion.

The cost per character is what bites for me. I don’t play on just one. I bounce back and forth between all my alts depending on my mood.

It is selling more on the convenience and the animation more than the Master vs. Ori.

More than likely the first of many gathering tools with animations to sell for $$.

I’ve gotten lucky so far. About 100 chests opened; 2 Greatsword; and 1 Long Bow;

Now that I got the skins I wanted for baubles, I’m just farming to get more Obsidian Shards.. cause my server never has the Temple open when I’m on.

Perhaps I should just get someone to Guest me to another server that has it.

I also feel extremely poor after reading this. Though that is likely to be expected in the BLTC forums where market abuse and profit mongering are actively encouraged.

Only have about 40 gold across all characters. Only have a few ectos, but that is due to having 1 80 and a bunch of 20’s. When you’re cursed with alt-itis, your money disappears fast playing with builds and junk.

The sab shield skin is one my favorite ones, along with the legendary shield.

All of the special shield skins look really nice, but I have a hard time justifying using a shield due the skills they offer.

Of the 3 classes that can use shields, it feels like Guardian has the best shield skills, but I often just end up using the greatsword because of how quickly it kills mobs.

Anyone got ideas on how to enjoy the shield with the engi or warrior?

One time use. But that sword appearance can be transferred to another item with a transmutation stone.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transmutation_Stone

tolunart.2095:

People are dumb.

A lot of items are offered on the TP for 1c above vendor price. It costs 15% of the selling price to sell things on the TP. This is almost always more than 1c. Therefore people are paying the game to sell things for them.

“I can make 1 silver if I sell this to a vendor, or 86 copper if I sell it on the TP. Ok, TP it is!”

People are dumb.

Not always. Using the TP in that fashion can be an On-The-Go form of vendor. It occasionally has uses, such as when you forget/too lazy to empty your bags before a set of group quest or dungeon runs. You don’t lose any money unless the item doesn’t sell.

I completely understand the improbability of any precursor dropping.

I also don’t want to completely eliminate the chance of one dropping either. 0.00001% chance is still greater than 0%.

I’ve seen a variety of responses regarding what mobs/chests can/can’t drop precursors.

I’d like to know before I waste my time in search of one.

What I think I found:
1. Need Level 80 character.
2. Can potentially drop from any mob, even in Queensdale, etc…
3. Better* chance from High Level mobs, such as in Cursed Shore.
4. World Boss Chests have a higher* chance.
5. End of Dungeon rewards have a higher* chance.
*Higher/better chance – likely statistically insignificant. Such as .00001% to .00002% won’t really be noticed by a single player.

Is that about right? I know I could play the mystic forge lottery, but I’m not that wealthy yet.

In general, I’ll probably have the gold before I get a drop, but don’t want to waste my time doing dailies in Queensdale, when I have to be in Cursed Shore to even have a chance, even if it is extremely small.

VOLKON.1290:

“Shakes Magic Asura Cube”

Outlook points to yes, Bookah.

I hope you are correct sir, it seems every time I have no time to play, something very limited and cool is done.

Sabull.5670:

Checked yesterday got 450 badges and our raid wasn’t done, think went for couple hours after that. I banked all my badges before that so it was all from there. You can get kittenloads aslong as you kill kittenloads.

You get badges from bags, and you get bags by being combat with the dying enemy – doing dmg to it. I don’t think the dmg requirement is that high, healing doesn’t help much (none?). Same way as you get kill sigil procs and other stuff like that.

Can you clarify? What class? Were you in a party? What was the time played?

When playing my staff ele, it doesn’t seem to matter how many fire I can make it rain from the sky, I will get xp in large amounts, but the loot bags just never seem to drop.

I like my elementalist, but it is such a shame I can play with my sub 20 thief and get so many more bags, simply by being a heart-seeker noob.

Let me start by saying: I’m not very good at PvP. Mostly been playing WvWvW lately.

Been running around with a Staff and appropriate build, but I feel so very passive rather than active. Raining fire is fun, but compared to simply pressing 2 on my dagger thief, doesn’t get the same kill satisfaction.

I have seen and looked up many D/D builds, so I attempted to switch. However, I feel I’m laying on the ground even more than before. Is there any guides on what I should be doing? Getting a build right is only part of the fun. Apparently I’m not using the right skills at the right times or in the right order against foes. Any tips/hints on how to learn D/D?

2. Badges? What qualifies me to earn a badge of honor? Sometimes I can play for hours spamming the kitten out of things with my staff, watching my xp go up, but yet, no bags ever seem to drop? I get lucky to get 10 badges a night (excluding the JP). Yet others boast claims of 100+ badges a night. Obviously doing something wrong, but what?

Did I miss out on this? I haven’t been able to play the last few days. Can I get this when all instances are opened up in Lion’s Arch?

I got the mail. Unfortunately, it was just a few 1g exotics.

Sir William PD.9615:

So my post calling it a lame tactic was removed for being an infraction…double you tea eff.

In all my years of gaming, I have NEVER seen a more moderated forum. It’s worse than IGN back in the late 90’s.

I’ll patiently await my infraction notice.

Agreed. Anet is overzealous and random in their moderation efforts.

More likely, you hit a sore spot with a particular moderator. The mod uses that tactic, so you get modded for making them mad.

They don’t seem to use a consistent set of rules, with some fairly personal attacks/offensive language allowed, and the simple mention of a sore spot (ascended gear anyone) gets moderated to oblivion.

Am I missing something?

I see people claiming to just craft high level rares to salvage ectos from.

Wouldn’t this result in a net negative of ectos? Since crafting the item requires ecto and there is only a chance to salvage 1 or more?

As a side note, why would anyone want to do that anyway, as the cost of materials is more than the potential ecto gain anyway? Unless you plan on leveling other crafting professions/other chars, it would seem to be more efficient to just sell the mats and buy up the ectos needed.

Stonesolid.2706:

Melpomene.2367:

Don’t tell me to stop. Some people have no choice but to do the puzzle for the badges for legendary weapons. Player operated traps only work if you are AHEAD of everyone. I don’t understand why people camp the puzzle except to troll people. Majority of people that even do the puzzle is for badges so I don’t see the point except wasting your servers time and numbers.

You always have the choice not to get a Legendary weapon. You don’t sound very “Legendary” anyways.

“Legendary”? Not being a soulbound/account bound item, Legendary is as simple as dropping gold in the TP.

Even so, what about the entire process of getting the legendary is truly legendary instead of Grind X objects or Play the Mystic Forge Lotto. No great personal quest. No Dynamic Event chains. No Defeat all Bosses?

Your arrogant attitude needs readjusted. Or the requirements for Legendary. Probably both.

Romo.3709:

Yeah, but doesn’t it costs money to switch servers, and I wont be able to play with my friends for a week

It doesn’t cost, and is often the only viable method to obtain the WvWvW map completion unless your server is steamrolling the opponent. It is silly and dumb in my opinion.

I should have done it back when server transfers were as often as you could click the button. Now I have to find a few weeks where I won’t be running around with friends, hoping they don’t change the transfer window during that time.

EDIT: This should probably be moved to suggestions

Hopefully their dungeon revamp will fix this, but I shouldn’t count on it.

Some dungeons are significantly easier than others. Some require much less time. That is simply how they were made.

To say Arah explorable is the same difficulty/time as AC explorable would be a bit crazy. Yet they reward the same number of tokens. Spending 2+ hours in arah to get 60 tokens is annoying at best, when you could easily have 180+ AC tokens in that time frame.

Perhaps it is just grumbling about needing 500 Arah tokens for my legendary, which will take quite some time, while others require the easy dungeons.

Suggestions: (Any could apply, or all)
1. Change the token rewards based on dungeon expected difficulty/time. Add more to harder and/or remove tokens from easier.
2. Standardize dungeon difficulty/time.
3. Implement a token exchange for a penalty. 2 for 1, or 5 for 1, (rates negotiable). Don’t like running Arah? Run AC for a 5 to 1 conversion penalty.
4. Purchase dungeon token? – Implement a new loot item on dungeon mobs/regular mobs that have a chance to drop something, such as ghost dust for AC ghosts, or Putrid flesh for risen. Trade those in at 10/20/30 to 1 for a dungeon token.

Dungeon suggestion Overall:
1. Boss/Mini-boss HP: Enormous health pools don’t make an interesting boss. Once you figure out the bosses gimmick move (that hopefully isn’t an instant kill), it consists of spamming dps for the next 5-10 minutes slowly waiting for them to die.
2. Boss/Mini-boss Instant Kill: Instant kill moves are as entertaining as gigantic health pools. While some moves can be dodged, not all can, and some leave next to no reaction time.

Can the other TC peeps please put some more pressure in the YB BL?

I need only a few things for map completion, and it has been weeks trying to get due to their defensive nature…

With the way things are going, I wish I just server hoped for my map completion back when transfers were as fast as you could click them.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Iehova.9518:

Kishandreth.2798:

The players are to blame, its your choice to abuse the glitches.

It’s Anet’s fault for not testing content. They’re not glitches. It’s clever use of game mechanics.

That is all.

That. Plus as many others have said before, I’ll stop skipping content when I know that I’m not on the clock, because ONE DC, one minor disruption of service, costs me well over an hour and as a mainly casual player during the week with job and all I can’t allow myself to lose that time for nothing. And we all know how easy it is to lose a service for just half a second and that’s exactly the time you need to get a DC.
Mods, keep merging those posts, but until this problem is fixed, they WILL keep popping. People already agreed with your half-thought, rushed ascended fiasco. At least fix their dungeon on “wintersday”.

And using the Karma vendor to make gold wasn’t an “exploit.” Just clever use of game mechanics….that got people banned.

I hope they have a way to track this kind of thing and smack the players hard. The type of player who does this is often the same player who waves their kitten around using the “LF1M Full Exotic/Ascended/Gearscore required.” Tyria could use less of them.

hungryhippos.4980:

power creep makes people want to play this game… or something like that.

I also heard that power creep kills games… take your pick.

Both statements are true. It just depends on which end of the creep you are on. Power creep keeps those playing who already have the “Best” item, as they will always want to have the “best”.

Power creep also keeps new players from joining the game. Someone who buys the game 1 or 2 years down the road could take a long time to potentially never catch up to the leading edge of the creep.

As the game naturally loses players over time, there will not be enough new players to replace the old, as a new player will have a much longer road of spending the time to grind before they actually can “Play the game.”

Good Luck OP.

Temple is almost never uncontested for multiple reasons.
1. Event chain to free it bugs most of the time.
2. Lack of people. With the new fractal dungeon, lost shores, and Plinx farming in cursed shore, there is usually not enough people to retake the temple whenever the chain doesn’t bug.

You can get the skill point though. It can be difficult to get solo, depending on your class. If you get a few people, you can often clear up to the skill point so you can take turns getting it, while the others defend mobs.

plasmacutter.2709:

nachtnebel.9168:

EgonVenkman.1907:

You are misinterpreting their words again…. They NEVER said grind = time sink. Those are your words. His words were:

“I think grind is repetitive game play leading to a goal where the activity of progression isn’t fun whether it not be fun initially or it suffers from diminishing returns over a period of time.”

His words are almost exactly the definition of time sink. Collection 250 t6 craft mats is not fun, it’s grind. Doing FotM over and over again isn’t fun, it’s grind. Killing mobs till you have enough gold to afford ascended gear isn’t fun, it’s grind.
If he uses the word grind he should use it in the common way: Doing something multiple times to (maybe) reach a goal.

An acceptable amount of time for a single piece of ascended gear would probably be 90 minutes. Everything longer than that is grind.

Well, you should be happy then, because if you read the AMA, you would see the following:

Chris Whiteside

nacho

With regard to minimal Grind, how is going from 5 Ectos to 50 Ectos for a piece of gear minimal? 5 T6 items to 250 T6 items, minimal?

Good point Nacho. We are currently discussing these particular items and it is fair to say that we don’t want have such big hikes in requirements moving forward.
Chris

More wishful interpreting.

The key phrase here is “Moving Forward”. The theme of the night. They did not say they would lower the price of existing items at all, but that the price hike would not continue in the future.

As much as I wish they would truly fix their mistakes… only time will tell. They will have to work hard to earn back the respect and/or trust of this player. Their whole manifest/responses have been up to this point in my opinion:

“We may have implied something, but since we didn’t specifically say it, we are going to do whatever we want anyway.”

nachtnebel.9168:

Heimlich.3065:

They’ve insisted that we interpret their statements in the least charitable possible way. Remember that we’re the ones who kittened-up when we read their manifesto. We’re the ones who misunderstood when they said it’s a game that “respects our time”.

That’s one way to put it, the other is that they made us belief the game would be, at least in some way, like GW1. They misled us on purpose.

I’m taking what both Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Whiteside said very literally. They did not say that Ascended crap should be available in much less time. They did say it should be available through other avenues.

Chris also said their is currently too much grind involved. And since grind equals time sink there is a chance that ascended gear will become less time consuming to get. But even if that’s right, I doubt that they will reduce the grind enough to make ascended gear reachable for casuals.

You are misinterpreting their words again…. They NEVER said grind = time sink. Those are your words. His words were:

“I think grind is repetitive game play leading to a goal where the activity of progression isn’t fun whether it not be fun initially or it suffers from diminishing returns over a period of time.”

The only part about time is if it suffers from DR over time. Not that it would take less time to acquire. It may still be a 40 hour effort to acquire one, or longer, as long as it was fun “initially”.

Perhaps I’m picking apart their statements negatively now, but they brought that on their own. They wanted to use the lawyer-like “I never technically said that” argument. So from now on, what they don’t say will be much more important than what they do.

Ditton.3149:

Heimlich.3065:

Ditton.3149:

stof.9341:

Heimlich.3065:

My objection is that they’re raising the time to acquire max-stat gear by a fair bit. Exotic-stats require 1-2 hours of playtime per-slot to get. That time cost makes it reasonable to keep a few sets of max-stat equipment for multiple characters and/or multiple play types (glass cannon vs. survival vs. support).

From what they’ve released, they apparently intend Ascended-tier junk (the new max-stat gear) to take much longer. Probably closer to 10-20 hours per piece. That’s more time than I want to put into max-stat gear.

That does not respect my time as a player.

This is the best explanation for my problem with the current state of the game I’ve ever seen

except they acknowledged this already and said they want to work to remedy exactly that situation.

They did not say that. They said that they would consider lowering costs (from the current 20-80g for max-stat backpack) or make Ascended crap available through other avenues. They did not ever say they intended to make top-stat gear available in much less time.

The guy said they were aware things were taking alot of material to make and that they wanted to look into making it less grindy, to me that says less materials, less farming and less time. If that doesnt mean the same thing to you, then thats cool I understand.

Good for you… still having faith. It is also possible you completely misunderstood what they were trying to say. Just as a lot of us did with their manifesto and pre-launch hype/promise.

But they did give a statement about the Ascended Gear.

They said it wasn’t a gear grind. It was Item progression. Perhaps they don’t know their Shakespeare…“A rose by any other name….”

mulch.2586:

You know, you don’t have to do it. It’s an achievement, not an entitlement.

For what it’s worth, I got wvw map completion on a server that was dominating the battle at the time, and suffered very little “pvpness” for it. (/wonders if pness is censored)

Unless you want a legendary.

Getting any squishy class around solo to all the points is tough at best. WvWvW is horrid getting points unless your world is curbstomping the others. It will be weeks or months before I can complete it on my ele.

It is a good thing badge of honor is account bound instead of soulbound. That way I can jump on my theif and spam heartseeker against most than having to work for it on my elementalist.

They might regret doing a survey. I did not post favorable feedback.

Haudruff.7804:

Ballistic.4531:

Gibbel.5734:

As of Now

“This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content. As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

- Lindsey Murdock, Game Designer

3 Months Earlier

http://venturebeat.c...s:guildwars2-16

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Quoting Anet. That’s a no, no! Infraction incoming!

Uhm…one can get infraction for just quoting for what they said? Why?

Because A.Net doesn’t like being called out when they lie. I’m sure they will use some mumbo jumbo about “out of context”, and “That is not really what the president meant.”

Eveningstar.6940:

EgonVenkman.1907:

Until February, when they announce Mythical gear, then next June with the dark side Diabolical gear, following next October on their annual release with Malevolent gear. They just need a few more tiers, then they will stop. Seriously. They will stop this time.

Trust them. Just ignore their previous marketing attempts. No gear treadmill indeed.

Slippery slope fallacy. And totally irrational. No one has any idea what the Ascended gear is actually all about. You’re just assuming Ascended is a new tier gear, and it’s going to lead to a whole new ladder of tiers, and before you know it the game is dead and we’re playing another WoW clone.

That is a massive cognitive leap considering that we have no information about the upcoming changes.

Would it kill you to relax, be patient, and wait for the blog post?

You’re right… my names and dates are probably off… but in general, by next anniversary, I’m more likely to say " I told you so" than you me. At what point does it stop being a slippery slope. When they add something after ascended? or the one after that?

Anet has a bad habit of saying things that would please the ideal of a casual mmo, then implementing something that does the complete opposite because it is more profitable.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

Until February, when they announce Mythical gear, then next June with the dark side Diabolical gear, following next October on their annual release with Malevolent gear. They just need a few more tiers, then they will stop. Seriously. They will stop this time.

Trust them. Just ignore their previous marketing attempts. No gear treadmill indeed.

Depends on what level you were when you started crafting. If you were already a higher level, your not going to see much improvement in the low areas of crafting.

I agree with the OP…

Densely packed mobs fine. Respawn rate is hell though. Oh look, you just cleared the 30 meters between you and the skill point? Enjoy fighting your way back out as all have respawned back.

It is a botters dream. They don’t even have to move. just plant the guy in one spot with a few bots and farm forever.

Zelot.8276:

I have noticed a trend aswell prices have droped since the first day of the event but have become stable at current rates.

I have given it some thought as to why and my guess is that demand is way down with more and more players busy with the event rather then at the trade post…

Bots are the main supply of items to the market, their supply doesnt drop but player demand drops because of event = falling prices

I have made more gold starting from 2nd day of event then i have made any other day previous, lower prices means greater returns using the forge… (HINT for ALL)

That probably explains it… as i know most of my delusional friends foolishly cashed in all their gold for gems, then keys.

Without revealing the items I work with as much as possible….I must now find a new set of items to play with.

Since the halloween event started, my usual low-end items to flip seem to be saturated. Prices and profit margin have tanked.. What used to be worth 20 silver is now worth 5. You used to make a healthy profit…

I’m not sure if the influx of mobs for halloween has caused the items to tank, increased competition, or just a big change in the drop rate.

Anyone else have similar experiences???

arabeth.2361:

OP: Your definition of “casual” is amusing to me.

Agree…. Such as shame that he considers that level of play casual. I must be a non-existent player then.

Great guide, but for those of us with only a few windows of play time during the week, this = Horrible long grind. Even without the grind, it is quicker making the required gold flipping stuff on the trading post.