Guild Wars 2

I think so.

/15CharrsOnADeadNorn’sChest

~EW

@Aegael: Also, instead of just bashing something, why not try to suggest and think about an alternative? I know it’s a stretch, but constructive criticism on the internet can be a thing that exists.

I recall nearly every MMO I’ve played trying means and methods for curtailing gold sellers. And, it’s always intrusive… but the hope by player AND company is to impact the legit player base as minimally as possible.

So, if you’ve other means and methods that will work better and less intrusively, please suggest them… because there’re are people at ANet who’s job it is to think about this stuff, who have the qualifications and data to come up with these means, and we’re still having to deal with the in-game mail limitations.

I’d certainly love to see something better.

~EW

Aegael.6938:

Maybe you can do some research before blindly supporting a broken system next time.

Sure, the player gets their money/stuff back… but the seller would still make away with gold to sell if the system weren’t in place. You seemed to have glossed over the part where I said, “Simultaneously it neuters a gold seller’s source of gold from active accounts.”

Maybe you can think about the implications of everything I stated before blindly insulting me next time.

~EW

Khisanth.2948:

This thread has nothing to do with the gold limit. It is about the NUMBER OF MAILS SENT OUT. The gold withdrawal limit is a completely separate thing.

You send gold via mail. Mail with large amounts of gold ping on ANet’s radar. So, in order to send large amounts of gold w/o the player AND seller making ANet aware, it’d have to be done over many mails with smaller amounts… and thus the mail limitations…. It becomes cumbersome to the seller, and makes the buyer paranoid that they’ve been duped: it discourages buying.

I don’t know how I can more clearly state that.

Also, read my new post just above for the other reason this exists.

~EW

(edit: for more clarity, also accidentally said emails instead of mail, sorry)

Okay, let’s get into another reason why the mail limitations exist that hasn’t been addressed… and I’ll do so with a RL situation:

In LotRO many of us were in ventrillo talking and laughing and having a good time. One player logged in to ventrillo just to chat, but not to play the game ‘cause she didn’t have the time.

While we were chatting, one of her characters log in. We asked about it ‘cause she said she wasn’t going to play… she responded, “I haven’t logged in.” But, there was her character.

So, she tried to log in, and couldn’t. She started getting excited; all of us started getting excited.

Her character made a bee-line for the bank, then the merchant, then for the mailbox. And, after a couple minutes logged out.

Every single one of us in our Kinship (Guild) who were playing started logging in support tickets, as well as messaging the person pleading with them to stop. At the time we were one of the largest Kinships on our server.

Character after character logged in, went to the merchant, then to the mailbox, and then logged out.

It was hours before any dev responded… by then her account was empty. There was nothing they could do to return her stuff… it would have required resetting the server, and thus everyone’s characters.

I NEVER want to see a friend go through that again.

Most gold sellers get their money from hacked accounts… they hack the account and drain it before it can be locked.

These mail limitations give the chance that the real owner of a hacked account might retain some/most of their possessions while they try and get their account back. Simultaneously it neuters a gold seller’s source of gold from active accounts.

I’m sorry people are annoyed by the limitations, but I am happy they exist if it means other people might not have to experience what my friend went through and our entire Kinship had to helplessly witness.

~EW

Khisanth.2948:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Khisanth.2948:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Khisanth.2948:

That limit shouldn’t apply if both people are on each other’s friends’ list yet it still applies. I ran into that not long ago because I send all my reclaimed weapons to a friend.

Orangensaft.7139:

the limit also shouldnt apply if both people are in the same group as often group members send food & slaying potions to their other members when doing dungeons etc…

Then the gold sellers would insist on adding you to their friend’s list briefly, or grouping up in order to make their transaction… completely negating the intended function of email suppression.

Do you have any other suggestions that wouldn’t cause this? ’Cause, honestly, I think we could all get behind gold-spamming measures that minimally impact the player base… something every MMO has been trying to do for a very long time.

~EW

I recommend reading the posts again.

The posts wanted exceptions X and Y, and I said X and Y will instead subvert one of the purposes of the mail limitations (which hasn’t been addressed yet in this thread, I’m happy to do so in another post if you’d like). So, what am I missing that you seem to see?

~EW

Nobody is going to be adding spammers to their friends list or joining party with them.

Players will when they’re buying gold if that’s a way to get around mail limitations.

See, large amounts of gold being emailed alerts ANet…. many smaller emails *might not.

~EW

The torch with the Guard is tricky, because the fire from Virtue of Justice can get in the way. However, if you’ve got the enemy down to low health, don’t put down a symbol or anything else that that hits rapidly (such as Smite), but instead use Torch 5. You still might have your VoJ mess up the torch kill, but the torch 5 attacks rapidly enough it should work. Torch 4 when it’s released as a ranged attack also hits for direct damage on top of the fire, but like the warrior below you’d have to make sure it’s the final blow… the rapid fire of torch 5 I think would give you the better chance.

The Warrior(Berserker) is just harder. I don’t know if the Torch 5 can constitute a kill. However Torch 4 should, but you’d have to time it to be the killing blow… and that’d be very, very hard given that the damage isn’t too huge.

~EW

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If they do put it in, it will be a gemstore item and accessible to anyone with the right number of gems. And you’ll have to buy each color separately.

The following attachment conveys my response better than I could.

~EW

Khisanth.2948:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Khisanth.2948:

That limit shouldn’t apply if both people are on each other’s friends’ list yet it still applies. I ran into that not long ago because I send all my reclaimed weapons to a friend.

Orangensaft.7139:

the limit also shouldnt apply if both people are in the same group as often group members send food & slaying potions to their other members when doing dungeons etc…

Then the gold sellers would insist on adding you to their friend’s list briefly, or grouping up in order to make their transaction… completely negating the intended function of email suppression.

Do you have any other suggestions that wouldn’t cause this? ’Cause, honestly, I think we could all get behind gold-spamming measures that minimally impact the player base… something every MMO has been trying to do for a very long time.

~EW

I recommend reading the posts again.

The posts wanted exceptions X and Y, and I said X and Y will instead subvert one of the purposes of the mail limitations (which hasn’t been addressed yet in this thread, I’m happy to do so in another post if you’d like). So, what am I missing that you seem to see?

~EW

This has also been suggested multiple times in the forum’s glider suggestion thread (including by myself): Glider Suggestions? Share Them Here!

I keep hoping that one day it’ll happen. Please add your request to that thread, ‘cause the more that suggest it in one place, the more likely it’ll be noticed and happen.

~EW

Khisanth.2948:

That limit shouldn’t apply if both people are on each other’s friends’ list yet it still applies. I ran into that not long ago because I send all my reclaimed weapons to a friend.

Orangensaft.7139:

the limit also shouldnt apply if both people are in the same group as often group members send food & slaying potions to their other members when doing dungeons etc…

Then the gold sellers would insist on adding you to their friend’s list briefly, or grouping up in order to make their transaction… completely negating the intended function of email suppression.

Do you have any other suggestions that wouldn’t cause this? ’Cause, honestly, I think we could all get behind gold-spamming measures that minimally impact the player base… something every MMO has been trying to do for a very long time.

~EW

Warlord.9074:

Here is the problem and why its not feasible.

Only Legendary Back pieces have commander stats. Only way to get an amulet with commanders stats unless you can but it with raid tokens is the Mordrem loop and you will have to select those stats.

Only way to get Boon duration on Rings and accessory is to buy the each item with Magnitite shards and then craft it so you can select Wanderers stats. There is no commanders stats.

TLDR you need 1000 Magnitite shards, Legendary Backpack and the Mordrem loop or 1250 Magnitite to reach 100% boon duration on a warrior.

You may be able to craft exotic boon duration accessory but I think you wont reach 100% since unless I am wrong they give less.

Ascended Commander’s armor and weapons + Runes of Leadership + Golden Dumplings + Bountiful Sharpening Stone (as put into the build linked above by Elegie) gives you ~81% boon duration.

So, equip in exotics both rings, both earrings, and your backpiece (that have any stats you wish) and slot them with a platinum doubloon… and you’ve got your 100% boon duration.

~EW

edit: I’m not saying it’s an optimal thing to do, I’m just saying that it is possible to utilize your accessories to get that other 20%.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Some classes just arent logically suited to it. Warriors, for example, I can only see having their “utility” healing capacity. They’re a “hit things harder” class all the way.

Not entirely. Shout-heals and regen from the banner can add a lot if the Warrior has prioritized Healing Power. Add rune of the trooper and you’re a healing/cleansing beast.

I’ve done a build where I could put down a single banner and keep regen up 100% of the time, even through the cooldown of that banner.

It’s true that Warrior has a lot more personal sustain (AH, Healing Sig, RR), but they can also help a lot with group healing if they’ve the right build.

~EW

coso.9173:

sadly that’s just for heavy armor, I use medium armor, and I want something that serves all armor types. If I had something like scallywag armor I wouldn’t be asking for this XD

Yeah, your options are scant there, I’m sorry. I do agree there should be more bare-chested male options.

For medium, though, there does exist 2 1/2 possibilities: T2 Norn cultural shows a lot of chest, T3 Charr cultural shows a fair amount of chest, and Zodiac shows a lot of chest if you don’t mind your chest being blue.

~EW

Sarie.1630:

That dead horse has been flogged so much now that it’s broken up into dust… like Voldemort.

Perhaps we could replace it with a Quaggan? See if people are still willing to keep flogging that.

That might anger Gaile… and you don’t want to see her when she’s angry.

~EW

I don’t. Auto-invites I immediately decline.

That being said, I’m not part of guilds anyway. But, if I were wanting to join a guild, it’d be because I got to know some of the members first.

That was how things were run from the guild side when I seconded my LotRO guild… we’d extend invites to those we got to know first.

~EW

BattleRattle.5420:

I wouldn’t mind multi loot squads, if all actually had a chance to do it, but alas they only allow the lucky 5-10 per map to be in the squad, the rest of those who helped the maps succeed…

Everyone does have a chance to do it… if you’re showing up just as Octo starts or during, of course you’ll likely have difficulty getting into an established squad. As you said, there’s 5-10 people per map, and from my (limited) experience there’s 6-8 maps… the squads are full of people who showed up early enough to get into a populated map… it’s mostly not about letting people in, it’s about the squads being full.

And, the squads lock out joiners around the time Octo starts because they don’t want people joining up and not contributing to the fight.

But, if you show up and there’s not a squad available to join, then the solution is pretty obvious: start your own squad. There’s likely other people like you who want to be part of a multi-map squad, but aren’t joined to one.

BattleRattle.5420:

But what really makes me sad, is when the multi loot commanders doesn’t even command. Heck I had one who was afk when tarir started and didn’t say a word. If not someone else had taken over we would have failed north.

See, this hasn’t been my experience. Maybe I was lucky… but the squad leaders were active in all the squads I joined.

BattleRattle.5420:

Not to mention all the afk’ers who join multi loot and then just stand at the stairs waiting for their free loot. At least make it like the armors, if you don’t move/participate withing a time threshold you’re kicked form the map.

And again, my experience was different. If the squad leaders would have seen that, they would have kicked the person… one of the squads I was in outright said that’d be the case: If someone DC’d that’s fine, but otherwise they’d kick anyone not contributing.

All that being said, I’ve only done the multi-map squad run a small handful of times… so I might have gotten lucky with my experience.

~EW

As others have said, congo rats on all your accomplishments, and I’m sorry to hear that you’re so frustrated.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I would like to unlock a viper’s set, preferably more. I like running viper’s on multiple classes and am forced to shift Ad Ifinitum, my malicious band and my mordrem loop from character to character which is a problem for me at least. I made 7 sets of infused attuned sinister rings to fit to the Mea before HoT and I’m frustrated I cannot obtain gear to make my characters as I want.

I’m working on a PS/Condi warrior, and it owns:

• Ascended Viper’s (Yassith) Armor
• Legendary Swords: 2 Bolt’s
• Ascended Viper’s (Yassith) Longbow
• Ascended Viper’s (Yassith) Warhorn
• Ascended Viper’s (Yassith) Torch
• Mordrem Loop (Viper’s stats)
• Malicious Band (Viper’s stats)
• Legendary back: Ad Infinitum
• rest of gear is SINISTER, it has 150 ar)
  Leaving me at 94.95 Condition duration my prefferred setup has 100.06% condition duration which tends to be of use adding 1 second of bleeding on a couple of skills..

I wanted to highlight this, because it touches on what I like to do… and that’s build experimentation. That’s a lot of my endgame (and part of that is currently working on a full set of ascended celestial everything). I come up with an idea of some weird combo that might or might not work, then spend my gold and time to equip it out.

I get that it’s frustrating to shift the same ascended gear toon to toon… so why not instead work on other builds for some of those other toons with gear you can obtain?

Have you tried a Settler’s condi tank? I’ve found it to be hella-fun. What about a meta-event/world-boss rez specialist? Heck, I’ve even played with a ranged-only warrior….

Regardless, I hope you’re able to find some means to reignite your passion in the game…

~EW

coso.9173:

I know we have invisible shoe armor skins, why not have an invisible chest skin? many of us would like to have barechested male characters, right?
I know we have been talking about more armor choices, specially for male characters, but this would be an easy way to give us more variety. ANd it should br pretty easy to do, since there is no modelling required, just add an empty chest skin, and that’s it.
I would like to hear what others have to say about it

I use the scallywag chest piece for this purpose. I love it because it makes it look like I’m not wearing heavy armor.

Rauderi.8706:

Djinn.9245:

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

This is, regardless of supply/demand discussion, the important part of the argument. Even setting aside craft recipe tweaking, this is the important part.

Okay, then let’s talk about this part. What is wrong with having different resources being gathered by different means? Whether or not it was implemented well, I think it adds a modicum of variety to an often tedious task. Variety is the Omnomberry of life… even if there’s only two flavors, it’s still better than one.

I think this is more a debate of whether the means to gather a given resource was implemented well, and not about where specifically the resources come from…. and for that discussion to happen TP economy, price discrepancies, and supply/demand can’t be dismissed. It’s not about where the mats come from, but whether the acquisition rate fulfills the needs of the players and the economic system as a whole regardless if prices aren’t equal.

~EW

edit: and, let’s not forget that any changes to supply that ANet makes needs to be done slowly. And, oh my gosh, that’s what they’re doing! They added home instance nodes of cloth and leather. They improved map reward bonuses to give more cloth and leather. It would not surprise me if they’ve improved drop rates slightly for salvageable hides and cloths (but that part is just speculation). These tweaks might seem only like a dribble to a single player, but taken over the thousands of players, that is no small amount of new mats being introduced into the supply. It would be dumb for them to turn the faucet on and deluge the game with leather and hides… and even though they are more expert than us on knowing when there’s too little vs too much, that doesn’t mean they can precisely find that line… and adjustments should be made slowly like they have been.

Djinn.9245:

LouWolfskin.3492:

Once again i will ask: What exactly does casual mean?

IMO, “casual” means a person who doesn’t want the game to be a job.

And, my definition is slightly different:

A casual player wants a game they can pick up and play, then stop playing at any time for any reason…. which means the content needs to be accessible, and in portions that allow for breaks or stopping.

A hardcore player wants something they can devote themselves to… often (but not always) to the point of scheduling and devoting large swaths of their time around aspects of the game they wish to play such as raids or PvP tourneys.

A casual player can be a player who plays a lot, and a hardcore player can be someone who plays infrequently… and vice versa. But, the difference comes by their willingness to schedule/commit their time to the game, and not how much they actually wind up playing.

~EW

Bandito Baba.4921:

So I log in, 5k badges of honor, enough for 10 gifts of battle… wait, no, the vendors have been “removed from the game” and I now have to do a wvw title track instead of using currency I worked hard to get over a year ago. This seems very much like Anet want to increase the number of people doing WvW and instead of adding content (I assumed I paid for the expansion so that new content would be added, my bad) they just move things around so I have to play how they want me to play.

I feel like my time is being wasted, again, thanks for showing me how much you value veteran players like myself, again. Seriously there is no reason the vendors could not have been left in the game, let people in wvw get l33t lootz – absolutely – force people to WvW – lame.

This has already been discussed ad-nauseam here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Gift-of-Battle-Feedback-merged

Sorry you didn’t see that discussion… but your thread will likely be merged into that one. There’s likely nothing that’s going to be said here that wasn’t said somewhere there.

Mods, if you do merge the thread, please delete my post.

Thanx,

~EW

It doesn’t matter if it’s an event that peeps want to fail or succeed, if I’m going into something I know to be a huge event, I research it first… that’s what I did with Octovine, Dragon’s Stand, Tequatil, and on….

If I don’t know that I’m heading into something that I should know something important about… well that can be harder. I generally am too distracted by the event to regularly look at my chat box… but, when a player’s speech bubble pops up I strive to look at it… and if it is my first time doing whatever event, I do what the speech bubble says…. and that includes stop doing whatever it is I’m doing.

Both these things mean I don’t experience much at all what you have. But, if afterwards some people are complaining, I first ask for an explanation. If one isn’t given and obscenities continue, then I report and block. Later when I’ve logged out and have some free time, I’ll use what happened as a prompt to do a little more research.

Obscene players will get rooted out when they’re reported… it is a player problem and not a system problem.

I think there’s more players who’re understanding about someone not knowing some vital piece of info like an event needs to fail, then there are those who are kittens…. it’s just that the kittens meow the loudest.

Also, I personally think requiring an event to fail is a design flaw because it’s not intuitive… but I’m not a dev, so that’s not my call.

~EW

megakittytron.5971:

I tried this out for the first time today, and was kicked after the meta was over for not following the “rules” that was never explained. Got a nasty response back when I asked why, like I was stealing from them or something. I also saw commanders asking for tips and such. I agree that it is pretty toxic and I’m gonna avoid this multi-map thing cuz I don’t like the attitudes I saw.

I also tried this recently, because I wanted to see for myself if I felt that it was an exploit or just a fun thing to do.

I had a commander explain the rules in the squad, so I’m happy to share them if that’ll help out…

When you join the squad, you start in party 1. This is considered the lobby. Do not taxi, but stay in your current map at this time. Scroll down the various parties until you find a number that also has the people on your map in it (green icons instead of no color). Drag your icon from party 1 down to the corresponding number. This number is your map, and you’re expected to stay on this map until 1) The Octovine is defeated and you’ve looted the chests on your map, or 2) Your map has lost to the Octovine. The squad leader will announce which maps succeeded and those that didn’t.

If your map succeeded at the Octovine, go loot chests. When you’re done looting chests, move your icon back to the lobby (party 1), then select a person in another map and taxi to that map. When you arrive in that new map, before starting your looting, move your icon from the lobby to the corresponding party number. Then go loot the chests in your new map. Rinse, repeat for all the maps that succeeded, or until you run out of time.

If your map has lost to the Octovine, you then move your icon to the lobby and join another map (this is the part that makes me personally feel a bit squeamish, but that’s another topic for discussion). However this only happens when the squad leader says to do it, and not any earlier on your own initiative.

If you stay in the lobby when you join the squad, don’t move to the lobby before you taxi, don’t switch parties at all when you taxi, or don’t stay in your map until your Octovine is defeated, then you’ll likely be kicked. The intention of these restrictions/rules is to ensure a smooth run for everyone so that no one is causing bad map-hops.

Edit: and don’t leave a map if you’re the only one in it… ask the squad for someone to come into your map so you can leave… otherwise the map will be lost to everyone.

That’s how the squads I’ve tried worked, anyhow.

I hope that helps,

~EW

P.S. As far as my personal conclusion as to whether this is an exploit, I don’t think it’s a damaging one…. my reasons are the same as many people have stated above. Also, I want to add something to the general discussion that I don’t recall being addressed, and that is that it takes more than 20 minutes to do this despite what’s been claimed. You’re expected to fight the Octovine, which means showing up early enough to get in a competent map and partake in the fight (and likely the preliminary). There’s also the aftermath of sorting your inventory, and for me that takes a long while. I easily spend 40-50 min or more in total every time I’ve tried this, not 20. If I were to do the Octovine every 2 hours, that doesn’t leave much time to do anything else.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I use vamp runes for the life steal. With the total power you have, which is more in WvW, and the fact that life steal scales with power, you will steal between 700 and 800 life with the 6th rune per target.
So the health spike when you reach 25% can be up to about 4000ish.

In team fights, this is a big enough spike heal for me.

Are you sure about the scaling? The chart in the Wiki says it doesn’t at all:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing

~EW

Yes, it is the sigil of blood that scales. But even without the scaling, the heal is nice.

You said Rune of Vampirism, not Sigil of Blood, that’s why I asked. I do know the sigil scales… I rather enjoy using it, too.

~EW

Even though ANet strives to do things different with GW2, they’d be fools to ignore metrics that’d increase their player base and revenue. And, they’re metrics you don’t necessarily have access to – unless a player is in the upper management of ANet, that player doesn’t have the big picture to make accurate claims like you’ve tried to do (and so many posters on these forums do).

I feel like I’m being a broken record now when I say this, so I’m sorry, but there’s so many players with so many interests that there’s going to be LOTS of stuff in the game that you’re not going to enjoy. That doesn’t mean GW2 has lost their way… quite the opposite… it’s becoming more inclusive for its players. It’s a place where the PvE casual and the PvP elitist (or the PvE elitist and the PvP casual – I don’t want to pigeon hole the players) can get together and talk about the same game. More players is a good thing… but, yes, that means that there are more people being kittens, too. It can be easier to see the negative than the positive, but the positive is still there.

I also get that rant posts can be cathartic for the OP. But unless the OP is also desiring feedback, rant posts are a waste of everyone else’s time.

Also, rant posts cause puppies to go bald. >the more you know<

~EW

Entropy.6784:

Justine.6351:

A month of charging, like a 5sec channel once a day.
For someone to have been here from launch that is nothing. Instant gratification…I’m sorry you cannot just go and buy everything ingame off tp…wait no I am not sorry.

Everytime I see one of these threads I laugh a little because by the time the thread has run its course the person probably already has half or more of the charged quartz.

I’m not asking for your sympathy, I’m asking for a contribution to this thread something that either opposes or confirms what there’s been said. And yes this is about instant gratification, (woops you’ve caught me), this also about getting materials the same treatment.

And for my part, I disagree with both of you. I can fully understand and support time-gating… I can also understand and support certain mats being limited or restricted in availability.

My part is that the combination of the two feels punishing and unnecessarily restrictive. I don’t want to feel punished or severely restricted in my crafting. I can be patient, and I think I am given that I’ve committed to making Ascended Celestial Everything. I have a full understanding of the time commitment involved in my endeavor… and it’s an endeavor that will take me well into next year to complete if I work on it every single day.

For me it’s about the feeling that this part of the process gives me, and that is a negative feeling… Even if it takes me a long time to do something in game, I’d prefer not to feel negative about my investment of time and effort. I’m taking part in my project because I can find enough positive things in the endeavor itself to counter ballance it for me, but that doesn’t mean the negative feeling doesn’t exist.

~EW

We have good character customization. It isn’t the best, sure…

…but I don’t wanna spend 30 minutes fiddling with an upper nose bridge slider, either.

~EW

Zsymon.8457:

It really depends on your playstyle and what content you engage in.

^Pretty much this ^.

I’ve only been playing my warrior as a main for a few months, and I’m mostly a PvEer. So far I’ve toyed around with Zerker’s, Soldier’s, Zealot’s, Cleric’s, Settler’s, and now I’m investing in Celestial (go ahead and laugh at me everyone. :P )… Atm I really enjoy celestial, but I’ve enjoyed all the others too.

Perhaps switch pieces out as you’re deciding what you need to improve your build… need more dps, and don’t mind losing defense? Then swap out a couple pieces of zerk. Want to get more healing from AH? Consider a few pieces of clerics. Trying a hybrid dps build to take advantage of Berserking? Try Carrion.

There are plenty of build links here in this sub-forum… dig around a bit, and you’ll probably find a build or three that’ll work as a jumping-off point for you.

~EW

webtoehobbit.4201:

Has ANet Forgotten the Casual Gamers?

Short answer: no
Long answer: nooooooooooooooooo

webtoehobbit.4201:

With this severe content drought and nothing but very specific content aimed at the more hardcore crowd, I can’t help but to feel a bit forgotten. Sure we have current events, but those are nothing compared to the love that the other parts of the game have seen.

I’m sorry that you feel that way. I think there needs to be a clear definition to ‘hardcore’ to have a solid discussion about this. You mention the current events, yup they’re there. But what about all the WvW changes? Do you consider WvW hardcore? I’d say it’s honestly a mix… I’m largely a carebear, but I’ve found it kinda fun to roam with the zerg now and then… I’m certainly not hardcore when it comes to any type of PvP.

And, the love for the other parts of the game… I’m assuming you mean raiding. It’s important to remember that there didn’t exist a raid before, so to add any type of respectable/worthwhile raiding where there wasn’t any before it’s gunna have to feel like a lot is being added… they’re adding a new bedroom onto their house… so you’re gunna notice the construction. They’re investing time and resources into adding raiding, so they’re not going to want it to come off as a joke… and now it’s a new addition to the family… a new aspect of the game that needs catering to on top of the ‘casual’ crowd, the ‘pvp’ crowd, the ‘farming’ crowd, and all the other crowds that make us one big argumentative family.

webtoehobbit.4201:

Do you think that the casual base is a minority? I have always felt that the casual gamer base was quite populous in GW2, but maybe I was wrong, maybe its full of hardcore players.

It’s not a minority. Casual gamers make up a huge percentage of most MMOs. Most of the current content in the game is directed towards casual play; even world bosses. And, no MMO has ever been able to keep up production of new content in order to constantly appease the masses.

There’s also a lot of forum threads that debate how ANet has chosen to divide their resources, and in ways that players have asked… such as transferring from LW to an expansion…. and now we’re heading back towards LW but also an expansion. There’s good reason for there being (and feeling) like there’s a content drought.

webtoehobbit.4201:

I’m just feeling left out lately, waiting for Living World Season 3 is going to be tough. :-(

Seriously, take a break and go play another game. If you’re not having fun, or have run out of stuff to do, then go play something else. It’s silly to waste your precious free time intentionally sitting around board and frustrated. The game will still be here when you return…. and with new goodies to please you and everyone.

~EW

Djinn.9245:

Ardid.7203:

Wow, maybe they decide to put some lore outside raids, so the great majority of the players can enjoy it!

Not going to happen – Anet is too busy trying to force people to play what Anet wants them to play. What has happened to GW2 since the good old “play like you want” days is what we affectionately call “selling out”. It usually doesn’t happen to MMOs until they are much older and desperate for cash.

Get over it.

There’s a huge player base with a diverse set of want/needs that the company needs to cater to in order to stay solvent. So news flash for you, there’s going to be content that doesn’t cater to you specifically. That’s certainly can include lore for the people who raid. Also, given development, budget, and programming restrictions content is going to come out in different ways at different times.

You can still play what you want. And like ALL other MMOs, if you feel you’ve run out of something to do go play something else until the “next destination” arrives.

“Selling out” is such a fallacious cry… try looking at the game from outside your own needs and wants and you might just see that.

Djinn.9245:

General Health.9678:

They don’t seem desperate for cash. I’m still playing what i want, sorry if you aren’t, what are you not able to do?

What other motivation would make a company completely contradict one of the core principles of their game? Do you think they just “decided” its actually better not to let you play like you want? If you’re not familiar with this issue, there are huge numbers of threads about it.

And here’s where an example comes into play. The company provides customer entertainment. Yes, they need to consider the financial bottom line in anything/everything they tend to do… otherwise there’s no game if there’s no business. But because they’re consumer based, they must ALSO please as many customers as they can, otherwise there’s no game if there are no players.

It’s a balance that needs to be struck, and likely a very difficult one. There’s that other possible motivation you can’t seem to see.

You’re making your arguments on some perception they’ve ‘sold out;’ that they’ve somehow betrayed the ‘play how you want’ motto. Just because there’s content that doesn’t cater to you, doesn’t mean the game is no longer ‘play how you want.’

Back on topic: I don’t want to speculate too heavily on what’s coming up… I’d rather be surprised.

~EW

Anchoku.8142:

So what kind of PvE situation does that sound like? Escort events are one such situation.

Legendaries and high-damage champions. Some world bosses, too.

Basically any situation where the philosophy of “kill it with max dps before it can kill you” won’t work.

~EW

DeanBB.4268:

@EW: For Ascended, can’t you craft any old type then change it to Celestial in the forge? I haven’t done so yet, but thought that was now the case.

You probably don’t wanna hear that I have too much of the stuff. If I have time, I take all 5 of my accounts into my home to harvest, and funnel it all into my primary account, which also makes a Charged each day. I have about 2 stacks of regular waiting to get charged up and who knows how much Charged in the bank.

Additional accounts are a nice way to “support” the main account, but do take time away from advancing the main. But whatever, I enjoy it.

You still need the insignia to change it in the MF….. which is where the charged goes into… so, unfortunately not.

Thank you for the suggestion, though… I do appreciate it. What I’ve done is a mix of the two methods… I bought a fair portion of quartz off the TP, and am trying to regularly get my ~22 by farming…. so I am guaranteed to make my 1 charged / day. As I mentioned above, it’s not my biggest bottle-neck to deal with.

I am okay (just not enthusiastic) about the cost and the time, though, because I do plan on making at least one of each type of ascended celestial equipment (two of the weaps that can be dual-wielded)…. and when that’s done it’ll likely be the last equipment I ever make/own. Outside of some specialist builds, of course lol. It’s a great long-term project… an endgame of sorts.

~EW

tolunart.2095:

Sir Mad.1092:

To be fair, time-gating charged crystals wasn’t necessary at all since you can barely harvest enough each day to make one (you get 10 crystals from the queen, 6 to 9 from regular nodes, and an extra 3 with a rare chance of getting 5 more from your home instance).

You can buy quartz crystals on the TP – and this was the case when it was first released into the game too – so the time-gate is the only restriction on creating charged quartz, you can buy 1000 crystals instantly if you wanted to.

You can. However, given the scarcity of nodes the prices can be pretty substantial. Atm a single quartz crystal is ~9s25c on the TP. Since you need 25 for a charged, that’s ~2g31s25c to make a single charged quartz. For exotic Celestial equipment, you need 5 charged each piece… raising the cost to ~11g56s25c AND a 5 day time gate. If you were to buy all the quartz needed to make a set of armor + 2 weapons + 5 accessories (13 pieces) you’re looking at ~150g31s25c + 65 days in time gating (totaling 1625 quartz crystals). As I mentioned above, sans special circumstances, if you were to gather all of that (at ~22 quartz/day), you’re looking at 73 days of dealing with the Skritt Queen.

For me, it is what it is, and I’m going to be patient with my crafting… especially since I’m doing ascended (which means I get to ignore accessories, yay for small blessings). But the scarcity of nodes means to gather (OR buy) quartz plus the time gating of turning it into charged can feel really, really punishing/restrictive.

To me this is a parallel discussion to those who have issues with Mystic Coin availability.

~EW

Rhaegar.1203:

Truth be told, not only they are Time-gated, the base material is also hard to come by, as other already pointed out. Perhaps adding them to the drop table on a few maps?
Or salvageable from some drops?

I’d be happy with a couple more nodes so that a dedicated person could mine enough quartz to make 1 charged per day just from farming. As it stands I believe you can regularly only get 22 per day sans special circumstances.

~EW

penelopehannibal.8947:

What does 3,000 hours really mean though? There are players with over 10,000 hours still playing the game. They’re not losing those by a long shot.

It’s just a variation of the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy known as “appeal to accomplishment.”

~EW

I have dialogue turned off most of the time. At most the NPCs just grunt at me. It makes me chuckle.

~EW

While I agree that the Charged Quartz time gating is excessively restrictive, there have been other posts about this.

My hypothesis: Celestial gear is the final gear to own. Once you make it, you don’t need anything else…. so it’s gotta be time gated up the wazoo. Of course so many people will disagree, but that’s because they don’t understand the glory that is Celestial.

~EW

P.S. I’ve made an entire set of ascended celestial heavy, and I’m currently working on all ascended celestial weapons…. trust me, I understand fully the frustration of the charged quartz time gating… it’s the second biggest bottleneck I have to deal with.

The game caters to all crowds. It has to in order to keep a larger player base.

And, that means that content is going to get released or worked on that doesn’t interest people… this feeds the false perception that ANet doesn’t care about X, where X is what you care about. The truth is ANet cares about interests A-X, and due to budget, staffing, and programming limitations it does the best it can while never satisfying everyone completely. By those circumstances they also aren’t going to release stuff for A-X at an equal rate.

Also, ANet isn’t completely responsible for the fun you find in the game. The player is, too. This isn’t a movie where you sit back and do nothing…. this isn’t WoW where you sit back and do nothing… you must actively engage yourself (read: participate) in content. Casual doesn’t mean not engaged; if someone thinks so, then this isn’t a game for them.

Finally, I think players put too much importance on balance…. or more accurately, on imbalance. For every thread someone posts about how Y profession/build is dominating, there’s another about how Z profession/build gets around it. Also, every profession sub-forum has posts about how all the others are better than them…. that indicates to me that there is balance. 1 profession vs the other 5 should feel like you’re losing more than winning: whether it’s direct conflict in PvP/WvW, or you’re just comparing PvE effectiveness.

~EW

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I use vamp runes for the life steal. With the total power you have, which is more in WvW, and the fact that life steal scales with power, you will steal between 700 and 800 life with the 6th rune per target.
So the health spike when you reach 25% can be up to about 4000ish.

In team fights, this is a big enough spike heal for me.

Are you sure about the scaling? The chart in the Wiki says it doesn’t at all:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing

~EW

Supernatural Dawn.3194:

Would such a build be even viable or even worth it?

Only in a very specialized circumstance when you’re having a ton of problems solely with condi…

…but a very interesting idea…. Thank you for it… I think I wanna play around with the idea, if only to see what comes of it.

~EW

Ime stacking sigils are a bad habit. I feel their benefit at max stacks is outweighed by those times you’ll either lose the stacks, or not have them maxed when you really need it.

I think it more comes down to the choice of an always-on bonus, or one that can fluctuate depending on what you’re doing…. not which one gives you the most damage. It was kinda difficult for me because I was so used to them, but I dropped stacking sigils a while ago.

~EW

Ranlares.2513:

Moa killing?

I believe this is a reference to killing the non-aggressive mobs on the map. The longer a mob is spawned, the more bonus xp it gives… and usually peeps don’t think twice about killing non-aggressive mobs like Moas so they’ve usually been spawned for quite a while… it can be really good xp. As for it being more efficient than other means, I’m not sure… but it couldn’t hurt.

~EW

This is awesome, emkelly. I already can think of a couple people I’ll be sending over to read your thread.

Thanx for taking the time to put it all together.

~EW

Well fivestar, someone tried part of your idea tonight.

I was on East, and we got our side down to the nub first, as well as got the stacks low to be ready for the final burn. South was as usual slowest… and uncharacteristically North was slow, too.

While I was waiting for North and South to catch up, I amused myself with attacking the veterans for a min. In my periphery I see someone attacking the Octo, so I turn around and help ’cause I thought the final burn had begun… then I glanced up at the other bars, and disengaged as quickly as I could.

Just as I disengaged someone said in map, “east has a troll.” I really hope like heck no one thought it was me, lol. But, that other person kept attacking.

The stacks went back up before this lone person could kill off the East Octo.

So, maybe there are circumstances that’d could cause a lone person to burn the Octo before the rest of the map is ready… but one person wasn’t enough tonight, thank goodness.

~EW

ekarat.1085:

Why do you have so much more airship oil than the other two?

Airships are like the dairy cows of the skies. You just gotta learn which ones can be milked.

~EW

Not sure if it’s at all possible… but since it’s legendary armor… can a toggle be added that’ll let the player choose?

~EW

My biggest fear is that the next expansion will be so awesome that these forums will become a ghost-town and uninteresting to read while I’m at work.

~EW

TokyoGhost.6492:

I PREFFER REPLY FROM ANET TY

This is not meant to come off as cheeky, but then you might have better luck asking on Reddit.

These forums seem to be intended for the community to talk with each other more so than for ANet to chat with us… with, of course, obvious exceptions.

Regardless, good luck and I hope you get your answer.

~EW

My roommate has said to me on multiple occasions that if a great axe skin were available on the hammer, he’d drop all other weapons and play just the hammer. Seriously.

~EW