Guild Wars 2

Traveller.7496:

After Anthony’s comment I’m now carefully optimistic about at least having a chance to get the rapier, if it will be tradeable via TP(albeit super expensive).

I recon it will be a direct gem purchase eventually.

Evans.6347:

LordByron.8369:

yes if you look at a famous staff that was the most desired for long it went from 80 G to 20 in 1 week.

To finally rest at about 3G.

…so I got it on a whim

not really, we turn into gas, yet vines manage to restrict us, we should be immune to that.

zhaitans brain will be why the dragon came back in the first place, the body is like a puppet on strings, so long as the brain stays safe and hidden, it can eventually re-use the body form provided it has accumulated enough magic energy.

This is part of why the zhaitans mouth exists. and why the dragons seek to eat so much magic, like a wasp queen setting itself up for summer and winter.

any thoughts on this?

add character name Zane Vigil, ill just join you and do it with you and prevent npc from dying, the bug wont be fixed but atleast you can progress (wont be on for another 5-6 hrs tho, at work)

Basically, the elementalist has the ability to turn into a vapourous mist and the f1-4 buttons change the attunement of the elementalist and a visual change to the aura arond the elementalists wrists.

the problem is that when the elementalist uses the mist form, they turn into the cloud but the wrist animation continues.

the result looks rather silly because you can clealry see two little wrists (essentially) bopping along inside the cool mist, which completely breaks the illusion you are a mist.

bump again to see if devs care

bump this up more and more

sorry but anet dont give a kitten about you and abdul, literally, for days people have been telling them very literal glitches in his part of the game and they are completely ignoring us.

I think there will be a Zhaitans brain, the dragon form being his body. Eyes, Mouth, Body and Brain.

still being ignored, you’re so awesome anet

BrunoBRS.5178:

Equilibriator.8741:

in arah story

but you have to glitch through the game to reach it, so it doesn’t count as canon.

obviously, but its still a cool pick

in arah story

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I got pretty conclusive evidence zhaitan is dead.

See enclosed link

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f342/liboempire/gw087-1.jpg

after extensive testing wvwin and a little pvping i can now say that my mesmer is ruined seemingly. Now coniditon damage is near poitnless to me yet every thing i wear has a little condition damage in it, to recreate my build i would have to reearn everything i have harvested, more or less, as condition damage no longer holds any use to my mesmer.

A real shame but looks like this character will now just be a pretty skin because i would rather play with new characters than expensively redo my old character all over again (transmutation stones, etc).

Just to add more to this, I have noticed a frustrating moment a few times now when drinking doesnt cooldown any of my skills. i don’t understand how this can be possible as drink cant be countered by anything. This has literally cost me the match atleast once as i had no health left and no skills other than drink, when i should have gotten heal and belch (both being on 1 cooldown left before i drank)

could a dev please comment on this, you clearly think we are just a bunch of wingers because you think you “fixed” the problems, but all you really did was fix a handful of the much bigger pile of problems, The firstmost being the flipped heal and hurt ratios.

Can you please please please give us a response one way or the other so we dont have to keep checking threads like this in vain.

EDIT : 6000+ views, is this not worth your time to look at?

I too have been having problems with this. Are we really only suposed to get 1k heal but 2k dmg per drink? Given the number of turns it takes to refresh heal, and that this guy stops you from being able to bluff, you can’t really beat him with any level of tactics. this truly is just down to blind luck, which is pathetic from a developers point of view.

Please either do something about the game mechanics or reduce him to one sig move. A game like this has potential but we should all be under the same rules, npc or not.

I think everyone is missing the fact that the mesmer portals is supposed to be able to do all the things you dont like, its a part of the game.

You say that just because it’s already in the game, doesn’t make it alright.

I say this is a GAME, and jp is not the priority of the game, it is optional content that you can do or not do.

all you want to do is limit perfectly functioning aspects of the game, your imposing your hangups on other people like your the king of opinion and what you say is obviously right because you get annoyed when somebody skips something you chose to do in half an hour.

portals are good in wvw because it adds a guild wars 2 like uniqueness into the wvw. Mesmers have portals so why the kitten shouldnt they be able to use it to get some sneaky people into a castle, the fact is good servers clean out a castle/keep before they leave it.

You are thinking to much like this game should be real life, you want sow things to stay slow despite the fact this is a game of wonder and magic where anything can go.

open your mind and stop thinking about what you want and realise its a friggin game people want to enjoy, not have limited because you cant stop thinking about how you cant boast about doing a jp and realise other people have a right to have fun.

your argument essentially boils down to “its not fair, why do they get to skip it when i have to do it!”

Lenaro.5924:

Alternatively if your friend isn’t skilled enough to do that jump puzzle you can relocate to one that’s easier and more within reach (Compromise!).

..Why does it matter if you get something that changes the game for you? That’s pretty much the foundation of the argument for people who have no problem with Mesmer portals. People shouldn’t be bothered that others are playing the way they want, I want all dungeon items in the game freely given to me, level 80, and legendary items. It’s my game and according to the kind of logic that makes Mes Portals in JPs acceptable it’s acceptable for me to get all of this stuff free as long as I want it.

The only questionable one is Legendary items as they affect the economy, my other points do not and therefore have no bearing on anyone else in the game, so why shouldn’t they occur?

Fact is nobody gives a monkey how you do it because it’s just a bit of fun for people who want something else to do. The more you restrict it, the less fun and more chore-like it becomes. That’s why there should be no seal farming in dungeons and the gear should be handed out.

If you’re allowed to find using a Mesmer portal to reach the end of a JP fun then I should be allowed to find a button to reach the end of dungeons fun. Don’t discriminate against my choice of a play-style.

but your discriminating against other peoples way of lifestyle. Mesmer portals have always something in the game and thus it is completely within reason that you can use the skill for its intended purpose, which includes skipping jp

a button that does everything for you isnt in the game because its moronic and obviously not going to happen. you’re comparing apples and luxury boats.

the mesmer still has to do the jp himself, he doesnt get it for free. The player earned the skill, played the mesmer, now they can reap the benefits. Thus the mesmer is a little more diverse.

there’s more than one way to skin a cat, why should your way be correct and our way be not?

the fact i cant change the colour of my weapons

the fact that dungeon paths all give same rewards but vary greatly in dificulty

the fact precursors are some distant dream because the price keeps rising and there is no fair way to earn them without mystic forge

the fact mini pets dont stay summoned when i swap over maps or wp, makes mini pets pointless to me as re-using the item constantly is a complete chore and easily forgettable.

the fact commanders get blocked from map chatting in wvw when they are obviously going to use the map to issue commands at a higher rate than most map chat users

the fact most items in this game are account bound or soul bound for little good reason

the fact there isnt team speak built into gw2

the fact I have a sore in my mouth and no matter how much i touch it, it keeps getting worse

the fact gw2lfg isnt built into gw2

the fact that the story rewards get pathetic pretty quick, got two lvl 80s an still not finished it from lack of interest (rather do something rewarding with my time)

the fact they made armour dyes character bound, they should be account bound or atleast i should have some kind of UI designed specifically for dye testing, like the same way you normally apply dyes, but every dye is available to preview.

the fact there is no specific search for back items in marketplace

the fact i can pay for extra bank space but im still limited to 250 for each craft item, they should go up as well.

the fact the 800 pricey eternal mine items are soulbound instead of accountbound

the fact i cant hotkey items like the teleportation gun or my food

the fact there is no easy way to swap between my magic find gear and my proper gear (cant just double click rings and accessories due to it always replacing first item)

I agree with the people who want portals to stay.

I usually always do my jp the ‘natural’ way and i don’t feel upset that others skip, rather i’m glad they’re getting it done and kittening off early so i dont have to deal with the impossible minor lag that stops me from doing the tough jumps accurately.

Earlier you compared JP to people getting legendaries automatically and automatically becoming lvl 80. That’s a terrible argument because these people aren’t getting anything, realistically, that changes anything in their game, maybe a rare item or that new exotic nobody wants at best. Yeah you get an achievement, but its not like you see people boasting that theyve done the new jp.

Fact is nobody gives a monkey how you do it because it’s just a bit of fun for people who want something else to do. the more you restrict it, the less fun and more chore-like it becomes.

Example : doing it with my friend, he cant get past half way and im done. If im a mesmer ill eventually warp him up, otherwise im gonna have to sit there for another half an hour watching my mate fail over and over.
Result : nobody is having fun

they still need to fix the fact you go bald everytime you put on a hat. that should be the first priority, still holding onto my witches hat in storage because it makes my female character look like an alopecia victim.

tim.1280:

Don’t know if this has been said before but it would be really nice if the difficulty level of a dungeon was scaled to the amount of people in the party! This would save having to make a 5 member party everytime you want to do a dungeon.

I think they want you to have to form a party though, otherwise it’ll be even harder to find a party when you do want one, because all the good people will just solo dungeons and groups would largely consist of people who suck or are inexperienced, etc, etc.

I like the waypoints, it is one of the large things that make this gameplayable for me. I was sick to death of spending 20 minutes walking somewhere in previous mmorpg, just to spend 20 minutes walking back afterwards. Guild wars 2 wanted to remove that kind of time filling bull****. Other mmorpgs keep it because they charge to play and wasting peoples time ultimately means more money.

The biggest thing i love about this game is its accessability, theyve removed ‘chores’ from the game in as much is as practical.

As for the sailing ships, why do they need to sail? Where would they sail to on a regular basis? it’s a nice idea for something to look at in lions arch but otherwise id rather just click a button and be where i want to go. The rest of the time its just providing lag to us lowly internet users.

A lot of problems related to this is that lions arch is already laggy as it is, you start adding -reasons- for people to kitten around all day in lions arch and it will start getting pretty frustrating whenever you try to enter the map, potentially trying to cut a large journey in half using the gates, then end up staring at load screen for 2 minutes. It already happens as it is, even for the fibre optic cable users.

idk, i like the ideas, but they aint practical i think.

EDIT: As for you dedicated roleplayers, they could totally remove waypoints in terms of warping but keep them as nearest revive points only. Then just stick that change on a new roleplayer server only.

Things like sitting on chairs, etc, i can completely understand why these small things drive u to frustration, but there’s also the small problem of races like charr and asuran being so completely different in size and shape, a chair fit for a charr would potentially suck for an asuran rp-wise, of course then you could add a comical shrug if you ask him to sip, or his hands wave in air because he cant reaach table.

The things you want are all reasonably achievable, the problem is that anet isnt prioritising the rp community very much and likely never will. this game just isnt designed to be a true rp game :/ (which is sad because they love pumping out costume items that would be perfect for rp play but outside being able to make up rp stuff in your head, are rather useless and underused, for example why wasnt dragonball held in your costume, albeit red or blue version, why wasnt crabtoss done in your costume?)

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

To be honest, from what they’ve released, I can’t really understand of what this event is about. A new PvP arena, that’s cool, but kind of feeds a slim minority, and doesn’t seem to be related to the new chapter; flying merchants, anyone else sense a trend here, its not like we just dealt with flying pirates, but that aside the notes don’t seem to hint at a story at all; and… new movements? What is that even supposed to mean? Our characters will be able to back-flip across Tyria? And are these permanent movement skills, or simply an event for living story? To be honest it sound kind of pointless.

it probably will be linked, anet strongly hinted at the aetherblades being funded by some annonymous person, likely a sky trader. The “real” boss of the aetherblades moveement, and likely that much more evil, will likely arise in this upcoming living story (leader or funder, maybe he intentionally sacrificed them, idk, well find out -why- the aetherblades attacked in first place)

Silberfisch.3046:

I appear to have interpreted some of your previous post the wrong way a bit.

You are right. We are looking at the same problem from different angles. (Inserted nonsense to counter the censorship of the forums, which sometimes “corrects” words that are not even there. If you wonder what I’m talking about, the forum censored the last 3 letters of “angles” in combination with the first 2 of “both”, even though they are in different sentences…)
Both extremes are equally bad. Neither just putting out content that is hard nor only content that can be facerolled can be the desired goal.

But rather than (possibly) alternating between the two, I would like to see the option to pick which one you want to do. Of course that means a lot more work for designers and programmers. And I am aware that it is ultimately the prerogative of the creators to decide which way to go.

yeh i think u get what im saying now. Ultimately, 2 options would be nicer. I personally think the dungeon should have a 1 player version people do to get story content and unlock the multiplayer “proper” dungeon (like the last one) at the same time which is optional but more rewarding.

Silberfisch.3046:

@Equilibriator:
Honestly, despite what you wrote, I don’t think you really read what Dreadicon wrote. Or if you did, you didn’t understand him/her very well.
(As of now I’m going to assume “him” since that’s more likely. If I’m wrong I apologize.)

Draedicon said he likes and wants more difficult content. He also stated he has absolutely no problem whatsoever if achievements are difficult. On the contrary.
He also said that difficult permament story content is not a problem in his book.
The only thing that bugs him is the comination of the three: difficult, story-related and temporary.
Hell, he even said he would support if the “reward” for the easy/story-mode would be scaled down to next to nothing.

Dreadicon isn’t looking for freebies here. He’s only trying to make a point that the story part of living story should be doable by everyone. Which I consider a reasonable request.
He also promotes a hard/exploration mode for those looking for a challenge. And that this one should wield the appropriate rewards and achievements.

What is the problem with 2 modes for a dungeon like the Aetherblades Retreat? One for those who just want to play the storyline and one for those looking to distinguish themselves as good gamers?
Aside from more work for the programmers of course.

I’m well aware that “success” or “seeing all” in an mmorpg is a function of time. (So is dreadicon btw. from what I’ve read.)
That will mean someone with more time spent on the game will always have more goodies/achievements/whatever than someone with less time invested. It will also mean that, like with any other hobby, those who invest more time will most likely be better at it.
And that’s how it should be.
But I can’t see why this is an argument to exclude those with less game-time from simple story related content. Which basically is what you’re advovating.

Your last post gives the impression that story isn’t that important for you. Again if I presume to much, I apologize. As I said, it gives the impression, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it is.
However for a lot of players it is an important aspect of the game. Sometimes the most important. And – maybe not surprisingly – quite often that is the case for a lot of those with less time to play the game in comparison to those who invest a lot of time and therefore have most likely seen it all more often than they could care for.

and what im saying is the living story shoudlnt be free content, im saying it should sometimes be a case of you get it or you dont.

i understand people want dificulty levels on dungeons, but i say (and advocate as you rightly say) that your going to miss out on likely one step, one step which will not cost you anything story related – because you can watch it on youtube. The story you are missing out on will likely be purely JUST a conversation with mai, then you will get to continue like everyone else.

dungeons that are difficult, story-related and temporary are not bad because its rare. As far as i can tell this is the first time its happened with such a hard dungeon, why are you expecting it to -keep- happening?

the living story is a progression of the world, you are currently trying to take out the “leader” of the aetherblades and her small army, this is not something that sounds like a walk in the park. The dungeon is temporary, the content will move on.

The combination of the three is bad if it happens constantly, not if it happens once and people feel left out – because there are other people who feel annoyed they have to participate in cake walks that consume -their- time. What you are more upset about is simply misplaced aggravation at the fact the dungeon is temporary.

What i am arguing is that you arent considering the other people in this game who
-want- a harder dungeon, and seeing as all the new dungeons seem to be temporary and story-related, why should -we- have to wait because you only want what makes your half of the community happy? you aren’t thinking about us,. just yourselves and what you want.

I didn’t get upset when the first stage was an easy gold and cake walk guiding some injured representatives, yes i still got to do it, but that didnt mean i enjoyed it.

Forgive me if this sounds insulting but you have to broaden your mindframe and realise there are a lot of people who really like the new dungeon and have been waiting a lot longer than you for new dificult content.

if the devs decide to add 2 modes, thats their choice, but you shouldnt be seeking to pacify every dificult temporary dungeon just because you dont like it.

The key to this argument is that there are many opinions, not just your own, not just mine, but one side cant have it their way all the time.

dreadicon.5840:

@Stooperdale,
@Equilibriator,
Did neither of you read my post I just made…? Or my original post for that matter. Difficult content is good! Difficult temporary content is good! the problem is difficult temporary STORY content, which BAD. Story is something that pretty much appeals to players universally, and restricting access to it based on ability to learn the dungeon in a week or so is unfair to a large portion of the playerbase. This is not because it’s too difficult to be in the game, or even because it’s too difficult to be temporary, but rather because it’s too difficult to be temporary AND story-related.

As an overall note, let me define story-related; When I say story-related, I am talking about the central plot of the living story. Finding out more about Mai and the Aetherblades is story related. Killing X aetherblades or finding aetherblade caches is not. That is how I define story-related. If you want a dungeon that is story-related, then give it an easy mode. I don’t even care if you only get like one achievement point for the easy mode; achievements can be hard, that’s fine too!

@Debois Guilbert, point in case. The dungeon is too much effort for most people. I talk to alot of guildies (in a full and very active guild, btw), and they all have no interest in it. Why? They have either finished it and find it too difficult to attempt again, or tried it and have given up on trying because they consider it just too hard.

@Webba, That would work, yeah.

No i read what you said, i have just decided that i dont agree.

living story is not some highly cerebral plot, its essentially a 2 week event for those who want to do it, followed by another, by another, by another, etc, etc.

Sometimes they will be easy, sometimes they will be not.

It’s not my fault you can’t play the game well or can’t find a good party, personally i haven’t had much problems provided you know how to ask and where to look, again my first run was as a 4 man team (when the dungeon got blocked so nobody could go in, and one of our party left, so we just went for it) of randoms i literally joined without anyone knowing what teh dungeon was like.

like what the last guy said, why does all material have to be catered to people who can’t play the game? Thats the way i look at it, complaints like “i dont have enough time” or “cant find a party” or “its to hard” is just complaints from people who should; realise they are playing an mmorpg, mmorpg is a time consuming game, if you don’t have the time to play regularly and for over an hour then accept you are going to miss out on stuff, you arent looking hard enough or are giving up to easily, other people are finding parties, you have no excuse, if its to hard then you arent reading guides or even attempting to understand the ai, you want things spoon fed to you and guess what, this dungeon isnt for babies, -this- living story isnt for the weak side of the community.

You are missing out because you are making life choices that have resulted in you missing out, why should all dungeons be a cakewalk because you want it that way? I want a million gold for farming one dungeon, i aint getting it, so i do lots of dungeons each day – result is i can do dungeons much better than average player. I am putting in the time and getting the reward, because i earned it.

If you can’t do the dungeon, accept your going to miss out on the next “content”, which will likely justy be a conversation with mai saying “my boss will get you, muahaha!” followed by an achievement.

If you really think your missing out, youtube the scene your missing out on. Upset you didn’t get the achievement? guess what!? You didn’t earn it, face it – some achievements are meant to indicate what a player has -achieved- not simply witnessed.

Stooperdale.3560:

“There needs to be content that appeals to both casuals and hardcores. How hard is that to understand!”

You seem to want all content to appeal to casuals whether or not it appeals to hardcores, but that’s not going to work. This dungeon isn’t hardcore by the way. I’d define hardcore as something for people who put intensive time/effort/organization into the game. This dungeon isn’t restricted to hardcore. A good player with limited time can complete this dungeon.

bingo!

@justin
i suppose your right in a way, if there was an easier mode with no rewards (much like story – exp in existing dungeons) then i could live with that for temporary content. You get the storyline, we get our rewards without having to worry about people, just getting them, who don’t deserve them.

@omg a hotpocket
i don’t mind the fact the dungeons leaving its spot, i just hope it returns to fractals because ultimately thats the benefit of fractals, you can add things like this. I also hope and expect them to add new ones too. The more the better, i say, because fractals is all about skill and diversity.

@Zanthrax
totally, despite the fact it was nails i enjoyed the fact i had to do boss fights that weren’t just stand still (im tank) while everyone else rails the boss. We can jump, roll, do other things like the bouncy things, this should be incorporated into more dungeons, say there was a dungeon you literally had to infiltrate an industrial charr fortification to get to the boss, that would be cool, only a few fights but lots of switches, jumping puzzle elements, rolling under flames, etc, that the team has to negotiate and do at certain times.

there should be gaps in this game you can only get through if you roll.

oh i agree completely that they shouldnt be taking it away full stop, but i find it plausible that the dungeon in its entirity will become a fractal, and you will probably still be able to play it that way.

ppl say this is a bad thing, i say fractals is for the hardcores, so is this dungeon, they are suited to each other.

and yeh, i agree, ive only done it a couple of times myself because parties are hard to find or can be regularly failed half way through by leaving members or crap members.

This game desperately needs to take on the functions of the vast number of third party programs doing this games job for it, gw2lfg shouldnt be where i always have to go to find a party, teamspeak shouldnt be what i need to use to chat to guild, events should be trackable in game, commanders shouldnt be silenced for using map chat in wvw, the list goes on…

dreadicon.5840:

@Omg A Hotpocket, there’s nothing wrong with some temporary content. There is something wrong with temp content that blocks the temp story. Aetherblade Retreat is an unfriendly dungeon, and while there’s nothing wrong with unfriendly dungeons as a ‘optional hardcore addition’ or as permanent content, there IS something wrong with a unfriendly dungeon which blocks a story which will only be around for so long. Elite dungeons would be awesome if they make the things permanent. Generally, my argument wasn’t “no stuff should be temporary” but rather “AR is a bad design decision as it is a core element of the event which is extremely harsh to unskilled players.”

@PainShot, FOTM is more profitable if you don’t skip the content in both of them. Rushing dungeons is the STUPIDEST thing I have EVER heard of. If you are SKIPPING a dungeon’s content, then either you care only about the reward and not about the gameplay, and/or the dungeon isn’t designed correctly. If there are specific avoidance mechanics on portions of the dungeon, that’s something different entirely.

to be fair most things u skip n my mind are supposed to be skipped, arah for example is a perfect example, we tried to kill everything once, and its impossible, theres actually some baddies that spawn more every time they die. If you were to think about orr as an actual place filled with armies of the undead, you wouldn’t always necessarily try to cut a path through that, maybe you’d try sneak round the side first (assassins guild, vigil like choice).

as for the dungeon blocking content, erm, idk….not everything this game releases should be easy, if everybody could do everything then the better half of us would get bored. Sometimes dungeons are too easy, sometimes they are too hard, that’s just life.

you just gotta roll with the blows, accept you might not be able to get these specific achievements and in the meantime level up or get more experienced at hard dungeons, because in the end there’s plenty people managing to do this dungeon with random parties, so it cant be impossible.

test (forums is glitching)

This whole debate reminds me of the age old debate about 2 people simultaneously playing a 1 player game. It went a bit like this:

America : because the storyline is about one character, you can only play with one character.

Japan : Duplicate skin of main character, drop it in game as playable character alongside the main, don’t mention it in slightest in main storyline.

both worked but one gave u much more replay value.

Now we have the current situation

Anet : its in the past, so were going to remove it.

Players : how bout the events move on but leave the gameplay.

I too would like it if they kept the dungeon. Just because events are moving on doesnt mean the dungeon cant stay. By that logic, if i do one run in any dungeon, i cant do it again because it’s already happened.

I woul disagree with the folk who say its not about teamwork, if the team moves as a single unit anticlockwise ahead of the robots, they robots chase you and they themselves stay ahead of the lasers, result = dead robots very fast.

Or you can do what most people do and just think about numero uno and just focus on purely dodging, etc, staying alive.

Working as a team doesn’t have to be complicated to make it teamwork, a guardian dropping stability buffs can protect team from pull, etc, so this need to hide behind boxes n stuff isn’t necesary if u work as a team.

I liked the jp, had complicated bits to it and nice scenery. the warp outside into water was funny, but no idea why they would have that in their hideout.

my only gripe is the very start, its easily doable, but it feels like im sliding of slopes that are near horizontal half the time.

Why can’t the bouncy things be individual to each character, triggering when we step on it, like the dungeon, rather than timed. I wouldn’t be upset to see it bounce up without resetting, because someone else stood on it. It’s not like this game is clip error free with a desperate need to hide any slight overlaps.

I was one of the people who ranit with 3 alt characters and got my 1.8 gold. It was very easy to earn but thats because i took advantage of the mesmer portals. Honestly, i didn’t think what i was doing was unfair, i had another character already in its tutorial but i didnt even bother bringing him through it to get the other 60s.

I believe that the easy solution to this problem would have been to limit mesmer portal so the mesmer who cast it can only use it (for jp not everywhere), its clearly doable…unless you don’t understand your own code because you hired a bunch of contractors to make it all in the first place and didn’t want to pay the expense to keep them on afterwards (probably whats happened).

I also think the armour should still be 60 silver, one time reward and characters have to be atleast lvl 5-10 or something to receive the reward. Some people have made some really good points already, it’s bewilderingly frustrating that the dev’s never seem to actually take in ANYTHING their player base says.

It’s like the government, they pass their own personally bias’ decisions, regardless of what the masses want or say. Despite the fact we pay their wages.

Terrahero.9358:

Equilibriator.8741:

I think what cliff is saying though is that by comparison to other games, all these new skins and stuff we are seeing in gem store/rng boxes should have an equal amount of permanant material added to the game as earnable things.

Instead all updates seem to be going to temporary “buy me £££” material meaning that if you dont want to spend 20 quid every 2 weeks, you arent getting anything new.

Obviously, they need to make money but obviously, we also need content to make us want to play the game. We shouldnt always just be thinking about their wallets like they’re skint hobos on the street, we’re people too and im pretty sure im making a lot less money than them.

Except, that isnt true.

There is plenty of new free content being added on a fairly consistent basis. And the skins that you can pay for are most of the time also available by means that don’t involve spending gems.

Infact, only a fairly small amount of skins have actually been gem-only. And i personally support this as a viable means to make bussiness. I don’t always have the time to grind out for a skin that i like. What i do have is disposable income, plenty of it infact.
So i’d much rather buy a skin i like then grind out a couple of hundred boxes.

The problem as i see it however is that i cant always just buy a skin. Skins from gem purchase are hidden behind an unknown (assumingly very low-chance) dice roll. So even if i want to skip the grind and pay money, instead of getting what i want i just use that to gamble and hope i get a ticket or the skin i wanted. And that is a bad practise for your consumers.
The price of a skin can randomly vary greatly, and even if the average is set around a “reasonable” price. Random luck of the draw can cause plenty of people to pay far more then that just to offset the few lucky people who got it for much less.

I agree with you that the new content is good enough.

However, i don’t agree in the slightest that anyone should be able to buy these new skins directly with cash if they want to “skip” the grind. Instead, i think the tickets should be somewhat tradeable.

The idea of the new skins being available to anyone with a credit card i think is absolutely revolting, if i earn something i want other people to KNOW i earned it, this is both my problem and blessing of the new ticket system – everyone can earn it, but some people can earn it significantly faster than others without any effort on their part.

Personally, i dont think the new gem store boxes should have been in at all, if you really want a ticket, do what i ended up doing and buy the normal ones off the marketplace, u can basically get 100 for a gold right now. If you really wanted to buy the boxes with real cash then trade in your gems and buy the boxes of the marketplace. Yes the gamble is still there but i seriously hate the idea of people just buying everything they want with no effort or skill and then flashing it around months later like they acomplished something. The new items should be a mark of a good player at a certain dungeon or something, not the luckiest player at a certain time doing kitten all.

you said “And that is a bad practise for your consumers.”

what’s bad practice is people are spending 20+ moneys worth trying to get a skin from a notable gamble, then get upset if it doesnt work out for them when they really didnt need to do it in the first place. The more money Anet gets from these boxes, the more we will see of them in the future.

It is hard to convince industry ‘decision makers’ that certain means of profit are bad in the long term, they never want to listen because big £££ means big bonus that year, and if things go kittens up they can just jump ship. It’s a big problem with society and we are seeing it more and more effecting games today, people in charge who dont care about long term survival for the company they represent.

Aberrant.6749:

Cliff.8679:

Honestly, it’s kind of sad seeing how conditioned so many players have become at this point that the first thought is “put it in the gem store for us” rather than just “put it in the game as an obtainable reward.” I’ve got nothing against the gem store and it’s obviously an important part of their business model, but every single new piece of armor and weaponry can’t be introduced through it. It’s ridiculous.

We’re coming up on the game’s first birthday, and what non-gem store items have they added? Molten Gloves, Dragon Helm, the SAB skins, the monocle, the Southsun backpacks, the fractal weapons, and the guild weapons? That’s it, right? And how many of those weren’t limited time things? The fractal weapons and the guild weapons.

Honestly, that’s pretty pathetic. How about introducing the Aetherblade weapons as permanent, obtainable items in-game? Make them obtainable from the Aetherblade jumping puzzle chest and as possible drops from Aetherblade enemies. If you’re feeling really inspired, add in explorable modes for Aetherblade Retreat/a new Aetherblade dungeon and make it a permanent dungeon in another release. Finish Aetherblade versions of the currently unrepresented weapons like dagger, torch, etc. and make them purchasable with dungeon tokens. But throw us a bone and give us some new, permanent gear that isn’t tied to the gem store for once. It’s getting a little out of hand considering how little we’ve gotten in the last year.

Gem shop = people are more likely going to spend actual $ (thus supporting more future updates).

PvE = fewer will spend the $ to turn into gold and many will at least TRY to obtain it without spending/supporting… and just by RNG chance many will get it this way.

Since it would support more updates I see nothing wrong with these sorts of totally optional skin items being in the gem shop.

I think what cliff is saying though is that by comparison to other games, all these new skins and stuff we are seeing in gem store/rng boxes should have an equal amount of permanant material added to the game as earnable things.

Instead all updates seem to be going to temporary “buy me £££” material meaning that if you dont want to spend 20 quid every 2 weeks, you arent getting anything new.

Obviously, they need to make money but obviously, we also need content to make us want to play the game. We shouldnt always just be thinking about their wallets like they’re skint hobos on the street, we’re people too and im pretty sure im making a lot less money than them.

For my/our first run of this dungeon, when it came out, my random party did the last boss with only 4 people, after the fifth quit after 2 fails.

It’s entirely doable, you just have to work as a team and, for the love of god, not flame each other.

ProxyDamage.9826:

I think the problem is how clearly the entire “late game” was rushed out the door for release. The starting stories are mostly interesting, even if some can be quite…..stupid… (the whole “Grizwhirl” human story is laughable…). But at least they’re personal.

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The entire “pact” story needs to be redone. If nothing else, Arah story mode needs to be redone, to at least somewhat mitigate the entire fiasco by providing some sort of meaningless ending. Some sort of “it was all for this” moment. As it is the whole thing is such a waste of beautiful scenarios and that lovely music…

yeh looks like you were of the same opinion as me

I think my main problem with the story was something to do with this:

Your working with these npc’s, learning a little about them, everyones total honorable, sacrificial to a tea for the greater good (almost a little too sacrificial most of the time), everyone is super super awesome and shiny and amazing people – no diversity, like everyone is the same with a different skin, backstory and voice (sometimes).

Then these faultless people suddenly all start bickering like little children because they think someones plan is stupid, or they had a squabble in the past and I’m like “eh, these characters are like 15yr old teens, all happy go lucky when they want to be but bit**y as hell”.

Every main character seems to be prone to this level of squabbling, characters who are in charge of armies and have earned their position should be capable of holding their emotions and understanding the “greater good”, yet they all cant get past their own issues and pettyness.

We needed more character depth, sacrifices should have meant something and not simply been cases of “ill hold the line, you go” (especially in the many situations that did not require sacrifice in the slightest). The assasins guild should be capable of holding their tongue around the other factions, there entire way of life is about subterfuge and deception, yet they cant even hold a poker face.

You know what i’m talking about tho, i’m just repeating myself now.

Thats my thoughts anyway.

in the end it would seem that nothing has changes for my mesmer, nothing at all

Danikat.8537:

For what it’s worth in my experience it’s usually people with “cookie cutter” or “flavour of the month” builds who are most affected by updates, because those are exactly the builds it’s intended to shake up.

If you’ve made your own build from scratch you’re more likely to be unaffected, or only marginally affected.

In some cases it’s because a build is popular because it’s obviously overpowered and a lot of people want to take advantage of that. These ones Anet will want to nerf for obvious balance reasons. In other cases it’s not necessarily better, sometimes not even the best, but for whatever reason it’s the most popular to the point where people will see your profession and expect you to have that build. In these cases I think it’s more just giving the game a shake-up. It’s extremely boring when everyone knows exactly what everyone else is using and how to support/counter it (depending on what you’re doing).

Generally if you don’t use those builds it won’t have a big impact.

For example one of the major “nerfs” to rangers that allegedly caused a lot of people to rage-quit the profession was some change to quickening zephyr. I don’t even remember what it was because I’d never used the skill before, I think I pretty much skipped past it in the patch notes, decided my build wasn’t affected and went back to playing. Occasionally I’ll swap out a skill or trait, but it’s often more curiosity than anything.

My build is my own, no guides looked at, even once. Not much for trying to follow someone elses character lines, half the fun is trying to make your guy ace on your own.

tbh ive thought about it and i dont really care anymore. Whatever comes, ill figure it out.

more good should come from this update than bad, so ill just hold my tongue till everything is out of the way

locoman.1974:

Infernia.9847:

Equilibriator.8741:

anybody have any thoughts?

Aside from changing your gear, which is costly & possibly time consuming, changing your traits will take ~3silver.
Theory crafting a new build will take you some time, but there is nothing you can do to ‘fix’ your build (if you even need to) until the patch notes are officially released.

thoughts = just try to relax and breathe until we know what’s really going to happen?

In other games I’ve played, when they do a big skill/traits overhaul, the usually reset everyone’s build (or talent, or whatever is called) for free so you can rebuild as you see fit.

I’m not so much concerned about cost as much as I am scared i will have to change my build completely, a build i am already very happy with and love to play.

tigirius.9014:

Well hopefully in your case you won’t have to suffer as engineers have. We asked for certain traits to be worked on for almost a year now including scope and turrets and a few months ago they completely broke the kit refinement trait. They said they did that because not enough people were using gadgets, but they failed to buff gadgets to make them useful.

So we’ll see what’s around the corner here. Hopefully they won’t break anything else.

I used to have an engineer…..

…used to

Dawdler.8521:

I read the notes on the Mesmer and cant see much broken about it. Quite the contrary, there are some huge buffs in there for various builds.

yup, but i find it hard to believe that the mesmer is only gaining boosts, it doesnt make sense to me considering aparently the thief stealth is being nirfed to some extent.

i guess for now you can call me a pesimist, i cant believe that things are actually gonna get good for me, because i already felt like i was great.

Infernia.9847:

Equilibriator.8741:

anybody have any thoughts?

Aside from changing your gear, which is costly & possibly time consuming, changing your traits will take ~3silver.
Theory crafting a new build will take you some time, but there is nothing you can do to ‘fix’ your build (if you even need to) until the patch notes are officially released.

thoughts = just try to relax and breathe until we know what’s really going to happen?

The problem being that changing gear means i will need a lot of transmute stones to keep my unique look, changing traits means i lose my specific “trait skills”.

Idk, lifes an adventure and i guess ill just have to find another build if this one breaks, but it just kinda seems like this level of unpredictability and change will forever break my favourite character whenever I’m finally happy with them.

Amadan.9451:

i don’t even think it’s possible to create such a delicate build…

you’d be surprised, my traits are literally exact, not one point is wasted and all “skill traits” are relevant to each other.

Simple things like mind wrack damage up 20%, clones when i roll, regeneration from popping clones, confusion on all clones, these traits are specfic to make as much damage as possible, the confusion i get on all clones for example, is why i have increased my condition damage with my set of lyssa runes, the clones being very easy to produce.

If i dont get the regeneration on endurance, i cant produce clones as fast.
If i cant produce clones as fast I leave much more openings than previous, because rolling is also a form of defence.
If i dont have confusion on all clones, my condition damage becomes very much useless by comparison as only one skill that comes around a lor more slowly that all of them isn’t worth it.

vice versa, if i cant produce clones as fast, but stil lhave regeneration. I cant get the boost from regeneration as constantly as i curreently do, the result again being consistant weakness where before there was very small openings.

My armour is designed at full damage, cos that was easier to get, my backpack, accessories, etc are a lot more specific to balance my build as the traits are also all damage. Essentially, my rings, etc are my defence but as i upgraded from piece to piece, i made sure i was only ever increasing a stat without sacrificing another by changing another piece of gear.

It was all very carefully done and the product has been very enjoyable to play.