Guild Wars 2

I know we don’t have all the information yet, but it certainly looks like this is a complete 180 on ANet’s vision for the endgame of Guild Wars 2. Disappointing.

It just seems like they caved to all those people from other MMOs who wanted gear treadmills, despite telling us they wouldn’t exist for the past 5 years.

Thanks for the reply daphoenix, I’ll delete my post so I don’t screw up the continuity of your guide.

As an Elementalist, I agree. The underwater areas are gorgeous and I want to explore them, but Ele underwater combat is just so tiresome.

It seems to be in part a profession balance issue. An Engineer with grenades, for example, is arguably more deadly underwater. Very strong, very easy.

I want to pop in and agree with this thread.

I’ve run across numerous events solo that were literally impossible because I could not kill faster than the respawn rate. When you have to keep an area clear, it’s really frustrating to take down one pack of enemies only to have it respawn while you’re fighting the second pack.

So I fight pointlessly by myself for a while, before I finally sigh and walk away with the event unfinished.

Excellent suggestions! I really agree.

Of course, actually doing that would be a monumental task. Imagine having to go back and re-code nearly every event in the game. I’m not so sure it’ll happen, but maybe they can incorporate these suggestions into future content.

I just hit 80 the other day on my Ele, my first level 80 (I know, slowpoke). I play a d/d elementalist with a focus on auras. This spec has served me really well until now.

I try to join up with these large event farming groups in Orr, but stuff just dies so fast. I’m Asura, and with the amount of players and particle effects going on I can barely even tell where I’m standing. I can hardly make it to a new wave of enemies before the zerg has nuked them into oblivion. The result is that I never get loot.

What are your strategies? Should I be using staff? I don’t really know what to do, but it’s quite frustrating right now.

I would rather they add more Asura and Sylvari themed zones. I play Asura and really feel like the odd guy out compared to Humans, Norn and Charr.

Sometimes I envy Warriors, but then I go and play mine. It only takes a few minutes of auto-attacking and hundred blades for me to be terribly bored.

Ele is of course not perfect, and I do get frustrated sometimes, but I enjoy pressing a lot of buttons and dancing around my targets.

If you’ve played WoW for any length of time you’ll know that those full hotbars of abilities are very deceiving in terms of flexibility. Each class is designed with a very specific rotation/priority system in mind that uses only a few skills. Everything else is just situational.

For those who don’t know, she’s a warband member you pick up as part of the Iron Legion story. She’s an old charr who has noise-induced hearing loss after a life spent manning artillery.

I just really love that. I’m an Audiologist, and having a character with hearing loss like that just really tickles me. She also has some great lines.

That’s really all I have to say. If anyone from ANet reads this, great job! Adding the hearing loss is such a small thing but it gives this character a lot of personality. She’s the most memorable character from the entire personal story for me.

I’m having some trouble buying gems. I entered a credit card a while ago and the game has always remembered it. Now all of a sudden if I go to buy gems my “saved Visa” option is greyed out. Does anyone know why? I don’t want to just enter the same card again from scratch.

I’ve been out of town for the past 5 days, and now that I’ve returned everyone is talking about a Clock Tower jumping puzzle… but where is it?

I honestly don’t see any reference to it whatsoever in-game, or any direction to find it. Can someone help please?

Sadly I am away on the 28th and will likely miss the event =(

CaptSlate.6205:

Real problem is people expected something, either correctly or incorrectly, based on their perception of what had been said, those people, like myself, did not get what they expected.

It’s the idea that we expected better from ANet that allowed us to buy into the idea in the first place, if I was playing Perfect World or Atlantica, or something like that, those companies lost my trust because of things like this, and now ANet is in the same boat.

Exactly. People talking about playing the lottery just don’t get it. No one really expects to win the lottery because everyone knows how bad the odds are. Everyone thought ANet was decent enough to give a good return, and all their advertising specifically encouraged people to open chests to get Halloween items. They never communicated the odds until after people started complaining.

Who is right or wrong in the matter is ultimately irrelevant. The point is that ANet has lost some goodwill here, and that’s a resource that is really valuable. They betrayed the trust of customers and that is not in the best long-term interest of the game.

For example, when the Christmas holiday comes along and weapon skins drop from chests, does anyone think as many people will buy keys after this? Why engage in a business practice that leaves your customers feeling burnt? Buying something from the gem store should always be positively reinforced.

Same issue on Ehmry Bay

People can go on all they want about how ANet never promised anything, it was your choice, the skins should be rare to be prestigious, etc etc, but it doesn’t matter.

At the end of the day the monetization team has to look at the long-term future of the store. They need to encourage people to use the gem store. The abysmal drop rate of skins here actively discourages people from spending money that they would otherwise be quite happy to give to ANet. If you want people to purchase your goods then it’s not smart to have a lot of dissatisfied customers.

I really think that for future events that the droprates will be higher. It just seems like the best way to get people to spend money on the store, feel happy about it, and be willing to do so again.

knives.6345:

Keyword is expect. It means that you are strongly believing that something will happen. However, it kinda contradicts with chance, as with chance, something may or may not happen.

:)

I really understand the frustration, but it might not be a lottery but it’s a gamble.

Actually, it doesn’t contradict with ‘chance’ at all, because different events have different probabilities of occuring. If someone approaches me on the street they might: 1) ask for directions, or 2) give me $1000. Both have a chance of happening, but which do you think is more likely?

Quite obviously, everyone knew this was only a chance, but expected the odds to be much higher than they appear to be.

Speaking of “expectations”, here’s the thing: ANet wants people to buy stuff from the gem store. It is a big part of their business model. If players learn not to expect a return on this kind of investment, they won’t do it in the future. I know I’ve already decided not to buy keys for future holidays. It’s in ANet’s best interest, if they want to make money off these things, to actually reward people for spending their money.

Expect a reward = profit. It’s really that simple. People will remember this and won’t fall for the same thing twice.

I agree! I bought the costume and do not regret it. Really awesome. I don’t want to leave LA so I can keep it on.

I’m not looking to have everything handed to me for free, but come on. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect something for a $20 investment in keys. I want to support the game, but throw us a bone here. It leaves a really bad taste in your mouth to spend that much and get absolutely nothing for it.

Talking about the lottery here is irrelevant. This isn’t the lottery.

Yeah, also chiming in to say I bought keys specifically for the event, opened a bunch of chests and didn’t get a single Halloween item.

Lesson learned, I guess. Don’t try this again at the next holiday.

Personally, I think the best part of your whole personal story is from levels 1 – 20.

I chose Asura because I like Asura. I chose Charr because Charr are awesome. Their 1 – 20 experiences are great, filled with all the racial flavour you expect from a member of that race.

However, once you join an Order, you leave everything you’ve done behind and become human. By that I mean that all personality has been stripped from your character. Does my Asura speak like an Asura? No, not at all, because the dialogue is shared between all races.

I guess that ultimately I identify much more with my race than the Order I chose, and would like the personal story to reflect that. I’d rather stick with my Iron Legion Warband than join an Order.

I know that it’s too late to change, but I put this here in the hopes that for future personal story content that Arenanet may decide to step back from the rather bland Orders to refocus on the races themselves.

Has anyone noticed this?

One of the things I like most about Asura is their attitude/outlook. I love the arrogance, superiority, insults, the witty writing, etc. Metrica Province has it in spades, and generally so does the 1 – 20 personal story.

However, once I join an Order? Based on how my Asuran speaks, you’d have no idea she wasn’t human. So respectful to everyone, kind, selfless, goody two-shoes heroic stuff. It is exactly the opposite of what I thought I signed up for as an Asura.

For example, I joined the Priory. Gixx is exactly the type of Asura I wanted to be, but I’m nothing like him. In fact, I seem to be the only Asura who isn’t like Gixx. Even Zojja gets to be more rude than me.

I have no idea who my character is in my “personal” story. It certainly isn’t the one I want.

I tend to agree that the personal story is the weakest part of the game. The early stuff, when it is still about your race, I generally enjoyed. Everything after that… was just okayish.

I also agree that the personalities of our characters are weird. I play Asura, and I have never felt like an Asura since I joined an Order. I’m nothing but loving and respectful and kind and blah blah… where is the Asura attitude? One of the main reasons I rolled Asura was because of their arrogant attitude. There’s lots of great writing in the Asura-specific content, but my own character at level 30+ might as well be human.

I specifically like playing female Asura and Charr because they allow me to play a female who isn’t a lingerie model. Please don’t ask for it to be changed, there are 3 other races who get their bikini armor.

Besides, since when does a girl have to show a ton of skin in order to be beautiful or feminine?

Ah, thank you! Removing the gear first helped. That’s weird, since I used to transmute a particular helm without ever removing it, so I didn’t think I needed to.

I’m hoping to get some help here. I just bought my first set of cultural gear, but when I try to transmute it nothing happens.

I set up the transmutation like I always do, and it even says “Good” and allows me to continue. It just doesn’t actually work (the transmutation stone is not consumed either).

I’ve tried it with both basic and fine transmutation stones. Can anyone please help? I was really looking forward to this and spend a fortune on the cultural set.

I’m hoping to get some help here. I just bought my first set of cultural gear, but when I try to transmute it nothing happens.

I set up the transmutation like I always do, and it even says “Good” and allows me to continue. It just doesn’t actually work (the transmutation stone is not consumed either).

I’ve tried it with both basic and fine transmutation stones. Can anyone please help? I was really looking forward to this and spend a fortune on the cultural set.

I’ve had lots of these moments, but here’s just one:

The first time I did the event chain in Metrica Province that leads to the giant Fire Elemental boss. I participated in the whole chain from beginning to end, and it took forever to kill the boss but eventually we got him down.

The funny thing was, after it was over some guy said “There’s another secret boss, follow me”. I honestly thought he was just trolling. But then… well, he wasn’t! We all followed him to the center of the building and got teleported up into a platform in the clouds to fight another boss.

I was just so impressed and amazed that there was a hidden boss in a hidden area. It was also just a really fun fight. My poor friend got knocked off the platform and fell to his death. After that experience, I knew that GW2 really was something special.

Yes!! I love fishing in MMOs.

Tengu certainly seem like “low hanging fruit” in the sense that the model is there and there’s a story hook available. Two issues for me though:

1) Female Tengu? Do they exist? I think every playable race will need to have male and female options. Same concern for Kodan.

2) The Tengu seem to have these feathery “wings” on their arms that stick out quite a bit. It’s not really compatible with most armour in the game.

I agree! I made my Engineer an Asura but now I wish I`d gone Charr instead. He`s pretty high level though so I don`t want to start over.

The only thing I see complicating race change is that your personal story is tied to race until around level 30. Maybe you would only be allowed to race change after you`ve joined your Order? It’s all the same then, and part of the race change process could just be filling out your biography again like you do at character creation.

I think that, regardless of whatever bugs persist or personal issues you have with the game’s design, we should all be able to agree that GW2 is a huge bargain for the money.

There is much, much more content in GW2 than most $60 games out there.

I was exploring Timberline Falls today for the first time, and came across the Mighty Ouoo. I was immediately slack-jawed from how majestic and epic it looked carved into the mountain-side with waterfalls around.

I started to run towards it to explore, when an obviously Asuran voice started calling out from it bidding the grawl to attack me. Hilarious. Just loved it!

That’s all. Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this event chain/area of the map.

Ever since beta weekends I’ve been able to click on NPCs, mobs, or players in order to target them. Tonight I logged on after applying the Oct 11/12 update and cannot do this anymore.

Is this a known problem? Is there a way I can fix it? It’s really quite hurting the way I play.

I agree 100%!

I think LOTRO did a great job in this respect. In certain “civilized” areas like the Shire or Breetown, or Inns, they had great simple music that actually felt like part of the world. What I mean is that it felt like people in the world were playing the music, not a soundtrack. There were simple instruments playing, clapping sounds, feet tapping, etc. A great touch.

Under the audio options there is a slider called “Music Interval” which goes from short to long. What exactly does this mean?

The reason I ask is because I initially assumed it meant the length a song would play, so I turned it all the way up to long, but it still seems like music actually playing doesn’t happen that often. In MMOs I usually set the music to be looping so that there’s always something playing, so all this relative silence kind of bothers me.

I have to say I was disappointed about this as well.

WoW is by no means perfect, but I do think that it has one of the best soundtracks of MMOs, and the fact that each zone (generally) had a unique musical theme added a lot to the game.

Even though I haven’t regularly played WoW in a very long time I can listen to a track on youtube and instantly be flooded with nostalgia and warm fuzzies about the zone it was from. I doubt I could ever experience that with GW2, since I just seem to hear the same few musical snippets regardless of where I am.

I would LOVE if they added fishing. It’s in a lot of MMOs, and always one of my favourite activities. Especially with GW2, there are so many beautiful locations you could stop and fish at.

“Why should you log out after DR hits? Because once your character is diminished, it affects ALL your activity gains in any map and/or zone. You can change location and map and you will still have DR on you. That is how it is working for me at the moment – I tried changing zones and events to get around DR, it simply doesn’t work”

Holy moley, is this true? That is so, so terrible. I have a hard time believing it’s intended, because that is just insane.

I get the same issue. Made a thread about it a couple days ago, no response.

Happening to me too. Got logged out twice, now I can’t log in at all.

I’ve been having this weird issue where all my sounds are playing perfectly except for spell/ability sounds. For example, Elementalist’s lighting won’t make the usual zappy sounds. This happens for all professions.

It most often occurs when I’m just logging in, and after a few minutes the sounds will reappear. However, it does occasionally happen after I’ve been playing for a while. There seems to be no obvious trigger for their disappearance or reappearance.

Any insight into this issue would be appreciated.

I’m having a problem which I assume is some kind of bug. I did the Ash Legion personal story fine, then rerolled and did it again. This time a bunch of VOs were missing that were present the first time. I then went to play my statics Asura and a bunch of personal story VOs are missing there too.

Any idea what might be causing this? I’ve updated my audio drivers.

Edit: Now based on another thread here it seems like this issue may have been unintentionally caused during the latest update?

The other day I was exploring through Mount Maelstrom and came across the Priory exploring the ruins of “Rata Pten”. The name and architecture seemed kind of Asuran, but I could find no reference to what the ruins actually were from the NPCs.

As an Asura player, I got kind of intrigued. Anyone know what this ruin was? Was it an old Asuran town?

A few things, mostly echoing what others have said:

1) ArenaNet “cheated” no one, since they’ve been shouting from the mountaintops for years about their philosophy. Anyone who thought differently was just uninformed.

2) I feel bad for the OP saying he “leveled by running from one heart to the next, sometimes being interrupted by events”. This is, simply, a huge shame. This game really rewards exploring and anyone who just rushes past it all will miss a lot.

3) “Character progression” is overrated, and absolutely not necessary. Sure, you want to have a goal to achieve, but why does it need to make you stronger or better? Just have fun doing what you’re doing.

4) If someone had fun exploring, doing events, hearts, finding vistas, dungeons, etc all while leveling…. why is that suddenly NOT acceptable once you’re 80? How is the fun sucked away once you’ve gotten there, and why should you expect anything different? It just baffles me.