Guild Wars 2

Revert the change and stop wasting time on changes no one wants/needs. I know that the programming time could have been better spent on any of a thousand other things that should have clearly taken priority over this!

Cake.6531:

Have to down the gift carrier to get credit; might even have to finish the gift carrier. So the best/easiest way to cause a turnover, the staff 3, does not get you credit. I also solo’d the gift carrier 12 times (including finishing) as a scout before I got credit for 5 defenses. I have no idea what that was about.

Thanks, that’s my problem, I always play Support and use the staff skill to free the gift. I’ll go scout tonight and go for the kill.

Fraktyl.3187:

Seriously, I just spent the past 2 hours attempting to do the snowball PVP. In that time I have seen the most unsportsmanlike conduct I have ever witnessed.

No one helping their team. Everyone wants to be the one to turn in the present because.. YOU TIED an achievement to it.

Seriously?

How about:
Win 10 games as a scout
Win 10 games as a support
Win 10 games as a heavy…

Notice the win part? You made an activity that does NOT promote any type of teamwork. It’s too easy to follow your team mate, wait for them to get focused.. pick up the present, then finish running it in.

Also, getting the killing blow on a target? Seriously? So now we’re encouraging last hits like some MOBA?

I have loved almost everything else about this event, but this is a little over the top.

The scoring achievement is easy enough to get. I finished that part during the first hour. Things are getting more intense as people learn the map and game mode. There should always be one or two people escorting the gift carrier almost the entire way to the turn in, because there are more and more turn overs with in home territory now than on day one. That provides extra opportunities to get the turn in, even if someone else makes most of the run.

Now that I’ve finished the achievement, if the final 50 yards are truly clear and free and I have an escort, I’ll drop the present and let them do the cap.

Now, I am stuck at 4/5 for the defensive achievement, which has me confused, because I got the 4/5 the first hour and can’t get #5, even though I’m constantly causing fumbles and getting the recovery. Is there some nuance I’m missing? Something I was doing unintentionally while learning that I’m just missing now that I’m focused on the win?

Definitely need difficulty levels. People who are extremely good at the puzzles find them too easy and the rest of us are still frustrated. I think that makes the case pretty well for difficulty levels!

I’ll be trying this one a few times a day until I (hopefully) succeed, but I don’t find it fun at all. I can do most jumping puzzles if there is no time limit or there is a set time limit only. The disappearing snow flakes kill the fun for me. I just don’t have the level of dexterity and mouse control to not have to occasionally take a second or two to readjust.

I agree. You can transfer them to other weapons via transmutation stones, but once you stick them on a weapon, they become soulbound to that character.

I really think that gem store skins should unlock the skin for that account, with unlimited skins of that type available from a special vendor, in a manner similar to the Hall of Monuments vendor. I know I would buy a lot more skins if they were available this way.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

They will continue to change throughout the week as Tixx produces the different toys. There’s also a random chance to see a toy (or skritt) from an earlier day. I’m sorry that these are currently too difficult, have you tried tackling them with an extra person or two?

The princess toys are indeed too difficult. They all seem to be Veteran Equivalents, which along with the retribution skill, means it takes forever to kill them, even with three or four players. On my server, no one is bothering to fight them anymore. Everyone is just grabbing the gifts and running. If that’s the intent, then good job. If not, then the imbalance has just forced players to modify their behavior away from the intended mode of play. (Now many players are avoiding fights no matter what spawns, because they have been taught it’s better to grab and run to the next spawn point, rather than engaging the content).

They aren’t nearly as tough in the actual instance, so something isn’t right. If the rewards were worth the effort, things might be different, but it’s just a waste of time as is.

Edit: Oh, something else seems to be wrong with them. Even when my scaled level is 2-3 levels higher than the Princess Doll level, I get an extreme amount of “glancing blows” when they are in huddle down/retribution mode, which is just icing on the cake!

I hope you adjusted upwards the completion rewards, so that those who don’t exploit still get the same XP/rewards for a full run to completion? Right?

MagusShade.2358:

yeah i dunno why people are suddenly surprised that ANet uses PST.

In game bottom left corner of the mini-map there is even a clock with server time 0.o

Not to mention they’ve always been using pacific standard time. Even for the beta weekends >.<

I don’t think anyone expected they would try to push the release time to the latest possible moment on the 14th! Since there is no one time event, I really expected it would have released at Midnight PST this morning, not some late time prior to 11:59PM PST on the 14th!

I’m glad the entire company got to go see the Hobbit last night, they deserve a break, but knowing they were going to be taking time off for that, I really would have thought they would have had the first day of the event ready ahead of time.

After the horribly sad/depressing news today, it would have been very nice to have a fun distraction this evening to take our minds off of it, even if just for a little while.

So, yeah, I really hope it will be any moment now and not a last possible moment release…

Zohar.4576:

No, they lost my trust in regards to chests perhaps permanently. That said if they offer costumes I can buy, chances are I will buy them because that’s what I thought the purpose of the cash shop was (not a stupid lottery). Sell costumes on the shop = I’ll buy them.

Put costumes in chest = I’ll never buy a chest.

I feel the same way. Direct purchase of the items I want? I’ll spend as much as need be to get the items i want for all my characters I want to buy them for. Random Loot from a chest lottery? No thanks.

Why not offer both? Then the people that want to put it to chance that they might end up with what they want cheaper can buy chests and those of us who don’t like being jerked around can just buy the items we want directly?

I agree. Even if we had to buy the locker in the gem store, it would be welcome. My Account vault has already been expanded to the max and I still find myself not having enough room. The storage issue may dissuade some from buying such outfits at all, some some solution would be of double benefit to Arenanet.

BladeDVD.6234:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

No, Tixx’s airship flies very high. And fast. It is worth noting, however, that we could feasibly make this happen. I’m just not sure we get much gameplay out of it since the airship is too big to fly low enough to be interacted with.

I’m sure it’s too late now, but can you imagine how cool it would be to be fighting in a zone and then all of a sudden you see a huge shadow on the ground and hear Wintersday Music playing and then you look up and see the air ship? Talk about your one time event moments!

I still jump a bit when the big dragon shadows fly across where ever I am in the game. When I first saw it I’d start looking up in the air trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Very cool effect.

I completely agree. It would be cool to see, even if there is nothing to interact with. Maybe next year? With parachute toy drops?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We tried our best to leave in some surprise without leaving the majority of players feeling lost and unaware of what activities are available for Wintersday (as was very much the case with Halloween). There’s one major missing piece of information that I’m sort of surprised no one has taken note of, which is exactly what toys the toymaker will be making.

I think you guys struck the perfect balance with the information you’ve provided. The information teases the event, it doesn’t spoil it!

Honestly, I’ve never understood why people so sensitive about “spoilers” can’t just take personal responsibility and avoid anything they fear might spoil something for them. It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds scrolling down the official Wintersday page to decide whether or not proceeding to actually read the details might “spoil” something. Anyone who then goes on to read the entire page has no grounds for blaming anyone but themselves. If you don’t want to know anything about an event prior to the event, avoid pages and threads about the event!

I personally want even more info before events, but I understand the desire to maintain some surprises so I’m fine with the level of detail provided.

RNG chests are all about taking a few suckers for as much money as possible, for the joy and thrill of it. Fairly priced, non-RNG cash shop offering will make Arenanet more money, because more people will buy the items. I’d rather make money making as many people happy as possible, than make less money soaking a few people, many of whom probably have impulse control issues or gambling addictions. That’s just me though…

If the outfits are for direct purchase at fair prices, I’ll buy them for more than one character. If they are a gem store chest RNG exclusive, I’ll have to pass and will probably end my ongoing financial support of the game, which up to know I have done to support a great product.

PvE Deliver on the promise that players who prefer world PvE can earn coin and loot over time that is on par with Dungeons and WvW.

Seriously, what happened to that? We were supposed to have a game where you could do what ever king of game play you prefer and be able to count on reward parity per hour spent playing. Dungeons were supposed to offer exclusive skins as their special reward, they were not supposed to be the overwhelming clear, most efficient way of earning coin and loot!

I’m coming up on 600 hours of time played. I still love the game, but the disparity between Dungeon rewards and PvE rewards is a disgusting affront to the design philosophy that was touted prior to launch.

WvW Similar issues to the PvE comment above.

Rewards per hour played, unless you know the “tricks” to greatly increase your rate of rewards, still are not where they should be. Only better than the current PvE situation because at least WvW has it’s own version of tokens, so you have some control over the earning of an occasional additional reward.

PvP PvP needs the ability to store and recall various builds.

I enjoyed sPvP early on, but now that all the sPvP vets are playing finely tuned builds, there really isn’t an easy way for someone to hop in and be competitive. Hard to believe that the game doesn’t offer a build code generator as seen in GW1. This feature should have been completed well ahead of launch. Now, we are told it’s a very low priority.

Dungeons FotM fractures the community and kills participation in the other dungeons.

It’s a fun dungeon and concept. Then they made it mush easier to get to and recruit for. Then they gave it the best rewards in the game. Then they added a persistent difficulty mechanic to ensure community fragmentation and to further boost player exclusivity to this single dungeon. Really? I couldn’t have taken such a beautiful dungeon and made it such an ugly, destructive addition to the game if I tried.

Lesson to be learned The further Arenanet gets away from the pre-launch design philosophy, the worse it is for the game and the players.

Seriously. The pre-live design doctrine was just about perfect, with technical limitations and incomplete features/content the biggest factors as to why the perfect design did not produce a perfect game. Now, the “heresies” against the core design doctrine have become the biggest negatives effecting the game. It’s just a precancerous blight on an otherwise superb game at this point, but if the taint is allowed to grow via more backsliding, the same people that designed the near perfect MMO may also be the people who ruined the near perfect MMO.

Don’t read any of that with bitterness. I actually mean that as constructive criticism. I could write pages about all the things the game does right, but I do have some serious disappointments and I do think they are destructive for the game and limiting of the game’s potential.

I only see them as an occasional daily or exploration reward.

They are already account bound, so I really don’t get why they’ve made them so hard to get in game from normal game play. I think getting people into the habit of opening chests and using the buffs would just encourage people to buy keys in the gem store. Right now, keys are so ultra rare and key prices in the gem store so expensive that most people just laugh/groan when they get a chest as a drop.

I really don’t think who ever is running the gem store has the background for the job. Better pricing and very frequent specials could really ignite gem store revenues.

You can belong to more than one guild. Sounds like the remaining members have already figured that out and are repping another guild. So, your choices are:

a.) Remain GM and recruit new, active members.

b.) Remain GM but unrepresent and find a new guild to represent, keeping the lights on for other members who might one day return.

c.) Disband the Guild. If no one is representing anymore, no one is likely to care/notice.

d.) Kick everyone else from the guild and maintain it as a vanity guild, along with any perks the guild has unlocked.

Or some minor variation on the above.

If the guild has unlocked vault space, you might as well keep it for yourself. Either remove vault privileges for other members that have them or clean out the roster.

I’m sorry to hear that the founders moved back to LotRO, but there are still a ton of active players and many active guilds, so I’d just recommend finding a good, active guild to join, keeping your current guild, or not, and don’t let the mini-exodus get you down!

I’m always a little dumbfounded at how many people don’t get that this game doesn’t have mob tagging/kill stealing and that everyone gets the same reward killing something with others as they get killing something solo. I always try to double up for greatest efficiency when I overlap with others, but maybe 75% will actively separate rather than cooperate, making the task at hand take longer for both of us due to the thinning of mobs in the area.

Another “dumb player” peeve are the people who will way point on defeat while being revived, often during the final 20% of the revive bar. The game actually alerts you that you are being revived if you are in map view and you can even see the healing numbers scrolling by!

Attended/Looted/No Mail.

I did the event with my Level 64 thief, due to the temporary level scaling. I wish they had been clear that the final chest would scale the loot down to the character level. I would have done the event with one of my level 80 characters. (I think I hit level 80 with the Thief about a week later. Scaling might make sense for a game with a steep leveling curve, but not here. Really sucks to hear that people getting the rewards via mail got level 80 exotics, even if they were lower level during the event)!!!

Two Comments on this:

1. Lower levels are easier than you remember, which makes it seem that scaling isn’t working as well as it is. I Have three level 80s I had been alternating between as I leveled them up. I recently went back and started a couple of alts and couldn’t believe how easy low level encounters are even for low level characters.

Now, I’m not saying that low level players are often going to be able to solo group bosses, (some builds with very careful play may be able to do so), but when lower level encounters are already pretty easy for on level players, there is going to be a limit as to how much a maxed out level 80 can be scaled down.

2. Exotics. If you want more of a challenge doing lower level content, you might want to consider getting a lower power set of gear for your lower level adventures. Perfect area of the game for a high Magic Find, low power set of gear. Lower level gear is pretty cheap and it might actually be fun to test out the scaling system by trying gear from different level ranges.

That said, I don’t completely disagree with the OP. I would actually like a little more down scaling in certain level ranges, coupled with a little higher reward. The ideal would be for the balance to be so perfect that you could earn almost as much per hour doing level 20 content as level 80 content as a level 80 character, because the down scaling difficulty level would be appropriate for those kinds of rewards.

Some sort of optional mechanic might work too. Maybe a toggle for level 80 characters that adjusts their scaling for “expert mode”, making lower level content more challenging due to more severe down scaling, in exchange for better loot rolls and coin drops. Or even a potion that would scale your stats down in exchange for high magic find and monster gold boosts?

I completely agree. I go further and say that 90% of the Medium Armor in the game is really only a proper match for Engineers. I found the choices for my Ranger to be almost as limiting as my choices for my thief.

For my Human Female Thief, I decided I didn’t want to be stuck with Duelist and decided to just go with the Gemshop medium armor. Yeah, it’s based on GW1 Ranger Armor, but it’s the best non-duelist set for those looking for a thief appropriate look. I do mix and match a few pieces for variety, but the chest, leg and gloves from the gem store set are my mainstay.

My Ranger is a Norn and I’ve mixed and matched from a number of sources, including the Norn Medium Racial armor to come up with a look that… well, doesn’t really look much like a Ranger, but it is a fairly unique look in for the game. My Ranger is focused on Melee and I’ve had a few people who missed my pet (I run with Owl and Raven, so some seem to think the pet is a mini) ask “what are you”?

Anyway, yes, we need a lot more Thief (and Ranger) appropriate armor in the game. It would be nice if we could get a few new recipes with some new looks, on top of any that are available through more difficult to obtain means.

(I also agree on the Whispers Medium Armor. It almost seems like they accidentally swapped the medium light armor skins, but by the time they realized it, it was too late to fix it).

In general, the variety is lacking in all three armor classes and there are too many horrible sets for a game that otherwise has such a high focus on artistic and visual quality. I think the community has been pretty clear about what styles they feel are desperately lacking. It would be nice if they would go out and actively recruit a couple new character artists who have a proven portfolio in the desired styles.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

tigirius.9014:

Volomon.9147:

Ya its kind of hard to get excited about anything they say, they have a record of slow turn around. Not to mention when are they getting around to the ton of bugs? I’m actually at this point more interested in bug fixes, minor tweaks, and a DR reduction <- talked about adjustment 1-2 months ago. Still nothing.

Exactly what I was thinking while reading that. The entire interview was a hole buncha pr mess imo.

They didn’t touch on a single thing that is a concern for the community not one.

No bug fixes, no loot issues, nothing.

you do know… we Just HAD THE FREAKING AMA

The AMA basically danced around the issues with the November update, the live event, Fractals, Ascended Gear, etc… For an AMA that went on for so many hours, very few questions were actually answered and there were tons of very good questions that many of us wanted to see answered.

As to the interview with Colin, it was pretty good. I hope they can actually deliver on the hype, because there was a lot of hype there. (January and February updates = a full expansion worth of content? That’s hype until they relieved on it).

I did find one groan worthy moment when we said that all the monthly updates had been very well received. November was close to a disaster for the live team. The live event was a disaster, outright, the lack of post event PvE content in the new mini zone disappointing and many people fear, (with some foundation), that Fractal Difficulty levels and Ascended Gear have been extremely detrimental to the game, with the impact likely to snowball moving forward.

On a personal level, I really hope that most of the new content coming between December and February is world PvE content. If January is no world expansion, but rather another 5-7 Fractals and February is just WvW expansion, I will be extremely disappointed…

They should NOT be forcing people to do particular content for their monthlies. Part of the originally touted game design was that there would be many ways to get the same rewards and they didn’t want to force people to do something they didn’t want to do.

I not only hate the requirement for fractals, but I’m dumbfounded as to why they are using monthlies to further incentivize participation in fractals, when the more people who do fractals, the more the rest of the game suffers as a result!

I would change monthlies to work the same way some DEs work. Offer multiple ways to fill the bar if you want a bar that counts non-world PvE achievements.

Instead of a bar for Fractals, a bar for Fractals or PvP Matches or WvWvW kills or Dungeon runs, with players able to combine the options in what ever way they want to fill the bar.

Or, better yet, a World PvE Monthly that works on the same things as the dailies and separate Monthlies for Dungeons, sPvP and WvW. Keep the non-world PvE achievements out of the PvE mothlies entirely!

The prices are too high, but even if they keep them as is, they should at least make them exotics and offer at least a few different stat sets! It does add insult to injury that the level 80s are not only extremely expensive, but you won’t even be using them for the stats.

My level 80s only:

Thief: Hours-147 Deaths-56 (World PvE only; third character)
Elementalist: Hours-251 Deaths-134 (World PvE and some WvWvW; died a lot there. Also 1st character)
Ranger: Hours-124 Deaths-65 (World PvE, maybe 10 hours of WvWvW; second Character)

Sort of surprised that the thief has the lowest deaths per hour for me. None of those hours are padded, no standing around, no playing the TP, what crafting I did was done efficiently. Do WvWvW deaths count in the total? I definitely died a lot there with my characters who spent any time in WvW. I’m always sacrificing myself for the greater good!

I missed the October Monthly due to a serious illness. I really wanted to do November, but I had no interest in trying to get a PUG group for FotM and the small family/friends guild I’m in isn’t ready for dungeons. Pretty hard now to get level 1 FotM groups on my server, so I gave up.

I really hope they won’t require dungeon runs for monthlies in the future. It really isn’t fair to people who do play a lot, but can’t or don’t want to do dungeon runs.

Most people seem to have achieved little to no frame rate boost from the culling engine changes, so we have to wonder what was the point? Major issues in exchange for an extra frame or two to ones frame rate hardly seems worth it.

They are saying there are issues with offering name changes, yet they are able to force mandatory name changes, with out issues, for those who’s names are found to be against the ToS. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Level scaling is the best part of the game. I honestly don’t get why people want to be able to go back and faceroll lower level content. I love that level scaling balances the challenge. I think my only disappointment is that unlike what they promised a year ago, once the level gap is more than 25-35 levels, the rewards per hour of play tend to drop too drastically. I’d love for the entire game to remain challenging AND rewarding once I hit level 80!

Thanks for the recustomization option, it’s a very welcome addition.

I continue to be befuddled by some of the pricing strategies though. The full customization seems about right, but there really should be a much lower price for just the hair customization. The pricing makes them very unappealing, which is a shame, because priced right, you would probably sell exponentially more by making it economical for people to change their hair on a weekly basis.

that’s one of my biggest problems with the gem store in general. So many items that could generate huge revenue if they were only priced properly. How many $millions a year will be lost because of improper price points?

Well, it must be buggy, because fairly often during combat, I can move outside the circle and maintain stealth, but it’s inconsistent. So definitely buggy, but we don’t know which is the bug, losing stealth leaving the circle, or maintaining stealth after leaving the circle.

Make sure to bug report it in game, in case they miss this on the forums. We were told there were no changes to report with the latest build, which makes it even more likely this was a bug.

Sadly, it would be better for the community if the lower tier remained more efficient, as it would reduce the fragmentation of the community. I also can’t believe that Arenanet intended for 20+ to be efficient with the current gear available to players.

The entire system is a mess. The dungeon itself is great, but the current difficulty system has great potential to be very destructive to the game and the community.

tassadarpaladin.9610:

Agree with th OP. I can understand why a stack limit was set for condi damage. Which i don’t understand is why burning/posion working different from bleeding. As a sword/sword bleeding warrior, i can easily build 20 stacks of bleeding only by myself. It’s fine when i solo but it’s really limit the damage output for a team with two or more bleed build classes.

The most fun part of GW1&2 for me is i can play my style for most situation. I wish Anet put some thoughts for us bleeding build players

The stacking of duration for burning/poison is a result of the toning down of healing and Heal over Time skills in GW2 vs. GW1. Regeneration now also stacks duration, rather than intensity.

In GW1, the counter for multiple stacks of DoTs was multiple stacks of HoTs. We just don’t have that dynamic in GW2, due to the move away from dedicated healers and reliance on a balanced self healing system.

Assuming there is a technical reason for the max number of stacks, which there probably is, I see three possible adjustments to bring Condition Damage more in line with Direct Damage for these kinds of fights:

1.) Once the stack reaches 25, put additional applications in a queue.

The problem with this approach is that you would still reach a saturation point where the mob would have a continual 25 stacks until they die, with applications still in the queue wasted.

2.) When the stack cap is in effect, have additional applications deal a portion of the total DoT damage as Direct Damage instead.

Much more satisfying for those with Condition Damage builds. Care would have to be taken in determining the percentage of DoT applied instead as Direct Damage, or the damage equation may skew too much in favor of the CD builds.

3.) When a character tries to apply condition damage to a mob with a maxed out stack, the character receives a boon to increase direct damage. Number of stacks and duration based on the strength of the Condition Damage skill.

This may offer the most balanced solution. Most, if not all, condition damage builds still rely on weapon sets that possess at least a few Direct Damage skills. Applying stacks of Might to, say, match the number of bleeding stacks “wasted”, with the same duration, would provide a proper “compensation” for a CD attack being “bounced” due to the stack limit.

There are other ideas that may make sense, but I just wanted to toss in three possible solutions that may make sense, just to show that this can be addressed from the design side, even if the 25 stack cap can’t be removed or increased.

Could be the “lsd” combo. It could also be due to having four consonants in a row. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with it in your name, but an automated filter meant to prevent nonsense strings of characters can’t distinguish that.

You could try removing one of the "l"s, which would help answer the question.

Ascended Gear does not offer normal upgrade slots, so a portion of the stats bost is meant to compensate for that fact. If they tuned down the stats of Ascended gear slightly, so that the boost vs. a max. enhanced Exotic was, say 5%, the oower curve would be more acceptable.

With that done, infusions should have zero effect outside of Dungeons, or could even be limited only to FotM.

When I first read about Ascended Gear, I thought this would be a no-brainer and that Arenanet would have already done so. (It seems most infusions are split between Agony Mitigation, which is already useless outside of FotM and normal stat boosts).

I agree with the OP. I’m very worried about what FotM is doing to the game. The fracturing of the playerbase is getting worse with every passing day. Watching the FotM LFG spam, you can have a string of 10+ LFG requests for FotM and have none of them overlap with each other. Soon there will be people looking for 20+ different difficulty ratings. There has to be a wall some where. I assumed with Ascended Gear only being available in Rings and Back Armor that eventually everyone would be gated at some point. I never imagined people would already be looking for 20+ LD and that that would include players who haven’t even maxed the new Ascended/Infusion progression.

To be honest, I’m a little bit in shock that this system ever got approved for the game. It seems to run so completely contrary to the game’s previously stated design philosophy that I can’t even comprehend how it was made ready for inclusion before we even reached the three month anniversary since release.

FotM would be a perfect addition for an MMO in it’s twilight. For a game that’s only three months old it seems like a self destruct sequence.

Most of Arenanet seems to have had a well deserved five day weekend. I hope that refreshed and renewed, some of the higher ups will address FotM, in great depth and some how put our fears to rest, because I’m honestly dumbfounded and more than a little concerned.

ZLE.8293:

Tomkatt.1684:

Kurow.6973:

I personally don’t recommend you using condition damage for PvE, but that’s my personal opinion.

Well, any reason why? And in that case, any good specs specifically for a Deathblossom and pistols build?

Because there is a cap of 25 stacks for any condition(it counts conditions from all ,not just yours),and with the bosses and events(where you will often be with many others) you will find yourself fighting “immune” mobs all the time.

Only really an issue with big bosses. I run a Deathblossom D/D & P/P build. I don’t go all in on +Condition Damage, the build also has a 35% base crit chance and a decent amount of power. If a boss is maxed on bleeds, there are still plenty of high damage skills to use, D/D auto attack spam with a solid crit rating is nothing to sneeze at. With a smaller group vs. a tough vet or champ, P/P blind spam can often make the difference between success and failure. Since most DB builds look to maximize Initiative renewal, blinds can be spammed almost indefinitely.

I’ll check my build and post it when I can. For 6-10 I use Signet of Malice, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows and Dagger Storm. Prior to getting Dagger Storm, Thief’s Guild was a great situation elite, but the synergy between SoM and DS, along with the fairly low recharge time, makes the combo a no brainer.

Tulisin.6945:

Breaking down your utility skills:
Haste – Destroys your mobility in return for burst damage.
Assassin’s Signet – Brings a slight damage boost to the field, nothing defensive. It really isn’t helping you much.
Scorpion Wire – Rather mediocre in open-world PvE, doesn’t really help you offensively or defensively.

You need to be focusing on keeping mobility high for PvE, both via normal WASD movement and knowing when to hit dodge. When and only when you’ve learned to avoid most of the damage in PvE by movement you can start using burst/offense utilities.

For traits: My recommendation in the short-term would be to go ahead and put 15 points into acrobatics when you can and focus on learning how to dodge. Acrobatics is unique in trait trees because it is mostly survivability based, but by taking the Might-on-Dodge trait it will give you a minor offensive bonus as well.

Furthermore, you’ve mentioned both backstab and Death Blossom as engagement options, but each of these are going to be vastly more effective with different stat setups. You may want to streamline your stats towards one or the other and make a choice in play style.

Finally: D/D just isn’t that great in PvE unless you’re specialized towards Death Blossom spam. Open-world PvE is all about utilizing AE to kill large groups at once, an arena that single-target dagger damage has a hard time competing in.

You are right about D/D, but IF you do build around Death Blossom, your AoE is not an issue. Intelligent Death blossom usage with Signet of Malice and Dagger Storm as the Elite allows you to chew up groups with solid survivability. Once you stack your bleeds, you can go mobile and make use of your dodge to relieve the pressure. I usually run with P/P for the swap. DB and DS are my AoE, P/P is good for finishing off foes if you need to kite until the numbers game turns in your favor. The ability to spam blind also comes in handy if you find yourself in a war of attrition with a tough veteran and can provide some nice support in a group vs. a champion.

I no longer switch to SB for most DEs. Properly executed DB and target switching to spread the AoE around work great for tagging grouped up mobs when there are a lot of other players around. When Alone or with a small group, you can take more time to really set up and maximize your DB and Dagger Storm.

Not contradicting the quoted poster, just pointing out that a Death Blossom build can actually be very effective at AoE in PvE. Get really good at it and you will feel no need to go with an AoE set for your swap. (Signet of Malice, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge and Dagger Storm are key for my personal build. I like Signet of Shadows for the open slot, for the added mobility and the additional pressure reliever if something goes bad).

Stealth does NOT provide immunity from damage, so if you really did manage to saturate the area with AOE and he just wouldn’t die, then it may have been an exploiter using the stealth mechanics issues as cover for actual cheating.

It’s all part of their plan to ensure that everyone is playing FotM, rather than doing world content, so that no will be around to notice all the DEs that are either still broken or have just had their DE designations turned off, (with the stuck actors still stuck in the same spots).

I’m being sarcastic, but it really feels that way. A big design goal that drew me to the game was the promise that different modes of play would be balanced as far as rewards over time, so that people who preferred world content could do world content and people that prefere3d dungeons could do dungeons, with the only advantage for dungeons being the exclusive armor skins that could be obtained.

That was the company line right through beta. What ever happened to that game? I’d like to play it someday…

There very certainly should be a trade in mechanic for something worthwhile. Since each chest already includes three tonics and most people don’t use them with any frequency, adding a trade in mechanic for Tonics would make the most sense.

Or, alternatively, no more tonics, add three BLC tokens per chest and make tonics available as part of the trade in options at one token per tonic, with more desirable items, or course, costing a good number of tokens.

It probably makes too much sense for them to implement, but you definitely have the right idea and it would go a long way towards making BLC keys worth the purchase.

I feel for those who fell into the trap and I thank you for posting your results. The Gem Store manager must be feeling pretty happy with themselves that they managed to get some people to spend $100+ on keys with that special. However, they would be ignoring the long term costs. People who feel cheated and all the business they might have gotten if the special had also applied to the smaller stacks.

BLCs are pretty much worthless now. The lack of keys to be gained in game seems to be designed to keep people wondering what goodies they are missing out on, rather than allowing them a few “free samples” that would just show them how worthless the chests really are.

BLC keys are just a lottery ticket, assuming that they didn’t remove the permanents entirely, which would just make them an absolute rip off with out even offering the possibility of something worth while.

I really hate that the Gem Store has gone this route. Rather than balanced offerings at a fair price, which would encourage many players to be regular customers, more and more of the gem store seems to be focused on fleecing a few impulsive players with some money to burn, rather than building steady revenue through loyalty and value.

Many of us would pay for worth while skins, renames and makeover tickets, but instead we have a lack of worthwhile skins, (the Light Armor Cash Shop is not worthy of a company like Arenanet), no renames, no makeovers, or any of a dozen other items and services the community has been asking for.

It’s almost like someone is enjoying the idea of giving people who buy gems as little in return as possible, rather than identifying things people really want and pricing those things so that most will agree they are actually worth the price of purchase…

Agreed. Pretty unbelievable this isn’t in yet. At launch, there was a check box to only show items usable by your character, but it was completely broken. So, it was supposed to be a feature and I would think is still on a list of things to do, but it appears they had trouble programming it the first time and haven’t considered it a high enough priority, yet, to devote a programmer to it.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Jure Simich.6154:

Player driven, unfortunately. Players have to buy gems, and then sell them. Anet don’t actually sell gold.

Allegedly player driven. Sure, the shifts do make sense if it was player driven. But the truth is that we have no idea how ANET’s pricing algorithm works. It might not be working as intended.

It’s true that we don’t really know how it works, but the pricing trends do match what one would expect if they are player driven.

I’m one of those people that plays the game for fun, rather than with a concentration on identifying and grinding the most efficient gold making activities. I do resent that Arenanet have seemed to have abandoned one of the original design principles, which was that they wanted people to play the game in a natural way and earn the money/loot they needed along the way. There was great emphasis on parity between different styles of play. However, the game is what it is and I’m still enjoying it, even if I do get frustrated at the low rate at which I can earn currency in the game. (On a good day, I might earn 50 SP/hour, when all is said and done).

At the same time I’m struggling a long, I know that a number of people are farming the most efficient methods of earning gold and can boast of sitting on over 100 Gold, in some cases a lot more than that. The people with an over abundance of gold would start looking to trade some gold for gems in order to buy upgrades or anything else they like in game. For month one, I’m sure very few people felt they had enough excess gold to buy gems, but now with a number of people confident in their ability to rake in gold, I’m sure that the gold for gems trade has skyrocketed.

The initial exchange on day one for trading gems for gold was 100 Gems for 30 SP. It dipped a fair bit below that in the opening weeks, but now, as demand for gems in the gold for gem market increases it makes sense that the exchange rates would climb. I can now trade 100 Gems for about 1 Gold fairly reliably by watching the trends. Good for someone having an issue earning gold in game; fair for those with plenty of gold to exchange for gems; but a fairly raw deal for newer players or those who always seem starved for gold, who might be looking to buy an upgrade or two sans $$$Cash.

I like to support the game. I’ve maxed my bank vault upgrades and have bought other items here and there, but most often I find that the $10 I “contribute” to the game every couple weeks, or so, ends up being converted to gold. Understandably, I’m glad that the exchange rate has increased and seems to be doing so at a faster rate than Trading Post inflation on rare and exotic gear. However, yeah, it does limit access to the other side of the exchange for a number of players who don’t have the coin or the cash to cover the gold to gems exchange.

As time goes on, you will either need to have disposable income n game or IRL if you want to buy things from the gem Store. People who are lacking in both will be at a disadvantage.

If someone is willing to sell at the custom buy price, because they are too impatient to wait 15 seconds to 24 hours, depending on the item in question, before receiving their money, that’s their prerogative.

The market paired a buyer and a seller at a price point agreeable to both.

Would you rather the person willing to sell “below market value”, deprived of the buy order option, undercutting the market price to ensure a quick sale? That would drive down the market value for everyone!

The GW2 Trading Post many things right. The most recent listing at an established price point sees their offerings sold first. This may seem unfair to some, but it’s in place to discourage cascading undercutting of prices. (People not understanding that the market is “Latest in, soonest out” still do some undercutting, but it would be much worse with out this approach). Buy Orders provide an outlet for those willing to sell significantly lower than market pricing, in order to gain an instant sale, with out undercutting the standard pricing. The TP cut is high enough to put some limits on speculation driven buying and selling, with out being too onerous on players.

The TP is very well designed and managed, with an eye towards supporting a viable economy.

The nearly global nature of the economy is what drives some of the current peculiarities of pricing. Actually, apparent peculiarities. The pricing actually accurately reflects supply/demand, so isn’t really peculiar, but compared to MMO player expectations, some of the pricing levels relative to other tiers of items may seem odd.

Over time, the market will settle into a pattern that reflects a character level distribution that is heavy near the top, rather than the middle.

The current market will tend to shake out crafters who were hoping for a casual, easy road to profit. Fewer active crafters selling to areas of the market where supply/demand produce a reasonable profit margin will result in the ability of some people to make money crafting. The shake out needs to occur, as it should be obvious that the higher percentage of people actively crafting, the greater the supply and the lower the demand.

(Accessibility to crafted gear equivalents from normal game play also play an important role in the supply/demand equation. Few games go all in on a player driven, crafting provided economy. There are many alternatives to crafted gear in GW2 and that is always going to be the case).

ImagoX.4718:

Due respect to those who feel “cheated” by these chests (or the cash shop model in general), but many of you seem to have NO idea about how the real world works.

YES there is so a “production cost” for new items. Anything added to a game requires programmers, artists, QA testers, IT folks, writers, etc. all of who get paid for their work. Just because an item is “virtual” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t represent many, many man-hours of work to create.

If you don’t feel the items are worth the cost, don’t buy them, or feel free to post a non-ranting thread on how you’d have preferred them to be. I guarantee people are watching the market to see what people respond to. I’m MUCH happier buying items on the shop to support the game than having to pay a sub fee, but do agree that they’re still not quite there yet re: the “sweet spot” between coolness and value, but I’m sure they’ll get there. For now the bulk of my extra $ purchases have been for things like character slots and bank tabs, but as soon as they get more items like the old GW1 costume skins or something equally cool, I’m sure I will do those, too…

The cost is not per unit. Profit occurs when total revenue from sales of an item exceed the total development cost of said item. Revenue, not per unit pricing, is key. When per unit pricing is high enough to significantly cut unit sales, total revenue potential dwindles significantly.

Not only would lower per unit chest prices lead to people willing to buy one chest to buy more then one, but it would broaden the base of players buying at least one chest.

For cash shop sales in any game, you want people to always feel that their purchase was worth the price. This maintains a broad base of players willing to buy anything from your cash shop, while also encouraging those people to buy more things in the future.

IMO, the current pricing strategy has shrunk the potential base of regular gem purchasers, while also curtailing the ongoing purchases of those people who are willing to participate in the cash shop model. That’s a huge problem.

As I implied before, unwillingness to sell to the proper price point is the death of many product sales based businesses. It’s also the sign of a business “noob” lacking the business sense to actually make a profit running their own business. Finding the proper price point, where volume trumps discounted per unit sales, is key. When your business is selling virtual items with almost zero per unit cost, a failure to aggressively adjust pricing to find the sweet spot on every offering is just lazy and inexcusable.

Gem bundling avoids the problem of credit card transaction fees negating the profit of low per purchase gem store purchases, so truly, per unit cost is pretty much irrelevant. Total revenue is key and profit equals revenue minus aggregate cash shop costs.

zachbolt.6304:

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

I agree they need to make money. I buy gems two or three times a month to support the game! However, they would produce a lot more revenue if they used fair pricing. The per unit price would be lower, but the volume of sales would be higher.

Once a person buys something and feels completely ripped off, the odds of them buying more gems in the future drops significantly.

The cash shop addicts who drop a significant amount of money every month will spend the same amount per month even if they where to get a better per purchase value with more moderate unit pricing. You don’t lose that revenue by pricing more aggressively to drive purchases.

As I said in the previous post, these are virtual items with essentially no per unit cost. There is development cost, but overall cash shop revenue funds that cost and if you drive more revenue with fair pricing and items worth buying, you more than cover the development cost.

I was glad to see the Black Friday Sales and that is something that should continue on an ongoing basis. I think the LotRO cash shop has an average of two three day sales a week, with each sale covering multiple items. Their prices and value are also much better than the base prices in GW2. A lot of lessons to be learned from that model.

BTW, the Friday sale of Black Lion Chest keys was more than a bit dishonest. They created a new bundle of 25 which was the only key offering “on sale”, but the advertised discount was off of the single key purchase price. Compared to five bundles of five, the discount was a lot less than advertised. This was bad for two reasons.

First, for those realizing the games being played with the discount, the perceived dishonesty is a turn off that will convert some gem purchasers into non-purchasers. Second, there was huge potential for key sales at a true 50% discount if the discount had been applied to the single and five pack prices, which it was not. If you weren’t willing to buy $20 of gems to buy the limited time, less than advertised value 25 pack, there was nothing there for you.

You would think the appeal of five packs at half off would have been obvious. Many people might have bout one five pack, opened some chests, then bought another five pack and another, etc…

My point is that IMO, gem Shop revenue has been crippled by a poor pricing strategy and a lack of a proper, coherent % Off sales strategy.

I can’t help but believe that a poorly formulated cash shop strategy is costing the company huge amounts of monthly revenue. People who enjoy the game are likely to be willing to buy gems to support the game, but they need to be able to look at the cash shop and feel it offers a good and fair value. Most people who look at the cash shop pricing just scoff and go back to looking at the game as being free to play after the one time box purchase. That, to me, is a failed cash shop pricing strategy.

Nicolle Rodgers.4926:

You are receiving a discount when you buy 5 keys for 450 gems. The base price for one key is 125 gems. 125 X 25 = 3125. 1560 is slightly more than 50% off of 3125, so you are receiving a 50% discount off of the base key price of 125 gems, at 62.4 gems per key.

If someone were to intentionally set out to destroy their reputation RE: cash shop sale prices, they might apply this logic. Most people may never read this thread or realize what the OP realized, but many of those that do will forever view the cash shop discounts with an eye for dishonesty. Research has shown that if a customer turns off to a brand or product due to a perception of unfairness, it’s almost impossible to ever get those customers back!

I’m hoping the explanation is one of an oversight in the math used that they now realize was wrong and will never be applied to any future sales price mark downs.

I have been and continue to be a huge fan of the game. I do buy and spend gems on an ongoing basis, in large part out of a desire to support the game. I view the above as an example of cash shop shenanigans and if it becomes an ongoing habit, I can’t see myself buying another gem infusion moving forward. (I was already ticked off that only the new 25 key bundle was discounted, now that I see why it was done this way, to obfuscate the way the “discount” was calculated, I’m just more dismayed)!

Don’t play games with pricing, or players will stop playing your game. Simple.

RNG, because the difficulty level system isn’t already segregating and gating the community enough! I really, really don’t understand what the designers were thinking and I really hope that after their five day holiday that they will start to actually address, in depth, the many concerns that FotM and related items have raised.