Guild Wars 2

As ^ has said, this should be in suggestions.
But the main thing with this>> Dungeon tokens are delivered on a diminishing returns scheme. People can’t just keep doing P1 of CoF because after doing it once per day it won’t reward the full amount of tokens. So people usually do all three paths of any given dungeon which makes your suggestion kind of redundant.
If you’re just talking about rewards in general, why on earth would they punish people for wanting to run a dungeon in a short space of time for fast returns. That’s not an issue, if you restrict it they will just move on to whatever else they think is the quickest way to earn money.

It is the mindset of the players that needs changing, not the game mechanics (in this situation anyway)

Bull’s charge is a leap finisher, it is possible that if your targeted enemy is behind you or if the closest enemy is behind you then it is leaping towards them instead of leaping forward. Although that seems like a far stretch.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs
I suggest you post your issue in the bugs forum instead since it doesn’t actually sound like a mac related issue.

One thing that may be important, make sure your mouse cursor isn’t hovering over using of the User Interface/the Skill bar. Put the mouse cursor/pointer in the middle of the screen and see if you still have the problem?

What happens if you set 1920×1200 as the resolution on your rMBP?
You can always try 1680×1050 which is the native resolution of the high resolution regular 15" MBP’s and is probably actually more optimal for playing. 1920×1200 on a 15" screen would make everything teeny tiny

^— If I’m being honest some of these issues sound like poor internet connection related issues/latency issues. If you can try plugging in to ethernet and see if that helps.

I’ve never had the mouse freeze or skip, but the cursor disappears while hovering things in the inventory on occasion. That is however a game wide issue and something that happens on Windows as well.

I think you’ve obviously put a lot of effort into this. But you’re overcomplicating a lot of things.

For example: Someone who is just starting out and has absolutely no experience probably doesn’t need to know that much about Server’s/Worlds or how they differ from in other games.
Simply saying ‘Guild Wars 2 has two separate region locked servers; one for the US and one for Europe. Within each server is a number of ’Worlds’, these are account bound and in order to move your characters over to another World you must pay a Gem fee based on its population density’
Even then that is too long winded and unnecessary.

I would suggest that you go back through everything you’ve written and create a large bullet point list where you reduce everything to it’s simplest form. This will help you establish what information is important and from that list you can then better structure the primer and make it easier to read.

Just my personal opinion though

First of all: What is your graphics card. Your Processor and RAM seem absolutely fine. Snow Leopard is unsupported but I think most people haven’t had any problems running GW2 on it. It only isn’t supported because apple no longer supports it.

Can I suggest you open up Disk Utility (Applications>>Utilities>>Disk Utility).
In the sidebar it should have “Macintosh HD” (Or whatever you have renamed your hard drive to if you’ve renamed it). Select that and there should be an option called “Repair Disk Permissions” Click that and let it run.

As to the power supply issue, is what you are saying that your battery has a very high cycle count and it can no longer run without being plugged into power? A lot of people have confirmed that unplugging from the power source fixes some issues, so if this is the problem then you might be a bit screwed.

The only other suggestion I can give to you is to do an SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
Follow the instructions on there. Make sure you follow the CORRECT instructions. As in make sure you select the instructions for either a MB with a removable batter or one without – I don’t know what model your mac is so I can’t help you out with that.

Sorry but I kind of think this thread is ridiculous.
You’re operating under the assumption that three professions are better than all the rest, which simply isn’t true.

There is nothing that inherently makes a Mesmer better than an elementalist, it all comes down to their build and play style and what they’re going up against.

^— That’s a bit debatable Vayne, but definitely very difficult to measure and it is at least close.
The world of Prophecies is actually much bigger I believe, there are more maps and they take far longer to traverse. But GW1’s content is certainly simpler, predominantly being storyline and maps – whereas GW2 offers much more complexity.

Also please take into consideration how different GW2 is from GW1. When they were developing content for GW1 there were far fewer things to consider. With GW2 if they want to add new zones for example they have to work on X,Y,Z, New Hearts, a ton of new Dynamic Events, Monsters, Loot tables, Skill points, Vistas, JP’s etc etc etc.
It isn’t fair to say GW1 had a major content release so GW2 should.

Also if you actually factor in all of the releases GW2 has had then it exceeds what was comparatively being added to GW1.
In it’s first year of existence GW1 got Sorrow’s Furnace, an elite dungeon that you could complete in an hour or two.
GW2 has had massive Halloween and Wintersday content releases, the original Southsun Event, The Living Story and a kittenload of changes to PvE, PvP and WvW.

An expansion will come when it is ready, and I certainly hope not before it is ready.

(Technically I don’t think the living story is great, but that’s more to do with it being temporary. I would have been over the moon if they had done similarly sized permanent content releases over the last few months. But the changes they’ve made and content they’ve implemented is still really impressive)

You’re still making the mistake of thinking that it is Anet who develops the OSX version of GW2. That would be Cider, if you have complaints about how it runs then they are who you should be complaining to. Arenanet develop on Windows, OSX is unfamiliar territory to probably the majority of their staff (although I do know at least one of their staff members uses a mac).
The restaurant analogy doesn’t work either. You’ve gotten exactly what you paid for. The mac version has always been touted as a beta, technically there is no guarantee that they will choose to continue to offer it (although there would be almost no reason not to).
I’m sorry if I seem like I’m being tough but it’s just a bit silly to me. I actually pre-ordered the game before launch, before a mac version even existed, and was happy to play using Wine with half and half textures and graphical glitches galore.

If you want a restaurant analogy (I’m posting this with humour in mind, not to be nasty, snarky, rude or provoking) – the chef has come to see you at your table and told you that he is working on a new recipe, it may or not be absolutely dreadful tasting, maybe it will taste wonderful, he can’t offer you any guarantees – you agree to pay full price for this experimental food. It’s not the chef’s fault if you aren’t happy with the food because you purchased it knowing full well that it could be good or bad. It’s the same situation with the Mac Beta. (Although you are of course still entitled to any support which a regular account is offered since your account and keys are identical to anyone elses – which does in itself raise issues, but it gets a bit too complicated for me to bother thinking about >.>)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

mercury ranique.2170:

I think you asume an connection to Asura or Inquest due to the name being simular to Rata Sum?? That might be a wild assumption.

Except for the fact that it is explicitly stated in game to be Asuran.

mercury ranique.2170:

I don’t have time to go there to look for evidence myself at the moment but I will do to to see if there is any hard evidence that it is asuran. The wiki isn’t always right so just cause it is there doesn’t make it so.

I looked into it deeply, it is asuran.

Explorer Cryptcutter offers and “Early Asuran Relief Rubbing” (no wiki page, sadly) which has an inscription saying that it dates back to when Orr was still thriving – e.g., before the asura surfaced in Eye of the North. And for the heart activity itself, you can dig up “Asuran Relics” (again, no wiki page sadly). There is, as LotKrotan mentioned, a Priory scholar suggesting an old Dwarven dialect, but it may turn out to be old Asuran – that whole “half mathematical, half structured” language.

But these ruins interestingly match the ruins of GW1, and there’s also another set of ruins within Lightfoot Passage of the same design, near the vista.

Truth be told, Rata Pten is practically full out proof that the asura were on the surface before Eye of the North – when and why they left is unknown, but this is heavy evidence to support Rata Sum and the other Tarnished Coast ruins being asuran structures that were abandoned. This in turn explains why the ruins in the Tarnished Coast used the same design as the structures in the Central Transfer Chamber, structures outright confirmed to be asuran, and fits in with Linsey Murdock’s sharing of Jeff Grubb’s statement that the ruins once belonged to a magical race.

That’s a little anticlimactic, but it makes a lot of sense. Even in GW1 the structures all seemed perfectly sized for Asura. But this still does provide a lot of interesting questions, the ruins were after all ruins and there were plenty that were on slants etc so it’s possible they’re quite ancient.

Which is more likely though? That this what was left after the Asura went underground, or that there were Asura living on the surface while others lived underground?

I think what you all fail to realise is that Anet was in no way obliged to make GW2 available for OSX. They are a game developer and the time and effort it would take to create a native OSX client far exceeds the profit that could be gained from it. As it stands GW2 runs just fine (and actually very well) on supported macs. Yes there are some problems people encounter but those aren’t actually problems with the GW2 client, they are problems with Cider (and can be fixed easily as I have shown people).

Cut them a little slack, they’ve provided something they didn’t have to provide and it is a working solution. If you aren’t happy then install Windows via bootcamp or don’t play the game.

(David, there are legal reasons why a professional company should not and will not place random people as moderators on the official forums. So while it’s a nice idea since there are a few people around here who are clearly very helpful, it isn’t possible) – I suspect that they use an unnamed moderator account for the moderations of this forum because they don’t want to have their employees sent nasty messages or verbally abused.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Assyrian.4827:

My guess is at least 6 months after GW2 launch in China.

ah so its true.
we are playing guild wars 2 paid open beta with no character wipes.

and canthan was removed so nc soft could market the game there.
so sad.

Don’t use purely speculative information as fact, you’re going to end up giving people the wrong impression.
The only thing we know for CERTAIN is that a long while ago (as in years) Anet was told or suggested not to develop Cantha. But that may have simply been one person and the view may have also changed. Just because Cantha wasn’t in development a while ago doesn’t mean that it isn’t or isn’t going to be in the future.

The China release would have little to do with a Canthan release, since China had GW1 and Factions and whilst I believe there was some negative feedback from some people or one person in their test groups there was no widespread backlash about it… (Also note that GW1 didn’t do so well in China or the rest of asia, but that’s sort of to be expected)

Nobody can answer these questions for you..
As far as has been said they are only considering the viability of an expansion, and if one is in the works (I can’t remember the exact wording of the recent piece of news) then it is in the very early stages of conception.
I doubt there will be a collectors edition for an expansion, but if gamestop is an official retailer (I don’t live in the US so I can’t answer that) then yes you most likely will be able to pre-order it there.

Although, the best way of purchasing any future expansions or content for GW2 is to purchase it DIRECTLY from Anet/the GW2 website.

Or perhaps they won but there were so few of them left that they couldn’t stand to stay in the place they had watched so many of their own race die?

^— you can’t say told you so when you failed to provide your own proof.
Thanks Manoa for actually providing proof of this, happy to believe it from an Anet employee.
But AprilRain, based on Amazon alone you can’t say that it was the release date, they consistently put bogus dates on unreleased things because as a general rule they have no clue what a release date is until it’s announced officially..

You shouldn’t experience any issues.
The majority of people who are experiencing issues experience them when they try to start up the game or patch it, so if you’ve already managed to play then you’re probably fine.
I’ve never experienced any issues myself, but I have posted solutions for people numerous times. The Application Support folder fix that Kylla lists above should be the first thing you try if you have any problems. 90% of the time it fixes any launch issues people have.

Ascalonians aren’t evil. Their ghosts are just a bit crazy because adleburn condemned them to protect ascalon in their death…

It isn’t that they’re evil, just that they’re too dangerous and run the risk of killing living people if they aren’t taken care of, they are after all ghosts – they deserve to go into the afterlife in the mists or whatever it is ghosts are meant to do.

As for the grawl being an intelligent race – that’s debatable, I think they come across as intelligent because for some bizarre reason Anet thought it was ok to have people do their voice acting and not edit the vocals in any way..

I never have. I’ve really enjoyed some of the more interestingly composed groups I’ve been in.
I once did all 3 AC paths with a group of all Elementalists and it was the most fun I have ever had, we all had different play styles and setups and it just worked really really well.

The only times I have trouble with groups is when people don’t know how to play their professions, there are very few situations where specific professions are actually BAD for certain things. People need to stop being so “elitist”, especially when they’re wrong in their thoughts.

Canach’s backstory came from the original Southsun event last year in which he was part of a small scavenger hunt quest line which bugged out heavily and a ton of people weren’t able to complete.

Of course after the few days that his lore was available were over anyone who hadn’t met him wouldn’t have a clue who he was or what his motivations were.
And if like me you missed the final part of Flame and Frost where he was reintroduced, you feel very in the dark.

I don’t think the Elder Dragons are a BAD evil, their influence over Tyria is massive, you can’t say that Zhaitan, Jormag, Kralk and Primordius aren’t evil when their minions can be found in a whole lot of zones. But I agree that they themselves don’t feel like much of a threat.

At least in GW1 Prophecies the Lich popped up quite a few times and had an evolving character >.>

Jski.6180:

Well GW1 was a single player game that had co op. Also its pvp was not made to be at an E-sport level. GW2 is just a comply different type of game then GW1 and there are truths to what GW2 is an mmorpg that you must deal with that was not problem in GW1 that was NOT an mmorpg.

I don’t disagree with the gist of what you’re saying. But GW1’s PvP actually was at a sort of E-Sport level. Especially early on in the games life when they had a lot of tournaments going on, and GvG remained pretty E-sporty throughout the games life. PvP just died down a lot as the game got older and what we were left with was a whole bunch of people playing RA.

Yup what Kylla said.
This is probably something to do with your router settings or your mac’s network settings (although if you’ve never touched your mac’s settings it won’t be those).

Ruin.3058:

FlamingFoxx the second option does work for me (the bug was: my screen would go black when i pressed play, then close) but i have to delete the file everytime i want to play the game! is there a fix for this?

I’m not sure sorry. I’ve never actually experienced the problem myself and I stopped playing the Mac Beta a long time ago in favour of Bootcamp (it doesn’t run the fans so much). You could maybe try adding the -repair command to GW2, I can’t remember if I put instructions for that in the post or not?

I’m really glad this has helped so many of you though, it’s pretty annoying when something you want to play won’t work.

Kyllaa.1385:

I don’t remember experiencing this in gw1.

Well you’re lucky then xD.
It only happened with certain key combinations or overloads I think.
But I tended to have my character either running forwards of his own accord (which couldn’t be fixed by pressing the auto-run key or by running in a different direction because the second I stopped pressing anything he’d just run forwards again), or my character would just spin in circle.
The spinning in circles thing was the worst, it meant that when I tried to run he ran in a curve rather than straight, and when I stood still the camera just went round and round and round. xD

Sea of Sorrows has a few Aus/NZ guilds that I see quite often.
AUST is the guild I’m in which is an Aus/NZ/Worldwide guild that has existed since GW1, and there is also AUNZ which I see members from running around a LOT.

Not going to happen.
Starting with the Xbox – you have to pay a subscription fee to use online content/Xbox live or whatever it is called. A B2P MMO isn’t going to like that people are paying a monthly fee for something that isn’t even going to them.

Then you have the issue of controllers, it isn’t a simple matter of binding the keys to certain buttons, there are just a lot of complicated functions that can’t be emulated with JUST a controller. There is a reason people play MMO’s with a keyboard and mouse. I can’t imagine how much of a mess it would be to try and be able to cast 10 spells and switch between 4 attunements using a controller… Then you have to be able to access all of the UI elements and hover items etc.

+1 to the maximum!!!
I’m a full time university student, one of the things I loved about GW1 and that I initially loved about GW2 was that I could literally just play whenever I had time and it didn’t matter because when I got back everything would still be there.

As it stands I’ve missed a few arcs of the living story so only half of it makes sense and the content that I was able to participate in I had to rush because I really don’t have that much time.

There is seriously no reason for temporary content. I understand they want to make the world feel as if it’s living and changing constantly, but that isn’t how people play MMO’s, people actually want to experience the story, not to have to read about all the things they missed playing. What about players who start in a years time, are they going to have to find all the old articles and summaries of content online to have a clue what’s happened…

Uh, are you sure that is actually the release date… There hasn’t be any official confirmation to my knowledge and online retailers traditionally just whack whatever date up they feel is justified. We had the same thing happening with GW2 before it was released, Amazon and other online retailers just put up a date out of their own speculation.

Yeah I’m pretty sure this is one of those whole -once you’ve completed your mission and destroyed Primordius and his minions you will get your eternal reward in the afterlife-.
The dwarves will turn to dust or just stay as stone statues. There is a lot more impact in having a race completely vanish off the face of the earth than having them come back. The dwarven artefacts are already treated as curiosities by the Durmand Priory, they’re hardly going to bring back the dwarves and have them explain everything and completely undermine half the need for the DP.

To those who are saying it’s an easy puzzle… That’s not really helpful.
The puzzle is easy if you’re good at jumping puzzles, and your frame rate can hold up agains the geysers and you can twitch a bit etc etc etc.
I’ve managed it a few times, but it took me a very long time to finish it the first time and even now I have to try for a bit before I get it.

There is usually a mesmer in the area who is happy to port people up so just ask around in map chat. Especially helpful if you’re just trying to get all 11 spots for the Fervid Censor back piece (or whatever it is called, I don’t remember).

I actually recall reading somewhere that they had initially planned on having Lion’s Arch be something to do with Rurik’s bloodline and that there were some Lion themed things to do with that – hence the name Lion’s Arch.
But I have no idea where I read it :/

I think this really just outlines the problem for those of us who were GW1 players.
GW1 was a heavily story based game with really engaging lore, that was what so many of us loved about it.
GW2 seems far more concerned with appeasing peoples desires for mechanics and an “endgame” than delivering large amounts of story.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t good story and lore in GW2, the first half of the personal story felt GREAT, it’s just gone off into a lull…

LMAO. This was an issue all the way back in Guild Wars 1. I don’t expect they’re going to fix it. Maybe they don’t even know how? xD.

I really think you hit the nail on the head with this.
Also with the yellow text, it gets really realllly difficult to tell if he is about to detonate, about to reset or if it’s already happened. Especially when I’ve been working on converting mines and there are no audio cues.
Perhaps there are audio cues and they just don’t work because in the final bit with spoken dialogue only about 1/3 of it played for me, I had to read the rest off the text bubbles…

Yeah his reasoning sounds pretty much like an excuse for having just changed the look because they wanted him to look evil.
Note how he said he regrets there isn’t more background information on the new look.. That sort of suggests to me the explanation was whipped up specifically to satisfy those who asked. Really sad. Evil should not be an appearance thing, it should be an attitude thing. If you can’t convey a characters emotions and motives through their speech, dialogue and actions without making them look like an archetype then rethink what you’re doing.

For anyone that hadn’t seen him back in the original Southsun event last year, this is what Canach used to look like:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Canach.jpg

I’m unsure what he looked like during Flame & Frost because unfortunately I was swamped under with University assignments and didn’t get the chance to play.

I just want to say that I’m really annoyed that you guys changed his appearance. Can we stop with the whole ‘this person is evil because they look evil’ thing. If he was a member of the Nightmare Court and had mutilated himself in some way and his skin had darkened as a result of that then sure I would buy his new appearance. But as far as I’m aware nothing of the sort has happened (although like I said I missed the last arc of F&F). Making an evil person fit some stereotypical expectation of what you might expect an evil person to look like is one of the most annoying ways to design characters. Stop doing it. Evil people can be attractive too..

(This can be summed up with, I <3 the old Canach, don’t change NPC appearances unless there’s a legitimate reason to do so)

What you are asking for is something that stands outside the typical way people play MMOs and outside of GW2s motivations.
The world is designed in such a way that you don’t have to stand around. Go and do something, participate in some events, do some mapping, level an alt do a jumping puzzle.

If you’re waiting around for other people then that is your problem.
Nobody needs to be able to have an MMO and a movie running at the same time. Not to mention the vast majority of people’s computers cannot handle it, especially considering how GPU intensive GW2 is. It isn’t game breaking, it is the way it is because that is what is intended.

I sympathise with your problem and why you want targeted ground casting.
The problem is that it doesn’t fit in with the semi-action oriented fighting mode of GW2. If all of your AoE spells were cast on the target then the game would be virtually the same as every other point and click MMO out there, which is not what Anet wants. The idea behind it is that players have to use their skill and planning abilities to place AoE where it will be most effective. I understand completely that this isn’t something you are able to do, but corporations will always cater to the majority rather than a minority.

I like the idea, the problem with it is that it has to also be usable by any other staff wielding professions.

The “they” i was referring to was Arenanet not The Pact, as I said though it’s my own personal opinion that Anet wouldn’t choose to do that.

I sort of doubt it simply because the orb is now in Fort Trinity. I don’t think they would shove something belonging to the DSD in the middle of a Pact fort (although that’s just my opinion).
I would think that the DSD is probably the last we’re likely to fight (if we ever do) since it’s as yet unnamed and we have other dragons posing a more immediate threat. I don’t think it needs to rise out of the ocean to become a threat though. If it came near Tyria it’s minions would pose a similar threat to coastal areas as the Orrian Undead did.

Nope, sorry but they don’t exist in game.
Concept art is of course just that, concept art. It depicts an artists idea of what an area could look like, not what is actually to be found there.
Lore-wise it wouldn’t have made much sense for the structures to be there since they weren’t there in GW1.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/If-GW2-will-not-launch
Can those of you who are having issues try the suggestions I’ve put in that post. If they work then post a comment and bump it back into relevance.

Can I also suggest that you try launching the game first with the charger plugged in and then again with it unplugged (if you’re using a MBP, if you’re using an iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Tower then ignore this bit).

I somewhat doubt that it’s the temperature of your mac causing the crashes, I’ve never had temperature problems and you would have to be in a rather hot area before it seriously affected it.
Make sure when you are playing GW2 you have quit all other programs (including anything you have running in the menu bar, it will help and it doesn’t hurt to quit things just to try it out). Make sure your computer has been shut down recently (since some people think its logical to leave them turned on forever).

Also, Lear how long are you leaving it at that screen? If I recall it does actually load into a blank screen the first time when there is an update to the launcher and it has to be left for a while to download the update. If you can try and figure out from screenshot where the username, password and play button would be located and see if it lets you enter the information and hit play even though you can’t see it/

In the settings menu there are two options called “Mac mouse…” turn those off and all your problems will be solved.
Right click/hold will let you control the camera (or you can just make it so both left and right click control the camera, which I prefer). You will be able to zoom without it moving the view etc etc.

If you have the graphics settings on the same sliders it looks identical on windows and OSX (on the same system).
So if I play GW2 in OSX it looks exactly the same as it does if I then play it in Bootcamp with the same settings ticked.
A few notes – I can actually bump the settings a bit higher when playing it on mac without losing frame rate. But the fans run much hotter and louder (because it is a cider port so the computer has to do more work in OSX).

Long story short, if you can play it in bootcamp then do, but you won’t have any problems playing it in OSX.
I have a 2011 15’ Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM, Radeon HD 6750M and a core i7 2.2Ghz processor. Which lets me play with all settings on max just fine. (But I usually turn shadows and shader down a little because it performs better and isn’t quite as loud).

Urgh, yes this is my biggest complaint about the Charr.
I loved the upright Charr in GW1 and they weren’t just restricted to the Flame Legion Shaman. The Charr Chaot’s did as well. The Ashen Claws were also sort of upright – or at least had a much smaller body mass which looks better.

Yeah, race specific classes goes against everything Anet stands for and is pretty much a direct road to having a dreadfully imbalanced game.
IF we are talking theoreticals though – Sylvari would be able to summon forth plant creatures and ride Moss/Oakhearts. Not sure what you would call it because you can’t call them Druids (since those are a race of once-humans who died/merged with the Maguuma a long time ago).

Also, the Charr one would really just end up being an Engineer – which we already have :P

You realise Anet did an entire blog post and video on the development of the Sylvari redesign.
Of course they draw on existing plant based lifeforms from other fantasy worlds as inspirations, but they are rather unique in appearance.
(That video is unlikely to have any bearing since GW2 was already well into development before 2008 (which is the date of creation in the credits of that short), and yes the Sylvari were redesigned, but the redesign worked off of the original design and towards something unique) – Also I think that video is terrifying, the Sylvari however are extremely attractive.

Chaosky.5276:

paleeshi.1924:

Chaosky.5276:

Honestly, I find eles to be one of the less versatile classes when it comes to combat. Sure, I have a mixture of damage, healing, and CC skills that other classes may not, but as an ele, I have to choose between damage or ranged capability, zerging or roaming – I don’t need to do that as, say, a d/d-staff necro.

I don’t see the problem? You just swap to D/D or staff out of combat when situation requires. And you mostly don’t have to respec for it, since most builds works pretty much with every weapon set. Just cause you cannot swap in combat as Ele, it doesn’t mean you have to stay with that particular weapon set/roll forever.

I want versatility in terms of RANGE. As an ele, if I want to duel, I don’t have any effective ranged options – however, the lack of effective ranged solo-oriented weapons wouldn’t matter nearly as much if I could just switch from staff to d/d when things got rough.
Now, of course eles shouldn’t get weapon swapping as well as attunement swapping, but I want to point out that attunement swapping doesn’t allow me to react to a given situation as effectively as weapon swapping.

(inb4 play another class, which isn’t an option because lol roleplaying)

I do have to agree with this. I completely understand why we don’t have weapon swapping. 4 attunements gives us access to a LOT of skills. However it can really screw you over in some situations. Anet has said over and over again that you should be able to adapt your play style to the situation, and leaving ele’s stuck with either meelee or ranged (unless they can get out of battle which isn’t always possible) contradicts this.
Yes you can argue that we have weapon summons, but they are a really ridiculous substitute, they last a short amount of time and have long cooldowns on both the activation skill and the actual weapon skills.

They almost need to allow Ele’s to set which weapon they want for which attunement, so if you went into Fire you would have your staff, but switching attunement into water would swap you into dagger (just as an example). Obviously that complicates things a lot, but at least you have access to some range diversity that way. (and a whole slew of balance issues concerning weapon combos, but oh well xD)

Doomguard is right.
I’m glad rotation isn’t on by default. I think it’s far more useful to always know that the top part of the mini-map is north..
Party members already show up on the map, on the world map as well.
If by tracking you mean it shows a line on the map of the path you need to take then no, there is a reason they will never put that in game. It exists for the personal story in major towns to help people out, but other than that you are meant to explore and find your own way.
There is a legend in the world map that lets you toggle things like waypoints.
You can ping locations and draw on the map for your party members to see already.
And I can’t imagine how a timer could possibly be useful?

That particular story mission is a little bit hard, but remember that when you die you don’t lose your progress and can keep running back and battling the NC.

Try and learn the enemies patterns and when to dodge, see if anyone else in the open world will come and assist you, if you’re in a guild then ask them, if you aren’t I strongly suggest you find a guild.

It would be helpful if you said what profession you are, it would give us a better idea what skills and mechanics you’re dealing with.