Guild Wars 2

Zarenda Mal.1364:

there was this large green rectangle around the outside of the GW2 loading window.

That would be COMODO’s sandboxing. Disable it for GW2.

It’s actually a very simple fight, but it’s meant to be distracting.

When the boss is shielded, the room is spammed with circles, but they do little damage and can be entirely avoided by simply standing in-between the rings or in the center. Shortly after the boss is shielded, the adds will spawn and you’ll know exactly when because the walls will stop spinning. You simply wait for the door to open, kill them while they’re walking into the room, then break the shield to continue.

Once you break the shield, the counter magic spam will begin. If you’re not fast enough, you can simply bind it to a key that won’t interfere, like F#, and spam it. Since he’ll focus his attacks on the NPCs, you can simply stand at this back while only having to dodge after his teleport, just in case he immediately opens with an attack. The small room doesn’t even matter, because there’s very little movement and the actual fight can be done entirely in the center.

horthefirst.3209:

In safe mode I can’t play.

Safe mode was just to test your ability to login. For something similar, you open msconfig, select the services tab, check hide all Microsoft services, then disable all, and under the startup tab, you disable everything. Reboot.

Open the control panel, search for adapters and open network connections. Right click your primary connection, select diagnose/repair and run through the process to reset it. You can also try re-installing the adapter (right click > properties > configure > driver), though ensure you have the drivers before doing so.

Alternatively, reinstall Windows.

Yen.3081:

-nopatchui also only work with VPN. The process just stuck there with no game popping up when using it with regular connection.

Try adding the -clientport option using port 80 or 443:

Gw2.exe -clientport 80 -email … -password … -nopatchui

Yen.3081:

I am ABLE to get pass the patcher when connect through VPN to other location (tried USA)

Which likely means there’s a problem with your local CDN server. It could also be your ISP, in which case only a VPN will work.

You can try different asset server like this:

Gw2.exe -assetsrv 52.84.22.197

You can find more IPs by looking up assetcdn.101.ArenaNetworks.com. Using Google’s DNS for example:

nslookup assetcdn.101.ArenaNetworks.com 8.8.8.8

You can also bypass the launcher by logging in directly:

Gw2.exe -email your@email.com -password yourpassword -nopatchui

Spectro.6910:

Ok, at this point I ask at least that in Gw2-64.exe file and 32 bit version, there must be a way to block automatic updates completely even when you are inside the game, showing only a notify and the amount of data to download (example 100MB, 300MB, ect.).

You can block updates by using the option:

Gw2.exe -sharearchive

It’ll crash instead of downloading patches.

horthefirst.3209:

My account works, on another computer, on the same router as mine.

You likely have software on your computer that is interfering with your connection. Besides an obvious firewall or anti-virus, it could be a VPN/proxy or anything else that intercepts your network traffic.

Search the start menu for cmd, right click it and run it as an administrator. Enter the following commands:

netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset

Search the start menu for msconfig and open it. Under the boot tab, check safe boot and select network under it, then OK and reboot. Remember this, as you’ll need to uncheck safe boot to return to normal.

Under safe mode, nearly all 3rd party software should be disabled. Try logging in. For similar results without safe mode, use msconfig to disable all non-Microsoft services and all startup programs. If it works, you’d need to go through them a bit a time until it doesn’t to find out the cause.

They’re likely using a macro.

maddoctor.2738:

Now that players can try it without paying anything, revenue is dropping.

Sales aren’t the only thing that suddenly dropped after the launch of HoT. The number of people posting on the forums is down 50%, which had been fairly stable at around 20k since the end of 2013. 1Q2017 is currently down 18% compared to 4Q2016.

To uninstall the game, you have to go through the 32-bit client:

Gw2.exe -32 -uninstall

If you just want to replace the exe, simply download Gw2Setup.exe and rename it to Gw2.exe.

maddoctor.2738:

Heart of Thorns is ranked #4415 on Amazon
Guild Wars 2 Heroic Edition was ranked #1,697 in late 2014 (pre Heart of Thorns announcement)

Are you sure you weren’t looking at late 2015? I found camelcamelcamel.com and keepa.com as free ranking sites, which only go back so far, but the rankings in 2014 were fluctuating between 6000 and 30000. It spikes down to 1000-3000 in April 2015, which was back during the sales and when people thought the core game was going to be required to play HoT.

If you want to be risky, buy HoT from buy.guildwars2.com and buy the glider. 30 day refund policy.

maddoctor.2738:

They’ve started LS3, which means a good stream of new content, yet HoT still isn’t selling.

Content updates only keep people active. A new expansion is what actually brings people in. Expansions are huge for advertising, since people actually talk about them outside of the game and they get treated like a new release (reviewed, found in stores).

maddoctor.2738:

Why is Heart of Thorns selling so badly now, compared to how Guild Wars 2: Heroic Edition was selling a quarter before the announcement of the expansion?

You can’t tell whether the drop is due to GW2 selling poorly, or simply due gem sales. Considering that pre-purchases would be factored into the launch quarter and they went F2P in quarter prior to HoT, GW2 really wasn’t making any major box sales.

CyberManX.4817:

no need to worry about patches

Considering Gw2.dat can’t be used by multiple clients and -sharearchive is what prevents patching, are you copying the entire folder to avoid that problem?

DeWolfe.2174:

Really wish the Dev’s could have figured out the “-multi” command line.

If they actually wanted to support this, they’d simply drop the mutex when using -sharearchive.

DeWolfe.2174:

No modifying or altering of operating systems, creating user or faux user accounts, placing passwords in the open, involving 3rd parties, etc.

But a hex editor involves 3rd parties.

HoT is also required to access the dailies, for whatever reason.

Sartharina.3542:

why does Course Work then only provide half a weapon skin in compensation?

Course Work gives you 1 token. Course Load gives you the weapon box, which is primarily meant for the orange skins, but has 8 tokens as an alternative. It’s meant to be a daily grind.

The different prices is due to 2h vs 1h weapons. Offhand weapons are even cheaper because they’re overshadowed and main + off = 2h.

Fay.2357:

Nothing in HoT is going around hitting for 15k unless it’s one of those frogs during octovine that you’re not actually supposed to be fighting…

I like how your first thought is zerg content, lol.

Not a single hit, but 15k bursts aren’t exactly uncommon. The jump shot on a veteran shadowleaper or the assault of a veteran smokescale is roughly that much within a 3 second window.

For a single hit, mordrem drakes can easily crit for roughly 10k. The winner however is in season 3 – the brutes in Bitterfrost with their ground stab projectiles.

draxynnic.3719:

The laziest they could possibly get away with would require a story explaining how the character happened to join the Orders before Zhaitan’s death while the rest of their race remained isolated, roughly equivalent to the current 10-30 storyline, along with a home city and zones to support them.

The simple approach would be skipping the original story entirely, having them start at 80 and using the expansion’s main story to introduce them. If a dragon attacked the Tengu wall for example, your first story would be the defense, while everyone else would be the offense. For repeatable stories (season 2+), they could simply say you’re seeing past events and have you appear as a human or whatever.

A new race will forever increase the workload however, so it’ll likely never happen. They could greatly reduce the amount of work however by sharing assets. Largos for example are just blue humans, so everything would already fit, and they could simply morph the voice. Voices could also be unlocked as a customization option, allowing for any race to use any voice.

Fay.2357:

This whole thread just makes me chuckle though. Seriously, people complaining about sustain in open world stuff?

Right? It doesn’t matter how good healing is, it’s ultimately useless when you only have 11k health and enemies in HoT regularly hit for 5-15k.

In approximately 5 hours.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-March-28-2017/first

9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC -7)

DeWolfe.2174:

Also, the work around previously mentioned above leave account information and passwords at risk.

Tampering with the executable puts your account at risk, but not really since they don’t have anti-cheat software.

I showed multiple ways of doing it. Only the quick and simple method shows your password, while the other two use separate Local.dat files. If you want to continue to modify the executable however, rename the mutex and use the setlocal batch I showed.

Ayrilana.1396:

Sorry but no. If you want the reward from something then you have to earn it. Failing repeatedly is not.

This is why challenging solo content is extremely rare to see. If you can’t handle it, there’s no alternative except for breaking the rules. Meanwhile, you can AFK your way through challenging group content.

moonstarmac.4603:

You know I still cannot understand how people say HoT is impossible to solo.

Try playing using only the mouse, and only a standard one (left, right, scroll) without using any additional software. Disable auto cast and lower your cursor speed so it takes roughly a foot to move from skill 1 to dodge. You’re now likely playing at the level of the average player with a slow reaction time. Alternatively, only use the mouse to use skills and WASD to control movement (keyboard turner).

To further increase authenticity, unequip your backpack, rings, accessories (earrings), chest and boots. A new player fresh out of the personal story is likely going to enter HoT wearing zerker rares with no accessories and low level rings, which is what the questing experience provides you with.

atheria.2837:

Ask yourself after you look at the TraceRoute, what’s “lag” doing in any network address?

Your screenshot isn’t showing any problems. You’re pinging a node that doesn’t respond to pings, which is why hops 2, 6 and 11 timed out and 12+ is junk.

Lycan Nibbler.1567:

Can you just use an “update” shortcut on your desktop without the -shararchive to just use to update gw2 and then when the update has loaded, close and go back to your normal one?

To do it the simple way, you’ll want to automatically login with a shortcut for each account by using the options:

-email … -password … -nopatchui -sharearchive

To update the game, you’d need a single shortcut with the option:

-image

Here’s a slightly modified PowerShell script to include running Gw2.exe:

PowerShell scripts are disabled by default. To enable it, search the Start Menu for powershell, right click it, run it as an administrator and enter the following command:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

To use the script, save the attached Gw2.ps1.txt as Gw2.ps1 and put it in your folder along side Gw2.exe. Right click Gw2.exe and create a shortcut. Right click the new shortcut and select properties. Change the shortcut’s target to:

powershell -file Gw2.ps1 -sharearchive -nopatchui -email your@email.com -password "yourpassword"

Do it for each account you want to run.

For updating, create another shortcut, but with the target:

Gw2.exe -image

The -image option fully patches, then closes when it’s done. You can combine this with your primary account if you want by making a simple batch file with notepad (Gw2.bat):

Gw2.exe -image
start Gw2.exe -sharearchive

Add the -email -password -nopatchui options to the one with -sharearchive if you want this one to automatically login.

~

CyberManX.4817:

- kill handle to use separate .exes

You use the same Gw2.exe with different shortcuts.

CyberManX.4817:

- use shortcuts with command lines of email/password/nopatchui/shareArchive

The simple method is:

Gw2.exe -shareArchive -email example@email.com -password example -nopatchui

If you’d prefer multiple Local.dat files, you’re probably not going to like this, but…

For each separate Local.dat, you’re going to need a different Windows user account, then you use the runas command to impersonate:

runas /savecred /user:Username “Gw2.exe -shareArchive”

-shareArchive makes GW2 read-only however, so you’ll need to remove it whenever you need to patch or update your settings. By using -shareArchive and -image to patch, you can prevent the SMS reminder.

Instead of multiple user accounts, you can instead use fakes. A simple batch example:

setlocal
set USERPROFILE=C:\Users\FakeUser
Gw2.exe

For closing the mutex, here’s how you can do it without any 3rd party software by using PowerShell:

-shareArchive puts the game in read-only mode, so it’ll crash if it needs to patch.

You don’t need a multiclient app, but you do need the ability to kill handles. You can use this simple command line utility from Microsoft for example, making a simple batch file to kill the mutex (AN-Mutex-Window-Guild Wars 2), then run GW2.

(modifying the exe is a violation)

Use the -sharearchive option to prevent locking Gw2.dat/Local.dat (read-only mode).

Crustydog.9825:

I believe you need to shoot BEFORE the target materializes.

Ignore the body. You want to aim for + where the sticks meet.

This adventure used to be locked until the camp was secure. Now it’s always open during the day unless the camp is being defended. The nearby enemies are the consequence of not securing the camp.

Djinn.9245:

But since it is only part of your UI while the attack is being used against you, it is very difficult to read what the Counter will be. You have to just use it and then be ready to react to what it does even though you don’t know what that will be unless you read up ahead of time. Very annoying way to try to win a boss fight.

Figuring out what counter magic does specifically is very easy. You’ll see what it does if you use it and see what it prevents if you don’t. Trial and error is a part of every game. It’s not like you know what the boss is going to do or even what’s expected of you besides winning.

It doesn’t really matter what it actually does because it’s always beneficial. It’s always going to negate whatever the attack was that triggered it. It’s just a cheap reactionary ability that you can simply spam to ignore.

Do you have Counter Magic? It’s required to start the instance. The instance start location should pop up when you fall to the ground level of the crater. Some steps can be interrupted by leaving, like changing maps, so try talking to Bennett again.

It’s meant to start before the April Fools weekend. Last year it was from March 31 (Thursday) to April 19 (Tuesday). As for extending it to Thursday, they must have needed the extra days or were looking at the wrong calendar.

Johnsen.6253:

Seriously its impossible to even dodge Caudecus or the Jade Armor in his small circle room. You have to eat it and the squishy classes just cant do that.

Caudecus will focus Canach a majority of the time. When counter magic pops up, use it, then dodge after he teleports to you, just in case he immediately opens with an attack. You have like 1.5 seconds to use counter magic, so use that time to bait Caudecus into going where you want him to be. Since he’ll focus the NPCs, you always want to be looking at them and not standing with them. Whenever it’s the shield phase, don’t fully break his shield, wait for the adds to spawn (the walls stop spinning).

The jade armor in the circle room means you’re taking too long.

Sectry.1236:

You didn’t need any of Core Tyria’s hero points after the trait rework.

Before it shipped, the plan was that you received 400 points from leveling, but needed an extra 65 points to fully unlock your core specs.

They tried to get rid of the excess with HoT by making the new ones worth 10 points and requiring something like 50% of the old world to max out the core specs. That backfired however, and HoT’s requirements were cut in half while core was completely removed, so it’s even worse.

The next expansion will come with new elites, but it’ll also have its own points. Whether they bloat the points again, make them expansion-specific, revert to endless points or do nothing, you’ll have to wait and see. For now, the excess is just a way to unlock future specs faster. They talked about adding a vendor for the excess, but it’s obviously a bad idea to waste something that’s limited.

They were doing sales the week before every other episode, though the last sale was an episode early. The next sale would either be mid-April with episode 5 or late June with episode 6. If episode 6 ends up being the finale however, there won’t be a sale at that point, since the next expansion will be announced and HoT replaced.

HoT can always be found on sale at DLGamer.us, which is currently 25% off. At this point however, I wouldn’t recommend buying it from any place other than buy.guildwars2.com, because when HoT was announced, they refunded the previous 5 months of direct purchases.

Djinn.9245:

How are you supposed to know that if you don’t have time to look at stuff?

Counter magic is explained to you in episode 1 by the NPCs with the tutorial to destroy the shards, then the elementals. Figuring out what counter magic does specifically is simply assuming the reverse of what happens when you don’t use it. In the first fight with Caudecus, it should be obvious that when you use it, he teleports to you and is stunned. If you don’t use it, he teleports to you and launches you. The second fight is the same, except he’s CC immune and is no longer stunned.

Vayne.8563:

After all, they ended up nerfing Orr. Thinned out mobs and made other changes to make it more friendly. So if they intended it to be that hard, they later changed their minds.

They actually ended up buffing Orr. They nerfed it at first to make it easier to walk around, but they later added new, far stronger attacks to counter the zerg. I solo’d the temples back then, which was far easier pre-buff, and remember doing it in front of groups because they thought 10+ was required, which is still a problem today. Orr is far easier today however due to vertical progression.

Vayne.8563:

In fact, before the change to rezzing, you could rez rush certain bosses and that was a strategy for people who weren’t as good, but you could still get through the content.

That wasn’t intended however. Dungeons were originally revealed as challenging group content for coordinated groups. I remember them talking about the unique dungeon skins as being prestigious rewards to show off.

The devs have always wanted the game to be more challenging, as they’ve always been for the gamers rather the majority like other MMOs. In BWE1, enemies could kill you within seconds, much like HoT, but had higher health. It was all heavily nerfed however for obvious reasons, as the traditional crowd would facetank and get instantly killed.

Devata.6589:

“"If we do this right," he answered, “we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy.””

So clearly they did not get it right.

It was impossible. People simply don’t care about some patch an MMO gets. Expansions however are actually marketed, treated like new games (ie, reviewed by gaming sites) and have a much wider reach because of it.

Season 2 was going stable, they just had no way of actually drawing people back to increase the numbers. As soon as HoT was announced, sales began to improve, but ended up dropping by 25% after launch.

Here’s everything:

It’s too bad the API isn’t public, then you would be able to see how many people are active and have completed what (it could still be anonymous). I wonder how fractals, raids, SAB TM, Liadri 8 and adventures compare.

You can probably assume similar statistics to WoW. Easy bosses are completed by roughly 30%, normal by 20% and hard by 5%, with less than 1% completing all challenges.

The in-between lines ending in | is the estimated packet loss.

scrumsome.7198:

Eagerly awaiting debunk of this (Check p5/6)

Rather than having to go through that, here’s a quick view:

Chase.8415:

Encrypting it would prevent that.

Your password is visible when you initially run GW2, hence why swapping Local.dat is more secure. It used to be worse, where the password was visible the entire session, but they changed it to mask the characters, though the length is still compromised. If you’re worried about malware however, it doesn’t really matter either way.

Chase.8415:

This is the best method in my opinion, however I highly suggest creating a batch file with this command and then using EFS encryption.

If you want to be more secure, use multiple Local.dat files, which is where your password is remembered. For example, make a Local-1.dat for account #1, and a Local-2.dat for account #2 and so on, then make the following Gw2.bat:

Gw2.bat

cd %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/
del Local.dat
mklink /H Local.dat Local-%1.dat
start /d "c:\path\to\" Gw2.exe

It’s using a parameter for Local-#.dat, so for account #1, you’d make a shortcut like this:

Gw2.bat 1

Vayne.8563:

The idea that hero points can’t be soloed is a shift.

That and masteries were a big change in direction from the days of leveling however you wanted. Masteries shouldn’t have forced the content, the points should have been a way to speed up the process. To change it now, a repeatable track to earn one of the available points could be implemented for example. Likewise, the same could be done for hero challenges, then you could do whatever you wanted in HoT, as it was originally with core.

You can try the -prefreset option, but it’ll reset all of your settings.

Gw2.exe -prefreset

Gw2.exe -email "x@example.com" -password "examplepass" -nopatchui

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

He made that commitment to us, the players. Granted, this can change over time, but currently that commitment still stands and we have not heard anything to the contrary.

Before GW2 launched, Colin said the opposite. They had planned for increasing the level cap at some point, which they said would likely be done in an expansion.

There’s no point in increasing the level cap anymore however, since they can just simulate it instead.

Xultair.7954:

Instead they should introduce infusions that go into ascended armor with increasing stat bonuses

That was the original plan, back when they were trying to cater to the endgame crowd that had nothing to do. With season 3 making the accessories more common, if they continue on that path, ascended will become with new standard, as in what they balance general content for. Then they’ll move on to expanding infusions, runes and sigils, plus they still need to find a reason for ascended jewel crafting and cooking.

Cerby.1069:

Its a farmfest…you spam 1 in a group (if you get into a map) for 1-2 hours and thats that.

Keep in mind that normal group events are balanced for 3+ and brining more only makes it easier, as scaling wasn’t designed to keep up the challenge. Unfortunately, GW2 doesn’t reward you for playing at the normal difficulty; they actually do the opposite and increase the rewards for casually zerging, which is the flaw of tag-based personal loot.

Exciton.8942:

I think they will try to avoid the half-year-long content drought they had before HoT release.

They were actually making more during that period than they were during the last several months of season 2.