Guild Wars 2

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Hopefully this time they’ll release it when they have a good amount of content ready and it’s 100% complete, and not when it’s half done like HoT was.

The next expansion will likely be the opposite of HoT, featuring smaller flatter maps, but more of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if it offers a similar amount of content, however, season 4 will likely be ready to go at any time. Ideally, season 4 should start within 3 months of launch, otherwise they’ll fail to hook the launch wave.

They basically didn’t want players to cheat, so they changed the NPCs to only react when they take damage. In the case of the Labyrinth, the NPCs are invulnerable, so they can’t actually get hit and thus will never attack.

I’m a little surprised they still haven’t fixed/reverted it, considering it makes the game look bad. I’ve been playing alts 1-80 in the downtime, and groups of NPCs standing idly by happens all throughout the story.

Rather than looking at the last few quarters at a time, here’s the entire thing if anyone wanted a look. I’ve also included the number of unique posters on the English forums per quarter, since I had the data.

And here’s the major events per quarter, based on the wiki releases:

The actual support site is https://help.guildwars2.com

ArenaNet can’t modify these forums, apparently at all considering they haven’t even updated the footer, so they’d have to update the certificate instead. The problem is that their certificate is for *.guildwars2.com, so it’s technically not valid for en.support.guildwars2.com (*.*.guildwars2.com).

If you only disconnect in the story, there seems to be a problem where a certain packet gets blocked, causing the disconnection. You can also try “-clientport 80” instead of 443. If it still disconnects, and you have a router and modem, try directly connecting to the modem. If you have a router/modem combo, and you it has these options, disable UPnP, its firewall, and DMZ your computer, then test it. If it still does it, open msconfig and under the general tab, select selective startup and uncheck load startup items. Under the services tab, check hide all from Microsoft, then disable all. Click OK and reboot. If you still have any security software running, disable it. Test it. If it still does it, the problem is possibly outside of your control and you’d need to try a VPN.

Undo everything from the above, because you don’t want a permanently open connection. If it was working however, you’ll need to figure out which one was the cause, by disabling a bit at a time.

If you also disconnect outside of the story however, it’s more likely to be a problem along the path to GW2’s servers.

The problem with adding new weapon types is that it’ll forever increase the workload. Future black lion sets for example would need to include spears.

The trick with elite specializations is that they can actually give you the same weapons over and over. They couldn’t do that forever however without amassing complaints.

What an NPC uses doesn’t mean anything. The watchknights have been using halberds for several years now. Spears were however added to GW1 with Elona, which has been hinted to be the target of the next expansion. If that turns out to be the case, it’s now or never.

Ohoni.6057:

And yes, adds are an issue. If adds keep spawning in a boss fight, I assume they are infinite, and the important thing is to kill the boss ASAP. Either these enemies should be infinite spawning, but also ultimately fairly weak (and NO snipers!), or they need to be cued better, like maybe he calls out “wave one!” “Second Wave!” etc. That gives the impression that there will be a point of no more waves.

The adds spawn on a timer. You can tell when they’re going to spawn because the walls stop spinning.

The fight is actually incredibly simple. When the boss is shielded, he doesn’t actually attack, but the circles will be all over the floor. Those circles do minimal damage, so they’re really just to distract you. The trick is, use the bloodstone to break his shield, but don’t actually break it. Wait for the adds to spawn so you can safely kill them, then break his shield.

For his attack phase, dodge through him when he teleports to you, which should avoid his melee. His melee attacks are like a very small AoE however, so don’t hug him. He’ll occasionally throw a bloodstone chunk afterwards, which seems to favor ranged targets. Don’t stand too close the NPCs, because that chunk will explode for high damage.

Paulytnz.7619:

Fluffball.8307:

I’ve done it 3 times solo or with like 1 guy coming along halfway to help. Maybe you’re just on the wrong map.

Are you talking about simply beating the event which is simple to do or get that achieve done? All it takes is one supply to be stolen and game over – no achieve.

When it’s actually scaled for 1-3 people (default), only 2 carriers spawn and they can be quickly killed. The problem is, the event’s range is huge and includes the entire nearby town. It’s becoming more of a problem where events are located near hotspots, such as vendors, hearts or waypoints. Hopefully it becomes even more of a problem, then they might actually rework contribution and scaling.

OGDeadHead.8326:

imho Anet clearly failed to inform the playerbase what was needed for this fight, and the description/explanation of Counter Magic, or the lack therof, leaves a lot to wish for when it comes to explaining things to the playerbase.

Counter magic was explained and required in the first episode. That’s the problem. You end up missing the tutorials because you’re not actually required to play through them in order.

Crinn.7864:

Ya’ll do realize that HoT had a prepurchase option available months before HoT launched and the sales from those prepurchases would have been on the pre-HoT quarter.

Profits from pre-purchases are held back to make the launch quarter look better. If that’s not the case, pre-purchasing was a failure (2014 vs 2015).

Loboling.5293:

It’s not like an enrage timer, because at the press of one button you cancel most of the effect.

The waves of enemies spawn on a timer. If you kill the boss faster, the jade armor will never spawn, hence it’s basically an enrage.

Ardid.7203:

Why in the name of the six add ANOTHER?

It felt like they wanted the encounter to be a tutorial. The first part was basically just counter magic spam. The second part basically just added extra enemies, while the circles all over are really just a distraction. They overused the mechanic to make it a reflex, like dodging should be. Too many people were likely ignoring it, just like how many ignore bloodstone to use against break bars, which was also explained in this encounter.

If you want to trivialize counter magic, bind it to a F# key and spam it.

If you had minis from way back, they can be found at the bottom of the material storage in the bank.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know I can’t solo Silver and Gold and get through it.

Edit: In fact I can’t solo defend indigo.

The difficulty of a fort’s defense increases as it’s successfully defended. At level 1, indigo will almost defend itself. You can’t rebuild the walls solo, meaning the next will likely fail, so rotate forts, which is the slow way.

Silver and gold is actually the easiest, as it’s essentially just a burn without any risk to yourself. If you immediately start with the left bubble, both will hit the right bubble at the same time. With 2 zerkers, one will likely be dead at that point, but solo, you’ll need to hit the left again and repeat. This one was always my favorite early on because it was the one that always failed.

Vayne.8563:

Hell Silverwastes has been an LFG thing all along.

Only to farm it. 1 person per fort is really all you need to successfully do it all. If they removed the limiter, I could probably solo the lanes before it failed.

Silverwastes is an example of them actually going back and nerfing it. When the population died down, they added NPCs to help with the collections and later on, they reduced the health of the bosses.

Amaranthe.3578:

how can i find which one does this kitten to me?

By removing variables. For software, try a different computer, a clean install of Windows or a msconfig minimal boot (least effective). For hardware, try a direct connection to the internet or temporarily DMZ your computer. Everything else would fall outside of your control.

They’re actually writing like this though:

It likely means that someone is throttling gaming ports, or all non-standard web ports. Home network? It could be a router/firewall configuration problem, or your ISP. Public network? You don’t have a choice.

Try running the game with:

Gw2.exe -clientport 443

Loboling.5293:

I did the fight on my engineer and died once to the jade armor in the instance.

The jade armor is basically an enrage timer.

Ardid.7203:

Please remove it. Make the fights interesting in a more engaging, smart way, not through cheap reaction extra buttons.

But dodging is also a cheap reaction button…

F is for interacting. Not a good idea to put a reactionary button on something that could interfere with loot, environmental weapons, etc. You could change it to F if you really wanted to.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Or more frustratingly fighting your way into the centaur camp to the northwest corner and climbing the terrain. There is a ridiculous amount of mobs in the camp to the point anything but a tank with good healing is pretty much unable to reach the area.

You can hug the wall or practically glide right in, no problem. Park an alt at the tree?

Maria Murtor.7253:

I thought, it’s easier with just 2 or 3 players around. That’s the result >.<

It was easier with 3 or less, now you can just casually zerg it.

Your screenshot isn’t scaled for 3 or less, it’s scaled for roughly 10 to 20 people. The event’s range is huge, so anyone within the area of Saidra’s Haven will scale it.

Ashen.2907:

No, HoT is not entirely group content. Yes it has group content in it, but it is not all group content.

I wasn’t saying HoT is group content. From my perspective, a lot of the group content in HoT, VB especially, is actually solo content. They only labeled it as group content because they didn’t want people to feel bad.

From the casual player’s perspective, HoT is essentially entirely group content compared to other MMOs. Mob health may be lower, but their damage is more than what you’d find in dungeons in WoW for example, from a non-tank perspective. Furthermore, you simply need to bring more people to trivialize the content with no punishment for doing so, unlike other MMOs, which only reinforces the idea.

Vayne.8563:

To add to this, if you take two people with you, a group for three can do virtually all of HOT.

I would hope so, considering 3 is the default scale for group events. All you really need is 1 decent zerker and a decoy.

Keep in mind that the average MMO players is simply going to login and play (solo). Most aren’t going to read guides, lookup timers, LFG, etc. Many only play for the casual fun of it and will simply move on if it becomes frustrating. Does ArenaNet care though? They’ve always wanted to be the challenging niche, so we’ll need to wait for the next expansion to find out.

The scaling was also changed. The carries are limited to veterans, they barely scale, and can no longer spawn as mesmers.

Try using:

Gw2.exe -clientport 443

AliamRationem.5172:

You can’t make HoT palatable to players who find Queensdale challenging and still attract players like me.

They could, but it’d require splitting the maps. Vertical progression is how other MMOs handle it, where the content is only challenging while you’re progressing through it. Without vertical progression, the alternative would be blanket nerfing the content with the next expansion.

The trick though is that HoT isn’t challenging, it’s simply entirely group content. I doubt anyone would have a problem if the zones were constantly zerged, but that’s not realistic.

The simple solution to the story at least is to remove gear damage and buff the player after every few deaths (as in +3% outgoing damage, -8% incoming damage every 3 deaths, stacks up to 10 times).

Aeolus.3615:

i would say zerker is the casual gear under most classes for pvx

Back in my day, we did content in explorer’s gear. I remember doing Liadri in it.

RAB.7682:

—> Am open to suggestions of things to try. I am a certified computer tech, so I don’t mind getting my hands dirty with geeky tech stuff.

Dual boot Windows.

If you have another computer, the quick test would be to simply swap GPUs. If the other computer crashes, it’s the GPU. If you know a GPU is good and still crash, it’s the PSU or software.

If not, clean install your graphics drivers, though you’d want to clean install Windows to be completely sure. If you wanted to test it outside of GW2, you could running a stress test involving the CPU, GPU and HDD. Assuming it’s failing, you could try underclocking it, which may keep it alive a little longer, but not forever.

Balance patches are released between PvP seasons. Breaks between seasons usually last 4 weeks, except for the last which was 10. The last season ended on February 6, so the patch could come as early as next week.

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, game companies need to put disclaimers on their games that say: “CAUTION: Game content may be harder than you’re used to!”?

Games that are overly challenging usually like to point out you’re going to fail, but that’s usually done to advertise to a different crowd.

IndigoSundown.5419:

How about, instead, consumers take responsibility for their own choices?

Anyone that tries the free game and likes it is probably going to buy HoT without question, just as many pre-purchased without any information. It’s actually better to purchase it and not like it than to not purchase at all, because that way you can send a clear message. For those that don’t like, simply request a refund (if purchased direct).

Back in the day, I would map events, so I would go around intentionally failing each step of an event to see how it progressed. Eventually I came to point where I thought, there should be a bonus for seeing all of this, which most people will never know about. Back when people whined about failing events for legendaries, I personally had no problem failing those events in the prior year.

The only problem is the casuals that want everything right now. You want the town to fail? Join a zerg guild to create your own instance or grief a map by scaling it up and not participating. At the very least, hidden achievements for rarely seen content should exist, they just shouldn’t have achievement points.

Devata.6589:

Then I wonder what their expectations where.

Consider that on average, they were making $18.95 million per quarter before HoT. Subtracting that, HoT bumped them up $13.57 million. Less than half of the usual sales was likely disappointing by itself. If we assume that ArenaNet was only making half the price, $25 on average per box, that’s 543,800 boxes sold (and another 307,600 the next quarter). Keep in mind it could be half that. SuperData Research estimated GW2 to have around 3.1 million active players in 2015, up from 1.5 million prior to the free client.

For comparison, post-HoT, they are making $13.39 million on average per quarter, down $5.56 million. Consider that sales are stable now with season 3, but they were also stable in the year prior to HoT when only hype was being offered.

OGDeadHead.8326:

So you say you’re probably among the top 10% in this game, and yet you on average die 5-10 times in this encounter. I mean – really?

For comparison, from the perspective of a zerker elementalist with 11k health, I never died pre-nerf. I actually found it easier because it was 1 jade bow that I could ignore (stands off to the side and aggro’d on the NPCs) instead of a group of adds (going all over). Post-nerf, I wanted to see what the fuss was about so I tried to do it more casually, essentially just zerking it down. I died once to a mix of the adds and a bloodstone explosion. Turns out it’s not a good idea to stand near the NPCs, as the bloodstone the boss throws seems to explode into an AoE, which takes out like 60% of my health.

I think the encounter only took like 4 minutes and was pretty much: AoE adds > blow shield > zerk boss > adds > blow shield > zerk boss > done. I watched a post-nerf video that had a jade armor, but I’m guessing I finished before that.

Devata.6589:

Look up that quote. You claim they said that, please proof it.

About HoT doing poorly? I’m going to guess this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/455vxo/ncsofts_earning_report_4q_2015_disillusioning/

In short, F2P failed to sell the game, HoT didn’t meet predictions.

… or this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4j3ntv/ncsofts_earnings_report_1q16_strong_performance/

In short, HoT didn’t meet expectations and they’ll try better next expansion.

About most people not seeing this? Only a small percentage use the forums. On one of the non-English forums they said something like less than 10%, but that’s also a general statement you can find for any MMO. Fun fact, ~184,978 accounts have posted here (forum-en) in the last ~3 years.

Tiny Doom.4380:

Just make a fully non-combat version of the same content each time – as-is but with mobs removed and fights replaced with cut scenes. Remove all the rewards, none of which are of any use or interest anyway. Let players choose whether and when to do the fights or just watch and listen to the dialog and cut-scenes.

That’ll never happen, as it’d be a waste of resources to create and maintain. Also, that’s what videos are for.

The only thing ArenaNet may eventually do is add an easy mode, where for example you get stronger for continuously dying, or a simple 90% damage reduction up front. They wouldn’t even need to disable the rewards or achievements, considering they already allow groups to trivialize it.

vesica tempestas.1563:

1. A mmorpg cannot balance a zone to be the perfect skill level to all people at the same time, that is impossible. If 2 people are fighting a monster the monster cannot have 2 skills and sets of stats at the same time. You cannot preemptively evaluate a players skill level prior to combat, and even if you could the first point still applies.

2. The most effective approach is to balance to match the average skill level.

3. The evidence to prove point 2 is that the majority of the player base should be able to complete the given content and skill level eventually.

Which is why most MMOs balance their solo content for the most casual players, essentially at a Queensdale difficulty level, and in the end, there’s always vertical progression to further trivialize it. Without vertical progression, those who can’t handle it will eventually leave, and that wall will only get higher over time. ArenaNet has always wanted to be the more challenging niche however, as they’re for the gamers, not the majority, so only time will tell which direction they end up taking.

HoT will likely get nerfed however, not because it’s too challenging, but simply because zerg maps are not sustainable, though they could delay it by going F2P. For comparison, the Silverwastes was nerfed.

vesica tempestas.1563:

whereas in a low level zone there’s just no risk at all, you can face roll naked if you want to.

The trick with sub-80 areas is that downscaling is like playing the game on easy mode, as you’ll deal more damage and take less. You should always be at least 1 level below your target, preferably 5 in general. If you want to see a risk early on, try the Ancient Elemental Fire Energy hero challenge while solo and at the intended level, though I always get around to it level 9~11. Unless you’re expecting it, you’ll likely get facerolled by it.

Ayrilana.1396:

Shouldn’t they have downscaled after enough time?

Only if you kill them. Basic enemies are scaled on spawn and do not dynamically adjust.

LucyFurr.6589:

i have tried this numerous times with only about 3-5 people who randomly approached the event while doing their dailies/map completion and have never gotten the achievement. I understand that the event scales with the number of people, but even with 5 people i could never finish this. There are too many runners, too little dps, and crowd control.

For Honorary Crew Member, the event area is huge. Anyone within the border of Saidra’s Haven is going to cause it to scale. When it’s actually at the default scale (1-3 players), only 2 runners will spawn and they can be killed within 10 seconds as a zerker. If you want to actually get this done without waiting for a nerf, you’ll basically need a closing a map.

Moonlighting is the same, but it’s out of way where randoms aren’t likely to scale it. When it’s at the default scale, only 2 runners spawn and they nicely go to the same spot, making this one much easier to do.

Try running the game with:

Gw2.exe -clientport 443

For achievements like these, you do not want to zerg it. You want no more than 3 people scaling the event, which is the default scale and makes these achievements trivial. If you want to coordinate a zerg, your best chance would be to have people tag it and leave, one by one.

Unless you can manage to get everyone to cooperate, you’ll basically need a dead map to successfully do Honorary Crew Member. Moonlighting is out of the way, making it far easier to solo while no one is looking.

ArenaNet already knows, so alternatively, simply wait for the nerfs.

Cookiechan.8456:

Is this fixed now?

No. It won’t be fixed until there’s a patch and they’ll likely update this thread.

Unlike season 2, these new zones require the episodes in order to enter them. There’s really no reason why you need to play through the story however, except to give context. It was probably just an easier way to trigger the unlock (does the player own HoT and this episode vs chapter complete). Ember Bay is the exception however, since it has no direct access, though they could have had a ship like the old Southsun. BF could have simply breached VB.

Daddicus.6128:

This is totally false. Gliding is extremely inconsistent. Sometimes you hold it down and nothing happens, and other times you touch it to jump and you end up gliding.

The glider activates when space is pressed down and the player is considered to be falling. Considered to be falling is going to be the inconsistency and quick consecutive jumps may trigger it. If you use a simple macro and limit it to pressing space once per second, you should never have a problem.

If you hold space during an action that causes you to fall, it’ll ignore your input. For example, if you take a tube and immediately hold space, nothing will happen. In that scenario, you need to release and press space after being ejected.

StigLee.8459:

Actually they did once, late 2015 I belive. Before they took down the servers for maintanace.

Devs can chat in the system channel, the same as the patch updates.

In this case, they should have simply disabled the nodes like they’ve disabled NPCs in the past, assuming they can do it.

Back in beta, they had a bookshelf in the UI which basically acted like the material storage. There were various books you could collect based on the creatures of the game.

If they ever implement player housing, these books could become actual decorations, then you could make a real shelf, though potentially messy.

The achievements are fine. The problem is that events designed as a tug of war will potentially never fail and because of that, you’ll never see the other side of it. There simply needs to be a guaranteed failure every once in a while. After every successful defense for example, the white mantle could get twice as strong, or they could simply have them bomb it and win.

For the constant stream of circles all over the floor, they’re not random. They spawn in the corners of a square around the boss and the edge of the room, rotating counter-clockwise every 2 seconds. Plenty of safe spots, or you can just play a game of follow the circle.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Come on guys, I one shifted this drunk on a MM Reaper (which as you know has zero stability).

(shroud #3)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Second “riddle” is just a racist jab.

After getting aroused by his own face, he walks out laughing every time.

CajunSinjin.3410:

12 views and no replies Do i really have an issue that no one can help with?

Wrong forum. Go here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support

Some generic stuff:

Update your sound drivers.

Click the sound icon in the task bar to bring up the volume slider and click the slider to hear a ding. That’s your default device. In the game, default should be selected.

Right click the sound icon in the task bar and open the volume mixer. With GW2 open, find GW2 in the mixer and experiment with the volume.

Right click the sound icon in the task bar, open playback devices and right click your default device. If there’s an option to configure the speakers, try setting them to stereo.

Ensure you’re not running GW2 with the -nosound option.

Felahr.9830:

what was the exploit? i dont recall getting anything weird from the jade frags. so confused now

People were instance hopping to farm them, but surely that can’t be the reason considering there’s far worse things involving that. Bloodstone was however nerfed because of alt/instance farming. I’d have to guess there was a way to dupe the shards.