New Player, Sad Player. Expansion ruined it.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Healix.5819
Can you back up your extrapolations somehow? My beta experience was definately different: Most people I saw/chatted with ingame were mostly seasoned Guild Wars veterans.
While anecdotal I doubt that other timezones was so different that a massive influx of static still-standing WoW players managed to change Anet’s idea’s of fun/inclusion and everything in GW2.
And: Your extrapolation on Anet’s intent to retroactively ramping up difficulty later… WHEN did they ever make that intent public? (Back when… Before HoT – You know, before they ever talked about an expansion…)
Keep in mind that what actually matters is the feedback, not what you personally encounter. Why do you think core was basically nerfed by 50%, then further nerfed with the new player experience? The average MMO player is not very good, as most people simply play casually for the fun of it. Surely there’s a reason why almost every MMO makes a joke of their solo content.
If you weren’t there for the start of BWE1, right out of the gate in Queensdale, a level 2 Moa could kill you as quick as a veteran shadowscale’s assault if you took its full channeled peck to the face. I remember seeing people die all over, and the rally tutorial was hilariously filled with bodies.
Unfortunately, I didn’t cache the BWE1 or 2 forums, so I don’t have the exact quote. They said something along the lines of those not accustomed to action combat as the reason for the nerfs, which I took as an obvious jab at WoW. I have the BWE3 forums though, which hinted at fishing and 2h axes.
As for ramping up the difficulty over time, they’ve been experimenting with the difficulty from the very start with every major content release (ie, karka, aetherblade, toxic, watchwork). The difficulty has always been complained about, the first major one after launch being Orr, which is now actually harder than it was (they culled mobs, removed CC – year later – added CC, buffed temples, added stronger attacks).
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The entire nearby area scales the event, meaning anyone AFK at the heart. To do this achievement very easily, you want 3 or less, which is the default scale. Simply put, this event requires a dead map. If they changed the achievement to simply require 100% supply, that would make it a lot easier regardless of how it scaled.
The mesmers do seemed to be bugged, besides they’re overpowered teleport, as they always spawned in addition to the usual 2 carries. Luckily, they’re rare however, as I only saw them once per event, though one time 2 mesmers spawned at once.
If you can’t stop yourself from holding space during jumps, use a basic macro instead, as in key down>up.
New Player, Sad Player. Expansion ruined it.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Healix.5819
GW2 was both casual, open and VERY different on release. Pre-release (beta) was as difficult/punishing and (regarded by some, if not most) as unfun as HoT and Anet did a lot of adjusting (nerfing) to be able to release a game most would find enjoyable.
The core game was nerfed during beta basically because of WoW players standing still and getting destroyed because of it (enemies had dodge or die attacks). They nerfed it with the intention to ramp up the difficulty over time to allow for people to get accustomed to mobile combat.
ArenaNet has always wanted to be more challenging, as they’re for the gamers, rather than the majority like other MMOs. Obviously that’s not a great idea from a business perspective, but maybe ArenaNet’s fine with that as they’d rather be a niche like Dark Souls. Normally, vertical progression would be the compensation, which really opens up everything for everyone, such as soloing older raids. Without it however, ArenaNet’s only choice is to blanket nerf it, otherwise they’re essentially telling people to leave once they hit that wall.
In season 3, your progress is saved based on checkpoints, for some of them at least. If you disconnect during a boss for example, you’d re-enter just before the boss.
If you’re only disconnecting in story instances, try running the game with the option: -clientport 443
vet HoTs don’t have invul phase and shove projectile CCs up your kitten
Personally, I was rarely CC’d. I only recall what looked like jade winds. With only 11k health, veterans in HoT can easily 1 shot you; even regular enemies can deal upwards of 15k damage. A jump shot or double stack poison field from a shadowleaper for example is instant death.
After doing it 3 times now, when scaled for 1-3 people, only 2 spawn at a time. However, when a Mesmer spawns, it doesn’t seem to count. Out of those attempts, I’ve seen 2 groups of 3 with 1 mesmer, and 1 group of 4 with 2 mesmers.
The entire surrounding area also counts towards scaling, like the entire area of Saidra’s Haven.
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It’s actually the opposite. You want as few people as possible. I was able to do it solo fairly easily in a pre-patch instance (empty map). However, I didn’t get the achievement although the bar was full, so it may be bugged.
Personally, I found the encounter rather trivial, but maybe I was just extremely lucky. The initial adds died to flak AoE, I was constantly moving so the circles never hit me and the jade bow spawned on the opposite side of the room and attacked the NPCs so I simply ignored it. As an 11k health zerker elementalist, the only risk was getting killed in ~2 seconds by his sword frenzy, which I simply avoided by dodging through him after his teleport. First try.
I’m a little surprised how many nerfs it got, as I personally found veterans in HoT to be more challenging than this, but those can be mostly avoided or zerged.
There are a number of development/design challenges with this option which has made it difficult to move forward with (but not impossible)
The combat log must be an absolute mess for him to say that, considering simple text logging should be trivial to implement. Considering the combat log doesn’t even list everything, it probably is, though he could have also been thinking about a party-wide combat log.
You make another elixir, just like you made it the first time:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cold_Resistance
Alternatively, if you’re fast and do it perfectly, you can take the tube over the area, fall to the switch and rush to the entrance. It’s much easier if you can either move while downed or have someone else press the switch so you can fall right to the entrance.
5. I get to the final chest and it says “you need Noran’s oiled key”
At this point, you simply use the oil and open the chest. Once you leave, you can’t get back, so you’ll need to wait for the daily reset.
Although you can play through the story immediately, it actually plays out over a month or two (roughly the time between episode 4 and 5). Season 3 in total plays out over a year within the game.
Rename Gw2Setup.exe to Gw2.exe and place it wherever you’d like to install the game, such as C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe.
Gw2Setup.exe bugs on some systems, where it’s meant to show an install button, but instead shows the login box. It’s not actually functional when it’s like that.
The search on the forums doesn’t work. You need to instead use google like this:
endless login site:forum-en.guildwars2.com
If you rarely/never disconnect and have only been doing so in the story, try using:
Gw2.exe -clientport 443
Alternatively, use a VPN.
A connection error on the launcher means you’re failing to connect to your local patch server. You could potentially have a network issue, it could be a problem with that specific server or it can happen when the patch server is overloaded.
You can manually try a different server like this:
Gw2.exe -assetsrv 52.84.16.6
You can use Google’s DNS to look up more IPs:
nslookup assetcdn.101.arenanetworks.com 8.8.8.8
In this case however, I’m going to guess that ArenaNet is prepping the patch and the main patch server is overloaded/down.
ArenaNet always wanted to be more challenging, but the farther they go, the more players they’ll lose. They blanket nerfed the core game back in beta by like 50%, basically because of the WoW players. I’d expect the same here. Without vertical progression, those who can’t will never be able to.
What people don’t realize is that the average casual player is likely going to walk into HoT wearing what the personal story provided, meaning rares without runes and no earrings. Their build is likely going to be random, which is why traits were originally simplified. Since this type of person is only playing for the fun of it, they’re likely going to quit early on or struggle through it once and never again. There’s a reason why solo content is a joke in almost every MMO.
People simply don’t know how to do the jade. All you need is the person with the highest DPS to stay in melee so it doesn’t shoot at the AFKers on the ledge.
Surprisingly, it was the daily yesterday and for the first time not a single person showed up, though someone else started it and it only had 11 minutes remaining. It took ~8 minutes to solo and I wasn’t able to break its shield (so technically, 6 minutes). For comparison, it usually takes half that with a group.
especially if easy bosses like sloth who dont even really attack players and just melt in 20 seconds get one
These newer maps were balanced for small groups, hence why the zerg can easily win. The sloth is very different when you can’t out damage the heal, as you have to stall for the food delivery.
Once people stop showing up, the sloth will commonly fail as people continue to just DPS it.
As for easy bosses having the chests, the wurm isn’t even a group event. I wanted to see what happens when it fails, so I stuck around on patch day. Nothing happens, it just leaves. The event however almost completed itself, as the golem died while the wurm was at ~5%.
It is strange that the jade construct is the only boss on the island that doesn’t reward an ancient chest.
The karka queen doesn’t either, which is the actual hardest boss due to its relation, quickening attack speed and its instant death jump.
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Assuming their power went out during business hours, that would have cost them the day. Not sure why they didn’t simply push back the patch. At this point, they’ll be working overtime and if they’re rushing, it’ll likely not go so well.
Personally, I doubt it’ll launch today.
Expansions are really the only thing that’ll bring people in. People simply don’t care about some patch an MMO gets, whereas expansions are much more visible.
An expansion is typically only going to keep people active for 1-3 months. Season 3 was simply too late to matter.
At this point, you might as well wait ~4 months, as that’ll likely be the end of season 3 and the trailer for the next expansion. If there’s an expansion coming this year, HoT would essentially be free as early as next month, assuming they offer ~5 months of refunds again.
I say filler because instead of finishing the Ring of fire islands or the north of bitter frost they are tearing up Divinity Reach
They have 3 teams working on the living world, each one focusing on a different topic. Episode 4 is by the Bloodstone Fen team, which is the human/white mantle story. The continuation of Ember Bay would be next.
DR will likely only receive cosmetic damage. At most, they might wreck an area because they want to move something else in.
Generally, in around 3-5 hours from now.
Sometimes they’re ready to go and release early, like around this time, whereas sometimes they’re simply not ready and go well past the daily reset.
When pre-purchasing for HoT was announced, they refunded any purchases made in the previous 5 months. If they do that again, HoT could essentially be free as early as next month.
As a quick test, open your GW2 folder (locate Gw2-64.exe), make a copy of Gw2.dat, then delete the original and rename the copy to Gw2.dat. If the copy failed however, right click the drive > properties > tools > error checking.
Some have had success using the Command Line Argument -prefreset. You can find instructions in the Wiki (link above).
-prefreset is a full reset (local and remote settings). Delete %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat
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PVE is hands down, too kitten grindy. no joke…i cant stand to level a new character, because i’m stuck with like 2 abilities for like half the game…
Overall, you actually obtain your abilities faster than you did originally. Although they shifted unlocks by ~10 levels, they also made leveling from 1-15 take an hour instead of ~10. It used to take ~30 kills to fully unlock a weapon. Now it takes ~30 minutes to unlock every weapon.
045 simply means the account was banned. When dealing with these issues, make your point simple:
“When I try to login to my GW1 account (x@x.com), it’s saying it’s banned with code 045. I haven’t played it in years, so I’m guessing my account was hacked. Can you please fix it?”
Prior to season 1, events scaled based on participation. You actually had to tag an enemy to be counted for example. The problem was, zergs were capable of killing bosses as they spawned, prior to them actually scaling. Around the end of season 1, scaling was simply changed to factor everyone in the nearby area.
Surely they could create a hybrid, where everyone counted for the first minute or so, then it went back to participation. I encounter non-participants/AFKers every day near the collection events in EB for example, forcing me to turn in roughly 5x the amount.
Enemies should have never scaled in numbers or rank, as it only makes zerging more rewarding. They should have been dynamically adjusted, like bosses.
Anyway, while they have only said it is their “plan” to follow that purchase model, it’s not only logical for them to stick to it, they likely couldn’t handle the flame blast they’d receive if they don’t follow through.
It’ll happen either way, more so if they include it, because it’ll be HoT all over again.
I understand that a DNS change may take time to propagate through the system, but what is going on here?
Are you confused about drwkwiejruot6.cloudfront.net? That’s the actual name that assetcdn.101.arenanetworks.com points to. The various IPs are the various servers around the world of CloudFront’s CDN. Looking up the IP will ideally return the closest servers to you.
Using -assetsrv will have the same effect as modifying your hosts file. Keep in mind that IPs of the CDN servers can change, so don’t forget about it. One day it’ll fail to connect because of it.
I’m about to spin up a VM (for a blank slate) to see if it’s some piece of software or something with my network. It’s hard to imagine either, but clearly other people are able to play the game.
It could potentially be a problem with the asset server you’re using. You can try manually selecting one like this:
Gw2.exe -assetsrv 52.84.16.6
You can use Google’s DNS for example to look up more IPs:
nslookup assetcdn.101.arenanetworks.com 8.8.8.8
It could potentially be your ISP or any software that tries to modify websites. If it’s outside of your control, a VPN is required.
You can use the following to get a better idea of what is happening, which is stored to %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/Gw2.log:
Gw2.exe -log
The problem with using someone else’s account is that the original owner holds the power regardless of what you do, especially if they purchased it direct, because it’d be their payment on file. When multiple people can prove ownership, the account is simply banned. Since sharing is against the rules, admitting to it only means that support will ignore you.
Sometimes software like that doesn’t fully uninstall and leaves hooks in your system. Considering it’s now hanging after you uninstalled it, that’s likely the case. Open the start menu, search for cmd, right click command prompt and run it as an administrator. Enter the following commands, then reboot:
netsh int ip reset
netsh winsock reset
Try it now.
If it still does it, as a simple catch-all test, open msconfig (WindowsKey+R > msconfig), select the boot tab, check safe boot, select network under it, then ok and reboot. Remember this, as you’ll need to open msconfig again and uncheck safe boot to return to Windows. This will take you into safe mode, where all non-essential software is disabled, so it’s a simple way to test for conflicts. Try it now.
‘In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.’
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/
Keep in mind that that was only their plan, it caused complaints and was announced prior to play 4 free.
Considering HoT isn’t actually required, there’s simply no reason to include with the next expansion. Why include it and not the living world for example? Core masteries and gliding (if it’s actually needed) could simply be unlocked for paid accounts.
But How do I make it work as a launcher where I can enter email and password?
You learn a language that is capable of creating a UI. You could even make a simple html page to fake it.
LaunchBuddy has something similar based on the beta launcher, if you want to use that.
Officially? You don’t.
Unofficially? You make your own, then have it launch Gw2.exe -email -password -nopatchui
The character slot only comes with the deluxe/ultimate edition.
You’re likely thinking of the free one however, which was a pre-purchase bonus.
I remember when this event was simply balanced for the zerg. Regardless of if you had 1 or 20 people, it would take 50+, maybe 100 turn-ins. Normally, a collection event like this would be balanced for 5-10 per person. It only goes to show that HoT was intended to be zerged.
The problem with AFKers really needs to be fixed. I walked into the wurm fail yesterday in EB (daily) because ~10 people were AFK and only 1 was actually trying. It wasn’t always like this. Originally, if you weren’t participating, you wouldn’t be counted, but then season 1 popularized zerging and stuff was dying before it actually scaled, so it was changed to simply factor everyone. Surely they could make a hybrid of that, where everyone counted for the first minute, then it was based on participation.
if not human what other race is good for a necromancer
Whichever you think looks the best.
Your choice of race is mostly cosmetic. The only difference between them is their racial skills, which are rarely used outside of niche situations because they’re intentionally weaker than normal skills.
Necromancer is probably the easiest profession in the game overall. Ranger would be the other, which is easier to start with because of the pet.
Best weapon? It doesn’t matter. You should try experimenting. Alternatively, I’d go with a dagger and a warhorn or focus. Building your necro to use pets is a common choice, though I’d personally go with wells, which can be built for high uptime protection and a lot of life leech.
Just wait for the next expansion and buy that, if you dont have HoT, it will be included free in the next expansion. WE think the next expansion will be in the coming months.
To be clear, it’d be closer to the end of the year at the earliest, up to spring 2018. If it were any earlier, it would need to be revealed in episode 4, which is possible, even though episode 5 was already confirmed. Assuming it wasn’t fake, episode 4 confirmed the target for the next expansion, which will likely involve Glint’s legacy. If the White Mantle need a certain artifact, I could see them revealing it early like that, but it’s fairly unlikely. It’s far more likely that each arc will come to the same conclusion, ending in episode 5 if they double up the dragons, otherwise 6, then they’ll break over the summer.
Although the next expansion will likely include HoT because of their plans of only offering a single box, there’s actually no reason to do so, in the same way the living world isn’t included. If they’re still planning on doing so, they might as well simply make it F2P, which will likely happen regardless later on.
The race is displayed along with the profession on the character select screen. The same wouldn’t actually fit on the hero panel, though they could simply shift it down or instead show the racial icon along with the profession.
But really, only human and norn females have similar looks.
You really think Anet lost sales because of this? Anyone who doesn’t buy the expansion because of this wouldn’t like the expansion anyway. How many sales do you think we’re talking about.
You’re right, they wouldn’t like the expansion, but only because it’s too difficult. That’s the bigger problem, but I guarantee you, ArenaNet lost sales because of this as I mentioned earlier. In short, they just want gliding, treat dailies as traditional quests and yes, they’re playing the wrong MMO as they’d rather play WoW, but can’t justify the sub.
How many? Probably not enough to care, but it would have also been trivial to avoid as the dailies could have simply been an extension. HoT accounts could have simply had 1 extra daily for example, related to HoT.
Edit: Actually I think simply reporting won’t solve the basic issue of necros being able to afk with a minion build considering how the traits can work together. What I’m trying to say is that anyone can easily do it without even knowing the rules of botting, so the reports will probably most of the time not do anything.
That’s why ArenaNet has given conflicting answers on the subject. Back at launch, they were actually banning people, as botting like this was rampant, like 20+ people at the tunnel in cursed shore. Even people simply AFKing were sometimes caught up in it, like stories of engineers forgetting a turret at an event. Simply AFKing however is not against the rules, hence the conflict. Intentionally abusing the mechanics to bot however is right on the edge. It’d take a week at least for someone to investigate, likely a month. It’d be no accident at that point.
I doubt these people are actually getting banned however, otherwise I’d expect to see more complaints, like on reddit. Any bans would however only be for 24-72 hours, as they’d be a warning, which would ramp up for repeated offences.
Poor necros, aren’t allowed to be good at anything /j
(necros are the best for casual play, which is also why they should never be at the top without a huge sacrifice)
During festivals? In general, they usually take < 1 minute each. Fireworks and opening packages takes < 1 minute for example. Adding a vista or gathering daily usually takes < 1 minute. In total, < 3 minutes.
Outside of festivals? Events usually take < 10 minutes, < 5 if it’s a rift map. Jumping puzzles/mini-dungeon or an adventure usually takes < 1, + ~3 in traveling though. A world boss takes < 1 minute if you plan for it. In total, usually < 10 minutes.
If you’re simply doing it for the gold and assuming you’re still capable of logging in when you’re not playing, you should do Tequatl, which is also worth at least 2g. Unless you count the waiting, it’ll take you a fraction of the time it takes you to complete the dailies. The Karka Queen is also usually ~2 gold in less than 5 minutes, if you happen to find blossoms along the way (they’re usually outside of the main camp and to the east). If you park alts, adventures are also going to be ~2 gold in the time it takes you to do dailies, as they take roughly 1 minute each and award a rare (~40s average).
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There really is no other possibility. The chances of both resetting unintentionally is simply too low. Do you use a 3rd party launcher or maybe someone else has access to the computer? You could have accidentally reset some of your settings, but not all of them. Are you sure they were all reset? Someone else could have compromised your account and reset it remotely, but your local settings would have been intact. They’re stored under %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/, but if corrupted, relocated to Documents/Guild Wars 2/Local.dat. Local.dat is based on the user however, which you might have changed (multiple user accounts in Windows) or reset due to a major OS update.
The basic options and keybinds are stored server side, so something would have had to reset your account. Sounds, graphics and your login are however stored locally, so something would have had to delete the Local.dat file on your computer.
If you used the -prefreset option, it’ll do that.
Or do they mark it full and it stays that way until they decide to change it?
Basically. The population adjusts on a set interval based on how many people participated in WvW. I’d imagine that’d be done weekly or monthly.
You can try your luck by contacting support. I’ve heard of them bypassing the restriction in certain circumstances.
- Break the Shatterers defiance bar
They should just try that, like simply change the text on the kill daily to breaking it just to test if people actually do it. I rarely go out there anymore, maybe once in 3 months on average, but from what I’ve seen, it’s bad. Making old stuff like that a daily is the only way they’re going to get the average zergs to do it.
None of that would actually teach players however. Obviously breaking the bar is a group effort, so random attacks that happened to have CC would work. Dodging? Dodge/evade randomly. Specific conditions on specific skills? Too limited.
If they actually want to teach something, they need specific events that must be done the way they’re intended and in a 1 on 1 situation where others can’t do it for you, like adventures. For combo fields for example, there could be an exercise where your skills are the finishers, your utilities are the fields and your objective is something like killing elementals by using their opposing elements. For example, there could be an ice elemental where only burning would damage it, might would greatly multiply the damage (without it – why is this taking so long?) and fire shield would block its attacks (or you’d die eventually). Now imagine stuff like that being something you’re going to do on every character, like hero challenges.