Guild Wars 2

Program Files is a protected directory that requires administrator privileges to modify. This is where you have to right click the executable and specifically run it as an administrator. To make things easier, simply install the game somewhere else, such as C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\.

If you meant you’re stuck downloading Gw2Setup.exe itself, try downloading Gw2.exe and saving it when prompted to (do not run it from the browser). Place it wherever you want to install the game. If you can’t download it, you likely have security software preventing you from downloading executables.

If they were going to stop AFK farming, they’d simply disable looting if there’s been any manual input, like how most MMOs would flag you AFK. There is no point however, because people would simply switch to using macros, or in the case of disabling auto cast, simply holding down #1.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Spacial Surge does four ticks I have a Mesmer (even in the combat log you’ll see a string of four strikes when they do it. And with your crit numbers, their out putting 3200, but the crit numbers I’ve seen aren’t more than 490 a tick which could reach 1960 damage.

Spatial Surge is 3 ticks and my numbers were from a glass elementalist.

Below is a sample of a single Mesmer. For context, 35 is the base tick of 1 stack of confusion, 94 is attacking with 1 stack and 378 is attacking with 4 stacks. As a bomber against 2 mesmers, that’s going to be 8 stacks for ~7200 damage over 4 seconds from confusion, for a total of ~10k including the other attacks.

They need to fix looting in general. Getting full credit for a single hit should have never been a thing. Imagine what it’d be like if you actually had to contribute the equivalent of killing 1 enemy to receive loot. Suddenly there’s no difference between soloing and zerging, whereas currently zerging easily gives you 10x the rewards. Alternatively, enemies should be classed in groups at events with loot only eligible once per grouping. As it is now, an upscaled event spawning 10x the enemies and thus 10x the loot simply promotes poorly played zerging. Furthermore, upscaling enemies to champions should still only drop the loot of normal enemies. Without the ability to exploit the combination of personal loot and scaling, these farmers would likely be gone.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

According to the numbers one Spacial Surge is hitting almost 1600 damage with all four ticks.

It only hits for 1000 (340 ticks) up to 2400 (800 crit ticks), it’s channeled over ~2 seconds and they like to pause so it’s about once every 5 seconds.

As a bomb kit #1 spammer, you’re going to have a 0.5s attack speed, so you’re going to see a much larger effect out of their confusion, which is only 1 stack and lasts ~3 seconds, but applied on their basic attack roughly every 5 seconds. Additionally, since you’re in melee, you’re going to be hit by their illusionary wave, which blinds and applies 3 stacks of confusion for ~4 seconds. By spamming bombs, you’re only killing yourself. Maybe try grenades (snap + instant ground target to make it much friendlier) or the juggernaut flamethrower build.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

One stole quickness the other took a single might, they don’t steal the whole stack.

It’ll take an entire stack of a single boon.

Your computer or network is likely compromised, or you’ve favorited and keep logging in through a phishing site.

Get the latest drivers direct from your manufacturer, including any firmware (likely for the SSD) and update your BIOS. As a quick test, try swapping between wireless and wired and run GW2 from the HDD (simply copy the folder over). As a simple CPU test, go into the BIOS, find the CPU and disable hyper threading and limit it to only 2 cores.

If you’ve updated Windows, reinstall and avoid the Creator’s update, which has caused various problems.

The problem likely isn’t scaling, but rather the zerg of 1 button spammers hiding in the back. If you’re actually capable of taking out 40% in seconds however, then scaling is likely broken when it’s only scaled for 1, otherwise you must have over 100k DPS.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Do you think the Devs won’t honor what they stated previously about expansions?

Yes. Why not, they’ve done it before with other things they’ve said in the past. They’ll simply say the usual, that plans change, it didn’t turn out as expected, it was bad for the game, etc. The only people that should actually be upset are those that waited so long with the expectation of getting it for free. People are going to complain regardless however, since some interpreted their original statement as meaning HoT would be F2P with the next expansion.

Personally, I doubt they’ll stick with their plan to include all past expansions, but they’ll likely keep the 1 box idea. There’s simply no reason to include them at this point because HoT isn’t actually required. The actual purpose of their 1 box model was to simply make it easier for new players to get in, but why include HoT and not the seasons? It’d probably be better to sell the boxes separately up front, rather than selling what people think is the full game, only to be expected to pay more once they realize the story is missing.

The obvious downside of this model, besides the constant complaining, are these topics. Why buy HoT when the next one is coming soon? Most people aren’t going to know about this model of course, until they find themselves screwed with the next expansion, such as those still buying from dlgamer.us. The 1 box model is always going to cause bad press.

The problem with moving HoT to the gem store or making it F2P however is that some people will stop paying. For many, HoT was likely the first time they actually spent more money on the game. How many people would simply play 2 years behind for free, though I’m guessing most would end up feeling the need to buy it now. The best hope for HoT however would be going F2P, since the maps were foolishly designed for an active population.

There was a leak a while back that suggested they were going to do yearly half priced expansions. That would be an obvious choice considering how only the initial launch of HoT had any impact on sales. With HoT dropping to $30 and their new plan to run the seasons and expansions back to back on the 2-3 month cycle, that may actually be true. The trick with the 1 box model is that they wouldn’t have to offer refunds if the price never changed; they’d simply upgrade you. So why drop it now, only a few months prior when 3rd parties did so over a year ago? If they do take this route however or simply continue with the style of season 3, flooding the game with new maps is going to be devastating to the population.

If you suspect someone, simply report them. It’s allowed, but only if the player is actually there. If they’re still at it days later, eventually a GM will whisper them to check.

Their attack that puts red circles all over the place will steal boons. Are you letting them steal like 25 might, quickness, protection and regen or something?

zaekeon.5128:

Is this place as frustrating on other classes for a new player?

A glass elementalist is probably the most challenging to play through HoT. With the lowest defense and only 11k health, many of the enemies can kill you within 3 seconds and some within a single attack.

On the opposite end, a necromancer can almost faceroll through it.

They do scale, it’s just that low level events are scaled for low level players. A zerg of 80s in a level 80 zone is already doing over 4x their individual damage, hence the broken scaling in general, and it only gets worse at lower levels. The problem is, who do they balance for? Zerkers doing 2x the damage with another 4x on top of that from group buffs? That’s why scaling will always be broken, since there’s a huge gap in power.

If they were to buff the lower levels, they’re going to nerf you by further reducing your stats while downscaled.

Sarpan.9074:

I’m one of those who has only recently become aware of the defiance bar and how to attack it and I’ve seen that it acts differently on different mobs. On some it seems to have very little influence on how much damage you can do and on others, it’s critical to break it in order to do any appreciable damage.

Some enemies have higher vitality and a larger health pool. Some enemies have higher healing power and receive more healing. The break bar is no different. You can think of it as a health bar where the enemy has a constant source of regeneration. Just like damaging ability, CCs deal direct damage to the break bar while CC conditions deal damage over time. What they need to change is actually showing it.

Vayne.8563:

I’d rather not have a double dose of masteries to level all at once time> I’d like my gliding masteries and living story masteries trained before the next expansion comes out.

There’ll likely be at least 2 months between pre-purchase and launch.

Assuming their plans haven’t changed, anyone buying HoT right now will likely be refunded anyways, if they pre-purchase. Just don’t buy HoT from 3rd parties, since they’re not eligible. However, I’d expect them to drop their 1 box model when they announce the expansion.

Danikat.8537:

I have wondered what they’re going to do once they run out of weapons to add with elite specs.

Since the weapons are locked to the elite and you can only equip one elite at a time, nothing’s stopping them from reusing the same pool of weapons over and over. They can also reuse the core weapons; an elite for the warrior’s greatsword for example.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

The axe would quickly stack vuln and the bar would break in short order.

You likely weren’t noticing the people gliding. You gain the glider skills from Bloodstone Fen when you touch the ley lines and a single barrage can take out the shield. The range is far enough that you’ll never see them do it, only the hit. With the AFKers dominating the map nowadays, you’re far more likely to be the only one there.

ArenaNet/NCSoft’s problem with F2P is that they actually expected people to buy the game. From a F2P perspective, it’s the 1% that actually pays, while most people are simply playing because it’s free.

If they haven’t dropped their 1 box model yet, making HoT at least partially F2P would likely be more profitable. HoT isn’t actually required, so there’s simply no reason to bundle it. They could instead make the maps and masteries F2P while bundling everything else and selling it on the store like the living world seasons. By including masteries, it opens the ability to sell gliders, whereas the lack of masteries would only create a more frustrating experience and make it easier to quit.

Ayrilana.1396:

The OP needs to take into consideration how many of those doing the farm would actually be playing on that map if it did not exist. It can’t really suck up the majority of the map’s players if the sole reason for them being on that map is for the farm.

Once 25% of the map enters the farm, that map is essentially a farm-only map. Maps fit around 100 people, but the megaserver logic doesn’t actually fill them. At 50% or so, the map is prioritized for servers/guilds/friends, then locked to groups-only at 75%.

If the farm didn’t exist, the majority would be likely be gone, but those actually wanting to play would no longer be spread out, making it far more likely to encounter others. When normal players are continuously entering these dead maps, they eventually stop trying.

Tanner Blackfeather.6509:

The new expansion is likely within 6-7 months, possibly (though not likely) as early as 4 months.

Pre-purchasing however will likely begin within 2 months.

NPCs with player stats wouldn’t live very long. An 11k health NPC elementalist for example would die within 2 seconds to almost everything in HoT.

If you’re seeing GW2’s error reporting window, you need to click show details to see why it’s actually crashing. The most common cause (the linked thread) is network software trying to hijack GW2’s communications, such as a VPN or anything that monitors your traffic.

MeroeTheLamia.2384:

It was a messy spam in a too tiny room that made it difficult to see anything and I was doing my best to spot the usual AoE warnings.

The fight was designed to distract you. All the little AoEs that spin around the room can be entirely ignored by simply standing in between them. When the boss shields, you ignore him and watch for the walls to stop spinning, at which point a door will open the adds will come out. Kill the adds, then break his shield. Once broken, he’ll start doing his counter magic teleport, and except for that, he will almost always focus on the NPCs who should be on the opposite side. Simply fight him right in the center, using counter magic to position him where you want, and always dodge backwards after his teleport just in case he immediately opens with his sword frenzy. Stay at his back in melee, but not too close since his attack area starts from his back and don’t stand next to the other NPCs since his targeted bloodstone is an AoE

It might look like a mess from an overview, but there’s actually very few things that are actually important going on at once.

Only equipping what’s provided to you is standard, since simply questing through the game is how most MMOs are played. Unlike other MMOs however, GW2 doesn’t reliably provide you with gear, so anyone playing normally and sticking to equal or higher level areas ends up playing on hard mode.

If they wanted to counter auto loot specifically, they only need to disable it if there hasn’t been any input within the last 30 seconds. But then people would simply use macros, so there’s no point.

The implementation of masteries is nothing special. It’s simply leveling with the added requirement of doing achievements. They likely chose this route in response to people grinding to level 80 without actually playing the content, then complaining about the lack of content.

Obviously forced achievements isn’t a smart idea, especially when there’s not actually enough options to allow everyone to obtain them in their preferred play style. Because of this and the non-linear path, it’s possible to permanently screw your account.

In other games with a similar implementation, it’s usually one or the other. Like the original implementation of skill points for example, where skill challenges were the main source of points whereas leveling was simply an alternative.

Open %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/ and delete the entire folder. Open your GW2 folder (locate Gw2-64.exe), delete the bin folders and try again.

If it still fails, clean install your graphics drivers using an older version, run Windows update for any other hardware, and update your motherboard BIOS.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The other two suggestions require rethinking the balance of the encounter, which I think would be harder to pull off.

There’s no need to balance it. Simply lower the scaling and see how it goes. If a champion is normally scaled for 5 people for example, a solo champion would have 80% reduced health and 50% reduced damage.

Adjusting the rewards is only a temporary solution. There’s always going to be something better and as the game expands with more stuff to do, it’s only going to get worse. If they do anything however, they will likely take the simplest route and rely on dailies, rather than actually futureproofing the game.

The final episode will likely end with the reveal, just like season 2. They have 3 teams working on 6 month schedules for the episodes, so although 5 was delayed, 6 could still be launched in June if they really wanted to, just prior to E3. On the 2-3 month schedule however, it’ll be July or August, which would be just prior to Gamescom.

Vayne.8563:

LOOK dead

That’s what matters. The average player is simply going to enter HoT and play through the game. It doesn’t matter if there’s a full map in LFG or even if the map is full with everyone in a corner somewhere. If it’s continuously dead to them, they’re going to be discouraged and eventually stop bothering. Some simple UI changes could improve things, such as showing all nearby events and how many people are nearby / how many it’s scaled for. Simply showing the scale would hopefully stop the whole idea of needing 20+ people for a 3+ event.

LFG is a big part of the problem, as it’s potentially killing off 3 other maps per 1 full one. For those simply playing the game, they’re almost always going to find themselves spread out in those dead maps. The megaserver is the other problem, as it prioritizes popular servers, then eventually locks to invite only. If the maps simply filled, LFG wouldn’t be needed.

Big events would be much more accessible if there was simply a UI that showed when they were and you actually queued into a special event map. That way big events could be designed for exact numbers and they wouldn’t be killing off the rest of the map or persisting for other players to login to. I doubt they could do this, but they could also try phasing instead.

They should have avoided the problem altogether by having group events scale down after a time.

Karmapolice.4193:

Only during personal story cutscenes. Why? Doesn’t ever disconnect in any other part of the game.

It’s either a problem with the game itself or the packets it’s sending just happens to match a trigger sequence. Some routers for example can’t handle certain packets and will drop the connection. Some ISPs for example will monitor your connection in an attempt to throttle high bandwidth traffic like torrents or Netflix and force you to drop packets.

Try using the -clientport option with either 80 or 443:

Gw2.exe -clientport 80

Vayne.8563:

Story is something casuals should be able to do with a relatively basic skill set.

ArenaNet has never supported the more casual players playing solo. As they continue to increase the difficulty, more people are simply hitting their walls. This is the flaw with not offering vertical progression to enable players to overcome the difficulties of past content. It’s also probably why they even allow groups to trivialize it, as it’s GW2’s version of an easy mode instead of obtaining better gear.

The simple solution for the story is a stacking buff to make you more powerful the more you fail.

Amaimon.7823:

He’s been designed so 10 year old jimmy with slow reflexes can kill him with just auto-attacking.. I better brace myself for this epic figh- oh.. he died while I blinked

From Jimmy’s perspective however, it wasn’t just auto attacking to win, it was a thrill and sense of achievement.

Djinn.9245:

My character is supposed to be involved in this “EPIC STORY” but Anet purposefully puts him on the sidelines like this is some kind of hockey game.

They’re trying to show you that you failed. It’s a fight of a mind, so you being defeated means Mordremoth took control. If they put more time into it, they likely would have used the blighted mechanic, where you’re replaced with a champion NPC that needs to be taken down in order to bring you back. Doing this however would have made it much harder for the people that actually needed to group up for this solo content.

99DAE1F6-D25F-477F-972F-2F34C9E1E595:

While I do not have 4 numbers, I didn’t get the name I stated either.

You can contact support for a name change. You don’t actually have one, so it’s defaulting to an ID.

Leablo.2651:

Oh… was there something in which Anet has expertise?

DX9, probably.

But yes, they’d use a 3rd party solution if they wanted to do it, and no, those developing content for the game couldn’t, as it’d be a job for the actual programmers.

Feanor.2358:

The current system allows you to join an instance with a reasonably high chances of success.

There would be no difference between a pug LFG map and a pug normal map, that is if megaservers weren’t actively trying to screw you. LFG allows you to fit around 25% to 50% more people into a map and more people means the content is easier, since scaling wasn’t designed to keep up the difficulty. If scaling was actually fair so that a full map was even slightly in line with the minimum scale, chances are the zerg would always fail. You don’t need 100 people for these maps, but only 20 decent players (1 group per objective) as group events are scaled for 3 people minimum. When people LFG, 1 full map is potentially killing off 3 other maps. The only reason to LFG is because the average player simply cannot handle the difficulty of HoT, so they rely on overpopulating to greatly reduce the difficulty, where a 100 person zerg is essentially scaled for half that.

LFG is also why megaservers break. Whenever a full map is closing or volunteering sends you to a dead map, it’s because people hopped the chain.

The bigger problem with LFG however is that the average player is simply going to login and play (usually solo), not use LFG, and chances are they’re going to hit a dead map every time. From their perspective, HoT is dead, most of the content is unplayable and that 1 full map doesn’t matter because they’ll never know. Furthermore, when the map is always dead or always fails, people are simply going to stop showing up, which is probably why HoT died within the first month or so. If ArenaNet has no intention of improving the megaservers, at the very least they need to be first come first serve, they either need to implement districts or simply avoid any content that requires multiple groups or splits the map, like how the farm in Lake Doric kills the rest of the map. Events designed for larger groups need to be split from the maps and put in their own area that you can simply queue into. At least that way it can be balanced for everyone participating.

Djinn.9245:

Healix is certainly right that dotsthat indicate unstarted events are part of the guide and that you can turn it off. I’m just not sure why he’s making that response to you.

The content guide points towards the nearest objective, but some objectives have priority over others. Turn it off and you can’t see rifts. Likewise, when something else has priority, you won’t be able to see any rifts. I never said that map completion was required, only that it may override the guide and prevent you from seeing them. You could be standing under a rift and never know it. With the map completed, you can see the nearest event from the other end of the map. Enable the story however and it will override the guide, preventing you from seeing any.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

It doesn’t matter if the map is completed; you don’t need the compass to find Rift events. Anytime you see the little orange circle/star marker on a map, it may be a Rift event. Rift events happen in almost every map, including Cities.

Those markers are a part of the compass (content guide), which points towards the closest objective. If any other objective has priority, you won’t be able to see them. Turn off the content guide and they won’t be shown at all.

OriOri.8724:

If they just aren’t even appearing for me, how am I supposed to advance this chain of current events?

Unopened rifts are hidden, can only be found in certain zones and are marked as nearby events on the map. If you don’t have the map completed, the compass may be overridden and point to a nearby map objective instead.

Djinn.9245:

The thought is that perhaps the quest line has been broken sometime recently.

Rifts stopped automatically opening within the first month, likely with the following patch once it was no longer the current event.

vifesprit.3514:

3) Nerf the spam “1” damages
Because spam “1” doesn’t need skill, just a good coffee to do something while waiting to beat the mobs even in HOT or against Legendary.

Nerfing 1 wouldn’t change anything. You’d still be carried by the zerg.

MrAnarchy.1682:

2 * * *

Pathping automatically stops when a node doesn’t respond to pings, which is the only reason why your first one stops here. If you want to see the actual path, you need to use tracert (cmd.exe).

EU:
tracert 206.127.158.1

NA:
tracert 64.25.39.1

Alternatively, use PingPlotter.

It’s unlikely that ArenaNet will support any more languages. There’s likely not enough people to outweigh the cost and officially marketing it would require additional voice actors and QA. Unofficially however, they could easily support fan subbing.

Tekey.7946:

What the quest would look like in other games:

It’d be the same in other MMOs, as a reputation grind.

The forums are running on customized 3rd party software (fangamer) that was abandoned by its developer and apparently ArenaNet has no control over it. Compare the footer for example to guildwars2.com. For them to not even be able to change that, the forum software must be a compiled binary, otherwise it’s a legal issue. They could wrap it however, if they really wanted to.

As for the link, certain browsers complain because the certificate is for *.guildwars2.com, whereas the link is *.*.guildwars2.com.

The rifts don’t automatically open anymore, so you’ll need to find someone to open one for you. Unopened rifts are marked as nearby events and can be found in various maps. Since they’re an easy way to complete events, you may want to try finding one in a map where it’s the daily to complete events.

Open the resource monitor (ctrl+shift+esc > performance > resource monitor), select the CPU tab, select associated handles and search for Local.dat to find out which process has it open. You can try to kill it, depending on what it is, by right clicking it.

Alternatively, start in safe mode or recovery mode and delete Local.dat.

The launcher downloads over http, which others may hook into and cause it to crash. Adware for example injecting ads. Normally it’d crash with a log however, rather than becoming unresponsive.

Certain multi-core CPUs have caused the launcher to hang in the past. A bad disk can also cause it, which you can test by running chkdsk (right click the drive > properties > tools > error checking > scan for bad sectors).

To rule out a few things at once, you can try safe mode. Open msconfig and go to the boot tab. Check safe boot and network under it, then click advanced and limit the number of processors to 1. OK out and reboot to safe mode. Remember to undo this to return to normal. Under safe mode, try running the launcher.

You can use the -log option (Gw2.exe -log) to log what the launcher was trying to do. The log is saved to %appdata%/guild wars 2/Gw2.log

Vegeta.2563:

Was rumored the expansion was only going to be $20 .. but we’ll see when that time comes.

The leak suggested yearly expansions at half the price, but it’d likely be $30 considering HoT. With the recent AMA, they revealed that their plan is to continuously launch the living world every 2-3 months, with the expansion taking the place of an episode, though likely delayed a little longer. Seasons play out over a year, so unless they extend it, that would mean an expansion every 12-18 months.

As for bundling HoT, there’s really no reason to do so. The plan was to bundle past expansions to make it easier for new people to get started, but HoT isn’t actually required, nor is the living world. If they plan to bundle it anyways, it’d likely be more profitable to make it partially F2P instead; opening the maps for example but bundling the story and elites for gems as if it were a season.