Guild Wars 2

SirDrygan.1823:

SirBlunticus.4258:

I’m not sure about all of them, but I know for certain Dark Harvest for the reaper for example. You MUST finish silver in Fallen Masks adventure, So i tried it last night.
Mind you…
-You have to wait for the meta to complete. (so, there is no guarantee you’ll even get in the room. Plus you have 15 mins to “try” it and get kicked out.)
- Why is a piece for collection gated behind this? No choice in the matter!
-ALL THIS JUMPING PUZZLE GARBAGE NEED TO STOP.
-I’m not going to spend my time “learning” this when I could be having fun…deciding what I want to do with my time while logged in.
-GET RID OF ADVENTURES OR MAKE THEM OPTIONAL (NOT for masteries, NOT for collections….for fun IF YOU WANT TO DO IT.

ARENANET threw those on the list out 2 years ago, where have you been? Just #dealwithit.

Do you happen to have a link where ANet said (whenever, actually) that you HAVE TO DO Adventures to complete your masteries and personal collections? I can remember that they mentioned adventures but from my memory it did sound more like an optional thing and the way they were referenced did in no ways hint that they were actually platform style mini-games …

TexZero.7910:

HtFde.3856:

Yojimaru.4980:

I’ve been getting the bulk of my reclaimed metal plates (and I’ve gotten enough of them to make several machined weapons) from rare reclaimed weapons obtained via chests in Tangled Depths. Not the Crystallized Caches, but the fairly non-distinct chests (strongboxes also count) scattered here and there throughout the map. Everyday, I take all my characters up to the Great Tree flax farm via gliding. Along the way, there are 3 chests that I open with each of my 9 characters, which gives me 27 chances a day at getting a rare reclaimed weapon. Doing this also allows you to build up map specific currency without really doing the events.

Ponders … you mean the one that is the strongbox on the ledge with the sharpshooters and the two chests near the farm? If so … well … I’ve been doing THOSE on my flax farming alts for one week and a bit … 0 yellows … never mind reclaimed yellows – 10 alts in HoT.

But then I gave up on jumping puzzles long time ago … NEVER got ANYTHING but greens and blues and gunk from those. And after about 100+ JP chests I’d have guessed I might get SOMETHING …. oh so wrong …

You know there’s a total of 7 chest in that area alone right ?

Believing Reddit, there’s even more but it’s a thing of result versus effort. If 10 characters get only crap out of three boxes each with the advantages that those 3 boxes can be reached in a few minutes … how much better woudl my results be if I spent an hour per alt getting more than those 3?

My JP experience from ages past somehow discourage me since I never got anything out of those either – greens and blues.

Took a friend who also goes for the legendary hammer to the LA puzzle. We both have an alt parked down there with the correct level … his drop rate of silver doublones is 8 times higher than mine. Since we’re both parked down there for almost a year now and open the chest daily …

misterman.1530:

SirBlunticus.4258:

Not to mention collections being hidden behind them.
Seriously!?
Anet says “can’t have your weapon unless you play pin the tail on the donkey. Can’t have your mastery point unless you make a ring around the bottle.”

The roleplayers must be having fits with these things.

Here they are, in the midst of a grand adventure to explore a new region of the world and save some of their compatriots from Mordremoth. They delve deeper into the jungle, threats behind every vine and then…wait….is that a shooting gallery? Someone set up a shooting gallery in the middle of a war zone? How does that make any sense…I just don’t…wow

The shooting gallery isn’t actualyl breaking the lore too much – people must learn to shoot somewhere, don’t they?

But transforming into a mushroom and doing a race by bouncing on your cap?

MashMash.1645:

JediYoda.1275:

Celtic Lady.3729:

SirBlunticus.4258:

Not to mention collections being hidden behind them.
Seriously!?
Anet says “can’t have your weapon unless you play pin the tail on the donkey. Can’t have your mastery point unless you make a ring around the bottle.”

Do you need to get gold for these weapon collections?

No, have to get silver to unlock collection items

I agree with OP

So much on “We don’t want to force players too play content they don’t want to play”

Here we are I’m being forced to play adventures to get the last 23 MP’s I need to max out the Nuhoch Lore and Itzel Lore since I have too have with items are locked from me unless I have all masteries maxed out. Plus for collection items are gated behind this silliness for forcing players to play thing they don’t’t to be forced into playing. I don’t really cared much for mini games nor do I ever play them at Carnivals or else where in real life.

Is it that bad? I need 10 more mastery points to complete everything. I got all the easy gold and silver mastery point adventures – some are ridiculously easy. I still haven’t done the hard ones, and I was looking through my hero panel at what I can still get, and I can get every point i need from TD, DS and the story. It seems you can pretty much avoid all the hard adventures. From what I can see anyway.

coughs —- now imagine someone who can play like 2h a day and has a more or less set schedule when he can log on. Imagine further that this puts you into night mode in VB – no advendures …

After night you have all the joy in the world of running the metas to the point where you can finally do the adventure you do not even like. And you usually have like 10 – 15 minutes before night falls again because I usually end up on empty maps and have to run the metas myself or with maybe one or two random join-ins. Imagine the fun with the two champions just to get the glider thing unlocked …

zombyturtle.5980:

I mentioned this in another thread though, if there is no way to unlock all masteries without doing the adventures its a mistake that should be changed. But if there are enough spread out over other content that adventures can be ignored then this is a fuss over nothing.

Unless I missed something there is no other way … and bronze won’t do … I calculated I’d have to get silver on most if not all to get the normal (non raid) masteries done.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

No, silver.

Nobody is making you do adventures, man. There are plenty of sources for XP and you don’t need to finish any specialization collections. IDK what to tell you.

Pray, tell me how you will complete your masteries without the points from the adventures … last time I counted I fell awfully short on mastery points and have since started to do those. My rough assumption is that getting silver on all should see me through.

Yojimaru.4980:

I’ve been getting the bulk of my reclaimed metal plates (and I’ve gotten enough of them to make several machined weapons) from rare reclaimed weapons obtained via chests in Tangled Depths. Not the Crystallized Caches, but the fairly non-distinct chests (strongboxes also count) scattered here and there throughout the map. Everyday, I take all my characters up to the Great Tree flax farm via gliding. Along the way, there are 3 chests that I open with each of my 9 characters, which gives me 27 chances a day at getting a rare reclaimed weapon. Doing this also allows you to build up map specific currency without really doing the events.

Ponders … you mean the one that is the strongbox on the ledge with the sharpshooters and the two chests near the farm? If so … well … I’ve been doing THOSE on my flax farming alts for one week and a bit … 0 yellows … never mind reclaimed yellows – 10 alts in HoT.

But then I gave up on jumping puzzles long time ago … NEVER got ANYTHING but greens and blues and gunk from those. And after about 100+ JP chests I’d have guessed I might get SOMETHING …. oh so wrong …

Hm, there are these stashes as well … if you have that mastery you might not even notice those that can give 100+ … drowning in airship parts myself but mainly because of those stashes.

I guess it’s one of those RNG things ANet is so great in … some people will get one reclaimed yellow weapon out of 100 and others will get one every 5 …

biofrog.1568:

You get one every time you open the box next to Zinn’s Print-o-Matic in Rata Novus.
Just answer 10 questions correctly and you are rewarded.

You seem to get one “golden” weapon – not a guaranteed reclaimed, though …

Well, a friend of mine would tell you that getting precursors out of the mystic forge isn’t that hard and that precursors aren’t really rare because he’s got quite a few of them this way.

I’ve thrown a lot of stuff into the MF and never got a precursor.

I’ve recycled about 100+ blues and greens and have gotten 1 plate and I’m not sure that that wasn’t a reward from somewhere …

I’d rather guess it has to do with something that is not really part of an MMO and involves timers and three possible reward chests … just guessing, though.

Healix.5819:

Here’s the two alternative paths, starting from where Dulfy places a portal.

Orange: Lean techniques required. You glide to the branch below the mushroom, walk up the branch, then glide over to the mushroom, continuing on Dulfy’s path.

Red: You glide to the area below, move to the edge, glide to the updraft in the distance, turn around and glide to the box. This is what Dulfy should have shown.

Since idiot me didn’t look at the next point and failed to notice that is was from that dreaded one … helpful

Just from visual I’d never have guessed that you can get to the branch via the orange line … getting the follow up was much easier, thanks!

@Cynn: All power to you – since it is not showing up on my map on any layer I’m having problems locating it. Been trying updrafts whenever I did fall down but never found one that led me to the box.

@sonicsix: I know (there’s another part earlier that looks completely unclimbable but you hop straight up … weird as well) after watching Dulfy’s video where to jump abut sometimes I’m a bit too far to the right and that is a guaranteed slide down …

I finally managed to get it … 43 attemps. Fun …

Sometimes I wonder if some of the developers are merely bad or should I say “inexperienced” or if they take a kind of devious fun in punishing players.

I’ve just done my 36th attempt at getting the “Cryptonym Strongbox” and I fail coninuously because of two reasons:

(1) There is one or two pixels on that tree where you jump up (see Dulfy video where the portal is placed – shame if you aren’t a mesmer) – all other pixels make you slide down and usually make you slide DOWN – i.e. – you can start from the start again.

(2) Even when I hit that one or two pixels and make it up that tree I am 100% sure so far to have a glider-delay problem so that I cannot hit the next row and will have to start over.

That is – from my point of view – a somewhat lousy design!

(1) – You could really make the climbing area larger – unles you wanna go muhahahah another play fell down my little trap – in that case one should have his or her head examined.

(2) When things work fine on a local developer’s computer and in ANets corporate network it does not mean that players will have the same low latency connection – they might actually have a laggy connection. So maps should have a little leeway for exactly those situations where lag might cause the glider to deploy with a bit of a delay.

Am I having fun with this mastery point? No – I’m absolutely frustrated. If this was your intention: Job well done.

zombyturtle.5980:

I think Gw2 does cater to all play styles…you can still solo:
(1) -all core maps
(2) -many original dungeons
(3) -adventures on HOT maps
(4) -many smaller individual events on HOT maps
(5) -personal story
(6) -living story season 2
(7) -Hot story
(8) -Possibly legendary crafting

(1) Right – but then I don’t need HoT, do I?
(2) not your average player …
(3) Only those NOT locked to the meta – many need the meta completed before they open so I’d not include them …
(4) Which, alas, especially new players have to find. Let’s hope they find them before they give up
(5) Yop
(6) Yop, still nothing to do with HoT
(7) Yop – if you ignore the time needed to get the XP for the masteries by only doing, er, (4)
(8) Not sure – I’ve seen fractal-specifiy requirements

So what it boils down to is a few events in the new zone that I can do (once I find out where to go and which ones – VB offering way more than AB or DT), a story you might like or not and … er … that’s it. Worth the cost? For some yes, for others no … we’ll have to see which side hosts more people in the longer run.

misterman.1530:

The only way they will get more involvement on these maps is to offer better rewards. I don’t know, maybe an elite daily that has a great reward for successfully completing a map meta. On top of the map meta loot, you get something like 10 ley line sparks. Or some really rare mats. Or…anything.

Seriously, if you make the grind attractive, people will do it. If the grind ends up not being worth it, people will just avoid these maps. Which is what I am seeing.

Right now, in the LFG there was one for the Auric Basin meta. Went there and map was no where near full enough. That was the only meta LFG I saw that wasn’t a person LOOKING for a full (-ish) map.

Well, AB is actually a rather forgiving map as you can do the meta with 15 – 20 people if one spends a bit of time coordinating and explaining – therefore a “not full” AB map is actually not as critical as a “not full” DS map …

foxcat.4096:

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

That does not mean, though, that the problem doesn’t exist – it just means you’re unable to see it.

Here’s a little hint on how to maybe understand: Limit yourself to 2h gameplay a day for a couple of days. Start that gameplay at 19:20 or 20:20 depending on personal circumstances.

Now see how many taxis you can get, how many metas you can complete, etc. Then compare your loot/exp gain to, say, the same time spent in Orr or SW.

Just in case you’re not actually intending to try that for real – another thought experiment for you: DS takes 1h to 1,5h. Which means if you do not manage to enter at the exact time a new map has started(+/- 5 to 8 minutes) and that map has been filled you cannot complete it in the time you have available.

Get it now? Orr and SW are completely different.

And just in case you go “Well, this is an MMO, it has to be this way” … no … it doesn’t – and GW2 hasn’t been like this prior to HoT. It caters to the “oh we have tons of time we can spent ingame” way too much and seems to have abandoned those people who have rather fixed and limited slots to play. Those synchronized day-night cycles are one of the worst ideas I have EVER encountered – especially so, since their duration is way too long.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

HtFde.3856:

(a) Do I claim to be a casual player? Unfortunately it is my job in RL to “take a look at things from different perspectives” and therefore I’m not one of those “Works for me – must work for anyone else then” kind of guys. In fact – I’m being paid for spotting things where developer and end-user perspectives are, to put it mildly, not overlapping.

(b) Events scale and produce elites and champs when too many people are around. Many events are actually VERY easy when you do not have too many players on the map. Tarir usually only needs many players on south to get as much knockback skills as you can – the other gates can easily be done with 3 players if you can’t get more.

The problem is that people love to taxi in other players till the map is full. This WILL create zergs (15 players isn’t a zerg in my opinion). Said zergs will upscale the events. Not so experienced players will mistake this for being the normal difficulty and will – next time they do this – try for a full map again.

The problem (if you want to call it that) is that all maps can be done with small sized parties BUT they must coordinate. Who goes where and does which event chain, etc. And that, alas, is NOT casual playstyle. And so we get those “way too big as needed” groups in one map and a lot of frustrated players on the “harvested for taxi” maps.

Not many players like to lead – most seem to be content to follow a tag. And if no tag is present they feel lost. This is not such a big problem outside of HoT (except maybe Orr) but in HoT it becomes an issue. This issue might resolve itself once players are more familiar and don’t think they need 60+ players to go for Tarir but it might also be that players leave those areas because they are frustrated.

ANet has done a pretty smart move with creating the mentor tag which allows for people taking the lead without the upfront cost of 300 gold (or 100 gold back in the old days but then it was for only one character). Unfortunately most mentors I see fire up their tags in HoT not to lead but to get help with personal things like a HP they cannot do themselves, etc. I hope that this changes and that more mentors take control of the battlefields to lead people to and through the metas.

What does any of that have to do with the actual topic being discussed?

I shall type for you very slowly … maybe it helps …

HoT = not much fun for casuals because needs either (a) lots of people following tags (which you only get on a few maps while leaving a lot of maps underpopulated and “uncommanded”) or (b) highly organized small groups which is not “casual” playstyle.

Add time gated and time-synchronized maps (events, adventures, etc.) and if you come 10 minutes too late, your taxi is gone and you can just log off for the next 1 to 2 hours because you will not make any progress in HoT.

VB offers some activity you can do (defending a camp at nighttime, escorting soldiers) but AB, TD and DS offer very little to nothing for players on empty maps – whereas on full maps you go where your tags go or you’re facing the same problems as someone on an empty map. Play as you like, indeed …

LucosTheDutch.4819:

3. Waiting: No one likes to wait for an unknown period of time in the hope that a fresh DS map starts hopefully sooner rather than later. With them happening at set times, I know when to log in and check the LFG.

Next logical error from a “works for me” perspective.

Phone call, you come 10 minutes too late – all taxis closed, maps full … now you wait for 1:45 hours for your next attempt. Great design, indeed.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

2. Small player base: GW2’s active playerbase is not that big. The only way to ensure maps fill up is to limit the amount of maps and make them happen at a set time.

Beep – logical error – beep

If you do not have enoughe players it does not make sense to start 3 big maps and their metas at the same time! It would make more sense to put a time shift of, say, 30 minutes or 60 minutes, between instances. As things are yu have like 1 or 2 full DS maps and the way it seems to me 5 or more empty ones. And they WILL remain empty once 1:15 or less is left on the map because noone will start DS with just about an hour to go.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

HtFde.3856:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

Which is another problem, because your statement is wrong

Most metas require only a small group – you can do Tarir with < 15 people. You can do VB metas with 5 ppl. per outpost. But as soon as you have your tag on people will flock to you and people elsewhere feel alone and they start to taxi people in. That will lead to one overpopulated map (where things just get a lot harder because of the amount of players present) and a lot of maps which do not have enough population.

Their megaserver thing isn’t really working in the areas where it matters. The way things are people overcrowd maps in the new zones and SW in 1 or 2 maps and leave like 10 maps empty. Not very encouraging for players stranded on the empty maps.

You know everything you just said flies in the face of a ‘casual’ player, right? While I’m not a mathmatician, saying something doesn’t require a group or zerg, and then saying you only need 5 people (group size) or fifteen people (a minor zerg), to do certain events, makes no sense at all.

Maybe you should clarify your comment.

(a) Do I claim to be a casual player? Unfortunately it is my job in RL to “take a look at things from different perspectives” and therefore I’m not one of those “Works for me – must work for anyone else then” kind of guys. In fact – I’m being paid for spotting things where developer and end-user perspectives are, to put it mildly, not overlapping.

(b) Events scale and produce elites and champs when too many people are around. Many events are actually VERY easy when you do not have too many players on the map. Tarir usually only needs many players on south to get as much knockback skills as you can – the other gates can easily be done with 3 players if you can’t get more.

The problem is that people love to taxi in other players till the map is full. This WILL create zergs (15 players isn’t a zerg in my opinion). Said zergs will upscale the events. Not so experienced players will mistake this for being the normal difficulty and will – next time they do this – try for a full map again.

The problem (if you want to call it that) is that all maps can be done with small sized parties BUT they must coordinate. Who goes where and does which event chain, etc. And that, alas, is NOT casual playstyle. And so we get those “way too big as needed” groups in one map and a lot of frustrated players on the “harvested for taxi” maps.

Not many players like to lead – most seem to be content to follow a tag. And if no tag is present they feel lost. This is not such a big problem outside of HoT (except maybe Orr) but in HoT it becomes an issue. This issue might resolve itself once players are more familiar and don’t think they need 60+ players to go for Tarir but it might also be that players leave those areas because they are frustrated.

ANet has done a pretty smart move with creating the mentor tag which allows for people taking the lead without the upfront cost of 300 gold (or 100 gold back in the old days but then it was for only one character). Unfortunately most mentors I see fire up their tags in HoT not to lead but to get help with personal things like a HP they cannot do themselves, etc. I hope that this changes and that more mentors take control of the battlefields to lead people to and through the metas.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

GW2 is an MMO RPG, which stands for Massive MUTPIPLAYER Online RPG.

If you want to do everything solo, go play a solo RPG.

The HoT maps are fine. Either group up or get better at the game.

No, they are not

Getting a group or getting better at a game does not, in any way, help you with the sync-times maps. When you playtime is from 19:00 – 20:30 of your local time and it just happens that DS is 1:20 hours left on the map … you’ve lost. Taxi maps are full and you won’t get DS started with 1:20 left. Grouping? Doesn’t help. Getting better? Doesn’t help. Hey, let the kids rot in school and let wifey rot at her workplace and … yes, THAT helps, now we can enter the map when it has just started and get a taxi ….

HoT has A LOT of bad design choices … (like locked adventures – with a fixed timeframe when you can play you can get VERY unlucky and arrive 10 minutes before nightfall and then you have 10 minutes to get to the adventure and play it maybe once before it is locked again) … none of those have anything to do with how good you are or if you play solo or not. It’s those “well, I can play 6h a day” types that have no issue with that because they can catch multiple cycles per map. For those with 1 – 2 hours gametime and that usually in a fixed window HoT has nothing much to offer and this will show in the coming weeks and months when people will struggle to fill even one map via taxi.

And you’re saying your schedule is so set in stone that you can’t play an hour later?

Even if that’s the case, that is your problem.

Many things in MMOs take a lot of time. It’s the nature of the genre.

I mean what solution would you propose? Turn DS into a 10 minute cakewalk? That would be hella boring and ruin it for the rest of us.

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

It’s not just “my” problem, believe me. Let’s see how many people with that kind of regulated life are out there and how many have fun with HoT. From my point of view and what I see in my guild … like 80% are no longer doing HoT and about 20% still do it – but they do raids and hardly anything else in HoT.

Ever been to Dry Top lately?

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

Which is another problem, because your statement is wrong

Most metas require only a small group – you can do Tarir with < 15 people. You can do VB metas with 5 ppl. per outpost. But as soon as you have your tag on people will flock to you and people elsewhere feel alone and they start to taxi people in. That will lead to one overpopulated map (where things just get a lot harder because of the amount of players present) and a lot of maps which do not have enough population.

Their megaserver thing isn’t really working in the areas where it matters. The way things are people overcrowd maps in the new zones and SW in 1 or 2 maps and leave like 10 maps empty. Not very encouraging for players stranded on the empty maps.

holodoc.5748:

Taxidriver.2043:

they should just let ppl choose the instance like Aion did. U get 1-9 instances to pick and hop around till u find one u like.

The original Guild Wars has that festure but obviously for the sequel ANet knew “better”. It took them two years to actually drop the idea of having separate maps for every server and get back to something that looks like the system used in GW1, although it still doesn’t allow people to choose manually in which instance they are going to land (a feature available in the original game).

Sighs with the sweet memories … AND … if you had to play at an ungodly hour (shifts, you know) you could hop from EU to US to play with people Latency, of course, was less important in GW 1 unless you played PvP and, say, a Mesmer.

Taxidriver.2043:

they should just let ppl choose the instance like Aion did. U get 1-9 instances to pick and hop around till u find one u like.

Whut? Choice? Begone, foul fiend …

Edit: I mean … most “patches” seem to take away freedom of choice and seem to be aimed at funneling you into an “approved by ANet” playstyle … so I’d realyl be surprised to see elements of choice added …

Wahaha.7938:

“A lot of people seem to struggle to find a good dragon stand map”

I don’t notice that. Use the LFG tool. LFG has a lot of room for improvement, but if you use it you’re certainly not going to be struggling to find a DS map. Every time I want to do DS I find a full map.

Well – you’re either playing a different game than me or are VERY lucky. My experience is:

Have luck with a fresh map (i.e. get lucky with WHEN you enter it) – get a taxi – action rolls. Arrive 10 minutes later and that map is full and I have yet to see 2 maps with taxis. So, set a timer, play somewhere else for 2h and try again.

3 tries today – never got a taxi and the maps I ended up are empty – meta not even started. Great fun … not. I also love that … “Map is empty … want to move to a fuller map” which lands in you another map that is just as empty as the one you left.

Torolan.5816:

. I have to walk through millions of xp to come to auto loot, something that is just a convenience feature for example.

Nods, though engineer + kill streak booster + birthday booster + buff food + Orr makes this actually a fast thing.

nearlight.3064:

Mallis.4295:

nearlight.3064:

Was this really necessary? Do you know how long is pvp only players have had to deal with no or little rewards while you guys run around rich with 6 legendaries each? Go home troll.

Hey I don’t want to spend 850 hours playing PvP to get my dragon finisher. You don’t want to spend 5 hours killing spiders to get an ascended weapon. Who really has the short end of the stick here.

850 hours of pvp is fun. 5 hours of spider farming is not.

And besides there’s literally nothing you can get from pvp that you couldn’t get from pve. Those finishers are essentially useless to you, since you won’t finish anyone in pve. I mean yeah there’s WvW but that’s not relevant to the conversation.

Not that it matters but there are a few enemies in PvE that you can/must “finish”. Like all those special veterans with the mordrem seed events in Kessex Hills, Brisbane, etc. that spawn from time to time (look for big yellow flower symbol on the map). There you can parade your finishers in PvE

Vieux P.1238:

I re-edited my msg cuz i ranted to hard.

No.. just use the actual building in cities. Develop from that. & add all that has bin added already to it. Not only it will feel full of ppl & visitors. It will feel actually alive.

Well, there are only 6 cities in GW 2, so to say. We have LA, The Norn city, The Ausra City, the Tree-Thing, the Human City and the Black Citzadel. Arguably one could add Ebonheart and maybe you’d find one or two settlements that might work – so let’s call it … 10.

If you’d implement the Guild Hall + Jumping Puzzle and whatnot into those cities, you might be able to get like 2 or 3 Guild Halls into a city. So your idea would serve about 30 guilds. Now … what about the other 10.000 guilds? Tough luck?

It was already pretty weird in GW 1 with the cities you could capture which would fall to the alliances with the highest Luxon/Kurzick points. No luck for smaller guilds or alliances to claim anything. I’d really not like to see a re-iteration of that in GW2 by having only selected guild present in the towns and everyone else shoved out of the way.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

The irony is XP is only a part of what you need to get mastery levels. In the end what you will lack, and that you initially really do not, are the mastery points. At that moment when XP won’t be your preoccupation you will suddenly realize that the cooperation of others is strongly required to get the events, HP etc. done in order to unlock a mastery point. And then maybe will you feel some resentment toward those spider farmers that took the places of ppl who would have cared about the meta event you wanted to succeed for many reasons including mastery points/achievements/pride to succeed etc.

Alas, the majority of Mastery Points is (a) solo from map, (b) solo from story and – my nemesis – (c ) from those xxxxx adventures. No group play involved in those. The HP are strangely different but they do not give you mastery points.

And only map 4 does require “the meta” to get to the mastery and hero points – but you’re usually better off with a few adventures … if you don’t hate that stuff as much as I do, that is.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

As for your other paragraph I’m wondering where that “ban” option came from. Nobody that I know of spoke of any banning. The OP proposed a nerf on xp, not a ban. People have all the right and freedom to not participate. There isn’t a kitten thing we can do about that really. However it will have an impact.

My bad – wrong wording.

But we already have some adventures locked when metas start so it would follow the OPs idea to make nodes un-harvestable during a meta as well so that everyone does participate in the metas because, hey, it’s actually th eonly thing you can do.

Er, I don’t quite get what you want … do you want 10.000 portals in LA each leading to a different guild hall? Or do you want a mega map where 1 million players are because every not-instanced guildhall is actually present in the map?

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

smiling.9028:

Absconditus.6804:

Most events reward good XP

Absolutely false. Mobs during events do not give XP unless it’s nearby trash that gets pulled into the fray. All you get is the token xp at the end which is the equivalent of farming about 10 trash mobs.

Unfortunately yet another thread has been posted by someone who feels the need to influence how others play their game. If you don’t like a particular farm thats happening then just don’t participate. Why ask that it be nerfed for the other players when it has no effect on you?

Again it DOES have an effect on others. If it had really no effect on others such post would never exist. I explain exactly how it has an effect on others ONE post before yours.

The meta-event game format is NOT individualistic and a given server has limited space. That you have paid for your game and therefore can play it the way you want is utterly irrelevant to this.

Hm, if the metas would actually give enough XP – would those people farm spiders? IN addition to that – how many people can efficiently farm spiders? I’d say max 5 or 6 per map and only if they really coordinate. So you’re failing metas bacuase there’s < 10 people not participating? I’d rather think the problem is elsewhere.

Now, how about people who do HP or just do gathering or do adventures that are not locked? Want to ban them too – they’re not participating … I don’t like your mindset at all. We all play how we want. If we feel that the metas do not give sufficient reward for the time invested I’d sa yit is a bloody stupid idea to nerf the things that do instead of making the metas more rewarding.

Alas, more RNG …

ZilentNight.5089:

Finally got it tonight with 2 seconds to spare, praise the lord, I shall sacrifice Lord Faren a thousand times to Balthazar!

May I help?

Korsbaek.9803:

HtFde.3856:

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

ZilentNight.5089:

Why is this adventure so much more difficult than the others?

More like, why are the others so easy to beat (scrap pit…). Some I got first try and didn’t even know the adventure before hand. It should take some serious dedication to achieve gold, that way when you finally get it you feel like you have mastered it.

I’d be with you if those weren’t needed for the mastery points. Some people think that stuff is SILLY and does not belong in a game like GW 2. Forcing them to do those to get the mastery points needed to advance their track is already borderline …

you do know the total amount of mastery point you can optain to the HOT lines are much higher then the amount needed to unlock ALL the HOT lines at current time right?

so even if you dont take them all you will still mange to get all the lines maxe out without a problem

We-hell —- unless I am missing something I can get:

7 more from story related stuff (bonus, etc.)
5 more from maps (though without some masteries most of those won’t be doable)
Quite a few on map 4, though I usually don’t find a taxi for it and most are undoable if noone helps

The big rest is scoring silver or better in those blasted “adventures” aka – Nintendo fanboys for the win. This really bugs me … those jump and run things used to be optional – now they are mandatory. Yes, you might be able to get the least annoying ones and spare yourself the most annoying ones but still … I DETEST platform games.

That content should really be optional or have its own reward track and not being integrated into the game as it is now.

Edit: And the absolute downpoint of those adventures is the time gate when they’re tied to a meta … Auric Basin is so much fun when you have to wait like 20 minutes before those things can even be accessed for another futile attempt. Still only at 14 in Fallen Masks. With a controller pad it might actually be easier but with mouse and keyboard … I detest jumping puzzles and they’re much easier – especially since you don’t have a timer.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

ZilentNight.5089:

Why is this adventure so much more difficult than the others?

More like, why are the others so easy to beat (scrap pit…). Some I got first try and didn’t even know the adventure before hand. It should take some serious dedication to achieve gold, that way when you finally get it you feel like you have mastered it.

I’d be with you if those weren’t needed for the mastery points. Some poeple think that stuff is SILLY and does not belong in a game like GW 2. Forcing them to do those to get the mastery points needed to advance their track is already borderline …

Donari.5237:

(Also I was sad to have 48 crystalline ore when I finished DS today. I would have liked the Daredevil inscription. Ah well, I do like running that event!)

Happily off original topic: Any tip how to get those metal plates? I’m drowning in all three currencies (seem to be VERY lucky getting the 100+ in airship parts and suchlike) but somehow I’m stuck at 2 metal plates and can’t seem to get a third I need for weapon trade in.

Finally got the bugger under the tree towards the wp and managed to kill it in like 10 minutes … must have been lucky in TD with the event – in VB I sure got the “protect the soldier” twice + all the nice spawns that come with it.

What kind of has me wondering … are the drops (items for specialization weapons) purely random (so you don’t have to kill a specific mushroom) or are the drops tied to the location? I’ve been going after the VB one when I didn’t get the specialisation drops from the locations I already killed them at …

OK, what am I missing?

I mean … you got this treasure mushroom with about 10 Million HP in one of the most mordrem infested zones – you got those nice mounted cavaliers in the veteran version to make sure you have all the fun of being bounced around for all eternity, you ma ykill 5 enemies but then the first you killed will already respawn … and now … how the … are you supposed to do that mushroom thing?

Oh, yes, it is a group event … meaning you have to get people together. Well, been trying to do that for 3 days now … empty maps, those few peaople that are there do meta or HP … mentor tag, commander tag, spamming in chat … 0 people interested in killing a treasure mushroom on map 1.

So … what am I missing? Where is the hidden trick to make this a “wonderful gaming experience” instead of a horribly frustrating one? Whoever did THAT design in THAT location … should GW 2 HoT fail .. pat him on the back, it’s things like that that will have sersiously helped to put people off.

Fun thing is … on map 2 and 3 I had to kill the bugger by myself as well because noone was interested – sole exception was that it was DOABLE because the monster composition/spawn rate was actually manageable.

Edit: Oh, and it so much more fun with a ranger … obstructed, obstructed, obstructed … which does, apparently, not apply to any ranged enemy – they hit you fine, indeed.

BobbyT.7192:

Ohoni.6057:

Agreed with the OP. “Learn to play” people, if you don’t have a problem with the snipers, then that’s fine, but stop dismissing the reports from people who do.

They aren’t really dismissing them….. just telling them to get better. Other people can do it, why can’t they?

Because people so often think that their playstyle is what everone is is doing. So people run in a group and go “Hey, snipers are easy mode” because everything is focusing on different players. If they never played solo – especially the events in Auric Basin – the ynever encounter the problem of having 3 or 4 groups of “normal zone enemies” – especially pocket raptors and those rolling thingies coupled with 6 – 10 enemies that spawn in for the event. And no – I am not talking about group events, that’s a “normal” event in Auric Basin.

And while it is one thing to doge a few enemies that aren’t even focusing on you and take out 2 snipers it is quite another to be the single point of interest of 10+ enemies, 6 of which have a neverending supply of knockdowns and those 2 snipers that fire just when you hit the ground. QUITE a different experience.

The usual reply to this is “then don’t play solo, play in groups” and in another post those people write “it is quite soloable” – which is a conclusion drawn from the fact that they did a part of the story solo, which isn’t even remotely what “solo play” means.

Yeah … you’ll always have the “Works For Me”™ guys who are completely incapable of seeing problems other people have because they play in different locations, not with a zerg, etc. and conculde that those people are “doing it wrong” and that they must l2p.

Tom Gore.4035:

Astralporing.1957:

Tom Gore.4035:

I see a lot of PvE players crying for having to slot some stun breakers and gap closers for the first time ever in GW2.

Do you? What i see is 2 stunbreakers and 3 cleanses being not enough way too often.

Don’t fight 4-5 mobs at once and learn to dodge too?

I have no problems on the 5 classes I’ve now played HoT with (Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, Thief and Ranger). Sure, I’ve died my fair share, but if I hadn’t what would be the point?

People wanted more challenging content and Anet has been listening. Now you will have to actually learn to play the game instead of mouseclicking through borefests.

Which – in Auric Basin – means: Don’t play! Seems a bit of a silly advice …

What people do not get is that sometimes the maps are empty because some people started to fill another map via taxis. If you didn’t get the taxis or that map is full … you’re on your own with maybe 5 – 10 people spread all over the map. And EVERY event will spawn a couple of opponents + the guys that live there if there is no event.

This will sooner or later put you in exactly the situation you advise to avoid which means: Either play with a group (so you do not have 4 – 10 guys focusing on you and you alone) or don’t play at all – while at the same time saying that HoT is fine and, of course, soloable (which means people usually just did the story and never tried to do events on empty maps).

From my point of view some smart scaling is badly needed. The camp defense for example of the camp SW of where you enter Verdant Brink – not the one up on the ledge but the one a bit further down. When you solo it you get a rather large spawn of Mordrem creatures + 1 or even 2 raptor groups that can re-spawn right in the event circle + 1 or even 2 of the veteran big guys that run from right to left and are more or less immune to immobilzes and suchlike.

Is it doable … depends a bit on the class but my power or condi necro do fine – right up to the point where one of the big dudes respawn and you have those nice mordrem mounts, get knocked down and lie in the center of 2 or 3 sniper lines which means … death.

From my point of view: Content is too hard for solo players in some regions (bad mix of monsters = too much cc for many classes) = not a challenge but frustrating.

Same content is laughably easy if you’re 2 or 3 players and the cc is spread to different people.

So – tune it down if there is only one player but crank it up when there’s 3+ and things will be fine. Maybe make non-vet creatures a bit tamer and spawn vets only with 3 or more players but then buff the vets a tad more …

As it is … it still is a breeze with some classes (my mesmer always shouts for them to bring on more) and a nightmare for others – especially non burst condi builds that have to build up damage and have to avoid 14 (yes, that camp offers as much as 14 enemies with a fresh respawn – including said 2 raptor groups than can spawn right at your heels and attack 1 second later) enemies for much longer than a zerker class does .

Arantheal.7396:

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

I like these little xp piñatas.
Thunderclap -> hammer #3 -> hammer 4, results in up to 18 dead raptors (I love to pull these packs together)
and if something survives, FT #2 -> FT AA does the rest.

one of the few satisfying mobs they’ve implemented.
I also like to steamroll chak-herds.

I believe these give 2 XP per kill?

Edit: Nah, just checked – more

Nods, if you run with a public zerg it is a “come as you are” affair – although quite often the commanders will ask for people to bring more of a specific class (although we sometimes do plate-only raids or necro-only parties). Guild “zergs” are not random in composition – you’ll probabyl be required to bring a specific class with a specific build.

If you’re going frontline I’d recommend TS – if you’re not using that it can be pretty hard if the commander does a fake push and you’re the only one going in after the commander has stopped … well, they did remove repair cost from the game …

If you’re a new player you’ll probably also want some loot to fill your material tabs, get some gold, etc. In that case necro does fine as does guardian. Revenant is – like a portal-or-veil machine mesmer or a portable waterfield generator called elementalist – more a utility class which is quite important but has a harder time getting loot.

Eventually, though, you’ll probably level a few characters to 80 and you’ll find that they play differently enough to be fun. Thief is the only class I do not play very often, all other chars see regular use – especially so in WvW.

Crinn.7864:

Am I the only person that hates the pocket raptor herds?

Probably not – though they are really simple unless, of course, you eat their swarm spike.

My most fun-place not to be is the camp SW of where you enter Verdant Brink at night. When the defense event kicks in you’ll have endless fun of one of the headbutting big dudes making their timed appearance and as many as two pocket raptor herds that can spawn right in the defense circle.

I was cleaning off the big guy when two herds practically spawned right next to me + the next wave of mordrem was being spawned in. Lucky me was doing solo defense on my mesmer so it was ok as soon as I blinked away – I guess most of my other chars would have required a trip from the waypoint in that situation …

Joshhh.2076:

Both are valuable to zergs in WvW. Necromancers are the main damage of a zerg with well skills, whereas elementalists play more of a supportive role with healing fields and crowd control skills – although they still have a good damage output.

As for roaming, from my experience I’d say ele is probably more popular as a roaming class, though any class can be good once you learn it. The best advice I can give is to try both and see which one you prefer.

Main problem with roaming is that the necro is a turtle. You can use the warhorn skill but then you’ll aggro everything not more than half a mile off and you will fall back to combat speed. You can pack the slot skill but that’s a wasted skill unless you want to do some cliff jumping as a lure for stupid enemies who want to hunt you down.

But as necros lack gap closers or openers they are realy sloooooow compared to D/D eles. So to get one’s feet wet in WvW … if roaming is what one is looking for … D/D ele is a good choice. If one likes to run with the pack both classes are very viable but the necro usually will get a lot more loot and WxP.

As for “forgiving gameplay” necro is the far better choice. No attunement bingo to learn (and learn the cooldowns by heart so that you switch at the right time), compared to the ele (lowest armor/lowest health) the necro has a much higher health-pool and with the shroud even a secondary health-pool should things go wrong.

Ele and the attunement-juggling is tons of fun but needs quite some time to learn. Necro is much easier to play and might be better for getting one’s feet wet in GW2 PvE or WvW – unless if you want to roam solo.

Harper.4173:

bravoart.5308:

Arantheal.7396:

question, do you run full zerker gear?

Zerker isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom.

If you don’t play zerker, mobs take 5x+ longer to kill and that’s 5x time longer to shadowstep, stun, blind, instagib you. You can’t outheal or outlast it, and since some of the mobs (frogs) spend 90% of the fight immune, stealthed, shadowstepping to range, or stunlocking/fumbling you, you’re in for a bad time.

Pretty much this – your best bet is to use some blind/block/invunerability and dps the HoT mobs down before they get a chance to be HoT mobs.

I really don’t know how people in non-zerk gear are doing in the jungle.

PU mesmer – no problem at all – just can’t solo champs because I can’t kill the thing in the time limit. PU mesmer kind of relies on stuff killing itself and PvE mobs aren’t the best for this because they attack too slowly.

Condi necro – fun. Takes time to build up the condi damage but if you have a vet as a seed and spread the love from it … it’s so nice to ball things up and see those 5k bleeding and 3k posion ticks on 6 enemies.

All other toons, though, run zerker with maybe a bit of Soldier’s mixed in.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

maps are not deserted i would say you are either not in the right places or are having terrible luck with the mega servers

Verdant Brink seems lifely – the next maps are usually pretty empty for me. I guess that is because people taxi players to one map and when you do not use that taxi (or when they no longer taxi people in) and you appear in the map you get to a non-taxied map and you’re pretty alone there.

I only ever managed to do Rarir properly when I used a taxi and led one gate assault. Enough people there and the event succeeded. Before my taxi use I have never seen Tarir succeed – never enough players around to man all the gates (and you only need like 20 for Tarir to work).

brutalness.5418:

well a atart is veteran stonhead the way the seem to knock me down run of but the time i have got to them its the same 2 or 3 time with that = death

Some enemies are best fought at range – and sometimes it does make a big difference if you dodge to the side or through them – takes a couple of tries to find out which is better for which enemy. With those Stoneheades I usually attack from range and when they run at me I dodge to the side and re-attack them, using my big damage skill with ranges in the moment when they stand in one place (right after they finish their rush movement).

My warrior can also fight them at range but then I use a hammer and you must time your own knockdown + use stability when they’re all on cooldown and you know that thing will run at you.