I built my PC myself, which cost about 750€ (ca. $1026). I can play this game on highest setting nearly all of the time. When it comes to content with many people around, I usually tone down the Character Model Limit slightly. Your overall graphics stay the same, but less characters get displayed. This not only keeps the framerate at a reasonable level, but also prevents skilllag. Many people with better computers do the same.
So whether it is worth the effort totally depends on your situtation, i. e. if you are not content with the power of your computer. My old one did not meet the specifications at all, so this was worth the effort.
Legendaries also did not have the stat swapping option right from the start. Ascended items should not get the stat swapping option for free, though. But they should be unlockable by any means. See the link in my signature for some idea how this could be done.
I also had this when I clicked the X in the top right corner or used exit to desktop. Seems to happen regardless of how you leave the game. It disappears again so quickly, though, that I cannot read it. Oh, I’m using fullscreen mode.
Its not hard to fit the marionette on the lore. After we defeat the Marionette, Priory/Vigil can use that site to train recruits (meaning train new players to work as part of a team that is part of a event that need different teams doing different stuff.
They can use clockknights using holografic skin to appear as molten, aetherblade etc… that will also explain why latter we will not get more code fragments.
In the middle they can have a giant prototype something that they r trying to build to fight the dragons, them something goes wrong and we need cut the chains to take it down, if we fail all nearby things r going to be killed, including us doing the event. They can put like NPC there that will be there supposedly watch us train, or NPC recruits that we need save because theres no time or other reason to evacuate.
For me seems reasonable… what u guys think?
I like this idea. Instead of leaving it exactly as is, however, I would rather want them to keep the location and the mechanics (tower defense + arena) the same, but change the mobs instead. Their level should match the level of the area to allow as many players as possible to participate. The event should also scale better, so that smaller groups stand a chance. Instead of having a champ on the platform there could just be elites or veterans, depending on the number of players in a lane or in the whole area.
By “change the mobs” I mean, that instead of Twisted, Molten, … creatures there could be a dredge invasion, a rabbit attack or stuff like this (something unrelated to Scarlet). If they are really eager, they could even make like four different versions of the event and rotate through those every day.
The marionette can be replaced by some Vigil/Priory/Order of Whispers training device. Let’s call it the Red-Circle-Spam-O-Mat for example. It also should not kill everyone after the time expired, this just does not fit into the theme
Edit: No worries about it taking time to implement (at least story wise). The orders would also need some time creating the training facility if it was them do it.
The mechanics of the boss are really amazing. The fight is challenging enough to not be a guaranteed win. But the fight is also forgiving enough to allow smaller errors. Especially the tower defense part is quite fun, but the arena battles are also nice. Only the dodging achievements cast a weak shadow on the event.
I also want to say how much I appreciated the story instance. It was great just to stand there and listen to the characters. The voice overs are great and so are the dialogs. I didn’t really care about any of those people before. Rox, Marjory and Kasmeer were just some NPCs that helped me to inject the final dose of venom for example. But now they really got a story, a personality.
BTW, Peneloopee and Bloomanoo are quite cuddly as well.
I had this problem today during the defend phase of the marionette phase. The only skills I could use were scepter 2 and 3 (elementalist), probably because they have no casttime. Even after I went through the portal the problem remained. After I got downed by the champ, though, it worked as usual again.
At least three other people had this problem during the same event, the one two hours later and four hours later.
Edit: I also had this bug at several other times in the game, but during these mega-events with lots of people it seems to occur much more commonly.
Where did you hear that there will be new stat – ferocity ? I would like to read about it more
If you want to hear it right from the devs, here is a link to the video: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/3581129. There are also some written summaries of their preview, if you prefer this.
If it is really random where people are placed, they should rework it. How about this: Person 1 is sent to platform 1, person 2 is sent to platform 2, … , person 5 is sent to platform 5, person 6 is again sent to platform 1, and so forth. Some people could get a DC, but that should happen pretty uniformly across all platform, so balance is maintained. Disregarding DCs this ensures that the difference between largest and smallest population on a platform is never greater than 1.
He seems to reset when someone attacks him. At least we were able to defeat him multiple times, when we left him alone. I have no idea though, whether this is the real reason and whether this is intentional or not.
PS: It also happened before the update yesterday.
Ascended items needn’t be stronger. Even with best in slot gear the game should be challenging. It is already bad enough that they are better then exotics and don’t just have an infusion slot, thereby forcing you to do the grind.
The only thing they additionally need – in my opinion – is the ability to unlock stat combos, an option to change between all unlocked ones whenever out of combat, and the use of fully unlocked ascended items as legendary precursor (Ad: See my signature for more information).
I can understand why they did this, I also had some lags during the Tequatl fight. But 30 minutes is way to harsh of a restriction. Something along the lines of Summoning Sickness in GW 1 would be more appropriate. This effects inflicts a cooldown on all summoning items for 10 minutes and it is remove upon changing a map.
What they really need is failsafes. Like have code in place so that if an NPC is meant to take X amount of time to reach a destination, and if for ANY reason he doesn’t reach that destination in, say, X+10% or so, then they should just teleport him automatically to the target location.
+1
Maybe not teleport him automatically, but add a dialog option after this time. This way the event can only continue if players are around.
I edited the above post the make it easier to read and included a basic example of how I think precursor crafting could work out. As I pointed out near the end of the post, I do not want it to be implemented exactly like this. The abstract pretty much distills the essence of the suggestion.
OTOH the ascended stuff have stats like legendary so it should be hard to get it…
Not quite right. Legendaries always have the same stats as the current non-legendary best in slot gear. Before they introduced ascended weapons, legendaries had the same stats as exotics. So it’s rather legendaries have the same stats as ascended, not the other way around.
The problem: Ascended items basically lock you into one stat combination. Sure, you could make yet another set, but this clutters your inventory and more importantly requires just as many materials as the first set. On top of this, you even need to get sigils/runes/infusions again. The issue gets worse if you take alts into consideration.
Furthermore future balance updates like the nerf to critical damage are going to upset many people who already crafted their ascended stuff. Additionally new content might also require new builds.
What also bothers me is that legendary trinkets or armor could be introduced. As it is currently implemented, legendary items make ascended ones obsolete once you got them, thereby destroying your progress.
The solution: Add a means to unlock stat combinations on ascended items. This can be implemented in a variety of ways, including crafting, a scavenger hunt, etc. Once all stat combinations are unlocked, these items function like legendary items. The next step is therefore pretty clear: Allow us to use these items in place of legendary precursors. Now going from some fully unlocked ascended item to a legendary one is a purely cosmetic upgrade.
Some thoughts: There are also recipes for ascended insignias/inscriptions and the <stat type> item. What to do with them? One option would be to refund those recipes (which should not be too difficult), but leave all recipes in the game. This way you can choose the initial stats of your new item. Maybe even use those ascended insignias/inscriptions in the unlocking process to let them remain useful.
Pros:
Getting ascended items is a part-success on the long road to a legendary item. Not many people use the current precursors, but lots of people use ascended items. This also makes ascended items a more short time goal than legendary ones and not an alternative path.
You can stop upgrading your item, whenever you like. If Berserker and Soldier stats suffice for you, stop there. If you want all stats unlocked, but do not mind the skin, so be it. If you want to go all the way to a legendary, do just that.
No progress is lost if you decide to make a legendary item after already getting its ascended counterpart.
Ascended items do not become obsolete if legendary armor/trinkets are introduced
Non RNG way to getting precursors + possible scavenger hunt
Changing builds even with best in slot gear
New content can require changing stats. Mobs can be immune to direct damage or immune to conditions. This can make for more interesting encounters.
Future balance updates without everybody freaking out
As mentioned at the end of the blog, as always things are subject to change as test and prepare various systems. Most of the stuff covered in the blog you’ve already seen implemented, or steps towards being implemented, however the precursor building (and corresponding additional legendary items) is the one highest at risk to not make it this year.
Zerker gear is used not because it has better stats than any other set. It’s used because it’s all that is needed in A-nets crappy mindless, no skill, PvE game.
Qft
Fix the mechanics, not the tools.
Enlighten me if I understood it wrong, but didn’t they say they know that this is not the complete solution to the dominance of Berserker gear in PvE and that further changes are coming down the road?
Adding an additional indirection (ferocity → critical damage) might help to balance it out better, as there is more room for fine adjustments. Furthermore I like to play through stuff before judging it. There is still enough time for criticism afterwards.
Swap on the go, and it doesn’t take over your inventory. Like if I have one armor set that focuses more on vitality, when the other is more on power, ect.
What do you think?
I’m not sure I get your suggestion. Do you want to be able to swap the stats on items, like from Berserker to Soldier? Or do you want templates, were you save your current build? Or is it something totally different?
On Dzagonur the Ogre Wars meta event in Fields of Ruins is no longer working. As you can see on the attached screenshot Maybri Shadowstalker is standing in front of the northern gate (alone), but the meta event does not even show up on the right hand side. There are no events in either Bloodgorge Watch or in Sapper’s Delve.
When I first came there with a couple of other people, the Defend the charr leaders at Bloodgorge Watch was running. After we completed the event successfully, the meta event description was reading Vanguard forces control Sapper’s Delve. Charr forces are preparing to assault Foulbear Kraal. Speak to Maybri Shadowstalker in Bloodgorge Watch to launch their forces.. However Maybri was nowhere around. After about ten minutes the Defend the charr leaders at Bloodgorge Watch event started again and we completed it successfully. But again Maybri did not turn up and when the Defend the charr leaders at Bloodgorge Watch event occurred after some waiting, we let it fail.
This caused the Capture Bloodgorge Watch event to begin – as it usually should. Before this happened, though, Scarlet invaded Field of Ruins (maybe causing some bugs). Anyway, the Capture Bloodgorge Watch event was completed successfully, we talked to Maybri and she ran to the northern gate. Now, however, no other NPCs accompanied her, the guys that were usually coming out of the cave did not spawn at all (they were definitely not killed). Since then she is standing in front of the northern gate and this branch of the meta event does not go on.
In order to work around this, we went to Sapper’s Delve, were the Defend Sapper’s Delve from ogres event was going on. Even though the event description stated, that Commander Neal was at full health, he was not there. Again, we completed the event successfully, but there was no follow up at all and the meta event description disappeared some time later.
Tl;dr: The Ogre Wars meta event is broken on Dzagonur preventing further progress.
There are so many possible new suffix’ there to be used.
Why not simple use both suffix fro mboth weapons and make a new suffix out of both in relationship of what the two used suffix were?
Example:
Apothecary’s Pearl Broadsword of Frailty
Apothecary’s Pearl Broadsword of Strength
= Apothecary’s Pearl Broadsword of Devastation
Devastation becoming a new Suffix for when combining Frailty with Strength
That way when you see the suffix Devastation on a Weapon, then you can clearly know direct, which kind of Sigils are on that weapon combined.
Involves way too much coding and way too many names.
If there are 60 sigils, and there is a combination for each 2 sigils:
I end up with 60! different names of sigils
which is 60 × 59 × 58 x 57 × ... × 2 x 1 names required.
I don’t quite get your math. If you have 60 possibilities for the first sigil and 60 possibilities for the second sigil, there are 60×60 = 3600 different options overall. Disregarding order there would be 1800. Nonetheless this is way to complicated.
True story: With my very first try (3 rare scepters + 1 Mystic Forge Stone) I got Storm. After that I experimented a bit with exotics and Mystic Forge Stone and never got anything more valuable than 4 gold. Once I lost 250 gold doing this, I hit the brakes.
Totally depends on whether you want to take the risk or not. You are close to getting a guaranteed Dusk by just buying it. But with a little – maybe a little more – luck, you can keep all your money and get Dusk from the Mystic Forge. Or you could loose it all and regret your decision.
I can only tell you, what I would do: I would choose option c) and wait until precursors become craftable.
Silk was way too cheap once, now it is way too expensive. One of the adjustments (3 instead of 2 Silk Scraps per Bolt of Silk; 100 instead of 50 Bolts of Silk per Spool of Silk Weaving Thread) was to much. 150 Silk Scraps for one Spool should suffice.
I’d much rather see some way to unlock stats on ascended gear permanently, so one can switch between them as needed. Ascended gear just takes too long to make if you want to run different builds – maybe even multiple characters.
But it’s probably best to just wait for the change to come and see what impact it really has.
Here is an overview of the T5 materials, you need for the various ascended items:
Light Armor:
10800 Silk Sraps
900 Thick Leather Sections
Medium Armor:
7200 Silk Sraps
2700 Thick Leather Sections
Heavy Armor:
1600 Mithril Ore
7500 Silk Sraps
Axe:
750 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Dagger:
450 Elder Wood Logs
800 Mithril Ore
Focus:
1200 Elder Wood Logs
300 Mithril Ore
Greatsword:
450 Elder Wood Logs
900 Mithril Ore
Hammer:
750 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Harpoon Gun:
1200 Elder Wood Logs
500 Mithril Ore
Longbow:
1050 Elder Wood Logs
300 Mithril Ore
450 Thick Leather Sections
Mace:
750 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Pistol:
750 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Rifle:
900 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Scepter:
1200 Elder Wood Logs
300 Mithril Ore
Shield:
450 Elder Wood Logs
700 Mithril Ore
Shortbow:
1050 Elder Wood Logs
300 Mithril Ore
450 Thick Leather Sections
Spear:
750 Elder Wood Logs
600 Mithril Ore
Staff:
1350 Elder Wood Logs
300 Mithril Ore
Sword:
450 Elder Wood Logs
900 Mithril Ore
Torch:
750 Elder Wood Logs
500 Mithril Ore
Trident:
1200 Elder Wood Logs
500 Mithril Ore
Warhorn:
750 Elder Wood Logs
500 Mithril Ore
So let’s see how much it takes of each T5 material to gear up a character of each profession completely in ascended armor and weapons. For the sake of this scenario this means to get a full set of ascended armor and one of each weapon the character can use. If the character can use a weapon both as a mainhand-weapon and as an offhand-weapon, you want to get two so you can dual wield.
So even in this worst case scenario (not many warriors want all those weapons), you need more Silk Scraps on average than you need Elder Wood Logs or Mitril Ore. And Silk Scraps cannot be gathered like those two. So here is my proposition:
Decrease the amount of Bolts of Silk per Spool of Silk Weaving Thread to 50
Increase the amount of Cured Thick Leather Square per Spool of Elonian Leather Cord to 100
Optionally: Increase the amount of Mithril Ore per Mithril Ingot to 3.
Depending on the third point, the new average would be
First I want to thank Uvatha for the very detailed research. This is more than I hoped for and certainly better, than what I did today, but this will do as well. Playing the game for about 4 hours I got from salvaging with a Copper-Fed-Salvage-O-Mat:
61 Mithril Ore
57 Silk Scraps
52 Elder Wood Logs
43 Thick Leather Squares
At this rate I would need about 5 days to gather the silk for a single spool. For elder wood and mithril it is easy enough to get more by just gathering some in Malchor’s Leap or the Cursed Shore. There is no way to boost your supply of silk or thick leather, however. Even if you would introduce “silk nodes” or “thick leather nodes” (I would not really want it this way), they would just be on par with mithril and elder wood. This still does not justify that you need 300 silk. Furthermore, I see no reason not to change the recipe for Mithril Ingots to need 3 Mithril Ore. 150 of the raw materials for all four of the recipes seems reasonable.
Another interesting observation is the highest peak in the price for Bolt of Damask, Elonian Leather Square, Deldrimor Steel Ingot and Spiritwood Plank. I took the highest one day average. The data is taken from GW2Spidy:
Bolts of Damask were more than twice as expensive as Deldrimor Steel Ingots or Spiritwood Planks when they came out. Sure, there are also other materials involved, like linen, cotton and wool and you need Bolts of Damask almost exclusively for light armor. The new back items also require them. But it is still quite a difference and the silk probably affects this as well.
Since I salvage every blue and green item i can for magic find i actually do end up with more silk than i have uses for. It builds up pretty quickly.
And how is this compared to Mithril Ore, Elder Wood Logs and Thick Leather Sections? I would love to get some input on this, as I currently just have my data and since each player plays the game a little different.
Indeed, it is common sense that ascended gear is a long term goal. It is also common sense that the price will drop. The real question is however, why you need 100 Bolts of Silk (300 Silk Scraps) for a Spool of Silk Weaving Thread, when you need
50 Mithril Ingots (100 Mithril Ore) for one Lump of Mithrillium
50 Elder Wood Planks (150 Elder Wood Logs) for one Glob of Elder Spirit Residue
50 Cured Thick Leather Squares (150 Thick Leather Sections) for one Spool of Thick Elonian Cord
Is Silk really that much easier to get than Mitril, Elder Wood or Cured Thick Leather? Do you get twice as much Silk as any of the other two?
You did have over a year of silk scraps going for vendor +1 copper on the tp to get a decent amount of silk lying around, there was plenty of time after they announced ascended armor to still get scraps under 20 copper each. Only people hurting on these prices are the ones that didn’t bother to see it coming.
While this might be true, there are (hopefully) still people coming to the game now. How were they supposed to “see this coming”? And even after they announced ascended armor, they did not tell you the recipe, did they? Of course you could infer it from the other recipes, but it was still a speculation. It could have been totally different as well and you would be left with your 10000 silk scraps.
This is the only recipe for ascended materials, that requires 100 T5 materials. All the others work with 50 instead. Furthermore you need three Silk Scraps for one Bolt of Silk, so that 300 Silk Scraps are required for a single Spool of Silk Weaving Thread. On top of this light armor almost exclusively needs Bolt of Damask.
The dramatic increase in demand for silk as well as the equally dramatic decrease in supply has caused its price to double over the past week. So, please, take a look at this and consider to adjust it accordingly. A good way would be to bring down the number of Bolt of Silk in the Spool of Silk Weaving Thread recipe to 50 as well.
Edit: Fixed grammar.
Edit 2: Also see this thread.
Character progress tab
This is an idea similar to the achievement tab in the hero panel, but on a per character basis. It is meant to give an overview of the characters progress. As I want to avoid the word “achievement”, I will call these progress indicators “goals”.
Some goals could be similar to existing achievement, like slaying 500 elementals or finishing the personal story. Others might be different like finishing all skill challenges. The rewards however are not achievement points. Instead you can use this system to award new skills, traits, skins, character based titles (“Slayer of Zhaitan”), exclamations (see above) or other stuff. Maybe add in the possibility to create custom goals as well, without any reward of course. These custom goals could for example be used to keep track of one’s progress making a legendary weapon.
I am admittedly not entirely convinced of this idea, since there is a large overlap between goals and achievements, but I put it up for discussion nonetheless. Maybe someone can save the idea.
Extensible ascended equipment
Yes, I know that this has been discussed at length in the vertical progression CDI, but this fits more nicely into horizontal progression.
Without a doubt ascended gear is hard to acquire. Using only laurels, you need 180 laurels to get one amulet, two rings and two accessories. You can get a maximum of 40 laurels per month (plus some additional from achievement chests), which adds up to 480 laurels per year. This way you can gear up between two and three characters with ascended trinkets per year and this is only one stat combination. Laurels are also needed for ascended recipes making them even more valuable. Sure, there are other ways to get ascended equipment and it is supposed to be hard to get one complete set. This is good as is. It is not good however, that all you get after this is a set with one stat combination.
So here is a proposal: You introduce a consumable that is used to unlock a stat combination on one ascended item. Then you can switch between all the unlocked stat combos as you can do with legendary equipment. These consumable should be a guaranteed drop from challenging content in the world. Defeating the karka queen yields a settler’s consumable for example. Opening the Temple of Balthasar, finishing a boss fractal, taking SM in WvW, doing a path in Arah or defeating Tequatl could be other means to get them.
Each place should drop exactly one type of consumable, so you know what you get. Each consumable should maybe drop in multiple places, though. This way people are not force to defeat Tequatl, for example, if their server has never succeeded, yet. You should only get one consumable per type, account and day. A nice way to place them would therefore be the bonus chests that appear above the mini map. Also make them nontradable, so that it requires some skill to get them.
Once you unlocked all stat combinations the items basically work the same as legendaries do. The next step is therefore clear: Allow us to use these items in place of legendary precursors. This would be a non RNG way to acquire a precursor, no progress is destroyed when new legendary equipment like armors or trinkets is introduced and it even has that feeling of a scavenger hunt through the entire world to get a precursor.
If ascended items are too cheap compared to the former precursors, add in an intermediate step, where you have to combined the weapon with some icy runestone or some similar item. This makes it easy to adjust the price to a reasonable amount. If it is too easy to get all stat combination, change the consumables to crafting ingredients for some recipe that produces the final consumable. All this requires some balancing, but the main idea stays the same.
The character already says things when discovering a new area, a new skill, getting might or other stuff. This can also be used to display character progress. If a character is in the priory and discovers a tomb, they might say something like “The priory will be interested in this”. Or if after a character kills an earth elemental after killing hundreds of elementals before they say “I know your weaknesses”. Same after killing an enemy with a dagger after accumulating 500 dagger kills: “I always liked this weapon”. This way your progress is displayed and the game is a bit livelier. The system is also quite expandable.
Follow up events
After finishing a renown heart you gained the trust of this NPC. Some of them could allow you to start new events related to that renown heart. The same can be done with representatives of the orders. These could also offer you specific mission like events. This would provide a way to hook in new events and make returning to the renown hearts NPCs more rewarding.
Example: There is a renown heart where you are stealthed and have to navigate through Ash Legion Spies without them discovering you. This could have a follow up event where you have to ambush a Charr Separatist. This guy is a coward and teleports away as soon as he sees another player. So the player has to gain stealth and accquire an Anti-Teleportation-Gun from the renown hearts NPC to first disable his teleport. After this it is a normal fight, so other players can join in as well. Since it is possible that other players run into him accidentally before his teleport is disabled, the event should not fail right away, but should just teleport away far enough to drop aggro and regain full health. All this should of course take place near the renown hearts NPC to prevent players from gaining stealth and running around the map unharmed. Stealth might wear of after say one minute or upon leaving the event circle.
The “not reusable” column is relevant, if you also want to make one infusion of every lower tier and if you cannot upgrade used infusions. The “reusable” column is relevant, if you want to skip all lower tiers until you get to the desired one or if it should ever be possible to upgrade used infusions. The ratio is just the value in the left column divided by the value in the right column.
These two strategies are the two extremes, so you should probably fall somewhere between them. Anyway, even if you create one infusion of every tier, you only need about twice as many 1-infusions.
