Guild Wars 2

Sam was incredibly expensive even before it was a required part of a collection. I expect it to end up priced slightly more than similarly low-rate drops in the same collection.

Tub.4560:

archive.org to the rescue!

EULA:
Old EULA for US, updated March 26, 2013
Old EULA for europe, updated March 26, 2013
New EULA, updated August 25, 2015

Privacy Policy:
Old Privacy Policy
New Privacy Policy

At first glance, they changed NCSoft to ArenaNet, changed the formatting and merged the region-specific versions into a single document. I’ll take a closer look when time permits.

JediYoda.1275:

Gaile Gray

Oh say, that’s been in there since before Guild Wars launched, back in 2005. I guess I’d call it “standard verbiage” and I know that I’ve asked about it, and it’s a corporate thing, but should not be seen as any sort of mechanism to start monthly fees. The entire company is behind the “There is no monthly fee” concept for GW and GW2, and that is not going to change.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/License-Agreement/first#post1706206

Thanks Tub and JediYoda for doing the research. The tl;dr is: much ado about corporate mumbo-jumbo that has been there for a while.

Menadena.7482:

That was a question I had as well. Both my partner and myself wore pantsuits at our wedding and there was never any question of doing otherwise. With marriage equality being the law of the land where anet exists (and a few other countries as well) you would think they would assume there just MIGHT be some same sex weddings.

Same sex weddings don’t imply cross-gender-stereotypical clothing.

However, in this situation, it’s a question of resources, not intent: looks that can be worn by both genders require twice as many resources to set up (not to mention some effort to figure out the user interface: do you sell two different outfits? do you create new toggle for the one outfit?) and wouldn’t have twice the appeal, i.e. ANet isn’t likely to sell twice as many outfits (if they ‘unlock’ the stereotypical models for each gender) as they do now.

Thus, the effort far exceeds the value to the community (or at least as it exists in 2015). Since ANet is in business to make money and not to bend people’s minds, I don’t see it likely that this sort of thing will get a lot of attention.

Seera.5916:

I thought the Shadow dye set wasn’t included since it’s still in the gem store?

You thought right — I goofed (fixed my post accordingly — thanks for the reminder).

Linfang.1087:

This is the most Bi-Polar community I ever seen.

Rave over a free 1k Dye
Rant over a 1k Dress

Anet just can’t win, can they?

There was a post on reddit a while ago asking if there was anything at all that ANet could do that would generate complaints (that at least had a kernel of legitimacy in them). The consensus was: no, there is nothing at all.

For example, if ANet had given away 100 gems for the birthday, the complaints would be:

• I can’t buy anything with only 100 gems — this is just ANet trying to get me to buy more gems.
• I only created one character on day one while others (some of whom had extra slots due a bug during BETA) created 8 or more. It’s unfair, since they will get 800+ gems, which can be used for all sorts of stuff.

• For PvP, try them all — no need to level since you start off L80 with all skills/traits unlocked.
• For WvW solo roaming, thief is often considered the most survivable (due to stealth). I’m not that good and I can survive long enough to run away from 2:1 on just about anything. From each armor weight, I’d recommend necro (light), thief (medium), or guardian (heavy) if you want to jump right in.
• For PvE roaming, it doesn’t matter. Finding a class that suits you is far more important than trying to find a class that is theoretically easy.
• For PvE dungeons, it’s easier to find groups if you play Ele, Guardian, or Warrior. However, it isn’t at all hard to find groups if you don’t (just not “easier”).

tl;dr your best bet is finding a class that you enjoy and getting good at playing it; in the long run (and the medium run), that will be more important than choosing something easy for the short run.

PariahX.6970:

still can get on gem store so . . . nope not a present, sorry

I think it’s more likely to be an accident rather than intentional. However, it’s just a guess, unless ANet offers a specific response.

You’ll get to choose additional colors for each of your 3-year old characters, so factor that into account. Here are my thoughts about the color sets:

• Flame: Some really useful colors here, most of which don’t have great alternatives from the ordinary color sets.
• Frost: I use all of these still. They look great on light and heavy armor.
• Toxic: some excellent choices here, including Cobolt, Blacklight, and Cyanide.
• Deathly: people like these for necro and/or certain medium armor themes. I never use any.
• Metallurgic: not my favorites, although I do use Prosperity sometimes.
• LA Commemorative: good colors, although not quite as good as battle imo. My favorites: solitude and Anamnesis.
• Battle for LA: these are all good. My favorites are enameled sky & legacy.
• Glint: some really nice colors here, if you are looking for off-whites. Crystal & Isolation are my favorites.
• Crimson Lion: these are all ‘good’ colors, but nothing amazing, unless you really, really love Chinese Lunar New Year (these colors do have the best match to the unofficial LNY colors that I see in Chinatowns across the US and in Hong Kong).
• Taimi: The unofficial pastels of the 1984 Summer Olympics are back! The pink is a great troll-y color and I find the blue is fantastic for asura cultural heavy armor.
• LA Rebuild: Enameled Onset, Morning Glory are gorgeous. Enameled Brass is properly shiny.
• Shadow: I like the midnight dyes better, for all but a few specific situations. These are great, however, for those who just love the blackest of blacks.

edit: forgot that Shadow dyes aren’t available from the Celebration kit (at least, not yet)

If 1,000 gems is too much for you, don’t buy it. I understand the sentiment: I like the outfit enough that I’m wiling to spend 700 gems and I’m not willing to spend 1,000. However, I don’t understand the outrage. So ANet priced it above your interest level — why get upset about it?

This gets discussed from time to time and it seems unlikely: it’s nearly impossible to reset a character for just the story; there are all sorts of internal checks & balances that get altered as a character levels and completes elements of the story. So the programming would be tricky and the QA would be nearly impossible — look how many accidental bugs were created by simply re-ordering the personal story bits that are the same for everyone and had not yet been completed when ANet introduced the NPE.

And there’s already a decent alternative: buy a new toon slot or re-roll an existing one.

• New toon has the advantage that you get a storage toon who can be parked at a rich platinum vein or a JP chest.
• Re-rolling is cheaper, while losing the extra storage/income.
• Both have the disadvantage of requiring re-leveling to 80, although that can be bypassed with tomes and/or crafting.

tl;dr it’s possible to do this. Unfortunately the costs of adding the feature far exceed the limited benefits.

Dreamslayer.7659:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dreamslayer.7659:

I have three Celebratory Dye packs, soon to be five and I’m dying here…

You’re not “dying” — like me, you just don’t have any use for the gift at the moment. I’m saving mine in the hopes that:

• As new kits are added to the game, the loot table is updated to allow them to be chosen. and/or
• ANet changes the rarity to exotic for colors exclusive to the kits, so that they can be forged for a chance of a new color.

(Obviously, the first option is a lot better than the second.)

Believe me, when you have them all unlocked, you’re dying all the time.

Also, we don’t know that they will update the loot tables on these packs. We certainly hope they will, but things like this tend to languish…

I don’t believe you — I have them all unlocked and I’m not dying.

And sure, I have no idea if they planned to update the loot tables or not. That’s why I’m saving them in the hope that they will. I have no expectation that they have to (nor that I am entitled to a color released after today).

Blaine Tog.8304:

Most dyes are not remotely worth what they’re going for on the Trading Post. The market is wildly inflated because there is no supply, so the only people buying them are those with more money than they know what to do with.

All dyes are worth exactly what they are going for on the Trading Post. That is, in fact, why they go for those prices.

What you could accurately say is: those dyes aren’t worth the TP prices to you (and perhaps, to the majority of players).

CandyHearts.6025:

Good. No dye should be worth the same as a precursor.

Why not?

Currently, Frenzy and Kraitkin are available for under 90g. Six ordinary rares cost more than that (Abyss, Black, Celestial, Midnight Fire, Midnight Ice, & White). So even outside the Taimi/Electro dye exclusives, there have been dyes that cost more than precursors for ages.

The cost of things is determined by the market, which only cares about supply & demand. So if a few people want electro blue badly enough and there are only 10 available on the TP, then the price will be 1,000g or more.

Loxias.2375:

I would think that, when opened, it would check against current applicable dye kits. Otherwise, different items that looked the same would have to be created.

It doesn’t include the Shadow Dye Kit colors, so it doesn’t have any sort of auto-check feature in it now.

Sinbold.8723:

Because these are more map issues than AC issues, I’d say don’t look for a “fix” any time soon, as these maps will go the way of the dodo bird when HoT comes out. Then we’ll have to find all new places for siege, which of course will lead to all sorts of other issues dealing with siege placement.

I’d say, look for a fix any time soon, as in today’s patch:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-August-25-2015/5414083

See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-August-25-2015/5414083

(and cross our fingers)

DarcShriek.5829:

Only 2 of the 5 characters that I started on day 1 have received a birthday gift.

It goes by the exact minute of creation. (I thought I had created five character in the first hour — turns out, I had only created one in the first 24 hrs; the rest I had re-rolled or forgotten exactly when).

Use the /age command in-game to make sure they are 1095 days.

Pandaman.4758:

Isn’t it just horrible? Now people can just make a throwaway character and get super expensive dyes by only waiting three years, then they can repeat the process all over again until they get all 64 dyes in… 192 years!

Seasoning intensifies!

Except ANet will release new colors before the first 64 toons are old enough. Plus, some people haven’t unlocked things like Abyss, Celestial, or some other high-value colors, so it will take potentially 1,000s of years to use the birthday rewards to unlock all the dyes.

I agree: this was an awesome anniversary reward (even if I can’t benefit from the dye, having already unlocked all the existing colors except Shadow Abyss, which isn’t an included option).

Linken.6345:

Nope its for the challenge and if your lucky and dont get dungeon stolen you can sell the other 4 spots for more gold thats a big IF tho

No luck involved if you get two friends to join the party before sending the invites.

Astralporing.1957:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

I love the warhorn for ele. Sorry that you don’t.

I’m not talking about it not being cool for some people. We were talking about it improving the gameplay. Currently that’s not really the case (though i admit it’s not fully the warhorn’s fault, but partially caused by scepter problems and Tempest in general being a bad design).

Again, we disagree. It adds a dimension to my game play.

I understand the sort of thing you mean, though: for my main (mesmer), I wanted a new main hand option (since scepter is useless in PvE most of the time) and was disappointed when I heard about shield for Chronomancer. However, the actual gameplay is different — not what I had hoped for specifically, but definitely will add a dimension to the class.

I feel the same about ele warhorn vs some main-hand option: it’s a great addition imo, even it’s not the change I wanted.

Dreamslayer.7659:

I have three Celebratory Dye packs, soon to be five and I’m dying here…

You’re not “dying” — like me, you just don’t have any use for the gift at the moment. I’m saving mine in the hopes that:

• As new kits are added to the game, the loot table is updated to allow them to be chosen. and/or
• ANet changes the rarity to exotic for colors exclusive to the kits, so that they can be forged for a chance of a new color.

(Obviously, the first option is a lot better than the second.)

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I have to admit though, if I was someone who had a 1000 plus gold dye listed to sell, I would be upset. I wonder how long it will be before we see the first angry thread on the forum from one of the sellers of the ultra expensive dyes.

I’m sure some will be angry, but they shouldn’t. There’s good money in speculating on low-supply items when the faucet is turned off, but that market collapses when ANet turns the faucet back on (as they have almost always done in the past).

Susanoo.2586:

…as someone who has purchased …two of the most expensive dyes, [t]his new birthday present has made me pretty kitten angry. Why should someone get something that has equal value to that of a Precursor for free?

I think this is one of the best presents ever offered in GW1 and GW2 and I cannot benefit from it (I already have all the current colors unlocked). The OP should recognize that the rewards of the many outweigh the preferences of the few.

What else would the OP suggest?

• That no one get rewarded with dyes?
• That ANet take control of the markets away from players? (And therefore have fewer people working on developing new features, since state-ownership of markets is labor intensive.)
• That people only get reward with low-value items? (And therefore please no one.)
• That ANet offer random rewards? In GW1, this meant 5% of players were happy (getting a coveted mini), while 95% were unhappy (getting fodder).

Nothing of value was taken from the OP. In fact, if the OP wants to compare this to receiving the value of a precursor, this reward is only available by investing the equivalent of 800 gems (i.e. the retail price of a character slot) and waiting 3 years — it isn’t available to just any player.

tl;dr this is an awesome reward for the community

At the moment, when people are ‘offline’ (either because they are actually offline, recently DC’d, changed their status, or (I believe) blocking you), you get a network error message.

In other words, your internet connection is fine; the game is just reporting the wrong message.

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

There was flatly NO reason for them to confine themselves to a pattern across 9 classes that doesn’t actually improve their individual gameplay.

Because the warhorn does improve the ele gameplay…
Yeah, right.

I love the warhorn for ele. Sorry that you don’t.

I fully agree with Nike’s post: the big picture is more interested in balancing the game across all professions, not about offering everyone their favorites.

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s a tool someone pointed me to.

https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/tool/dye/search

That’s a great tool.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Well, with the 3rd birthday gift, you can just go ahead and grab that Enameled Emblaze.

Just in time for the OP

The Lunar New Year’s (February) happened after the expac was announced; the expansion was announced in January.

ANet decided that they would focus all their attention on the expac. That probably seemed like a great idea at the time. I think it was a tactical error, since they could have been actively hyping the expac from within the game by including hints for the story line, introducing concepts and characters during festivals, and giving people a reason to return to the game regularly (making them more likely to purchase the expac).

However, much as I would like to see events and festivals and well, anything new, it would be a bigger mistake for them to try to change direction at this point. Their choices are to release the game later or with few features, in order to free up staff. It takes a lot of lead time to gear up for certain events — as long as 12 months or more for some things — and it takes resources to follow-up and nurture the event (fixing bugs, offering customer service, etc). I just don’t see how they could pull it off.

tl;dr they decided a long time ago (probably in 2014) that they would interrupt our regular updates in favor of doing an expac. Now, we just have to wait and see if it was worth it.

You were incredibly lucky if you got as many as one/month.

I get them reliably from map completion, but not from random drops. (They do drop from mobs though; I’ve had guildies get them in the last few months.)

There was no game update today, so there’s no way they could have changed the BD boosters.

Jax.4903:

Check in every day for 21 days for big discounts, returning old favorites, and exciting new items!

Does “old favorites” include bunny ears? I am in a guild with over 500 members and bunny ears have been a hot topic this past year by many who wish to buy them.

In fact, I don’t quite understand the concept of limited editions of GW2 digital gear. While some people may rush to purchase it, I think A-Net would have more sales overall if all items were left in the gem store once released.

In most cases, ANet rotates availability for two reasons:

• It encourages sales, since people are more likely to spend if they are worried the item won’t be available to them later.
• It adds value to the item for players — if something is always available, humans tend to take it for granted.

I don’t think either of these apply to the Bunny Ears. I suspect instead that there was an issue with the animation and ANet preferred to spend their time working on new stuff rather than fixing it. (Not that I could tell you what the issue was, since clearly people who have them are seemingly happy with them.)

It’s not likely to destroy the dye market.

• Most people haven’t unlocked any of the dyes available from limited-edition kits.
• A lot of people haven’t unlocked all rares available from swatches.
• Most people don’t own more than half a dozen characters.
• Only a fraction of players have any characters hitting 3 years this month.

Consequently, we are looking at a limited number of opportunities spread out over the year (although concentrated around August/September and other periods when the game was available at a discount). There will definitely be an impact; it just won’t kill the market.

Or at least, after the market returns to equilibrium in a week or five, it will be just as robust as it is now.

Talindra.4958:

wonder if it is intended? before when I go to leaderboards, and log in I get to see the achievement based on my profiles and etc. but now when I log in in leaderboard, it directed me to the account setting and no way I can get to the leaderboard charts based on my acc. can anyone help pls?

It’s a bug. Their web team is aware of it & apparently has other priorities, so it’s not going to get resolved any time soon. (Probably because it has only a minor impact on the game and the community.)

BattleCat.2098:

In fact, I said in the first post that I’ve deliberately waited to make this post, so I would be 100% sure this isn’t just something I’m imagening. I’m not making any of this up, and it’s not a rage-quit post. I’ve done my research, and I’m calm when writing this.

I wasn’t trying to suggest that you were making stuff up. I’m trying to suggest there are other possibilities besides a change to the game’s mechanics or a bug. Destroyers in Brisbane and also in Lornar’s will spawn rapidly in certain spots and not in others. I notice more on some characters because I’m slower killing off the first set or slower running past.

Of course, it’s possible that something has changed and that it’s relatively subtle, so folks such as myself aren’t able to replicate your experience.

mtpelion.4562:

Friend Listing should have been mutual from the start. If I send a friend request to you, you should be prompted to accept, decline, or block me.

I like that there can be followers — sometimes people go away and so I defriend them, to clean up my list, but then they have me on my list when they return.

(Not disagreeing with the mutual friend requirement, for features. Just saying there’s a benefit to the current setup, too.)

Wanze.8410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Wanze.8410:

Oxidia.8103:

Long before daily rewards i remember coins dropping only from map completion and bl chests. The price was around 20 silvers.

Mystic Coins were never traded for 20 silvers. It went shortly up to 15s in Jan 2013 for a couple of weeks but thats it.

Regardless, Oxidia’s point remains: mystic coins are only just now becoming as expensive as they used to be.

If by “just now” you mean 3 month ago, then yes.

No, I meant “just now” as in this week.

• Peak sell offers for Mystic Coins (according to spidy) was 15.24s on 7 Jan 2013.
• 3 months ago, the peak (according to spidy) was 14.35s.
• This week, the price is reaching 14.87s.

So according to the data I’m looking at, Mystic Coin prices are still below their peak two and half years ago.

Plus, one could argue that in Jan 2013, 15 silver was hard for most players to come by (I remember saving up for Master Trait Books for my alts) while in Aug 2015, 15s is pocket change for most players. In most cases, the cost of Mystic Coins is currently a relatively small fraction of the forging cost of any particular weapon. In other words, while the current price of mystic coins is just under its historical peak, they are “less expensive” to acquire in terms of opportunity costs.

However, that’s a different discussion. My main point is that — according to gw2spidy (the source used by the OP) — the actual price of the coins remains below its peak (at least, while I was typing this).

Wanze.8410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Every single BL weapon skin is available on the TP, priced at 80-120g in the first few days and then ending up at 45-110g until it is no longer available for 1 ticket. How much it goes up afterward depends on a variety of factors.

Thus the ticket/scraps don’t “need” to be tradeable nor earnable directly in-game, since the only thing they can be used to purchase is already tradeable (and indirectly earnable).

just nitpicking here but i dont think that fused weapons were ever available for 1 bl ticket, some other sets as well i think.

Fused weapons were among those skins that weren’t available via BL tickets at all, so you picked the nit correctly. It was only later that they were made available for BL tickets (iirc, still the only one costing 7 tickets). GW2 Spidy doesn’t have prices that go back far enough to be sure at what those skins cost. My memory was ~80-150g, depending on which skin: the fused claim tickets didn’t drop very often. Within six months (when spidy does have data), prices were closer to 200-250g.

So I don’t think this particular nitpick changes my thesis: all skins are tradeable, they all start off at a premium, hit an equilibrium until they are no longer available at the low-low-introductory acquisition price, and then they steadily increase after. The rate of increase depending on various factors.

Which informs my main response to the OP: the tickets don’t have to be tradeable because the skins are.

The animations give the illusion of a difference in length between the two swords.

• FDS has a much brighter, yellower, and longer/wider fire.
• J’s Breath has a wider hilt and bigger separation between its “tines”.

Near as I can tell from wielding and/or comparing the swords in preview (weapon only), they have close to the same length.

Most minis from BL chests have been tradeable. A few have not been.

It’s not “unfair” — you just got drops that were worthless for you. There are many drops from the chests that others consider to be a waste. For example, I have absolutely no use for the Trading Post Express; to me, it’s just as worthless.

On the other hand, I agree with the spirit of your post: ANet should not include account-bound minis in the drop table.

Thanks for the research, Thala. That’s helpful info.

For the wiki drop table, use the “ask a question” feature on either the wiki page proper or the drop table to suggest breaking the data collection into 3 tables. Those who do know how to set it up will discuss the best way to go about that.

I can see why that (ahem) bugs you.

Short story: this doesn’t sound like a bug. I think you are just running into normal spawning, summoning, localized foe behavior and getting swarmed. Everything you’ve described so far happens often outside of the L1-15 zones.

What build are you running? Could it be that you’ve dropped a turret that aggros foes from farther away than you expect?

Detailed responses to some of your comments:

BattleCat.2098:

Well, good news is this thread was moved to the Bug-section, so I guess it’s a bug. IIf it helps, this is especially a problem with my gun/shield Engineer.

It was moved to the ‘bug’ forum because of your description, not because the forum moderator agreed (or disagreed) about whether you were accurately identifying a coding issue in the game or something else.

BattleCat.2098:

1. I ran past two raptors on the way there. Just two.

Some foes will spawn others. Some will call out to others in the area. And still other times, other players have killed off foes ahead of you and those foes respawn at the worst times.

BattleCat.2098:

2. I could clearly see a bandit standing all alone in an open field, so I took a potshot at him. Two seconds later, I was surrounded by six (!) enemies,

Same as above. Just because you only saw a single bandit doesn’t mean s/he was the only one nearby. In Brisbane especially, bandits seem to be hiding in bushes waiting for you to try to pick them off, which they use as an excuse to gank you.

BattleCat.2098:

3. The best one, though? I fought a bandit on top of a hill, near some tents. For whatever reason, the bandit disappeared for a while, and a second appeared.

That, too, doesn’t sound that unusual.

BattleCat.2098:

And yes, this could in theory be a client-side problem, but it’s mainly a problem with the Engineer. My mesmer, guardian and warrior never had this issue, and they are all high level. If it was a client side problem, this should have been a big deal with these three as well, but it’s not.

You’re right that, if you never experienced this with other professions, it’s unlikely to be related to client|server issues.

I don’t have a good explanation as to why you experience this with engineer and not your other 3 profs. I’ve played all four in Brisbane and I also had a harder time with engineer. Then again, I’m terrible at playing engineer, so maybe that was why.

I’m not sure if it was ever “in development” or just a feature that they wanted and dropped for a variety of reasons, including:

• ANet is a gaming company; they haven’t done very well with non-gaming apps (e.g. the TP/Gem shop uses a 3rd party web app that is incorporated into the game).
• External apps add a host (ahem) of security and bandwidth issues. None of them are all that difficult to address, except that each one distracts ANet from their core money maker, i.e. their games.
• In addition, each external app requires maintenance to keep it working as the rest of the game evolves. Again, nothing that’s necessarily difficult, just difficult enough to make it more costly to evolve the game in various directions.

tl;dr I would love to see an external chat app (or even chat API), except I would prefer that ANet not even try and instead keep focusing on the core game.

Fox.3469:

This has nothing to do with desire for something new, i don’t mind waiting for the expansion, i’m talking about giving everyone equal oppertunity to level their revenant, and not forcing us to rush it. I think a few days to level a new class before the jungle opens up is nothing anyone can disagree with.

It has everything to do with a desire for something new:

• You are willing to wait for the expansion.
• You don’t want to wait for one of the new features of that expansion, a new prof.
• On day one, you don’t want to wait to explore the new maps.

Nothing wrong with wanting to have your revenant and level it,too. I’m sure a lot of us will be going back and forth on whether to level first, dive into the new content, and fry a few synapses trying to decide.

I’m going to have a harder time still, because I’m also interested in most of the new specialization lines, especially chronomancer and tempest. So maybe it’s easier for me, since I know there’s absolutely no way I’m going to be able to play them all and explore the new content.

tl;dr you are expecting to get some of the new stuff early; no harm in that.

mtpelion.4562:

It could be a client-server communication issue.

Yes, that could explain the symptoms:

• OP’s computer thinks foe is in location X, reports a hit at that location; foe dies.
• Server thinks foe is in location Y, reports a miss.
• Client talks to Server and realizes, “oops, better fix that” and reports (correctly) that the foe is still alive.

The OP identifies all the reasons why there is a meta, which come down to human nature: after the newness wears off, people will tend towards the easiest semi-enjoyable content with the highest chance of special loot or highest earnings rate.

Then the OP spends half a page to complain about it.

ANet can’t change human nature. Players are always going to find a meta faster than any company can rebalance the game.

I haven’t noticed any change in enemy respawn rates. I haven’t noticed any foes suddenly returning from life with a few hit points.

Where are you seeing this? I’m sure plenty of us armchair coaches on the forums would be willing to get out into the field to try to confirm your observations, if you tell us how we might go about replicating your experience.

Xyonon.3987:

If you need money, silverwastes is definitly NOT the right place to go. Not even for brain afk farmers.

On the contrary, it’s one of the easiest places to accumulate high-value loot, especially if you open champ bags on L53-55 characters.

I think it makes Tyria more interesting that I can look at some skins and have some idea as to the effort, skill, good timing, or good luck required to obtain it. I am not bothered that I won’t be able to get them all.

Carighan.6758:

Well, this is a general discussion. Do you want:

• Feel unique?
• Get everything?

The two are mutually exclusive. If you want players to be able to feel unique you have to offer ways to obtain gear which cannot be acquired again later or is exceedingly difficult to obtain to the point where most don’t bother (i.e. current Legendaries are way too easy to get, seriously).

They aren’t mutually exclusive, if everyone compromises a bit on the definitions.

• There could be some skins that can only be obtained at limited times and never again.
• Some skins could be obtainable on a limited and repeatable basis, which is how some gem shop skins are offered.
• Some skins could be available only to those who do certain content. This applies to the WvW tournament weapons, Glorious armor, and some PvP tourney minis. It also applies to the Hall of Monuments skins.
• Some skins could be obtainable only with skill, such as the Liadri mini and SAB weapon/back skins.
• Despite the above exceptions, the vast majority of GW2 skins are obtainable at will.

I don’t see any reason why every skin has to obtainable by just anyone, regardless of whether it’s randomly assigned, earned by skill, bought, or whatever. I think it makes Tyria more interesting that I can look at some skins and have some idea as to the effort, skill, good timing, or good luck required to obtain it.

(to address the OP’s point: yeah, since Tribal armor was available randomly before in PvP, it should have its own track, like Glorious armor does)

If you have to ask, you can’t afford stat-increasing infusions.

If you had 10,000,000,000 gold, then sure, you might as well get that tiny fractional benefit — you’d have plenty to spend on other stuff. Similarly, I know dungeon speed runners, dungeon soloists, and WvW players (mostly roamers) who want to squeeze out every last bit of efficiency they can.

However, for 99% of the community, the cost outweighs the benefits.