Guild Wars 2

http://mp037jm24.mapyourshow.com/7_0/noscript/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=D7hvKFPY

NCSOFT will be there.
ANet is not on the list.

From the Curated Issue Tracker

Issue: Achievements: Players are unable to unlock signature moves in Belcher’s Bluff, thus blocking the achievement “You’ve Got the Moves”
Status: Investigating = “we are aware of the issue, but haven’t yet found a fix for it.”

As with all bugs, ANet doesn’t suggest an estimated-time-to-repair until a fix is ready.

bearshaman.3421:

Tanner Blackfeather.6509:

Legendaries are Account Bound, not Soulbound; and no, they are not mechanically better than ascended. They are designed to be an aesthetic choice, and a little bit of a convenience.
They have (PvE) stat combos available, and are updated with any new ones, so I guess “future proof” is another feature.

If they are Account bound, then why are there legendaries on the trading post? I didn’t think you could sell account bound items…

The HoT legendaries are bound; the originals are not.

Yeah, there’s very little of the GH that can’t be reached without the spidey-skills. And there’s no benefit to doing so, except to say that you’ve done so.

So, it’s a “bug” in the sense that ANet probably didn’t expect it to be used that way. But it’s not an important one.

Paulytnz.7619:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Khisanth.2948:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

PS why do you need to bother with Tyria map rewards for your legendary? As far as I know, you can obtain everything except bandit crests & geodes from other sources (which is how I do it — farming makes me fall asleep).

They are a bit nicer if you want to focus on a specific t6.

I can focus all I want on the TP instead. I’d much rather play the game for fun and divest myself of the stuff I don’t need, use the resulting coin to pay for the things I want.

Mind you, I frequently can’t afford those things, so it can take a while to save up.

You say you play what’s fun for you right? Well for some people going back to old maps they may have not played on for a year or more and re-experiencing it all again may just be fun for them.

In fact there may even be content there they have not seen before. Events perhaps if they rushed through the maps early on to see the end of the PS or get their world completes over and done with.

Sure it may not be the best way to get things but hey it’s certainly not the worst either. Actually I might question if it would be slower or quicker than your method if you are not doing the most efficient/best gold making method. Especially considering you said yourself it can take a while to save up playing the way you play.

You realize we’re discussing completely different approaches. Without context, all I could glean from the OP was an interest in getting T6 mats. For that, it’s most efficient to farm gold, buy on the TP.

But of course, economic efficiency is only one factor. Some people prefer to “gather their own” — that’s inherently less efficient and for some (like me) it’s dull. Another factor, as you say, is having an excuse to return to other areas; it can be fun to re-explore forgotten maps.

Which is why I asked what the OP was trying to do. If the only interest is in getting T6 fast, map rewards aren’t the best way to go. If they have other interests, well, of course, there are other options which will suit their needs better.

That wouldn’t achieve the effect you’re hoping for. It’s much more complicated than people think to design a survey that will produce results that a company can use to meaningfully change direction. Done poorly, a survey reinforces assumptions or heads folks down the wrong direction entirely. To do it well requires lots of time spent figuring out what to ask, how to ask, how to collate the data, and how to present it.

And in the end, regardless of what they found out, whatever choices they make are only going to help some of the community, while others (especially those who liked the status quo) will be upset.

And even if they brilliantly respond to concerns, there’s no guarantee that they will be able to brilliantly delivery nor whether it will be well received.

Case in point: the often misunderstood and sometimes maligned, New Player Initiative. ANet did focus groups and interviewed people who quit GW2 to find out why some new players weren’t sticking around, in an effort to improve retention. They seemed to have done as good a job at understanding the issues as any of us could hope.

They completely redesigned how the game would look to new players, by improving level-up rewards, introducing key mechanics more slowly, reordering the story to be more sensible, and so on. And it worked — the game was friendlier to new players; new players stayed longer.

Unfortunately, ANet made two huge mistakes. The first was that they did an atrocious job of presenting the changes to veterans, people who were already “retained” and who wouldn’t receive any direct benefit from the changes that were made for an entirely different target audience. (In some cases, the game actually became less friendly to veterans, even if in minor ways.) The New Player Initiative was good for new players; it was meh or ycch for vets.

The second mistake was that they didn’t remember enough of what they learned when they designed HoT. Whatever our opinion about the expac, I don’t think there’s anyone who has argued that HoT was (or even is) as friendly to new players as the core game became after NPE. Lots of veterans also suffered a rough transition because it was abrupt in many cases.

So surveying the players seems like a great idea. It’s just more work and less useful than it seems, too.

PyrateSilly.4710:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

GW1 offered a new reward for each birthday until the game was updated to run on autopilot (i.e. no new rewards or coding). Presumably, the same thing will happen with GW2.

Instead of “new” minis what you get for a birthday present now is a token to go and get a mini from what ever year you want. So if you are missing a few you can try for those.

Correct, but those are old rewards, not new ones.

Grimwolf.7163:

If they insist on everyone having unique names, I think they should add a system in which any character that has been off-line for X amount of time (a year?) has their name up for grabs, and if the name’s been taken by someone else when/if they come back online, they have to choose a new name.

There are two types of reasons people have trouble finding a name that isn’t already taken:

• They hate inventing character names.
• They have imposed a set of requirements that limits the choice of names.

In the first case, the 1-year offline idea won’t be of much help; they still will hate inventing names. In the second case, I don’t understand why ANet or especially other players need to indulge one player’s personal preference for names.

This topic comes up every so often. ANet’s made the same comment multiple times:

• There is no such thing as an “inactive account” — players might come back at any time. We’d hate for people to return only to find out that we took those from them.
• Nor does it make sense to release names on banned accounts — we don’t want players to start a new account and avoid some of their punishment by having access to their old names.

That’s even without talking about the expense of identifying which accounts would count for a purge or the effort spent explaining to people why they lost their names or fixing mistakes.

Finally, why should ANet do this? The only reason any of us wants these names freed up is if we lack the creativity to create other names. Releasing more names isn’t going to make that job easier: it will still be first-come, first-served, so only a few people will benefit from this undertaking.

Khisanth.2948:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

PS why do you need to bother with Tyria map rewards for your legendary? As far as I know, you can obtain everything except bandit crests & geodes from other sources (which is how I do it — farming makes me fall asleep).

They are a bit nicer if you want to focus on a specific t6.

I can focus all I want on the TP instead. I’d much rather play the game for fun and divest myself of the stuff I don’t need, use the resulting coin to pay for the things I want.

Mind you, I frequently can’t afford those things, so it can take a while to save up.

I just whisper. The sad thing is: all the great names I whisper… no one is online (“no one” is offline though). I wonder if “who” is still playing. “Why”, “I dunno”, he’s not online, and “I dont give a guard”.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Jojo.8973:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ubi.4136:

Goldfox.5729:

Sorry to disappoint you, but no. Every character that has 4 years and 364 days will be permanently deleted and you have to start over again. A fifth birthday is not allowed!

That’s fine. I just deleted 7 of 9 classes (including the thief I made the day the servers went live) most of whom already got their 4th birthday stuff so I could “fix” random things I didn’t like about them.

It’s one way to artificially create more content to do.

All the altoholics here share shocked glances.

I know, right? That’s just cold. ALT LIVES MATTER

After that he was sent to sit on the group W bench. And there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly, looking people on the bench there. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one there was coming over to him and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to him, And he said, “Kid. What are you here for?” And he answered, “I deleted some alts in a video game”

and they all moved away from him on the bench.

Can you get every alt you want at Mike O’Brien’s restaurant?

A pity timer is a feels-good-man approach way to balance RNG extremes; I’m not sure it’s a “good” way because I think it’s hard to code and importantly, hard to fix if something goes wrong.

Sarpan.9074:

Sly.9518:

Why would they be using their cc skills when their CC wouldn’t do anything? That would indicate low level of understanding and lack of skill.

Where in game play is the defiance bar mechanic explained before you get to the tough boss fights?

I never ran across it until joining a Vinetooth Prime group a while back and it being talked about afterward as the reason we failed. That prompted me to do some research and educate myself on it.

But, without being involved in a fight where it exists, how are you supposed to know about it and how to use your CC for the bar? If there’s somewhere this is explained or trained in the game, letting folk know about that would be very helpful.

It’s covered in a couple of the recent story missions, but not in any explicit way, as we’d find in a true tutorial.

But honestly, it doesn’t matter if there is or is not a tutorial. BDO has a fantastic tutorial system (with screenshots and videos that you can access from within the game). That doesn’t mean that most people playing that game know when it matters or how their class should approach different bosses. In the end, people are going to have to learn something through external sources, including guides, video guides, and help from others.

When I’m “leading” an open world exercise, I assume that everyone is new to the fight and its mechanics. I’ll type out the key elements, as well as suggest a few easily-accessed skills that can help. I’ve never seen any boss fail when folks did this ahead of time, before the fight was in progress — that includes Vinetooth Prime and all the various metas. (Correction: I’ve seen Triple Trouble fail, but in both cases, someone started an event too soon, and the commanders ran out of time to explain.)

So sure, there’s a narrow window to break defiance. And yes, the fight is hard for larger groups if that doesn’t happen. All the same, it can be done and it continues to get done.

It’s pointless to worry about whether squads are necessary to completing the meta — they aren’t, never have been. However, they do make things easier on the command and the rest of the people trying to complete the same meta. I don’t join because it helps me; I join because it helps all of us if all of us are in the squad.

Regardless, if OP doesn’t want to join, they shouldn’t. This isn’t like “herd immunity” failing if too many people skip vaccinations.

But also, the OP shouldn’t be surprised if they get 20 or 40 invites over the course of an hour-long meta. Members of the squad shouldn’t be expected to remember — or care — that the OP might not want to join.

Exclamatory.8351:

Oh how embarrassing. I did not craft it.

Been there; done that — don’t sweat it

Elexa.3478:

I get invited sometimes, but it’s only once or twice and then they give up… this time I got invited at least 30 times, it’s hardly a different person every time. Someone is just being funny… and they enjoy total anonymity? Good thing I didn’t report the commander then. lol

I really doubt that someone is just being funny. A DS squad might have 40 people. I’ve extended invites to the same person more than 5 times (by accident — I might not realize it’s the same person as we move around). It only takes 6 of the 40 making the same mistake to get up to 30 (although I wonder if it really was 30 invites or if it just seemed like a lot).

Basically, once the squads are separated, I will invite anyone with a ‘green’ name plate (instead of blue) and do so when there’s down time. I do this because I know the commander will be offering instructions in /squad and I want the meta to succeed. People who don’t see /squad chat are more likely to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Again, I’m not asking your to change your preferences or behavior. Like I said, I do the same in WvW when I’m focused on havoc and I go to help a zerg commander. I just want you to understand that it’s very unlikely that you’re being griefed.

It’s unfortunately a lot harder to implement, maintain, and troubleshoot. In their shoes, I’m not sure I would do it.

You almost certainly aren’t being invited by the same person.

In DS and so on, it’s much easier to succeed if everyone is in the squad (I get that you don’t want to be — that’s fine and I’m not trying to convince you otherwise; I do the same when I havoc in WvW). Consequently, many people, including myself, will invite stragglers to join whenever possible.

However, you’ll see each invite as coming from the commander, not from the squad member.

Consequently, there’s nothing for you to do except keep declining. No one is trying to embarrass you; no single person is insisting that you join. It’s the group trying to ensure the group’s success.

That sounds like some sort of browser issue (the TP is basically a custom browser, displaying like a web page). It turns out, some browsers can override your computer’s settings (due to an OS bug, a browser bug, or sadly, malware).

If you know how to troubleshoot browser settings (or can google it), start there.

Otherwise, create a support ticket and ANet will help you track down the core issue.

I’ve had Rose’s experience more than once, too. Turned out, I mistakenly purchased the thing that looks (to me) more like a rune stone piece (so now I have all sorts of extra opportunities to look for Zinn’s stashes, not that I plan on using them anytime soon).

If the drop rate is guaranteed for everything, it gets boring. If it’s almost guaranteed, it’s just annoying for all the people who don’t get the drop. If the drop rate is low enough to be meaningful, say “25%”, then most people won’t need more than 5-6 tries. However, given how many people who play, some will need a lot more attempts — and that’s when it becomes horribly frustrating.

For example, in Henge Away from Home, I got three of the elemental drops within 1-2 kills; my friend got all four with 1 kill. My fourth? took over 40 kills.

So I don’t think it’s possible to have an RNG drop and be “balanced” for everyone.

What might be a better solution is to have a guaranteed drop, “Piece of Ley-Line Bezoar” plus the random drop of the full item. Then you can combine 10 (or maybe 20) pieces to get the full one. Get lucky? You can stop early. Unlucky? well, there’s still a clear end in sight.

GW1 offered a new reward for each birthday until the game was updated to run on autopilot (i.e. no new rewards or coding). Presumably, the same thing will happen with GW2.

There’s no progress bar for the map rewards in Core Tyria.

• The wiki shows the overall reward tracks: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_bonus_reward/profit
• While in the zone, the world map will display the next reward you get.

Basically, you get a new map reward in core zones every two gold-level events.

PS why do you need to bother with Tyria map rewards for your legendary? As far as I know, you can obtain everything except bandit crests & geodes from other sources (which is how I do it — farming makes me fall asleep).

First, start a support ticket:
https://help.guildwars2.com/anonymous_requests/new

That error message pops up any time there’s an issue with your connection to the “authentication server,” i.e. the part of ANet’s network that checks if you have a valid account (which it does on login, periodically, and often when you change maps). There are all sorts of reasons that happens, many of which are unrelated to the game’s software or ANet’s network.

So work with the support team; they can help track it down.

Grimheart.2853:

It’s not a matter of my personal subjective storytelling preference in the slightest. There is an objective answer and it is that Trahearne was a bad character, just like beforementioned Skarlet and Kormir.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It’s an opinion, regardless of how sure you are that your point of view is shared by the masses. There’s widespread differences of opinion about Trahearne, Scarlet, and even Kormir.

You do damage to your own points of view by trying to insist otherwise.

Grimheart.2853:

I’ve no idea how to explain to you, that if a chef in a restoraunt serves you a literal pile of fecal matter on a plate when you asked for a steak, it doesn’t matter if you like it because you’re into that sort if stuff, it’s still a pile of fecal matter on a plate. Seems pointless to me to go on anymore.

That would be a great analogy if it weren’t off the mark in so many ways. I get you don’t like how the character was written, nor do you like how the actor was directed initially nor for the updated voice over. That doesn’t mean that you (or I) can speak for how anyone else felt.

People walked out of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rites of Spring when it was first performed. The critics panned it as a “laborious and puerile barbarity”, i.e. fecal matter on a plate. Only a year later, the performance of the same music was a considered a triumph.

There’s no objective truth about art; people like what they like. So no, you don’t have to explain to me about how you feel. That doesn’t mean I have to agree.

Two words for the OP:
Second account.

How long did you wait for the mobs to respawn? I think it’s about 15 minutes after they die before they can be triggered again.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Whitebear%27s_Pride_II%22_Strongbox

The first 3 Veteran Earth Elementals will not appear until you stand on the platform.

Note to moderators: while this is a doubly-necroed post, it’s probably helpful for future players to see the original issue and comments in full context, rather than starting a new thread.

Ashantara.8731:

Why are some people getting toxic at the idea of implemeting old, long forgotten content into the current game?

Palador’s suggestions and explanations are really good and do make a lot of sense, actually. (I think we all agree that the events would have to be altered to fit the current timeline…)

Some people have really strong opinions about lore, which might differ from e.g. my weak opinions; that doesn’t make the people or their opinions “toxic.”

I’m all in favor of ANet having a festival for the downtime between releases, perhaps one that has a variable start date. However, it’s not free to design & implement & maintain them; even the ones we have now require testing & other forms of attention. Just returning to the Labryinth Cliffs, without any content, takes effort… effort that might be better spent on something else.

Personally, I feel bad for Suriel the Blazing Light, who has been training in Lion’s Arch for years, without a chance to get even with me. So, sure, it would be great to see the Crown Pavilion opened up again, be great to zip through the Cliffs, and so on. I’m not imagining that any of that will be in the game until sometime after LS4 is underway, if not much later.

Ayrilana.1396:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ayrilana.1396:

You should be getting at least 1 per pod. Going into the meta with 70 keys, and whatever I get from progression awards, I average around 110-120.

I’ve seen people claim less than ~70 per 70 machetes used, but… never from someone who seemed meticulous about keeping track. Myself, I estimate I need one DS meta per 50, so I always end up being pleasantly surprised because it’s always more than that.

They’re not getting every node. I was keeping track as I was gathering enough for all of the HoT legendaries.

Yes, that was my point. The only claims I’ve seen for fewer than ~70/70 have been from people who didn’t keep careful track.

I think the OP is confused about what a Deus ex Machina means for storytelling. It was used in Greek performances when they rolled out an actual machine that would get the hero out of trouble, a machine that had never existed in the story line.

In contrast, technology of some sort has existing in the GW universe for a long time. Zhaitan’s weakness was introduced early in the personal story, which is why we defeat the Mouth & the Eye before confronting the actual dragon. The Zhaitan fight was… weak because the devs ran out of time before the game launched, and thus implemented a watered-down version of the originally intended battle — but the tech was introduced well before.

Similarly, Mordemoth’s weakness was foreshadowed early on, as was the idea that the dragons have weaknesses that the Pact and the Commander could exploit. Primordus’ and Jormag’s strengths are well known; their weaknesses were foreshadowed.

And although Omadd’s machine has been repurposed beyond its ability to show the dragons and the magic they consume, it’s consistently been a tool in the fight & understanding of how magic & dragons exist in the GW universe. It’s not that much different to me from how a battery can absorb energy.

I understand that one might not enjoy the way in which the story was told. That doesn’t mean that there’s a fundamental flaw in the ideas used to tell it.

Ayrilana.1396:

You should be getting at least 1 per pod. Going into the meta with 70 keys, and whatever I get from progression awards, I average around 110-120.

I’ve seen people claim less than ~70 per 70 machetes used, but… never from someone who seemed meticulous about keeping track. Myself, I estimate I need one DS meta per 50, so I always end up being pleasantly surprised because it’s always more than that.

The closest I think they could get is to recreate it as a sort of personal home instance, so that it doesn’t have to include all the service NPCs and keep getting updated over time. Even that would require a lot of work that could be devoted into newer instances or even updating the current LA. Nostalgia isn’t cheap.

Sounds as if the authentication server is having trouble reconfirming your logon. That could be caused by problems with your network, your ISP, the ISP’s connection to ANet’s ISP, ANet’s ISP, or with the game itself.

Since it’s not happening to lots of people, it’s more likely the issue is somewhere on the half of the internet closer to you.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

It’s possible that the problem is anet, since you have eliminated various options, but the bad news is: nothing fundamental changed in their architecture in the last patch or anything like that. Traffic profile is still pretty much the same, suggesting that there is maybe some intermediate point between you (and your two ISPs) and anet that causes the trouble.

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network has a good guide for identifying where the problem is, but if you have trouble with that feel free to post screenshots from it and we can help work out where it is.

Unfortunately, the Internet is built in a way that three to five companies handle your traffic, if not more, just inside the continental USA. There are lots of places that the problem could spring from that neither end is responsible directly for.

ANet support can also help you track down the source of the issue.

My form of dyslexia can make subtle differences hard for me to detect, so what am I missing?

• wiki name is Hodgins
• nameplate in screenshot is Hodgins
• name in chat in screenshot is also Hodgins

Was there an ‘after’ screenshot too?

I’d love it if ANet revisited and rebalanced each of the zones every so often. They just never have done that in the past and don’t seemed inclined to do it anytime soon. Even during the 1-2 updates/month excitement of LS1 (which wasn’t even every month), they only touched on some events in some of the zones affected by the story.

Any random exotic drop can be a precursor. Since exotics drop so rarely for most people and the chance of the exotic being a precursor is even less likely, there’s absolutely no value in going out of your way to farm one.

What you should do instead is do things that increase your opportunities for seeing exotics. That means events that include tons of loot-bearing foes. Defending or assaulting most of the Orrian temples is better than just about anywhere else, because all the loot is scaled for L80 and there are mobs of mobs. Doing personal stories and map completion results in a lot less loot.

MAXIMILIANUS.3429:

I droped The Legend from Teq, was farming it for 7 days. I watch boss timer at Dulfy site and did`t miss one spawn. Second was The Chosen and I got it from mystic forge. Trow only yellow stuff in it (lvl 74-80). My opinion is that is easy to get precursor just need to be patient.

Djinn.9245:

I don’t believe you.

You should, because there’s considerable evidence that patience (and plenty of rares) is sufficient. The data for forging four rares is mighty consistent over time, just over 1 chance in a 1000. If you forge 4000 rares at a cost of 25s each, you’d spend 1000 gold for a ~70% chance to get a random precursor, which is why it makes more sense to slowly sell your rares, save the coin, and purchase the precursor directly.

Of course, that still means that most people aren’t going to see a precursor drop in the forge nor anywhere else. And maybe that’s more patience than most people are willing to devote — I know I’m not, which is why I don’t change my behavior to try to get one to drop. I’d rather do stuff that’s fun for me and save up.

Amaimon.7823:

november 28th is the official date to stay on schedule, but as they said, no promises. Keep your expectations at the end of januari and you won’t be disapointed (I hope)

I wouldn’t use the word “official” and they’d have another 30+ days to stay within O’Brien’s back-of-the-envelope estimate he made during the last AMA. 30 days more would be during Christmas season, so it’s unlikely to happen then.

I guess I should have said that anytime between early November and late January seems possible and within the rough estimate we have so far.

Healix.5819:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

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

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

That sounds good as I read it, but on reflection, I’m not sure that it’s realistic. I’ve never seen ANet pull off an iterative approach. They either make an immediate change after a patch (as they did with elementalist and necro this week) or they don’t revisit the situation for months or years.

And the suggestion assumes that someone at ANet thinks that “lowering the scaling” is meaningfully different from “rebalancing.” I suspect it involves more than just changing a single number or two (and even that requires someone to decide on the appropriate numbers for… several different encounters).

Why wouldn’t you craft Fulguite? the premium for jeweled dowels and patches is huge, worth several gold per component.

OriOri.8724:

Anet thinks its fine unfortunately. And there is no shortage of people making money off the ridiculous state of leather who also think its fine.

There’s no shortage of people making money off of whatever prices are on the TP. Power traders are always going to do well, regardless of the market; farmers are always going to find lucrative routes.

I don’t know that I’d say things are “fine” since people are distraught about the prices. But this isn’t a bug nor an economic issue — it’s that prices aren’t meeting people’s expectations with regards to parity (leather is substantially more expensive than cloth or metal for equivalent components) nor with regard to historical prices (people got used to vendor-priced sections and cheap insignia, components).

There’s nothing wrong with saying “we don’t like it — ANet please revisit the balance, because we’re frustrated.” But the market itself is doing what it’s supposed to do: we can buy what we want on the TP, in bulk.

Healix.5819:

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

Epi5 wasn’t delayed; it was within the predicted 2-3 month cadence and the gap from 4->5 was only four days longer than for 3->4.

Release dates so far:

• Episode 1 — 26 July 2016
• Episode 2 — 20 September 2016 (56 days)
• Episode 3 — 21 November 2016 (62 days)
• Episode 4 — 8 February 2017 (79 days)
• Episode 5 — 2 May 2017 (83 days)

Predictions:

If ANet follows the same pattern for Episode 6 and ANet takes an extra month for Expac #2, then we can imagine:

• Episode 6: 1 Aug (a Tuesday that is 91 days after Ep5)
• Expact 2: 28 Nov (a Tuesday that is 120 days after that)

Thanksgiving is celebrated this year, in the US, on 23 November and that’s usually a short week for ANet, so I’d expect that the more likely dates are 7 or 14 Nov, 5 or 12 December.

There’s a lot of assumptions required for ANet to make those dates. I feel confident in betting that Ep6 will launch before August and, unless something awkward happens, that ANet will announce the launch of Expac 2 a month or two later.

bai long.2085:

My question is, have they done anything to the raids that would allow me to participate in my favorite gear?

You can already play in any gear you want. People do raids with weird comps, 5-7 people instead of 10, and all sorts of builds. Understanding the mechanics is far, far more important than your gear.

However, for those of us who have trouble executing on the mechanics (whether because we need more practice or we’re just not as good as we think at combat)… the choice of gear can help turn a wipe into a successful near-wipe (and a near-wipe into an easy win).

Or as Melvin Oliver & James Young almost wrote,
T’ain’t What You Use (It’s the Way That You Use It)

Or as covered by Jimmy Lunceford:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SkoD2CIakQ

There are a couple of different ways to adjust things:

• Reduce the difficulty of each boss (OP’s suggestion)
• Rescale the event the longer the boss remains up (first respondent’s suggestion)
• Change the reward for repeating.

Of those, I think the most efficient way to get more people to help out would be to change the rewards. I’d be interested in more AP or even some sort of skin that might no longer be easily obtained.

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

Currently you get 5 AP per 3 bounties + 25s + dropped loot. That’s not bad, except that there are 10 different bosses, each with a separate bounty item. And you cap at 30 AP. Occasionally I’ll help out with a bounty as an extra event, but 25s + 0 AP makes it less rewarding than doing just about anything else, given that I have to visit LA to get the bounty & can’t just show up.

Thanks for clarifying. I can see why you like the idea.

I’m not a fan of it, because I’m against anything that I have to do more than once in terms of progression — that’s the sort of grind that drives me away from other games.

I do think that this would have made for a good account-bound mastery, if that had existed in 2012-3 when ANet was setting up the AR system. As it stands, it seems like a lot of work for something that augments the existing system. People who don’t fractal don’t necessarily need ascended and people who do should be able to manage to have a couple of shared armor sets.

In other words, as you’ve presented it, I wouldn’t like to see it in game. I’d prefer for ANet to work on something else. However, if they agreed, I’m sure I’d level up a toon (but not more than one).

If nothing else, you get some free dye unlocks (eventually) from older toons. While you are waiting for them to grow up, park them some place that will add to your income in a modest way: rich iron node, flax farm, or chest at the end of a JP. It all adds up.

It does what it’s supposed to do: logs your location so ANet can figure out how you got stuck. They periodically revisit maps to plug holes, although those only rarely get a patch note.

It’s absolutely the easiest way to let them know about a bug.

I have used it in instances when I got stuck — about half the missions in Arah had kitten that was easy to find if you were a staff mesmer. As far as I know, it’s never had any other impact outside of missions.

What are you trying to do that you need to keep the pieces after the transformation? Maybe there’s another way to do that, without worrying about the disguise later.

runeblade.7514:

I have a suggestion: Agony-Resistance leveling.

Every time you complete a Fractal level, the character, that completed the level, will level up their agony resistance. It is permanent and the character will keep that agony resistance forever.

• Agony-resistance leveling will be character bound. This is so that lower fractal levels will be played. It will also keep agony infusion useful for the instant agony resist. It will take a lot of time to get a character to T4.
• Agony-resistance leveling will be granted for every unique instance level completed. This means that players cannot grind fractal 40 over and over again to get a permanent 150 Agony resist. They have to complete every single level from 1 to 100 to get a permanent 150 agony resistance.

This suggestion is to make Fractals more alt-friendly while giving progression for every other alt-characters.

To me that sounds like making fractals less friendly to alts, since it will take far longer than it does now to get to 150. If you’re suggesting that this permanent AR should be in addition to the removable infusions, then you’re undercutting the market for AR, which is among the rewards for completing fractals; ANet would have to rebalance.

What about the people who have already done 1-100? Will they get to choose which character gets permanent AR150? What about those who have done 10 on one character, 10 on another, and 10 on a third — will they have to do 270 fractals to buff all three?

It seems like a lot of work without a clear benefit for the majority of people interested in fractals.

I don’t think anyone can accurately say what’s well-populated for your needs and, more significantly, it’s going to change. Major guilds change worlds for a variety of reasons and that affects our perception of how populated things are.

Further, several worlds get “linked” to a Tier 2 or Tier 3 world, so the population will vary for your preferred play period, depending on the week and month. For example, your GoM is linked with TC and a lot of guilds bandwagoned off of TC for… reasons. It’s struggling in its match-ups and so it’s less attractive for guilds willing to move around.

Of course, none of that is very helpful in making a decision. For right now, in your shoes, I’d pay attention to your opponents: YB and DB and see what sort of force they bring when you’re online.

My impression is that both YB and DB each have a strong NA nighttime presence (which overlaps with you better). I’ve heard that both have received some guilds with Aussie-friendly time zone participation. It costs 1800 gems to move to either.

Or you could pay fewer gems to move to a partner world: YB is linked with Ferguson’s and DB with Darkhaven and Eredon: cost is only 500 gems to move those worlds. So you could move to Ferguson, try out YB — if you don’t like things, you can try DH or ET for another 500 gems; if you love it, you can move to YB for 1800 gems or wait to see what happens at the next link-up (in July).

tl;dr my recommendation is to swap to Ferguson to try out YB’s side of things for 2-3 weeks. See how you like the fights and swap again if you need to.

I think spectator mode would be great.

• Mentors could observe and make suggestions/shout-outs in real time.
• Students could hear about what’s about to happen so they know what to look for.

YouTube isn’t in real time, so it’s not the same type of educational experience. Twitch… maybe.

PvP already offers an observer mode; I’m not sure why the devs haven’t been able to make use of the tech for PvE, too. It might be, as Chris implies, too expensive. Still, it seems like something worth considering.