Oh, karma is the exception. You can buy Orrian Jewelry Boxes from karma vendors in Orr. Open the boxes for a chance at loot. The contents are random, with a small chance of getting expensive rare materials (e.g. Charged Lodestone), which can be sold on the Trade Post.
Convert soulbound currencies into equipment from karma/dungeon/WvW vendors.
Collect 4 soulbound equipment and transmute these in the mystic forge.
What comes out has a large (but not 100%) chance to be non-soulbound.
Not very profitable, but the only actual way to convert soulbound currencies to coin.
I think what comes closest is this item:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tortured_Root
It can apparently be crafted by a Jeweler, but only after finding the recipe as a random drop in the Twilight Arbor dungeon.
The green and white numbers are a comparison to the equipment you currently have equipped in the same item slot on your character.
So take for example an amulet:
Green ability name + green number = you do not have this ability on the amulet you’re currently wearing.
White ability name + white number = you already have this ability on the amulet you’re currently wearing, and your current amulet gives a bigger bonus.
White ability name + green number = you already have this ability on the amulet you’re currently wearing, but the amulet you are looking at gives that ability a bigger bonus.
This goes for any item, not just ascended.
I don’t know why they open these. If you think they’re going to respond to a mere 38 page thread with only 1800-ish posts, may I refer you to a 222 page thread with over 11000 posts that they didn’t answer?
That thread did spawn a response by Chris Whiteside. Only, the response was not posted in the thread itself. However, the final post of the thread does link to the post by Chris Whiteside.
So this example illustrates my point rather than challenging it.
Likely, they initially opened the thread as an “anticipation thread”, because it followed on the heels of their official announcement of Guild Missions as new content. After patch day, it would naturally transition into a “feedback about the new content thread”.
Plus, they don’t want every thread on the first page to be about the same topic. ArenaNet has a well-documented habit of grouping topics together in one place.
Another possibility here is that ANET is trying to formulate an answer after such a negative reaction to the new content. After they were sounding so excited with what they were releasing they may be wondering what happened.
[snip]
It can be fixed, but they may be thinking of that right now.
I think the quoted post explains their silence on Guild Mission issues so far.
The community backlash probably stunned them, since they did not expect anything of the sort. (Apparently, they were under the assumption that nobody played in guilds with less than 10-15 active people during weekends.)
The problem is that the system is in place, and it can’t be changed without further upheaval. This is not a simple balance issue that can be fixed with some code. This is a potentially huge balance issue that retroactively affects long-term sunk costs expended by players since launch, with a direct link to the game economy.
No reply from ArenaNet may mean a mandated silence on everything to do with Guild Missions, while the issue has been escalated higher up, where a full course of action will be decided on and a public response will be drafted.
I’m guessing that the first response by ArenaNet on Guild Missions will be an announcement by Chris Whiteside.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
So I hate to break it to all of you but the information has been available for quite some time. Gotta keep up with current events on the forums if you want stay ahead.
But that’s the problem. Not many come to the forums compared to those that play. I browse now and again, but that’s about it. Game forums usually = I quit posts, whining and general negativity so, honestly, it’s not a surprise people will enjoy the game and avoid the crap. Even at the expense of missing something, somewhere about something.
You obviously missed the proof that the January 28 patch notes announced Lionguard Lyns’ temporary return. If you want to keep up with a game, read at least the patch notes.
The jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields features veteran enemies, as well as small rooms. The staff is a very bad weapon choice in tight spaces (especially against tough foes) because it works best at range, and has a slow attack speed against single targets. I’m guessing it’s the ghost pirates with pistol attacks that are tearing you up?
My advice is to equip daggers when going into tight spaces with little room for maneuvering (like caves). A little extra Toughness could also help (even though your Water traits give decent Vitality). Have you considered equipping Signet of Earth as a utility skill (for its passive effect)? Or other defensive skills like Arcane Shield or Mist Form?
I prefer to use my scepter against the Jade Maw in fractals.
Arguments:
- Jade Shards and Jade Colossus have permanent missile reflection. Fire 1 and Air 1 are single-target scepter auto-attacks that are not projectiles. Air 2 and 3 are also not projectiles.
- Dragon’s Tooth (Fire 2) works like a charm against (stationary) tentacles.
- Stone Spikes (Earth 1) may not deal terrific direct damage, but it DOES apply 3 stacks of bleeding to tentacles and Irukanji.
- Staff is at a disadvantage against Jade Shards/Colossus, because all auto-attacks are missiles. Turning off auto-attack is not efficient, though. Against tentacles, scepter actually outdamages staff.
- Dagger is totally useless against tentacles. You do not want to be in range of those things as an elementalist.
- During the Jade Maw fight, it is very inefficient to run away to drop out of combat, just in order to switch weapons.
I haven’t tried the focus yet in that fractal, but I imagine that Firewall is better than Circle of Fire against tentacles, Comet can be used on tentacles, and Obsidian Flesh can be used to escape a Maw attack if it targets me without a reflecting crystal nearby.
Not really. A recent developer post said that it is intentional that you cannot use most skills while jumping.
The only thing I can think of is if you want to run away from combat, and want to jump onto a ledge, across a chasm or off a cliff in order to avoid or get away from enemies.
so what your saying is that if I made a new character things like dailies and laurels and other currencies except karma and what’s NOT in the bank are shared across the account? this includes dungeon tokens, fractals and laurels?
Dungeon tokens, Fractal relics, Laurels, Badges of Honor, everything you get out of Black Lion chests and Gemstore items are ALL “account bound”, which means that they are freely accessible to all characters on your account (but not to other players).
Only items that are “soulbound” cannot be picked up or equipped by your other characters. This typically only applies to masterwork and better equipment that you actually equip on your character, as well as equipment that you buy with karma.
Every single item says whether it is “account bound” or “soulbound” when you hover your mouse over it.
Every single vendor item that becomes “soulbound” or “account bound” if you buy it will also have that information when you hover your mouse over it in the vendor window.
Finally, many items (like coin, Mystic Coins, most equipment, many crafting ingredients) are not bound at all and can be given to other players or sold on the Trade Post.
Yes, this profession is worth playing.
You just need to get that the elementalist’s main strength is not “outdamaging everyone else”, but rather “having more options than everyone else”.
And if you complain about the nerfs on Renewing Stamina, Soothing Disruption, Ride the Lightning and Shocking Aura, maybe you should look at the buffs to Comet, Stoning, Static Field, Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Flame Wall and Flame Shield.
“But those are bad skills,” I hear you say? Well, ArenaNet recognized that those skills were not good enough, which is why they were boosted.
- I would have to do the whole personal story again (thats fine).
If it’s fine, then why worry? Make different choices, and you get different story chapters too.
- I have spent lots of gems into gold to buys some things for my mesmer (Not so fine for a second character – although Its easy to stretch 12 gold….)
You don’t actually NEED to spend more gold on a character than the character earns by simply playing the game. Green items on the Trade Post are very cheap. You can save up for traitbooks. Dyes are the only thing really worth considering, but you can easily recoup that gold by selling Unidentified Dyes you find in the Trade Post.
- Dailies across two….three characters? – I log in for an hour as it is….just to do my dailie on my one character – I would feel so obligated.
As already mentioned, daily and monthly achievements are account-wide, and you can only do them once, regardless of how many characters you have.
- More grinding…..
There are ways to play the game that do not require grinding, but that do give XP and rewards. Completing an area for 100% gives sizable rewards, and it’s not really grinding because you get to do lots of different things as you travel through.
These are my fears.
And these are my answers.
My current weapons are dagger/dagger and short bow
but I feel so weak , like a paper.. can’t solo even 1 mob …
I know how to dodge/evade but .. but I feel like a paper
Have you gotten new weapons and armor since you started your character? Wearing armor that is 10 levels lower than you are is a big handicap.
Also, NEVER fight by just standing in one place and using your skills one by one. Strafe, dodge, keep moving while you activate your skills. Not getting hit is the way to stay alive.
A final note:
Please don’t take anything I say as the only truth out there. My play style is not necessarily the most optimal/efficient way to play an elementalist. Just the way that is most fun for me. I am sure there are others who are better at playing the class, and who know more of the intricacies of skill and trait interactions.
Regarding your questions:
1. You can swap attunements, use Arcane skills, Cantrips (like Lightning Flash) and Auras while charging Churning Earth (Earth 5), but any other skill will abort the charging, and the spike burst will not happen. Unlike most other skills, moving will also interrupt it. However, since the charging already has an area cripple effect, aborting the skill before it is finished WILL cause it to go on full cooldown.
Having said that, if you don’t interrupt the skill, the damage burst will happen centered on your location at the end of the 3 seconds.
2. You have to manually deselect the enemy you are attacking, as well as have your character facing in a direction that has no point-blank enemies standing directly in his/her face. What also tends to help is actually selecting another enemy/critter in the distance as your target, even if it is out of range of the RTL-distance.
Still, it is hit or miss in my personal experience.
3. Staff use in a party setting is not “the best way to use staff” or “the best way to play in a party”. It is merely an efficient way to play a support role, with the added benefit that equipping staff is a playstyle that resembles the “classical mage” style the most. (This helps if you play with people who have never tried the elementalist and think it is a “generic mage” that deals huge damage and can’t take a single hit.) Feel free to use staff in solo play, and to use different weapons in a party, though, if you like those styles.
If you go for a single attunement strategy in fire, the staff fire skills are quite forgiving and can be boosted quite significantly by traits. This is not a support role, though. More like artillery.
However, what I find most intriguing about the staff skills is that you have A LOT of combo fields that you can put down. Fire 2 and Fire 4 create Fire Fields (although Fire 4 is very unwieldy for that purpose). Water 3 and Water 5 create Water Fields. Water 4 creates a Cold Field. Air 5 creates a Lightning Field. In addition, Earth 1, Earth 2 and Earth 5 are all Combo Finishers, and you can equip Arcane Blast and/or Arcane Wave in a utility slot for more finishers.
Many other professions have few ways to create Combo Fields, and many ways to create Combo Finishers. By throwing down suitable fields, you can allow others to create combo effects, IN ADDITION TO what the Combo Field Skill also does (e.g. Fire 2 deals damage, Water 3 provides healing). Read up on the wiki what each type of Field/Finisher combination results in:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo_field
Two final tips:
- If multiple Combo Fields overlap, only the most recently cast Field will count for a combo. So if there is someone else who is throwing down fields (Guardians, Mesmers and Necromancers tend to do this), make sure that you do not interfere with their own game strategy or hinder the party more than you’re helping. (Putting a Fire Field over a Water or Light Field is generally not a good idea, because Water and Light have healing/condition removal applications.)
- Be intelligent about what fields to use. A Cold Field is useful for slowing down moving enemies, but less so if they are stationary. A Water Field is extremely valuable when your party needs healing, but is next to worthless if everyone is at full health. Also, don’t forget what skills do apart from combos. Water 5 has a larger area, longer duration and also removes conditions, while Water 3 is a more immediate heal with a shorter cooldown.
4.
My build is closer to this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmkbtx3gjDAkHtADLjHgECJlCzA
Most people don’t like elementalist signets, but I find that they suit my play style. Also note the combo with Mist Form & Water Signet and water traits X and XI.
On my armor, I make sure each equipment piece gives Power, and I use a full set of Melandru runes for more Toughness, as well as condition/stun mitigation.
In more PvP settings (like WvW), I switch to a more Cantrip-based build that is closer to the build that you linked. The Air Signet is there mostly for the passive effect.
(http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmkbxR3gjDAkHn4SJjHdECJlCzA)
1. Any particularly effective combo that I should always aim for to rack up some decent dps? (I’ve settled on a d/d ele, I love mobility!)
2. Any particular PANIC BUTTON: DO THIS TO GET OUT OF REALLY BAD SITUATIONS!!! thing that ele’s got going for them?
3. Most useful utility a d/d ele can bring to a party?Thanks!
1. I never use one single skill combo all the time, but alternate between multiple skills that have varying degrees of synergy. The main reason for this is that some skills have long cooldowns. I’ll list some below:
- On D/D, there is a particularly powerful might combo that works well against multiple AI monsters. (Don’t try against players!). Have them surround you (or use Fire 3 to launch yourself in their midst). Use Fire 4 to create a fire combo field. Switch to Earth attunement. Use Earth 4 (blast finisher, area Might) to knock them down. Start charging Earth 5 (blast finisher, area Might) for massive damage and 8 stacks of bleeding. Use Earth 2 for some additional AoE if you want. If any still stand after a few seconds, switch to Air until Fire attunement comes off cooldown.
- Very simple combo: Give the Burning condition to a foe with Fire 2. Then use Fire 5 for a big chunk of damage. (It deals bonus damage to burning foes.)
- At point blank range, Fire 1 is the auto-attack skill that deals the best damage.
- Auras, Arcane Skills and Cantrips all cast instantaneously, and will not interrupt any other skill you happen to be casting at the same time.
- Look for synergies within skills. Do not wait until all skills on your bar are on cooldown to switch attunements. Do not use a skill simply because it has recharged. Instead, switch attunements when you feel you need a particular skill on another bar.
- Final tip, useful in PvP/WvW: Activate Earth 5 (which takes 3 seconds) when you see an enemy (or group of them) approaching you. While it is charging, use Lightning Flash (Utility skill, Cantrip) to instantly teleport right next to them. This will not interrupt charging the earth skill. If you time it correctly, you can teleport next to your enemy just as the charge finishes and the Earth 5 blasts off.
2. There are 3 skills that more or less qualify as “panic buttons”, and 2 more that require some more coordination. Most of these are utility skills. I usually have 1 Utility skill slot dedicated to an escape skill.
- Arcane Shield (Utility) gives you a maximum 3 seconds of invulnerability. It ends early and damages enemies if you get hit 3 times before its duration is up. You can use it to run, or to set up a long-casting skill. Its cooldown is rather long, though. Extra advantage: you can access it immediately, as it is in the first tier of utility skills available, costing only 1 skill point.
- Mist Form (Utility) gives you a guaranteed 3 seconds of invulnerability, but removes all your weapon skills for the duration. However, it also breaks stuns. You can use it to run or find cover behind allies. Its cooldown is rather long, though.
- Updraft (Air 5 on dagger) performs a dodge backwards while knocking down all enemies right in front of you, and gives you swiftness as well. Either jump right back into the fight with Air 4, Fire 3 or Earth 3 (hit it again after it hits), or turn around (you can bind a key to making an about face!) and run. It has a medium-length cooldown.
- Ride the Lightning (Air 4 on dagger) can also be used to escape, but requires that you do not target an enemy and turn your character to face the direction you want to escape to. This can be hard to pull of if you’re surrounded, but if it works, it is the way most likely to succeed to escape from a group of enemy players in WvW.
- I’ll mention one extra skill: Armor of Earth (Utility), because it provides you with 6 seconds of Protection and Stability, and also breaks stun. Again, this one has a long cooldown.
3. I rarely play D/D in a party, as I switch to staff for that. If you are good at identifying and dodging an enemy’s most dangerous attacks, you can tank a champion for short durations, but your combat style should still mostly be hit-and-run. I find Water 2 and Water 5 useful heals when I’m standing close to my allies (and Water 2 also deals damage to enemies at the same time). Your weapon slots have 2 auras, and you can consider selecting traits that give auras to your allies with added benefits, but this requires significant investment. The Fire Field combo (mentioned under combo tips) can also help a party, because it gives Might to all allies in the field. Finally, you have many ways to put various conditions on enemies.
Still, your main contribution to a party in a D/D setup is to deal damage. If you want to have more party utility/support, you should consider using a staff when playing with others, because that allows you to put down A LOT of different combo fields for other people to use their finishers in.
I do like a challenge, I just didn’t want to spend all this time trying to get over the learning curve of learning to play ele if the optimal end result will be mediocre in comparison to the other classes. I don’t mind this class being “hard to play but high rewards if you master,” I mind the “hard to play, still sub par when mastered.”
I play an elementalist as my main character, and for me it is the default difficulty level. I have no real issues with it, and do not feel that I am terribly squishy. (Perhaps I should add that I focus on maximizing Toughness, though, as well as having above-average Vitality.) I also use all 4 attunements, and have memorized all 20 weapon skills on both dagger/dagger and staff. After I hit level 80, I never had the feeling that I was ever in a situation where I could not survive (except in WvW).
There has to be an advantage to having a larger guild – else what would be the point? They’ve made larger guilds more desireable and are making guilds themselves more desireable. It’s all a step in the right direction, but there really should be a reason to have a 30+ active player guild, vs a 3-5 active player guild.
Larger guilds (30 or more active players) would have sufficient advantage over smaller guilds for just being able to run LARGER guild missions that have correspondingly better rewards than lower-tier missions.
Excluding smaller guilds from the rewards that can be earned in guild missions for many months (if not forever) simply takes this advantage too far. (And this is even assuming that a group of 5-10 players can even complete the lowest tier Bounty.)
I wonder what will be next. Guild halls that can only be bought with 250 of a special item that only drops from the Guild Puzzle chest?
Perhaps you need to spend a bit more time to open up your skill options on a class before you dump it.
Level 5, level 6… really? smh…
When Majora says “level 6x guardian” or “level 5x warrior”, I am assuming that is shorthand for “level sixty-something guardian” or “level fifty-something warrior”.
Regarding: “I have no interest in Fractals of the Mists, so I have no interest in ascended gear.”
Ascended gear is also available for laurels (well, all except the back item), which can be earned by completing daily and monthly achievements.
Regarding: “I missed the final solo story instance, and can’t replay it.”
If you have an in-game friend who has not yet finished the personal story, you can accompany your friend’s character into that instance by partying with them.
The only downside is that it will be their character talking in the dialogues, and not yours. You can come up with a role-playing reason for this, though. Perhaps Arkham is a modest and cryptic person who lets his young protégé speak for him and is happy to let this friend take the credit while he just proudly stands behind them, knowing how it truly went. That way, he can just slink away into the shadows later, looking for the next adventure.
edit: I missed the part about your fiancée. Perhaps she could be the friend mentioned above, and Arkham could let her character take all the credit as an act of love / friendship / whatever your two characters might feel for one another?
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
As a member of a tiny guild (3-4 active members out of 10-12 total), I have had a talk with my guildleader, and we decided to try an experiment.
We are going to upgrade the guild in order to unlock guild bounties, spending gold if necessary to acquire the needed Influence. Once Guild Bounties are unlocked, we will start Bounty Missions on a regular basis, and we will post announcements on our game server that anyone who wants to get the rewards can become members of our guild for the duration of the bounty, for a small fee (perhaps 1 silver). At the end of the mission, all temporary members will be removed from the guild.
The participation fee is intended to earn back (over time) our investment in buying the influence in the first place. In return, we would be providing a service to the players on our server who would otherwise have no access to guild missions, giving them a chance to experience this content, and to acquire Guild Commendations and other rewards.
Any opinions on whether you believe this experiment could work?
Well, I had posted this in a separate thread but it got closed and I was told to post it here. Even though it is totally unrelated to the discussion in this thread, here it goes:
What time/day do the rewards for Guild Missions reset?
If someone reading this knows the answer, I’m sure they will tell you. I don’t know, unfortunately.
Perhaps you could post in the “Players helping players” subforum. It’s not as heavily moderated as this one, and players actually go there with the thought of sharing their knowledge with others.
This is assuming some players have already found out how this system works, of course. Perhaps an answer is only available next week. (Because I believe it resets weekly, correct?)
I guess it swallowed someone with a price on their head?
And it cost you what? 28 karma apiece?
Perform a daily achievement or two, drink the Jugs and you’ve recuperated your losses.
Like World of Warcraft, I’ll likely be leaving GW2 if it starts to force you to play in multi player guilds to unlock the higher tiers of rewards.
It’s foolish, and gives an unfair advantage to people who spam open recruitment guilds or otherwise have very lax recruitment measures.
Still, to be fair, all the worthwhile rewards that can be earned through Guild Missions may also be gotten in other ways.
- Rares, exotics and precursors also drop elsewhere (and even had their drop rate slightly increased in the world event chests)
- Ascended accessories can be bought at the laurel vendor (at 40 laurels + 50 ectoplasm apiece)
Everything else the Guild Commendations vendor has for sale is either cosmetic (e.g. minis, tonics) or redundant (e.g. boosters, exotic backpieces).
There is one thing that could muddy up your calculations, which is that completing guild missions may earn a guild more influence than any other activity. You would have to ask guilds with Bounty access how much influence it earns.
Just to give a concept on casual, small-guild influence gain rate, We’ve been putting all but I think 1000 influence into architecture. We’re only halfway to architecture level 4. So long as it requires level 6 architecture before you even get to the 200 influence puzzle…
then it will require 70k influence just to unlock architecture level 6. As long as we spend it ALL on architecture.
We’ve only gained 13k influence over time since the very beginning of the game, which is about 6 months. That means, at our current rate of influence gain, it will take us 2 and 2/3 YEARS just to unlock tier 6. And it will take us… 2 years for the puzzle unlock.Is it really fair that it should take 5 years for a small guild of about 4-5 active members to get ONE guild mission unlock?! And it has to be the puzzle for us as we’ve already put influence in architecture. And it would take us OVER 5 MORE YEARS to obtain any of the others!
Does this really seem fair?
I thought whether or not you were casual and whether or not your guild was large wasn’t going to factor into content you’d get to play.
Not to upset you, but are you aware that you need to unlock ALL the other guild mission types FIRST (in a specific order – Bounties is step 1), before you can unlock Guild Puzzle? These require the other 3 research tiers at level 6 too.
(I believe the order is Bounties → Rush → Trek → Challenge → Puzzle.
Correct me if I’m wrong, please.)
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
It is an official statement, which is why I quoted it. I would agree with it if guild content was at all attainable for players of all playstyles. But it isn’t, so I don’t.
I’m going to quote Isaiah Cartwright on the cost of ascended accessories:
These items are mainly earned through guild content, we included them on the laurels vendor to give players the opportunity to earn them if they are not in a guild but they are priced high to encourage players to try and accomplish them via the guild content.
(Note: I personally disagree with his reasoning, because some players simply have no access to guild missions and its rewards because smaller guilds (10 people or less) have difficulty earning enough influence to unlock the guild content, let alone completing any guild missions.)
I think these kits were never intended to be used in challenging group content (like dungeons or fractals), and this change removes any potential to “exploit” them (i.e. bypassing or significantly easing difficult content through invisibility).
Really, is it a bad thing that players can no longer rely on a dirt-cheap novelty item to beat difficult content?
Welcome to the game, Pagee.
Let´s me see….
I have a small guild (25 members). Ok, no problem, i can handle the new content with this ppl.
We haven´t enough influence to reach AoW5 and unlock Bounty Hunt missions. Ok, no problem, with some effort we can buy it with gold.
We are a PvE focused guild, so we used our influence in Economics, Politcs and Arch (AoW is useless to us, why spend influence on it?). With your great desing of Guild Missions we need to wait two weeks to start play the new content!!! This is just ridiculous.
Really i dont understand which is the goal with this type of obstacles. The solution is simple. Move the unlock option to any categorie at lvl 1 (and reduce the cost). Not the next patch, not the next week, TODAY!!
yeah, not gonna happen, cant go back now. guilds have already spent influence to unlock and upgrade to be able to unlock.
All that would be needed is to add the requirements for building e.g. a Tier 1 Guild Bounty to NOT include “Unlock Guild Bounty”, but instead only require e.g. Art of War IV.
(I should note that Tier 1 Guild Bounties should probably also be rebalanced to be more balanced for 5-man groups with relatively low rewards (e.g. 50% chance to receive 1 Guild Commendation, or 1 rare item otherwise), and not be challenging for large 20+ guild raids, in order to give large guilds more incentive to pay for the actual unlock.)
I guess people on different servers respond differently (if at all) to the changes.
This is as good a time as any to post a link to Matipzieu KyA’s excellent analysis of the situation on page 14 of this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077
I sincerely believe that this analysis needs to be quoted or linked to on every page of this thread, in order to entice both ArenaNet and new readers to this thread to read it. The author is actually thinking with ArenaNet, using his/her own professional expertise to shed light on the current state of Guild Missions.
Additionally, I’ll also quote myself, mostly for the suggestions that sparked part of the current discussion:
In my view, there are 2 problems:
1. The cost to access Guild Missions may be fine for large guilds, but is prohibitive for smaller guilds.
(Those who argue that small guilds want stuff for free, while large guilds work for it are overlooking the fact that small guilds need to earn a lot more Influence per person to be able to buy the same upgrades.)
Suggestion: All that is needed for small guilds to not feel left out is to put the very lowest tier of each type of Guild Mission behind a lower unlock threshold, while keeping the higher tiers behind more expensive unlock thresholds. Done in such a way that all unlock costs add up to the same levels they are now, so that large guilds who have already unlocked Bounties are not disadvantaged.2. Guild (Bounty) Missions themselves cannot be completed with the small number of players many small guilds have available.
(Those arguing that bystanders in the open world can help with the mission overlook the fact that bystanders do not receive special rewards, and may have little incentive to help. Also, finding 2 Champions in 15 minutes is hard enough if you don’t have 10 people.)
Suggestion: The easiest solution is to introduce lower-tiered Guild Missions that can be done with five people. For example, a Guild Bounty that requires finding and defeating only 1 Champion in 15 minutes. Or a Guild Rush that is balanced for 5 active participants. These should offer accordingly low rewards, of course, but should still allow players to earn Guild Commendations and the guild to acquire Guild Merits.I believe that the underlying problem is that ArenaNet considers “small guilds” to be guilds with 10 active players online at peak times. Unfortunately, guilds with less active players during peak times than this are not thought of at all.
I agree with Pirlipat, because like I said, it is all depending on either the charity or the savviness of large guilds, in providing members of small guilds with opportunities to participate in their Guild Missions.
If most or all guilds with Guild Mission access on a given server are elitist, and tell others to “l2p, earn your own missions” or to “obey our every command and we won’t kick you long enough to play in one of our missions”, then people will be left out.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
If I am honest this be the first time I agree with korrigan. I believe if your in a guild you should help it. if not leave. and if I saw someone join just for an event id bin them off. I want people who are ready to help the guild get better and grow.
Unless of course the guild is inviting people to join just for the events.
And this is precisely what server friendly, community based, none elitist large guilds will do. I fully expect the best guilds to say “Hey folks we’re popping a guild event, want to join us for an hour and enjoy the flavour. If you like it stay awhile and hell, we don’t mind if you normally represent your small guild of local friends”
Those random invited people are no guild members, no problem with that. What I dislike is guild members who are members just for profit, not for community. Random people joining your events is just like random people you do dynamic events with when leveling. And they don’t get the full rewards either.
If you end with a guild roster full of people who never represent, and therefore never participate in guild chat aka in the community, it’s no longer a guild you have… it’s a giant pickup group.You misunderstand. The thought discussed here is guilds actually inviting people into their guild for the duration of a Guild Mission. The invitees would thus have the ability to represent and get full rewards for the Guild Mission.
At the end of the mission, the new recruits would leave the guild again (or get kicked by mutual agreement). In some cases, guilds looking to recruit permanent members could invite these temporary members to stay around for longer.Right ok but they would get rewards for characters but for guild rewards they would help feeding the larger guild and giving them the rewards. It doesn’t help the smaller guilds still. I understand what you mean but what if you had a small guild and wanted to get that built up. Doing events with a larger guild doesn’t do this.
Doing a Guild Mission with a large guild as a temporary member does not gain influence for your own (small) guild. After the guild mission, you leave the large guild and represent your own guild again, gaining influence for any other events, dungeons, fractals, WvW or whatever you do.
It doesn’t gain your guild faster growth towards Guild Missions, but it does give you (as a player) Guild Commendations and a shot at a Precursor.
Of course, all this rides on a large guild having a temporary-membership-for-our-upcoming-Guild-Mission recruitment drive. Some large guilds may even start charging a fee for this.
If I am honest this be the first time I agree with korrigan. I believe if your in a guild you should help it. if not leave. and if I saw someone join just for an event id bin them off. I want people who are ready to help the guild get better and grow.
Unless of course the guild is inviting people to join just for the events.
And this is precisely what server friendly, community based, none elitist large guilds will do. I fully expect the best guilds to say “Hey folks we’re popping a guild event, want to join us for an hour and enjoy the flavour. If you like it stay awhile and hell, we don’t mind if you normally represent your small guild of local friends”
Those random invited people are no guild members, no problem with that. What I dislike is guild members who are members just for profit, not for community. Random people joining your events is just like random people you do dynamic events with when leveling. And they don’t get the full rewards either.
If you end with a guild roster full of people who never represent, and therefore never participate in guild chat aka in the community, it’s no longer a guild you have… it’s a giant pickup group.
You misunderstand. The thought discussed here is guilds actually inviting people into their guild for the duration of a Guild Mission. The invitees would thus have the ability to represent and get full rewards for the Guild Mission.
At the end of the mission, the new recruits would leave the guild again (or get kicked by mutual agreement). In some cases, guilds looking to recruit permanent members could invite these temporary members to stay around for longer.
Your right, and if the smll guild recruits few new members, these new members then prefer the larger guild and leave the small guild for the larger one. And wait theres more. when these events go whos gets all the influence and merits. the small guild or the large guild?
Indeed, small guilds will have a hard time recruiting. On the other hand, small guilds of real-life friends and family will never disband. Guild representation in such guilds will also be maintained, at least to a certain level, because without representing your (friends & family) guild, you won’t have access to the guild chat used by your friends & family.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
Ascended items are a long-term goal to slowly work towards while you have fun playing the game.
If your friend is not having fun actually playing the game, and if getting ascended items is the only satisfaction he is going to get from the game at all, then he is right not to play.
So much bitterness, from only two posts?
Honestly, if you want build advice, you would first have to indicate at what level you are, and how you intend to level your elementalist. Thankfully, you already indicated what you want out of the profession. The good news is that utility and AoE is very doable with the elementalist.
Unless these two people turned you off from the profession already?
Because of this slippery slope, I (personally) drew the line at the 5-player group.
Not only because a lot of the game is geared towards the 5-player group, but also because (as a result), both ArenaNet and most players have a clear grasp of what is balanced for a 5-player group.
If I am honest this be the first time I agree with korrigan. I believe if your in a guild you should help it. if not leave. and if I saw someone join just for an event id bin them off. I want people who are ready to help the guild get better and grow.
Unless of course the guild is inviting people to join just for the events.
Suggestion: The easiest solution is to introduce lower-tiered Guild Missions that can be done with five people. For example, a Guild Bounty that requires finding and defeating only 1 Champion in 15 minutes. Or a Guild Rush that is balanced for 5 active participants. These should offer accordingly low rewards, of course, but should still allow players to earn Guild Commendations and the guild to acquire Guild Merits.
It would no longer be guild activities, but just group activities then… and the next step is guild not even having 5 members wanting ANet to dumb down the content even more to fit their size.
This said, the game already has an automatic scaling system for dynamic events, this could just be applied to guild events too.
Just to clarify, by “5 participants”, I actually mean “5 guild members, possibly aided by bystanders”.
I am NOT advocating giving full guild mission rewards to participants who are not members of the guild. I am NOT advocating that Guild Missions should be soloable/duoable. And I am NOT advocating that Guild Missions be made available to pick-up groups (unless they are all from the same guild).
(Of course, there is nothing stopping current guilds with Guild Mission access who are short a few players for the mission they want to do to advertise recruitment of “temporary members” for the duration of the Guild Mission, similar to how PUGs are formed and disbanded.)
I for one, don’t read every single word of the patch notes since it’s so long.
If you don’t read patch notes, you can’t complain that you don’t know what is changing in the game.
(I must say, though, that the disabling of Lionguard Lyns at the start of Wintersday was a communication error, especially since her shop did not include Black Lion Keys upon her return. Because this was NOT announced in advance.)
In my view, there are 2 problems:
1. The cost to access Guild Missions may be fine for large guilds, but is prohibitive for smaller guilds.
(Those who argue that small guilds want stuff for free, while large guilds work for it are overlooking the fact that small guilds need to earn a lot more Influence per person to be able to buy the same upgrades.)
Suggestion: All that is needed for small guilds to not feel left out is to put the very lowest tier of each type of Guild Mission behind a lower unlock threshold, while keeping the higher tiers behind more expensive unlock thresholds. Done in such a way that all unlock costs add up to the same levels they are now, so that large guilds who have already unlocked Bounties are not disadvantaged.
2. Guild (Bounty) Missions themselves cannot be completed with the small number of players many small guilds have available.
(Those arguing that bystanders in the open world can help with the mission overlook the fact that bystanders do not receive special rewards, and may have little incentive to help. Also, finding 2 Champions in 15 minutes is hard enough if you don’t have 10 people.)
Suggestion: The easiest solution is to introduce lower-tiered Guild Missions that can be done with five people. For example, a Guild Bounty that requires finding and defeating only 1 Champion in 15 minutes. Or a Guild Rush that is balanced for 5 active participants. These should offer accordingly low rewards, of course, but should still allow players to earn Guild Commendations and the guild to acquire Guild Merits.
I believe that the underlying problem is that ArenaNet considers “small guilds” to be guilds with 10 active players online at peak times. Unfortunately, guilds with less active players during peak times than this are not thought of at all.
Finally, let me reiterate that Matipzieu KyA’s excellent series of 4 posts on page 14 of this thread is a must-read:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
I’d like to know why there hasn’t been any dev feedback since yesterday. This is a big issue.
Yesterday, they put all their effort into rolling out the patch, and performing several emergency bug fixes.
Right now, their workday is not even halfway over, and they likely have not had time to parse through all the feedback.
And then they need to take a position on it, probably involving multiple departments (because it is a large, long-term issue).
The problem is that people in small guilds feel like people in large guilds have received a reward to their playstyle, because guild missions give far better rewards than any other game content right now.
Ascended accessories for large guild members cost 12 guild commendations (earned over 6 missions) + 5 gold (3 of which is earned during those same missions).
Ascended accessories for everyone else consts 40 laurels + 50 ectoplasm for everyone else. This is also intentionally more expensive, to encourage players to try the new guild content.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-kitten-Cleric-Ascended-Accessory/page/3#post1516124)The people who do not play in large guilds (mostly by choice) feel penalized and resentful towards people in large guilds, even though all people in large guilds is some fun new game content to enjoy.
Six missions would take six weeks. You can only get the commendations once a week. The trade off if you are not in a guild or you are in a small guild is 40 laurels and 50 ectos.
If all you ever did was dailys once a day you would have enough in 40 days, or 5 and half weeks to pick up the new ascended stuff. The ectos you should be able to get the 50 in 5 and half weeks. Thats if you play everyday for an hour or 2. You might think that is unfair because players have rl commitments. While this is true it takes a guild cooperation and planning to do these missions. They require the guild members who wish to participate to set aside a specific time to run the mission. Even if that means setting aside RL for an hour or two play session.If you get the monthly done you would get your laurels faster. You could shave off about a week and half.
By ArenaNet’s own admission, 40 Laurels + 50 Ectoplasm is considered more expensive than 12 Guild Commendations + 5 gold. And even more poignantly, this is intentional:
@LanfearShadowflame:
You should read this post on page 14 of this thread for a very well-argued account of the (potential) problems you describe. Even if you ignore the rest of this thread, you should read this.
(It’s 4 posts long, with one person’s short post somewhere in the middle.)