These threads and their titles always amuse me…
‘Party changes that need to happen’
No they don’t need to happen… Thanks for voicing your opinion though…
Well said. In a previous post, I already mentioned that Trahearne actually meets all the criteria the OP wants to see in a “party member”, arguably better than most of the ones he/she does name.
(Except of course that nobody likes it when Trahearne is helping them.)
The word “CAN” followed by the word “USE” has been mentioned.
I would recommend that this be made an exception to the word filter, because these two words are frequently used together in normal use of the English language, especially when players are trying to give helpful advice to other players.
The same issue also presents itself when someone tries to say “ZHAITAN” followed by “USED TO”.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
Trash talking in WvW is mostly impossible, because players from different servers do not share chat channels, and player names on the opposing sides are hidden. (I think only emotes can get through to non-allied players.) This is by design.
(So don’t hurl around insults in WvW chat, because the only ones who will receive it are your teammates.)
Also, players are not allowed to use the official forums to discuss any (specific) WvW match at all. This is also done to eliminate the possibility for “negative posts”.
You ckittene the mouse to turn during movement. In some jumps, this is necessary.
For such jumps, I recommend turning down the graphical settings of the game, because the controls for turning the camera can get sluggish on higher settings with lower-end video cards, and this reduces your maneuverability in general. (Although it is usually only an issue if you require very precise positioning and/or timing while turning your camera view.)
The current nameless party was selected to be less awesome than the player character, so that they look up to us. This is done deliberately, so that the player character does not feel like being second fiddle to the NPCs (which was a major complaint regarding the original Personal Story).
As they adventure, they will become more experienced and heroic (as we already saw with Kasmeer, who overcame her hiccups). Because you know how you get experienced people? By sending inexperienced people on adventures. If you only ever use your veterans for quests, nobody will be ready to take up their mantle when they fall.
So from a storytelling perspective, your suggestion is not a change that needs to happen. Unless you like adventuring side-by-side with Trahearne, of course. Because who has more experience in fighting dragons than the Marshall of the Pact himself?
Seriously, add Trahearne to the top of that list and see how much you like the idea then.
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Here are some uninformed conclusions, semi-quoted from the posts above:
- NPC Vendors selling items for prices that are not comparable to Trading Post prices is “a joke”.
(It is not. It is a backdoor guarantee that certain items can be obtained at a fixed laurel rate, regardless of their Trade Post price or availability. Also note that the Heavy Crafting Bag does not guarantee the specific fine material you are looking for. That is not the same as buying a specific fine material directly on the Trade Post.)
- The above difference is due to “inflation”.
(It is not. Inflation happens when the currency value of all items continually rises as time progresses (while disregarding market shocks, like the introduction of new crafting recipes or crafting tiers). The GW2 market is actually rather stable, with crafting material prices not changing all that much.)
- ArenaNet has not let go of the view that “tier 6 materials” should be worth less than WvW blueprints.
(There is no “absolute” value of either of these items, and player supply and demand determines the Trade Post values of these items (in gold).)
- Tier 6 material prices have risen, so they will continue to rise at the same rate for the foreseeable future.
(Prices could go up, down or stay the same, depending on lots of factors. Tier 6 fine materials had a stable price. After the introduction of ascended crafting, those prices went up, but stabilized at a higher level. And they are still stable. If new crafting recipes are introduced, this could result in temporary price volatility, but prices will gradually return to their normal level while everyone who wants the new item “like, right now!” gets one.)
- Demand is “five times higher” than supply.
(While this may be true for certain items, the number of buy orders compared to the number of sell offers is not the same as “supply and demand”. To be precise, it only measures the demand for people who are willing to pay X price and the supply by people who are actually willing to receive Y price. Some people possess items but do not want to sell. Others want items, but cannot or will not spend gold for it. And those orders or offers that are fulfilled immediately will never show up on the TP overview.
Short answer: It is impossible to know the true supply or demand for any given item.)
- High demand and low supply is what item flippers make money on.
(They do not, or at least only partly. Item flippers earn gold by buying items when sell prices are low, and selling when buy orders are high. If an item is in constant high demand and low supply all the time, item flippers cannot buy the item for a sufficiently low price to earn back the Trade Post taxes. The item price needs to fluctuate by at least 15% to cover these taxes.
Also, item flipping actually is good for the game economy, because it reduces price volatility, thus bringing more stability on the market.)
- “The situation is unstoppable.”
(Unsure what situation you are referring to. Item flipping, or high demand/low supply.)
- “There are no proper gold sinks in the game.”
(5% Trade Post tax on posting an item is a gold sink. 10% Trade Post tax on selling an item is a gold sink. Waypoint cost is a gold sink. Various vendor-bought crafting materials (e.g. Lumps of Coal, Bags of Flour, Weaving Spool, Thermocatalytic Reagent, Elonian Wine) are a gold sink. Trading gold for gems is a gold sink (which makes the frequently updated Gemstore into a major goldsink). Unlocking traits for gold and skill points is a gold sink. Buying anything from NPC vendors (like salvage kits and gathering tools) is a gold sink.)
- “I don’t buy gems with gold, so that is not a gold sink.”
(Other people do. I am one of them. In fact, the fact that gems cost so much gold these days is because more people are trading gold for gems than the other way around.)
- “I am an average player”, so whatever I do is what everyone does.
(This is the implicit assumption behind the previous statement.)
You must mean utility skills. See the tip above. Also, you can change it on the Hero Screen (second tab from above, then select “Skills”).
Traits are a different mechanic, which you gain access to at level 30. They have a separate tab on the Hero Screen (second tab from above, then select “Traits”).
Please disregard the comment above. Some people just can’t help themselves in complaining to new players.
Having said that, while I can’t help you myself, you should probably post what your home server is, or at least if you’re on an EU or NA server. Because players from European and North American servers cannot play together.
I agree. One of the nice things of Dry Top as a cooperative zone is that a handful of unmotivated or absent players cannot ruin the end goal for everyone else.
Because that is a major issue in Tequatl, Three-Headed Wurm and similar encounters.
You are jumping to all kinds of uninformed conclusions. It would go too far to explain the basics of (game) economics in a forum post, so the best advice I can give you is to take an economics class, and check your opinion on Guild Wars 2.
@SkyFallsInThunder:
Even this this would have been Scarlet’s master plan, I would not call it vindication. Two Elder Dragons fighting each other would result in massive war that would destroy any civilization that happens to be caught in the middle. A fight between Elder Dragons should be stopped at all costs, and would be a good goal for the Living Story protagonists (i.e. us) to pursue.
In fact, removing (or moving) the ghosts of Ascalon could be a part of such a plan, as it could serve to lure Mordremoth away from other Dragon-infested areas. Since ghosts are explicitly defined as “magical constructs” – in GW1, the Mursaat even used the ghosts of their Chosen victims to power their magical batteries – a large group of ghosts would be the perfect bait to distract a hungry magic-eating Elder Dragon.
@Ariella Goldstein:
There is another artifact created form the essence of Jormag, and it is in Hoelbrak. The Fang of the Dragon (belonging to Jormag itself) is suspended there, awaiting the mighty champion who can destroy it. Then the norn will know that the time has come to attack Jormag.
(In the novel “Edge of Destiny”, Eir unsuccessfully tried to damage the Fang. Rytlock then offered to strike it with his ridiculously powerful flaming sword, but Eir did not let him.)
From what I gather, the OP wants Living Story to be mostly raid content.
This is not going to happen.
Guild Wars 2 caters to solo players, small group players, and large group players (in additions to PvP players of various stripes, which have been mostly screened off from PvE).
However, large group content that is invitation-only and requires third party voice communication with other participants will not be part of Guild Wars 2. The game’s philosophy so far clearly shows that all players, any players, should always be happy to see others nearby, jump in and help each other.
Guild Wars 2 is inclusive. “Hardcore” raid content, however, is exclusive and unwelcoming to “noobs”. It will never be part of Living Story, only the occasional (permanent) world boss, like Tequatl or the Three-Headed Wurm. And even those will always be open world, and never instanced, so that any passers-by can still join in and help.
What we have seen in the first Living Story was that a story would start slowly with solo content in the open world, with small group dungeons or large world boss events at climactic points in the story. As the season progressed, large group content was also added, and the entire Lion’s Arch battle climax (excluding the final Scarlet instance) was large group content.
While Living Story 2 uses the (solo-based) Story Journal as the backbone for the story, (temporary or permanent) large-scale events are not ruled out. Dry Top is only the first part. So it’s building up. Be patient.
The major theme with Lion’s Arch is that it is always changing. Many of the previous Living Story updates added or removed something in the architecture – they even added a temporary dungeon once.
So there may be a grand reopening celebration at some point, but that will not mean that the city will stop changing. The current rebuilding of Lion’s Arch is just one phase in this ongoing process.
Also, the Breachmaker left a large hole in the water near Old Lion’s Arch. I have a sneaking suspicion that this leyline hub may be revisited further on in the current season.
To all those of you who suggest that the locket shows a picture of our character….
You do realize that some players actually play asura, sylvari, norn or charr, right? Right?
Warrior is generally considered the “easiest profession for beginners”, but in my opinion this is not entirely true. In my opinion, the Warrior is easiest for “beginners who have played other MMOs before”, because the Warrior playstyle is the most friendly to the generic tactic in other games (i.e. you stand next to an enemy and trade blows).
This playstyle is generally a bad idea in Guild Wars 2, though, because in this game, you are expected to use dodging to avoid the hardest hits (regardless of profession). Many professions have extra skills that provide dodges, but the Warrior has very few.
If you are new to MMOs in general, just pick whatever profession seems the most interesting to you. The steeper learning curves may not be so steep if you don’t have to unlearn things you learned in other games.
About the elementalist, I can say that I learned to play the game with an elementalist. The most challenging aspect of the elementalist is that you can toggle between 4 different skillbars, and thus have about double the number of skills available to you compared to other professions. Many of these skills can be used to created skill combos, which is a part of the game that is underadvertised. (If you want to know more, look up the words “fields” and “finishers” on the wiki.)
The downside of the elementalist is that you are relatively fragile compared to other professions, especially in the range of level 20-45 or so. This can be countered by knowing how to use your skills effectively, instead of just randomly cycling through them. (You don’t actually have to know or use them all, but it helps.) Some skills get much better under certain conditions, while others require preparation or maneuvering in order to be used effectively.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
I think underwater combat in PvP is being phased out, as players in WvW and PvP have consistently shown to avoid fighting in water whenever possible.
I also think underwater combat in PvE will receive a major overhaul at some point in the future, in order to rebalance it, remove various bugs, and present it to us as a brand-new feature (for example by reworking all underwater weapon skills, adding new underwater weapons, or adapting all “normal” weapons to also work underwater somehow – which would allow for the removal of the current underwater weapons).
Finally, I believe this to be a long-term project.
However, the fact that the new weapon set does not include underwater weapons does have me slightly worried. While it could just be time constraints (with underwater weapons added later on), some remarks by a developer could do much to assuage these worries.
After reading these comment I tried some clover farming. After 10 individual tries I ended up with 4 clovers and then 1-3 of a couple of different items. Is this what people are calling a `good amount`? It didn’t seem like that much to me, so I wanted to check.
If you use the ten-at-a-time recipe (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_clover), you could end up with 20-40 of a single tier 6 material.
Warriors also have a tendency to be judged “boring” to play by some players. This can sometimes be solved by trying out new weapons (as warriors have the largest weapon selection of all professions).
Also, if you want to play “big brutes that can also take a hit and survive”, bear in mind that some attacks are not designed to be “taken”, but avoided. That’s why the game has a dodge mechanic that is available to all professions.
Forging mystic clovers also has a nice side effect: instead of mystic clovers, you could also randomly receive a good number of Tier 6 fine materials.
Similarly, the Black Citadel has exits into the Charr starting area (Ashford Plains 1-15) to the east, and into another area (Diessa Plateau 15-25) to the north.
And Divinity’s Reach also has a second exit, although it’s non-obvious. In the most eastern part of the city, there is an asura gate that leads direcly to Fields of Ruin (30-40), which is all the way on the other side of the world map.
Drooburt is not meant as a gold-sink, he is probably just meant as a joke. You should laugh at the idea of a quaggan in a desert, and the option to give him money is there to express pity for this useless character.
It was never intended for masses of players to remove thousands of gold from the economy. The absence of an event bar should be a clue. (And I do find the suggestion interesting that donations to Drooburt could have a tiny effect on the Zephyrite Merchant tier. I wish I had an answer there.)
Not everything in this game has to be functional, or dedicated to “making loot”. Some things are just meant to be entertaining.
I find it astounding that people use anecdotal evidence to conclude that Guild Wars 2 is slowly dying, all while projecting their own beliefs onto the entire gaming community, and refusing to consider that other people may have the audacity to actually like what they do not.
Personally, I quite like the small story releases, and Gates of Maguuma contained more story content than a typical Season 1 release. If all Season 2 releases are of the same quality, I would be very happy.
Also, I do not see the necessity to add bold text to random passages in sentences. As a rhetorical tool, it is rather unconvincing, and it makes posts look like tabloid headlines.
I second the suggestion above. After all, Braham received a permanent “Crippled” condition when his leg was broken.
(On that note, Marjory should probably have been given a “Vulnerability” condition when she was still healing from multiple broken ribs.)
Given that Taimi suffers from degenerative disease that affects the strength of her bones, maybe she also needs a permanent “Weakness” condition as well.
And add a cigar for good measure, too?
But until then Trahearne is stuck in Fort Trinity filling out paper work in his office everyday until he is needed on the battlefield again.
This is probably how he likes it best.
No, “Gates of Maguuma” is not what took months of development.
What took months of development is the ENTIRE setup for “Gates of Maguuma”, “Entangled” and a dozen or more similar updates, each of which containing a roughly similar amount of content as “Gates of Maguuma”. That means about 4 story instances, and more additions to the world map (likely including more Dry Top).
If you don’t know who Aerin is, you should have gotten a few clues:
1. Aerin was a rather noticeable NPC in Labyrinthine Cliffs over the past two months.
2. Various clues and NPCs strewn across Dry Top and the story instances slowly reveal Aerin’s identity. And you are required to collect most of them to progress the story. It’s your responsibility not to read any of it.
If you don’t know who the Master of Peace is, you should have gotten a few clues:
1. He appeared before in the introductory story instance of Festival of the Four Winds (which was available for just under two months).
2. He is specifically mentioned as being “the leader of the zephyrites” by Marjory and Kasmeer in the “Fallen Hopes” story instance.
3. Your entire purpose in the “Cornered” story instance is to find and save the Master of Peace. Various clues in Dry Top pointed the way to the instance.
Again, not paying attention is your own responsibility. Do you also watch movies with the sound turned off?
Some more:
- Fractals of the Mists have been overhauled, adding three more fractals.
- Dyes are now account-wide. Unidentified dyes no longer drop (but can still be bought with laurels).
- New WvWvW map: Edge of the Mists, which is like an overflow zone while you are queued to enter your actual world’s WvWvW.
- Glory was removed as a reward system for PvP. A new system was launched to replace it.
- Each profession has a new (profession-specific) healing skill. Additionally, the healing skill Antitoxin Spray is available to all professions.
- Each traitline for each profession got one additional new grandmaster trait. This needs to be unlocked, even for characters who are not newly created.
- Lion’s Arch is in the process of being rebuilt. Many NPCs died. The jumping puzzles are unchanged. Lion’s Arch now has an exit into Lornar’s Pass, and the second exit to Gendarran Fields was permanently closed.
For those who didn’t know, the term “biconics” to refer to Kasmeer, Brahan, Rox, Marjory and Taimi was first coined by one of the ArenaNet writers during an interview. It did not originate with the players.
Because Rytlock, Eir, Caithe, Logan and Zojja were already referred to by ArenaNet as the “iconics”, the Living Story cast were the “second group of iconics”, which was shortened to the punny “biconics” (with “bi” being ancient Greek for “two”).
Any incorrect use and confusing meanings of the word can be attributed to them.
Personally, I hope that the group of characters will be given an in-game name (for example, if they founded a guild), so that this would make this corny developer-pun obsolete.
(And no, I don’t believe “Delaqua Investigations” would cut it.)
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If the crafting requirement were dropped from 100 bolts of silk to 50 bolts of silk, everyone who had (recently) crafted ascended light armor, would be up in arms about it, demanding half of their silk investment back.
Instead, increasing cloth drops is something ArenaNet has already attempted, as many of the event boxes (e.g. those from Escape from Lion’s Arch) can drop cloth scraps, and no other common crafting materials. This probably did not work enough, as it only (temporarily) prevented prices from rising up further, instead of driving them down.
However, the opening up of new maps also means the opening up of new loot tables. I am optimistic about the chances to obtain more wool, cotton, linen and silk.
The login screen already contains direct links to the website news articles. No need to refresh the site, just check it whenever you start up the game loader.
Some weapon and armor skins never require transmutation charges.
The skins you unlock from collecting achievement points do not require transmutation charges.
The skins you can receive from the Hall of Monuments (if you played Guild Wars 1) do not require transmutation charges.
I am not sure about complete armor sets from the gemstore, as I don’t own any of those.
Today, I completed the Dry Top jumping puzzle. I got the achievement, and all was well.
Except that completing this jumping puzzle did not award progress towards the Monthly Jumping Puzzle achievement. A guildmate of mine confirmed that he had noticed the same thing. (And although I didn’t check it, I think the same thing could happen with the Daily Puzzle Jumper achievement.)
Could this be fixed, so that the new jumping puzzle actually counts as a jumping puzzle? Thank you.
I have a question that is perhaps more interesting in this context.
Does unlocking the story content require
a) Just logging in at the gameloader screen;
b) Actually starting the game; or
c) Entering Tyria with a character?
1. Everything that came with the game at launch (including Personal Story) is still available to play.
In January 2013, the Living Story season 1 started, and it ended in March 2014. That content was mostly temporary, and is no longer available. However, ArenaNet has stated that they are considering adding a replay option for this content at a later date (if technical issues allow it).
On July 1st (next week), Living Story season 2 will start. It will also consist of both temporary content and permanent additions to the game. However, the temporary content will be (mostly) replayable through a new “story journal” feature that they will introduce at the same time. All you need to do is log in once every two weeks to unlock each new chapter of content. (If you miss it, it can still be bought through the gemstore.)
And then there are festivals, like the current Queen’s Pavilion and Labyrinthine Cliffs zone. These are temporary by nature, but they will return once per year (with minor changes and updates). Sometimes these events are woven into the Living Story, but not in a way that drastically changes the basic nature of the festival content.
2. Race choice brings a few differences:
- Each race has a different personal story for the first 30 levels.
- Each race has a few unique skills that can be unlocked. These skills are usually flavorful, but subpar.
- Your race’s size has some impact on how the camera behaves. This makes smaller races typically more desirable for doing jumping puzzles.
- Each race has a few unique armor skins that cannot be worn by other races. These are sold by vendors in each race’s home city.
- Some NPCs offer different dialogue depending on your character’s race. This has no further consequences on gameplay in any way, though.
As you can see, the consequences of choosing any specific race are mostly cosmetic.
Welcome to the game.
Check out the “Players helping players” subforum if you have any questions. Many of the stickied posts there contain tips for beginners.
Are elementalists really higest damage class? Is it that squishy that I’ll have hard time surviving in pvp? How pvp works, is mass pvp really teamplay or just anyone duels others?
Elementalists have decent-if-not-spectacular damage on their weapon skills. Depending on the weapons you use, condition damage could be as important as power.
However, check out the traits for damage bonuses. Compared to other professions, the elementalist has more of these, and can try to create the conditions to stack multiple of these bonuses.
(E.g. +10% damage against burning foes, +10% damage against bleeding foes, +10% damage when endurance is full, +20% damage against foes with less than 33% health, and a lot of attunement-specific bonuses.)
And finally, the most effective way for elementalists to excel at damage is through effective use of combos. Drop a fire field, and use blast finishers to give 3 stacks of Might in an area (which raises everyone’s damage). If you have teammates with blast finishers, they can use those too.
These particular tactics give an explosive (but usually temporary) boost to elementalist damage output. If you don’t use combos or traits (or runes/sigils or food buffs) effectively, you will probably find your damage slightly below average.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
For clarity, Esmee’s use of the term “Gold Pavillion” refers to the Crown Pavillion where the Boss Blitz is organized, and the Gold Reward can be attained.
(Unorganized Boss Blitz attempts will probably succeed at Bronze Reward level, but take a lot more time and offer smaller rewards.)
You should definitely NOT change servers for this. If you switch servers, you will not be allowed into WvW at all for the current match and next match (which amounts to 7-14 days). And there is no guarantee that in two matches time, the server you moved to will still have the same home borderland.
1. Dungeons are not an issue at level 20. If you play your personal story, you will receive your first notification about dungeons around level 31, through in-game mail.
2. I can’t help you with PvP, because I don’t do PvP.
3. Just about everything you do gives you XP. Including gathering, map exploration, reviving allies, killing monsters, participating in events, doing personal story, and crafting.
That information should be found on the wiki.
By the way, bay leaves are a rather common drop in my memory, and I do believe they mostly drop in Kryta (Gendarran Fields and Bloodtide Coast).
No, the “farm fields” only appear for specific cooking ingredients that yield only a single type of ingredient (e.g. cauliflower, lettuce, strawberry, sugar pumpkin). Such “farms” are also usually the only places where these ingredients can be found.
Herbs (of various qualities) appear on all maps, and are not limited in that way. However, if you are looking for very specific herbs, you should note that not all ingredients drop from all herb nodes.
For example:
- Chilli Peppers only drop from herb nodes in Ascalon.
- Vanilla Beans only drop from herb nodes in Maguuma.
- Coriander Seeds only drop from herb nodes in Kryta.
- Rosemary Sprigs only drop from herb nodes in the Shiverpeaks.
Some of these are also limited to certain level ranges. (E.g. While Vanilla Beans can drop from Maguuma herb patches from level 1 areas and up, Cloves will only drop from level 55-ish and up.)
(By the way, everything I mentioned about herbs also applies to root vegetables.)
Yes, it appears to be that chain.
I participated in an event that consisted of fighting off 5 ettin waves (and preventing them from destroying the tower). After the last, one NPC was building mortars, and when he was finished he turned into a merchant that sold ettin clubs.
There were already many Strangers in Labyrinthine Cliffs last year.
I think most of the hints are hidden in the NPC dialogues. Like the Zephyr Sanctum taking in strange supplies, and planning a longer, further journey than ever before. Or the ambient dialogue in Lion’s Arch.
Paying more tickets to get more rewards is exactly what the gambits do. So pick a few gambits, and perhaps mix up some gauntlet bosses. (Doobroosh and Ragemaw are rather easy too.)
The OP mentioned he/she wants to solo veterans and champions.
Veterans are intended to be solo-ed as tough encounters. Any professions should be able to handle a veteran of their own level, but it may be a challenge in some cases. (Especially if the veteran is not alone.)
Champions are NOT intended to be solo-ed by a single player. While it may be possible (and sometimes not even really hard) to beat certain specific champions on your own, you should probably not count on it, especially if you describe yourself as a casual players who just wants a few hours of fun in this game every once in a while. A champion is NOT a guaranteed kill, unless other players are around to help.
I get ANet doesn’t want to do it, etc, fine, but players such as some in this topic going on about how it’s “breaking immersion” – just stop, lol. Shoving your personal views on the game down other players throats is ridiculous. Not everyone is as involved, interested, or invested in the games lore and the characters personal story.
ANet has their reasons, OP just wanted to know if the new change to the storyline would make it “easier” to sneak in a race change product, not your opinion of why it shouldn’t happen or how important the storyline is to you.
(I added my personal opinion to the end of my post, in parentheses, after I had answered the OP’s question. I also explicitly stated it was my personal opinion. If it makes you upset to read that specific opinion, feel free to just ignore it, instead of ranting about it.)
As they say: “Anything in parentheses can be freely ignored.”
Why do you ask permission from a group of strangers to play the game that you bought in the way that you enjoy?
Why do you ask other people to tell you what you should like and dislike about this game? Try each of the professions, and decide for yourself which you like best.
You have five character slots. If you fill them all, you can either buy more in the gemstore, or delete a character to free up the slot for a new character.
I happened to run into this thing yesterday.
You have to be in Timberline Falls, near Stromkarl Heights (west of Stromkarl Waypoint). There is a watchtower on a mountaintop with a few NPCs that try to fight off ettins. They could be routed, in which case an event chain starts where you have to escort them back to the place to rebuild their tower.
At the end of an event where you have to fight off 5 waves of ettins, one of the NPCs turns into a vendor that sells consumable ettin clubs.