Guild Wars 2

How to read runes:
-one rune: you get the first line of listed effects.
-two runes: you get the first and second line of listed effects, cumulative.
-three runes: you get the first, second and third line of listed effects, cumulative.
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.
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-more runes than description lines: no additional effect beyond the maximum lines.

Note that minor, major and superior runes do not mix effects. Treat each as a completely separate type of rune.

Would you be willing to play this without an increase in rewards too? Because otherwise, this will once more split the community and leave the casuals further behind in the economic race.

As we’ve seen, the Lost shores finale, while a great idea, somewhat lacked in execution. Having spent hours in the event (only to get the sound bug just before the end…), the local chat and my own findings quite alligned in issues identified:

-the culling algorithm was a significant problem. Located in the middle of the player group, you simply didn’t see the enemy monsters since they were culled. Several times, I moved in a direction that looked clear only to be jumped by enemies who popped up practically on top of me. Possibly, the algorithm could be tweaked so as to prioritize displaying enemies over players?

-sound was also overwhelmed. Possibly, a system playing a single “battle sounds collage” could replace sounds played, leaving your own and monster sounds, allowing audio cues to still work for us?

-monster health was too great. I realize that the event was balanced for enormous numbers of people, but really, the monster HP was simply too high. Since the whole purpose is to time the event right, possibly, an alternative could be found in the effect that WvWvW resource camp overseers get: a temporary damage immunity. This would allow the game to be timed right while not having the HP pool as the only way of slowing the “zerg” down, but I also see it as additional potential: it would help make the event playable even with fewer players. Also, having the enemy chase players around, and then suddenly be open for vengeance could make for a satisfying element.

-two hours was generally considered way too long, especially since no one knew what riches awaited at the end. Possibly they could be toned down at least a little?

-do these events really HAVE to be on general maps? Introducing smaller scale instances for these could help a lot, performance wise. Possibly, lore wise, send player groups of 20 on separate parallel attacks? While indicating that there’s a massive effort going on just outside the visual range?

There need not be a “good” and “evil” side to have conflict. You don’t have to consider a lion evil for trying to kill you for his supper, but that doesn’t mean you should just lay down and let him. Same applies to dragons and karka.

It would be nice if these conflicts could be resolved peaceably, but sometimes, this simply isn’t an option.

Strongly oppose. Reason should be obvious.

Essentially, it boils down to: Anet know one time events are hard for everyone to attend, risky, and overburden servers. They are, in one word, risky. Yet, they insist on these risky events that many feel don’t warrant the effort needed to create them.

Also, many of us interpreted the manifesto and pre-game announcements as an indication that the game would avoid random rich drops, moving instead to a token system. This principle is not really being implemented.

Yesterday was the second time that this happened:

When in game server disconnected and I tried to go to the forum, I was unable to login as the system kept returning “wrong login details” message. The password was not wrong, I know it by heart, it’s stored, and it worked just now – so it must be server side.

I would suggest checking the server interactions.

P.S. I have noticed a similar thread about the game’s own login, but this is about the forum game login, not the game login.

Sons of Svanir area
-beware – the cold here is lethal. If you stand in the cold, you will gain stacks of a damaging effect, which will eat your health faster and faster
-to keep the cold away, you need to stand near a fire. You will find rusty torches, which can be used to light prepared log piles. once a fire is lit, you will gain a cold-negating effect, which will protect you from the cold while you run to the next log pile. Some, or perhaps all, fires can burn down and may then be re-lit using a torch (attack with it).
-proceed down the slope, jumping over the missing pieces.
-at the bottom of the valley, you will find a large pile of logs (5-6 fires worth). You will need to defend here against a few waves of Sons of Svanir. If the previous fires didn’t burn out, these definitely do, so someone should keep an eye on them-
-next you will face a frost elemental. There are three piles of logs around him, but they burn out quickly and need to be re-lit constantly. The elemental is not particularly tough HP wise, but has a special skill that calls a blinding blizzard. You will be teleported a bit away and see nothing for a short time.
-a nice trick here is to leave one torch on the ground at exactly each log pile. This way, you will see the torch (as a dropped object) even through the blinding blizzard, allowing you to navigate)
-next is a dark forest, which seemed to no longer be subject to the environmental cold effect (the elemental just killed is supposed to be causing the freezing). The forest is very dark, and patrolled by Sons of Svanir with wolves.
-eventually you will reach an ice cave. The cave contains a champion shaman. The shaman summons ice blocks (limiting movement? LoS? not sure of the effect, really) , encase players in ice and summon and an ice storm (a series of large AoE circles – TWO waves of those, so keep running away to a clear spot). The shaman seemed to disappear at times, not sure of the mechanic’s details.
-the shaman’s ice at the beginning split the party into two, closing off two players out of the area the fight is in. To enter, we had to go a bit back and find a totem. Interacting with the totem got the two of us into the room to fight.

That’s about all we’ve got so far.
Side note: I got a destroyer lodestone somewhere in there, so loot is potentially interesting.

Grawl area:
-in the inital room, you will face waves of Grawl
-you will next need to proceed down a corridor. Flaming boulders roll down the slope, leaving burning trails. You need to avoid the trails as they burn you. You will have periodic safe spots to the side to catch a breather.
-the Grawl shaman uses a shield skill that negates all damage. The shield can be brought down using flaming boulders that spawn on the floor.
-at about 10% health, the shaman will jump down into the flaming lake and become a much stronger form. The party must now travel down, jumping from platform to platform
-at the bottom, you will face the Grawl shaman. He will be a general nuisance, but when his health is brought low, he will sacrifice a captive to summon a shield again, and three annoying lava elementals. Don’t be fooled – he does not run out of captives. Our observation was that the shield granted immunity to next 40 damaging attacks, with each poison/bleed damage tick removing a shield layer. So, keep him bleeding and poisoned to bring the shield low ASAP, else he will heal up again.

Let’s start one

Our group just finished three instances, and here are our findings so far:

Dredge Area:
-you start with a coordination puzzle. Travel up the gantries, until you face a closed door. To open a door, you must take a side branch of the gantries and have someone stand on a pressure plate. Now, the group will have to split up – one part defending the pressure plate, one part going through the door to get to the next plate. Repeat until you get to an area with two plates. These two simultaneously open the control panel, which in turn open up the next door
-fighting dredge is nothing new, until you hit a large circular door guarded by two dredge. On their corpses, you will find cannons – these can be used to destroy the door itself.
-don’t run through, there is a crowd of dredge inside. You will be fighting a dredge champion here. He will always have one dredge veteran as support, the rest can be killed off eventually. Champion uses a blocking skill, and I know he once got approximately half the possible boons at a time.
-final boss is an ice elemental. The ice elemental is invulnerable. To remove invulnerability, lure him under a pot of molten metal and have someone pour the metal on him. This makes him vulnerable for a short time.
-key is luring the boss from liquid metal container to container, so he can be damaged.
-the ground where the liquid metal will hit is recognizably scorched
-an immobilize/snare skill can help make sure you hit the elemental
-if the elemental kneels, he is using a skill to heal himself. Interrupt this at all costs, or all your work will be in vain. An overcharged shot (launch) interrupted it even with defiant stacks.

I’d second the OP, actually. One time events
-are one use only, so if you miss them, you’ll never see them again
-are always in a single spot, overwhelming the servers, making them unenjoyable

It would be better to instance them or spread them all over the map, not just LA.

Crafting in GW2, as implemented, is not aimed at being a money making activity. Of course not, why should people expect to make money for pressing 10 buttons to craft an item? The buyer has to work for his money why would he part with it for something that involves no work? Real craftsmen spends hours and hours of their work, skilled, hard trained work, creating their products. Were this simulated by the game, you’d probably have to spend hours of work playing some kind of minigame to create quality products. However, SimSmith 3.0 would likely involve standing at a crafting station for hours doing minigames, which I expect would not be particularly attractive to most players – after all, I have yet to hear of an actual SimSmith 3.0 game in existence. It is not… well, not adventuring. So where is the real work in GW2 crafting? Believe it or not, it actually is there – the larger process of acquiring crafting resources is actually part of crafting itself. THAT is quite adequately profitable, as evidenced by the bot army.

Instead, it’s aimed at a different public.

Many people, myself included, get an immense sense of satisfaction of creating their own gear. Think »This gear is, essentially, REALLY mine, for it was made by myself. Unsullied by the touch of others. Truly earned, for without me it would not exist.« It is a different goal. And to allow the many players who seek it this sense of satisfaction, crafting is as it is.

Making crafting in GW2 profitable would be a big issue. Changing the existing crafting to make the act of crafting labor intensive would alienate many players who do not seek to make their living this way. I consider it unfeasible, actually.

What would be possible would be implementing an alternative way of acquiring resources by making them crafting themed. I could easily see a mine themed dungeon where hard work would be put into acquiring raw materials. Puzzles to determine profitable ores among junk. Actually pushing mining wagons loaded with ore to the surface. Preventing cave-ins as games of skill and speed, carrying timber and fixing the right beams at the right time. Things like that. I really think it could be made fun.

This can indeed be an issue. Since most of GW2 PvE is soloable, people do solo. Probably a bad habit from GW1.

I would have two suggestions.

1: Seek people actively: Decide: today, I’m not going to work on my own goals, and simply ask in guild and map chat who wants company or help playing. Karma and silver from events will add up slowly, as will drops.

2: Try being spontaneous. As soon as you spot someone on the map of your level, just follow them around. Work to aid them, eventually start commenting in the /say channel. Of people are interested, they are likely to chat back eventually.

A side one: chat into /map. Who knows, a conversation just might start up.

Possibly in order to stimulate jewelcrafting? It is a less used profession, after all…

I hear there actually is a bug about runes, something about PvP lockers or something.

If you have one rune equipped, it’ll say that there’s only one. 1/6 in the described case.

I spent money only on non-random content, and I would do so again. But I certainly haven’t bought any random content like the mystic chests and don’t plan to in the future.

I enjoyed the event. Certainly it offered more than I was expecting given the GW1 experience.

I especially loved the mad king dungeon. Short, fun, impressive AND open to everyone. Just like content should be.

I must stress, however, that there were two areas which I disapprove of:
-the fact that some of the best content was locked to the randomness of the BLC chest. I disapprove of gambling for money in this way. I would be much happier if those skins were available directly form the BLC gem shop.
-the Clocktower. After trying for hours, I just had to accept that I’m simply too slow to get it done. Since the developper openly admitted that it was meant for only 5% of the playerbase, I must say I do not like the idea of content being made so exclusive. Also, I really didn’t expect GW2 to be a platformer game.

Lastly, given that we have once more observed that no matter the preparation, one time events crash the servers, I would suggest future content avoid one time events of this type. Spread the content around, lessen the desire of people to be there all at the same time.

But, let’s not forget: GOOD WORK ALL AROUND!

I do wonder… how did the rest of you “vote”?

Many who made a max. sized Charr or Norn have seen how much of a problem it can be to play in cramped spaces, especially tunnels, since the camera gets squashed so close your character takes up the whole screen.

I did the troll puzzle in LA twice now, and the camera really makes a few very very simple jumps into a nauseating screen flickering and guesswork demanding situation.

One potential solution I see would be to allow the zoom to put you into first person perspective like you could in GW1. This hides your character already, and you can at least see where you are going. I’m sure other suggestions will also pop up in the creative players’ heads.

Sorry if I was unclear: money had to be spent to make sure that the existence of the cash shop wasn’t the issue and that I wasn’t talking about money that I wouldn’t have spent anyway.

It’s there, ready to be spent – as soon as worthy things get added to the shop in the future. And once spent, I once again get a reason to spend more.

I bought all the costumes in GW1 – not because I liked them all, but because I felt GW1 had given me quite enough already and deserved some support money.

Short version: I bought 100EUR worth of gems, bought everything Halloween in the shop that wasn’t random. So, the gems are there waiting for better things to spend them on, showing willingness to spend money in GW2’s shop but refusing to gamble with my money on games with, worse off, unknown odds.

Longer version: First of all, I’d like to stress that I like GW2 and the Halloween event. There are only a very few elements of GW2 that I don’t like. I also firmly believe that giving honest, polite feedback is the correct way to “vote” for a change of those few undesired elements.

Second, I have so far done all of Halloween so far, and it’s a nice festival (certainly exceeded my expectations, given what I was used to from GW1). ‘course, that mad clocktower is driving me mad, but that’s an issue of me being slow. Looking forward to further content down the line.

However, I am very unhappy that Anet have gone and made much of the content subject to the random mystic chest drops. I’m hardly the first to complain about their randomness, although I knew from the start not to even try to go for those items, no matter how much I’d like a greatsaw.

I do not gamble for real money. I consider it a very harmful practice, knowing how addictive it can become very very easily, and I honestly can’t believe it’s legal. So, I refuse to ever start. Even with very low odds games within computer games, I’m pretty unhappy with having to do it.

Just like every trailer for Eve Online makes me drool and reach for my wallet, but always remembering what the game is like and how far from what I want in a game it is just in time.

I would also stress that I was very very happy all that time ago when the developer announced dungeons in GW2, when they explained the dungeon token system – the system that finally broke away from the loot slot machine design so many games cling to. I was hoping it was a more general sign of a better future coming for gaming in general.

So, since I realize that there are a number of players who, for some unfathomable reason (at least, to me) enjoy the system, I cannot in all honesty suggest removing the gambling. (mind you, if at all feasible, PLEASE do). However, I do believe asking that nothing be made exclusive to gambling, creating an additional, safe but slow, way of doing it wouldn’t be too much to ask for. Crafting is a generally good idea .

While on the subject, I would also urge Anet to adopt a similar strategy in the other random ways. Another “guaranteed 1 clover” mystic forge recipe? A high price crafting recipe for the legendary precursors? I see many people calling for such a change in direction.

And lastly: I fully expect to find more things to spend my money on in the game store. Appearance change boosters could very well become a regular income stream for Anet, given my GW1 behavior

Anyway, Good job devs, please try to do even better if possible.

Respectfully, Jure

I was wondering, if anyone from Anet would be so kind to tell us what the best way to submit feedback about the game is?

Support probably isn’t meant for this purpose, forums can quickly generate negative publicity.

So, if I were to decide to write up a feedback letter, where should it go?

The Duelist armor can be purchased from the Trading post, but it may well be out of it all (possibly I got the last set 2 days ago ). It’s apparently a random drop skin for exotics of 70+ level.

To Anet: you got money off me with the face changes in GW1, you’re likely to get it in GW2 when you implement it

To the topic: I think the amount o customization will be limited by the personal storyline. If a change would mean changing your past, it will likely not be implemented.

So, looks within race – sure. Nothing is keyed to your hair colour or similar.

Profession – actually possible, nothing I remember being locked to profession. I could be wrong, though.

Race – no. There’s a lot of past linked to your race. One who quested with Logan would find serious trouble becoming the one who quested with Zojja. So, I really doubt this will be made possible.