Guild Wars 2

I don’t run dungeons enough to rank the classes on the whole, so I will give the copout answer: I rank them based on the skill of the person playing the class.

I like being self-sufficient.

Plus, ascended gear.

Yeah, like others have said, it is (or was – haven’t checked the price recently) a good deal if you’re not a fractal runner, but it’s likely not to last as the supply of corn/cobs slows to the speed of molasses.

Rauderi.8706:

Labjax.2465:

Probably a boatload of technical limitations in the way, but I think it’s a fun idea nonetheless!

I am smiling at the image of an asura strapped to the back of a charr, hacking away while the charr bulls through hordes of mobs.

End the racism.

I want to see a Charr mount an Asura.

…ohgods, don’t Rule 34 that. Just don’t. I regret it.

LOL.

runeblade.7514:

Asgaeroth.6427:

Tarrek.7436:

The bags also give a bunch of garbage gear which most people salvage. Seems to be a method of increasing mystic stone purchases for mystic salvage kits. I know I’ve already gone through several.

use basics or copper fed on junk gear, save your mystic kit for rares

using mystic kits on a green is a net loss of 30 copper per use minimum. if you need green runes and sigils this badly you actually save money by buying them at full price on TP than salvaging for them.

I don’t use mystic kit for green runes and sigil, I use them to save space on my inventory bar.

If that’s your reason, I suggest investing some gold and/or gems in a Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic.

Probably a boatload of technical limitations in the way, but I think it’s a fun idea nonetheless!

I am smiling at the image of an asura strapped to the back of a charr, hacking away while the charr bulls through hordes of mobs.

Hey, just wanted to post to say I’m gonna be away for a couple weeks starting Friday, so I won’t be able to give any advice here. I’m happy to see that others are doing quite splendidly at it though.

In particular, thanks Tim for giving people such detailed advice. And thanks to the rest of you too.

Hope you guys have lots of fun with wardrobe while I’m gone!

I suggest some of you guys give it more time and see how it plays out. Tbh, I thought it felt a little big at first, but as you get used to traversing the zone, it will seem smaller.

Also, rewards are looking real nice so far, comparatively. This could be become a strong zone for farming once people get used to the mechanics.

On the flip side, I find it’s a lot easier to manage bag space. All you gotta do is not open the bags.

But yes, I think the MF system in general could use another pass.

What irked me about Ogden is that he seems to be an enormously old man with very little to pass the time and yet he’s acting impatient. I would think he’d want to draw things out to give himself something to do.

It’s a minor quibble though.

I don’t see how accurately representing a piece of cultural clothing is ever a problem on its own. What could be problematic is if GW2 had a distinctly asian race and only allowed them to wear such hats as the one being discussed.

But that is clearly not the case. Anyone can wear the hat and the only thing that distinctly links it to any sort of asian culture is the design; it’s not like the outfit has a sign on it that says “asian garb.”

I get that we need to be able to talk about this kind of stuff as a society, but in this case, it really is just a hat design in a fantasy game that is modeled after a hat seen in some existing cultures. Any connotation beyond that is on our end.

There is a difference between perpetuating an exaggerated cultural stereotype and representing a piece of culture visually.

I heard a rumor that Kiel blew all of our tax money on ToT bags during the halloween festivities while trying to get a Gwynefyrdd. I think she should be impeached.

Commander Talon’s Ghost for mayor 2015.

Astralporing.1957:

Most likely they won’t list the winners. Especially if there were people that won multiple skins (as that would likely cause some bad PR backlash).

Yeah. I’m sure they will let us know when the weapons have been sorted out and mailed, but naming the winners would be a lot of unnecessary effort just to give some bitter losers targets.

Three skritt walk into a museum. The curator stops them at the door and says, “Your kind is not allowed in here.” So the skritt chatter amongst themselves and then they leave. Next day, six skritt walk into the same museum. The curator stops them at the door, “Your kind is still now allowed in here. Leave.” Third day, an asura walks in. He’s dressed all grand and pompous-looking. The curator says, “Welcome, sir. How may I help you?” Then he sees no less than nine skritt marching in behind the asura and asks him, “Sir, do you realize you have at least nine skritt coming in behind you?”

The asura clears his throat and replies, “I’m doing an experiment. I want to see how many of them are needed before they realize this isn’t a museum.”

The curator looks confused and leans in to whisper so that the skritt won’t hear him, “But sir, we have plenty of old valuables in here.”

“Note to self,” says the asura, “Ten is insufficient. Especially if one of them thinks he’s a museum curator.”

oxtred.7658:

Lol, I read stop making skritts.

Haha, I did too at first.

hydeaut.1758:

And no waypoints make a tiny map feel big . . .

This map needs a ton of players and coordination to beat it, lack of waypoints and mechanics like damage over time in lost castles won´t help to fill it in the long run.

This will probably end with an empty map – except for planned, coordinated runs like Tequatl or dry top rank 6.

I think like most maps, its long-term activity will hinge on the rewards. If people get all the special rewards they want and then decide that the farming rate in SW is not worth it, then yeah, it’ll probably end up abandoned.

If, on the other hand, people decide that the rate is strong enough for farming, then we might see it become a consistently popular map.

The final boss is pretty tedious unfortunately. Your best bet is to spec for mobility/dodge and if you’re feeling too squishy, try some non-zerk for padding. Still, gear doesn’t mean much, depending on how the mechanics happen together.

Here is a brief breakdown for those of you who are struggling (particularly the last boss, but it includes mechanics from the earlier bosses as well):

My only concern right now is that having success in the map is a little dependent on it being well-populated. Which is 100% fine in principle and I absolutely love the concept they’re going for here, but it makes the experience kind of lackluster if you end up on a poorly populated map.

I know the megaserver is supposed to help with this. Perhaps if people make a point of taxi’ing, like with labyrinth, we will see a more robust experience all around. I have not yet checked LFG in relation to Silverwastes, so for all I know, people are already doing so.

Palador.2170:

Fernling.1729:

What is up with the baby bottle? haha

All part of the NPE. It explains a lot, really.

Lmao… my hat is off to you, sir.

My first impression is: It’s that way so that people can’t just waypoint around to defend/attack stuff, but instead have to coordinate to successfully complete the zone events.

Eileane.3845:

Every time I walk past the forge it´s hard for me to resist the urge to push someone in that kitten thing…

One time, I pushed 4 Mesmers in and it gave me back an Elementalist.

Then I accidentally pushed in the Ele with 3 more Mesmers and got a Necro. FML.

Nice data, thanks for doing this.

Wanze.8410:

cheshirefox.7026:

Astral Projections.7320:

Belenus.9132:

Thank you for the confirmation. Wow! I’ve been in the immediate company of ArenaNET royalty!

Probably the janitor. ^^

or the janitor’s cousin

I know the janitors cousin´s bff and she said that the cousin doesnt have an anet guild tag.

Oh yeah, well I know the janitor’s nephew’s cousin’s father twice removed on his mothers side’s former best friend’s step brother’s pet goldfish and he says he’s never heard of you. So the question is, who’s the person you actually know? :O

Julie Yann.5379:

You can get around 250-300 ToT bags before hitting the DR wall. Go to the labyrinth for a little bit, play couple rounds of PvP with Halloween Track then back to the maize farm. It’s been a very profitable weekend. My guess is they won’t fix this it’s just a 2 week farm,why waste resources on some short term farm. I do wonder how long before it gets flooded and loses it’s profitability.

Interestingly, if it wasn’t for the trumped up value of ToT bags, due to the necklace and the mini, it would probably not be worth it to farm ToT bags (less people would want them).

Which is, I think, what Chris was getting at with his post in this thread; the bags have very little inherent value, unlike something such as an exploit that yields a lot of direct gold.

And even with the value ToT bags do have, their drops still have very little to do with the rest of the economy and its items (e.g. they are largely isolated/seasonal variables).

DeceiverX.8361:

All of this is public information and has been posted about in the past as well. If they can’t handle criticism, it’s only hurting them more. I’m directly addressing problems which have been admitted and confirmed. And if they should choose to keep operating their business in this manner, then they as a company will fail.

I’d only expect to face consequences for mentioning this if I pointed to specific names/relationships at ANet. I’m merely pointing out the fact that this kind of behavior is not secret and by no means has been for quite some time, and that they are actively being criticized by investors and customers because of it.

Maybe you’re right. I just could swear I’ve seen stuff like it deleted before. Maybe the lack of specificity is enough to keep it within their rules.

I mean, either way, I agree with the main point you were making. It’s just there’s criticism and then there’s speculation, and talking about the stuff in question could very easily get into pure speculation and/or get specific. So I guess that’s mainly what I’m thinking of.

./shrug

America.9437:

I just unlocked the karka queen trait for her this morning and thought… why? It took us less than 5 mins to beat down the karka queen and the only reason I was there was to unlock my trait. It sure didn’t feel like I earned it but at the same time that trait is not worth 3 gold + 20 skill points. I’d say that trait is worth 10 maybe 20 silver at most and 0 skill points.

Right, as some of us have mentioned, the choices for unlocks aren’t even consistently challenging or interesting, but many of them are rather based on long event chains or big bosses like karka (which are entirely subject – in difficulty – to whether players decide they are worth farming). Imagine if KQ was a boss that nobody did. Then it’d suddenly be super inconvenient and annoying to acquire the trait.

I don’t blame him, tbh. Gambling is addictive. We all know it. Just look at all the people who have opened thousands of ToT bags, hoping for the mini.

tolunart.2095:

Same here, I can be too stubborn for my own good. In this thread’s case, while your idea could technically be implemented, the idea itself does not solve the “problem,” but only creates more problems because it would lead to multiple groups of players at different points in their “server day” depending on the player’s home time zone.

Anet solves the issue instead by setting server time to a single time zone which does not change. A player’s personal reference may change (in the US it happened an hour and a half ago) but he adapts to the server time rather than the server time adapting to him.

In the example you posted, the company has chosen to set their server time to a US time zone which does change twice a year, and so when this happens the server time adjusts with it. It’s good for US players who turn their clocks forward/back along with it, but confusing for those in the US who do not, and for the rest of the world, who may or may not change their clocks at some other time and thus have to adjust to time changes up to four times a year.

Personally, I think DST is an outdated concept, and causes confusion even among people who have been doing it their whole lives. Especially in the Spring, when most of the US “loses” an hour and people forget to turn their clocks ahead Sunday morning, then show up for work at 10 AM Monday thinking it’s 9 AM.

I agree completely. Like I said, I never intended to make an argument that switching around the times would work well for GW2. I may have inadvertently implied otherwise a couple of times, but if I did, it was accidental. I just knew I had seen the theory of it work in particular ways in other games, albeit with no recollection of the specifics.

But yeah, DST is just annoying imo. In a country where electricity is not only the norm but expected and streetlights are common, if not required, we really shouldn’t be worrying about a few daylight hours. I think “outdated” is exactly what it is.

tolunart.2095:

As for the BLTC forum, I gave up on engaging the trolls there a long time ago, they just repeat themselves ad nauseum.

Smart choice. I’ve only just started learning that, unfortunately. I seem to have short-term-memory-loss with such groups of people on internet forums.

I am pretty easy to troll when I get laser-focused on something.

Astral Projections.7320:

Every single game that has a forum has threads where people who are leaving the game post and say why. The majority of these people are unhappy in some way with how the game has turned out. They post and explain how the game has failed their expectations and how it’s forcing them to go. Guild Wars 2 has these people also.

So, good bye OP. Have fun in your next game.

Yeah, pretty much.

They also tend to be people who were once avid fans and may be having some trouble walking out the door… for them, creating a thread can be like a final hope that something will magically keep them from leaving.

The ones who are plain disinterested tend to leave without a word.

IndigoSundown.5419:

RNG has been a part of MMO’s since before MMO’s were created. It was in the grand precursor to all computer fantasy games, AD & D — assuming the GM used the loot tables.

I think there’s an interesting sociological phenomenon to be observed around “stuff” in MMO’s. Players want things to pursue, and when they get them they want something new to pursue. If the game developer makes the items too difficult to get, they risk the player giving up. However, is they make it too easy to get, the player just demands something new.

There are also issues with deferred gratification and excitement. Tokens, for instance, provide a guaranteed acquisition over time, but tend to remove a lot of the anticipation excitement that RNG provides. Of course, RNG tends to disappoint often, while tokens are a sure thing, just not very exciting until you’ve got them all.

That’s a pretty good summary of the kind of discussion being had over here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/first

It’s clearly a tough balance to find, between RNG, tokens, and so on.

Stumbled across this looking at another MMO today. Thought it was kind of amusing, considering some of the contradiction going on in this thread:

There will be a scheduled maintenance period for Daylight Savings on Sunday, November 02, 2014 from 1:45 AM to 2:45 AM Central Time. The game servers will be unavailable for approximately 2 hours.

- Changes -

Adjusting server time back an hour. Don’t forget to change your clocks!

TheModernProphet.9024:

That makes sense. I agree that the game mechanics, such as RNG-based drops, do not control the specific quantity of items available on the market, as players determine the quantity of items supplied on the markets through their efforts in playing the content, receiving the items as rewards, and putting what they want to sell on the market.

However, the inherent control over game mechanics by the developers (ie through setting of drop-rates and such) seemed to be monopolistic level of market control, which is natural in a video game.

I agree with you to a point, though I think the problem here is that you may be using “monopolistic” in a more colloquial sense of the word. Certainly they have control over all of it, but most of the time, the changes they make are to ensure that the market stays in a functioning state (one that is close to perfect competition).

Their adjustments to the market generally don’t have anything to do with direct profit to themselves (unless you count keeping the game desirable as profit). Whereas with a monopoly, the entity in question can essentially charge ridiculous prices on goods/services without recourse.

I do think there are a few examples of this in GW2 that are analogous to the behavior of a monopolistic company. For example, the recent situation with Gwynefyrdd. Because the item is account bound, acquisition of the item is completely under Anet’s control through drop rates. Players cannot go to sources other than the bags (which have an absurdly low drop rate).

Again though, Anet arguably doesn’t benefit from this in any clear monetary way. Certainly the choice helped ensure a strong flow/exchange of ToT bags, but there is no evidence that the company directly profited from it.

Rez.8016:

Diminishing returns, time-gated crafting, static number of resource nodes with set refresh rate, class based loot, and I’m sure other mechanics that I cant think of off the top of my head all prevent the market from ramping up supply of many goods.

Time gating in general, in its various guises, is the basic mechanic used to control/ prevent the markets natural urge to increase supply, and this occurs a lot throughout the game even in the non gold currency areas of the game (dungeon token, fractals, guild commendations, laurels, etc etc).

I do see your point. However, I would argue that things like time gating, node refresh, etc., are more accurate to real life generation of supply and thus are closer to what a real market would look like (farms, for example – in real life – are technically “time-gated” on crop-growing). And as I said to Prophet above, it is debatable that Anet directly profits such mechanics (unless you count keeping the game desirable as profit).

The restrictions they have are almost invariably designed to keep the market functioning in a way that is similar to perfect competition.

If you feel you have evidence for why this isn’t the case, I’d be happy to consider it.

This thread gave me a good laugh. Thanks OP.

tolunart.2095:

I happen to enjoy completely irrelevant nonsense. There isn’t much else to read here.

If you’re bored, you could knock your head against this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Precursors-selling-for-70-Gold-on-TP/page/12#post4530614

The irrelevant nonsense is in abundance over there.

Astralporing.1957:

There was, what you suggested is simply impossible. Not until someone will find a way to mess with temporal mechanics, anyway.

Ok, missedThePoint.2335.

There was no mistake though…..

And you keep talking about approval and permission, but methinks though dost protest too much. I never said my approval or permission should matter to you. I’m trying to do you a favor by explaining that you’re wasting your time on completely irrelevant nonsense.

If your goal is to correct a mistake, you haven’t succeeded in it. Only succeeded in derailing this thread into a quibble that was never there.

Again, you are picking a fight where there is none. What part of “throwaway statement” is so hard to understand? Have you never had a conversation with someone in real life where you just say stuff and it isn’t meant to be taken with its literal meaning?

I guess congratulations to you, you apparently got your fight. Good job goading me.

tolunart.2095:

Nope, not fighting. There is no argument, because there is nothing to argue about. You are simply mistaken.

If you can read that back to yourself a few times without realizing how contradictory and silly it is, you deserve a medal.

tolunart.2095:

I am correcting you because you do not seem to understand the point of having the servers synchronized to a particular time zone.

And therein lies your problem. You are looking for a fight where there was none.

Apparently saying “I’m not looking for an argument here” means “come correct me on the functioning of game servers.”

Anyway, tolunart, you are talking as if the servers physically reset on the hour and that’s what resets the dailies. If that was the case, the servers would go down lol.

It is most likely something to do with databases, which could, in theory, be told to flush/reset differently depending on the geographical location of the player. If anyone is going to correct me on this, they better have credentials from working with actual MMO software/hardware of this kind.

Again, I’m not trying to make an argument that it would be practical or feasible for GW2. I made a throwaway comment that it’s plausible to do, in theory. That is it. Holy crap. T_T

Shayne Hawke.9160:

It’s pretty amusing to listen to ghosts complaining about how ridiculously difficult this jump is for them to make and that they pretty much can’t win if a villager chooses to get into this spot and is successful. People are so used to the power dynamic of ghosts being so much stronger than villagers that when this dynamic gets shifted the other way around by the use of this spot, the shock of what they are being asked to do to win repulses them. These same people seem to fail to make the connection that this is how anyone trying to win as a villager feels all the time in this game, and that by the shifting of the power dynamic, they are being shown how imbalanced and terrible this activity is. Some ghosts even go so far as to say that the activity is fun or is great as they cleave down villager after villager, but as soon as one guy gets the upper hand over ghosts by going somewhere hard for ghosts to reach, the game then becomes dumb, boring, broken, and/or imbalanced. Then they go on to blame the villagers for ruining their fun, because how dare they use the only strategy demonstrated to be effective in having villagers win.

You say this as if ghosts and villagers are factions that we choose when we create a character. Everyone gets plenty of chances to see what it’s like on both ends. Yes, it is typically harder to survive as a villager than it is to kill villagers as a ghost.

But… when a villager outsmarts me with pure ingenuity and greater skill at navigating the maze, or finding a crafty hiding spot, I am impressed with that villager. However, the spot in question isn’t even really a hiding spot. It’s just difficult to reach, particularly by ghosts.

As far as I know, it takes no great amount of skill to reach the spot by a villager, but takes an extremely disproportionate amount of skill to reach the spot as a ghost (if it is possible at all). So yes, villagers have the upper hand in this scenario and in principle, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that ghosts have virtually no counter against it.

In basically every other aspect of the game mode that you could name, where one side has an advantage, the other side has a distinct counter of some kind to that advantage. For example, villagers – if they get organized enough – can team up against ghosts to help each other avoid them and so on. Or team up to build feasts and whatnot. It’s not an easy counter, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy for villagers to win.

Villagers are, after all, the flesh bodies that are trying to survive against ethereal attackers. It makes sense that they would be disadvantaged on the whole. In fact, I think of Lunatic Inquisition like a variation on hide-and-seek. And in hide-and-seek, the “hider” has traditionally been at a disadvantage compared to the seeker. Because the seeker is working with a finite number of hiding places to find the hider. While the hider is hoping that his or her hiding place is sufficient to stump the seeker.

Of course, in a game like Lunatic Inquisition, where everyone quickly becomes knowledgeable of all major hiding spots, you need more ways of seek and hide, which is where stuff like the items on the ground come in. The “chase” part is almost more like Ghost in the Graveyard, or Bloody Murder as it is also known.

Astral Projections.7320:

How can the Megaservers take it into account? Different counties with different days they have daylight savings along with different counties that done have DST, all play together. In addition, the Southern Hemisphere is spring now (spring forward) while the Northern hemisphere is fall (spring back). How can the severs accommodate the 2 clocks going in opposite directions?

I don’t know, does it matter? I just meant it’s technically feasible to program such a thing, not that it would be feasible in this particular situation. I’m not looking for an argument here.

Yeah, I started the back myself by buying the blueprints.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

How would a server give ‘whatever’ about DST, when all players using said server may not be affected by DST? Should it change time for some, but not others? How would that work?

Reset uses UTC time…which isn’t affected by any savings of any kind. I’m sure we can all do the math. =)

Well it’s a server, inanimate objects obviously can’t give any kittens about anything. :P

It’s just I’m sure they could program the servers to take DST into account. But it’s probably infinitely less confusing for them – considering the lack of DST for some areas, as you point out – to just let the time stay as it is, independent of weird stuff like our obsession with DST in the US.

Danikat.8537:

Double post to fix the topic.

Looking at this topic I’m thinking one upside is I had almost no money when Halloween started (was working on ascended armor) so at least I haven’t lost anything.

At this rate though I’m going to end 2 weeks of doing nothing but farming with nothing to show for it but increased magic find.

That and a massive drop in my desire to play the game. I’m really looking forward to doing anything but playing GW2 after this.

I know that feel… I didn’t go anywhere near the amounts some people have thrown away opening bags, but I did quite a bit of it and while I have some stuff to show for it, it hasn’t left me with a very good feeling. I’m actually a bit scared of what wintersday is going to look like now.

tolunart.2095:

Labjax.2465:

Thanks for the heads up. Can’t say I’m getting why it would change the time in some areas though. I guess the servers don’t give a crap about daylight savings?

The reset happens every 24 hours, regardless of DST. That means that the reset happens tonight at 8 PM in the Eastern US, and tomorrow night at 7 PM, which is exactly 24 hours later.

Ahh ok, so the server does indeed give zero kittens about daylight savings time. Makes more sense now.

CoffeeCow.6508:

Tybalt Leftpaw, my favorite charr! He was such a nice fellow… Had some good apples too.
So, this is my happy charr, would love to hear some feedback from you fashion experts :-)
I’m still looking for some nice shoulders, not too bulky or fancy. Was thinking about the t2 cultural ones.
And if you have any other ideas or suggestion, I’m always willing to learn!

I like that horns-pulled-back look with his head. I’m not sure how I feel about the purple. It doesn’t look bad to me, but I feel like it could be better. Something like black may set a more rich contrast between his skin and gear, and would match the patches of black fur.

Is there any particular look you’re going for overall that the shoulders would add to or just something that looks cool?

Serophous.9085:

I would put in the op post for people to also include their current set up, so people helping can immediately copy the look, then modify it from there

Good thought! I will look into adding that.

Edit: OP updated!

Thanks for the heads up. Can’t say I’m getting why it would change the time in some areas though. I guess the servers don’t give a crap about daylight savings?

I gotta admit, I am really tired right now and my brain is kinda going in and out, but even with that in mind…

Why would something like celestial be so hard to get? It’s not even that great. So you get super special stats I guess? Ok, whatever. So if you’re one of the people who actually gives a crap about that stat combo then you have to jump through 50 hoops while literally everybody else has an easy time getting their armor type?

I’ve yet to begin understanding why it is like this with any stat combination. Diverse play is already abysmal with the zerker meta. Locking interesting stat combinations behind special hoops just makes it worse – can anyone say to me with complete honesty that they believe it doesn’t make it worse? That it’s some kind of positive thing?

I confess myself mind-boggled. And I swear it’s not just because I’m tired.

Only if you really stretch the definition of monopoly by linking it all back to Anet. But even that isn’t really accurate; Anet may have the ultimate call in how goods are generated, but players ultimately decide the quantity to put effort into generating.

In other words, everyone has to go to Anet’s mechanics to acquire goods (which is sort of like a single seller if we’re stretching the definition of monopoly) but part of the reason it’s such a stretch is that once we have acquired an item from Anet’s game mechanics, we enter into what is roughly perfect competition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition

With Anet being like a third party that regulates and ensures that market conditions continue to allow perfect competition.

I think the simplest way to understand it is that Anet is like the government and we’re like the society living under the government’s rules, i.e. we have tons of market freedoms afforded to us and are mostly left to our own devices, but Anet (the “government”) can step in when they feel the need.

Silver Chopper.4506:

how do I make gold?

I go to work, 5 to 6 times a week.

I don’t know quite how to say this…

I think you may want to file a complaint with the union if your company is paying you in gold.