Guild Wars 2

There’s Outfits and then there’s Skins.

Outfits, you can dye them and you can show/hide the helmet (no swapping pieces – it is all one piece, aside from displaying the helm or not).

Skins, you can dye to your heart’s content and mix all kinds of pieces from different sets, but for mixing, you have to use transmutation charges to modify the appearance of existing armor and weapons. Keep in mind that this changes the appearance of the item permanently (though it can be changed again for as many times as you have transmutation charges to use) – this is important to remember because once in a while there’s an item that no longer works as part of a recipe, whether it be crafting or the mystic forge, after you have transmuted it. So proceed with caution regarding super rare/expensive items.

Also keep in mind that with skins and transmutation charges, it’s inadvisable to spend the charges on something you’re going to upgrade soon, unless you’ve got loads and loads of RL money to blow on buying charges from the store, for speediest acquisition. It’s best to wait until you’re max level and have a set of gear you’ve invested in, whether it be exotic or even ascended. That way you get the most out of your charges.

Finally, skins and outfits have a wardrobe system that contains your unlocked skins and outfits. Once a skin is unlocked, it’s unlocked permanently for your account and can be applied to any piece of gear for its type, so long as you have the transmutation charges to do it. Once an outfit is unlocked, it can be turned on and off at no cost any time, with the caveat that it’s a single piece and can’t be customized beyond color and show/hide helmet.

You probably already know some of this stuff, OP, but I figured in case there’s anyone reading who doesn’t. Good luck.

Are you sure the void isn’t supposed to be the panties? The shape does look in the realm of them, at least.

I wonder if it is a dying issue. If you’ve noticed, dyes that are too extreme (e.g. extreme black/white coloring) can wash out textures and destroy the illusion of 3D. This is why, for example, armors with complex/bumpy textures (most heavy armor and some medium) is infinitely more likely to be dyable full black than cloth.

So it may be a thing where the panties either default to black and aren’t dyable, or they are dyable but are a connected part of the other color choices, meaning that if you do, for instance, abyss on a part of the outfit where the texture is built to handle it, it also dyes the panties black, where no one bothered because they are underneath and out of view most of the time.

Also, apparently I just wrote 3 paragraphs on panties in a video game. We’ll just call it “graphic design” talk, yes.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There’s an asterisk there. Technically, everything in the gem store can be obtained in-game. You just need to accumulate enough gold to buy the gems for it.

Technically, yes, but it’s a bit different than other forms of getting items in a few respects:

1) Impermanence: Gem Store skins are rarely stocked permanently, so there is a small window in which to get the items.

2) Fluctuating Price: With the Store, it’s gem exchange fluctuations and with BL skins off the TP, it’s market fluctuations. BL skins have the benefit of some permanence due to lingering supply, but only go up in price over time as old sets are phased out and supply becomes limited to what already exists in the market.

In other words, the reality is that “technically, everything in the gem store can be obtained in-game” means “if you’re super rich and super active, you can get everything in the gem store with in-game currency.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, necessarily. If it was too easy to get store items with game currency, few would spend RL money.

But let’s make sure we’re clear on the reality is all.

Obtena.7952:

We know Anet is responsive to these kinds of things; we’ve seen them change these types of things. I see no reason to expect this to persist. Seems like raising blood pressure is a new hobby with some gamers. Find a thing, sensationalize it, blow a temple.

What you have to remember is that gamers are no different than any other hobbyists. Among them are some very very emotionally invested people.

Imagine if they re-released Breaking Bad with an alternate plot and story and called it Breaking Bad. We come to expect change playing MMOs, but it doesn’t necessarily make the change easier and sometimes we hate it.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

everyone have equal access to jp.
and the winter’s presence shoulders.

everyone.

This is one of those statements that makes perfect sense at first glance, but if you stop to think about it for half a second, it’s complete nonsense.

If you look at the situation in a vacuum, and in terms of raw requirements, sure they are exactly the same for everyone. But in reality, the “access” is not equal at all. People vary in anything from skill level to unspent gold. The guy who rocks JPs all day long and is sitting on 8k gold has a bit of an advantage on the guy who has made faceplanting an art and can’t seem to keep more than 5 gold at once.

They aren’t even in the same universe. First guy is getting those shoulders yesterday. Second will be lucky if he gets a quarter of the way done before next year is out.

These are extremes for comparison, of course. Most are gonna fall closer to the middle. But to say it’s equal? Not in a million years. The closest you can get to equality for a game like this is to make requirements that play on the strengths of as many different skillsets as possible, without making you be good at any more than one. The leveling process is a good example of this, since you can get XP from most aspects of the game at a relatively equal pace.

I’m not sure that ratios themselves bother me much. What bothers me is, for example, the situation with gliders, where (unless I’m missing a skin or two somewhere) there are literally 0 glider skins that you obtain through gameplay. There is the 1 glider skin that you get with HoT, the 1 that you get from buying the special edition, and everything else is Gem Store.

That, to me, is unacceptable. If there were 20 Gem Store glider skins and 5 obtainable through gameplay, released within roughly the same timeframe, I probably wouldn’t have an issue. It’s unbalanced, but at least there are obtainable options through regular gameplay. Item goals to go after, as opposed to purely currency farm goals. I would also be more apt to be bothered, in this scenario, if the 5 were all super difficult to get through regular gameplay. I am of the opinion that for any item such as gliders (which is such a flagship piece of content) there should always be a handful of easy-to-acquire alternatives. For instance, a Bladed skin with VB tokens, an Auric one with Tarir tokens, and so on.

Then you have stuff like BL weapon skins. For the most part, I ignore these, but if they are putting out a ton and adding virtually 0 weapons through regular gameplay at a similar pace, then my eyebrows go up into my hair. Ratios are one thing. A complete absence of new stuff through regular gameplay, while you churn out store items, is a whole other thing and is incredibly off-putting to me. You have artists who churn out beautiful designs and then you won’t even put a taste of them into the game itself, in a way that is simple and/or easy to acquire.

To me, that kind of practice is detrimental, even in terms of marketing, because you’ve got this ceiling for becoming a consumer in your special kind of marketplace (BL skins). Either getting lots of gold or having really good luck with keys. So instead of outsiders getting drawn into the market by getting a taste of the sort of designs BL skins offer by putting a few into the gameplay itself, you have a market where even the rich of RL money are going to struggle to keep up due to the RNG nature of keys.

You might make lots of sales in the short term, but it seems like poor practice to me in the long-term and, more subjectively, puts me off the whole market.

EdwinLi.1284:

Trehearne personal issues and challenge to leadership was mostly done before GW2 story began which was hinted during the GW2 dialogue with how Trehearne had personal history with each Order. The issue here was more of Anet not showing more of this since the story shrugged off that part to short mentions rather than going into detail on why the three Orders tried to recuit Trehearne beyond his knowledge of Orr.

However, i don’t agree that the Pact Leader should be a military mind type of person since the Pact was more of a treaty between Organizations rather than a actual military.

We had the Vigil for the military aspect.

Whispers for the infiltration and espionage.

and

Priory for technology and ancient knowledge.

a military mind as a leader would end up supporting the Vigil’s methods more than the Whisper and Priory so the Pact Leader will have to be open minded when dealing with planning since part of the job of the Pact Leader is to deal with politics that will be required to convince other organizations to join this Pact against the Elder Dragons.

Logan and Rytlock sadly are not as open for the role as Pact Leader because even though they have military history they have shown to favor the Vigil methods more than the Priory and Whispers.

With trehearne now gone his replacement will need to be someone who can consider multiple aspects of a plan without personal past as a Military member, a spy, or scholar affect their judgement.

The new leader will also have to be good with politics since part of what gets the Pact the support they need beyond the 3 Orders is the Leader being able to make political connections to obtain the necessary support.

Isn’t there kind of a Vigil bias in the end though anyway? I mean, you don’t sneak into Zhaitan’s house while he’s sleeping and slit his throat. Or infiltrate the ranks of his minions. There are probably a few times you use Order of Whispers intelligence gathering throughout the whole thing and a few times you use ancient technologies, but on the whole (from what I remember) it all comes back to “taking the fight to Zhaitan.”

Plus one could argue that Trahearne is more of a scholar than anything, is biased in that regard, and the only reason he appears not to be is because the writers shoehorned him into the military leader role.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Everyone’s opinion has value.

I simply believe that our rules against harassment encompass this sort of situation, where there’s no legitimate reason to shout spoilers in game and that the only motivation would seem to be a desire to cause distress to others. That would seems to make such activities reportable offenses that our CS agents will analyze and react to, as appropriate. (And let’s be clear, this was not a conversation, this was merely one person trying his/her best to spoil the movie for as many players a possible. Some sort of warped sense of power, perhaps? Who knows??)

As we have always said, players are welcome to report questionable chat or comments about which they have concerns. And as Elden Arnaas mentioned, each situation will be reviewed and acted upon, or not, after an analysis by the team.

As to timing, with theatres sold out for days and day, even those with a heavy devotion to the film series may simply not have been able to see it yet. What’s a good shelf date for “No spoilers, please?” (And remember, I’m talking only the very current spoiler, not the ending of Anna Karenina. ) I’m willing to ask CS, and I’d like to have opinions here. Maybe one week? Two weeks? What do you think?

I think, for one, that it should always be a situation-based determination and never a sweeping policy, simply because of conversation context. However, I also think there are rare situations – such as this Star Wars one – where it’s painfully obvious sometimes who is going out of their way to troll and who is accidentally letting a spoiler slip in public. I don’t think it should be anything in the realm of a bannable offense – simply a warning (maybe a suspension if they’re just persistent in doing it over and over, but nothing more than that).

The reason I support it getting a warning in certain contexts is because we’re talking about a movie that some people have been waiting for, for decades (a continuation of the story after Episode VI) and a franchise that is one of, if not the biggest, in American culture (for other cultures, I don’t know how popular it is and whether the same gravity should be applied).

To purposefully spoil it is not only an insult to the work that went into such a heavy duty franchise, but it’s just unnecessarily and unjustifiably mean to the people who haven’t seen it yet. In terms of time, I would say two weeks to a month (leaning toward a month, if only because it being out with the holidays means that many won’t have the time to stop and see it that they would otherwise have, or that people are waiting to see it with friends and family when they meet for the holidays), but again… I’m not endorsing doling out punishment for slip-ups. I’m taking about contexts where it’s obvious that the person’s sole motive is to spoil the movie.

I do think, like you do, that it is on the same level as trolling when obviously done in that way and should be handled in much the same way.

I think this is a very unique situation and should not be thought of as setting a precedent, but rather as handling what the situation currently is.

I know the feeling, as I mostly do open world stuff when playing this game. You’d think that the variety of HoT would be great for someone like me, but honestly, I think I’d take doing SW repeatedly, over doing these hour-long campaigns every single time and squinting at LFG through a disorganized swarm trying to find maps of people doing events. And timing is everything now, with HoT content, so if I’m not on at the right time, I might have to wait and twiddle my thumbs.

SW is also way more appealing to my organizational sensibilities, given its low number of different bag drops. With HoT maps (even a single map) I’m constantly in maintenance mode, trying to keep abreast of the billion different bags clogging up my inventory.

Tbh, if SW gave HoT mastery XP, I would probably just stick to SW. Some aspects of the new content are great for me, but others just feel like a downgrade to what I was already doing.

I was thinking about this the other day and honestly, it is just another brand of trolling… even worse, in fact (worse in the sense of how appealing it is to the troll) because there is power in it. The powerless person who leads a miserable life can feel powerful by thrusting spoilers on people.

Just remember, they are hurting more than any hurt they can cause with a few spoilers. People don’t do stuff like that when their lives are great and they feel fulfilled.

Meh, as I have ranted about before (probably) the reason I don’t like Treehearne is because he has the blandness of an everyman Neo character, but he’s not actually the main character, so there is no reason to care what happens to him.

I get that some people grew attached. Reactions are not all the same. But I never saw much in the way of dimension in the guy. He is too much of a walking deus ex machina. The only times he gets derailed from his goals are when it needs to happen to move the story in a particular direction. There is nothing believable (to me) about the things he does/accomplishes and most of it is not even accomplished by him in the first place… he is simply the story vessel through which the player accomplishes gameplay stuff.

I think that’s why a lot of people despised him, is because by the lore of the game, he was (throughout the PS) the one who was technically doing everything major – getting the leadership credit and having all these affirming/struggling moments about his role in the whole thing. Meanwhile, the player does all the actual work (because Treehearne is an NPC) and though the player might get some fabricated applause and thanks, there’s no real dimension to the thanks. This sort of format would, I think, work fine if the player was a passive viewer, but works horribly for a lot of people because many can’t get past that gap between story and gameplay in a way that makes it interesting.

It is hard to sell somebody on the idea that an NPC has done something amazing, if all they’ve done 90% of the mission is do 10 damage per swing and have a propensity for dying. But it is also easy to steal the player’s thunder if NPCs are too strong and do all of the heavy gameplay lifting before the player even has a chance to.

I don’t envy the job of finding balance in that.

I’m not big into WvW, I just wanted to pop in and say thumbs up for getting feedback on the proposed changes.

Labjax.2465:

Swift.1930

Talked to him (or her?) a few times. Seems like a really cool guy. Very easygoing forummer too.

Also Moonlit.6421 and Chesh.7046 cause they volunteer helped me run/judge a halloween fashion contest this year. <3

Swift.1930

Talked to him (or her?) a few times. Seems like a really cool guy. Very easygoing forummer too.

laokoko.7403:

You are describing an ideology.

If I were to tell you if your kids work hard at school, he’ll get all A’s and will graduate from Harvard law school. The reality is most likely it is too difficult for an average kids to go to Harvard or even get all A’s.

Guild wars franchise begins with an idea that all the players only need to pay a little and will get great amount of entertainment. Now you are telling me a company that try to enforce that idea is “evil”.

The reality is I play Nexon games and there are even less people complaining about them being evil. I play subscription games and no one even complain about 10-15$ per month on the forum.

The funny thing is there seemed to be posts complaining about Anet milking the players everyday.

No, I’m describing how I feel about the game and how I feel about their practices as a company. I have never asked for perfection and if you think you have, you don’t understand at all how my mind works (which is fine, cause you don’t know me). Point is, I have very high standards for myself. I rarely apply anything close to those standards to other people, or even companies. My standards are actually pretty low, compared to the standards I impose on myself.

So don’t try to say I’m asking for ideology because I’m not. I’m asking for what I think constitutes good practice. I never used the word “evil” – that’s ridiculous. The opposite of integrity is not “evil” – it’s “lacking in integrity.”

More on this later, if I remember. I have to go somewhere.

Maybe the dragons are the gods’ pets, but the gods go on vacation and don’t feed them sometimes and they get hungry. And then boom, elder dragon shows up.

And the gods are all like, “Urgh, what is this about Tyria being ravaged? I’m on vacation, just send an emissary or something, for god’s sake.”

Ayrilana.1396:

You have your opinion and I have mine. Remember, you’re the one that responded to my post. It wasn’t the other way around. I made an observation on what I have noticed and you’re the one trying to invalidate what I said and dismiss it. Follow your own advice. Thanks.

I took what you originally said as dismissive of the topic at hand in general.

“I see it as a fad item and people will move on to the next hot item.”

Ok, so fine, your opinion, but in a thread that was primarily about how some community members are basically invalidating the the life circumstances of others, I think you can see how it might come across.

And when I challenged you on it, rather than simply reminding me that it was your opinion from the beginning, you dug in your heels by using phrases like “people will get over it.” I think you can see how that would only succeed in confirming the way I had interpreted what you originally said. And then I went into even more detail and again, rather than reminding me that it was your opinion, you tell me this:

You act as if what Anet did with the collection is wrong simply because you disagree with it. People tend to overreact to whatever they dislike and blow it way out of what it really is. Over time they get over it and move on.

Confirming even more the kind of attitude I interpreted from your original post, even going so far as to say that people overreact and blow things out of proportion.

So yeah… I may have gone after “your opinion” too quickly and I apologize for that, but it seems from how you reacted that you were, in fact, of an overall dismissive mind toward the topic at hand, so in terms of what you said after your first post, I don’t apologize and I see nothing wrong with having called you on it.

Ayrilana.1396:

You act as if what Anet did with the collection is wrong simply because you disagree with it. People tend to overreact to whatever they dislike and blow it way out of what it really is. Over time they get over it and move on.

What a ridiculous thing to say. It is a bad design decision in my mind, so of course that’s how it’s going to come out when I talk about. I also typically give way more explanation for why I dislike something than anyone wants or needs, and way more than I owe Anet, which is zero. I don’t know why you feel the need to try to invalidate peoples’ feelings and dismiss their feedback as something that they will “get over.”

It’s a kittening game and people are giving feedback. Give feedback of your own, debate the feedback given, or get over it and move on. The irony of you talking about people getting over stuff and making a big deal, while you make a big deal about what other people are saying and seem to be having trouble getting over it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Labjax.2465:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They aren’t developing gw3. People say that just to be salty.

I did a search for the fun of it. The closest I could find to anything was one website saying that GW3 is rumored, which means about as much as a 90-year-old with dementia saying he was friends with Babe Ruth.

http://datesrelease.com/when-release-game/guild-wars-3-release-date.html

But who knows. They do have some pretty bad software that would be nice to escape from. That’s about the only good motivation for a sequel that I can think of, considering this is an MMO, not a single-player title.

Either way, even if a GW3 was in development, it wouldn’t be done by the current GW2 team. It would require a whole other team, of the same massive size.

That article is all baseless speculation. Basically someone flapping their mouth and sounds coming out, but nothing worthwhile being said.

While there is no news regarding the third installment of the Guild Wars game, and the second on is on the go, we will keep you updated on the latest news. Be sure to come by from time to time to check it out. Until there is any info available, you can share your thoughts on the games’ progress here.
Guild Wars 3 is rumored to be released somewhere starting from the end of 2016.

No news or information to back up what he’s saying, but they’ll keep you updated and maybe end of 2016

Uh huh.

Like I said, 90-year-old with dementia telling you he was friends with Babe Ruth. :P

It’s probably just a clickbait site. I haven’t looked into its reputation at all.

Sykper.6583:

Couple dozen- Where have you been? Since a little after launch the playerbase that wanted harder challenges grew quite a bit, which prompted the launches of such things like Marionette, Revamped Tequatl and Triple Trouble. Yet we still heard thread after thread of criticisms about how easy the content was for years. Don’t pretend that it was just a minority, there was a massive amount of players that wanted GW2 to push the difficulty higher in its content.

I don’t think most who asked for that envisioned centering most new content around increased difficulty though, which is one of the major complaints surrounding HoT.

I’m sure there were loads who asked for stuff along the lines of Teq, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they wanted the whole game to be Teq.

It’s also rather messy (and I say this both to you and anyone who does it on the other end) to throw numbers around like “minority,” “massive,” “majority.” It’s all BS. Even my use of “loads” is kind of silly.

None of us really know what the numbers are like. Even Anet, who no doubt tries to watch metrics, probably doesn’t have the greatest clarity in what the spread is like. Any group can seem loud when it isn’t getting what it wants and other groups are – the contrast creates the illusion of size, due to the disparity in how many from different groups are speaking up.

I would say the few clear instances of agreement have come in the form of mega threads that go on and on and on, such as the one about traits back when they were in need of a revamp. Beyond that, it’s mostly blips of complaining and for us (especially since we’re usually biased to one side) it’s all but impossible to gauge just how many are speaking up. Even account numbers can be skewed because of the possibility of posts from multiple accounts by the same person – Anet can check that sort of thing, but we can’t.

Ayrilana.1396:

People will get over it and move on.

Ok? I had a brother die suddenly years ago. It took me some years, but I’m more or less over it at this point.

It didn’t make it any less tragic and painful at the time, or while I was working through it.

Obviously GW2 problems are nothing on the level of a brother dying – I know that more than anyone. But the point, I hope, is obvious. The fact that you can get over something doesn’t somehow make it excusable or ok, nor does it mean that people will forget.

I don’t really get what the point of your post is, to be honest. The people who were frustrated enough to remember will remember and the ones who were only mildly frustrated will probably forget. And the world will keep on spinning. That has nothing to do with the current conversation though, which is about how the community is acting and how people feel about the design in question.

Ayrilana.1396:

To be honest, I see it as a fad item and people will move on to the next hot item. Remember how everyone was all about those wing back item skins? How many people do you see using them now? How about that celestial dragon mini?

Fad or no, the point is what the situation is now and what people will remember about the game from this experience.

Pepsi.8907:

It’s easier than clock tower for having done both
It is time gated because the snowflake end up destroyed, but it’s not as stressing and you have plenty of time.
The most stressing part is the gift one, where they end up popping under you, but just go straight ahead and never stop jumping and you’ll be done in no time.
Definitely better than clock tower. The most horrible part of presence is the 10k drinks, and it’s the only thing I have left to do and I’m a pvp hardcore that rarely venture in the pve world, so yeah… totally feasible.

That’s good to hear.

I think EotM is still pretty good. And if you get the dailies done in there, you can get temporary boosters, which (if I’m not remembering wrong) will double capping XP as well as WvW.

Pepsi.8907:

Well it’s sort of a relief while not being one
Anyway JP isn’t so bad, you only need to do it 3 times for the achievement related to Presence :/ Took me 2 hours to be able to do it once, and then I nailed all three back to back in a very short while afterwards (just pick the same path so that you end up knowing it with closed eyes and the snowflake part will do itself alone)

Yeah, pretty much.

I’m not sure how the JP is for me. Don’t think I’ve ever done the Wintersday one. Not sure if I’ll get around to trying it by event end, after all the salt on my tongue from this “journey” of a collection. If I try it and it’s not as bad as Clock Tower, maybe I’ll get it done. Clock Tower was pretty annoying, but I got it eventually once.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They aren’t developing gw3. People say that just to be salty.

I did a search for the fun of it. The closest I could find to anything was one website saying that GW3 is rumored, which means about as much as a 90-year-old with dementia saying he was friends with Babe Ruth.

http://datesrelease.com/when-release-game/guild-wars-3-release-date.html

But who knows. They do have some pretty bad software that would be nice to escape from. That’s about the only good motivation for a sequel that I can think of, considering this is an MMO, not a single-player title.

Either way, even if a GW3 was in development, it wouldn’t be done by the current GW2 team. It would require a whole other team, of the same massive size.

Pepsi.8907:

Keldash.3602:

Wintersday is scheduled to end on January 12, 2016. words from Gaile Gray herself. as for the drinks achievement we can earn it throughout the year instead only wintersday. Happy drinking everyone.

Is this confirmed? Will this achievment remain the whole year? will the whole wintersday achievement also remain? or only those in favor of getting the presence shoulder?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Updates-about-Wintersday/first#post5863319

Apparently the achievement will remain, but they can’t do anything about the text itself. Which indicates they aren’t going to change seasonal stuff while it is active (for Dwayna knows why reasons) – nothing new on that front though, was the same way with previous seasonal events.

So…

We can finish drink achievement year round, but we’ll still be paying out the back end to get it if we don’t farm all we need now. And this obviously does nothing about the JP complaints.

Good news / bad news kind of a thing.

Silent night, grinding night, all red, all is white
Round yon Dolyak, Choir, and Toys, holy
Drinking oh what is that noise?
It’s the sound of QQoooh oooh
It’s the sound of QQ

Silent night, grinding night, casuals sigh, at the sight
Criticisms from players afar, some defending it
Long-lasting scar.
Gamers play for the loot,
Gamers play for the loot.

Silent night, grinding night,
Son of a kitten, no end in sight,
Amateur screams of
My holy way, sound the crack of a fractured playerbase,
Quaggan, ruler of all,
Quaggan, ruler of all.

Okhu.7948:

Its not Christmas for another week. The time you spent whining on the forums you could have spent doing a JP or Bell Choir.

Meh. When stuff like this happens, sometimes it just kills my enthusiasm. I was actually pretty into Wintersday before the collection stuff. Now I don’t even want to give Anet the activity numbers for my account.

There’s nothing like design that is the exact opposite of holiday spirit to kill your holiday spirit for the game.

Malediktus.9250:

Anet is making a game for everyone. I would assume the top 10% of the active playerbase puts in over 50% of the total hours played. So if Anet would bore them away, the (ultra) casuals would have much less people to play with.

This is just the same old assumption that casual = “almost never plays the game,” when, in many cases, it is simply a description of “level of seriousness with which the game is taken” and/or “level of skill.”

The “top 10%” can very easily, especially with how easy most of this game was prior to HoT, be made up in large part of people who are both very active and very “casual” in terms of skill level.

Andraus.3874:

No you can’t. This would make perfect sense and is definitely the solution. BUT that is exactly what is going on and look at all the Issues. Winter Presence IS a reward for people that go the “extra distance”. There’s plenty of other things to do or get with Winters day. This isn’t the only thing. It is definitely one of the coolest things but not the only thing. And since it is one of the coolest things it is harder to get and therefore players that go the extra distance get it.

)“-”)

What other things are there to get? It seems to be the only skin other than the green ones that you can get dirt cheap year round off the TP.

Shayne Hawke.9160:

Also, I find the OP’s defense of “having empathy” to make an argument primarily attacking the playerbase for ANet’s design choices to be shallow and wickedly inconsiderate.

)-_-)

Is this not exactly what people are doing when they tell off people with disabilities for wanting options?

I don’t see how the OP attacked anyone. Admonished, maybe. Chided, perhaps. Attacked is a strong word. He is primarily asking for people to be considerate of the problems of other people. If that’s an attack to you, then maybe you have some problems being considerate. I’m not saying you do. I’m just saying that’s where it seems to lead if that is how it comes across to you.

Zephyra.4709:

This is a delicate subject, indeed.

While I too, have empathy towards those that literally can not do this collection due to physical impairment(s) etc, I can not see any constructive alternative suggestions by OP in regards to obtaining specific items.

• instead of completing Bell Choir, another alternative could be to defeat X amount of creatures OR complete X treasure hunt to create the item required in the Mystic Forge

That is one suggestion I can think of, yet it trails back to what I originally wanted to mention in regards to rewards being locked behind certain things.

We have mystic forge recipes, treasure hunts, slay X of this or craft X of that… Now all of a sudden we are delivered with a Jumping Puzzle to complete and I think this may be the devs wanting to try out something different other than the usual requirements for things.

Change is a good thing from the same old typical routine.

It is unfortunate that yes, it may well and truly be impossible for those with certain disabilities to complete such a task but I agree in sense – The collection requirements could have been more alternative friendly.

I am open minded about this topic in general but I also agree with what others are stating in this thread in regards to rewards. Some things just aren’t supposed to be handed out to everyone.

Luckily, this specific collection item is obtainable outside of the seemingly impossible. It is buyable off the Trading Post.

A hefty cost but it is there as an alternative option if you seriously want that item.

The month is supposed to be full of joy & good times, it is unfortunate that these issues have impacted that in a negative way.

At this point, “constructive alternatives” are all but irrelevant. The chances of Anet doing anything about this beyond tweaking some number values (which is already an insanely low chance) is probably something like 0.0001%. Even if they cared enough to bother, they’d have to do the work and push it out very quickly, disrupting the existing atmosphere in the process and upsetting people who already spent loads and/or invested loads of time to get the reward.

Which could be avoided if they would give us a public Test Server and let us see stuff like this a week or two BEFORE it gets published to the actual game. So many problems throughout the lifetime of this game could have been avoided with a public test server and getting feedback early enough to do something about it.

That aside, the solution would be pretty simple. Multiple achievements that give the needed special items for each one, particularly achievements that span different aspects of the game and paths that are easier for people who spend a lot of time in a particular part of the game (e.g. PvPer gonna have an easier time with PvP version, WvWer easier time with WvW version).

This, of course, goes against funneling everything into Wintersday content, but it’s foolish to design a system that all but forces people into the holiday content if they want the reward (and is a slog at the same time). You want them to do it because it’s fun and it’s the holidays, or else it becomes a chore and they get so sick of the content that they hate how recycled it is the next year. If you allow them to play the holidays their own way and still get the reward(s) out of it, they can dip in and out of the holiday-specific content as they desire and when next year comes around, they won’t feel any reason to complain about it being recycled because they never felt obligated to participate in it in the first place.

CIndeR.3479:

While well written, I have to disagree with you.

You are right, there are people who are simply unable to get certain items from the game. But to make it easier for those people is to cheapen it for others who are proud of what they’ve done. If we hand out items to every player with minimal effort no one has any reason to put any effort into it. That is what’s killing WoW btw. You give to one hand by taking from the other.

I don’t have Winters Presence or Nightfury and I never will, I dont have the time to grind out the parts for them. But I have absolutely no problem with that. I know my limitations, I know what it is that I deserve based on what I’ve put in. I don’t feel that I deserve it despite being unable to put the effort in to getting it. And that’s fine, because people like me make those items all the more great for the people who have them.
If we all had them, they stop being special.

We’re talking about a holiday item though and the item only stops being special if you value it purely for the exclusivity. For many people, half or more of the appeal is the design itself, not the exclusivity.

You are trying to apply the generalized “make everything too easy and none of it matters” argument in a context where it simply does not apply. At least not with the same ease that it does in other situations.

In other words, if you’re going to make such an argument, find a way to apply it to the current situation. Don’t be lazy and send a boy argument to do a man argument’s job. Or, for the more socially progressive, send a boy/girl argument to do a man/woman argument’s job.

This winter’s presence issue may have some who are complaining about the general reward state of the game, but most appear to be complaining specifically about the main wintersday reward being a grindy slog that lacks any understanding of holiday social obligations or of differing skill levels / RL abilities.

Probably trying to make the fight feel epic with length, but that’s only one (overused) way to make something feel epic and it barely works here because you die and start over in such an immersion-breaking way. I think it would actually feel more epic if, instead of being ported into the penalty box when you die, some lore-explained moment happens where one of the assistant apparition thingies uses their special powers on you and brings you back into the fight. After all, it’s a mind fight. Normal rules need not apply.

Yeah, it’d be a tad cheesy, but I feel like it’d actually make more sense and feel more engaging than the jarring “you die, you’re ported into a totally mechanical, unfeeling, and obviously game design geometrical box space where you can choose to try again.” All the current thing is missing is a sign that says, “Insert coin to continue.”

psy.5437:

It is worth updating my thread one month on.

I am waiting so long in LFG now that the kitten lfg times out.
No one replies in map chat. It is just by pure luck that other people show up to do the HP now.

How the hell am I going to get the rest of my characters through HoT at this rate, this is to be plain kittening stupid and is a major annoyance.

Why isn’t scaling implemented on these HP so single players can do them instead of wasting their time waiting for a few people to never show up?

I agree that it’s BS.

That said, here’s a possible solution for you if you can find a time to run with them when they’re doing it:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/events/Hero-Point-Rush-Return-of-the-Hot/first#post5743230

Next one is tomorrow (thursday) from the time of this post.

Shirk.6421:

Sorry, but I don’t understand why so many people say HoT is so “hard” and “challenging”.

Is dodging right so hard? Is getting tankier gear if you can’t so hard? Is playing with others if you can’t do that so hard? There are always people there.

Im pretty much disappointed about the mob’s AI. Stand on an elevation and Bristlebacks don’t hit, stand on an elevation or dodge from a wall and stoneheads will stun themselfes. Mordrem snipers obvious attacks are just the easiest to dodge attacks in the entire game, same for the hammer guys. Pocket raptors… AoE and they die instantly. Just run out of the smokescales AoE.

I got VB and AB to 100% w/o getting real help from others, just some meta events, solo’ed almost every Champ on those 2 maps (This vampire thingy sucked, tho pun intended)

Overall HoT just doesn’t feel fast paced, well harder than the normal open world but not the challenge everyone cries about.

Other opinions from people that think it really isn’t that hard?

Either Dunning-Kruger or brag thread. Not sure which.

Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence, they may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others, and they may incorrectly suppose that their competence in a particular field extends to other fields in which they are less competent.

This could be you.

Riku.4821:

And it seems they will be available after wintersday.

Seems or confirmed? Two very different things right there.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Labjax.2465:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nope. There was no benefit from leveling or gaining XP after 80 between the change and the arrival of the Mastery system. The split was put in place, possibly because too many skill points were coming into the system, but since the Mastery system was already planned there was no reason to add an additional reason for post 80 XP.

Most people didn’t realize that leveling didn’t gain spirit shards because you can get them from dailies, champ bags and random mob kills (for example, I’ve killed hyenas and seen a spirit shard show on the side as a drop). So they saw their numbers increase and thought it was from leveling.

Wait, wut. That’s so silly.

If people didn’t notice that they didn’t gain anything by leveling during those months perhaps it wasn’t that big a deal.

However, it wasn’t silly. They said that the old skill points were being used for too many things and they wanted to narrow down their uses. So they split them to hero points (for the skills) and spirit shards (for the mystic forge). Since they had the mastery system as a future post 80 leveling/reward system, there wasn’t a need to have a temporary post 80 system that they would just have to take out a few months after putting it in, as well as needing to calibrate the rate that spirit shards came into the game twice, before the mastery system and after.

If you say so. Either way, I think there needs to be something to handle max masteries situation, cause it’s not in line with what they originally had with skill points.

Edit: It also makes XP boosters useless once you have max masteries, cough profits cough wink wink nudge nudge.

We have to look into a mirror, say Poobadoo 3 times (and by 3, I mean, 3 thousand) and Anet will appear.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nope. There was no benefit from leveling or gaining XP after 80 between the change and the arrival of the Mastery system. The split was put in place, possibly because too many skill points were coming into the system, but since the Mastery system was already planned there was no reason to add an additional reason for post 80 XP.

Most people didn’t realize that leveling didn’t gain spirit shards because you can get them from dailies, champ bags and random mob kills (for example, I’ve killed hyenas and seen a spirit shard show on the side as a drop). So they saw their numbers increase and thought it was from leveling.

Wait, wut. That’s so silly.

Aomine.5012:

This post from 2012 makes me feel extremely sad.

Now every word the post makes any sense now. All of them are lies and contradiction now.

Look at the new Precursor system, and look at the Season reward we’re getting post HoT: Nightfury and Winter’s Embrace. All of those decisions are work against the concept of fun and only push the number of log-ins like all the subscription games.

Look at the linear design of all the Meta-Events and Fractal and Raid now.

I actually miss living story 1 very much , since it really makes me attach to game with fun thing to do more, and actually reward me for my effort.

Has it really changed though from what he said? At least in terms of cosmetics?

Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

It seems he never understood the part where “optional” doesn’t feel optional if “rarest items with unique looks” are what the majority of your goals in the game come down to.

And it was always somewhat awkward reasoning:

Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

“Rare items with unique looks to help sense of accomplishment.”

“Every time you finish, you get tokens so you can get reward items you want, rather than having a small chance at a drop because it’s more fun to always get rewarded.”

People want the rewards, not a token. A token isn’t a reward if you need 500 of them to get an item.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Labjax.2465:

They should have it go back to giving you spirit shards if you’re maxed in a particular area (HoT, Central Tyria). It would be simpler than inventing a whole new system for XP after masteries are maxed, which is probably what they would want to do if they read this thread.

Except you’ve never been able to get spirit shards after leveling. Skill points, yes, before they separated skill points into hero points and spirit shards but not spirit shards.

The big problem with giving spirit shards with leveling is that the system is balanced around getting them in other ways. If they start giving spirit shards upon level, they’ll have to nerf it the other. That means one of two things
if you get spirit shards on level then
1) you’ll no longer get them from daily, or maybe no longer from drops
Or
2) they nerf the spirit shards game wide for everyone, not just post max mastery accounts.

Guess which option is easier to put in and is more likely.

Really? I had thought they replaced skill points with them? Was sure there was some benefit of leveling pre-HoT but post-SSs.

They should have it go back to giving you spirit shards if you’re maxed in a particular area (HoT, Central Tyria). It would be simpler than inventing a whole new system for XP after masteries are maxed, which is probably what they would want to do if they read this thread.

If you want a herky jerky cyclical experience of being punched in the stomach and shoved into a vat of delicious fudge, then yeah, give it a whirl.

Or maybe you’ll get lucky and be one of those people who seems to be starry-eyed about the whole game for some reason.

I just realized, I’m not sure if you’re asking other forummers whether they’re mad, as in angry, or you’re asking Anet whether they are mad, as in crazy.

It could be either.

This is the question of the century.

Rin.1046:

I think you are reading far too much into this. Just because they are adding ONE hard to get skin with the seasonal events is NOT a sign all future items will be like this. I think you are overreacting and jumping to conclusions. Also, it would be a very foolish move on Anet’s part if they made every cosmetic tem difficult to get. A large portion of their customer base are casual players, and they would be the first to go if Anet implemented such a tactic.

The fact is, there are and will be cosmetic items that are easy to acquire, and there also needs to be some items that are not so easy to acquire. Anet added Nightfury to appeal to those who like to have something to work towards, and the same is true for he Wintersday Presence. This is not a doomsday sign that all items will be impossible for casual players to get. You need to reel it in a bit I feel.

And if things do get to a state as you suggest (which I do not believe it ever will), then I too will join those in complaining about it. But I simply cannot see that happening, and it is far too early to make any kind of judgement in this regard in my opinion.

To be fair, this is nothing hugely new.

But you are also confused, methinks. Not every cosmetic item in this game is difficult to get. However, a large part of the ones that are the most showy in their design (particle effects, high-def shiny textures) are super expensive and time-consuming. Giving a “you participated” consolation trophy to those who don’t want to grind out the big stuff is not the kind of game you’re describing, but it is what a lot of this game is.

The only skins that are “easy to acquire” from wintersday this year are the green skins that you can buy off the TP for like 10copper year round and they are dull, brownish skins. Cute designs in their own right, but not exactly showy or flashy. Not the sort of thing that you’re going to notice while running around hacking things.

In other words, the balanced state of “hard to get” and “easy to get” that you think is a reality is fantasy. It doesn’t exist in this game and probably never has. The reason it doesn’t exist is because Anet knows very well what kind of designs will be desirable to the highest number of people and they put the majority of those designs behind massive walls.

If we’re talking pure numbers, then you may be technically right, but number of skins doesn’t define what people want. If there are (purely making up the numbers here) 500 skins that are easy to get and 50 that are super hard to get, the 500 is pretty meaningless if peoples’ interest in the 50 outweighs their interest in the 500 by a big margin. Once again, Anet knows this, which is why hard to get rewards are not abandoned by most players in favor of easy ones.

It’s not just prestige that makes this stuff desirable… it’s the art design.

It’s counter-intuitive if you think in terms of the effect because the effect is around the whole character.

That it’s technically in a shoulder slot is something the tech inclined are likely to think about, not most others.

The best fix for the future would be to make a new skin slot that items like this and nightfury go into (one that is compatible with outfits). As it is, cool as the skins are, they basically give you a particle effect that has nothing to do with your shoulders and robs you of that slot for wearing actual shoulders.

It’s kind of McGyver the way they implemented it.

laokoko.7403:

Maybe if Anet make more money, they can pay salaries, keep people from management happy, keep NCSoft happy, and keep stock holder happy so they bother to keep players happy?

Yeah, from their perspective they need to pay the bills. So focus on giving us a good game to play first and then mix in some extras, instead of churning out loads of cash extras and putting out pitiful amount of game to play.

Why is it so much to ask for some integrity? You don’t get it. There are people lined up waiting to throw money at games like this and many of them do. But they are kittening people, not cash machines.

Look at it from the player perspective for a second. When players are treated like dollar signs, it tends to kitten them off. It’s pretty simple.

I remember it used to be “the customer is always right” and that swung too far. Now I see way too much “the customer is whiny and entitled,” when the customer is really just asking for a company that treats them well on the whole and responds to their needs as a consumer. So now we’re swinging in the other direction too far.

Why is it so hard to look at things in a moderate way? The customer/company relationship is not your typical relationship. We are not friends with Anet. No matter how friendly Anet employees may be to us, and vice-versa, we are NOT friends with Anet the company. It is not our responsibility to look after their needs. It is, within the confines of being a reasonably mature adult, our responsibility to not be a kitten about every little thing that bothers us.

But it is also, within the confines of being a company that has the power to affect peoples’ lives with psychologically-manipulative products, Anet’s responsibility to not be morally bankrupt. Companies get away with being morally bankrupt all the time because money is power and power means they get to keep doing it. Good luck stopping them, in other words.

Oh but Labjax, people can quit any time and vote with their wallets. Works well for drug addicts, right?

The naivete I read on these forums daily is disappointing. I want Anet to be amazingly successful. I want all of their employees to win awards, get big bonuses, and live superb lives. But not at the cost of my own enjoyment and my own well-being as a person. Kitten that, are you kidding me? My needs come first, for me, not theirs.

And they have every right to prioritize their needs as a company over mine any day of the week and twice on sundays, but don’t think for a second that I’m going to lie down and let this be about them and their struggles as a company. This is a buyer/seller relationship, not a boyfriend/girlfriend deal. If I want to understand their reasons for the sheer psychology hobby of it, fine, but not as an excuse for them doing things that I don’t like.

They ask for cold, hard cash and provide a service. When you step over that threshold, it is not a personal relationship anymore, no matter how well you “Win Friends and Influence People.” RIP Dale Carnegie.

Ok, I’m done ranting now.

Too many collections in this game are a cruel trick. They lure you into a false sense of ease with a few small objectives and then just when you’re getting excited about the collection, BAM, they hit you with some 10,000 hours (yes, 10,000 hours is hyperbole) of time investment style objective that kills the enthusiasm and, if you’re the type who hates looking at unfinished things, creates unnecessary discomfort.

It’s gotten to the point where I looked up the collection before I bought the piece to unlock it because I was wary of getting hit with the trick again. So I went to Dulfy’s site… oh, says Dulfy, it’s not as bad as Nightfury, and lists the objectives. I’m like oh ok, there’s a few expenses, but it’s mostly doing some Wintersday achievements. Can’t be that bad.

Unlock collection.

10,000 Drinks.

Oh….oh…

Well, um… oh.

Who wants some dumb old falling snowflakes anyway?

“And he went and said that the grapes were sour.”

But seriously, at that point I’m like… how bad do I actually want this stupid thing? Maybe I should just capitalize on the people who want it and sell sell sell everything I get.