Guild Wars 2

Filaha.1678:

If you ran a store and one person came in and complained about the merchandise and said they were never coming back again because the merchandise wasn’t what they wanted, would you try to make them happy so they come back by changing your merchandise, or would you look at the hundred regulars that are constantly coming into your store and buying your merchandise and instead try to keep them happy?

It’s only logic.

The next day another customer comes in with the same complaint. The day after that another two. Then another customer on day three… How many customers do you lose before you start to even consider if their complaint is valid? At which point do you even recognise that of the customers who have not yet complained about the new merchandise none have exactly complained about the old one either? If you ran a store and would really try to maximise your profits wouldn’t you at least check if keeping the complaining customer happy would actually cost you anything?

It’s only logic.

Filaha.1678:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I don’t like fractals and you certainly don’t speak for me.

You aren’t people. You are a person. You are irrelevant to what “people” like.

That’s true for everyone of us, yet in total we are still “people”. If we do not like something, it is our job to speak for ourselves and it’s nobody’s job to tell us we should not have spoken because we are not “the people”.

If players start dropping off all because they have to go a little bit out of their way to get AP (which, if you didn’t notice, you will have to do, period, if you want the major AP rewards) then the game has more problems than dailies. Clearly, they should completely ignore “fixing” dailies and work on other portions of the game.

And if you’re already planning to leave… well, then they don’t really need to please you, do they? Clearly you’ll be difficult to actually please if the only thing keeping you here is the dailies. They should focus on the people who either are happy with the changes or don’t mind the changes, as they’ll clearly be easier to please and retain.

I guess I do not have to tell you that it is usually not just one thing that makes people leave a game. Far more often it is a collection of things reducing the enjoyment of the game bit by bit. What I apparently do have to tell you is that this is exactly what is happening for those complaining about the new Dailies and how they were implemented. Their enjoyment is reduced, and it does not matter if that change affects everybody or you specifically, and it does not matter if it’s already enough to make them leave or if a few more negative bits are needed to that effect.
If a customer feels that he gets a worse deal than he used to he is free to give feedback about why he feels that way. Maybe they misunderstood something, maybe they have a good point and a small change would benefit everybody.
Also, arguing that a cause is not worth a complaint because there might be bigger problems is a logical fallacy. We have a problem here that affects at least several customers (we can hardly argue who is the majority unless we force every active player to vote on this issue) and which, in my opinion, can be fixed without affecting anybody negatively.

Subdue.5479:

What I would not agree with is bringing back the old generic dailies that would allow people to get the daily without going out of their way at all.

In that case your preferences just do not match with those of the players complaining about just that issue. I can agree on disagreeing with you.

What I can not agree with is you claiming that the majority of players shared your preferences or that players who do not share your preferences should suffer the same restrictions to their gaming experience without complaint just because you like those restrictions. If you wanted to you still could make your own restrictions. Just roll a die to determine in which zone you have to do your events, your kills or your mining. It’s not so easy for us the other way around. If we just ignore the restrictions we miss out on the AP reward. We actually lose something.
What would you lose if you they got rid of the more ridiculous restrictions? Would the earned reward be any less? Why? You sure would not argue that doing events in Queensdale with a huge zerg in tow is any more challenging than doing the same number of events anywhere else in Kryta or even elsewhere in Tyria, would you? So how does it make sense giving a special reward to obedient little puppies in Queensdale when the Daily tells them to be in Queensdale but not to those doing the same number of probably more challenging events anywhere else?

Being obedient is really all the challenge there is to the specific objectives. Visiting a vista? Not anymore challenging in Kryta than in Ascalon, yet when the Daily says it has to be a Krytan vista I have to view a Krytan vista to get my reward.

And just to emphasize it once more: nobody profits if I actually have to go out of my way for the Daily reward. Neither Anet nor any player will gain anything from me viewing a Krytan vista over an Ascalonian one or one in the Maguuma, wherever I really want to be on that given day.
There is nothing good about me having to go out of my way to perform a simple task, not for me, not for anybody else. That’s not how you design a game. That’s how you train a dog to sit up and beg.

If they removed the specific objectives from the Daily and instead reverted to just “Daily Events”, “Daily Kills” etc. would we be complaining then? How would that devaluate the argument being made about the Dailies as they are now?

Subdue.5479:

Quite frankly, just because you tried something once and didn’t like it doesn’t mean you’ll never like it. I’ve gone through spurts of shrinking dungeon running, wvwing, and pvping, each ending with me feeling like I had gotten bored of them only to be pulled back into something I had given up on before.

Quite frankly, urging everybody to try stuff the didn’t like before, just because some might change their opinion, thus deeming everybody else’s opinion unqualified, is very patronising.

Consider this. If the changes also involved a 10 gold bonus for completing three dailies. Do you think all these pve only players would still end to go back to the old system?

Consider this: there already is a name for doing something I would not like to do otherwise, just because somebody else pays me enough for it. It’s called “a job”. I prefer my games without many job-like attributes, thank you.

Subdue.5479:

@Krest

The problem I have is that calling the change as a huge pain for pve players is disingenuous. If you absolutely will not give the content a serious look because you’ve already decided you don’t end to, that’s okay, you don’t have to. Today, one of the PvP dailies was point capture, which can be done without even fighting another of player. One of the wvw dailies was kill a dolyak and the other was claim land, CCC which involves killing a veteran and then sitting on s point for a few seconds. All of these can be easily accomplished without fighting another player. Most days I complete the daily in no more than five to ten minutes.

All of this does not change the fact that you do not go into WvW because you now magically love WvW, but just because you want to get it over with for the Daily completionist, as opposed to completing your Daily on the go as a side-effect of doing what you really want to do. Expecting players to suddenly love a part of the game because you withhold their usual reward unless they take part in it is like betting on Stockholm syndrome.

Imagine somebody just steps into your way while you are walking down the street. He does not have any particular reason to do so, actually he could have just as well stayed where he was, but he chooses to step in your way, just so you have to walk around him.
He might not be fat enough that the way around takes a long detour, but if that guy does this every day, most of us would be pretty annoyed sooner or later.
That’s what the new, specific Daily objectives do.

Filaha.1678:

Anet is not responsible for your choice of things you refuse to do.

Good job on pointing out the obvious that has hardly anything to do with the point made. I guess in a more serious context this sort of reasoning is known as victim-blaming. Let’s not do that.

The saddest thing is that the whole problem with the new Daily system is 100% self-inflicted by Anet and 100% unnecessarily so.
Those players who regularly went out of their way to squeeze as many AP out of the Daily as they could have it better nowadays. You get your 10 AP much quicker than you used to.

But a the same time they screwed over all those who did not want to go out of their way, who just got their 5+ AP for whatever could be completed by just playing whatever they felt like that day, and just because Anet chose to cut down on the diversity of the PvE Dailies and made the objectives more specific on top of that.
And it’s the latter part that really gets to me. While the original reasons, to set incentives to explore more parts of the game etc., might be well-intended it is really condescending and badly implemented. And worst of all: nobody profits except those who really did not know the event zone or world boss of the day and are thankful for the pointer, a number that is bound to decline as this system stays in effect.
Anet certainly does not care if I mine for iron in one area or the other, so I mine iron wherever I want to play that day… yet now I get a special reward if I mine in a specific region, so I go there first just to get it over with, although I would rather be somewhere else and mining in the Diessa Plateau is not any more challenging than it is in Kessex nor does it add anything to my playing experience other than a bit of annoyance for the extra-time spent off my planned track (and because of my dislike for being told what I should do when there is not a good reason behind it).
Telling players that there are events in a certain zone (Brisban today) might also be well-intended, but for somebody who has 100% exploration on several chars this information is really not all that valuable, and zerging any event in any zone is not the most exciting thing, either, yet is the thing that is guaranteed to happen if everybody gets a special reward if they do this on a given day. And again, Anet does not gain or lose anything if I do my daily events in a specific zone or somewhere else where I am just about to level a new character or just like to be on that day.

And it’s not like this could have been surprising for anybody playing the game on a regular basis. This problem was perfectly predictable, so much so, that I would really like to know how decisions like these are made without somebody pointing out the obvious flaws.

The “consolation prize ticket” would be very hard to implement in a satisfactory manner. In a worst case scenario it would even cause more injustice due to the huge value differences between items belonging to the same category (or stuff in general, as there is pretty little middle ground in this game between “drops so often and/or has so bad stats that it is worthless” and “incredibly unaffordable / set for life if it drops”).
Let’s say, for example, there was such a consolation prize ticket for precursor drops. Let’s say that one day before I would get that ticket The Bard drops.
Meanwhile an other guy gets his consolation prize ticket and the very next day he gets a naturally dropped precursor on top of that. That means that these 2 days mean the difference between 1 and 2 precursors (and double the chance for one that is much more valuable than The Bard). So, the “luckier” guy ends up with the considerably shorter end of the stick.
It would still be better than the present situation where some people get almost monthly precursor drops and others who play roughly the same events etc. still have to see their first precursor, but it has quite the potential for infuriating inequalities if you miss out on your consolation prize ticket because you technically got something good although it is pretty worthless in practice.

Solution 2.5 seems to be the most balance option with the possibility to really work toward something worthwhile even if the RNG does not love you as if you were its newborn child. Just do not make the mistake and add the token to one specific activity that you have to farm over and over and over for those tokens. The new “play as we tell you to play” approach has pretty few friends as it is already.

Olvendred.3027:

Also, you only have to do a single fractal for the Daily Fractal one, rather than 3 in a row.

And since you do not get a fractal level-up or the at least semi-interesting reward chest from a completed fractal run you do this one fractal just “to get it over with” for the Daily, highlighting the problem with this more specific and thus more restricting Daily system.
There is just no way to incorporate just one fractal into your daily schedule without having to go out of your way just for the sake of the 10 AP.

Charrbeque.8729:

You can only complete Warming Grawnk’s Heart once per account. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warming_Grawnk%27s_Heart

You can, however, alternate between different characters if one character can not get the stuff Seimur’s wants without much hassle. The whole account shares one Grawnk.

Yeah, if you want to know just how stupidly the new Dailies were designed look no further than today’s choice for PvEers: Daily Fractal and Daily Scale 1-10 Fractal, so to complete the PvE Daily you have to do a Fractal run. Way to go! Maybe I will rather choose the WvW Daily then. At least there I can choose if I want to successfully capture a tower or a keep. -.-
“Play as we want you to play” as opposed to “play how you want to play”. Enough is enough.

Filaha.1678:

Traits aren’t inherent to “playing how you want to”, though, so…

They are not by your definition. For others they are an important part of just that, if only for the fact that some professions profit hugely from them up to the point that they would not be half as fun without them. And being able to play with 100% of my usual fun is a very integral part of what I would call “Play How I Want”.
See, that is exactly why it is important to talk about stuff in a specific non-generalising way.
The thing is that I have to somewhat agree with you regarding Dailies. If you just want to “get them over with” in order to do what you really want to do afterwards the new system is quicker and better, even more rewarding. But if they were part of the fun you would not have to “get them over with”, you would just incorporate them into something that you already want to do.
If Anet had capped the AP you could get from Dailies at 5 per day hardly anybody would have had to do anything other than just play the game. People just chose to do more for the extra AP.

Old Dailies:
Among others, there were “Daily Gatherer”, “Daily Kills”, “Daily Dodger”, “Daily Reviver”, “Daily Condition Remover” and "Daily Condition Applier.
They were very generic, but in a way that is preferable, because it does not matter what I want to do on that day, and this is a good way of not-mattering: as long as I do something in PvE for a while, be it a couple of world bosses or map exploration or whatever, I will collect these Dailies on the go. I will get my 5+ AP and the Daily rewards.
Similar cases can be made for days when you really wanted to PvP or do some WvW.
You did not even have to take a single step out of your planned schedule for today’s fun to complete the minimum requirements. You just had to be mildly successful at what you did anyway.

New Dailies:
Now the Dailies tell you to go complete events in a specific zone, to defeat a specific world boss or to harvest a specific kind of ressource in a specific region etc.
First of all, this does not achieve anything good. A minor case can be made for world bosses since some players might be surprised that there is a “Shatterer” that can be defeated and that they can earn a special reward for doing so. But logging trees in Kryta instead of, say, the Shiverpeak Mountains? That does not steer me towards new and interesting content at all. It is just specific in order to annoy me, to waste my time before I can do something that I actually want, even if it is not that much time.

The difference might not be “the world is ending”-bad, but for people who used to just incorporate the more convenient Dailies into their fun schedule it is a step in an undesirable direction.

Filaha.1678:

I must be mysteriously logging into an old version of the game then, because I’m still playing how I want ankitten ot being forced to do anything I don’t want to.

Well, we can take things most literally all day and conclude that you will find hardly anybody who is forced to play this game at all, or we could use given examples to find out what people mean when they say “forced”.
Technically, you can do all the things you used to, it is just so that you get either less reward for doing so (see: new Dailies) or you have to pay more for being able to do so (see: new Trait unlocking) unless you complete the specific tasks the game tells you to, even if those things are less than desirable for you and/or others (for example joining WvW with a low level char to unlock Traits).

Toroxus.9256:

Locce.8405:

pdavis.8031:

Just a few things. It would be awesome for the game to go the direction farmville. $600,000,000.00 annual income and over 252,000,000 players. Just sayin…

Your standards for awesome are definitely different from mine. If you look at Farmville’s “gameplay” you will notice that it barely qualifies as a game. It (and other “games” that are distributed mostly via social media and/or mobile app stores) is a tool for procrastination that you use rather than do your work at the office or your chores at home or a slightly better alternative to talking to other people on the same bus or train you are currently riding.
The generated income and the number of players are much less a sign of quality than a symptom of people’s behavioural patterns.

When I sit down in front of my PC to play a game I do not want to procrastinate and I do not have people that I need to avoid eye contact with either. I want my dose of fun, and recently I find that I get less when I only go for fun and that I get rewards more and more exclusively for grindy or at least unnecessarily out-of-the-way activities.

There are a lot of assumptions in this post. From “avoiding eye contact” to “procrastination.” Such a shame.

Those are not assumptions, least of all shameful ones. If you are interested in the subject feel free to PN me and I will provide you with a bit of additional explanation and links regarding the science behind social media / mobile “games” and why the quotation marks are more than justified.

Map completion is RNG. Especially for high-level maps there is a huge money gap between two pieces of armor for 90s each, a transmutation charge and 40 leeks on the one side and an armor with a Rune of Strength, a weapon with a Sigil of Force, a chest key and 40 lemongrass on the other side. And of course the second guy will get a BL ticket or a valuable colour from the chest, too. Hate that guy.

Also, world bosses and champs are definitely so much RNG. Yeah, everybody gets his guaranteed chest, but it is quite a difference if you find items in it that are worth 50s or if it’s an exotic collection drop for up to 200g.

pdavis.8031:

Just a few things. It would be awesome for the game to go the direction farmville. $600,000,000.00 annual income and over 252,000,000 players. Just sayin…

Your standards for awesome are definitely different from mine. If you look at Farmville’s “gameplay” you will notice that it barely qualifies as a game. It (and other “games” that are distributed mostly via social media and/or mobile app stores) is a tool for procrastination that you use rather than do your work at the office or your chores at home or a slightly better alternative to talking to other people on the same bus or train you are currently riding.
The generated income and the number of players are much less a sign of quality than a symptom of people’s behavioural patterns.

When I sit down in front of my PC to play a game I do not want to procrastinate and I do not have people that I need to avoid eye contact with either. I want my dose of fun, and recently I find that I get less when I only go for fun and that I get rewards more and more exclusively for grindy or at least unnecessarily out-of-the-way activities.

Yes, GW2 is still the best MMORPG out there, but if we don’t speak up when it moves in an unwanted direction we might soon say “unfortunately it is still the best game”.

Also, it is a bit strange that some people complain about other people complaining when they are obviously unaffected by the change. If there is a new law forcing everybody to wear green clothes those who wore green anyway will not feel affected in the same way as everybody else, naturally. Likewise, if you chose to go out of your way for 10 or 12 AP before the patch you will not get why other people complain who were content with 5 to 8 AP and the Daily reward they got just while doing any couple of world bosses or a bit of world exploration without having to go out of their way.

Had the same issue on my so far only Toypocalypse try. I got the “Dolyak Defender” achievement instantly upon entering. The instance was just filthy with upgraded defenses, no mobs spawned and the timer was still ticking down from 20(!) minutes.

I am quite worried about the current development, too. It is as if they are unable to grant any kind of freedom or other benefit with one hand without taking the essence of it away with the other.

Regarding World Bosses and megaservers they gave us the ability to complete world events at any time of the day because a fixed schedule and megaservers mean there will be plenty of people at every major event.
However, they made this a double-edged sword by not giving us the ability to play in a lesser populated instance if we chose so (or freely choose any available instance). They made each and every world boss a zerg event without removing the anti-zerg measures they implemented earlier, so no champ loot for you if you are no downscaled level 80 or do not bring your best damage build or just have a slow internet connection so that your damage counts last.
Also, they made the homeserver-distinction all but meaningless which brings several drawbacks for WvW (especially WvW-guild recruitment, when your recruiter may well be in a different map instance than the majority of players with the same homeworld) and makes things all kinds okittenward for roleplayers who used to get along quite well with the PvEer population on their homeworld and now have to a) double-check every time that they are on the correct map instance for a given roleplay event and b) live with frequent complaints of players who are not used to others using say- or emote-chat for full sentences for more than 5 minutes at a time.

And regarding skills and traits they gave us greater freedom to adjust our builds at a moment’s notice…
…if we agree to spend truckloads of gold and skill point scrolls or grind the very same parts of the game world with each and every character, often parts that are not that easy to grind on the level you might want to have a given trait to begin with. This problem is most pronounced for professions that are very trait-reliant for their performance. An untraited low-level warrior might still plow through content where an untraited low-level mesmer will only experience pain and frustration.

And with the new changes to the Daily Achievements and seeing how it affects the current festival I am getting more and more doubts if I should continue to invest time in this game when the direction is so clearly against everything GW2 once promised to be. Dailies used to count toward festival meta events, so that an avid player could easily skip festival activities that he did not like. But this Winterday they do not count and we need 11 of 11 available achievements… so have fun grinding the boring bell choir and spending time with strangers in the now random-group-only Toypocalypse while your friends are waiting elsewhere.

GW2 gets more grindy and more “play as we say” with every current update. This is not a good direction.

“Who wants to do stuff with friends anyway? Time-consuming activities are best done with strangers.” – Nobody ever… and then came Anet.

The error is indeed in the description. Just found out after getting lucky and being able to participate in an easy song that you actually have to survive the song. Just taking part in a successful song is not enough.

I would if I were able to find the correct category. Does it count as Dynamic Event or is it something else?

The Wintersday Daily “That Wintersday Ring” does not work or has a wrong description. It says “Take part in the Wintersday Bell Choir”, but the Daily is not awarded after taking part in that activity.

Superior Sigil of Overkill
1% Chance on Hit: +1000% damage

Superior Rune of the Nerfbat
(1) -5% damage dealt and received, all weapon sounds replaced with thematically appropriate cartoon sounds.
(2) 25% chance when struck to cause weakness on enemy and on self for 5 seconds.
(3) -10% damage dealt and received
(4) Might is replaced with Protection, Fury is replaced with Aegis and Retaliation also damages self when attacking.
(5) -20% damage dealt and received
(6) You are immune to damaging conditions. You can not cause damaging conditions.

This bug has been around forever. Basically every slope or flight of stairs that is moderately steep can give you huge amounts of cumulative fall damage. If you are lucky, or unlucky depending on how you choose to look at it, you can even see your life bar deplete with every couple of pixels you move down the slope/stairs.

I got one too today in the morning

Guild Wars 2 Account Will Be Shut Down Inform

We are sorry to inform you that your login account [SECONDARY E-MAIL I DO NOT USE FOR GW2] will be shut down or partially limited within 72 hours due to currency transactions or abnormal login. If you want to remove restrictions, please click the following link to validate:
[LINK TO ACCOUNT LOGIN (including box for serial number)]
Please keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 is a global game with hundreds of thousands of players. This means that standards of behavior must be upheld. For your convenience, you can obtain more information about our rules at the address listed below.
[LINK TO GW2 LEGAL PAGE]
Guild Wars 2 Account Support Team

Other missions in the final chapter seem to be no problem. One of my chars is at “Against the Corruption” and he is doing fine, but six others are at the final mission and they all crash the client directly upon trying to access the Story Journal.

Correction: the crash only occurs for those who actually had the Personal Story active. Those who were in a Living Story chapter for achievements have no problem, even though they are at the critical last mission in their Personal Story.

It is the same issue. Some can access their journal, others can’t, but all of them seem to be affected with characters who stand at “Victory or Death” in their Personal Story. I crash immediately upon clicking the journal on six characters, all of whom are at “Victory or Death”, final mission.

Correction: the crash only occurs for those who actually had the Personal Story active. Those who were in a Living Story chapter for achievements have no problem, even though they are at the critical last mission in their Personal Story.

There is a sliiiiiight oddity with the new consumables:

There is no nougat in Crystallized Nougat and there are no skulls in Sharpening Skulls. Instead the Crystallized Nougat is full of skulls and the Sharpening Skulls are made of nougat.
I might be wrong, but I think it was supposed to be the other way round.

Same happening for lots of players on lots of maps. Personally encountered this problem with Sparkfly Fen, Bloodtide Coast and the Mad Labyrinth. Usually restarting the computer fixes it, so it could be something the GW2-client puts into your RAM.

The whole change is seriously limiting the available options. Even if I disregard all the cases where somebody might want to buy only 300 gems but is forced to buy 100 gems more (if he can afford them) I am left wondering if the devs never realized the glaring flaws regarding the new systems practical application.
I can only get discrete and even amounts of gems for probably odd amounts of gold. Also, I can only get discrete and even amounts of gems for real money.
At the same time I can get discrete amounts of gold for probably odd amounts of gems.
That way using the gem exchange becomes an exercise not unlike trying to hammer a square piece through a round hole.

Let’s say I want a bit of extra ingame cash. I buy 800 gems and get 100 gold for 733 gems. So, I am left with 67 gems. What to do now? My only option:
I get 1 gold for 9 gems.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
I get 1 gold for 9 gems again.
And I am left with 4 gems that I can use for no purpose whatsoever.

Somehow I fail to see how this is better than just getting 800 gems worth of gold in one go.

I don’t know if anybody else has encountered this issue, but my gem store is hardly usable at the moment.
The tabs for currency exchange and the trading post are unaffected, but in the gem store tab there is a huge gap between the menu bar and the headline of the chosen gem store window and the actual content of said window, so what should be visible directly underneath the menu bar actually is roughly in the bottom 15% of the window and I can see only partial entries.
I found out that I can “scroll down” by mouse-dragging on some spots near the bottom of the window until the content is approximately where it is supposed to be, but at the same time the menu bar scrolls upwards out of the window, so if I want to browse the gem store I have to contantly find the secret “scroll spots” and keep scrolling up and down to change the gem store tab or view the content respectively.

I don’t know anyone who is not experiencing this new behaviour. I guess they wanted to fix the problem of usable items getting thrown from the bank into your inventory and vice versa if you right-click-use them since they don’t do that anymore, but that was far less of an annoyance than having to manually “carry” everything from one container into the other.

Andraus.3874:

It’s hard to say because the map that gets chosen for you also takes into account if a guild member or friend is on one of the newer maps. However if this newer map is also less populated than it makes sense that it gets shut down even though you were just moved to it because of a guild member. This is just another possibility where the server may be working correctly but with unintended consequences.

This would indeed be a somewhat plausible explanation for the dodgy behaviour, but as for my latest run-in with these problems I can exclude it as a possible explanation. I was the only member online of the guild I represented at that time and of my other guilds or friendlist none were in Harathi Hinterlands.

Also, no version of the system working as intended would make it seem likely that a volunteer never gets transferred onto a map with equal or more progress of the pre events – Harathi is especially good for observing this effect because of its long event chain – as would be expected if the new map was indeed more populated than the previous one to begin with, but always onto maps with little to no event progress at all. Either I am very unlucky and the system magically finds maps for me with people who are so extremely lazy that they rather watch the countdown ticking down than send even a single person to do pre events or these are new maps.
And if the system creates new maps or favours newly created but equally empty maps it is certainly doing the opposite of what it is supposed to do.

To illustrate my point, this is what just happened in Harathi Hinterlands while trying to get to the Modniir Ulgoth event (and not for the first time in a very similar fashion):

1. I did the first two pre events. The second event is going a bit slow since there are only three people present at those events including me.
2. During the second event the map closure message pops up. Since there seem hardly any active players around I accept after finishing the event… and land on a map where the first pre is not even done yet.
3. Repeat step 1, including the part with only 3 people doing the pres.
4. Sure enough during the second event there is that message again. Foolishly thinking it can’t get any worse I decide to volunteer after the event. At this point it is already 3:35 CEST. On a populated map it should be about time to begin the assault on Kingsgate Camp… but lo and behold: on this new map the first pre is not even finished. I found the exact same situation as on the two maps before.
5. I gave up on the Modniir Ulgoth event and went to Queensdale for the Behemoth instead. Wasted time and effort.

In my opinion especially the last jump is strong indication that the system is not doing what it is supposed to do. There is no chance that the 3rd map was more populated or as a matter of fact even existent before people like me were transfered there when not a single pre event is so much as halfway done a minimum of 5 minutes after they have begun.

My 2 theories about what might have happened:
1. Something is wrong with bottlenecks (or a similar bug to that effect), so that multiple almost empty maps are created if the first/active map is filling up too quickly. These maps are then closed in order of their creation instead of the other way round which would make far more sense regarding event progress.
2. The system decides that there are too few people on a given map but does not check if the more populated map(s) are far enough from capped to accomodate the players on the maps that are marked for closing. So, if you volunteer too late (for example after finishing an event instead of immediately) you do not get onto that more populated map but onto a newly created one… which would make no kittening sense at all. If that happens the system should just cancel the map closure instead of dumping the late volunteers on an even less populated map with no event progress at all.

Whatever the cause this needs fixing as it makes matters significantly worse for players on less populated maps compared to the time before the implementation of this system.

The additional charge from mesmers’ Harmonious Mantras trait is lost each time the character’s level gets readjusted.
For example, if a level 80 mesmer runs through the Diessa Plateau and crosses the border between an area where he is level 24 to an area where he is level 26 (or vice versa) and has one or more readied mantras with 3 charges they each lose the 3rd charge.

At the moment there seem to be several problems with this feature. Following the world boss train I encountered something strange: as it was the Modniir Ulgoth’s turn I ended up on a Harathi Hinterlands map that got marked for closure after something like 3 minutes.
So far, so good. But the new map I ended up on, which was supposed to have a higher population, got marked for closure almost immediately afterwards.
Now, I have my doubts that just as the pre events to the world boss begin players would leave the area in numbers big enough to warrant 2 almost simultaneous map closures.
So, here is what I think happened: bottlenecks.
We know that sometimes, when many people are trying to get onto one map instance in short order (like during the “night train” after the daily reset), the map does not let them. The map will appear as full. On less frequented maps this could lead to the creation of new instances each with its own bottleneck overflowing because of players still pouring onto the map.
So, after all the world boss hunters have arrived we have maybe one map instance with a sustainable population (the one that was open to begin with) and several more under or at the brink of the limit for map closure.
And apparently the system does not prioritize (or does so, but badly) which map you are sent to after volunteering. So you might just land on a map that is just a couple of players DCing or taxiing onto another instance away from being closed itself.

This, together with the closure apparently never being reconsidered, even when the formerly almost empty instance is suddenly soft- or even hardcapped, will be a serious problem for maps with highly volatile population numbers (like Sparkfly Fen before Tequatl or similarly out-of-the-way world boss spawns).
I hope this is just a short-term issue that gets sorted quickly.

After the very first event of the Ulgoth pre-event chain the message changes to “The Seraph are digging in at the Forward Camp”…. and that’s that. There is nothing happening after that beyond the time left to confront Ulgoth ticking away.

During the “Rescue the workers” event from the Living Story players are randomly captured by vines. So far so good. But sometimes when these vines are destroyed the player is not set free.
Instead of the vine or the character model you see a sickly greenish yellow glow and the player is stuck with that “break free” skill (which achieves nothing in this state) until he relogs or something attacks him and he gets downed.

You have to get really lucky to complete this event now. It always seems to spawn several thrashers at once, then nothing for roughly 2 minutes after they are defeated, then a couple of enemies again etc.

I just finished the recent part of the Living Story with my second character and I noticed that I did get a second exemplar of every part needed for the vine backpiece… except for the Pile of Phantasmal Residue. Is this a bug or some sort of intentional taunt?

The bug was already present before the last patch. My main character is a charr and I used to send him home via airship at the end of the day. Basically, when they added LA they added it twice at the cost of the Black Citadel. I was hoping they would fix it with this one but unfortunately they did not.

Spectral Flames have nothing to do with the Shatterer. They belong to the Ghosts of Ascalon (hence the “spectral” part). Shatterer is a completely separate entity.
Apparently they are supposed to make the ghost a bigger pain in the neck with their invulnerable clingy explosivness.

Since the Lion’s Arch destination was added to the options for the helmsman on the Captain’s Airship choosing the Black Citadel will take you to Lion’s Arch instead. When my charr pays the fare to the Black Citadel he wants to be taken to the Black Citadel not this semi-destroyed pirates’ nest. Please fix!

At first I thought so, too, but then I realized that it is extremely alt friendly, seeing that you get the full rewards for doing the story a second time with an alt.

Happens far too often for comfort. I think my record was deadly fall damage from a slope that was not even as high as my charr, although usually I die from slopes that at least look somewhat painful if I slipped on them in real life.

That’s not pink. It looks more like magenta. So, working as intended.

Deleted: Topic is no longer relevant since the 1 hour break is just an error regarding UTC times in the table given in the patchnotes.

Rouven.7409:

May I ask you how many timezones you think NA has?

May I ask you how many timezones you think Europe has?
May I ask you why you think that has any relevance to the question why the Americans get six uninterrupted hours of hardcore boss spawns and we do not, or rather: we do, but in the middle of the night, which is the exact reason why we have one hour without boss spawn right in the middle of our evening time?

EDIT: Nevermind, indeed the times given in the patch notes are wrong. They jumped one hour at 18:00 UTC and everything after that is one hour off. No problem in that case.