While I will probably look at the HOT stuff when we get the non-beta version I will be playing haloween more. I do not even plan on insta-leveling a revenant until the week after release (my next 20 scroll drops on the 27th).
It is unfortunate HOT did not come out in late August or September. This way they will have a chance to do a final shakedown or two before a lot of people are using it though.
I just want a combat log printed to file. There are many useful things you can do with combat logs that don’t even have anything to do with meters.
Logs period. While combat logs are useful for analysis chat logs are handy to have. I use them all the time in other games to remind me of something years later (who was it that said xyz and when did they say it). I also made a mock-up of how blind players could use the program by just using the system’s voice function with an existing special client.
Probably referring to the ones blocked by group events. Depending on the tools available to your class, you may or may not be able to solo it. The stealth consumable should however get the job done for the guarded ones. The hero challenge blocked by the Temple of Melandru however requires invulnerability/blocks/evades since you’re spammed with interrupting roots. I haven’t seen that since the megaservers however.
The average player is just playing the game, so these hero challenges are going to seem impossible to solo.
Ah, stealth, so that is why I keep getting the ‘what do you mean, HPs are easy’. I am doing them the hard way and actually fighting things.
If it is just one thing, okay, maybe you can pull it off but maybe you can not. The ones I dread though are the ones where there is a big bad and several other monsters that show up with them. Extra annoying if some want to get behind you. If you do not have a pet (or something like sup ogre runes) you need someone else there. Even if they are just doing a Doctor Who impression (“LOOK AT ME, I AM A TARGET!!!!!”).
I do not think zones will ever be unpopulated. It is just a question of what vets will be doing there? I for one think the new maps do not look as interesting as they could have been but it will probably be same-old-same-old for me but with new tools.
Ah, I did not realize armor disappeared when it broke. I think I have only had broken armor twice since starting a year ago as I generally get the slightest dent fixed at the first opportunity.
I am running around with 8 level 80s right now gathering HPs – some at at 85, some at 90. I have a pile of tomes saved up. A couple days after HOT my next 20 scroll drops. Insta-20 then 60 of my tomes.
The problem with an insta-80 is hero points. Assuming you need some for the elite and if we need a full unlock of everything else first ….
Same here, I have different playlists for different characters. At one time I was debating making one for each region instead (like pink floyd in orr).
Basically there is a point of diminishing returns. If, oh, 70% use language A, 20% use language B, and the rest divy up that final 10% eventually you reach a point where the # of potential players x what they will spend is greater than the translation costs.
That being said, it would be nice for players to be able to contribute translations. The ‘easiest’ way is an area at the bottom for subtitles then you could drop in modules for whatever language.
If they do 170 this entire thing was a waste of development money.
Look at how much effort has gone into developing this. Would it make sense for most of your work to benefit only a few people? I guarantee you there were plenty of people who tested the elites and do not have 170 HPs sitting around. Should we now give up those tracks we fell in love with?
I am working towards 100 on all of my characters. I am placing my money between 85 and 90 but want to give myself a cushion.
You will always have new players. Plus I am sure I am not the only vet who can not wait to take elite X into situation Y more than playing around in the new small zones.
If you have a personal guild have them join it and give them full perms. That way if your main accidentally leaves it the guild will not go poof. You can then be invited back and perms restored.
Actually Wintersday is very strongly oriented on Yule, or rather a mix of Yule and what became of it in the first years with the Christianization (plus a modern touch obviously). Most “christian” traditions we have on christmas are actually the result of pagan traditions which got “reworked” to be adapted for christmas. With Christianization the church moved a lot of their holidays to be at the same day, or at least general time frame, as the original pagan holidays, thus giving the people only the option to celebrate the christian holidays (not doing so was punishable).
To still hold to traditions the people basically mixed what was forced on them, and what they did for centuries.
Hmm, I never really thought about that but it makes sense given Tyrian culture.
Starting in late December makes sense for me given the name. We usually do not see snow until the second half of December and most of the time after the holidays. Wintersday has snow everywhere. I expect the climate where Anet is is about the same.
Content like the ho-ho-ho tron wearing holiday stuff in January just seems odd though. After Jan 1 how about tweaking the content slightly but keep the mechanics? Have him collect money for birthday presents. Snow is all over the place for more people then so snowball fights and such are fine.
Set character modell limit to medium .. that helps mostly to avoid hitting
the magical 3.5 gb margin where the game crashes.
Else .. if you don’t want to do that .. ask ANet to bring back “culling” .. that was
a mechanism that automatically had hidden character models if there were
too much around you, to avoid the problem .. however it was removed because
people complained about it.
I agree, If you have a decent machine do this. Set character model limit to medium or low so your not loading every high res armor set people have. instead it’ll load like 20 nearby people. High graphics can remain.
Culling was terrible in wvw. Invisible blobs would mow you down before seeing them.
That is frustrating in Teq. Too high a model limit and I crash. Too low and the champs attacking me (I usually do S hill defense) do not rez.
At least the mac ‘client’ (really the PC client in a cider wrapper) has a memory problem and it becomes noticeable during world bosses. I would expect similar problems with the actual PC client.
The crashing problem happens most often during world bosses. The solution is to turn your graphics down to as low as they will go. You might be able to raise them but do it slowly so you can make sure each raise does not crash things, You can look with a monitoring tool to make sure nothing else is pulling a lot of resources but odds are this is the solution.
(edit: I changed ‘memory leak’ to ‘memory issue’ as I have ram to spare on this box)
Three times yesterday I raised a human character and they had no armor on. Then when I went through the area next something had taken them out again in the same exact spot. I came across this in Queensdale, Hiranthi Hinterlands, and Timberline Falls.
Do they just not know how to wear armor or were they trying to get naked for whatever reason? Why even afk in that state, log out and google what to do. While occasionally it would happen before it happens more often now. I occasionally run across someone non-afk doing this too.
Maybe it is a language problem or something? The Queensdale one I can buy as a new person extremely confused (even though it is still odd) but how do you get to the other 2 without being killed first if you are low level and/or have no clue since you need to cross at least one other zone?
At 80 (where I am) the # of HPs you earned from leveling equals 100% unlock which is why I was so puzzled. If you have 100% unlock the only place you can get them is from hero challenges (except for 1 pt from something that no longer exists).
Hmm, did not realize that about the SW. I have done at least two hero challenges there so just assumed they would be in the count, thanks!
As a result, we’ve decided to hold off on releasing the first version of the new UI until a few weeks after the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™. This will give us a little more time to properly address the issues that were encountered as well as add some needed polish.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I really hated the test for one, and only one, reason. I could not pop up a tag while being in a party. This is incredibly useful at times, for both the commander and later the mentor tags. I do not need a squad while in a party, all I need is the ability to give directional information to people not in the party (“the banner is near the hill at the red commander tag”).
Half of my characters are at 80 and the others in the 70s. Having them all at 100 before HOT is realistic. Being at 200 before HOT is laughable.
If the skins are optional I will go with traits/skills first as they are more useful and afterwards get a few choice pieces (I mix and match stuff). Sure, the skins would be great to have in their entirety but I can live without them if need be. Plus I am sure some variation on them will be available through other means later (like the gem store).
How many HPs for elites. Sure, we will find out in 2 weeks anyway but it would either give us a goal or let us get back to the game. My GW2 schedule the next 2 weeks is 100% farming HPs.
Look at words with similar spellings …. play, may, stay, bay. An ‘ay’ suffix is often a long ‘a’ in most accents I am used to but English ones tend to be …. different.
For an example that is relevant this time of year, take Samhain. It is not, as you might expect, /sam/hane/ but instead /sohw/ihn/. Spellings do not always match vocalizations. So quay being pronounced differently in different places is certainly believable. I just never would have guessed “key” though, as that is an island (the florida keys).
Scritt!!! Not only are they cute but I would LOVE to see the mechanics. Maybe your stats would go up depending on how many others were in the vicinity?
I was tempted by viper as well and hope it makes a return. It looked great but having just bought Trickster’s (which I was happy to get while it was there) I was loath to spend a couple hundred gold more on another armor skin.
If there were to be trains (the reason being to show off things that people may have missed) I would do 1 per zone rather than trying to go between them. Vehicles when switching servers tend to be a mess in other games. If someone wants to cross a region quickly they will either run or WP, so you need some reason why people would take a train instead
The optimist in me wants to think that the lack of information means it won’t be too difficult to unlock elite specs.
That would be nice but I plan worst case if there is a lack of data. The datamine aside the probabilities of it being above 100 plummet while the same of encountering HPs you have been putting off skyrocket. It would be great if we knew costs then we could figure out risk/reward break-even points and get back to playing the game rather than farming HPs we missed.
Look at what they want to accomplish. They have put a LOT of work into the elites. Would they want them to be available to only some people or to as many as possible? Remember, it is a key selling point for HOT that we essentially are getting 10 new professions. If it cost something like 200+ HPs people would be less likely to buy the game. There is also the fact that future expansions will most likely have more elites so even if there are new HP challenges in the new areas people would want to earn the HPs before the expansion comes out.
Probably the only place trains would make sense is Kryta and Ascalon. Just look at where they exist the most (outside of routes between major cities) and the environs there.
Besides I think trains would offend the asura (both in term of WP competition and technology). It is hard to picture a sylvari being attracted to them too other being curious about any human thing.
edit: I am not sure how the Norn would react to them. A case could be made both ways. But certainly humans and charr would take to them.
edit2: BTW, before people start debating train routes I was thinking they are most often in western game genres. Although geographically it seems like there are most east-west trains in the US than there are ones that go all over the place, the main exception being the northeast corridor where you hit several big cities in a short route.
While Teq is my fave probably the one that has the greatest ease vs loot ratio is actually the Shaman or FE. I had to laugh one day (well, 2 days since I think there was a clock reset between them) when I got less loot from Jormag than the Shaman. I do agree the best ratio is probably the SW, especially if you hit the VW and the champ train right after it (I am not sure if technically the VW is considered a boss but rather the conclusion of a meta-event though, no matter how hard it is).
It is a tuff event, but doable if everyone knows whats got to be done .
If you can get a group there before the event starts and explain to everyone the phases of the event and whats got to be done its possible.
My success rate is about 1 in 6.
Which is rare, especially at that level. In fact I am struggling to think of any (outside of Orr, which is high-level anyway) where the mechanics are not obvious and in the event description. Usually it comes down to straightforward kill/defend events or collections. The events surrounding nebo (and the retake itself) all follow this formula so most players would naturally assume it is the same.
I have been playing for a year and did not realize the mechanics are anything different than “kill centaurs while the NPCs use the catapults against them”. If it is different maybe the description needs to change? If we are doing it wrong that would make it a LOT easier!
You can’t currently. However I would be happy if upon the release of HOT we get a one time relocation ability. My power necro soon to be reaper for instance would have no use for the curses line, but as I made him LONG before the expansion and he generally only does WvW it would seem fair to allow me to resort the points this one time.
Yes, of course if we have to be at 100% on all the current skills/traits it makes that moot. If not I am sure I could remove plenty of things I never use. The one thing I do like about getting HP right now is there is a good chance of someone else being nearby that will join in the fgight (either to help or because they need someone to help them get the point) … hopefully that is not a fluke because of HOT and continues.
You have to unlock everything else before you can unlock an elite. I’m almost 100% sure Anet discussed that at one point or another.
im also 99% sure i have read/heard that
id be okay for a higher hero point cost if they will introduce a new way to collect hero points – such as participating in hot events or the such…but it definatly shouldnt be a huge hassle – because they game should be about having fun not working towards having fun
Well, as long as they are reasonable about it. I would say 100 HPs and a full unlock of everything else is the max any reasonable (note that adjective) person could expect. By definition, we will not have those HPs that are post-HOT by launch.
I will do VW but I gasp do not spend all my time going up to champs and punching them in the nose …. I prefer to have fun and saying I HAVE to do something I would not normally do is strangely not in my definition of fun.
Of course, if we have to have a full unlock before we can unlock elites the issue becomes moot. If not though, the best solution would be to allow us to rewind things …. if you will use one of your 3 lines for the elites how often do you use ALL of the other lines given you only have 2 more slots? If your chosen last major trait is the first one why buy the other 2? Are you using the last skills in every skill line?
The mac ‘client’ is also a wrapper and has been in terrible shape for over a year. Also with no response.
Yes, and cider is probably the #1 offender of why people with custom PC gaming rigs say you can not play games on a mac. Macs are not designed for PC games, of course, but natively written games play great. Sure, cider is handy for some things but not for a full-fledged game.
Back to Linux though. From what we have seen it will basically be an addition of content, not significant changes to how the engine works (I doubt they will do a complete recode of everything). Some optimal specs may get tweaked, like graphics or memory, but nothing significant.
Granted I have only tried using it under ubuntu on a laptop. It crashes the laptop every time though. So hopefully your linux machine has a bit more oomph to it.
Have you ever considered a dual-boot setup on your linux box? While it may seem backwards it is what many mac gamers do.
I originally installed it on an SSD but tried moving it to an HDD and did not notice a significant difference in load times. WHich makes sense seeing as it is probably writing some stuff to my system folders on my SSD and it is not like it is loading all the data into memory.
I have plenty of space on my SSD. It is an enterprise-level 1/2 TB drive. The real estate on it is very expensive compared to my 3 TB HDD though so unless something needs/benefits from the SSD I prefer to keep it (especially if large) on the HDD.
Like many others I have a character in every class. My guardian is my least favourite and has this bad habit of dying. Yes, she is probably not tuned correctly since she was an early character, but others rolled at the same time are doing great.
For me ranger but followed very closely by warrior. It all comes down to your playstyle. I guess it is because both I have a GS/LB combination with.
I was happy when the beta was over for one thing and one thing only. I could not tag up and be in a party at the same time. Yes, there are very valid use cases for this. If the two contradict just let us put up our commander (and mentor?) tags without forming a party (as has been suggested) since 99% of the time (in PVE anyway) you are not doing it to form a squad anyway.
Secondly, even if the game requires you to complete world exploration, is that not a reasonable expectation?
No.
Do not expect your definition of fun to match that of everyone else. I do not complete maps to complete maps. It is exactly the same as someone saying EVERYONE use the same game mode as they do.
This is why people want to be able to reset hero points. They are not interested in doing challenges solely to satisfy some arbitrary design decision.
Ugh, I’m sorry but the concept of being forced into nearly fulfilling (or half fulfilling) map completion for every character just to unlock Elite specs ruins the entire thing for me. The absolute max I think would be reasonable is 100, otherwise it’s just an artificially inflated way to waste our time.
Same here. A bit under 100 I would consider reasonable (I am pegging my guess at 85-90) but not over it. I am not going to start grinding HPs for what will be 9 characters once I have a revenant. Half of them are in the 70s so they are not too bad and I hope to have all (bar the rev) around 85 by launch. It is not just going to all the places with HPs, it is that some are not just walk in, pick up your point, then walk out.
In order to provide a Character Bio they also have to provide a way to view that bio on other characters. Otherwise it serves no purpose. From there the question becomes, what else will they allow to be viewed about your character now that they’ve linked this one thing?
I’m not against it, I think it is one of the best aspects of a few games I’ve cherished. I just worry about what else might come out of it.
There are all sorts of possibilities, basically name a stat. Although hopefully all but the most basic things will able to be turned off if you do not want something broadcast.
If they wanted us to have plenty of HPs they would not have given us EXACTLY the number needed for all existing skills and traits.
The original plan was that you needed ~60 hero challenges and be level 80 to unlock all existing traits and skills. Due to feedback from WvWers, dungeon grinders, level skippers, etc, they decided to give you what you needed simply by reaching 80. The hidden consequence was of course that those ~60 points would be shifted to the elite specialization.
Moving forward, with future elite specialization, they want you to complete the challenges within the expansion to actually unlock them. They will likely rely on a vertical progression bloat style to accomplish that, as in each (new) hero challenge is worth ~10 points.
By that do you mean you think the full unlock will be 60? I can deal with that as half of my characters are in the 70s and I plan on bringing all of them up to 85 well before HOT.
This gets back to the idea of rewinding HPs we have spent. Future characters will know exactly how many HPs they will leave. We are in the dark and do not know if we need every HP in the game or what.
Running to HP’s isn’t all that hard use the maps on wiki to help plan your routes and wp’s plus so you know where each one is.
It is not the running but the fact that some of them are more challenging than most. Sure, going to the spiral in caledon forest and getting the flower is easy but it is not the same level as battling a champ in orr. Some hero challenges are next to impossible to do without 2 people fighting the Big Bad and their minions.
After awhile you will learn enough to level fast: what events spawn regularly, various tips like if an event is near a heart if you do the event you do part of the heart, and so on. Plus after your first character is a year old you get a scroll that will jump you up to level 20.
Assuming gold is not a huge deal crafting is the fastest way to level. You can learn 2 crafts before paying a gold extra for each. Getting one craft to level 400 (which you can do in a day or so when taking a couple hours away from adventuring) if you follow guides on the net will net you 8 levels and is around 20 gold. If you do all 10 crafts there is 80 right there. If you just do the ‘free’ 2 that is 16 levels.
I recently worked out that with a 20 scroll, doing 2 crafts to 400, and grinding intelligently I could get a character to 80 in around 2 weeks if I wanted.
Of course if someone wants to abuse someone or the game there are plenty of ways to do that already. Are they reportable? Sure, but people still do them.
Sure, I have seen abuse conducted via profiles elsewhere. You can not stop it. The way you handle it is via the reporting system.
I would LOVE to see profiles like we have in Second Life. Multiple pages for different categories of information.
I am grinding the open world. If they wanted us to have plenty of HPs they would not have given us EXACTLY the number needed for all existing skills and traits. That we got just as much as we needed, no more and no less, (assuming no hero challenges) is a pretty big hint. The suggestion that we get 100% world completion on all our characters now is pretty silly.
I agree with the OP, I wish we could trade some of our skills and traits back for the HPs. We can never have every skill/trait active (and with elites even less) anyway. What would really help is if we knew exactly how many HPs we will need. If I knew I was going to need, oh, 200 HP for a full unlock I would not sweat it because there is no possible way I will have that in the near future on all my characters.
