I guarantee you, just from knowing how Anet works, that the new expansion will nothing at all like HoT. Anet has always been hyper-reactive to crticism. Always.
I can’t speak to that. However, lest we miss who is pulling on the puppet strings and who is dancing, note that NCSOFT announces to investors that they need another expansion, and ANET shelves the popular Legendary crafting indefinitely and moves the people to the expansion, to speed it up.
From the conference call.
<snip>
Thanks for posting this.
Per my post, directly above yours, note that they did not mention as lessons learned the lack of new PVP content, the Hot maps being too hard or too few, the mobs hitting too hard, WVW maps being changed, the Master of Monuments being broken (twice) after working for years, the loot being the same as always, the price being too high, no free character slots, or any of the literally dozens of other things listed in this thread as suggestions of what they probably learned. I.e. no in game fine grained details were discussed at all. It’s finance people talking to investors, not gamers to gamers.
Like I said, it’s about revenue expectations not being met by HoT.
Their fix? Have another expansion sale in 2016 to get more revenue. Likely at the same price, same size, same freebies, etc. They moved devs from Legendary development to expansion development to make it happen this CY.
Exactly what I said they would say. I’ve been to a hundred of those, at least.
Wait. This is a letter to investors, about revenue. The lesson learned is about the amount of revenue that an expansion will bring in, not the why’s of it. They overestimated it. They will now have a shortfall for 2016 yearly unless they get another expansion out this year, to make up it. The shortfall is offset a bit by slightly higher than expected item sales. Most of the people who bought the first one will buy the 2nd, most who didn’t, won’t.
I’d like to see a report about the conference call, but I doubt it will be about the details of why HoT didn’t sell, particularly in game details. The game had already lost lots of players (see revenue before the HoT sale), so the buyer base was smaller than launch, and some extant players did not buy it. It will be about other game launches, etc.
Most of the call will be about how to make the revenue promises for the year, including another expansion sale. The people moved from Legendary development to the expansion are to speed it up, not make it bigger or better.
There is also a merchant outside of the Vigil Keep that gives this weird token you can click on daily, and request 1 crowbar, or other assorted type ‘keys’ used in HoT.
Where? or who? I’ve looked and clicked a lot, but might be blind….
I’m not talking the whole map. nor POI, Vistas, HPs… just the WPs.
Running from place to place is boring to do Map completion, this way you will have an option.
I would even pay gems/money for this.
Sounds like pay to win to me.
Running from place to place IS map completion. What do you think a map is?
Why not just ask to buy map completion itself in the gem store? Think how much faster that would be……
My ascended weapons have the exact same stats as a Legendary of the same type. If I later change my mind about the stats, they are easily changed, eliminating any value of the changeable legendary. Making colored footprints in the snow adds zero to my offense. Ascended are much easier to come by (I have 1 of each character type, total of 9, and each has the weapon(s) of choice in ascended (12 total). No way I could do that for legendary weapons.
Lastly, I don’t mind grinding, but I do mind RNG’s. Tell me I need to grind 1000 sea shells for an component, and I’ll grind away. Tell me I have 1 chance in 1000 to get the item for a combine at the mystic forge, and I’ll pass. I understand the math, and can calculate the likelihood it will be 2000 tries before I get it. Too high a number to bother with doing.
No.
It is interesting, fun and I enjoy it. It’s virtue is being free. However, it’s not a complete game by far, and praise should not wander into the lofty altitude of “best ever”.
Using a third tier game like BNS as a comparasion doesn’t move GW2 to best ever. It just moves it ahead of BNS.
If that’s your career in MMO’s in deciding “best” then you’re using a too thin of a sample size.
Yes, I understand unlocking it.
I could not answer my OP because my account has several 80’s and I opened it early. I am talking a friend into HoT, a first timer to GW2, and wondered if they could glide coming right into the game, in Tyria, while leveling or needed a character to 80 to open the skill for Tyria use.
on new HoT accounts immediately (level 2) in Tyria, or does the account have to have Glider Basics, which implies at least one level 80 campaigning in HoT for a bit?
Things can be a bit weird. Did two JPs yesterday with no issue. Tried to charge the key at Fire Elemental it keeps deploying at inappropriate times.
Yes, that’s my experience too. I lump it into the lag problem of the game. Laggy areas, more issues.
The jumping problem has been there since gliding was introduced. People complained, rightfully, the it sometimes the glider did not deploy in time to save a glide and they died or fell too much to make the landing point when it finally kicked in.. ANET changed deployment to accommodate the various lags in the system (lumping them all into network lag) and the chute deployed in a better fashion, but the jump problem was now exacerbated. We all have different lags: our own machine, the internet ping, and the server lag at ANET, so we all get different results. Then various places in the game are more laggy than others.
Jumping upward doesn’t seem to have issues. Any long flat jump, where the character is dropping the 2nd half of the jump, and at the limit of the characters jump range, seems to be a lag dependent item as to whether the chute deploys of doesn’t. It’kitten or miss. Compound it with a need to stick the landing on a small column and it’s curtains.
I’d be happy with a toggle off/on, just as walk/run toggle.
Ever since they added gliding to core Tyria jumping have been a pain due to the constant glider opening when trying to do longer jumps as i’m so use to holding my space bar down.
So dear Arenanet can we please have a toggle on and off for the gilder deployment
I would love to hear from people if this is something you would like too.
I’m glad I read this as I was about to write one too.
Yes, long horizontal jumps onto tight landing spots are terrible when the chute opens, and it almost always does.
We need just a key toggle, like walk/run, or autorun toggle.
for the seemingly endless new builds?
When the game was first launched, not much lasted an hour, even instance runs, so 1 hour restarts seemed okay.
Now there are metas that last up to 2 hours, so a 2 hour restart seems more in order. Nothing can be so urgent that it can wait 2 hours, and the technology is incredibly simple to implement it.
It looks like it was a bug that was introduced a few patches ago. If you log out or close the client to patch then your ID, password, and launcher options all remain, but if you let the game close the client for you (changing maps, timer running out) it’ll wipe those.
Yes, that’s exactly what I observed.
There’s no excuse for breaking something that’s worked satisfactorily for years, but ANET seems to do it regularly. It’s not obvious why they would even let someone work on the login screen. Aren’t there enough broken things to fix or new content to generate without breaking some working items?
(edited by Michael.9403)
after each new build? Why do I have to recheck the boxes telling our machine to remember them (which ANET overrides each rebuild)?
I know of no security reason to require new re-entry of user ID’s and passwords into MY machine’s password system on a daily basis. Every few months? Maybe. Twice a day? Come on. This is the 4th time since Jan 26 update, so it’s time to take pen in hand…
ANET, please show the software peeps how to include ALL the files when you do a nightly rebuild, so this irritating feature can go away.
Thank you.
That’s what it sounded like from the description, but I’ve never seen one. Perhaps I don’t know what they look like, but I’ve been in most of the airways in the game.
Can they not be seen if you don’t have the mastery, or just are they just rare occurances in general?
I’m looking at the next gliding mastery past where I am. If I had it, do I find special points in the game and can now use them? Do I lean into the normal updrafts and get some different result? Etc.
In short, what is the mechanization and what would be the effect if I had the mastery?
As far as I know, the only “upgrade” with Viper stats is a black diamond. I don’t know of any upgrade with Sinister stats. However, I wouldn’t use those as an upgrade for viper or sinister armor or weapons; I’d get runes and sigils that go with my build. But if you for some reason had a surplus of black diamonds, that could work ok, I suppose.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I understand about Runes and Sigils and have a full set of Berserker runes for this character. I forgot the black diamond was the item for Viper, as I started to ask about sinister and added viper as a quick afterthought. The character in question has Ascended Rampager jewelry, from the days of only the basic stat groups, and I thought to switch the upgrade to sinister rather than get a whole set of ascended jewelry and I’d likely use sinister for that, as condition duration is capped.
Is there a crafted or harvested upgrade item for weapons or armor with sinister or viper stats? I’ve searched the web and can only find the jewelry items. Whatever they are would be similar to the gemstone upgrades (coral, ruby, etc) of the original gear types.
TYIA
Here it is the middle of January, unknown how many months have passed since I visited here and learned they’d forgotten the two dailies and we keep getting them, well, almost daily. I don’t see evidence it’s been fixed. Have I missed an announcement?
Thanks all for all the comebacks. I am in the process of switching to conditions and was doing the spreadsheet of before/after. I had the 33% enabled and needed to turn them off temporarily.
Like I said, I was blind, so a quick question here while I ran an errand got me moving again.
I understand the buildup, and am grinding flax farms and AB meta for viper gear mats. Unfortunately, the necromancer was ahead of him in the queue and got the first set of Viper gear, so I’ve just started this one up the line.
What causes this for the engineer? Is it native to the engineer, or is it some trait I’ve not found, despite looking a bit? I’m probably blind….
It wasn’t a matter of taking a risk. I didn’t know about it until I read of it on a fan site. Then when I saw it was time gated, I read up on it.
Still, you didn’t explain why the characters were still there, unlike the rest of the Wintersday characters, if they didn’t want it to continue. My guess is some new dev made some change elsewhere and crashed the completion of the Grawnk Munch. They have a long history of breaking things that used to work. We’ll never know, as there are so many more important bugs in the game that haven’t been fixed to expect this to be.
Something clearly has changed. Quoting from the Wiki:
“You can still finish the scavenger hunt and feed Grawnk the delicacies after Wintersday 2014 ended. When you go to your home instance, Grawnk and the orphan will still show up. Talk to Grawnk and he will tell you where Sous-Chef Seimur Oxbone is and you can still find him, although his icon won’t show up on the map like it did during Wintersday. After feeding him three times, you will still get the collection unlock item and you can then go do the jumping puzzles to get the ornaments. Once done, you will receive credit for the achievement and get your home instance node and the Orphan’s Generous Gift.”
The discussion behind the page indicates you have to have fed him once.
When I got to the home instance after Wintersday closed, there he and the orphan were, complete with candy marker over their heads. Why leave them in game if it wasn’t meant to be completed? Methinks someone changed something elsewhere and crashed it.
(edited by Michael.9403)
Something clearly has changed. Quoting from the Wiki:
“You can still finish the scavenger hunt and feed Grawnk the delicacies after Wintersday 2014 ended. When you go to your home instance, Grawnk and the orphan will still show up. Talk to Grawnk and he will tell you where Sous-Chef Seimur Oxbone is and you can still find him, although his icon won’t show up on the map like it did during Wintersday. After feeding him three times, you will still get the collection unlock item and you can then go do the jumping puzzles to get the ornaments. Once done, you will receive credit for the achievement and get your home instance node and the Orphan’s Generous Gift.”
The discussion behind the page indicates you have to have fed him once.
I need the reward, a holiday display case, to continue to the orphan gifts phase. The wiki, and several other references clearly say the quest can be finished after Wintersday, and he’d been fed twice prior to tonight. He interacted tonight after Wintersday had ended, to give me the 3rd clue. Got the food, gave it to him, he died, but no reward that I can find. I searched the ground, talked to the orphans, checked mail, etc.
Where do I find the item to progress? I might have not looked the right place.
I also checked the achievements, and no joy there either. Festivals is no longer a listing, so I can’t tell if I finished the quest or not by checking the journal.
Help please. I’ve reread the Wiki and can’t see a step I might have missed.
Empty fragments also drop from:
- Open world chests (for L80 characters only). There are lists (“on the wiki”:) and farming maps available, e.g. (on the wiki)
- Wintersday Gifts, about 30 fragments per stack of gifts or Trick-or-Treat bags, ~25/stack.
- Silverwastes chest farming, although you get plenty of dragonite and bloodstone too.
I was hoping there are new sources and wiki may havent been updated yet or something.
<snip>
So with all these in mind – does one have to accept that these fragments are simply harder to come by now or is there a ‘hack’? Thats what I wanted to know…
When Ascended armor first was launched, I too lacked empyreal fragments, and settled on the soloable open world chest runs. I ran 6 chests in Queensdale (3 in Demongrub and others scattered) and 6 in sparkfly fen. There are more chests in those and other zones, but I chose one’s that I could quickly run/kill the guards if any, loot, find next WP, and move on. You can run them once per day per level 80, and I had 5 at that time, so could gather more than 100 in an hour and a half. You go at your own pace and sense of immediate need. You can stop at any time, to do personal chores, etc.
I’m aware of all the options listed in this thread, and at the moment see no reason to change from the open world chest runs for both production rate and convenience of timing.
Good luck to you. Do you have any idea on how long it will take you?
A quick experiment yeilds harvesting slightly over 430 nodes = 1 level.
Hmm, literally speaking it’d be pretty hard to get exp solely from gathering.
You’ll get a lot of experience just from getting place to place just for map exploration just to reach nodes though. Killing things not associated with hearts and events tends to not be a very large portion of your xp gained and it also doesn’t help that the first very low level areas don’t have any gathering nodes at all.
I doubt anyone can solely get exp from harvesting.
OTOH, my quote of 95% isn’t a stretch. For ascended weapons, I needed wood and metals, and they are on known routes in known zones. You get about 25% of a level if you do every WP, Vista, and Point of Interest, and you only get about 1/3 of that running a route, since you miss most of the zone. You only get that once, while the gathering nodes renew, so you can get that XP once per hour at no further gain from the zone itself. You also don’t need to kill anything. You can harvest and run off yard trash, or skip the node.
You should also get out more. All the newbie zones have harvesting nodes.
(edited by Michael.9403)
Guild drama is common as rain. Kick him and move on.
I have 8 alts, one of each of the original 8 classes, and the last 3 got 95% of their experience by gathering. I was outfitting all of them in Ascended gear, which takes a lot of gathering. Since I hate wasting experience opportunities, I simply raised alts and sent them to gathering lower tier stuff. The problem is, they level too fast so you need another to step into the lower tiers. As they progressed upward, then next one down took over the lower tier and up they all went in the gathering tiers as they leveled enough to go for the next tier.
At the moment they all have Ascended weapons (both hands worth), Ascended coats, some have Ascended pants, and at least 3 pieces of Ascended jewelry each.
I’m now raising a Revenant and guess what her assignment is? You guessed it….gathering. After all, she’ll need ascended gear too….
You can gather even when you’re brain dead, so it’s something to do when it’s that time of night.
(edited by Michael.9403)
Thank you. Has this always been the case, or something that’s come along in the last few months?
Usually I’m measuring cast times, after cast times, and true cool down times (vs what’s on the display, since aftercast isn’t given, and other displayed values are frequently wrong. I only happened to notice this time because my condition damage listed on the spell was way down, which I traced to lack of condition duration.
For only 10g I can buy an amulet to give me an arbitrary amount, but I’ll pass. The damage is correct back in the real world, which is all that matters. I’m just measuring timing.
I don’t PVP, so I can’t tell. However, I do use the training dummies in the PVP lobby to test things, and today, the first time I went in with Viper armor, I find the expertise zeroed and my condition duration at zero also.
What am I doing wrong, or does it really not work in there?
I am attempting to replay the 2nd (Torn from the Sky) and 3rd (The Jungle Provides) HOT storyline instances for achievements. I would be considered a veteran of the solo game and understand gameplay but maybe not replaying instances.
I have several problems, probably errors on my part but perhaps bugs. Help please.
I took a level 80 character through the first 3 stories successfully solo with no problems and have not started the 4th story.
By reading Dulfy I knew I needed a sylvari character for one achievement, so decided to run it through the replay. Unfortunately, this means start from the beginning (story 1) and play the zones one time, then do them again on that player for the replay. Okay, I did that. I noted that I got one achievement that first pass (Weed whacking) even thought it didn’t qualify as the first pass on the Search and Destroy I picked to learn (vs Dug In, which the first player had done). So I got replay credit for one achievement, and not the other. I then replayed successfully (on the sylvari) the Dug In achievement, and saved the demented slyvari warrier for credit on that one. So far 3 achievements out the the 5 listed,.
I then replayed the instance a 2nd time on the sylvari to get Search and Rescue. I successfully completed it, got them back to the camp, finished the night attack and the instance was again completed. No credit on the achievement. What gives? Did I miss something, or is it bugged.?
Still needing one 5 point achievement to reach a major milestone, I went back to the first character who had completed the 3rd instance (The Jungle Provides), and chose to repeat A Good Offense, the path I took the first time thru. Again, easily successful, and no credit for the achievement. What am I doing wrong? He certainly completed it two times, without issue.
(edited by Michael.9403)
My download today produced that warning from GlassWire, my internet usage monitoring software. It also gave a second warning about the Guild Wars 2 game client: “signature changed from ArenaNet to blank”
What’s up with that?
Viola!
The answer had to be something like that, so someone here would know the answer.
I was looking at the achievement screen. I’ve never actually looked at the story screen in a while, since finishing the personal story long ago. I don’t think LW1 used that screen? I finished it as it progressed.
Thanks.
I’ve completed the Gates of Magumma part, and the achievements are unlocked on my achievement screen. I simply cannot get back into the instance to replay it for the achievements because I can’t find the entrance marker even though I’m standing in the exact spotin Brisbane where another of my characters sees the original marker to run it the first time.
(edited by Michael.9403)
I’m playing through LW2 to catch up on achievements missed from the past. I’ve played the first part, Gates of Magumma, and unlocked the achievement stack. According to Dulfy and my ingame email, “you can replay any of the specific instances for achievements by heading to purple circles on the map (1 in Brisban, 2 in Dry Top)”. However, I’ve roamed all over the areas where the original instances were located, and no joy on anything purple. I expected the original instance marker just recolored, but apparently not.
I can see the normal instance on other characters that have not donethe storyline, but not on the one that has finished and qualified for the achievements.
Am I in the wrong place for replay? Am I looking right at it and not seeing it? Is there a time lag between completing the storyline and being able to do the achievements? Do I have a settings issue? I’ve relogged, etc, but no joy.
Help please.
Good call and thanks. How I got part 6 unlocked without doing or unlocking any of parts 1 – 5 escapes me, and I’d not have guessed that.
I looked into buying LW2 in the gem store, where it advertised all 8 LW2 stories in one pack, followed by a note that story 6, “Tangled Paths” was not included. (I suppose that meant I could buy 7 of the 8 stories in one pack).
Is 6 free? Is it purchased separately even though advertised as all 8 parts? How do I get the achievements for part 6? Can I progress to stories 7 and 8 with no 6?
Who has purchased this pack and can explain how it works?
I looked into buying LW2 in the gem store, where it advertised all 8 LW2 stories in one pack, followed by a note that story 6, “Tangled Paths” was not included. (I suppose that meant I could buy 7 of the 8 stories in one pack).
Is 6 free? How do I get the achievements for 6? Can I progress to stories 7 and 8 with no 6?
Who has purchased this pack and how did it work?
I purchased the core game several months ago but have not gotten around to using the game code until now. I don’t want to purchase anything, but simply use the item I’ve purchased.
I opened a new account, loaded the game, and got in to play without the normal challenge to enter a game serial code. I found I can play but have a banner in the upper left corner to upgrade to full access, which is what I want to do. However, my only option behind that banner is to purchase Heart of Thorns, which I don’t want to do. How to I become just become an ordinary full account, by entering a perfectly good game serial code, like my other?
I’m attempting to download and install the game for my sister, who’s on a rural internet data plan from her phone provider, Verison. In order to conserve the bandwidth usage for the install, I bought a CD version and installed it, then signed up for an account, and logged in. We seem to be getting an enormous “patch”, at the moment over 2GB and not yet 20% done. My understanding was that at least the art from the game would come from the CD, so we’d need only the game file changes, and thought that might be on the order of a GB or so, but it projects to 15GB, which is the entire monthly plan and she can’t afford it.
To make matters worse, we restarted once, around the 1GBpoint to see if we were doing something wrong, and after logging in again the download seems to have started over again, with the same number of files showing as at the beginning, but this may be an error on our part. I.e I expected it to resume where it left off at the worst case.
After installing from a CD, what should the total download be to update the game from the CD? What would it be without the CD? Is there a problem with CD’s and installing that I don’t understand?
Rose:
Thank you very much for a thorough and easy to understand reply!
I have previously only purchased bank bag slots and extra character slots, which I understand how work. I’m potentially interested in purchasing armor skins, and will use an example the Incarnate Light Armor Skin.
Is this skin only useful on 1 of my characters, or is it available to all my light armor wearers?
Can the colors be adjusted, or are they fixed?
Can I equip a different hat and that hat be used, or is the entire skin constantly up?
Continuing the questions, if I purchase a Heal-a-Tron backpack skin, it is usable on all characters on the account, or do I need 1 per character?
TIA
My eight characters use either Rata Sum or the Black Citadel, depending on which side of the map they are on and what their assignments are. Both have all the necessities nearby to a central waypoint.
LA is a big disappointment. I don’t know if they ran out of artists, or ran out of ideas, but it sure seems a weak effort for all the hype.
I can find only 1 mender, irritatingly out of the way, no close WP to the trading post or the crafting areas. I use it only for the mystic forge daily, when that comes up. For all that emptiness, it sure takes a long time to load too.
Whatever number of gems roughly 1000 in game gold would buy over the 2 years. A lot of gems, zero dollars. 5 char slots (at 800 per) 5 bank slots (at 600 per?) and a few odd items here or there. I’ll likely buy the expansion with gems from in game gold.
I see no need to spend real life money when gold is to easy to earn. After all, it’s a game, right?
Meta is short for ‘metagame standard’.
Well thanks.
I’ve understood all along what the word meta really means, and could not understand why it was used in “the berserker meta”. Nothing self referential about that.
All of your characters can use the precision and toughness. It might not be your first choice, but you’re getting a weapon with 5% more damage than any exotic it replaces, and you’d not get 5% worth of power instead of toughness.
It only gives 5% more at level 80. As soon as you play below 80 the base damage
is the same as exotic and you will loose damage.
hmmmmm. I didn’t know that. Thanks for the input. I wonder why that is?
OTOH, most things lower than 80 can be handled with sticks and rags, other than the occasional champion that might actually be soloed, so I’d take the ascended anyway.