Guild Wars 2

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Minos.5168:

He’s mentioned in the 50 love letters that Miyani has sent to you.

I haven’t gotten any letters from Miyani. Must be bugged for me too. Thanks for the info.

I guess I must have gotten yours… I really wish she’d stop writing me.

Have you talked to her (and thus Zommoros) in Lion’s Arch yet?

Canach, Largos, and Noll on Tarnished Coast.

Linsey said that EVENTUALLY Ascended gear will be available through various methods. Though, currently, it seems like they’re limited to the dungeon.

Like I said…
The largos is denoted by the star on the map, once you enter Kessex Hills. He should be somewhere to the southeast of the Blood Witch’s lair.

He’s mentioned in the 50 love letters that Miyani has sent to you.

I don’t recall Blizzard having nearly as many bugs with their events, when I was playing Warcraft… (I also don’t recall GW1 having these issues, but I digress.)

Blizzard has a PTR, which allows a large number of players to play-test upcoming content and help make sure everything is working properly.

I understand that ArenaNet doesn’t have a million play testers on staff, so these event bugs may go unnoticed… But allowing your users to play test for you would allow you to do larger scale tests before an official release.

As far as “ruining” the surprise of the event:
To whomever is obsessed with having “surprise” one-time events… They don’t really add much to the experience. Especially when the servers can barely stay alive with everyone logged in simultaneously.

And WoW has never seemed to have any issues with a PTR ruining the surprise. It streamlines the update and requires less hotfixes after the fact.

GW2’s live-team seems worse at planning stuff than GW1.

I don’t really remember any of these issues with the original game. Primarily because they didn’t have any issue with extending a holiday or replaying an event every hour.

None of this “one time event” silliness.

I recall at least one occasion where a holiday was extended because there was a bug or some other reason people couldn’t participate.

The whole “NO! HALLOWEEN ENDS ON THE 31st!” attitude was a little absurd, especially with everything going on around the world.

Agreed.

It’s nice to know they’ve thoroughly tested their patches before they release them.

Most event NPCs seem bugged. So if they’re not glitched on your server yet, you’re lucky.

SoulTrain: The largos is denoted by the star on the map, once you enter Kessex Hills. He should be somewhere to the southeast of the Blood Witch’s lair.

Raincrow.1840:

Minos.5168:

Didn’t you hear? They’re trying to make GW2 the new WoW.

Certainly feels that way.

Too much whining from disgruntled raiders about “no end game”… and sadly, they’re listening to them.

Yeah, it was evidenced in Linsey’s blog post about the Ascended gear. In stating that people need “to feel like they’re progressing.”

I feel like the Fractals alone would have been fun to do (if they had sufficient reason to do them). They didn’t need to make Ascended gear a part of it… Just new armor/weapon skins like they’ve done.

They ought to play-test the Fractals more.

The battles aren’t too bad, but certain mechanics should be tweaked.

Like possibly increasing the swamp’s wisp reset timer by a second or two.

And maybe increasing the radius of the lava dropped on the dredge boss.

Probably just their way of trying to avoid a mass of exotics winding up on the TP and drastically dropping the price of them.

Because, god forbid anyone have max stat gear without a lot of work.

Didn’t you hear? They’re trying to make GW2 the new WoW.

Grinding the a new set of dungeons every few months for the highest stat gear.

It certainly explains why the crafting professions are so similar to WoW, but you can’t really out-WoW WoW.

If he likes it enough to upgrade, I’d imagine he’d get to keep everything he gains this weekend.

Moreover, I’d imagine that they’ll probably keep the data of these trial accounts for at least a month (until after the holidays). It’d be stupid to just wipe it all immediately.

I saw someone mention GW1… You couldn’t die in GW1 by falling off a cliff. Therefore there wouldn’t really be occasions when your party members couldn’t “reach you” especially since most Rez skills in GW1 were ranged (and not requiring you to touch the other player).

Derptrix.9320:

Better*, not quite “right” in my mind.

There’s still a LOT of arguable “junk” in these chests for 250 gems.

Personally, if the mini-pets were bought separately then that would be better in my mind.

I think what’s really getting me at the moment though? For weeks, -weeks- the Gold<->Gem ratio was roughly 124 Gems for 1 Gold, it was this way mere hours ago too. Suddenly, once the patch hits? roughly 85 Gems for 1 Gold. Makes it so arguably, buying gems is more effective than converting gold.

I know ANet need to make money but fiddling with the conversion rates like that is…not good business, in my mind.

Uh… Considering that the Gem Store was primarily considered as a way for ANet to make money in the first place, I’d always wondered why it seemed like they were so generous on gold to gem conversions in the first place.

I’d imagine that a lot of people have been buying gems with gold over the past week (and even more so right now) to see what the new items are.

Edit: In other words, I don’t think they’re “fiddling” with conversion rates any more than they have previously. It’s supply and demand. People want to buy gems, so it’s only expected that the cost of gems will go up.

ArenaNet gave us a free max-stat Exotic (the only down side being that it wasn’t level 80 to accept max-level upgrades) to anyone that completed the scavenger hunt…

So anyone think we’ll get a free Ascended back piece by the end of this weekend?

I mean, the primary focus of the event seems to be in figuring out how to damage the karka. If you need an infusion to do that… Then it’d only make sense for everyone that participates to get a piece of Ascended gear.

It’d also be a nice treat for people in the trial (that then decide to buy the game) since they’d then already have one piece of Ascended gear.

That’d leave the rings as the only thing to grind for in the Lost Shores release.

It’s generally better to just sell the exotics on the TP than to salvage them into ecto… I’d imagine the same would be true of Ascended gear.

I’m guessing Ascended gear will have an even higher probability of resulting in a legendary precursor from the mystic forge, though. (Though, we aren’t getting Ascended weapons with this update.)

I kind of expected the level cap to increase with an expansion… I mean, they announced level 80 as being “max” before WoW’s Cataclysm (when level 80 was the max in WoW).

I’m kind of expecting the Canthan expansion to boost the max level to 90 (WoW’s current max level).

But I’d expect it to be the same as going from 70 to 80, which wouldn’t be too bad. Certainly nothing like grinding for one set of gear after another.

They initially threw around the idea of having no level cap. (I imagined they’d have some diminishing returns mechanic on stats… Where past a certain point, it didn’t matter so much.)

It would make sense for them to keep slots on weapons and armor… I mean, all the rune sets they’ve already created would just go to waste otherwise.

They both had two slots in the original Guild Wars.

Armor had insignia and runes.

Weapons had inscriptions and another weapon-specific modifier.

The 120 gold T3 cultural armor is still “rare” rather than “exotic”…

I doubt that’ll get an upgrade. Why should anything else? Like the Halloween exotics…

The only thing they’ve guaranteed will receive an upgrade is Legendaries.

I think most of this is due to all the whining about Legendaries not being more powerful.

None of the dungeon boss battles are particularly well designed.

I’d imagine that even if we had a “ground battle” with Zhaitan, he’s one-hit everyone (like many of the bosses) and you’d spend most of the match trying to rally your downed party members. All while slowly whittling away at his health bar.

Compared with Deathwing and the Dragon’s Soul raid in WoW, I’m vastly disappointed by GW2. The DS raid took people a while to get used to, but once everyone knew the mechanics… It’s a fun, interesting series of boss battles.

With all other GW2 boss battles, I didn’t see anything that convinced me ArenaNet could pull off anything close to that.

Senik.6549:

I don’t want a gear treadmill either, but having to collect 2 pieces every 3-4 months hardly seems like a treadmill. It seems more like something to do so I stand less of a chance of getting bored with the game. This is honestly no different than if access to the new content was gated by a key/attunement, or if you had to pay/quest to add the infusion sockets to your existing gear. They way they implemented it just struck a nerve with people.

This has really been a sad week on the forums. You guys are like a bunch of rescue dogs that were ruthlessly beaten with a broom by your previous (MMO) owners, to the point that you now come completely unhinged at antyhing that looks remotely like a broom.

People need to seriously calm down and wait to see how things turn out after the expansion, rather than proclaim the sky is falling.

I played the original Guild Wars… Then after Eye of the North, I tried WoW with Cataclysm.

ArenaNet promised there wouldn’t be a gear grind. They stated that high end gear would only differ in looks. Their stance is now completely different from what they said when they were launching the game.

They’re trying to create ways to keep people playing. Because, obviously, if no one is playing, ArenaNet isn’t making money. (since they’re dependent upon Gem sales)

In my mind, people have likely stopped playing for a variety of reasons… With “gear grind” being very low on people’s list of desires.

They should fix dungeons… Make the fights work as they intended. Currently they’re not really play tested very well.

They’re nothing like WoW bosses with fight mechanics to learn and attacks to avoid. In GW2, the timing of attacks is far too quick and unpredictable to avoid. So most everyone ends up dying in dungeons… several times.

I guess that’s how ArenaNet imagined it would happen, since there’s a repair anvil in the dungeon. It’s not fun. People just grind the dungeons until they get enough tokens for the gear that they want (or the legendary “Gift” that they want).

I’m guessing they probably haven’t really addressed any game mechanics in this update, and that the Fractals of the Mists dungeon will be just as badly designed as existing dungeons. However, everyone will grind it for Ascended rings and back armor.

mcarswell.3768:

They did the arbitrary debuff/required dungeon gear thing in LotRo and it was horrible. They eventually removed it due to player outrage.
It’s not a new mechanic. It’s just lazy and annoying.

They did the arbitrary debuff thing in Guild Wars: Prophecies too… The origin of “infused” armor and ascension and such.

It was a lousy mechanic then too, that was never used except with Mursaat enemies in Prophecies (and the GW Beyond content located in the same region).

It required you to run to a Seer to infuse your armor to be viable against Mursaat.

Nightfall had a somewhat similar mechanic with the Lightbringer title track for Abbadon’s forces, but it wasn’t tied to specific gear. Just to the character’s title progress.

I’m very disappointed this is their idea of “fixing” GW2. They should have focused on making it more fun to play (no one really seems to enjoy doing dungeons).

The only way ANet will truly learn a lesson about drop rates is if we speak with our cash. I didn’t buy any keys last time, because I waited to read the forums first.

I’m going to hope that they’ve learned from the PR catastrophe that occurred last time (in which they even added “Mad King’s Chests” to the Mystic Forge to offset people’s losses).

If they haven’t, then people just won’t buy keys.

If they have and they’ve upped the drop rates, then I’m sure we’ll find out fairly soon after (by people posting on the forums “Look at my new skin!”) and it might be worth spending a few bucks to get some skins.

Here’s hoping “Ascended” gear works like “Infused” gear did in the original GW.

If not, you’re going to need all new FINE transmutation stones to keep the current look that you’ve got. (Unless you want to look just like everyone else does with their Ascended gear.)

If ArenaNet adds an all new gear-grind… Then they’ve failed. They’ve failed at fixing the grinding issues with the game.

I’m guessing the new dungeon will have all the same issues that existing dungeons do, only that it’ll contain “Ascended” gear which will make people grind the dungeon for it.

ArenaNet doesn’t really appear to be focusing on fixing any complaints about the game (like dungeons, for one) before adding new content. It’s doubtful they’ll ever actually stop to fix their past mistakes.

If they keep going like this, I’d be surprised if Guild Wars 2 doesn’t wind up like Diablo 3… Where it’s essentially a ghost town.

Meanwhile, to get an “Icy Dragon Sword” (aka Jormag’s Breath) in GW2… You use the Mystic Forge. Yeah, it requires Corrupted Lodestones… but I agree with the idea that each zone should have different drop sets other than these lodestones. (Which ANet will probably do with future zones, like The Lost Shores.)

I agree with this.

Each player should get their own condition stack for the enemy.

Either way, 5s isn’t very much… I don’t see why they decrease it for lower levels. A level 80 could complete the dailies in low-level zones.

Like I said (in my rather lengthy post), I think ANet should take a good look at drop rates and reconsider the MF mechanic.

Diablo 3 did this (and made other changes), but it seemed too little too late. The damage had been done, and players had found other games to play.

Malediktus.9250:

Endgame of gw2 is a grind to look prettier. For the last 300h+ of playtime I did little else than trying to farm for my legendary (sunrise) and not getting much closer because prices keep skyrocketing (precursors and mats like lodestones).

Right, and I’m not saying that legendaries should be given to everyone. It should require some effort… but it already requires a lot of skill points, karma, and map completion. (As well as two maxed crafting professions.)

I honestly don’t even care about legendaries… Since I’m a Ranger and I don’t want either bow.

I would, however, like to see more people playing the game. And it’s not really helping matters if everyone has this assumption that the game is “too grindy.”

Someone had actually played the game for a bit, and went back to WoW…

Others were going off of hear-say. But it’s not really like I can dispute that it is “grindy” once you reach level 80.

Seeing as John Smith and ArenaNet seem intent on keeping gold (and items) scare for the “benefit” of the economy. Go ahead, “stabilize” the economy… You’re turning people off of the game (to the point that they wouldn’t even try it for free).

I figured since the refer-a-friend weekend is coming up, I decided to see if any of my online friends would want to try Guild Wars… (most of whom play WoW)

The response was a resounding “Nah, no thanks.” With reasons generally being related to hearing that the game was “too grindy.”

Is the November 15th patch going to address those concerns? I mean, what’s the point to being able to invite people to play if no one wants to bother trying the game.

Let’s take an honest look at these things… Legendary precursors cost at least 200 gold. (I haven’t seen an exotic drop in recent memory… but I just started using Magic Find gear, so I’m hoping they’ll become slightly more common.) Some people are saying they can make between 2-5 gold in an hour by farming. That’s nearly 100 hours farming for JUST the precursor. Not including all the extra stuff required for a legendary.

Alternatively, if you want to consider the “buy it” route, you’ll get ~8 gold for $20 real cash. That makes the legendaries like $500 real cash value. I could get a few years subscription to any pay-to-play MMO for that.

What I think could remedy the issue: Take a long, hard look at drop rates and the Magic Find dynamic. Limit MF to a certain percentage (like Diablo 3 did to prevent everyone from just focusing on buffing MF to an insane amount).

Then make the base exotic drop rate just slightly higher. I’m not saying they should fall out of the sky… but a higher drop rate would result in lower costs for the precursors since you can throw them into the Mystic Forge.

Next, either up the vendor price of magic items or drop the vendor price for T3 cultural gear. I mean, 120 gold? Using the prior estimates… That’s either 60 hours of farming or $300 real cash.

And let’s be honest, here… 60 hours of work in the US at minimum wage (not including overtime or taking taxes into account) would give you $435… So to anyone making 2 gold an hour or less, you’re essentially wasting your time with farming. You’d be better off getting a temporary second job, unless you actually enjoy the farming.

And this grind is unnecessary… I mean, legendaries are currently set up so that it’ll take people over a year to get. Shouldn’t we be expecting a Cantha expansion within a year? (provided the game doesn’t fail)

Shouldn’t Cantha be expected to bring with it new gear (and possibly higher levels which would outdate any level 80 gear) and weapons to strive for?

And they’re likely to continue to introduce extra areas (which may include new armor/weapon skins) like the Lost Shores prior to an actual expansion… So there should always be new content to strive for.

So… He says that “one day soon” Zhaitan and his minions will be a distant memory as we thin them out.

Does this mean that “one day soon” Orr won’t be quite as packed with Risen that like to snare, pull, and trap us every 5 seconds?

I’m waiting that day (patch) with great anticipation.

Kular: Exactly. Because they’re not dying from doing easy quests.

I’m saying they avoid doing harder things because it would result in less profit. This is the issue. Profit should scale based on effort required.

Kular, so tell me… If they’re not killing the game, then why does everyone in Cursed Shore tend to stay with the quest chains in the north rather than attempt the more difficult quest chains in the south (with Melandru and Grenth)?

How am I saying I should be rewarded for it? I’m merely stating that in WoW, repair costs are negligible.

I’m also making a point that it’s restricting players into this whole “mass farming” mindset.

It’s ridiculous that no one sees a problem with this. That 100-something people on each server run around and do the same event chain over and over because it’s the best way to make gold.

Sorry, everyone’s too busy farming gold from the Plinx chain event (in Cursed Shore) to care about anything else.

Apparently this is how ANet intended for things to be.

I’m not saying I die doing dailies. I’m making the comparison that I can cover all my repair costs in WoW by doing a daily quest or two.

You can’t do this in GW2.

I die by doing things like exploring, and getting skill points, etc.

I’m not saying doing the dailies is difficult. I’m saying repair costs are absurd.

I just did the Plinx chain for a bit for the sake of argument, and the rewards for kills are the same as elsewhere… but with 100 other people around me, it’s harder to die. So it’s all profit.

So, yeah, if you want this game to be dead in a few months… Leave repair costs as they are. Because there were people shouting “Come do Melandru! Come do Grenth! Come defend Arah!” and yet, no one farming Plinx left. Everyone’s farming Plinx for legendaries.

And then what? What next? After they get their shiny item, what will be their point to playing?

There’s no point to the game if it isn’t fun. Repair costs just encourage people to do easier things to make money (like the Plinx chain). I don’t see why so many of you fail to understand this and argue “Oh, you’re dying too much. You should farm the Plinx event like I do. Do something easier.”

Why is everyone so opposed to reducing repair costs? The primary change that I see happening is that people might be more likely to do a variety of things… Rather than farm easy event chains.

I’m implying that ANet’s game design is flawed.

The point to a game is being able to play how you want to, without it feeling like a grind.

And yet, everyone here is arguing to make it more of a grind.

That’s the only point to high repair costs. It discourages players from going away from where the large mass of other players happen to be in the map. So if there’s some less popular quest chain, it’ll never get accomplished until people beg and complain in chat.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people begging for others to do the Melandru’s Temple quest chain in the Cursed Shore because everyone’s too busy farming easier events.

There’s huge masses of people farming the Plinx event chain, while Grenth and Melandru are contested zones.

It’s ridiculous, really. High repair costs deter people from doing things that are challenging.

So, coglin, it’s really nothing about skill. It’s obvious the effect this is having on the game and everyone seems to be ignoring it.

Kuldred: Exactly. So you’re arguing that I should play like you. Farm a silly chain (with a massive group of other players, which will result in fewer deaths) for gold and items. What if I don’t want to play like you?

Just like you pointed out, you do the Plinx chain until you get bored. So it’s not “fun”, obviously, or you wouldn’t get bored with it. It’s something you do out of obligation to make money.

It’s grind. ANet claimed they were avoiding grind.

And to everyone saying “die less”, that’s not really a productive argument. Death happens. Especially when you’re going up against champions that hit hard.

I don’t understand why everyone’s so ok with repair costs because it forces them to just “play it safe” and stick with the majority of other players doing easy quest chains to farm gold.

That’s grind. It’s dull and boring.

I’m not unsociable, but I’d much rather have a dungeon finder than have to shout in chat about forming a group.

I just don’t have enough time to maintain relationships within an online game. There’s more important matters, like work and grad school and real-life relationships.

I come into the game to escape reality, not be faced with more social obligations.

I’ll interact in map chat, and if the mood strikes me to do a dungeon that someone’s asking about… I’ll join their group.

The thing I liked about the original Guild Wars was that if I didn’t want to have to depend on other people (like if my friends and guildies were offline) then I could try something on my own.

I miss that part of the game.

One death plus waypoint cost can amount to 5 silver.

It’s absurd, really.

I never even had to consider repair costs in WoW, but here they’re thrown in my face.

Also, have any of you been to Orr where there’s Risen every 5 feet and they respawn every 30 seconds?

One of the things that made durability stomachable in WoW was that I could easily do a daily or two and cover all my repair costs. At level 80, repair costs can often be higher than the 5 silver that you get from doing the daily achievement. (And yes, there’s also the argument that you’ll get an additional 5 to 10 silver from the 5 dynamic events.)

I realize that ANet is trying to use everything as a gold sink to “keep gold valuable” but I still think repair costs are absurd when you take into account waypoint costs.

If you die, you pay at least 1.4 silver (at level 80, depending on how close the nearest waypoint is) and then pay about the same for one repair.

WoW doesn’t have “revive” costs beyond small durability loss as long as you run back to your corpse. (and if you choose to rez at the shrine, you just deal with more durability loss… Which can, once again, easily be covered by daily quest rewards.)

When ANet first announced durability, they were downplaying it stating that it wouldn’t affect gameplay. I’d argue the converse, that it affects gameplay far more than any other MMO that I’ve played.

I still doubt ANet will ever be able to maintain the economy the way they want to and retain their player base.

I saw that someone mentioned WoW’s economy… And I’ll say this: WoW’s economy is at the point where it doesn’t really matter how long you’ve been playing, once you reach level 80.

Dailies will give you several gold each, doing dungeons will give you gold (with diminishing rewards after like 5 per day) and tokens to obtain high-level gear.

In a less than two weeks of leisurely playing at level 80, you could have gear relevant to end-game and enough gold to buy pretty much whatever you need. The only thing left to grind for would be the current Tier gear (which would become easy to get after the next patch went live).

The issue with Guild Wars is that they seem to be trying to stabilize the economy by keeping everyone poor. Which really just ends up pissing people off.

Someone leisurely playing Guild Wars 2 will likely never get T3 cultural armor… Which is absurd when you consider that it’s ONLY RARE gear, not Exotic. Yeah, you can transmute it… but to do so, you need Fine Transmutation Stones which are extremely rare (unless you buy them from the gem store).

The reason no one does dungeons in GW2 is that the reward doesn’t correspond to the effort required. It’s easy enough to queue for a dungeon in WoW. Yeah, it’s a random team but by the level you start doing dungeons… People should know how to play the game.

If there’s a level 35 character in GW2 that doesn’t know how to play decently, I’d be very surprised.

The rewards from doing dungeons in GW2 are tokens specific to each dungeon. So you have to grind a particular dungeon (which makes it very monotonous, dull, and boring) to get what you want. And you have to hope that it’s a dungeon other people want to grind as well, or else you’ll be constantly searching for a group in Lion’s Arch.

The reasoning behind this is simple: It allows people to easily (and freely) meet up with friends and guild members and lets people to get back to earlier areas. (Especially since everyone tends to end up in Orr or some other high-level zone with no real pressing desire to go back to earlier zones… as the rewards from questing and killing mobs in Orr are far greater.)

Besides, there’s already the “exploit” to go to the Heart of the Mists and then get to Lion’s Arch for free. From there, you can map travel (for free) to the Asura gate hub and be in a capitol city with your only real limitation/cost being the loading screens.

It seems like such a waste to make capitol cities look so amazing with so little reason to go back there.

I’d even argue that map travel to Fort Trinity should be free after you finish the storyline quest… and maybe Ebonhawke too, since you can easily gate travel there from Divinity’s Reach.

Travel from city to city in the original game was free, and easily allowed for level 20 characters to go wherever they wanted. So you’d routinely see people in various cities, long after everyone had already “finished” the game.

Does anyone know if the Guild Armor is a per-piece thing where you have to apply it to each piece of your armor? Or does it apply to an entire set at once?

I still have the Trooper’s Jerkin (which I like better) but I didn’t keep the rest of the armor pieces that match it… Apparently it’s the same as the Guild Armor.

I’d just like to know if the 1g transmute only applies to the chest piece (which I’m probably going to transmute to the Trooper’s Jerkin) or if it changes the entire set.

It also seems to be bugged on Tarnished Coast.

I’m not going to buy any BLC keys until I see reports about drop rates of BLC items (if they try that again, hopefully they’ll get the drop rate right this time). I’m glad I didn’t buy any for Halloween. The skins weren’t worth $100 a piece.

As far as costumes… Maybe. It depends. They’re neat, but it’s unfortunate that they can’t be transmuted onto armor.

Also, I think that paying for stuff easily beats out farming gold for gems. I mean, $10 is ~8g (if you’re buying gems with gold, you only get ~4g if you’re converting the other direction)… But it probably takes me hours to make that currently (I guess I haven’t found the best farming spots, yet).

Just wondering, but the Mystic Forge recipes for the weapons ARE still in the game, right?

Like The Crossing and Arachnophobia (and their respective “gift” recipes).

I’m only asking because I saw that the Mad King Chest recipe was removed.