Guild Wars 2

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I personally play Ranger as my main, so I’m fairly aware of how to manage the pet, and do my testing as a ranger primarily. What mechanic do you feel is expressly punishing to a ranger pet?
I’m more than aware of how squishy pets can be in dungeons, but if you could list out all the issues you are speaking of, I can try and address them.

Robert,

My ranger is my main too, and I feel like I’ve had quite a bit of experience with Fractals (prior to this year’s patches)…

1. First off, ranger pets lack agony resistance. This makes them essentially worthless in boss fights. We can’t easily get them to avoid agony when the boss performs an attack.
   Since we have to invest such time and effort (and sometimes gold/ecto) into getting Ascended gear and infusions… I feel like pets should definitely inherit our infusion bonus.
2. Pets in GW1 didn’t need infusion. They (like heroes) were, by default, “infused.”
3. Jade Maw’s OHKO attack. This was a biggie when I played the Fractals. Most people groaned about how rangers can’t dismiss pets.
   Although I tend to get around this by switching my pet if I notice that it’s been targeted, it would be nice if the Jade Maw wouldn’t target pets as much (if at all.)
4. Pets are considered half of the Ranger class. You’re always expected to have one, and thus it’s essentially considered half of our DPS.
5. Not being able to keep our pets alive during dungeons makes us less valuable. It’d be nice if we had some better skills, traits, or other options for helping to keep our pets alive.
   This isn’t really an issue in open-world PvE.

Those are my points about the Ranger in Fractals, and I’m sure many others feel the same way. And it seems to be the “public opinion” of our class, when it comes to Fractals.

There’s a “shark” quaggan (looks like an Orca, if you ask me) as well as a green one and a “warrior” quaggan with a hat and a sword.

For charr, there’s a spotted yellow one and a black one too.

gw2db.com lists loads of quaggan backpacks. Various skins.

I guess that means the first one sold well enough to make 10 more and we’ll have a chance at getting one each month?

Do you have 15% of 20 gold on you?

Just in case you weren’t aware, there’s a 15% fee associated with the Trading Post.

I think the point to lumping threads together is in the hopes that the complaints die down (or seem to).

It wouldn’t look good to potential new players checking out the forums to see a full page of complaints about the latest patch.

ArenaNet wants to keep people buying their game.

Maybe they’ll now get around to nerfing content like the first part of the Dredge Fractal, that everyone seems to try to skip. (I’ve seen terrain glitches, mesmer portal glitches, etc.)

On topic, I’m hoping that this revitalizes Southsun Cove with drastically more dynamic events.

Having it go from a deserted island to an inhabited one.

Norn and Charr, honestly, seem like the best possible group to go to a place with hostile creatures. (Norn are always up for a new challenge to show off their might.)

Duke Blackrose.4981:

CITIZENS, COMING SOON – THE NEWEST AND MOST UNIQUE RESORT DESTINATION IN A- cut off.

CITIZENS! CO-

CITIZENS!

You forgot Ecto.
5 gold + 50 ecto for one Laurel seems like what the current ArenaNet would consider “equivalent exchange.”

Infernia.9847:

I have always wondered why a developer doesn’t use the model: Gamble to get it first and then a month or two later make it a direct buy.
There are always people that want it ‘right now’ and will take that chance. And there are those that will never gamble to get it. So why not please both groups and allow the gamble then later convert to a direct buy. The developer gets money both times. Plus if they make the gamble cheaper than the direct buy, some will still take the chance.

I wouldn’t call it sexist just more ways to play the current lottery. I have seen plenty of male characters in magenta, pink, purple and all shades in between.

With the way RNG is in Guild Wars 2 (“May the odds be ever against you”), I doubt keys make them all that much. Intelligent people learn not to mess with fire after getting burned.

Agreed. With the way this update ended up, I’m surprised they didn’t focus more on implementing a proper Alliance system.

I know they disbanded the whole Kurzick/Luxon thing… but the new update focuses on getting guilds (smaller ones, at least) to work together.

I think it was more just to have a “rare” skin in the BLC. Like the Tiger Charr.

Unfortunately, rather than create a whole slew of random colored quaggans (I’m holding out for a polka-dotted or striped quaggan backpack), they decided to put the “female” bag in the BLC.

I’m not sure why, as it probably doesn’t really appeal to guys very much. (I’m not overly crazy about either version, to be honest… I may get a Charr one, though.)

I know that in MMOs, guys supposedly play more often as female characters. (I try to split mine 50/50.) So maybe someone at ArenaNet noticed that the character gender tends to skew female and decided to put it in the BLC.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pink quaggan bag didn’t eventually appear as its own 300 gem purchase. It’s more, or less, just ArenaNet trying to sell Black Lion keys (which I don’t imagine very many people buy, from the dwindling cost of Black Lion chests on the TP.)

Ursan.7846:

While you’re correct, they have already stated that your achievements will be converted into laurels. So honestly I won’t worry about it too much.

They’ve stated that achievement points will allow you to eventually obtain rewards. I don’t think they’ve said anything about converting them to Laurels (that I remember).

I just assumed they’d introduce another vendor selling stuff (they seem to be on a roll introducing new currencies), but requires you have a specified amount of achievement points in order to buy each thing. (Not that you would spend/lose achievement points… but it’d just be a requirement.)

Flint Allbright.9236:

There are multiple places to get all ascended gear (except for the amulets which you’re correct about). You can get ascended rings from fractals or from laurels. You can get ascended accessories from guild missions or from laurels and ectos. Another way to get amulets would be nice (pristine fractal relics maybe…after getting your rings there isn’t a use for them).

I forgot that you can get ascended back pieces from the forge as well as fractals, so there’s that too.

As for time limited, I don’t think that’s anything they’ve discussed. Correct me if I’m wrong though, I haven’t read the AMA.

They may not have said anything about it, but 5 months to equip a SINGLE character with all the current Ascended gear is a little absurd.

I already have two infused rings from the Fractals and a Fractal backpiece… But this whole thing is absurd. Progress in later Fractals is gated by Agony Resist. To get Agony Resist, you need Ascended gear. (Which you have to now depend on dailies and/or your guild to help you get.)

Flint Allbright.9236:

I think you’re missing what Colin’s point was. He basically wanted to say that in WvW a guild with the full art of war tree won’t automatically win against everyone who doesn’t have the art of war tree.

Outside of WvW (such as guild missions), guilds aren’t inherently competitive. You can add your own sense of competition (we were the first to do X thing, we’re the biggest, etc. etc.), but there isn’t a built in qualifier for that. Guilds pay the same price individual players do in order to progress: time. Those guilds (or players) who put in less time will have less progress. In your scenario where other people look at GW2 from another MMO, not only will they be behind in terms of a guild, but from their own personal characters. That’s just how it has to be.

Hope that helps!

He was actually commenting on individual player progress over time. So that a new, skilled player won’t be at an inherent disadvantage in 1v1 against someone that’s been playing WvW for years.

The reasoning behind this is simple. It’s a BAD IDEA™ to discourage new players from buying your game. If someone looks at a game and says “There’s no way I could ever catch up.”, then they will dismiss the game and look for something else.

This is bad, in the long term, for Guild Wars 2 as a whole. No new players and the game stagnates; it becomes stale. (not to mention a huge loss of revenue for ArenaNet)

Heijincks.9267:

Sorry, but your first and second sentence already contradict each other.

So if more time is needed to get something, it doesn’t count as an alternate source? Also, the recent patch added all forms of available ascended stuff except for backpieces which is attainable via Mystic Forge and Fractals.

From the Reddit AMA, they acknowledged that the availability of Ascended gear was too limited.

Explain to me how the Laurels vendor is enhancing the availability.

You need 30 laurels for an Amulet. 35 for each ring. 40 (plus 50 ecto) for each Accessory.

Right there, that’s 30+70+80=180. You need to get 180 laurels to equip one character with all the current Ascended gear. And that’s not even counting infusions.

This wouldn’t be an issue, except that you can only get ONE laurel per day. (With the bonus of 10 per month.) This equates to around 5 MONTHS of continuous playtime to gear-up ONE character.

If you don’t see an issue with this “availability” then I don’t know what to say.

The reason for introducing a new currency every few months is simple…
You keep people playing for the Flavor-of-the-Month currency.

The issue is, it burns people out.

WoW converted all of its currency to Justice and Valor points in Cataclysm. Valor being limited (you can only get so much each week) and Justice being easier to get.

Each update, they’d downconvert Valor to Justice and make the Valor gear available for Justice Points. New gear would then be available for Valor.

First, the Reddit AMA: He acknowledged that Ascended gear needed to have multiple sources within the game… Which we’ve yet to see.

Laurels vendor is the only place to get Amulets. And the laurel cost is time-prohibitive to buy amulets, accessories, and rings from there.

Fractals only offer rings. (Unless you really want to count backpieces.)

They’re trying to make everyone do guild content to obtain Ascended accessories. Which, again, is time-prohibitive as you can only obtain so many tokens per week (which is also limited by your guild, which brings me to my next point…)

In the recent Q/A with Colin transcribed by GuildWarsGuru, he states that:

We don’t want to create a system where like, five years from now someone who’s leveled way down the tree is able to just kill everbody else.

This was in response to questions about WvW skills and bonuses.

So is the same not true of guilds?

It seems like the new Guild Mission system will inhibit growth of new guilds. Yeah, I understand that the focus is to have a “reason” for guilds… But, currently, a Guild has to research all of the Art of War upgrades to even start with the first mission type.

What happens a few months down the road when a group of players from another MMO look at Guild Wars 2? Will they be deterred by the fact that starting their own guild puts them at a disadvantage from all of the established guilds?

On the Mac client, I always have to enter the correct password twice.

It says something like “client lost connection with server” the first time.

If I enter a wrong password and then the correct one… It still displays that same error and then makes me enter the correct password a second time.

I posted over the weekend in the Bugs forum about “Req: Level 1” items dropping from level 30 mobs.

After this update, it seems that Level 1 items no longer mention a level requirement.

While “There have been no content changes.” may still be a true statement, I feel this just goes to show that these updates still contain changes.

Shouldn’t patch notes represent that?

draakdorei.9436:

Black Moa and the Rainbow Jellyfish have the same base attributes as their equivalent forms.

White Raven and the BW Spider are the HoM pets with a lower vitality.

To me, it looks like someone got lazy and just copy-pasted all the attributes (or typoed vitality) down the line for the lower two (Raven/Spider) since they are at the end of the HoM rewards.

My guess was that ArenaNet had set vitality to a certain value initially, but then decided to buff the non-HoM Raven and Jungle Spider. (and, simply, forgot to change the values for Black Widow and White Raven.)

I honestly don’t see why they’ve been so silent on this issue, unless there’s simply nothing they can do to fix it. Which would seem to show poorly on their capability as developers.

I mean, what if they decided a certain ranger pet was too strong or too weak? Shouldn’t they be able to buff/nerf the stats as needed?

Ursan.7846:

I personally think WP costs are very tiny compared to the massive gold sink in this room (TP.) But again, I don’t have any data to back up my beliefs, and no one else does except Anet. So such an absolute claim “Removing WP costs won’t damage the economy at all” is a bit of a stretch.

True, but I don’t really care if WP costs are “removed”… I don’t mind paying a reasonable cost… I just think they should be re-evaluated. (Which is kind of what ArenaNet is doing with the upcoming guild bonus)

Lucky: The issue is, with skins… You can apply them to any gear.

The pets should just be “skins” for another existing pet, but they’re actually weaker stat-wise.

Nalora.7964:

I was being sarcastic. I have been told so many times in these forums that I must be doing something wrong, or that I am not playing the game right.

I did fine for 7+ years in Guild Wars 1. My HOM is 42/50. (I only stopped working on it because as a history buff and avid reader in RL I liked my title of “I have many leather bound books”.)

But apparently I do not play Guild Wars 2 right, and should quit. It is a pretty standard answer (said in many ways, and with many words, but in essence the same) on these forums to everything that ails you.

I kind of hoped you were being sarcastic, given your signature… but after being on these forums for so long, I’m not sure.

I’ve long grown tired of so-called “white knights” that are quick to jump at any chance to defend EVERY choice that ArenaNet has ever made.

ArenaNet has admitted they’ve made mistakes (and taken action to fix them).

I’d really just like a chance for the forums to be a reasonable place to discuss things without everyone being hand-wavey and saying “Only ArenaNet knows the real data.”

Ursan.7846:

I find this incredibly hard to believe. You’re seriously netting negative gold whenever you do anything? Because that’s what it means when you say “sinks outweight rewards.”

Lowering WPs won’t necessarily decrease the effectiveness of the sink. The lower cost may encourage more people to use it, hence keeping the overall effectiveness of it as a sink around the same.

Of course we don’t have the data. Only Anet knows, so making a statement like “lowering WP cost WON’T damage the economy” is a pretty big assumption.

PS GW1 also had many gold sinks too. It’ll be silly to have an MMO without gold sinks.

GW1’s gold sinks revolved around weapon/armor skins.
It’s a type of gold sink I could justify, because I actually get something out of it.

Meanwhile, throwing money away by travelling just seems redundant.

I use WPs as little as possible and I’d agree with your sentiment that if WP costs were reduced, more people would use them.

I fail to see how WP cost is “vital” to the economy. Especially given that they’re going to give out this “bonus” to guilds willing to complete specific missions.

I don’t care if there’s minimal WP cost. I just think ArenaNet has finally admitted that MAYBE it’s too high.

Perhaps they’re using this “guild bonus” as a trial run before reducing WP costs all around?

Their new motto is “it pays to be in a guild” and if this is the type of thing they’re going to give out… It certainly does. Because it removes the WP gold sink from those individuals.

However, I would like to note: WoW implemented a similar feature with Cataclysm and Guild Perks. Reduced durability loss, decreased repairs, increased gold drops, increased travel speed, etc.

However, they implemented them as permanent perks to obtain… And didn’t implement any new ones with MoP. I feel like that shows they realized it kind of separates established, popular guilds from smaller guilds.

My main complaint is if it’s going to remove a gold sink from those in large guilds, but be difficult for smaller guilds to maintain constantly. (I don’t know any of this yet, but it’s just a fear I have.)

They’ve already introduced the utility infusions to give additional gold drops and MF… And now they’re going to reduce WP costs for those in large guilds?

So much for trying to give new players equal footing with everyone else. (As was one of the stated points, during development of GW2. But we ALL know how far they’ve strayed from their initial goals.)

Firegoth.6427:

This guild upgrade is a nice perk and a + for some people to consider joining that specific guild.
Would be nice, however, if this kind of boost could be acquired only by a competent guild and not something completely trivial like gain X guild currency by doing Y and Z missions 10 times.

I’d just like it to be a perk that a competent guild could maintain indefinitely.

I mean, I wouldn’t mind doing a weekly guild mission (or dungeon) to obtain and maintain cheaper waypoints.

It’s just that my guild has an “older” crowd with actual 40+ hr/week jobs. It’d probably be difficult to organize a guild mission EVERY DAY to keep this bonus.

And, thus it would possibly dissuade people from joining smaller guilds if this bonus required some sort of daily mission.

Nalora.7964:

If you do not have the money to Waypoint. then the answer is: “You are not playing the game right, and should quit.”

As I posted in reply to your other elitist comment in the other thread, I’m certainly glad this isn’t ArenaNet’s motto.

The point is: I could WP… but It takes away from the money that I could be spending on armor. And the game doesn’t really scale rewards up with WP costs.

They should focus on introducing new desirable armor and weapon skins as gold sinks, rather than WP costs.

Nalora.7964:

In other words: “You don’t play the game right, and should quit.”

And, if this were ArenaNet’s motto… They’d be out of business by now.

They need to focus on making the game more accessible for casual players… As that was GW1’s bread-and-butter.

Having a F2P version of WoW is just asking for trouble (as it makes GW2 the same as every other F2P MMO out there).

Vol.5241:

The game needs gold sinks. Waypoint costs IMO are too cheap at the moment.

No, it doesn’t. Gold sinks already seem to out-weigh the rewards IMO.

What the game needs: Rewards that people actually want to get.

Most of the armor sucks. That was the main (and only) gold-sink in GW1.

There was no cost associated with travelling in GW1. It was my favorite part about the game. I could easily go from being in a jungle to being in the desert without any cost involved.

And increasing Waypoint costs would just result in no one using them. At which point, you’d have to wonder why they’re even there.

If anything, they should make a “max cost” so that WP costs don’t go above 2 silver, regardless of how far you are from the WP.

laokoko.7403:

you can get the ring by just doing the daily. That isn’t bad. Back item is probabaly the harder one.

You still need 30 laurels for ONE amulet and 35 laurels PER ring.

That’s effectively 60 days of dailies plus the two monthlies to get 3 pieces of Ascended gear (for one character.)

Coming from GW1, it seems absurd to play the game for 2 months to gear a SINGLE character with 3 max-stat pieces.

In GW1 Factions and Nightfall, you can make it to max level within a month easily. And by that point, you should have enough platinum to buy a full set of max-stat gear.

There’s been posts like this in the past… And no resolution yet.

I’d imagine they couldn’t care less since they figure all the GW1 players have already purchased GW2.

Karizee.8076:

You don’t need a GW1 account to use the HoM stone, it’s there for everyone.

I don’t think of these ways to travel as exploits – -I think they put them in the game explicitly for us to have low-cost travel if we want to save a couple silver.

From my experience, wp cost at low level was inconsequential, started feeling burdensome at mid to level cap, after being 80 for a bit it’s a non-issue again. But I’m cheap, I like to save my silvers

It’s good to know that anyone can use the HoM stone.

And I agree, WP cost at low-levels was insignificant. It was cheaper than you’d make off of a single dynamic event.

The issue is that at level 80, rewards didn’t scale as high as the WP costs did.

There’s plenty of arguments about this game not being rewarding. I feel WP costs (at least in a small part) factor into that.

Heck, ArenaNet had to implement entirely new reward systems and buff loot drops because they admitted the game wasn’t very rewarding initially.

I’m sure they didn’t list it until they were certain that it would make this upcoming release.

That way they wouldn’t potentially promise us something before they could deliver it and push it back.

They said that the new system will allow them to be more specific in Daily requirements (like zone-specific kills, or jumping puzzles, or something that a lot of people find difficult/challenging).

I’m sure a lot of people will try to complete-them-all every day, since we’ll eventually have a system for rewarding achievement points…

Their response to any comments on “maintenance/no-change” stuff:
“Any time we do a new build, you have to download a new client.”

This, obviously, makes sense… But any reasonable person would wonder:
“Why do you need a new build, if you’re not going to change SOMETHING?”

I’m sure some the real reason for no patch notes is that it’s all behind-the-scenes stuff. But it occasionally affects us, as the most recent “maintenance” patch modified achievements. (as jwburks pointed out)

Karizee.8076:

Minos.5168:

If anything, at least give us minimal cost to travel between cities/towns/outposts (or to them). This was a great part of GW1. I could care less about getting to a specific location on a map, if I can easily travel to a town within the map. I’d just start from there.

A couple ways to travel cheaply:

Use the Pvp lobby to take the asura gate to Lion’s Arch – from there you can take a gate to any of the major cities. Completely free.

Use the Hall of Monuments Portal Zone to go to HoM – that’s free travel then half the price of waypoints to any northern zones. Get the stone from the karma vendor in the smuggler’s cave in LA at no cost.

Use your Order’s portal to take the asura gate to Fort Trinity in Orr. Free.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the advice, I already use the LA trick (as I pointed that out in my post) and the Fort Trinity one.

I’ll be sure to use the HoM thing if I do any travel to the Shiverpeaks.

Can people that haven’t played GW1 get one of those portal stones, though? If not, then that’s another thing against new players.

My point is: These “loopholes” exist… But, we shouldn’t have to bother exploiting them. ArenaNet should just acknowledge that they made a mistake and fix it. (rather than trying to use their mistake as incentive to get players to do the new Guild Missions)

I’m sure they’ll eventually “fix” it somehow, as other MMOs have.

The issue is that for “casual” players to get end-game ready, it’s very difficult and time consuming.

Presumably they’ll introduce more content/dungeons (like the Fractals) to take further advantage of Ascended gear (once we have a complete set). If not, then we’ll just have characters that are breezing through all the other content.

You can’t tell me that an overall 10~15% boost in stats (and thus 10~15% boost in damage output and damage mitigation) isn’t going to make the game easier.

I’m betting that’s why they jumped away from the Ascended gear all of a sudden. I mean, we only had the amulets introduced after the 3-piece (rings+backpiece) debacle that the November update caused.

I recently read old posts (prior to release) by a GW2 developer on twitter that are kind of laughable now…

It was something along the lines of “We want crafting to be an integral part of the game and a good way to make money.”

The only response you’ll get is: “It’s all RNG. We changed nothing.”

I find it hard to believe they aren’t constantly modifying loot tables in all these “maintenance” updates (which have no patch notes).

In fact, it may even be possible for them to modify loot tables on the fly (without releasing any updates), if their developers programmed the game properly.

So, it seems ArenaNet has made note that this is a requested “feature” (to the extent that Colin promoted this very bonus in an interview)…

However, it seems that it’s a temporary “buff” rather than a permanent guild perk.

Overall, I think it’d best serve the community at this point to reduce waypoint cost.
It’s an unnecessary gold sink and prevents users from doing what they want.

Someone made the point of comparing a CoF path 1 run to doing Jumping Puzzles… Each one might take 10 minutes, but the rewards for CoF are 10x the Jumping Puzzle.

And, when you take the waypoint cost into account… you make hardly anything from doing a Jumping Puzzle.

Wasn’t the game sold on the premise that people should be able to do whatever they want and still be rewarded?

Reduced waypoint cost would also allow players to be more dispersed when playing. As it is, people will probably stay relatively close to towns. (and in Orr, as Orr still has better drops than anywhere else, even after ANet trying to boost drop rates elsewhere.)

There’s no reason for waypoint costs to be in-game. It’s just restrictive gameplay. If you die, you already have repair costs to deal with.

You may say it’s “necessary as a gold-sink” but that’s just ridiculous. No such gold sink existed in GW1 and I never saw near as much inflation there as I have in GW2. In fact, I saw deflation over time. GW2 (with the Mystic Forge/toilet) is entirely built as a huge gold-sink. Having one less wouldn’t hurt it.

If anything, at least give us minimal cost to travel between cities/towns/outposts (or to them). This was a great part of GW1. I could care less about getting to a specific location on a map, if I can easily travel to a town within the map. I’d just start from there.

People already get around the cost to get to Lion’s Arch by going through PvP, anyway.

TL;DR: Reduced waypoint cost won’t damage the economy at all; it should be a permanent guild perk, rather than a temporary buff. It’d just encourage gameplay across Tyria (which is what ArenaNet says they want to do, so that the game doesn’t look like a ghost town).

Maybe it’s a glitch with the whole “now you can get items relevant to your level” system, but I just did the “protect the Pastkeeper” event in Gendarren Hills and got like 6 level 1 items.

Seeing as it was a total of like 6 or 7 items, I think this is a very clear bug. (Unless those pirates are intended to drop level 1 items)

Edit: I was like 29 when completing this event. So perhaps it’s a glitch that only occurs when you’re lower than the event’s level?

I’m not too crazy about any particular legendary skin… Especially when I could get multiple armor sets (for different characters) for the cost of a single legendary.

I’ve got a job. I can’t play all the time.

The fact that I log-in and see so many people with one just makes them less desirable for me.

Why would I want to put so much work into getting something that everyone else already has?

Besides… There’s going to be an expansion with new weapon and armor skins some time this year.

I think I’ll save up for those.

This game, at least, forces you to group with people for dungeons.

You NEVER had to do that in Guild Wars. (especially once Nightfall and Heroes came out)

There was only ONE group mission that I recall in GW1. (Vizunah Square in Cantha)

You would generally either see another player with all heroes or get placed with the default NPC helpers.

The final story quest in GW2 is a dungeon. You’re forced to group with 4 other people to finish the game.

Oh, and need I re-iterate…

The un-balanced match that I was speaking of happened just last week. Not weeks ago.

So I’m not sure why you think that the current “ratings” will balance out any quicker than new ratings.

I’m sure they’ll be smart and not drop T1 servers down to T6.

It’s in ArenaNet’s best interest to keep WvW fun.

Convenant.7092:

…this week, SBI has had the most fun they’ve had in weeks. This is at the price of several weeks of getting smashed. With populations now mostly stable, the trend shouldn’t change.

WHICH part of what you said justifies the rating reset?

I’m just not understanding what the opposition to a rating reset is…

It’ll be based off of the results from the current match-ups, right?

So whatever happens this week determines next week’s match-ups.

Which seems to be in agreement with what you said about SBI finally getting “stabilized.”

With all the unequal matches previously (whether due to population shifts or whatever), it’s clear that the prior ratings weren’t correct.

SoR completely dominated TC and SBI last time.

Primarily because SBI didn’t really have a chance (and thus, gave up)…

SoR then was free to completely focus on TC.

It wasn’t a “fair” battle. SoR’s numbers were just more massive for all times during the day.

Even when they had us (Tarnished Coast) pushed back to our spawn point… We were still taking out more of them than they were of us. They just had like 30 people (at like 2am EDT) compared to our 10.

Numbers mean everything in WvW.

If ArenaNet found a decent way to adjust for that, then battles would be vastly more even.

(Give realms low on players extra Veteran NPCs that follow the server’s players around, for example…)

TheDaiBish.9735:

Svetli.4276:

OR why no a NEW legendary weapons :/

Legendary Weapons for Laurels. Really?

As is, you could get 2 Ascended Rings and an Amulet for just over the price of the tonic. If you don’t want the tonic, why complain? Tonic were incredibly popular in the first GW.

IMO, while I’m not going for the tonic, there is a lack of fun vanity stuff in game. More power to the people who are into that.

Honestly, I don’t think it’d be too insane to put a legendary there for a large amount of laurels. I mean, all legendaries are is a special skin.

Assuming someone plays daily, they’d only be able to make ~40 laurels per month.
Why not put a legendary there for like 250 laurels? Each account would only be able to get ONE in a 6-month period (assuming no other uses for laurels).

It’d be a good incentive to get someone to play EVERY DAY. (Which is what the laurels are anyway.)

I, personally, have no desire to grind for a legendary currently… But if a cool skin was available as a laurel reward, I’d probably save up for that.

There are already people out there with multiple legendaries, so I don’t see why everyone’s so adverse to making them easier for the average person to get.

Rising Dusk.2408:

They serve a different purpose than dungeons? Outside of progressive difficulty and giving people room to continue up to level 50 at their leisure (ie. progression), what different purpose do they serve, and how does the current RNG-based (instead of progression-based) Fractal Weapon reward architecture fit into that? I understand you’re not the authority, but I’m curious as to your opinion (if you can provide it within the confines of your ability to speak to the community). I guess I’m genuinely curious as to the design philosophy behind the differences between dungeons and fractals.

Furthermore, it is almost intentionally a cosmetic grind right now for players who like the grind. It’s as if progress was made with the dungeon token system (of which I am a huge fan), and then intentionally steps were taken in the other direction perhaps to appease players who like raid-style rewards wherein they are forced to grind to get them. I think it’d be interesting to achieve both styles at the same time. Basically, keep the RNG aspect in there, but also add a tab to the pristine relic golem where you could spend 50 Pristine Fractal Relics for a Fractal Weapon skin of your choice.

Also, I agree with an above poster that the skins should be actual skin items instead of weapons, particularly because the weapons are confirmed by Izzy to never be used as special MF recipes in the future and that they have no stats.

I think the reason for the Fractals was to appease players that wanted an endless challenge.

I mean, they were introduced with Ascended gear when people started complaining about a perceived “lack of endgame.” (Though, honestly, I think this Living Story content could be a better solution to that complaint.)

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’d like you to look at the system in place in Fractals with regards to Fractal Weapons. Your designer mind should see something wrong.

In the case of fractals, there is a different reward system in place for obtaining the skins and the items there. It is not the same as the dungeon reward scheme, because fractals serve a different purpose than dungeons.

I will also mention that I am not the authority on reward schemes – I see trends, play the game, experience the content, and and draft proposals to the leads and those responsible for reward structures. I have brought up proposed changes to the reward scheme for the fractals, but it is not my place to be the decider on those issues.

It’d really be nice if the weapon “skins” were just that… Skins.

As, currently, we have to use transmutation stones to make them worth using since they don’t have any stats.

Though, I guess that does promote transmutation stone sales in the gem store.

Seeing as I expect other ways for the amulet to be obtained (given people will want it on alts as well), I’m probably skipping those.

Especially when you consider that at some point this year they’re going to have an expansion and raise the level cap.

DancingPenguins.9875:

It could be just the Triforge being uninfusable.

They announced that Laurel rewards wouldn’t include Agony because that’s Fractal-specific. (and I guess it’d be confusing to new players… which begs the question: why have agony at all?)

Given that, I’d be surprised if the Laurel reward amulets had an “infused” version since the Triforge Pendant doesn’t.

I thought about it and, possibly, they haven’t introduced the infused version yet to temporarily gate the Fractals (to a max of level 39).

That seems to have been the overall goal with the recent update. Limit people from going past where Agony should have restricted them.