Guild Wars 2

Ester, I cannot tell you how encouraging it is to hear that you all are developing a native client! We are excited about being able to see and experience Tyria in the full beauty of the game you all have built without having to throttle our graphics just to keep the game from crashing.

Thank you all so much for this! We look forward to when you will be able to open the client up for beta.

OriOri.8724:

I think a gathering mastery would be awesome. Something along the lines of

Gathering:
I – Gather materials 10% faster
II – Guaranteed extra strike/gather per node
III – Learn to skin animals and have 100% chance of getting a piece of leather/something that salvages into leather when killing appropriate creatures (so cows, dolyaks, deer etc…)
IV – 50% chance for # of uses to not decrease on the gathering tool when used
V – 15% chance to “recover” a node after depleting it and get to gather from it again

Crafting could also use a mastery ability (just 1 though so it would be in a separate mastery line) about if you are crafting in bulk (>10 of the same item) then the time to craft is decreased by 50% would be nice. Or I guess if we get a plethora of mastery points crafting could have its own 3 tier line. First tier would be 15%, 30%, 50% faster when crafting in bulk.

Possibly a combat mastery line that would only work in PvE

Combat:
I – Endurance recovers 10% faster
II – Movement speed reduction while in combat is decreased 10%
III – Dodging cleanses 1 condition at random, ICD 20 seconds
IV – 10% bonus damage to and 10% reduced damage from elite and champion mobs
V – Movement speed reduction while in combat is decreased by 50%

I too love the idea of more core tyria masteries. I really love the idea of gathering & crafting masteries even though I have already max level in all disciplines except the newest. I love the idea of core masteries that could affect HoT kinda reverse of how HoT gliding is useful in core Tyria.

I have suggested racial specialization elsewhere, but the racial mastery idea expressed by @Sanders here sounds cool too. However ANET has already intentionally reduced the viability of racial skills to prevent specific race/profession combinations from becoming meta, so any masteries that would threaten that race/profession neutrality almost certainly will not happen.

I can guarantee that the combat mastery idea won’t happen regardless. Masteries are intentionally designed so as to not give unbalanced advantage to one player and not another. That is why masteries give convenience or unlock access only. Early into the announcements for HoT ANET declared that one of the lines would strip armor from mordrem while another would apply poison to mordrem. Both were adjusted to what we have now. Also the combat mastery would give an unfair advantage of HoT owners over vanilla or ftp accounts.

However the rest sounds excellent to me! Hopefully someone from ANET will take note and out this suggestion on the table.

What no one has mentioned so far, and perhaps because few remember, but when GW2 first released aquatic skills WERE available while swimming on the surface. ANET disabled it i think within a few weeks of release because some folks figured a way to bug the downed system while underwater.

Given that they have had this capacity in the past and chosen to remove it, I suspect it is unlikely they will reverse that decision and put them back in the game, especially with the current lack of emphasis on the aquatic environment.

Razor.9872:

I feel like I’m one of the only people who actually really enjoyed HoT…

You are not alone in this. I am still enjoying HoT very much, Adventures notwithstanding, and have not yet completed all the content from the expansion.

However on a different note, I would like to commend IndigoSundown on their well thought out and well written post regarding MMO progression a couple days ago. While I think that to be one of the best explanations for progression in GW2, I thought I might perhaps still add a small bit to the conversation without repeating what has already been said so well.

First is that the horizontal progression systems are not solely the work of ArenaNet’s developers. Rather, they are the result of the Collaborative Development Initiatives (CDIs for short) that Anet initiated a few years ago as they were preparing for HoT. Much of what was included in HoT can be found in nascent form in those discussions as suggestions from players on what they wanted to see as kinds of meaningful progression. There is no question that Anet put their own interpretive stamp on the implementation of those suggestions, but at its core, HoT is what the active forum users at that time who were involved in the CDIs requested.

Secondly, there seems to be a focused dispute regarding “mandatory PvE content” and player freedom. Ironically, this discussion has echoes of the long running philosophical argument about determinism and free will, but I will leave those correlations aside for now. Within that discussion, one aspect that has yet remained without comment is the need for game design structure. Put at is most simple, the developers need to have SOME system to follow for progression. Progression is antithetical to wholly unstructured freeform playing. So too players need to have some idea what is expected of them and what they need to do in order for their characters (and/or accounts now) to develop and progress.

While leveling from 1-80 there is more of a sense of that freeform play because so many activities provide Experience Points (XP). Especially from within the perspective of Anet’s design choice to refrain from increasing character level cap, continuing solely with XP as the mode of character development simply does not make sense, especially since Anet decided to take several simultaneous modes of horizontal progression (Masteries, Elite Specs, added to already existing Fractal levels, WvW levels, etc).

Yet wholly abandoning XP did not either. The mastery point/experience point combination permits some of the benefit of the freeform playing that is so highly valued by one of the posters here while also requiring the player focus at least some of that play time within the new region doing specific tasks.

Finally, since there has been an appeal to initial game design at release, I will note that progression through specific, targeted tasks are not wholly without precedent even at game launch. The crafting system is wholly parallel to the regular XP system. One has to specifically focus effort on crafting to progress in crafting, and it is largely repetitive. Yet there are benefits for having taken the time to achieve those higher crafting levels. Appealing to initial game design as the pinnacle that must be regained neglects that Anet has designed gameplay this way from the beginning.

Cheers!

TLDR
- HoT progression came from player suggestions in CDIs
- Games require some form of structure for progression both for developers to make and players to know what to do
- An appeal to initial game release as the ideal design of freeform play neglects the entire crafting system present at release as a model for structured gameplay for progression.

Is the treasure mushroom supposed to always drop the spore if needed? I have done it twice on the same character (Daredevil) trying to get the necessary spoor for BO but it hasn’t dropped either time.

Just curious if I am glitched or if there is some RNG.

Thank you very much! I did check the standard game and graphics options before posting but I don’t think I have ever paid attention to that icon down there! That certainly WAS the issue. I appreciate you pointing this out to me.

Here is a screen shot from a different account in the same place, but this account DOES have the HoT Expansion.

Since the 4/19 update, vistas, POI’s and hero points are no longer visible on both the map and the mini-map. Nor do they flash when hovering the mouse over the corner map legend. This only occurs on an account that is core only without the HoT expansion. I have my main account that does have HoT and does not have this problem either on the HoT maps or the Core maps.

I have tried this on 2 different computers with the same exact symptoms. Log in to main account in core Tyria, All is visible on the map/mini-map. Log out and back into second account without HoT, all vistas/POI/HP are gone.

I am using a mac client on a MBP 15 and iMac 27.

Thanks for the response. I am happy with all the changes I have seen so far, i just had picked up the wrong impression somewhere and come to an incorrect expectation.

I had thought Anet announced that there was going to be a new fractal with the quarterly update. I certainly didn’t see anything in the notes and now I cannot find where I might have seen that announcement. Did anybody else come across that same announcement? If so could you post where it was stated?

I ran into this same issue on my macs, and can confirm that the short-term fix worked for me as well. Hopefully they will get it figured out asap or else we will all be once again out of luck as soon as the next hot fix goes out.

ImTasty.2163:

On a side note you can purchase marauder rings and accessories from fractal merch and laural vendor. The stat distribution is a bit different but they are still the 4-stat combo for marauders.

Are you being imprecise? Or are you unfamiliar with the difference? If you are unfamiliar with the difference: Marauder is a very specific stat combo with a 2 high/2 low distribution. Berserker + Valkyrie is a different set than Marauder. It uses the same Power/Precious/Ferocity/Vitality stats but allocates them VERY differently, in addition to having fewer total stats thus negating the reason most people are choosing Marauder over Berserker.

If the actual Marauder trinkets are available at the Laurel & Fractal merchants, and not Berserker+Valkyrie, I have not found them on the wiki or at the actual vendors, and would love to see where you are getting your information. Would you

If you are simply being imprecise, please don’t. People may not realize that you are being imprecise and think that actual Marauder stat items can be found in the places you listed.

*Edit – Mad Rabbit posted before I finished and listed out the stats. Thanks!

I agree with Kargaros. I had originally thought that this was an intentional marketing idea. I think this should be kept live for the purpose of catching the interest of core game owners in buying the expansion.

I think they should keep the Desert BL map as another option and run it like EotM. That way those who really like the Desert BL map can continue to play it while those who prefer to revert to the Alpine map can return to playing the way they love.

When I tried to purchase one of the sale items today, the molten logging axe, I was unable to do so from the promotions tab. I click on the 800, and then purchase button to confirm, and all that happens is that the button flickers and then goes away. There is no confirmation message and no gems removed from my wallet. I had the exact same problem with the mad inventor logging tool, which is why I came back now to get the molten one. I have tried this on two different Macs with the exact same bug occurring. Oddly enough, I was finally able to make the purchase from the main tab from the promotions listed at the bottom, so the issue seems to be related to the formatting of the promotions tab.

Max OS X 10.11.4; iMac 27 Retina; 4GHz; 8GB ram; Radeon R9 M395X w/4GB VRAM

OK so the coins were the right item. Here are the final amounts:
Mystic Coins 26
Mystic Crystal 12
Chocolate Chip Cookie 1
Bottle of Etonian Wine 9

I would update the wiki except that I am entirely ignorant on how to format it properly and would only end up making a mess of it.

It looks like ANET may have added a Mystic Forge recipe that has not made it onto the wiki yet that includes Chocolate Chip cookies. I accidentally figured this out while working on something else. Here is a screen shot. Does anybody know what the fourth item is?

I ran into a pair of players in snowball mayhem just now who would take the present and take it behind their tower and sit there without turning it in, stretching the match out to an extreme because points only were then being scored on kills, and denying everybody presents. Pretty much everybody else was frustrated with them but they kept insisting it was legit and not trolling. It seems to me that they are exploiting the game design to deny everybody else rewards. Can anybody comment as to whether this is trolling (my opinion) or legit (their opinion)? I kept their names, but I know that naming and shaming is against forum policy.

I have the same problem as OP. The meta achievement is definitely bugged and not consistently crediting repeatable achievements like Bells of Winters day towards the meta.

I am having the exact same issue as @upsdn. I have 17/18 of the meta, 16 checked off, and have completed the repeatable bell ring 4 times. Haven’t tried support yet, I guess that is the next step

There is a guild [TZ] that pushes Orr temple events through, usually for each of the temples every day at reset. They meet in Cursed Shore at Meddler’s to start.

I had this happen tonight when I disconnected with maybe a minute left. Tried to get back in and got the network error. I am guessing it is because they lock the map after the event completes which leaves anybody who disconnects at a bad time is simply out of luck

27 in iMac i7; 16GB RAM; OsX 10.11.2; Radeon 6970M w/2048 VRAM

here is the other error

I will try not to rant . . too much. But I worked a Dragon Stand Map from start until 1 minute before finish. During that time I disconnected three times, the last one fatally so since when I logged back in they finished the mouth and I was left with Jack to show for the time and effort. I am certainly not the first to have this problem. I have had a difficult of a time even making it into an organized map and then to be deprived of what I had worked hard to earn is just wrong. Here are the error messages. Fix them. Sorry, that is about as polite as I can be at the moment.
*EDIT- Mac Game Client; OS X 10.11.2 3.4 i7; 16GB RAM; Radeon 6970M w/2048MB VRAM

I posted a similar request a while back and received similar responses. I like the idea of races having a larger role in play style and for racial skills to be something other than the afterthought they currently seem to be right now.

Yet I also recognize the concern that certain race/profession combinations might seem to work better than others. By positing racial specializations, that also means that in addition to the skills, the trait line would have to be similarly generic to work across all 9 professions in a balanced fashion.

I am not saying it cannot be done and I really like the concept, but I suspect the logistics of it will keep it from ever actually happening.

I am aware of both. As I said above, they simply seem like silly oversights. However if you pick up another crafting profession, that also then necessitates leveling it up to at least the minimum level to refine mithril, which IMO is a waste of crafting mats if not already done, for something that should have been included when they added the recipes to the game.

This has almost certainly be encountered by every player who has ever crafted empty Kegs for their guild upgrades. Chef’s cannot refine mithril ore into the ingots needed to craft empty kegs. This means either hoping that your chef has a second crafting skill that can refine mithril, or else switching characters to another that can. It seems a silly oversight, but annoying.

It would be nice if ANET would add the ability for a chef to refine mithril now that they have added the need for mithril in chef crafting.

On a related note, it is an equally annoying oversight that a Jeweler cannot purchase the necessary thermocatalytic reagents needed to make glass mugs from the Master Jeweler.

Have you tried the suggestions here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Map_completion#World_completion

Also, there is the possibility that you may not actually be complete despite having done all the hearts/wp/hp/poi. Some regions have zones that are explorable without having any of those within them. There is a helpful list of those here:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explorer#Commonly_missed_areas

Hope this helps!

nezroy.8492:

I love the new firefly mining flute. I would buy it in a heartbeat, except… I can’t give up the raw utility of the watchwork mining pick. A utility which ANet has already admitted was a mistake in retrospect.

ANet please fix this once and for all so I can be freed from the tyranny of the watchwork pick!

I have a simple suggested fix. Add a new laurel store utility infusion alongside the +magic find, +karma, and +xp ones that goes in the utility amulets. Have it provide the chance to get sprockets on mining bonus. Then remove this bonus from the watchwork pick and give everyone who owns one a copy of the new utility infusion without having to spend laurels.

I SO want to buy that mining flute!

You are demanding that ArenaNet destroy the functionality for everybody else just so you don’t feel bad about buying a different harvesting skin?? No. Just no. I picked up a couple on the last sale and love this pick for what it is. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you are enslaved to the “tyranny” of the watchword pick that is your own problem, but don’t make it everybody else’ problem.

The pick is unique, sort of, in that it gives you additional materials, but so do the winters day harvesting pick/axe/sickle. I think the concept of getting additional materials when harvesting is appealing and would like to see more of those kinds of options, either gem store or with in game currency, rather than nerfing after the fact a product that most bought for the specific functionality it has.

Neither would I have any objection to ArenaNet making watchwork sprockets more available through other means. Certainly the facility is there now with the new harvesting synthesizers.

Either of these options would be infinitely preferable to destroying the one worthwhile infinite harvesting tool available.

The OP’s post is an almost exact mirror of my guild’s experience last night until they got to PvP. In fact so much so that I found myself wondering if it WAS someone from my guild with an account name I imply don’t recognize.

The seemingly random manner in which some get rewards while many don’t when so much of the rewards have already been shifted or simply killed off that missing out on what little is left is frustrating and disheartening.

Our guild finally captured Gilded Hollow last night. We went in with 50 people (did a headcount once we were in). We had to reset once from a failure on our first try. However by the time we finished the second attempt, we were down to 40 people, simply because of the client crashing. That is bad enough, but the insult to injury here is that only 2 were able to get back in. The rest of us were stuck standing outside, unable to assist. When we tried to go in, we received the prompt for Gilded Hollow (guild capture) but then took us to a new empty instance. The guild was left with a harder completion and the rest of us lost out on the experience working cooperatively with the guild on this large scale.

I understand that you all at ANET are trying to deal with bugs as soon as you can, but really, you all need to facilitate a way for users to be able to get back in to the same instance they were kicked from. I have lost track of how many times I (and many others with me) have lost map bonus progression because of this. This dilemma is a long standing one, going back at least to the implementation of the mega-servers in LS Season 1. It is even more of an issue now with player rewards being shifted to map rewards. Losing the instance or the map has even greater impact when that is a primary way of players being rewarded for their play.

This goes all the way back to the CDI’s that ANET ran a year or so ago. Folks asked for account based end game progression, particularly for the folks that play numerous alternate characters. The mastery system was specifically developed to allow this kind of player progress WITHOUT having to do all over again everything across each character.

Character based end game progression is seen in the elite specializations. Asking for the masteries to be character based rather than account based completely misses the point entirely. If you would like to understand where HoT is now and why it was developed this way, you really need to go back and sift through the CDI discussions.

I primarily run my engineer built out for conditions, but thief p/d is also pretty decent at applying a variety of conditions. I have been running that build since before conditions were popular again and really enjoy it.

I am of the same opinion as several who have already posted. I had originally planned on camping out in the Labyrinth for the entire duration of Halloween farming both drops AND Tyrian mastery XP. Due to the error that ANET has already acknowledged and apologized for that is not an option. Before the dungeon disincentivizing nerf (Still don’t know how that is supposed to be a legitimate word but ok) I had planned on getting the rest with regular dungeon runs. I have some good friends that still like to do dungeons and we make regular tours of most of them. But for their reasons that I disagree with, Anet killed dungeon XP along with the gold. Neither the XP nor the gold is actually made up with fractals, although I do those too.

I have spent about an hour doing the farm, and I will farm it again, probably once Halloween is done. I don’t find it fun, but I want the fractal and pact masteries and ANET has both intentionally and unintentionally closed the doors on every other way to make XP at a relatively quick rate.

It is unfortunate that the OP and those sharing his opinion find the dungeon farm distasteful, but folks are entitled to their opinions. If folks want to quit the game because they are unhappy, again that is up to them, although I don’t really see the point. It seems to me that the “change it or I quit” response is inherent to a personality, and therefore, sadly, those folks may be destined to be serial game quitters simply because they bring their unhappiness with them to whatever game they play, which is truly tragic.

My suggestion (although I expect it to be wholly ignored by any who are with the OP) is: do what you enjoy, play for fun, appreciate the beauty of the game, and let others do the same. Don’t let other people’s choices in game, whatever they may be, determine whether or not you can continue to appreciate the game in which you have invested both play time and very real money.

mysticeyesx.1346:

This fixed it for me
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28148006-Repairing-the-Game-Client

This worked for me also

I have 4 fractal weapon skins earned. All 4 show in my wardrobe, and I currently have one of those 4 (Hammer) equipped but the only one that shows up in the collection is the scepter.

Ok, that makes sense. The higher initial starting cost is a little annoying but if the numbers balance out at the end it really doesn’t matter. Thanks!

I noticed that to unlock herald on my revenant is 65 hero points instead of 60 for all the other elite specializations.. Can anybody confirm whether this is intentional? Has Roy said anything? If so, has anybody done a comparison of unlock costs against other specializations to see if they are the same or more expensive?

I cannot decide if this is meant to indicate that the herald is “more” elite than other elite specs or what.

I haven’t logged in yet, and can’t until after work, but have you done the HoT story that unlocks masteries yet? In the beta you had to do the story first. Which btw, doesn’t give you the unlock if you die and exit to verdant brink before completing.

I haven’t logged in yet, and can’t until after work, but have you done the HoT story that unlocks masteries yet? In the beta you had to do the story first. Which btw, doesn’t give you the unlock if you die and exit to verdant brink before completing.

doddbox.8153:

For one we don’t actually know how hard they’re going to nerf gold rewards, secondly I’m pretty sure people who have been running dungeon tours for the best part of 3 years are ready to say goodbye to them.

There is also nothing stopping you from doing them after since the core bug-ridden design is staying the same.

I have been running dungeons from the very beginning of GW2. I ran dungeons in GW1 hard mode, (along with UW, FoW etc). I don’t find them stale although I understand others that do. I plan on continuing to run them as I can. What I am lamenting is the depopulation of dungeon runners that this change has the potential to bring. If you are bored with dungeons, then by all means move on to other content. I am not looking to force people to continue playing them, but I hate the idea of ANET manipulating things FOR THE PURPOSE of depopulating dungeons and moving them to other content.

Kakapo.5230:

If the gold rewards are going to be nerfed, there needs to be a significant increase in the token rewards to compensate.

I don’t see how that will make up for the way this will further depopulate dungeon runs, although it will at least provide a little cushion for folks still skin farming or working on current legendaries.

Perhaps they might consider a diminishing returns model with the gold too rather than killing it at a flat rate across the board.

Dungeons have long been my favorite part of PvE. I play fractals, quite a bit, I enjoy open world content, but when I am really interested in a great run, i turn to a tour of the tyrian underground. That experience shouldn’t change with the reduction of rewards, they aren’t announcing changes to the dungeons themselves, right? Except that experience WILL change because it will depopulate an area of the game that has already been hit hard by neglect and disinterest in the part of ANET. It is already hard enough to find interest in forming dungeon teams. If the dungeons are only of benefit for those who are farming skins or trying to get the current legendaries (as opposed to the shiny new ones in HoT) that is only going to get worse.

I understand that they want us to play their new stuff, and I will. I pre-ordered for my wife & I early on. I am already talking with our guild about being on our raid team. But that doesn’t change my desire to keep playing dungeons.

For the sake of being nice and forum friendly, I will spare you all my wife’s comments on the matter except to say that she is just as disappointed as I am and less diplomatic about expressing it.

I sincerely doubt anybody from ANET will see this, but I would like to propose a way to leave them of at least some value for casual gamers.

1. leave the dungeon rewards the same for the first path run on a dungeon each day.
2. if you HAVE to reduce dungeon rewards (and I am completely NOT conceding that point) then implement diminishing rewards on a per path basis rather than a flat rate across the board for all paths of all dungeons.

That at leaves us the opportunity to travel around the world doing dungeons, and retain some value in running them rather than nerf-ing them into entire extinction.

Donari.5237:

. . . As I headed past some Jotun to the commune point with a vet ghost Jotun guarding it, a candy corn node popped up against the cliff wall, just for a moment, too fast to screenshot.

I know that post-Halloween we get these ghost corns, as it were, but seeing one in advance is kind of cool.

I actually have seen those year round for at least 2 years, only on occasion and as you said far too quickly to screenshot. I don’t have any idea why that happens though, would be really curious to hear, but doubt that we ever will.

Gaile Gray.6029:

In the meantime, the team definitely knows you’d like to see this performance preserved and shared!

Just as we have years more of fun to look forward to with GW2, Please, posting the music would allow us to find years of enjoyment out of game as well, listening to this music.

Please, please post the video recordings of the taste of Tyria!

Sondergaard.8469:

Personally I’m not a fan of any of the % health cast ability traits. If I want to cast a skill it’s on my hotbar and I can push the button myself. These often lack any degree of excitement for me when I see them in the trait line. I would much rather see something that gives % bonuses to toughness for the dwarf line than auto proc skill stuff…

This view likely comes from how I handle traits as a whole. I want passive bonuses, that improve my overall potential strength, but I look for the always on traits as opposed to the long cooldown proc skill traits.

This pretty well sums up my own take on the change as well.

• Give Mordrem Blooms as event rewards, scaling off bronze/silver/gold, heavily weighted towards Gold, much like bandit crests in Silverwastes
• Give a brief opportunity to mine an extra couple blooms after event to reward those who stick out to the very end, much like the toxic alliance events
• Include gold/karma rewards with events to compensate for all the mapping to catch multiple events quickly
• Make kills count for XP to help new players level from participating, and to count towards bloodlust/corruption weapon sigils
• Don’t dispose of map bonus for those who stay through the whole event, but like the Scarlet LA event, offer greater rewards for maps that complete more total events. Roll the once a day bonus into these so that people who want to simply play all the way through these events are rewarded for each one rather than encouraging to play one and then move on with other things.
• If the map succeeds in enough event completions (40? 50?), offer a difficult bonus event at the end with a unique reward or higher bloom return to encourage map organization and cooperation
• Make the waves have fewer but harder to kill trash mobs so that more people have a chance to get hits in. I have missed credit on so many events because I cannot get a hit in before everything drops, and know other have struggled with this too.
• Make the vendor prices/reward drops such that people have the potential for earning the tokens to buy more than 1-2 things. Several of the people I have spoken with have expressed the same desire I have to earn multiple skins/minis from this.
• Leave off the 90 minute break in between.
• Repeat this same event every other weekend until release, updated to adjust for the suggestions here to allow more people the chance to get more rewards.
• Offer the ability to buy or receive a recipe for Mordrem Slaying Potions (perhaps as reward for the bonus event suggested above) This provides a tie-in to HoT and gives the chance for ongoing benefit in the expansion from participating in this event.

Also, allow some sort of credit for those who DC’d and ended up losing events.

I agree that character race should have a greater involvement in gameplay beyond making jumping puzzles harder for the larger races. I think that there could be either racial specializations (traiting racial skills) or racial masteries (buffs/bonuses in home regions); either of which would fit into the current development framework and philosophy.

As to whether one race/profession combo would be better than another, I think much of that could be handled with careful balance. If they chose to go with an elite specialization they could afford to strengthen it since there is already a sacrifice of other traits to select a racial elite spec.

*Edit for auto-correct