Guild Wars 2

Gold coin is 24k, gold ore and the gold ingots are much lower quality (MUCH lower)

The TP took a hit about a week ago after a patch. No idea what or why, but since that point it’s been annoyingly slower than it was previously.

I’m getting functionality out of the trading post, but it is abysmally slow. Is anyone else having that issue?

Talonblaze.3175:

If it says 0 as the number of charges, the change is free. It will pop up with the transmutation notification even if your recoloring something, so don’t worry.

Just don’t get used to it. I find it highly suspicious that the transmutation transaction is conveniently programmed into the dye coloring system. I’m betting it won’t be completely free for long.

I enjoy it the way it is. It’s nice to casually run around destroying everything once in a while. There are plenty of options to make it more difficult. If anything, make a new character. If the game is so incredibly easy for you, surely it isn’t difficult to make enough gold to buy another character slot.

8 characters (1 per class)
5 @ 80
4 have 100%
working on the fifth.

I’ve got just shy of 2500 hours into the game, and have gotten a total of 2 precursors off the trading post with a little patience.

I’ve gotten zero from the “mystic forge” or from drops.

Save your gold, and then place a buy order and be patient. It’s a really cruddy way to have to do it, but it’s the only reliable method since Anet continues to push precursor crafting out on into eternity.

OP: First off, the core of this game is the gem-store. The only “end game” in GW2 is gold. The majority of the game is structured around creating an environment of lacking, in order to create psychological pressure on players in an effort to get them to crack open their wallets and buy gems with real cash.

Once you accept that, a lot more becomes clear as to why things are done the way they are done in GW2.

Best path to making gold is spending real world money. Every other path is slowly being nerfed into oblivion.

Anyone else have dyes they’ve unlocked that refuse to go into the dye panel? I have Abyss on a character and even though I’ve logged all my characters in at least once, and opened the dye panel, even when I am on the character using Abyss, it does not transfer to the dye panel.

Happy Patch d… “A new build is available, your game will restart in 15minutes..”

Seriously though, I’ve been looking forward to today’s changes.

Anet should take this list seriously. It is packed full of common sense.

I don’t agree with all the points, but the overwhelming majority of them are things that this game needs in order to be on par with features (such as the UI) in other games.

If not for the money issue, which is what it’s all about, they could opt to let people waypoint to contested waypoints. Just let the crossed swords be a warning that “you may arrive dead”.

I think the biggest imbalance that needs to be fixed is the loot-drop vs. gold-value issue.

If Anet wants a specific gold value for a given item, that’s fine. I can see how that is needed for the economy.

Where things completely stop making sense and float off into the Twilight Zone is when you would wind up making 10 or 12 times the amount of gold required to buy the item if you chose instead to farm until you got it as a drop.

That is where the problem is. Drop rates need to compliment desired trading post prices.

I went to farm for my T6 mats to make my legendary. By the time I was something like 25% done (after several months) with gathering them (including what I got from making 77 mystic clovers), I had enough gold to buy the rest and still have 100g left over (this would be like getting 25% map completion and then being able to just buy a “map completion” scroll for the rest. Quite “legendary”)

Optimally, the game would reward you for your effort in a manner that made spending gold only slightly more attractive. Currently the way things drop, gold is roughly the only option. In the long run, that is what armor, weapons, and everything else in GW2 boils down to: gold. The end game is gold, nothing more.

runeblade.7514:

cranked.3812:

Please don’t waste the time on this devs. I know some people want this, but there are so many things in the game that actually need fixing/attention long before something else is added that, I believe, a small percentage of people want. We already have pvp areas that are great for fighting each other.

And dueling is one of those important things. Which a large majority want.

You still have provided no proof that a “large majority” want dueling.

Please provide the following:
-The number of people who play Guild Wars 2
-the number of people who want dueling

Along with citation for both sources of information.

mtpelion.4562:

Neural.1824:

None of those points addresses the issue of dyes already unlocked on individual characters being converted to account bound or not.

It’s a logic problem, not an explicit statement.

1. Dye will be unlocked on the account, not the character.
2. Duplicate character unlocks will reward you with unidentified dyes.
3. In order to determine if duplicate unlocks exist, they must first become account unlocks.
Ergo: Current character unlocks will have to become account unlocks in order to determine if you are entitled to any duplicate unlock bonus dyes.

1 glob of ectoplasm says that’s not how it ends up happening. This is Anet we’re talking about.

Canis Mesomelas.8125:

Allow me to back up Lil Puppy:

1. "One of the biggest changes we’re making is that dyes will no longer be unlocked per character but per account instead. "

2. “When you unlock a dye after the feature pack is released, all characters on your account will have unlimited access to that color.”

3. “If you already have the same dyes unlocked on multiple characters, when you log in on additional characters, you will receive one unidentified dye for each duplicate dye already unlocked on your account.”

4. No idea how Lil Puppy got this point or where obtained it from. From reading the post, that doesn’t appear to be true.
“Both specific colors of dye and unidentified dyes will still be tradable and available on the Trading Post”

None of those points addresses the issue of dyes already unlocked on individual characters being converted to account bound or not.

Don’t tell the OP about the part of the blog regarding forged weapons also giving you the skins of the precursors and other things that made them, like how Eternity holders will get dawn, dusk, twilight, and sunrise.

Oops! did I say that out loud?

Emma J.1940:

What no one has mentioned yet we’re all going to be charged to change colours on armour. At the moment I could change as often as I liked and it didn’t cost me anything (not including costs of any bought dye) now there’s going to be a fee every time I want a new look, how dear is this going to end up being. I know I wont be changing my colours as often as I do now.

I noticed on the dye blog that the example image showing the dye interface has “0” listed for the cost. Cute how they left that little detail unknown. More sleight of hand marketing from Anet.

It really seems like someone at Arenanet has a deep seething hatred for role-players.

This change does nothing in regards to making money or losing money for Arenanet. The typical monetary reasoning behind most of their changes does not exist in this area. Town clothing is static. To go and make changes that only screw the players over like this seems more like deliberate trolling. There is no reason for what they have done, it’s like it was thrown together on a whim to see if they could damage the role playing community.

I hope that this is accurate. I know people who role play and develop their characters as far as small flaws such as vision problems. To be able to finally wear glasses in various situations will be a nice touch.

I might just buy some sunglasses. I hope they don’t take those away

Blaeys.3102:

Its called inflation and it is a natural evolution of any trade based economy. Ten gold the day the game came out is no where near the same as 10 gold today (its like saying I could buy a new car for $1000 30 years ago. Why cant I buy one for that today?). Comparing the two the way you do is fallacious at best – misleading at worst.

The knee jerk reactions are unwarranted on this particular topic. They arent trying to do anything malicious or underhanded as alot of the conspiracy theorists on these forums claim. It isnt in their best interest to do so and I am sure they know that.

Arenanet has absolute control over the in-game economy. Inflation happens at their discretion, and in the case that Mungrul pointed out, just so happens to be hugely in their favor.

I noticed in the blog they very deftly danced around the subject of what happens with dyes you’ve currently unlocked, other than to say that if you have one dye unlocked on two characters that you’ll get an unidentified dye as compensation (what an insult to those who bought more than one Abyss).

Considering how Anet likes to dance around the facts to avoid the players getting mad about what is really going to happen, I am guessing that not all current dye colors are going to be converted instantly to account bound, but only newly discovered dyes will. Thus increasing their income as people are forced to buy charges to unlock dyes they already have.

Not just LA, I tried the Observatory puzzle in Kessex and didn’t get credit for that one either.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Wildstar is the perfect game for those who like CARTOONISH games.

Seeing Wildstar and then also Everquest Next take that particular tac when it comes to graphics in a game makes me wonder if there is some trend forming.

In spite of all the problems I have with GW2, I put it at the top of my list for looks, along with Rift. These two games are the most beautiful I’ve come across as far as graphics go (though i’d have to say I like the character faces more in Rift).

Heh, they probably pushed the blog back because they needed more time to prepare for the kittenstorm they are going to get over the changes.

For dealing with the idols, I’d suggest watching GW2 state (http://www.gw2state.com/temples.html) to find servers on which the temple related to the idol is open.

That deactivates the idols and lets you get the brambles and such out of the way. The two I have the toughest time with are Melandru and Lyssa, but in the long run it was easiest to just guest to a server where those temples were open.

For me, personally, when it got down to the end, I really only had a few skill points that I needed to guest in order to achieve, but it can be frustrating for sure.

Aren’t Quaggans supposed to fill the role of penguin-like creature?

I’ve always felt that for a game that is so focused on RL gem sales that the gem store itself was incredibly underwhelming. The sheer lack of product gives one the impression of walking into a store in the mall that only has 10 or 12 product for sale on a whole bunch of empty shelves.
Why it is they are so obsessed with selling items one time for a short period of time is beyond me. It leaves new players feeling left out, and only makes current players that happened to be short on money that month mad. For what? The chance that someone will splurge and pay an extra $20 so they can get a special axe for more than one character?

Hundred Blades will no longer require you to stay in one spot. :nods:

Seriously though.. I’m hoping this has something to do with either condition damage, or allowing weapon access to all classes.

going by standard drop rates for open world PvE alone, it will take you years to get all the mats (literally).

This game is designed around gold. Gold is the end game here. By the time you’ve farmed 250 of any given T6 mat required for the gift of fortune, you’ll have made enough gold to buy the rest.

If you are a hardcore crafter, I hate to break it to you, but crafting a legendary is about 25% world exploration, and 75% gold grind.

What I don’t want to see is the following:

I don’t want purchasing gems to be the only method of identifying dyes.
And I sure as hell do not want to see the crafting of an identifier having the same requirements as ascended gear.

Sadly I suspect that is exactly what we’ll get. 100gem identifiers in the gem store, and crafting that requires 500 in jeweling and 250 of some given T6 material just to wind up with account bound Olive Yew dye.

It would be nice if future living story segments could immerse the player as much as that one little prayer has done for so many.

Getting people emotionally invested in a story is very important to its success.

I must be doing things completely wrong.

I have a wells focused necro that I use in PvE with staff/scepter/dagger combo and I find her to be not only fun but great at killing things. Only critter I use is the flesh golem, and he’s nice and tough.

Malediktus.9250:

The feature patch will be such a joke.

I don’t know that it will be a joke, but I firmly believe that this feature patch is going to either make or break Arenanet.

There will always be players on both sides of the fence. Those that love it, and those that hate it, with a smattering of those who don’t care/don’t notice, but with so many issues that have come up over the last year or so that people have been wanting resolved, fixed, changed, and the hype that Arenanet has put into this features patch, it would seem, in my opinion, like it’s going to be a very polarizing event. In the long run, the success of it depends on where the majority of players fall in the like/dislike area. If the majority of players are happy with the patch, the game will start to grow again, but if the majority of them dislike it Arenanet will have a very long road to recovery, and there may be serious financial consequences (lack of players using gem store, etc.).

Morrigan.2809:

Most of this stuff is just bring us up to date with the Chinese client

That’s what has me the most worried.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We want to let you know that the ability to build your precursor will not be in our upcoming Feature Pack. The way progression and rewards work in Guild Wars 2 have changed quite a bit since we initially talked about that feature, and our main horizontal progression systems are about to get some additional updates in the upcoming feature pack. Because of that, we are looking into several ways to integrate building your precursor into our new updated reward and progression systems we’re working on, which is requiring additional development time and iteration. As always, we’ll share details on this system once it’s far enough along in production we’re ready to discuss it.

Honestly, this sounds like a bunch of marketing gibberish that is nothing more than an excuse for why crafting methods of obtaining a precursor have been shelved yet again.
Summer of 2013 they listed precursor crafting as a year 2013 objective, then December 2013 we got a “we couldn’t fit it in” and it got slotted for sometime in 2014.
Now it’s being pushed back again.

Until when Mark? 2015? 2016? People are getting tired of what is coming across looking a lot like lies and obfuscation. It’s not just precursor crafting, it’s many things. Bugs that have been around since day one, precursor crafting, etc.

Arenanet is digging a hole, and they’d better start considering how they are going to get out of it, because the players aren’t as stupid as some would suppose.

What are they defining as “unlocked”? Just the ones you currently have selected, or the entire trait line set?

My predictions

The Art of Combat: Changes to the graphical appearance of fights (maybe we’ll finally be able to see the boss in the middle of the zerg?)
Critical!: details the introduction of ferocity
A new way to explore the looks: Armor gallery
A colorful outlook: implementation of gems for dye assessment
Looking for Group?: more changes to the LFG tool
Removing restrictions: No clue on this. It seems contrary to Anet’s methods
Account bound: Not even going to dream that this is about Legendary weapons
A solid foundation: new noob zone tutorials to help players learn to dodge, etc. (it would be a plus)
Facilitating Friendly Play: Implementation of game changes to force people to not play solo

So these new trait unlock items. Are they a guaranteed drop, or do they have the typical precursor level abysmally small RNG chance of dropping?

I can see the grandmaster traits now, just 300gold at the vendor, or solo Teq for a specific trait.

Yeah, this is going to be real popular.

everything from new systems that change and upgrade the way you experience Guild Wars 2 to quality of life and balance updates that improve existing gameplay systems.

The part in bold. Yeah, my guess is we’re getting a VIP system.

Well, since Anet has yet again pushed off precursor crafting into the realm of “when we get around to it”, don’t expect any other changes to happen either.

Wow, more excuses.

I seriously doubt Anet has any intention of ever implementing precursor crafting. This is all carrot & stick.

A little background:
I am a crafter at heart. I enjoy taking raw materials and refining them. I enjoy working with my hands. I love the process of creating things. I always have. When video games presented the ability to make things that would help your character progress, I jumped on it. Vanguard introduced me to crafting that I would consider a little more complex, and from then on I was hooked on virtual crafting. When I look at a game like that, one of the first things I want to know is how to gather and can I gain an advantage through crafting.

It was a multi-part journey. Each of the 3 parts had it’s own psychological/emotion reward. The feeling of accomplishment. From the gathering of the materials, to refining and assembling them, to receiving the final product, a virtual labor of love. You put time into it, and the result shows the value of that time.

Guild Wars 2
When I started GW2, I was somewhat disheartened at the simplicity of the crafting, and the lack of random chance involved with the results, but the recipe system made sense, and raw materials presented themselves, at the time, at a good pace. Unfortunately, after discovering the ultimate recipe, that being that all 6 tiers of crafting were just repeats of the previous levels using higher value material, it got boring really quick, but as I learned there were other items that could be crafted via the mystic forge, and I also started very quickly to look into the legendary weapons.

The process of crafting a legendary was daunting. I’d never seen such rediculous amounts of material required for a single item, and there were things required that involved aspects of games that I’d never cared to participate in (namely PvP and Dungeons).

Overall though, I saw it as doable. I even, at the time, set aside the issue of how precursors were obtained. Foolishly, at the start, I believed there was a chance at getting one as a drop. That faded quite quickly.

Then I stared playing the game more seriously. From there I started to learn the dark down sides of crafting a legendary. Anet had made it obscenely difficult to get the required materials in what appeared to be purely a move to get people to buy gems>gold to purchase. Calculations and tests were done. By April of 2013, I knew full well how long it would take me to gather the required T6 materials via general PvE play when taking into account my 2 to 3 hours a day play time combined with the limitations of Diminishing Returns and only 3 zones where T6 mats drop. 4 years if I played daily. Just for the T6 materials. Not including the orbs I needed, which drop far less. Coupled with precursors that only drop at about the same rate people win the lottery in real life, I just about gave up on crafting an legendary at all.

By the time this all set in, however, I had gotten my map completion, as well as the gift of battle. Standing in the way was the Gift of fortune, the Precursor, and the Gift of the Unicorn (which I had nearly completed).

I chose to make an attempt to get my T6 materials gathered for the Gift of Fortune. This quickly became a monotonous grind. I had, at this point, a bit of a dark epiphany. Tainted heavily with regret and emptyness. The end game for crafting in GW2 is not about crafting. It’s not about anything legendary. It’s about grinding gold.
Because no matter how much time you care to put in the game, spending 4 years grinding out T6 mats in the same 3 zones, at half hour per day segments, in the long run, your time put into crafting nets you nothing special. Because the guy with mommy’s credit card in your guild bought his legendary off the trading post before you even knew what one was.

That’s the saddest part about legendary weapons. They aren’t worthy of being crafted at all because in the long run, they are not legendary at all. They are just a skin. There is no joy in crafting something that others just buy off the market.

In the end, after half a year of farming, I had enough gold to buy 80% of the T6 mats I needed, along with the orbs for the gift. It nearly made me sick to my stomach to face the fact that the actual crafting path for these things, as designed, was just grinding gold.

Today, I put in an order, and recieved, The Lover. The last piece of the legendary. I received The Dreamer from the mystic forge, and … felt nothing. No sense of accomplishment. No sense that I had crafted something worthwhile. It was just a skin.

Worse, in the back of my mind, I hear the employees of anet whispering “sucker”.

I’m hoping season 2 is based on what worked from season 1. A lot of season 1 felt like they were just throwing everything at the wall and trying to see what would stick.

I prefer to play psuedo-solo. Meaning I join up with whomever I come across in PvE/WvW that is doing the same thing, then we part ways when the objective is done. It provides fun, sometimes light conversation, and no commitments.

Everything I need to know about guilds I learned from Eve Online.

This isn’t so much about the quality of the Living Story (or lack of, depending on your view), but about all the various little aspects of the living story that we’ve seen this past year.

When I look back at the stuff I took part in, as well as the facets that were brought about, I see a lot of one-off things.

From mechanics down to items, there were so many things that were only seen once as a “type” goes.

Examples:
The citizens rescue. A zone wide sort of mechanic/event that required lots of non-zerg group effort.
Queens Gauntlet: a one off mechanic where players go solo against mobs in a 1v1 arena type environment.
Random Portal devices: I can’t remember the exact name, but basically it’s the consumable that opens a random portal to various locations in Tyria

There are many more, as those are just examples, but there just seem to be a lot of things that feel more like Anet was testing the players to see how they would react to certain types of situations or items.

focus on
1.) bug fixing & balancing
2.) expand the map (and I mean at least 1 region, not a single zone)
3.) Vanity related issues (i.e. clipping problems, new armor, etc.)

stop focusing on herding users to the gem store!!!

Players are encouraged to hold on to these items if they are interested in trading with her when she appears.

Any indication as to whether or not this means she will appear as part of another update, or if it means she’ll appear randomly and was added with the latest patch?

No underwater weapons? Again?

Karizee.8076:

Won’t be July, confirmed by ArenaNet to not be “months away”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Opening-Chests-after-March-18th/page/2#post3757628

They also said we’d have precursor crafting and, if I recall, new legendaries by the end of 2013. But those got pushed back as well.

At this point I don’t find it possible to put any faith in any dates put forth by Anet.