Guild Wars 2

Not sure who thought that the tonics would be a good idea. Fully support the town clothes being made into outfits. At least then I could color them to what I want.

Just to add to the confusion, most of my characters seem to have been zoomed out in the preview window. Seeing details on my norn, for instance, is rather difficult.

Edit: It seems that the character height is a factor. My characters are usually as short as possible, so they seem to be a lot smaller than before in the preview.

So apparently my level 80 characters needed to “learn to dodge” according to the low level maps. Curious about what that actually is, I meandered over and talked to the NPC nearby.

As soon as I talked to the NPC, I got a hint on how to dodge. Um, yay?

I dodge-rolled into the center of the ring, and before I could open the chest, I got a hint on how to dodge. Uh.

I dodge-rolled out, and got a hint on how to dodge. For kitten’s sake, man! Knock it off!

Obviously not critical game breaking, but I really don’t need the same hint three times — especially after I’ve clearly displayed that I’ve done the hint-action (in this case, dodging) twice successfully.

Same here. I don’t think it’s a massive deal, it’s still remembering my login credentials just fine. But having to click the login button every time seems rather pointless if everything is saved.

Haven’t read the full thread, but a quick two cents.

The revisions to the low level system are, in a word, awful. I played through level 8 or so, and had a long, long way to go to get a full skill bar. Hint: It does not take two or ten levels to learn a single new skill. New characters have so few options that it feels really really really dull. My guardian couldn’t even hold a shield until level 7. Apparently the handles are too complicated or something.

Not to mention the loss of things like gathering and the trading post NPCs in low level areas. Were those too confusing?

I cannot express how pleased I am that my actual characters are all level 80 already.

On the flip side, I really enjoy most of the trading post changes. The crafting UI is also a welcome change (particularly for chef, with huge nested lists of crafting parts).

I have not had a chance to test skills in depth, but I did do the Trash Collector collection. That was quite fun with running around the world killing various things for drops, exploring areas I hadn’t been to in a while. I picked up a Grawl Paw on the way, unlocking another collection. Unfortunately, that one wasn’t as fun, involving some very fast crafting and poof, I’m done.

And I’m mildly disappointed with some of the collections. Spoon collecting sounds amusing, but it’s going to be a long, long time before I have enough laurels to spend on an Ascended spoon I have no use for just to finish off a collection. Many of the other collections are a huge (HUGE) time or gold sink. And the rewards just don’t seem worth it.

So for collections, they ranged from too easy (Grawl Paw, and the crafting ones I had on login) to too pricey (the one that gives the chest). I’ve only found only trash collector to be “just right,” with some effort involved but nothing too ridiculously expensive.

Not sure if this counts as minor. And it may even just be a preview window issue (not really keen on spending two transmutation charges just to test). But still, something to look at.

Race: Sylvari
Gender: Female

The Outlaw medium coat has some clipping issues on her chest. This occurs regardless of other armor equipped (even having no other armor at all will produce the issue).

JonPeters.5630:

We added this system as a direct result from the horizontal progression CDI. We are always reading your feedback, however, we don’t always have time to respond right away or action it quickly. We updated some trait unlocks in the past but we can do more. How can you help?
1) Give us a list of the most offensive trait unlock locations.
2) Keep giving feedback and be patient as this is a big ship and it takes time to steer it.

There are three issues I personally see with the trait unlocks. This comes from a player that recently leveled four characters to 80 under the new system, with a number of others that were grandfathered in to have all but the newest grandmaster traits unlocked.

First, the adept traits are available at level 36. None of the adept traits should require level 50+ zone tasks. Want to know which ones those are? Wiki to the rescue: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait_guide and scroll down to “Trait unlock methods sorted by level range”. Any trait that’s I-VI and that should ideally be no higher than level 40 or so. If you ask me. Which you did, so there. Or… something.

Depending on the profession, some characters are going to have a difficult time getting the traits they want/need without spending skill points. A currency which is not in abundance for a leveling character (those four characters I mentioned earlier? Still have elites and the new healing skills to unlock, not to mention all the “extra” traits they’re not currently using).

The second major issue I see with the system is an utter lack of variety. This is a game where I can freely move to any zone I desire, as long as its level isn’t too high. I can craft my way to 80, or PvP, or run dungeons… flexibility is nice.

But to unlock traits, I have to go complete Harathi Hinterlands. Again. I have to fight the champions there and participate in the centaur chain. I have to go complete Lornar’s Pass. Again. I have to make sure to fight Lord Ignius and the champion wurm and… all of that. Again.

I have zero incentive to go complete Brisban Wildlands. In fact I feel that I’m wasting my game time when I do something like that, since I’m not actively working on traits. I have no reason to go play in the Plains of Ashford or Metrica Province and so forth — and so all the players are funneled into just a few zones.

On one hand it’s nice that when you say Kol Skullsmasher is up, you get a number of people rushing to help. He awards a trait, after all. On the other, good luck finding anyone at all to help with Robbari in Brisban Wildlands.

I would like to see some more flexibility and player choice with the traits. Possibly add in more tasks that will award traits. And then, instead of unlocking a specific trait for a specific task, give the character a manual. A coupon, if you will. “Good for one Adept level trait of your choice.” This might need some work, I’m not a game designer. But choice is nice.

Finally, the third issue I see is with simply finding the traits. “I am level 30, where can I go to unlock some things?” The wiki trait guide is a good resource for this, but I dislike going out of the game for in-game information.

Or “I am in Fields of Ruin. What traits can I unlock here and what do I have to do?” If I click the “show me” button in the traits window, I would like to have a personal waypoint set for the resulting location. So I can easily mark off the things I want to do.

I would expect that this would be a filter of some sort, like in the crafting UI. Filter for traits in the current zone, or for traits within a few levels of my own. Filter for WvW traits if you’re inclined to do that.

This post is probably far too long, but hopefully it is helpful in some small way. Thank you for your time.

Becka Williams.4978:

I looked at the squad color, and I would not call the two colors “substantially different” They’re very similar, to me, almost the same. Now, it’s a good point that impersonating a GM is a serious offense, and we can report them, but I might look at making the colors a bit more different.

Yeah, I’d have to agree. My color weakness is with reds and greens, but if these weren’t side by side I’d have a hard time telling which is which. There are minor details like general chat versus a whisper, but I think these could be too easily confused off the bat.

Then again with the strict policies in place, it might not be a substantial issue.

I meant side by side, actually. I’ve never seen a “squad” message, so I really don’t know what color that might be in comparison to the GM whisper.

Thanks for the link, though (from two different people, even, whee). I hadn’t seen that bit.

Gaile Gray.6029:

This is an excellent point. I will look into the colors, but I’m told they are substantially different.

I think screen shot examples would be beneficial. Just so we can be sure of what we’re looking for.

In an ideal world, I’d like to see these colors customizable. As a partially colorblind player I’ve had issues before with colors (such as red AoE rings on green terrain, meaning they’re practically invisible to me). But I know it’s not an ideal world, so just seeing the difference would, I think, be helpful.

Will the whispers be recorded internally, amassing marks (as you state it)?

For example, I do something stupid and GM Bob whispers me saying “oi, knock it off.” I stop, then return the next day or the next week and start doing the same something stupid again. Will GM Suzy know that GM Bob already warned me about it?

(disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual GM names is purely coincidental and unintentional)

I’d like option 3, please. Which may have been said already in the thread that I haven’t read.

You provide a list of topics that you can talk about. The players vote on which is the most interesting.

This will result in a topic we want to hear about, with more response than “that’s definitely on the table for discussion.”

I agree with most of your points. Minor quibble with the bloodstone sink, though. I have zero interest in dumping a bunch of time and materials into the back item. I still would like to have access to a bloodstone sink. It’s like adding a vendor somewhere that will only deal with you if you’ve made a legendary. For some folks that’s fine, but not everyone wants to make a legendary just to have access to that vendor. It’s not a huge deal, but mildly irritating if I don’t have any plans to make the back piece.

I also don’t really agree with the preference shown between open world and dungeons. I far prefer open world content (assuming it’s not glitchy and stalled like… some events). As I understand it, the instances for the Living Story did scale up with additional party members, so I have no complaints for that. However that’s a subjective opinion, and I really don’t know how well these instances scale (since I completed them all solo).

Boneheart.3561:

It’s as easy as flipping a switch! Oh no wait, the human brain…

Don’t think about elephants.

So let me paraphrase your argument, just so I understand. “I can’t focus on the story and achievements at the same time. Therefore no one else should even have the option.” Does that sound accurate? Or have I misinterpreted you somehow?

Zaxares.5419:

The compromise would be achievements are locked during the first run, but once the first run is done, achievements are unlocked account-wide. You don’t need to do the LS on an individual character in order to use that character to get the achievements if it turns out one is better suited to the task than another.

I’d be fine with this, personally. In addition, the user interface shows this exact setup — once one character finishes the story, the achievements are listed as unlocked even though they’re still locked for alts. Not to mention the quote linked earlier by Isomorphic.

Boneheart.3561:

Nkuvu.2570:

I fail…

Yes, you do.

Rude and unnecessary.

I’d prefer my attention wasn’t divided between what I can spot as possible Achievements, resisting the urge to check for Achievements, and the story.

Then don’t pay attention. You have the option to disregard achievements the first time through if that’s your preference. However if I do want to pay attention to the achievements (or if I complete them through my normal game play) I should have the option of having those recognized.

lordkrall.7241:

Well, as have been said after every single S2 release (since this exact thread have been created multiple times after each one) they did it this way because otherwise people would focus on the achievements, miss out on the story and then whine about not understanding the story.

Then let them whine. I fail to see the problem.

I think it’s fine to lock the tooltip descriptions for the achievements. That way, you don’t know what they are until after the story. But if you manage to actually complete the achievements, then you get credit for it.

I don’t really understand.

People are fine with the mechanism to artificially lengthen the play time. Namely, the achievements being locked until after the first play through. People are fine with exclusive achievements requiring yet more play-throughs.

But you lose your patience for some repeated dialogue?

If I had my way, achievements would be awarded the very first time through. And you would also have the option to skip the dialogue if you have no interest in it.

Just that complaining about one without having a problem with the other… baffles me.

I honestly don’t know everything that was in the box.

The globs of globbity goop were all dispensed in “stacks” of one or two, so my loot list on the right scrolled rather quickly. I can guarantee that I got zero exotics, though.

I had two rare items in my inventory, but this was also after I completed all the other LS steps and did some running around Dry Top, so can’t tell if they were from the box or just random drops.

Normally I’m fine with random rewards, but including gray goo in the loot table just seems really strange for an end-of-story reward box.

I see no reason to restrict achievements to replay.

Focus on the story? Well sure, I will if the story is engaging. With or without achievements.

Invisible restrictions are bad. If the hero window shows that the achievements are unlocked for my second character through the story, then… those achievements should be unlocked.

Replaying instances just for achievements does not make me feel like there’s more content to the episode. It just feels like a cheap tactic to get me to play longer — like you’d find in a subscription game.

I wish I could sell the ones I’m getting. The ambrite weapons don’t really interest me.

And in regards to the “they’re account bound so they’re not a money maker” argument, I can’t really see that. Especially when we have things like the Foxfire, that’s almost the same. Rare drop that is used for limited things, and can be sold. But the fossilized insects are more of an investment than Foxfire, requiring lockpicks and limited access during a sandstorm — so I see even less rationale behind making the insects account bound.

mtpelion.4562:

The event starts each time a player talks to the Charr NPC and asks about helping out. That’s why it seems like it immediately restarts (because players are immediately restarting it).

Aha, that actually makes a lot more sense, thanks.

I was under the impression that it was a timer-style event. So the instant restart seemed to be… very broken.

If the Husk thing is an elite, then you have scaled it up to the point where it is going to be a nasty, nasty fight.

Yeah. No argument there, both times I played through the event it was just a ton of not fun.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I don’t think it was there to “placate the whiners”. Most likely, the voice recording for the current Living Story releases have been done well in advance.

Complaints about the personal story and feeling like a minor side character have been around for a long, long time. Before season 1 of the Living Story, even. So I think it’s quite feasible that the writing of the player as the boss is exactly to address that.

Personally, I believe the “assistant” dialogues were written to illustrate how much the asura are intellectual snobs, and how Councillor Phlunt is even worse than that. Taimi obviously calls us her “assistant” because that is the only reason Councillor Phlunt can imagine why she would ever need a bookah for her experiment. (Other than as a test subject, of course.)

Which is a reasonable explanation for the non-asura players. However it makes no sense whatsoever when we’re dealing with an asura. A Snaff savant, no less.

Edit to add:

Taimi’s gold dust in my book – both the VA and dialogue are just great.

I wouldn’t care if she told my character to go and dance a jig at the Summit, I’d happily comply with anything short of deleting my account! :p

Fully agree. I can honestly say that interaction with Taimi is a highlight any time it happens. I still laugh out loud with episode 2 dialogue:

Braham: You did great, Taimi.
Taimi: I know.
Kasmeer: What is this place?
Taimi: It’s a caaaave.

Mordrem wolves are de debil. The leap high damage pounce, the cripple, the flanking… all of those aren’t too bad individually. But combine those with the constant retaliation for the tougher wolves (perhaps all veterans and above?) and the howl that gives an AoE retaliation, and I am not a fan.

Anyway. When you walk up to the crates in the instance, take note of what it says. There are different crates you can interact with, and Scruffy’s scan is not needed to tell which is the one with the stones you need. You do not have to fight the wolf if you don’t want to.

My second and third characters went through the instance without fighting anything at all (first one triggered some traps accidentally and had some normal earth elementals to fight, no trouble whatsoever).

I just completed the Uprooting Iron Marches portion of the Living Story with my mesmer. It was, in a word, evil.

Just the first stage, for example. Kill a Gravelash outside Monger’s Sink, flamethrowers provided. The event never stops spawning. As soon as it’s done, poof! There it goes again. Which is, I suppose, better than stuck and waiting for hours.

But when the event starts, Gravelash spawns and 20 or so tendrils appear. Each tendril throwing rains of AoE conditions — so when the event finishes, move NOW or be downed. The tendrils respawn very very often, so twice I saw the event fail because we couldn’t kill the tendrils fast enough to be able to actually damage the elite Gravelash (especially with a few tendrils being elites and a champion).

When I first played through the event this evening, there were only four or five players actually doing the event. But we still got a champion tendril to kill before we could damage the Gravelash. The second time through the event, I estimate about a dozen players (and in case you’re wondering why I did it a second time, I was trying to help resurrect the downed players and got sucked in). But that second time, nothing stronger than an elite. Lots of normal tendrils, a veteran or two… and still the time ran out and event failed.

And then it started again. Immediately.

So honestly, is this how it’s supposed to work now? I mean, we did get a patch today specifically addressing the events here.

Side note, the Mordrem champion that is up on the hill seemed to be constant as well.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I believe each alt must complete the story before unlocking and/or receiving credit for Achievements.

Possibly. But if that’s by design, then the bug is that the achievements shown in the hero window are listed as unlocked. They should be locked before that particular character completes the story.

Or the bug is that even though they don’t get credit, they should.

I’m not going to say which is which, but having the achievements shown as unlocked but unobtainable? I can’t imagine that’s working properly.

There are tons of threads about it.

Could be. The forum search is utterly worthless, though, turning up zero threads for the achievement names.

I was revisiting some of the Living Story instances for achievements, notably the Disturbance in Brisban Wildlands.

Progressed through the instance as usual. Killed bunches of Inquest, got one of the achievements I was after (messed up on two others, but my fault so not bugged), defeated the veteran golem at the end.

Instance goals changed to “Talk to Corporal Jantzen.” With the goal of “Talk to your friends” marked as optional. Considering that I had done the instance before this already, I spoke to Corporal Jantzen and said I was ready to explore beyond the ridge. Instance ends, I go on to Dry Top… and yet my Living Story star is still pointing back to Brisban Wildlands. I moved on to the Fallen Hopes instance for achievements there, and received a message that this was not my current story and progress would not be saved.

It’s possible that this issue is present even when completing the instance the first time around per character, though all of my alts so far have spoken to my allies before Corporal Jantzen. Revisiting instances is fine if I’m just going back for achievements, but I’d be rather annoyed if I was sent back because I didn’t complete something marked as optional.

I’ve done the Living Story episodes several times now with a few different characters. And I can only get credit for achievements when completing them with a character that’s already done with the story. I mentioned this to some people and they said they were getting credit, so I’m unsure how widespread this issue is. Or even if it’s by design.

Examples:
My engineer completed the Living Story, episodes 1 and 2. The achievements shown in the achievement window were marked as unlocked when I checked with my guardian.

My guardian destroyed all four pieces of Inquest Survey equipment in the Fallen Hopes instance, but did not get credit for the achievement No Rock Unturned. My warrior defeated the Inquest in Discovering Scarlet’s Breakthrough without touching any of the consoles, but got no credit for No Tricks.

When I revisited the instances with my engineer and did the same exact steps for the achievements, I did receive credit.

I can’t think of any reason that my alts are not receiving credit for this, there’s nothing in game that would possibly indicate that I need to repeat the instances with the same character for the achievements.

Johasthan.1327:

And for all who are saying the final awnser was already given, remember, nothing is ever final in an online game. A change is always possible! ^^

You’re a lot more optimistic than I am about this.

After reading the red responses in the thread already, I don’t feel like ArenaNet cares one way or another about the issue. It’s done, too bad so sad.

I salute the people who are still trying to change ArenaNet’s mind, but I’m out. Of the thread, of the game, I don’t know. The thread, at least. And there’s no way in heck that I’d ever consider spending more money on the gem store again (have I repeated that enough to make the point? Yeah, I think so).

Azalea.8341:

Honestly, it’s kind of an appalling business decision that you would treat your customers in this way.

I think it’s kind of funny (in a sad, shaking my head way) that the ones who are most negatively impacted by this update are the ones who are most likely to have spent real world money.

That is, if you just look at the armor side where people spent in game gold or karma, it’s a win. If you look at actual cash store purchases… haha, you lose.

I’m still completely baffled that this decision was given the go ahead. I am still hoping for a satisfactory resolution, but I can guarantee that I will never spend another cent of real world money in the gem store. I can’t be sure that my purchases will remain as I bought them. It’s a horrible precedent to set for the company, given that their gem store is their only source of recurring income.

I was pretty excited to hear about the armor wardrobe. I love the idea of unlocking a skin, and then not having to buy it again.

I was pretty happy to hear about the changes to the transmutation stones/crystals. I have tons of useless stones (almost all of my characters are level 80 already) and only a handful of crystals.

I was a little hesitant when I heard about account wide dyes. If I have duplicates… I get an unidentified dye? That doesn’t seem right. Consider me having Abyss on two characters. I get one unidentified dye due to the duplication. What are the chances that I’d get an Abyss out of that? I think the duplicates should just be returned, nothing unidentified about them. Abyss on two characters? Then I get an Abyss back.

Less happy to hear that full outfits like the pirate captain’s gear is an “all or nothing” deal. I hate the boots. They’re ugly. But I will no longer be able to mix in other boots. I paid real world money for the pirate clothes I have. All three sets.

And finally pretty disappointed with the change for individual pieces like the ornate ruched shirt. Made into tonics, so I can’t match that with the cargo shorts (which will be their own tonic). And I can’t dye them. I paid real money for these too, and the change is a poor one.

Overall, it’s like waking up on Christmas morning. Getting some really neat presents, and then in the last one you find a pile of old, unwashed sweaty gym socks. It kind of spoils the mood of the rest of the presents.

So I have three sets of the pirate captain armor. I always liked the looks of that more than the default town clothes. Of course I am not too excited that I’ll be forced to use the ugly boots that come with it. But that’s been covered.

Will I be able to get a refund for the extra copies? Or will it be a “welp, sucks to be you” kind of deal?

I’m thinking the latter, but figured I’d ask anyway. And this seemed to be the most appropriate thread for the question.

Athena.3579:

No longer are these items remotely usable in the way they used to be. No one wants an endless clothing tonic that “cannot be mixed or dyed”. No one. Not compared to what we had originally.

I have not seen a single positive mention of the tonics. And it utterly baffles me that ArenaNet thought that the tonic approach was a good solution.

ArenaNet, I know you don’t have time to change this before the April 15th update. But please reconsider the tonics. They’re a very bad decision due to being undyeable and unmixable.

I will be requesting a gem refund when the update goes live, but that’s not a satisfactory solution. I no longer want anything that’s available in the gem store. I’m completely disappointed with the way the gem store items have been handled, and don’t trust that my purchases will actually stay… you know, like what I purchased.

I’m really confused on how the town clothes system is supposed to work. Even after “clarification” from official posts.

For town clothes my thief is wearing cargo shorts and an ornate ruched shirt and devil horns and starter boots for her town clothes. So… what will she have after the update? No idea.

My necromancer is wearing a pirate outfit (one of three I own, now I’m kicking myself for buying multiples) with starter boots because I think the pirate boots look goofily huge. What will she get after the update? No clue. Will she be forced to wear the pirate hat? Dunno.

I was all excited for the wardrobe system, until I ran into the town clothes issue. I’m not at all interested in double clicking a tonic every time I zone when I want to change my appearance — that’s a system that’s as bad as the awful minipets. And thanks, I really wanted to clutter up my inventory with more stuff.

Way to ruin an incredible update.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

Thank you for the reports, we are looking into fixing the cutscene for future players to view when they log in for the first time. For players who have already logged in, we are working on adding a replay option to one of the NPCs in Lion’s Arch. Please expect these changes sometime tomorrow, 3/19. I will update closer to fix release with exactly which NPC will have the cutscene replay.

I am guessing that the replay NPC is Laranthir of the Wild, near the remnants of the fountain. I see other players walk up to him, then get the “I’m watchin’ a cinematic!” icon over their heads.

When I try to speak to him, however, the dialogue window immediately closes (technically, it doesn’t even show up on screen), and I get no cut scene. For a very very brief bit of time, I see my karma and gold available displayed. And obviously, I didn’t see a cinematic when I walked into Lion’s Arch with the recent patch.

I have been out of the game for a while, so perhaps there is an achievement that I missed that would unlock the cinematic. But that’s just… silly.

Edit to add: Possibly related, possibly not. But I tried bringing various alts to Lion’s Arch to see if they could watch the cinematic. Each one tried to go to the Gate Hub |Plaza waypoint. Each one got two loading screens for Lion’s Arch, and each was teleported to a different spot. One to Postern Ward, one to the Canal Ward waypoint, one to the Western Ward waypoint, et cetera. But go to the Gate Hub Plaza waypoint from within LA, and it works fine.

The “run away and hide with lots of rations” approach makes for long, boring rounds. Even when I can find the hiding players, it’s rare that I can actually do anything to them as a ghost — revenge motes are plentiful at the beginning, but rather scarce later on.

There are a few ways that have been discussed to prevent this. Lowering ration cap, increasing spawns of supplies closer together as time goes on, increasing the rate of hunger degeneration as time goes on, giving the ghosts faster mote respawn, giving the ghosts better skills to speed along the end of the round (i.e., killing players faster), et cetera.

As far as the summoned karka go… pfft. They’re strong, sure. But they’re really not hard to run away from.

ZBeeblebrox.4928:

Someone in one of my earlier games suggested an easy solution: reduce the cap on rations (perhaps to 5) and have more passiflora spawn late in the game near the center of the map. That way, any survivors left alive will have to head to the center of the map if they want to win, because you couldn’t stock enough rations to outcamp someone willing to move.

That, or allow revenge motes to passively spawn on someone if they stand in one spot for too long (10 seconds?). That way ghosts could get enough to drop a karka on their lazy, boring head.

I like both of these approaches. Though for the revenge mote spawning, you’d probably end up with people just pacing back and forth so they’re not technically standing in one spot, but still not moving. So the lower ration cap would probably be easier to deal with from a technical standpoint.

Just… something to address the whole approach of “stockpile rations, hide in a corner, wait” to winning. It makes for long and dull rounds, and I’d like to see something actively encouraging players to avoid this.

OK, so I gave this another try tonight. In fact… a lot of other tries.

I’m now at about 60% for the high score achievement, and played about 20-30 rounds of the Southsun Survival. I feel that I’ve learned a whole lot more about the game in that time.

Problem: I still say the map is too ridiculously large. Nine times out of ten, the final survivors were the ones that grabbed a dozen rations, found a spot to hide, and sat there. There’s very little inclination to move around near the end. And almost every time I saw that, there were tons of ghosts hanging around — all powerless because all the motes were already used up.

Possible solution: Give ghosts a mark in the elite slot. Not a trap, because sitting in one spot doesn’t trigger traps. Triggered like a necromancer mark, this would spoil the remaining rations of the person sitting there. They lose rations more quickly the longer they sit in the same spot. I would expect this mark to be a very long cooldown, or only used once. But just something to prevent the last ones from just sitting there doing nothing while everyone else waits.

Alternate solution: Increase the spawn rate of the revenge motes, so the ghosts can do more to keep things moving. Sitting in one spot? Ha! Say hello to my little karka friend.

Yeah, I’m suggesting to make ghosts stronger. Mostly because the last few players aren’t directly fighting each other any more, they’re just hiding.

Problem: The initial zerg rush to the supplies is just… silly. Not only does it mean instant death if someone gets the pistol, but with so many other people around even without the pistol there’s death abounding. So most of the time it doesn’t even matter if you pick up something useful, you’re likely to lose it anyway. Note that running away immediately was a possible solution, but given the nearby locations for supplies, I typically ran into the same issue — too many players nearby.

Solution: Obvious. Start people at random supply camps.

Problem: Obstructed messages when the terrain is slightly lumpy. I lost count of the number of times my head shot was obstructed by dust motes in the air — the only thing I can think of, since there wasn’t anything else between me and the target (who was typically focused on shooting someone else, so it’s not even like they were moving).

No solution — this is an ongoing problem throughout the game, and many many ranged skills that should hit simply miss with an “obstructed” message. Annoying bug in the game, though.

Overall — I think the game is fun enough. But there are some glaring annoyances. And like finding a worm in your slice of apple pie, it makes the whole thing seem less attractive than it really should be. I think that’s why I find these things so irritating. The game is so close to being fun, but not quite there.

Of course because I like achievement points and dislike half-filled bars, I’ll continue. But I still wish it was a little bit better, then I’d be able to call it truly fun.

Zanshin.5379:

- Everybody starting at the same place is just stupid.
- The headshot shouldn’t even be in the game, imo.
- Being a ghost is fun but collecting the balls before being able to do anything is stupid. Especially since other ghosts can still them from you.

That’s about where I am with this.

I think the event could be fun. But I would change this whole thing in a few ways: Spread people out at the beginning. Don’t allow access to the whole island, even Southsun is far too large for the number of players (but at least it’s not all of Metrica Province like Hunger Royale was). And give the ghosts 5 or so powerups when they die.

In several cases I found people when I was a ghost. I could follow them, but do nothing — no ghost nibbles nearby to find, so… fun? Watch them run around and wait until they die?

In many cases I died right at the beginning, ran up to the fire and half-scavenged something and then poof! Dead. No idea how someone else could have scavenged something in the same time and have time to shoot at me.

The very first time I join a game, it’s often in progress. Like Sanctum Sprint. In both cases, it’s a nearly guaranteed loss. First time in the game, I got to read “Instructions” (really not much more than just that word) and then I was dead because I had spawned right in front of someone with ammo. Thanks! That was great.

But after the initial kitten fest, I almost never found anyone alive. Usually hunger would kill me. Once, I found someone but the arrow shot was obstructed by a grain of sand on the beach, and another shot was out of range due to it being nearly melee… but then I died of hunger before the other player could even shoot me. That’s pretty much the extent of the interaction I’ve had.

Oh well. Other things to do in game, at least.

Kali.8095:

Hey there! These skins can be bought on the trading post.

Appreciate the info, but I was already aware of that. Keep in mind that this isn’t a complaint about the skin acquisition — having to go to Laybrinthine Cliffs is not a huge deal.

It just seems like unusual behavior to have merchants in one area having something, and a similar vendor in another area having something different. It would be the same thing if I found a vendor out in the world that sold gathering tools but didn’t sell salvage kits.

Not really a huge issue even if it’s by design, but thought I’d point it out in case it was supposed to be the same inventory.

Just heard that these skins are now available for purchase for 200 fortune scraps.

My character was in Divinity’s Reach, so checked the Black Lion weapons specialist there. No Rucksack or Rose. Went to Lion’s Arch, checked the specialist there — nope.

These skins are only found at the fortune scrap vendor in Labyrinthine Cliffs, for a cost of 200 scraps.

This seems very odd to me, since the weapons specialist has all of the other things that the fortune scrap vendor has. My theory (and thus this thread) is that the weapons specialists are supposed to have these back items available, but somehow there was an oversight and their stock wasn’t updated.

Also possible — this is by design, so that when Labyrinthine Cliffs go away, access to the back items goes away too. Or possibly the addition of the skins to the Labyrinthine scrap vendor was unintentional. Still seems odd, overall.

Orion.3812:

And is it just me, or is the volume of the instruments much quieter than before? Perhaps that was needed with the trumpet, but I can hardly hear the flute at all now.

That could be the new volume control. When I checked it, the setting was rather low by default — I’d say at roughly 20% volume. Most of my other volume sliders are at 50% or more, so player instruments were much quieter than my regular game sounds.

I have a hard time seeing this as intentional, given that you’re put behind the finish line.

Also, considering how much of the last bit it cuts off, it seems like a huge advantage to anyone who knows about it. I’ve done the race over 50 times, and this thread is the first time I actually found out where the shortcut is.

It’s like a permanent Light Travel boost, in a consistent spot. That doesn’t strike anyone else as odd or unintended?

Sourde Noire.5286:

Lastly, I like the notion of upgrading your home instance with the Bluff NPCs and the node. I presume future content will further upgrade it with small bits, though personally I’d prefer some kind of solitary sanctum you can reach with some kind of teleportation crystal rather than the crowdy home instance. Either way, you’re free to invite others or go there on your own. But who knows what the future will bring.

I am surprised that I forgot to mention this even with all my yammering. I definitely like the idea of upgrading the home instance. I like the fact that I did the upgrade with a human, but my asura can walk into the Grove and still use the quartz formation there (i.e., it’s not race restricted or just one character with the upgrade).

I do think that the mechanics could be explained a bit better, though. I believe I’ve mentioned in other posts that this would be a good time for one of those “Show Me” mails, maybe from the Zephyrites themselves, that explains the once-a-day thing and has a button to show the location of the nodes.

But that’s all a fairly minor quibble, and I do hope to see more home instance involvement in the future.

(continued)

Labyrinthine Cliffs: Oh my freaking dog this place is gorgeous. I honestly had forgotten how much I love exploration, and stepping foot onto mysterious shores that didn’t immediately try to eat my face off (I’m looking at you, Southsun) was a huge thrill. The variety of NPCs, the wares sold from so many vendors, the music… all fantastic. I’ve spent many hours here with nothing to do. I mean sure, there are events once in a while with veterans/champions, or krait/Aetherblades attacking, but for the most part there’s nothing. Still enjoy the zone enough to randomly wander around doing a whole lot of nothing (though again — still didn’t catch any of the story until pointed out by a Redditor. ahem). I will definitely miss this once it’s gone. And I also have to express thanks that quartz can be mined even with copper tools. Bringing a low level character down here to avoid waypoint costs (due to the inevitable death due to my poor jumping skills) but I could still mine things. Unlike Southsun, of course.

Time gated content items: I just don’t get it. If I want to make Berserker armor for a character, I can do so in just a few minutes. Why is the Celestial equipment gated? After reading a number of threads on the forum and on Reddit, I have found very few classes/builds that could use Celestial effectively. So it’s not in huge demand, what’s the deal?

Fortune scraps: OK, this is just pure awesome. Now I can’t say I’m really intrigued by the back pieces or the helms, but I’m very pleased that the scraps are pretty easy to get. And there’s a chance at getting the golden ticket to bypass gathering. Or in other words, chance at instant win, but consolation prize means that even if I don’t get instant win, it’s progress anyway. This is exactly what I wished to see with the Jade Weapon Tickets, and it’s like ArenaNet read my mind in the implementation. Thanks.

And bonus extra blathering:

Belcher’s Bluff: I know this is actually permanent content added. Nifty. I’m unsure of Poyaqui’s status after the event, however. Maybe he’ll move to some other location, maybe he’ll be unavailable, and no one outside ArenaNet can tell for sure (why the mystery?). But some of the NPC opponents are truly evil, even after the patch to “fix” them. I can’t count the number of times Maddie prevented me from drinking water, even when “Woo” was not visible. Or the insanely ridiculous healing of the charr-whose-name-I-forgot going from apparently zero health to full in just a few sips. Or Adnul — whole threads devoted to Adnul, I don’t think I need to go into detail here. It’s ridiculously frustrating at times, and I feel like it’s mostly chance rather than skill. Direct contrast to things like Sanctum Sprint — after running the race a few times I had a feel for places I could pull ahead or get caught by others. With Belcher’s Bluff I never felt like my win was due to my abilities, just random chance that this time the NPC didn’t cheat by using their signature skill a thousand times in a row. I may end up doing the achievements with other players, but I’m quite happy that I never have to face the NPC opponents ever again.

Overall: There’s a lot here that was really really fun. A lot that I didn’t expect to be fun, but turned out to be. I’m thankful that I had a spare character slot open, the 5 copper waypoint cost was far more affordable than the 1s30c I was paying for my level 80 characters. Given the number of times I died from falling, I would have spent a lot more gold on waypoints than I have to date in the game. Technical glitches were irritating, but not as irritating as the design flaws (which I admit may be subjective). I think that in the end this has been a fun and interesting update.

Edit: Time gated items, not content. Armor is not content when it’s just crafted with identical appearance to other crafted armor.

I just wanted to give my opinion on the Bazaar update overall. For the impatient, I thought that there was a whole lot of the update done well, but it did have some glaring design flaws. I’ll go over each section of the update in turn, rather than try to separate into a positive/negative section. Though taken as a whole, I think that enjoyment of jumping puzzles is a huge aspect in regards to player enjoyment here.

Keep in mind that I personally have mixed feelings on jumping — sometimes I like it, but in the real world I’m not so good with heights. This makes me feel very uncomfortable in some places in the game.

The jumping overall: Suddenly giving my character the ability to jump huge distances was amusing. I’m not entirely sure of the purpose, to be honest. Maybe it’s just a “look at the fun stuff we can do with the game” type of thing, but I have to wonder whether this whole thing would have been the same with typical abilities.

Sky crystals: I’m really glad that the achievement was 40, but there were 52 total. By the end, I had a few visible that I just couldn’t figure out how to get. And even after jumping and falling and dying and jumping and dying and falling all day, I was still a bit wibbly about some of the heights. I would really have appreciated 20-30 uses from one crystal rather than just 10. I wasted so many jumps by running into things directly above me, then I’d have to trudge back to the nearest crystal to recharge. I actually think this was more tedious than the falling and dying.

Sanctum Sprint: Wholly dependent on the players you have with you. I ran with a lot of really nice people, and a lot of really aggressive kitten-holes that derided anyone slower than they were. The lightning jump skill was the single most glitchy thing I’ve seen. Sometimes I’d jump sideways. Sometimes, with a series of the tower platforms (where the idea is to lightning leap from one to the other) the skill would bug out and I’d go shooting off the platform at a tangent — falling to my doom. Sometimes in those series I’d just get “out of range” errors. And of course falling hugely long distances then teleporting back to the checkpoints would frequently bump me back several places (in addition to falling but surviving, so I’d have to try to run around to find the boundaries to reset to checkpoint).

I’ve run the race over 50 times now, and I’m still not clear on all the mechanics. Do I need to target someone to use Gale on them? Why, at the end of the race after the finish line, do I sometimes get stunned? And so on. This is one of those areas where a tutorial would really have been beneficial — though I know it’s ArenaNet’s antithesis. No tutorials, ever, just toss people in and see if they can swim.

Kite baskets: (the ones in jumping puzzles with skritt nearby) Not bad. Though I don’t really like most of the puzzles chosen, it was easy enough to get to a few. And nice that overall I didn’t need to get to any for the meta-achievement. Again, a little confusing on what I needed to do — I was looking also at the kite basket Pilferer achievement, and tried for some time to get the skritt to let me loot the basket in Beggar’s Burrow.

Kite baskets: (the lootable ones all over the maps) Horrid. I can think of few worse ways to implement this, and I’m not even a game designer. So let’s look at the problems. One: It’s not character/account specific — if I open it, the character nearby has it opened as well. Two: I can loot these once per day per location… but the icon still shows up for me, so I could deprive someone else of getting it. Three: I can’t tell which ones I’ve opened per day, unless I memorize the location and times. Really? This is the best you folks can come up with?

Seriously, this was crummy. The only positive thing I can say is that I only needed to find 30 for the achievement, which went pretty quickly.

The story: Um. Is there one? I know Kiel and Evon are fighting for a seat on the council, though I’m not sure why. Not sure why I’d care, either. The Zephyrites are mysterious and enigmatic, and seem to have a connection to a dragon I used to know… but there’s no way I would have made that connection without someone else posting all the tidbits. When I was at the bazaar I was so concentrated on sky crystals and champions and running supplies that I never noticed random NPC speech telling the story. Yeah, maybe tucking that off to the side is not quite so useful, eh? When a random Redditor is telling the story better than ArenaNet, I think there’s a problem with the delivery.

To tell the truth I coupled this with real world drinking. Made it much more bearable… though the morning after we will not speak of.

(side note — can we get enough townsfolk to get torches and pitch forks to throw Adnul into Kralkatorrik’s lair?)

Payadopa.4706:

Without attacking anyone, I don’t understand why people don’t get stuff like that.
You get mail that tells you exactly where to go, yet people ask (you even see a giant envelope on your screen when you log in).

The item discription says a node will start to appear in your home instance, yet people ask where it’s going to be.

To be fair, I was running around Queensdale a bit last night. Several people asked where the home instance was. Most of the time, you could say “For humans, it’s the Salma District” and they’d know exactly what you’re talking about — “oh there, why didn’t they say so?” (and the obvious reason is that it’d be cumbersome: “Activates a quartz node in the Salma District for humans, Applied Development Lab for asura, Hero’s Canton for charr, etc etc”. oog)

Also, for a lot of people they simply didn’t know the names of the zones. They did their personal story, but just followed the bouncing green arrow to lead them in the right direction.

This is one of the times that I think a quick mail message with the “Show me” feature would really help.

inazuma.7021:

Maybe so people won’t get them all done on the first day and then complain they have nothing left to do?

I could certainly understand the time gating if the crystals or armor pieces were available for sale, but as account bound… I just don’t get the point. And I’ve never heard anyone lament how easy it is to get a set of armor for a character.

We’re not talking about stretching out the life of content in any way, just crafting. That’s just kinda… silly, if you ask me.

I ran the races 25 times for the Crowd Favorite achievement. No skins at all.

Not a complaint, if I decide I want one I can still get it via fortune scraps (a really nice change from the pure RNG of jade weapons). Just saying it doesn’t seem to be quite as common a reward as some of the posts here indicate.

Or I’m just supremely unlucky, which I can’t really rule out.

I was having some trouble with the lightning leaps in the Sanctum Sprint.

Sometimes the leap would stop midair. Fall to my death. Sometimes I’d overshoot. Fall to my death. But the most baffling one would be a short leap sideways — about as far as I can jump normally. This sometimes resulted in a Fall To Death, depending on where I was standing.

Granted, because I was in Sanctum Sprint I can’t overlook the possibility that I wakittenting fake powerups or other player traps, but I didn’t have many problems at all with the other two skills (except Light Speed Dash sometimes rubber banding me back).

Also possibly lag related, but no other symptoms like delayed skill activation.

Edit: Once again hit by the overzealous word filter. “can’t overlook the possibility that I wakittenting fake powerups” should be “can’t overlook the possibility that I was” followed by “hitting fake powerups”. For kittens’ sake, ArenaNet, this is dumb.