Guild Wars 2

This one has been much slicker and the cut-scene in Divinity’s was awesome. My only (and very minor) criticism is that after the first 3 suspects are found you could get Elen Kiel to tell you where the other two were but if you travelled there they were nowhere to be found. I know… wait for the next email. We figured it out.

Verbis.8752:

Tadaaam, let the flame war begin!
There have been some rumors that vabbi got transfers from Riverside. -.^ Is it true?

We have had some guests show up in LA who thought they might enjoy a trip to Vabbi over the summer. They have not yet arrived due to certain festivities and I could not possibly comment on their current location or future holiday plans. It is praise indeed that you should suspect they are already among us.

I like the idea of being able to reset as with the traits but I think you still need to earn the points on all of your toons simultaneously – at least you do if you’ve been supporting GW2 by buying character slots and now have 10 lvl 80 alts

If the WxP was common but you had to pay to reset I would end up with 11 toons doing the same thing. If earning the points was common but spending was per character I would have one specialising in siege, another in AC’s, another in supply and would play whichever character my team needed most at the time.

azizul.8469:

how about granting gems to losing servers, for participating… see how that goes….

As has been stated before, it is difficult for people on low pop servers to get world completion so unless this is changed, those gems are going to get stashed until there’s enough for a transfer meaning it could actually make the situation worse in the long term.

A lot of people jumping over from other servers just for gems would jump again to the new lowest server next week. I think the devs would prefer the entire population evenly balanced out among all the servers rather than constantly jumping to whichever gives out gems each week.

The best idea imo may be to have a pool of gold shared out between all wvw players. If every pool had the same value, low pop wvw servers would get a bigger share per active player than high pop. A soldiers wage might encourage some of the PvE’ers into wvw if you had some requirements to get it (similar to the daily’s – play wvw for 1hr, help capture a tower, repair a wall, man siege etc.). If the PvE’ers decide not to stick around then at least the remaining wvw players end up with more gold for upgrades & siege.

Long term, wvw players might still decide to switch server but if they go to one with more wvw players, the pool provides them with a lower soldiers wage. The trick would be making it appeal just enough to encourage a few groups to transfer to lower servers without triggering a mass exodus. A system which pays people slightly more to back the underdog would help to provide more balance imo.

Fwiw magic find does seem to be a weird option for outmanned. No armor damage is good but the MF boost is a bit pointless since the chances of you being able to attack a zerg, kill something and then hang around to pick-up the loot are ridiculously low. Are we meant to attack NPC’s or the surrounding wildlife to get more gold for upgrades when outmanned? That would only move the few people we have away from defending anything we still hold.

There have already been some good suggestions on here such as increased movement speed, more supply capacity, more defensive NPC’s, reduced siege & upgrade costs, increased supply at towers/camps etc. Any of these would be better than MF.

tsubus.8761:

it should’ve been account-bound from the beginning, making it char-bound makes absolutely no sense.

It makes perfect sense if you have one toon who specialises in siege and another who specialises in AC and you choose your alt according to what your team are doing (offensive/defensive). I would agree that sometimes there is a tendency to think shall I not bother to play my alt as my main has more WXP buffs. Best option would be for all alts to get the same WXP simultaneously but keep the spending aspect seperate imo. It would be good to allow my guardian to focus on defensive upgrades without it being at the expense of playing my warrior for offensive upgrades.

Once you cross the bridge, AoE the group on the left side when the golems appear. This seems to preserve more of your helpers. There are other small skirmishes going on either side of the central path and if you can give them a bit of AoE assistance as well they will join your mob when they finish fighting. Also you do get a short time to revive the lionguards but that time is probably better off spent trying to weaken the biggest visible mob. As an ele don’t forget you can use water skills to heal the lionguards.

Thanks for the tips guys. Wish I’d thought of guesting. I actually did a mix of WP and on-foot and went through the map east to west. When I got through the Ascalon areas I headed back to Asuran territory and in some cases arrived back at the effigies as they were just going out so the reset time can’t be more than a couple of hours. I ended up with about 40S left from the 1G ceremony bag drop. As grinds go, I think this is a minor one and the devs deserve praise for providing the 1G to help towards WP costs for those that want to do it that way. Thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and appreciate that the devs didn’t have to give us a big bag of gold at the end of it.

It’s questionable if those lvl 80’s would even be there if the jade ticket rate drop was increased. Maybe the devs will take notice if it’s ruining the game for newbies. Now that the coffer prices have dropped so much it might start to ease off as it’s pretty easy to get materials in devastation etc. and craft something simple that’s worth more than the coffers anyway but that won’t stop those who want to farm the coffers themselves until they get a ticket.

I suspect the drop rate for the tickets is also to blame for the negative vibe from other players. If I’d opened 2000+ coffers and still not got one I would not take kindly to someone asking me to go where they think I should be. The lesson is that bad game mechanics spoil the game for everyone and this could have been avoided if there were other ways to get the tickets or they could be traded. The good news is that the devs read these boards and may one day fix the real issues (too much RNG and account-bound & soul-bound stuff).

Ghostwolf.9863:

- Save dodges, blinds, aegis for their C&D
Besides these skill-based ways, there aren’t really any hard-counters, besides
their low ability to catch up with players who are running away from them.

Are you suggesting that thieves are slow? I thought all the Bookahs had died out!

I think the devs have left out one of the best aspects of GW factions which was the ability of a lowby to head out into Shing Jea and occasionally get lucky with a black dye drop from a mantid. First time it happened to me it was like “holy cr*p… this thing is more valuable than an ecto??”. This has been lost imho due to the amount of new content (ie many more dyes etc). Sure it’s random but back then the chance of getting a black seemed a lot higher than the chance of getting an abyss in GW2.

The equivalent would be a newby heading out into their first area and getting a pre-cursor. I beleive in theory this can happen but I don’t know anyone it has happened to. Likewise with so much content being account bound or soulbound, a newby would be unable to profit from many of the rare items (like the jade tickets they might find at the moment for example).

I was lucky enough to find a jade ticket by the time I completed the achievement but it was only when I went to the vendor that I saw the fused skins for the first time. It does seem a shame that there aren’t other ways to aquire some of this content which the graphic designers & artists have obviously put a lot of time and effort into creating. If these things ever become available any way other than the rng boxes, I will happily buy gems or grind or visit NPC’s at opposite ends of the map to get the materials. Whatever it takes (except gambling with real $).

The most annoying aspect imho is when you add an upgrade to it and then have no way to get the upgrade back when you change since the karma armor can’t be salv’d… unless someone knows something I don’t

Oddly enough I was curious about this myself so last night kitted out a PvE farming alt with MF-biased armor and weapons. I can’t say I noticed a significant increase in coffer drops but I did get a rare scepter drop in Queensdale just a few minutes after equipping everything. I probably got through 50 coffers afterwards but no tickets or mini’s. This seems consistent with other comments.

It does come back to play style and what you want to do in game. Do you want to be at the front of your group, near the back or be your own person and go solo?

Each class has things they are particularly good at. Thieves can move the quickest imho which makes them good supply grabbers. Mezzies can hide and provide portals into keeps or set-up portal bombs or supply short-cuts. Warriors and Necros can stomp/fear mobs off cliffs which is very funny. Rangers, Engi’s & Eles supplement arrow carts with their AOE and guardians keep groups alive and provide good reflective barriers.

I would say just try something new. You can always delete & try another if you decide it’s not for you.

I would be in favour of a/c bound but then I support Anet by buying new char slots instead of deleting when I want to try something new. The cost of 100G on 11 toons is somewhat pricey for my pockets (both real and virtual).

If a thief runs into a zerg they more than likely do not expect to survive. They will probably stealth to the middle then throw around a dagger-storm hoping to pick off the low-healthers to give the rest of their team a better chance. If lucky, they will survive to the end of the skill and might be able to escape to safety using shadow-step.

If you’re saying thieves are the solution to zergs then I say buff, buff and more buff but then I play on Vabbi where my team often can’t get enough ppl to start siegerazer while our opponents turn up in zergs of 30-60.

I’m from Vabbi and I like Rattys ideas. I would also add cheaper & quicker upgrades to give us a chance to hold keeps & towers. It should be as challenging for other servers to take objectives as it is for us to keep them.

If you want that sort of fun underdog play get yourself over to Vabbi. We have the smallest zergs, lowest scores, occasionally dress in humiliation pink, wipe frequently and rarely have to pay for armor repairs due to being outmanned 90% of the time. All that said we have a good time and don’t much care for all that scoreboard nonsense.

The only downside is we’re often against fissure of woe who sometimes have a small group of griefers [JD] lurking in the jump puzzles. They down you but won’t kill you or let you rez and you can’t map out. I would prefer Anet fix that personally but there you go.

Race change kit maybe for one or two of my alts. You can already get crafting starter kits from the laurel vendor in LA by doing the dailies. I tend to save the jugs of karma from these to boost my alts (works well with a karma booster).

I would also suggest:

Unlimited axes – surely to follow soon after the picks and scythes
New tier of dye pack – maybe 1-3 rare dyes
Endless costume contract – able to re-craft a skin set for lost bits or new set for alts (maybe 1G in-game cost to craft like guild armor)
New tier of minis – a single mini guaranteed to be exotic
Endless tonics – would quite like the endless forest tonic but not willing to try via RNG bl chests and they can’t be traded
Evon Gnashblade secure transit box – random item from the top 100 most valuable items on TP
Evon Gnashblade lottery ticket – cost 1gem (or 10 silver), runs every week and the winner gets a secure transit box as described above.

Only a wvw player understands why black lion chest keys never drop from enemy zergs… because none of the enemy zerg have ever even thought about farming blc keys

Well if an Asuran thief jumping around like Yoda vs Count Duku is not your thing then you can always get the power suit for any profession and wander around looking like ED-209 from Robocop. Also if you play wvw, the Asurans small size can be useful for hiding or attacking dolyaks from underneath as you are pretty much invisible to anyone outside of tag range.

Only a wvw jumps from a medium ledge to get a momentary buff which wears off just as they get to the enemy zerg close-by below.

Only a wvw thinks their rank is more important than their char. level.

Only a wvw would pursue a displacement thief from garrison until reaching the SP south of orchard convinced they still had a chance to catch up.

Only a wvw wishes the tonics/tunneler would hide their name from enemy zergs while in use.

Only a wvw puts down road markers instead of karma banners.

Only a wvw equips skills that buff their team instead of just themselves.

Only a wvw can tell a wvw newb just from their panic description of the first zerg they’ve ever seen.

Only a wvw knows why there are coloured dolyaks on the mini-map

It’s a nice idea. I would do away with waypoints at the garrison but have ships to bay and dragon transports to hills if those camps are owned. These could be instant transports that work like a waypoint but be limited in terms of capacity (5-10 people maybe) and have say a 2min cool-down and cost badges or supply to use. It would add strategy for who uses them and when and prevent entire zergs from just beaming in during the contested windows. Certainly in-keeping with the proposed dev ideas imho.