Guild Wars 2

Charak.9761:

Yeah it’s great they added a permanent path in a dungeon, but there’s no intrinsic reward for doing it, most people will pop in the first couple days and do the achievements, but after? Who really even did the previous scarlet dungeon multiple times?

Yeah, and who did the Molten Facility more than once?
Oh right, everyone!

Why not wait and see? The new dungeon path could just as well be super amazing fun… ?

You could snail-mail it to their office

Theoretically yes
We have too much…

I’m the happy one with the party hat that does like so \o/

I can haz a birthday and my boyfriend made me this:

Condineer, and I enjoy is massively.

You CAN dodgeroll to the sides.

If you need to be quick, there’s a price.

I think it makes perfect sense.

Nope. SAB is awesome. And to me personally, more fun than dailies + boss fights.

Can I, one last time, ask anybody who has problems with overflows and/or dicsonnects to support this thread?

Disconnection grace period

I couldn’t agree more.

But, you know, this thread was just a few posts down on the front page when you created this new thread:

Disconnection grace period

It really would be more helpful (in terms of dev attention) if we all supported the same thread.

Craywulf.5793:

If you people think the clues are too obscure, then ask yourself…How does Dulfy know? ArenaNet is NOT supplying the site with answers or insights.

Do you know that for sure?

Well, unfortunately this has been a problem long before Scarlet’s invasion. (See examples above)

I’m a big fan of the Living World concept because it keeps things fresh; all the more frustrating it is to trip over the same sticks and stones update after update.

Now with the new Tequatl fight – again – you DC, you’re out, ending up on a completely different server with little hope of finishing the event.

Astral Projections.7320:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

SplendidDust of AncientSuns.8453:

Good points, all of them. I especially agree with #4. If it wasn’t for Dulfy, I srsly wouldn’t have a clue what to do.

Except that Dulfy is a real person and has to find these items or find solutions to quests or events.

So basically you are taking all the work out of something and letting Dulfy play the game for you. Isn’t that pathetic?

These sites are up awfully fast. My guess is, other people send her the information which she then puts up. Likely there is a team doing it. I doubt she is doing it all herself.

She’s also given access to content and information ahead of other players.

I think most servers have their own, player-run forums. (Mine does, anyway.) It only takes 5 seconds of googling.

Coffee.7058:

I am sure it does a great service to most but it also holds your hand. The things you eventually find in the game extend your enjoyment and reward when you do figure them out.

I have always hated the guy who bought the puzzle and set the box up to wear he could see what the puzzle would look like complete — but to eaches own.

I would love to solve everything in my own time.

My boyfriend and myself explored all maps in our own time. We found jumping puzzles, and figured most of them out without any outside advice. We looked for mini-dungeons, etc, all in our own time. Those halcyon days. It was when GW2 was really, really fun.

Then the living story really took off, and with it, new achievements every 2 weeks. Achievements that in more than one instance broke halfway through the event, teaching me that I better get them while they were working. Item rewards tied to meta-achievements, too. I don’t want to miss out, I might really want that back item for a later character! I better do all those things right now! I have 2 evenings after work of uninterrupted playtime before various RL obligations kick in this month – not enough time to comb through three maps looking for objects that the game didn’t even tell me I was supposed to find.

So… off to dulfy.net it is. It is significantly less fun than figuring out stuff when and how feels best; unfortunately, that would mean giving up on meta-achievements and the rewards tied to them.

No worries! Have fun.

Go to Lion’s Arch, the main plaza (next to the gates to the capital cities).

There is an NPC on the plaza with an activity icon over their head (the icon also appears on the map). It is two little crossed flags.

That NPC will teleport you to either Keg Brawl or Southsun Survival or Crab Toss or Sanctum Sprint, depending on the day. In any case, that’s the activity you have to do for the daily achievement point.

Aberrant.6749:

It’s good… it means better coordination is rewarded. It gives people even more reason to run stunbreaks and stability. Just learn when to use them (another good thing, you actually need to learn the fights).

Are you taking into consideration that different classes have very different access to stability, stunbreakers, etc? I main an engi and stability has forever been a problem.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

#1, #3 disagree
#2 #4 #5 #6 #7 agree

Pretty much same here.

In regards to disconnects, I still don’t understand why this thread didn’t get more support. Because man, I think this stuff needs to be addressed, urgently.

Regarding the expectation that we just run over to Dulfy and follow walk-throughs, I see how that happened, and I understand why, but it’s no fun. The content is now designed to be played this way. There’s no way you’de be able to find the 10 dragon teeth just by combing through the map, in reasonable time. So ignoring the guides is not an option either.
I find this particularly disheartening after a discussion that has been going on for months about story delivery and exposition, and ANet saying that they were addressing this – and this particular update is taking 3 steps back instead of a step forward.

We also canoed down a “canoe slide” (a tunnel that bypasses a watergate) and my boyfriend shouted, “Let’s go down the rapids!”

… It was a good vacation.

… you go on a three day vacation to hike, and find yourself collecting baubles along the hiking trail:

How about instead of a suicide button, we play a suicide song on the flute?

I just thought that was a nicer idea. Plus, no implementing of additional UI elements.

levelmakerguru.7210:

Let us go back GW1 were there was not a wide rang of clothes and yes, everyone did look the same, but can mix and match stuff in GW2.

IIRC, in GW1 you always, always wore a style according to your class. Monks looked like monks, rangers like rangers, etc.

In GW2 we alreay share armour pieces between classes so it is a lot more diverse. (With the restriction of the armour type, which makes sure that there is at least some sense behind armour choices – no cloth-wearing warriors, and no full-plate spellcasters.)

In addition, face options, hairstyles and hair colours, emotes and poses are shared between characters oh ALL classes, so there, too, you’re not limited to your classes’ intended style anymore.

I think GW2 is a lot more flexible than GW1.

Amazing

I wish I could buy sticker sheets and leave them everywhere.

Give this person a job immediately.

+1

Main profession: Engineer
Favourite colour: greens (I also like reds and as of late, purple, and that shade between yellow and orange.)
Favourite animal: kittenatoo (closely followed by bat, highland cattle and lamb)
Favourite mythical creature: gryphon probably
Favourite school discipline and/or graduation major: chemistry + arts
Favourite type of vehicle (can be car brand or any vehicle, really): frigate/tallship (anything on the water) (also a bit of an aviation geek)
Weapon of choice (can be one that is not in the game, or in the game but not used in the right context (e.g. Spear), but please specify if so): whip
Favourite ancient culture (greek, egyptian, roman, mayan, chinese, etc): I don’t think I have one but I am most interested in the lesser known ones
Most important stat (Intelligence, Strength and Speed ONLY): Intelligence, followed by speed
Religion (including Atheism and Agnosticism): Agnosti

When I did the test, got Guardian – which, sadly, I find the least fun to play

Nilkemia.8507:

Medium armor gets a lot of great pants, but it’s usually covered up by all the longcoats.

This so much.

I love the look of my medium armour type characters, really do. And I’m not one of the longcoat-haters here. I love the coats. But between coats and boots, you can rarely ever see the pants at all.

I wish there were some medium coat options that were more open in the front (or closed higher up) to show off some of that pantage.

(Also more light armour trousers, more skirts AND non-skirts options on all armour types for both genders. Thanks!)

MAGpie.7962:

Now, Brew, have you seen the various armour on Asuara? There is NOTHING that does not look perfect on those critters. Even humans feel neglected to the amount of attention those little guys get. Believe me. Its absurd.

I disagree. Asura ears have the same problem as Charr ears/horns/tails.
And I find it lame that many shoes on Asuras aren’t designed for Asuran feet either, they just have two naked toes sticking out of either side of the “human style” shoe. (While Charr have shoe models that were created for Charr feet.)

Add to that, various scaling issues with helmets and weapon sizes.

Asura and Charr are in the same boat, really.

I got only 1 tiara so far, but plenty of (more than enough anyway) continue coins, and I didn’t do any jumping puzzles after finishing monthlies… didn’t exactly go for PvE chests either.

The SAB boss chests seem to have a good chance of dropped continue coins, too. (In normal mode, probably.)

Your problem is that guild missions trigger events. Any bystander can participate in the event and get the rewards (karma, exp) for them, but only guild members get the commendation ontop of the normal rewards.

It would be convenient for players to just randomly bump into a guild bounty or other mission and get the commendation, but don’t forget that the guild that set up the mission paid forward by

• representing for guild points
• unlocking guild missions
• spending more currency on setting up this very event
• getting organised in guild chat, setting up teams, etc.
• finding the target (bounties), taking turns guarding each other on obstacle runs, etc.

There is a lot more to guild missions than to just show up and do the event.

And none of this is done by bystanders – they just stumble in and reap the rewards.

So, in my opinion, the guild members deserve the higher reward.

(That being said, I have stumbled into other guilds’ bounty runs before and sort of wished I could get the commendation for it, but my opinion stands that the system is a good one.)

I sort of like the idea that the armour is really growing out of the Sylvari and that’s why the skin color / glow color is present there.

That being said, I don’t currently play and Sylvari, so it’s probably not my place to judge.

I support this thread.

biofrog.1568:

Yup, major kudos to Josh Foreman for putting up with the massive amount of complaints at first release. You guys really came through in the end to make SAB W2 something fun to play again. (not perfect, but fun.. don’t get too smug)

On release of SAB2 I spent maybe 6 hours into (early) morning before finally coming out of zone 3 unfinished, and totally exhausted. I had resigned then to not go through again sadly.
Following this latest patch though, I jumped back in and to my surprise it was quite enjoyable again! A couple things I disagree with still (geysers should still move! just be more time-friendly!)

I know Josh always commented in ridiculous amounts to even absurd and snide remarks made in these forums, but thanks for sticking with us Josh!

+100

IMHO, no, the SAB has not been ruined at all.

Post-bug fixes, I like world 2 fine. I’m really having fun in the rapids (frogger and all), I enjoy the QBerting in zone 3. Zone 2 is not my favourite but I appreciate that it contains puzzles to solve at all.

I’m super happy that I can focus on the levels themselves and don’t have to worry about getting insta-killed by glitches, bugs and latency all the time.

There is a lot to do. I’ve completed the upgrades and sectrets achievements last night. Next: bauble completion. All the while casually running world 1 for baubles and a chance at skins. And when I’m done with all that, tribulation mode awaits.

I am already looking forward to world 3 (caves! water level!!) even though I know the difficulty will be cranked up again.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

I am currently trying to get to Moto’s finger, the last item I need for the Enchantment achievement. This is the first time in all the content where I feel like skill of the player makes no difference. I can do everything perfectly and still be knocked to my death repeatedly by flying mountain goats. You hear them coming, but can’t see them.

Then, if you are finally able to get lucky enough to survive the flying goats, you need to make a series of jumps onto disintegrating clouds that cannot be distinguished from the incessant fog.

I got it yesterday, maybe this helps:

• You’re safe from the goats in the corners of the square pillars that they jump on. I always waited in the corner before the cloud jumps for a bit to gather myself.
• Press 7 to activate the flute before you hop on the clouds.
• The cloud path splits up in two places. The first time you take the path leading to the right, the second time the path leading to the left. It has some longer jumps and a hard right jump in so I counted clouds in my head. It really helped. (Like: “1 – 2 – long jump – 1 – left – long jump – up – up – up – down – press 3 – …” from memory, so this might not be 100% accurate)
• Just before the wall with the mouth there is a group of three clouds.
• Before even jumping on the last group, press “3”. The first note always takes so long to play.
• Jump on one of the clouds in the group. Play “32”
• Jump to cloud #2 of the group. Play “33”
• Jump to cloud #3. Play “1”. Jump into mouth

It took me quite a few tries, but it is doable.

The jumps along the clouds (especially hard right, hard left jumps and slightly longer jumps) are a bit more difficult since you have to be zoomed in in order to see anything. However, one final bit of advice:

Remember that the jumps aren’t that challenging: it is your nerves!

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

There were some really difficult spots in SAB one where I died countless times and wanted to pull out my hair—NEVER did I feel like my skill couldn’t get me past. I felt like there was always something for me to figure out and do. This seems random and nearly sadistic.

Sadistic, yes, absolutely! This part would be hard enough with just clouds + flute (but without fog) or just clouds and fog (without flute). Curses on you, Josh!

I think I spent something like 30+ minutes on Moto’s finger last night. I spend a whole bunch of continue coins (10 or so), but still haven’t bought the infinite continue coin (and I’ve hardly played any PvE this months – just dailies.) I still have 15+ continue coins left.

I spent 2-3 hours on getting Moto’s breath in April. It had some really weird jumps, especially at the beginning, and was extremely unforgiving as you always fell into the green goo. I spend a lot of lives there.
It was made worse by the fact that we suffered from slight latency and therefore additional problems with the jumping mushrooms.

To me, getting the first elite skill was harder than getting the second.

Amaya Bloodstorm.9174:

I am trying to give you guys at A-Net the benefit of the doubt, but seems curious that this one is SO much more difficult now that there is a real world money Gem Store item people can buy if they die too much.

I really hope that’s not the idea. Get people hooked, and then get them to open their wallets because players are certain to fail.

I’m not sure whether I’m in the minority here or not, but that isn’t my impression at all. On the contrary.

Imagine the silver continue coin wasn’t available in the gem store. It would have taken all of 4 hours for people to demand for one, so they can safely fail in both tribulation mode AND the more challenging bits of normal mode. We would have demanded it. And if we would have been really lucky, ANet would have considered it.

Now ANet was a little quicker. That is all.

You already had the “Ascended only” skin. You didn’t like it, but that was your choice…?

I really like your ideas, there.

I find the whip incredibly useful. My boyfriend and I have started working as a team now for some encounters (one whips, the other hits). And those pesky enemies fall without ever getting a hit on either of us.

Mortifer.2946:

Nerf because of QQing minority?

False.

The SAB wasn’t nerfed at all.

• Some bugs were fixed.
• Some things, for which short-term bug fixes weren’t available, got “too easy” workarounds, which will probably be replaced by proper bug fixes for the next release. (I expect the geysirs back in the rapids once they find a way to fix them)
• Some things were changed to what the designer originally had in mind (rapids were supposed to act as conveyor belts, not insta-death)
• Some unintended difficulty spikes were removed so the entire level is closer to the designer’s intent.

The SAB wasn’t nerfed. It was fixed in some places and corrected in others. Josh Foreman made that very, very clear in his posts. If you haven’t read them, I suggest you check them out in the “Is the SAB too hard?” thread, or the dev tracker.

The only actual nerf I found was implemented before the hot fix: the swiftness buff in world 1 zone 1 before the chasm that requires a slightly longer jump.

Yeah, if you could trade them back at a much reduced rate, that would be perfect.
i.e. you get baubles back, but not many.

It would make the continue coins feel like an object of some value instead of junk, but not overpower the Infinite Continue Coin.

25 seems quite steep, especially as there might (?) be further upgrades planned for later worlds.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Hey Josh,

My girlfriend and I spent the night going though the SAB and at one point I said, “You know, this is actually quite pleasant.”

Yes, this is what he said and was exactly how I felt as well. Going up rivers across crocodiles, turtles, logs etc. turned from stressful and frustrating into something that feels like one of the most enjoyable parts in the entire SAB. I love the frogger part. It is such a joy.

:)

AmateurGod.5403:

MMOs selling point is about pvp or cooperation for dungeon/raid content. THERE IS NO OTHER GAME TYPE that does pvp better. ITS MMOs. It was and is this game’s selling points. Not jumping puzzles.

1.

FPS do PvP a skritt-ton better than MMORPGs.

MMORPGs shine at PvE.

Just saying.

2.

I also agree that PvP in GW2 needs some love, especially as it was a much bigger focus in GW1. It is why my own guild started playing GW1 back then (we came from a fantasy FPS, go figure). Nowadays I play PvP only sometimes and only causally, but I kind of miss guild matches.

But to say that that is the main purpose of an MMO is so far off the mark it isn’t even funny.

3.

Thirdly, I will dissect “MMO”:

• massive
• multiplayer
• online

We do have MMO-PvP, in the form of WvW (“massive”!)

Small-scale PvP of 5 vs 5 or 8 vs 8 is not an inherent feature to massive multiplayer online games.

Saying that the Infinite Continue Coin is p2w is like saying that the pirate outfit (town clothes) is p2w.

Because the pirate outfit allows you to do infinite costume brawl, without having to get your hands on tonics.

The fact that that doesn’t mean that you’ll actually WIN the costume brawl (or SAB…) at all doesn’t seem to matter.

:P

So then, almost every single gem store item is “pay to win” I guess? From xp booster to bouquet of roses?

I am actually looking forward to TM (I haven’t had the time yet to do it properly), but I wasn’t looking forward at all to the glitchfest that was the rapids, remembering it from April.

It’s not about difficulty of the actual content, I didn’t want that nerfed (and nobody I know did) – it’s about reliability and repeatability. There is no way to learn how to overcome an obstacle if the outcome of your jumps is random. Then it is just a matter of grinding out tries until the glitchy engine decides to allow you to pass for once.

If the engine’s behaviour is reliable and repeatable (for instance that you have to jump from further away to get onto a ledge) then there is no problem.

So no, we didn’t want to be handed rewards on a silver plate – we just wanted the game to treat us with fairness, and to not waste our time with unintended randomness.

TenkenSan.3482:

Everytime there’s “hard” / challenging content, they just go and nerf it because of all the people who keep complaining they can’t do it… .

Hard content is not meant to be done by everyone, especially not within the first week of release.

You’re right, hard content isn’t meant to be done by everyone. Normal content is.

Totally okay that normal mode was made easier, especially as most of the challenges came from fighting the engine rather than playing the level itself.

I’m not a fan of the skins personally. I don’t hate them, I just don’t see myself ever wanting to use them on any of my own characters.

I still collect bauble bubbles. I started into world 2 with exactuly 40 that I had left over from April, and was able to buy two Moto minis right off the bat, no farming required.

I plan to go into world 3 with quite a few bauble bubbles saved up, too, for later fun stuff. Who knows what they come up with?

Aberrant.6749:

gw2crafts already has guides jfyi… holing off won’t do much good with the constant new content every 2 weeks with living stories imo. I’ll be very busy for quite a while with ascended gear and multiple alts. Just sucks since I enjoyed living story + WvW up till now and now I gotta choose between upgrading, WvW, and living story : /

Ah, people are quick.

I imagine that resources needed to craft are a little more expensive right now due to the initial rush, I have no problem with waiting.

I know that new content is coming out every few weeks, but crafting isn’t going anywhere. Nobody said that I must be fully equipped with purple weapons by a specific date…

Piogre.2164:

Not to criticize, by why did you not make green the 1 and blue the 5? had you done that, and kept all others the same, it would have matched the denominations of rupees in legend of zelda (maybe not all zelda games- windwaker and TP come to mind as examples where this holds true, but others are missing some)

The colours of both item rarity and baubles are sorted by wavelength, or at least following the colour wheel. (I realise that red and purple are on opposite ends of the spectrum)

If Zelda goes from green to blue to yellow (I don’t remember), then Zelda’s wrong.