Guild Wars 2

Tinygod.7841:

In GW1, I would I tell my repair bills to the Guild Leader after the Dungeon run. He would say “get it from the bank”

Uhm, You’re obviously thinking of a different game.

GW1 had no armor damage/repairs, and no guild banks.

Honestly it sounds like an annoying hassle, but hey, as long as its an annoying hassle i can turn off, sure.

While we’re at it lets add a trash item password, a vendor password, a salvage password, a waypoint password, and a password for the 3s it costs to respec. Then you’ll be SUPER secure.

ElemenZ.5486:

Once you earned enough to upgrade a tool to the next tier you can farm any lower mats with a lower chance of losing durability, if any, to be fair here?

Just scale the mats value with the repair costs to hit the cash-check that the game needs, from a designer perspective.

Say there’s 7 tiers of mats (I’m new, just giving an example what I heard)
Copper, iron, silver, gold, platinum, mithril, orichalum?

Every tier of a tool has a 25% chance to lose durability when hitting a material of the same level.

The chance is reduced 3% for every tier of a lower level material.
So with the best T7 orichalum pick your chance of losing durability for the following materials would be:

-orichalum 25%
-mithril 22%
-platinum 19%
-gold 16%
-silver 13%
-iron 10%
-copper 7%

Ofc the devs could change the % values to whatever they think is the best way to keep prices high enough etc, since they probably have more data at hand than me.

And durability in addition to the tool tier would be upgraded seperately.
Default starts at 30, and every time you hit a clvl req to upgrade your tool tier,
you could also upgrade the max durability by +10, for sufficient extra costs or rare materials maybe, to a maximum of 100 durability@T7,
so you wouldn’t have to run to repair it that frequently.

Just some ideas.

I could get behind that system. Honestly I’m fine with things the way they are now, but this would essentially streamline things while keeping the important mechanic of higher tier mats costing more money to gather.

That’s… why would you need a password to protect yourself from yourself? Ideally you’re the only person who ever has access to your bank. I’m sorry to hear you got hacked, but this suggestion makes very little sense. In stead of thinking of ways to protect your stuff if you do get hacked, try and prevent that from happenning in the first place by sweeping your system for malware, using a strong password, making sure only you know that password, etc. etc.

So you’re saying I would upgrade and then spend more money to mine lower quality resources? I’m not sure I like that very much.

I leveled from 1-80 on nothing but drops and heart vendor gear, and never felt kittened. If its an upgrade, get it. Worry about expensive and perfectly statted gear when you hit 80 and it starts to matter.

Here, we’ll do a TLDR of VakarisJ’s post:

Answer: No.

Reason: There aren’t any long-duration stealths in the game.

What these guys said. Anet stated that the GW2 model would be expansion based laregly because the campaigns idea was problematic from a development standpoint of overcomplicating an already complicated system by needing to add new mechanics, and needing to add a new starting area/tutorials for those new mechanics.

I would expect the following from arenanet based on experience with the first game and based upon what I’ve read regarding the decision to cancel utopia and do EOTN/GW2:

Free updates: Single dungeons/Events/Recipies/Gear on current zones

Paid expansion: Weapon types, zones, personal story, large packages of dungeons, skills, runes, sigils. Possibly a single class, race or both per expansion.

Stuff I would be suprised at: Level cap changing, gear stat cap changing.

Anet’s track record has been one of extending content laterally rather than upward, so don’t expect a blizzard expansion scheme of “I need this xpac or I’ll be kittened” and expect a larger degree of stuff to do with an existing character as content with larger build options rather than more powerful addendums to your current build.

They’re also pretty good about varying things mechanically so I wouldn’t be suprised to see a “mount focused expansion” or “Air combat focused expansion” or “Extended water combat” expansion.

Daour.1437:

tire one cost 1s to upgrade to t2, t2 to t3 10s and so on

when you repair t1 it cost 25c, t2 1s and so on

even if you mine copper with a t5 tool, you still going to repair it with t5 repair cost.

how many times your going to mine copper with t5 tools?

Well if you’re still going to carry around multiple tiers of tools, then what is the point of repairing them at all? You’d be using the same amount of inventory space you use now if you carry one of each right now.

I don’t mind the lack of diversity so much because the mobs are mechanically different in most cases rather than being a bag of hp with level appropriate damage. Stalkers stealth+pounce, Drakes breath X with that big chargeup, skelk stealth all the time, the various dredge, ghosts, svanir, trolls, etc. all have their own little mechanics you have to look out for. I think if more diverse enemies are added, their mechanics need to be diverse as well to fit in with the way mobs work currently.

Like, when I was leveling, and I saw a new sort of troll, I knew, instantly, that I should watch out for some sort of big AoE, and some sort of disable, because all the other types of trolls have both of these. The new troll was consistant with that expectation, although his AoE and disable were different in effect from the other types of trolls.

I could definitely go for repair rather than re-buy, sure. Then again, how would we determine the durability?

Currently you know that using an orichalum pickaxe to mine copper is a stupid idea because orichalum picks cost 4s, right?

Now, if we had a sort of universal perma-pick we’d be looking at the tier of the resource versus the level of the tool, meaning you’d lose some arbitrary .25 per copper rather than 1 durability the way it is now. Then you’ve got to determine repair costs by how beat up your thingy is.

Currently we have tools with durability, but in stead of repairing them we just replace them every so often, which solves the whole tier problem, but poses a messier problem if (and only if) you want to take a single tool to various different levels of materials and do it as efficiently as possible (i.e. using copper picks for copper, iron for iron, etc.) This is really only a problem in the handful of zones that have two different tiers of mats.

Personally I’m not finding myself awfully put out by the current system, considering every general merchant has appropriate level tools for the mats in his zone, so its never a very long walk to replace a used up tool. How about we just add a decent %chance not to use a durability point when harvesting a lower material with a higher tool, and leave the salvage kits alone?

I have still yet to run in to this, running about frostgorge on my 80, doing every event that pops up, and often repeating them when they pop up again, still getting 1s+ and 300+ karma per event. How much faster would I have to be doing this to get smacked for “farming” Since 80 I’ve seen cosistant karma numbers everywhere I go, in various zone levels while world clearing, or helping guild members in lower zones.

Is this just effecting you in shores? I never farmed the defense DEs in shores because it was stupidly boring, but I’ve run all over out there, done various chains that weren’t bugged, and still saw consistent rewards and mob drops, because lets face it, you can’t go anywhere out there without killing risen. I’m still getting bones from risen, blues, greens, and the occasional yellow.

Is this a sort of “cap out” in terms of mass DEs which are triggering mass risen spawns or what? i’m interested in this because I see a lot of people talking about it but it still hasn’t happened to me. This obviously makes me wonder what these people are doing that’s different than what I’m doing so I can avoid… whatever it is they’re doing.

Tools and salvage kits have variant tiers and limited charges specifically so that it costs money to acquire materials.

Because of the lack of scarcity built in to resources and crafting due to the personal node system, this cash-check, combined with the rarity of some nodes or salvagable rare components is what ensures they have value.

In short: The fact that harvesting/salvaging is a gold sink is precisely why mats have value in this game. Other games use the scarcity of the nodes themselves, but because both drops and nodes are cloned for every player, a system to promote value of resources has to be in place.This is why higher tier tools/kits cost more money, and why there are varying tiers.

I’d like more alternatives to capes actually. The guild backpacks were a good start, and personally I didn’t enjoy the capes in the first game, and would have killed for some less superheroic options.

That said capes should be an option as a lot of people really do like capes, but how about some more variant guild armor designs and assorted other non-cape back slot (or call it accessory slot) items as well.

Armbands, banners, scarves, patches, or other identifiers that can be worn over armor.

While we’re just asking for stuff, howsabout some more guild weapon designs as those are also really nice ways to show off your guild tag.

Also, lets be frank about build diversity in the first game. In theory there was a lot of it. This stopped short at theory. In truth there was a 100% most efficient build per class to do any given content. Remember Sabway? Remember SS necros? Remember “group LF imbagon?”

Was it fun to attempt to come up with fun new diverse builds? Yeah, it totally was. However once you actually tested your new/diverse/individualistic build against hard mode, elite missions, or elite missions IN hard mode you learned very quickly why the majority of the player base gravitated toward the cookie cutter. Your build might be able to do it, but just running the standard same build as everyone else did it, easier, faster, and more efficiently.

This turned the skill system in to a massive graveyard of useless skills. I usually played a ranger, with class combos that one toon probably knew around 400+ skills. That toon over his lifespan probably regularly used about 10% of those skills. Not because I hadn’t spent tons of time coming up with fun builds, but because the fun and individual builds were usually only good for screwing about in the easier content. Once you got to the serious stuff… you ran SoS, you ran Sabway, you ran frostway, you ran whatever the most efficient build was because after a while that was what the new content coming out was designed around, difficulty and mob abilities tuned to ridiculous level so that the standard faceroll builds could actually be challenged for once.

I miss the idea of buildcrafting, but what I don’t miss is the reality that buildcrafting was more often than not a theory that ended up less than useful due to player expectations.

I think Ventari’s guide of having a right to grow refers more literally to growing to maturity than not killing.

That said if you’re sylvari and kill bear cubs, wolf cubs, or any baby animals, you should go give your mother ten hail marys.

That said it’s a cryptic guideling and like any cryptic religious text is open to interpretation by its followers. Its why there are Shiites and Sunnis and Catholics and Protestants. I’d see the interpretation of Ventari’s tablet by the Sylvari in much the same way.

Thanks Sajuuk. I may have missed those nightfall quests.

and Yata, I’m saying that it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck so I’m calling it a duck. That massive degree of similarity can’t be a coincidence by the art team we’re talking about. Same wingies, same bizarre markings, same skin tone, we never actually met a “female” seer, and the dimensions on those water wingies are perfectly sized to be wrapped around the body and latched with their tiny hands in the same manner as the Seers we’ve met.

For all we know seer males do the mysticism and seer females do all the fighting and assassinating.

Also, the facemask is suspicious for a native underwater species, and the character in question is… lets say not trustworthy.

but I digress, that’s a whole other topic for another thread.

Technically nobody really needs a breather. Check out all the non-aquatic NPCs (specifically prisoners/slaves of the Krait in a large number of places) or heck, do this:

Take you character.

Dive as deep as you can.

Take off breather.

Refuse to drown.

The people of Tyria wear specialized facemasks underwater because it is a land of many fancy hats, and it would be a shame to ruin them. Masks are just the fancy hats of the underwater realm, which is why soldiers are often seen wearing them, and prisoners never seem to have one.

I might go off on a tangent here. Lack of sleep.

Titans were (retcon) created by Abaddon and used during his “lets be a jerk” phase for which the other gods banished him and locked him away in the domain of anguish (always handy to have a domain of anguish lying around!). At this point terrestrial titans were locked away behind the door of Komalie.

At least I think that’s the nightfall-retcon approved version of events regarding the door of Komalie. The fire islands was/is literally a Titan prison.

Now, presumably the door of Komalie was created by ancient Orrians (GW2 lore here) as they has some direct contact with the gods, hence the reason the Sceptre of Orr was the key that unlocked it.

Then the Mursaat got wind of that and for whatever reason the Mursaat/Seers(AKA Largos) do things the Mursaat decided in Saul D’allesio’s(sp?) time that the titans would be a handy dandy weapon to have in order to… Well I’ll guess they wanted to dominate Tyria, but honestly their motives are never made clear. Maybe they’ll be retconned to wanting the titans as a weapon against the Elder Dragons since the lore is so dragon happy all of a sudden.

So, anyway, at this point the Vizier, who, FYI, was NOT a servant of abaddon at the time of the prophecies plotline (like Shiro he only became a servant of Abaddon after being defeated by my awesome ranger and his merry band and being banished to the realm of torment) Decides he’d like to have his own personal army of titans undead with which to… well from the cinematic dialoague, basically destroy everything for no reason/because he’s akitten off winged zombie.

Mind you, this guy stopped being the Vizier of Orr the moment Orr exploded (which was a catastrophic retcon-WMD misfire in an effort to stop the Charr from taking Orr)

So, that entire time, being a Lich (which is basically a zombie who knows necromancy) he spent all that time looking for the scepter with his undead army in Kryta so he could unlock the door.

Then stuff got complicated because the Mursaat were on the scene with their white mantle flunkies, and Mursaat are way better in a fight than an army of crusty old zombies.

Thus, the Lich enlists our Ascalonian heroes (including my awesome ranger) to do the dirty work for him, stringing them along like they’re the chosen ones so he can swoop in and claim his new army after they clean up the Mursaat for him.

Of course, my ranger was such an awesome guy that he single handedly closed all the titan portals to all the major cities, beat up zombie Rurik, and killed the Lich three times on the bloodstone while wrestling two bears, brewing coffee, and high fiving a Seer.

And that’s why people live in kryta now in stead of being dead, and also where titans come from.

I like these, but how about…

Leave form>Throw tonic
Converts tonic to a one time use bundle which functions as the harpy pheremone consumable. Birds summoned to attack the target (and if you haven’t seen this consumable used… they are literally COVERED in birds) are miniature versions of the tonic creature.

Imagine. You’re a deer. A fight happens. Can you fight in tonic form? No! but in stead you turn back in to yourself, and with a laugh throw the empty bottle with just enough remaining residue at your currently targeted foe. It breaks, leaking magic deer-scent all over him, and you laugh to yourself as he is swarmed by tens of tiny deer, all stuck to him flailing about.

The damage is minimal, but you don’t care. You didn’t do it for the damage, its a tonic. You did it for the lulz.

If we brought back Ritualists, where would all of the millions of mortar operators now found in Tyria find new jobs?

Friends list information
You feel about friends lists like I feel about /inspect. I agree that for many people the current information on the list is too much.

Falldamage/combat slow
Compromise: Add this immunity to the falling traits available to each class? Before I specced out of it I swapped to a fall trait in jumping puzzles as some insurance. Of course, some jumping puzzles getting it wrong is fatal so…

Elementalist stuff
While I’m in no way qualified to address these issues, I will say that I have several elementalists as friends that really enjoy the power and team utility of the conjure spells. Personally, I thought that conjuring one for you and one for a friend was a great way to go about it, and the ones I’ve used seem to have enough power and utility I haven’t ever wanted to drop them for my personal weapon set before they expired on their own.

Tooltips
Agreed. Specific numbers on trait tooltips would be especially nice. Too many traits just talk in general terms.

Better Tutorials
Also agreed. More informed players is always a good thing when it comes to basic interface and gameplay mechanics.

Surface spells
I think the idea was that underwater/on land was a sort of binary switch that prevented people from treating water like it was land in engagements on a coast. basically the current dynamic forces you to commit to one or the other, so avoiding water is often a very real concern in a land-fight, just as avoiding the surface is a very real concern in a water fight. As positional as the combat in GW2 is I think these boundaries are important to keeping terrain a factor. For instance I usually dive in water when fighting drakes at the coast because they’re just easier to kill underwater. I avoid water at the coast when fighting krait because krait are a harder fight underwater. Somehow I think that blurring these borders with the use of surface spells might take away some of that dynamic.

I will say that while the downed state underwater says “SWIM UP” it is universally the worst thing you can possibly due because of this decision, where holding bandage and swimming away is always always a far better course of action as you retain mobility and the use of your downed skills. At the very least downed targets on the surface should be able to move.

Private servers
I don’t see why not, but they should most certainly not grant any kind of rewards. That’s just asking for abuse and farming like what people already tried with win trading. Honestly. You people. sigh

Spectator mode

Another big yes. Spectator mode is always fun. Replays too. I’m of the firm opinion that every game should have a replay function of some kind because they’re just fun, and competitive games should have spectator modes (time delayed) because new players can be much better prepared jsut by watching a few matches in random matchmaking scenarios.

/who
Wholly rational, but honestly this should really only work on your friends and guildmates. The /who command has seen a lot of abuse over the years as a way to circumvent privacy filters. While I’m not a person concerned with ingame privacy due to my play habits I understand and agree with many people’s concerns about it.

/inspect
No thank you. Inspecting is a precursor to gear checking. Gear checking is a precursor to build requirements. Not only that, consider that some people would rather not have their entire setup snooped on without their consent. Consider that as long as the chat box works and item linking exists it is fairly easy to find out this information from a person willing to give it to you.

Might not seem like a big deal to you, but here’s a hypothetical situation: I discover some mystic forge recipe to create a weapon or piece of armor literally no one has ever seen before. Its completely unique, noticable, and is a major defining characteristic of my character’s look. What if I wanted to keep my secret to myself? What if I discovered an unlisted legendary and wanted to be the only guy that has one until someone else got just as lucky or just as patient as I was?

Heck, what if I discovered some really slick PvP setup that I use to wreck people and don’t want my enemies aping it in the lobby as soon as the match is over?

/inspect is an invasion of character privacy in my personal opinion for reasons like these. With the advent of the age of the wiki too much mystery and discovery has already been bled out of MMOs. I’d like to see as much of what is left kept intact.

Trading/COD

Trading and COD aren’t in the game because out of market trading results in a market that no longer accurately reflects the value of items. Yes people do it, however arenanet has also stated that these trades are insecure and that these trades are not moderated or compensated in any way. In short, they’re trying something very different in this game. When you set up out of market trading, you end up with two separate economies, and that creates a situation where the rarest goods, be they for sale, never hit the market.

In short, given how fast and painless it is to use the TP from anywhere, and mail from anywhere, I haven’t missed /trade at all. It has drastically cut down on the amount of spam in every channel imaginable of people attempting to sell stuff and gain an out of market profit.

They can also come from black lion chests, which in turn can be earned/unlocked thorugh ingame means. They are fare more rare in those chests than tonics however. Of the maybe 10 chests I’ve opened, one contained minis (two whites and a green)

Also, if tradition holds ture to the first game, characters should receive a single randomly selected mini on their birthday (that is, the day the character was created, not the birthday of the account holder)

I don’t know if they’re panning on birthday minis for GW2 but I wouldn’t be suprised to see it.

I know what its like to be forced to use a market just to get something as simple as a nice color on my armor. It’s pretty when its all said and done, but it isn’t nearly as much fun as finding 2-8 new colors every single day. Even if they’re duplicates. Even if they get sent to friends or used on an alt. Even if the rares are actually pretty rare.

I like things the way they are. I like knowing that if I’m really hard up for a specific color I can use the AH. I know that I also have a pretty darn reasonable chance, like I do with all my gear, of actually finding stuff I can use.

That’s my case against account-wide dyes. That’s why I think per-character dyes are actually more fun.

The people campaigning in this thread for account bound dyes are neglecting a single core axiom that would HAVE to change in order to keep the dye economy sane.

I’ll lay this out for you: Finding dye is fun, mostly because the system is a collection/unlock design rather than what we had in the first game which was a core consumable commodity.

In the first game we had very few colors, and although the mixing was a lot of fun, the core problem was that you needed to amass VAST quantities of the stuff because unless you were one of the people that just went all bruce wayne on the dye interface you needed at least two dyes per piece of armor for every set of armor you owned. Most people have around 3-7 sets per character to suit various builds they would play in various team comps or content. Do the math. That’s a lot of collecting the same handful of colors over and over again.

Now, add this to the fact that dye drops, due to the small color pool were pretty rare things to see. Now add on top of that the loot sharing and reservation system meaning that in a full party you got around 1/8 of anything that dropped ever that wasn’t gold.

So you chad a system in which dye drops were a semi-rare thing to behold in the first place, compounded upon the fact that the dyes you actually wanted were a subset of that semi-rare drop.

The result was a dye system that was fun to use, but that looting dye was simply not ever fun. The biggest source of dyes was the trader (or before they added the traders you just yelled at the top of your lungs in Lion’s Arch.) You found a dye, you nearly never actually used it because you already knew that the likelihood of getting the colors you needed in the quantities you wanted was so small that it wasn’t worth attempting. You bought dyes from the dye trader as soon as you got a new set of armor, and from that point forward you sold all your dye.

The result? Looting dyes was never fun. Looting dyes was never a visual upgrade for your character. Dyes were just a rareish thing that dropped that annoyed you because it was usually worth less than a white item. Unless you found a white or black.

Current system: You find a lot of dye, and often that dye is a shade that you don’t already have access to. Sure, maybe the majority of it is colors you don’t fancy, but the sheer volume of different shades means the frequency of dye drops is extremely common, and that you’re always finding something you’re more likely to be able to unlock, as part of a character, permanently.

In short: the current dye rarity and unlock system is a lot more fun.

“Well yeah Mr. Long explainer, that’s why we want it account wide”

See, here’s the thing. Dyes are common not only because of the vast number of shades, but because of the vast number of characters in total and per account that can potentially consume them. Dyes are a cosmetic feature, and Arenanet pays for the servers with profits from cosmetic features, which means dye drop rarity has to have a parity with its value in the gem store to remain valuable in the gem store.

In short, supply and demand.

Now, lets take these dyes and make them account bound. You have cut demand by 4/5. In order to keep the dye economy at a stable level that creates enough demand people will consider gems as an option for dye purchases (or make them an attractive craft for chefs) we’re going to need to cut supply by 4/5 as well.

In short, you’re going to get a lot less dye drops. There’s no way around it. You can’t leave drops as they are and just make dyes account bound because then you’re looking at chef recipies which are suddenly out of whack with the economy, which then affects the price of those components.

Now ask yourself, truly ask yourself: Would you be willing to cut dye drops rates by 80% as a payment for making them account bound? Would you be willing to depend on chefs and the gem store as the only truly reliable source of dye? Would you be willing to see dye prices shoot up at an inverse rate to how like YOU personally are to find they dye you actually want… or for that matter any dye at all?

That’s the reality. Dye is a trade commodity in the player economy, the gem economy, it affects how many chefs are avaliable, which affects the price of a large number of chef ingredients. It affects a huge number of things economically that would demand attention for the sake of equilibrium if this change were to happen.

I like looting dye. I like the little xmas present feeling I get when I open one. I like sending duplicate commons to friends because in the large scheme of things the commons are actually so common that I can afford to give them away, or use them on alts. I like finding my own loot and being able to use it versus being forced to use the TP to get any choice in dye selection at all, or being forced in to buying gems.

I can live without the circular minimap, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be an option.

What I would like is a toggle to have our current minimap behave like the old mission map AKA the “u-map” using the current little dots used on the big map, but with an option to control how long they persist (as the big map often becomes more cluttered with travel dots due to their extremely long lifetime.)

Also, weapon dying would be nice but I wouldn’t hold your breath. I think I remember something to the effect of “Allowing weapon dyes means it takes longer to add more weapons to the game with the new dye system” or something as the reason they nixed weapon dyes.

I’ll second a desire for bacon and pork products.

I mean… we have pigs, red meat, and poultry (and I really like the design decision behind the red meat/poultry versus specifics i.e. “raptor meat” or “venison” or 500 more types of meats.

We’re missing a third meat type: white meat.

Uriel.4361:

There’s a Mystic Forge in the Heart of the Mists so no need to waypoint to a capitol.

Ah. I wasn’t aware that one worked on PvE recipies as well as PvP. Thanks!

Its just a bulky set of armor. There are bulky cloth sets as well for people who like that sort of look. Transmute it with something that looks nicer if its bothering you. You can either get the basic transmutation stones from the gem store, or as rewards for fully exploring zones.

They can also be found in black lion chests, your personal story, or with your mystic coin from a daily achievements chest if you’re lucky. I’ve got probably 15 of them that I’ve picked up from just playing the game.

Lamarius.3201:

Sounds like more work than it’s worth, since you can go to LA whenever you want for free.

Unless I’m missing something it takes at least 1s to get to LA if you happen to be seriously close to it or a capital city with an asura gate that connects. I’ve spent upwards of 3s getting there from Orr.

Is there some sort of free LA portal I’ve missed?

For the record I’ve made about 1.5 gold in profit from these chests flipping soft wood and using ectos I already had, but its still gambling. I ended up getting crystals worth around 2 gold, but I know some people who popped a mystic chest and got less, actually losing money versus what was spent on “trash” mats, NTM the ectos which tend to be pretty valuable by themselves and not a good AH purchase for this purpose if you don’t happen to have them already.

Basically, its gambling. Granted, its gambling with a somewhat decent return rate, but there is still a large potential for loss with the mystic chest recipies, and the “holy grail” of getting the stuff to craft the MF conduit is likely going to cost you quite a bit.

The text that reads “You already know this recipe” on mouseover has been more than sufficient for me.

Forgive my ignorance, but aren’t crafted high tier jewels an upgrade component that can be applied to virtually any piece of gear, wheras things like weapons and armor are limited to a single or extremely limited number of slots?

Or are the highest tier jewels only usable in jewelry?

If the first is the case this would explain the higher inherent value of crafted jewels, as those jewels have a higher inherent value due to higher potential demand on a per character basis, whereas the upgrades (runes, sigils) craftable by other professions have a much more limited potential demand.

Again, If this is not the case I apologize as I have very limited experience with high tier jewels as I in stead opt to use sigils and runes in my equipment, but I do recall using several found jewels in my equipment at lower levels.

Yep, like these guys said, while leveling just have a general idea of stats that are important if you happen to get a choice in drops or karma vendors, but otherwise you should be plenty effective. The specific configuration of stats/runes/etc. at 80 is a 10% difference in your overall effectiveness which only becomes important to your survival or gameplay at 80.

I leveled from 1-80 with a busted auction house, knew I wanted condition damage, but picked up any armor that was better armorwise and any weapons that were better damage-wise, and just made sure to slot my preferred stats in them with the gems i found. Leveling was pretty painless and fun this way, and left me with a good chunk of cash to get my trait books and a set of green 80 gear with the exact stats I wanted from the AH when I made it to 80.

I concur. At the very least un-soulbind them so they can be vendored or auctioned. Does zommoros have a random chance to bake them in to everlasting tonics? That would be a great way to keep them flowing as a trade commodity.

For those wondering about item scaling with dowleveling, here’s what I’ve observed while world clearing with my 80. While the trash isn’t as valuable, the event income and the good drops or chest loot I find is the same level I’d find in Orr, though often with a zone-appropriate skin. If your findings are different let me know as I figure maybe I should post thing in players helping players.

Zone aspects that do not scale:

Crafting bags/materials. Makes sense as otherwise there wouldn’t be any way for an 80 to collect low level crafting materials.

Non-Event XP. Zone poi, vista, mob, and gathering xp are fixed amounts and do not scale up.

Vendors/hearts. Again, not a huge issue. If you’re downscaling the only reason you’re buying heart vendor gear is for the looks, and the stuff you are buying from them like recipies, crafting materials, salvage kits, or tools is the same low karma price as it would otherwise be.

Zone aspects that do scale:

Salvage items. Valuable metal scraps in 1-15 zones. Yeah, really, clear newbie zones, salvage orichalum, platinum, and mithril.

Equippable Items. The higher an item’s rarity level is, the more likely it is to scale up. Whites have a low chance to upscale, blues upscale even more frequently, and so on. Rares are almost always scaled up.

Event Rewards. Doing events anywhere will reward the same amount of karma, xp, and gold as any other event of the same size. A small escort event in Orr awards the same for an 80 as a small escort in Kessex. Killing the champ giant in orr yields the same rewards as killing the cave troll in kessex.

Chest Drops. These seem to scale based on the same rules as mob drops. I’ve looted ecto from the demongrub pits chest.

For those wondering about item scaling with dowleveling, here’s what I’ve observed while world clearing with my 80. While the trash isn’t as valuable, the event income and the good drops or chest loot I find is the same level I’d find in Orr, though often with a zone-appropriate skin.

Zone aspects that do not scale:

Crafting bags/materials. Makes sense as otherwise there wouldn’t be any way for an 80 to collect low level crafting materials.

Non-Event XP. Zone poi, vista, mob, and gathering xp are fixed amounts and do not scale up.

Vendors/hearts. Again, not a huge issue. If you’re downscaling the only reason you’re buying heart vendor gear is for the looks, and the stuff you are buying from them like recipies, crafting materials, salvage kits, or tools is the same low karma price as it would otherwise be.

Zone aspects that do scale:

Salvage items. Valuable metal scraps in 1-15 zones. Yeah, really, clear newbie zones, salvage orichalum, platinum, and mithril.

Equippable Items. The higher an item’s rarity level is, the more likely it is to scale up. Whites have a low chance to upscale, blues upscale even more frequently, and so on. Rares are almost always scaled up.

Event Rewards. Doing events anywhere will reward the same amount of karma, xp, and gold as any other event of the same size. A small escort event in Orr awards the same for an 80 as a small escort in Kessex. Killing the champ giant in orr yields the same rewards as killing the cave troll in kessex.

Chest Drops. These seem to scale based on the same rules as mob drops. I’ve looted ecto from the demongrub pits chest.

Archeon.7693:

Nepocrates.3642:

PopeUrban.2578:

Why not just have the difficulty rampup branch out with the chain when its starting to go the other direction – such has going a step further down in difficulty everytime players lose an event, and then heads the other direction – that way the difficulty won’t be entirely removed and otherwise be pushed back from the players right away, or atleast not as easily.

So if I am understanding this it will go like this.

server reset DE set to Dif 1
win set to 2
win set to 3
….
win set to 12
lose set to 11
lose set to 10
win set to 11

and so on?

See, to me this will just mean that it cycles two events rather than 1. When #1 gets to difficulty 11 where people fail, it goes back down the chain to #2 at difficulty 10 where people win, so it goes back to #1 at difficulty 11 so it goes back to #2 at 10….

If they were to implement something that works on a simple win/loss counter, I think it would have to only change difficulty at the extreme ends of the chain. ie if an event can lead to 2 different events depending whether it is won or lost then it doesn’t have any effect on difficulty. An event that can only lead to a different event if it is lost will raise the difficulty of the whole chain each time it is won, and an event that can only lead to a different event if it is won will lower the difficulty of the chain each time it is lost.

I’d still prefer something more sophisticated, but again, I imagine that the above is technically challenging enough!

I agree (That quote as me is actually a misquote) Which is why I proposed the “total win wipe” in my previous post.

Lets face facts here. Players want to win dynamic events. This is why so many metas remain locked in total victory mode all the time. We don’t (and shouldn’t!) play to lose.

Any sort of gradient difficulty will still result in a repetion of a limited section of the whole chain. With the “wipe” event you’re just keying in to the fact that players are doing extremely well in a zone and resetting the chain whilst simultaneously giving the players that did so well a special “armageddon survival” zonewide event that serves to really shake up the monotonay of the zone.

This wipe event is intended to drive off players who don’t want to have a bit of challenge in the DE’s for a while, spreading them to other areas of the zone, reward the players who decide to stick it out to the bloody end well, and most importantly, reset the meta to a total devastated/enemy has won situation so that the next players through the zone or the players that fled from the wipe event have the opportunity to really feel they’re making a difference.

Event chains are going to repeat eventually anyway, that’s the nature of a finite system, but the wipe event idea is intended to make the instance of inevitable showcase the world changing power of the event system and ensure that the entirety of event chains have a chance to actually happen.

In zones where people aren’t constantly easily zerging “defend the win” events the system is working as intended already so why mess with that? The wipe idea just stops the dynamic event system from becoming a static system of “defend all these things over and over” by shaking it up if the chains become stale and repetitive.

The stats used for the conditions resulting from combo fields are from the person using the finisher. We tested this on the PvP dummies and this seemed accurate.

Example:

Power based ele lays a fire field, condition based theif fires through it to get burning.

The theif’s condition damage and duration buffs are used, as well as any runes/sigils the theif might have that have specific procs or effects for burning.

If a Condition damage based ele layed the fire field the theif’s attacks would behave in exactly the same manner because the effect of the burning condition is using the stats of the their rather than the stats of the ele who laid the field.

Theives: Shadow refuge is the only skill in the game that can remove aggro from a downed teammate, stealth him, and stealth everyone trying to res him long enough to actually res the guy. It’ll also speed up the res because the field itself is a HoT

It’s the only truly safe res in the game. The only drawback is that the guy being ressed has to know its coming and not accidentally break his own stealth.

Supportive theives also have the ability to spam aoe blinds and cripples for pretty much eternity if they’re specced properly, as well as having access to a large selection of blind inflicting combo fields, apply any of their own venoms to any allies nearby, steal boons from enemies and give them to the party, can give a pretty respectiable amount of fury and might to their teammates as well.

Basically, if you’re looking for a very reliable res, blinds, cripples, or a good way to add utility conditions in a large stack quickly to a target then you’re looking for a support theif.

Yeah, the nearest waypoint is always free if you’re flat broke. If you’re very NEAR to flat broke (say you’ve got only 5 copper even though you usually spend 1s on waypoints) it’ll usually charge you everything you’ve got.

I do a nice sustained 14 stack of bleeds plus perma-poison and the occasional 6 stack of confuse on my pisol/dagger theif build.

Set up properly every class has a solid condition build, you’ve just got to find the right weapon, trait, and armor combo to get it off the ground.

Necros are unique in that their condition power is rather scalar with plague signet. Got a conditions necro in the guild that goes from “good” in a small fight to “Holy crap” the bigger the allied zerg gets. Of course this also means that it becomes much harder for him to stay alive, so its a very kind of razor’s edge thing.

What’s important to note is condition stacks. More than two bleed damage builds becomes a waste because it caps at 25 stacks. Similarly if you have one guy that can perma-poison, two is overkill. Same for fire, as fire and poison stack duration rather than intensity.

If you’re going conditions, you have to learn the stacking behavior of the conditions you use and when its a good idea to swap to another condition, or support or whatever. For instance on my theif if I run in to an event and I see people are already managing to get a full 25 bleed stack and perma-poison on the mob, then I go for bodyshots in stead to stack vulnerability.

That’s probably a lot more information than you asked for, but I’m bored.

Maybe have them mailed on creation, but limit how many you can write pretty heavily. Like… one per month or something?

Basically I like the idea of being able to ‘reccommend’ some new person who you just bought the game for with a nice ingame item and email they can hand to and NPC, but I don’t like the idea of people turning these in to a trade commodity on the AH.

Say I get GW2 for my girlfriend, and she logs in on the second day with an ingame email that says to go pick up a package from NPC X (maybe a heart vendor I have already completed) So now she has a little mini-quest created by me, with my karma to go pick up this letter. The NPC gives a short dialogue about how she’s been spoken of highly by <insert hero name> and how any friend of <insert hero name> is a friend of <insert karma vendor name>

So, my girlfriend gets X amount of karma, as well as the ability to use this karma merchant before actually completing the heart.

RaZaC.1963:

MilitiaMasterV.7216:

I like to think of karma as your ‘reputation’. It’s how well the locals ‘know you and your deeds’.

Transferring that to another character seems like it would be wrong. How are those locals supposed to know about your other character you transferred it to?

so if i spend all my karma… no one knows me anymore ? karma is a K I T T E N!

I’d love the option since i play lots of charaters at the same time so i have it spread across them, if i’d be able to transfer it from other toons to my main that would be great

Maybe with a big diminishing return/cost, be able to write a “letter of reccommendation”

I mention this because in EOTN they added the ability to craft stars of transferrence, which were pretty expensive to make on your main, but allowed you to transfer skill points to another character, you just needed to use a skill point, some crafting materials, and some gold.

A “letter of reccomendation” would be a more thematic version of that. Your awesome well known guy (lots of karma) writes a letter telling people they should help out your fresh-off-the-boat total novice. You pay gold to have it “notorized” and need to spend maybe 20% more karma than the listed amount (because earning your own karma should always be the best option, and a letter from Mr. Awesome is never as effective as being Mr. Awesome.)

MilitiaMasterV.7216:

I like to think of karma as your ‘reputation’. It’s how well the locals ‘know you and your deeds’.

Transferring that to another character seems like it would be wrong. How are those locals supposed to know about your other character you transferred it to?

This.

Karma is only a “currency” in terms of game mechanics so that we players who don’t actually live in Tyria can track via number how many favors the various people of tyria owe us.

Basically, karma is a way-cooler version of soulbound quest rewards in more traditional question models, Only in this game you can actually save it up for really awesome stuff rather than vendoring all the incremental and useless stuff you get.

Don’t think of karma as a literal currency. Your character doesn’t hand little purple tokens to the karma vendor. The karma vendor sees your character and recognizes what an awesome hero you are, and gives you stuff because of that. You lose some awesome points (petition: rename karma to awesome points) when collecting because… well… mooching off of people is kinda lame.

Need one for killing chickens in Ebonhawke for sure.

You should really calm down. You’re trying to turn this in to a right and wrong argument and to be honest I’m not interested in arguing over the internet.

My point is, quite simply, that the day/night cycle does exactly what its supposed to. Make zones look different. It does a beautiful job of that. Currently day/night affects nothing mechanically in the game, and thus its timing or consistency between zones doesn’t bother me (personally, as in this person here, typing this, not the grand arbiter of all truths ever told) Yes, it drives immersion in terms of it being noticeable that it is either dark or light outside.

In that respect its working just fine. It is literally either day or night in any given zone.

If the cycle were more important in terms of NPC behavior, event triggers, mob spawns, or anything that would actually make it feel like day or night then it would make a lot more sense to be concerned with whether it had zone continuity, was predictable, etc.

None of the things you listed really bother me. (As in me, the only person I’ve ever spoken for in this thread.) I’m just happy that sometimes its night and sometimes it’s day. I don’t notice or care much because day and night are not very important in this game compared to other games I have played. Therefore I can’t summon up strong feelings about how accurate it is.

The options are, realisticially:

1. Make dyes account bound, and nerf dye drops/crafting rolls to maintain dye economy.
2. Keep the current insanely high (compared to GW1) drop rate and have actual fun when dyes drop on all your characters.

Personally I’m very much against anything in MMOs that is “account bound” outside of a shared bank. It takes away from the importance and investment of time and care in to individual characters, and in my opinion creates a much more boring experience when you befriend the operator of five to twenty different “toons” than one “guy I met outside that cave that one time”

Not everyone feels the way I do about it, but most people tend to have a “main” and “alts” in these games for a reason. Players want to, and should, develop and invest in characters. The more things you turn in to auto-twinking (even if they’re cosmetic) the less important each character becomes.

The point I’m making is that day/night has an extremely minor impact on immersion and works fine the way it is for what it is doing, which is purely visual fluff.

You should loosen up. Survivor wasn’t easy or even predictable in the first game, and playing for survivor was very very different than just normally playing the game. If not getting survivor ranks makes you feel like “playing the game is worthless” then perhaps you should do something less stressful, either ingame or away from it.

Fact is you never plan to die. Survivor never cared why you died before and it isn’t going to start now. If you’re a serious hardcore survivor chaser you’ll adapt or give up.

True story: The original GW1 survivor title was lost forever if you died one time. ONE time… reroll the character. it was eventually softened up in GW1, and the “gained xp” formula is the same as the one used in GW2. Either stick with it or forget it.