Guild Wars 2

CureForLiving.5360:

Psientist.6437:

Would a handheld device be out of the question?

Pretty sure Scarlet had one, so why not.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And the only ones using them are tied to the Orders, Pact, or other important group (charr High Legions, for example).

Probably due to the cost of use. Don’t imagine every merchant would have the ability to wp around everywhere. Our PCs have a number of lore related reasons why they get to use it cheap though.

Psientist.6437:

I tend to be more interested in ‘commoner’ lore than ‘hero’ lore. More accurately, how the two are foils or complements of the other. From what others here have stated, there is no evidence or examples of commoners using the way point system, only the Asuran gate system.

Since the way point system is a web of interconnecting paths rather than a point-to-point path, perhaps a hero’s greater ‘magical density’ (yes, I am making that up) is needed to maintain path finding.

Well in the case of commoners you can basically expect that it isn’t economically feasible unless they have some ties to a larger organisation. We only really see WP being used in the later areas of the game (and rarely at that), in the lower level areas most of the merchants need to go from point A to point B by foot, thus necessitating the hiring of adventures (which is still probably cheaper than the WP system).
Not sure about the magical density thing. We have little lore about our PCs actually being special beyond the ability to be at the center of most major events. So we don’t have any lore stating that we’re the biggest, strongest, toughest or most magically dense.

I don’t like the argument that the way point system is just too expensive for non-heroes to use. Much of our hero’s wealth comes from selling our goods and services to non-hero vendors. Of course there would be a price point for way pointing that would exclude certain income brackets, but it doesn’t make sense to require our heroes to be also the most wealthy. Would the Asurans have built the system just to provide services to heroes? Perhaps the merchants we escort are just very cheap and/or beasts of burden can’t use the way point system.

To clarify about the hand-held device; I don’t mean a personal teleporter, but a device that allows the user to select way point destinations.

edit: The question or dilemma of escort missions may not be that complex if we accept that zone maps are abstract representations of geography. The distance between way points could be measured in tens of miles or a days journey. The non-heroes we escort could be traveling through areas or on routes not directly serviced by way points.

I can not imagine what a LA trade chat channel would like if GW2 depended on P2P trading to move the volume of mats handled via the BLTP.

lakdav.3694:

Heading to the WPs and disappearing right underneath them is just how it was easy to code their movement. Its just pathing, directing the NPCs to move to a specific point, that point being the closest point they can get to the WP object, and thats directly underneath them. If there was an actual animation of them reaching up toward the device or doing whatever else, i would be more inclined to believe that they are more than gameplay convenience with poorly slapped-on “lore” explanation. But they just disappear.

In Guild Wars there was Map traveling. I remember this kid in Nightfall who thought that his mother invented map travel. It was written dialogue in the game, everyone had the right to believe that map traveling was actual viable lore that is common to the most common folk too. But it was never taken so seriously as to write it into actual events or quests (outside that few tutorial quests about map traveling). Escape and Escort quests would have been even more stupid than the same with WPs.

Given the fact that the “Mordremoth feeding on the Waypoint Network” situation was resolved so fast and without much of any after-effect, i feel that their inclusion in the living story plot was more like a forced effort to salvage their “lore” rather than anything that has any meaning in the long run.

I tend to be more interested in ‘commoner’ lore than ‘hero’ lore. More accurately, how the two are foils or complements of the other. From what others here have stated, there is no evidence or examples of commoners using the way point system, only the Asuran gate system.

Since the way point system is a web of interconnecting paths rather than a point-to-point path, perhaps a hero’s greater ‘magical density’ (yes, I am making that up) is needed to maintain path finding.

Sublimatio.6981:

Think about it – we have an interactive map with waypoints. If I would write a story I would make such map a real life thing. And I would make a bank-account system linked to the map, so the money doesn’t disappear MAGICALLY.

This is where I started from and where I think I will end up. Instead of a paper map though, I like the idea of a hand held, magitech device.

Again, thank you for all the replies.

I would guess the scale is much greater than 1:5 and not necessarily universal. I suspect some of the zones would be hundreds of miles across and realistically take days to travel across. The cities I would describe as being smaller, Divinity’s reach may be a mile or so across. Somewhere, there is a globe of the planet that would give some idea of the scale if we knew the diameter.

When considering the gold economy and pillars of Arenanet’s design philosophy; ‘play as you want’ is less important than the pillar; ‘if you don’t have the time to earn a reward you can buy that reward for gold’. I think we need to accept that how loot is awarded is always going to be a challenge for Arenanet.

tolunart.2095:

Vayne.8563:

What some see as a problem, I see as a design decision.
.

Psychology also plays a role. It’s well known that the design of a classic MMO involves the “Skinner Box” – the company wants the players of the MMO to stay subbed as long as possible so they set up the game to offer the reward periodically to keep players repeating the content while the devs prepare the next installment of content.

Players don’t run dungeons and raids because they love to play “jump out of the red circle,” they do it because there’s LOOT in it. The best loot typically comes at the end, so you have to fight your way to the last boss to get it. If the good stuff came with the first or second boss then a lot of players will go that far and quit. Like when daily/weekly quests require players to kill a boss partway through a dungeon, groups will form until they complete the quest, then fall apart. Because the focus isn’t on enjoying the dungeon they’ve already run through 100 times, the focus is on the reward that comes with completing the daily/weekly.

Anet has tried to shift the focus from the loot to the experience, but with only partial success. Most traditional MMO players remain focused on their Skinner Box Loot, and get upset if they keep pushing the button without getting a big enough reward to keep them interested. It’s the reason why saving up their pennies to buy a precursor from the TP is seen as unrewarding, and why Anet’s plan for “precursor crafting” would likely get the same reaction. They are not interested in a progress bar with a precursor at the end, they want the endorphin rush that comes from opening a chest and seeing DUSK appear.

The Skinner Box is also powered by no reward or small incremental rewards. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid skinner box mechanics.

Imo, until GW2 moves away from rewarding an ‘experience’ with loot and towards rewarding an ‘experience’ with a roleplaying element, the game with be as much about loot acquisition as WoW.

I think it is easy to exaggerate the distinction between magic, technology, and magitech if we apply real world physics to the Tyrian universe along with the assumption that new (technology) trumps old (magic). In the Tyrian universe, magic would be the equivalent of another elemental force like gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Magic would fundamentally effect how weaponry evolves.
I have always assumed that our weapons genuinely perform the skills listed. When a ranger wields a harpoon gun, they can fire a projectile that summons a swarm of piranhas. Tyrian martial weapons are far more powerful and versatile than their real world counterparts and weapons. The comparative power of a Tyrian tank versus a Tyrian warrior wielding a greatsword does not have to mirror the difference between an M1 Abrams and a Viking.

I agree that the Pact developed all the necessary magitech unrealisticly quickly. The Pride of Tyria played out as a combination of three card monte and deus ex machina.

You are my kind of geek.

Thank you, I was on the edge of my seat watching.

Thank you for the responses.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

collapse

If I were to write the waypoints into a story, I’d say that they’re accessed directly. And it’s lore that using waypoints does cost money – and that it’s “magically transferred to the Arcane Council’s coffers” (which is just a pathetic and thoughtless explanation if you ask me).

Konig, I am leaning in the direction of waypoints being accessed directly. I will just need to be discretely creative with how an address is selected. The fact that we can open a map and access waypoints from anywhere may be where the line between lore and game play is drawn. In general, I don’t think the distinction between game play and lore is a genuine distinction, but accept the fact that it is inherently harder for fantasy games to integrate game play and lore than it is for say a science fiction game.

As to how money is transferred, I was surprised when I came across that explanation as well. The process doesn’t have to be magical since we keep our funds in a bank.

Azhure.1857:

My frustration has been escalating with campers. Those people at Major events that wait at the end of a Meta event and/or Boss spawn and let other people do all the work. Now this wouldn’t be a horrible problem if it were just a few people and it didn’t put those that are doing the pre-events at risk of missing out.

Example?
Dredge Commissar.

More than once I’ve been the only one doing the pre-events and have it pop while I’m out. I port to the nearby WP at SE and run… but unfortunately for me there were 20-30 people camping at Dredge spawn location and I just missed out. When I put the work in – I missed out.

I know life isn’t fair at times. I get that. But this is pathetic.

Remember the Manifesto and the days of launch when they said Dynamic Events would be a way of pulling people together? That you would always LIKE more people to join in? Yeah — Not anymore.

I understand your frustration but can’t really blame the other players, especially when we have the example of the ports that take players from the pre-events for the Shadow Behemoth to the Shadow Behemoth fight itself and other encounters with longer gaps between the pre-events and the boss fight.

If I accept the fact that kill credit dueling is competitive, then I can not blame any other player for maximizing their chance to get kill credit. Instead, I ask if getting kill credit has to be competitive and I think it does. If there weren’t a minimum damage threshold, we would just see a lot of players tagging and running; leaching off of other players.

No matter how high an event is scaled or how low the minimum damage threshold is set, there will be instances of players being out dueled. The wider the range in level and gear, the more likely that instance will occur.

I am working on a plot for a story and need to figure out how Tyrians access the way point system. The system can be accessed anywhere, so being close to a WP isn’t necessary. There are hundreds of way points so a spell or incantation for each would require having a great memory.

Would a handheld device be out of the question?

Olvendred.3027:

Can I ask why this is desirable at all? Or what problem it’s supposed to solve? No one is this thread has actually explained that yet.

I think it is a solution in search of a problem. Old listings do no harm to the economy in general or the BLTP. Well, perhaps you could argue old listings use more memory.

Imo, removing old listings would amount to market manipulation on Arenanet’s part. They would be picking and choosing which listings are valid and that is our job. The fact that they invalidate buy orders below npc vendor price is not justification.

I was considering this very question and am torn. Playing an in game instrument well takes skill and I have reached a point where I assume a well played song is just a macro. I would be willing to put up with tone deaf, one note spammers if it meant I could come across a well played song and confidently respect the musician.

Imo, Arenanet et als stance on musical macros is ill advised and I hope it is not solely to prompt more sales of BLTP instruments.

Is there a definitive description from a staff member stickied somewhere? There is a growing assumption in map chat that macros are universally allowed. Perhaps Arenanet et al’s stance has been through a game of telephone.

The bit about waiting till an idea comes up in the CDI is just silly, the devs and the company wouldn’t really benefit. As to proxy posts, sure why not? Devs play the game and should be able to post their opinions without becoming official spokespeople.

I hope we, as players, get to choose the next topic. I think the last and several before the last were chosen by Arenanet.

timmyf.1490:

Hello forum posters.

I am writing this to you with my dying breaths. Upon reading the advice in this thread, I determined I would like to skip my dailies. After all, it is the holidays and I am busy with family.

Little did I know, terror would befall me. When I recognized that I would miss out on a potential 10 achievement points, my chest cried out in pain. A heart attack, I think. I’m not really sure. I fully intend to head to the hospital, but I wanted to make sure I updated here first.

I will hopefully survive, but right now, I’m beginning to think maybe I just should have done like five minutes of WvW or ten minutes of PvP.

With regrets and soon to be dead,

Karaoke

When you go to the hospital, you MUST ask them to revive you the way it is done in Tyria. Your HP pool depends on the swift application of rubbing.

Not only are you still alive; your flesh wounds are less than they would have been under the old system.

Astralporing.1957:

Subdue.5479:

What I can’t fathom is this permeating assumption that the new dailies are some sort of huge time/effort investment.

No, they are an additional time investment over what i was doing before. Which means (since i’m not going to play longer), that they decrease my actual playing time, and thus my enjoyment.

I can only assume you are after the achievement points. I would approach the decision to do your daily the same way you approach doing any other 10 point achievement and most every other 10 point achievement requires going out of your way to accomplish something.

Consider, that built into your response is your agreement with Subdue’s comment. It appears you consider the new daily system as something that must be done or at least something that awards something important. That may have been the case with the previous system, but not any longer.

Lazuli.2098:

Psientist.6437:

…
Obviously, you will counter that there are fewer PvE-centric options and you would be correct. However, the stated purpose of the new daily system is to get players to explore new game modes.

I already tried spvp and wvw. Don’t like them. Won’t play them. If spvp and wvw were all that great to play they wouldn’t need to push people to play them.

Congratulations for having a preferred game mode? I apologize for the sarcasm, but I do not see why having a preferred game mode means you have less freedom when doing the new daily. You can now treat the daily the same way you treat any other PvE achievement that awards 10 achievement points. Arenanet has given us more freedom by removing the laurel reward from dailies….

edit
especially veteran players

I think we can fit a Precursor in there somewhere….

Previously, to get laurels we had to do dailies and/or monthlies. If we wanted to craft ascended gear or purchase items from the laurel vendor we had to do dailies and/or monthlies. That is what a lack of choice or no choice looks like. Under the new system, we can treat the daily achievement the same way we treat every other achievement, with complete freedom.

Focusing on the comparative number of PvE choices between the previous and current daily system is a demonstration of the metaphors of “not seeing the forest for the trees” and “comparing apples to oranges”.

Guhracie.3419:

Sizer.5632:

Guhracie.3419:

Vayne.8563:

I just keep coming back to it’s only for achievements. That’s it. If you don’t care about achievements, it shouldn’t matter at all. If you do care about them, it matters in the positive way. There’s no way you could have gotten 10 achievement points before without going much further out of your way.

What option was taken away exactly? The ability to get five achievement points in a shorter time or with less effort?

What do achievement points mean anyway? Why are they important? If they are important, why shouldn’t they require us to go out of our way?

Edit: Okay, I think I understand where we’re not connecting. I’m in no way saying that the old system was superior and should be returned. I’m saying that there’s no observable reason to continue to cull the number of options from which to choose our 3 dailies. Does that make more sense?

The number of dailies keeps diminishing, at least in the PvE category. Before April, we had something like 10-12 choices, just in PvE. I find it discomfiting that the variety is slowly being sapped out of things.

I don’t miss getting the points for each daily, I miss having a wider pool of options.

I… am kind of at a loss here. I honestly don’t know how to make this more clear. I will keep on trying, though.

Instead of doing 3 out of a choice of 4 dailies, give the game modes 6 each to choose the three from. 10 APs. Map specific, just like they are now. I just don’t like that wanting more options is being misappropriated as wanting stuff for nothing, or being unreasonable. It’s not unreasonable. We had it. Anet took it away, for no apparent reason.

I’m not making stuff up out of thin air. This is not the alleged “I want to stand in Divinity’s Reach and chat with my friends and be rewarded for it” thread. This is me going:

“Hey. We had more options, and now we don’t.”

It’s becoming narrow and linear, and that alarms me, personally.

You are wrong though, because you absolutely, positively did not have more options before.

If you were an ap hunter (and if youre not, then there is no point in complaining about this), then counting only the pve ones, you HAD to do 8 of the 8 daily achievements, many of which were just as specific as the ones we get now.

So before, do 8 specific dailies out of 8, get 8 ap (or 12 out of 12 if you wanted to get max). Now, do 3 out of 4, and get 10 ap, with zero need to do more to max out your ap/day. Not to mention that you dont have to go outside of one game mode to max your ap/day, which is also giving people MORE choice.

You can argue that before if you really didnt like 2 of the choices, you could still get 6 ap, but now if you dont like 2 of the choices, you dont have an option to get partial credit. But again, if youre an ap hunter, then before you would have gone out of your way to get all of them done no matter what, and if youre not an ap hunter, then again, this shouldnt be a concern, because other than ap, these dailies give nothing unique at all.

I cant think of any reason why more choices would be a BAD thing, especially with all the stuff in pve that could count towards it. Dungeons/fractals can easily be a guaranteed option each day, just like world bosses/events/gathering/kills/ect., which should be easy enough to add up to 6 options per day.

There is no excuse to not give more options in the future, just like the pvp/wvw ones could also use some work (the pvp class specific ones in particular are a terrible idea), so the system isnt perfect at all.

But the entire purpose of this thread is still misleading because, once again, you dont have less choices by any means now.

This is baffling to me. I absolutely, positively, had more choices before now. This is an empirical fact. 8-12 is greater than 4. The purpose of this thread is not misleading. What you’re arguing is that it’s now easier to earn those 10 achievement points, and that’s true. I don’t see that I’ve indicated anywhere that it’s not. But it’s not even slightly misleading to say that there are fewer options to choose from.

I think you are playing fast and loose with the definition and application of empirical. As before, we have 12 possible daily achievements, not 4. Previously, we had to complete 5 of those 12 to complete the daily. Now we need to complete only 3 of the 12.

Obviously, you will counter that there are fewer PvE-centric options and you would be correct. However, the stated purpose of the new daily system is to get players to explore new game modes.

With the new daily system I think Arenanet et al has managed a good balance between choice, reward, and incentive to try new game modes.
That is especially true, if we keep in mind that the new daily system only awards achievement points.

I just double checked to be sure but the MF will not accept both sigils and runes. The only recipe that I know about that takes Tiny Snowflakes and Minor Mischief Sigil or Minor Snowfall Rune also includes

Pile of Glittering Dust
Mystic Coin

Two of each will give a major rune or sigil.

I just added awkwardly salvaging the ornaments to the list of – awkwardly unrealized potential for our Home Instances.

I would have done each jumping puzzle twice and baked a bloodstone infused ham if it meant the tree would be placed in the orphanage.

edit the ‘-’ is there to prevent a kittening

I disagree with the OP’s principle premise, that mmos have a native vulnerability to episodic story pacing and/or cliffhangers. Imo, mmos are made of episodes; each zone is an episode and the omniscient narrator, us, is responsible for maintaining a consistent yet evolving timeline. As a story telling device, interactive games/mmos are an exceptionally plastic medium.

If GW2 storytelling is suffering, it is because the storytelling is taking a back seat to commercialization. It is reminding me more of LOST every chapter; with more and more plot lines, plot asides, and characters that don’t go anywhere because their purpose is to provide space for commercials. The potential story telling depth of existing plots and characters is trumped by the potential commercial breadth of new plots and characters. I think a great example of this is how often we hear characters recommend forgetting about Scarlett and not digging into what her intentions where.

If we are recommending stories to read or watch, I would like to recommend a story not to read or watch.

To be fair to the OP, there are players like myself that just realized yesterday that they were using the ‘5’ key…..

I wouldn’t want me around either.

This is not intended as a criticism of the new daily system. Imo, the new system offers more reward and more freedom. However, I find the specificity of some of the achievements amusing and ideas to increase the specificity even more amusing. Feel free to add your own ideas, just make them specific!

Exact Change Please!
Use 3 WPs one after the other with a cost totaling exactly 10 silver.

I Read it My Way!
Read all the volumes for Speedy Reader in under 2 minutes, the order does not matter.

Stranger Danger!
Perform synchronized dancing with 10 people at once, none can be on your friends list or in your guild.

There’s no such thing as a bag dog!
Use a friendly emote on a mob that is also a tameable pet and then flea if it attacks you.

Obviously, Choir Bells needs to be spun-off into a stand-alone single player game.

Yoroiookami.3485:

I found Endless Toy Soldier Tonic & Magnanimous Choir Bell in my first 200 tries. =)

Is the Magnanimous Choir Bell an intended drop for this recipe or did it drop from a Giant Wintersday Gift? I doubt that players going after the tonics want to hear that the rng chance for the tonics is diluted by an item that is offered by an NPC trader.

off-topic:

Preserving value through rng-rarity only benefits the player looking to sell the item not use it.

hybrid.5027:

People complain about server mergers and/or megaservers like its a bad thing. Either they add too few servers at launch and there are insane queues or they add a ton of servers and 6 months later every server is dead except two. The best solution is obviously to have sufficient servers at launch with a planned consolidation later when concurrent userbase diminishes.

I think you are absolutely right and I am glad they didn’t drag their feet with consolidating. I think many people would welcome a server consolidation of the NA and EU servers.

America.9437:

Teon.5168:

America.9437:

I logged in to do my dailies and one of them was to view a vista in ascalon. I lol’d and said ok. I had a character parked in Black Citadel and went to one of the easiest vistas in the city and in less than 10 secs had that one checked off my checklist. Ugh! Why!? Just…uh…why!?

So if the intent of the new dailies was to get me to experience new things and places, welp it failed. IT FAILED. A huge majority of players when faced with this item on their checklist will take the path of least resistance and always go to the easiest vista to check that item off their list. You’ve created a chore for the player base.

Here’s how you get people to experience new things and new places….CREATE NEW THINGS AND NEW PLACES! STOP ALTERING CONTENT AND PASSING IT OFF AS NEW CONTENT. Sometime I feel as if Anet is just rearranging the furniture and calling it a new living room.

NPE – rearranging & removing furniture. Trait Overhaul – rearranging furniture. Dailies – rearranging furniture. I think the player base is being trolled.

You’re seriously whining about something that took you all of 10 seconds to complete?

Wow, the game will probably die tomorrow because of this horrid change.

It’s certainly enough to rage-quit over.

/sarcasm off

You’re not understanding. The argument that the new dailies are trying to get us to experience new content doesn’t work. People will take the path of least resistance to check the daily task off their checklist and hence fall into another routine.

1) Find a waypoint that has easiest(least amount of time and effort) vista to view.
2) Waypoint
3) View (but not really because 99.999% of playerbase will escape out of the view.)

What in 1-3 above is gonna make me change my habit if all I want to do is check the kitten item off my daily checklist in the least amount of time possible.

I guarantee you a majority of the players will find the vistas that take the least amount of effort. So let me explain it so its not ambiguous to you. I’m not complaining that it takes 10 secs to do, I’m complaining that its poor game design.

Maybe I’m wrong, but after people have “viewed/but-not-really-viewed-like-the-game-designers-intended-us-to-view” the same vistas over and over and over and over and over and over, welp, I think some of us are gonna rage.

To your bolded statement…

How would Arenanet et al perfectly implement that strategy across all achievements? Measure your past game-play and only offer achievements for things you have never done or rarely done? Make achievements so obscure that no one has done the activity before? You are raging against the developers not standing on your throat and forcing you do everything you haven’t done before.

If the new dailies are going to include more difficult or at least more rarely done activities, the dailies will also need to include simpler activities.

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith,

You brought up currency velocity in another thread. In most ways I think mmo economies are far simpler systems that RL systems except when it comes to calculating currency velocity. If I understand currency velocity correctly, there are units of currency that will never experience velocity; any units that are newly discovered and subsequently spent at vendors and/or WPs.

Is that a correct assumption?

That’s a way of thinking of it. Usually velocity of currency is used as an aggregated statistic grouped around some other fact. For example, very top level we would have the total money supply and the total velocity of money; it would be pretty normal to measure the changing velocity of all the game’s gold relative to the total money supply.

In the RW economies, are there units of currency that have 0 velocity? I would think a game economy would have a much higher ratio of 0 velocity units making an aggregate less accurate or at least more difficult.

I don’t think of it as units of currency having velocity, I think of it as the currency as a whole has velocity. There are definitely units of currency in RL and in-game that don’t move, but I’ve never really though about something like fort knox having no velocity before.

All of the gold in fort knox has experienced velocity and/or contributed to aggregate velocity in the past. I do think mmos are unique in that there are units of currency that do ‘move’ from discovery to ‘spent out of the system’ without ever experiencing velocity or contributing to aggregate velocity. Thanks for responding.

Gnat.9405:

Caithe’s dagger will likely be a gem store item, as with all the NPC weapons skins so far. I’m hoping we see the back piece as a story reward and the final accessory as the vendor piece.

Only problem I see with a back piece as a story reward is that it wouldn’t fit the workload for other back pieces. The ascended jewelry as a story reward does fit the workload for other ascended accessories if we ignore time gating. If it is a backpiece, I would expect a very high crest amount for it, unless it’s Mawdry…

I like the mini idea.

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith,

You brought up currency velocity in another thread. In most ways I think mmo economies are far simpler systems that RL systems except when it comes to calculating currency velocity. If I understand currency velocity correctly, there are units of currency that will never experience velocity; any units that are newly discovered and subsequently spent at vendors and/or WPs.

Is that a correct assumption?

That’s a way of thinking of it. Usually velocity of currency is used as an aggregated statistic grouped around some other fact. For example, very top level we would have the total money supply and the total velocity of money; it would be pretty normal to measure the changing velocity of all the game’s gold relative to the total money supply.

In the RW economies, are there units of currency that have 0 velocity? I would think a game economy would have a much higher ratio of 0 velocity units making an aggregate less accurate or at least more difficult.

John Smith,

You brought up currency velocity in another thread. In most ways I think mmo economies are far simpler systems that RL systems except when it comes to calculating currency velocity. If I understand currency velocity correctly, there are units of currency that will never experience velocity; any units that are newly discovered and subsequently spent at vendors and/or WPs.

Is that a correct assumption?

So far, the basic collection for each piece of the Luminescent Armor has followed the same pattern:

3 rare armor pieces
4 Mordrem boss parts
1 Ascended jewelry piece

There are 2 more basic collections left and only one more ascended jewelry slot left to fill. Do you think the pattern will continue for the sixth piece and what do you think it will be?

Some possibilities:

Another duplicate ascended jewelry piece
An ascended backpiece (worrisome)

Zaklex.6308:

Bambu.4270:

I’m confused, why isn’t the number of reward crests tied to the tower tier? It would make sense to get less crests from holding tier 1 tower than a harder higher tier one.

You are actually correct, the number of crests is tied into the tower upgrade Tier as well as the Defense level tier. I also know for a fact that killing only one mob will not get you the full rewards, since on several occasions I’ve managed to kill a single enemy myself and get only copper or silver, and on copper you get no other rewards than the exp/karma/gold…you don’t get crests/sand and maybe an item.

Are you certain about this? I have gotten the bonus chest after only killing one mob. As well, I have seen a spread of crest rewards from all events that doesn’t seem to be tied to Tiers. For instance, 25 crests for escorting a dolyak during a tier 1 and fewer during tier 3-4. I always suspected that the crest reward design was intended to dissuade us from farming the events with the best crest rewards.

Thank you for the clarification.

Once I got the No Refuge achievements figured out, I was tempted to offer runs. I know some people are very much against selling runs for anything, but I think selling runs actually contributes to the complexity of the community and the economy.

Selling achievement runs is the same as selling dungeon runs. Arenanet et al allows dungeon runs.

Cyrill, I would just ask the person who is offering the run how they want you to behave or want they want you to do.

I experimented with gamma first but didn’t help and not sure what you mean by Bloom. When you say it appears whitish for you as well, I wonder if it really is normal. Check out Dulfy’s video and see if your looks like theirs? In their video, the tell for his earth attack is bright orange and the whirlwinds have a thick orange hue as well, very easy to see.

Having a difficult time completing Wicked Rodeo. The attack tells are white, which is very hard to see on a light beige background. As well, the persistent whirlwinds and wind walls are are also white and nearly invisible. I thought this was normal until I watched video guides. In all the videos I have seen the attack tells, whirlwinds and wind walls are orange and thickly clouded; easy to see.

Could use some help and thank you.

Why assume nuclear bombs are even possible? The Tyrian universe is dominated by magic, matter and atoms may have a completely different structure than the structure they have in the real world.

In Tyria, the size bomb you reference by referencing nukes, may not be possible.

Would/will be interesting to see what is included in 400-500 jeweling. There are so many ways to get ascended jewelry now and the exotic jewelry we would need to make to level from 400 to 500 would be such a waste. As well, what would happen to the content that rewards ascended jewelry now if we could craft ascended jewelry?

I certainly wouldn’t invest in jeweling mats at this point.

edit: Perhaps ascended sigils and runes?

Vlad Morbius.1759:

How’s this for a theory…the water bug while running through SW they fixed yesterday wasn’t a bug but it was turned on too early and the SW will be transformed into a jungle area by Mord that will tie all of this together?

That water splash still occurs in some locations and the Skritt are building a boat…
They may not be the smartest of species but maybe they know something.

fishball.7204:

If they increased the crest drop from events it’d make more sense to actually sit through the thing and do the events as opposed to just taxi to breach.

Right now there’s little to no reason to do the events because you get crests from the breach anyway as well as the modrem parts needed to do the achievements.

Increasing the crest rewards may actually make zone hopping more frequent. Players would get the crests they need much faster and would be left farming the parts sooner, thus hopping even sooner.

OP, making parts drop from the Legendary bosses could help, though it may result in the zones becoming less populated faster as the 2 week cycle progresses.

I think the price of silk reflects what happens when Rube Goldberg designs your crafting progression.
More seriously, the tier of the material matters far less than the crafting tier and what the crafting tier recipes require and Ascended crafting requires far more silk than any other material.

The Silverwastes will pick up again after people do the story, story achievements, and jumping puzzle. Remember that a lot of other players want crests as well. If you want to focus on getting the boss parts,use the LFG tool to find someone taxing into Silverwaste maps that are near breach.

I don’t see any other acquisition method for Verata’s Seared Ring besides the bandit crest vendor. I am going to wait till next episode but I doubt we will see it added as a mastery reward..

I was indifferent to Caithe’s skill bar but enjoyed being asked to play as her character. There aren’t many, if any, other ways to allow first-person playable flash backs.

I can understand not wanting to play as another character, but I think the concept that our character has to be as powerful or more powerful than any NPC is pathologically self-centered. No realistic world can revolve around one character or wait for us to descend from the heavens as the ultimate deus ex machina.

Letifer.4360:

Psientist.6437:

Glad they decided to give multiple leggings for alts. Since we are getting 2 pieces next episode, I hope the same is true next episode.

You have 2 pieces of gear in this episode too, leggings and boots.

I understand that we get 2 different armor slot pieces this episode. My comment is in hopes they continue the same acquisition method next episode.

OP,
The only place I see to get Vereta’s Seared Ring is from the crest vendor, only Wynne’s Pendant is available for the LS achievement, and I don’t see Wynne’s Pendant available for crests so if we want the Lum armor we need to do the LS Mastery achievement.

By my calculations, that is the eleventeenth acquisition method for this armor set.

Conski Deshan.2057:

It is very clear what you have to do, the instances make use of the basic teach mechanic 1 teach mechanic 2 then implement both into the boss fight. Prior knowledge is not needed as they are two new mechanics. To elaborate:

First 2 guards: Oh we were detected because we were in the field of sight and they turned hostile:
Lesson 1: LOS breaks stealth allows killing of guards

Lone guard: Guards can be knocked out from behind, switches can be interacted with:
Lesson 2: Guards can be knocked out from behind without detection

Room 1 : Implementation of the first two mechanics

Room 2: Golem, you try to interact with a switch, golem comes towards it:
Lesson 3: Golems are attracted to switch noises, Golems can detect you.

Room 3: Implementation of the mechanics just taught.

Boss room:
Stage 1: Get behind and hit while avoiding as taught on guard 3.
Cutscene Explains shield, shows shield being knocked out by generator to clue you in.
bonus for people who played silverwastes it’s the same mechanic Gold and Silver use.
Stage 2: Destroy one ahead of him (If it weren’t enough to clue you in they also show an icon above the one you should destroy).
Stage 3: Switches are now intractable, golems have appeared….hmmm sounds like room2, interact with switch in front of the one ahead of him ,golem leaves post, blow up generator, hit target.

Even if you completely fail to understand all the mechanics you can still complete it easily because you can just kill him if you break stealth. So it is pretty fool proof.
There is currently one glitch that locks your skills out but that has nothing to do with the mechanics of the instance.

While I didn’t like this instance, I do agree with you.

Though I can understand why people are having trouble with the mechanics. Everything else in the game depends on action combat except this instance. Think it is taking folks by surprise.