Guild Wars 2

It’s probably worth pointing out that further transmuting requires transmutation stones, and then crystals at level 80. Stones are easily obtained playing the game, but crystals are harder to come by and could represent an additional cost worth bearing mind, when you reach 80.

I still can’t understand why we can’t all have what we want. Story Mode should be a scaling, casual-friendly intro to dungeons. Explorable Mode for hardcore teamwork. Why is that too much to ask?

Anyway, passing on forced grouping, as usual. I hadn’t gotten round to checking out the instances yet (blame SAB!), and now I know where they’re leading, it’s unlikely I will. Sorry.

Has it been confirmed that these skins will not be returning, yet?

It’s really awful this afternoon – major lag. I’ve rebooted my router a couple of times, but GW2 remains unplayable. Skills don’t activate, players and NPCs take ages to appear, and I have to stand in asura gates for several seconds for them to register. This isn’t just WvW – I can’t even solo SAB.

Server: Ruins Of Surmia

Khisanth.2948:

Raire.7983:

Those splodges some Legendary weapons leave behind look a bit horrid, too. Not sure what ANet were thinking with those.

“Skritts will be out biggest customers!”?

Ha! That’s probably it. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a weapon that leaves a trail of loot bags.

I thought about it, but ended up using gold. I really do approve of this item, but somehow £8.50 seemed a bit steep for a gathering tool. Especially as I wanted a couple of them.

I’m generally fine with glowy stuff, but I’m not keen on the fractal back item. It’s a pity back items aren’t set to go into show-off mode exclusively when in combat, like most of the sparklier weapons.

Those splodges some Legendary weapons leave behind look a bit horrid, too. Not sure what ANet were thinking with those.

Until it’s acquired with Karma, Gold or maybe WvW Badges+Gold (not just badges, they’re too random), Ascended is just not on my radar. I know ANet only pay attention to numbers, not opinions, so there will not be a single piece of Ascended gear on my account, until it’s implemented in a non-treadmill, non-drip feed fashion.

I love it. I do gathering runs every day and hate swapping picks or having to equip a new one when the old runs dry (especially in Orr, where nodes occasionally pop up near active shrines, so you have to leave the AoE, before you can equip a new one).

I do wish it was account bound, though. Not that I’d move it between characters routinely, it’s just my main is a ranger that I’d never usually choose fire themed gear for. It would suck if next month there was a Frost option and I’ve already soulbound Molten. I’d like to be able to transfer it to another character if ever a more fitting option becomes available.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m pretty sure I saw more players in Thaumanova during beta than now. This tells me that people prefered the harder encounter.

No, it just means it was new. I remember dozens of dead players on the gangway approaching the fire elemental on those earliest encounters. While it was mildly hilarious seeing players resort to running kamikaze from the nearest waypoint (because reviving anyone just got you downed), the result was a ghost town area within a week or so of launch. At least on my server, others may have experienced different.

Marcus, I didn’t say the events were not easy. I’ve done Tequatl with just a couple of others present (took an hour, though). I said you couldn’t find a safe spot and hit auto. People have been coming here for months saying you can just AFK these bosses and that is simply not true. None of those videos actually showed anyone remaining completely safe and just autoing the dragon from one spot. Even under the dragon, they were getting poisoned and feared away.

On the subject of Grenth, I’ve never really liked it in any iteration. The final stages are cramped, messy and the “co-ordination” is limited to yelling at people to get away from the NPC. Never really seen the fun in that and, since it fails more than it succeeds, I generally ignore it when it’s up. Given the amount of times I see it up, but abandoned at some intermediate stage, it seems I’m not alone.

And that’s my biggest fear regarding tampering with these events. If we have changes that lead to a sea of defeated players (think Thaumanova during beta), we’ll be back to having ghost town events, where the only players you’ll see are just passing by on their gathering runs.

Uhhh… I’d hate for ANet to act on any of this. These events should remain accessible.

Grenth has become an event that just gets ignored, until some leet little group goes and does it by themselves. The Fire Elemental used to be the same way and Jormag is now really pushing it, at least in terms of time taken.

There certainly are issues – that the Jungle Wurm can be half killed by a zergs AOE, before it can even be targeted directly, is a big one. Yet it seems clear that many who attack these events, will only be happy when they’ve driven the more casual players from them. And some of the arguments are ridiculous – you just can’t get gold from clicking auto and standing in a “safe spot”. There are no spots that don’t get attacked and the targets MOVE! Seriously, just see how long you remain locked on the Behemoth, if you try to AFK it.

If you can remember the bots name, you can add them in your “Contacts” panel, which will then tell you if they are actually still in the same map (if it’s a gathering bot, it will be). You can then report them from the contacts panel.

For instances that would be great, but for open world, it would look as silly as trails of bots running around.

Personally, I’d prefer everything to just scale down to one player.

I’ve seen this. We had a commander set up a bunch of siege and leave a group camped between Hill and Overlook. I assumed it was so we could better secure Overlook and other captured locations in the area, but maybe it was just for the lulz.

IMHO, this is nothing like spawn camping in other games. There’s no spawn killing and the enemy team is quite able to group up and push the campers out. If they choose to run at a zerg 1 by 1, that’s their problem.

It’s very similar to the Black Lion key issue, which got official comments here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Are-Black-Lion-Key-runs-an-exploit/first#post1222647

I wouldn’t worry. They might decide to change the reward system, but I don’t see anyone getting banned.

None, but I’ve had 5 or 6 Midnight Ice.

I love the Super Adventure Box and totally agree with making it permanent. It’s possibly the first update I feel didn’t put a foot wrong – even the gemstore options are completely respectable (NO RNG!). Unless ANet already has secret plans for some other Rata Sum activities, this would seem to be the perfect reason to spend time with Asurans, and far too good to shuffle off for a year.

Looks to be the same on Ruins of Surmia. Brenda is just standing behind her dolyak, outside the monestary, but not offering her escort quest. This had been fine all month, but now it’s broken again.

The bonus chest is your guaranteed rare (it’s now account wide, so multiple characters can’t farm it). The actual chest only has rare or exotics if you’re lucky.

Yes, on both counts. I had an exotic on my first guaranteed chest, just after the patch, yesterday. Today, I’ve had a couple of rares and an exotic from the actual boss chests.

Same on Ruins of Surmia.

I like Orr, but don’t expect anything all that special. There are several temple events (like dragon events, but less visually epic and generally harder), a couple of semi-valuable “gatherables” (orichalcum & omnomberries) and the final dungeon (if you care for that sort of thing).

Nothing really that different to anywhere else, but it was where most made their profit – until the big events got their rewards boosted everywhere, anyway.

Sowin.5187:

jaka.9635:

i think, some solo dungeons would introduce a fair amount of active players.

I agree, or even have scaling dungeons, which has been suggested before. For some reason which I don’t quite understand, people find that idea offensive.

I was actually a bit shocked when I found out “story mode” didn’t scale. I’d taken it as a given – I mean why give it such a friendly name, if it’s still just aimed at the elitist wannabe hardcore crowd? Especially considering they made it non-optional for completion of the personal story.

Call me anti-social, but I just won’t tolerate LFG content.

Wow, I’ll be annoyed if they delete cross-transmuted items. The “Determination Headband” is the first headgear I’ve put on my ranger, that I’m not inclined to hide most of the time.

Sorry OP, but it was far from “great”. Legendary Cartographer was the single worst thing I ever stooped to doing in GW1 (and I had a Survivor). Deliberately scraping map boundaries is very immersion breaking, not to mention tedious.

The “Points of Interest” are exactly how I always imagined exploration should have been implemented, and I’m very happy that’s the system we have in GW2.

XxTAFxX.6741:

If i had to take a guess,my guess would be the champs at the shelter in orr.

I don’t think they show up with just 4 or 5 people present, do they?

I took the decision to just flat out ignore Ascended gear, and blew all my Laurels on gathering tools & random tat. I intend to continue doing that going forward. The feeling of pressure to log in everyday, is substantially reduced, if you just look at Laurels as free gathering tools or a shot at some exotic gear.

Funny, after reading this thread I had this happen on both my household PC’s during a particularly zergy Jormag event. Never seen the issue before.

To avoid the crash (and more importantly, missing the chest), we logged out and back in again quickly, when the beeping tone started.

I’m happy about the changes. As my server had become more busy after xmas, these events had become a pain to try and participate in. The hardcore farmers moved in such a bot-like fashion between spawns, laying down AoE and making everything evaporate seconds after turning vulnerable – it was so ridiculous to watch and frustrating to play, that I’d started avoiding the tunnel altogether.

Since the changes, these events can still be farmed (easily! I tried it over the weekend), but not in such a trance-like fashion, and are actually more accessible to players passing by. IMO, the Champions are needed and should stay. The vets alone don’t sufficiently disrupt the farming zergs.

This is new? I’ve been Elmer Fudd’ing my way across Queensdale since launch.

There’s a slight difference between “sell for 1500 gold” and “hand out”.

I don’t agree OP – practically everything should be tradeable. Being able to say you made it yourself is charming, but hardly helps define an item as “Legendary”.

And given how I feel about the reward systems of GW2, I’d argue that buying a “Legendary” is the most respectable way to acquire one. Anything you can do to distance yourself from the RNG lottery of the Mystic Toilet or the inanities of token collecting (an activity that should be reserved for cereal packets) is good.

Bottom line is – if you bought it, you know you acquired it on your terms, with wealth you earned, and didn’t jump through any hoops you didn’t want to.

I like the changes. I don’t mind people farming, but they were doing it so robotically at those events, that it had become hard to participate. The mini-zerg would just glide from spawn to spawn, evaporating every mob the moment it became vulnerable.

Champs still need better loot, though.

They had become a bit annoying before the choice system was in place, but I’m finding them more relaxed now. Yesterday I hit mine unexpectedly, through activities I wasn’t even tracking.

Let’s not pretend everyone supported the silly power/grind-creep that developed in GW1. PvE skills were highly contentious, and debated as heatedly as similar issues now.

All you’ve succeeded in identifying is that ANet have form on corrupting their game, and betraying their own stated goals… and nobody has said ANet never made that mistake before!

Totally agree – the art in GW2 is absolutely stunning.

Awesome. I do hope we get choices soon, but this month is fine for me.

I complained in a similar thread last week that I’d never had any that were not “set” rewards (map completion and the Ancient Karka chest), in over 700 hours of play. Then this week I go and get 2 exotics from open world event chests. I’ve also been seeing more rares, including 2 from 1 chest, and have had better luck salvaging into ecto.

The only thing I’ve been doing differently was to stop using MF.

Dyes and bags are fine – it’s my drop, so I open it. I don’t feel cheated when it’s something I already have, don’t need or holds no TP value.

I don’t like going beyond that in gambling my rewards though. The mystic toilet and various boxes can all bite me.

Aquatic Slayer is really easy with all the 1-shot Tuna.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plush_Quaggan_Backpack_Cover

When you open it, you receive both the Quaggan backpack skin (as a transmutation item) and a “Leather Strap”. To wear the backpack you have to apply it to the leather strap (or any other back slot item you have). The included strap can be worn at any level, but other back items tend not to be available at low levels.

If you can’t see the strap and you’re a bit “click happy”, it’s not impossible you’ve double clicked on it and worn it without the skin, so check your hero panel and see if anything is in the back slot.

If you’ve lost the strap and don’t have another item, then I don’t believe it’s possible to get a replacement until either you complete the level 33 personal story quest (one is included as a reward), or you reach level 35 and buy a “spineguard” from the trading post.

The only other option I can think of is to make an engineer, select the “Universal Multitool Pack” in character creation, and apply the Quaggan skin to that. You’d be stuck using the bag with the engineer and you’d lose the original engineer pack’s skin, in that case, though.

She needs a new back slot item, to apply the skin to. The personal story provides a skinless “back brace” at level 33. Alternatively, on the trading post, they are typically called a “Spineguard” and can be had for less than 1 silver, but start with a level 35 requirement.

Open world PvE rewards are garbage across the board. I haven’t had 1 exotic drop in over 700 hours of play. It’s a joke – I don’t use anything I’m given, it’s all vendor/salvage trash. The rares I’ve had (very rarely) only ever come with common skins. Even map reward exotics have been under-leveled bland junk.

They might as well reduce everything down to gambling chips, to throw in the mystic toilet – it would be more honest.

Lukhas.1962:

Dungeons are a very important part of a mmorpg. If you do not like dungeons, you do not like mmorpg’s

ArenaNet does not force you to do dungeons.

Personal story aside, I’ll agree that it’s not so much “force”, as “pressure”.

Your first statement is completely silly, though. 5-player instances are hardly the definition of an MMO. Even if one accepts dungeons as an important component to an MMO, it still doesn’t justify the argument that not liking dungeons equals not liking MMO’s. Many players will rule out the whole of PvE or PvP based on their personal tastes. Would you really suppose that means they don’t like MMO’s entirely?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Doing 1 dungeon every 4 days (meaning you’ll be done in 20 days) isn’t as much of a hassle as people are making it out to be.

Since WvW is another game-mode (PvPVE), it should have a separate monthly achievement anyway for the people who want to just play WvW.

It’s the same issue. People don’t want to feel forced into modes of play they don’t enjoy. I dropped the personal story around lvl 30, when I found out it was all leading to a blasted dungeon! I don’t like the format, I don’t like the lack of team-size scaling, I don’t like the archaic method of finding a group – you think, based on that, I’d tolerate one every four days for a few laurels? Not a chance. “Hassle” isn’t a big enough word to cover how I feel about dungeons in GW2.

GW2 sold me on open world dynamic events and WvW, not lfg’ing with the leet crowd to get into poxy five-man instances. The continuing pressure to participate in that nonsense is galling.

Well, I totally agree with the OP – I was also hoping for better this month. But, the Monthly’s (along with the epidemic of kids trolling complaint threads), have just become something to be ignored, unfortunately.

This is just depressing. I’m not interested in dungeons – I’ve never entered a dungeon that wasn’t part of a festival, and I never intend to. What has it been now – 3 or 4 monthly’s with a dungeon/fractal req? Enough already!

Broom.2561:

I know City of Heroes is dead now… but they had a brilliant instancing system, that automatically adapted the difficulty and number of mobs to the number of people who entered the ‘dungeon’. Want to do it solo? Not a problem. Want to go in with a max size group? Totally fine. Want to do it hardmode? You could agree to set the mob level, number of bosses etc etc to max.

Sounds awesome. I really do wish these zones could scale better to how many players are present. I haven’t seen any gameplay mechanic that requires multiple players – it’s just the size, strength and re-spawn rates of the mobs that make the Tixx stuff frustrating for duos, and I imagine quite taxing for single players.

Open world. I’m just not interested in dungeons at all. I like a sense of freedom in my games, and committing to a group and location for x amount of time, kinda stomps all over that.